Non-Ogre variant units?

[sparky00]

I'll read through the article & the forum discussions.

The SHVY is a unit whose aesthetics i like - I love the look and size of the minis.

I have little experience with them in the game, however. I've never found a use for them that justified the cost, and they never seemed very formidable in opponent's forces.

[HeatDeath]

I've been noodling around with a little micro-scenario for SHVYs.

1 SHVY plus 2 HVYs vs 1 HVY and 4 GEVs on the TFT Melee playmat (which is great map for Ogre micro-scenarios, BTW. Just enough craters to be interesting).

A SHVY trying to be an Ogre, in splendid isolation, can be dogpiled (though the optional damage rules /really/ beastify them). But if you screen it with a HVY, or two it becomes a genuinely frightening amount of firepower that is quite a tough nut to crack. The R3 changes everything you think you know about armor-armor interactions.

[offsides]

Based on my understanding of what Tank Destroyers were, I'm not sure how well they really work in the world of Ogre. Most of them were either a lightly armored vehicle with a big gun designed to fight from emplacements, or a heavy tank chassis without a turret and a bigger gun. The former isn't likely to survive a Nuclear battlefield, and the latter doesn't really make a difference given the mechanics of the game. Given that Tank Destroyers mostly fell out of favor post-WWII with the advent of the MBT and anti-tank missiles, it seems like most of the world's militaries agree...

[sparky00]

Originally Posted by HeatDeath

A SHVY trying to be an Ogre, in splendid isolation, can be dogpiled (though the optional damage rules /really/ beastify them). But if you screen it with a HVY, or two it becomes a genuinely frightening amount of firepower that is quite a tough nut to crack. The R3 changes everything you think you know about armor-armor interactions.

I will definitely look into that.

It would be great to see some SHVY's finally on the board...

[Mack_JB]

As noted, it's really a hammer in search of a nail situation. I'll look at Drew's third alternate version as well ... if my regular opponent agrees, we'll maybe run some games using HVY tanks with the different stats for testing purposes.

Mainly I just wanted more minis!!

[TheAmishStig]

Originally Posted by wolf90

Conceptually, I agree.

I just fall into the 15 VP (2.5 AU) camp in the debate on its value.

But yes, the SHVY is uniquely designed to destroy tanks on the battlefield.

D.

Because there's no such thing as an original idea for such a common concept in a game as old as Ogre, I worked up a Tank Destroyer ages ago too.

6/3 M3 D2, as Heavy. 9VP / 1.5AU

It's an awkward cost, and an awkward unit...but at the time I was working on it, I was envisioning it as obsoleted by the Superheavy, rather than a unit capable of occupying a niche on the 'current' battlefields of Ogre.

Or from my notes:

The little brother to the Superheavy, the Tank Destroyer did one thing and did it well: hunt Heavies. But being relatively squishy left it vulnerable...if it was flanked by a GEV, or made a miscalculation in positioning itself, pop went the weasel.

Probably easiest to hand-wave as a Pre-2078 (introduction of Superheavies) design.

[HeatDeath]

Realistically, the way Ogre plays out, at the scales Ogre plays out, everything on the board is actually highly mobile artillery, and is better thought of as such. Just artillery umbrellas of varying size, intensity and groundspeed bouncing off each other.

Nothing in the game actually acts like a "tank" in any tactically meaningful sense. Infantry are recognizably infantry (they're slow, but incredibly resilient when dug in), but nothing in the game is recognizably a tank.

[offsides]

Originally Posted by HeatDeath

Realistically, the way Ogre plays out, at the scales Ogre plays out, everything on the board is actually highly mobile artillery, and is better thought of as such. Just artillery umbrellas of varying size, intensity and groundspeed bouncing off each other.

Nothing in the game actually acts like a "tank" in any tactically meaningful sense. Infantry are recognizably infantry (they're slow, but incredibly resilient when dug in), but nothing in the game is recognizably a tank.

I'm not sure I agree with you completely, but I do see where you're coming from. The fact that everything is capable of indirect fire, and that nukes by definition don't require direct contact to be damaging, certainly are points in your favor. That said, to me "tank" implies heavy armor/ability to take punishment as much if not more than heavy weapons, and HVY and SHVY certainly qualify...

[HeatDeath]

At any rate, the historical distinction between tanks and tank destroyers derives from the fact that, up to about halfway through WWII, tanks were conceptualized as infantry-support platforms and did not typically carry a big enough cannon to reliably destroy other tanks. Tank destroyers, in contrast, made the necessary sacrifices in speed, armor, and/or manuverability to do so.

Those sacrifices became less and less noticeable over time, until it stopped making military or economic sense to build tanks that were not also tank destroyers. Thus, the "main battle tank".

Modern main battle tanks /are/ tank destroyers in every original sense of the term. Even Ogre light tanks are technically tank destroyers, being more than capable of taking out tanks of similar weight.

An LGEV may be the closest thing in the game to a tank that's not a tank destroyer - an armored vehicle too lightly armed to reliably destroy armor units of similar size.

[offsides]

Originally Posted by HeatDeath

Modern main battle tanks /are/ tank destroyers in every original sense of the term. Even Ogre light tanks are technically tank destroyers, being more than capable of taking out tanks of similar weight.

An LGEV may be the closest thing in the game to a tank that's not a tank destroyer - an armored vehicle too lightly armed to reliably destroy armor units of similar size.

That's a very interesting observation, and I can't really find fault with it in principle. Especially in the modern battlefield where INF are generally not used to capture open ground like they used to, with armor only acting in a supporting role. Yes, you need soldiers on the ground to hold captured territory, but footsoldiers aren't your primary field unit in the same environs as tanks - and with powered armor in Ogre the INF have become the IFVs of their day...