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Old 11-25-2017, 02:55 PM   #31
sparky00
 
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Default Re: How I Came To Love Ogre

An odd coincidence that I forgot to mention - Mr. Jackson has stated that one of his inspirations for Ogre was Keith Laumer's "The Last Command". This story was found in a book called "Tales of Time & Space". I actually had this book as a kid! Although I don't remember reading The Last Command specifically, I'm sure I must have. I recently got a used copy from Amazon for $5.00. It still had a price tag from Woolco - $0.96. Having this book again was like meeting an old friend after many years.

Last edited by sparky00; 11-25-2017 at 02:55 PM. Reason: lack of spelling
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Old 11-25-2017, 03:43 PM   #32
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Default Re: How I Came To Love Ogre

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. . .
Real Life brutally intervened, and I left board gaming behind for many years, except for the very occasional game of chess.
Fast forward to May of 2017.
. . .
I really enjoyed your story.

It's so great to hear how you were able to recently reconnect with the hobby and get the Ogre Designer Edition after having missed out on even knowing about the kickstarter campaign.

It's kind of spotty about who I can get interested in these kind of games. But I too got to play recently with my nephew. Last night in fact.

After getting him started with D&D in the past, he's now a DM at the new club at his school. He is now practicing on me, so I get to be the player.

Kromm and PK rest assured, I'm converting our old D&D starter adventure to Dungeon Fantasy RPG so that it can be continued under a better set of rules.
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Old 11-26-2017, 11:58 AM   #33
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Default Re: How I Came To Love Ogre

Some kindred spirits here for sure.

I got into gaming around a time of being 11 years old when D&D 1st edition was played, TRAVELLER 1st edition was played, Ultraman, Lost In Space, Kolchak The Night Stalker, Tom Baker's Doctor Who, Star Blazers, and Monty Python's Flying Circus were on TV. The Holy Grail, The Hobbit, STAR WARS, The Lord Of The Rings, and HEAVY METAL were in Theatres. RAL PARTHA and GRENDADIER miniatures. Dice....so many DICE...lol. Somewhere in that wonderful nexus of time prowled the OGRE and GEV. Best time was playing on the kitchen floor of my friends mom and dad's place on a big fold-out paper hex map bought at a local gaming store with my own terrain layout penned in. We played with double blind deployment. When the blind was lifted, I opened up with all my units neatly lined in rows such that their ranges made his first row a nuclear wasteland of overlapping annihilation.

When I first held the OGRE MicroGame in my hand back in 1977 and looked at the image of a Mark5 OGRE on the cover and read the background text I knew it was a very special game about a very dark time in our very near future. I want to say Tanks for the memories, but they are still being made. ;)
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Old 11-26-2017, 02:32 PM   #34
Tom H.
 
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. . .
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.
. . .
My parents were initially unimpressed with wargaming. They thought I was spending too much time in my room and not enough playing outside.
. . .
Thank you for letting me know about the game rules that came with those comic book play sets. At least now I know I wasn't missing much.

I think the one you mentioned was the one that attracted me so much: land, air, and sea units--woah, I thought. Until then, I, like everyone else, just had the typical Vietnam-era, green, plastic army men.

At the time, they were also advertising Civil War figures with game rules from the same retailer, I believe.

Again, for those who didn't see my post above, the mail-order ruse for all these awesome figures at a low price was that they were etched on a 2-D, plastic, stand-up surface (so I was told as I never got around to ordering them.)


Yeah, it's funny too, my parents started to get a bit worried that I was spending so much time reading and studying D&D back in 1981. All the mixed messages, I thought you were encouraged to study.

Last edited by Tom H.; 11-26-2017 at 02:40 PM. Reason: grammar
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Old 12-02-2017, 09:55 PM   #35
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First Ogre I got my mitts on was the 2nd edition from Metagaming. (No Fuzzy Wuzzy for me!) I'm pretty sure I've bought every edition since then (and the supplements and the miniatures...)

In the late eighties I had collected a large number of the Grenadier OGRE mins and made a 3D board of the G.E.V. map measuring 8' x 4' when assembled. This proved very popular at local cons and my FLGS (who certainly did not mind anything that helped sell the minis.)

When my friends got into OGRE around 1991, Dave said: "Hmmm, I've been wanting to experiment with RTV molds and resin models. Let's see if we can make a Mark V and armor units." Thus was born "OGRE Macrotures". 1/35 scale models based on OGRE. The Mark V was two feet (!) long and the armor units were between seven and nine inches long. In total, we had: 2 MK V Ogres, 2 SHVY tanks, 9 HVY tanks, 6 MSL tanks, 8 LTs, 15 GEVs (look, we like GEVs, don't judge us), 4 HWZs and a CP. We kit-bashed INF from some old Grenadier plastic models (I think they were called "Space Rangers") with new backpacks and mounted them on triangular bases with velcro so that you could "make change" at any time. Made enough of them to have 24 full platoons. We ran OGRE Macrotures at various conventions including GENcon, Dragon Con and MegaCon from roughly 1992 to 2001.

Around 2012 I got into some financial difficulties. A friend offered to buy my OGRE mins (which by then included a LOT of the later SJG line) which really helped me out. I was sad to see them go but, c'est la vie.

I was just recovering when ODE Kickstarter happened. I chipped in what I could (enough to get some goodies) but I couldn't afford the box itself. Then, a VERY good friend came to my aid and said: "John, I remember you having to get rid of your OGRE minis. So since I've got two copies of ODE, I'm gonna give you my non-Kickstater one. The only thing missing is a couple of the exclusive Kickstarter counter-sheets." WOW! I couldn't believe it! What a friend! Suddenly I was back into OGRE with a vengeance. And if that wasn't enough, during the KS OGRE Minis Set 1 campaign, the same friend asked if I was interested in some of the minis. I replied that I certainly was and had already pledged for them. He wanted some GITD Ogres, but not the regular ones. So I bought his box off him (which is why I've got 3 boxes in my "OGRE Loot" thread picture.)

So here we are with Set 2 having just wrapped up. I pledged at the "Too Many Minis" level. So by May I will have over 1500 minis to paint.

Phil, if you're reading this, I triple-dog-dare you to put up a x4 pledge level called "Way Too Fookin' Many Mins" for Set 3 when it launches...
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Last edited by CON_Troll; 12-02-2017 at 09:58 PM. Reason: Spelling, grammar, the usual "dur" stuff...
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Old 12-03-2017, 03:23 AM   #36
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Whatever happened to the Macrotures?
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Old 12-03-2017, 05:18 PM   #37
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Whatever happened to the Macrotures?
They went into storage from about 2002 to 2008. Then I ran them again at my FLGS and Megacon for a few years. They've been in storage since 2011. I'm contemplating fixing up one of the MK Vs (all the models are badly scratched, dinged and chipped from all those years of gaming) and bringing it to cons I plan to run OGRE at as a display piece.
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Old 12-03-2017, 06:37 PM   #38
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They went into storage from about 2002 to 2008. Then I ran them again at my FLGS and Megacon for a few years. They've been in storage since 2011. I'm contemplating fixing up one of the MK Vs (all the models are badly scratched, dinged and chipped from all those years of gaming) and bringing it to cons I plan to run OGRE at as a display piece.
Knowing that they still exist genuinely makes me very happy.
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Old 12-03-2017, 10:12 PM   #39
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Originally Posted by CON_Troll View Post
In the late eighties I had collected a large number of the Grenadier OGRE mins and made a 3D board of the G.E.V. map measuring 8' x 4' when assembled. This proved very popular at local cons and my FLGS (who certainly did not mind anything that helped sell the minis.)
Were you in Orlando in the late 1980s? I was stationed at the NTC in 1987-88, I used to hang out at Enterprise 1701 all the time. In fact, IIRC, I think that was where I bought my GURPS boxed set.
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Old 12-04-2017, 06:26 PM   #40
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Were you in Orlando in the late 1980s? I was stationed at the NTC in 1987-88, I used to hang out at Enterprise 1701 all the time. In fact, IIRC, I think that was where I bought my GURPS boxed set.
Yep! 1701 occupied one of the store fronts on Corrine Dr. (Just a mile and a half down from the old corner gate at Corrine and Bennett Rd.) During the time period you mentioned. Right around 1988, needing to expand, they bought the lease on the second store front next to them and knocked a few sections of wall out between the two. Then they bought the third store next door a year later and were using it as a separate game room. I ran OGRE and Car Wars events (especially after store hours) during the early to mid-nineties.

You might be happy to know that Enterprise 1701 still exists. It's called "Sci-Fi-City" now and is located on HWY 50 just East of SR 436.

Alas, the NTC was shut down in 1999. Which is what prompted Frank to move the store to HWY 50 and change the name.

Getting back on topic, you and others here might be interested to know that I got a resin Godzilla model at 1701 that seemed just the right scale for OGRE miniatures. My gaming group and I had lots of fun stomping cities (and entire battalions) into the dirt with him. This eventually prompted me to write "Godzilla 2076, Atomic Monsters in the World of OGRE!" Which actually saw print in Pyramid #1.
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