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Hey dakka,

I'm just curious if anyone has had any form of success with ogryns/bullgryns. 

I would like to get the models, but I can't really justify it if I will never ever use them. 

I'm currently thinking of doing them as bullgryns. Putting them in a valk,  and using that new formation that allows for no scatter during grav chute insertion. 

I remember in the last book how is states that ogryns can only take Chimeras as transports now but I can't find anything on it in this edition. 

I don't play ig, but I like the concept of ogryns, and I also like conversions. I would suggest converting some bulgryns to represent other imperial forces you can ally with.
The 1st one that comes to mind is kastelan robots. Give them some guns or power fists and then do a comisar to represent the admek that controls them. Kastelans are great units for their price, and doing them out of ogryns has been done b4 (check Google image).

You can have moderate success with them but ogryns really don't have any role to fill for that price. They could be fine if they were much cheaper and had access to ap2 but currently, platoon is better in almost any way other than size.
If you love the models, homerule them to be good enough if your opponents are fine with it.

Ogryns? No, never. Bullgryns? Yeah, they've actually turned out to be decent when used to shield Pask with camo netting for a mobile 3+ cover save! just too bad that they're still too expensive for what they do.

I have seen Inquisition lists with allied IG CAD. Ogryn where sent in a LR Reedemer with a priest to assault quickly the enemy line. Can be a point sack but seems funny to try and quite nasty in CC.

Love their new models, hate their rules. Whether you are using ogryn or bullgryn, both do not excel at their dedicated roles. IG's #1 weakness is close combat. Literally 95% of the time I see an IG player lose, its because the gunline was overrun in assault. How do you counter assault? Well most people take allies. Why? Because ogryn/bullgryn/rough riders don't do their job. With tons of armies fielding assault units that have S10 weapons, or crazy 2+ saves/3+ invul saves + feel no pain, those 3 wounds Ogryn/Bullgryn have is worthless. You are better off taking a huge blob squad of guardsmen with priest & just tarpitting the enemy. That isn't even taking into account their outrageous point cost per model & the fact that you need to assign a high leadership model to babysit them bloating their cost even more. This is definitely one of those units where GW makes me do this:

They're meh, unable to hold their own against comparable points of any other army's elites in the game. If you want a counter assault unit, a hellhound will do a better job protecting your back line, 5 rough riders with two framers will also do a decent job for cheap, and pcs with heavy framers will also work. Point is, cc is never a good idea with Guard, our special weapons do much better.

 TheSilo wrote:
They're meh, unable to hold their own against comparable points of any other army's elites in the game. If you want a counter assault unit, a hellhound will do a better job protecting your back line, 5 rough riders with two framers will also do a decent job for cheap, and pcs with heavy framers will also work. Point is, cc is never a good idea with Guard, our special weapons do much better.

I think the best point to be made is that guard can essentially ally in a much better CC unit that bullgryns. Why not just ally in some TWC?

Any time I've seen them talked about well, is because a player was leveraging complex synergies alongside Priests and Psykers.

Bullgryns with Ministorum Priests and Forewarning/Endurance are a totally different story than when deployed alone and IG actually has a great Psyker formation, which makes a big difference.

You'd still have to figure out "what's the point". Mostly for fun I guess? I have read one story of Maulgryns with priest+psychic support owning a Wraithknight, which is a pretty memorable upset.

It's not super competitive, but one fun trick I saw was a huge squad of Ogryns (or maybe Bullgryns? Idk, I don't play Guard) with Azrael allied in, giving them all 4++ invuln and a Psyker rolling for FNP.

Yoyoyo wrote:
Any time I've seen them talked about well, is because a player was leveraging complex synergies alongside Priests and Psykers.

Bullgryns with Ministorum Priests and Forewarning/Endurance are a totally different story than when deployed alone and IG actually has a great Psyker formation, which makes a big difference.

You'd still have to figure out "what's the point". Mostly for fun I guess? I have read one story of Maulgryns with priest+psychic support owning a Wraithknight, which is a pretty memorable upset.

I've tried that setup, and I think it fails both the comp test and the fun test. You're looking at more than 200 points when you throw in a priest and psyker. The priest's hymns are unreliable, and the psyker's buffs don't seem to gel particularly well with the ogryns unless you land just the right powers.

In all honesty you are better of buying an Eversor Assassin. One of those ran into my Ogryns and butchered 4 of them. The remaining failed their morale check and got butchered.
Wounds on the Eversor? None.

I really want to make Ogryns work with Renegades but it's even harder to do than with guard. We don't get the transport baneblade and the base cost is a lot more. The only way to do it is make massive comprises in your list but then it's going to be be first thing your opponent blasts off the table in a large squad and a small squad in a transport is really even more useless. You have to ally in chaos marines and use the extremely expensive Kharybdis Assault Claw to make them work then you have no points left!

Ok, so seeing as they are pretty much terrible. The next question is what will it take to make them better? Is it a 50% point decrease? A special super fast assault transport? How about both!?

UrsoerTheSquid wrote:
Ok, so seeing as they are pretty much terrible. The next question is what will it take to make them better? Is it a 50% point decrease? A special super fast assault transport? How about both!?

In order for Ogryns to be competitive, they would need:

* A significant points reduction (Bullgryn's base cost is 33% more expensive than wulfen, yet lack any of their awesome special rules)
* Keep the higher armor save they have (since they are practically running around in flannel shirt) but give them 4+ FNP to represent their hardiness/thick skin.
* Fix their melee weapons. If you are using ogryn, their ripper guns should provide a bonus in melee. They are specifically designed to be used as both a melee weapon/firearm but their rules don't represent that. It should have +1S/rending or something to that effect. Power mauls for bullgryn also need to be fixed. Concussive is worthless against assault units using S10 unwieldy initiative 1 power weapons. Perhaps power mauls could work like grav, where the lower the opposing units armor save the more effective they are against it.
* Higher leadership. Ogryn are renown for their courage/bravery. Likely the result of their lack of intelligence, but brave none the less. If GW feels their leadership is good where it is, then they need to reduce the point cost of the unit even more because you have to attach a babysitter to them to make them functional.

As far as a delivery system for the Ogryn, well that is something I am not sure about. Because of Ogryn's size, it makes it very difficult to embark several of them in a transport. Chimeras work to some degree, but troop capacity is definitely an issue. Taurox are way to fragile. Sure you can throw a slab shield on them & march them up the table, but then you are equipping them with grenade launchers which defeats their purpose entirely (effective assault unit for IG).

One thing to note, Renegade Ogryn are fearless.

Do you think either of their formations could be useful? I plan on getting enough to field either one just because I think ogryn are cool but I am curious about what people think of their formations.

In my opinion, Ogryn should be reduced to 25 points per model. They should bring back the old 3rd edition option of taking 2 close-combat weapons (giving +1 attack AND +1 strength). Let them have grenades

Reduce the price of Bullgryn accordingly.

Let the squad mix and match ogryn and Bullgryn. Why does this unit need to be uniform? They aren't exactly known for it. If anything they are known a the LEAST uniform unit in the fluff.

Make the Bonehead option worth it. If they have a Sargent option let the guy take some additional wargear or weapons. An Ogryn with an Ogryn sized-powerfist would be awesome in so many ways, although I'd also settle for an eviserator.

Now that I think about it, charging a unit of bullgryn with a Bonehead that has 4 strength 10 attacks at AP2 would be a daunting task even for terminators. I actually quite like it.

Not competitive at all but my buddy would run 3 of them with a commissar in a transport and they would bully units.

 Intercessor wrote:
I really want to make Ogryns work with Renegades but it's even harder to do than with guard. We don't get the transport baneblade and the base cost is a lot more. The only way to do it is make massive comprises in your list but then it's going to be be first thing your opponent blasts off the table in a large squad and a small squad in a transport is really even more useless. You have to ally in chaos marines and use the extremely expensive Kharybdis Assault Claw to make them work then you have no points left!

A full squad of Renegade Ogryns are bloody terrifying to face in CC.. And would be terrifying in general if the fully-kited squad didn't cost almost 2,000 bloody points.

So far as regular Ogryns go? Really the only thing they're (marginally) effective at is beating down large hordes of weak units. With their higher-than-average toughness, strength, wounds, and attack stat (plus the high shot assault weapons with no AP) they can seriously menace massive blobs of boyz, hormagaunts, guardsmen, or.. Uhm.. Wyches and wracks(?) in close combat. The problem is that. no one really worries about those units to begin with.

Plus as soon as you add a character or special weapons (ork Nob with PK, massive blob platoon with power-axe sergeants) the Ogryns start losing the only scenario in which they're useful.

I did think of a hilarious thing to do but it probably wouldn't be all that effective. Coteaz and a xenos inquisitior with his fany grenades, one min squad of acolytes who grab a land raider crusader, then an allied detachment of IG with a priest, lord commissar, and a veteran squad with mortar team because of points. The veterans chill on an objective all game. The acolytes get out of the landraider turn one and the 4bullgryn with mauls get in. They are joined by coteaz and the inquisior and commissar. Coteaz has hammerhand and sanctuary for powers and the inquisitor takes either hammeehand as well or rolls for something random. Then hopefully the landraider makes it to the enemy intact and they disembark and start laying the hurt down. They would be S9 and if there is tau you get furious charge from the inquisitors book so then S10. They would all have HoW at S7 as well which is neat. The enemies toughness is reduced by one so your instkilling things that are normally t5. Finally you have the psychotroke grenades for hilarity.

As I said it would be potentially hilarious but a huge points sink. With I I was planning to bring the tempestus air cav formation.