====== OGRE Digest, November 26th (Last: November 25th) ======== ===== Crowding out the LGEVs From: "Chris French" ===== MKIV questions From: Sethkimmel@aol.com ===== Missile Racks From: David Morse ===== Fixing the Mk. VI: The Rules From: "Paul Chapman" ============================== From: "Chris French" Subject: Crowding out the LGEVs > What OGREs need is a way to deploy boobie-traps at range from > themselves, and force the LGEVs to run over them and blow up like > popcorn. Ideally the large numbers of D1 LGEVs should be particularly > disadvantaged here In my _Car Wars_ days, we had a marvelous device for annihil- ating motorcycle gangs: The 1,500-lb. Laser-Guided Cluster Bomb. To-hit of 6 (before mods), does 20d6 to anything on a standard- size _CW_ mapsheet. Most bikes would disintegrate at 15-20 pts. And we had acft. that could carry eight of them (I confess to de- signing them :) ). Biker gangs ceased to be in our neck of the woods. (Oh, and the cost of the unit paid for itself after the third cycle.) What we're looking at here is a variant of the Fuzzy-Wuzzy Fal- lacy as described in _The OGRE Book_ -- take a s***load of fast- movers, and overwhelm the foe with multiple shots over a short period of time. As demonstrated by the article's author, it works, first time, every time. :) I propose the following to fix this problem: 1) OGRE AP guns now have *full* effect v. armor, and *double* v. infantry. (Not sure how this will play out.) 2) From the "_OGRE_ meets _Starship Troopers_" article -- give the OGRE's missiles the same effects as a Cruise Missile. (The OGRE will take some hits, but not nearly as many as the soap bubbles will!) > (Though I secretly remain skeptical if LGEVs are > actually better than GEVs in european terrain) This also helps squish LGEVs -- simply stay on the other side of a stream hexside from them. A Charge Of The Light Brigade will be stopped dead. Forests are also useful for this -- OGR move mode ignores such terrain, while GEV move mode is crippled by it. Which leads to: 3) When using the _OGRE_ map, disallow all units not in _OGRE_. As was expressed at a recent con: "The GM is not God -- God is just one of the GM's NPCs". :) > And while you're at it, please keep on coming up with suggestions to fix > the brain dead MSL. Question: Under the Cobb formula, will a Missile Tank with 3 MP come in at or under 6 pts.? > [Even if they have to stack two to a hex, LGEVs are still better than > ordinary GEVs. See: http://www.io.com/~hcobb/gev/2000/gevmay28.txt for > the numbers on this. Pretty much the Fuzzy-Wuzzy thing again. Which leads back to the terrain thing again. :) GEVs are wonderful on the _OGRE_ map -- but they eat it big time when trees and streams appear. (Swamps are kind-of a wash -- no unit gets on with that terrain.) > #6: change as little as possible. Not usually possible, in my experience. If the design is so badly horked that an Official Rewrite is required.... :P > #7: remain true to the canon descriptions published in G:O and OM. Hell, it's easier to change the flavor text than anything else! > all weapons get +1Def Silly question: Why does a lightweight unit like the Mk. I have (in essence) the same amount of armor covering its Main Gun as a Mk. VI? In my experience, Bigger Tank == More Defense; Smaller Tank == Less Defense. CF ===== [Well critical hits do stop Mk Is much easier than any other Ogre. And do you really expect to chase down LGEVs with AP guns? -HJC] ============================== From: Sethkimmel@aol.com Subject: MKIV questions Hi all, and happy turkey day. One; who has gotten their MKIV's yet (mine's on the way...)? Two; how does it look (does it "fit in" nicely with the MK III and V)? Biggest question: why the change from 60 treads to 56 (according to the website)? Seth PS; now we need the Ninja (and a Pan Euro CMC...) ===== [I remember seeing a digital picture somewhere on the SJGames site that showed a Mark IV in between a III and a V, but I can't find it now. As for 56, well that's divisible by eight, which is the Mark IV's movement in Ogre Minis. -HJC] ============================== From: David Morse Subject: Missile Racks Grant: Its interesting that you found the D7 racks to be a crapshoot. I hadn't thought of that, but in hindsight it makes sense: a few lucky rolls can make the difference between 2 missiles being fired, and 20 missiles being fired. On his list, Henry suggested radically decreasing the number of missiles per rack, while increasing the number of racks. The advantage of this approach is three fold: 1. More racks => less sensitive to lucky hits 2. Less ammo => less catastrophic for the opponent if he rolls all 1s - the Ogre runs out of ammo at some point 3. Increased "shock value" from stronger alpha strike - Mk VI starts to feel scary again, like the Mark V. If you could fire on a D4 MB or a D4 missile rack that had only 2 reloads left, which would you choose? I might go for the MB. [not sure which list to post this on, since HJC's list has his Ogre proposals, and this list has Grant's analysis ... so I cross-posted] ___ Ogre Mk. VI-Cobb 3MB, 6SB, 4MR, 12MSL, 78TRD, all weapons get +1Def [+6 treads, +1MR, -8MSL, new rule, 225VP] Cobb-Dopp (Copp? Dobb?) 2MB, 8SB, 6MR, 24MSL, 60TRD [+3MR, +4MSL, 225VP] ============================== From: "Paul Chapman" Subject: Fixing the Mk. VI: The Rules > [Edited from his comments elsewhere by permission. It looks like a > decision might come up quickly for the Mark VI so I'm going to take some > time to play things through this weekend. (While waiting for servers to > install and other slow periods at work.) > > Note that this version of the Mk VI has only three points more total > defense on secondaries and heavier, but is down 14 points of attack > strength on the Dopp. But it's the way those defense points are spread > around that could make all the difference. (D2 AP guns are just strange > though...) -HJC] SJ looked over our suggestions, and came up with one of his own. (As much as I liked increasing the Defense of the Mk. VI (either on the MRs or overall), SJ pointed out that it was just begging for player confusion, and I have to agree.) Ogre Mk. VI (225 pts) 3MB, 6SB, 3MR, 12MSL, 6ExtMSLs, 16AP, 72TRD Dopp (225 pts) 2MB, 8SB, 4MR, 20MSL, 8ExtMSLs, 12AP, 60TRD And some scenarios: Ogre Mk. V on Defense: Basic map, basic scenario goals, defender has Ogre Mk.V, plus 100VPs of other units. Duel I: Any map, 2xMk. III plus 25VPs of other units. Duel II: Any map, Mk. V plus Mk. III. Duel III: Any map, Mk. VI vs Dopp. 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). Dopp Attacks: Basic map, attacker gets Dopp and 6 GEVs, defender gets 250VPs of various units, to defend 2 CPs (GEVs cannot destroy the CPs by ramming them). Comments? Playtest results? [This has been an official message from Steve Jackson Games' Miniatures Division.] Paul Chapman Miniatures Division Manager Steve Jackson Games paul@sjgames.com ===== [OK, this is past the point where I really trust my formulas, but they say that Mark VI is worth 226 VPs and the Dopp is 255. Changing the Dopp to 6 racks and no external missiles would bring it's price down to 227VPs, but I'll try these first as I suspect that the Dopp's limited treads would still make it fuzzy prone, even with a total of 28 missiles. The math says that SJ's Mark VI takes an average of 126 attack factors to strip the racks, mains and seondaries, while 132 points strips the Dopp down to toothless against GEVs by removing the racks, mains and a point of move, modulo the external missiles and terrain. The Dopp is going to have to dive into a bunch of armor or take on an Ogre to find targets for all those secondary batteries and the rest of it is sure going to hurt if it does. -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