"Anybody designed rules for a GEV OGRE yet?" Topic

I bought 6 hovercraft at the store for 1 dollar each. I would like to kitbash a GEV OGRE from these HotWheels toys. However, I looked at the Steve Jackson Games website, and didn't see any designs for an OGRE GEV. I can't believe it hasn't been done before. Also, I am interested in how many main guns, secondary guns, missiles, and antipersonnel weapons there would be on this fast OGRE. As well as the OGRE GEVs speed and cost. Any resources I may have overlooked, or have their own ideas?

All I know is you'll have to rename tread units to skirt units.

Look in old issues of Space Gamer magazine? Or in the Ogre Compendium?

There are rules for Continental Siege Aircraft in Space Gamer and the Ogre Book, that's as close as they've come. Mecha-Ogres have gotten more attention.

A hover-Ogre would need to either have restricted weapon ranges or no secondary movement at all. You can't allow them to be able to shoot then dance out to range 4 afterward or you render infantry and many armor units useless against them, and that's not okay for game balance. It might be okay to have very limited numbers of missiles with (range + secondary move) > 4, but for guns that number needs to stay down at 3 or less. That's a very narrow design window, although maybe you could apply some special rule where the hover-Ogre can operate at either "combat speed" (with no secondary move) or at "flank speed" (with restricted range and a secondary move).

You'd also need to clarify terrain effects. Such a big hover platform might have fewer restrictions than an armor unit GEV, but they should have more trouble with terrain than a tracked Ogre.

Check out this classic scenario on the SJG site; link

Ugh. You know, I had seen that in the past, but had successfully suppressed the memory of it till now. Go ahead and play it a few times, being smart with the hover-Ninja and picking off the defenders slowly and carefully, avoiding taking fire at every opportunity. You'll see why I was saying restrictions on range + secondary move are mandatory in very short order. Even the missile GEV shows the problem, but it's a lot more obvious on a supertank with cruise missiles and ECM.

Just thinking off the top of my head…it's going to need a lot of hardware for lift equipment, so no main battery and only a handful of missiles. Now it's limited to secondaries and AP guns. What you've got is a fast but lightly armed platform that would be used to exploit holes punched by the other Mks.

And there's this pic that a fan mocked up of a plausible Coelacanth:

I'd buy a miniature of that.

Awesome Coelacanth OGRE! Thanks Jpattern 2! Also, thanks for the game design tips and advice. If both sides had OGRE GEVs, then perhaps the game wouldn't feel out of balance. Although the infantry and short ranged tanks would still be at a disadvantage. Perhaps the short ranged vehicles and infantry could get a shot in between the OGRE GEV's first move and the "run-away" move.

Holy crap that's cool. :-)

move/shoot/moveagain.

Hey! My Coelacanth! :D Glad you like it!

I, too, would like to see a miniature of it, but it's an utter game-breaker for all the reasons listed above. It's really the non-pareil of power creep in a linear game mechanism like Ogre. It's fun in its own scenario, but it would just be out of hand if used willy-nilly. I'm sure some intrepid gamers could make it work, though, with some suitably up-gunned conventional units to fight it, but then you're in the power trap again.

If you could get a MKVI one the cheap and add in some bits from other miniatures, the Coelocanth would be a very do-able scratchbuild.

I went a little overboard once, while working on a starship building project uses plastic spoon bowls to form ovoid hulls . . . I added a plastic latch from a broken cycling helmet, and created a shape that I thought would make a perfect Grav-engined OGRE. Still in the process of building, it's currently in storage – I'll dig it out and photo it some day.

For fluff, I claim it's from the future of the Factory State era after the Final war, and has come back in time to . . . Change things up a bit :)