Icepick

Scenario Setup and Rules

by Craig York and Steve Jackson

After making the map (see A Beginner's Guide to Map-Bashing), the defending player (White / Paneuropean) gets the following forces:

Three howitzers: one (Battery Nadia) within two hexes of the pier at 2013, one (Battery Olga) within two hexes of the point at 1616, and one (Battery Rudolf) anywhere on the board. These may be regular howitzer units, mobile howitzers, or any combination.

Nine GEVs: four (Group Lansky) set up anywhere in the blue ice/ocean area, four (Group Iestagrad) in the town hexes at 1408 and/or 1409, and one at 0708.

Twelve light tanks, set up in four stacks of three, anywhere south of the road connecting hexes 0104 and 0304.

Twelve strength points of infantry, as follows: Four marine squads anywhere in the blue area, two single or one double squad stacked with any one or two of the howitzers, and one triple squad each at 1408 and 1508 (which are, incidentally, the base area for Groups Iestagrad and Lansky).

The Paneuropean installation (Station Andropov) is represented by three counters in the town hexes at 0304/0403/0404: One represents the reactor; one represents the laboratories and administrative offices; one represents the laser tower. The installation is protected by electronic and optical jamming; the Ogres cannot tell which unit represents which part of the complex until they come close. (The Ogre player does not know which is which when play begins – see Special Rules.)

The Combine player gets three Ogres. Icepick Leader is a standard Ogre Mark III; Icepick Two and Three are obsolete (but still dangerous) Mark II units, with characteristics as follows: one main battery (4/3, D4), two secondaries (3/2, D2), six AP (1/1, D1), and thirty tread units (starting speed of 3, reduced by 1 foreach ten tread units lost). (The D2 defense for Mark II secondaries is not a typo. Mark IIs were underarmored.) The Ogres may sct up to the south (anywhere within five hexes of the edge of the map); to the east (any hex on the east edge of the map, but not north of 2308), or both. The Ogres may not be stacked. The Ogre player moves first. Note that, until the Ogres leave the water, they travel at the standard underwater movement rate of one hex per turn, but may not be attacked except by HWZ and MHWZ fire (at half strength) and by marine battlesuits.

Setup Sequence

1. The defending player sets up Batteries Olga and Nadia, GEV group Iestagrad, and all the "regular" infantry.
2. The Ogre player studies the map and then writes down where he wants his units to enter. He does not show this to the defender yet.
3. The defending player sets up the rest of his units within the limitations above. A howitzer may go anywhere but swamp; mobile howitzers and other units may even set up in swamp.
4. The Ogre player puts his units on the map and makes his first move.

Victory Conditions

• Ogre total victory: Destroy all three units of Station Andropov and get at least one Ogre back off the south edge of the map, or destroy all three units of the station and the town hexes at 1408 and 1508.
• Ogre major victory: Destroy all three units of Station Andropov, or destroy the laser tower and one other unit and get at least one Ogre back off the south edge.
• Ogre marginal victory: Destroy the laser tower.
• Defender marginal victory: Preserve the laser tower.
• Defender major victory: Preserve the laser tower and the reactor, or preserve the laser tower and eliminate all three Ogres.
• Defender total victory: Preserve all three units of the station, or preserve the laser tower and the reactor while eliminating all three Ogres.

Special Rules

Detection: The defending player does not find out which type (Mark II or III) an Ogre is until it comes on land or a marine infantry unit enters its hex at sea.

Bridges: The pier (hex 2013) and the long bridge over the swamp (0409) are both treated like the river bridge at 20l3 on the original G.E.V. map; each has a defense of 8 against distance attacks. The pier is destroyed automatically by any attack from 1913 or 2013; the swamp bridge is destroyed automatically by any attack from 0408, 0409, or 0410. When either bridge is destroyed, any non-Ogre units on it are also destroyed. Any Ogre on the pier when it is destroyed is dropped into the ocean, and suffers as per Section 8.041 of G.E.V. Any Ogre on the swamp bridge when it is destroyed suffers those same ill effects, and is automatically stuck.

Marine battlesuits: The four infantry units that begin the game in the ocean are equipped with marine battlesuits. Marine squads may attack Ogres while the Ogres are underwater, provided they are in the same hex. Treat this as a normal attack, not an overrun. Marine battlesuits move and defend, both on and under water, as though they were on land, and function normally on land. Ogre AP weapons are useless underwater, so the Ogre may not counterattack the marines while it is underwater except with missiles.

Ice: The blue map hexes (ice in the story) are treated like water for all purposes. The ice is not thick enough to bear any vehicle except a GEV, and melts whenever combat occurs . . . so it is water, for all practical purposes.

Station A: The defending player puts the reactor, laser, and admin counters in hexes 0304, 0403 and 0405 . . . one per hex, in any arrangement, with the "Station A" side up. The Ogre player learns which hex holds the laser tower after the tower fires; other station counters are turned over when an Ogre approaches within six hexes.

The Laser Tower: This is a super-heavy laser, designed to knock down incoming missiles. It pulses several times a minute. For game purposes, the tower has two attacks per turn, each of strength 2, which cannot be combined with each other or with any other attacks. The tower can attack any hex on the map, but cannot hurt an Ogre underwater.

The laser also has a chance of knocking down an Ogre missile in flight during the Ogre's attack phase. When an Ogre missile is fired, the tower may attack it with one or both pulses; a roll of "6" will kill the missile. These attempts come off the laser's attacks next turn; for instance, if it fired once against an Ogre missile, it would have only one attack on its next turn.

If the laser is reduced to 30 structural points (see Building Damage, below), it will not be able to fire for the rest of the game.

Building Damage: The "command posts" in Ogre and G.E.V. are relatively small buildings or trailers. Even those with a defense strength of D2 or D3 depend mostly on ECM and a few feet of earth for what defense they have. A "real" building, built of steel and concrete and sheathed in its own BPC armor, is much sturdier. On the other hand, it's also a bigger target. Each building has a set number of "structure points": 60 for the reactor building, 40 for the laser tower, 20 for the admin building. These can be reduced either by gunfire or by ramming. When a building's structure points are reduced to 0, it is destroyed. (A special note: When the laser is down to 30 SP, it will not function for the rest of the game.)

AP weapons have no effect on large buildings. All other weapons automatically hit if fired at a building within range, doing twice their rated damage in normal attacks, or four times rated damage in overruns. Thus, a main battery, with an attack strength of 4, would do 8 SPs of damage in a normal attack, or 16 SPs in an overrun attack. Should a scenario call for infantry or armor units to overrun buildings, those weapons also have doubled effect.

Structure points can also be eliminated by ramming, if an Ogre or other unit overruns the building hex. An Ogre rams a building as though it were ramming a "larger" Ogre (see Ogre, Section 5.034). Thus, any Ogre loses five tread units each time it rams a building. The damage an Ogre or other unit does to a building is governed by its own size, as follows:

• Mark VI: seven dice
• Mark V, IV, Fencer: five dice
• Mark III: three dice
• Mark II or GEV: two dice
• Mark I or Heavy Tank: one die
• Infantry or other units: no dice

Note that in each case Ogres do one more die of damage against a building than they do when ramming other Ogres. A Heavy Tank, like a Mark I, has 15 tread units; it can ram a large building three times before ruining itself. A GEV can only damage a building by ramming it at full speed . . . which, of course, destroys the GEV as well. Other units cannot do significant damage to a "real" building by ramming it.

Notes on overruns: It costs an Ogre one movement point to make an overrun attack. Therefore, an Ogre with one MP can make one overrun in the hex it enters, or the hex it starts in. An Ogre with three MPs left, that started in the same hex with the target building, could make three overrun attacks (not four . . . the road does not matter.) Each overrun attack may include two fire rounds against the target building and (if desired) one ram. Thus, if an Ogre with even one functional weapon gets into a hex with a building, that building is probably lost. Even if the Ogre has no weapons, it may grind the building to gravel.

Variant Scenario

Eliminate Icepick Three from the scenario, leaving one Mark III and one Mark II. However, both these Ogres now have "self-destruct" capacity as per the Ogre rulebook (Section 8.05). A building in the same hex with a self-destructing Ogre is destroyed; one in an adjacent hex takes six dice of damage, and one two hexes away takes two dice of damage.