Players: 2
Time: 30-60 minutes
Difficulty: 3 (of 10)
This review is partially based on my original review of Diceland: Space, a game which was released simultaneously with Diceland: Ogre, and thus is substantially identical. If you've already read that review and/or are quite familiar with the original Diceland game, you should pay particular attention to the description of the Ogre and play cards mentioned in "The Components" and the discussion of the Ogre and GEV forces in The Game Play, as well as start of the Game Design section.
The Components
Diceland: Ogre comes with:
- 1 Ogre die
- 17 additional dice
- 2 play cards
- 1 rulebook
The Dice: The dice which are the heart of the game come unassembled. Your first time out, there's thus a bit of inserting tab A into slot B, but it goes pretty fast, especially once you've done a few. It took about 45 minutes to assemble this full set, though I was already familiar with assembling Diceland dice. As noted, there is one Ogre die and 17 normal-sized dice.
The 17 normal-sized dice are made of a decently sturdy card stock which seems to hold up to play without trouble. Each features full-color, apparently computer-modeled, artwork for the unit, and light green edges on the die to clearly denote that the die belongs to the "Ogre" team (meaning, all the dice in this set, Ogre and anti-Ogre alike).
The game also makes superb use of various icons, colors, and words on the dice to quickly depict what each dice does. As described in the Game Play section below, each side of a dice clearly shows: offensive power, offensive range, defensive power, defensive resistances, special powers, die side, and how to flip the die.
In addition the "1" side of each die provides the die's name and point-value, along with a helpful synopsis of the die's classification (e.g., "fighter", "frigate", "commander", etc). The synopsis is terrific when you're trying to figure out which die to throw next. But, the point value only appearing on the "1" side can be troublesome in-game when you're trying to decide which die to shoot, and have to do extensive head craning to figure out the value of everything on the table. (In a few cases we just had to shrug our shoulders and admit we didn't know a die's value because its "1" side was face-down on the table.)
The Ogre. The Ogre die is much bigger: a bit larger than a softball, as opposed to the normal dice which are golf-ball sized. It's also made out of heavier and sturdier cardboard. Like the regular dice, it uses a variety of simple icons to depict the die's power on each side. Unlike the regular dice, it has a lot of icons, near to the point of information overload. An experienced player won't have much trouble figuring out what's what, but I suspect it'd all look like Greek to a first-time Diceland player.
Play Cards: Diceland: Ogre also comes with two reference cards/tracking sheets: one "Command Post" for the anti-Ogre forces and one "Ogre tracking sheet" for the Ogre itself. Each is printed full-color with a glossy surface that you can write on with a dry-erase marker. The Command Post pretty simply lists 60 hit points and depicts a "Comand All" power; while the Ogre tracking sheet has spaces for damage to all the primary system, and also reminders on all the various Ogre powers. These are nicely designed and easy to use, as I've come to expect from Diceland components.
Rules: The rulebook which comes with the game is a full-color double-sided glossy sheet. It does a good job of explaining the rules concisely, and also proves very useful as a reference when you're looking up special powers during a game. You can also find these rules on the net as a PDF.
Storage: My only complaint regarding the game's physicality is that once you've put together all your dice, it's quite bulky. Storage can be a problem. We've discovered that a shoe box works well to store the pieces, though Cheapass Games also helpfully offers a carrier box that's just the right size for a set of 25 Diceland dice (whether the Ogre + 17 dice would fit in there, I dunno).
Overall, the game components are quite high quality and attractive. Diceland: Ogre is technically the most expensive of the Diceland games, since you only get enough pieces for two players and only a total of 18 dice, rather than the 25 dice and 3+ players minimum comon in the other sets. Nonetheless, given the huge Ogre die and the extra play sheets it remains a good deal, and thus earns the same Style rating I've given all the other Diceland sets: "4" out of "5".
The Game Play
If you're already familiar with other Diceland games, you can find information on most of the unique features in this game in "Building an Army" and "About the Ogre Teams".
Building an Army: Diceland: Ogre starts off with one player choosing to be the Ogre, which is a single 50-point die. It can be played as the Ogre Mark III or the more powerful Ogre mark V. The other player will then get to build an army from the other 17 dice. (Unlike in the original Deep White Sea game, armies aren't pre-generated.)
Each die has a point value. The anti-Ogre forces tend to run from 2 points (infantry) to 8 points (tanks). As already noted, they're all members of the same green "team".
You build an army using points. Since you're building an army all from the same team you get a total of 30 points plus you get bonus points equal to the smallest unit in your army (meaning, essentially, that you get 30 points plus your cheapest unit is free). For example, if you had an army that included a two-point infantry you'd have 32 points available.
However, if your opponent choose the mark V Ogre you instead get 50+X points to spend; you're going to have an even tougher time!
If you're facing the Ogre, you also get some special bonus, the Command Post. We'll get back to that soon.
When selecting your army, you'll of course want to understand what all the dice do ...
Describing the Dice:Each side of a die has different values, with a die typically getting better on each face, from 1 to 8. All of the information about what the die's current face can do is helpfully located on that face. This includes the following:
Attack: A small triangle in either one, two, or three corners provides all the attack info for a die.
First, what's its line of site? One attack triangle means that a die can only see "in front of it" (e.g., the 180 degrees in front of the rear side of the up-face of the die), while three attack triangles means the die can see in all directions. (Two attack triangles would leave a little sixty-degree dead spot to a ship's aft, but this is only possible on the Ogre, and only if one of the three main weapon systems is destroyed, as discussed below.)
Second, what's its type of attack? This is a color inside the triangle. In the original game these meant things like red for fire, light blue for ice, purple for magic, etc. What the colors are supposed to mean in the Ogre game is unclear, because they're not listed in the rules. However, the important bit is to match attack and defense colors, as described below.
Third, what's its range? This is the shape of the triangle, which can either be short-range (hits the closest target), long-range (hits a target of your choice), or all-range (hits all targets).
Fourth, what's its damage? This is a number inside the triangle. It's typically somewhere in the 1-24 range.
Defense: A small shield to the lower left of each die face describes the defense info for a die.
First, does it have any invulnerabilities? If so, the shield is colored. When the color of the defense matches the color of the attack, the die is invulnerable to that attack.
Second, what's its defensive value? Again, this is a number, typically somewhere in the 1-50 range.
Color Text: A simple listing of the unit name, e.g., "G.E.V." or "Howitzer" (or "Ogre").
Special Powers: Some die faces have special powers like "Jump", "Call Tank", and "Dodge". These appear in a special space on the die face, above the color text. They're described more below.
Dots: Finally, each die face has dots which show how to move the die. The red/damage dot is used when your die is harmed, and typically moves it to a worse face. The green/movement die is used when you're trying to improve your die, and typically moves it to a better face. These are placed way in the corners of each die, so that if you press the dot, the die moves. Very clever.
About the Ogre Teams: Each of the two teams, Ogre and anti-Ogre, deserves a little bit of extra discussion:
The anti-Ogre Team: This is a fairly typical team with a lot of matching units. You have infantry, G.E.V., tanks, and howitzers. Nothing goes above 8 points, which just makes the battle against the Ogre that much harder. In addition, the anti-Ogre dice are very short on special powers. There are only a few different types of power among the units, and most die faces just feature an attack.
The only notable thing about the anti-Ogre team is the Command Post, free when opposing any Ogre. This is a glossy rectangular sheet which is placed on an edge of the table. it can be activated instead of an individual die to do a "Command All"--usually meaning you get to shoot the Ogre with everything you got. The Command Post also has hit points. You mark individual points of damage off of it, and when it takes 60 points, it's gone.
The Ogre Team: This is, of course, just one die: the Ogre. It's, first of all, huge and heavy. You generally can't move or roll it by throwing other dice at it, though you can sometimes spin it.
Every side of the Ogre features four attacks. In the corners of the die you have a red short-range, a cyan long-range, and a yellow long-range, varying in power from 8-12 on side 1 and from 16-24 on side 8. There's also a purple all-range that goes in all 3 directions. It does 1 point on side 1 and 3 points on side 8, and is labeled the "Anti-Personnel" weapon (and, indeed, it wipes out infantry pretty well). The Ogre's defense runs from 20 (side 2) to 50 (side 8), meaning you'll probably never kill it with a single shot. Finally, each side also has the "Shoot and Move" special power, meaning that the Ogre gets to pop up at least one side every turn, even while it wipes out opponents.
There's the usual red dot on one corner of each side, but also a green dot on every corner. These dots are numbered as "1", "2",. or "3".
The Ogre tracking sheet lets you mark damage to the Ogre. You're really unlikely to overwhelm it with a single shot, and so you need to take it down piecemeal. You can shoot the weapons or the treads. You do this by declaring a location when you hit with your shot. Besides turning the Ogre down one side (as usual, and discussed below), you'll also damage that system.
Shoot a weapon and you have to equal or exceed a target number ("7", "9", or "5" for the three corner weapons, "2" for the AP weapon). If you do, you mark in one of the damage spots for that location (e.g., the main battery, which is a target of "9" has two spots for the Ogre Mark III and four for the Ogre Mark V, while the AP has a target of "2", but 8 or 12 spots). Destroy a weapon by filling in all the spots and it can't fire any more.
Shoot a tread and two points of damage are automatically absorbed. The rest go through to the tread which has 15 hit points for a Mark III and 20 for a Mark V. There are three treads. Destroy a tread and the green dots of that number can't be used any more.
The Ogre also automatically crushes any die it runs over, due to taking damage or just maneuvering.
Finally, the Ogre is immune to purple, backstab, jump ally, hold, freeze, and ongoing poison. In other words, anything that would make it easy to kill the Ogre doesn't work.
Setup: The Ogre is placed in the middle of the table on its "8" side. The Command Post is placed about 20 inches away.
Rounds of Play: Each turn of gameplay goes like this:
- Take One Action from this List:
- Throw; or
- Maneuver; or
- Shoot
(This version of the game doesn't have any continuous effects that need book-keeping, like Deep White Sea did, thus simplifying the turn order.)
If you throw this means you take a die from your army that's still off table and toss it on the table. There are a couple of rules for how you do so. You must release the die at least a foot from the table and you must stand on "your" side of the table. (So say the rules, at least. In all the games I've played people were allowed to wander and throw from any side they liked; this particularly works better for multiplayer games--since otherwise you have to start using, for example, a five-sided table for a 5 player game.) Once you've thrown you can either maneuver or shoot the die that you just threw.
(Note that the Ogre starts on the board and isn't removed unless it's destroyed, which means that the Ogre player never throws).
You can instead choose to maneuver a die currently on the table. This means you select a die then push one of its green movement dots.
You can instead choose to shoot a die currently on the table. This means you either activate its weapon or activate its special effect if it has a special effect. (And, remember, the anti-Ogre player can choose to activate the Command Post rather than a die.)
Combat: Combat is very simple, and occurs when you shoot a die. After determining your target (depending on the weapon range: the closest die; or a die or your choice; or every die on the board, starting with the one closest to your shooter), you compare your attack to its defense.
If your attack is larger than or equal to its defense or if the defender is already on its 1 side then the defending die is destroyed.
If your attack is less than the target's defense, the defending die is wounded. Push the red/damage dot. Note that if the die can't flip in that direction due to an obstacle (usually another die), the die is destroyed anyway (unless it's the Ogre, in which case it crushes whatever was in its way).
You of course need to remember resistances here, as they can entirely prevent damage (though actually all the anti-Ogre forces are immunity-less and the Ogre is immune to purple, which isn't used by the anti-Ogre forces--thus immunities won't come into play unless other sets of Diceland are being used).
Once a die has been destroyed, two things happen: (1) the attacker gets the die's point value added to his score; and (2) the die goes into the reserves, which means it stays out of play for one full round of gameplay, at which point its owner retrieves it.
Special Powers: All that's left are the special powers. I think they're what make the game truly interesting, and they're unfortunately in pretty short supply in Diceland: Ogre. Here's what's available:
Call: Allows you to throw an additional die. Usually restricted to a certain class of die (e.g., "Call Infantry"). G.E.V. and Infantry can both call others of their type, giving you lots of potential Ogre-fodder.
Command: Enables you to cause the rest of your dice on the table to take action. This is only available on the aptly named Command Post.
Dodge: A continuous effect. Die can only be seen by enemies if it is the closest visible target (meaning it sort of treats all range arrows like short-range arrows). Available on some sides of the G.E.v.
Jump: Allows you to reroll that die. Available on some sides of the G.E.V.
Shoot and Move: Enables you shoot a die then maneuver it in the same turn. This is on every side of the Ogre.
Winning the Game: The game ends after a player gathers 50 points through killing dice. if you're the anti-Ogre forces, this means killing the Ogre; if you're the Ogre, this means killing 50 points of fodder before you're brought down.
Relationships to Other Games
Diceland: Ogre is, of course, a member of the Diceland family of games. Diceland: Deep White Sea was the first. Another recent addition is Diceland: Space, which was released as three different sets. Each of the Diceland games is totally standalone and independent, but also totally intercompatible. If you want you can mix your Ogre ships with the teams of Deep White Sea or even fight against the Space legions.
Diceland: Ogre is, of course, based on the background of Steve Jackson's future war games: Ogre and G.E.V.. They were originally released as Microgames, then as various deluxe and combined versions over the years. There's even a roleplaying supplement, GURPS: Ogre, and a whole slew of products currently in print.
The Game Design
Diceland: Ogre is, unfortunately, the most limited of the Diceland games. Here's some of my issues with the Ogre product:
Simplistic Gameplay: The overall gameplay of Ogre is very simplistic, because so few of the dice have much in the way of special powers, and the Ogre is so limited in what it can do. Usually the Ogre either: hits the largest die; hits the command post; or flips everything with its AP weapon. The anti-Ogre team, meanwhile, is limited by the simplicity of the dice and the fact that die-rolling skill isn't as important against the Ogre. Until you knock out a weapon to create a blind-spot, every space on the table is in danger, and you can't do great die-rolling tricks to knock the Ogre about, because it's pretty immobile.
Large Limited to 2 Players: All of the Diceland games are technically designed for 2 players, but this is the only one where it really feels like a limitation. The Ogre is relatively unusable in multiplayer games (because 1-die armies tend to really offbalance things), and though you can use the anti-Ogre forces as another army, they're not as interesting as most out there.
Here's some of the more positive aspects of Ogre:
Great Adaptation: The game feels like a great adaptation of Ogre/G.E.V. The same sense of futile war against an impossibly strong opponent is front and center. I'm really in awe at how well the Diceland system has adapted to this very different type of play.
Interesting Asymmetrical Play: The anti-Ogre forces just got creamed in my playtest, but I could see that if I'd better designed my army I would have had a chance. This balance of two very unlike forces always allows for fun gameplay.
Here's some of the game design that I like generally in the Diceland games, and which I've printed in my previous Diceland: Deep White Sea review:
Simple System: The core system is simple--throwing dice, maneuvering dice, and comparing attack and defense values. There's very little room for confusion. (Though, as noted, the Ogre player has a bit more complexity, and thus should be a more experienced player.)
Physical Aspect Fun: Usually I don't enjoy physical dexterity getting mixed in with my strategy games, but it's such a core part of this game that I don't mind. And, beyond that, it's fun. You can try and throw dice behind other dice or in specific parts of the table. Likewise, you can try and hit other dice, to knock them off "good" sides. And, when other players try and do these same things and fail, sailing their dice off the table, you can mock them mercilously. (Though, as already discussed, the Ogre player never gets to throw, and some throwing techniques are less important for the other player.)
Very Original: There are games out there that use dice, some of which even use them in somewhat original manners, as tokens in a game. But I'm not aware of anything like Diceland: Deep White Sea which gives so much character and differentiation between the different sides of a die. This originality adds a lot to the replayability, because you won't have anything else like this one (unless you buy the other Diceland games too).
Overall, I think Diceland: Ogre is a good game that will particularly appeal to Ogre/G.E.V. players. However, I also think it's the weakest of the Diceland series, because some of the game system's advantages--regarding special powers, throwing techniques, and the possibility for more players--are all absent here. I've thus given this game a "4" out of "5", which is above average, but not as high as I've rated the other Diceland games.
Conclusion
If you've never tried Diceland, I don't suggest you start here. Instead, seek out Diceland: Space which is the best and most strategic of the Diceland games.
If, however, you're already a fan of Diceland and want some more units and/or a 2-player challenge, this is probably a worthwhile purchase.
Finally, if you're an Ogre/G.E.V. fan I highly recommend this game. It's quite different from the SJG variants of Ogre, but it still remains very true to the background and feeling of the original games.
