Monster Friends: Battle for New Florida

What is Monster Friends?

Monster Friends: Battle for New Florida is an indie miniature skirmish game by Tyler Russo (also known online as Billion Dollar Clown Farm), releasing through his studio Orc the Brand. The pitch from the rulebook: every playable monster is mechanically novel and unique, the learning curve stays approachable, and instead of chasing balance the game leans hard into making every monster feel broken and flavorful, in a way that’s hopefully fun.

You play a Monster Friend Party Planner™ from New Florida™, training a small warband of monsters to “fight Good.™”

The game is currently in beta. The rules are free to download, and the designer has committed to keeping them free and online in perpetuity.

How to start

1. Download the free rules. Both PDFs are free now and will stay that way:
   • Core rules: turn structure, list-building, and the core engine.
   • Monster rules: stat cards and abilities for the playable monsters.
2. A roughly 2 ft × 2 ft playing surface.
3. A handful of six-sided dice (d6s).
4. A set of polyhedral RPG dice.
5. A handful of small tokens to track abilities.
6. A small amount of fantasy or Monster Friends-inspired terrain.
7. Monster Friends models. This game is not miniature-agnostic. It’s built around Tyler’s sculpts. The easiest way in is the two-player starter kit ($99.99).

That kit is the smoothest way to get two people playing. It bundles two parties built to synergize, at roughly a 25% discount over buying the monsters one at a time. The Muckland Dirt Scamps are a gambling-based, RNG-heavy horde, while The Defenders of The South Coast Plaza are a buff-based snowball party that stacks its support abilities into something greater than the sum of its parts.

For your first game the rulebook recommends the “Fighting is Fun” scenario.

How to get good

Have fun and enjoy the beta. Try to make your own meta and find cool combos.

What’s in development

• 3- and 4-player rules (the designer is working on them)
• A modular sandbox philosophy. Tyler has explicitly invited the community to invent and homebrew on top of the core game

The Hobbinomicon take

Haven’t played yet. My starter set is still in the mail. But reading through the rules already has me sketching homebrew scenarios in a notebook, planning terrain, and itching to get the sculpts painted up.