The unofficial new units thread

[jpattern]

Originally Posted by Toltrin

The base tank came in a box at the dollar store for $1.

Hah, I might have known! No chance of tracking one down, then.

I'll probably use the old large Ral Partha/Iron Wind Metals Battletech Demolisher as a base for conversions like this.

I have at least a dozen of the OGRE repair kits to use for conversions, so I'm set there. Also, you're probably aware of this already, but Iron Wind sells separate turrets and other parts of their Battletech minis. Very useful for things like this.

Finally, for a variation on a repair vehicle, or for additional repair vehicle conversion parts, there's the Battletech "Oppie" Recovery Vehicle.

Jeff

[Toltrin]

Originally Posted by jpattern

Hah, I might have known! No chance of tracking one down, then.

I'll probably use the old large Ral Partha/Iron Wind Metals Battletech Demolisher as a base for conversions like this.

I have at least a dozen of the OGRE repair kits to use for conversions, so I'm set there. Also, you're probably aware of this already, but Iron Wind sells separate turrets and other parts of their Battletech minis. Very useful for things like this.

Finally, for a variation on a repair vehicle, or for additional repair vehicle conversion parts, there's the Battletech "Oppie" Recovery Vehicle.

Jeff

I am afraid that tracking it down might prove to a problem. It was cheap, though, so keep your eyes out for hotwheels making tank chassis! You could take a dremel to the body of the vehicle, remove the turret and treads and kit bash your way to an original cybertank. The world's governments went experimented A LOT with different chassis designs - at least virtually...
On a side note, I found a solution to making militia move faster... Another non-humorous way I could think of was to have regular militia given use of leg augmentation systems . It's not too far out there to have militia groups given this technology to allow them to move twice as fast as they would on foot - and carry needed battle supplies at that same speed. It's not really fast enough to chase down power-suited infantry, but at least they are not four times as slow as them. I propose a new counter for special militia squads equipped with these enhancements.
In fact I propose that these external enhancements to regular infantry was where battle-suits found their roots.

[Toltrin]

Originally Posted by eltf177

The fluff mentions a 3/4 missile tank battery but it's not listed in the specs.

It was classified.

[DSumner]

And just cause I'm in the mood, I'm bumping this up as well. Plus I'd really like to hear what you guys think about some of these units. Am I completely off my rocker, or do they sound feasible?

[JLV]

I've been reviewing this thread for quite a while today -- and some of those units are totally awesome. Some I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole since they require additional record keeping (and a few of them quite a bit of that). Sometimes we want to avoid over-complexity (who needs another version of ASL? Steve has done a pretty good job over the years of keeping this game nice and simple -- read, "easy to play"), but I did like a lot of the stuff you guys were thinking about.

The art work that Toltrin published over on BGG is truly awesome and should seriously give the graphics guys at SJG a bit of thought on how they design the new counters to look. I especially liked his infantry counters. I also like the miniature NATO symbology in the upper left-hand corner -- a nice touch that I've seen in a few other wargames using silhouettes in the past. The kitchen sink was pretty nice too....

And the BOPPERS! I hadn't thought of Rivets since, God knows when. But they would actually make a nice addition to the game -- especially if SJG goes with the Factory States expansion at some point -- while the original game was tongue-pretty-firmly-in-cheek, if you stop to think about it, they actually make a lot of sense as a "poor (self-aware) factory's" self-defense force. Frankly, back in the day, when I was still playing 1st/2nd edition (Metagaming) Ogre/GEV, I used to put them (and their factories) into the game sometimes to give the Humans something else to fight. And running a single Ogre against a factory that is continually producing new units can provide quite an interesting scenario! Of course, that begs the question of who owns the copyright to Rivets nowadays....

[jpattern]

I would jump on a Rivets Kickstarter even faster than I did OGRE.

I still have (and play) three copies of the game, plus a full set of the miniatures, plus a full set of proxies for "the other side."

Jeff

[JLV]

Originally Posted by jpattern

I would jump on a Rivets Kickstarter even faster than I did OGRE.

Jeff

You and me both!

The other Jeff

[DSumner]

Just to satisfy my curiosity, which units do you guys like or dislike, and why?

[JLV]

Originally Posted by DSumner

Just to satisfy my curiosity, which units do you guys like or dislike, and why?

First, let me say that the art work posted by Toltrin was simply amazing. Having said that, I find that most of his new units (various grades and types of drones, GEVs, Howitzers, and the various specialized units of infantry) are a bit too fiddly for me. Fundamentally, such units don't add anything to the game except complexity, and the real appeal of Ogre/GEV has always been it's relative simplicity as compared to things like ASL. Sure, I can see a heavier version of the Artillery, but at the same time, do we really need a different unit type for every caliber? I cannot see a heavier version of a GEV -- at that point you are reaching the point of diminishing returns and I see no real advantage of the "SuperGEV" vice a Heavy Tank. In fact, quite the reverse. One thing (speaking as 23 year veteran of both the Army and the Air Force) I've noticed is that the proliferation of unit and weapon types invariably leads to unnecessary confusion and logistics paralysis -- if you doubt me, take a look at Van Crevald's "Supplying War," specifically where he talks about Italian and German logistics difficulties in North Africa due to the plethora of truck types (for example); to say nothing of the different types of tanks and guns -- each with their unique logistics requirements.

Now, I know this game is a Sci Fi game and we shouldn't really mirror-image it in real world terms, but still, I have a hard time getting past that for the 87 different types of drones, GEVs and Tanks alone, much less the howitzers and all the different infantry weapons presumably implied by the various unit counters. Magnify that by the battlesuits (which would presumably be the only way to really differentiate between "raiders" and the regular "grunts"), and you can surely see my point. (Regarding battlesuits, all the specialized training in the world in HtH combat and knife fighting and sneaking around wouldn't do you a bit of good up against someone in iron -- you can't cut their throat, and they can probably "see" you with their sensors long before you can snoop and poop up on them. A Raider battlesuit may be faster, and even marginally stronger than a normal one, but the only way to kill someone in BPC is to hit them hard with a LOT of explosives (or velocity, either way), and one battlesuit is probably just about like another for that. Sure you could backpack in a nuke without a battelsuit to take them out, but if they didn't get you first, there's always the question of survivability for the mule taking it in. Bottom line, if it looks too complex, it IS too complex.) Frankly the "Militia" unit pretty much covers all the unarmored infantry, and the MI units pretty much cover all the armored ones. I see the utility of the engineers, though most of their issues have nothing to do with combat capability, and the game as written doesn't do a great job of simulating engineering work (it can't really -- the time lines are too compressed; I don't care how strong your battlesuit makes you, you simply can't dig a trench much faster than you can with a modern bulldozer; at some point the laws of thermodynamics take over and you simply can't speed things up much more -- at least not if you're doing the job right).

To me the drones are not really very useful either. They might be if you were working with some kind of limited intelligence/fog of war rules, but in a boardgame of this simplicity, you aren't (or at least you aren't as of 5th Edition). So having the drones really doesn't do much for me. The commo drones would sort of make sense, but at the same time, by introducing them, you are beginning to increase the complexity of the game quite a bit by concerning yourself with communications and command and control -- something that Ogre/GEV have ignored traditionally. At this point do you also introduce jamming and lack of command and control? What about panic movement? SPI did all of those for things like October War, Desert War, and their various other tactical games.... We'll need a scatter diagram on the map!

Now I could see some utility to local tactical aircraft (see Greg Kostikyan's "Continental Siege Aircraft" rules), or perhaps combat helicopters (see "Helltank" for a pretty good version of those rules) though that might necessitate some careful thinking before anyone went that way; and "Helltank/Helltank Destroyer" never did as well in sales as Ogre did -- precisely because it was too fiddly, and everyone liked playing Ogre/GEV more. And I could even be down with drone like capabilities (in terms about like those of the units in "Rivets" -- not a ton of different types, and with clear and easily acted upon limitations as opposed to massive record keeping), but I'd really like to see some nice simple rules and not a huge number of new unit types for every little nuance.

For those of you who know me over on the DG and BGG Boards (jlv61560), my opinions on this may sound like a complete surprise, however, Ogre and GEV work so well BECAUSE they are simple, playable and confined to a pretty simplistic approach to all those nuances -- which allows you to focus on the tactics and techniques as opposed to sweating whether or not the Ogre Mark Umpty-fratz can shoot its "tertiary" (really?) battery cross-deck past the Ogre's potted palm tree to kill that specialized utility-drone that is getting ready to repair someone's plumbing. Meanwhile, the other guy is considering whether his Missile carrier should shoot a sensor-homing missile at the enemy CP or a potted-palm homing missile at the Ogre....

Again, I love the mind that thinks of all these things, but when it comes to actually putting them in the game, Occam's Razor should really be rigorously applied. Do they add something that makes the game much better without commensurately increasing the complexity of the rules necessary to play? And if we add them WITHOUT the necessary rules, what are we really doing?

I'm not really slamming all of the superb creativity embodied in all this hard work, nor am I suggesting that anyone is WRONG to play this way. If you want the complexity, go for it! I just don't think that's what I want in my Ogre/GEV. I LIKE it being simple, easy to play, dare I say it, even somewhat simplistic. I play it for fun and as a form of escapism, not to teach myself anything in particular (though having said that, the game is well enough designed that it DOES teach certain basic tactical truths to the observant player).

So simplicity is what we should strive to maintain. In my opinion. Since you asked. Of course, YMMV.

I do love the art work, though! :-)

(I'm really hoping this response does NOT come across snarky. You asked a good question, and given the amount of thought that went into the various units and their capabilities, I thought you deserved a reasonably well-thought out response. If it DID come across snarky, I sincerely apologize -- it was not my intent.)

[JLV]

Wow. I seem to have shut down discussion on this topic, and for that I sincerely apologize.

I do LIKE READING THE NEW UNIT TYPES, and I'm very sincere in my praise for the folks thinking this stuff up. It may not be my personal cup o' joe, but that's me, and should DEFINITELY not stop you guys from continuing the discussion -- besides, there ARE some clever rules ideas and some outstandingly clever units in the list on this thread.

So please, just remember that my opinion on all of this is worth exactly what you paid for it, and PLEASE continue the discussion!

v/r
Jeff