The Tease of Things I Don't Need

Somebody's Uncles

Two weeks 'til the release of Supernova, and I decided to dip into a trio of pieces because they're modestly interesting (to me, at least) and I saw them all at last week's pre-release anyway: The Super-Apes!

Okay, in a nutshell: Communist scientist reads about how the Fantastic Four gained their powers from exposure to cosmic rays while flying into space in an under-shielded spaceship. So, figuring more is better (thinking like a Capitalist, comrade?) he created a ship that was virtually transparent to cosmic rays. Not trusting people, he trained a babboon, an orangutan and a gorilla to run ship operations. Then, he and his banana- and orange-fueled crew took off into space, and history that only a small portion of the world remembers was born.

Seth is to be commended not only for working these into the mix, and for doing mostly interesting things with their dials, but for working it in within the REV structure.

They did make a substantial error, though, inasmuch that the sculpts for the experienced and veteran figures are reversed. The gorilla came out of the cosmic ray bombardment with super strength, while the orangutan gained a sort of magnetic, telekinetic power. I'm hoping popping/prying those off their bases and gluing them onto the proper ones won't be a hassle.

So, starting it off with the one they simply got right on nearly all counts, is Igor, the babboon.

Igor came out of the empowering bombardment with both an enhanced intelligence -- something common to all three of the apes -- and the abilty to assume any shape.

Certainly, the inclusion of at least some Shape Change is a given, but Seth didn't stop there.

As with the other apes, Igor was given the Minions of Doom TA, meaning they can copy any copyable TA on their team. It's a point of adaptability, flexibility, and should make each of these 50 pt pieces some interesting options depending on the team.

Capturing the size and higher agility we'd expect from a babboon, Igor has been given a good defense - 17 for each of his first two clicks - and Leap/Climb, along with Shape Change.

Clicks three through six include Plasticity, representing how this little guy can grab hold of someone and be tough to shake off. Clicks three through five see Shape Change give way to Perplex, which can be taken as a mix of representing his unpredictability -- reach for a blaster one finds sitting on a table and it could turn out to be this little guy in disguise -- and augmented intelligence. His final two clicks see him picking up Super Senses, making him tougher to hit again.

On his final click he has Shape Change return, making him into an exceptional nuisance and superb tie-up piece with the Plasticity.

Someone adjacent to him without special movement powers has to roll a 6 in order to break away. If he wants to attack Igor, Igor gets to make a Shape Change roll first. On a 5 or 6, he appears to be something unthreatening, even friendly, and the intended attacker has to do something else. If that 5 or 6 doesn't come up, the attacker gets to make his attack roll. If he succeeds, then Super Senses kicks in, and there's another single die roll. On a 5 of 6 the attack misses. If Igor happens to be copying the Skrull TA then before any of that, a 6 would have the same result as Shape Change.

Next, we have Mikhlo, the gorilla. Yes, when you get him he'll be sitting inside a red ring, with the wrong name on the base, but I'm preemptively placing the (relatively) big guy in his proper spot.

Like his furry brethren, Mikhlo has the wildcarding Doom TA and costs 50 points.

As with Igor, we've been given a nice, playable dial for 50 points. One click deeper than Igor's dial, Mikhlo has 7 clicks.

His 17 Defense stays steady for his first three clicks, the first two of which include Toughness to help him manage some damage.

While he has no move and attack powers, he has a 3 Damage for each of his first three clicks, along with Super Strength on his first four. On his final two clicks he gets a combination of Flurry and Combat Reflexes, encouraging the player to place him into a close combat situation with an opponent -- preferably one with no damage-reducers, since he only has a Damage of 2 and 1, respectively, on those clicks.

The third and final of the apes is Peotor, the orangutan.

Peotor gained megnetic/telekinetic powers (depends on the writer), and the results as he's translated into the dial are... not terribly impressive.

We have a six click dial where the primary power is Telekinesis, being present on his first four clicks. Aside from that his main active power is the fairly passive Force Blast, seen on his first and fourth through sixth clicks.

Most of those in the game know that most of the time -- almost all of the time -- Telekinesis is used to move an ally, something for which is doesn't need to make an attack roll. The only way to make this dial really work is if Peotor has some objects to hurl. An option, sure, but depending on the needs of the team, those may be in short supply.

I didn't expect damage-reducing powers, but a creature that controls matter-manipulating energy fields, well, I expected at least one or two clicks of Energy Shield/Deflection.

Still... it's not just a 50 pt character, but an orangutan. Maybe I'm being too tough on him.

I'll be interested in assembling the full team, including the Red Ghost, and see what it can be built into... in a little over two weeks.

Tags: Heroclix, Super Apes