Unofficial Ogre Miniatures Unit Cost Formula
by Henry Cobb
Please ignore this formula for calculating the costs for GEV armor units, as it was cooked up as a joke. (WARNING: everything that follows is in Ogre Miniatures terms, divide through by 2"/hex to get back to the "real" game.)
Let's think of the "value" of a unit being given by the area of two rectangles. The first rectangle has a width of the "strike range" (first move plus range) times the height of the units attack strength, this is the "strike cost". The second rectangle has a width of the "withdraw range" (second move plus range) times the height of the units defense strength, this is the "withdraw cost".
Now, a 1-1 attack will leave the defender unable to reply twice as often as not, so let's multiply the "withdraw cost" by two.
So a missile tank has a cost of atk 3 * (range 8" + move 4") + 2 * def 2 * (range 8") = 36 + 32 = 68
Divided by 12 this leaves a total cost of 5.67 VPs.
Some units are just better at cutting across the map than Missile Tanks, GEVs can get the "river bonus" twice per turn while Heavy Tanks move over forests with ease. So let's give a unit with a movement mode of "GEV" a bonus of 20 percent to each of it's movement factors, and a unit with a movement mode of "Heavy" a bonus of 33 percent.
So a GEV has a cost of atk 2 * (range 4" + move 8" * 1.2) + 2 * def 2 * (range 4" + move 6" * 1.2) = 27.2 + 44.8 = 72 or 6.00 VPs.
Continuing through several other units we get:
| Unit | Expected | Actual | Ratio |
| Missile Tank | 6.00 | 5.67 | 1.06 |
| GEV | 6.00 | 6.00 | 1.00 |
| LGEV | 3.00 | 3.00 | 1.00 |
| Heavy Tank | 6.00 | 6.00 | 1.00 |
| Light Tank | 3.00 | 3.00 | 1.00 |
| MHWZ | 12.00 | 11.00 | 1.09 |
| HWZ | 12.00 | 10.67 | 1.13 |
| LHWZ | 6.00 | 5.83 | 1.03 |
And only one class of units seems to be more than 5% off, the missile throwers, but if you remember from my "Forwards Observers" article, it is exactly the missile throwers that get a range boost from the Forwards Observers, so let's add in half the boosted range (in inches) in percentiles as a bonus to the total price tag of these units.
The Missile Tank has a boosted range of 12", and so it gets a Six percent increase in it's total price tag.
| Unit | Expected | Actual | Ratio |
| Missile Tank | 6.00 | 6.01 | 1.00 |
| GEV | 6.00 | 6.00 | 1.00 |
| LGEV | 3.00 | 3.00 | 1.00 |
| Heavy Tank | 6.00 | 6.00 | 1.00 |
| Light Tank | 3.00 | 3.00 | 1.00 |
| MHWZ | 12.00 | 11.99 | 1.00 |
| HWZ | 12.00 | 11.95 | 1.00 |
| LHWZ | 6.00 | 6.24 | 0.96 |
Only the Light Howitzer is off by four percent, and I've always thought that it was an excellent infantry support weapon (even without the boost).
Naturally, as a mathematician, I'm expected to cook my numbers much better than that, but I'm far too lazy to bother.
Special Cases
One Shot Attacks
For a unit with a one-use special attack, figure two costs, one for a unit that always had the attack and another for the unit that never had the attack.
The price of the one-shot unit is one-third of the always cost plus two thirds of the never cost
Example: Mr. Jackson has a Heavy Missile Tank that always has a Atk 1, Range 2" attack and then also has two one-shot "OGRE" Missiles (Attack 6, Range 10" each), with the limitation that if fired on the same turn they must be targeted within 2" of each other. All of this on a standard move 4", defense 2 missile tank frame.
Now, I shall neglect the multiple target advantage and the special ability against Cruise Missiles here, simply because I don't have any good cooked numbers.
So the price of the always unit would be (12 * (10 + 4) + 2 * 2 * (10)) * 1.075 = 224 "Henries", or 19 VPs. (The 7.5 percent increase is from an observer boosted range of 15")
The price of the never unit would be 1 * (2 + 4) + 2 * 2 * 2 = 14 "Henries", or 1 VP.
The actual unit costs 1/3 * 224 + 2/3 * 14 = 84 "Henries" or 7 VPs, as expected. (Never mind the smell of the numbers cooking in the background, OK?)
If the unit could only fire one missile per turn then it would cost out as an attack six unit that always fired at one third cost and then two thirds times the sum of one third of the always plus two thirds of the cost of the never.
So the cost of a "two shots, on different turns" unit is 1/3*A + 2/3*(1/3*A + 2/3*N) which factors out to: 5/9*A + 4/9*N
In this case A = (6 * (10 + 4) + 2 * 2 * (10)) * 1.075 = 133 "Henries", or 11 VPs and N remains at 14 Henries.
So the cost of a one-missile per turn Heavy Missile Tank is 80 Henries or 6.67 VPs.
This all assumes that the self-defense cannon cannot be used on the same turn as the Heavy Missiles. (As stated in the fear and loathing article.) If it can, the costs become 2 and 3.3 Henries greater for 7.17 and 6.94 VPs.
