Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Second game at 2400 with my ogres, with a list that was increasingly looking like my official list for Crossroads, going up against 2400 points of Brets destined for the same event. Like with the vamps, this was his first game with his boys at 2400, since he's been frantically painting like much of my club ... I'm painting frantically too, but I do only have 2 ogre characters to go

Game Two: Brettonians

OK

L: Tyrant - mawseeker; the tenderizer, armor of fortune, ironcurse icon
L: Slaughtermaster - sword of swift slaying, wyrdstone necklace, skullmantle

H: Bruiser - BSB, talisman of endurance, cathayan longsword, heavy armor
H: Hunter - sword of might, dragonhelm
H: Butcher - dispel scroll

C: 9 Ironguts - full command, banner of swiftness
C: 7 Bulls - full command, ironfists, light armor
C: 8 Trappers

S: 3 Yhetees - greyback
S: 2 Leadbelchers - bellower

R: Gorger

Basically unchanged from last game, except for downgrading the BSB's ward to buy him a fancy +1 WS / I / AP sword and the SM an even fancier ASF sword for the occasional rerolling.

Brets

L: Lord - grail vow, virtue of each wound = extra attak, shield of 4+ ward, lance, warhorse

H: Paladin - BSB, grail vow, gromril great helm, sword of might, warhorse
H: Damsel - level 2 [BEAST], scroll, lady's ward for unit
H: Damsel - level 2 [LIFE], silver mirror, horse

C: 12 KotR - full command
C: 12 Errants - errantry banner, full command
C: 6 KotR - full command
C: 30+ Men-at-Arms - full command
C: 10 Archers - musician, flaming, stakes
C: 10 Archers - musician, flaming, stakes

S: Grail Reliquae - 19+ pilgrims

R: 5 Grail Knights - no stand-and-shoot banner, standard, musician
R: Treb
R: Treb

Interesting stuff all around, but then Brets always surprise, don't they?

Scenario
#1) 'Pitched Battle'

Terrain
We started rolling for some good old Inane Terrain, but the 40k tournament going on at the same time had absorbed a lot of terrain so we just fudged it: 1 (ruined) building, 1 marsh, 2 woods and 1 hill (+ 4 hills built into the table), with nothing mysterious about them.

Deployment


Ogre 'stars formed up as usual - BSB + butcher in bullstar, tyrant + slaughtermaster in gutstar. His lord joined the errants, BSB joined the big realmers, foot damsel in with the men-at-arms (giving them the lady's ward thanks to her item), and mounted damsel rocked the second rank of the grailers.

The beast damsel got wild form and amber spear, while the life damsel took throne of vines and regrowth. IMO a perfect set of spells for each girl.

Battle

Turn 1
Noticing that the Bretons had knelt in prayer, the ogres take it upon themselves to rush up and punch their faces in. The tyrant passes his stupidity (and will do so every turn), the slaughtermaster’s wyrdstone doesn’t wound him, and the trappers bicker. Belchers tank up the left flank 12”, yhets hop to the right side of the building, bullstar trundles forward gingerly, the hunter guns it 12” up onto the central hill and the gutstar rumbles forward, angling to keep the tyrant’s LD and the slaughterer’s casting radius over everybody that matters. Magic is acceptable and puts toothcracker on the hunter and the gutstar, while the bonecruncher that gets through vs. the errants manages 1 dead knight.

Brets respond largely by being cagey. The reliquae turns to deal with trappers, exposing its flank to the belchers, which was not so good since they are sitting in a woods and having their ranks negated … The realm bus and the errant bus both inch up (impetuous test passed vs. hunter), the men-at-arms and the grailers waffle a bit with that fat marsh in front of them, and the small realm knights shoot off down the right flank. Magic irresistibly puts wild form on the realm bus, while also blowing up 9 or so peasants from the foot damsel’s dimensional cascade - she survives both her S10 hit and the cool caress of the warp. In the potentially brutal shooting phase the right archers do nothing to the gutstar, the left archers put a couple wounds on the yhets, the left treb misfires and will miss next turn’s shooting, and the right treb scatters huge off of the bullstar. Nice.

Turn 2
Time to rock and roll! Leadbelchers charge the flank of the battle pilgrims, looking for 8 … and fail! Yhets charge the archers, surviving the stand-n-shoot and hoping for a big 10 … and fail! T6 + stubborn hunter charges the realm bus, with the intent of locking it down so the gutstar can absorb some other lances and break the enemy army open, looking for a 5 … and fail! I pause and contain my bitter disappointment. Trappers don’t bicker but don’t really want to fight these pilgrims, so shuffle up listlessly. The bullstar moves up behind yhets and hunter, but are quite limited since those guys REALLY flopped their charges and hardly moved Gutstar grumbles forward very little, preparing to get hurt over the rest of the game. Magic puts another tooth cracker and a trollguts on the gutstar, bringing it to +2T / stubborn / regen / MR(2). Slaughterdude heals himself. Oh, and the gorger shows up and stares at the misfiring treb.

Time to capitalize on ineptitude! The pilgrims charge the trappers, who hit one with a bottle on the way in, and easily make it. The realm bus charges the yhets, who flee, allowing the bus to redirect into the bullstar, which takes it. And the errant bus charges the hunter, who holds and prepares for glory. The small realm lance rounds the flank and points at that of the gutstar, whilst the archers turn around to take long shots at the gorger and the grails / M@A continue to not do much. Magic is shut down, with perhaps the hunter’s toothcrakcer being dropped.

In the first combat of the game, the bret lord is challenged out by the hunter but easily deals him 3 wounds thanks to that awesome virtue + S7 on the charge. The hunter wounds the mere human once, before being kicked in the face by his mount. The errant bus goes to overrun into the bullstar combat … and flops the dice, needing 7” and getting 4”. Not that the realm bus needed help. In a challenge the ogre BSB smacks a knight champ down, the knights deal a collective 8 wounds to the ogres, receive a couple back and easily win thanks to their f-ed up CR abilities. BSB’s unit needs 3, fails twice with the reroll and are run down. Vomicasm, indeed. Also, the pilgrims slap 4 trappers down, easily beat them but test to reform, facing the leadbelchers / gorger and letting the gnoblars run to the table edge.

Turn 3
Where they fail to rally and scamper off to freedom; sadly the yhets fail to rally as well, zooming over to the table edge. The gorger charges the left treb, and the belchers run for possibly shooting at some knights or archers in the future. The gutstar prepares for righteous vengeance and charges the errant bus … but they flee, so the gutstar declares a second charge into the grail knights. Once again the fatties need a 7-8 but can’t do it (even with +1M banner), so shuffle forward to the edge of the marsh, crestfallen. Magic blows strong-ish and results in another toothcracker (+3T) and trollguts on the gutstar, as well as a healed slaughtermaster. The gorger happily swipes the heads off 2 peasants, winning by 3 and wrecking the treb, ending up directly in front of the fleeing errant bus - though come to think of it don’t war machines auto-destroy if beaten in combat? Which would mean that the gorger would have overrun 3”, when he technically can’t Anyway the nearby archers are saddened by the death of the trebuchet and flee, running towards the gutstar of all things.

‘The Army Able to Make Charges’ begins by doing so, with the small realmers flanking the gutstar, which shrugs and holds. The realm bus charges the yhets and kicks them off the table, itself failing its charge a blessedly small amount so as to stay in the fight next turn - well planned, lads. The fleeing errant bus makes its LD10 rally and stays pointing towards the gorger, though the fleeing archers fail to rally and scamper through the gutstar, though miraculously no peasant is harmed in the encounter. Again, the M@A and grail knights remain indecisively looking at the gutstar across the marsh. Bret magic manages an amber spear into a leadbelcher for 1 wound, and shooting follows this up by missing the belchers entirely.

What should have been a gleeful combat for the gutstar quickly soured. The T9 tyrant challenges out the champ, bats aside his puny attaks and drops the tenderizer on him … but either misses, fails to wound or has his wounds warded. The ASF slaughtermaster hits like a pro, but his wee S4 hits are shielded by armor. After waiting for the humies to splash against him, the T7 irongut on the flank hits twice, wounds once, and has that wound saved. Sooooo the gutstar actually lost combat? One stubborn 9 later and it was all good, though the ‘star’s momentum was good and lost at this point.

Turn 4
Compelled to charge, the ravenous gorger slams into the front of the errant bus, with the belchers flanking in mostly for the mayhem of it. Magic blew ridiculously strong (11), which meant another trollguts, another wound healed, another toothcracker and a failed bullgorger. In the gutstar combat the knights could do nothing against the wall of T8-10, but the only thing the combat god ogres could do back was when the tyrant dropped his tenderizer on the champ and killed him, barely. The knights hold easily. Elsewhere the Bret lord serves up 3 wounds to the gorger, ignores the return cuddles of the beast (1 hit, 1 wound, 1 save), and watches in disgust as the belchers flail moronically before running back the way they came. “Imbeciles,” he sneered in a quasi-French accent, whilst stroking his pointy beard.

Brets decide to let the gutstar continue to waste its remaining time with the realm knights, and the archers rally. Magic regrows the fallen realm champ (!), also healing the lord’s single wound as a bonus. Finding something else to challenge, the tyrant brutalizes the little man for max overkill, with his boys waking up and smashing two more thinlings. The three remaining knights run away, killing their standard bearer in the process, and the gutstar has a brief snack before their next charge attempt … And the gorger dies to the chainsaw lord’s horse, after said lord fails to wound the scary T5 critter. The errant bus turns around to face the central carnage. Additionally the right archers fire long into the belchers and drop the wounded one (7 to hit, 5 to wound, 6+ armor), and the remaining trebuchet misfires and dies. <3.

Turn 5
The gutstar charges the grail knights through the marsh, needing to roll 0 and easily getting it. 1 T8 regenerating irongut is killed in the crossing. The lone belcher rallies and stares at the incoming pilgrims. Magic blows weak (1-2) and the SM heals himself. When fighting rolls around the grail knights are vaporized, with the damsel leaving the table while the gutstar reforms deeper into the marsh to take on both remaining bret lances. More importantly the shocking violence of the grail knights’ demise traumatizes the men-at-arms, who take their damsel and leave the board.

In true ogre fashion, every Breton that could charge did: reliquae charges the belcher (stand-n-shoot kills 1-2), both lances slam into the front of the gutstar. The remnant of the wee realm lance also rallies and points at the gutstar’s flank. He uses his considerable magic dice to drop gut spells, getting through 2 toothcrackers and a trollguts, leaving as many of each still on the ‘star. The tyrant’s challenge is answered by an errant champion (he dies a lot), and what follows is knights struggling to get through T6 regen-ing ogres, while saving huge amounts of the guts’ return attaks. Net result was a few dead knights from each unit, a dead irongut, and a slaughtermaster clinging to 1 wound - he had slammed everything he could down into that T7 ogre, realizing that all my buffs were riding on him. The knights actually lose combat, but pass no problem. Note that I forgot skullmantle affects break tests, though he was at a mere -1 from combat anyway.

The belcher was easily run down.

Turn 6
The gutstar’s only movement was to plant its boots a little deeper in the marsh and shove. Magic again rolls up 1-2, and the bloodgruel 2+ roll comes up a 1! The W1, T7 slaughtermaster takes a S6 hit but thankfully regens the wound. The tyrant bellows out another challenge, and finally a pansy Bret character has to accept - the lord himself steps up to the monster. He faffs his attaks but the three wounds the tyrant gets through are ALL warded. Much more importantly though the slaughtermaster is killed by the directed pokes of errants and their horses, and all the gut magic buffs fall away. However with their lances blunted post-charge the knights can’t capitalize too much, dropping two more ironguts but suffering under the return attaks. End result sees the knights lose again but hold with the rerolls.

One more time! The two realm knights from earlier flank the gutstar, and with no magic or shooting it’s right to it. The Brettonian lord still can’t hurt the tyrant, and has his skull - and most of his upper body - split open in reply. His errants likewise are obliterated by irongut reprisal. Sadly the other half of the gutstar couldn’t keep up the pace against the realm lances, losing some wounds for none in return. Thanks to the charge and the flank the gutstar loses combat by 1-2, but the tyrant easily passes it.

------

What I thought was going to be a short one-sided game, after I had charge after charge fail, turned out to be a proper bloodbath, thanks in large part to the Bret player wanting to fight there at the end (and his damsels leaving the tables like good girls). VPs came down to about 50 points in the ogre’s favor, for a DRAW.

After this battle and listening to the latest Podhammer I'm thinking about swapping out the tenderizer on the tyrant for sword of might + crown of command. I'll miss Big T but I need to keep planning to play games with no buffs - he let me accumulate 4 toothcrackers in this game, but ogre buffs are even easier to drop in 8th, and it's only players getting greedy with their own casting that's letting my buffs ride so far. Against the rare wizard-less army those things are just going to melt off ala 7th.

------

Figure a unit-by-unit breakdown might be in order:

Tyrant > As always, brutal, despite rolling like trash most of this game. The tenderizer's ability to swing a combat is enormous, and generally to pulp characters by getting that single wound through their uber-wards. Note that he never used his ironcurse or his 5+ ward.

Slaughtermaster > Great job on the magic front, basically never used the butcher with the level 4 around. ASF sword worked a treat for getting hits vs I3, but S4 sucks against such heavy armor. Again, never used his ward, since regen was in action, and skullmantle failed to nab the couple fear tests I remembered it for.

BSB > Banged up a champ in combat but that's it. Again, never used his ward (85 points in ward saves not doing much) but meh. Never really used his reroll abilities either, beyond a stupid test and his unit's LD3 test.

Hunter > Couldn't make an easy charge, so his sneaky micro-management abilities were wasted. Put 1 wound on the lord, which was healed anyway.

Butcher > Used his scroll! And cast a buff or two before his unit was rolled.

Ironguts > His armor saving abilities combined with my poor hitting abilities meant they weren't melting knights like they ought to, but not complaining too much.

Bulls > Bad match up vs 2/6+ armor, what can I say. With no buffs they broke.

Trappers > Bickered one turn, died the next. Meh.

Yhets > Honestly I overextended on that 17" charge, but when the realm bus was gunning for them I should have held and seen what they could do. In 7th that would be auto-death, but in 8th with I4 vs I3 the yhets actually would get to attak first. BSB assassination ftw? And there's always insane courage. Vs the alternative, which was fleeing and never rallying on LD7, and the one I took

Belchers > Again, brets aren't the best matchups for these guys, but not totally terrible. Put them into silly charges, and they paid for it. At 2500 I already have plans to swap them out for a scraplauncher.

Gorger > Dead treb! KBing the enemy general would have been awesome too, but just a long shot.

- Salvage

Awesome report and I would imagine very useful to Ogre players. The four toughness-raising spells is just silly. T8 Ogres! Fun stuff and good writing.

Holy crap, I had no idea those spells were stackable. I was only vaguely aware of their effects to begin with, but wow, dumping all of them on is pretty pimpin'. I gotta remember that assuming I ever play another game.

Do you think you might have been better off just strolling forward a bit that second turn instead of rushing for the charge? Soaking another turn of fire seems iffy to plan, but seeing as how you did it anyway and it kind of worked out, I am wondering if maybe just getting yourself into a more certain position to charge wouldn't be a bad idea, since charging is just a +1 CR bonus and not ASF.

Good report though, glad you managed to pull the draw sounds like a good opponent!

Ogres do impact hits on the charge so thats why he tried to do it.

Did you remember to do all your stomps?

powerclaw wrote:T8 Ogres! Fun stuff and good writing.

T10 tyrant Glad you enjoyed, will juice the mayhem up with pics soon enough.

Wehrkind wrote:Do you think you might have been better off just strolling forward a bit that second turn instead of rushing for the charge? Soaking another turn of fire seems iffy to plan, but seeing as how you did it anyway and it kind of worked out, I am wondering if maybe just getting yourself into a more certain position to charge wouldn't be a bad idea, since charging is just a +1 CR bonus and not ASF.

Good report though, glad you managed to pull the draw sounds like a good opponent!

HoverBoy wrote:Ogres do impact hits on the charge so thats why he tried to do it.

As Hover says, impact hits are nice, particularly with deepish units and characters - ogres get a hit at their strength if they charge 6" or more, with +1S per ogre behind them. I half feel like it's still like 7th for ogres: if they charge and get impacts, they're probably winning combat. If they get charged, they'll probably win if they have buffs, but they most likely don't have buffs and are losing. Also, the brettonian ability to make long charges is crazy to me, with a charge range of 10-20" and swiftstride in there to make much of that range happen. My ogres have an 8-18" range, but an uncanny ability to trip over themselves

Of course there are more reasons to charge against brets, considering they ALL have lances that only work on the charge, and errants are ItP only on the charge (so vulnerable to fear).

thelordoflife wrote:Did you remember to do all your stomps?

One of the bummers about playing against all cav is that you don't get stomps. In fact I was able to do only one stomp all game, when the solo leadbelcher kicked a battle pilgrim in the face and then ran away. Sad times

- Salvage

Oh hell, I didn't realize they got Impact hits (I was thinking just stomp). That is pretty sexy all around.
I guess you really do get sort of stuck vs all cav like that, in that they can pretty easily make charges that are very difficult for you, letting them goof off and still get a nice charge, while you really have to work for it.

Good luck at Crossroads, and take some bloody pics!

Thanks for the report, I always find them very entertaining and edu-macational. Thinking about Ogres after finishing Dark Elves and despite their perceived power level they look fun to model and play.

- Blackbone

Honestly speaking I had played with Ogres before against my brets army, they never win my brets....I guess it depends upon the General Playing......Really I was surprise when i'm reading Brets battle reports...they lost every Games they play......but for me...only few can stand my brets army......my brets army fear only the goblin fanatics...that's all......and the rest are ok.....Charge with no guts no glory.....

...Perhaps... actual.... punct...uation... would be a... stronger move.


Alternately, you might in fact be William Shatner, in which case I apologize.

As I said....it depends upon the General strategy & Army composition....as per my case...I've never use war machines, actually I'm a full cavalry player....Ogres are awesome warriors and they punch well in close combat....so you have to find their weakness.... brets is brets with high AS in the first turn they can survive, so you have to charge them to the flank. Every time you move it is a two by two unit partners ( 1 big block to the front just in case accept the charge & 1 small block - charge to the flank, supporting units)- this is my strategy actually - a salad bowl formation.

As the Bret player in this particular batrep, I will say that I have been playing around a lot lately with various builds trying to find a new build that I am particularly comfortable / happy with. In 7th, I went with a primarily mounted force, with the only footsloggers being a unit of 20ish skirmishers. Salvage has had me in numerous other batreps, and if you take a look at those you will see that my tactics were generally pretty straight forward - charge and charge again.

Now that 8th is here, I've been trying various tactics that don't include out running your opponent the entire time. I have two big(ish) units of peasants, mainly to hold flanks. I've got two enormous lances (previously, my larges was only ever 9 for maneuverability) which are my main combat units. Then a few msu type units of knights to harass, flank and chase away rabble from holding up my main dudes.

So, new tactic is to take the two units of peasants on the flanks, with (usually) one small unit of knights with them. Both big lances in the middle, usually gunning for the enemy's main block, and a moderate amount of artillery.

In general, it's been working out well, but in this game I needed a big overrun after beating his Hunter, and I didn't get it. That put me in a bad spot, getting charged by his gut star, which I felt I needed to run from. It put me out of position for a couple of turns. That, and the failure to dispel some of his +1T and Regen spells really hurt me too.

Interesting. Thanks for giving us your take Jay!

Great report! Wow, ogres are looking really appealing so few models required!

A few questions:

-You have a LOT of points in characters, is this effective? I assume yes, but man it looks like quite an investment points-wise!

-Did you reform to face the flank charge you took with the iron guts after the first round?

-Did the enemy unit that fled from your (gorger?) turn and flee toward the nearest board edge the next turn, or is that now changed?

-Wouldn't you get an overrun even if a warmachine was completely wiped out / destroyed, since you charged?

Cheers for the excellent report, and pulling out a draw . It does look like the Bret player could've been a little cagier after his initial gains and gone for a minor win, but where's the fun in that

Great report, mate. Thanks for posting. I have been wondering how viable Brettonian armies are for a while... Ever since I read the army book and fell in love with the amazing artwork in there, plus I've always loved Arthurian legend and associated myths.

I had always assumed that the knights were a one-shot thing... I.e. Win on round 1 or get annihilated, it seems that's a bit of a rash assumption after reading this report. It looked like a lot of fun!