Vicarious Competition

Welcome back everyone!  I needed a brief hiatus to finish my school semester, but should be back to our regularly scheduled programming.... Which is something new and exciting!  I'm going to start releasing "off the cuff" first impressions on new releases and what they mean for Destroyers players.  Let me know if you like them and I'll make sure they keep coming.  New maps are going to be important releases moving forward as they have the potential to create entire meta shifts on their own.  Isles of Annihilation was great for slower disruptive Monsters like Krakenoctus that could kill off scoring units and leave players starved for Power Dice in the mid to late game.  Carnage Corners is going to be extreme opposite and I can see this becoming my preferred map for most matchups moving forward. The very first thing I noticed about this map is how CROWDED it is.  Clocking in at a whopping 22 Buildings, this map has the most foundations to date....

List construction is a deep topic that persist throughout a game's lifetime at both competitive and casual levels of play.  What Monsters to pair, which Buildings to buy, and what Units are worth taking fluctuates with current meta conditions, but a few thing remain constant.  One of the biggest strengths of this game is that there are NO bad options, truly.  You can play with any list load out you like and still win games.  This blog focuses on top level competitive considerations, but you don't need to play my way to have fun.  Let's explore some general concepts that persist independently of new releases and meta considerations. Monsters The core of Monsterpocalypse is the focus on giant Monsters smashing through a city as they tear each other apart.  Here's the first decision you make when starting a new force or building a list.  They're the biggest coolest models and have the largest impact on everything else.  Most Monsters can be spli...

Welcome back everyone to the ongoing Monster Tactics series where I break down each monster to look at their strengths and weaknesses. In addition to my weekly blog posts, I'm looking into producing some recorded content for you to enjoy, so expect to see that in the near future! Cthugrosh: Complexity Rating 2/3 Cthugrosh is a support monster that embodies the most sacred tenet of the Lords of Cthul: to ensure your opponent does not have a fun time. Cthugrosh has fairly middling stats across the board, but brings some serious board control to the fight in both Alpha and Hyper forms. Summon, Summon, and Summon some more! The strongest element to this Monster is its ability to spawn in an extra unit each turn, typically a Meat Slave that will turn into a second Cthul unit later. This interaction lets Cthugrosh create some of the most powerful unit screens in the game by “double screening” with these discounted Meat Slaves. Telekinesis is your final defining ability that will allow...

This article is going to be part of an ongoing series exclusively focused on new players!  I'll be doing a short, concise write-up for each faction that gives people interested in buying into Monsterpocalypse an efficient starting point to a competitive list.  Some Monsters are more optimized than others, so I'm going to select only one Monster per faction.  First up is the Planet Eaters! Planet Eaters are chitinous energy monsters that are here to consume Earth.  Their playstyle is hyper aggressive in both their Units and Monsters.  If capturing and defending your half of the city isn't really your thing, then Planet Eaters is the faction for you!  This faction can happily abandon ship and push your opponent onto their back foot. Starting Monster: Gorghadra Gorghadra is a beat-stick Monster that embodies the Planet Eaters well.  As a bonus he comes in the starter box!  He's got great stats, and has a straightforward plan: Smash the city....

Hello to all of my followers new and old and welcome to the Monsterpocalypse!  This marks the formal relaunch of my Vicarious Competition blog that focuses on miniatures competitive play at the highest level, now showcasing Monsterpocalypse primarily from the Destroyer's perspective.  This first article will give you an idea of what type of content to expect moving forward. Ares Mothership: Difficulty Rating 3/3 The Ares Mothership is the monster that got me into the game purely based on her looks.  I love the cheesy martian aesthetic and I always am imagining her sharp grabber claws make "tikka tikka tikka" noises as she rips her enemies apart.  Ares is a support monster with lots of subtleties running under the hood that can make her seem underwhelming at first glance, but the utility and mobility she brings to the fight make her a force to be reckoned with.  Offensively, Ares is painfully average, but makes up for it with a great speed stat of 7 c...

Hey guys, better late than never!  Here with a Lock and Load recap for everyone.  I had the lovely Katheryn Royer updating my local meta with the play by play, so I’m sharing them with all of you as pseudo battle reports.  The only event I participated in was the Iron Gauntlet itself. I wanted to take a step back to hang out with all the cool people at Lock and Load and spend more time socializing rather than playing.  We had an amazing time and it was a really nice change of pace to not get caught in a weekend long tournament grind. My pairing was Elara2 dudespam paired with a variant on Fancy Ryan’s Vyros2 in Shadows. Round 1 was vs Kraig (Canada) who had Baldur1 Baldur2.  No Woldwrath in either pair and a really solid player, but I felt like his lists had too much overlap.  Unfortunate luck for him to draw me right out of the gate as I felt like Elara2 was really favorable into both flavors of armor skew. Mike is bringing Elara2 in Defenders...