============ The Ogre Digest, Apr 3rd (Last: Mar 28th) ============= ===== wheeled vehicles From: "Blount, Stephen" ===== GEV Paintjobs and my other rants. From: Darren Breland ===== Two Mark IIIs vs 22 Armor & 30 Infantry? From: Stephan Beal From: Darren Breland ===== C.E.V. From: Charles Barnett From: "Blount, Stephen" ===== New maps From: "Joseph Bloch" From: Sean Bayan Schoonmaker ===== Re: Coastline Maps, and Cliffs in Ogre/GEV From: Michael Powers ===== Scenario contest From: Stephan Beal ===== Future History Today From: William Spencer ============================== From: "Blount, Stephen" Subject: wheeled vehicles >>I could not sleep the other night and started going through the archives. I came across an article on alternate terrain rules and rules for wheeled vehicles. I've always wondered about the wheeled vehicle rules. Apparently they have not seen some of the new wheeled armored vehicles on the market today. The French, South Africans, Italians, and several other European countries make extensive use of wheeled armored fighting vehicles. In some types of terrain they actually perform better than tracked vehicles and they allow the vehicle to reach higher road speeds. If I get around to it I just may come up with some alternate wheeled vehicle rules. The WHL movement class pretty much applies only to road-bound vehicles. I'm going to keep out of the line of fire of any arguments that stray into the current wheeled-versus-tracked debate going on in US Army circles; there is a lot more heat than light being generated there. Anyway, if you want to model an all-terrain wheeled vehicle, the simplest way to do that is just to use the existing TNK movement mode. The differences between an armored car and a light tank are too small to be seen on the scale of Ogre/GEV. --Stephen Blount sblount@intiso.com ============================== From: Darren Breland Subject: GEV Paintjobs and my other rants. >From: Sumnerd1234@cs.com >came across an article on alternate terrain rules and rules for wheeled >vehicles. I've always wondered about the wheeled vehicle rules. Apparently >they have not seen some of the new wheeled armored vehicles on the market >today. The French, South Africans, Italians, and several other European >countries make extensive use of wheeled armored fighting vehicles. In some >types of terrain they actually perform better than tracked vehicles and they >allow the vehicle to reach higher road speeds. I totally agree. I posted a "home rule" on the SJ site about wheeled vehicles a while back. I find it perplexing that the road speed of a 2085 wheeled vehicle is slower than a modern day Tracked AFV. My house rule follows: - All WHL vehicles have their ROAD speed increased to at least 8" / 4 hexes - NO road bonus. Wheeled vehicles are classified as follows: MWHL For military wheeled vehicles (armored cars, military trucks, LAV's, Jeeps, etc.) - Clear terrain move of max 6" / 3 hexes, no roll for breakdown/stuck. May attempt move 8" / 4 hexes but roll for breakdown as per book rules for WHL. - Same restrictions as WHL in other terrain types. CWHL For civilian wheeled vehicles (Trucks, cars, rescue vehicles, etc.) - Same terrain restrictions as outlined in the rules for WHL. It works well for Military convoys, and "archaic" armor units. Anyone have a similar or alternative to this WHL rule? This drew a response from Paul Chapman stating that Ogreverse military does not use wheeled vehicles. I disagree (sorry Paul). Granted the hovertruck is a better mode of transport, but I could think of more than one instance where MWHL vehicle types would be used. For example "third world" or poorer nations that cannot afford GEV's, commandeered vehicles, etc. >rules. As for alternate terrain types, I'm hoping that they will produce >additional maps in the near future that provide a little more diversified >terrain We also have rules for Marshes :-) : Marsh Terrain Definition: Low lying, mostly costal, wetlands. Shallow water with small sandy shoals, mostly covered with tall thick grasses. Wide open with few trees and very little cover. Almost impassable to all vehicles except GEVs. Movement - Same restrictions to all vehicles as Swamps except GEV's - GEV's and Infantry travel as if across Clear terrain. Combat - Treat as clear terrain - No blocked LOS, LLOS - No defense bonus for INF, except in Overruns. Defense Double for INF in Overruns Let me know what you think. If you have rules for other terrain type, please post 'em. ============================== From: Stephan Beal Subject: Two Mark IIIs vs 22 Armor & 30 Infantry? > From: "Andrew Walters" > The Ogre rules discuss a scenario where the attacker gets two Mark > IIIs and the defender gets the Advanced scenario defense (20 armor > and 30 inf) plus two extra armor units. We discussed this today and > decided it favored the Ogres. Then we tried it. It *really* seemed to > favor the Ogres. Agreed. I've tried this one a couple of times and the Ogres STOMPED the=20 defenders every time. > Playing against two mark IIIs was a lot of fun, so it would be great > to know how to balance this scenario. Ditto. ----- Stephan Beal Generic IT Guy - stephan.beal@einsurance.de - http://www.einsurance.de Office: +49 (89) 552 92 862 Handy: +49 (179) 211 97 67 "Linux - it doesn't *look* 36-24-36, but it's got a 36-24-36=20 featureset." ===== From: Darren Breland Subject: Two Mark IIIs vs 22 Armor & 30 Infantry? Tried this last weekend: Meeting engagement between and Paneuropean Shock Troop - 3 Ogre Mk III's and a Combine Reinforced Battalion (I guess) of 330 points (mini's). We added a twist, 75% armor 25% infantry. It was great fun, a long game (about 2 hours) and ended in a draw point wise. With most of my opponents armor in smoking ruins and 2 decimated Ogres, the third retreated (Ogres are big, but not stupid :-) ) We used a terrain setup similar to the Shockwave map so that the GEV's had some of their teeth taken away. There isn't a lot of clear terrain that GEV's can take advantage of. Since it was a "meeting engagement" neither side had the benefit of emplacements and had to fight for terrain. Came out pretty good. It didn't favor either side really (except I rolled BAD on more than one occasion with the Ogres...doh!) and played real well. ============================== From: Charles Barnett Subject: C.E.V. Dominique Sumner said: >Also why not let howitzers be towed. Say by a heavy truck, or an armored Reinforcement Pack already has towing rules. ===== From: "Blount, Stephen" Subject: C.E.V. I posted this to the SJG site about a year and a half ago, so I'll trot it out again, just to be difficult: >>The poor powersuited engineer infantry has a lot of work to do, work that today would be performed by a whole smattering of vehicles. What they need is a Combat Engineering Vehicle. >>This is a modified heavy tank, fitted with a powerful servo arm crane and a 'dozer or plow blade, trading its main gun for a less sophisticated "demolition gun". >>Attack Strength:4 Range: 0 (overrun only)(or 1") Defense Strength:3 Move:3 (or 6") Size:3 Move type:HVY Points: oh, I'll let somebody else figure that out. (3.5 VP by Cobb's formula) >>The CEV does 2 dice of damage when ramming structures, can act as three squads of engineers for pushing purposes, can repair roads and clear mines just like an engineer squad. >>This vehicle would, sensibly, actually be divided into a whole series of specialized and probably unarmored vehicles, but that wouldn't be any fun. This is a fairly literal conversion of the M728 or AVRE to Ogreverse equivalent. >>[I polled my support company and all my engineers prefer their TOE GEV-PCs, cause they can flee Ogres better. -HJC] Why choose? --Stephen Blount sblount@intiso.com ============================== From: "Joseph Bloch" Subject: New maps > From: Terry Hewitt > I've created two preliminary versions of coastline maps for use in > amphibious landing scenarios. > > Check them out at http://members.theglobe.com/Londoner54/coastline.html > > Send me any comments or suggestions you might have. The maps themselves look great. The only suggestion I would have is that you explicitly state that infantry moving "up" the cliffs should start its turn adjacent, and then use all it's MP's to cross the cliff hexside. Also, just how high up can a GEV fly? Would it be able to go up a cliff? Perhaps non-armor units moving "down" a cliff could do so without burning their entire movement for the turn. Joe Bloch ===== From: Sean Bayan Schoonmaker Subject: New maps >I've created two preliminary versions of coastline maps for use in >amphibious landing scenarios. > >Check them out at http://members.theglobe.com/Londoner54/coastline.html I'm not sure that the Cliff terrain type is really suitable to the OGRE scale. Also, the beach map has far too many of them. I channelizes movement too much. Schoon ============================== From: Michael Powers Subject: Re: Coastline Maps, and Cliffs in Ogre/GEV These look good; I have some questions, though. *The Beach. You say it costs 2 movement points to go through the beach. Is this for every unit? Even GEVs? Even Infantry? What about heavy things getting stuck; is that possible? I'd say just treat Beach hexes as Clear for GEV and INF movement and all units' defense, and Swamp hexes for other units' movement. Also, a full kilometer or so of 'beach' seems like a pretty big beach! You might even just use the 'stream paradigm' for beach, suggesting that units must start their turn next to a beach hexside in order to cross. *The Cliffs. I'd rather see an "Ogre Miniatures"-type version of these. Something like this: INF (battlesuited infantry, not militia): Infantry ignore cliffs when descending (crossing from "high" to "low"). When climbing, they treat the cliff the way other units treat a stream, in that they can only climb a cliff if they started the movement phase adjacent to it. OGR: Ogres cannot climb cliffs. They can drive off a cliff at no cost to MP, but take tread damage by the following table: Ogre: Takes: SHVY or other armor: 1-1 attack Mark I, II: 1 die Mark III, IV: 2 dice Mark V, Fencer: 3 dice Mark VI, Doppelsoldner: 4 dice As usual, if the damage to treads results in a loss of MP, this loss is effective immediately but not retroactively. Other units treat cliffs as impassable. They cannot climb or descend, and if they drive off a cliff they are destroyed. It is possible for road or rail 'bridges' to exist that allow units to cross cliff hexsides safely; treat these as bridges over streams for all purposes. As with forests and towns, cliffs do not affect weapons fire in either direction (even though being higher allows your weapons more range, it make the shells easier to spot in flight.) *The map layouts. If you're trying to make the beach be a barrier for the GEV map, then you should have it appear on the topmost and bottommost hexes as well; otherwise units will just make an 'end run' around it. Also, perhaps the S map should have some terrain on the islands (forests or towns, of course); this makes that area less of a 'GEV playground'. -- Michael Powers Graduate Student, GWU/JIAFS NASA Langley Research Center (757) 864 4457 -- m.t.powers@larc.nasa.gov ============================== From: Stephan Beal Subject: Scenario contest > From: Steve Jackson > The Ogre scenario design contest sponsored by Wounds Unlimited has > drawn a big ONE entry so far... Hey, that's not fair... several weeks ago I sent a couple questions=20 regarding the rules to the address listed on the contest announcement=20 page and never got answers (and no bounced mail, either), so I stopped=20 mine because I don't know if it's appropriate. The questions were, if I=20 remember correctly: 1) Must we use Ogre rules or may we use GEV rules? 2) May we use Shockwave rules? (I'm assuming so, since a SuperHeavy is=20 allowed, and that unit comes from Shockwave). Specicially, I'd like to=20 use structure points. ============================== From: William Spencer Subject: Future History Today I'm depressed. I keep reading the news and I keep seeing the OGRE world coming closer. And it's not a world that you'd actually want to live in, you know? News item today: Jesse Helms wants the U.S. to get out of the nuclear test-ban treaty. (Sponsored by such folks as nuclear-weapons scientists, who say that were the ban lifted they could work on and test Ogre-style micro-nukes.) Seeing that the U.S. hasn't quite signed the comprehensive test ban treaty, as well as some of those other treaties (like the land-mines ban), and is selectively ignoring others (like the ABM treaties), it looks like, in a worst-case scenario, we could be headed for another Cold War: the U.S. vs. everyone else. Another news item: Prez. Bush, seeing the opposition in Congress to his plan to drill for oil in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, backed off, but mentioned that we may have to look to Canada and Mexico for oil. I had this sudden mental image of tanks crossing that famous "longest unguarded border in the world" to the North - and paratroopers over Mexico. So, here's what the future history could turn out to be, based on current events (and dashed with a healthy dose of cynicism): The U.S. "pressures" Canada and Mexico to federate into what will become the North American Combine over the "oil crisis." The European Union, outraged over the U.S.'s flagrant disobedience of many treaties, drops out of NATO and starts its own weapons program, beginning what will become the Paneuropean Federation. The U.S. abandons its defense treaty with Japan, causing Japan to build-up a state-of-the-art Army and renew its old feuds with China. This brings Japan out of an economic recession and brings a new set of people into power. A Cold War begins, punctuated by conflicts across the globe as U.S. "peacekeepers" sends troops to "troubled" countries. A possible flashpoint: one country doesn't want the help, and calls for aid from Europe, citing old treaties. The U.N. is no help, of course. The U.S. keeps using its Security Council vote to veto anything useful. As the oil continues to "run out" - or at least, so the oil companies say - the squabbling for resources continues. Eventually, the U.S.-dominated NAFTA coalesces into the NAC, the EU federates and becomes Paneurope, Japan declares itself an Empire, and China, well, remains China, but becomes more active...and the world is once again at War. Somewhere along the line, in the rest of the world: Australia reaffirms its neutrality... The U.K. pulls closer to the new-formed NAC and farther from the Continent... Israel asks the NAC for more tanks to deal with those pesky Palestinians... The rest of the Middle East nations either declare neutrality (or declare war against all sides, which is about the same thing) or sell oil to both sides... The poorer African and South American nations anger the American corporations by "stealing" American patents on things like AIDS drugs and weapons - so the corporations encourage the new NAC government to take action and teach them a lesson... The richer African and South American nations become targets, too, by virtue of success - and "unexploited" mineral resources... Who knows what Russia ends up doing or having done to it... And the air and water just get worse and worse, since - it being wartime - environmental concerns are thrown out the window... (One possible reason for the reduction in the use of military aircraft is because of the increased frequency and severity of storms, due to global warming.) On a lighter note, Cuba remains cheerfully independent of the U.S., despite renewed efforts on the part of CIA. And thanks to the development of advanced cloning technology, Fidel Castro remains in charge for the rest of the century... -- William Spencer williamspencer@hotmail.com Shadowjack shadowjack@subdimension.com ============================== Henry J. Cobb ogre@sjgames.com Archives at http://www.io.com/~hcobb All OGRE-related items Copyright (c) 2001, by Steve Jackson Games.