====== Ogre Digest, August 24th (Last: August 22nd) ======== ===== Click-base Ogre/G.E.V. From: BillA2720@aol.com From: Andrew Walters ===== Battlesuit Minis From: Sumnerd1234@cs.com ===== Mines From: Sumnerd1234@cs.com ===== Virtual Miniatures From: "David R. Crowell" ============================== From: BillA2720@aol.com Subject: Click-base Ogre/G.E.V. << Here's a thought sure to provoke some flames aimed at me... I wonder if SJ Games would consider licensing OGRE/G.E.V. to Wizkids to make a "click-base" version? Since Mr. Chapman is bound to read this, I would be interested in hearing his thoughts on the matter. >> The new Mechwarrior Dark Age game is N scale. How big would the box need to be? :{) Bill Armstrong ===== From: Andrew Walters Subject: Click-base Ogre/G.E.V. Here's *my* gloriously insightful opinion: Bad Idea. I believe the click-based system is fundamentally flawed. Smaller units, tanks, fighter jets, human beings, other "life" forms, don't degrade that way as they take damage. Typically any damaged received by a unit of this size is either trivial, or catastrophic. The former may be frightening, inconvenient, painful, or ugly, but they don't reduce combat capability much. The latter might not be fatal, but you're out of the fight. For example, you're sword fighting with someone, and he hits you. Oh, your arms cut. Looks bad. Hurts. But you can still lift the sword, so despite the chance you'll die of infection later, you can run as fast and hit as hard. Oh, he knocked your head and disoriented you, oops, that let him get a second blow in, you're out of the fight. Similarly, shells either bounce off a tank or they kill it. They don't make it slower and its attacks less penetrating. Yes, you get the occasional mobility kill, but the crew usually bails out shortly after. I suppose you might lose power and have to manually track the turret for the last shot, but that shot will be just as penetrating, if you can get it off. This gradual degradation is a good representation of what happens with larger units, battleships, four-engine bombers, and, presumably, Ogres and Mechs. But I don't buy it for skirmish scale. So I could see clicky-base for Ogres or Infantry platoons (provided they lose attack and defense strength, but not movement), but not for a GEV. A company of GEVs, maybe. But I've done some thinking and pondered what I've read about history, and I think clicky-base is nonsense. I also have issues with miniatures games where you pick up the figures constantly. When I obseve games no one seems to mark position or front arc as the rules say, and I'm pretty sure they don't go back where they came from. I would love to by the new Mech Warrior, neat figures, but collectible games are bad for you and I just can't use that system. Nice figures, though. I would love to hear all other opinions. Andrew Walters andreww@arczip.com ===== [As for the scale, use this for the Macrotures, but not for the armor units, which don't have varying stats, but for the Ogres and don't put in on a base, but the Ogre Click record sheet on the back of the Ogre. You would turn over or place a marker on disabled armor, place one infantry figure per surviving squad and use click records for Ogres and then you wouldn't need to walk ten feet over to adjust record sheets on the side of the battlefield. Just don't step on the LGEVs. -HJC] ============================== From: Sumnerd1234@cs.com Subject: Battlesuit Minis From: Sethkimmel@aol.com > 5) Last but not least a way to combine Starship Troopers and Battlesuit > which version; the original version, which IMNSHO is much better, or the > movie version? The original board game version based on the book. I had a copy that I picked up at a garage sale. Sadly, (sniff) It vaporized during one of my many moves over the years since high school. I'll probably breakdown and see if I can find one online in the near future. Anyone want to take stab at figuring out the stats for individual bugs or skinny units? As I side note, I did get a kick out of the Roughnecks:Starship Troopers animated series. I even picked up a few episodes on tape. ===== [My suggestion is to make up your own bugs, or adapt the giant ant miniatures SJG came out with recently to the Battlesuit scale. -HJC] ============================== From: Sumnerd1234@cs.com Subject: Mines In my never-ending quest to keep interest in this and any other ogre related site, I dug around and came up with the following quotes about mines in Ogre: "Do minefields hit all units, or just enemy units? Good question! The minefields described on p. 48 of Ogre Miniatures are smart, and have no effect on friendly units. But other types of mines are possible. Cheap mines will ignore friendly units ... most of the time. These cost only half as much as regular mines, and explode with the same effects. However, friendly armor units also roll (two dice) when they pass through the minefield. A mine is triggered on a roll of 9 or more for Ogres, 10 or more for armor units, and 12 for battlesuited infantry. Compromised minefields are those whose precise type and location is known to the enemy. A defender can take a compromised minefield for half price, but must tell the enemy exactly where its borders are, and mark them clearly on the map, before the enemy even chooses his forces. Effects are normal. Dumb mines treat all units as hostile. These can be bought, in a defending setup, for 1/3 the cost of regular mines. Or the referee may include dumb mines in a scenario, possibly as an unexpected leftover from a previous battle..." I'd like to add a one more category: Antipersonnel (AP) mines are specifically designed to be used against battlesuited infantry. If an infantry unit passes through an AP minefield a mine will explode on a die roll of 4, 5, or 6. Armor units will not detonate the mines. While I'm on the subject of mines, I think that they are the least used to a defender has in his arsenal. People don't use them to their advantage. Placing mines along known avenues of approach is going to cause the attacker to: 1) Slow down his assault. 2) Waste time worrying about running into another minefield. 3) Channel his forces into killing zones for your artillery. My favorite thing to do, against an opponent who likes to use a lot of GEV units, is mine the hell out of areas I know he will have to try a pass through and then position howitzers and blocking forces (infantry, HVYs, or MSL) to cover those same areas. While I'm at it. Engineers can be deadly. If the other guy has them kill them as quickly as you can. If you have them, don't waste them, use them wisely. If you are playing defense, let them lay mines, block roads, and impede the other guys movement, and the revetments they build can be life savers. If you are on the attack, hold them back until you need them. if your scenario call for the destruction of a specific target, let the engineers mine it. Don't have them trying to slug it out, or waste them attacking something unless they have to. ===== [Where are the rules for Engineers laying minefields, rather than individual charges? -HJC] ============================== From: "David R. Crowell" Subject: Virtual Miniatures For those who are interested in how a virtual miniatures game might work, check out DBA on-line at www.fanaticus.org it is an Ancients miniatures game that has been adapted to computer play with fully rendered armies. It plays very similarly to the table top version. I would love to see something similar for Ogre/GEV. ============================== [One of the strangest things in the Ogre timeline to me has always been the second Japanese invasion of China. China has only ever been invaded when it is weak and divided and the Japanese seem to be intent on depopulating their own country. However I found this article that I found somewhat compelling. "The accumulation of state-society tensions will eventually destabilize China..." http://www.foreignaffairs.org/articles/pei0902.html A China only held together under a strongman who feels compelled to attack nearby countries might indeed cause Japan to wake up and revert to earlier behaviors. For another take on East Asia, see http://www.sjgames.com/ogre/board/article.cgi?2723 -HJC] List Moderator: Henry J. Cobb ogre@sjgames.com Archives for this mailing list may be found at http://www.io.com/~hcobb General online support for the OGRE game is at http://www.sjgames.com/ogre Ogre, G.E.V., Shockwave and other products mentioned here are trademarks or registered trademarks of Steve Jackson Games. All rights are reserved by SJ Games. This material is used here in accordance with the SJ Games online policy at http://www.sjgames.com/general/online_policy.html