The Wargamer

Monsterpocalypse

Last night started typically enough, but ended a little less conventionally.  Several of us decided to head over to The Ram for dinner.  It’s a microbrewery/pub/restaurant that has had a longstanding support of GenCon.  One of the guys in our group seems to have taken a couple of classes in Bard because he seems to know all about the Lore of Indianapolis.  One factoid he shared was that the owner of The Ram was introduced to gaming years ago and has been a fan ever since.  So the group heads over except for me.  I offer to stick behind because I wanted to get last night’s GenCon coverage up before I went to dinner.  The guys phone me and tell me that it’s a half an hour wait.  I’d like more time, but that’s enough for me to finish resizing the photos, upload them though this near-dialup slow hotel internet connection, and then head over.  Actually, I didn’t get every image uploaded, and readers who read the coverage last night will now find a third page of images.  You’re welcome.

I head on over to The Ram.  Sure enough there are gaming posters on the outside of the pub. Inside they’re offering Apocalypse Ale – complete with artwork from Privateer Press’ new collectable minis game, Monsterpocalypse (http://monsterpocalypsegame.com/). The offerings on the front page are all an homage to Monsterpocalypse and it proves too much to resist: I order the Monster Burger.  The cute little waitress tells me she’ll give me a high five if I can eat it all – not having read the fine print I learn belatedly that it’s an entire pound of meat.  To make a long story short, I only ate three quarters of the burger.  The waitress offers me a low five but I decline.  Integrity dictates that I didn’t earn it, but secretly I’m pleased: I don’t hand out high fives to just anyone, and cute as she was I’m just not that easy.

The Ram by morning light.

We head off to the hotel, ostensibly to play games.  But we end up sitting around and drinking, talking about virtually everything under the sun.  It was a great night, but as I mentioned at the beginning, it was unconventional considering where we are.

Dawn of Day 2

The owner of The Ram has done his job well.  I have patronized his shop, and now I’m off to Privateer Press to find out what’s up with Monsterpocalypse.  There is a crowd around their demo area and I’m impressed. Soon I am introduced to Matt Wilson.  Matt is kind enough to give me the complete overview of the game.  To start with it’s a collectable minis game.  The sculpts are very good looking, which is part of what caught my eye to begin with.  Matt tells me that this is a pre-release event at GenCon – the game won’t actually hit store shelves until October.  But GenCon Attendees can buy it now.  And apparently they are: games are flying off the shelves – Matt tells me there were about 600 people standing in line yesterday to buy from them.  Friday doesn’t look much less busy.

The idea behind the game is that you have a monster and are competing with other monsters. You slowly build a city.  In addition to your monster, there are a number of smaller units. Matt tells me that in most collectable minis games, gamers are left with lots of “useless” commons.  Privateer Press deliberately designed Monsterpocalypse to try to avoid this issue.  Players with several of the same small units (tanks, little monsters, other vehicles) can take several of the same type to combine their powers to make them stronger.  That sounds good so far.

The object of the game is to gain power for your monster.  This can be done by capturing Power Zones on the map, some buildings you place also can provide power, destroying your opponent’s small units, and finally, players can receive a one-time larger power boost by destroying a building.  As your monster grows in power he gains power attacks.  These can be something like throwing an opponent’s monster across the city into a building.  It should be pretty clear by now that the game is about power allocation.  Once enough power has been gained, your monster grows from his Alpha form into the Ultra form.  All of this sounds perfectly acceptable to me.

Matt then gives me a brief rundown of Privateer Press’ other games:  WARMACHINE and HORDES.  This is a miniatures fantasy game. The two games are similar in some ways but different in others.  In WARMACHINE the player commands steam powered robots called Warjacks.  In HORDES the player commands war beasts.  In both games there is a central character who controls his units.  In WARMACHINE he is a warcaster with a psionic telepathic link to his Warjacks.  In HORDES he is a warlock does something of the opposite.  Instead of controlling the war beasts he pushes them to make attacks.  As they attack they build fury, and after fury reaches a certain level it is possible they will turn on the warlock leading them.  So periodically he has to do things to decrease the fury of his war beasts.  Both WARMACHINE and HORDES sound like fun games.  But it’s Monsterpocalypse that I’m really looking forward to.

I spent a lot of time wandering the halls looking for folks in costumes.  This year seems to be full of people dressed up – usually the weekends are busiest, so I’m really looking forward to what’s in store.  Nevertheless I found plenty.  I talked to a housewife dressed as a pirate.  Her husband is with her but he’s not in costume.  She’s got a couple of kids, plays a lot of MMORPGs, and this year just wanted to dress up and have some fun, I am told.  Good for her.  This is the place to do it.

Housewife, MMO player, Pirate.  Arrrggghhh, matey!

I wander over to the Dell Extreme Gaming area.  They have a tent under which have been placed a couple dozen laptops and PCs.  They’re showing off their best Alienware and XPS gaming systems. System hogs like Assassin’s Creed and World in Conflict are running great.  But I’m looking around trying to see who is there and what they’re about.  This is clearly a soft sell because I can’t get anyone from the staff to pay attention.  Not that I’m broadcasting “Hey! Over here!”  But I am trying to catch people’s eyes and see if I can figure out what their expectation is coming here.  There is a sign at the back that tells people how they can buy a new system, but no one is going out of their way to sell me one.  Weird.  After playing World in Conflict for about 20 minutes and looking around to see if anyone cared (they didn’t) I left.

Can you please check again?  Lord Vader insists he sent the fax.

Hello!?!

Anyone got a crowbar handy?

Yes, they're evil.  But they're so tempting.