Ogre: The Ogre Mark V

 

In the year 2085, armored warfare is faster and deadlier than ever. Hovercraft, tanks, and infantry slug it out with tactical nukes. But, the most feared weapon of all needs no human guidance. It's a giant cybernetic tank bristling with guns and missiles.

It's the Ogre.

A part of the sturdy, cardboard game board. You can also play without the board and use a ruler.

Ogre has always been one of my favorite games and one of the first games I purchased myself as a you 12 something. The updated board game version is fantastic and Honorable Son #3 (The Chemical Engineer Aviator) has plastic miniatures to play on the new board game. He asked me if I would paint them (it didn't take long to twist my arm) so I thought I would use just three GW Contrast paints to knock them out quickly.

Above is the sprue for the MK V Ogre in hard plastic. In order to use GW Contrast paints the items must be primed in either white or a light gray. I did not use Hobby Primers, even though they are usually the best quality primer out there - I just buy whatever is on sale.

You can see that some of the red can still be seen after one coat of primer. I almost gave it a second coat but I thought to my self, "Self, this is an Ogre. It's not some fancy parade ground museum piece. It needs to look rough around the edges." In addition, I was painting it white so I figured - who cares?

I did some rushing in gluing the Ogre together with the treads. I should have glued one side, let it dry, and then glue the other side. You can see the results of where my sticky fingers were as I put treads back into the correct positions. Hey, it's battle damage. The model itself is easy to put together if you take your time.

I used GW Contrast Blood Angel Red for the base color of the hull. Truth in advertising time: I did not paint the whole hull at one time due to the length of the model. Contrast paints take about 20 minutes to dry and I did not want my finger prints (see above on gluing treads!) on any of the areas. The main batteries, in fact all of the batteries are painted with Contrast Basilicanum (What the heck is a Basilicanum in the GW world? Gee, another homework assignment.) Black and the Primary Sensor Array is painted with Contrast Nazdreg (BWAH HAH HAH!) Yellow.

The engine like structures, exhaust fans, and treads were all painted with GW Contrast Black.

The rest of the secondary batteries, anti-personnel batteries and secondary sensor arrays were also all painted Contrast Basilicanum Black. The Rattler Missiles were painted with Contrast Nazdreg Yellow.

Tah Dah! All done.

BWAH HAH HAH!

Ogre: Heavy Artillery

 

 I'm continuing on with my project of painting Honorable Son #3's (The Chemical Engineering Pilot) miniatures for Ogre. Here is the Heavy Artillery.

As usual, with usual GW Contrast Paints you need to prime with either White or a Grey. All of the Ogre miniatures I am priming with White. The base is Contrast Basilicanum Grey along with the small metal highlights on the artillery tube. The tube itself is GW Contrast Black Templar.

Remember with Contrast paints to do the lighter colors first unless you want to go back and use white again to get a lighter color over a darker color. The gun carriage and Fire Direction Center (FDC) are Contrast Ultra Marine Blue with the doors and hatches highlighted with Contrast Basilicanum Grey with some red and yellow. The stripe around the gun carriage I had to go back an paint white and then I painted it Contrast Nazdreg (BWAH HAH HAH) Yellow. Ta Dah! Instant artillery battery (not counting the initial primer) I did during the first half of a football game.

Yeah

The 2025 Plan: 1st Quarter Update

Each year I make a plan for my (primarily) miniature painting activities. The year 2023 was the year of "The Big Move" and my plan for 2024, well, fizzled. Not that I'm complaining. Hey, when 4 grandchildren arrive in less than 2 years it's time to celebrate! I'll pause on my hobby activities to spend time with those bundles of joy. I now consider myself a professional grandfather.

With an abbreviated plan I got off to a great start in the 1st Quarter:

1. Take some pictures of my newly painted 28mm Ghurkas for the Northwest Frontier from Perry Miniatures and post them. DONE! 

The 1st Battalion, 3rd Ghurka Rifles are ready to leave the depot. Figures by Perry Miniatures.

In addition, I need to take some pictures of "Team Chase" (okay, it's Jonny Quest) from Pulp Miniatures for an exciting, adventure filled post! DONE!

2. Finish painting the Ogre miniatures for Honorable Son #4 (The Flying Engineer). DONE!

3. Paint a Sikh unit and British mountain gun for the Northwest Frontier. If I have more time also a British Infantry unit and another group of Pashtun tribesmen. Not yet but still coming.

Test figure for my generic Sikh unit. If there's a piper, I'll paint it. The unit will also be from Perry Miniatures for the game The Men Who Would be Kings.

4. Finish my "German" Division for the French Army for the Peninsular War. I'm currently not on planning any artillery. Not yet but still coming.

Confederation of the Rhine Battalion Number 3 (Frankfurt), converted Dutch Infantry from WoFun Miniatures.

5. "The Search for Charlie". Okay, it's time to get this campaign started and find out what really happened to Charlie - and Sam is pissed. Coming soon!

Sam has the Nazi goons right were he wants them.

New Goals:

6. In addition I have decided to paint a new unit of an army I have never done before. Time to pick one out.

7. I'm also going to work on my forces for Xenos Rampant.

8. Why not; time to do some more armies for One Hour Wargames.

We also got a game in against Mr. Babbage on the Northwest Frontier!

That's the big (abbreviated) painting/hobby plan and so far so good! There will be games, more Warhammer 40K Fire Team (yes they sucked me in), some French and Indian War action, Pulp fun and of course a return to the Northwest Frontier. 

Ogre: Missile Tanks

A mobile missile battery that launches myriad packs of "brilliant rounds" to saturate and destroy the enemy. The small size of the missile vehicle means that the warheads cannot go far (a little over 4 miles is the cap), but because of the small size of the missiles, a great many of them can be carried, making ammunition a moot point in all but the most prolonged combat actions.

Missile tanks - if they have a means of staving off Heavy Tanks - can attack them outside their range, but for the most part, Missile Tanks are best used for picking away at slower targets, or partly damaged Ogres (those with a movement reduced to 2 and with their main batteries destroyed).

 

Ogre: Infantry in Power Suits

The battlefield conditions of the Last War saw the introduction of the power suit as a way to protect the infantryman to a suitable degree. The ubiquitous power suit and its variants was the closest thing that generals got to the universal dream of a one man tank. By the end of the 20th century, infantry was already eclipsing the MBT in terms of cost and battle field effectiveness. The infantryman of the late 21st century was not much different than his predecessors, but his equipment was like nothing seen in history. 

In order to survive the super fluid nuclear battlefield of the Last War, a infantryman had to be extensively and expensively protected. All sides researched various forms of AHAS or Advanced Human Amplification Systems. These doctrines and technology branches would not only increase the survival of an individual soldier on the battlefield, but would turn one power armored man into a hundred non-powered soldiers from just a hundred years ago. A single MI soldier, properly trained, and equipped with the standard power suit and all associated equipment and weapons, was easily the match of a 20th century First World platoon of normal infantry. The downside was, the MI trooper cost fully half as much as a 20th century First World infantry platoon!  The one man tank, a dream realized on the 21CB, was simply good old force multiplication at work, at least in theory. In actual practice, very few non-MI or non-power armored soldiers survived the Last War completely intact. The 21st century battlefields were not for the thin skinned or the slow.  The 21st century battlefields belonged to the armored and the quick.

Each squad was composed of a "advance point watch" (APW) position occupied by a soldier wearing a standard suit with intel/recon packs attached.  In 2072, the standard suit was replaced in each squad with a lighter, more mobile scout class power suit.  Three drones were dedicated to the APW position, and assigned to the support of the intel/recon packs which the APW solider humped with them.The APW was responsible for plotting the best points of movement, identifying signs of the enemy, looking out for ambushes, and keying in all possible points of cover that the squad might could use.  Most of this was done automatically by the  point watch support (PWS) wearing a standard suit and acting as backup and guard to the point watch, two heavy weapons operators and support specialists (HWOSS) wearing enhanced suits, and a Corporal, in charge of the whole squad, wearing a command suit.  Drone distribution was usually three drones for the Corporal, three drones for the point watch, and two drones apiece for each of the other suits.  The point watch, point watch support, and Corporal all carried Ibarras.  The heavy weapons operators and support specialists carried the big Thompson T4D weapons systems.

The modular design of the Combine power suits and later the Paneuropean power suits allowed a variety of additional modules to be plugged into the suits according to mission.  The term 'modular' was somewhat of a misnomer, as the modules could not be installed or removed short of a barracks and an hour or two, but the design did allow the suits to be rapidly updated and even modified to some extent based on mission specific profiles.

Standard field arm for squad positions One, Two, and Four was the tried and proven M35 DIWS Ibarra mass driver repeater.  The Ibarra, produced under contract by American General  Motors (AGM), was a very well balanced weapon system, designed from the start as a integral part of the SLICS system.  Squad positions Three and Five were designated as support slots and as such, were equipped with the big, semi-portable Thompson T4D spread bore fluid to gas injected pseudo-recoilless mass repeaters which were fully integrated into the SLICS and PLIEADS system.

The Ibarra was equipped with the SCRIBOL language system, and integrated easily into any position, meaning that one soldier could be disabled or combat casualty and if the Ibarra survived, it could be picked up and utilized by another member of the squad.  The M35DIWS was capable of adding its own electronics abilities to the squad as a whole, and the three squad based M35DIWS worked to enhance not only squad detection ranges, but also squad defense and point defense capacities.

The weapons of warfare drew upon mythical names.  The Cybertanks were known as OGREs, other models as Fencers, Dopplesoldners, Ninjas, and the Japanese even had their own classes and names for their particular versions of the RDF CLAWS.  The infantryman was no different, and probably more colorful.  Faced with the ever increasing complexity of his power suit and his battle kit, the poor infantry looked way back into the mists of legend to draw colorful names for their equipment.  The cybertanks may have been called 'OGRES', but the powered armor of the infantry had a more colorful name.

Soldiers in full suit were often called Trolls.