Hello!  My name is Jeff “Gearbox” Mitchell and I managed to win the two-monster tournament at Lock and Load 2019.  

    As of this writing, that was two days ago.  For those not in the know, Lock and Load is the Privateer Press exclusive convention put on by the company themselves.  It’s an opportunity to rub elbows with the developers and talk shop with this fantastic community in person while competing at the highest level.  I’ve had multiple requests for an event writeup from my perspective, specifically surrounding the tournament, so here’s my report about the whole weekend.

    Up at 3 in the morning for 6 hours of travel from San Francisco to the hotel.  Got there just in time for the Keynote to start.

    The Keynote was great!  Revealing Savage Swarm and Elemental Champions; revealing never before seen units; confirming Ulgoth; revealing Sgt. Titanica and that Green Fury is its own faction now.  All good!  There was also some stuff about 3 other games, but we don’t care about those.  Ulgoth!

    After the Keynote I hung out in the MonPoc section of the Iron Arena just hanging out and getting my models out.  I got to meet Julia, the etsy maker who made my embroidered Guard dice bag.  Talked shop with a pile of cool people, and started making friends.  Then Oz, the lead developer on MonPoc, came over to get the Narrative event rolling.

    However, before the Narrative event, it’s time to talk about The List.  I ran one list in all dozen plus games I played over the course of the weekend.  It’s a mono-guard list built mainly around incombustible buildings that can be repaired easily.

Monsters
Defender X
-Hyper Defender X
Sky Sentinel
-Hyper Sky Sentinel
 
Units
6 G-Tank
2 G-Tank Elite
2 Repair Truck
2 Rocket Chopper
6 Strike Fighter
2 Strike Fighter Elite
 
Buildings
3 Apartment Building
2 Communications Array
2 Corporate Headquarters
2 G.U.A.R.D. Defense Base
1 Mount Terra
2 Power Plant

    The List is simple, straightforward, efficient, and effective.  The opening turn is the March of the G-Tanks as they get into positions to power up for 5+ power dice.  The second turn is jockeying for screened positions holding as many white dice in Monster Pool as possible.  Third turn is generally exploding into the midfield to exploit a positioning mistake by my opponent.  Calamity Park is my preferred map, but I chose Isle of Annihilation against an Armodax list at one point during the weekend.

    The roles are simple.  G-tanks hold points and buildings.  Strike fighters reap power dice from destroying enemy units.  Repair trucks bring back power plants and Guard bases.  Rocket Choppers spot.  And the monsters exploit High Mobility to set up “alley oop” throws.

    An Alley Oop is when you throw or body slam an enemy monster into the loving arms of your other monster, then throw or body slam that same enemy monster into a massive pile of damage.  It can only be done if your opponent doesn’t screen or you have a screen breaker; but I managed to pull it off in all but two of my roughly dozen games over the weekend.

    I practiced with this list for months.  After swapping the 4th apartment for a Mount Terra, I was prepared.  Note that the Corp HQs are mostly just Def 6 apartment buildings.  I think I should have taken just one as an anti-shinobi/Hammerklak tech piece.  The most important piece is the Guard Defense base.  Missing a vital throw in this game is a tragedy.  The reroll option is crucial to any Guard force, and worth including one of for any competitive force at all.

    So, let’s get down to the Narrative Event!  First, we were divided into Protectors and Destroyers.  Thankfully, it was an even split.  Then Oz brought out the map of North America.  Each city had a point cost from 2-4 and if you won the battle for that city, you got a card with an ability you could use once a game in the later rounds.  Two-point cost cities had better abilities.  If you lost, you got a card that let you gain 3 power dice once a game in the later rounds.  3 total rounds, and final cities were all worth 4.

    I successfully defended Ottawa from a Planet Eater pair and Columbus from Cthugrosh and Gorghadra before getting the opportunity to defend my hometown of San Francisco.  That was a single monster game against Gorghadra, piloted by a wonderful woman who had only been playing for a week.  This major experience disparity between the Destroyer and Protector players was evident after I drove off the planet eater threat to the bay area. Protectors ended the event with more than double the points of the Destroyers, and there were free Chibi pins for the winning team.  My new Defender X pin is on my bag strap.  It’s awesome.

    One issue with the event was that it had no clocks.  Which is great for casual, learning play, but problematic when every game must end before the next round can start.  It was around this time that I heard there had been 9 players in the Single Monster tournament, and that some guy online named Vicarious had won the whole thing.  But it was dinner time.

    I went to Mox’s Boarding House in Bellevue to meet with an online buddy of mine.  We had some good food, good drinks, and talked about many things including MonPoc.  Then back to the hotel room and into bed at around 10pm for rest before the tournament at 8 am the next day.

    The tournament took a little time to get rolling, but by 9:30 the 14 of us were rolling dice and hitting chess clocks.

    First round:  I played against Defender X and Zor Maxim.  My opponent was unused to facing a mono-guard force, and I managed to pick off Zor Maxim with minimal damage taken, and then cleaned up the big robot.  After this loss, my opponent dropped from the tournament.

    Second round:  I played against Richard’s Yasheth/Diemos combo.  The monster combo seemed tailored to face off against any Armodax players that might be in the tournament.  Unfortunately for him, I didn’t see any Armodax’s at the actual tournament that I recall.  I pushed up on my first monster turn into the left hand corner of Isle of Annihilation, he moved Diemos up to the corner of two buildings, made an attack and then stepped away from the 2 buildings on my west end of the map.  This mistake allowed Sky Sentinel to fly over those now ungrappled buildings and send Yasheth into an Alley Oop by Defender X for 8 damage.  After that, it was cleanup on Yasheth and tag teaming Diemos.

    Third round:  I played against Gorghadra/Hammerklak.  I did get an 8 damage Alley Oop off on Hammerklak into my opponent’s powerbase.  This resulted in a reasonably quick game.  At the end, in a conversation with a friend, my opponent commented that my list was “too fast and dice efficient,” to handle.  A fair analysis of the strengths of The List.

    Final Round: Two men enter, one man leaves.  There were now two players with perfect records at this time.  Mike “Vicarious” Ireland, and myself.  I knew that he had won the single monster, and that he was hungry to sweep the convention.  He brought Hammerklak/Ares.  He brought Shadow Sun Building tech in his list, but building placement set the only backline one in the far corner by only 2 spawn points.  He never got to exploit Underground Network the entire game.  The early game was an Alley Oop for 8 on Hammerklak, and 7 damage on Defender X.  Defender X went into position to finish off Hammerklak, and then got thrown for 5 damage.  I could have Tectonic Shifted, but didn’t realize I had the Mt. Terra Secured.  Then it was 11 health Ares against 11 health Sky Sentinel.  I managed to land a body slam on the saucer despite steady, and I had the power dice to burn due to my superior power base.  In the end, I was victorious.

    I won the Donut Factory, and picked up a foil Cthugrosh card for my practice buddy.  He loves his Brewgrosh.  Deathclock Dave (a youtuber you can find here) raffled off some stuff to the participants.  After that, went back to the hotel room to toast my victory privately.  And yell and hoot and holler and do all the things that make overall winners obnoxious when done in public.

    Then it was down to the store to get swag, and off to the Iron Arena to get a couple games in.

    Played against Eddie, an old school player who brought Hammerklak/Rogzor.  Managed to get an Alley Oop off into his power base and then cleaned up after that.

    Played against my buddy from San Francisco who actually is the one that convinced me to accompany him to Lock and Load.  He didn’t set up his powerbase properly on turn one, and I used my significant power dice generation advantage to pick apart his Rogzor/Gorghadra combo.

    Dinner time came.  Went back to Mox’s, this time with Riker’s Iron (a painting streamer who you can find here) and his crew of misfits.  Three hours later we’re back at the hotel and it’s time for Midnight MonPoc!

    Midnight MonPoc was an unsanctioned unofficial tournament Riker put on between 6 players for the glory of the Golden Crush Cup; a significant trophy consisting of a dollar store T-Rex superglued to the top of a dollar store trophy cup.  Very prestigious.  This was the first time it was run and Mike “Vicarious” Ireland was one of the 6.

    First Round: Played against Glenn.  He was playing his 4th ever game so I was cocky.  I played sloppy and goth thrown for 5 twice.  But it was on 2 separate monsters so I had the resources to keep the game going and win out in the end.

    Second Round: Rematch time!  Mike and I sat down at 1:30 in the morning, both with drinks in our hands, and threw dice.  He got first turn and immediately used his secured Sun Industries Building to drop a Crawler right in my backline.  Preventing me from playing the March of the G’tanks.  I had to spawn strike fighters and struggle for a power base.  Contribute my sloppy play and suddenly he’s traded Hammerklak for Sky Sentinel.  I can’t beat Ares with Defender X while my power base is in shambles the entire game, and he tosses me around like a rag doll.  Ends with 4 damage on Ares and I suffer my first and only loss of the weekend.  A great game against a great opponent who, at one point, got up from his chair to go find his alcohol.  I’m looking forward to our rematch next year, Mike!

    At this point it was 3 in the morning and the dev hangout would start at 10 am.  I convinced Riker to hold off on the next round until after the hangout.  Off to bed to sleep.

    Next morning, check out of the hotel room and then head on over to the Dev Hangout.  Oz and Faye were great.  They spoiled tons of stuff, answered many great questions, acknowledged the community’s struggles in the opening 9 months and laid out some future plans.

    Back to the Iron Arena at noon to finish off the Midnight MonPoc.  I played against Rusty (another twitch streamer who is here).  He brought Terra Khan and Armodax and I chose Isle of Annihilation to force Armodax into fire hazards.  Terra Khan got alley ooped and Armodax kept taking fire damage.  Final game of the convention before they kicked us out of the hall.  Mike “Vicarious” Ireland won the Midnight MonPoc trophy, and I placed 3rd.

    After this, I hung out with Riker some more, got some tacos, got a teaching game in, and made it to the airplane just in time to board.  Flew home, and was in bed by two in the morning on Monday, ready for a fresh day of work in 6 hours.

    So, what did I take away from the Convention?  5 things

1) The community is awesome.  Everyone I talked to about MonPoc was excited to talk about MonPoc.  In the entire weekend of games, only one of my opponents seemed to not be having fun while I was crushing them on the board.  Everyone was happy to share where they had found the awesome dice tracking board; how they had embroidered the dice bags; how they saw the board and what went wrong during the game.  Even during the hyper competitive 2 monster event, people were joking and helpful and teaching each other stuff like how Underground Network worked.

2) The Devs for this are awesome.  Oz was on point for rules clarity, willing to take questions even when not at the hangout, and very transparent about the process and how his mind works.  I saw him sign one guy’s rulebook and a bunch of people’s neoprene Isle of Annihilation maps.  He let me interrupt the demo he was running with a rules clarity question, and was willing to discuss why he made the ruling he did.

3) The community is learning.  I went 12-1 over the whole weekend.  Not all the players were looking to compete, and I acknowledge that, but of the 20-30 MonPoc players I interacted with, I felt like about a fifth of them were on my level of game knowledge and understanding.  Even then, I’m still growing as a player, Mike hasn’t been playing for long, r/MonPoc has less than 750 subscribers, and we’re still developing terminology.  Screening is a known term.  1.0 is a known term.  But we’re just now getting into Monster Pairing articles and List Building and Alley Oops and I’m trying to make Vectors a term we use to discuss the game.  This game is not solved by any means or any one.  The community is rising together in skill and understanding.
 
4) Defending this title will not be easy.  MonPoc 2.0 has been on the shelf for 9 months.  I’m playing against players with months of experience while I’ve got years of 1.0 under my belt.  There are only 14 monsters and 84 pairings I need to understand.  Next year, there will be 12 months of dev time and product to consider.  Players will be much better.  The competitive scene will grow.  I’m looking forward to it.
 
5) It’s worth it to press on with labors of love.  I wanted this victory.  This title.  I put brush to paint to model for the first time to get The List painted up.  I learned how to use an airbrush.  I practiced every week for months and months to hone my skills and understanding.  I grew as a player and as a person as the community grew.  Even if I had lost in that final table, it would have been okay.  I love this game.  I love the community that is growing around this game.  We’re in this together, and no one person’s accomplishment shines brighter than the joy we all find in Monsterpocalypse.

    So there you have it.  My report on how I survived and thrived at Lock and Load.  Feel free to leave a comment if you have further questions and I will try to make everything clear.  I hope you enjoyed reading this and want you to remember the most important thing to do while playing MonPoc:

Have Fun!

Jeff “Gearbox” Mitchell
 

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