Apes of Wrath roster - discussion thread & star players
Posted: 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: 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.
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: 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.