Leach appears as an "Advantage" in Monsterpocalypse. "If a unit hits a monster with an attack, restore +1 health to this monster".
In another post I mentioned how confronting this ability is to its opponents with Yasheth, a monster who lives entirely on Vampiric Tendencies.
In the current expansion, All Your Base, the ability has expanded onto two more monsters: Mega Ancient Osheroth and Mega Vorgax.
Yasheth and Mega Ancient Osheroth both have differing playstyles. Yasheth is a Brawler and has Vampirism on his Brawl so he doesn't waste his time spending a-die on removing a unit from play, but spends it toward beating a monsters defence.
Mega Ancient Osheroth becomes a Blaster and trades his Sacrifice Action for Leach. An interesting trade. From Annihilate and Radial Attack to Multishot and Feeding Frenzy.
Its quite a change.
Now he can waddle around within his own units and survive by denying contact, while his units run up and attack the opponents monster and restoring any health taken away by said opponent. And if the units are set correctly, retaliation by monster will result in Super damage.
But he can no longer heal during his own turn. Is that important?
A very different ball game for Ancient Osheroth, for sure. But not a very big change. In my experience, most monsters seem to take a massive hit when first blood is drawn. Most monsters are placed on the back foot because of it. Healing for one damage doesn't change the end result. Granted, Ancient Osheroth has 6 health, but in personal experience it hasn't made that much of a difference. So no, it isn't that important.
However, having traded for Leach is. With Leach, it is two damage restored most unit turns. One for a meat slave and another for a slug salvo. It restores two health for the turn you expect to be dangerous with no loss of units.
Now to derail from the usual propaganda of "Cthul is awesome", I want to have a quick word about Vorgax on behalf of a friend of mine, Richard.
He's not convinced that Vorgax is any good on his Ultra form. However, he has been playing a uphill battle against me as I continually beat-back him into something that causes alot more damage than he'd like to suffer (Such as his own Harbinger Comet Shards).
So he sent off the box-tops for Mega Vorgax, originally for the sake of collection.
Only the other day have we found out what Mega Vorgax actually does. And I haven't told him yet.
Unless Scoot has already told him. Or he has been checking the forums.
I aim to think of ways to help Richard become extremely aggrivating through this post.
To begin, lets consider his style of play. His list of abilities are Thusly
Leach (Advantage): If a friendly agenda unit hits a monster, restore +1 health to this monster.
Lightning Attack (Brawl): Make another attack using the dice in play.
Flight (Skill)
Fission (Action): Move two action dice into your monster pool.
For Planet eaters, they don't have many actions available. In their unit phase they have Attraction from the Harbinger Comet Shards, and actions from the Monument Buildings and Privateer Press Building (R&D, Beacon, Business Centre, etc).
The only monster with Actions available to Planet Eaters is Vorgax and his Morphers.
His morphers have Summon, and I'm yet to find someone who has a problem with Summon. Because they're morphers, he can place a unit somewhere to keep a building secure while he runs off to brawl one or two things. Heck, brawl a monster then brawl a building.
Or even surround a monster, place a chomper between them and make a couple of brawl attacks, dealing Super damage each time. Nice.
As for Mega Vorgax he has a Dice Efficient Action, where you effectively gain an action die for nothing. So if he rolls one action die for his power up roll and fails it's not a waste since he can gain that back.
We move onto the subject of Lightning Attack. It's a simple trigger: re-roll the same dice as if you made another attack. It's on his Brawl, which is useful since it's useless on a Power Attack and he no longer has a Blast attack.
Because of this, I consider him to have a similar playstyle to Yasheth, only with more damage output than healing.
We will Ignore Flight. Everyone and their second cousins have Flight.
Lastly is Leach, the spark that engulfed this topic with flames.
I'd like to point out that this is the only Monster within Planet Eaters that has the ability to Heal. The rest work from Endurance.
With the way Leach works, an opponent monster must be hit with units of the same agenda. So lets consider their units.
- Belchers are the first unit that come to mind. Long range and not bad blast stats give good reason for fielding them. Radar adds an additional two spaces giving them Extra Long Range.
The only place they fall short is with Boost Die. Leadership bonus puts them at 1 B-die each. So to add onto this, they can secure a Bank Headquarters and take advantage of "High Security" to add another B-die to each unit. With three Belchers, that giving use of 3-6 A-die and 6 B-die, making anywhere between 58-84% chance of hitting a Defence 7 Monster. - Scorchers are the same deal but trade long range for high speed and maneuverability. However, I stand that the Belchers do the job better due to not having to move and can use those action dice to boost their attacks.
- Explodohawks are a very good choice, with their high brawl stat they have a good chance to hit someone and as history has shown us, they usually hit out of Spite.
- Chompers, Constrictors and Destructomites have the same problem that most brawlers have: Reaching their targets.
Destructomites and Constrictors have the speed and all terrain/burrow to reach targets with relative ease, and Flank and Penetrator to help with their attack, however lack much boost die and nothing else to help with adding more without adding a second monster. So with three Destructomites, they have 3-9 A-die and 3 boost die, ranging a ~27-88% chance of hitting Defence 6. Considering that most of the dice in a pool will be used for advancing I see that percentile ranging in the lower end when the chance arrives.
Chompers are where all the boost die are at for a massive attack. The downside is their lack of manuverability and speed. With an average speed of 5 and nothing to ignore rough terrain or buildings, they have can't reach their target very easily.
However, if they all reach a monster the chance to hit is ~54-84% using 3-6 A-die and 6 B-die. - Explodomites are a good choice as well. Being cheap, manuverable with average speed and a good brawl stat, they make good choices for brawlers regardless of their self destruction (which only accounts for the lead figure, I might add). So attacks from 3 Explodomites range from 3-9 A-die and 6 B-die give a percentile of ~54-95% against Defence 7.
With no Elites of their kind, they may be able to take advantage of a nearby Harbinger Comet Shard and add another B-die to their attacks and saving action die for the attack itself.
So there are plenty of ways to deal a point of damage to benefit from Leach when fighting a Def 7 Monster. Mixing and matching is a good choice too.
Spawn 1 Destructomite, 1 Elite Constrictor and 1 Explodohawk. 4 A-die.
Advance all three into position, putting the monster into Flank range. 3 A-die.
One attack of 3 A-die, 3 B-die against a Defence 5 figure? ~49% chance to hit.
So there's my Theory-pocalypse for Vorgax and Leach. Some of the Maths may be a little off, but Brain Storming can be taxing on the mind.
Now all Richard has to watch out for is being thrown into buildings.
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