[Ogre] Hidden movement idea

[Henry J. Cobb]

In "GEV: A Designer's Introduction" 
http://www.sjgames.com/ogre/articles/gevnotes.html Steve Jackson writes:
"The Combine units were doing their best. Nine globes of light --
estimated enemy positions -- moved toward the defensive line. Two...
three... suddenly shrank to pinpoints -- confirmed sightings."

And I've been thinking how to model this in GEV without too much hair loss.

At the start of the game each player takes out a number of counters with
alphanumeric IDs equal to twice their total number of units and writes
down for each of these counters what it represents.  Half of these
concealed counters will not represent units but instead be designated as
Dummies.

Then each player places the concealed counters in their usual setup areas
and begins play.

Movement works normally, except that Dummy counters can move like any
other unit in terms of number and type of hexes entered.  The owning
player can choose to roll for terrain disruption of a Dummy counter, but
if the counter becomes disrupted it is revealed and discarded.

Counters are revealed and either replaced with the actual counter or
discarded if Dummies anytime they fire, combine or split infantry squads,
use active scanners, overrun or are overrun by a revealed unit, suffer
terrain disruption, or come under fire.

If hostile concealed counters overrun each other then the moving player
may move in as many counters as he likes then call for resolution.  At
this point each player first removes any Dummies counters from the overrun
and if both players still have counters in the hex the actual units are
revealed and the overrun is conducted as usual.

When hexes with concealed counters are fired on the firing player first
announces all the attacks he will make on that hex in the current fire
phase, showing the units he will fire with and then all of the counters in
that hex are revealed and discarded if a Dummy and the attacks are all
resolved.  If the target turns out to be an Ogre then the attack is
conducted against treads if a specific weapon system wasn't named.  An
attack declared to be against an Ogre weapon system is resolved as a
normal attack against an ordinary unit if the concealed counter is
revealed to be a non-Ogre unit.  Attacks declared against Ogre systems
that are not present or already destroyed on the target Ogre are wasted.

A player may never have more Dummies counters in play than he has
concealed real units and must discard at the end of the current phase any
excess Dummies.  For example, if a player had previously revealed and
discarded only one Dummy counter and now on this phase had three actual
units and one Dummy revealed then he would need to reveal and discard one
additional Dummy.

Revealed weapon systems may use active scanners instead of firing at the
start of their fire phase.  For each attempt roll one die add the range of
the weapon and subtract three and if the result is greater or equal to the
range to the designated concealed counter then that counter is revealed.

Each revealed command post has a range for scanning only of 6 for CP
Gamma, 9 for CP Beta and 12 for CP Alpha.

For example a concealed counter moves to range two of three hostile
concealed counters in different hexes and then reveals itself to be a
Superheavy tank.  The Superheavy's AP guns are out of range and so they
are used for active scanning of the concealed counters.  The scanning
rolls are 3 and 4 and one of the concealed counters is revealed as a
Dummy.  The Superheavy then fires one gun at each of the remaining
concealed counters for a 3-1 against a LGEV in clear and a 1-2 against a 3
squad infantry counter in forest.

Ninjas and other units with the same kind of stealth may become concealed
at the start of their movement phase and be replaced by two concealed
counters, one of which is a Dummies.

-- 
Henry J. Cobb
http://www.io.com/~hcobb/