The suburbs of Monopolis

I'm gonna need more than just office buildings to complete my large-hex city for OGRE, so I acquired several score hotels and houses from various Monopoly games, including a couple of variants. 

The standard buildings from the original game make for some nice, conventional suburbs for the city of Monopolis.  In addition to these plastic pieces, I have some wooden markers as well.  Their slightly different size will add some variation to this bedroom community.

I don't know which version of Monopoly these pastel pieces came from, but they'll make a nice section of town as well, especially once they're painted.  I also plan to mix these in with the regular houses and hotels, for some variety to the 'burbs.  A coat of light-colored spray paint, and they'll all blend together nicely.

And since a lot of the battles in OGRE/GEV scenarios are set in Europe, I figure there will probably still be a few castles around, with some older architecture homes.  These bits came from a Disney edition of Monopoly.  Alternatively, I could plunk one of these palaces in with some other game pieces I've seen on EBay to create an amusement park.

Now I need to order some four-inch hexes, then I can start assembling the terrain for the city of Monopolis.

New Hordes of the Things edition on sale

As announced on the HotT mailing list and reported on The Stronghold Rebuilt, the new version of Hordes of the Things is now available.  If you're interested, this version codifies the Warband/Shooter movement swap that's been an unofficial rule for over a decade.  It also has a whole lot of new army lists (as is missing some old ones due to intellectual property issues) and an optional movement system using base width as the unit of measurement. 

Right now, it looks like the only source for this book is Amazon UK.  It's a little pricey for me, thanks to international shipping, but sooner or later I will be purchasing a copy of the updated HotT rules.

Combining GEV scenarios

I had a couple of people over for OGRE/GEV again on Saturday--Rickey, who played last week, and fellow gamer Kerstan.  This time, I wanted to combine two scenarios on one big map.  I set up map G1 for the advanced Breakthrough scenario and connected it to the G2 board for the basic Raid defense, the idea being that once the attackers broke past the defenders on the first map, they would start playing on the second.  Once again, the terrain overlays added to the game, allowing players to tell at a glance that the towns on the Breakthrough map were destroyed and all the bridges were out.

Unfortunately, once we started playing, the attacker only managed a Breakthrough with four GEVs, resulting in a pretty decisive victory for the defender (lesson: don't stack GEVs beneath a howitzer umbrella).  As the follow-on Raid with just four attacking units would have made a quick game--and an unsatisfying one for the understrength attacker--we decided to start the second scenario from scratch, and give the attacker the full 12 GEVs for the basic scenario.

Unfortunately, the attacker had some poor rolls against infantry out in the open.  He was also surprised by some light tanks hiding in the cities where infantry had been concealed in the last game.  The attacker damaged a few town hexes and completely destroyed only one.  While he took out all the light tanks defending the area, those armor units, helped by the infantry and reinforcements, managed to destroy all but one of the attacking GEVs.

We had fun playing, but if I attempt the combined scenario again, I need to give the attacker more GEVs to get off the first map.  Instead of 16 as called for in the advanced Breakthrough scenario, the attacker should have at least 24, and maybe 30 GEVs so that there's something left to conduct the Raid on the second map.  Here's to the next time!

Kobolds: still progressing

Still working on my kobolds, from Reaper's Bones line of minis.  I added a little more detail (painted the horns) and gave 'em another wash, this time almost entirely ink.  I think they look acceptable for use on the gaming table; I just need to do a little drybrushing and paint the bases.  Of course, once they're finished, there's no guarantee the player characters will even encounter the kobolds in my dungeon--but I plan on having them ready, just in case.

Why I want BIG hexes

I alluded to scenery in my post about wanting a bigger map for OGRE/GEV.  That's because I found some conventional boardgame components that are perfect for what I have in mind.  I'm not looking for something in perfect 1/285 scale with the minis--I just want something to represent a city better than a two-dimensional rendering.

These buildings are from the Monopoly City game, and their relative scale meshes well with four-inch hexes.  This provides a decent-looking city hex, while leaving enough room for even an Ogre Mark V.  I can't take credit for this idea--I first came across it in this thread on The Miniatures Page (with more elaboration on the concept in this blog post).

This set includes other structures besides office buildings.  There's factories, power plants, water towers, even prisons and stadiums.  I plan on assembling them on the hexes to make a modular city.  I think I'll call it Monopolis.

Painter's progress

I got some more work done on the dozen Reaper Bones kobolds in my painting queue, giving them some detailing and an ink wash, which is still wet in these photos. 

Remember, I'm aiming for a tabletop standard. After this, some drybrushing, painting the bases, and clear coating, and they'll be ready for the dungeon.

It's a satisfying feeling to get a significant number of miniatures painted up.  I ought to do it more often.

We're gonna need a bigger map

While the counters in the latest edition of OGRE look great, I like to use miniatures when playing with the boardgame rules.  And while the conventional armor minis fit comfortably in a hex, as you can see, the eponymous cybertank is way too large to occupy a single space on the game board.  So I'm going to need a map with larger hexes. 

At first I thought about making my own playing surface, but that's way too much work.  Instead, I'll fork over the cash for a professionally produced game mat with hexes.  But how big should they be?  I printed out some 3-inch test hexes, and while the Mark III has plenty of room, the Mark V is still busting out of the hex.

With 4-inch hexes, both Ogres have lots more room.  This is good, because I want to add some 3-D terrain to my games--and I need enough room in each space for the scenery and the vehicles!  These large hexes should give me enough room to place units as well as other visual elements to make the game look cooler.  And once I get some of the parts for what I want to build, I'll share it with you.

Meanwhile, I need to obtain a game mat with four-inch hexes inscribed on it.  I know of four companies that offer this kind of project: Corsec Engineering, Hotz Mats, Monday Knight Productions, and Terrain Mat.  Any recommendations?  Any other sellers I should be aware of?