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So, as a prelude to starting an ogres army I thought I'd stir up a little discussion. Hopefully a few readers have some experience with the ogres in 8th and can offer some wisdom. I just love the idea of being able to lavish 20 or 30 models with attention, throw some devlan mud on 50 or 100 gnoblars, and have a big, beautiful army.
First off, the aspects I find very encouraging:
-virtually all rules for monsterous infantry; (supporting attacks, 3 model ranks, stomp, etc.) these are all huge boosts for ogres, giving their normally meager blocks a serious fighting chance. This rule makes even plain bulls a force to be reckoned with (a small unit of 6 still gets 3 S5 impacts, 18 S4 AP attacks and 3 more S4 stomps). And don't even get me started on Ironguts.....
-gut magic; even a simple butcher has a 66% chance of casting every gut magic spell on one die, then a 50/50 chance to cast any and all gut magic spells their second time. Obviously each cast has a 33% chance of ending that model's magic phase, but it just shows how *many* spells you can force an opponent to try and dispel. The spells themselves still stand up rather well in terms of effectiveness also.
-no partials for scrap launchers; these suckers sky-rocketed in value. Large blasts with Killing Blow, mounted on S5 chariots? Yes please! And now that you can use both the general and the bsb for all leadership tests, the scrap launcher is far less likely to be zooming off after units when you should be shooting it.
-steadfast; who cares how bad gnoblars fight when you can field them at the absolutely ludicrous price of 10 points per rank? Just keep your Tyrant nearby, and these little guys aren't going anywhere. Add in the fact that you can throw sharp things in two ranks and can stand and shoot no matter the charge distance, most units will get pelted by a minimum of 40 rocks before they come to grips with the little buggers. These sacrificial goblins set people up for the 6-man ogre units that breaks enemy ranks. What a coincidence....?
-gut magic users having wizard levels though extremely difficult to field under 2000 points due to the required Tyrant, Slaughtermasters provide the excellent gut magic, as well as fairly effective magic defense; counting as level 4 wizards means they need to be casting with one just to be on even dice. Not exactly an impenetrable wall of anti-magic, obviously, but helps a lot. A level 2 doing your dispelling is not going to cut it at that point level anyway.

Now, my concerns:
-cost effectiveness: I feel like no matter what I do, ogre units just feel fragile. Even a 300+ point unit of 8 bulls needs to suffer only 6 T4 wounds before they lose their rank bonus entirely. With their best save being 6+ ranged, and 5+/6++ in combat they just don't feel as tough as you'd expect ogres to be.
- hero requirement goofiness; the whole 'butchers can't be generals' 'no slaughtermasters without a tyrant' thing is very troubling. You basically have to bring a Tyrant and a bruiser if you want that bsb (trust me, you want it; everyone does), which puts you 350 points in the hole before you've touched upgrades. At sub 2000 point levels, it's impossible to have both a bsb and a gut magic user of some kind.
-outdated magic items/upgrades: there are maybe a half-dozen items or names, all told, that're worth buying from the army book; almost every item will be bought from the new rule book. Don't get me wrong, that aspect is a big plus; I just feel generic magic items make your characters feel, well, generic.


So tell me, ogre players of 8th edition, what are your thoughts? Any angles I haven't considered? Combos that are much improved? Just want to tell me how great the Thundermace is? Well post below!

At least nowadays, you don't need 3,000 pts to have a Tyrant and a Slaughtermaster anymore.

ZF-

Combat effectiveness has certainly improved, but the new wind sof magic rule is really taking ahuge bite out of our magic effectiveness. The enemy can end up with SO many powerdice, and now adding wizard levels to their dispel roll, it takes almost nothing to dispel out gutmagic in their phase, and then have more than enough to bomb us with spells.

I hate to discourage anyone from a hobby project when they get that look in their eyes like you've got. But in this case I feel I just have to. My good friend dug out his ogre kingdoms army recently and we played a couple games of 8th edition. He has been unceremoniously tabled by my empire army in all occasions. The ogres got increases in their capabilities but unfortunately so did everything else. It comes out in the wash and they end up as bad as before. Their army book is just massively incomplete. There is no flexibility there.

The Defenestrator wrote:-virtually all rules for monsterous infantry; (supporting attacks, 3 model ranks, stomp, etc.) these are all huge boosts for ogres, giving their normally meager blocks a serious fighting chance. This rule makes even plain bulls a force to be reckoned with (a small unit of 6 still gets 3 S5 impacts, 18 S4 AP attacks and 3 more S4 stomps). And don't even get me started on Ironguts.....

One of the really sad fallacies about monstrous infantry is that stomp was a "big boost". my buddy figured out quite quickly that the added mass of the ogre and the supporting attacks granted to all models, just makes them overcosted. For 35 points you get a square of 4x 20mm bases, and only three attacks and a stomp. Unfortunately, the stomp is quite conditional. You can only use it on infantry, warbeasts and swarms. For the same footprint, for 20 points, empire can get 4 strength 4 attacks. Thats almost half the cost, and units of multi-wound models share some of the same drawbacks as their 40k counterpart. There are copious amounts of war machines that do multiple wounds per unsaved wound. This is wasted on standard infantry, but monstrous infantry lose value instantly when hit by cannons/stone throwers. Sure you can now have a lot of extra attacks to the front should you actually rank up your ogres, but you lose stomp, and become even more vulnerable to cannons. And your expensive eggs get consolidated into even less baskets.

The Defenestrator wrote:-gut magic; even a simple butcher has a 66% chance of casting every gut magic spell on one die, then a 50/50 chance to cast any and all gut magic spells their second time. Obviously each cast has a 33% chance of ending that model's magic phase, but it just shows how *many* spells you can force an opponent to try and dispel. The spells themselves still stand up rather well in terms of effectiveness also.

Another 'gut punch' by having a bad army book. I constantly take level 4s with most of the armies i have been writing up, and so what i get when facing a level 2 is basically a free +2 to dispel. Gut magic isn't terrible in my opinion, it isn't spectacular, but the spells are useful and you know them all and can cast them more than once between butchers. But the advantage in the magic phase that a level 4 has over a level 2 is quite palpable. I'd advocate taking a level 4 in a heartbeat, and that wouldn't be a problem. Except the army book has a backbreakingly stupid caveat preventing that from happening at a reasonable points cost.

The Defenestrator wrote:-no partials for scrap launchers; these suckers sky-rocketed in value. Large blasts with Killing Blow, mounted on S5 chariots? Yes please! And now that you can use both the general and the bsb for all leadership tests, the scrap launcher is far less likely to be zooming off after units when you should be shooting it.

This is true. I've got absolutely nothing bad to say about the scraplauncher. I find it completely lame that there is a requirement of having gnoblars in order to take it. But the unit itself is cool.

The Defenestrator wrote:-steadfast; who cares how bad gnoblars fight when you can field them at the absolutely ludicrous price of 10 points per rank? Just keep your Tyrant nearby, and these little guys aren't going anywhere. Add in the fact that you can throw sharp things in two ranks and can stand and shoot no matter the charge distance, most units will get pelted by a minimum of 40 rocks before they come to grips with the little buggers. These sacrificial goblins set people up for the 6-man ogre units that breaks enemy ranks. What a coincidence....?

They bicker, they anchor a very important general to a slow moving block, they fall behind, and you tend to move forward so aggressively (because shooting just destroys your bad armor saves) that you'll have no need for a tarpit. Trappers have functionality, you can scout move right in front of fast cav in order to completely shut down their vanguard move. Almost no one will have any motivation to come at you. I think just about every army in the game can outshoot you. You might be tied with warriors of chaos/beastmen, but they have hellcannons/cygors and better magic.

The Defenestrator wrote:-gut magic users having wizard levels though extremely difficult to field under 2000 points due to the required Tyrant, Slaughtermasters provide the excellent gut magic, as well as fairly effective magic defense; counting as level 4 wizards means they need to be casting with one just to be on even dice. Not exactly an impenetrable wall of anti-magic, obviously, but helps a lot. A level 2 doing your dispelling is not going to cut it at that point level anyway.

Correct.

Your concerns are all pretty founded. The magic weapons are still pretty good. tenderizer and thundermace in particular. But it seems really difficult to get them well armed and given a ward save. This becomes very important when you realize that you need 5 rank and file models (not including a unit champion) to be eligible for look out sir. The lookout gnoblar is crucial, but even then, you have to balance between a very expensive large unit, that will keep your character un-snipable, or the more effective MSU threats, which are less succeptable to flee reactions. As far as magic defense, Hellheart and the great skull have both been excellent deterrents, but the great skull takes away survivability to mundane shooting.

If you were hellbent on pursuing ogres, I'd recommend a focus on scraplaunchers, hunters and trappers, with a big investment put into a tyrant and a slaughtermaster. at 2500 points you won't have much left to spend on magic items for them, so you'll probably need look out sir for a couple turns. That means big blocks of bulls or iron guts.

Don't have my book handy so points may need to get worked around, but I'd play with something like this I think.

tyrant
slaughtermaster

hunter sabretusks

7 bulls standard look out gnoblar musician
7 ironguts standard lookout gnoblar musician
10 trappers
10 trappers

scraplauncher
scraplauncher

If you haven't married the ogres yet. beastmen look like a similar in philosophy, but much more flexible non-shooty non-armored army.

Just gunna make a note that empire vs ogres is a pretty bad matchup for ogres...

Empire gunlines got incredibly powerful now, and ogres will have issues competeing with that.

On the other hand empire gunlines keel over and die to my skaven list because of the storm banner, but I dont go around making claims that empire are worthless based on them fighting one army.

I used empire in some examples of how fragile ogres are to shooting.

Do you think your skaven army would put some serious hurt on them with their shooting?

Do you think ogres would enjoy being shot by 12 flamers of tzeentch?

How about wood elf glade riders and glade guard?

Dark elf repeater crossbow spam?

My observations were based on how its going to work out against about 13 of the 15 armies.

warriors of chaos won't shoot you, but they'll just crush ogre units with superior CC, you know... the kind with armor saves.

I guess in the future I won't use anecdotal evidence.... As it'll turn into a straw man quite quickly.

I honestly think the normal RnF shooting armies pose a lot less of a threat to ogres then you think they will. With a decent toughness and an incredible movement rate they can potentially charge on turn 2, and be in combat where they want to be.

War machine heavy lists will be incredibly problematic...

Lots of normal RNF shooting, not so much i dont think.

Thats promising to hear. Especially coming from you (an active skaven player)

Would you have any concerns with your skaven lists about facing off with a scraplauncher supported ogre army?

I could see that without fast cavalry support, you won't be able to stall them for a turn by drawing out a charge or by prohibiting a march. And although you have many ways to bypass armor, skaven is a little light in the multiple wound causing category.

I still think a combination of your excellent shooting and magic can consistently lower the size of ogres to the point where your unbreakable or steadfast rat blocks could hold and grind out the rest of the victory points. Ironguts are better off than bulls here, but those mountains of strength 3 swings that just put wounds on ogres is going to be tough. And we haven't even addressed either the doomwheel/cannon rares or the pair of HPAs.

One problem, Initiative 2.

I don't think Ogre Kingdom lists will very much. Maybe some new equipment on characters and some units will be combined, but lots of Ironguts should still be standard.

Ogres really dont worry me that much as skaven, but against my dark elves and lizards im a lot more worried. (less so on the lizards, think it will be a good fight)...

I ignore scraplaunchers on my skaven and its worked fine so far, just go for the big units and hope to wear them down to manageable levels with shooting, let them hit my slave tarpits, and shoot them some more.

I have to say I disagree with everything said here in this thread. As an ogre player I am beating the living hell out of anything that gets into CC with me. I typically win CC by at bare minimum difference of 10, I have gone into the 20s range though. Yesterday I got combat with a block of chaos warriors and mauraders, and beat them with my horde of ogres by 22. A 2500 list should look like this:

Tyrant
Butcher
Butcher
Brusier/BSB

18 Bulls (armor, IF, FC)
12 Ironguts (FC)

throw in gorgers for anti warmachines.

Yes we have major weaknesses in shooting, leadbelchers have time and again proved how massively ineffective they are at doing their job. They also eat way too much damage from warmachines. They can't assault buildings effectively which sucks for many senarios.

That said, the errata let's us put up all 3 of our gutmagic buffs on the same unit and lets us use our ogre clubs with ironfists. That is huge. Don't underestimate ogres or you will be stomped.

The triple-stacking gut magic is great, but how are you managing to get by the enemy dispellers? For me, if they take a level 4 or eve 3 wizard, they can block pretty much everything I throw out, and if i DO manage to get a Toothcracker through, the enemy saves a power die during his casting phase and uses his lv 4 wizard to dispel it on a 3+.

Well, if you find yourself facing alot of lvl 4 wizards in your community, you need to step one of those butchers up to a slaughter master. Done. Yes, he'll still be dispelling against a 7, but the slaughter master's spells are going to make sure you get more spells down.

That said, Magic is very whimsical. The ideal magic phase is rolling double 4s or higher on either die. A less than ideal magic phase is gonna hurt your magic, but don't worry because you shouldn't rely on magic in the first place. Make sure you are now using 2 dice for every spell you want to go off. He can't stop it all the time. And if he uses his magic phase to dispel that's less magic coming at you. If there are and arcane shrines on the board or anything that improves your channeling, get to them now. There will be games where no magic comes down for you, just don't plan on having magic buffs when you make a maneuver.

Ogres will still suffer the indignity of being shot to death. The second rank of attacks as well as the stomp attacks are quite beneficial. The biggest issue I found in the magic phase is being restricted to 2 dice per butcher.

Thankfully they removed that restriction in the new errata.. around here we were using the 8th ed rules a couple weeks before the release, which means without the errata, and I was lucky if managed to get a single spell through. Rolling high dice was worthless, the best I could have hoped for was double 3's, allow the enemy to block one spell then get one through he cant stop, and drop the final one on one die, which he might block with his single die.

Sarge wrote:Ogres will still suffer the indignity of being shot to death. The second rank of attacks as well as the stomp attacks are quite beneficial. The biggest issue I found in the magic phase is being restricted to 2 dice per butcher.

Removed restriction with errata.

Also, I can't help with bad rolls/ non errata fights. Also, you must put a greatskull on your BSB and put it in your big ass block of bulls. Laugh maniacally when your opponent launches a spell at it and rolls double 1s or double 2s.

Yay!

Lots of good points here. First I have a mini battle report, then some comments. Its a rather long post, so I will mark the report in italics, so you can skip it if you want.

My first 8th ed game with Ogres was against Empire. It was a special narrative scenario “assault on Bogenhoffen” or some-such. Where the defender takes 75% of the attackers army points value for their army and they get to set up the terrain in a defensive posture…they also get some fortified towers, buildings, ect. We did a small game, just to get the feel of some of the rules. I basically had a battalion box worth of Ogres with a Bruiser (I accidentally paid for a tyrant in Army builder…just adding points, didn’t print the list…but played him as a bruiser in-game. So I handicapped myself some points there)

My opponent took to huge blocks of state state troops (swords and shields), a wizard (which he stuck in one of his massive blocks of troops), a handful of handgunners to occupy the tower, some character on horseback (cant remember of it was a priest, or an elector count, or what) was with the other block of troops, and a hellblaster.

He set up everything first, wanting to try out the horde rules he set up his huge blocks in 10 man frontage. I deployed everything on my left flank, near the table edge. Well away from his hellblaster, and closer to the tower I was meant to control for VP.

First turn his mage cast some sort of electrical storm spell with a range 24” which caused d6 str 6 hits on the init if successful. Well, he got irresistible force, miscast, dropped a large blast template over his mage and took out like 17 of his state troops. He then proceeded to roll a 1 for the number of hits on my Ogre unit….and then a 1 to wound. To add insult to injury, he rolled a 3 on his “sucked into the warp” roll and evaporated. So much for magic in this game.

I slogged my way up his right flank (my left) and ended up loosing 2 of my 4 Ironguts on the way. The remaining 2 charged what was left of the former mage’s unit of troops which was still over 20 strong. I managed to loose the first round of combat, but held my ground. The second round of combat, I won, he rolled badly, broke, and I ran them down….my overrun took me closer to his advancing hellblaster…on my next turn….I needed to roll a 9 on my charge roll to hit the warmachine, and ended up short….so the Ironguts were mowed down on my opponent’s following turn.

My Leadbelchers managed to clear out the handgunners from the tower with a little shooting, and some close assault by turn 3.

My unit of bulls lead by my Tyrant-priced Bruiser didn’t get their bullcharge because my opponent’s huge block of state troops with general moved to within 6” My bruiser got called out in a challenge when I finally did charge him, and through a series of bad rolling, the fact that Ogres have an abysmal initiative of 2, and the fact that the state troops got “horde” I lost by like 4 and proceeded to fail my panic check….after being ruthlessly run down by the Empire general’s unit, we called it, as I had 2 leadbelchers left on the table to his hellblaster and 30+ man unit with general.

I have noticed a few things. The Ogres can put out a few more wounds now with the Monstrous Infantry special rule. But the initiative order thing hurts them with their horrible init. of 3. The errata thing about the clubs with ironfists is huge, you get the option of handweapon and shield (6+ ward) and the str. 5 club attacks to boot.

The biggest negative for Ogres now is their lack of armor, and the fact that multi-wound warmachines make a mess out of our pricey 3 wound models. One way to combat this, is to take Gorgers. These can come in and gobble up warmachine crews from whichever table edge suits your needs. The only drawback here, is the fact that they don’t start coming on until turn 2…and even then only 50% of the time.

An interesting list I have tried is using Skrag the Slaughterer. This solves your Tyrant/Slaughtermaster points problem because he counts as your general (canceling the mandatory tyrant rule) and also counts as a Slaughtermaster (lvl 4 wizard) The next cool thing about this special character is the fact that you can take gorgers as a special choice now instead of rare….and you can take 2 gorgers for every special “slot.” I know, I know, there are no more “slots” in 8th edition…but there is a max number of times you can duplicate a special or rare choice. For “special” it is 3 (at least at the average game points level), and for “rare” its 2. So, normally in a 2000 pt game you could only take 2 gorgers’ right? Well with Skrag, you can take 6, and must take at LEAST 2 (one special choice). Skrag has an awesome stat line. You can’t take extra magic items or armor on him, but he gets his “special abilities” like, first kill, get all your wounds back (huge). Next on the chart is all gorgers get to come in on the following turn (huge if you have 6 gorgers!). It doesn’t say anything about him not being able to join a unit, so I stuck him with Ironguts the last time I played (hopefully I didn’t miss a rule or something). The interesting thing was, Skrag and his unit never got into combat in my game against Dwarves! But my gorgers took his warmachines apart, and then proceeded to take out his gunners!

I ended up with a victory even though my expensive general’s unit never saw combat….though magic was a push…especially against dwarves. I ended up getting one spell by him the entire game.

Wow, even with 6s to hit your belchers did something? That's impressive rolling sir.

I'd like to see your list if you would show me. I'm curious as to your actual make up.

You can take 4 gorgers with scrag, not 6. and in 3k+ you can take 8.

The 8th ed rules state that you can take up to 3 of the same special choice in an army under 3000pts....and under Skrag's entry in the rulebook, "Army of the Slaughterer" says that he may take Gorgers as a special choice instead of the rare that they normally are. It goes on to say that you may take 2 gorgers per special choice (and that you must take at least 2...taking up one special choice). My math works this out to 6 max, so I'm not sure where you are coming up with 4.

I don't have my list with me now, but it was something like 8 bulls with clubs and ironfists (full command), a bucher, 4 ironguts, 30 gnoblars, 8 gnoblar trappers, 4 leadbelchers, 6 gorgers, Skrag, and 3 maneaters (which didn't do much but get shot to pieces...way overpriced IMHO)

I like Ogres.

I think most people have pointed out their strengths and weaknesses. For me the top of the lists are:
-limited options (wounds and fists, basically)
-very limited shooting
-expensive

I've never been a huge fan of gut magic. I don't think statistically it helps the race that much and the penalties for miscast still suck.

One thing that I don't see brought up a lot are Gorgers. To me they are one of the scariest units in the entire game. This isn't some dinky skirmisher appearing behind you, it's a super ogre. It will easily take out any war machine and it will do it in a completely cost-effective manner. Letting loose 2-3 Gorgers at an enemy's flanks is terrifying. Then at the other end you got all these charging fatties ready to eat your face. I think they are almost mandatory and if the enemy sees you have them, they will almost certainly set up much more conservatively, which is good for you being able to close ranks.

And Slavegiants aren't bad at all.

Slave giants aren't bad? Huh? The lack of stubborn makes them the worst giant in the game, and its not like giants were all that great to begin with.

Yes gorgers are amazingly effective, but I always forgot to roll for them So eager to get the bull charges off I forget them.

Worst unit in the game? That's kind of silly.

They got LD10, terror, ignore little un's. There's just not a whole lot of times they're going to be running away. And they're 30 points cheaper than normal Giants. A quick look at the back of the BRB and Crown of Command, an item that gives nothing but Stubborn, costs 35--though you'd be able to confer that onto a unit presumably by joining it. And they get thundersmash now at str 6, in addition to whatever goofy attack they do.

Wait, what? If your General is stubborn, inspiring presence confers stubborn as well as his leadership value?

@Falcon: a stubborn character in a unit makes that unit stubborn.

@Dukerustfield he didn't say worst unit. he said worst giant. He's right.

Also, I'm not so sure about gorgers. Killing blow doesn't work on warmachines, and gorgers wound on 6s against warmachines like everyone else. Since it's impossible for a gorger to hit a warmachine before turn 3 (turn 2 arrives 4+, can't charge until the following), he's statistically going to cause a single wound to a warmachine in the entire game. Don't get me wrong, I'm fine letting a 75 point model tie up a warmachine all game, but when the enemy is guaranteed 2 shots at minimum, I'm not sure I'm actually doing that much to stop him. I feel like gorgers are better suited for charging the sides of cavalry units or blocks without GW and making them waste a few turns killing him off.

At least 60 points of scouting gnoblar trappers will average 1.11 saves on a warmachine crew first turn with sharp things. Get lucky and a 2-crew warmachine is gone straight out of the gate.

in combat you use the majority toughness of the crew, not the warmachines toughness.

Gorgers wreck warmachines if they can survive a turn in the backfield.

I think an ogre MSU army would do perfect. instead of one 12 man deathstar-esque brick, bring two six man bricks. This WILL spread your magic thinner, however, your opponent will have to split fire against several more units.

Ogres at their core are still pretty bad infantry and if you put them together in big groups, peoples AWESOME infantry can mug the hell out of it with multiple charges.

28 khorne warriors > 18 ironguts

ogres are the only M6 army i can think off, they have to try for flank and rear charges now more than ever i believe.

Slave Giants are stat-wise the worst giants, sure. But I don't think point-wise.

Depending on the size of your game, you can wait for gorgers to arrive if you're not already within warmachine shooty distance. Or at least wait a turn before putting yourself in range.

I also think splitting up ogres into smaller units isn't bad. People may get too enamored of all the horde-type rules, but all those effect unit spells are going to hurt.

Skaven move 5 or 6 for their cores.

Hey guys, i'm new to the site, and new to 8th ed. long time WH player though. my group and i are having a small tourney day, about 15oopts, to learn the ins and outs. I'm using a conversion army i've been working on for a little while now, the "Klovis and the Equis"(centaur kingdom), and they're based on the ogre book... so-ooo, my question is...

how about no butcher at all? in this smaller game at least?

briefly,
tyrant-arabycarpet, S of swiftslaying, shieldof ptolos.
b.s.b. rampage banner
8 bulls, fc, mobility banner(+1")
10 trappers
scraplauncher
slavegiant
2x gourgers

the plan... go strong left or right side, get around to the flank, then the rear.
try to get into his mage's asap.

how am i lookin? (it's a tourney remember, many opponents)

without a butcher and magic defense you are going to get absolutely hammered by any army that brings some magic.