--------------------GEV List Thingy, Feb 15th-------------------- From: Steve Jackson Subject: for next ogre thingy - sorry I missed the last one To: Henry Cobb .LM0/ OGRE Q&A We had a batch of good questions about mines this month . . . good enough that now we have to add a rule or two. Comments from the list are welcomed, but hit me quick before we go to PYRAMID with these. If a unit is hit by the mines in a minefield, is the whole minefield, cleared, or just a 1" x 1" section, or none of it at all? None of it is cleared. There are a lot of mines in a minefield. Trying to clear it by triggering each mine would be fruitless. Can mines be placed in water? Yes, they can. In deep water (e.g., ocean bottom) they are assumed to be on the bottom, and would not be triggered by anything except an Ogre or a large ship -- like the ones we'll introduce later this year in Killing Zone. In shallow water (e.g., a lake or river) they would be triggered by GEVs, or even infantry, passing over them. Effects of mines in water, and rules for detection and removal, are the same as for regular mines . . . except that only a Marine Engineer unit can clear mines in the water. 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. Dumbmines 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 . . . Yes, this means that you can take six square inches of dumb, compromised mines for only 1 point. Remember . . . the enemy knows about it, and may find a way to use it against you! And, for balance, the referee should not allow objectives to be set up on the edge of the map and ringed with huge minefields. The referee can always limit the total number of square inches that can be mined. A referee may also set up interesting special effects. For instance, suppose the defenders start out with minefields. To their chagrin, though, the attackers seem to be immune to the mines. The attackers have the electronic code-key that lets them ignore the defender's minefields . . . but what they also know is that their stolen key will expire shortly after the engagement begins. A few turns into the game, mines will once again affect them. And perhaps they don't actually know exactly where those minefields are . . . Steve Jackson - yes, of Steve Jackson Games - yes, we won. Fnord. sj@io.com ___ [Should I start posting in html, does everybody have a mail reader that can take it? Can Hwtz's emplace mines? Can I put a minedropper, a flamethrower and a plus three computer on my Ogre? -HJC] ___ From: Kerry Harrison Subject: Re: GEV List Thingy, Feb 14th To: "Henry J. Cobb" > [Gonna have Laser Cruisers and Railgun Battleships defend (GEV) > carrier ships from cruise-missile subs? Actually that's pretty close to what we are looking at. > > Should ships have thread units, destruction steps (ala Ice Ogre), > or just a simple defence strength? (Personally I think BCP should count as > a superconductor, giving anything floating in water immense resistance to > termal effects. Shock would still be felt, and eventually sink the craft. > -HJC] Ships have Hull Integrity values (basically thread units renamed - introduced in Killing Zone) and are treated very similar to the KZ rules for the Chinese Landships. Kerry ___ [My personal rationale was that these are X-ray lasers (and why not, if you've got a material that will stand up to multiple nuclear explosions), but I could never figure out how to balance the Laser Oger. Are you going to bring in the marines current hovercraft landing boat, with BCP? (If so I hope you'll tune down the capacity a little from that given in the Sub article in SG #9 (?)) I was toying around for a bit with "small boats", equivalent to a single armor unit. (Perhaps a move modifier of (div 2) for purely waterborne units?) This would make the missile boat at (Atk: 3/4, M: 4, D: 2) a one armor unit "PT boat". (Its mission is to crush GEVs) Will we see "Sea states" (BCP ships and plastic men?) Thats the only thing I could think of that would really require carriers. (The first cavalry starts out from San Diego and proceeds just above the waves to go strike Tokyo...) -HJC] Henry J. Cobb hcobb@fly2.berkeley.edu, SFB Tyrant-for-life "Better yet, don't use Motif at all. It's an absolute pig." - Joe English