====== OGRE Digest, January 12th, 2003 (Last: January 10th) ======== ===== Basic Scenario defense: 10 GEV, 1 HWZ? From: stephan beal From: "Chris French" ===== Deluxe Ogre From: stephan beal From: David Morse ===== Two Mark IIIs against the CP defense. From: David Morse ===== Is luck too important in Ogre? From: David Morse ============================== From: stephan beal Subject: Basic Scenario defense: 10 GEV, 1 HWZ? > From: David Morse > > If I've said it once, I've said it a million times. Read your Ogre > rulebook! It says 12 armor vs Mk III is only balanced when both players > are newbs. When both players are good, use 10 armor units for a fair > fight. > [And what do you bid to take down the Mark V? -HJC] 50! i have never in my life beaten a Mk V on the Ogre map. > From: "Chris French" > > From: stephan beal > > Defense ended with zero infantry and seven(!!!) hovercraft! > > Big deal -- all this got you was a regular victory. It's the best i've ever done against a Mk3, so i was happy :) > My battalion > (2x 4-HVY pl.; 2x 4-GEV pl.; 1x 2-HVY & 1x 1-HWZ pl; standard i don't understand your labeling: 2x 4-HVY pl? > inf. complement) habitually earns me *complete* defense victo- > ries (that is, I usually have 50+ attack points left, plus a 3-dimen- > sional CP). /me bows and scrapes i'm always happy to end the game with even 4 armor left. (i'm far from being a great strategist, i just enjoy playing the game.) > Start as many HVYs as pos. in the forward area; have > everything else charge (except the HWZ, of course). The OGRE > missiles usually only eat 3 tanks; That'd be a neat trick with 2 missiles ;). ===== From: "Chris French" Subject: Basic Scenario defense: 10 GEV, 1 HWZ? > Big deal -- all this got you was a regular victory. My battalion > (2x 4-HVY pl.; 2x 4-GEV pl.; 1x 2-HVY & 1x 1-HWZ pl; standard > inf. complement) habitually earns me *complete* defense victo- > ries (that is, I usually have 50+ attack points left, plus a 3-dimen- > sional CP). Start as many HVYs as pos. in the forward area; have > everything else charge (except the HWZ, of course). The OGRE > missiles usually only eat 3 tanks; then the armor takes the OGRE > apart. Apologies here -- this is the force package for the *Advanced* scenario; the Basic layout is similar in proportion, tho'. > [I think your OGRE is using those missiles suboptimally. > > The math here is a range 5 stun then move up three hexes and finish off > with SB fire. 100% effective against GEVs and works five times out of six > against Heavies. -HJC] Been there, tried that -- didn't work. The GEVs are never within missile range, and the missiles are gone (either fired at HVYs or shot off by same) by the time they arrive. The HVYs jiffy-pop the OGRE's tracks, so that the tactic you propose is not usable after Turn 2-3, due to MP loss. Worse, the OGRE Mk.III can only *attempt* this maneuver twice (two missiles) -- and if it rolls an NE with result, the OGRE dies before it gets anywhere near the CP. (I admit this is while playing solitaire, but in all my games, the OGRE has never managed to take out a CP except by using the Suicide Nuke Option; a force of GEVs has a much better chance at it, which sort-of defeats the purpose for having OGREs trundl- ing about in the first place....) This is one of the reasons I've given serious consideration to making OGRE missile warheads equiva- lent to Cruise Missile warheads; *it's been my experience* (I have to emphasize that, since not everyone agrees) that OGRE missiles are essentially a waste of time against anything that isn't an OGRE as well. > Anyone remember the 1987 release of "Deluxe Ogre" with the large hex, > thick-stock map and the stand up counters? Got it. Play it. :) > The stats for all the units are > on the side of the boards with damage tracks and little markers for the > Ogre's status. For those few people lucky enough to have one, this version > is VERY easy on the eyes. This is what inspired me to try making 1" counters; all that space going unused. I feel that a 1" counter is the Optimum Size for a game piece; any bigger and the game absorbs an entire room, any smaller and one needs a scanning-electron microscope to play. :) > Of course, one good sneeze completely wipes the > Ogre's current status away... One good sneeze, and one must give consideration to having the mapsheet laminated. "Say, I don't remember a forest hex there -- *YAAAAAAGH*!" CF [recalling an unfortunate day at a picnic involving an unstifled sneeze and a squeeze-bottle of pickle relish.... :P ] ===== [I would suggest reading Evil Steve's Basic Ogre Strategy article in the Ogre Book. Ogre's can't just dive in, they'll get mobbed. Instead tread softly and carry some big guns. -HJC] ============================== From: stephan beal Subject: Deluxe Ogre > From: Servitor@aol.com > Anyone remember the 1987 release of "Deluxe Ogre" with the large hex, > thick-stock map and the stand up counters? i use that version for 90% of my Ogre play. :) That version had a misprint on the Ogre chart, though, labeling SBs at DEF 2 and the MBs at DEF 3, so i wondered for a long time why everyone thought the Ogre was so tough. > is VERY easy on the eyes. Of course, one good sneeze completely wipes the > Ogre's current status away... We use pennies instead of the little round bits it came with. The original chart pieces were a good idea, but not very effective in practice. i actually find the yellowish-on-brown a bit annoying. They're certainly not hard on the eyes, but more contrast would be my recommendation if that set were to be re-issued. (hint, hint, Paul!) i'd love to see another such release with some additional unit types (namely the SHVY). ----- stephan stephan@einsurance.de - http://www.einsurance.de i need a woman who can say, 'honey, can you please take a look at this stack trace while I order the pizza?' and really mean it. ===== From: David Morse Subject: Deluxe Ogre > Anyone remember the 1987 release of "Deluxe Ogre" with the large hex, > thick-stock map and the stand up counters? The stats for all the units are > on the side of the boards with damage tracks and little markers for the > Ogre's status. For those few people lucky enough to have one, this version > is VERY easy on the eyes. Of course, one good sneeze completely wipes the > Ogre's current status away... I was extremely disappointed with that product, since the previous "Deluxe Edition" SJGame I'd bought had been "Deluxe Car Wars", which at the time I bought it had had compiled every rule into one rulebook. When I found out that "Deluxe Ogre" didn't have the (then out of print) GEV rulebook, I was majorly cheesed off. ============================== From: David Morse Subject: Two Mark IIIs against the CP defense. I had two people over this weekend and we were casting about for a 3 player game. We decided to run the above scenario with 1 player / ogre. We crushed the defender so badly that I think he'se still cursing. And why was that? Because if the defense goes the standard use-gevs-kill-MB-then-hit-treads technique, two nearby Mark IIIs take out many more GEVs with their secondaries than a lone Mark V. They simply can get twice as many hexes in secondary range per turn. ===== [Even way back in Duffield's Fuzzy article the two Mk III's scenario was noted as being tough. I always combine it with the Mk III defender to get a fairly balanced four player, three Mk III scenario. Which is always great at conventions and easy to play. -HJC] ============================== From: David Morse Subject: Is luck too important in Ogre? I'm starting to think it is, at least for most of the core scenarios. Ogre is a game of percentages, and both sides will strive very hard to get a 5% avantage in the first shot. However in 20-40% of games one side then gets catastrophically screwed on dice rolling. Like about a month ago the enemy's first shot was 5 1-1s against my Mark IIIs batteries. They ALL hit, and I went from cherry to gunless in one turn. With armor it seems even more extreme. Now when the dice don't misfire like this, Ogre is a lot of fun. But I believe throwing away a third of your games due to bad dice is not the mark of a good game. Back in the golden age of Magic the Gathering there was a similar problem with drawing land cards. If you got too few or too many you simply lost, and the game was trivial and boring. This problem was solved later by adding a rules patch that allowed a limited reshuffling ability. I'm playing a lot of Star Fleet Battles these days, and though someone always wins and someone always loses, 97% of the time the reason they lost was because they were outplayed, not because the dice hate them. I may start using a standard deck of playing cards to simulate D6 rolls. One player gets the red cards ace through six. The other gets the black cards ace through six. Shuffle and discard unseen the top two cards from each deck. Then use drawing cards in place of dice for generating CRT results. When a deck is exhausted, reshuffle all 12 cards and repeat. This way I am assured that at least 20% of the first ten one-to-one attacks will X, and likewise are assured that at least 60% of them will D or NE. Via condios, Ogreinos ============================== 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