Self Imposed Ban

In recent times, it has come to my attention that games have become too quick for my own liking.
It is not that my group are doing anything right or wrong.
It is not that we play overpowering monsters (Although some would beg to differ).

It is the effect a particular building has on the field.

The Crystalline Building.

This building is not used to be secured in my gaming group. We understand the benefit of securing such a building. An action to deny your opponent a P-die is nifty. With it being a monument, you gain two P-die on your power up rolls. Nifty once again.
That is as far as it goes for securing this building.

We recieve more benefits from the Imperial State building. I usually use my action for the Summon on my Towers of Corruption. And with the "Power Producer" ability it provides another P-die over the Crystalline Building.
So it is not beneficial to field this for security.

Using it for target practice is more its style.

This building is notorious for being a direct cause of Instant Grevious Bodily Harm, and occasionally death.
It starts with the Reaction "Towering Inferno", where when the building is destroyed a Flame Hazard is placed where the building occupied.
Buildings with this ability have shown time and time again that it hurts when you land on them, and their spaces remain dangerous.
When Monsterpocalypse was first released, Block wars was always entertaining when you would have monsters waltzing through buildings, arm in arm, leaving behind a trail of flaming destruction through the centre square, ending in a dip that would leave the audience in awe at such majesty, requesting an encore.

But this is only half of the health problems that this Monument of Mortality causes upon its victims.
The Crystalline building brought into the game a new ability.

Spire (Reaction): Monsters colliding with this building suffer an additional point of damage.

This is massive.
It was scary having to suffer three points of damage when landing on one building. Four, or even five damage, was restricted to two or more buildings.
More than that was difficult. Kill-Agains Island is known for it's three buildings standing in a triangle, and how being thrown onto those three would drop a seven health monster out of form.

That's all well an all. But why not be a little more 'Efficient'?
Being thrown into the Crystalline building causes four damage off the bat.

1. for the Attack.
2. for Colliding with the Building.
3. for the Spire Reaction.
4. for the Blazing Inferno Reaction.

That leaves most monsters running around like a chook with its head cut off.
If Super Damage is in the mix, that leaves most monsters without a form.
All from one building, who was innocently standing the midst of a city like a daydreamer in a dandelion field.
Even the mighty Gorghadra has fear of this building. And he's Tough.

From now on, I am Self-Imposing a Ban on this Erection of Expiration from future matches. If my opponent wishes to field one, then so be it. I will take full advantage of it's presence. But my opponents should (and probably will) take grace in that I won't be fielding one myself.


PS: Performing this entire post in a David Attenborough accent is one of the most entertaining things I've done with myself in years.
Thank you, David Attenborough.

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.

Avert your gaze, Erin

Today I have been contemplating the semantics of Monpoc and how to organise All you can Eat so that everyone can get their 24 achievements easily. It came down to a few requirements and a concerted contribution from our regulars.
So you set up six tables across the room/s, and to mix it up give them each a different map.
Each table is set up thusly.

Monster - Agenda A -	Monster Agenda B
Monster - Agenda A -	Monster Agenda C

Still not quite Getting it?
Here's an Example.

Defender X - Protector -	Gorghadra Destroyer
Sky Sentinel - Protector -	Yasheth Fiend

Keep following the pattern of a pair from one Agenda, then pit them against an opponent from the opposite Agenda and the agenda to their right, or left. Rince and repeat until you've run out of monsters. Because Morphers are not included in this, it makes things even. Mind you, I do want to keep Mogroth out and put in Osheroth. (Golly Gosh do I hate Mogroth).
The units are then set up for each side as best possible (Agenda A has a full Agenda A force; Agenda B/C have their combination).

Players then mix and match tables carrying between them 6 Hazard and 6 Non-Hazard buildings, with all three monuments each.
On the 12th game, they have 24 of the easy Achievements.

• Played with full forces from each Agenda (6 Achievements)
• Played with all monsters from each Agenda (14 Achievements)
• Played with 12 Hazardous Buildings, 12 Non-Hazardous Buildings and All three monuments (3 Achievements)
• Played Multi-monster with monsters from different Agendas(1 Achievement)

Its the other 8 Achievements to watch out for.

• Have 15 units in play at one time.
• Have all 10 Power Dice in your Power Pool.
• Earn at least 8 Power dice in one Power Up.
• Destroy a Full-Health monster form in one attack.
• Win a game without using Hyper form.
• Destroy at least Four buildings with one attack.
• Destroy at least Four units with one attack.
• Deal 2 damage to a monster in a single Unit turn.

It was kinda crap...

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

Scooty 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.
"R and D", a Summon Ability but allows the summoning of any unit rather than just the respective faction unit.
Indestructable.  'Nuff Said.
Limited; and
I've forgotten what the last ability is.

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.
I've long since forgotten the names of the maps, but I'll find out when I get home.
The first map we looked at 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.
Scoot 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.
In the centre of the map is an island with four buildings going lengthways, the two buildings on the end segregated 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 useful 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 super fast 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).
Scoot 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.
"Scoot..."
"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 Scoot and I will be playing on the map next week, if not sooner.

Fw: bruce_lee_lost_footage.

More Indistinguishable Death

Hopefully its digital so that it can murder taylor swifts song.
Golly Gosh am i sick of her song.

Word of the Week: Bromance

I heard the word one evening while refreshing my appearance on Facebook. A funny fellow who is quite the jet setter has been in the company of too many lady-friends, and sent a status update requesting Bromance.

I giggled to myself at the portmanteau and then checked my phone to look at Facebook...

... Immediately noticing the asshattery (Another Erininthesky Signature Word) I turned off my phone and walked away.

The week before last, I recieved an email from Mother Dearest.

Hey Matt, are we going to the movies this sunday?

It was that time of the fortnight and mother was curious.
I remembered to the sunday before last where I enjoyed a day at Kels place with Greg, practicing a day of Hardcore Warmachine/Hordes.
The most notable part of that day was Gregs Eldest (I think) playing with my figures and calling my Venators "Girls".
Kel made mention that he wanted to do this again in a fortnights time.
Fair enough, I thought. It'll last a few fortnights before Gencon and we'll get plenty of practice in.
So delaying mother with an email requesting her to await friday for an answer, I sent an sms to Kel asking if the practice was on at his place again.
Fortunately not, as Kel had something else happening. However, he did have an alternative for me which was to turn up at his place on Tuesday or Wednesday to paint (Knowing full well how much I have to paint.)
I accepted his offer for Wednesday night (As Tuesdays I go to Nundah for Monpoc Gaming) and I took the bus to his place.

The night was spent rather well with back paints and neck strains and finger cramps covered with dvd's of Danger Mouse playing in the background.

Not to mention the fine dining of Eagleboys Pizza with Coke, Garlic Bread and Chicken wings.
To top off the night before retiring, Kel presented to me one of his favoured Animes: Appleseed.
I've heard dabblings of this Anime while watching Madman DVD's, their advertisements trying to tempt the sci-fi addicts, but I hadn't looked into it at all.

The first presentation was the second Appleseed Movie's Introduction.
This was awesome. I became extremely interested with this fun display of ninja-esque capabilities with SMG's versus miniguns and explosives.
Or even a helicopter trying to get away from nine rocket launchers that had been patched together to fire as one.
After this introduction to the movie he showed me the first movie.
I'm terrible with descriptions, but I'm certainly interested in looking this up now.

The night was full of one-liners ("Penfold, Shush") and manly emotions (Belching and Farting).
A good night, in my eyes.

But the Bromance doesn't stop there.

Saturday day was simple. I go to Blind Pig and nerd up for the day with some games of Warmachine/Hordes.
First of two games was against Jeff and his Epic Kruegar list. It was a sad moment for him because he hasn't had much luck with Kruegar for a while. I played rather offensively, killing off what I could and sacrificing others for the sake of the better lot (Ancestral Guardians and the Immortals). My Ancestral Guardian vs Totem Hunter History remains hardly tarnished, with another knotch on the Guardians belt to match the other 2.
But Kruegar strayed too close to Morghouls attack range and I lept at the chance like a kid on candy. As an afterthought, we realised a mistake of a Woldwyrd being a little too close for comfort but jeff accepted the loss anyway with a quick change of what should've been done.

The second game was a loss at my own stupid fault.
Playing Reznik, the player had him standing between a Devout and another 'Jack with Venators to play Firing Squad and an Ancestral Guardian to finish the job.
But I made a mistake didn't I.
Morghoul lept and weaved his way through the melee to put him within spells distance of the ancestral guardian, and Line of Sight to Reznik. The feat was blown and Shadow Walker was cast on the Guardian.
Two fury left on an assassination against a Defence 10 figure.
What do I do? I know. I'll cast "Death Warrant" on him to give my Cyclops Shaman to deal some substantial damage.
That was the mistake that I shouldn't have done. One of Rezniks ability, "Witchhound" allows a model in his battlegroup to move after being hit with a spell.
He ran away behind the rest of his jack.
I stamped the floor in aggrivation at my Asshattery.
But I bit my tongue and continued, salvaging what I could before losing my own warlock.
Time was called, however, and my opponent still won due to having partially completed the object (Damaging Indescript objectives).
The day was entertaining, and it was good to see familiar faces.
I must say, Killian is getting better. He was pretty keen with the 350 we were playing earlier. I was impressed.

But that is not all, my dear readers. The end is nearing.
The travel home remains. Somewhere between Park Road and Roma Street, my phone alarmed itself to me.

"Hey buddy u home tonight/ was thinking cause mel and matt r doin their thing want to see a movie or something to get out of the house?"

I haven't recieved a message wrought with missing letters like that in about a year. And surprise surprise, it's the Superdick.
I quickly considered my alternative: Stay in my room, play Kingdom Hearts, maybe even do a blog.
I accepted his offer for a movie and we drove out to Chermside.
I was like I was on a date. Awkward silence was riddled through the night. He enjoyed the movie (Transformers 2) and that was it.
We arrived home and spoke with everyone present (I mimed to Kim saying I couldn't hear anything, Movies Speakers ruined my ears) before retreating to my room after giving up on trying to listen.