OGRE/GEV minis part 1: Cybertanks

After mentioning the classic Steve Jackson creation OGRE and noting coverage of OGRE/GEV around the web, it seems appropriate to elaborate on the official miniatures for that game and to show off some of my collection.

The future history of OGRE--along with the miniatures line--concerns itself mainly with two factions: the North American Combine and the Paneuropean Union.  Riffing off World War II paint schemes, I decided to paint my own figures in olive drab (NAC) and dark gray (PE).  Unfortutately, because I'm lazy, most of the paint jobs are incomplete.

The designs for the OGRE and the PE vehicles came first, based on the game art by Winchell Chung.  While the models were great for their time, the translation from the printed page to three-dimensional playing pieces shows how dated their aesthetic has become. 

First, of course there's the OGRE itself, which was used by both factions and comes in two versions main versions (yes, I know there are minis of the Mark I through the Mark IV, but I'm sticking with the models in my collection), both faithful to the game illustrations: 

OGRE mk III

OGRE mk V

There's also a miniature of the OGRE's sensor tower sticking up out of the water (in the brief story setting up the original game scenario, that's how the cybertank snuck onto the battlefied), which I've actually used in a game:



Years after the first miniatures came out, Steve Jackson Games came out with a miniatures version of a Paneuropean cybertank called the Fencer.  This design was much more modern in appearance:

The standard version of the Paneuropean Fencer.

The turret shows this to be a Fencer-B, the upgunned version of this cybertank.

As you can see, I need to finish detailing these miniatures (especially the ones in gray, which is really just what I sprayed on to double as primer).  You'll see that again once you get a look at my conventional Paneuropean vehicles ....

OGRE sightings

In my list of unpainted lead I posted some time ago, I mentioned I have quite a few unfinished minis for the OGRE/GEV game system.  For those unfamiliar with this game, it pits a giant cybertank against a mixed force of conventional units guarding a command post on a future battlefield.

Over the past few days, serendipity has presented our little corner of the gaming blogosphere with several posts discussing the Steve Jackson wargame.  First, Grognardia posted his retrospective of OGRE.  This prompted a response from Greyhawk Grognard examining the first microgame and its sequel, GEV.  And now, Sword & Shield has another overview of the game.

Beyond these recent postings on the original game, I've found some other blogs offering content about the game and its associated miniatures on an irregular basis:

• Paint It Pink, for example, shows off her North American Combine, French Foreign Legion, Paneuropean OGRE conversions, and PE Revolutionary Guard miniatures.
• From my own blogroll, the aptly named Ogre Miniatures infrequently presents all kinds of giant cybertank goodness, including scratchbuilt structures for the minis version of the game and a three-dimensional version of the original game's map.
• It hasn't seen an update in more than two years, but the Ogre Recognition Manual has compiled a database of cybertanks painted with all sorts of markings.

If you're looking for additional OGRE/GEV resources, there's no better place to start than the OGRE page on the Steve Jackson Games website.  Have fun saving/smashing that Command Post!

My OGRE mk V, in Paneuropean colors.  At the top of the page is the submerged version.

The formation of solar systems

Most starship combat scenarios don't take into account the planetary space in which the battles are set, or if they do, the action usually takes place around a single planet.  For those who desire more real estate for their ships to play in, this web-based star system generator makes coming up with new solar systems a snap. 

Screen capture of a randomly created star system.

It automatically generates a random number of heavenly bodies--planets and maybe even a companion star--in orbit around the primary.  The generator, among other things, give the system a name and lists the type and luminosity of the main star and the type, orbital radius, period, and gravity of its planets.  If you're using a particlular setting, the site even offers game-specific Star Wars and Traveller system generators. 

Once you have the system down, you can get more details on a planet by using the sci-fi world generator, which gives size, composition, atmosphere, biosphere, and civilization details, or just use the fractal world generator (creating planets without all the geophysical, biological and sociological data).  Need a name for a person, place or spaceship in your game?  The site also has a generator for names of characters and locations (generic, cyberpunk, and various franchises).

The website also has a number of similar creation tools for fantasy role playing games, so even if you don't see a need for this in your science fiction gaming, it might come in handy.  If nothing else, it can provide a few minutes of entertainment, creating a new world for your enjoyment at the click of a button.

Hat tip: This thread at Star Ranger.

Starfleet Wars Identification Manual

In my recent posts on the scale of Starfleet Wars starships and space fighters, I made frequent reference to the game's Observer's Directory & Identification Manual.  I thought I would go into a little more detail about this publication.  Not every reader will be as familiar with the various SfW products as I am (although I'm sure many readers are better acquainted with the game than I am), and I failed to mention this product in my posts last year on Starfleet Wars and Starfleet Wars Book 2.

Written in the style of a briefing manual by the Office of Galactic Intelligence, the booklet says it was compiled and written by "J.A. Jameson, Rear Admiral, TFSF, Director of Galactic Intelligence" and W.C. Smith, Commodore, TFSF, Chief of Combat Security Systems."  The book lists the illustrators as "R.E. Spicer, Lt. Commander, TFSF, Characteristics and Identification Section" and "S.R. Spicer, Lt., TFSF, CIS."

Bearing a copyright date of 1980, the ODIM is a slim supplement, just 12 (half)-pages sandwiched in between the front and back covers.  But there's a lot of flavor in this sandwich, including background material on each of the five races that inhabit the setting, specs of super galactic dreadnought of each power, fighter information, and drawings of notable warriors of each species: Terran, Aquarian, Avarian, Carnivore, and Entomalian.

That's the main strength of this book--the pictures.  The pen-and-ink illustrations convey a style reminiscent of '70s sci-fi from the pages of Heavy Metal or Epic Illustrated.  They personify the Five Powers of the SfW setting and serve as the basis for large-scale Starfleet Wars metal figures (or vice versa) as well, depicting handheld weapons each species carries into battle.  The starship pictures (all five super galactic dreadnought classes are shown) have breakout illustrations of various weapons systems, as well as sketches of the fighters.

In addition, the descriptions of the various sophonts and their ships offers throwaway bits of background material such as the "Mk 91 Starburster Mount" gun turret on the Terran super galactic dreadnought, and the Avarians' "Thwartyllium armor."

The ID manual offers some crunch in addition to all the fluff: It includes game stats for Superior Models' newest starships, as well as a new to-hit table.  As the reviewer on boardgamegeek.com points out, the new firing table is available only to players that own the supplement.  This offical rules munchkinism predates the actual Munchkin card game by several years.

The Observer's Directory & Identification Manual isn't needed to play Starfleet Wars, or even to enhance play.  It is a lot of fun, however, and provides insight into the sparsely detailed galaxy of the Five Powers.

Starfleet Wars scale part 3: discrepancy



Can you see the problem with this picture?

In Part 1 of this series, we confirmed the "official" scale for Starfleet Wars starship miniatures is 1:9600.  In Part 2, we discovered the "official" scale for the SfW star fighters is 1:1200.  In this post, we learn how the two scales collide with the background material and the miniatures themselves.

I begin by noting the description of a couple of super galactic dreadnoughts in the Observer's Directory & Identification Manual.  The Aquarian Typhoon-class SGDN carries "Twenty attack craft [fighters], one positioned in a ready launch in the bow at all times."  Likewise, the entry for the Entomalian Swarm-class super galactic dreadnought notes "Fifteen 'Mosquito' attack craft are carried ..., one in the ready position on the 'Balist' apparatus in the bow."  There you have it: official word that a couple of the largest ships in this series carry fighters attached to their exteriors.

Sure enough, the manual's illustration of the Typhoon depicts a Pike fighter at the back of what resembles an aircraft carrier's launch catapult, although the drawing of the Swarm does not.  Although I don't own a Typhoon model, a look at the underside of my Swarm confirms the ODIM: there's a Mosquito fighter affixed to the front of the starship, as the photos below indicate:



Can you see it now?


 

How about now?



Here's the problem (which someone pointed out on the Galactic Knights mailing list some time ago): at 1:9600 scale, a model of the 22-meter Mosquito star fighter would be just a hair over 2 millimeters big.  As is obvious in the photos, the attack craft sculpted as part of the super galactic dreadnought is as large as a regular fighter miniature.  So either the SGDN is really at 1:1200 scale, or the fighter is really at 1:9600 scale.  So which is it????

Scale discrepancies always bothered me as a kid; I wouldn't play with my army men and my Hot Wheels at the same time because it was obvious the plastic green guy was too big to fit into the car that came up to his knees.  So how do we resolve this one?  It's one thing to have fighters on separate stands at a larger scale than the capital ships; that can be handwaved as an artifact of the game's representational system.  But a fighter that's a part of the mini is more difficult to explain.  After all, if an actual Swarm is 1400 meters long, at 1:9600, the fighter sculpted into it would be 172 meters in length!

Luckily, I think I've found an answer to this problem:  I'll repeat to myself, "It's just a game."  I should really just relax.

Starfleet Wars scale part 2: fighters

 

Pike

So in Part 1 of the scale series, we figured out the "official" scale for the line of Superior Models starships for the game Starfleet Wars is 1:9600.  Something tells me the scale for the fighters in this game is a little bit larger.  Once again, let's get our our measuring stick and ID manual and find out for sure.

One note--the names of the ships in my previous post on measurments of Starfleet Wars/Galactic Knights fighter minis do not correspond to the designations as given in the Observer's Directory & Identification Manual.  I took the names in the other post from the Monday Knight Productions website, and they may have mislabelled the photos, or maybe I just got confused.  Regardless, throughout this post I will refer to the fighter names for the minis as given in the ODIM.

First, let's look at the Aquarian Pike attack craft (pictured above).  The book says its dimensions are 20.9 x 19.3 x 3.6 (again, I'm going to presume the unit of measurement is the meter).  So the Pike is 20.9 meters long, according to the ODIM.  A scale of 1:9600 would produce a minature just 2.1 millimeters in size!  Obviously, the star fighters aren't in the same scale as the starships.  Let's do the rest of the math for the Pike:

Scale     Scale Length
1:9600           2.1mm
1:4800           4.3
1:2400           9.7
1:1200         17.4

My measurement of the actual figure came out to 16mm, so it looks like the fighters are cast in 1:1200 scale.  Since I should double-check my math, it's time to take the ruler to the remaining fighters in the ID maual:

                "Actual" length    Measured length
Mosquito        22.0m                     18mm
Bobcat            20.1                        15
Comet             22.6                        19
Meteor            21.4                        20
Raven         Unknown*                   13

*This is an actual quote from the ODIM.  Running the numbers in the opposite direction gives the "real" Raven an approximate length of 15.6 meters.



Mosquito

So the math checks out for the remaining models, meaning that in our Starfleet Wars games, the fighters are much smaller than the figures that represent them on the tabletop.  Or are they?  Read Part 3 to learn more ...

Starfleet Wars scale part 1: ships

How big "in real life" are the starships that the Superior Models miniatures are supposed to represent?  The obvious resopnse, of course, is "As big as you say they are, or as big as they need to be to fit in with other lines of minis.  Why are you obsessing over such trivia?"  Well, obsessing over trivia has got me this far, so I think I'll try to figure out the actual scale of these miniatures.  Please note that while I remember reading something about this on the Galactic Knights mailing list some time ago, all observations in this post are my own.

Let's start at the beginning.  The Alnavco product sheet listed the figures in Superior Models' Starfleet Wars miniatures range under the category "STARFLEETS STARSHIP MODELS (1:1200-1:9600 Scale)."  The center pages of the Starfleet Wars rules booklet consist of a chart with stats for the initial SfW line of minis, along with a note at the bottom of the page telling players

This scale of STAR SHIPS can be used with any of the following scales: 1:1200, 1:2400, 1:4800, 1:9600 or any other scale.

So what scale, exactly, are these miniatures?  What's the "official" word, according to the creators' own works?  Let's grab a ruler and the Observer's Directory & Identification Manual so we can find out.

OK, the ODIM gives us the dimensions of fighters and super galactic dreadnoughts as part of the Starfleet Wars setting background.  The manual gives the Terran Victory-class SGDN dimensions of 1482.2 x 636.4 x 333.7 (presumably in meters).  Divide the length by the given scales gives you the following possible model sizes, rounded to the nearest millimeter:

Scale     Length    Width
1:1200     1235        530
1:2400       618        265
1:4800       309        133
1:9600       154          66

In other words, if the mini was 1/1200th the size of the "real" Victory, the scale model would be over 1.2 meters long!  I don't think I could lift that much solid metal.  My own measurements confirm the actual model is quite smaller, at 152mm by 64mm.  Therefore, adjusting for any errors in my measurements or bad eyesight, it looks like the "official" scale for the Starfleet Wars ship models is 1:9600. 

I'll double-check just to make sure, checking the official length agains my numbers for the minis I own:

                "Actual" length    Measured length
Gryphon         1391.5m                   142mm
Polecat           1331.0                      137
Swarm           1402.0*                     141
Typhoon        1346.1                        n/a**

* ODIM gives length as 140.20, presumably this is a typographical error.
** Measurement not available, as I don't have this miniature in my collection.

Well, the math works out for the Gryphon (pictured at the top of this post), Polecat, and Swarm; they're all around 1:9600 scale, so it's safe to assume the remaining super galactic dreadnought is as well.  Assuming the other starship classes are also in this scale, we can then work out real-world dimensions for other vessels based on the size of the models.  This is left as an exercise for the reader.

So what about the Superior Models star fighters?  Are they in the same scale as the Superior Models spaceships?  Read Part 2 to find out ...