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Hey guys, I'm still relatively new to Fantasy as a whole, and Tomb Kings even more so. But I've fought Ogres twice now, and both time I honestly don't know how to win. They have so few models on the board, but I feel like my army can't do much to them. Anyone have an success against Ogres? I've heard that they are, in general, just a bad match-up for Tomb Kings anyway.

I know the feeling. TK lack a lot of the higher STR attacks and shooting necessary to punch through ogres sometimes. And with the number of attacks through impacts, stat lines and stomp, it can be really hard to stay in combat trying to tar pit them with skeletons, etc.

Best luck I had was with a tooled up King/Prince buffing a unit of skeletons. Since you have no hope of a save vs ogres, the best defense is getting your WS up to avoid being hit altogether.

And of course Sphinxes!

 Zygrot24 wrote:
I know the feeling. TK lack a lot of the higher STR attacks and shooting necessary to punch through ogres sometimes. And with the number of attacks through impacts, stat lines and stomp, it can be really hard to stay in combat trying to tar pit them with skeletons, etc.

Best luck I had was with a tooled up King/Prince buffing a unit of skeletons. Since you have no hope of a save vs ogres, the best defense is getting your WS up to avoid being hit altogether.

And of course Sphinxes!

Yeah, that sounds like it would be pretty effective, since most Ogres are at most like, WS 5, right? If that. But yeah, I used a Sphinx, and it got eated by a cannon. >.< So, yeah.

I've had luck with chariots getting a flank charge supporting a bone giant, murdering two units of ogres, but even in that game those cannons ate me alive. A lvl 1 lore of death Lich on a steed in a small unit of horse archers might be a good way to deal with those leadbelchers.

You could also put a lvl4 Heirophant in an archer horde bunker and screen them with necropolis knights. maybe even a necrotect to add some construct survivability. Buff the crap out of the knights and let them do the fighting while you shoot through them without penalty.

Also think about carrion, they are essentially flying bare bones ogres. Fight fire with fire.

Being a long time ogre player things I hate besides those damn snakes.

Few models so watching our flanks is hard hit our flanks. You can spread across the board more we have to stay close together to watch our flanks so more your spread less we can charge and not get flanked. Not much I am scared of vs TK but like he said tombprince with the ability to increase weapon skill on the unit is annoying to say the least. Armour is not really going to help just make sure you do not lose unstable so use bsb and standard and you should be fine. Hold corncers flank and use prince+ magic.

Buff magic works well vs my guys

Oh one last thing the Sphinx model especially the one with a skull/human face is one of the few models I find can actually take out a unit of ogres if he does a good charge into a unit of 6 ogres.

take a prince/ king with the fencers blades ......unit of weaponskill 10 tomb guard anybody

 zinogre wrote:
take a prince/ king with the fencers blades ......unit of weaponskill 10 tomb guard anybody

That was actually FAQed to not work. Trust me, I thought about that. =P lol

Tk shooting is very reliable always hitting on 5s. Chariots doing d6 impact with a unit of 3 can really smash up ogre lines

Lore of Nek. and Death have amazing anti-Ogre capabilities. Namely, -T spells. Ogres aren't nearly as scary once you bring them down from T4.

They lack decent armor options, so you can easily unwind Ogres.

The tricky part is making sure you control the movement phase. Move your hoard up to force an Ogre charge against cheap skeletons. Then you can hit the flanks hard with halberd-equipped Tomb Guard (or your favorite hammer).

Either way, Tomb Kings become devastating when you consider how significant of a benefit magic can be for their troops.

 krodarklorr wrote:
. Anyone have an success against Ogres? I've heard that they are, in general, just a bad match-up for Tomb Kings anyway.

Yes, they're a bad match up because they move fast, hit hard and can't be KB'ed

You need magic to tip the scales, so casket + hierotitan is almost mandatory. Casket takes care of stuff like ironblasters (outside of IP range) and gives you a nice dice advantage.

Sphinxes can stop scary units dead in their tracks. Even gutstars and mournfangs will be wounding on 6s, and that will give you time to engage on your terms. Be careful because since you won't have thunderstomp static CR will kill you much faster than the ogres.

Or you can also just take Arkhan and purple sun them off the board, that always seems to work

Tomb Kings have plenty of good options in dealing with Ogres:

1) Khalida
- Making a massive unit of Archers poisoned goes a long way against Ogres. They have above average toughness, but low armour, so those poisoned hits (and the ones from the increased BS too) will really start to add up.

2) Tomb Kings/Princes
- Ogres have fairly low WS across the army, so even a simply Tomb Prince in a unit will make the unit hit on 3s most of the time.

3) You're faster
- A lot of TK units will hit first in combat against many Ogre ones, which is a huge bonus, especially when combined with some other tricks. A horde of Tomb Guard joined by a Prince/King and a Necrotect is hitting on 3s (with re-rolls) and wounding on 3s (probably deny armour too), all before the Ogres even get to strike.

4) Death Magic
- Another Initiative-exploting trick, Ogres really don't like facing Death Magic, especially if you roll Purple Sun. Purple Sun can just end games for Ogres. Perhaps consider using Arkhan, so you don't have to pay for both a Hierophant and a Lvl4 Death Caster (or so you can go with Death + Light!)

5) Stalkers
- Sepulchral Stalkers' gaze attack is wounding on 5s against Ogres, which is pretty huge. The fact the attack ignores armour means it can be used to effectively deal with Ogres' more armoured units, such as Mournfang Cavalry. Yet more Initiative-exploiting shenangians!

6) Sphinxes
- If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Take something that's even bigger, stompier and tougher than the Ogres. The issue of cannons is a problem, but Ogres can only ever take two and doing so does limit their other choices, so you're not guaranteed to always see two, or even one. Perhaps take some Stalkers and try and take out the cannons before hand, or use some Fast Cav to close with them quickly. At the end of the day though, every time they're shooting at your Sphinxes, that's one less time they're shooting at your Casket or trying to snipe your Hierophant.

7) Destroyer of Eternities
- Always wounding on a 2, plus HKB will really make a mess of many Ogre units. A Tomb King with the Destroyer, OTS and Enchanted Shield should be more of a match for most Ogre units and characters.

Oh, and make sure you're taking a Casket and using chaff to prevent him from getting those charges off. Ogres' chaff is quite easily taken care of with normal bowfire, so small units of Horse Archers or just normal Archers, or a good Magic Missile or two, should see them off. On the other hand, Ogres don't have that many tools with dealing opposing chaff, so endeavouring to win the chaff war is important, and not that difficult!

Hope this helps!

 The Shadow wrote:
Tomb Kings have plenty of good options in dealing with Ogres:

1) Khalida
- Making a massive unit of Archers poisoned goes a long way against Ogres. They have above average toughness, but low armour, so those poisoned hits (and the ones from the increased BS too) will really start to add up.

2) Tomb Kings/Princes
- Ogres have fairly low WS across the army, so even a simply Tomb Prince in a unit will make the unit hit on 3s most of the time.

3) You're faster
- A lot of TK units will hit first in combat against many Ogre ones, which is a huge bonus, especially when combined with some other tricks. A horde of Tomb Guard joined by a Prince/King and a Necrotect is hitting on 3s (with re-rolls) and wounding on 3s (probably deny armour too), all before the Ogres even get to strike.

4) Death Magic
- Another Initiative-exploting trick, Ogres really don't like facing Death Magic, especially if you roll Purple Sun. Purple Sun can just end games for Ogres. Perhaps consider using Arkhan, so you don't have to pay for both a Hierophant and a Lvl4 Death Caster (or so you can go with Death + Light!)

5) Stalkers
- Sepulchral Stalkers' gaze attack is wounding on 5s against Ogres, which is pretty huge. The fact the attack ignores armour means it can be used to effectively deal with Ogres' more armoured units, such as Mournfang Cavalry. Yet more Initiative-exploiting shenangians!

6) Sphinxes
- If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Take something that's even bigger, stompier and tougher than the Ogres. The issue of cannons is a problem, but Ogres can only ever take two and doing so does limit their other choices, so you're not guaranteed to always see two, or even one. Perhaps take some Stalkers and try and take out the cannons before hand, or use some Fast Cav to close with them quickly. At the end of the day though, every time they're shooting at your Sphinxes, that's one less time they're shooting at your Casket or trying to snipe your Hierophant.

7) Destroyer of Eternities
- Always wounding on a 2, plus HKB will really make a mess of many Ogre units. A Tomb King with the Destroyer, OTS and Enchanted Shield should be more of a match for most Ogre units and characters.

Oh, and make sure you're taking a Casket and using chaff to prevent him from getting those charges off. Ogres' chaff is quite easily taken care of with normal bowfire, so small units of Horse Archers or just normal Archers, or a good Magic Missile or two, should see them off. On the other hand, Ogres don't have that many tools with dealing opposing chaff, so endeavouring to win the chaff war is important, and not that difficult!

Hope this helps!

A lot of this does help, thanks! The few games I've played I've been using Light Magic, but in general I wanna give Death a try, so hopefully that will work better.

Ogre Leadership is pretty bad. They really, really, do not like the light of death.
At 2500, I'd run 2x caskets, 2x catapults, and a heirotitan.
Then a pair of level 1's with death magic for spirit leech.
At less points, I'd actually drop a catapult and keep both caskets.

That gives you 3 spirit leeches (one is bound) and 2 lights of death. It's so much leadership smack down (all ignoring toughness and armor) it will make a mess of those Ld7 ogre units (ironblasters, mournfangs, etc).


For core, I'd go with at least 4 units of horse archers. These guys only job is to stall ogre blocks and re-direct charges. It will give you another turn of pounding him with the magic and shooting.

Ogres were actually a really good matchup for my TK.

1) Halberdguard hit first and chew through Ogres quick, granted they're buffed up to dish out enough hurt (Ramhotep, Smiting, Timewarp, etc.).

2) Snakes hit first as well, though they don't like being hit back very much. Watch out for bad matchups (i.e. ironguts!)

3) Ogre LD is piss-poor: exploit this to your advantage. If you're running death then Doom & Darkness is your go-to spell. I'd honestly take it over Purple Sun (unless he's got Runemaw). If it gets off on his general's unit then he's in big trouble! Hit it with catapult or two and watch them break on LD5/6.

4) On that token, the casket works wonders against Ogres. Don't worry so much about his gutstar as everything else. Snipe off cannons and stonehorns that venture outside the LD bubble. Bounce to cats that are close enough to panic other units.

5) Once you've taught them to fear your casket and bunch together into protection of the LD bubble, then start using Vengeance to punish him for bunching up! Ogres' main asset is their speed, and if you take that away from them they have issues. They also struggle to make it through terrain due to the massive size of their units, so if you can double-up that disadvantage with vengeance and redirectors even better.

6) Finally, don't let him get the charge on you! Easier said than done when he's M6, but if you can prevent him getting the charge off with good use of redirectors then you're in good place. You don't want those impact hits contributing to crumble! It's bad enough that he can hit you with stomps.

7) Beware the hellheart!. Wait, that needs more emphasis...BEWARE THE HELLHEART!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously, this thing is AWFUL for us. It will blow up our mage bunkers, cripple our magic phases, and potentially kill off our casters. Make sure to keep your mage bunker BACK, and be very aware of its threat radius. Snipe this mofo out whenever possible (those catapult shots in #3? Yeah they are on the HEAD of the dude with the hellheart).

8) And finally, Purple Sun. I've won many a game with the Sun, and many more with just the threat of it. There's nothing that ruins an Ogre player's day more than realizing you've suckered his army into a long line, with your sun-wielding mage at the start of it. One Mighty Scroll later and half his army is fuelling a whole new magic phase for you.