Onslaught is behind us, and once again ahead, and has given me the opportunity to play my Ogre Kingdoms army 5-6 games into the new Army Book. As some of you may have heard… I did not do as well as my co-host. In fact… I did not do as well as the other 4 people who I went to the tournament with. So yea, it makes me think how much of this came down to either luck or the Orges being shit. In truth, it’s neither. If I had to pick one thing that was the primary cause of my poor performance it would have to be my list.

My list was good in the way that it was as good as it could be with what I have. The truth is that I already own big chuck of Ogre models of all types, however I do not have an army that takes advantage of 8th edition tactics like Hordes. So before I get into what I think about the new Ogres book I will give you a quick breakdown of my games since the new list was built.

Practice Game: I played against a monster-mashy Dark Elf list that was being played by a relative WarHammer newb. I beat him so hard and so massively that he is literally selling his army because of the shame. He didn’t even show up to Onslaught as he’d planned and paid for because of how utterly his face was smashed.

We roll up Blood or Glory and deployed our armies quickly due to the low model count. The game was over by turn 3 due to some rookie mistakes that James made in the first turn. Magic was not there on my side because I only took a level 2 Firebelly, but I expected this to happen since I was playing a killer list instead of a magic heavy list. His BSB was run down, his horde broke to a Giant, his Knights were wrecked by a Stonehorn… all in the next few turns.  So when the game ended I felt pretty damn good about my list.

I R DUM.

Game 1: I drew Nick and his Chaos Warrior army and could not have been happier. There had been some shit talk, if you can call his simple repeating of insults he’d heard other people utter delivered in the form of inane babbling “shit talk”… So yea 🙂 When I beat him in a rather clear manner I was even happier than before with my list. The first few turns were about how we both expected. Some shooting doing damage, some characters killing smaller stuff, and some back and forth that kept the game interesting. Where I was able to rally, Nick was unable to keep his line intact. I was unable to hit my secondary objective, but each unit performed just as well as I had expected.The Stonehorn was able to crush a unit by itself, the Mournfang kept the table split because he didn’t want to engage them, and the big units hit hard and did the right kind of damage. There were no real surprises here since things went my way.

So as you can expect, things were looking up.

Game 2: I drew Ryan and his Daemons of Chaos army. This game was able to convince me that a 5+ Ward save is better than any other save in the game… which is a whole other conversation. The game was going as I suspected right up until I watched each unit simply fail at their jobs one after another in the exact opposite way that they succeeded in earlier games.  The big strength values meant nothing, the armor meant nothing, and the magic meant nothing… the monsters just died and the cav melted. I couldn’t win a combat which ment that I couldn’t do what needed to be done to beat the Daemons… cut their numbers down to a manageable size so that they are unable to win combats so utterly. Which is even harder when you are facing a horde of 40 Bloodletters. ICK!

Needless to say Ryan had a strong list, one that was very similar to Nathan’s list in fact, that was able to put my Ogres to sleep in glorious fashion. I was narrowly able to avoid a massacre by the skin of my teeth, but the failure pointed out some very clear problems with my list and how it was not supporting the faults of the army. Between Leadership, initiative, and Armor… the list simply falls flat against a S5 horde.

Game 3: I drew Armin and his Lizardmen. A typical Lizardmen list with a Slann and various Monsters along with a few good fighting units. He took 3 Stegadons and was able to simply pound my army into the dirt. Lore of Life kept his monsters alive and Flesh to Stone kept his rank and file from dying. His magic was good and I was utterly unable to compete in that part of the game. My biggest problem was the fact that I was unable to make a single charge that was not a freebie. This was reflected in my last game as well, but it showed another huge failing in the ogre army, which is that they need to get the charge as often as possible.

This game was a good fight all the way to the end, but after falling behind so quickly I was constantly unable to turn away his momentum. By the end of the game he’d tabled me to a man and was able to gain his secondary objectives as well. Pointing out just how flat the Ogre magic phase was without a level 4 putting out a +6 to cast with a Grut’s Sickle.

Game 4: I drew Garret and his Dark Elves and thought to myself that this was a free win after the way I’d crushed James in my practice game. However, I was proven wrong again exactly the same way I was in the previous games. I was completely unable to stop his magic due to the way he can push power dice similar to a Slann. Pit of Shades exploited my low initiative and wiped out my Mournfang and a pile of Ogres, my pointless armor did nothing to lessen the toll of his shooting, and try as I might… I could not charge until it was too late. Mindrazor had its way with my Tyrant and BSB, my magic did nothing at all, and my monsters melted as they had in previous games.

Leaving me with a familiar feeling…

Conclusion: Ogres are not bad by any stretch and the new book has given them a lot to work with in the sense of competition that they lacked in the last edition. After having finished these games I feel that I can now give some advice that other players might find useful. Of course, this will be done in ‘bullet form’ for your convenience.

• Your BSB must be in a Stubborn unit at all times. Trust me. This is not something you wanna screw around with since having that unit break means your 180pt character is left to die instantly. I don’t care who has the Crown of Command, but you need it.
• Leadbelchers are Awesome. Take as many as you can as often as you can. They shoot far and very dependably now AND! they are still ogres when it comes to slugging it out in combat. I have a unit of 4 and I can tell you that it’s just not enough.
• You will require a horde. This is something that I found to be the case in almost all of my games. Ogres can do a lot of damage compared to some armies out there, but you need to be able to do that over multiple turns. It won’t matter that you’re stubborn unless you can deal with 40 Bloodletters over the span of 3-4 rounds of combat.
• You need to get the charge. So much of the hitting power of these units are in their Ogre Charge special rule. It makes all the difference between winning and loosing 9 times out of 10. DON’T FORGET ABOUT YOUR IMPACT HITS OR SPECIAL RULES!!
• You need a Slaughtermaster. The Ogre lore is pretty middle of the road compared to the standard 8 lores of magic. It does not have a RIP spell and its BigBang spell is dependant on your enemy having low initiative to be really effective. Bubbles are your friend and Grut’s Sickle is a must if you want to compete with the Magical Big Dogs like Elves and Lizards.
• Retard-o-Cats are still Retarded. They’re good, but not amazing when it comes to the rules. I like them no better than I did before the tournament… and I hated them before. With 3 wounds and T4 they die pretty damn fast even with a 2+ save. Pray for the charge or watch them flop. I miss Rhinox…
• Killy Tyrants are Awesome. There is no getting around this point. My Tyrant was the star of almost every game when he got into combat. The problem is that he was not enough to hold the army up all by himself. So you will need to swap out some things in order to make him stubborn.
• The difference between HW, 2xHW, and Ironfist is meaningless. I know people may scoff at this point… but fuck ’em. It’s all in the eye of the gamer. I made ward saves and armor saves on occasion, I died just as fast with or without it, the extra attacks both won and lost combats for me… Use whatever you have modeled and worry about something else.

So here’s to the future!

A 15 model Ledbelcher Horde with a Stubborn Tyrant, BSB, and Slaughtermaster which can fire 12D6 shots a turn and deals around 40 attacks a turn with Impacts/Stomps. If only I could get something to increase their Initiative…