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| by Steve Jackson Games |
What's In a Name?
Hello, there! Today I'm going to be taking a look at the newly released Ogre Battle Box by Steve Jackson Games! I'm REALLY excited because I love fantasy and swords and sorcery, so I've got my BATTLE AXE and my PLATE ARMOR, and I'm ready to go!
Wait... What's that...?
Oh... Ogre is actually a tactical sci-fi military themed game?!? And Ogres are the types of giant tanks that roll through the countryside sewing destruction?
Well, that's cool, too! I love sci-fi! Let me just crack that box open, and start to play...
Oh... Oh, my... That's, um... That's a lot of... sprues... And a LOT of unassembled miniatures...
That's okay! That's okay. A lot of other games come with unassembled miniatures. Blood Bowl. Shadows of Brimstone. It's not a big deal. I bet when they're all put together, they're going to be these HUGE MASSIVE things, that are going to look SO COOL. I mean, the game's called OGRE, RIGHT?!? They're going to be GIGANTIC, like 100mm scale or something ridiculous like that. I just need to put them together. You'll see...
SON. OF. A. &$%#!
Tank You, Very Much, Mr. Roboto...
Ogre is an asymmetrical tactical miniatures game where one player controls a futuristic military force, struggling to defend themselves from the other player, who controls the titular Ogre, a giant SUPER TANK more than capable of wiping out any defending forces.
The gameplay behind this is pretty simple, actually. Each unit has a number of stats you'd expect from a tactical wargame, including Attack, Defense, Range, and Movement. On your turn, you move each of your units (or in the case of the Ogre player, just the one) around the map until they're in their desired position.
Once they're in position, you choose where you want to assign the unit's Attack Strength. For example, the Missile Tank above could focus its fire on the same target as another Missile Tank, combining for an Attack Strength of 6, or they could aim for two separate targets, assigning their 3 Attack Strength to each.
This is then compared to the defending unit's Defense Strength, for this example, we'll say it's 2. But you don't take the difference between the two values, or anything like that, in order to know what to do after that requires you to engage your third grade skills in mathematics: Ratios and Division.
Let's take the example of the two Missile Tanks combining their Attack Strength (6) against one target's Defense Strength (2). A 6 to 2 ratio, which reduces to 3 to 1. That ratio is then compared to this bad boy:
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| Oh, God, the PRESSURE. It's like I'm doing my math fact sheets all over again... |
You find your appropriate ratio on the Combat Results Table and roll a six sided die. The result of your die, let's say a 4, is matched up with the 3-1 ratio, which gives us the result of an X, which means TOTAL UNIT ANNIHILATION! A "D" results in the unit being Disabled (of which, another "D" would destroy it) and an "NE" is essentially a miss.
Now, I know that MATHEMATICS and Wargaming don't necessarily seem like they'd be two sides of the same "Fun" coin, but the system is surprisingly simple and rewarding. Aiming four or five of your tanks all at the same section of the Ogre just feels awesome... And if you just can't be bothered to figure out the ratios yourself, there's even an app on your phone to do it for you.
There's also a litany of other rules for things like the various terrain scattered among the gamemat, along with some specific stuff for using your Ogre to RAM the other player... But that just seems MEAN...
Ogre Battalion
Okay, so, yes, the miniatures in Ogre are small. I know I made fun of them a little at the opening of this review, but for perspective, here they are against some 32mm minis from A Song of Ice & Fire.
Infantry:
Howitzer Tank:
And the big bad Ogre Mk. V:
As you can see, the miniatures are fine. But that's the thing. They're FINE. They're not supremely detailed, but they're not the worst either. I'm not a BIG fan of the quality of plastic, mainly with the infantry, just because they're so small, the plastic becomes SUPER brittle, and I tore off about 12 arms before I was done putting together my army.
But do you see anything that's missing from the miniatures?
Anything that, you know, might be important to playing the game?
How about their STATS?!?
You see, in the original form of Ogre, there were no miniatures, only punch board counters of the units, but these counters had all of the stats printed on them!
Fast forward to the 2018 Ogre Battle Box, and while we get some miniatures of nice quality, we don't actually get what we need to PLAY the game! There are no stat sheets (except for the Ogres) or cards with the stats on them AT ALL!
The only place these stats are located is on a single page of the rulebook. So, unless you're SUPER FAMILIAR with Ogre and all the different units, you're going to be playing with your nose in the book the entire time.
This could have easily been alleviated by including a single sheet of Unit counters, to act as references, or maybe even a separate stat sheet for all of the units. There's just something off-putting about having to look up information in the rulebook EVERY SINGLE TURN.
Buy It!, Try It!, or Fly It!
So, I feel like I should be writing two separate reviews here. One for the GAME of Ogre, and one for the PRODUCT of the Battle Box.
In general, I really like the game of Ogre. In spite of the seemingly complex Combat Results Table and all the Attack vs. Defense Ratio hullaballoo, the game is quite easy to grasp, and you'll be calculating those combat ratios faster than you'd think.
And you know what? This game REALLY succeeds as a way to drill those mathematic concepts. As a parent, I can't think of a better way to teach little gamers about the importance of division and ratios than as a way to usher in the UTTER DECIMATION OF YOUR ENEMY!
In fact, this game is a little simple in that there are no line of sight rules, but that just means you get to get down to the business of blasting giant tanks with smaller tanks all that much sooner. So as a way to introduce your little ones to wargaming, I can't recommend Ogre enough.
And you know what? This game REALLY succeeds as a way to drill those mathematic concepts. As a parent, I can't think of a better way to teach little gamers about the importance of division and ratios than as a way to usher in the UTTER DECIMATION OF YOUR ENEMY!
In fact, this game is a little simple in that there are no line of sight rules, but that just means you get to get down to the business of blasting giant tanks with smaller tanks all that much sooner. So as a way to introduce your little ones to wargaming, I can't recommend Ogre enough.
But is this the definitive purchase for Ogre? Not really. The product of the Battle Box is something that is GREAT for experienced Ogre players. If you can recite the stats for a Howitzer Unit off the top of your head, this is your thing. But if you're like me, someone who's never played Ogre before, you want all those stats close to your fingertips, and they're just not. They are tucked away deep in the rulebook.
If you're the Ogre player, you have it a little easier, as you actually HAVE cards with all of your stats on them, but heaven forbid you play a 1v1 skirmish style game, where each player controls a battalion of Units. Then half the game is spent flinging the book back and forth!
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| I don't care what Lavar Burton says, this is not a pleasant sight... |
But the game is good and fun, so at the end of the day, that's what matters, but if you can't get over the issues with the components (or lack thereof) you may find yourself getting incredibly frustrated. I love miniatures. I LOVE THEM, but personally, I'd rather have the basic 6th Edition of Ogre than the Battle Box.
The Verdict...?
TRY IT!
I bought the box set about three weeks ago, I'm still trying to work out if it was a good idea.
ReplyDeleteOgre is a classic and I remember reading about it when I had hair so after suitable encouragement from my friend Mr Malbec I bought the box set as I'm a minature gamer.....
What arrived was weighty and shiny with the lovely smell of new plastic.
BUT.....
Conceptually the boxed set is a bit of a mess and someone who is new to wargaming should definately stick with buying the board game...
I probably have to explain that statement don't I?
SJG produces two versions of Ogre; the first is the classic board game which is played with card counters and a second stand alone minatures game which is played on a tabletop like say, epic or 40k.
Somewhere in the intro sheet it states that the idea is that players can use the minatures in this box to instead of the card board counters to play Ogre.
The box contains (among other things) a rule book, some stat cards and a large map taken from a later supplement called GEV scaled up to be used with the figures. The box also contains stat cards for the Ogres (the really big killy things) with stats for using them on the stated presumption that the owner willl progress onto the minatures game.
The first wrinkle is that using the minatures instead of the counters doesn't quite work for example the rules for the board game includes rules for STACKING up to FIVE counters on top of each other within a hex something that clearly becomes impossible with the plastic figures who only fit one, maybe two, per hex. There seem to be quite a few tacical implications from stacking units on top of each other and I get the feeling that this is a large part of the game.
The second quirk is that the rule book guides the player through an introductory set up using the orginal Ogre map; this map is NOT in the box. This is very confusing.
Thirdly the figures are well, from looking at them you can see how much plastic moulding has moved on in the last ten/twenty years. The figures are meant to be protected by large slabs of armour and the modeling reflets this very well. You will either like this style of design or or not. Design aside what did surprise me is that figures lack pretty much any modeling diversity and HAVE to be assembled in a fixed way. You can introduce some diversity by rotating the turrets on the tanks to face in different directions however they are otherwise very static. The ogre models, being the stars of the show, are the worst offenders and there is literally only ONE way to assemble them which is a shame as the designers could, with a bit of thought, introduced rotating gun turrets etc.
Oh and yes, no stat cards for the smaller models which is annoying.
I know that I WILL battle my way through the confusion and that I will end up with a good game at the end but I would have preferred not to have needed to.
* having now bought the OGRE minatures game the rules DO contain a mechanism to show this with miniatures
Hi David. I could not agree with you more...
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