====== Ogrethulhu's Birthday?, December 7th (Last: December 4th) ======== ===== Ultramarines From: David Morse ===== Strange Things From: "Paul Chapman" ===== Missile Racks in Overruns From: largecardriver5@webtv.net (e.w.markle) ===== Laser AA Systems Today From: Darren Breland ===== Ogre Minis Scale From: "Eric T. or Maryann C. Holmes" ============================== From: David Morse Subject: Ultramarines Sorry. Nine out of nine poll respondents at SF_OGRE voted in support of improving marine infantry in one way or another. After creating a scenario specifically to make them as useful as possible, and giving them treat-water-like-forest, I still found them a bit too expensive at 4vp/squad. Otherwise, I like the proposed triple-D for underwater guys and submerged ramming. I'm not sure about allowing missile launch underwater, seems like it'd favor the Fencer a lot, was that your intention? But ... whatever, ok. I'd vote don't double the marines when firing "ranged" into own hex. The game has too many doublings already for me to keep track of, and how often is it going to make serious difference? ===== [If Marines do not overrun underwater Ogres and they're not even doubled against them that even at 3 VPs per squad they are less useful than LGEVs at sniping on submerged Ogres simply because the LGEVs can get to the Ogres quicker and start pounding away sooner. Otherwise you need to go back to Marines, Howitzers and Ogre Missiles fire at half strength against normal defense submerged Ogres with everything else being at one quarter strength or Marines just aren't all that useful. Missile launch in underwater overruns has always been in the GEV rules and is one of the factors that shocked me about the change to one missile per missile rack per fire phase as now the missile rack Ogres REALLY outgun everything else in an underwater overrun. -HJC] ============================== From: "Paul Chapman" Subject: Strange Things > From: Darren Breland > > [If you want to blame anybody for the delay in the release of the > >Ogrethulhu rulebook, blame me please. > > > > http://www.sjgames.com/newproducts/newrel.html?m=0&y=2 -HJC] > > Ok... It's all your fault. 30 lashings for ya, and you have to cut down the > largest tree in the forest with... A HERRING!! =) Well, I guess January > isn't that far away and it least at gives me the required time I will need > to paint that freaky fig anyway. But I want a MkIV and I want it now... > yeah I'll take some cheese with my whine. > The delays associated with the Ogrethulhu book are the reason for the lack of specific rules, but to answer your more general question, "Why start a whole new mini line before the current accepted line has been completed?": diversification. Miniatures is an expensive business, and to keep the doors open, you've got to attract as many customers as possible. That means providing support for award-winning books (Steampunk), weird crossovers (Ogrethulhu), and popular games (Frag). Rest assured that Ogre is the primary focus of our miniatures output. Next year, we'll be putting out at least twice as many Ogre sets as any other line -- all with new units. I hope this helps to put our divergences into perspective:) Paul Chapman Miniatures Division Manager Ogre Line Editor Steve Jackson Games paul@sjgames.com You can't spell "progress" without an Ogre! ===== [I agree that SJGames needs to cover many areas in order to have a sustainable miniatures business while avoiding crowded sectors. (Orcs, orcs with guns, etc.) Though it might be nice to offer a special set of the most popular Cardboard Heros cast into metal. But Ogrethulhu just isn't what I would have done first. If I was the one making the call, I would have gone from Ogres to Steampunk to Screampunk to Illumnati to Robots to Cyberpunk to CthulhuPunk and then when I'd added a bunch of strange and powerful new creatures to the Cthulhupunkverse I'd come out with the rulebook to convert these into Ogre terms and produce Ogrethulhu. But if I'd taken the hint that the Ogrethulhu boxes were already printed up with the given stats I wouldn't have disrupted the Ogrethulhu playtest with my search for workable stats. (I'm still left with the puzzle of how to handle D2 pods. If they do trival things then they are ignored until after the guns and legs are yanked off the giant bug. If the pods are vital to Ogrethulhu's vitality then at D2 they are blown away too quickly to be used. I had it worked out for D3 pods, but I don't see how to balance D2s.) -HJC] ============================== From: largecardriver5@webtv.net (e.w.markle) Subject: Missile Racks in Overruns Hi Henry, Why would I use a Fencer or a MkIV like a V? I wouldn't. I have speed on you. Why would I let you get close enough to overrun my IV? If you had a watchdog V and all the other units to play against me, I certainly wouldn't willingly let you get close. I have other fish to fry. I agree with the math. A V would take a IV. It should. But that's if I let you draw me into a slugging match. But let you just walk up and knock my tower into the dirt, no. Not if I was awake & breathing. But it would be fun to play you & see if we were right. Could you overrun me? Could I keep away? What's the set up? You have a V, I get a IV. What map or maps? Are you defending? What else do you or I have as assets? Or is it just one big counter each? Let me know. OgreLord http://community.webtv.net/largecardriver5/ogrelord ===== [Either the Mark-IV closes to range five or it does not. If it does take it's one and only missile shot the Mark-V will close to range two and blow those silly racks off. (A one-shot missile plus a secondary is 2-1 on a rack, repeat six times.) -HJC] ============================== From: Darren Breland Subject: Laser AA Systems Today >From: AvaheilDotter@aol.com > Pre-deploy using small drones that stop outside the immediate defense >zone and release the fog/chaff. Or simply lead off with a volley of the >dispensers to let them get shot and create the cloud. Along a "wide front" so >he simply can't play "light saber" with the beam... hmmmm.... I don't know if a system of drones like you describe exists today or could exist in the near future. That counter is also assuming that the system is a laser "beam", which it isn't. It's a single shot "pulse" laser (to use a Sci-fi term) of extreme high energy and short duration. It can fire 60 times in rapid succession before it needs to be recharged. The low-energy longer duration "beam" laser concept was pretty much abandoned due to it being easily countered. Are chemical lasers of such high power affected by fog/chaff? Are we talking a chemical gas or some sort of silicate prismatic? Seems like an awful lot of trouble to use such a counter. Additionally, its use effectively announces your intentions which would negate any other concealment technologies, such as "stealth". Should "protective" countermeasures prove too difficult, costly, or unfeasible to implement, then the remaining alternative is to jam or defeat the radar system. This may be extremely difficult given that Phased Array radar systems are fast, difficult to defeat, and adaptable to situation and terrain. Additionally, recent developments in phased array radar systems have improved the radar's capability against low-altitude, reduced radar cross-section targets in heavy clutter environments (such as chaff or ground interference), all this in the presence of intense electronic countermeasures. The Wild Weasel concept may not work because the Weasel must expose himself. If that happens, the extremely rapid reaction time of the PA Radar (less than 7 seconds to detect, ID, lock, track, and fire) coupled with the "no time to target" laser would kill the Weasel before a HARM could be launched. Even if the Weasel did get off a shot, the laser would easily down the HARM. I don't know how you could defeat a good THEL system, but it would be a hard nut to crack. l8ta, -D. ============================== From: "Eric T. or Maryann C. Holmes" Subject: Ogre Minis Scale Fellow GEV Jocks: Darren brings up a good concern. And I've tried looking at it from a miniature gamer's standpoint. So here goes..... I did some number crunching to bring the scale down to a 1::5000 and 1::1000 standard. The 1::5000 numbers seem playable, but the "map" becomes a whopping 6 ft X 12 ft, or scale 9 km X 18 km. On the standard table (ping pong; 5 ft X 9 ft) everything can get into range after one turn (best guess-timate since I've not played it out). I calculated the distance multiplier to be four times (4x) the miniatures rules. Infantry marches across the board @ 16 inches and hit anything within 8 inches. GEVs race at 16 inches and hit anything within 32 inches An OGRE missile hits anything within 40 inches The blast _radius_ of a cruise missile is 28 inches. The 1::1000 numbers are even crazier as everything is in "effective range" so you are really playing a "hand to hand" or as we say, an "over run" situation. I calculated the distance multiplier to be thirty times (30x) the miniature rules. Now you have to consider cover, since "radar" tracking may not be usable due to contour shadows.... and satellite information may not be real time and the target may be that 10 meters or one meter off target as it moves through the terrain. Oh, I've played at this scale using another set of game rules, GDW's "Striker 1st Edition," and I do like this scale for tactical combat on a ping pong table. If anyone is interested, I'll send the 1::5000 conversions I did. Just give me some time as they're penciled in next to the "miniatures" data. Eric Eric T. Holmes Arctic Force Command (ARTFORCOM) o +. | * . ' \ \\_/|\_// / ___/(o)|(o)\___ ####"""""""#### Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings. OGRE MKVI They did it by killing all those who opposed them. ===== [The biggest pain when using a different scale for Ogre Minis scale is having to redo the attack templates. (And the Mark VI has three mains up front.) -HJC] Henry J. Cobb ogre@sjgames.com Archives at http://www.io.com/~hcobb All OGRE-related items Copyright (c) 2001, by Steve Jackson Games.