Ogre / GEV on SJG Playmats

How can you resist playing on this??

I'm just going to say right away... playmats are better.  They do not appear to exactly match the terrain of GEV, unless I'm missing something.  They certainly provide plenty of space coming in at around 15 x 19 hexes, lots of room for any number of OGREV encounters, especially considering that the original Ogre map is 15x22 [below] and...

...the GEV map is 23 x 23 hexes:

At some point in the distant past, I saw the playmats and just made an executive decision... I had to have them all.  So I got 1-7, including the special "Iron Mountain" mat, that is just too awesome for words...it's from a short story in The Ogre Book [like must've read it 10 times by now]:

And here's the map that was made with the story, which also came with counters to play it in black & white like the original Ogre / GEV counters:

And here's Playmat #2, which is just, like "WOW!" eye poppingly full of other scenarios, as well!

What's more, these play mats are mostly geo-morphic, and can fit together in a few configurations:

Above is 1, 5, 4 & 7 put together in an obvious way to make a large battlefield, about 30 miles by 40 miles [each hex is a mile, however Steve Jackson, in a nod to military reality, chose to pick a hex size in 1500m rather than a mile, since that is what the military uses because it is part of NATO].  At this size, we are talking about the possibility of a very large confrontation fitting into this space, easily a brigade, possibly up to a division in strength!  But then there would be stacking and Spillover Fire everywhere...

Below, the two maps I decided to play my next OGREV experiment.  They just fit onto an IKEA folding table in my office. At top right, you can see the original color GEV map, and realize just how small it is to play on.  

Each hex is a whopping 1.5" wide. Considering that the original OGRE/GEV units are .5", that means you can squeeze in 9 units a hex without stacking them.  Generally, you won't be doing that. And the 2-4 units you will put in a hex occasionally will fit easily and - best of all - be easy to pick up due to the mouse-pad on which these maps are printed.

Furthermore, for those with aspirations to use GEV miniatures, check out the sizes below. A hex can easily fit 2xHeavy Tanks, 3xLt. Tanks, 3xLtGEV, a super heavy, and - not pictured - 4 platoons of infantry [12 strength Points] in a hex.  Also pictured is the counters easily being represented in a hex with little stacking / overlap.

Given all this, the big question in my brain is "why did I wait so long to use these awesome mats???  The answer is I wanted to go 100% nostalgia on the old maps and counters, but still... why did I wait so long?

Which will be in the next post!  So stay tuned!