Thank you for the final round of comments on Designer's Ed. Here are the changes.

[Talorien]

Many, many thanks to everyone who contributed with the last (and also earlier) rounds of Ogre Designer's Edition input.

Here are some of the significant changes which Steve made due to your input (this list isn't comprehensive, it's just the more major changes).

Please note these changes are final, unless there's a totally gamebreaking, stop-the-presses issue that we haven't noticed.

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Rulebook

- GEVs ram other vehicles at 2x Attack Strength, but cannot ram during second movement if they fired during the fire phase. Hovertrucks may not ram.

(Thematic rationale: the GEVs are firing all the way in point-blank, thus the link to AS. If they want to ram during second movement, it's as if they're firing then, so they can't get an additional fire attack in the fire phase.)

(Gameplay rationale: There was no reason not to suicide ram a LGEV during second movement if it was going to die anyway on the opponent's turn and the opponent had nothing else to shoot at; now it has to choose between ramming and firing.)

- 6.07 on Ramming has been cleaned up to make it clearer and more intuitive what is ramming what under which rule (6.07.1 to 6.07.5)

- It's now clarified that 6.08 applies to SHVYs

- Infantry now gets to group once under 7.12.1 when it's first attacked during a fire phase, and must stay in those groups for the rest of the fire phase. Infantry riding on vehicles are considered one group (the outside case of > 3 infantry riding an Ogre will be handled in FAQ; it isn't an issue in 99.99% of games).

(Thematic rationale: Steve sees the grouping choice as the defender indicating "these guys are physically in such-and-such groupings within the hex, which group are you gonna shoot at?" The key thematic factor increasing infantry defense when grouped is combined ECM, which is why infantry riding vehicles still gets a group bonus)

(Gameplay rationale: speeds up play and prevents the rules getting into contortions over the "each unit with AP weapons can only fire them once at each infantry" rule. Infantry is now slightly more vulnerable when stacked, because a group of 2 and 2 which is reduced to 1 and 1 by a fire attack -- the second group being reduced by spillover -- now doesn't get to reform as a 2 for a second fire attack during the same phase. If this bothers you, don't stack your infantry!)

- 'Infantry squad' is now the standard term for a 1-inf (and 'two squads of infantry' for 2-inf, etc). All references to '1 attack strength of infantry' in the Rulebook and Scenario Book have been changed to the squad terminology.

- Wording of 6.06 (reducing infantry with AP) now makes it clear that it applies to SHVYs in all respects. Note that the GEV-MCP on Knockman's $4.5K sheet does not get to reduce infantry despite having AP guns, because thematically its defense strength is too low to want to aggressively chase infantry around a hex.

- 7.05.1 (attacks on infantry with AP) has been made general to all units with AP, not just Ogres. Wording makes it clear that each unit with AP can fire only once per turn with its AP on each infantry unit. (I understand that the actual target is technically an infantry group as per 7.12.1, but we don't think this will be confusing in actual gameplay, due to the changes to that section outlined above.)

- Wording of 13.02.1 is now clear that you can combine attacks on different target hexes of a bridge into one attack roll.

- White shadow behind NE/D/X on all instances of the CRT has been removed for ease of reading.

- Example of Play on p. 17 has been further streamlined so that hex references are unnecessary (these have been removed).

- I think that all references to 'defensive strength' have been standardized to 'defense strength' (I don't actually have the final version of the rulebook with me right now; it's with production in Austin).

- Illustration on p. 11 now mentions that facing has no other game effect.

- Under 13.07, Superheavies now also lose one AP gun (in addition to losing a main gun) on the roll of 1-2.

- The address of an online PDF containing just the Starter Rules (the relevant parts of Sections 2-7) will be provided under 1.01.

(Rationale: there are a lot of rules a new player doesn't have to read from Sections 2-7 to get started with Mark III Attack.)

(Yes, we would love to include a print version of the Starter Rules in the box, but everything, including production costs and total box weight, is already over-or-at-full-capacity, so an online PDF is the next best thing.)

Reference Sheet

- Language on the Terrain Effects Table has been standardized (e.g. "2 movement points to enter", "same as Swamp").

- The beach hexside row has been corrected to read "No effect" (rather than "same as Clear terrain") where relevant, to bring it in line with other hexside terrain

- D0->D1 comment in the Town row has been moved from the Heavy Tracked to Light Tracked column (because the only D0 unit there is a MCP). A similar comment has been added to the Wheeled column.

- All defense modifiers (e.g. "defense strength doubled") are now in red so that they can be picked out at a glance

- Ogre treads hit on a 6 has been added to the relevant Town column (this is in red)

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Thanks again. In many cases a specific change is directly attributable to one or more forum members. (You know who you are :)

You guys have to be one of the best game communities out there, hands down :)

Daniel

[GranitePenguin]

Very cool. Can't wait to see the final product. :-)

[KevinR]

Originally Posted by Talorien

Note that the GEV-MCP on Knockman's $4.5K sheet does not get to reduce infantry despite having AP guns, because thematically its defense strength is too low to want to aggressively chase infantry around a hex.

This confuses me somewhat. If the GEV-MPC AP guns can't reduce infantry, what can they do?

[ScarecrowKing]

Why is the 'M' there? If the Personnel Carrier is GEV-equipped, isn't it already Mobile? I thought it was just called a 'GEV-PC'.

-Brian

[KevinR]

Originally Posted by ScarecrowKing

Why is the 'M' there? If the Personnel Carrier is GEV-equipped, isn't it already Mobile? I thought it was just called a 'GEV-PC'.

I think that is supposed to by GEV-MCP.

[griffon8]

Originally Posted by KevinR

This confuses me somewhat. If the GEV-MPC AP guns can't reduce infantry, what can they do?

GEV-MPCs can't reduce infantry by moving through them like Ogres; they can still fire AP guns during their fire turn.

[KevinR]

Originally Posted by griffon8

GEV-MPCs can't reduce infantry by moving through them like Ogres; they can still fire AP guns during their fire turn.

That's what I get for not looking up the underlying rule first -- 6.06 relates to "ramming" infantry.

[Talorien]

Originally Posted by KevinR

I think that is supposed to by GEV-MCP.

Oops! Yep. Sorry about the typo. It's corrected now.

:)

[Ashley]

Well done, a lot of work, and one step closer to total world annihilation.