Dissecting an Ogre Part 1 by: Geoff.

An all monster army, that’s awesome, except that Ogre Kingdoms couldn't really win a game in 7^th Edition in my opinion. So it was with great anticipation and some trepidation that I decided to check out the new edition of the Army book and I can happily report that finally Ogres seem to be awesome as they should be in 8th.

This blog will follow the progress of my mission to create, build and paint a decent tournament army from a brand new book list. It will cover everything; from how I decided what to include in the list to checking up on my painting and converting progress each week, then ultimately onto my first few games and what I learnt from the process.

 As a gamer I love mid-range strategies, by which I mean ones that are not based on the extremes. Instead of acting out a very rigid but powerful plan and hoping to dominate an opponent by doing one thing way better than them, I prefer to spread my capabilities then try to react to my opponent and strategic events in a more successfully adaptive way than them: going weak where they are strong and strong where they are weak, the old Sun Tzu paradigm blah blah.

I have been a WFB player for many years and managed a number of GW stores during this time but my main WFB experience lies a lot more in 6^th and 7^th editions than 8^th so far. Even more so than a WFB player I have also been a reasonably successful card game player (semi-pro Magic the Gathering player having been rated 20^th in the world at one point), which allows me to evaluate Warhammer strategy from a somewhat unique perspective which I hope will be helpful to many and at the very least generate a discussion or two.

Overview Of Changes to Ogres:

Why have Ogres got so much better?

Primarily this is because they have so many more good options than before.

• Their combat units remain strong with Tyrants, Bulls, Ironguts, Stonehorns et al. putting out some pretty exemplary fight time skills,
• some pretty sweet back-up: shooting over decent range courtesy of Leadbelchers, the Thundertusk and the Ironblaster.
• Ogre magic is now a bunch more versatile with the ability to dabble in the lore of: fire, Heavens, Beasts or Death.
• Ogres access one of the cheapest and therefore best redirectors in the game in the form of the Sabertusk pack.

All these factors mean Ogres can now play any game: shooting, fighting, manoeuvring or zapping, instead of just making a giant Deathstar and hoping to crush all before it, or at the very least deny victory by not having this destroyed.

Here’s my list

2400pts Ogre List:

                                                                             

Slaughtermaster (Lvl4)                               288
Ironfist

Bruiser BSB                                              138
Iron fist, heavy armour, Dragonhide banner 50
Butcher                                                     103
ironfist, Hellheart                                       50

Firebelly                                                   122
Extra hand weapon, Dispel Scroll              25

10 Ogre Bulls                                           335
extra hand weapons, crusher, standard, lookout gnoblar
8 Ogre Bulls                                            268
extra hand weapons, crusher, standard

3 Leadbelchers                                      129

6 Mournfang Cavalry                             430
Heavy armour, Ironfists, Crusher

1x Sabretusk     21
1x Sabretusk     21

Ironblaster        170
Thundertusk      250