Proof of Intelligent Design In Heroscape

I was going to a give a flippant response to this thread asking why we like Heroscape so much. That answer, in sum:

"Because it has an Orc on a mother****in' T-Rex."

Yeah, that's right. You know that Van Ness, Daviau, and Baker are all proponents of a creationist theory, at least on Grut, because Orcs and Dinosaurs lived at the same time, and that's totally badass. I'm actually not sure which of these guys is personally responsible for Grimnak, but I want to shake his hand and commend him on a job well done.

I waxed nostalgic not too long ago about how sweet Krug is, and I'm sure my appreciation of Nilfheim is pretty well known now, at least to site regulars... but Grimnak was the first figure that I picked up and said "YES! I need to draft that one!"

It's a relatively simple concept, but executed so perfectly. There are two parts to the figure, which are both translated so well into this little game of ours.

You've got the little blue guy on top, who is the one actually named Grimnak. He's an Orc. And a Champion. That means that some day (hey, remember that he came out with RotV and nothing else was released yet) that might mean something. He has Orc Warrior Enhancement, which meant that when he's near, other Orcs look up and say, "Holy crap, that dude is controlling a T-Rex... we better listen to what he says!" Much like Krug, Grimnak was a great excuse to get a big horde of Orcs going, and help show everyone how cool commons can be. The fun thing is that he's so busy telling others Gruts what to do, and busy telling his T-Rex who to eat, that he only rolls 2 attack dice himself, and can't be bothered to use the bow at his back.

Then there's the mount. Did I mention that he's a T-Rex? His special power's name is only one word, and right to the point: CHOMP. It is the only automatic way to kill a squad figure in all of Heroscape, which is something that has kept Grimnak relevant forever. It goes one step farther though. You can also chomp heroes, but only at a 25% chance. The potential payoff is bigger, but the expected (read: average) damage is often the same. You have to decide... "am I gonna gamble here, or take the easy kill?" This power perfectly parcels out the desire to have a low variance power to handle squad figures, and a high variance power to handle deadly heroes when you need it. Chomp also only works against enemies that are suitably bite-sized, which helps even further enhance the theme, and create a lively drafting environment. Simply brilliant.

It's not just the powers they gave him that impress me, but the power they didn't give him as well. Over time, many other Orcs will have the power to Disengage and run around like a wild rabble. Sure, they could have given that power to Grimnak, but of course they didn't, for at least two important reasons:

1. The T-Rex is big, and likely kind of slow.
2. People run from Grimnak... not the other way around.

So, fellow scapers, reach out and Chomp someone.