Tactica: Ogre Kingdoms

[Negafex]

not sure if its been posted before but i wanted to start a discussion on general ogre tactics

should one go for maxed out lords and heros or cheaper ones?
are gnoblars really worth the points?
ogre bulls vs ironguts vs leadbelchers?
is a scraplauncher worth more than just a few laughs?
do the special characters get any armor saves( i havent been able to find any armor or anything)?
do they really hold their ground against other armys?

looking for helpfull tactics from both ogre players and opponents alike

[kyussinchains]

I'm a relative newcomer to the ogres, and I got roundly panelled when I first started playing with them. I've learned a few things based on my experiences, which I'll share here.

1)Ironguts are massively superior to bog standard bulls! the great weapons make them effective all round, they have twice the save against missile fire (admittedly still pathetic at 5+) and the extra point of leadership is vital. Use bulls as flanking units, but dont rely on them to take on anything more threatening than units of basic core troops.

2)Hunters are excellent units! use the sabretusks to dispose of potentially dangerous wizards, with their 16" charge, they can run down most wizards, and the fact they cause fear is an added bonus. Against elf mages, 6 S4 attacks is usually enough to dispose of them. They're also handy for getting rid of pesky elf loremasters, who cannot wear armour. The best use I've found for them so far, is to charge down the Heirophant of a tomb king army, as they're rarely placed inside a unit. The hunter is excellent for killing a few knights with his crossbow, especially if you get them in the flank, he's also no slouch in combat either. I usually give him mastodon armour to keep him alive pretty much regardless of how many cannonballs he eats.

3)Leadbelchers are potentially devastating units, but also, they can't be relied upon, I've had a unit of 4 leadbelchers fire, get 2 misfires, kill 2 members of their own unit and score a pathetic 5 shots, only 2 of which hit, additionally, I've also had a unit of leadbelchers kill 22 elf spearmen in one volley, so it's a case of taking the rough with the smooth. They work well as deterrant units, and can be nasty against large monsters thanks to the +1 to hit, the best bet is to put them on the flank to prevent anyone sneaking around the back.

4)Maneaters seem great, but all they're really good for is blocking charges!, they never have the numbers to win a fight against a decent sized enemy unit, and the fact that they can't take a standard bearer works against them. Having said that however, 3 maneaters with cathayan longswords can hold up against all but the very best enemy units, giving you a chance to get your tyrant and ironguts in there to dish out some meaty punishment.

5)I try to max out on characters whenever possible, an ogre bruiser with some choice items is a match for most lords of other races, and tyrants are destructive beasts, especially with the thundermace, the mace is fantastic for blasting huge chunks out of densely packed units of elves, skeletons and humans, and also can cause severe damage to units of ironbreakers and other heavily armoured troops. I also like to give all my characters the 'mawseeker' big name, and my tyrant gets the jade lion so he can re-roll the stupidity test. +1 toughness is EASILY worth 10 points and stupidity, especially when a nearby butcher casts toothcracker on the character's unit, giving everyone a further +1 toughness. Butchers have some of the best spells in the game, as well as the hellheart, which is fantastic for effectively negating a magic phase, as most sensible generals dont try to cast spells when their wizards stand a fair chance of exploding into a shower of giblets.

6)Goblars are tricky to use correctly, I found them best used as a skirmish screen, when they get charged, you get to stand and fire with 40+ shots, which through sheer volume of fire may cause a few casualties, then if they run, no-one cares. They also work well against wizards riding pegasuses or equivalent weak flyers, as the rank bonus is usually enough to win the combat, they might even cause a wound if you get lucky.

sword gnoblars are a waste of points, but then you probably could figure that out for yourself.

my recommendations for a typical ogre army of approximately 2000 pts would include

Tyrant
butcher with the hellheart
Bruiser with army standard
hunter with 2 sabretusks

8 bulls with ironfists and light armour
8 ironguts with the war banner
2x30 gnoblars
3 maneaters with longswords and heavy armour
4 leadbelchers

that's about it, if you could squeeze a scraplauncher in there, it would probably be a good idea.

Tactics wise, I've found that deploying your combat units in 2 ranks of 4 models works well, you get +1S bonus for all the models in the front rank when you bull charge, and a rank bonus for the first round, assuming you win, which with a unit of ironguts and a tyrant is pretty certain, you can then expand frontage, negate the rank bonus of the enemy unit, and get 4 more ogres into combat.

that's what I've learned so far, maybe I'll have some of tactics proven wrong, but until then I'm sticking to them. I appreciate comments and criticisms

Cheers!

[Artemis_Quinn]

I don't play with ogres and I don't play against them very much. but what I have found is that Gnoblars are a must. Whenever he charged one of my clanrat units with his ogres he barely did enough damage to tie combat from all of the negative resolution modifiers he started out at. But whenever he charged with gnoblars too they cancelled out all of those bonuses I could hold over his head and it destroyed me in resolution. Though once the ogres break through the front line the gnoblars are next to useless.

[taer]

All I know is that zombies and Ogres do not mix at all. Without the ability to cause a few wounds to the Ogres and the fact zombies are really squishy...well, the combat res ends up something along the lines of "Hey, I get 3 rank and a standard....You get 8 kills and unit strength....o dear."

[Azroth]

Although I don't claim to be an Ogre Kingdoms pro, I must say that I disagree with most of the things kyussinchains said. I'm not awake enough at the moment to come with a long, sensible post about everything, but I will make out a few points. Keep in mind that these are purely my own, humble opinions and nothing more, so treat them accordingly.

* Hunters are really not that great. There are plenty of other choices in the army that fulfill the same functions better and/or more cost-efficiently. Really.

* The Hellheart basically sucks. It's very expensive and one use only. Also, according to the the temporary FAQ on the GW site, can be quite dangerous to your own Buthcers. It also really doesn't affect some of the magic heavy-hitters, like Tomb Kings and Slann.

* The Thundermace... well, it basically sucks too. Sure, it can be devestating sometimes, but you get one attack, and only one, which will at best hit at 3+. A normal great weapon will probably perform better nine times out of ten.

* Mawseeker causes Stupidity. What more is there to say? I know that I at least don't want a Stupid general for my army. You can use the Jade Lion of course, but then we're talking 40 points, and you can still fail that all-important test.

* Some people use a bruiser with an army standard, but I prefer not to. A Fistful of Laurels for your Tyrant is so much cheaper.

* A unit that numbers eight Ogres before you add characters is not a great idea in my opinion. I usually have units that aren't bigger than six with characters, and certainly not bigger than eight (six Ironguts+Tyrant+Brusier/Butcher).

* Gnoblars are more or less a must. In 2000 points, I would say a unit of 8-10 Trappers and 2-3 units of 20 Fighters is about right.

Just a few (hopefully) helpful pointers. Remember, I'm not an expert myself (more of a newbie actually), so don't think that everything I say is kosher. It is after all only my opinions. For more of other people's opnions about Ogres, why not check this out?

Cheers.

EDIT: Oh, and another thing. Never ever use a Bruiser as a General instead of a Tyrant, unless the game is under 2000 points of course. The Tyrant is vastly superior in every possibly way, alway take him. Just trust me on this one, ok?

[kyussinchains]

I accept that the thundermace is a risk, but it can be used as a great weapon also, the thing is, even with 5 attacks, you're probably going to hit with 3 (on average) which means 3 dead enemy troops (armour saves notwithstanding), if you miss with the thundermace, that's pretty awful, but when you do hit, it's FAR more devastating, with the 2.5 inch template, you can potentially hit 20 enemy troops on 20mm bases. and around 16 on 25mm bases, you can usually hit 6-7 knights too. Now although the majority of the hits are S4, I'd still wager on killing more troops with say 12 hits at S4 no armour save, than with 5 attacks having to roll to hit, on average, against a T4 WS4 enemy, you'll kill twice as many with the thundermace.
I may be wrong, but so far, I've not suffered too badly.

My hunter was a pain at first, I only really bought him because I love the model, but after a few games of not really thinking, I put him on the flank, quite near to a unit of spearmen with a wizard in the front rank. I charged the spearmen with the tusks and shot a unit of 6 knights in the flank with the crossbow, the tusks killed the wizard and the crossbow took out 4 knights, effectively ruining the unit. Now again I know this wont happen every time, but if you dont take the hunter, you lose the chance of it ever happening.

The gnoblars are a good buy, the one problem I find is that they're too slow to work perfectly with the ogres, there seems little point in having movement 6 if you're not going to move that far, because you dont want to outrun your support unit. Also, against tough units like chaos warriors and swordmasters, gnoblars are basically giving away combat resolution, you only need to kill 4 of them to almost completely negate their effect, plus they have the bicker rule, which means they tend to be unreliable just when you need them.

I concede about the units of 8, I usually buy 7 and stick a character in there, if you give your tyrant the wallcrusher big name, and he has an ogre in the rank behind him, you get 2 S6 impact hits on charge, which can help to offset the risk of the thundermace.

[Cpt. Drill]

First of all fighting zombies is a criminal mistake you will be bogged down foever! literelly for ever!

Secondly kyussinchains knoblars are ok but no one will ever be stupid enough to charge a weak flyer into a rank file unit even if it is gnoblars!

In my opinion ogres are not a great army... its a sad thing to say because im really like them... but no they are a bit mediocor. my rundown of the thinkgs in it are...

Tyrant is big and smashy, it is definatyly a competetor for the scaryest things to face in warhammer! He (or she) is also quite affordable! the thunder mace is also very good, but it does have that chance of failure...

Butchers are kings they are the things in the ogre army that will win you the games in 1500+ you must have two minimun if you dont I laugh alot!

Bruisers are good but take up those slots for butchers! but you will need one for some combat res!

Hunters seem ok expensive and average but the sabertusks are definatly a good thing just to kamakazi into a unit and kill characters!!!

Ogre bulls provided you give them the adition hand weapon then they are awsome! jest because you need to hope that you get bull gorger off on them because they really make a mess of things which makes up for their pitiful WS3... also i think that the light armour is a waste on them also if you want to be super eco then dont give them iron fists as i have them to give me the choice.. bit i have never seena good occation when you may want to use them...

Iron guts are really good because they can beat the ogres worse enemy CAVELRY make sure you have the spell trollguts on them and you will be able to recieve a charge and hopefully win! the problem is they dont have the attacks to get lucky and win combats against rank-file infanty by themselfs... thats where having regular ogres work well!

I see gnoblars on paper as being the answer to ogres problems but in game *sigh* gnoblars squabble and are slow! But they provide the 3 ranks and outnumber bonus which most of your other units will be lacking!

Gnoblar trappers are awsome as they can kill cannon crews and hunt down lone wizards or just march block!

Leadbelchers are one of the best units to have on your flank i take them in units of two because then you never see the massive overkill on one unit of light cav... but they are as fickle as the dice in your hand... more than often i will score two hits and six on myself... but i will always tak them after killing 13 chosen nurgle warriors of chaos!

Yhetis are great in game.. but look terrible simple enough....

the scrap launcher is quite good but i havent used it enough....

Maneaters are soo expensive but with magic (mmmm... a commmon theme now!) are soo goodthey are also possibly my favorite part of the army because they are some of the coolest models in the GW range i think!

Tactics wise avoid bretonians at all cost.... because none of your units will win combats and run away like the fools they are! umm.. magic wins you games always if your loose magic you will loose games....

well thats my opinion i have used this army alot played all warhammer world armys and think it is a mediocor list!

IF ANY OF YOU DESIGNERS ARE OUT THERE MAKE IRON GUTS WS4 IT WILL MAKE THEM GOOD (i say this because they are described as the ELITE of the army but are as raggy as the rest of the loosers... for more points i would still buy them maybe if they were special then it would be more fair... but at the moment they cant win combats!!!)

[taer]

Unless you were playing (like I was) the new Zombie pirates list, in which case those casualties ain't ever coming back. I think I chose the worst opponent for that army for my first game with them. Kinda like if I started tomb kings and my first game was against a mortal khorne force.

[Azroth]

Some very good points here.

Tyrant is big and smashy, it is definatyly a competetor for the scaryest things to face in warhammer! He (or she) is also quite affordable! the thunder mace is also very good, but it does have that chance of failure...

The Tyrant is quite good, but I'm not yet convinced about the Thundermace. It's too unreliable, and I do think you need your Tyrant for that pretty reliable +3 CR his kills will grant (on average with a normal GW). The Thundermace is sweet when it hits, I'm not denying that, but what about when it misses? Your Tyrant contributes nothing to the fight, your enemy has ranks and outnumber, and you lose, run and die. That won't always happen of course, but think about how devastating it can be when it does.

A possible solution to this problem, and to get that reliability that I crave so much, could be to use a Bruiser with the Thundermace in the same unit as the Tyrant. That way you have a much better chance of winning when the Thundermace misses, and when it hit... You all get the picture. Worth trying out I think.

Butchers are kings they are the things in the ogre army that will win you the games in 1500+ you must have two minimun if you dont I laugh alot!

Well, I don't think they will win you any games on their own, but they can certainly help a lot by enhancing your best units to scary levels. Also, a Butcher with the Skullmantle casting Braingobbler can be so much fun...

Hunters seem ok expensive and average but the sabertusks are definatly a good thing just to kamakazi into a unit and kill characters!!!

Again, I still think there are better solutions. But it is sort of viable I guess...

Ogre bulls provided you give them the adition hand weapon then they are awsome! jest because you need to hope that you get bull gorger off on them because they really make a mess of things which makes up for their pitiful WS3... also i think that the light armour is a waste on them also if you want to be super eco then dont give them iron fists as i have them to give me the choice.. bit i have never seena good occation when you may want to use them...

What can I say? The general consensus seems to be to give important/big units extra hand weapons, to keep small flanking units naked, and not bother with IF/LA. Me? I take Ironfists purely because they look so bloody cool (actually, I'm giving most of the two Ironfists), and besides, a bit of variety never hurts. It's only one point more after all. Since I know I will usually use them as extra hand weapons I tend not to bother with light armour to save at least some points.

Iron guts are really good because they can beat the ogres worse enemy CAVELRY make sure you have the spell trollguts on them and you will be able to recieve a charge and hopefully win! the problem is they dont have the attacks to get lucky and win combats against rank-file infanty by themselfs... thats where having regular ogres work well!

Basically agree with this. Ironguts are nice...

I see gnoblars on paper as being the answer to ogres problems but in game *sigh* gnoblars squabble and are slow! But they provide the 3 ranks and outnumber bonus which most of your other units will be lacking!

And a table quarter for 40 points is a bargain. Gnoblars are nice.

Gnoblar trappers are awsome as they can kill cannon crews and hunt down lone wizards or just march block!

Yup, Trappers are awesome. Never leave home without them. And the models are bloody cool as well.

Leadbelchers are one of the best units to have on your flank i take them in units of two because then you never see the massive overkill on one unit of light cav... but they are as fickle as the dice in your hand... more than often i will score two hits and six on myself... but i will always tak them after killing 13 chosen nurgle warriors of chaos!

I personally don't like Leadbelchers, but that's mostly from a modelling standpoint. They can work, but are very hit and miss. Just never rely on their shooting ability and you'll be fine. They might even surprise you now and again. And remember that it only takes to Ogres in the flank to negate ranks.

Yhetis are great in game.. but look terrible simple enough....

Couldn't agree more. I must admit that I haven't actually tested them, but they certainly look good on paper. I would take Yeheetis (spelling?) over a Hunter any day. Always. Problem is, the models are simply crap (in my own humble opinion of course).

the scrap launcher is quite good but i havent used it enough....

Same here. I hate that model also.

Maneaters are soo expensive but with magic (mmmm... a commmon theme now!) are soo goodthey are also possibly my favorite part of the army because they are some of the coolest models in the GW range i think!

I haven't actually tried them yet, but they seem good for holding a unit in combat while waiting for support, since they don't run. Just don't expect them to kill entire units on their own.

Well, that's it from me for now. Cheers.

[Angelripper]

I like the combined power of two Regiments of Bulls, two regiments of Ironguts combined with a unit of Yethis on each flank. throw in a unit of Leadbelchers to worry your opponent and you got a quick Army with a massive punch.

You don't need gnoblars. They are slow and only kill something if the enemy drops dead laughin about them. Trappers are a nice unit but they are still ugly.

Tyrants are a must for every army above 2000 Points. The Thundermace is too unreliable IMHO. Butchers are definetly worth their points in gold.
I don't like Maneaters, too expensive IMHO. The Scrap Launcher is ugly but funny.

My Army fights Empire or Dwarf armies about 80% of the games we play. They do quite good. Well at least we always got a lot of fun, and I think thats what they are for, much like Orcs&Goblins. If I desperatly want to win a Game I take my Lizardman or the Darkelves out for a walk. never let me down, except the one time they fought against my own Ogrearmy.

[kyussinchains]

A possible solution to this problem, and to get that reliability that I crave so much, could be to use a Bruiser with the Thundermace in the same unit as the Tyrant. That way you have a much better chance of winning when the Thundermace misses, and when it hit... You all get the picture. Worth trying out I think.

the one problem with that is the fact that the thundermace is 55 points, which means a bruiser can't take it, and as you can only have one tyrant in an army, it pretty much has to go to him... unless you give it to a slaughtermaster......

EDIT: unless you mean to take the bruiser to dish out the punishment with a great weapon/longsword if the tyrant misses, if that's the case, yeah you can do that!

[Azroth]

the one problem with that is the fact that the thundermace is 55 points, which means a bruiser can't take it, and as you can only have one tyrant in an army, it pretty much has to go to him... unless you give it to a slaughtermaster......

EDIT: unless you mean to take the bruiser to dish out the punishment with a great weapon/longsword if the tyrant misses, if that's the case, yeah you can do that!

Yeah, I noticed that too when I got home and double-checked my armybook. I could have swore that it was 50 points. Oh well, my mistake.

But of course, we could, as you say, meet halfway and add in a Bruiser with a GW to deal out some guaranteed punishment while the Tyrant does his thing. I still don't like the Thundermace, but I think we'll just have to leave it at that. Agree to disagree?

[kyussinchains]

Yeah, I noticed that too when I got home and double-checked my armybook. I could have swore that it was 50 points. Oh well, my mistake.

But of course, we could, as you say, meet halfway and add in a Bruiser with a GW to deal out some guaranteed punishment while the Tyrant does his thing. I still don't like the Thundermace, but I think we'll just have to leave it at that. Agree to disagree?

of course!

I can see your point, and I agreed with it when I first started with the ogres, if anything I went too far on the defensive, giving heavy armour, gutplates and ironfists to as many characters as possible to keep them alive. After losing a few, I tried seeing how the thundermace would work, it won me the game against an unbeaten tomb king army, so I took it again, and it worked wonders, against really tough units when winning is vital, you can always aviod the risk element and use it as a great weapon, but when cutting down large rank and file units down to size, I usually opt for the stone thrower rule. I guess a bunch of unlucky games may convince me otherwise, but it's not happened yet!

oh and yeah, the ogres arent really the best army there is, I just really loved the hunter and maneater models, I think my dark elves and slaanesh chaos are both intrinsically more powerful than the ogres, but the ogres are lots of fun

[Azroth]

You know what? After this, I promise you that I will try the Thundermace out, just for the fun of it. I don't think I'll end up being convinced, but I'll try it. Peace and love man.

And yeah, I agree that Ogres are far from the most powerful army out there, but it is fun, and many of the models are great. I also love the Hunter model, and I'm probably going to use as a base for my Tyrant conversion. And plastic Ogres are just great models. Personally, I don't need more than that. I'd rather have good models and crappy rules than crappy models and uber rules. I play Orks too...

[Badgobbla]

OK, some points I've noticed after playing a few games with a 1500 pt force (basically the contents of the army deal with a bruiser and a butcher extra):

- Gnoblars are worth a great deal! For 50 points you get 25 gnoblars with a groinbiter which probably won't do that much, but can acts as a deterrent for some units. If your enemy ignores them you can use them for claiming table-quarters or flank-attacks.
- the butcher was not really worth his points imo. Next time I'd take two in a 1500 pt army, because you're bound to fail at least one cast per turn and sometimes even more when you're unlucky (like me).
- the hunter hasn't lived up to his reputation: the sabretusks were quickly killed most of the time and the time the hunter has to spend waiting after his 'tusks go charging is a turn wasted imo.
- I always used the item which grants a 5+ inv. save and i ALWAYS got a wound at the start of each battle (6 iirc!), also the +1T with stupidity is nice, but very average with a Ld 8 Bruiser.
- Ogre Bulls are best used as flanking forces in units of three(as was said before iirc), armed with ironfists for those extra attacks.
- Ironguts are really the cream of the crop: use them in big units so the can withstand all the missile-fire and magic that will be thrown at them.
- Yhetees are very good at flanking and even rear-charging, but be sure they have some back-up while charging.
- gnoblar trappers are very good at stopping march moves and hunting lone wizards or taking care of war machines. Don't expect them to win all their battles, but sometimes a turn or two not shooting from a warmachine can be very good for Ogres.

What armies have I played so far:
- High Elves: got a good clobbering here, but my opponent was very consistent in rolling 5s and 6s for wounding my ogres with missile fire and magic. Normally you should hope for the first turn and charge right in there, just try to stay away from silver helms and dragon princes, unless you can charge them with everal units at once.
- Lizardmen: I won this game, but only barely. Skinks with poisoned blowpipes, darts, javelins and other cutlery are your bane. There's not much you can do about this, just hope your opponent rolls bad for his to hit.
- Dwarfs: This was a very convincing win, but I had the first turn and the dwarf-player's shooting did next to nothing due to his bad rolls.

[kyussinchains]

I guess I should add which armies I've playtested against.

Against High elves, I suffered from plenty of nasty magic, and the guy has so much cavalry it's hard to even charge, let alone get some meaty bull charges in there, needless to say I lost the few games I played!

Empire were probably even tougher! as well as the very well armoured cavalry (which only ironguts stand a chance of doing much damage at all to) they have plenty of hand gunners with long rifles, which are excellent for taking out wounded champions or ogres and shrinking the unit down, as well as cannons and volleyguns!

Tomb kings are not too difficult to beat, just dont get complacent and rely on you being faster than them, with the sheer number of spells they get off, they WILL charge you when you dont want to be charged! having said that, maneaters with great weapons will smash those chariot units to bits, and lapping round with only 2 ogres negates all those ranks, winning you the combat by that much of a bigger margin.

I've still got to play against the vampire counts, chaos and lizardmen, but my gaming group only plays every few months, admittedly for about a week solid... I'll be playing tommorow night for the first time since march, so I can try out some new ideas.

[Badgobbla]

OK, this saturday I have game coming up against Beastmen for 2000 pts (first time).

I think I'm going to field something along these lines:
- tyrant with cathayan longsword and maybe some magical item
- 2 butchers with dispell scrolls
- 2 units gnoblars (2x25)
- 1 big unit of bull ogres (5)
- 1 big unit of Iron Guts (5)
- 3 yhetees
- 8 Gnoblar Trappers
and then I'll fill my points in with units of 3 ogre bulls with ironfists to protect my flanks.

I plan to keep my units together, if possible in two waves, with the first going for the Beastmen that start the game on the board and the second wave to intercept the Beastmen ambushing. I'll try to get as far away as possible from my board edge, to rule out the possibility of the rear ambush. This would leave my opponent with two sides to come from (in fact three, but coming from his own edge seems stupid), i.e. my left and right flank.

[kyussinchains]

I just lost a game against the high elves, afterwards my mate said that he thought I was going to win it, but a few things went against me, I tried to refuse his flank by putting my 2 gnobolar blocks opposite his archers, while putting my ironguts and maneaters against his knights and his huge unit of 45 spearmen (with a lord and battle standard so you know they're hard!) the maneaters advanced and were charged by his knights, they managed to survive with the last one on 1 wound, then the tyrant and his ironguts charged in and wiped out half the unit, who ran. Then it became a game of cat and mouse between the ironguts and his spearmen, he kept moving back and I didnt want to get charged, so I inched forward, every turn he kept getting fury of khaine on them, as I saved my dice to dispel the ring of corin (which he kept doing trying to kill the thundermace) after he knocked the rank off them, he peppered the rest and wiped out all but the standard bearer, after that it was a simple matter of charging in with his spearmen and winning by miles.

my goblars did great against his archers, killing 5 in one turn with thrown rocks, but I didnt dare get them into combat for fear of losing, my buddy said this won him the game because I didnt get round the side or back of his big unit of spearmen, if I'd charged and had the gnoblars in the flank, I would have won!

lessons: I need to be less cautious, I tried to get everything in position too finely and suffered because my being out of combat was only good for him, ogres arent good at maneuvering, it's best to get stuck in!

mastodon armour on a hunter is great, he got shot and killed so many times and just kept getting up again!

for other armies, placing a couple of cheap war machines at the flanks of a unit is a great flank protector, just flee with the crew and the machine blocks the charge!

I'll talk about my other games as and when they're played

[Negafex]

for butchers the most neccesary item imo is the halfling cookbook because there is nothing worse than killing off your own guy and since he doesnt have any armor to speak of he is going to need his wounds to withstand attacks. that said he is a great unit who has done more than his points worth of damage in the games i played as well as boost my units to the point where it scares my opponent that i can even do that. and their magic is easy to cast as only a three plus is needed, give him two casting dice a spell and if you can settle for two spells a turn then your all set. and the only reason i ever take gnoblars is to keep my enemys from getting to close to him as he is semi voulnerable

[kyussinchains]

well, my weekend was terrible!

my best result was a winning draw against the high elves, I lost to empire, tomb kings and high elves multiple times!

my first game I already talked about, but in the second I managed to wipe out most of his stuff and he did the same, so it was a draw (I got about 100 more vps than him)

Against the tomb kings I thought I was doing well, I broke through the middle, wiping out his ushabti and tying up his huge unit of skeletons with my maneaters, then he reformed his tomb guard (with tomb king and prince) who had broken through my bulls and gnoblars, and forced a charge into the flank of my ironguts using magic, needless to say, my ironguts fled and got caught and I lost BADLY

the thing is, I didnt need to be so foolish, when I charged the ushabti it was because I didnt want to charge the tomb guard, get tied up, and get hit in the flank by the ushabti, so I thought I'd charge the ushabti and get out of his charge arc, forgetting that tomb kings can pretty much charge in whatever direction they like thanks to their magic, I didnt overrun with my ironguts because I thought I'd be able to get in the flank of his skeletons and help my maneaters out, if I had done, I probably would have been out of his charge arc and got my tyrant in.

Empire are too good against ogres, they have good missile fire, magic and cavalry, needless to say I got pounded into the ground and lost pretty badly!

Lessons:

Bulls are very ordinary troops, they wont stand up against much at all, and really suffer when charged by cavalry, only take the bare minimum of bulls, maybe with a bellower to use as a flee and rally unit which may get in the flanks.

Ironguts on the other hand are great! especially with a bruiser or tyrant (or both!) to beef them up, I use units of 7 with a character in 2 ranks, charge in, get the +1S on the charge, then expand frontage and lap round

Hunters are difficult to use well, but they are very handy for flank charges, having 10 attacks when you include the sabretusks is very good indeed.

Maneaters are a MUST for the ogres, give them all longswords to help them get hit less easily and so they can hit other troops better, and they make the perfect screen for your ironguts. As the ogres dont have any magic items to bolster their combat resolution or make them stubborn, it is imperitive that you dont get charged by really tough units, maneaters are perfect for this role, I plan on buying another 3 right away.

Butchers are great, I really need a second one, we have a house rule which limits you to 1 dispel scroll, so having 2 butchers, one with the hellheart, would be extremely good!

Gnoblars are not much use at all, against all but the weakest troops, charging gnoblars in the flank is as good as giving away combat result

Leadbelchers are too hit and miss to rely upon, and units of more than 3 are a waste of points, but they can potentially wipe out units of cavalry and take down the toughest monsters, as well as flank charging.