Clash of Chaos and Confetti #28: Smash Up

The Premise and Standings

Each week we’ll face off in a best of three series playing a different board game from our collection.  The winner claims the moniker of C&C Clash Champ for the week.  The loser feels smushed and smashed.  The lesser player also gets to choose the game for the next week.

We will maintain a record of wins and losses throughout the year to see who finishes 2022 as the ultimate board game champ in our household.

Our current C&C Champion is Confetti after winning last week’s Happy Little Dinosaurs face off.

Pre-Clash Current Standings:

• Weekly Winner: 13 Chaos – 13 Confetti
• Individual game wins:  39 Chaos – 34 Confetti

After losing last week, Chaos has chosen Smash Up.

The Game – Smash Up

Smash Up is all about creating the crossovers you’ve always dreamed of and then having them fight each other in deck to deck combat.  

Over its ten year history, Smash has released dozens of factions.  Each player will chose two of these factions to combine to create one super team.  From Ninja Grannies to Giant Ant Aliens to Time Traveling Sheep, there are an insane number of combination possibilities.  Once everyone has their team set up, the game can start.

Each players’ deck is made up of minion and action cards.  Minions do the battling while actions support players in their plans.  On their turn, each player is allowed to play one minion and one action, unless their cards allow them to do differently.  These two card types can be played in any order and do not need to be used at all if that doesn’t fit the masterplan.  

Action cards will generally do whatever they say on them.  They may be one-off abilities or may permanently affect a minion or base as long as they’re in play.

What’s a base?  That’s where you play minions!  Minions come in with power levels (their strength) and some also get special abilities which will be clearly stated on their cards.  The minon’s power levels are not for fighting each other directly, but instead for breaking bases.  Every base also has a power level/breaking point.  When the strength of the minions played on a base is reached or surpassed, the base will break at the end of the turn.

When bases break, the total strength of each players’ minions there are added up (along with any modifiers).  On the base is labeled the number of victory points the top three players earn for breaking the base.  The base is then discarded along with all minions and actions played there.  A new base will replace the old and the game will continue from there.

Overall, the rules for Smash Up are pretty straightforward.  Play minions onto bases to break them for points.  Use actions to help yourself or hurt your opponents.  The first player to fifteen victory points wins! 

Where Smash Up gets really interesting and fun is the strategy that comes from the many different types of actions and the many different abilities that minions bring with them as well.  Even the bases all have special rules that shake up game play.  Each game of Smash Up is unique and you never know how it will go, and that’s even before adding in the madness cards of cthulhu, treasures of the munchkin word, giant sized titans, and crossovers with established franchises such as Marvel and Disney.  Smash Up really is about throwing together as many goodies as they can.

Chaos’ Pre-Clash Thoughts:

After the last few weeks, I’m starting to think that maybe having cute and tough monsters smash into one another isn’t my area of strength right now.  I’m going to give it one more try though.  Smash Up can be a little swinging and finicky depending on the factions used, but that’s often where the fun comes in.  Hopefully the sometimes unbalanced, craziness lands in my favor this time around.

Confetti’s Pre-Clash Thoughts:

I’m a little surprised Chaos picked Smash Up, because it is a game I have a pretty good win record on. If he wants to help me keep my winning streak alive though, who am I to argue? On to victory I go!

Game 1 –

The first game saw Chaos’ Dinosaur Goblins vs. Confetti’s Princess Avengers (even though Chaos thinks that Princess Avengers is an overpowered combination).

The early game was all about the Princess Avengers.  With all minions of strength 5, the deck packs a lot of power and can easily dominate bases.  It’s possible weakness can be running low on minions or being too slow.  Thankfully for Confetti, “Avengers Assemble” allowed her to repeatedly shuffle minions back into her deck and Sleeping Beauty is never gone for long.  It may have also helped that Chaos hit a streak of turns where he had no minions to play and only actions that required minions to be out.

This was Chaos’ first time playing with Goblins and he did enjoy their coin flip mechanic.  The lack of minions just kept him from picking up any steam early on.  As the clash entered the later game, he needed to somehow build up points while not allowing Confetti to score any since she was already so close.  He was able to begin mounting a comeback, but eventually the growing power of the Princess Avengers was too much, especially as small bases of size 15 and 20 hit play.

In the end, Princess Avengers maintained their household undefeated streak and the Dinosaur Goblins went extinct.

Game 1 Winner – Confetti

Game 1 Score: 11 Chaos – 15 Confetti

Game 2 –

Chaos went full beast mode with Werewolves and Bear Calvary (WereBears!) for round two.  Confetti opted for Polynesian Voyagers Kitty Cats because she enjoys cuteness and (not) Moana.

This game immediately took a turn into the interesting as Maui upped the available bases from three to five.  This gave both players a lot more to consider and a lot more breathing room to lay out potential plans.  

The WereBears did their thing by killing Confetti’s smaller minions and slowly building up power on bases.  They also did their best to foil Confetti’s plans by constantly moving her minions around.  Confetti meanwhile leaned heavily into the Polynesian Voyagers mechanic of tattooing everything!  Here tattoos not only boosted her minion strength but also allowed many of them to slowly build up +1 counters.  This turned them into ticking timebombs at every base as they inched toward breaking them and raking in the points.

Chaos knew that the longer the game went the more likely Confetti’s giants would steamroll him.  He quickly started trying to build up power in places while pushing Confetti out in order to score points alone.  Unfortunately for him, the voyagers were more than happy to move back to where they needed to be while the kittens supported them with mind control on Chaos’ minions.

This game went on for quite a while with both players repeatedly stopping each other and bouncing back from setbacks.  

In the end though, the WereBears couldn’t muster strength quickly enough to stop the tattooed titans known as Polynesian Kittens from claiming victory.

Game 2 Winner – Confetti

Game 2 Score – 12 Chaos – 16 Confetti

Game 3 –

Both players agreed to use completely randomized teams for the final bout.  The random number generator gave Chaos Elder Things mixed with Mythic Horses (Elder Horses) and bestowed Confetti with Grimm’s Fairy Tales combined with Penguins (Grimm’s Penguins).

Neither player had much if any experience with some of their chosen factions.  This lead to a lot of short term planning and hoping for the best.  Confetti’s Grimm side did a good job of giving her some deck searching in order to help boost her minions by properly pairing them and her titan, Emperor Penguin, did his part, even if it didn’t amount to much this game.

Chaos’ tactics broke into two parts.  First, he knew that he had to drop as many minions as possible since the horses loved having friends around.  Second, the Elder Things provided plenty of minion help but their madness mechanic was essential to future victory (Confetti called it a one-sided cheat in this setup).  The madness cards offered Confetti some draw power, but at the cost of future victory points.

The bases broke quickly to both mixes of minions and to individual players.  On the surface the game felt very neck and neck.  It did not take long for Confetti to be the first to fifteen points.  However, madness had set in!  With two madness cards in her deck, she had to deduct a point from her total.  This meant she and Chaos were tied at 14 apiece.  Madness runs deep though and in the event of a tie, whoever has fewer madness cards wins.  For another week, Chaos found victory too late, but he at least prevented a shut out.

Game 3 Winner – Chaos

Game 3 Score – 14 Chaos – 14 Confetti (tie broke by madness cards)

Your Winner and Still C&C Clash Champion: Confetti!!!

Chaos’ Post-Clash Thoughts:

I guess Smash Up and luck were not on my side this week.  That sadly puts me on a bit of a losing streak for these clashes.  Sigh.

Confetti’s Post-Clash Thoughts:

I’m the champion, woo! I think this is my longest winning streak yet. I’m excited to keep it going, hopefully I can eventually get that complete shutout victory too!

New Standings:

Post-Clash Standings:

• Weekly Winner: 13 Chaos – 14 Confetti
• Individual game wins: 40 Chaos – 36 Confetti

Next Week:

We recently received I’m Right You’re Wrong and have been playtesting it a bit.  What better way to break it in than with a full on clash!?!?