Ogres... poor Ogres.

[Prometheus]

* I didn't intend to be a rant, I think my goal was to ask questions about other Ogre players and how they use thier army, but somewhere I blacked out and when I woke up this was what I had written...*

So I have been playing Fantasy for a few years now (not many I admit) and my first army was Ogres. They were at the time pretty much brand new. I started them as they seemed to have the coolest fluff (background), looked the coolest (as a big guy I can relate ) and they seemed to be a low model count army (i.e. a high point value per model) army. Then I started playing and it took mea while to get into the groove of Ogres (having played Tyranids for years before in 40K). Then I started noticing that no one else was playing Ogres.

Thats when I released someone at GW dropped the ball somewhere. Now I'm not saying that Ogres can not win, as this is not true I do win about 40% of the time. But that percentage is becuse I play agaisnt Goblin armies, Tomb Kings (without poison bows) and Brets alot. Pretty much I have found that Ogres are either the worst Army GW makes or the second (its either them or Brets).

I havce read alot of fan posts out thier about tactics ranging from "No Armour & lots of Great Weapons" to " lots of Armour & only Hand Weapons" and none really work well. It seems that every time somthing seems to work a rule in the Ogre Kingdoms codex stops it from being effective. It is as if GW sat down to write the book and ever time someone had a good idea, someone else yelled out "BROKEN!" so they set up another rule to stop it from working, unfortunitly they over stopped it and now it doesn't work at all.

If you have never played agaisnt Ogres I will give you a few example of what I mean, if you know about how bad Ogres are you can skip this part...

- a Ogre bull is 35pts each and must be in units of 10 (two ranks of 5) to claim one rank bonus, thats 350pts for one rank bonus! This usually means that Ogres lose combat before it starts by static combat modifieres such as ranks and such

- Ogres are WS 3 and Int 2, which means they usually get hit on a 3-4 by opponents and are hit first

- Ogres have some of the worst armour in the game (even thier magic armour is only ok)

- Ogre magic is short range (1inches') and often results in the wounding of the magic user (called a Butcher)

- Gnoblar are a cheap horde style unit the Ogres can take, but to field a unit of Gnoblar you must have at least one unit of Bulls per unit of Gnoblar

- Ogres have a stone thrower unit, the Scrap Launcher, but to field it you must first have a unit of Gnoblar, which means... see above rule

- We have only 2 special characters and although one is Str 10 hes well over priced and dies alot to shooting attacks, the other is only good if you field him with alot of rare choices (which the models cost like $35 each)

- Ogres have "Big Names" which act in a similar was as Vampire Powers, except that they come out of our magic points so are often not fielded in lue of armour or weapons

I could go on but why. Now I will also be the first to say that Ogres do have Toughness 4, 3 wound base troops but if anyone doubts that they are bad just pick up a codex sometime and you will see or better yet play a game agaisnt Ogres, then you will see. Nothing funniewr then 8foot tall eating machines running from combat like little girls becuse they only cuased 3 wounds and they suffered 3 and the enemy unit had 3 ranks, a banner, a musician (not that it mattered...)

[Grabnutz]

Cheers Mr.P

Here's me with a brand new, half assembled Ogre army on the shelf and I am now sooo depressed

My thought is this, a good general can make any army work.

Personally I am an awful general who counts himself lucky to win one game a year. This is because I love the fluff and base my armies on that, and enjoy playing the army I have worked so hard to build, paint and personalize in the manner described in the fluff.

I did read several pro-Ogre blogs and sites before deciding on the big chaps. I also read up the army book and all the nay-sayers. I saw pretty much what you describe above, and it made me fall in love with them even more. After all who can resist an army that, if you lose with it no-one will blame you, and if you should win (thank-you dice gods) then everlasting shame falls upon your opponent?

So stiffen that upper lip, gird yourself with a ferocious gut plate, and wade into glorious combat knowing that you just can't lose!

[Randroid]

Not sure what the point of this post is? It reads a lot like whining.

If you haven't already done so I recommend stopping by the [URL="http://www.ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php"]http://www.ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php[/URL] - the Ogre Stronghold. If you try to get advice on how to play Ogres from anywhere else I guarantee you it will be flawed in some way.

Yes Ogres are not the "best" army out there but I wouldn't say they are the worst right now (Beasts take that cake I think). Word on the street is a new book in 2010 but we'll see how that goes.

I have been playing my Ogres for a little over one year now so I speak from experience when I say you can win. It isn't easy, and it requires a lot of "outside the box" thinking and a little luck but it can be done.

Shameless plug for my WHFB blog (with plenty of Ogre related posts) - [URL="http://drinkinandmodelin.blogspot.com/"]http://drinkinandmodelin.blogspot.com/[/URL]

To touch on your points:

- Yes Ranks are too expensive but Ogres do not win through static CR they win by killing things. That means getting the charge off, with a flank charge for support, and killing things on the way in. That means having some fighty characters (say what you will about Ogres - Bruisers and Tyrants are not fun to fight) and enough support units to make this happen.

I have also had limited success with running on massive "Bullstar" (7 Bulls and 3 characters with banners) to make use of some CR but it still comes down to home many kills I can get on the charge.

- Yes Bulls (Ogres in general) have crap stats and will get hit first in subsequent rounds of combat. That's why you don't want there to be any additional rounds! If you are getting charged something has gone wrong. If you are still in close combat something has gone wrong.

- Ogres are not heavily armored troops. If you want a 4+ take "eavy Bulls" with LA and IF and use it as a shield.

- The range for Gut Magic is 6" per Butcher (12" for Slaughtermasters or Skrag). Yes you have a chance of hurting yourself - welcome to the world of WHFB magic!

- Fielding a bunch of Gnoblars isn't going to win you any games so who cares if you have to take units of Bulls to get more?

- You can take the Scraplauncher with one unit of Trappers (which you should have in every list anyway - they are arguably the best unit available in the OK book point for point).

- Yes the Ogre special character selection is crap. Oh well ... nothing to be done about it until a new book is released.

- Yes Big Names are not as good as Vampiric Powers. Oh well ... nothing to be done about it until a new book is released.

Sorry if this seems rude but I don't appreciate people talking smack about Ogres. Whining isn't going to solve anything. Get out there and play with them more, have fun, and learn to make it work. That is what I have been doing and so far my win/loss ratio isn't terrible.

[Prometheus]

To Grabnutz - I agree fluff is the main reason I picked the big guys. I also agree that gaming and having fun is far more important then winning. I think fun = winning. If you can do that and win thats awesome, if you cann't its no big deal. Lets admit it we play with little plastic men, you gotta have a scene of humor to do that with a straight face. And by the way I totally own a gut plate!

To Randroid - Ranting and whinning are two different thing. I do agree I came close to whinning but its not like I was saying "I never win and its NOT MY FAULT its the rule book and GWs fault." I just think theres alot that could be improvewd with the army and I would like to see some steps be taken to reach that end. I mean it is kinda sad when 8feet tall eating machines scatter like roaches when the lights come on if the face oif most armies base troop. I would liek to see possible tougness 5 or a thick skin 6+ base save on the guys, or maybe just make them stubborn. I have gone over it with my friends alot and they all admit that the Ogres need a fix, and sadly in more then one area.

As it pertains to your comments on unit sizes/builds I totaly agree with alot of them I liek to run cheap heros in my units to buff them out and find the "Bear Trap" method of luring my opponent into me then side charging and front charging works but as is often the case one good round of shooting or magic and my army of 40 models is half dead. Now I have beaten every army I have ever faced at least once (except Vampire Counts), so I'm not saying Ogre victory is impossible just its an up hill battle were sadly the dice rolls are more important then stratedgy.

With that said I would like to thank you for the websites. The Stronghold seems like somthing I will be spending a large deal of time reading over. Also nice theme of your army, I have a character whose name is Beergut. My Ogre trides name is: The Spinebuster Tribe, my Tyrants name is Vertabreaker

[Randroid]

Re: Whining vs. Ranting - I can see the difference, here is my rant concerning Ogres:

Dogs. Dogs have a better WS. Dogs.

That is all.

My advice to all Ogre players is stick with it. Don't let people trash on your army, make them eat their words as you ram the army book down their throat (not literally please).

Use the one big advantage you have against them - people underestimate you and your list. Once you start rolling through a few of their regular hard lists people will take notice.

The only army I have yet to beat with my Ogres is DoC (only managed a draw against them) but I think it can be done (just need some careful list building and luck).

Never give up!

[RocketRollRebel]

I agree that there arnt alot of followers of the great maw around but that should just encourage you even more. Cuz now you are elite! You're not one of the millions of Dwarf, or Empire, or DoC armies rolling around the table. Take pride and keep fighting... (the good fight?) fighting in general! haha

Funny thing is that the OK book is a Phil Kelly book. He normally writes some gnarly army books/codex's. Meh. Everyone has bad days i guess.

[lobster-overlord]

I just ran my first 3000 pt ogre list today, and found I did much better with more units of fewer models. Not worrying about rank bonuses, because I figure I can pull off outnumber more often. I dropped champions in favor of more models (about 1 extra bull for every two champions I dropped). I sacrificed the first few units on the front line, but once the Brets I was against drove through, the Maneaters and Ironguts began to wail on them (along with the gnoblar trappers who managed to knock off one Knight of the Realm, thus being someone worth the points...)

I've had limited success with them, but TONS of fun more than anything else. I don't play much so my losses come more from inexperience than a bad book/list. My gaming companions today were actually rather impressed with the list based on the shear muscle that you can bring to bear against one of their man-sized armies.

I used a Slaughtermaster for the first time, and I don't do well with magic, but, she could have pulled off several spells that would have caused my enemy to waste dispells before getting to the good spells. (She in that I used the female ogre model rather than a butcher since I hate those models).

As to ranks, I thought Ogres, due to size gained ranks from 3 models, not 5. I don't know if I'm just transposing the Bret rule since that's my other army...I can't seem to find anything on that now that I'm going back through the book.

JohN M.

[Prometheus]

Ogres under the current rulebook need to be in 5 across ranks to start to get rank bonuses. It should be noted you may place only 3 in a rank and then place a another 3 behind them, however they would not earn rank bonuses in combat this way. They would however recieve bonuses to thier Bull Charges though as that rule is only dependent on the models directly behind the ogres who charges.

[Randroid]

You could have one rank with 5 behind it if you wanted.

@ Lobster - glad to see you enjoying your Ogres again!

[lobster-overlord]

Thanks, and thanks for turning me onto the stronghold. Lots of good info over there specific to what I want to know about the ogres.

I just bought a fresh pack of Greenstuff, so not only will I be converting Vostroyans this winter, I'm going to work on some ogres.

John M>