Monster Hunter International
- Board's Eye View
- 13 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Based on the novels of fantasy writer Larry Correia, Monster Hunter International is a head-to-head two-player tabletop skirmish game designed by Christopher Batarlis and Stephen Cooper, and published by Everything Epic. It incorporates a variety of modes so it can be played in different ways, but however you play it's a fun dice-chucking experience that's enhanced by the high quality of the minis that Everything Epic have produced for the game.
You assemble your teams of hunters and monsters, including not just characters from the books but even the author himself, whose miniature has him riding into battle on the back of a manatee! The game comes with a double-sided board, one side of which incorporates a visible grid overlay. If you play on that side, you can use the grid to measure range and ensure players don't move their minis further than they should. If you play using the other side of the board where the inch squares are less pronounced you can use a tape measure or the supplied ruler, as is traditional in skirmish games. Either way, players will need to make use of cover and line-of-sight rules. Characters are eliminated if their health is reduced to zero but the game includes the facility to revive an eliminated character and bring them back onto the board. In the most basic, Hunt mode, MHI is just about attacking the opposition but other modes incorporate rewards for a kill, giving your characters an upgrade card.
The rules are straightforward and they even include a walkthrough to get you started, so you can be up and running and playing MHI pretty much straight out of the box and without the need for fiddly set up, which is often a faff with other skirmish games. The lore book that's supplied will help to bring players up to speed with the MHI universe, its characters and monsters, and even a bit of its alternative world history, which involves US President Teddy Roosevelt...
You don't have to be a fan of Larry Correia's novels to enjoy this game, but if you are then Monster Hunter International is surely a 'must have' buy. And for members of the Board's Eye View team who came to the game wholly unfamiliar with the ISP, playing the game and reading the accompanying lore book has launched us on a path to now discover the novels. It's also enthused us to play Everything Epic's Monster Hunter International: Classified expansion, which adds two new factions to the game: the Monster Control Bureau and the Shackleford Vampire Coven. Yet more dice-chucking fun and more great minis!
