====== OGRE Digest, December 1st (Last: November 28th) ======== ===== Crowding out the LGEVs From: "Chris French" From: Servitor@aol.com ===== Mark II-B From: Seth C Kimmel (sethkimmel@aol.com) ============================== From: "Chris French" Subject: Crowding out the LGEVs > EEeek! Forget about the LGEVs, imagine the impact on a standard game of > OGRE/G.E.V. "Command Post" scenario. It has no effect -- AP guns are effective against CPs. (Or so _Deluxe OGRE_ tells me.) > (Hmm, on the other hand, it means the > Ogre couldn't sneak out of an overrun combat after losing MBs and SBs. On > the other, OTHER hand, it also means that a Mark V will now overrun on its > own turn much more eagerly). Exactly. OGREs are *supposed* to close with and destroy the enemy, not fiddle about waiting to be swamped by a soap opera. > Ogres w/cruise missiles... hmmm. I'd say that the CMs should cost a lot > more than normal since the Ogre is a much safer (and speedier) launch > platform than a crawler. I wasn't proposing to put CMs on an OGRE (tho' it's an idea...); I was proposing to give OGRE missiles the same warheads as CMs. In essence, the OGRE missile becomes a nuclear hand gre- nade -- lob one into a mass of foes, then drive in, guns blazing. I got the idea from the "_OGRE_ Meets _Starship Troopers_" article. Hope that clears up matters. > [If you simply want to restore the effectiveness of Ogre Missiles > against LGEVs, just give them a splash effect of a 1-point spillover > attack into all six hexes adjacent to the target.-HJC] There's a thought. > [Gee, I don't know if this is on topic or anything, but in Popular > Science "21st Century Soldier", page 76 I found the following, Umm, which issue is this? [A 128 page book from the publishers of Pop Sci. I bought it off the magazine rack last week. -HJC] > "...Streetfighters would be a class of inexpensive, fast, > heavily-armed catamarans... If one Streetfighter were attacked, the others > would swarm on the attacker from all directions, relying on speed to fire > their weapons and retreat before the enemy had a chance to return fire." Umm, what battle environment are these for? If they're naval ves- sels, I would advise anyone who thinks Fuzzy-Wuzzy tactics work in RL to play a few games of _Harpoon_. Cruise missile speed: 700 MPH. Ship speed: 40 MPH. Look on Thalassocrats' faces when navy is wiped out in first ten minutes of war: Priceless. There are some things firepower can't buy -- for everything else, there's Air Power. :) > "Unfortunately, in war games, simulated Streetfighters, which sound > much like World War II PT boats, have proved easy to hit, and their crews > faced almost certain death." > > But I guess it's OK, if you save the CP, right? -HJC] Tell that to the horde of whining lefties who will be besieging every gov't installation within five minutes of the casualty lists being released. NYC Draft Riots of 1863, anyone? :) CF ============================== From: Servitor@aol.com Subject: Crowding out the LGEVs > If you simply want to restore the effectiveness of Ogre Missiles > against LGEVs, just give them a splash effect of a 1-point spillover attack > into all six hexes adjacent to the target. Curiously, in Ogre/G.E.V., it's easy to remember not to stack when near a missile-armed Ogre, not so easy to remember to space your hovers in Ogre Minis and much harder to remember to keep your hovers (or any other armor for that matter) spaced a couple of feet apart in Ogre Macrotures. I've seen several games where enterprising Ogres (having duly noted my "house" spillover rule, wherein "XX" only drops to "X" not "D") have dropped a couple of Rattlers into a formation of GEVs. Even if no 6's are rolled, enough GEVs usually get disabled to make the cost of the shockwave very effective. But for the hexmap, this obviously would never happen (unless your opponent doesn't understand the Spillover Fire rule or is terminally unobservant). So, perhaps a more general house rule folks might try out on the hexmap game is that an attack against stacked units generates 1/2 attack as normal, and a 1/6 attack against units (but not structures) in adjacent squares. I think I will try this out in Ogre Macrotures to see how it works. best, John Hurtt (Servitor@aol.com) ============================== From: Seth C Kimmel (sethkimmel@aol.com) Subject: Mark II-B > In order to win over some clients, the Combine needed to build an improved > Mk-IIb raider unit. > > Changes to the Mk-II: > Add two one shot missiles. > The move becomes 4 treads per inch by 8 inches total move. > > Check http://www.io.com/~hcobb/gev/ogrecalc.html for the year and price. Henry: In the various published SJ items, the MkII has either had D2 or D3 secondaries. This has always been a major pet peeve of mine (yeah; I need a life...). The original Icepick article mentioned the MkII's "being underarmored", and gave it D2 secondaries. I thus say that canonical MkII's have d2 secondaries. Any canon products that list MkII's with d3 secondaries should really be referring to MkIIB's. I say this should be canon like the MkIII/MkIIIB. Comments? PS: then your design should be a MkIIC... ===== [Well, we'll have Two C about that. I've been trying out the Cobbian Dopp. (6MR, 20 int Mis, 2MB, 8SB, 12AP, 60 treads with starting move 3 hexes / 6 inches) Dueled against SJ's latest Mark VI http://www.io.com/~hcobb/gev/2002/gevnov26.txt The Mark VI maneuvered and got a missile shot over a crater and won. Then when up against the Uber-Raid. > Ogre Raid: GEV map, Advanced Raid scenario (9.036), attacker has one > Mk. VI, defender has 48VPs of INF and 60VPs of armor. Defender > rolls for reinforcements as per 9.036 (once on even turns, and twice on > odd). With the Dopp attacking instead of the Mark VI. The defense started with 8 GEVs and a MHWZ and I somehow read that as 40 squads of infantry, but that didn't help much. Ran the Dopp as the Uber-Fencer and ran out of missiles before losing a third rack, lost all the mains and secondaries and at the end a point of movement. The total damage to the Ogre was 100 points before it swam down the river to home. (MHWZ was long gone.) All of the CPs, two companies of armor and a battalion of infantry along with quite a bit of real estate totaled up to 361 victory points for the attacker. I think I'll go with 24 internal missiles for the Dopp from now on, even though it makes it slightly more expensive than the new Mark VI, it brings the two Ogres into rough balance for a variety of scenarios. Also the Uber-Raid defenders are a bit light to tackle one of these monsters. Next time I'll try 60VPs of inf and 90VPs of armor against the Mark VI. -HJC] ============================== Send all submissions or mailing list changes or problems to 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