"Monster Island at Recon 2008" Topic

I ran Monster Island, a game of giant (Godzilla-type) monster combat, at Recon 2008 on Satuday (5/3/08).

It was a mixture of adults and youngters. I hope everyone had as much fun as I did running it.

The monsters have their own MI (Monster Island) names to avoid copyright issues, but for this posting I'm going to use their more commonly known "movie names".

We had Godzilla, King Kong, Gamara, Mothra, Rodan, Destroya-crab, Smog-monster, and a 2-headed dragon (called Tigan) that could breathe fire from 1 head & ice from the other.

For those of you familiar with the rules I played it with a few changes. Rolling for inititive every turn slows the game down making it a little boring for youngters so I went to similtanious (spelling?) movement and attacks.

Starting off I had eveyone roll 3d6… the highest got to choose their minature 1st and the rest in desending order. After all the monsters were chosen then the players got their stat sheets to find out what their monsters could do. I was surprised that the Hulk & Thing miniatures were not chosen. The Hulk was an iradiated 300ft man and the Thing was a living lava creature. Oh-well.

The game started with Gamara flaming Smog-monster from the rear then ducking behind a nearby mountain. Smoggy teleported away. Tigan went right to it with blasts of fire & ice while Destroya charge into close attack range. Rodan squatted on top of a mountain claiming to be making a nest.. ?!? The rest of the monsters moved closer to the center of the table.

Kong fell into an excellent system of ripping up Redwood trees (or rocks) and throwing them at the others on every turn… monsters with blasts can only use them every other turn… giving Kong a faster rate of fire. There were a couple of team-up on Mothra but the short attention spans prevailed and Mothra escaped to a nearby mountain top to recover somewhat.

But then Mothra made the mistake of trying to web Godzilla. You just don't try to do that to the "King" of monsters. Mothra was downed in about 2 turns after that.

Monsters dropped right and left until it came down to the 2 true kings of the monsters… Godzilla vs King Kong.

They stood toe-to-toe (or is that claw-to-claw?) and traded strikes, blasts, bites, and punches. Both had hard times scoring a hit… Kong because of some bad dice rolls… Godzilla because Kong was so agile (come on – Godzilla moves like a guy dressed up in a rubber suit while King Kong moves like a CGI).

Godzilla finally won the day and stood roaring over the downed anthropoid.

Godzilla's player, smokeyroan, won a printed copy of the rules, a CD with all the rule/supplements on it, and a box of 10 monsters for his gaming pleasure. Smokeyroan already had the monsters so he allowed the box to be raffeled off to one of the other players. VERY nice of him.

King Kong's player got the CD rules and a box of monsters.

Rodan's player got a copy of the CD rules.

I had a blast running the game in a convention environment and had some excellent players.

Looking forward to next year.

That sounds like a great time, I just bought the rules the other week and they look like a hoot.

What box of monsters did you use? When I've played it, 12-18" monsters were used. So a box of 10 of those would get pretty pricey.

I think they were made by Bandi (?) or something like that.

They are about 2.5 to 3 inches tall. Having them at this size means that my terrain can be used for other things than just MI. Like my Pulp gaming, etc…

"Kong fell into an excellent system of ripping up Redwood trees (or rocks) and throwing them at the others on every turn… monsters with blasts can only use them every other turn… giving Kong a faster rate of fire."

We've found in our games that you have to limit the availability of throwable items for this very reason. The 'Kong' monster in the rules is already quite a powerful opponent, as it has virtually no points invested in powers so has high stats across the board. Give it enough throwing material to give it the equivalent of a blast attack every turn and it's almost unbeatable.

Nice report; I like the Bandai 3" monsters – they look really good on a standard wargames table.

How did Tigan do, by the way? We've found that the Extra Heads power is actually pretty feeble, as the investment to get the heads is more than offset by weaker attacks and defences.

Warrens made a long drive, threw a GREAT game, then went all out on prizes!

The highlight for me was when Kong threw a tree that hit Mothra right between the eyes!

Or me, after I killed Kong, hoping the girl would throw all 6's on her last throw so that I would finish second and not have to beat a little girl :O

At first, I thought his numerous trees should have had heavier bases, but that was before I realized the kids (and the adults) enjoyed actually tossing them to add to the drama!

Thank you Warren (he is a perfect GM)! The kids loved it!

If you ever throw another MI game, I'll be glad to hep!

I'm collecting pics of the game and will post them!

My kids loved this game. My daughter was determined to whip up on the boys after they called her "blondie king kong". I had to listen to another battle in the backseat all the way home. Thanks alot smokeyroan.
Just kidding, thanks for the figures and a good time Warren.

Super heroes for the kids would also be a good game, with the powerful bad guys and henchmen played by a couple or three GM's and the kid's (and grown kids too) having to work together to win.

LOL Leadjunky! Her "Quiet! I'm trying to concentrate!" when she had that big dice roll coming up was a classic!

Any links for these Bandai toys?

Get 'em at KB Toys (outlet or store). $14.99 USD a set gives you 2 Godzillas, Mothra, Mothra as a larvae, some bad ass scorpian like thing, Mechagodzilla, and more (including that irritating "Godzilla's Son" figure.

And, thank you again Warren and kids! That was too much fun!

Alan, your website gave me the ideas to switch over to the Bandai figures… I've been stealing ideas from you for years!!! LOL!

I'm thinking about making a home rule where the monster has to "grab", aim, then throw on the next turn – making it the same rate of fire. Also thinking about letting monsters try to break out of an entangle at the beginning of their turn – if they succeed they may move and attack normally.

The "book" version of Tigan is way too weak. Since I only had a 2-headed Dragon I took the 10 points from the 3rd head and made a 3d6 entangle and added the rest of the points to strength. My Tigan could blast fire from one head and ice (entangle) to freeze with the other head.

When the boys called her "blondie King Kong" and I saw the gleam in her eyes I thought Kong would off like a spidermonkey on their hind quarters. LOL! And I loved her, "Quiet! I'm trying to concentrate!" You would had been proud of her, Leadjunky… she darn near cleaned off the table. She just ran out of trees.

I'm glad everyone had a great time. I sure did!

Yeah, it helped that we kinda sorta didn't attack eachother (some would say we had an alliance, but they can't prove it :O ) till the very end!

Black Cavalier, I got most of mine off of good ol' Ebay.

What about the trees, Warren? I need them in a bad way! ;)

We have a store up here in Augusta, GA that's called Hobbytown. Ideals mostly with folks in the train building/modeling hobby. I get the trees from there. About $7 USD something for a pack of 8 trees. I bought 3 packs and never seem to have run short yet.

I was worried at having 2 tables to cover with scenery but it seemed to work out all right.

hobbytown.com

Cool! Our gaming group holds a game at our Hobbytown every month! I never noticed them. Thanks.

BTW Warren, Email me at GoCanesBA@AOL.com so we have a communication link! ;)

Toys R Us around here have had Bandai's Pack Of Destruction figs on clearance for $3. USD

Smokey – my email is warrernss2(at)yahoo(dot)com

miniMo, thanks for the ToysRUs lead. I haven't been there in so long. What section did you find them in? A clearance section? A action figure monster section?

Black Cavalier,

I bought the boxes I used for prize/winnings in (or at least "near") the section where they have their action figures.

We B Toys had them in the action figure section.

BTW, "Its the Game of Giant Monster Combat!"

I just loved saying that every turn!

;)

Black Cavalier,

You might also try an Ebay search of "bandai pack of destruction".

I've also picked up some usefull figures from the Yugio (spelling?) line. Cyclops, Kraken, a wasp type critter, and a monster with sharp blades/spikes.

Wixkids' Mech Warrior as given me a couple or giant robot types. Plus I use their infantry minis to represent units of army… they also have good tank types… both small ( for "normal" tanks) and large (great for army special invention tanks). I've gotten a mobile command truck, 2 nice "Ogre" sized tanks (think Steve Jackson's Ogre game), and a flying Laser/Blaster tank.

For the most part I just hit the toy figurine section in Wallmart, KB Toys, Toys R Us, Target, etc… as long as their in the 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5 inch range

It doesn't take long at all to build up a good Kaiju (Japanese for "monster") collection.

You could go with the larger 4 – 6 inch range if you like but my kitchen table is only about 3.5(W) to 5.5(L) feet and I had to go with something a little bit on the small size.