Be Careful What You Wish For

Saturday there was no archery, so I was free to do something else instead of shooting sticks at round things.

Serendipitously, one of my MIB colleagues (Steve Jackson Game Men in Black game demonstrators)  was over from the States.  So, after an exchange of emails and messages on Facebook, we arranged for David to come around and play a game of Ogre/GEV.

I suggested we played my Escalation scenario (now subtitled: be careful what you wish for), which I had demoed around various wargame shows three years ago.  Yes, it was as long ago as that.  Running the scenario would be a good test of the game as I would be playing against someone who knew the rules rather than introducing new players to the game.  It's a bit ironic really, given I haven't played for nearly two and half years I was a bit rusty and forgetful, but David rocked.

What I learnt is that I'm going to have to think about how I word the victory conditions; mostly down to the fact that the scenario is unbalanced and is not designed to have a clear winner, but rather to demonstrate how the Last War progressed i.e.: how the GEV green map ends up turning into an orange Ogre map.

I also need to add another howitzer to the nominal attackers side, perhaps even some more infantry, and I think change the GEV mobile command post to a slower tracked mobile command post, as I think it would add more tension to the game.

And courtesy of David a picture of the start of the scenario, before things got all gnarly.

  

Dragonmeet 2014: Escalation

  

The last official MIB demo game of Ogre/GEV with miniatures at Dragonmeet.  I wore my Steve Jackson fluorescent orange and green Ogre T-shirt for the occasion.  The scenario was one of my own devising, and was designed to be unbalanced so that a new player would have a better chance of winning.

More miniatures than you can shake a big stick at.  KR Multicase FTW.

I managed to run three games during the day.  The show was packed and very busy, and quite frankly as I was running the games on my own three was all I could manage.  I actually adjusted the force composition you can see above before the second game started to give me three GEV-PC carriers to move my troops around to bolster my limited force.  I woke up today quite hoarse, and was told I sounded sultry by my partner.

Ian was the first winner, seen here pleased at destroying two of my three command posts.  The other was a GEV-MCP, which can be seen running away.

Justin won the second game, and was a really good sport for posing for this photo.  Again I was forced to retreat my GEV-MCP off the board and concede the game.  I shall be writing up this scenario with notes for a future issue of Miniature Wargames & Battlegames magazine with lots of ideas of force compositions etc.

Friends came and said hello during the day, so hi to Adam, and people who had played last year came and thanked me for the running the game.  Finally, I was surprised and delighted to meet my old friends Pat and Bill who use to run Warlord Games.  Haven't seen them since I went for the funeral of another friend of ours, Kevin, and we had a lot of catching up to do.

Pat on the left and Bill Forster author of The Norway Mission on the right, centre is Kelvin a member of their RPG group.

   

More Pictures of Ogre at Blast-Tastic

The set up.  North American Combine forces are on the top right of the picture ready to sweep forward, the Pan European Federation bottom left forming a defensive line. This is the basic 16 armour units and 18 infantry platoons, and I should've given more thought to the Combine's deployment.

Now my partner has processed the images taken last week, here are some more pictures of Ogre.  So far I've been invited to attend three other show next year with my Ogre miniatures.  I can afford one, maybe a second at a push, but three.  I'm so flattered, what can I say.

If SJG were still pushing Ogre as game that they wanted demoed then their would be more incentive at one level.  Though to be absolutely frank the rewards versus cost of being an MIB are at best marginal.  And again I don't demo the game for the freebies SJG send me, they are for me bunce.

The ceasefire agreement has collapsed and now the North American Combine have escalated their attack by bringing on the big guns, in this particular instance a Mark 3 Ogre.  Rolled for when the initial attack failed to see if the attack escalated.

Given that the miniatures are out of production, and the game is out of print, this takes everything down a peg.  I will go and run a game next year for the simple reason that I like playing Ogre/GEV.

The Mark 3 sweeps down the flank and is about to destroy a howitzer.  At this point the valiant  freedom loving Pan European defenders think they are going down hard.

This reminds me that one really doesn't need the official miniatures though.  There are lots of 6mm manufacturers who make appropriate models to play Ogre with; apart from the Ogre itself, but even that need not be a problem.  So I plan to show off my third army, made from other manufacturers, and will pimp other ranges that I like, too, in due course.

NB: To answer Clive's question of why I brought so many extra painted miniatures than needed for the game the simple answer is just because more is always better.  The other reason is choice.  Had anyone wanted to change the ratio of units they could've have.  I believe that allowing choice is a good thing.

Finally, another blog with a report about Blast-Tastic! here.
  
  

Ogre at Blast-Tastic! 2014

With Steven leaning back as his Ogre prepares to destroy my Command Post.  I was just explaining a rule before he chortled with glee as the Ogre's missile reduced the target to rubble.

Well we got back from Blast-Tastic! pretty much creamed crackered from driving down to Bristol on the Friday evening, setting up for the show and then driving back via way of Reading for a meal out with our friend Clive (who came to provide moral support for my demo of Ogre) on Saturday evening.  This was the first time Michael of Angel Barracks had run Blast-Tastic!  It was a small specialist SF&F wargame show, which will hopefully grow and fill the space left by the SFSFW Ragnarok shows of years gone by.

I had gotten myself into a bit of a tizzy over preparing for the demo.  This meant I ended up painting for a few hours everyday last week to get the North American Combine forces presentable.  Note the description, presentable.  There is still another lot of painting to do to get them finished.  I was lucky that everyone was kind enough to not notice, and or even say how good the miniatures looked.

Regardless of my panic, I had a blast running the GEV variant of Ogre with a scenario of my own devising called Escalation.  It's a variant of the Ceasefire Collapse scenario where at the end of the game the loser rolls a D6 and gets bonus victory points.  The loser can either use these points to turn their loss into a victory, or buy more forces to continue the attack.  My opponent who lost the initial attack chose to escalate and was able to bring on a Mark 3 Ogre, and the game came down to a nail biting last throw of the dice.

I still need to polish the scenario victory conditions and point values, and I hope to write it up for Miniature Wargames & Battlegames in due course.  In the meantime I will be submitting a review of the show for Henry in the next week or so.
  

Blast-Tastic Next Week

   
Well hasn't time flown by, next week it's Blast-Tastic and I shall be taking all my Ogre stuff along to show people.  That means the Big Box of Ogre, and my miniatures you've seen me paint here on my blog.

So here are a few more shots of the last Dragonmeet to remind all of my readers what you will be seeing, or missing as the case may be.  Don't worry if you can't get to Bristol, though you shall be missed, as I will be posting a Blast-Tastic AAR for you edification and delight in due course.

Come and see me point my finger at the crucial moment just before the dice hit the table.

Come and play a game and see if you can stop the Ogre.  Actually, a total fabrication in this case, because I'm running the scenario Ceasefire Collapse, which means while there can be Ogres with the need to crush command posts, the scenario has a few twists; mobile command posts being one.
  

Dragonmeet 2013

My second year at Dragonmeet as a MiB demoing Ogre, with an example of the 6th Designer Edition to show on display to overwhelm all those who passed the tables with its sweet Ogre goodness, and by sweet I mean wicked awesome contents.

I arrive toting my box of lead miniatres only to find that the new Ogre box weighs more than my collection of metal miniatures.  How extreme is that?  Totally extreme.  Roger had set up the orange map and I put out a force with three each of the GEVs, missile tanks and heavy tanks with one howitzer and command post and eighteen infantry for the demo games (I handicapped myself to make it easier for the new players to win, as last year I found it was too easy for me to walk all over the Ogre).

I was pretty much nailed to the chair throughout the day, apart from the necessary toilet breaks and going to get a coffee and a sandwich at lunch.  Didn't really get to look around the show as I was having way too much fun playing Ogre.  Roger spelled me for one game and I ran the rest during the course of the day.  All but one of the players I demoed the game achieved victory, with ironically the most experienced gamer losing to me, which was the only game I won, which I thought was a good outcome.

The highlight game was taken the two young lads who had played in a game with their father/uncle and treating them to a Mark 3 cybertank each and upping the defenders accordingly and letting them have at it.  They had to stop before finishing the game as they had to go off, but they were well on the way to winning and they appeared to have a good time.

   

Operation Dragonmeet

     

KR Multicase foam trays are wonderful for storing and transporting one's miniatures.

Well here they are, my force for the OGRE demo.  This photo doesn't show everything as there is an extra layer of infantry under the infantry you can see on the left.  Still spaces to expand a bit more, but my Combine infantry and vehicles will require separate trays, which I guess I will rotate with the Pan Euro forces as required?

This was the board we use, from the Deluxe Ogre set that Roger brought in.  Set-up was done by me on the fly as we didn't have Steve Jackson recommended layout to hand.  The plan was to have the players be the defenders, and let them have a couple of extra armour units, but that plan was changed to just letting them be the Ogre.  So I took one GEV to make up to my full 12 armour units for the game.

 

My other five Ogres were put out on display for people to look at and handle.  They were much admired and people all thought the use of magnets to join the two halves together was good.  All down to seeing Daniel, the Ogre line developer, doing this to his Ogre models.

The first game and the first take down of an Ogre for the day. So close and yet so far.  The second game and the second Ogre is taken down by the defense, with enough defenders left that this counts as a total defensive victory.

Roger, my new cell leader and Southern head honcho setting up the day.  I had arrived early and helped me to put out the display boards he had brought back from Essen.

I was at the show for eight hours, and five games of Ogre for new players.  On reflection, given that I played the defense for four out of the five games, the Ogre only won once when I was helping two friends to play the game against each other, I think that I'm going to have to reduce the defense force by one or two armour units, when I play defender, to give new players a better experience of the game.  It's not that I don't like winning, but that's not my role when demoing, and I know the stats and the tactics far too well for my own good.

I got to briefly rush around the show while catching something to eat, and bought two books from House Atreides, a second hand stand, for five pounds each.  A nice condition copy The Ogre Book, first edition from 1982, which is good to have as my copy fell to bits and had to be put into sleeves.  The second book I got was a  copy of Heavy Gear's Life on Terra Nova in reasonable condition, which will help me get into the game's background more.
      

Dragonmeet 2012 in One Week

As I have mentioned elsewhere, I am helping to run the OGRE demo at Dragonmeet that takes place on the 1st of December at the Kensington Town Hall. I go most years to this show, and this year I am providing the miniatures for rolling out the new 6th Designers Edition of OGRE.

On that note here are some more pictures from when I went to Cambridge in August to help out Daniel Jew, the new line editor for OGRE, running demo games at Congenial. First up Saturday, where I arrived around midday.

And then it goes KaaBooom... Gareth is holding back the laughter. It's just the way I tell them.

A case of studied anticipation by all three parties,with me being patriotic, and all, in my Stars & Stripe top. I was helping Peter, the player on the left, against the predations of Gareth's Combine Ogre incursion into the Pan European Area of Operations on the Saturday afternoon. Gareth has a cunning plan, judging by the smile on his face.

And here we have a sequence that goes something like me "and then we do this and that, ". Peter smiling "that sounds good". Me, "Ooh, I've just seen something... we could reach out and crush all our enemies that stand before us in one swell swoop".

Sunday I was there bright and early and bushy tailed dressed in black to better fit in with the prevailing colour palette at the convention.

Sunday, wishing that I had an OGRE T-shirt like Gareth's wearing. Anyway, I'm pointing out to one of our first time players where I thought he should go next, and explaining the why's and wherefore's of the choice. It's all about using ridges to block the conventional forces. I have no doubt that Gareth on the left is of course trying to think of counter moves.

This picture is one of several that Daniel took over the weekend that just shows how much fun I was having. Gareth was a great MIB agent to be with. The games were just a blast to play. Using Daniel's miniatures for the demo games really made the difference for me, especially seeing how he used magnets for the turrets etc..

Daniel on the left, off to be the line editor, and Gareth on the right, at the end of Congenial. Smiles say it all really. Oh how we laughed at the fact that Gareth had become a zombie, having had the top of his head cut-off earlier in the day.

 So, I hope to see all those who can make it at Dragonmeet on Saturday the 1st of December.
  

Congenial 2012: Cambridge

  

Went to Cambridge this weekend to attend Congenial a small games convention that had Phil & Kaja Foglio as guests of honour. I hadn't been planning on attending at all, if truth be told. What happened was that I was browsing the SJG forums and saw a we want MiBs for OGRE/GEV post. So I emailed Frank Carver the European MiB and asked if this was a current need, to be told that it was? After a brief, and what was hopefully witty email to introduce myself, I was asked if I could make it to Congenial to meet people and see if my face fit etc.?

My partner is not a gamer as such, but when I mentioned that the Foglio's were the guest of honour that made our attendance inevitable. Fortunately, we have some good friends in Cambridge, so we had the added pleasure of staying with Kate & Malcolm, getting to hang out with them.

Turned up on Saturday and introduced myself to Daniel, in the OGRE t-shirt, the new line developer for OGRE, and play a bunch of games as the OGRE. Had a whale of a time. I had forgotten how much fun it is to play. The guy on the left in the photo is Chris, who won the tourney prize.

The OGRE advances as Chris moves his forces into contact. He was a very skillful player and his victory was well deserved.

Saturday night I sold a few excess games at the auction, and Sunday was a rinse and repeat cycle of playing more games of OGRE. I rather liked introducing myself as Ashley your OGRE for today.