============ OGREverse list, May 21st (Last: May 14th) ============= ===== Review: new Ogre/GEV Reprint From: "Andrew Walters" ===== Ogre Stuff (kinda long) From: "Duncan McEwen" ===== New Edition Counter Mix Question From: "Andrew Walters" ===== Ogre Book second edition From: Sean Bayan Schoonmaker From: Kerr Ballantyne From: "O'Donnell, Patrick" ===== Ogre Luna Rationalizations (LONG!) From: "O'Donnell, Patrick" ===== Webpage Update From: "Paul & Lynette" ------------------------------ From: "Andrew Walters" Subject: Review: new Ogre/GEV Reprint Ogre/GEV The Original Ogre and GEV microgames are back in print in a combined set from Steve Jackson Games for $15. You may wonder, "why would I buy this?" Most gamers either 1) have a copy of Ogre in a box at the bottom of the closet, or 2) figure it was one of those little games that was popular in the early eighties, but probably can't compete with the cool stuff available now. If you're of a mind to reconsider, here are a few facts and thoughts. First of all, they reprinted it right. There's a color card stock sleeve over a video tape case, giving you appearance and durability. The maps are unchanged and printed in color on slick stock, on the same sheet. You get three identical double sided counter sheets, black and white with some red and white Ogres for four sided battles. The counters are completely uncut, which bothers some people greatly, but not me. The rulebooks are printed back-to-back, so that one side is the front of the Ogre rulebook and the other side is the upside down front of the GEV rulebook. There's also a reference sheet and two little ziplock bags, which will never be enough but its a nice gesture. I recommend the Zip-Loc *snack* bags, which are cheap, big enough to get your fingers in, but don't flop over between the opening and where the counters are at the bottom like the sandwich size. The best of the old art is there, and hasn't been ruined by any "improvements." There is also some nice new art, and the page layout is pretty slick as well. The game is the same. Same simple ramming rules in Ogre and more complex overrun rules in GEV. Same scenarios, same Ogre stats, but there are some nifty new Ogre record sheets. These games came out in '78 and '79 for $3 and $4, respectively, which with inflation works out to $16.80 in 1999, so this edition is actually cheaper than the original versions, and a lot slicker. If you've never played these games, they're well worth checking out. They play fast but are not trivial. I've talked to a lot of people at conventions that have played the game since the late seventies, and we still argue over whether GEVs or HVYs are the best defense (I say HVYs). The rules are very clearly written and simple, but still deep. If your not familiar with the subject matter, this is tank warfare in the second half of the twenty first century: tactical nuclear shells, rail guns, and powered-armor infantry, all made possible by missle and laser technology that has eliminated aircraft from the battlefield, and Bi-Phase Carbide (BPC) armor that allows vehicles to survive near misses. Battles last mere minutes, and are fairly lethal. Each unit has four values, Attack Strength and Range, Defense Strength, and Movement. Its a simple ratio-based CRT which will "Disable" (flipped for a turn) or destroy the defender, but can't effect the attacker. Terrain effects in GEV are more than just a movement point cost and defense multiplier - HVY tanks have no penalty to enter woods, but get no defensive bonus. GEVs can be disabled on entering swamp or forest, but can treat water like road. Infantry loves any type of terrain. This, along with having four values to vary, gives the different unit types *very* different behaviour - a GEV is not just a faster but weaker tank, and infantry aren't just weak and slow. This gives the game a lot of flavor. Ogre/GEV is also an ideal introductory wargame - its simple, but introduces you to hex & counter wargames, CRTs, turn sequences, asymetrical play. Its short, but gets interesting quickly. Its easily handicapped for beginners, and when it comes down to the wire and the dice go against you can play again, since it doesn't take a whole evening. Inexpensive in time and money is important for the person who's not sure about wargaming, yet. There is a little ad page on the back of the CRT that says Shockwave will be out in May 2000 (cruise missles, GEV PCs, Super Heavy Tank), Ogre Reinforcement Pack in June 2000 (duplicate geomorphic maps, more counters), GURPS Ogre in July 2000, and Ogre Battlefields in September 2000 (entirely new geomorphic maps). The word there on minis is 1/48 resin Macrotures in "late 2000", and 1/300 miniatures... drum roll... no ETA. There is one omission - now that they've given us enough counters for three trains they need to give us the Gomez Adams rule: what happens when trains run into each other? For those who suppose this game obsolete consider that its still being played twenty plus years later. New stuff comes out all the time and humans are always interested in something new, but the vast majority of it fades away very quickly. That which has substance remains. More people will read Frankenstein this year than Jaws. Ogre and GEV have personality and drama, play flows smoothly, and there's plenty of replay value: there is no perfect defense, no perfect way to run your GEVs at a howitzer behind some trees. Its on my list of must-have wargames, and I'm glad its back in print. Ogre/GEV has its own web page at http://www.sjgames.com/ogre, and you can buy it online at http://www.warehouse23.com. ----- [Since the train ramming rules clearly state the train is destroyed when ramming I think the outcome of two trains ramming each other is clear. -HJC] ------------------------------ From: "Duncan McEwen" Subject: Ogre Stuff (kinda long) Hey fellow Ogre folks, Just a couple things running through my CPU now with the Ogre resurgence. I have noticed some inconsistencies with the statistics for the Ogre Mk. II. The secondary batteries seem to change from edition to edition. Here is the history of changes as I see it. Ogre Book (1982) – The Mk II had 2 secondary batteries with D2. These were playtesting statistics. Icepick (Scenario from the web site, 1984) – The Mk. II had 2 secondary batteries with D2, attached fiction calls Mk. II under armored. In addition, mentions Mk. II are obsolete. Ogre Reinforcement Pack (1987) - Mk. II with 2 secondary batteries, no special mention of low defense, equivalent to 9 armor units (54 VP). Ogre Miniatures (1992) - Mk. II with 2 Secondary Batteries D3, Worth 50 VP (8.333 Armor Units). Ogre/G.E.V. (2000) – Mk. II with 2 secondary batteries D2, worth 60 to75% of Mk. III or 60 to 75 VP. My question is what is correct? We seem to have two different Mk. IIs. My recommendation is that there was a Mk. II early production run (alpha, maybe in 2066 or 2065) that was under armored (D2). When this problem was discovered and the multi-gun platform concept worked out, the armor was beefed up to D3 for the main production run (until 2076 when it was phased out.) My guess is that the armor would be beefed up about the time the Mk. III would be available (2071). I would recommend that the Mk II- be worth fewer points, since the secondary batteries are quite easy to knock out. As a rough cut, lets say 8 Armor Units or 48 VP (maybe 45 VP if we use VP and drop Armor Units.). What do you think? (Anything official on this Steve?) Any idea what we will see in the Battlefields project? Will it provide all the Ogre miniatures units for the boardgame? (HW Inf, Archaic tanks, militia, Ninja, Doppelsolder etc) How about the Nihon Empire and some Chinese units? I assume that they use tanks, GEVs, and such equivalent to Combine and Paneuropean forces. I would be interested to see their “Steel Warrior” cybertank (at least for the Nihon) and the Dragon non cyber tanks. Also of interest would be ESPIONOGREs, OGRECOVERY, and and other special Ogre/cyber tank units. I really like some of the new art for Ogre GURPS. I never have played GURPS before but I plan to get the Ogre book for it. I do have a question about the picture labeled Factory States. What kind of Ogre is in the background? It appears to have at least 4 missiles (assuming same on each side), 4 to 6 secondary battery (4 barrels visible, but another connection point towards rear), and a main battery separated from the rest of the tank by a ridge with AP guns on it. Based on the placement of the Main Batteries present it does not look like a III or IV. The I, II, and III (and IV?) all have their main battery on the center ridge of the front. The V has a ridge splitting the battery placement, but I don’t think there are any AP on the ridge. Could it be a Mk. VI? They have 3 Mains and it could go one centered on the main ridge, then two smaller ridges beside it, APs on these ridges, and then the other MBs off to the sides. That seems like a good layout giving a good arc of direct fire. Alternately, maybe it is something new or maybe a Mk. VII. A Mk. VII would probably be like a Mk. V with “wings” added each with a main battery and some AP. That might be what we see is a “wing”. Also speaking of pictures, the Fencer picture seems to have too many missiles and they seem too small. Any other thoughts? (My apologies to the artists for nitpicking their art so much. I understand artistic license but I am really big on technical accuracy. I do like the pictures despite my nitpicking.) Last thing, how about some more of those new Ogre record sheets from the new edition. I really like the Mk. III and Mk. V sheets and wish they had included the Mk. II and Mk. IV. Maybe SJG can create some for all the other cyber-tanks and put them on the website in PDF format. (Please.) I would be very interested in seeing the Huscarl and Legionnaire sheets too. (Huscarl does not have the tower but is just like a Mk. V otherwise right?) Ok, I have rambled enough. Any comments are welcome. Thanks, Duncan McEwen N.A. Combine Ogre Engineering Group P.S. Steve - On the subject of the Orge Book, go ahead and reprint it. Not everyone can get to the web (which is a great resource BTW). I would also look into a second Ogre book with newer information. ------------------------------ From: "Andrew Walters" Subject: New Edition Counter Mix Question Okay, I got a tournament coming up in a week and a half, so I'm checking things over and run into a snarl. I recalled the original GEV scenarios limited the players unit selection to the counter mis, so I checked to see if that was still true in light of the *much* larger counter mix in the new edition. Its still there. But now you've got eighteen HVY's of each color it doesn't mean much, unless the intention was to prevent the player from selecting more than nine HWZs. What's the word, Steve/Henry/Fish, can you have as many LT Tanks as you want? Or is the limit 10 for the Combine and 6 for Paneurope as in the old set, or eighteen for either, as in the new set? This issue aside, I think the new set is *great*. Already bought two. Can't say enough about it. Andrew ----- [My question is how many 1/1 infantry counters does it include? It isn't worth bringing more Lt Tanks than that, IMHO. -HJC] ------------------------------ From: Sean Bayan Schoonmaker Subject: Ogre Book second edition >From: Steve Jackson >98% of the material we'd put in this book has already gone up on the web. >I'd welcome comments here - should we not even bother to put out a second >edition, or would it be worthwhile considering that there would be >revisions, commentary, some new material, illustrations, and the whole >thing would be in one place in hardcopy? My answer to this would be "yes." I like to have everything in one place where it can be easily referenced, as opposed to having to paw through a multitude of revisions gleaned from the web. Schoon ----- From: Kerr Ballantyne Subject: Ogre Book second edition My two cents is release another copy. I would love to be able to have all information bound in one book. Much easier than the current system I have of the Minibook and printouts from around the web. Kerr ----- From: "O'Donnell, Patrick" Subject: Ogre Book second edition ... 98% of the material we'd put in this book has already gone up on the web. I'd welcome comments here ... Yeah, I have a comment in the form of a question, "WHERE ON THE WEB?" For the same reasons that Red-Hat and SUSE are making a living offering "Services" around a free OS you should publish this book and sell it. I AND MANY OTHERS LIKE ME WILL BUY IT. ("If you publish it they will come.") Niether I nor others like me have the TIME or the INCLANATION to mine the web, bang my(our) head(s) against the wall editing it, and having it all bound when I(we) can have "It ALL" much more easily off the shelf for $19.95. I'm one of those lazy people who appreciates "thu evir lovin' gittout" outa being spoon fed. >- should we not even bother to put out a second edition, or would it be worthwhile considering that there would be revisions, commentary, some new material, illustrations, and the whole thing would be in one place in hardcopy?< You just wanted to hear somebody say it didn't you? So, I did. See above. PJ ------------------------------ From: "O'Donnell, Patrick" Subject: Ogre Luna Rationalizations (LONG!) ... [You can get a lot more heavy hydrogen out of the oceans. It stands out in Lunar samples because there's so little hydrogen there. -HJC] True. Of course, the question is, "How are you going to get those TONS AND TONS of H^3 up to the moon at low cost?" The point I failed to make was that in a series of "Building up the Moon" scenarios one is going to have to allow for the "Travel Light" and "Use the resources that are already there" paradigms to make the whole thing more plausable. H^3 and the recently discovered water ice at the north and south poles ARE those resources. Their scarcity is what makes them all the more valuable and worth fighting for. If you want to build low G factories on the moon then the "Economies-of-Scale" cost savings that can be enjoyed by using what is already present is what is going to be the cause of the first skirmishes between battle-suited characters. The LUVs and such will then be produced by the later established factories (I think). PJ ------------------------------ From: "Paul & Lynette" Subject: Webpage Update The Pan Pacific Alliance webpage has been updated ! http://panpacific.homestead.com/Home.html New Pan E and Combine Units in the OGRE Resources Section New Argentinean and PanPac Unit TO&E for the ADZ Links Section Updated Sorry...no new pics this time, but I'm working on it :-) Best Wishes to all, Paul O'Grady Pan Pacific Strategic Headquarters Sydney, Australia ------------------------------ Henry J. Cobb ogre@sjgames.com http://www.io.com/~hcobb All OGRE-related items Copyright (c) 2000, by Steve Jackson Games.