============ The Ogre Digest, May 22nd (Last: May 15th) ============= ===== Militia From: Shadowjack From: Servitor@aol.com ===== Spoofing the Ogre From: AvaheilDotter@aol.com From: "Hunt, Kirk (Tucson)" ===== 4HD: the Four-Howitzer Defense, Revisited From: Stephan Beal ============================== From: Shadowjack Subject: Militia > From: "David R. Crowell" >> From: Darren Breland >> With a move of 1" or 1 hex/2 turns that's still an 8.5 minute mile >> (7mph)... with full gear> > > Perhaps "militia" are not merely foot soldiers but are mounted in light > vehicles, the Ogre equvivalent of a jeep or Hummer perhaps. A name change to > "partisans" would suggest that these might be civilian vehicles. This would > eplain the higher mobility but would still leave them with weak defensive > and ofensive capabilities. > > My first thought was that militia could be riding bicycles, but the > resulting mental image was absurd. Not so - I used to have a picture somewhere of a Swiss bicycle-mounted infantryman, c. 1995 or so, actually. There's a mount for a light machine-gun over the handlebars, but that's unnecessary; they used them because in the mountains of Switzerland, walking to the battle's a pain, and APCs make too much noise when you're trying to sneak up on the enemy. ===== From: Servitor@aol.com Subject: Militia > [If they have vehicles, why are they all terrain, unless they're doing > DOH! Forgot about woods (Wham!) and swamp (Gurgle...) Hmm. Okay. Motocross it is (certainly cheap enough...) But as for swamp... -I'd have to say that they make a disable check same as a GEV. A failed roll means they are "unready" until they pass a further check every other turn. (Turns to see a large group of people with bats....) best, flunky (Servitor@aol.com) ============================== From: AvaheilDotter@aol.com Subject: Spoofing the Ogre << The Ogre must roll a die before moving. If it rolls a 1, it may not move (maybe a 1 or 2?). It declares each attack, then must roll again to see if it can attack (maybe on a roll of 3 or higher it can?). Or perhaps it just rolls to see if it can declare any attacks >> No military hardware system would be that primative. The spoof would be over once the Ogre hits the field as the "Kill the CP" scenarios are easy for the programmer: If it MOVES, KILL IT! The only place for this would be mixed assault situation where IFF becomes important... Ad Astra! Stan Leghorn ===== From: "Hunt, Kirk (Tucson)" Subject: Spoofing the Ogre From: Stephan Beal >An Ogre goes to fire it's MB. It looks at the unique security ID of the round >it is about to fire. It checks it's logs to see if that round was loaded by >an authorized maintainer at an authorized maintenance station. It could >easily get further verification over radio by asking the maintenance station >to cross-verify the validity of it's logs, which computers could do in >microseconds. Nah. The physical requirements of opening an OGRE and loading several tons of munitions pretty much guarantees there will be no slight of hand at the base. (The munitions factory is a different case.) Worse case: the shell check is done as it is loaded into the monster's body... In the electromagnetic soup surrounding an OGREverse battlefield, and an OGRE in particular, I wouldn't want MY cybertank stopping to check anything except whether it killed the target or not. I like the idea of air jets being used as "3-1/2 league boots" by the SOL to move around more quickly. That would make sense of a 1 movement cost. I still think a road bonus is too much, but I can stretch my imagination there. (Hang in there hamstring...) Using the JavaScript calculator I calculate 0.975 heneries for a SOL 1/1 (x2 in overrun), D1, M1 with "Militia" terrain effects, which I assume means no road bonus. I think a point each is fair and reasonable The MIL now becomes Military Personnel: Techs, officers and citizen soldiers who decided to die with their homes or command posts. (The 1 attack in overrun of a CP.) Feel free to Cat-with-Loud-Roar-Black-Fur-and-two-Cubs a.k.a. Desertcat Purveyor of Pulse Rifles "Hivlocs-R-Us" ============================== From: Stephan Beal Subject: 4HD: the Four-Howitzer Defense, Revisited > From: Servitor@aol.com > Just above your entry was a great > variation/report on the 4 HWZ defense which also had some interesting > advise. Namely: "First MBs, then missiles then treads. Forget > about SBs." Thank, you :). I've got a follow-up to that, which isn't finished yet, but here's where it's at so far. Before that, however, let me post the "Ogre Solution" to the last 4HD post, with the Mark III attacking: To sum up (for those of you too lazy to read the last post ;): 4 HWZ, 4 MSL, 20 Inf against a Mk III. HWZs get placed in a diamond-shaped pattern near the center, the CP in the upper-left, and the MSLs in two squads, one on either side of the map, as described below for the Mk V scenario. See the full post for the reasoning behind these choices, their preferred placement So... As the Ogre, hang on to your missiles. In my games the Mk III is normally stopped 3-5 hexes from the CP. But it had also been using it's missiles indescriminately. By not firing them, the Ogre forces the defender to shoot them, and those attack points are really needed to stop the Ogre. This should buy the Ogre at least one turn, which may very well be all be that it needs, since it has 4 SBs intact still at that point (see previous post for why these are untouched). As for the defenders, though, I must still say: MBs/Missiles (your choice), then treads - FORGET the SBs. In this setup the Ogre normally doesn't get to use them so much, so they're not critical. Now, on to the Mark V... The Mark V and the Howitzer Defense: This is a variation on exactly the same strategy I applied in the earlier 4HD variant (which uses the Mark III): Defender detup: 6 HWZ, 8 MSLs, 30 Infantry. CP in the top, right corner. HWZ are set up largely like in the earlier article: a roughly diamond-shaped area near the center. The two extra HWZs can be placed whereever you like, basically. I put one on the far right of the board and one about 9 or 10 hexes from the right side and 4 or 5 hexes from the rear edge. Infantry split into 2 groups: 15 near the left-most HWZ and 15 near the right edge. These come in during the last few turns, and strip some treads before they're summarily executed. The infantry have shown to be very useful, but also Very Disposable, as the Ogre is getting to use it's full load of SBs and APs on the poor cardstock bastards, tossing them into the counter tray [no minis here] almost immediately. In the final 3 or 4 turns, though, they normally manage to strip 6 treads, which often is enough to make the difference. The MSLs split into two groups of 4, on opposite sides of the board, right up against the edge, 3-4 hexes ahead (lower down) than the lowest HWZ. Keep them there. Do not chase the Ogre unless until it's gone past you. And if it wants to chase the MSLs, make sure that you get them where the Ogre has to take HWZ fire to get at them. The objective of the MSLs should be to follow the Ogre as it is forced to deal with the HWZs, or to keep away from the HWZs while the Ogre comes after them, buying a turn or two of HWZ support. An untested variant of this is to move 2 of the MSLs into the very rear for late-game clean-up, or to the center to take pop-shots as the Ogre cleans up the HWZs, but I'm not sure this is a wise use of resources in the Mk V game. Coming in from behind appears to work really well, as the Ogre can't afford to not go after the HWZs, and must make a tough decision if it considers going after the MSLs, costing it at least one turn of advancement (possibly two) if it chooses to go get them. Of course, for a Mk V, such decisions are simpler than for the Mv III ;). You may find that the MSLs cannot always get a shot off without puting them directly in harm's way - then don't do it. You will probably also find at some point that a pesky rubble line keeps one of your MSLs from making an attack - se la vi. Just watch your terrain. As the defender, I've found this nearly impossible. The Mark V has so many guns that it makes it really difficult to hammer it in the timeframe the defenders have, especially when you're blowing your dice rolls (last night: 14 MSL attacks against treads over 2 turns and exactly 2 hit). This is especially difficult if the Ogre holds on to it's missiles, because those make the defenders sweat and take up valuable shots which would normally be used against the treads (with the minimum of 6 shots we need to take out the missiles, we could have very possibly hit 12 treads!). I was able to stop the Ogre 3 hexes from the CP once... Once. And even then I was quite lucky: managed to get 23 treads in that very last turn with 4 HWZs, 8 infantry and 4 or 5 MSLs. The proposed defense workaround for this (but so far untested) is to move the HWZs forward (down) by 2 or 3 hexes, to help provide an additional turn or two of fire support. This should allow a better defensive position. The current HWZ placement allows for a careful Ogre to take out 3 HWZs on one turn using missiles/MBs, however, so that also needs adjustment. As far as published strategies go, the 4HD is my favorite, but I don't feel that it works well enough as-is to warrant constant re-use. I'd be very interested in getting y'all's input on it, from both attacking and defending sides. So far the Mk III version posted last week has served me very well, drastically increasing my defense win rate. The Mark V, well... it needs some work. I don't believe there is One Perfect Defense (and there should not be - a hallmark of good game design), but I think the principal is workable to drastically increase the survival rates of our little paper people piloting their little paper machines into battle against the Big Bastard. ----- Stephan Beal Generic Universal Computer Guy stephan.beal@einsurance.de - http://www.einsurance.de Office: +49 (89) 552 92 862 Handy: +49 (179) 211 97 67 "How far y'all going, she asked with a sigh. We're goin' all the way. Til the wheels fall off and burn." -- Bob Dylan ============================== Henry J. Cobb ogre@sjgames.com Archives at http://www.io.com/~hcobb All OGRE-related items Copyright (c) 2001, by Steve Jackson Games.