Ogre at Sea: L.C.A.C.

Continuing my nautical Ogre theme, here we have a Landing Craft, Air Cushion for transporting conventional vehicles across large expanses of water to invade the peace-loving city of Monopolis.

This is another 1:350 scale model, this time from MRC's Gallery Models line of kits. The package actually includes two LCACs. They're display model kits, not gaming pieces, so some of the parts are very small and intricate. Still, there's not that many of them, and it didn't take long to put one of them together.

As you can see, like my armored boat, the LCAC also fits well with my metal Ogre miniatures. For those who are unfamiliar with this craft, it's a modern Navy vessel used to bring troops or vehicles from offshore onto the beach.

Like it's real-life counterpart, my Ogre LCAC won't have any major weaponry on board, since it's a transport vessel. It will get a couple of antipersonnel guns, however. Other game stats will be its defense of 2, and its GEV movement rate of 3/2 in water only. Note that the 3/2 speed is for loaded LCACs--an unloaded craft can travel 4/3.

An attack result of X on an LCAC at sea destroys the vessel and any cargo it was carrying. As noted above, the LCAC can only enter water hexes. The exception is that it can move onto a beach to disembark vehicles or troops its carrying, but this ends the LCAC's move for the turn. Units deployed from an LCAC cannot move during the same turn that they disembarked, although they can shoot normally.

An LCAC that moves onto a beach is considered to move into that hex for purposes of overruns. If an LCAC lands on a beach occupied by enemy forces, determine overrun combat as normal against the LCAC, but not its cargo or passengers. If it is destroyed in the defenders' first fire round, any vehicles or troops it was carrying are also lost. After the defenders first fire round, any units carried by the LCAC are deployed and can take part in the overrun, although they may not leave that hex after the overrun is finished.

So what fits into this LCAC, which is smaller in Ogre than the real-life version would be? Pretty much any two indivirual armor units, as you can see from these photos I took while test-fitting the parts together:

You have room to substitute two light tanks for one larger vehicle, for a total of four light tanks, or one heavy and two lights, per LCAC.

This craft can also hold a company of powersuited infantry. That's three platoons of three squads each, which fit comfortable in the LCAC.

It can hold two missile crawlers, which are die-cast toys repurposed for use in Ogre instead of the official, two part miniatures.

The only big vehicle the LCAC can carry is my mobile command post, which fills its bay. Unfortunately for the attackers (but luckily for the defenders), the superheavy is just a little too wide to fit. Same thing with the mobile howitzer.

I may have to grab some more of these, but I think I will wait until I playtest this model first. Anyone want to help?