Why the OGRE's APs are never taken out and how to fix that...

[Toltrin]

I was thinking about this weapon on the OGRE - the antipersonnel battery. No one seems to want to take them out when they could take out a main, secondary, missile rack or treads.
I have two solutions to making the AP destroyed more often:
1. When battery or tread is successfully destroyed on an OGRE, there is a chance that an AP unit is hit as well. Roll for each attack and for every 6 rolled for each attack, an AP battery is attacked at 1:1 on the CRT (or on the CRT dice ... hehe).
2. When targeting an AP battery, the attack may attack up to three AP batteries with the same attack value from one source. For example, a Heavy Tank is sick of all those rotary infinite repeaters taking out the infantry screening for him. The Heavy Tank operator targets two AP batteries at 1:1 and the other at 2:1.
I have one solution for making AP batteries more valuable:
1. Allow them to attack immobile, disabled units. The number of AP batteries must equal to the defense factor of the attacked disabled armor unit and only a X result will destroy it. A roll of DIS does nothing to the disabled unit.

Tell me what you think!
:-)

[grimblefig]

To me, the best way to make the APs a worthwhile target is to make them dangerous (or at least annoying) enough to an opponent to warrant them attacking AP rather than a more obviously dangerous target. However, AP batteries are designed to attack Infantry or "soft" targets, without being overkill (like using an anti-vehicle weapon would be). Thus, they should not really be capable of destroying armored combat vehicles.

So how about this: AP can be used against armor, but only disabled armor, and an "X" result causes the target unit to remain disabled for an additional turn. A "D" result from AP against armor is ineffective (same as "NE").

With this solution, an OGRE can keep that disabled HVY down while it uses the big guns to take down more active targets. Then it can pound the HVY next turn. This does not make the AP batteries too powerful (since they still have very short range), but just annoying enough to be worth targeting.

[paulfish1963]

Our group allows APs to be used against any target in an overrun (and, yes, the attack strength of 1 is doubled to 2 for Ogre APs in overruns). This keeps an Ogre alive once you sand off its main guns by making continuous overruns on it less survivable by the GEV swarm.

[Toltrin]

Maybe the AP can include concussion nukes that are not powerful enough to penetrate armor but powerful enough to knock around the sophants inside!

[HeatDeath]

The primary reason for the existence of the APs is to give some structure to the Ogre's desired qualitative ability to basically auto-kill nearby infantry.

Taking out some APs when other systems are damaged weakens the Ogre, but only slightly.

Making the vast array of APs most Ogres carry more dangerous represents a significant boost to the Ogre's abilities, even if the strength boost per individual AP is very small - Ogres just carry too many of the things.

If we have to go with one of them, I'd go with losing an AP anytime a gun is hit with a 6, though this will have the effect of making Ogres noticeably more vulnerable in the endgames of "Smash the CP" scenarios. But preserving even that much game balance is likely to be very tricky if APs get their strength/usefullness meaningfully boosted. Anything that makes APs desirable targets means that the defending forces in Smash the CP need that much more time to destroy them, which means the map should be longer or [at the very least] more defensive forces should be allowed to deploy farther forward.

[FireHorse]

Instead of altering the AP guns, consider a Scenario designed to encourage their removal: Fewer Armor units than normal, and many more Infantry. It might be tempting to use the Armor against the AP in such a case, because that would allow the Infantry to swarm the Ogre — and while it could still blow the squads away one at a time with its bigger guns, it would be wasting most of its force while they chew its treads off.

[ladue]

Of course, any substantive changes to ap guns would require rebalancing *all* the scenarios with OGRES.

[dirtysnowball]

I've always liked the idea that AP guns are really there to be an Ogre's hard-kill point defence system, shooting down incoming enemy fire, and as AP guns are destroyed the tank should get easier to hit.
Not that I think such a rule could be bolted onto Ogre's simple game mechanics without making a mess of game balance...

[DSumner]

Originally Posted by FireHorse

Instead of altering the AP guns, consider a Scenario designed to encourage their removal: Fewer Armor units than normal, and many more Infantry. It might be tempting to use the Armor against the AP in such a case, because that would allow the Infantry to swarm the Ogre — and while it could still blow the squads away one at a time with its bigger guns, it would be wasting most of its force while they chew its treads off.

I second Firehorse's suggestion. A scenario using smaller Ogres, say several Mk-Is vs. a few armor units, and lots, and lots of Infantry would make for a good mix. Hmm....now that I think about it, I might be able to whip something up, and post it for a playtest.

[selenite]

Only time I've seen APs chewed off is when I set up a very ugly situation forcing an Ogre to overrun a stack of INF in a town. Which, frankly, would get most Ogres saying "Third Law, man, I'm out of here."