Apes of Wrath roster - discussion thread & star players

Shteve0 · Post by **Shteve0** » Sat Apr 06, 2013 11:24 pm

Hi guys

Well, it's been 8 months since Jase and I went on ThreeDieBlock to discuss our local league's house ruled Apes of Wrath roster and, with the imminent launch of the Apes line in $35 plastics, as well as the recent adoption of the roster by a handful of other leagues, I thought it would be a good time to start a formal thread to discuss the rationale of pricing, concept and available options for the team.

Roster
First up, to give this thread a little context and for those who missed the show, here's the roster we've been using:

NZCL Apes of Wrath%21.png

Theme and Brief
- The roster is designed to perform at a T1.5/T2 level.
- The roster is designed to be used with the Impact/ThreeDieBlock Apes miniatures range (direct link).
- The roster is designed to offer a broad array of development options to their coach, and
- The roster is designed such that the players have lots of raw ability but lack the finesse (starting skill rerolls) of the other, more established races.

The 'Arms and Hands' Concept
The Apes roster is dominated by references to hands and arms (as well as actions one would associate with hands and arms)*, foremost amongst them being a heavy use of the mutation skill "extra hands" (or "extra arms" if you use the obblm roster). What inspired this characteristic is the (now defunct and discredited) classification of the great apes as distinct from humans in that they possess four "hands" - the skill in practice reflects the prehensile nature of their feet. First proposed in the 1770s, it stuck around until Darwin's Descent of Man finally took it to pieces as a theory in 1871 following some pretty leftfield work by Huxley in the 1860s.

Essentially, "Quadrumana" and "Bimana" form an obsolete division of the primates: the Quadrumana are primates with four hands (two attached to the arms and two attached to the legs), and the Bimana being those with two hands and two feet (i.e. humans). The attempted division of "Quadrumana" from "Bimana" form a stage in the long campaign to find a secure way of distinguishing Homo sapiens from the rest of the great apes, a distinction that was culturally essential at the time.

Quadrumana is Latin for "four-handed ones", which is a term used for apes since they do not have feet attached to their legs as humans do, but instead have hands, as both pairs of hands look almost alike (with the exception of the orangutan, whose hands look exactly the same) and operate exactly like hands.

Position Discussion: Line Ape
The basic line ape is the fundamental building block of the team, and his statline is the starting basis for the entire roster. Such as with Amazons and Norse, the basic line player is costed at 6337 + team defining skill (in this case, extra hands) + G/ASP access = 50k.

Position Discussion: Orang-utan
The Orang-utan Thrower position concept started life as a Human Thrower, before trading a point of MA for Extra Arms (the team's defining skill). A quick note here is that I really like the 5339/6338/7337 interaction at 50k, and this use of the interchangeable pricing structure between a point of MA and AV feels much more natural than taking the OT down to AV7. From there, it was simply a case of swapping reroll skills out for natural traits - the human thrower's Sure Hands (handling skill) became Big Hands, and Pass (passing skill) became Strong Arms. My feeling was, and remains, that the OT is potentially one of the best potential throwers in the game, but his starting skills are very situational and in order to get full value from him you need to be taking advantage of particularly risky situations (throwing a long distance, or grasping for the ball in one or more opposing tackle zones), often without rerolls, at least until he's gained a few skills.

Position Discussion: Ape Runner
The Chimp runner was always going to be brittle but explosive - a faster, more specialised version of the basic Line Ape. He started out as a Human Blitzer - 7338 Block GS/AP - but swapped first a point of AV for extra arms, then block for wrestle, and then GS access for GA access - first to deny him a role as a killer and secondly to appoint some A access to the team. Finally, since all of these changes feel like downgrades to a player many already consider overcosted by 10k, the Runner's price was dropped 10k to take him to the 80k cost. In practice, while the runner is undoubtedly a good player, he's remarkably brittle, underdeveloped at the start, spends a lot of time lying down for fouls(!) and doesn't feel undercosted at the 80k price (certainly not when compared to, say, a wight or an Orc blitzer).

Position Discussion: Gorilla
The team's beefcake, and the team's USP. We all know, instinctively, that Gorillas are seriously strong and seriously unpredictable. With this in mind the roster version started out as Black Orc Blockers - 4429 no skills GS/AP - then swapped a point of armour for Extra Arms, as per the team theme. But, while that covers their strength aspect, they still needed tweaks to be considered both unreliable to coach and unpredictable to face; the addition of Wild Animal makes them hard to control for their own coach, and Grab helps both to mitigate this fact (by allowing favourable push backs and position changes) while making them unpredictable also for the opposing coach. That said, no big guy coach will ever tell you that Grab makes up for such a large negatrait (even en masse), so the Gorilla positional was handed a free +1MA, both to balance the nega and to bring him into line with the Orang'utan.

Position Discussion: Silverback
He's a big Gorilla - the biggest Gorilla, in fact. The Silverback is templated on the Snow Troll/Yhetee - a 5519 monster with Loner, Wild Animal, Claws (bash skill; -> Mighty Blow), Disturbing Presence (mutation; -> Extra Hands) and Frenzy (swapped to its opposite, -> Grab). A -10k discount was added to reflect his poor value when compared to the rostered gorilla, and when placed in the context of a team already swimming in Wild Animal... though I see the argument for returning the Silverback to 140k, so will reserve the right to revisit the Silverback pricing at some stage.

Rerolls
Rerolls are costed at 60k to reflect that, while Apes are disorganised and untrained (so >50k RRs), they're neither chaotic nor stupid (so <70k RRs); they also need a lot of rerolls (representing training) to keep their Gorillas under control and pick up the pieces when the crazy, desperate passing plays simply run out of gas, at least until they have a bit of practice on the board (represented by the traditional bread-and-butter skills of block, dodge, pass, catch, sure hands etc).

Star Players
Three stars jump out as immediately appropriate; the Apes have wandered straight out of the forest onto the BB pitches, so Willow Rosebark and Deeproot Strongbranch feel like natural allies. Apes love trees! We all know it. Morg 'n' Thorg will play for anyone except the undead, so why would Apes be any different? With that in mind, he's in too. But who else would make your Apes star option list? I've pretty much ruled out any chainsaw players for hopefully very obvious reasons, but there are a few maybes that might fit - please let me know in the thread below or the poll above who you would choose for the final three options!

Summary
Our league commissioner played the roster in across 17+ games last season and, from my point of view, it was a fun team to face. The gorillas naturally work in a Pack in an effort to mitigate their wild animal, and if you're lucky enough (like Jase was) to get a +ST gorilla alongside your silverback, they can - rather appropriately - be an absolute force of nature. The chimps (both linemen and runners) will quickly get crushed if left too exposed, but still need to take risks in order to give the Orang'utan something to aim at when he - finally! - gets to the ball. Skill choices are rarely straightforward, with almost every player (quite intentionally) starting in skill deficit and with a number of development routes available, and falling into the easy trap of dedicating 6/7 player slots to bashers and throwers means that actually finding someone to catch the ball and score a TD is often easier said than done - despite all those extra arms flying around!

Feedback on the roster and any other discussion welcomed below. If you're looking to try it for yourself, the roster is now, as alluded to earlier, available through the latest obblm software update, and a handful of leagues around the world have already taken up the option of playing the team - if you decide to join them and give it a go, please make sure you post here to let us know how you get on!

Very best and thanks for reading

Steve

*a quick mention must go here to the Slann roster - where all the skills are to do with leaping, diving or jumping.

Darkson · Post by **Darkson** » Sun Apr 07, 2013 12:07 am

Voted other - I'd rather see some Ape-specific Stars (or at least Animal-specific) rather than recycle others. No issue with the 3 already picked, but let's see something new, even if it's a named-star with a new name and a changed skill or two.

For example, take Hthark, say lose Block and add Grab or Frenzy (and could use the Gorillataur figure).
Or (using the Siringit Babbon player), take Zara, change a point of ST to AG, change Stakes to Stab (the bite) and add Foul Apperance (it's paintly painted arse!).

If not new stars, then a vote for Zug (not voted for above) - he's pretty ape-like already.

Darkson · Post by **Darkson** » Sun Apr 07, 2013 12:35 am

Shteve0 wrote:Position Discussion: Gorilla
The team's beefcake, and the team's USP.

Quick, and possibly stupid question (so I'll point out I'm asking on behalf of my mate that I've printed it out for

), but what's "USP" stand for?

landrover · Post by **landrover** » Sun Apr 07, 2013 1:20 am

Ultimate Shagging Partner?

jecked · Post by **jecked** » Sun Apr 07, 2013 2:25 am

Darkson wrote:
Shteve0 wrote:Position Discussion: Gorilla
The team's beefcake, and the team's USP.
Quick, and possibly stupid question (so I'll point out I'm asking on behalf of my mate that I've printed it out for ), but what's "USP" stand for?

Unique Selling Point I'd imagine, it's a marketing term

Shteve0 · Post by **Shteve0** » Sun Apr 07, 2013 3:32 am

Yep - Unique Selling Point.

To expand on that, I really like how some teams have a distinct, identifiable theme that's replicated across the roster, but then that theme is stretched almost to its logical limits in its character piece.

Compared to humans:
- Orcs are slow and well armoured, and therefore lend themselves to Bash. Their character piece is 4429 GS/AP.
- Skaven are fast and lightly armoured, and lend themselves to Dash. Their character piece is 9247 Dodge GA/SPM.
- Slann excel at leaping into and out of ordinarily very dodgy situations, and have VLL and Leap across the board. Their Catcher is an exaggerated specialist built to make the most of those qualities.

It's only a couple of examples, of course, but I think there's something in it. So the Apes team theme is its pure animalism, naturally adept but fundamentally unreliable; hence the total lack of starting skill rerolls, the selection of "mutation" traits that accentuate their differences to humans, and their lightly armoured base players. The Gorillas are, conceptually, an extreme example of that; naturally strong, unpredictable, deceptively capable ball players, and relatively quick when things are going to plan; but utterly unreliable, high maintenance, lightly armoured (for an ST4 player) reroll gluttons when things aren't going quite so well.

Happily, that also seems to translate to how they play in practice... but keen to hear if others share that observation

Shteve0 · Post by **Shteve0** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 2:36 am

Further to the latest 3DB podcast, and for convenience, here's the Apes roster variant to be used at the Three Die Brawl 2013.

0-16 Line Ape........50,000gp 6337 Extra Arms G/ASP
0-2 Orangutan.......70,000gp 5338 Extra Arms, Strong Arm SP/GA
0-4 Gorilla.............80,000gp 5428 Extra Arms, Grab, Wild Animal GS/AP
0-2 Ape Runner......90,000gp 7337 Extra Arms, Wrestle GA/SP
0-1 Silverback.......140,000gp 5519 Loner, Extra Arms, Grab, Wild Animal, Mighty Blow S/GAP

0-8 Rerolls 60,000gp each, 0-1 Apoth 50,000gp
Star Players: ???

As in my post at the top there - it was a conscious decision to cut the Ape Runner and Silverback prices on my part, so no problems so far... but wait, what's this? What have you done to the Orangutan?

"You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"

Just kidding of course, love you guys, hope you have a lot of fun out there and thank you for supporting the roster! It's a bit far away and a bit short notice for me to attend the tourney this time out, unfortunately... perhaps another year?

Glowworm · Post by **Glowworm** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 7:47 am

TBH, I've followed the evolution of this roster with little interest (sorry Chance

) I considered it a bit gimmicky......myself and Buggrit once discussed a sheep based roster on the journey back from the GT, lambs with leap, rams with horns, " flock" skills, it's like block but you must have a team- mate in an adjacent square....ect, ect

However, now I've read this thread im getting the urge to give them a try! The roster explanation seems to make perfect sense,and the variation of players gives them what could be a unique flavour....

Star players? I like the suggested 3, the other slots? Make them as unique as the team please...maybe a "lost cousin" in evolutionary terms like a lemur or a marmoset, small and rapid, stunty probably ( me, suggest a stunty??) it could add flavour and they don't need anymore "hitters".

Just my ( probably wide of the mark) thoughts...

Post by **Loki** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 9:09 am

I agree they need some 'animalistic' stars.

spubbbba · Post by **spubbbba** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 10:06 am

I don’t quite get the fluff behind extra arms/hands, are these ape beastmen or apes as we have in our world with more intelligence? If it’s the latter then I don’t see any reason why they would be better at picking up or catching the ball with 4 clumsy “hands” compared to 2 dextrous ones that humans have.

Back on topic you could use one of my fave rules in the shape of the “Counts as rule”. If you find a star with the skills and stats that would suit the team then use him but change the name (great chance to use some “hilarious monkey/ape puns). So Icepelt could be used as a crazy gorilla, hemlock or skitter as a spider monkey etc.

SunDevil · Post by **SunDevil** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 6:22 pm

Shteve0 wrote:Further to the latest 3DB podcast, and for convenience, here's the Apes roster variant to be used at the Three Die Brawl 2013.

0-16 Line Ape........50,000gp 6337 Extra Arms G/ASP
0-2 Orangutan.......70,000gp 5338 Extra Arms, Strong Arm SP/GA
0-4 Gorilla.............80,000gp 5428 Extra Arms, Grab, Wild Animal GS/AP
0-2 Ape Runner......90,000gp 7337 Extra Arms, Wrestle GA/SP
0-1 Silverback.......140,000gp 5519 Loner, Extra Arms, Grab, Wild Animal, Mighty Blow S/GAP

0-8 Rerolls 60,000gp each, 0-1 Apoth 50,000gp
Star Players: ???

As in my post at the top there - it was a conscious decision to cut the Ape Runner and Silverback prices on my part, so no problems so far... but wait, what's this? What have you done to the Orangutan?

"You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"

Just kidding of course, love you guys, hope you have a lot of fun out there and thank you for supporting the roster! It's a bit far away and a bit short notice for me to attend the tourney this time out, unfortunately... perhaps another year?

You are always welcome Steve!

Like Steve said, this was a group decision here to amend the roster. I fully supported raising the Silverback to 140 but the other changes were requested by other local coaches who felt the roster was too strong. In the interest of compromise, I agreed. With some games under our belt, we can revisit the roster before we approve for league play, my ultimate goal.

As for stars, I like your suggestion of Deeproot and Willow - funny connection to my original, 100% joke roster with the 'Treehouse' skill!. I voted for the other three to be Griff, Zara and Zug (all humans). I hate Morg, so drop him for...KING BOOMBASTIC! The Star Player winner of our Ape Star contest! Plus, the theme of the 3DBrawl is big guys dropping 3 die blocks so another big is perfect!

Of course, now I need to go back through the eps to find his stats! I remember he was a super Silverback wit Break Tackle and maybe Pile On? Something like that.

Shteve0 · Post by **Shteve0** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 7:36 pm

SunDevil wrote:As for stars, I like your suggestion of Deeproot and Willow - funny connection to my original, 100% joke roster with the 'Treehouse' skill!

that's the idea, yes

Also, here's a card mockup for the King Boombastic player your listener sent in, posted in your huge 3DB thread:
http://talkfantasyfootball.org/viewtopi ... &start=735

Shteve0 · Post by **Shteve0** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 7:40 pm

spubbbba wrote:I don’t quite get the fluff behind extra arms/hands, are these ape beastmen or apes as we have in our world with more intelligence? If it’s the latter then I don’t see any reason why they would be better at picking up or catching the ball with 4 clumsy “hands” compared to 2 dextrous ones that humans have.

Having lived in India, I can tell you right now that monkeys are insanely dextrous and accomplished thieves. I've seen no evidence anywhere that suggests that a chimp's hand, or use thereof, is any more clumsy than a monkey's.

spubbbba wrote:Back on topic you could use one of my fave rules in the shape of the “Counts as rule”. If you find a star with the skills and stats that would suit the team then use him but change the name (great chance to use some “hilarious monkey/ape puns). So Icepelt could be used as a crazy gorilla, hemlock or skitter as a spider monkey etc.

Like it! Any puns of your own to offer up?

VoodooMike · Post by **VoodooMike** » Sat Apr 13, 2013 1:52 am

Shteve0 wrote:Like it! Any puns of your own to offer up?

You need only break open the "Gorilla Warfare" sourcebook for the Feng Shui RPG, really...

Furious George
Battlechimp Potemkin
Chimpanzer
Robonobo
Swimpanzee
Chimp Change
Apeshot
Koko Chanel

Shteve0 · Post by **Shteve0** » Sat Apr 13, 2013 2:17 am

Furious George - that's wonderful.

Here are a couple of suggestions... do any of these appeal sufficiently to be worth adding to the poll?

Brick Far'th & Grotty -> Gibbo & Mr Tickles (Gibbon and Robot Silverback) - 290,000

Mr Tickles.png

Mr Tickles 5 5 2 9 Loner, Bone-Head, Mighty Blow, Nerves of Steel, Strong Arm, Thick Skull, Throw Team Mate
Gibbo 6 2 4 7 Loner, Dodge, Right Stuff, Stunty

Soaren Hightower -> King Louie (Orangutan) - 180,000

King Louie 6 3 4 8 Loner, Fend, Kick Off Return, Pass, Safe Throw, Sure Hands, Strong Arm

Morg n Thorg -> Ape-X (mechanically augmented Silverback) - 430,000

Ape-X 6 6 3 10 Loner, Block, Mighty Blow, Thick Skull, Throw Team Mate

Wilhelm Chaney -> Furious George (Frenzied Chimp Runner) - 240,000

Furious George 8 4 3 8 Loner, Catch, Claws, Frenzy, Regeneration, Wrestle

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