I think I had mentioned in the past that I wanted to do a custom type of Dinosaur Cowboys game where a group of big game hunters battle a single Tyrannosaurus Rex. Well I recently bought the Papo T-Rex toy, which looks awesome:
And then I mocked up some stats for him that are equal to a new Posse, that is $1,000 and 100 IP. Now I just need to make a themed hunting Posse to take him on. I’m thinking some old British style hunter like those that went to Africa on expeditions. Then maybe his loyal friend, his wife, and two porters or guards. A classical mix of shotguns and so forth would be perfect.
As for the T-Rex here is how I built him. The original stats are:
MV: 5
AR: 2
MMC: 5
BRV: 7
HP: 24
A-D: 1-7
Cost: $500
The first thing I did to make him truly deadly was boost his weapon, for free. This was mostly a balance issue and also a fun issue, since I wanted an attack heavy roll instead of one focused on damage. So instead of 1-7 I made him 10-1. I figured this would balance with him being a single target and not having Leadership benefits. Plus it should be a BLAST to roll!
Then I started to make purchases. I opted for survivability and mobility as two priorities. I spent 10 IP to boost his AR from 2 to 3, which was a pretty obvious choice. I spent another 12 IP for +2 HP, and my remaining $500 for +10 HP for a total of 36 HP! Since his HP was so high I didn’t expect he’d ever need a Bravery Test, so I opted to voluntarily weaken his Bravery down to 3, which gave me +9 IP. Then came the big spenders, first MMC from 5 to 4 for 33 IP, just to ensure he never missed. Finally mobility which I achieved by spending 54 IP (wow!) to boost his MV from 5 to 8.
Next were his Traits. Normally a Posse gets 3 Traits, which is handy since that’s the maximum a single entity can have. So I needed to allocate 3 Traits to my T-Rex, which was a real treat. I wanted some hard hitters but some passive stat boosters would be nice too. For Passive I considered Bonus HP (always helps!), Charger (would hate to fall short), Runner (he’ll be using the Run action basically every turn he’s not in close combat), or Climber (ignoring terrain would really help his speed overall). There are a ton of Active options, like Clean Shot (pretty much guaranteed enemies won’t have previous damage when I hit them), Go For the Eyes (a classic, and with 10-1 guaranteed to help), Inspiring Shot (his only real way to heal), Lucky (could help against a brutal enemy shot), Rush (would help get to close combat, and then Slowed doesn’t matter since he’d be fighting), Shake it Off (helpful since here will likely be Slowed from Stun Guns or grenades), Try Again (re-rolling 10-1 would be sweet), Turtle (would be great when in combat already), and finally Whirlwind (if I could ever catch two enemies together).
So out of everything I opted for Runner, Inspiring Shot, and Turtle. This means he can move 8″+5″ Run, so 13″ arc. He’ll get 7 HP back after a kill one time. And finally he can boost his AR to 6 for a turn at the cost of being Stopped. Anyways that was definitely the toughest choice of the build.
His final stats were:
MV: 8
AR: 3
MMC: 4
BRV: 3
HP: 36
A-D: 10-1
Traits: Runner, Inspiring Shot, Turtle
Cost: $1,000, 100 IP
So yeah, against a new Posse he should be quite the menace. The downside is he’s likely to get shot all the time without Cover since he’s so big, but AR 3 against starting RMCs (normally 6 to 8 or so) should help a ton.
And I just wanted to say that at this rate of Papo dinosaur toy purchases I’m well on my way to being like this avid collector.
I’m hoping to write up the hunting expedition Posse tonight and then play the game sometime this weekend, so expect a battle report soon after!
Dinosaur Cowboys - Tabletop Skirmish Game 