Holiday Gift Bag: Munchkin Axe Cop

The holidays will be here before you know it, and we’ve still got more gift recommendations to dig through! Can we finish all this stuff before Christmas? Today, let’s take a look at Munchkin Axe Cop!

If you pay any attention to gaming, you probably have heard of Munchkin, a humorous card game put out by Steve Jackson Games. The basic concept focuses on munchkins — power-mad, cheating, power-gamers who play roleplaying games to WIN instead of playing to have fun. The first game spotlighted the fantasy genre, but the company has come out with plenty of other expansions, with emphasis on science fiction, martial arts, pirates, zombies, goth vampire roleplayers, Westerns, Cthulhu, and of course, even superheroes.

The basic gameplay is the same over all the games: players “kick down a door” by flipping over one of the Door cards, which usually reveal some sort of ridiculous pun-based monster that you have to fight. If you can beat it (by matching your level, plus your bonuses and equipment, against the monster’s level), then you get to draw a Treasure card (which usually has ridiculous pun-based treasure, armor, and weapons) and you go up a level. Of course, your opponents can interfere in the battle, either by helping you fight, or by helping the monster. The first player to level 10 wins and gets to cruelly taunt the losers.

Well, the newest expansion is Munchkin Axe Cop, based on the utterly mad webcomic by Ethan and Malachai Nicolle. All the artwork is by Ethan, the 30-year-old big brother, while the game design is by game industry legend Steve Jackson. And of course, the insane concepts and characters — the cop who keeps turning into different things when blood spills on him, the man wearing the baby costume, the dinosaur with chaingun arms, the baby with a unicorn horn, the nonconformist bunny, the duck who shoots exploding eggs out of his butt, the super-cop carrying a fireman’s axe — are by seven-year-old Malachai.

So how does this play out once you get the cards out of the box? Well, I can tell you you’ll have the most fun if you’re playing with people who are already familiar with Axe Cop. If you pull this game out after Christmas dinner to play with your family, your grandmother, Uncle Ned, and Cousin Merle will probably be pretty confused about the game where one of the villains is made of candy, a flute is considered a dangerous weapon, and Abraham Lincoln is an Explosion God. Better stick with Monopoly with folks who are unfamiliar with either Munchkin or Axe Cop.

But for people who are pretty clued in about the goofy cutthroat fun of Munchkin and the delirious lunacy of Axe Cop? Those folks are gonna love it, and they’ll probably love it as a Christmas gift. It’ll run you about $25, but that’s a lot of cards and a lot of fun.

Munchkin Axe Cop from Steve Jackson Games. Go pick it up.