A Poor Effort

Last night was a new experience in Monsterpocalypse.
And new experiences are always fun!

Scotty and I arrived at Fastbreak as usual, with our Monpoc in bag and a groan at our regularity. We've been awaiting for a long time for something new for monpoc, specifically the Monpoc Strategy Guide. It's always a nifty read and it's fun to learn the promotional monsters, possibly proxy the figures to really mix it up.
Alas, a few weeks ago, the Strategy Guide was held up by US Customs and only recently has been passed on. The due release now is the 14th of August (Next Friday).

Now, another of our regular Monpoc Players is Doc. Doc is a smart man.
He's so smart that he remembered that there was a "Map Pack" release, with a new map and the Privateer Press Building.

This is where it gets interesting.
The Privateer Press building is what we expected to be.

• Business Centre: Your opponent loses 1 Power Die.
• Indestructable: Enough Said.
• Limited: Only one may be fielded per opponent.
• No fly zone: Figures cannot move through this figure.
• R&D: Bring into play 1 figure from your reserves.

What really struck us as odd was the stat bar.

Defense 6.
Power 3.

Why does it have a Def and Pow stat when you can't destroy it?
At the time we came to assume that it was there for aesthetics. After all, it is still a building.
The only sense we got out of it was the power attack Ram, and it stands back up like a punching clown.

One thing we did agree on was that its a really pretty building.
Really pretty.

We move onto the maps.
The first map we looked at, Highway to Hellevue, struck us as a little odd.
Buildings made a conga line straight across the middle, from corner to corner, with a power point SMACK-BANG in the middle.
The Blue monster points look fine. One in the middle of his edge of the map, and one in the corner that isn't occupied by buildings.
One of the Red monster points were in the opposite corner... But the remaining Red point was in the middle of the right edge of the map. It struck me as odd.
Scott considered it an interesting map, as if you put buildings with the "No Fly Zone" ability across the middle, nobody would be able to cross the middle of the board without having to destroy buildings.

The second map was where our game was held, Waterfront Wreckage.
In the centre of the map is an island with four buildings going lengthways with two buildings on each end segregated from the remaining two, who make face, by roadways. The roadways each lead to a teleporter and a power zone.
the rest of the map is in four quarters, each with one or two teleporters, one or two power zones, and two spawn points each.
Thats right. Four Spawn Points.
So we deployed our buildings.
First intentions were: Statue of Liberty's at each end of the central Island.
Second intentions were: Privateer Press Buildings at the centre of the Island.
We changed this to the Crystalline buildings and put the PP Buildings in more beneficial positions.
The rest of the buildings were placed confidently where we could each utilize them to our advantages, along with our morpher monsters.

I'll run this forward a Turn as securing buildings is about as interesting as grass growing.
My monster turn consisted of running my morphers forward while continuing to hold an insurance building (Something I forgot to actually gain the power dice for at later events).
Scott did his usual "Take your time for thinking things out" and eventually decided on Hypering up into Legionnaire and flying across to one of my tentacles (I believe it was the Green one) only to brawl and toss him into a Crystalline building.
Four damage, straight off the bat.
And to top it off, he had three or four action dice left for a second monster activation. Considering he has taken out only one crystalline building, and that the crystalline building is the most dangerous building in the game (Currently), I can see his anxiety.
In retaliation I could do nothing but fire off spitters at him, dealing a measley 1 point of damage.

His onslaught came in the form of One action die, two boost die and four power die rolling a 4 to hit against my Def 5 morpher.

Vengeance came in the form of Ultra Ancient Osheroth body slamming Legionnaire into the remaining Crystalline building for 5 damage, an excess of 1 damage.

Admit it. You know the line.

In a somewhat unexpected retaliation, he sent forward an Ion tank to stand next to one of his morphers (the one with Marker, allowing a reroll) and sent Osheroth out of Hyper Form, leaving the morphers sitting there like a four man sausage fest.
The spitters came to save the day again. A pair of slug saliva salvos careened across the board to cover the Legionnaire morphers under the effects of a Cthulubite (Holy jebuzz do I love my Cthulubites). Two damage to help secure my win.

There was little he could do to secure a win. He could not do six damage to me to secure his victory.
So he did as much disruption as possible.
He powered up and recieved a good amount of power dice, enough to help his endevours.
One tank decided to break away, using a teleporter to flee into the middle of my Spitting Slug Squad.
The goal? Contest the PP Building, preventing as much gain of power dice as possible.
He then proceeded to shoot Osheroth.
First attack eliminated my Alpha form. Easy enough. It's hard to miss Def 4 with a good amount of dice thrown into the attack.
Naturally I pulled myself a space away as to line up for a smash attack, something he admitted his lack of movement prepared for me.
His second attack was a combined, once again against Osheroth. He missed both times, even with his re-roll.
Fair enough.
His last attack. His offensive tank, the one with Crunch, pulled out all the stops. Two action die, one boost die and two power die.
First roll missed.
Second roll... Hit.
I congratulated him on his roll.
Super damage dealt, I was on three health and it was my monster turn.
I conducted the execution move as swiftly as possible, Smashing his morphers together and dealing the four points of damage required.

Satisfied at the game and its turn of events and I surveyed the battlefield.
"Scott..."
"Yeah?"
"This was a tame map."
"Why do you say that?"
"How many buildings did we destroy?"
If you've been paying attention, you'll know what I mean.

Like I said, this was an interesting game and Scott and I will be playing on the map next week, if not sooner.