Monster Bash Strategy Guide by Cayle George

 

Cayle is currently ranked 13th in the World Pinball Player Rankings.  His profile and some of his recent wins are at:

 

 http://www.pinballrankings.com/player.php?player_id=615

 

  Those of us who live in the Seattle area all know to expect Cayle to show up and win any tournament held locally. (grumble, grumble)

 

Here’s his guide on how to slay Monster Bash…

 

 

This strategy assumes you are playing on location where extra balls are enabled, so the strategy is a bit different than what would be used in tournament mode. (if in tournament mode ignore the items about extra balls). The assumption here is also made that you are familiar with the basic rules of Monster Bash.
 
First off remember that you get an extra ball ever time you lite the third monster head, so you could theoretically just rush through monsters all day and keep getting extra balls and never end your game. So if you don't take any risks trying to force the acquisition of instruments, you are better served. You can always re-start a monster mode, but you cant get your ball back. So you want to apply that mentality to what I consider the basic strategy of monster bash:
 
Set up all the monsters, open frank, start all monsters, start frank, start MonsterBash (MB), get Monsters of Rock (MOR).
 
The first stage being: Set up all the monsters, open frank, start all monsters, start frank
 
If you do this, you will come out of  frank multiball with monster bash lit (or MOR if you have all the instruments collected).
 
This is the order I prefer:
 
- Light all bride ramp shots except leave the final right ramp shot uncollected. (why the right ramp? its harder to accidentally hit and accidentally start bride IMO)
- Light all except the last full moon fever shot. (only ever shoot left wolfman lane)
- Light all except the last creature shot.
- Now get the ball on the left flipper and light drac attack (it will be at scoop after hitting targets). (the reason to light this toward the end is that you may get some "free" hits from missing other shots earlier, and you don't want any drac hits to be wasted). This can also get some frank hits.
- Open up frank. To do this, I trap the ball on the left flipper, and backhand the left edge of the left most frank target. This does two things. First, from a backhand there is less force and it is easier to recover the ball from frank. 2, if you hit it right, the ball will rattle into the bride lane, then tip off the blue target for an easy re-trap on the right flipper. Then post pass to the left flipper, and hit frank again.
 
So when frank is open and everyone is lit (note: mummy may or not be lit, this is OK):  
 
Start creature.
Live trap to cradle on left flipper.
Shoot right ramp to start bride.
Shoot left lane to start wolf man.
Trap ball out of pops and shoot scoop to start drac (and maybe mummy, but dot worry bout mummy if not lit)
Trap ball out of scoop and start frank.
 
So now you have 5 or 6 (with mummy) monsters going.
If you have 6 you get a nice "monster bonus"  15M points.
Now remember for every monster you have going into frank MB, the less hits you need to get that first keyboard - so 2 at most, and if you have mummy going as well, 1 hit and you have franks keyboard.
Once you get the keyboard, focus on the other instruments, personally I focus on bride first and then the others.
 
When your multiball ends, mummy should be lit at the scoop (mummy po-hits can be built during multiball), or if you already had mummy going Monster bash will be lit (or MOR, if so you get a cookie). Either way shoot the scoop to start or light MB, (by starting MB or starting Mummy). Now remember when you end frank, any monsters you didn't collect instruments for will still be running, so you now have all these monsters running in Monster Bash as well. During Monster Bash, collect the remaining instruments and you will go into MOR. (if you feel confident, you can try and milk Monster Bash -  say there is one hit on drac left till MOR. Cradle a ball on the left flipper at the ready to hit drac, and use the other balls on the right to rape the center, creature and wolfman. When they drain, smash drac to start MOR in the grace period time).
 
Now, some people would say that this potentially wastes some points in Monster Bash mode because you don't necessarily get to play it fully. But I say, what’s better? Guaranteeing you get to MOR, or milking your Monster Bash? I'll take a guaranteed MOR any day - especially in tournament.

 

During MOR and MB, work that center mosh pit lane! In MB it collects the "super" jackpot, and in MOR it spots monsters towards the "super."

General things of note:

 

- When you shoot the mosh pit and the ball comes around to the left flipper. Here try and do a loop pass. (watch KME's pin 101 preview if you don’t know what I mean). If you try a loop pass after the mosh pit on monster bash, it won't work right, but it will work well in a different way - set up a perfect catch/re-trap on the left flipper. In this manner, you can shot the right ramp, shoot the mosh pit, re-trap with a broken loop pass and do it all over again. this is great during MOR and MB.

 

- If you have Bride running in MB, the ramps are very lucrative - once the microphone has been collected, the ramps are worth an additional 1.5M on top of the 2M MB scoring. (more if this is not your first microphone).

 

- I see a lot of players instinctively use any available monster bombs at the very start of a character's mode. this is bad imo. If you do this, and you don't complete the mode, you just pretty much wasted the monster bomb. Save you monster bombs so that you use them to complete the final shot of the character's mode to give you the instrument. But, only do this if you are out of time and can’t hit the shot yourself. For example, say you start bride and have a monster bomb - You shoot 5 ramp shots but can't hit the last shot to get the microphone. Time is running out, you just can’t hit it so you use your monster bomb and get your instrument. That's how I use them. If you can easily collect the instrument yourself, save the monster bombs to use on the next time you play that mode and actually need them.
 
I have 1 exception to this: Always use them all up In Monster Bash or Monsters of Rock mode. The points are worth it in this case. Also, for drac, wait till he’s moving so the monster bomb gives you the 2x award.

 

- After the third MOR or so, check your # of concert halls in the status report, you could be getting close to lyman's lament.

 

More about Extra balls:

 

Going through all the monsters, on monster 3 you light eb. After you do Monster Bash, and start lighting monsters again, on monster 3 you light another eb. So 3 monsters to first eb. Minimum 6 monsters to each eb after that. But think about it - if you don't go for instruments its only 28 + 7 x (eb# - 1) shots per eb. (4 for creature, 4 for wolf, 7 drac (sometimes 4 for the first drac depending on settings), 6 bride, 7 frank + 7 for each additional frank. (Assuming the pop hits during frank multiball is enough to light mummy).

 

 

 

 

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