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There's a lot of nice, subtle changes in it, but it is definitely not a significantly different game. I've liked what I've seen on the stat cards so far as well.

Seems like a good idea to refresh this thread as release is September 21.

To remind everyone, launch products will include a Protectors agenda starter pack and a Destroyers agenda starter pack. "Agendas" in Monsterpocalypse are basically alliances of factions. The Protectors starter comes with miniatures for the G.U.A.R.D. faction (giant robot plus futuristic vehicles) while the Destroyers starter comes with miniatures for the Planet Eaters faction (cyborg moster aliens).

The G.U.A.R.D. come with Defender X, 4x G-Tanks, and a Repair Truck. The Planet Eaters come with Ghorghadra, 4x Belchers, and a Destroyer crawler. Each starter also comes with the custom dice necessary to play (26 d6s!), 6x cardboard Apartment Complexes, rubble/fire markers for destroyed buildings, game tokens, and a poster game mat to fight across. Each starter pack costs MSRP 49.99 USD.

September releases also include two booster packs each for both G.U.A.R.D. and the Planet Eaters. Each faction will get a booster pack that comes with the same Units as the starter packs (so every model except the Monsters; Defender X for G.U.A.R.D. and Ghorghadra for the Planet Eaters) for MSRP 19.99 USD. G.U.A.R.D. will also get a booster pack that comes with 4x Strike Fighters and a Rocket Chopper for MSRP 24.99 USD. Likewise, the Planet Eaters will get a booster pack with 3x Chompers, a Destroctomite, and an Explodohawk for MSRP 21.99 USD.

OK so how do you build an army? First every army must have at least one and up to three Monsters and that limits the size of the game because (1) each player must have the same number of monsters and (2) the number of Monsters determines how many non-Monster miniatures (called Units) each side cane bring. PP designed this version of MonPoc around each player controlling 2 Monster and 20 Units each. If each player controls a single Monster, they will each also control 15 Units. All miniatures in an army must be from the same agenda but need not be from the same faction. You can only ever include one instance of a named Monster in an army, so no armies using 2x Defender X for example.

October will see models for two further factions released: the Shadow Sun Syndicate (giant robot ninjas) for the Protectors and the Lords of Cthul (Lovecraftian horrors) for the Destroyers. Shadow Sun's first Monster release will be Zor Maxim for MSRP 21.99 USD. Shadow Sun will also get a booster with 4x S-Type Shinobi and an Interceptor for MSRP 21.99 USD as well as a booster with 4x Sun Fighters and a Shadow Gate for MSRP 25.99 USD. Lords of Cthul's first Monster release will be Cthugrosh at MSRP 24.99 USD and they will also get two boosters: one with 4x Spitters and Taskmaster for MSRP 21.99 USD and another with 3x Squix and 2x Meatslaves for MSRP 27.99 USD.

The 26 dice each player will need will also be released as a separate pack in October for MSRP 11.99 USD.

November releases will include five different Buildings - army lists must also include 6-12 Buildings! Now, if you get a starter pack, you can just use the cardboard Apartment Buildings they come with. But other building types will give you (or your opponent, depending on how a match is going!) certain bonuses in the course of play. Buildings coming out in November are:

- Industrial Complex MSRP 12.99 USD
- Communications Array MSRP 14.99 USD
- Power Plant MSRP 14.99 USD
- Corporate HQ MSRP 19.99 USD
- Skyscraper MSRP 23.99 USD

Will Schoonover, lead designer for MonPoc, has stated that PP generally expects monthly releases for the game going forward.

Terrasaurs and Martians have been announced for December as well.

Are the monsters to be resin or plastic?

Carlovonsexron wrote:
Are the monsters to be resin or plastic?

Everything is resin. Likely some metal bits for small things like the Ares claw arms or something.

I believe these are coming in December:








If I were ever to buy into MonPoc, it’d be with them there dinos.

Love them dinos!

Seems like it's going to be hard for PP to keep up with monthly releases for the game though. they'd be wise to take it slow.

The terrasaurs look great.

Awesome design.........check
Great sculpture.............check
Good casting.................check
Pose diversity................ FAIL !
Extra Bits.........................FAIL !

The two latters dont bother me much on tanks, flyers & co, but really are a downer on organic units.

Stil gonna get some

Well, there are a couple of provisos there.

First, no list may have more than one instance of a given Monster. So there's no real reason for multiple poses/sculpts of Monsters.

Second, as to how Units work, you just take X amount of Units given how many Monsters each player has. The game is designed for each player to control 2 Monsters and 20 Units. There is reasonable Unit variety in each faction and a list can include units for any of the three allowed factions that currently make up each agenda. Units are mostly deployed to hold objectives and secure buildings, the main show is Monsters fighting. And when Units are destroyed/killed, they just go back to the pool of Units you started with to be cycled back in if you can/want to. So there's not a great premium on distinguishing between various instances of the same Unit.

I think the bigger issue is distinguishing between various types of Units from the same faction. But I guess paintjobs could help there.

 Manchu wrote:
The terrasaurs look great.

They really do!

The make or break for me will be the actual gameplay reviews.

(Do we have any yet?)

 LunarSol wrote:

Carlovonsexron wrote:
Are the monsters to be resin or plastic?

Everything is resin. Likely some metal bits for small things like the Ares claw arms or something.

That's a pity- I might have picked up a Terrakhan for myself if it was plastic (I'm not one to resist a good Godzilla clone, lol)

I don’t think the Planet Eaters are at all cyborgs, just aliens monsters. Unless something changed or I just missed it back in the day.

 Manchu wrote:

I think the bigger issue is distinguishing between various types of Units from the same faction. But I guess paintjobs could help there.

Not sure what exactly you're referring to here. If you mean the difference between the Standard and Elites of a unit, the bases for the Elite have a little star built into them to help them stand out.


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 Mysterio wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
The terrasaurs look great.

They really do!

The make or break for me will be the actual gameplay reviews.

(Do we have any yet?)

I can give it a shot.

I played the game extensively in its initial release and it remains to this day a favorite that I still bust out on occasion. Having played a few games of the new edition with the cards released at GenCon, I'm happy to say the game hasn't lost an ounce of its charm and what changes they've made are almost entirely improvements. Highlights I've noticed with the new edition:

- VASTLY improved play materials: So the old version relied entirely on symbols and was just a mess to keep straight in your head. Switching over to normal stat cards is a pretty obvious improvement, but they're really well laid out and end up organizing special rules better than the original as well.
- Free Movement: So, one of the problems in the original game was that you had to pay to move your units. This was okay, but it made melee stuff super inefficient and overall useless. Free movement is an enormous difference and I'm curious to see how the meta adapts to it.
- Tougher Monsters vs Units: Monsters in this edition have had their defenses raised quite a bit but also get a bonus to their attack to compensate in monster vs monster encounters. Where this really helps is that it makes it significantly less possible to get a monster with 2-3 damage in combined unit attacks a turn, which makes the unit game more about capture and protect than it used to be and lets the monsters themselves duke it out with one another.

For the most part though, the game hasn't really changed. It's still using the really clever system of an Action Dice pool that you use to spawn in your units and make attacks. Dice you spend on the unit moves over to your monster's action pool which you can then use next turn to fuel a turn with your monster. Initially it's very tempting to spend all your dice in one pool and just pass back and forth between monster and unit activations, but as you get experienced with the game, there's definite value in leaving dice unspent, as it leaves you with the flexibility to active either your monster or unit as the game warrants.

The goal is to destroy the enemy monster, but your attacks generally only deal a single point of damage a turn, which turns into something of a slap fight. This is where the game's second economy comes into play. As you destroy buildings, take and hold objective spaces on the map, and crush enemy units, you earn power dice. Power dice can be used to boost the accuracy of your normal attacks if needed, but primarily let your monster do power attacks to really harm the enemy monster. Power attacks are pretty varied, but involve shoving buildings over on the enemy, picking up enemy units and throwing them at things, stomping over a line of units, and most importantly picking up the enemy monster and throwing them through buildings for significant damage.

It's just an immensely satisfying game and nothing has come close to capturing the kaiju feel for me. The game starts with a beautiful city scape and ends with one monster standing atop the other among piles of burning wreckage. It's easily one of my favorite games ever and the new edition hasn't lost a bit of the fun of the original.


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Schmapdi wrote:
Love them dinos!

Seems like it's going to be hard for PP to keep up with monthly releases for the game though. they'd be wise to take it slow.

The original game had 54 monsters (not counting Voltron) and something like 90 units, not to mention dozens of building options. They look to be simplifying that somewhat, but even then, there's plenty of material for them to release.