MONGER gameplay preview

Hey, everyone. Monger has funded, and we're cruising toward those stretch goals. Since a lot of you ($5+) will be getting these models when they drop, and since the rules will be free to everyone, I thought this would be a good time to introduce the core mechanics and show you some shots from our last battle here at IGG HQ.

Jeremy and I each built a warband from the materials available in the core set (with a few pieces from stretch goals that I'm hoping we hit during the campaign). My warband is the Rubble Rousers (blue and orange), while Jeremy ran his Rumble Bees (yellow and black). For this battle, we decided to stick to our infantry units, leaving the mechs for another match.

We printed out a bunch of card components to build our units. They can be written down like any other wargame, but something about this method made the modular process feel really concrete, and having those rules easily referenced made a big difference too.

In fact, the best way to do this (in our opinion) is to get some card collector sheets, devoting one to each unit (or a unit on each side, if you prefer. The base unit goes in the middle, then you can arrange the plug-and-play components around it. (If you think of it like a compass, character dead center, headgear to the N, armor to S, hand-equipped items to the E and W, and then plug any special abilities into the NE, NW, SE, and SW corners.)

Once you've got your force drafted, you'll need a set of dice. These will be used for your various attack, defense, and skill rolls. But, in addition to your "set," you're going to want...

... a GRIP! This big blob of extra polyhedrals works as a sort of limited resource during the game. These dice can be "spent" to be rolled in place of a failed test or to power some special abilities (like spells in the fantasy version of the rules). 

The GRIP is pretty central to the game, to the point where we may end up calling the system (formerly CRUX: Wargaming) "GRIP: Universal Miniature Gaming." This is making a lot of sense to us at the moment, because whereas CRUX plays off the "CRUX die" dynamic, GRIP plays to, well... the GRIP. Names aside, this is still going to be the sister game to CRUX, and you can convert characters back and forth, with all the named components (ancestries, archetypes, equipment, special abilities, et cetera) having counterparts in either game.

Another thing we like about this mechanic is how malleable it is for different game modes. For example, in the dungeon crawler mode (which will power Prisoners of Gaznak), each player has a GRIP for their own character, functioning as a re-roll and even death-save system, where the gamemaster doesn't get one at all. (They have enough tricks up their sleeves as it is.) As gamers, we tend to have a lot of extra dice around, and picking the right/coolest dice for your GRIP is part of the warband building process. The other nice thing is that its an easy way to shore up point differences between forces. Your opponent was able to spend all their points but you have a few left? Take some more d4s and d6s!

So once the warbands were set, it was time to build a battlefield. We selected this desert mat and Jeremy set to work building a table full of his modular highways, perfect stuff for this sort of post-apocalyptic warfare (especially because he included some additional ruined bits he made as an expansion for this campaign). We decided to include the mechs after all, but as scenario objectives, placing them both in the middle of the table.

With everything set, we rolled off (d20s) for first turn. I got the option, and I took it, giving Jeremy the choice of table edge.

Since I would be taking the first turn, I deployed first. For this scenario, we used a pretty traditional 6" from map edge sort of deal.

With the Rubble Rousers' intentions made, Jeremy set his Rumble Bees up on his side, taking advantage of those rubble piles and getting his rocket launcher-armed Leet into a cheeky high ground position. (This is why he chose this edge, I'd wager.)

The last thing we did before launching into the carnage was set our morale and objective trackers. This could easily be done on paper, but we like to use dice. This shot is from my side, a little later on in the game, but basically: 

The red die was to track victory points (we got one at the end of every turn for each mech that we were controlling with the most adjacent infantry units).

The blue die was used for morale. It starts at 1, but goes up to 2 if you're outnumbered at the start of the match. (I was outnumbered.) Then it goes up by 1 every time you lose a unit. (d10s would probably be better for this in a larger game.) At the end of every turn, you have to choose a unit to make a morale (MOR) test for the force (usually falling on your commander or the next best unit), rolling their MOR die against the value showing. Can you fail that early on? You sure can, but hey... that's the kind of thing for which the GRIP is perfect.

So then the battle commenced. We each got three activations per turn, each activation allowing a unit to use two actions (attacking, moving, some combination, et cetera). This is equal to half your total number of units (rounding down). I pretty quickly made use of my Monger's Commander ability, forgoing his own activation to activate two units that were within line-of-sight (essentially giving me four activations that round in exchange for not using my powerful Monger... who is a hooded cyborg zealot, btw).

Movement and range is handled in "increments," which generally means inches, but you could make that mean whatever you like depending on the scale. Movement is based on a unit's Speed (SPD) value, while attack ranges are handled in categories: Close (within 1"), Short (6"), Medium (12"), Long (24"), Extreme (48"), and LoS (anywhere in line-of-sight). These short-hands are nice, especially because you could potentially change the terms if you wanted larger or shorter values for a given game mode.

For my first action, I knew I had to take care of that watchful rocket-lobber, so I dedicated my sniper to a single powerful shot (thank you, Careful Aim ability). I rolled a d6 and added the +3 bonus from his sniper rifle, getting an 8. Jeremy rolled his defense, also a d6, and added the +2 bonus which his tactical vest armor grants against Piercing-type attacks. My roll was higher, and we got into a GRIP roll off, both of us spending a few dice as this was a pretty pivotal move. But, it went to me, and Jeremy's Leet was shot off of his concrete perch. (Huzzah!)

We went back and forth like this for a while, moving to cover and securing objectives. I was close to winning by objective points, when Jeremy ended up failing his morale test. With nothing left in the GRIP, he was forced to accept that roll and the Rumble Bees routed.

We had a blast with this, and we're really excited for Monger, Prisoners of Gaznak, and all of our GRIP-based projects to come. This really felt like something we've been after for years has finally gelled. We'll have more to show on this soon, hopefully including a video narrative showing a game from start to finish. We're also hoping to get the core universal rules posted up this month, and I'm hard at work on that at the moment.

- Dutchmogul