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Hey, I doubt this really goes here, but seeing as how it's a Privateer Press game & all I figured this would be as good a place as any to ask. With the release of Monsterpocalypse about a week away, I was wondering if anyone had played a demo of this game or had any hands-on experience with it from convetions or what have you.

To be honest, the game doesn't look all that great to me, and the figures for it look like the toys you get in kids' meals at fast food restaurants. But it is Privateer Press, so maybe it has potential?

However, I have their other non-Warmachine/Hordes adventure [Infernal Contraption], and I only played it for about a week when it was first released, then became bored with it. Never got the expansion.

I'm asking for honest opinions from anyone with knowledge of the game. If I don't like Hero Clix will this game appeal to me on some other level? The start-up investment seems way too steep, and the figures look kinda lame [this I am basing solely on the pics I see in No Quarter magazine, though, so could be off base].

Any info would be great, especially with regard to game mechanics.
Thanks in advance & sorry again if this doesn't belong here!

I think you can find the rules online. I rather like the rules I've seen so far.

I spent quite a bit of time at GenCon this year with MonPoc, and found it to be quite a bit of fun. The basics are pretty simple: wipe out your opponent's monster. When playing the game, however, I was surprised at the strategic depth of it. Here are some points...

1) Units - These are the smaller "minions," if you will of each faction, encompassing tanks, shackled minions, ninjas, etc. Used primarily to capture points on the map, they are also capable of damaging an enemy monster when attacking en masse.

2) Dice - These d6's are specific to MonPoc, each face having either a blank, a pip, or double pips.
White Dice - These are the basic components of the "Dice Pool", a key mechanic noted later. They consist of 3 "blank" sides, 2 "single pip" sides, and 1 "double pip" side.
Blue Dice - Also known as "Bonus" or "B-Dice", these dice are used to enhance abilities without using the "Dice Pool". They are slightly better than the White Dice, as they have 2 "blanks", 3 "singles", and 1 "double" pip face.
Red Dice - "Power Dice", your units collect these, and your monster smashes face with them. These power the special moves of your monster, throwing, slamming, stomping, etc. Very powerful, as they have only 1 "blank" face, 4 "single pip", and 1 "double pip" face.
When attacking, you add up the number of pips to beat a defense value of the target monster, building, unit, etc.

3) Dice Pool - Really the defining characteristic of the game's mechanics, in my mind. There are two Dice Pools for each player, one for your Units, and one for your Monster. The dice begin the game in the Unit pool. When an action is taken by a unit, moving, being placed on the map, etc., the "spent" dice are sent to the Monster pool for use next round. In the same fashion, when your Monster turn comes around, dice spent there are moved back to the Unit pool. The real balancing factor here is the stats of the Unit/Monster, see (4).

4) Stats - Every model, Unit, Monster, and Building, has stats. Those that can attack (Units and Monster) have offensive stats that indicate how many dice to roll from the Pool.

For example, a G-Tank Unit has a Blast stat of 2+1. This means, to attack, the Tank must take 2 White Dice from the Unit Pool, and one B-Die, and roll them. This allows them to hit Defense values from 0-6 (remember, each die has one "Double Pip" side).

Another example is the ExplodeHawk, a rather nasty little flyer from the Planet Eater faction. They have a Brawl Stat of 6+1. Now this means they could hit Defense Values from 0-14! The balancing factor, however, is that uses 6 of the 10 dice from your unit pool, meaning that the rest of your Units on the map are really not doing much else on that turn...

When a model is hit, a wound is scored. Monsters do quite a bit more damage with "Power Attacks", smashing through buildings, etc.

I must say, the "Dice Pool", and the balancing factors inherent therein are really the most interesting part of the rules to me, but to each his/her own, I suppose ;-) .

Well, this post has gone on quite long enough *whew*! I'm sure I'll think of more stuff to add later.

Nice write up & thanks for the info.

A couple of questions I have though after reading:
First, regarding order of activation & the Dice Pools, do your units always activate before your monsters? So for example you need to conserve the dice in the Dice Pool to use when it's your monster's turn?
Second, what is army creation like? You only bring one monster and a pre-set amount of troops?
Also, I understand that destroying buildings is a big part of the gameplay? Is the game scenario-based then, or just pound your opponent's monster dead & you win?

Thanks again for the info. Maybe I'll have to give this one a try. Still, I'm not so convinced on the models...

1) When it is a Player's Turn, they choose to have either a Monster Turn or a Unit Turn.

2&3) Bring a Monster and one of that Monster's Hyper Forms, then bring up to 15 Unit models (spawning costs and the dice pool for attacking/moving balances this out well, one player can certainly field only 4 or 5 Unit models at no penalty over someone with 15!), and some buildings. During the map setup phase, players alternate placing buildings. Each faction gains different abilities from different buildings, extra P-Dice from destroying, bonus P-Dice for NOT destroying, teleporting, etc.

It is possible to use ANY Unit model with any Monster, but playing outside of faction increases Unit spawn cost, and you'd miss out on a lot of the within faction synergy and Special Ability bonuses.

You should certainly read through the rules and play a full game at least once through. I didn't feel I got a good sense of the depth of the gameplay with just the demo.

Great write up ForceVoid.

On additional note: Each turn you do choose to play either a Monster Turn or a Unit turn.

However there are some neat tricks.

For example, if you play a Monster turn and conserve your dice (i.e. don't use them all) you could play a Monster turn AGAIN in your next turn. Heck, if you were really carefull you could pull off 3 monster turns in a row.

This can end up really freak'n out your opponent and causing major damage. However it does take quite a bit of dice balancing and really being able to build up your power dice.

A big key to the game is getting those units in position so you can generate good amounts of power dice.

Another neat twist in the game is the 'agendas'. Each faction has one. Certain buildings give bonuses under certain conditions for different agendas, which ends up creating sort of a 'playstyle' for different factions.

i.e. The Defenders will get more power dice from some buildings if they are held and in tact. While "the Destroyers" will get bonuses if they destroy buildings. This then encourages players to fight with their faction in sort of a fluffy way.

Sounds interesting. I was going to pick it up but not if it only comes with two buildings. I was hoping for a whole wack of terrain.

Tacobake wrote:Sounds interesting. I was going to pick it up but not if it only comes with two buildings. I was hoping for a whole wack of terrain.

Yeah buildings are a HUGE limiter in how you play the game. It's good to have specific
buildings and it's good to have multiple buildings in play of those specific buildings. Guess
what? Buildings are random and 1 per blister.

I'm probably going to end up going online to find some buildings sold as singles. There
are a few high demand buildings, though, such as the Nuclear Power Plant, Radar and
Oil Refineries.

We are in with "forcevoid" and found the game mechanic of the dice pool to be the most interesting.

Especially if you play a larger game with 2 monsters, gets really "dicey!"

We had to buy extra "RISE TOURNEMENT KITS" just to have stock because Privateer did such an awesome job of under-producing it.

It is a great alternative to getting into ANOTHER MINIS GAME especially since it is cheaper - offeres sealed/limited formats were you dont need to bring anything to play and also its a great "pick up" game in between rounds, or afterwards at 40K tournement.

Another really awesome effect is that the buildings DO STUFF - particularly when there destroyed. Most just make fire & ruble but certain ones like the Nuclear Power Plant can leave radiation behind and there are monsters (planet eaters i think) that feed off the radiation and grow stronger. Then there is the GAURD - they just want to keep any building standing so they get a bonus for when they hold the building on top of what some of them give.

Really cool game - we are already getting request to buy individual models so that shows that people are getting into the stratagy and formulating a way to win, so im sure there will be plenty of stores holding events and such.

Saw the game yesterday. Looks neat, and would surely play it if others busted it out, but won't be buying it myself. Perhaps some common singles when they inevitably become available for sale by stores breaking up the boxes on their own. The buildings would be great for Battletech, actually. And the flying saucers are super tempting for some really small scale VSF/pulp action.

Daaaamn you're going to make me buy it. I have a bunch of the pirate game I don't see why I can't collect this one too.

Well, if you don't have any money, then that's probably a good reason not
to buy it.

I think I will just not buy something else, instead. Wait ...