Following the tradition of the Subterran Monsters, Mega Drillnose has Burrow on his ability bar, giving him the manoeuvrability he always had with his Speed of 6, the same as his Ultra Form. While both his alpha and ultra forms offered blue support abilities, he's dropped that for a few triggers to his blast attack.
“What? Drillnose has triggers on his blast? What for? Doesn't he have a terrible blast stat?”
Why yes, yes he did. His Alpha and Ultra forms both have a blast stat of 5*1 at short range, and while it's better than Deimos-9's 4*0 at the same range, it's still not fantastic. The only use a player would receive from it is the Blast range for the Multishot Brawl Trigger, which is determined by the figures current blast range.
“So how does the Mega Differ?”
Mega Drillnose's blast attack stands out to be fantastic at 7*3 with long range. We have a Blastard of a Monster, Ladies and Gentlemen, and we haven't reached the next series yet which does feature our Star Blastard. But good range and a good stat are not all, There are two Triggers available to play with!
Explosion: All monsters and units adjacent to the target unit with a Defence equal or less than the number of strikes rolled take 1 damage.
Demolish: If target building is hit, choose 1 adjacent monster or unit to take 1 damage.
Explosion is a good alternative to Multi-shot, eliminating about the same number of units as Multi-shot and possibly even more, situation depending. And if a monster is screened by units? Well that was a silly move, wasn't it! Put a bucket load of dice into the attack and aim to hit the monsters Defence while targeting the unit, gaining a profit in Power Dice.
Demolish? Oh now that's a funny one. You destroy a building and deal 1 damage to an adjacent unit or monster. This can leave power bases in a shambles by not only taking out a building that's being secured, but taking out an adjacent unit which could be securing another building, or deal first blood to a monster! Targeting a Power Station next to a monster can deal 2 points of damage to a monster due to the Live Wire Reaction, which deals a point of damage to all adjacent monsters when it's destroyed!
Our series 1 Blastard is pretty cool. But that's not all!
When comparing what I've said to the Ultra, he doesn't seem to be that great. He attacks from range and does it pretty well. But does he do super damage? No. Not with his blast attacks.
But his Brawl attacks, however, are a different story. He totes another two triggers on his brawl attacks to match up with his playstyle.
Crunch: If this attack rolls at least 1 super strike, this attack deals Super Damage.
Following Fire: This figure may make a blast attack.
So there's his Super Damage, and while there's a 1 in 6 chance per die to get a Super Strike, it's still Super Damage and chances are that you make a Super Attack so you can get the Super Strike for the Super Damage. That's just Super.
Following Fire is where the variation of a playstyle comes in. Alpha and Ultra Drillnose run up and punch something and then target whatever unit is in range of it's Blast stat to take a point of damage, the roll being based on the brawl attack. So overall, Drillnose has had a good Brawl Stat, but extremely lax blast stat because he doesn't actually use it.
However since Mega Drillnose actually uses his blast stat, with it's long range and good boost die bonus, and great blast triggers, he gets Following Fire so that he can keep on the variation of a style. The problem with it is that this is expensive if you're aiming to deal an extra point of damage to your opponent. The wording for Following Fire is that it's a completely different attack so instead of using the same dice in the roll, you use whatever dice are in your monster pool. And because it's a blast attack, the Blast Triggers are set off as well.
If everything goes right, a player can get up to 3 points of damage in an entire turn, while forfeiting double activations, unless you're against someone with low defence. The more expensive, and probably more recurrent, situation is to Knock the poor bugger on the nose, and then shoot a unit adjacent to the monster and deal damage with the explosion. The expensive part is having to roll above the monsters defence twice, making a juggling act using the 10 Action Die, and however many Power Die available at the time, between the two attacks, moving and the Power Up Roll.
The cheaper option, but less likely, is after the brawl an attack is made against a building adjacent to the target. If the target is something like a Music Producer or an Office building which have a Defence of 3, something really easy to hit, then there's a saving on Action Die because there's no need to match the monsters Defence again.
So I've been talking him up like he's the Lord Cthul himself. So what are his downsides?
Well, with the better Blast Score he does have some drawbacks, particularly his Defence of 5. History notes that monsters with a Defence of 5 are more vulnerable than a poor fellow dropping the soap in a prison shower... unless you have a rope. In Ulgoth's case, he garrottes people with his Volatile ability, and he can regenerate whatever health he can through Meat Slaves. Anyone else's case, well it's their own fault.
Unfortunately it's Mega Drillnose's own fault he's Defence 5. He does try to make it up with a health of 6 though, and obviously his offensive ability, but is that enough to justify a cost of 4 Power Die to enter Hyper Mode? Well frankly 4 P-die isn't a massive cost. It isn't cheap, but it's not so ridiculously expensive that you couldn't hold off from a massive assault against the opponent. So yes, yes it is justifiable.
But that pretty much amounts his downsides. He still accumulates Power Die as well, if not better, than his other incarnations and his damage output can fluctuate to being better or worse than his Ultra.
So the Silver Hans is definitely a good choice when available. And Soon our next expansion will come and I get get into the nitty gritty of the new Chaos that we bring to the table.
