Empire of the Apes

The arrival of the Destroyers has drawn the ire of many great beasts once hidden in the untracked jungles and wilderness places. One of the greatest of Earth’s savage defenders is known as King Kondo, a primate of gargantuan proportions with a rage to match his height and girth. Kondo has the strength to punch through buildings or lift and throw entire trains. He has no reason to trust humanity, particularly after a disastrous attempt by a secret multi-national task force to take him captive and use him as a chained weapon, but most of his ire is reserved for unnatural horrors like the Planet Eaters.

Note: Updated as of 12/2020

King Kondo functions as a beatstick monster whose statline would suggest a rather straight forward play-style. However, digging deeper into his kit, King Kondo offers Protector players a unique monster that can fill numerous roles not immediately apparent. These roles range from a “aggressively defensive” monster that bullies the midfield using unique movement related abilities to a unit support monster that improves the effectiveness of brawl attacks performed by Empire of Apes units. Grappler allows King Kondo to advance up the board and force opposing models with High Mobility or Flight to spend more resources to maneuver around affected models. Tantrum is another movement related ability that discourages an opponent from performing multiple power attacks on King Kondo in a single turn. Working in tandem, these two enable King Kondo to dominate the midfield and threaten the opposing player's powerbase while remaining difficult to pin down. In addition to the aforementioned abilities, King Kondo enables Protector players to capitalize on one of the best unit buffs in the game currently; Blood Rage. Blood Rage offers his fellow Empire of the Ape units to reliably clear the board of opposing units and secure key objectives. Persisting in both in Kondo's Alpha and Hyper forms, this ability shines when using units such as Command Apes and Assault Apes.

Tantrum Tactics
One defining feature of King Kondo's Alpha Form is his ability Tantrum. Similar to Reposition, this ability allows King Kondo to avoid being singled out by an opposing player. Unlike most monsters that can be punished for playing too far forward, King Kondo can dissuade the opponent from targeting him thanks Tantrum. When used correctly, it can force your opponent to spend both Action Dice or health in order to align B2B with Kondo to perform a body slam or throw power attack. Additionally, Tantrum can be used to as a means to swing damage trades in Kondo's favor. For example, on maps such as Carnage Corners, the notorious triple foundations found on the map can be devastating to most monsters. Thanks to Tantrum, King Kondo can usually avoid this threat and punish the opponent. Let's look at an example of Tantrum in action:

As seen above, Tharsis-5 is able to align himself B2B with King Kondo and perform a throw power attack. The Destroyer player plans to throw King Kondo into the Sun Industries Building and align King Kondo with Xixorax to subsequently throw King Kondo into the triple foundation.

Once King Kondo has collided with the building and has been placed, it can be seen that he is currently B2B with Xixorax and is aligned with the three buildings above him.

However, as a result of being hit by a throw power attack, King Kondo is now able to advance up to two spaces due to Tantrum. The King Kondo player elects to move B2B with the UCI Industries building. Because the Power Pod was adjacent to King Kondo's final position after the Tantrum movement, that model is removed from the board. Observing the final board state, King Kondo has avoided the potential throw power attack from Xixorax into the three buildings. Not only this, Xixorax must now spend both Action Dice and a point of health to align himself B2B with King Kondo. If the Destroyer player decides to proceed with this move, it leaves Xixorax exposed to the Protector player's potential retaliation on the following Monster Turn.

Transitioning into his Hyper Form, King Kondo's role remains relatively the same. Although the loss of Tantrum reduces Kondo's ability to mitigate damage, gaining Weapon Master on his Brawl attacks offers some unique tools for the mid to late game.

King Kondo provides excellent unit buffs through Blood Rage that enhances the overall effectiveness of Empire of the Ape units; most notably the Assault Ape.

• Only Friendly models can only be considered Faction models, so enemy Empire of the Ape models are affected by Tantrum.
• Tantrum does not specify enemy models, meaning that it can impact any non-Faction friendly units in addition to any enemy unit.
• Models removed from Tantrum will not generate Power Dice .
• Tantrum occurs BEFORE damage is applied. This means that a monster can use the ability taking damage from a throw or body slam power attack that would cause them to move from Alpha to Hyper form.