Ogres Over Powered? (Am I missing something?)

[GodlessM]

My previous White Lion horde would rip them to shreds before they have even swung.

While I agree with you, never use these guys as an example, as a fully decked Chosenstar costing way more is about the only thing these guys can't tear through.

http://www.ogrestronghold.com/forum/...?topic=21297.0

I can't really be bothered to calculate the percentages, but then again, you can't be bothered to make a post of value. Maybe 60% of the time the Heart does something useful.

Because I would just be repeating what several others have said to you, but now that you've provided me with that link I'll give a slightly better response; your argument is it is crap because some people had bad luck or expected a kill every time and didn't get it. Those aren't numbers my friend, that's chance.

[minionboy]

Those aren't numbers my friend, that's chance.

GodlessM, I usually back you up and think you often make sense, but I can't help it for that quote.

The frequency that people have "bad luck" is what you use for statistically calculating probability, or chance.

If I lose a Mournfang by rolling 3 1's for armor saves, it's not bad luck, it's probability, luck isn't a thing. There are plenty of times where I've passed more than 6 saves on a 2+. In the end, the whole point of measuring numbers is to determine the probability (or chance) of an event happening, and I'm willing to bet that I lose a Mournfang to three ones about 1 in 216 times that I'm required to roll it.

Just like the Mournfang, the Hellheart is subject to the same rules. If you roll a 1, that's not bad luck, that's the 16% chance that it will happen, and you should expect that about 1 in 6 games you'll end up rolling a 1. Additionally, you have the chance that the enemy may miscast and kill their own caster before you fight, or the chance that you'll face a dwarf or khorne daemon list, etc.

The amount of feedback from the player base at the Ogre Stronghold can be used to get a pretty fair estimate of how often the Hellheart is useful, provided that the players accurately report successes vs failures, instead of just boasting about nuking 4 elf mages in one game every time. In general, people like to brag on forums more than they like to admit defeat, so I would say that the results on the Stronghold are probably skewed in the Hellheart's favor. Even if it was skewed, read the results and about 1/3 to 1/2 of the time, it makes no major difference in the game.

Even in my experience with ogres in the new book (which is about 1-3 games per week since it was released) I can say that there have been many games where the miscast didn't really affect the game, either the result they got wasn't so bad, I rolled a 1 for range or the game was already decided before I used the Hellheart, or my Butcher with the Hellheart simply dies before he gets to use it (popped by a miscast even!). In the end, because there is so much subjectivity for that item, you can't just do the math for the numbers on dice for range and miscast results, you need to take into account all the minutiae of the game, and that can only really be done by players reporting their results.

[Shimmergloom]

1/3rd to 1/2 of the time my manglers are dead by turn 2, killed by sacrificial chaff or shot/magicked and giving me a net loss in vps. That doesn't mean that I don't take them every time though, because of their potential. And because as long as I take them, I am forcing the other players to take things to kill them.

The Hellheart is no different, only the upside is much better than a mangler(which is just as random, if not moreso than the hellheart). As long as it exists, people have to be prepared for it.

It's what Malorian was saying. It changes how you need to make up your army. You need to start thinking about some sort of bunker unit for when you are facing ogres. Just like you need to think about having some magic weapons or attacks to protect from ethereals or have enough chaff to kill manglers and draw out fanatics and make sure you get some sort of fire to deal with regen units.

Whether you like this or not, it's just the way it is. And IMO I would much rather have things that I can do some sort of preparation for, rather than just face shadow/death mages rolling 6 dice game winning spells, that I have no counter to, whatsoever, rather than hoping they roll 6 1's.

[bluemage]

That link that leads to the Ogre Kingdom's thread really doesn't have any bearing unless you're going to use it as a statistical sampling and apply some number crunching to it. And honestly as a statistical sampling its pretty much worthless.

The other benefit of the hellheart that seems to go unnoticed by Ogre players is how much it forces your opponent to readjust his play style in order to take it into account. Even if it never hits any mages when its used, the threat of what it can do forces most opponents to change up there game plans. Which is worth the 50 points it is to run it.

And to the people who say taking a hellheart precludes you taking a dispel scroll, well just take the scroll on your other wizard. Ogre wizards have combat stat lines that rivals other armies combat characters, so its not like you're put yourself at a disadvantage by taking two wizards.

[Scammel]

That link that leads to the Ogre Kingdom's thread really doesn't have any bearing unless you're going to use it as a statistical sampling and apply some number crunching to it. And honestly as a statistical sampling its pretty much worthless.

It's obviously far, far, far from perfect, but it is at least probably the best source of info from which we can draw conclusions. There's too many possibilities for it to be math-hammered outright (well, it's not impossible, but there'd be quite a lot of numbers involved to say the least), so a large compilation of anecdotal evidence will have to do in this situation, I think.

It's worth saying that I don't think it's 'crap', that same thread had me wincing at some of things it could do. If it did such things consistently, it would indeed be 'ridiculous', 'overpowered' or any of the other complaints levelled against it here. It's far from consistent though so I think the best way to label it is 'wonky' - in any 3 games it can do nothing, stifle a magic phase, or blow up a level 4.

[vcassano]

A Gathering of Might, currently at the end of its first day, has 15/58 (I think that is the right number) Ogre players. Over a quarter of the field. Crazy.*

[Trains_Get_Robbed]

That link that leads to the Ogre Kingdom's thread really doesn't have any bearing unless you're going to use it as a statistical sampling and apply some number crunching to it. And honestly as a statistical sampling its pretty much worthless.

The other benefit of the hellheart that seems to go unnoticed by Ogre players is how much it forces your opponent to readjust his play style in order to take it into account. Even if it never hits any mages when its used, the threat of what it can do forces most opponents to change up there game plans. Which is worth the 50 points it is to run it.

And to the people who say taking a hellheart precludes you taking a dispel scroll, well just take the scroll on your other wizard. Ogre wizards have combat stat lines that rivals other armies combat characters, so its not like you're put yourself at a disadvantage by taking two wizards.

All of this. I everytime I read "pro" Ogres players defending they're dumb items, its like a D.E player defending the Pendant of Kaleth, or H.E saying Teclis isn't broken. If it costed 70-80 points I wouldn't care as much, but 50 points is a afterthought, and taked no investment on Ogre's players parts since Firebellies are already included in their list. It will be interesting what Adepticon will produce. . . . I can guess.

[Scammel]

I've not seen anyone call them dumb items. What I've seen is people label them overpowered, with Ogre players then pointing out the weaknesses of said items whilst accepting that they're good.

Edit: Actually tell a lie, someone has called them 'dumb' - you.

[Balerion]

http://www.ogrestronghold.com/forum/...?topic=21297.0

I can't really be bothered to calculate the percentages, but then again, you can't be bothered to make a post of value. Maybe 60% of the time the Heart does something useful.

This is shaky evidence, as the reports are concluded with the highly subjective and wholly unhelpful question of "did the Hellheart win you the game?" when the real question that needs to be asked is "did the Hellheart exert an effect worth equal to or greater than the 50 points you paid for it?".

I only read the first page of results, but there were more posts than I could count where somebody was like, "Yeah the Hellheart just killed four Dryads, wounded a wizard, and took away 3 power dice... definitely didn't win me the game". If, even when it has a mediocre game, it's still doing significant amounts of points damage, winning you magic phases, and keeping its bearer in a safe position then it doesn't need to steal you the game singlehandedly to be considered a great/OP item.

The amount of feedback from the player base at the Ogre Stronghold can be used to get a pretty fair estimate of how often the Hellheart is useful, provided that the players accurately report successes vs failures, instead of just boasting about nuking 4 elf mages in one game every time. In general, people like to brag on forums more than they like to admit defeat, so I would say that the results on the Stronghold are probably skewed in the Hellheart's favor. Even if it was skewed, read the results and about 1/3 to 1/2 of the time, it makes no major difference in the game.

This is a bit absurd. Ogre players are those who have most to lose or gain from the widespread perception that the Hellheart is OP, and in order to safeguard their interests they will naturally downplay the effect the item has. Intelligent people in a position of advantage tend to circle the wagons and minimize the display of it, not flaunt their advantage and beg to be knocked down a peg.

[Lord Inquisitor]

Some points here:

- Yes, unless you want to blow half your points of your slaughtermaster, you need to buy a second caster butcher/firebelly. Now a second caster has uses, particularly if you want to take a lore other than gut but ogre casters are far from cheap, running you 150 points minimum for the hell heart. It also means that your butcher has no defensive items. Now he can hide in the second rank with a great weapon but it does limit how you can use him.

- Realistically speaking, I would say out of tournament games, about 25% of the time it flat does nothing, because the enemy has no mages, or the enemy mages die before I use it, I never get into effective range, the bearer dies (in one memorable case to an enemy hellheart) or (most commonly) I roll insufficient range to hit any mages. 50% of the time it gives a substantial boost to my magic defences. 20% of the time it wrecks an enemy magic phase completely, often with moderate collateral damage to wizards and units nearby. 5% of the time it obliterates an opponent's wizards, blowing massive chunks in their units and effectively wins the game for me outright.

- Understand that when the ogre players downplay this item, it just doesn't work that well on average. If you run VC it's going to seem broken every time but the ogre player doesn't play VC every game. I'm not saying its fair that this item wrecks VC quite as badly as it does, but VC are just unfairly victimized by it. I don't think it's a balanced item - some armies don't care too much about it and others are wrecked by it - but that doesn't mean it is underpriced, because on average, it isn't worth more to the ogre player. It's a useful item for ogres because it offers some protection against players who would just six dice mindrazor or purple sun.

[fubukii]

Lord I As usual i think your points are spot on and your analysis on hellheart are all well and good. I play skaven and daemons of chaos, and i fall into the category of thinking this item is completely ridiculous for its cost vs my set of armies and a few others. 50 points to potentially either destroy enemy wizards, shut down a magic phase, or cripple it is a very minor investment for the damage potential. Even if say it does nothing which indeed happens on occasion, its only 50 points and the wizard can still contribute to the game. With my Daemons of chaos i would have to take 240 points of worthless unit thus netting me at a huge disadvantage. FOr the skaven i have ways to get around it better, although my furnace is toasted, and thus since ogres came out i dropped it entirely.

On the topic of ogres i believe the stem of the ogres OP comes from the abuse of ironblasters and mournfangs probably some of the best units in the game period. Point for point mournfangs lay down such a onslaught its tough to deal with. Backed with big ogre units its quite the hassel, has most units just can not outright compete in a competitive game. Redirecting and perfect charge set ups are essential for doc to beat ogres, and dont take a greater daemon (dropped from my list too, unless its balesword or a KOS) as he may be bait to ironblasters/hellheart. My skaven with WLC if lucky dominate ogres.

But back on task, what is consdiered OP? Its objective if you think armies like Skaven, LM, DOC, DE, and woc are "op" i Would then also say that ogres are also OP as they are on the same level.

[fubukii]

Lord I As usual i think your points are spot on and your analysis on hellheart are all well and good. I play skaven and daemons of chaos, and i fall into the category of thinking this item is completely ridiculous for its cost vs my set of armies and a few others. 50 points to potentially either destroy enemy wizards, shut down a magic phase, or cripple it is a very minor investment for the damage potential. Even if say it does nothing which indeed happens on occasion, its only 50 points and the wizard can still contribute to the game. With my Daemons of chaos i would have to take 240 points of worthless unit thus netting me at a huge disadvantage. FOr the skaven i have ways to get around it better, although my furnace is toasted, and thus since ogres came out i dropped it entirely.

On the topic of ogres i believe the stem of the ogres OP comes from the abuse of ironblasters and mournfangs probably some of the best units in the game period. Point for point mournfangs lay down such a onslaught its tough to deal with. Backed with big ogre units its quite the hassel, has most units just can not outright compete in a competitive game. Redirecting and perfect charge set ups are essential for doc to beat ogres, and dont take a greater daemon (dropped from my list too, unless its balesword or a KOS) as he may be bait to ironblasters/hellheart. My skaven with WLC if lucky dominate ogres.

But back on task, what is consdiered OP? Its objective if you think armies like Skaven, LM, DOC, DE, and woc are "op" i Would then also say that ogres are also OP as they are on the same level.

[Scammel]

'When everyone's special - no-one is.'

By the point a third of the game's armies are considered 'OP', even with a handful of builds from 'lower' armies giving them a fair share of trouble, it's probably worth re-evaluating the power baseline.

[Balerion]

Some points here:

- Yes, unless you want to blow half your points of your slaughtermaster, you need to buy a second caster butcher/firebelly. Now a second caster has uses, particularly if you want to take a lore other than gut but ogre casters are far from cheap, running you 150 points minimum for the hell heart. It also means that your butcher has no defensive items. Now he can hide in the second rank with a great weapon but it does limit how you can use him.

- Realistically speaking, I would say out of tournament games, about 25% of the time it flat does nothing, because the enemy has no mages, or the enemy mages die before I use it, I never get into effective range, the bearer dies (in one memorable case to an enemy hellheart) or (most commonly) I roll insufficient range to hit any mages. 50% of the time it gives a substantial boost to my magic defences. 20% of the time it wrecks an enemy magic phase completely, often with moderate collateral damage to wizards and units nearby. 5% of the time it obliterates an opponent's wizards, blowing massive chunks in their units and effectively wins the game for me outright.

- Understand that when the ogre players downplay this item, it just doesn't work that well on average. If you run VC it's going to seem broken every time but the ogre player doesn't play VC every game. I'm not saying its fair that this item wrecks VC quite as badly as it does, but VC are just unfairly victimized by it. I don't think it's a balanced item - some armies don't care too much about it and others are wrecked by it - but that doesn't mean it is underpriced, because on average, it isn't worth more to the ogre player. It's a useful item for ogres because it offers some protection against players who would just six dice mindrazor or purple sun.

- "Blowing half your points on your Slaughtermaster" is a viable thing to do, though, since he comes ready-to-go without a lot of equipment needs.

- I shy away from using a tournament standard, because in it almost nothing is overpowered since it's always stacked up against whatever OP choices any other book can present (in the land of the blind the Rock Eye is king ). But, then again, trying to define a nebulous "general" standard between all-out tourney builds and total fluffjobs is pretty much futile. Either way, the bearer dying isn't a valid knock against the item, since it applies equally to every other item. The range concern is a matter of probability and risk management; if you're patient and you play the odds the item will work most of the time.

[vcassano]

For what it is worth I saw a Hellheart hit all three of a Vampire player's wizards today. None died or suffered. The Ogre player was tabled... Just some anecdotal evidence, of course.

[TsukeFox]

You know what- at least the Hellheart is 50 points- it could just be 35 or whatever like the stabby dagger dark elves have.

If only it did not cause dimensional cascades....oh well.

[Ratbeast]

Orges dont worry my skaven, after seeing what 3 warp lighting cannons did to Deamons last night, wipe out unit aftert unit, and game was over my turn 3, warp lighting would pwn the life out of any orge unit , least then 300 points to pwn a 3k point army, LOL

[BEARO]

Orges dont worry my skaven, after seeing what 3 warp lighting cannons did to Deamons last night, wipe out unit aftert unit, and game was over my turn 3, warp lighting would pwn the life out of any orge unit , least then 300 points to pwn a 3k point army, LOL

Ogres are fine because Skaven puts them in their place.

Really? Is this really the argument we're using now? lol

[Dreadlordpaul]

You know what- at least the Hellheart is 50 points- it could just be 35 or whatever like the stabby dagger dark elves have.

If only it did not cause dimensional cascades....oh well.

The sacrifical dagger really isnt that great tbh, yeah its nice to have it but its far from op. Then again i use it so that my level 4 can do single die castings technically

[datalink7]

Some points here:

- Yes, unless you want to blow half your points of your slaughtermaster, you need to buy a second caster butcher/firebelly. Now a second caster has uses, particularly if you want to take a lore other than gut but ogre casters are far from cheap, running you 150 points minimum for the hell heart. It also means that your butcher has no defensive items. Now he can hide in the second rank with a great weapon but it does limit how you can use him.

- Realistically speaking, I would say out of tournament games, about 25% of the time it flat does nothing, because the enemy has no mages, or the enemy mages die before I use it, I never get into effective range, the bearer dies (in one memorable case to an enemy hellheart) or (most commonly) I roll insufficient range to hit any mages. 50% of the time it gives a substantial boost to my magic defences. 20% of the time it wrecks an enemy magic phase completely, often with moderate collateral damage to wizards and units nearby. 5% of the time it obliterates an opponent's wizards, blowing massive chunks in their units and effectively wins the game for me outright.

- Understand that when the ogre players downplay this item, it just doesn't work that well on average. If you run VC it's going to seem broken every time but the ogre player doesn't play VC every game. I'm not saying its fair that this item wrecks VC quite as badly as it does, but VC are just unfairly victimized by it. I don't think it's a balanced item - some armies don't care too much about it and others are wrecked by it - but that doesn't mean it is underpriced, because on average, it isn't worth more to the ogre player. It's a useful item for ogres because it offers some protection against players who would just six dice mindrazor or purple sun.

I play both Ogres and Vampire Counts. I never run Hellheart simply because of what it does to Vampire Counts. I think overall most other armeis aren't as affected by it, and that it isn't overly unfair. But it does have a large chance to ruin a Vamps game just by itself which is why I don't use it. Just go with scroll instead.