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So, now knowing where I'm going moving, I called up my soon to be LFGS. 'Hey, do you sell Warhammer?' 'What's a Warhammer' 'Okay thanks.

Dismayed, I called a NTFAFGS (Not Too Far Away Friendly Gaming Store), and huzzah! Not only do they sell Warhammer, but they love it. In fact they told me they have twice a week games, the young ones play 40k and the older ones play Fantasy. This is incredibly good news, I'm ecstatic. That's when I ask: 'Say, is there an especially popular army there?' The tone of the answer I got should only be described as abject exasperation. Some combination of frustration, impatience, and a broken spirit. 'High Elves and Warriors of Chaos'.

So, it looks like I'll be playing against a lot of High Elves and Warriors of Chaos. Until recently I was planning a Tomb Kings army... Until I ran the numbers, not the points, the dollars. Wow. No thanks. So At the moment I'm considering Ogres. What are the things I should watch out for against HE and WoC? I'm not looking to dominate the board, just not get wiped off of it.

WoC will run lots of warriors (natch) that mess up ogres pretty well, as well as having access to shadow and death lores that are mean to them. Plus side, they will want to get into combat with you. Downside, WoC are better at it than Ogres are.

HE, I don't know as well, but I suspect the magic issue holds true. Plus they can shoot at you a lot (unlike WoC) and so will probably be a pain there.

As to what you can do about this, about the only advice I have seen is "Deathstar Bulls" and/or "Don't play ogres" :( The somewhat one dimensional nature of the army seems to mean they get stomped when they get a bad match up, and there isn't much to be done. I don't play them though, so I don't really know.

Well that's just mortifying. Is there nothing I can do?

I believe you will need to be very intelligent to play this army to your advantages, and I respect you for choosing perhaps the least often played army in the game (possible advantage). WoC wouldn't be too much of a problem, you may struggle more with the HE but tie them up and they'll die quick. Best of luck!

Deathstar builds can work, even demi deathstar builds like Boss Salvage runs. Check out his Battle Reports and List threads. Note though that he is pretty frustrated with the army of late, mostly because it is pretty one dimensional, and if your opponent likes being in melee better than you (like warriors of chaos...) it can be rough.

Now, I don't think they are hopeless, and people have success with them, but it seems that they are pretty unforgiving and don't really offer a lot of variety, which to me would be really annoying.

Definitely check out the battle report sections. Salvage has been playing ogres for at least 4 years, since before I knew him at least, and is a good player. Plus he is always keen to try whatever the intarwebz are not saying is the best and only way to win, so there might be more variety to be found.

Honestly though, I don't think Ogres are a good army for a beginner.

Honestly though, I don't think Ogres are a good army for a beginner.

This is my initial thought too.

Empire might be a nice choice; mortars can deal good damage to most infantry blocks, and they have enough magic to stand up to what WoC and HE can bring. They also have a nice variety of ranged choices; cannons can deal with the bigger gribblies such as dragons, hangunners/archers can pepper HE troops and add some ranged damage of your own, and can help to wreck WoC lines, as WoC lack ranged weaponry; their only real ranged weaponry (bar magic) being Javelins/Throwing Axes on Marauder Horsemen and expensive Hellcannons (which can be dealt with by cannon-fire).

Your infantry blocks are also solid. On paper, they lose out to the sheer brutality of WoC and the speed of HE, but combining your superior ranged abilities to whittle down the WoC numbers, and using HE's low toughness and armour to blow them apart, your units have a good chance when the depleted numbers reach your lines.

It's up to you which army you go with, but Ogres aren't really a forgiving army, either you can use them or you can't, unlike other armies like Empire who are relatively forgiving to newer players and offer a range of effective choices.

Who are we to tell a beginner what to start with?
In general you should go with the army you like, because it is you that will assemblw paint and play with it, and if you pick an army purely for its gameplay performance you might find yourself stuck assembling and painting models you don't like.

Who are we to tell a beginner what to start with?

I think there is a distinct difference between 'telling' and 'advising'...

I'm generally an indecisive person, and I might enjoy the pontification as much as the doing itself. For the next few weeks I'm just killing time, I can't start this until I've moved. In that time I'm learning everything I can about the game, so that the decision I make wont be a wrong decision (that costs me hours and dollars).

Personally, I don't like any of the human factions. I just don't want to play a fantasy game and not play something fantastical. Vampire Counts I put some thought into, but I hated the idea of buying and painting zombies I might not be using. Tomb Kings were next, and I really liked how they looked and played, until I ran the numbers (not points, dollars) - that is one very expensive army to play, at least the way I'd play it, no thanks. And it doesn't seem to have any real e-bay support either, although I know 7/8ths of ebay is getting lucky.

I've also looked at Skaven (don't want to do the horde thing, which ruled out O&Gs), Dark Elves (too fragile, though the idea of making a Drow army is comically appealing to me), Chaos Daemons (no battalion box which means mega expensive). I even checked out the Wood Elves, but decided the only army list I'd like would be similar to RIPTides' all tree army, but painting bark wasn't really I wanted.

So Ogres are what I'm at now, it's more than likely the decision I make will be on the spot at the FLGS, when I look at the boxes they have. Either way, I guarantee I wont play an army because it's noobie friendly. I have no problem with a challenge, but I hate being uninformed, that's why I'm here.

So back to the original post. I'm not looking for Ogre tips, or army suggestions (both are more than welcome obviously) but what I'd like here are the nasty things High Elves and Warriors of Chaos can bring out. Synergies, weaknesses, combos, that kind of thing.

Now to make a long post longer - I have been listening. The consensus is Ogres are a bad match up for WoC and HE. HE's will outshoot me, and WoC will out melee me. That tells me I'm going to need a Scrap Launcher, and maybe two units of four Iron Belchers. Probably a single giant unit of Gnoblars to tarpit Chaos Knights or Swordsmen. Am I right on this so far?

Scrap launchers are good to have around. Most people leave the iron belchers at home as they don't like the high chance of a misfire which kills their own troups. I have seen many a iron belcher panic himself off the table after killing one enemy model.

Taking a couple of deep (40+ models) of gnoblars will help out a lot in tying down some of the more killy units out there.

Large blocks of iron guts are gonna be where its at. You need enough bodies to charge, take the hits, and still kill much of what stands in front of you. I would say 6-9 models for some units with some smaller ones to support.

Iron guts would rock against the Warriors, but are probably too costly to fair well against the Elves. Regular Bulls are always a solid choice.

Isn't there an item that makes WoC -3 Ld or something in the ogre book?

Anyway, mean things these armies do:

High Elves- Teclis or a Book-mage is essentially a nuke. Lots of magical power that you won't be able to do much about. But since you won't be able to do much about it, don't worry. Just try to kill that guy.
Sword Masters, White Lions, and Pheonix Guard are probably going to be the biggest combat problems for ogres. High I, high WS, high S.

Warriors of Chaos- well, there's the stupid Chosenstar with a 3+ Ward save and S5 or more. Tie them up with gnoblars, and get the rest of your boys out of there.
Other than that, units of 15 or 18 warriors is pretty standard. Tzeentch (shields for a 5+ Ward in CC) or Khorne (halberds for 3 S5 I...5? attacks).
Marauders are considered to be the most efficient model in the game. For 6pts/model +30pts or less, you can give them two S5 attacks or that same 5+ Parry save. But they are only T3, so the Khornate ones should die fast to your ogres. And the Tzeentch ones are S3, so they should die slowly to your ogres.
Other than that...Hellcannons are scary, I guess. Expect to see a lot of Khorne and a lot of Tzeentch. Ironically, I might suggest to throw your bulls at the scary marauders to kill them fast, and your gnoblars at the tar-pits, so your good units can still do something.

That's all I got. Good luck.

I've run ogres for a long time and you can do fine against both those choices.

Scrap launchers punish elves, and are still decent against warriors.
Ogres get an item that makes all Ld tests at -1, and another that forces chaos to test psychology at -3. Put them both on a slaughter master, and you can toss out your panic spell and force a check at -4. Even with the re-roll, that can pop units.
Tyrants can be geared to go toe to toe with chaos lords, and ogres have incredible magic deflection (cause miscasts and redirect spells).

-Matt

At this point I'm thinking I'll just grab two battalion boxes (a la mode), toss in a Butcher, Tyrant and lastly a scrap launcher and see where I'm at. With paint and supplies that'll probably cost me about $300 USD, which is about $200 better than a lot of other options.

But tactically, that gets me a unit of 8 Iron Guts, 8 Lead Belchers, 12 Bulls and something like 40 Gnoblars. That seems like a pretty good composition to me.

i wouldn't assemble those Leadbeltchers as what they are.

make them Bulls because Leadbeltchers are a pretty meh unit. they have an equal chance of blowing themselves up as completly annhilating an enemy unit. most of the time they will just pop a few shots off without doing much.

you will then have 8 IGs and 20 bulls which can make you a single good sized unit of IGs and a couple of Bull units(or a single massive 20 strong unit)

don't give the Bulls a banner, unless you will be playing the mission that requires banners for fortitude, it's not worth it.

the Champion isn't a super great option either, but occasionally accepting an unfavorable challange, doesn't happen often, for your character is worth it.

Bellowers are a must.


for the Gnoblars, the sprues have a bunch of assorted extra gnoblars that you can use to beef out your Gnoblar unit if you have extra bases. get a 40mm base and stick a couple of the baggage gnoblars on it for Filler. it counts as 4 gnoblars and looks cool.

Yea, the Warstore has gnobblar slaves for 1$ for 2 in their bitz section, and 2 warriors for 1.50$, so if you need extra that's probably a good way to go. 50-75 cent models (USD, but they do ship internationally I think) is pretty tough to beat, even with shipping if you are getting a bunch.

Glad to hear you are excited about the army. As others have said that is easily the most important thing.

Well, I have actually thought about starting an Ogre army also, once i finish up my Skaven, just because they seem fun to me. So this post has been pretty informative for me as well... lol Thanks!

Coming from a pretty new HE player. So take it for what its worth, I have 4 games under my belt. Against Skaven and WoC.

Anyways, you may run into problems with HE special units. They are all pretty nasty. White Lions are Ws5, St6, so they should be hitting on 3s with a re-roll, wounding on 2s, 1 attack each, these guys are stubborn. Sword Masters are Ws6, St5, so again 3s to hit with a re-roll and 3s to wound, but 2 attacks each. I haven't really used Phoenix Guard, but 1 Attack, Ws5 or 4, St4 ( I believe) with a 4+ Ward.

Then there is Dragon Prince's, 2 attacks, Ws6, Str6(on the Charge), 2+ save. Haven't used Silver Helms, Reavers, Shadow Warriors or the Chariots.

Either way you look at it, HE can be very nasty in CC, so I recommend some Gnoblars to tie up some units, and avoid like the plague getting flanked by SM's.

Iron Guts are going to be key, but in reality against HE's I would just go with regular Bulls. Less points, you still strike last, but you can field more models. And the difference between wounding on a 2+ or a 3+ is not that much.

Shooting wrecks HE's, so Scrap Launchers will be great, even Leadbelchers. While most people don't like them, they will put a hurt on HE, with some good rolls Str4, Armor Piercing will auto kill any model with the exception of Dragon Princes, Silver Helms andPhoenix Guard.

Teclis will be a pain for you, but Ogres has some nice Magic resistance options. I believe on banner on a 2+ makes any magic cast at that unit hit another, so keep those Gnoblars close.

Wehrkind wrote:Yea, the Warstore has gnobblar slaves for 1$ for 2 in their bitz section, and 2 warriors for 1.50$, so if you need extra that's probably a good way to go. 50-75 cent models (USD, but they do ship internationally I think) is pretty tough to beat, even with shipping if you are getting a bunch.

It's also easy to find old gobbos from the 4th edition boxed set which can very easily be converted into gnoblars. Ebay is your friend.

I've yet to have real trouble VS HE's (Thankfully my meta doesn't include Teclis), they can hit hard, but in the long run they can't take the beating Ogres can dish out. As long as you are smart about knowing what to use your precious dispell scroll on, and roll fairly decently, you can mitigate the HE magic phase till you've greased your iron-shod boots with plenty of elven viscera.

WoC are a different story. They have all the Ogres' strengths: high(ish) Toughness and Strength, lots of attacks, and none of the Ogres' weaknesses: low Armor, limited magic. Ogres have WoC beat in the movement and shooting phase; The shooting can be devastating (Scraplaunchers), but is unreliable at best, and Ogres' movement is meant to get them into combat where they generally lose out to Chaos Warriors on foot. I've yet to come up with a good strategy for reliably smacking up warp flavored humans. If anyone else does, let me know.

the strategy is to use your ogre clubs for that delicious -2 to armor saves and get some Toothcrackers up.

go over to the http://www.ogrestronghold.com/ to learn how to use Ogre magic properly. when it's done right, it really doesn't matter what the opponent is as the tactic revolves around just spamming tons of spells.

I'm getting the impression WoC and HEs are (with their buddies Skaven, and possibly DE) the absolute highest tier armies of the game. I also get the impression they excel at taking down melee heavy armies, as WoC can outfight them, and HEs can outshoot and outmagic them. Is that fair? My second choice at this point is VCs, but I can't imagine an army with absolutely no ranged support could fair better.

VC's don't need ranged support. they just raise their troops back up, and up and up and up...


WoC really don't have shooting besides Hellcannons(and marauders with Axs and Spears)

What the new books have is variety. The sheer number of combinations you can do in a Skaven/WoC/Lizardman army is pretty tremendous compared to Ogres.

I think Ogres are funny because of their lore. And facing an all monster army has to be intimidating.

Leadbelcher's failure rates I think are being exaggerated. All war machines have a chance of blowing up. Leadbelchers don't do as much solid smackdown as a real war machine, but they can survive a misfire fairly easily.

As stated, Gut magic is very good. It's really simple, but you just keep casting and casting. Every spell is a 3+! That makes Orc seers look like Slaan by comparison.

Yhetees might be good for HE. Scrap launchers are nice, but they are also very expensive.

Slave Giants might be a good try for WoC. They are very economical in Ogres. They aren't as good as other Giants, but they're cheap. And WoC doesn't have massive shooty, so they can't do much except fight it. The thing about Giants is, it doesn't matter how good you are, they are a complete wildcard. WoC mostly has elite units and that's a perfect target for a 175 pt giant.

This topic isn't tooooo old. Let's call it pseudo-threadcromancy. I've moved away from ogres, just not crazy about their look, and limited build options. So let me frame a different question.

What is the best army to deal with High Elves and Warriors of Chaos?

Here's a shot in the dark:

Lizardmen. They're good at taking it on the chin (against those elves, T4 and, more importantly, S4, is great) and have amazing magic (which can give the Warriors a tough time. Their wizards are survivable, but not specifically powerful as casters).

the real weakness of WoC is anyone who can get Lore of Metal.

WoC pay alot for their 4+ armor(or even 3+) and denying them armor and using it against them is deadly.


HEs are vulnerable in that their troops are fairly high costed per model.

universal ASF(not matter the weapon) helps, but against enemies that are tough and/or have really good armor saves they will struggle. thats where magic comes in.


HEs really rely on magic to eliminate threats to their infantry. Teclis is a super powerful character who is undercosted, even at the high price that is paid he's too cheap, and has waaay too many special rules.

Does anyone take Lore of Metal anyway? Seems like Life and Shadow are just all-around better.

DE players seem to like having a Level 4 with Shadow for primary magic casting with a Lvl2 Lore of Metal caster for when they come up against armored enemies.

DE do struggle against armored foes.

Warpsolution wrote:Does anyone take Lore of Metal anyway? Seems like Life and Shadow are just all-around better.

Metal has the sneaky "You can't Flee" Bomb.
Final Transmutation forces 36" area to test for stupidity, as well as killing ~1/3rd of the target unit.
On the start of your opponents next turn, he takes all those tests.
On the start of your turn, none of those units can choose to flee.

If you build for it, it can work really well (3 chariots, 2 hydras, characters on chariots).
Getting hit by 2D6+2 S5 impact hits, 2D6 S5 thunder stops, 4D6 S3-5 breathe, 14 S5 attacks, 4S6 and 4 S4, will totally wreck a unit.
You're looking at 30+ kills.

-Matt

Lore of Metal won me the first game I played in 8th against WoC (Well, didnt know you have to choose lore during list building this edition back then)
All that armor ignoring stuff just kinda raped them.