Suggestions for three- or four-player Ogre?

[prospero]

If luck holds, I may have a chance this summer to play Ogre with two or three other players. I'd love to get us all playing one game together.

• Are there any published scenarios for three-person or four-person Ogre? If so, where?
  
• I imagine that one could use existing two-player scenarios and simply divide the responsibility for various forces: "Alice, you control the Paneuropean ogre, and Bob will control the Paneuropean infantry and armor. We'll similarly split the Combine forces between Charlie and me." This might interestingly model the difference between human and AI generalship or the different priorities within an alliance of convenience. Any other suggestions about handling this sort of division of labor?
  
• With the various alternate forces that are available in cardboard, a three- or even four-sided game might be possible.
  • Paneuro vs. Combine vs. rogue Ogre Mark V, all fighting to seize an abandoned factory or a train carrying vital supplies.
  • Paneuro vs. Combine, but both are trying to pry an unaligned/rogue Mark V out of the factory it had already seized.
  • Paneuro vs. Combine vs. Japan, all racing to claim defensible territory.
  Does anyone have any suggestions or guidelines for creating such scenarios?

[selenite]

"Salvage" is a capture the flag style battle for up to nine players. It can run three or four players on a single GEV or Shockwave style map.
http://www.sjgames.com/ogre/scenarios/salvage.html

[J. Durr]

"End Game" by J.D. Bell, findable in The Ogre Book, is a three player scenario with very unusual rules. Actually played this recently, the Alliance seemed to dominate easily, but that might be because we didn't fully grok the strategic complexities.

[Desert Scribe]

For standard Ogre games, play the two Mark IIIs attacking scenario. Give the newer players the ogres, and the veterans the conventional units (make sure to use the updated defending force, not the units as given in the original rulebook!*).

Or if you have the GEV rules, play Ceasefire Collapse, but with two (or more) players per side, each with a certain amount of points. If you have two of the green maps to put together, even better.

Or make up an asymmetrical scenario: the side with fewer players is the defender, with lots of city hexes to hide in and plenty of towers and turrets for support. The attackers with more players have more points to start out with. Give each side a couple of hidden objectives as well.

*See ODE errata v. 1.01 (21 June 2014):

p. 1 Mark IIIs Attacking
Should say “The defender gets eight more armor units and six more squads. (This is a good three or four player game.) Half the defending armor and infantry should set up in the North Area and the other half in the Central Area.”

[CADmonkey]

Exercise K is an all-Ogre scenario for up to 12 payers on four teams.

I suppose for four players you could just give each player a team of three Ogres.

[prospero]

Thanks for all your suggestions! If I do get a chance to play three- or four-sided Ogre, I'll post any takeaway lessons.

[prospero]

Alas, I didn't have the chance to play proper three- or four-player Ogre, but I did get in a couple of games with Ogre newbies, including two games with kids younger than 12. Here's to enlightening the next generation.

[selenite]

It's always great to hear about people getting the game on the table.

[Greyhawk Grognard]

I usually split the Combine and PE forces into two each, and let the commanders split the points as they wish.

Recently, I've latched onto the idea of having each player take a unit out of the tables of organization, so one player would have a PE luftpanzer company, another would have a Combine heavy armor company, etc. Maybe let each player have two, juggling the point values to make things roughly equivalent. It would be interesting to group the units together like that, give a feel of unit identity and cohesion.

Joe / GG
www.greyhawkgrognard.com