My opening unit turn felt great.  I secured a solid power base and summoned an elite spitter from a Tower of Corruption onto one of Zach’s spawn points and made a blast attack on one of his 4 defense morphers.  The dice came up blank, but I was happy with taking a 50%ish shot at a morpher on turn one while disrupting AND sitting atop one of his spawn zones.  On Zach’s first turn he secured a couple of buildings… nothing spectacular.  I remember him saying, “That wasn’t as good as I thought it was going to be.”  I then distinctly remember thinking, “this was going to be a good game for me”.

On my first monster turn, I moved forward and brawled a GUARD defense base, wanting to get some easy p-die and prevent Zach from using that defense base to teleport units in for soft disruption all game.  I whiffed.  While calculating this move I was under the impression that Zach could not get to me for a power attack.  I was wrong.  I ended my turn, and with a smug look on his face Zach hyper-ed up, moved into alignment, and proceeded to throw alpha into three buildings for a total of five damage and complete destruction of my power base…  and a form kill.

As a player you have to always make sure your opponent can’t get to you.  Always.  There is nothing worse then being surprised and dead.  Nothing.  (Well, maybe missing a 95% chance roll, surprised and dead…Yeah. that’d be worse.)  Also, if you’re okay with your opponent getting to you make sure there isn’t an uber power attack waiting to be had.  Check all directions.

I slowly came to terms with my mistake and started my unit turn.  I moved my Mollok Brutes into position to attack Mega Legionnaire.  I also moved some units to secure a couple more buildings for my next monster turn.  I attacked. Hit.  Zach lost one health.  After ending my turn I realized that I had forgotten that the word “screen” even existed.  Zach quickly picked up his dice, moved into alignment with me again and body slammed me for a total of four damage.  The game was looking very grim for me and Yaseth.  I powered up and threw Mega Legionnaire into a Bank HQ midmap for three damage.

Screens are a very important part of this game.  If I could’ve prevented that second power attack I feel that I would’ve had a much, much better chance at winning.  Always make sure, if possible, to screen from stupidly high damage attacks.  This tip works very well with the first one I gave a few paragraphs back.  If your opponent can get to you hopefully he can’t power attack you.

On Zach’s next unit turn he moved three G-1s into range of Yaseth.  Picked up his dice and let me have it.  I had officially been pwnd.  I felt like a complete n00b, but I knew one thing.  I would always make sure to screen when applicable, and I would always make sure of the distance my opponent can travel.  I know most of this seems really obvious, and it should be.  Sometimes, though, the most obvious things are the things we forget first. Cheers for me learning these lessons at Monster Weekend instead of say… MonCon. Learn from my mistakes and bring the best you’ve got to MonCon and GenCon. See you there,

Tim

The Monster Weekend highlight video, in case you missed it:

The next thing I did was paint the sports arena black and tear the Privateer Press blimp of it’s base and take a torch to it.  After the torch I pressed it into the playing field giving it that rustic “I just exploded” feel.

After the Sports Arena I added some blood and gore to my Molok Brutes.  These figures scream “I got class”

I then added some blood to my alpha form as well.

After my alpha I painted my Molok Brute Elites a black and gold color.  Then add some blood to taste.

Here is a publishing house that I modified.

And here is a cathedral that I did likewise.

All in all I would say that these mods are awesome.  Feel free to discuss how awesome they are

Tim

My immediate response was, ‘No Tim, that’s stupid.’ As usual he ignores my immediate criticism and goes somewhere in the office and comes up with a lighter. He then says, ‘Come on, it’s going to be awesome’.

As he starts to burn the first corner I scream ‘wait! If we’re going to do something crazy, let’s at least document it. And thus, this video was born.’

Turns out he was right, it was pretty awesome.

One week ago I played a game of Monsterpocalypse with Zach.  Sky Sentinel versus Zor-Voltis.  We rolled to see who went first.  I lost.  We placed the buildings one by one until the map was full.  I was salivating with excitement about the journey I was about to embark on.

After we deployed our units Zach controlled three buildings and I controlled five.   We then moved to our monster phase.  My opponent decided to use three dice to power up.  Miss.  Instead of trying to move to my side of the board Zach punched the building he was adjacent to try and pick up some easy p-dice.  He picked up his dice, rolled, and missed.  After my laughter was over I started my monster phase.  I, like Zach, decided to swing at the building adjacent to me.  I, unlike Zach, successfully destroyed the building.

On Zach’s next monster phase he moved towards my monster and decided to blast attack me.  He picked up more dice, rolled them all, and epically failed.  I laughed once more.  On my monster phase I hypered up, shot at Sky Sentinel, and hit him for two.  After my attack, I used my hit and run ability and moved away from Sky Sentinel while I hypered down.

Zach then shot my Zor-Voltis and finally hit.  He then used lightning attack  to attack me again.  Another success.  I took two.  I didn’t like what Zach was doing so i shot at Zach again.  I hit.  Two more damage.  Zach then decided to throw me into two buildings doing three damage killing my alpha form.  I was infuriated.  In my anger my hyper form did two more damage to Sky Sentinel killing him.

Zach attacked me with his G1 Strike Fighters.  He succeeded.  I was at four he was at five.  I then used my Zor to attack his Sky Sentinel.  I hit for two again.  It was now three to four in my favor.  Attacks with his G1s followed once again.  Another success.  I was at three now and I was starting to sweat.  I had to finish this game strong.

I decided to send my Katanas to Sky Sentinel and try to get some damage in.  I accomplished my goal.  I was up by one and I knew if I could hit with my Zor one more time the game was over.  I shot and I missed.  I was shocked.  His Sky Sentinel was brought in and it shot me one more time.  Hit.  It was two to one in Zachs favor.

I had one more chance to win.  It was now or never.  I slowly picked up my dice noticing Zach and how badly he wanted to win.  I rolled the dice and as they flew from my hands time seemed to go into slow motion.  I hit and clenched the victory.

I won.

I feel that my best moves in this game were setting up my power base for all of those P-dice and screening my monster very well.  I was also very lucky.  Zach was not.

What else can you expect from a dice game?