How would you...

[Pawn of Decay]

destroy this list?

I am going to the Fantasy Throne of Skulls tournament this month taking my Ogre’s. Due to lack of time to finish painting everything I had wanted to take, the army list has more become what is viable than what is perfection.

With that in mind I would like some advice on how you would play against the following list. What are the main weaknesses of the army and what should I look out for? This is my first major Warhammer Fantasy tournament so any advice with tactics etc. would be greatly appreciated.

The list currently looks like;

Lord:

Slaughtermaster – 370pts
- Level 4; Lore of the Great Maw
- The Fencers Blades
- Hellheart

Hero:

Bruiser – 175pts
- Battle Standard Bearer
- Talisman of Endurance
- Great Weapon
- Heavy Armour

Core:

Ironguts (11) – 513pts
- Standard bearer
- Musician
- The Standard of Discipline
- Lookout Gnoblar

Special:

Mournefang Cavalry (3) – 230pts
- Standard bearer
- Banner of Eternal Flame
- Ironfists and Heavy Armour

Mournefang Cavalry (3) – 210pts
- Ironfists and Heavy Armour

Rare:

Stonehorn – 250pts

Thundertusk – 250pts

Total: 1,998points

Thank you in advance for any advice, tips, tactics etc. that you may be able to offer me.

[Sexiest_hero]

Avoid redirect the gut star and trash everything else. It has 1 caster and 1 ranged unit.\, and one gut star with Loooong flanks. If the Mournfangs can be taken out. the gutstar can be flanked and beaten by the likes of Chosen, or anything with mindrazor.

[Asuryan's Spear]

personally i would use the points of rion gus on two units of 6 ogres to make your force a bit more flexible and adaptable. less of a eggs in one basket kinda thing. also the iron guts str 6 may come in handy against tank opponents (Dwarfs and anvils etc) but against things like skaven slaves spam the extra hand weapons and mobility will just be that extra bit better. most armies can only get a 5+ save on their average infantry which means your str4 w/ extra HW will usually be sufficient and more effective

[Malorian]

Obviously the weakness it the low model count so when you get hit back you get hit hard.

With my standard 2k list:

Lvl 4 orc great shaman w/ dispel scroll

Night goblin big boss BSB w/ banner of discipline

40 savage orc big uns w/ extra choppa, banner
91 night goblins w/ spears, banner, nets
20 night goblin archers

40 black orcs w/ banner, flaming banner
40 squigs and 15 handlers


I would sit back, 6 dice foot of gork, and then just overwhelm you with high strength attacks when you get to me (the night goblins holding up whatever I didn't want to deal with right away).

Orcs do very well against ogres.

So what should you do if you see a list like mine? Try and overload the center unit, break through, and get to the bunker. Once the bunker falls then the night goblins will most likely just panic away and you can go from there.

[Akkaryn]

I use a bit of a doom and darkness list at 2k with my chaos. Hit the guts with doom and darkness. Doom totem for -4 ld and 2 hellcannon shots will make them run at -5 ld. (to be honest it makes most things run.)

Redirect everything else with dogs. Jobs a good one.

[Oogie boogie boss]

With a hammer.

[calnen]

My Dwarves would probably struggle. I'd try and kill the gutstar down to size with war machines, then take the charge from the monsters and Mournfang. None of them have ranks, so they'd kill a lot on the charge but I'd hope and hopefully take them down with numbers.

Empire would try and sit a tank in front of the big unit and then just ignore it all game, and kill the other stuff with weight of numbers and cannonfire. You're really lacking redirector units to block my tank with. (Where are your sabretusks? They're amazing at that!)

Against my orcs, it looks like it'd be a bloodbath. We'd both throw all our stuff into combat, and see what came out the other side. Since you have no shooting (or sabretusks) I'd hope to make a mess of the mournfang with mangler squigs. I think it'd be very messy, but a good fun game that one

[Pawn of Decay]

Thank you for all your tips and ideas on how to crush my army. It has been helpful and given me a lot to think about.

So far this list has lost twice against Dwarfs and beat the same Dwarf list 3 times. Has beat Warriors of Chaos 6 times, Vampires twice and Skaven once. Not a great selection of Fantasy players to play against, but it is doing ok atm.

[Awilla the Hun]

*thinks...*

Well, the Red Guards (Peasant Bretonnians) would have trouble due to the sheer mass of multiwound monsters, who will rip guardsmen (Men at Arms) to pieces on the charge. Probably try to scatter your army across the board in the deployment zone with cheap fodder, annihilate the two single-model beasties in the early game with artillery fire, hold the Ironguts up with cheap troops (probably lure them into attacking the weak flank protected by a trebuchet, a handful of archers and Comrade Bampton, a Commissar with Virtue of Empathy-useful for giving leadership to peasants) and hammer everything else with the Proletariat Leadership Committee (knights), the Communications Commissariat (pegasus knights), whatever firepower I have left, and Comrade Von Stahl's infantry wave (a mass of 50 Men at Arms, hopefully with Comrade-Commissar for Magical Affairs Dubois providing magical support in the form of Wildform.) Your Ironguts would be able to crush anything they came into contact with in fairly short order, but if I can hold them away from the majority of my army for long enough, I'll hopefully have something left to draw the game out into the last turn over the ruins of the rest of your force, thereby giving me a draw at least, denying your consumerists victory over the Revolutionaries!

You can counter my horde peasant army by being canny with deployment (so your Ironguts start up opposite my "centre of gravity"-knights and large infantry blocks- rather than a deceptively ill defended trebuchet) and drawing my strongest elements into a decisive battle, which you'll probably win. It's my job to use the indirect approach to tie your troops down and hammer everything else. This could be helped by separating your characters and using them to kill my chaff (small units of archers, light cavalry, small infantry units) more quickly, rather than keeping focussed in a single deathstar which can be shot, redirected and (if I'm really lucky) overwhelmed with sheer numbers.

[Chicago Slim]

Basically, the small number of units you have leaves you vulnerable to being outmaneuvered. This can lead to a couple of different problems for you:

The first problem you could face is that you never get the Ironguts into a meaningful fight (as Sexiest_hero and calnen have both suggested): they get led by the nose by fleeing fast cavalry, or they end up able to charge just a single small, low-points unit, which draws them even farther from any really good targets. Meanwhile, your monsters and cavalry, without the support of your real killing machine, get swamped. This is a classic "combat-avoidance" tactic: draw the big baddies away from the fight, giving up a couple of low-cost units in the process, while picking one or two targets to mug and kill. Remember: if your opponent takes out ANY ONE of your non-core units, and gives up 100 points, he wins. That's what my Wood Elves, Beastmen and even High Elves might try to do.


The other maneuver problem comes if you get those Iron Guts stuck in with a good bus (could be Elf spears, or Empire infantry, or Orc boyz, or lots of other 50-model units, 10 ranks deep) where you win combat, but can't break their Steadfast. Because you have so few other units, it shouldn't be too hard to bring in the flankers (cavalry or elite infantry), who do the real killing, and leave you losing the fight by 2 to 4 points. Break tests-- even on a 6, with a reroll-- are not sustainable, and eventually you're going to break. When you do, there are at least two units pursuing you, which makes it really hard for you to get away, let alone reform and put yourself into a better position.


The obvious answer to both of these is to keep your forces together, with the cavalry and monsters covering the flanks of your Iron guts. The trouble then becomes, what's protecting the flanks of the cavalry and monsters? Those Rares aren't that hard to take down in a straight fight, and even a single good, ranked-up infantry unit has a decent chance of breaking them just on static combat res. The Mournfang Cav are most vulnerable to their flanks. So, if you run up against a dodgy, maneuver player (like me), be ready to break formation, and overwhelm those flankers.

[Dreadlordpaul]

its simple id take 2 100 man zombie blocks with 3 necros behind spamming invo

[Darnok]

its simple id take 2 100 man zombie blocks with 3 necros behind spamming invo

You have just spent over 800 points to achieve... what?

[Dreadlordpaul]

You have just spent over 800 points to achieve... what?

giant road block while my vamp lord + grave guard and terrorghiest clear up the rest of the army

[Darnok]

giant road block while my vamp lord + grave guard and terrorghiest clear up the rest of the army

You only have left roughly 1200 points for that. To be good in his job of killing that vampire lord would eat up a good chunk of that. After the Terrorgheist you don't have enough points for an impressive grave guard unit - not to speak of the rest of an army not bought so far.

As the Ogre player I would just ignore your "road blocks", and kill everything else. Ogres are pretty good at that...

[Askari]

I'd stick a Spirit Host on each of the Mournfang units, and the Stonehorn. That takes them nicely out of the game. Then I can concentrate 37 Grave Guard, 35 Ghouls, a Varghulf and a Vampire Lord on the Gutstar while the Terrorgheist screams at your Thundertusk and it falls over dead (average rolls will kill in one). If I'm afraid of the Vampire Lord dying he can sit in the Skeleton bunker while everything else does it's job.