Monsterpocalypse: The New Mighty Apes on the Block
The Privateer design team shares the spark behind the latest Empire of the Apes additions – the monstrous White Dajan and the high flying Ape Bombers.
White Dajan is the third Empire of the Apes monster release, and designing this monster was a barrel of… fun. The first monster, King Kondo, is a ball of rage that slaps down any enemy that tries to come at him over the top of a building. General Hondo, on the other hand, is a tactical thinker who prefers to fight from a distance and let his units do more of the work.
For this third ape monster, I wanted to explore some new space. As the ape with the least previous contact with civilization (not a lot of skyscrapers in the Himalayas, after all), I wanted him to be a bit more destructive. This is expressed in the combination of Demolisher and Wrecking Crew. Demolisher rewards him for knocking buildings down, and Wrecking Crew means he also likes it when his units attack buildings. The second thing I decided was that he should be the most cool-headed monster from his faction. This is reflected in his Steady rule, which shows he is much more cautious and difficult to body slam, and his lack of High Mobility.
White Dajan’s most iconic element is his giant icicle club. I always love models armed with baseball bats, so I gave him the Fling rule on his brawl to show that he can bat units across the city.
When he goes hyper, he gets a little wilder. He gains High Mobility, so he can climb buildings and his speed increases. Monsterpocalypse is a setting where mystical powers exist alongside alien technologies, so it made sense to say White Dajan was connected to the elemental cold from his high mountain home. This is mostly reflected in his Treacherous Territory ability. Swirling snowstorms are stirred up by his rage, making it difficult for ground units to approach him. His club also gets stronger with Beat Back. I picture this as the ground around him becoming coated with ice, making it easy to send opponents sliding into nearby buildings.
Accompanying this frozen monster is a unit pack of high-flying apes.
Ape Bombers show off more of the faction’s ingenuity when it comes to repurposing human tech. They wear backpacks made of jet engines, making them capable of flying over the city to drop their surplus bombs on juicy targets. When determining the role for this unit, I went a few different directions. In the end, I wanted an anti-power base model to add to the Protectors. Destabilizer makes these ape aces better at attacking buildings than units, but Devastation ensures that any unit standing too close to the target structure will be caught in the blast and taken out.
The Command Ape is the specialist in this blister, and I wanted it focusing on coordinating the actions of allied units around it. It can Hit & Run when necessary, but more important, it gives that ability to allied Faction units within two spaces of it. This lets Assault Apes punch enemies off of Objectives and then take their place. The Blitz action lets this ape order others around in a literal way, and it doesn’t even care if they are in its faction. With a Blitz, an allied model adjacent to the Command Ape makes an advance, doubling the speed of the chosen model with the right positioning.
The ape weren’t the only ones to get new minis last month –
check out what’s new for The Lords of Cthu here!
