Foray into Bandar Log

[atul]

After being dealt Bandar Log in upcoming 60-player game I've realized there isn't much love being given to the nation of white furries in different strategy threads. Apart from demo guide to Kailasa and KB's quite controversial guide to Patala, all attention is centered on the bloody juniors of Lanka.

However, the purest of all, Bandar Log, hasn't been that much discussed.

With that prelude, dear forumites, I turn to your collective wisdom. What makes the astral apes tick?

I'm mostly looking for opinions regarding Pretender design; being such a nice guy I rarely can take scales bad enough to be competitive without outside influence. Here is what I've thought so far, it isn't anything others wouldn't have come up with so I'm not afraid my prospective opponents reading it:

BL lack access to the Pretender chassis that's standard answer for a good pick, PoD. On the other hand, they've got Cyclops and Wyrm if you insist on being boring. I keep wanting to put four-armed titans into the fray, but always get the feeling I can't make them cost-effective. Final honorary mention goes to Mother of Rivers, as she would get automatic Water Gems to facilitate BL's national summons. But still, cost effective?

Their magic is characterized by recruitable everywhere SSSNN110%? Rishi, i.e. strong astral followed by medium nature. Cheaper mages just basically mimic Rishi with less picks, but with heavy investment into Conjuration come national summons that diversify BL magic a lot. Therefore, while BL might gain from Pretender expanding magic variety, it isn't requirement. Unless one wishes to utilize many Blood spells inherited from Lanka.

BL has sacreds in both recruitable everywhere and summonable varieties, but White Ones are too weak and Gandharvas come too late to warrant overly heavy bless. Priests are mere H1 outside Conjuration, thus making bless-relying strategy even less desirable. Ordinary troops of note include Elephant and Bandar Archer (compared to other Bandars loses only Buckler but gains Long Bow).

So, early thug? Dormant mid-game monster which relies nationals (i.e. Elephants) for initial protection? Weak(ish) bless or scale facilitator?

Speaking of scales, money's always good, so Order3 is given. BL can pay that off with taking Heat3, with only a minor hit thanks to preference to Heat2. Productivity can go either way thanks to both lightly armed troops and Elephants on Sloth side, and high resource Bandars on Prod side. Taking anything lower than Sloth1 without awake combat pretender eats into your margins too much as you're unable to recruit even 3 elephants per turn in early turns that are most vital.

The researchers are more of the cheap, sacred and with few magic picks kind, so drain is no-no and Magic1 a good trade-off between cost and benefit. In a blitz I'd have no qualms with taking Death3 with these guys since no-one's old and they have nature magic, but since the upcoming game's bound to last I'd hesitate to go lower than neutral scales. With Luck, maybe Misfortune1, anything less is still invoking Murphy.

So, 390 points for awake Pretender, or 540 for a sleeping one with a baseline of Order3 Sloth1 Heat3 Growth0 Misfortune1 Magic1. What kind of stuff would be viable in hard-research rush-prone environment? What I've overlooked, in the sense of squeezing even more points out of scales? Or would more scales benefit the apes more than extra magic on Pretender? E9 would turn White Ones into elite Heavy Infantry with encumbrance of LI and aid later summons, but would there be any other blesses even worth considering?

Please pimp my apes. Thanks in advance.