How I Came To Love Ogre

[Nyrath]

Originally Posted by Mack_JB

What really grabbed me though was the artwork. Winchell Chung has corrupted many a youth in his time.

All part of the service, sir.

[Dave Crowell]

I remember reading the ads for the original Microgames in Science News. Or maybe it was called Science Weekly. Ogre always sounded intriguing, but I was a broke kid, so no Microgames for me then.

It must have been around 81 that finally got a copy of GEV. Ogre came after.

I still think Ogre was the best value in wargaming ever. almost 40 years later I'm still loving it.

[ColBosch]

Originally Posted by Nyrath

Oh, dear, I'm almost afraid to ask you what her name is...

Well hello! I think I mentioned this to you, oh, about 15 years ago. I'm Julie's son.

[Nyrath]

Originally Posted by ColBosch

Well hello! I think I mentioned this to you, oh, about 15 years ago. I'm Julie's son.

Yes, I remember now. The "Bosch" in your name was a giveaway.

I proudly showe'd her the early Ogre artwork, demonstrating that I was almost a professional artist and all. I think Julie also knew the art teacher Mr. Martin. He was a WW2 tank buff and gave me advice I used when I designed the Ogre.

[ldj00]

Hello,

I came to OGRE from Car Wars. I thought everyone played Car Wars, but only realized that not everyone played who was a gamer when I joined the military.

I got introduced to GURPS, an RPG system made by the same maker of Car Wars while I was stationed overseas...

It was only when I came back and wanted to play Car Wars when someone mentioned playing OGRE.

At the time I liked Car Wars, but after a few games really liked OGRE... but then never really played it again until much later... and then there was the Kickstarter, etc etc.

I am still waiting for the Car Wars Kickstarter, but I also have all the expansions so far for OGRE DE and now have backed both the minis 1 & 2.

Oh, and I have a few bookshelves full of GURPS books... :)

[totalfailure]

I got my intro when I was young teen, later than some, earlier than others...my first copy of Ogre was one of the pocket box editions when it moved from MetaGaming to Steve Jackson. Alas, that pocket box is gone now, as is my Deluxe Ogre. I still have a pocket box copy of Battlesuit from back then, though. It's been a great journey over the years, and to still be 'up' for a game of something 35 years later says a lot about Ogre. Now I've got some Ogre Minis Set 1 stuff to sort through....

[GranitePenguin]

I started in 1978-1979 when my uncle gave me G.E.V. 1st Ed. for Christmas when I was in 2nd grade. I played that until the map wore out (currently held together by 30-year-ol scotch tape, but I still have it). I only had hints of Ogre for the first decade; the stats for the Mark IV, and the reference to it in the inside cover. I didn't have the rules for Ogre until the Apple II and Deluxe Edition came out. As a result, I developed a much deeper appreciation for the conventional unit battles and never really bothered with Ogres for the first 10 years of playing. Even after finally getting the rules, I still spent most of my time playing G.E.V.-type scenarios (overruns instead of rams, liking INF in terrain instead of just using them for tread-bait, etc).

I did start making my own counters using Paint Shop on the Apple II with my 9-pin dot matrix printer so I could add Ogres to my G.E.V. Map. The size matched the original counters perfectly, and it let me replace a number of counters that were destroyed by melted caramel when candy and the game were left in the car. I also created an overrun counter that I used to mark the spot on the map where the overrun was taking place (and a matching 8.5x11 graph paper sheet to put all the counters on). Ironically, in the process of scanning that picture, I seem to have lost the original. :-(

[mstlaurent]

Originally Posted by wolf90

I have moved the preceding three posts to this new thread, in that A) they are unrelated to the original thread, and B) are really good reads! Plus I'm sure there are other equally great stories out there! Feel free to share your story.

D.

But moving my post out of the original thread dilutes the humor. :-( Oh well.

Originally Posted by Tom H.

I must be about your age, so I remember at that time comic books advertising plastic soldier and vehicle sets (with a lot of figures for a cheap price) that seem to claim to come with a game to play them.

I remember the rules that came with those sets. They were atrocious, they made Risk look sophisticated. There was one set I really liked that was a sort of combined arms set with ships, aircraft, and land forces in it. After I bought Ogre I wound up using the Ogre rules as an inspiration to go back and write a set of wargame rules for it.

Originally Posted by ColBosch

I'm about in-between here. I started playing Ogre in the mid-to-late 80s, with my father. He thought wargames would be a good teaching tool, and he was absolutely correct. We got a bunch of micro games, and I later moved on to BattleTech, Car Wars, and so on. Eventually, I got the VHS-boxed edition of Ogre/GEV (which, sadly, vanished some years ago) and happened to stumble on the Kickstarter campaign for Ogre Designer's Edition. I was re-hooked.

My parents were initially unimpressed with wargaming. They thought I was spending too much time in my room and not enough playing outside. But then I started to go to conventions, where I was entering tournaments against adults. And winning. (Not all the way, but I was making it to semi-finals and finals.) Then they started to get a little more enthusiastic about it.

I had a huge game collection from the late 1970s through the 1990s. I had all the original Squad Leaders. I had everything from Car Wars, I even had Car Wars Tanks. I had lost my original Ogre map, but I had everything else from all my original Microgames. Tons of stuff from GDW, including all the first edition Traveller stuff. Huge collection of first edtion Star Fleet Battles. And that isn't the half of it, I've forgotten more than I've remembered. It was six large packing boxes filled to overflowing when I boxed it all up. I could barely fit it in my car.

And then, in 1996, I moved to South Africa. When you're moving to the other side of the world, you have to cull down everything. So I found a guy who was a collector/dealer at The Last Grenadier and he bought the whole lot off of me for $200. I kept most of my role-playing stuff, since that was what I was into at the time, all my GURPS books, and the more recent Traveller stuff. I gave all my D&D stuff to my brother, I think he still has it. Heartbreaking, when I look back on it. But my life was going in a different direction, so I had to do what I had to do.

I do still have my Ogre/GEV VHS box, which includes Shockwave, Battlefields, and Reinforcements. I bought all that after I came back from SA. I had a copy of Battlesuit in my original collection, but it got sold.

[Knockman]

I mentioned my intro to the game in the 'Credits & Thanks' on the S&TO Countersheet Info document, but happy to repeat it here, with a little extra embellishment.

I was just into my teenage years back in 1980, and slightly bored with the Moscow Olympics, so I wandered off to the main shopping area (the 'Mount'). There was a toy shop I visited that had models and games at the back (and an ice-cream serving hatch out front), and while slowly spinning a carousel stand I saw a small plastic slipcase game. The artwork caught my attention first, then the blurb on the back interested me (sci-fi mega-tanks!) and so using up all my cash I bought it without knowing anything else about this game.

The contents within that thin plastic box provided hours and hours of combat as conventional forces raced and dodged around a blast-zone map trying to stop and destroy a giant cybernetic tank. It quite literally absorbed days of my life playing solo at first, then it was shared with mates. If they failed to appreciate it, they literally soon fell by the wayside. My father - a serious games collector himself - wasn't so keen on the subject, but he appreciated the design style and the packaging. It was quite literally played to destruction - and then came work and other life aspects, then marriage. One time after moving home I re-discovered the rules booklet in amongst some books, re-read it, and went on a search to re-acquire a copy. And in 1992 and in the UK that was not easy, I can tell you!

Shop after shop replied back to me that they had no stock left. Or they only had 'GEV'. Or I might like BattleTech instead. And then at a London wargame show (Salute) I found a secondhand copy in good condition. I paid a reasonable price and later re-connected with one of my favourite games from my youth. I acquired GEV very soon after, then an Ogre Deluxe set, then discovered Ogre Miniatures rules too. Safe to say, there was no going back now.

Awesome fun along with lots of great memories. That's a good gaming legacy.

[brionl]

I started sometime around '75 or '76. That's when we turned our high school Chess Club into a D&D/Wargames Club. We had Tactics II, Starship Trooper, white box D&D, Melee/Wizard, Ogre and others. Not all at the same time though. ;)
The first microgame I bought was actually Olympia. Then probably Melee and later Ogre. I owned lots of microgames: Rivets, Hymenoptera, that one with the donut shaped asteroid, and many more I don't remember.