A Little Odd: Mucustos of Bug

Now!  When?  Now.  Since I have that out of my system, I can move onto other awful jokes.  Also, I finally have a number of games under my belt with the new stuff, and I’ve got to say, every time that I have played, I get this wide-eyed stare, with my jaw hanging slightly agape, wondering if I’m the only person to have seen that particular combo, or, in my instance, potentially weird grouping of units and skills.  Naturally, I know that many, many people have probably seen the same thing I have, but how many would actually run it?  Yeah, that’s why you come to me: you want that weird.  You need it.  You need help.  Seriously, get help.  I’m honestly giddy each time I open up my case of figures, as I know I’m going to see something new that I can use for this series, and I love that about the game.  Granted, I have only had access to three Factions from Now, but I’ve already seen the possibilities that await.  And, as luck would have it, I’ve also seen that my penchant for mixing and matching units, monsters and buildings has become the way things probably will shall remain.  I’m fine with that.  I accept that.  In fact, I’d probably go so far as to say that I’ve championed the idea, even if my thoughts on the topic may not always be the most useful or beneficial.  Hey, they can’t all be winners.

When I create an army, it is generally with the intent of doing one thing well, often at the expense of other, equally important, objectives.  If I’m going blasting, I’m going all out.  If I want to disrupt, chances are that I won’t be doing much in the way of unit contribution.  I’m myopic like that.  Yeah, being myopic is difficult to live with, but with the pills and the salves, the itching usually is bearable and the shakes only affect me when I’m trying to use chopsticks.  The point of all that being I’m focused.  Not this time.  With the help of a Kit Kat bar, I decided to take a break from wearing the blinders.  I was actually in the middle of a game with Alan when this revelation struck.  Oddly enough, it was at the same time that I blacked out and woke to find the board completely re-arranged and my monster down to 1 hit point.  I suspect Alan of chicanery, but have yet to prove it conclusively.  The thought was, roughly: “What if I could brawl AND blast with some degree of proficiency?”  Well, what if I could?  It’s honestly not something you see a whole lot of, at least, not out of your units.  Sure, I’ve played many a game where my units held down artillery duty while my monster went in for the Running Sitdown Hurricanrana Powerbomb, but I can’t recall ever really trying to get my units to work as a real, genuine double threat.  Turns out I just needed to wait for the right combination of units…

As soon as I saw the Savage Swarm, I knew that I had to play them.  Hellfire, I’d even go so far as to say I knew I’d be playing these buggy buggers before I had even seen them: that decision burst from my chest as soon as I heard the name of the Faction.  I like bugs.  Always have, really. If it crawled, scuttled, darted or stung, I wanted to play with it.  I’m an aficionado of things buggery, much like Gary Larson, with the primary difference being he’s made waaaaaaay more money at his gig and I’ve yet to have an insect named after me.  But I’ve still got time, Larson.  You better watch your back.  Once I saw the units and monsters, my desires were lit aflame with an unquenchable want, no, -need-, to send my hordes across the map, chittering from under the refrigerator. Yeah, it’s bug time.  That also means that I’d be dipping into the Planet Eaters for inspiration and modification, which, as evidenced by the articles written and responses posted, would also mean that I’d be opening myself up to the mocking of the poor galaxy spanning munchie beasties.  I feel badly for them: they really do try hard to play with the big kids.  I just think they hadn’t hit their growth spurt.  Until now.  Or, rather: until Now!

Allow me to draw back the curtain for: Mucustos of Bug

(1) Mucustos                                      (5) Nuclear Power Plant

(1) Ultra Mucustos                            (3) Apartment Building

(4) Cliff Hopper                                  (2) Bank Headquarters

(1) Cliff Hopper Elite                         (1) Oil Refinery

(2) Razor Beetle                                 (1) Radar Array

(2) Razor Beetle Elite

(1) Spy Fly

(1) Steel Back Roach

(2) Scorcher

(2) Scorcher Elite

Firstly, yes, I finally have an army without Pteradactix!  I know, I could hardly believe it myself!  But, bear with me: I’m sure I’ll find a use for him in upcoming armies.  Hey, wait a minute!  Where’s the Privateer Press Building?!  Shocking, I know.  Heck, for that matter, where’s ANY building from Now!?  Not here, obviously.  Again, this is not quite the army for anything new.  What I do have is a healthy dose of new units and just enough, in my opinion, units from the first go-round.  You may not see what I was speaking of earlier when I referenced a balanced attack, but I’ll make you a believer.  Hey, if you’ve stuck with me this far, you couldn’t leave me if you tried. (My most sincere and deepest apologies to Mr. Neil Diamond for that one.)

Mucustos is just fun.  He’s creepy, dangerous and clearly he enjoys snack cakes!  Just look at those little arms resting on his big ol’ Buddha belly!  There’s been a glut of commentary on the survivability of many of Now!’s monsters, but Mucustos, I believe, does not fall into that category.  Sporting a respectable 6 defense, the roach with the most isn’t a Zor, but he’s clearly taking a queue from his less monstrous cousins.  He can take a shot like a champ.  With 13 health points between his Alpha and Ultra form, Jitterbug (Who would have ever guessed that a 33,000 ton bug could be so nimble on his feet?) will keep you in battles long enough to get the job done.  His glaring downside, however, is that he’s just not all that quick, bringing to bear only a lowly speed of 5.  Yeah, he’s no Usain Bolt, and that lack of breakaway speed really does reign in what you could really accomplish.  Ah well, there’s always 2012.  However, there’s a very simple solution to a perplexing dilemma: make your opponent come to you.  Of course, you do run the risk of being overrun by unit waves, but that is the price to pay for slow.  Know what’s fun?  Pulling an insta-screen out of your chitinous thorax.  Summon really comes in handy with the Swarm, especially with a unit like the Razor Beetle.  In Ultra form, Mucustos pulls out all the stops by providing his troops with long range scopes, which is great, seeing as no one on the board has a blast of greater than 3.  Wanna know what’s better than Summon?  Crunch.  There, I said it.  Finally, the bug world has taken the sound of their untimely demise and used it as a hammer with which they bludgeon the world!  Crunch!  It’s not just for Berries anymore.  If you’re blasting with the rhino beetle on ‘roids, you’re going to be tossing some serious B-Dice around, and your odds of throwing at least one Super Strike are very favorable.  I’ve also noticed that I don’t care which form I’m in, be it Alpha or Ultra, as both offer very comparable battle options, and, when it comes right down to it, a cost of 4 P-Dice is sometimes just too much offensive dice throwing to give away.

Cliff Hoppers, at first, didn’t really strike me as all that good.  Granted, a speed of 6 will get you around the board in a hurry, and Flight is a terrific asset, but we’ve seen this unit before!  Power Gorge?  C’mon, man!  This is a Vanguard!  Then I thought about it for a second.  I –like- Vanguard units.  When you’re pulling a 1+1 Blast on a grunt unit, you’re going to be pulling down 1+2 when paired with an Elite.  Pop a unit into the reserve box and you’re raking in 2 P-Dice per shot.  Right there is half the pricetag of a brand new Ultra Mucustos.  My less-than-thrilled demeanor veered back into “woohoo” territory.  But, wait, what else am I seeing?  A Brawl statistic?  Go back to the beginning and think about balanced offense.  Balanced blasting and brawling.  The Hopper is part one, specifically the Elite.

Holy cow, is the Razor Beetle one of my favorite new units.  When the Spikasaur came into the game, I knew I loved Hazardous, and I took full advantage of it in a few armies, notably Vault 13.  But, like so many things, the awesome that is Hazardous is tempered, in the Spikasaur with a weak Brawl stat of 1.  Not the Razor Beetle.  He’s packing a 3 A-Die Brawl and he’s not afraid to use it.  In fact, not only is he not shy about hitting things, he actively seeks out the biggest, baddest figure on the board and tries to shove his horn straight through.  A 5 speed and 4 defense, complete with Burrow, will truly allow you to move with significant ease into position.  Or, if you’re lucky, you’ll be dropped from Bug Daddy, right before he slams the opposing monster onto your horn.  That’s living, baby!  Briefly, at least.  Is that all, you ask?  No, not by a long shot.  Blitz is why I am so enthusiastic about the Beetle, both Volkswagen and Razor varieties.  Big deal!  So he can attack with a 3, or 3+1 with an Elite twice.  Three words are my siren’s call: “dice in play”.  That’s right.  Team up the Razor with one, maybe two more brawlers, preferably those with a few spare B-Dice, and you’re looking at seriously ruining someone’s day.  Need two units gone?  Razor Beetle.  Want to clear a linescreen and jab the enemy monster?  Razor Beetle.  The little guy is a beast, and if you don’t believe me you can just stuff your nay saying in a bucket!

Oh, Spy Fly, you are easily the most bothersome little unit to ever wriggle free from an egg sac.  From larval state until you pupate, you dream of nothing more than irritating the living bejesus out of everyone around you.  Why?  Quick and Spotter are just cruel, and moving at 5 speed will put you into harm’s way time and time and time again.

The Steel Back Roach is another annoying unit, partially because he not only has boosted defense from both brawl and blast, but also partly because he affords that extra help to those around him.  But that’s not the real reason.  As soon as I drop the Roach onto the map, my opponent instantly scowls and starts planning on how to most expediently eliminate the insect.  Pathfinder is so capriciously devious that I simply cannot help but giggle when he gets near an enemy unit.  I’ll take that 50/50 chance of dropping any unit every single day of the week.

And then there’s the Scorcher.  Aww, look how cute: the Planet Eaters have a blaster.  Well, isn’t he just precious!  I just wanna pinch hims little cheeks!  Yes I do!  Yuck it up, Butterball, but don’t come crying to me when you’ve been deep fried and cracked open like a sun-bleached whale on the beach.  Good speed?  Check.  Adequate defense for a flying unit?  Absolutely.  Blast?  You betcha.  Brawl?  Good to go!  Wait, what?  Look again.  His Brawl is the same as his Blast, making the Scorcher the final piece of my balanced offense.  Want to go for broke from a grassy knoll?  Team up with your Cliff Hopper.  Feel the need to get up close and personal?  Swing that barbed tail alongside the Razor Beetle.  Any way you slice it, the Scorcher is a balanced unit lacking only a B-Die, which would actually make him overpowered.  Smirk all you want: I know you’re doing it.  I did it, too, until I actually saw how fluidly this army moved across the map, striking from range, then slicing in to cut right to the heart of the opposing monster.  You just don’t expect a unit, traditionally known as a half-arsed blaster, to roll right up into your grill and pull a shiv on you.  I heard that on TV.

In regards to building selection and placement, I drop the Nuclear Power Plants in a V-shaped curve through the map, point nearest my opponent, so that I give myself the ability to move forward should I want, and the safety of dropping back, should I need, to gather a health point.  If the other guy is clever, he’ll drop your Plants before you can use more than one, but, hey, that’s one fewer attack you’ve got lancing towards your scaled face.  Mucustos needs all the help he can get: he can’t afford the loss of his dashing good looks, what with the fact that he’s been perfecting Magnum for years.  The Banks seem out of place, on first inspection, but when you realize they are blasting platforms, you come to realize they dovetail perfectly into the mix.  Add to that Superstructure and you’re going to have a hard time leaving all three whole for the entire game.  Apartments are a no-brainer, especially when you are going to be throwing as many units as you can across the map, with absolutely no regard to their safety.  Why should you?  Those Apartments are –filled- with millions of eggs, just waiting to break free from the clutch and join their battle-hardened brethren!  In any Blasting army, a Radar Array is a welcome addition, even if your Ultra form grants the same.  Sometimes redundancy is a good thing.  It’s also helpful to have the same thing…  An Oil Refinery helps when your playmate decides that he just doesn’t want to die with dignity, so he decides to retreat deep into his own powerbase.  Looks like the Swarm aren’t the only guys who scatter when the lights come on.

Overall, don’t be afraid to mix things up with your monster!  Mucustos can handle the load and shrug off quite a bit of pain.  These units aren’t here for show!  Most games aren’t settled with bugbite nibbles from the health tracker of the other guy, but in this army, games can be decided by just how quickly you can rush across the map, en masse, gnashing, clawing, gorging and slashing any and everything in your path.  Yeah, this army is far more straightforward than a lot of what has come before it, but can you say you’d play this crawling monstrosity?  I know I would, and have!  How’d I do?  I guess you’ll need to ask my buddy Alan; but, I’ll give you one snippet of commentary: “That can’t be right.  There’s no way Blitz uses all those dice!”  Sometimes, if you want to go odd, you have to go big.  Other times, you have to go bug.  Go bug.