Insecta Rules!: A Review

Awakened

First Post
If you have heard of or played insecta, or have any other reviews like mine, please post. Now, let us start. You will learn much about the Jesus of miniatures games (aka Insecta), young grasshopper.

Ok... here is the greatest story of all time. After my friends and I finished off some ice cream, we headed up to a local comics place and looked through the 1.00 game section. And there, low and behold, was the best book of rules ever, under the name of Insecta second edition.
The cover looked like some trippy, psychedelic pic of a group of warring insects, and the whole game consisted of a bag with over 900,000 paperclips, nearly as many sheets of unperforated counters, and some random bug miniatures thrown in, courtesy of several vending machines picked with care across the United States. Anxiously, I brought the zip locked bag that held the game together up to the man behind the counter. And then, I made the greatest decision of my life. I handed that man a dollar. And seven cents for tax.
I could hardly contain myself on the ride home, and upon reaching my house I feverishly cut out the four hundred billion counters and bound them with all together with the convieniently included paper clips. Then, I plowed through 17 chapters of educational wargame rules, learning that Insecta did NOT limit itself to insect parts, be cause that would be to unoriginal. They too included crustacean claws and abdomens. When I realized this, I asked God if Jesus had written Insecta, and God said "Yes my son, and it is good. Embrace Insecta, lead my primo insecta miniatures to the promised land." The next day, it was go time.
Bow! wham! pow! After just thirteen hours of backtracking, my eager opponent and I had assembled half the mutant bugs we needed to play! Not to be deterred, we took the rules as 'suggestions' and just played with what we had.
After that, everything was a blur. I guess my "unremarkable ant mutant with a set of wings and a pheromone projector for an ass" flew a few spaces over to my friend's "dragonfly fiendish scorpion armed with AK-47's." I landed with my ass facing the killer insect, and let loose some pheromones onto his face, which seemed to have no effect. Then, my limbs were poisoned and consumed. In an act of mercy, my friend had his killer bug eat my ant's head.
We were pretty sure we were playing wrong and realized that 99% of the enclosed materials (which included words like "Sex" and "Propaganda" on little green counters, which we were, I kid you not, instructed to cut out and fold up into a tent shape) were ignored and not used. Still, I had tremendous fun. I mean, who wouldn't when you've got a couple months to pass and you want to be the first bug to stop the other from "walking, hovering, or whatever"?

INFLUENCE ON MODERN SOCIETY
Insecta has spawned four expansion packs, which add everything from "underwater combat rules" to "catastrophe cards" to the game. Fat Messiah games, known to players as the affectionate "FMG" or the "Father of my Baby" have announced that second edition is sold out! Over two copies have been reportedly produced worldwide, and the website promises a third edition. We can only assume that it will be using the d20 system engine. F'in Aye. F'in Aye.

CONCLUSION
Insecta rules. Only cool kids play it. If you are in fact cool, you play insecta.
Insecta is the most popular game ever, as I have evidence that AT LEAST 5 people besides my friend and I have played it, as disclosed in the picture below. Even the critics love it, as one raved about the out-of-print first edition and the other critic even playtested the game, and was not at all biased or anything. If you have anything in that oversized head of yours, you will eagerly await "3e" and hope that you aren't stomped to death when the "big release" of "nearly three copies" debuts in the basement of Fat Messiah Games, AKA Jim's Basement.

Evaluation
6/5

-Awakened :cool: :] :uhoh: :cool:
 

Attachments

  • Image16.jpg
    Image16.jpg
    25.7 KB · Views: 255
  • Image15.jpg
    Image15.jpg
    23 KB · Views: 227

log in or register to remove this ad

Yes, it's true. I HAVE gotten my hands on a prerelease of Insecta d20. This time, good old JC isn't using a pseudonym.
 

Attachments

  • insecta3ecover.gif
    insecta3ecover.gif
    58 KB · Views: 235






It's actually a good game, but Awakened, your review... ugh. Lord knows what this review is doing in a fiction forum, but there's no minis forum on ENWorld I guess.

I should mention that I got my copy of Insecta about 10 years ago, and I've played it off and on quite a lot. It's a pretty good game.

Yes, there's a lot of things to cut out. But for god's sake, if you can play d20, Insecta should be a breeze.

The pheromone projector is one of the nastiest weapons in the game (although there are perhaps even nastier things in the Rainforest deck). It can convert enemy bugs to your side, force them to attack the nearest bug blindly, force even the fastest bug to move first (giving you the opportunity to sneak around behind it), etc. If your bug has flight it can hover, making it impossible to be attacked in melee unless another bug knocks you to the ground during movement. So you can fly around and zap your enemies until they are all busy slaughtering each other at your command, or you run out of ammunition.

There is basically already a 3rd edition, at least in packaging. The "Mutant Kit" plus any one of the other packs is enough, I believe, to play the game.

d20 relevance? If you wanted to create some sort of "Valley of the Giant Bugs", or otherwise have more monstrous insects in D&D, the enemy non-mutant bugs in the game would give plenty of inspiration for d20 Huge Ambush Bugs, Collosal Tarantulas, etc.
 

CCamfield said:
It's actually a good game, but Awakened, your review... ugh. But for god's sake, if you can play d20, Insecta should be a breeze.

I love negative criticism, but I'm gonna have to... ummm, yeah, disagree with you on that one. I'm glad that I've found a fellow player, and I hope I will be inducted into the Insecta ranks with the proper ceremonies, but- d20 easier than insecta? Man, you must think Champions is a breeze!
But all joking about the 'simplicity' of the system aside, I'd like to know two things about the Son of God's True Game. What is with the crustacean parts, and why- for the love of the author's father why- must their be sex counters alongside propaganda ones! Holy smokes, I can't wrap my head around this one. So from fellow player to fellow player, I'd like to beg humbly for assistance.

And yes, this probably is the wrong forum.

And yes, I would like their to be a "Excessive Paper Clip" forum.
 

Awakened said:
And yes, I would like their to be a "Excessive Paper Clip" forum.

Bwahahahaha :D

Actually I don't like Champions, I think it's too complex ;) For an RPG, anyhow.

Crustacean parts. I don't know... why not? It's true that they're not insects. I don't know how close crustaceans are to insects, biologically... play with them or not as you prefer, I guess.

Unfortunately my copy of Insecta is now packed for moving but here's my take on the pheromones. Can't believe that I can remember all their names!

- Ecdysteroid. Makes a bug smaller/larger. Not generally very useful. Making a bug smaller makes it do less damage, but it's also worth less food if you win the fight. Then again you could make it bigger. Do you feel lucky?

- Diapause. Great for certain bugs that move fast and would otherwise move after you do, like wasps.

- Propaganda. Converting a bug... simple. Difficult to do to bugs with high Instinct, though.

- Sex. Causes a bug to fail all Instinct checks. This means the bug will be unable to leave the same hex as any bug, and will always attack a random closer bug rather than its chosen target. It can be useful for getting enemy bugs to attack each other, particularly if you hit 2 in the same hex. You can then stand next to them and attack, and they will always fail their instinct checks and attach each other instead. Or you can ignore them because they'll never leave their hex.

- Swarm. Bit of a double-edged sword... they attack the nearest bug, but once all the other bugs are gone, that means you. Being able to use all weapons can be really nasty. Watching puss moth caterpillars explode (use all their spines on targets in their hex) is a lot of fun though!

What do you find most complicated? Combat?
 

Remove ads

Top