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Dear reader,
I am semi-new to WFB and have just returned to the game as of several weeks ago. I have decided to continue my Dwarf army. However I have run into some road blocks, mainly my opponent. He plays ogres and while most would not see this as a big deal this is truly a new breed of beast I am contending with. Normally he runs a unit of 10 ironguts, 1 tyrant with "the tenderizer", 1 BSB with war banner, gorger and 6 bulls(these are approximations not 100% sure). I normally run 32 thunderers, 40 warriors with great weapons, 2 cannons with flaming attack rune, 1 thane with great weapon and a gyrocopter. I have won one game out of about 8 or 9. I have tried a variety tactics and am starting to lose faith. Any suggestions on what I should be doing/how I should change my list? I would really like to make this army work as a really like the look and feel of it.

Thanks,
Jake

That cannot be his list. Either that's not his list or something fishy is going on. The only spellcasters Ogres get are butchers or slaughtermasters, and I don't see him doing well against your list without magic. I also doubt he has as many points as your force, we're missing something.

When you play, does he cast spells? Which unit does he stick his tyrant with?

Well, without knowing what happens it´s hard to give any tips.

How does he beat you? I´d guess he smashes you in CC before you can shoot him down enough?

On lower point levels it can be quite hard to beat Ogres, especially when he runs a semi or a full fledged deathstar.

A few pro forma tips can be given, though:
-The Gyrocopter is not that great against Ogres. March blocking is not that useful anymore, and the steamgun is way better against small base and low T enemies.
- If you don´t do it allready, run the Warriors as a horde. Otherwise you lack killing power.
- Equip your Thane for survival and throw in a BSB yourself. Killy chars for dwarves are possible, but usually more GW Warriors bring more pain for the points. Supporting chars is where it´s at.
- That´s quite a number of Thunderers. You could replace 10 or so of them with an Organ Gun since those are usually more effective for nearly equal point costs.

For other tips we would need to know more infos.

I apologize for the lack of detail. I did miss something he runs a butcher as well. All the models are in the same unit except the bulls a deathstar as you put it. Normally I kill a couple of guys on his way in and I try to charge him with the warriors to deny him bull charge and then kill a fair amount but then get slaughtered by his attacks. After that my cannons are tied up by the gorger and the thunderers kill some of the incoming deathstar or bulls and then get slaughtered in combat.

Those cannons shoot straight through deathstars. You could try swapping in grudge throwers if he's spread wide instead of deep, however. But you got the war machines to pancake him if he puts all his units together like that.

Also look at Flame Cannon and Organ Gun. Depending how he sets up his guys one of those will work. And get runes of Penetrating or a reroll of scatter dice. Though they are expensive.

What do you think of eliminating the thunderers all together and running two hordes(40 each) of warriors with great weapons, flame cannon, 2 cannons one with rune of forging and both with rune of burning and a thane with great weapon and handgun.(1250 pts) This is a change as there are no more thunderers and 2 hordes instead of 1 could be a force to be reckoned with.

IMO that's a lot of thunderers. I think and Organ Gun does the job Thunderers do cheaper and better. I'd swap those out and swap in 2 Organ Guns. Also make sure your Cannons have RoForging, I would also try and throw in a Runesmith for some anti magic, also a BSB is nice. Remember we do have a magic phase, we generate power dice and we use those dice to dispel remain in play spells, all ogre buffs are remain in play and have a casting value of 3+ so 1/2 the time when you are in combat after your magic phase he shouldn't have any buffs, throw 2 dice at every buff he has and if you don't get a snake eyes your safe. I would normally recommend a GT but against Ogres it's less effective due to the larger bases. At 1250 I would recommend this:

Thane (BSB, MRoGromril,RoResistance) - 140
Runesmith (Shield, RoStone) - 77
Dragon Slayer (RoStriking) - 60
34 Warriors (Great Weapons + Full Command) - 375
33 Warriors (Great Weapons + Full Command) - 375
Cannon (RoForging, RoBurning) - 130
Organ Gun - 120

IMO you need the BSB in there, especially against a fear causing army. Our leadership is great but 1 round of failing it could mean the game. Keep your Thane and BSB defensive, even if you do not take a challenge, he can direct his rank and file to focus their attacks on you.

Dragon Slayer to protect the war machines, if that Gorger shows up take him on, you'll be attacking first with 4 attacks, and if you pass your fear test you will be hitting on 3+ and wounding on 4+ with the slayer rule, he might still get you because of killing blow but he will need a 5+ to even hit you.

An Organ Gun is a toss up, I almost want to say scrap it for more warriors, but they are ideal against Iron Guts, lets say you roll the average of 6 hits per turn for 3 turns, that's almost 12 wounds against the iron guts at 48pts a pop that's 192 pts right there. There are risks like misfires though. But you can see how this is better then thunderers which would buy you 8 for the similar price as an OG and with modifiers and about 3 rounds of shooting they would get maybe 5-6 wounds before being in combat.

I'd throw a unit of warriors at the bulls, which they should easily destroy in 1 turn if you horde them out you should be getting about 13 wounds per combat round, and his 6 strong bulls should only be doing about 4-5 plus stomp attacks which isn't much and should send them running for the hills, if not they are dead the next round.

BTW Ogres are now a big deal, they are much better in 8th, not top tier but no longer a push over.

Hargus,

Your costs look off. The units of dwarf warriors are 10 and 20 points too expensive, respectively.

The slayer doesn't have to take fear tests, and also will only swing three times if he takes a runic weapon (he loses Slayer axes but retains the Slayer ability once taking a runic weapon).

However, I do agree with your assessment of the BSB and think it's a pretty decent list. Good deployment can limit the gorger's options. Focus fire on the ironguts because you should easily handle the bulls with one of your big great weapon blocks.

Also, important to keep the BSB out of the way of the tenderizer...

Hargus56 wrote:Remember we do have a magic phase, we generate power dice and we use those dice to dispel remain in play spells, all ogre buffs are remain in play and have a casting value of 3+ so 1/2 the time when you are in combat after your magic phase he shouldn't have any buffs, throw 2 dice at every buff he has and if you don't get a snake eyes your safe. I would normally recommend a GT but against Ogres it's less effective due to the larger bases. At 1250 I would recommend this:
.

3+ to cast, for purposes of dispel gut magic counts as RIP spell with 7+ dispel value.

The grizzled, white haired dwarf shakes his head, chuckling. "What? Problems with ogres?" He tamps out his smoking briar with one calloused thumb. "Listen up, shortbeard. Back in MY day, Ogres use to eat giants. Whole. I blunted three axes in one fight carvin through them massive guts a their's..."

Welcome to the good fight! I've been doing alot of thought on the monstrous mountain dwellers versus dwarves, most especially Ogres and Orcs, so let me bend your ear a little. First, some misconceptions:

-Ogre Gut magic CASTS on a 3, this is true (the value actually increases as they spam the spells to 6, 9, etc), however the RIP portion has a value of 7, regardless of the value needed for the initial cast. This means two dice on average will dispell them (given your army wide +2 to dispells) but if you need it gone, roll three.
-Cannons do not, sadly, carve through ogres. If you fail to kill monstrous infantry with a canon shot, the cannon ball stops there, lodged in the ogre's fearsome gut. He will look slightly winded, then heft the canon ball and take a bite out of it, laughing. Granted you have a 2/3 chance to kill each ogre (after wounding) but this is no guarantee.
-Never take flame canons. Ever. Against anything.

Ever.
You can take cannons with the Rune of burning, sure. This is a good buy. But Flame Canons were terrible in 7th and unnecessarily nerfed in 8th. The Rune of Forging is more important for your canons than RoB, however. You should be able to eliminate any regen he has with your own inborn antimagic.
-Grudge Throwers are oft times MORE effective against ogre blocks than cannons, for the reasons outlined above. if you give them a single Rune of Penetrating for an additional Strength, the splash portion of the template is S4. Properly centered in an ogre block, this nets you up to 8 more touched models, meaning 4 more wounds: this is an entire extra ogre and then some. A single round of this and you've broken the units into manageable chunks.

And it looks like someone already mentioned dragon slayers as ITP

Remember, you don't have to destroy ogre units with your shooting, all you need to do is lower their numbers to be manageable for your units to handle in CC.

For handling the Gorger in your back field, you can always take a dragon slayer. I would recommend the double strength aganst T5 rune, and the multiple wounds rune. Toss on a single extra attack, and this William Q. McBadass is chewing through the gorger no sweat while the sad mook is sitting there that first turn he gets revealed. Do remember; the gorger can not charge his first turn. He comes out, chews his fingernails for a bit, then charges. Take the opportunity to punish him for it.

A Runesmith with the Rune of Balance and a Rune of Dispell Scroll is a good buy if you can manage the points, and will blunt his magic nicely, leaving your magic phase for mop up.

You can always pick up an anvil. It pretty much ruins death stars day, just by slowing them down.

-Matt

Sorry about the wrong point costs, think I adjusted them but not the point values it was late. And I didn't know about the 7+ to dispel. If you do take a GT I would recommend RoBurning for 5pts it's a small investment and they are likely to have regen up.

Im pretty sure Grudge Throwers splash is S4, so a RoPen will make it S5.

KSpen-

Grudgethrowers are the default stone thrower. That is, strength 9 under the hole, 3 on the the splash until upgraded by a rune of penetration.

RZ

Ah, the errata has nerfed the armybook S4 :/

TY

Yea but it's nothing when compared to the nerf flame cannons got.

To expand on the anti-ogre tactics said earlier.


Cannons and Bolt Throwers aren't super scary to Ogres. a newbie will freak out, but when you do the math a Multi-wound weapon isn't fantastic.

a Bolt thrower without any engineers has the following statistic. .5 times .833 times .333. 50% chance to hit, 83% chance to wound, 33% chance to kill and continue on to the next ogre.

final chance to kill 1 ogre and go to next ogre: 13.8% chance to kill 1 ogre.


Cannon ball: assuming the cannon ball hits. .8333 chance to wound times a .666 chance to kill.

final chance to kill an ogre is 55.5% and this is assuming you actually hit.



in the end, Organ guns and Thunderers are more reliable to get dead ogres at range.


Ogres are a tough nut to crack for Dwarves in 8th. especially if they manage to get some Buffs up.


smart Ogre players will get a couple buffs up on a unit that is in combat so they have it for that round. you then dispell those buffs on your turn, but the damage is likely done.


Don't try to out fight Ogre Characters with Dwarves. it won't work. Tyrants and Bruisers have formidable stats without any magic equipment or Big Names. as such, an ogre character can be kitted out defensivly and still kick a fighty character's arse.

your best bet is to keep the Tyrant from racking up combat rez by killing your squishy dwarves(a naked tyrant is rocking a -3 to your armor save with just his basic ogre club and is wounding on 3s to boot)

don't underestimate an Ogres charge range. unless it;'s an incompetant ogre player, they will be in combat round 3(possably round 2) so you don't have more then 2 rounds of shooting.

Im surprised no one mention the anvil of doom yet, it is pretty awesome against just about anything.

the Anvil is the one thing i find really annoying.


it doesn't do much damage, but it keeps my units from charging and getting stuck in which is bad.


unfortunantly for the Anvil, if it's in range to Anvil me, i can Bonecruncher it.

Jackster wrote:Im surprised no one mention the anvil of doom yet, it is pretty awesome against just about anything.

Funny you should mention that. I'm currently pretty conflicted on the anvil. If I knew I was facing Ogres (and so not going to face Life, Death, or Shadow magic) I'd be more likely to give it a go...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Grey Templar wrote:

unfortunantly for the Anvil, if it's in range to Anvil me, i can Bonecruncher it.

I don't follow- Anvil has unlimited range, doesn't need line of sight...

It has unlimited range?


of course i only faced it once on a smaller board.

Unlimited range, my friend.

A horde of hammerers has been wrecking my ogres. It causes me more trouble than anything else. Well, that and runesmiths completely negating my magic phase.

Hammerers hit ogres on a 3+ and wound on a 2+. Match them up with ironguts if you can so you're both attacking at the same time.

Never attack his characters, always attack the unit to rack up CR.

Shooting isn't as valuable as GW wielding stunties. (As other have suggested).

Flame cannon is awful in 8th, don't take it! Organ gun is better.

If you can shut down his magic phase, the battle is half won.

Good luck!

All solid advice here.