Red Reinforcement Pack

[shantke]

Add to my wishlist for future Ogre products. I would love to have an Ogre Reinforcement pack with red on white and white on red counters that are the same as the counters in the second edition reinforcement pack. The obvious benefits would be new counters and the ability to have a three or four player games. generally when we would play huge games such as body blow we would have two players for each side and with four sets of counters it would be much easier to keep track of which forces go with each general. What we have done in the past is try to keep the different allied forces on different sides of the map which works great at the start of the game but usually devolves into chaos latter in the game. Even if this didn't see print, I would buy official print your own counters on e23 in red on white and white on red in a heartbeat.

[Buzzardo]

Seconded.

I was talking to the friend for whom I got a second Kickstarter edition, and his second question was "How many can play?" (His first question was "When is it coming out?")

He wants at least 4-player capability, and 6 would be better. He has a big gaming group, and lots of them will want to play Ogre.

The black and green set helps, and the sponsor sheets will also help. However, as a rule, anything that expands the number of sides and the options for each side will be a welcome addition.

[MiB3027]

Originally Posted by Buzzardo

Seconded.

I was talking to the friend for whom I got a second Kickstarter edition, and his second question was "How many can play?" (His first question was "When is it coming out?")

He wants at least 4-player capability, and 6 would be better. He has a big gaming group, and lots of them will want to play Ogre.

The black and green set helps, and the sponsor sheets will also help. However, as a rule, anything that expands the number of sides and the options for each side will be a welcome addition.

Depending on the size of your forces and the number of boards that you use, you could easily have 4-5 people per side. The only limitation is how fast can each of the players move their pieces. (I have done this with an A&A Mini game nearly every month). The only drawback/limitation to a game with a large number of players is the how quickly everyone can move. --- A person who takes 5 minutes to move their pieces will kill a game

[wolf90]

Let's see...

1) Combine - red/black
2) Paneuropean - blue/white
3) Black Rose mercenaries - green
4) Vatican Guard - purple/gold
5) Sons of Old Nassau mercenaries - tiger striped
6) BGG Forces - blue/orange
7) Nihon Empire - maroon/white
8) Other $3k sheet green units (different green)
9) Anarchist Relief Front - pink GEV units

Plus #'s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8 all have Ogres associated with them. The BGG forces might have Ogres too, but I'm not sure....

So that's nine different forces, which if you split the Ogres out, is 16+ possible players. And this isn't even counting the OTHER Ogres available.... (black, grey, arctic...)

D.

[wolf90]

Originally Posted by Buzzardo

I was talking to the friend for whom I got a second Kickstarter edition, and his second question was "How many can play?" (His first question was "When is it coming out?")

He wants at least 4-player capability, and 6 would be better. He has a big gaming group, and lots of them will want to play Ogre.

The black and green set helps, and the sponsor sheets will also help. However, as a rule, anything that expands the number of sides and the options for each side will be a welcome addition.

I actually went through the various lists... If you count ALL of the various factions included in the $4.5k sheets as well as those units that are only found in the KS version of the game, you can easily end up with over a dozen players playing at once. The following are possible player forces:

Conventional Units
Paneuropean (blue)
Combine (red)
Mercenary (green)
A second mercenary group (different green? - $3k sheet...)
Vatican Guard (purple with gold)
Sons of Old Nassau mercenaries (orange tiger stripe)
Anarchist Relief Front GEVs (pink)
Nihon (maroon)

3-D Ogres
Paneuropean
Combine
Green mercenaries (KS Exclusive)
Battleship grey
Black (from Fire Mountain Games)
Arctic camouflage
Vatican Guard
Sons of Old Nassau
Marauder
"Pretty Fencers" (from ACD Distributors - blue and yellow)

That's almost a score of players without even having to resort to the template Ogres! Plus there are the sheet of flat Ogres in the base game and Nihon-colored flat Ogres as part of the Nihon sheet...

As big as the four maps put together are going to be, you might want to invest in the additional maps when they come out on W23...!

Lots of Ogre gaming goodness!

D.

(I wish I had a group that large to play with...!)

[wolf90]

Originally Posted by MiB3027

The only drawback/limitation to a game with a large number of players is the how quickly everyone can move. --- A person who takes 5 minutes to move their pieces will kill a game

A system I've used in the past is to set time limits on each players move. These limits can be adjusted for the number of units each player has... Obviously it should take less time for a player with a single Ogre (even accounting for all of the weapon systems) than a player with 30 or more units. Make it short, say 5 seconds or so per counter or weapon system and use a chess timer. It forces players to think while other players are playing and gives a great sense of the "chaos of battle"!

(it also seriously cuts down on rules lawyers!)

D.

[Talorien]

This is (mostly) a repeat of a BGG post, but most of the info seems relevant to whether you can play 4-player out of the DE box:

Factions

The factions with armor and infantry in the retail edition of Ogre Designer's Edition will be (the KS version also has all these):

- North American Combine (Red on black)

- Paneuropean Federation (Blue on white)

- Black Rose Mercenaries (Green on light green - uses NAC models)

- Robert Gurskey's Belgian Forces (Checkered green on white - uses PE models - no infantry or GEV-PCs)

'Uses NAC models' means that e.g. the picture of the Merc Heavy Tank follows the Combine version's picture (the PE Heavy Tank looks different) but in a different color skin.

With Ogres, there's no problem. There are at least 4 colors of Ogre in the box (including Flat Ogres), and most Ogres have individual names, so you can easily tell e.g. two red Combine Ogres apart.

4-Player Scenarios?

(You can view the almost-final Scenario Book here.)

It's fairly easy to split one side's forces in a scenario to be controlled by two players, e.g. by substituting in green Merc or Belgian counters for half the forces.

It's also possible to split one side's forces into two players by unit type e.g. by saying that Player A takes all the Heavy Tanks and Infantry and Player B takes all the Missile Tanks and GEVs.

These are the scenarios where I see the forces easily splitting into 4-player:

- Mark IIIs Attacking (Defense splits into two players using NAC/Merc counters; one Ogre per attacker)

- Super CP (same as above)

- Breakthrough (Expanded scenario - defense splits into two using NAC/Merc counters, attackers take 8 GEVs each using PE/Belgian counters)

Breakthrough Ogre scenario is also possible, but one attacking player will only get 6 GEVs, so it's not ideal.

- Raid (same as Breakthrough for Expanded and Ogre scenarios)

- Recon in Force (Standard scenario - One defender takes 12 armor; other takes 35 inf and all trucks. Attacker splits forces into two using NAC/Merc counters. Ogre Scenario - one defender takes the Ogre, the other takes everything else).

- The Train (Standard scenario - one defender takes all the inf and 6 armor units using PE counters, the other takes 10 armor units using Belgian counters. Attackers split forces using NAC/Merc counters).

- Casey Joneski (Ogre scenario - one defender takes the Ogre, the other everything else. Attackers split forces using NAC/Merc counters).

- The Last Train Out (Defender splits forces using NAC/Merc counters. Attacker does likewise with PE/Belgian counters).

- Ceasefire Collapse (Standard/Extended scenario - one side splits forces using Belgian/PE counters (the Belgian player cannot take any infantry) and the other uses NAC/Merc counters. Ogre scenario: EITHER make one player per side take only Ogres and the other take only armor/inf OR use the same counter division as the Standard scenario, but add one or more Ogres for each player)

----------------

I suspect that all the scenarios above should play roughly as well 4-player as 2/3-player. It's possible to move all units on a side simultaneously, so 4-player games shouldn't run much longer than 2-player (in fact, they might be faster for big scenarios!)

Note also that the main limit on the Belgian forces is the lack of Infantry. So if you want to play 4- (or more) player, that's a good reason to get Drew Metzger's $4.5K factions sheets (Vatican, Sons of Old Nassau, Anarchist Relief Front) and/or Roy Kubicek's $4.5K Nihon sheets, both sold separately.

Daniel