Flying High

At the moment I'm preparing some bits for a giant monster game next week - 'Mighty Monsters' to be precise. One feature of the game is that there are three altitude levels with regard to flying/floating/hovering things - Ground, Nape Of The Earth (NOE) and High. Currently I use clear plastic cups to show flying monsters; the Bandai HG figurines I use sit very nicely on them when they're upturned, and they sit nicely over terrain pieces as well. With the cups I can, of course, show Flying and Not Flying. But I realised I could show the intermediate NOE level as well, by cutting some of the cups down a little. They're fairly sturdy and took a bit of chopping very easily. And now I can do this:

On the right Godzilla is on the Ground. The three-headed Ghidorah faces him at NOE. And behind him the mighty Space Godzilla floats at High. Monsters on the ground and at NOE can engage each other, whilst those at High can only fight other monsters at High in close combat. I think the different cups make this a little more obvious than just using a counter or other marker on the one size.

And, yes, I'm still using Lego for buildings. I intend, at some stage, to come up with a more 'realistic' alternative- perhaps some downloadable paper/card construction ones. It really depends on what rules I decide to settle on; 'Giant Monster Rampage' needs a way of showing hits on buildings, and Lego works well, as you can remove blocks as the buildings take hits. Buildings in 'Mighty Monsters' are generally destroyed by a single hit, so are either there, or not. This means that they can just be removed and replaced with rubble; no damage indicators are needed.

Incidentally, until I read the 'Mighty Monsters' rules I'd never come across the phrase Nape Of The Earth.