====== Ogre Digest, February 27th (Last: February 21st) ======== ===== Ogre Mk I vs Superheavy Tank From: "Brian Bell" ===== GEV to OM Conversion From: "bbell1@insight.rr.com" ===== Unified theory of rulebooks From: stephan beal ============================== From: "Brian Bell" Subject: Ogre Mk I vs Superheavy Tank I am very glad to see the Ogre Mk 1 is making its way toward production. But I do have a question. Is the Ogre Mk 1 still worth 2 Super Heavy Tanks, (25 points, 12 points) now that you have upped the armor rating of the Super Heavy? It used to be that a Super Heavy could outgun an Ogre Mk I slightly (s6 to s5), but had the same armor as the Mk I main gun; and the Mk I could still ram until killed. Now, though, the SHvy also has a higher rated armor (d5) than the Ogre main gun (d4). True, the SHvy can be damaged on a 'D' result and the Ogre can still ram. But is the difference worth 2 SHvys (especially using GEV & Miniatures overrun rules)? Perhaps a "fix" would be to give the main gun of the Mk I & II a defense rating of 5. This could be explained as the turreted version is less vulnerable than the "ball and socket" design of Mk III & later versions. Of course, then we would have a problem with the Fencer/B. ===== [The GEV overrun rules heavily favor Ogres. I do not understand why most people do not see this. For example, a Mk I will lose an average of two tread units while crushing a Superheavy tank in GEV, while the OGRE rules cost it an average of 4.5 treads. An undamaged Mark V will slaughter 18 squads of infantry in its first fire phase, while the Ogre overrun rules only mark off one squad per movement point. The GEV rules favor GEVs (duh) and Ogres and the terrain on the GEV map does not close this gap for the other units. Shockwave introduces three nifty new types of hovercraft, but the shockwaves will get them. -HJC] ============================== From: "bbell1@insight.rr.com" Subject: GEV to OM Conversion Greetings! I was thinking of running an Ogre Miniatures game at a local convention. Knowing Ogre/GEV, having read OM and being familiar with other miniatures games, I did not think that it would be too difficult. I was very pleased to find that with a 2" : 1.5km : 1 hex would allow me to fit both the GEV (23x23) and Shockwave (slightly smaller) maps on my 5x8 game table. Unfortunately, this is quite a bit larger ground scale than the other 6mm (1/285th; 1/300th) scale games I have been playing (usually about 1":100m). This means some of the terrain that I have been using is just too big. I am soliciting advice about what to do with the terrain. Trees: The GEV G-2 map has about 85 tree hexes. The Shockwave S-2 map has about 88 tree hexes. Add about 20 for the swamp hexes and you get about 195 trees. I have about 48 trees from Woodland Scenic. I am thinking of using felt to define the area and place token trees on the felt. I have more tree material, but am unsure of my skill at making trees and of the time constraint (would rather spend time playtesting). Swamp: There are about 20 swamp areas on both maps. I am thinking of using static grass (light tan) on blue painted fender washers to represent swamp. Again, I think that I will use blue felt to better define the swamp area. Water: Blue felt again. Roads: Black felt or railroad track basing material. Cities: This presents the biggest challenge. All the buildings that I have are scaled to about 1/300th. This is much too large to represent cities in the OM ground scale. I am thinking of purchasing some wood blocks and painting them. Or grey foam from miniatures packing (as San Francisco Bay area club did http://www.bastet.org/~whiterat/BAGD15.html). Again grey felt to define the area will probably be used. Suggestions in this area would be appreciated. And now to my last question. I have asked this before, but do not remember the answers. Are there any _major_ differences in the way OM is played vs. GEV? I imagine the spill-over templates and the 1" overrun rules roughly equate to the effects of spillover fire from stacking and overrun in GEV. I guess by major differences, I mean is there any changes in the balance of power between the pieces when switching from GEV to OM? Again, thanks in advance for your responses. -Bri ===== [Cruise Missiles get to shockwave Ogres from outside of Secondary Battery range in OM but LGEVs take exactly the same effect as Superheavy Tanks. Either disallow Cruise Missiles or use the Shockwave rules. (And even then give AP guns a 12+ to shoot down Cruise Missiles.) Damaged roads are not as big a deal in OM as in GEV. OM has LOS and cover rules and minefields are very different. Everybody has picked up one of the few copies of the Ogre Minis rulebooks they managed to get in stock at WH23, right? -HJC] ============================== From: stephan beal Subject: Unified theory of rulebooks > From: "Grant A. Ladue" > Let me second Henry's thoughts. A "unified" consistent rulebook is > definitely called for at this point. Perhaps it should also have a small > section detailing the differences between the many different versions of > the rules. i personally would consider it a waste of space. The only people interested in that are long-time players, and they're all here ;). Interesting, yes, but i wouldn't pay for it. ----- stephan Generic Universal Computer Guy stephan@einsurance.de - http://www.einsurance.de Office: +49 (89)  552 92 862 Handy:  +49 (179) 211 97 67 "People might not think that was much of a position of power, but then they'd never been minutes secretary to a meeting of slightly deaf old men." -- Terry Pratchet ===== [Sounds like good fodder for the http://www.sjgames.com/ogre/resources/ludo.html page. The deadline for the new scenario contest got extended, see http://www.sjgames.com/ogre/scenarios/contest.html for details. I've heard rumors that SJGames is thinking of working on a new edition of GURPS, including fixing up the explosion rules. If only somebody would point out to Evil Stevie that this could fix nukes and hence GURPS OGRE, therefore the infantry weapons list could be revised, giving nifty options for a new edition of Battlesuit which could then be adapted as the general battle system for GURPS and a good way to sell miniatures. (I'm starting to smell like James Burke, so I'll end here.) -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