====== The Ogre Digest, November 7th (Last: November 6th) ======== ===== Ogre Missile Backblast From: stephan beal ===== Hover Ogres From Sethkimmel@aol.com Tue Nov 6 20:13:04 2001 From: "Bell, Brian K (Contractor)" ===== Heavy Weapon Cheesemobiles From: David Morse From Sethkimmel@aol.com Tue Nov 6 20:09:37 2001 ===== Bring out your Cubs From: David Morse From: AvaheilDotter@aol.com ============================== From: stephan beal Subject: Ogre Missile Backblast [HJC] > Example: A Mark-III is overrun by 10 heavy tanks, so it fires an Ogre > Missile in the overrun, destroying one of the tanks (4-1, D counts as an > X.) and disabling three others (1-1 attacks (halved, not doubled, reduced > effect due to spillover) errr... why not doubled? i don't remember ever seeing a rule saying Ogre missiles aren't doubled in an overrun (but also never seen minis). They way i calculate it, ATT6 (halved, not doubled) vs DEF4 == 1-2. i only see 1-1 odds if you do double the msl ATT: (6x2 / 2) vs 4 == 6:4 == 1:1. i agree that missiles should always do spillover, even in overruns, though. ----- stephan Generic Universal Computer Guy stephan@einsurance.de - http://www.einsurance.de Office: +49 (89)  552 92 862 Handy:  +49 (179) 211 97 67 "As death comes, despite our looking for it, so should be life." ===== [Wow, you play with D4 Heavies? (I bet Missile Tanks have a hard time in your games. ;-) The point of the exercise is that while Ogre Missiles fired in an overrun strike the primary target more accurately (hence, doubled to attack strength 12), the spillover from that big nuke is a dumb brute force and does exactly the same effect as it would if fired from extreme range. (Hence halved to attack strength 3, which is a one-to-one on the Heavies I usually see.) -HJC] ============================== From Sethkimmel@aol.com Tue Nov 6 20:13:04 2001 Subject: Hover Ogres << Hover Ogres. Hover Tread units Treated just like regular tread units, except all attacks are at 2:1 odds and each hit destroys the attack rating in hover units. Ogre movement progression begins at 1/0 and goes 2/1, 3/2, 4/3. I recommend that no Ogre ever be given 4/3 (all in hexes, not inches.) I don't know how these balance out or cost or anything, but they seem pretty reasonable. >> see the Coelacanth Ogre... ===== [Yes, but what's the point value?!? -HJC] ===== From: "Bell, Brian K (Contractor)" Subject: Hover Ogres [Quote] From: "Duncan McEwen" Treated just like regular tread units, except all attacks are at 2:1 odds and each hit destroys the attack rating in hover units. Ogre movement progression begins at 1/0 and goes 2/1, 3/2, 4/3. I recommend that no Ogre ever be given 4/3 (all in hexes, not inches.) I don't know how these balance out or cost or anything, but they seem pretty reasonable. [End Quote] I don't like this. Not the hover aspect, but your movement. Taking the examples from Ogre, I would suggest that any vehicle that moves 4 hexes or less moves in one phase. Any vehicle that moves 5+ will move in 2 phases (GEV style) with the 1st phase ALWAYS greater than the 2nd phase. Speed Hex Movement 1 1/0 (Cruise Msl Crawler) 2 2/0 (Msl Tank) 3 3/0 (Hvy Tank) 4 4/0 (Ogre Mk IV) 5 3/2 (GEV PC) 6 4/2 7 4/3 (GEV) 8 5/3 9 5/4 10 6/4 Brian Bell bbell1@insight.rr.com ICQ: 12848051 AIM: Rlyehable YIM: Rlyehable The Full Thrust Ship Registry: http://www.ftsr.org ===== [So you shoot off treads and its attack range increases as it drops from speed 5 to speed 4? OK, drop the move 3/2 bit and just have speed five Ogres do M5 (so they don't double their road bonus) and let Ogres split-fire once they're self-aware. -HJC] ============================== From: David Morse Subject: Heavy Weapon Cheesemobiles > From: White Rat > > From: David Morse > > However, I strongly suspect that HW inf riding GEV-PCs and Light Tanks are > > game balance breakers. On either platform they've got a 7 hex move-fire, > > standing off the mighty Mobile Howitzer, but they get to the scene of the > > crime 5 times faster. > > > > Granted, a fully loaded GEV-PC costs 3 armor. However, in many cases one > > is able to talk one's opponent into letting one pay for the HW infantry > > out of the "and 20 infantry" part of the force, so the real cost is 1 > > armor, and 3 squads of infantry. That's quite cheap, in fact, for a unit > > capable of intimidating 3+ armor units. > > Uh. No. It's 1 armor and SIX squads of infantry. HWI cost double. This > makes it cost just as much as the three armor units you're intimidating. Sheesh, we're all perfectly aware that cheesemobiles technically cost 3 armor. You're replying to a paragraph with the first sentence: "Granted, a fully loaded GEV-PC costs 3 armor"! > I would counter this by saying that three missile tanks can lay down the > same amount of fire repeatedly (albeit with less mobility), that three > GEVs can lay down less firepower at almost as great range, (M+F of 6 > rather than 7), the triple-HWI-in-GPC-club-combo can't get a 2-to-1 on a > SHVY (which will eat them for breakfast when it shrugs the ash off of > its armor if they don't get it), and a HWZ will make short shrift of the > whole kitten caboodle in open ground due to its > just-barely-longer-range. I'm not saying that if we play "3 armor unit ceasefire collapse" tomorrow that I'm going to rush out and buy a cheesemobile. As you've ably demonstrated above, its a bad deal. My argument that cheesemobiles are cheesey rests upon a near universal idiom for scenario design: Player N gets X armor units and Y squads of infantry. If you're stuck with Y squads of infantry, you're usually fantastically better off with Y/2 squads of Heavy Weapons Infantry. If firepower is of the essence, mount them on light tanks. If speed is absolutely imperative, take GEV-PCs. My contention is that such a force will be overall greatly more effective for two reasons: First, since the infantry are all mounted, "fleet speed" will exceed two hexes per turn; Second because the mounted infantry now have a heavy, long range strike they will tip the balance of the ensuing armor vs armor confrontation. > If you can REPEAT this [Recon in Force] performance over the course of > five games, against various opponents with differing OpFors, I'd > consider this a real issue. The only question is: will you volunteer to be one of the five? Its an excuse to play together sometime. :) Despite the problem that we don't agree there's a problem, everyone seems quite happy to discuss possible remedies. So I'll recap what we've got so far: 1. [extra cantankerousness rule] HW infantry count as two squads of infantry for purposes of riding vehicles. Use Battlefields rule 3.033 to govern HW inf splitting up among multiple vehicles. 2. [unsteady platform rule] HW infantry may ride on a vehicle, and may fire their one shot weapon, but not both during the same turn. CLARIFICATION: this word is "turn" and not "time"!-------^^^^ Thus infantry that ride any number of hexes forgo firing for the rest of the turn. (Now maybe others' comments on this will start making sense to me?) 3. [triple rule, by Ratty] Personally, I think HWI are a bit cheap. I wouldn't mind seeing them cost triple, myself. Digging a three-squad out of cities is out-and-out nasty when they have that kind of range and firepower. (historically this was a proposal for reigning in UNmounted HWI, but it also happens to fix the cheesemobile problem) 4. [scarcity rule, by Ratty] Limit HW availability like the Cub. (historically this was a proposal for reigning in UNmounted HWI, but it also happens to fix the cheesemobile problem) 5. [hard cash rule] Heavy Weapons upgrades to infantry suits cost VP from a player's supply of armor units, not from infantry units. Thus in a scenario calling for 2 armor and 20 squads of infantry, a player could take 6 squads of HW infantry, 0 armor, and 14 regular squads of infantry. He could NOT take 6 squads of HW infantry, 2 GEVs, and 8 regular infantry. [hard cash] implies another related rule, which seems implicit throughout the Ogre/GEV world: [soft money rule] Infantry, Engineer, and Marine battlesuits may be paid for using either infantry squads or armor units. Thus in a scenario calling for 2 armor and 20 squads of infantry, a player could take 2 GEVs and 10 marines, or 13 marines, or even 26 regular infantry. The only scenarios I can think of that might break because of this are "A Bridge Too Near" and "Disputed Crossing", where its imperative that forces have a hard time getting across water. If the forces are cashed in for infantry, they just swim across. Of course one could argue that they'll just get their butts kicked once they reach shore. ===== [The hard-cash rule seems to be saying that either the cost of infantry is greatly inflated or people just ain't using them right. So everybody, please name one scenario where you would not gladly trade in all your infantry at a conversion rate of one VP of armor per squad, eh? (From the GEV or Ogre rulebooks only please...) (Given this pricetag, I'd say that Sol: 1/2 VP, Inf: 1 VP, Mar: 2 VP, HW: 3 VP, Eng: 4 VP would be about right. If that's the best you can do with your infantry, but expect to see me take a LOT of Light and Heavy Tanks and tons of GEV-PCs at these prices, assuming the shoot and scoot rules ain't changed.) The ultimate cheesy move for the Micemen (Minutemen (heck, they got nuclear missiles!) on Chesemobiles) is to volley off the missiles and then retreat to a town/road or woods/road hex afterwards. If the foe chases down the GEV-PC the shot will bounce off the platoon in cover which will then jump out and nail them and it takes a great deal of firepower to finish off a platoon in the woods. -HJC] ===== From Sethkimmel@aol.com Tue Nov 6 20:09:37 2001 Subject: Heavy Weapon Cheesemobiles << 2. [unsteady platform rule] HW infantry may ride on a vehicle, and may fire their one shot weapon, but not both during the same turn. This rule seems somewhat more realistic to me. Those HW minis look like civil war cannons without the wheels: Hard to turn the right direction in a jostling, weasely vehicle. >> This one's got my vote.... << Change 5.111 to place the mount point at the end of the GEV second movement phase (So that the 5.11 stacked defense is always clear) and that infantry may dismount at any point during either movement phase and that they always dismount when firing or at the start of an overrun. (So Infantry riding Heavy Tanks work just the same as always.) >> ELEGANT....:-) ============================== From: David Morse Subject: Bring out your Cubs > [The Cub has the same defense, attack and "withdraw" range of the MHWZ, > but only half the attack strength. So why shouldn't it cost less? All true, and very telling. You have me mostly convinced. What do you think of this response though?: The map is not a one dimensional strip of hexes. Sometimes there are weaknesses in a defensive line in unexpected places. MHWZ aren't fast enough to get there in time to plug/exploit them. Cubs are. And Cubs will have the move+range advantage on everything else there. As the board scales to higher and higher sizes, this only helps GEVs find holes, or plug holes faster. Presumably somewhere around 200x200 there's a good enough rail net that the HWZ can move efficiently by train. Thus defensively it'll be about as fast as a Cub, give or take an hour to get set up. Too bad no published map has N-S rails. > I agree that the Cub ought to be limited in numbers, but would the one > shot per turn, total of six shots limit make it balanced at 9 VPs? -HJC] How do you implement number-limiting? No more than 1/6th of VP spendable on Cubs, round towards more cubs? Sorry to come back to this, but couldn't we just make it rare by making it prohibitively expensive (12VP)? By that standard marines are rare, and yet I get annoyed whenever I think about marines. So, yeah, I like a frequency limit. ===== From: AvaheilDotter@aol.com Subject: Bring out your Cubs << I agree that the Cub ought to be limited in numbers, but would the one shot per turn, total of six shots limit make it balanced at 9 VPs? -HJC] >> Nope. Limited shots means one-shot. Most units will be lucky to get 2-3 against an opponent who is concerned about them. Would you accept such a reduction in cost to a HWTZ that had only 6 shots? I would take it in a heart beat... Ad Astra! Stan Leghorn ===== [Huh? Let us compare two mildly comparable units. The LHWTZ (A 3/7, D 1, M0, 6 VPs) against the Cub. The LHWTZ has the same attack strength and about the same reach, but it's immobile and has half the defense so it's a steal for two-thirds of the Cub's cost and has none of the overrun limitations I've suggested above. But you say, the Cub changes the game radically, you just don't know how to deal with it. OK, may I suggest that you might want to read the story that introduced the Cub for some ideas? Yes, the Cub gave a lone GEV lots of problems, but then it caught an Ogre Missile flyball and it was game over. The Ogre Missile has one to two hexes of reach advantage on the Cub, gets a 3-1 and loves to seek out and munch on high value targets. If you ain't got no Ogre then just use 3 LGEVs. The Cub nukes one LGEV and the other two get it. Also Shockwaves punish hoverunits badly. (Only in Shockwave, don't bring up the subject of Ogre Killers, er Cruise Missiles in Ogre Minis until they'll willing to talk about a new edition of those rules.) Lastly, the 9VP Cub is half the price of the 18VP Heavy Weapon Chesemobile, which seems about right. -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.