Fixed Body Points for Ogres under US rules (AtOH)?

[banjo_oz]

I grew up with the EU version of HQ and didn't even discover the US version until the mid 2000's.

Since I'm only now starting to play the US rules more (thanks to the re-release), does anyone have any suggestions for porting Against the Ogre Horde to the US rules, mostly in dealing with Ogre Body Point tracking? I honestly never liked how the EU rules did it (tracker that makes killing Ogres somewhat random) and would have preferred "set" Body Points for each one like other US monsters.

I see a few have done unofficial conversions, and until Hasbro re-release Against the Ogre Hoard (and possibly won't), there is no official solution... but the conversions each seem to differ on the values they assign. I'm very interested in what people prefer using, which conversions (or their own) and why.

TL:DR if you play AtOH with US rules, what Body Point values do you assign to each Ogre type?

[Kurgan]

I've enjoyed Phoenix's conversions (despite the errata). In the original the Ogres (Ogre Warriors) could have 1-3 if memory serves. Making it 3 seems pretty standard. Others want to make it more like the (over the top) EQP where they had TEN. I wouldn't suggest that high. But 3 for the standard Ogres and 4, 5, and maybe 6 for the Champion, Chieftan and Lord respectively seems fair.

See Phoenix Quest NA conversions page

I did build a "body point tracker" using a big piece of chipboard (using a spare skull tile as a marker) for the big monsters like that although it IS possible to stack 9 skull tiles under an Ogre figure (I've got the pictures to prove it on my gallery) without it falling over.

[lestodante]

10 Body Points for an Ogre is too much for my tastes. I don't want them to be thougher than a mighty (and more rare to meet) Gargoyle!!
I would rather increase the Gargoyle BP to 10 and reduce the ogres to 3-5. They already roll a lot of dice in combat, giving them also a lot of BP is too much.

[banjo_oz]

Thanks for the replies, folks!

I like Phoenix' conversion and those values "feel" about right as long as Ogres are semi-common enemies and not "bosses". That said, I grew up playing the EU version where everything had 1 BP except Ogres so the idea of the matching Chaos Warriors in Body Points is scary but cool (always thought those cool dudes were underpowered).

I never had the Elf or Barbarian packs as a kid (Aussie version, so not available) and have yet to play them. I was actually looking at them while working on a HQ project and was shocked to see the Ogres had *10* Body Points too! For a "boss", maybe, but I believe there are quests with two or three of them just hanging out in some corridor. That seems *really* excessively overpowered to me (not to mention a huge pain to track, maybe why the EU version went the somewhat odd way they did with Ogre BPs).

I agree with lestodante that I want my big boss Gargoyle or Ogre Lord to be the 10 BP mega-monster tough fight, not some rando monster you stumble into unprepared!

[Kurgan]

There have been other interesting conversations on the topic before on the forums too if you're interested.

[HispaZargon]

I grew up with the EU version of HQ and didn't even discover the US version until the mid 2000's.

Since I'm only now starting to play the US rules more (thanks to the re-release), does anyone have any suggestions for porting Against the Ogre Horde to the US rules, mostly in dealing with Ogre Body Point tracking? I honestly never liked how the EU rules did it (tracker that makes killing Ogres somewhat random) and would have preferred "set" Body Points for each one like other US monsters.

I see a few have done unofficial conversions, and until Hasbro re-release Against the Ogre Hoard (and possibly won't), there is no official solution... but the conversions each seem to differ on the values they assign. I'm very interested in what people prefer using, which conversions (or their own) and why.

TL:DR if you play AtOH with US rules, what Body Point values do you assign to each Ogre type?

Hi. Yes, this topic is a classic one... you can find several old threads in the Inn about it like these ones: Thread A, Thread B, Thread C, ...

I also gave my opinion about it in this post, here is an extraction of what I said there:

For NA conversion, Phoenix decided to use for the ogres the same stats shown in the original EU questbook, but adding a fixed value for their Body Points: 3 BPs for Ogre Warriors, 4 BPs for Ogre Champions and Ogre Chieftains and 5 BPs for the Ogre Lord. I exhaustively checked the original ATOH questbook and I concluded that Phoenix was right, the values he selected are their most probable ones (I promise sharing this study in other thread).

From equivalence point of view with EU ogre stats, the Phoenix BP values are right but I think they could match better with the rest of NA monsters stats. I imagine the ogres as big creatures, with strong skins and muscles so 3 BPs for an Ogre Warrior are not too many compared with a NA Chaos Warrior or an NA Gargoyle which have the same... I honestly think an ogre may be stronger than those monsters so I gave them 4 BPs instead of 3. I also added 1 BP to the rest of the ogre types, giving a total of 5 BPs for Ogre Champions and Ogre Chieftains and 6 BPs for the Ogre Lord (same BPs as The Frozen Horror and Spirit Queen !!). I know these changes from Phoenix ones make the questpack a little bit more difficult than him but I think they are required in order to be coherent with the rest of NA monsters. I also noticed that my feeling about ogres BP values matches with the ones that Daedalus suggested here, which I agree.

Additionally, you may probably know that Mage of the Mirror US official expansion included stats for an Ogre Warrior, which were the following ones: Movement 4 squares, 6 Attack Dice, 4 Defence Dice, 10 Body Points, 2 Mind Points ..... In my opinion those stats becomes Ogres too overpowered, especially its Body Points number and Mind Points (2 MPs for a basic ogre, the same as the Barbarian?) so I don't use them in my games playing under American rules. In contrast I prefer to use the following my-own-version ones, in line with what I described in previous paragraph:

- Ogre Warrior: Movement 6 squares, 5 Attack Dice, 5 Defence Dice, 4 BPs, 1 MPs
- Ogre Champion: Movement 6 squares, 5 Attack Dice, 5 Defence Dice, 5 BPs, 1 MPs
- Ogre Chieftain: Movement 4 squares, 6 Attack Dice, 6 Defence Dice, 5 BPs, 2 MPs
- Ogre Lord: Movement 4 squares, 6 Attack Dice, 6 Defence Dice, 6 BPs, 5 MPs

[The Admiral]

My Ogres have a standard 4BP's.

[j_dean80]

This is my Conclusion to AtOH to explain why the Ogres are stronger in MotM.

[HispaZargon]

This is my Conclusion to AtOH to explain why the Ogres are stronger in MotM.

Yeah, good catch... another option could be consider those MotM ogres as Elite Ogre Warriors with attack/defence dice number higher than basic ones to match better with the questbook lore, but anyway I think original 10 Body Points for them is excessive if we check the BPs of other monsters.

[banjo_oz]

I definitely think 10 BP is insanely tough for a random monster and would scale it down a tad for sure, but I can see the MotM ones making sense as stronger than "normal" (AtOH) Ogres with more ATK and DEF die, perhaps by way of them being "Mercenaries" of sorts? Isn't there some text note in the books that mentions Ogres being common as hired muscle? If so, I'd imagine Ogres-for-Hire would be fairly tough.