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Have you ever played against some force & come away with the thought of "Huh, that was it?"

Recently in our escalation league my Cities of Sigmar (Hammerhall) faced off against a mounted Ogre army. A Stonehorn, the other big riding beast with a shooting attack, a big unit of mounted ogres, and a couple of characters on foot.

I've never played against the Beastrider portion of the Ogres before.
It looked pretty impressive. Especially arrayed across from my tiny humans....
I fully thought I'd probably be losing this one....
Nope. It was a Hammerhall victory & not even close.

Now, other than being very well painted, my Hammerhall is nothing spectacular. It's just my old WHFB Empire/Dogs of War stuff pressed into AoS service for this league.
A bunch of Freeguild crossbows (3x10), a couple units of Freeguild sword/shield, 3 gryphknights, a pair of pistolier units, a couple of characters, & that old DoW Elf on dragon now serving as a coalition SCE Knight Draconis.

The Knight Draconis did fine work. And the other units contributed - seizing objectives, countering some spells, serving as the picket line in front of the Crossbows.... But it was the massed crossbow fire with the Gryphknights mopping up in the charge phase that just shredded the ogres by turn 3. Turn 4 was spent finishing off two ogre characters on foot.
Massed crossbow fire with no Rend....

I walked away from that game thinking "I thought mounted Ogers would be tougher than that*?"

So have you ever played against something & were utterly surprised when it just crumbled in front of you?


*I also have no idea if the Ogre player made any mistakes or poor choices beyond maybe placing the terrain better. Ogres don't interest me so I'm only vaguely familiar with them. Especially the beast rider portion.

Hard to comment but was the ogors with new book? New book the mounted riders are -1 to wound shooting and unleash hell is 6 to wound period which makes those crossbows quite ineffective. And really those crossbows shouldn't worry big monsters either. Assuming +1 to hit on all that's 6 wounds to regular big guys and half that on frostlord if they go for all out defence.

Also in general he should be one charging as he outfasts you big time. Who made the initial charges?

In any case individual games can be hard to comment.

btw what was point size? In smaller games ogors certainly struggle objective game due to few units while # of objectives stays same as in 2k

tneva82 wrote:
Hard to comment but was the ogors with new book? New book the mounted riders are -1 to wound shooting and unleash hell is 6 to wound period which makes those crossbows quite ineffective. And really those crossbows shouldn't worry big monsters either. Assuming +1 to hit on all that's 6 wounds to regular big guys and half that on frostlord if they go for all out defence.

I assume it was the current book. Hard to tell when the other guys "book" is his phone. His -1 wasn't much of an inconvenience.

tneva82 wrote:
Also in general he should be one charging as he outfasts you big time. Who made the initial charges?

Technically me!
He went 1st, moved to hold/score the center & realized that I'd deployed just far enough back that he couldn't make any charges/or would need 11+. I've no idea if he had anything Ogre specific that'd have let him move/charge further. If he did he didn't use it....
The center & everything thereabouts were certainly within crossbow range though.
And thanks to him coming to me the Gryphs & dragon had no problems completing their own charges.
After that it became a fight & shooting gallery in the center with me taking 1st turn rounds 2 & 3.

tneva82 wrote:
btw what was point size? In smaller games ogors certainly struggle objective game due to few units while # of objectives stays same as in 2k

1500.

If he went first and moved where he isn't doing charges easily(cavalry in squads of 4 have +1 btw) and allows easy charges for you then he made huge newbie blunder. Ranges are known issue. You can measure them pre-move any time you wish. There's no reason whatsoever for him to give you charges without you having to expose to his charges if you don't get double turn.

Ogors can't just let slower army charge them. He has all cavalry army that gets multiple bonuses on charge. You don't give opponent easy charges.

Going second is such a tremendous advantage in the current meta that I would be extremely hesitant to draw conclusions from just this game. That said...

-A decent portion of your army is composed of the best units from their respective books.
-Exactly what units he took and with what enhancements matters quite a bit; bad enhancement on some 200-point guy sucks, bad enhancement on a 450-point guys sucks a heck of a lot more.
-If the monsters were regular riders or huskards, that's why his list seemed underpowered. It is the Frostlords with their 3+ save (among other benefits) that made a name for Beastclaw.
-Speaking of, only two big beasties is pretty mild for a full beastclaw army. Granted it was almost a year ago but the lists I was seeing at the top end of LVO 2022 were rocking 4 of them, usually two being frostlords.
-I really shouldn't understate how big a deal 2nd turn advantage is in the current AoS climate. Last stats I saw put it that 98% of the time tourney players have turn choice they choose 2nd, it's THAT bad.

Sounds like you faced a player still figuring out his army. My (small) meta is still working out how to handle my smooth-brained Boulderhead Boogaloo.

To answer the top question, I feel that every time I face Blades of Khorne with 3-4 Bloodthirsters, even knowing that they're struggling as an army and have been for years.