More Giant Monster Nostalgia

More nostalgia from my original, mostly non-wargames, blog (now invisible to the public for reasons too involved to go into here). This is a report of my first ever giant monster game, from April 10th 2005.

I've mentioned before that we like Godzilla movies. Well, a couple of weeks ago I bought a set of wargames rules for recreating the battles you get in them: 'Monster Island' from Firefly Games. These rules allow you to design your own monsters (or represent ones from various films) and then pit them against each other in mortal combat. The expansion 'Escape From Monster Island' pits the monsters against human military forces and covers the ever popular stomping of Tokyo (or whatever city you fancy).

Today was the first chance we had to try the game out.

Although I have bought a set of figures of Godzilla and his foes from E-Bay they haven't arrived yet, so I raided Cei and Maya's toy-box to find some suitable stand-ins. Catherine, Cei, Maya and myself had a monster each - I had Godzilla (of course), Maya had the pterodactyl-like Rodan, Catherine had a giant snake (Serpente) and Cei had an electrically charged monster we called Volton. We set up a battlefield with plenty of boulders (for throwing), water (for swimming) and quicksand (for getting stuck in), and set to.

The game was great fun. The children picked it up pretty quickly and we all tried a range of different attacks against each other, Indeed our one short game managed to encompass most of the rules in the game as we lobbed rocks, and each other, about the field, clawed, bit and crushed or breathed fire and shot electricity at each other.

Rodan was the first to fall, grabbed by Godzilla and dumped in some quicksand. Before the big lizard could celebrate his victory, though, Serpente and Volton hit him together and knocked him out. Serpente then turned on Volton and, shrugging off the electrical attack, constricted him in his mighty coils. Victory to the big snake.

Giant monsters fight. In the centre Godzilla grabs Rodan in a mighty embrace, whilst Serpente slithers out of the water to the left and Volton creeps up behind Godzilla.

A fun game and highly recommended.

I also found some photos of another game we played a week or so later, but not a corresponding report. The plant monster, Metacrinus, and the red robot, Ronin-X, still feature in games. 

Nostalgia, eh?

(The girl in the background of the first two photos is my daughter, Maya. She was eight then. She's now heading towards seventeen. And as big a nerd as I am ... )