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Ups, missed that. In that case the Ogryn does 0.917 damage, the Bullgryn stays the same

Do you factor in those times when the charge doesn't come off? So Ogryns shoot but Bullgryns don't and neither fights. Could be another tick in the plus column for them.

Add in the mortal wound strategem for them - which could put a big dent in a small unit so the melee isn't so important - being better value per point, and I think you got a solid case for Ogryns.

This makes me think about the 'how to clear 20 necron off an objective' question a couple of pages ago, and I reckon 9 ogryns with 2 cp (grenadier and mortal wound strategems) could do it in one turn. Too late to do the mathhammer now, i've had a couuple of beers.

No I assumed for the comparison that all charges succeed and no one is lost to overwatch. So as you say: the favors are slightly more on the side of the Ogryns

Regarding the Necron Math:
20 Necron Warriors = 260 points, T4,W1,4+
1 Pack of 9 Ogryns: 270 points.

27 shots => 4.5 dead warriors
(or use "Grenadiers" for 54 shots => 6.75 dead warriors)
Furious charge => 4.5 dead warriors
37 CC attacs => 11 dead warriors.
Moral phase => 1 model definitly flees
Combat attrition => further models flee

So indead on average rolls and under the assumption that they do their charge those 9 Ogryn clear the 20 Necron Warriors (21 to be exact, so even slightly below average rolls are enough) EDIT: for roughly the same points. If one manages to put a priest nearby they even overkill a bit, so that subaverage rolls should still succeed.

Nice ! thanks, I knew I could rely on you to bring the mathhammer down on the xenos scum!

I am feeling a bit better better now about buying a full squad of 3rd edition metal ogryns off ebay.

Huh, interesting. I guess the reservations I have for ogryn is their terrible save and the fact that people are kitting out specifically to kill 3 wound models with marines lately, not mention the fact that ogryn don't seem to be very good at killing marines either.

That first one is the biggest one, there's a lot of weapons that will absolutely melt ogryn and there really isn't a way to get them across the table safely. I guess you can take cover and pyschic barrier for a 3+ but at that point why not just take Bullgryn? Although hearing "ogryn are great as long as you don't fight marines" feels a bit iffy when marines are probably the most common enemy in the game between chaos and loyalist versions once they all get 2w.

Yeaaaaah, regular Ogryn are in a weird spot where they don't really fill a niche anywhere in the Guard book atm. Bullgryn do a better job anchoring a flank, including surviving longer and putting out more damage output than regular Ogryn. I feel like regular Ogryn should have more offensive capability rather than their current weird mishmash of mediocre shooting alongside chaff-clearing CC ability.

What about using them as a screen, while many armies are setting up to deal with 3W marines, they would force a choice or Ogryn or tanks. They are tougher then many other screening options and will still be a threat. You'll save a few points from Bullgryn and their effectiveness sounds to still be on par due to their better shooting even if you don't get into CC

Random (kinda stupid but fun sounding) idea, how about outflank them with Tallarn Stratagem? Have them pop in from reserve to get them in the back?

They ain't tallarn. So its not exactly easy to pull off, you need a tallarn transport to outflank them, and if its smaller than a baneblade, they will be at most 4 of the, which isn't that pressing a threat given their fragility.

Course, it might let you outflank a baneblade with an actual melee threat in it as a disposable asset set and keep the cost down, too. That's a new thought, I think. Something like a doomhammer or stormsword with 8 to 10 of them, and a priest...

Unless you meant strategic reserves, whcih I don't like as much as the tallarn trick. That maybe is doable, too.

The biggest issue is their survivability in comparison to Bullgryns. Though their damage output is on par or better against some targets (basically 1-wound chaff models and the new Plague Marines), Bullgryns just survive so much better with their 2+ or 4++, and also get more out of defensive buffs like the Take Cover stratagem or Psychic Barrier. I do think that potentially increasing their offensive output would be a good option, so that players would have a real choice between the harder-to-kill Bullgryns or the do-a-lot-of-damage Ogryns, but at the moment that's not the case.

What I would really like to see, though, is an increased Wound characteristic. Back in the day, they had 3 wounds to Terminators' 1 wound. Now Terminators have 3 wounds and we're still at 3 as well. I feel like Ogryns/Bullgryns could easily go up to 4 or possibly even 5 wounds with either no points increase or a very minimal one. Alternatively, an increase to toughness 6 isn't too crazy, or potentially a damage-ignoring effect like the new Plague Marines and Dreadnoughts.

I am going to try mine in a CRASSUS and see how it goes. It looks okay to me for 240 points now. 4 heavy bolters, and those adantium tracks could do some damage to marines (charging in with the Crush Them! strat).

Bringing one Titanic model may tempt my opponent to take Titan Slayer for an easy 10 points but then they miss out on Bring it Down against what I plan to be a Sentinel- heavy list.

 PaddyMick wrote:
I am going to try mine in a CRASSUS and see how it goes. It looks okay to me for 240 points now. 4 heavy bolters, and those adantium tracks could do some damage to marines (charging in with the Crush Them! strat).

Bringing one Titanic model may tempt my opponent to take Titan Slayer for an easy 10 points but then they miss out on Bring it Down against what I plan to be a Sentinel- heavy list.

That's the issue with ogryn though. The point is they're cheaper, so theoretically you get more. But you need a transport to get them there, so you end up spending more. It's frustrating, they're an iconic unit and I'd like to see them run. But as it sits they just can't survive in the open, which is supposed to be their job. The only thing I can think of to make them work is to just completely double down and take 27 of them and then saturate the board harder with Bullgryn as well, but even that doesn't work because the ogryn get hit with anti infantry thanks to their garbage save while AT targets Bullgryn. Ogryn just don't have a unit they saturate with very well. Bullgryn line up great with other tanks, but what do ogryn line up with? All guardsmen just means anything multi damage will splat the ogryn. All tanks, the enemy anti infantry shoots the ogryn because it has nothing else to do. Try to do a mix and odds are opponent just picks off your good units and ignore the ogryn till they need a kill point.

I just don't see a niche they fill for now and with us being on the backfoot every unit needs to have a clear and useful purpose to be in a list. An unfocused unit like ogryn just doesn't line up with that.

As someone who runs a lot of Chaos Spawn the Ogryn profile looks like some kind of bad joke.

Do also note that thanks to a Strat Bullgryns can protect the rest of your infantry without even taking any damage themselves. Ogryns can't.

@MrMoustaffa

Thanks for your thoughts and I get the points you are making. I agree with everyone that their lack of durability is a big issue, and would like to see some changes in the new codex.

One counter-point I do want to make though is that the transport is not worthless in itself and need not be just a points drain. Say you took 8 orgyns, a priest and an infantry squad to ride in the CRASSUS - after the Ogryns and priest jump and out and get stuck in, the infantry stay in and the transport goes and sits on an objective and becomes a non-threatening, durable holder (same wounds as 2 chimeras with better toughness).

Dukeofstuff wrote:
They ain't tallarn. So its not exactly easy to pull off, you need a tallarn transport to outflank them, and if its smaller than a baneblade, they will be at most 4 of the, which isn't that pressing a threat given their fragility..

Doh, I keep forgetting that they don't get the regimental key word.

Consider how much MORE worthless they are now.
Deathgaurd is about to put -1 toughness on everything in melee range. T4 bullygrn are at least still shielded, but t4 orgyn???

Regarding the staying power: just mathing around a bit:

As mentioned above for the price of 2 Bullgryn you get 3 Ogryns. Just running the numbers how many hits you need on average to kill both (B1=2 Bullgryn with slabshields (2+), B2= 2 Bullgryn with Brute shields (4++), O = 3 Ogryns (5+))

S3/0/1 (Lasguns etc.): B1: 108, B2: 36, O: 40.5
S4/-1/1 (Boltrifles, Astartes Chainsword etc.): B1: 54, B2: 36, O: 32.4
S5/-1/2 (Heavy Bolter): B1: 24, B2: 16, O: 14.4
S8/-3/2 (Overcharged Plasma): B1: 9, B2: 12, O: 7.8

So absolutely yes: There seems to be no situation were those three Ogryns tank more fire than their weight in Slabshield Bullgryns. And only against AP 0 they are slightly sturdier than Brute shield Bullgryns.

I think the only things they have going for them: while Bullgryns might sometimes fail their charge, Ogryns at least fire their guns. And it is a bit cheaper to put a 9 of them together to have maximum use out of furious charge. I don't say that is efficient, just that from a theoretical point of view those are slight advantages.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
Regarding the staying power: just mathing around a bit:

As mentioned above for the price of 2 Bullgryn you get 3 Ogryns. Just running the numbers how many hits you need on average to kill both (B1=2 Bullgryn with slabshields (2+), B2= 2 Bullgryn with Brute shields (4++), O = 3 Ogryns (5+))

S3/0/1 (Lasguns etc.): B1: 108, B2: 36, O: 40.5
S4/-1/1 (Boltrifles, Astartes Chainsword etc.): B1: 54, B2: 36, O: 32.4
S5/-1/2 (Heavy Bolter): B1: 24, B2: 16, O: 14.4
S8/-3/2 (Overcharged Plasma): B1: 9, B2: 12, O: 7.8

So absolutely yes: There seems to be no situation were those three Ogryns tank more fire than their weight in Slabshield Bullgryns. And only against AP 0 they are slightly sturdier than Brute shield Bullgryns.

I think the only things they have going for them: while Bullgryns might sometimes fail their charge, Ogryns at least fire their guns. And it is a bit cheaper to put a 9 of them together to have maximum use out of furious charge. I don't say that is efficient, just that from a theoretical point of view those are slight advantages.

I really appreciate you breaking down the math there! So the real question I think... Is it worth taking Ogryns to do slightly more damage in a few select circumstances, even though they will pretty much always lack the survivability of Bullgyns? I think at the moment the answer is no. Granted, I still take them in some games because I have 5 of the old metal Ogryn models that I love, and occasionally they do fun things.

Oh yeah taking certain units can be fun and cool. I have an Executioner tank I run with a ridiculous loadout because it's my first Russ and is known to be stupidly lucky, but I wouldn't recommend it in a tactics thread because mathwise it's not that great on paper. This is the tactics thread so we have to be brutally honest about if a unit is good or not. Unless you exactly know what your opponent is running, ogryn are just too vulnerable to a variety of situations to beat out Bullgryn.

I'm not really sure how you fix ogryn either. They're meant to be a beefy shock unit for busting open an enemy line, but Bullgryn already do that that and do it quite well while being durable. The only idea I can think of is make them a glass cannon, buff the guns and their melee so that the equivalent points of ogryn does a ton of damage compared to Bullgryn, but lacks the staying power. Even then you wouldn't really see people run them because they're slow, but they could have niche uses from reserve and chimeras, similar to SWS, CCS, and stormtroopers

Mortian has some pretty cool Ogryn sculpts with all manners of heavy weapons. And I think that would be a potential niche. Give them access to Lascannons, heavy flamers, heavy bolters, etc. As platform they would be in between Sentinels and HWS/Servitors in sturdiness. While the same price as Sentinels and squishier they could be taken in larger groups and rose transports and I think (!) It would give them a role again.

Also it would not be too hard to kitbash as one usually has heavy weapons spare from HWS.

Ogryn's problem is that they made Bullgryns to do the same thing, just better.
Ogryn's probably need to lean into the ranged part, it's the only thing bullgryns don't do better.
Give them heavy bolters and heavy flamers and stuff. A close range volley from Ogryns, perhaps followed by a charge should do more damage than a Bullgryn charge, particularly against light-medium infantry.
Bullgryns on the other flipside should have the upper hand when it comes to staying power and damage against heavier targets like Terminators.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
Oh yeah taking certain units can be fun and cool. I have an Executioner tank I run with a ridiculous loadout because it's my first Russ and is known to be stupidly lucky, but I wouldn't recommend it in a tactics thread because mathwise it's not that great on paper.

Do you refer to the specific load-out or the Executioner in general?

Because I'd always take the Executioner over the Battle Cannon-against melee/short-range/mind-range MEQ armies.

Executioners aren't terrible, particularly if buffed with reroll 1s.
The D2 can be particularly useful against MEQs, and 36" isn't that short on the new table size.

I rate them as third-best choice for the Russ, after punisher and demolisher. They've taken a bit of a hit due to dense terrain rules but if you can draw a bead on marines and get reroll 1s then it's gravy.

 Esmer wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
Oh yeah taking certain units can be fun and cool. I have an Executioner tank I run with a ridiculous loadout because it's my first Russ and is known to be stupidly lucky, but I wouldn't recommend it in a tactics thread because mathwise it's not that great on paper.

Do you refer to the specific load-out or the Executioner in general?

Because I'd always take the Executioner over the Battle Cannon-against melee/short-range/mind-range MEQ armies.

My loadout is tank commander with plasma sponsons and a lascannon. It absolutely shreds things because it always rolls an absurd amount of hits. Back in blast rules days it would typically land 20-30 hits, nowadays with blasts it tends to roll around 15-16 shots on average and hits almost every time. That's not average for what it should be obviously, but I've seen it one shot repulsors, entire squads of gravis infantry, thundercav, you name it.

If I look at it purely objectively, it pales compared to a naked Demolisher cannon command tank if we look at damage done. And I run demolisher commanders a lot so I'm quite familiar with how powerful they are. Like I said the Executioner just seems to be lucky.

Also, and potentially more importantly, the Executioner just looks really damn cool.

Is the Battle Cannon not considered good anymore? I was under the impression that it used to be considered one of the best choices, at least until they buffed Demolishers.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Is the Battle Cannon not considered good anymore? I was under the impression that it used to be considered one of the best choices, at least until they buffed Demolishers.

I think the battle cannon was only ever mandatory for the hammer of sunderance, and now that most games exclude specialist detachments, it's not strong enough to compete against the demolisher with the smaller tables and the crucial S10 and higher damage output against multi wound models like gravis.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Is the Battle Cannon not considered good anymore? I was under the impression that it used to be considered one of the best choices, at least until they buffed Demolishers.

I would recommend it:

A) against ranged combat enemies
B) against light-armored enemies
C) when playing on large table sizes
D) on normal Leman Russes

So, it's still pretty versatile. I'd say it's the best generalist choice for a naked non-TC Russ staying in your hinterland.

By comparison, Executioner and Demolisher will be better if:

A) playing against close-range to mid-range enemies
B) playing against MEQ and TEQ
C) taken by a Tank Commander


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

 Esmer wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
Oh yeah taking certain units can be fun and cool. I have an Executioner tank I run with a ridiculous loadout because it's my first Russ and is known to be stupidly lucky, but I wouldn't recommend it in a tactics thread because mathwise it's not that great on paper.

Do you refer to the specific load-out or the Executioner in general?

Because I'd always take the Executioner over the Battle Cannon-against melee/short-range/mind-range MEQ armies.

My loadout is tank commander with plasma sponsons and a lascannon.

The las cannon is probably a bit much, but other than that, I'd say an all Plasma TC is a great choice against MEQ and TEQ. If you're already shooting with overcharged Plasma from the Turret, might as well fire 3-4 more shots with the same weapon from the sponsons.

BC's big advantage is using distance to buy an extra round of unmolested firing. That's lost in the current edition more times than not. In tradeoff less AP (even gaurd starts to make saves well when in cover, much less terminators) and its less damage means 2W (much less 3W) models are going to soak a lot of shots that are 1W only.
Plasma's 2W gives you solid consistancy against intercessers and even against 3W stuff, cause a lot of that is also deathball/feel no pain and the fourth point offsets that a lot.
The demo cannon makes for quite a strong marine killer in all classes, but especialy if you can sucker someone into putting transhuman where YOU would want it.

Deathballs usually get an apothecary boost (feel no pain, heals) .. but incursors out at an objective don't. They also usually don't get the favored transhuman treatment. These are the places that the battle cann's lackluster damage and penetration of marine armor + cover - 2 = 4+ saves casue it to end up killing half or less than the demo or plasma.

So you can kill 1 or 2 in the dathball -- or plasma down whole squads everywhere else, strip enemy board control from this small, elite army, and use your superior numbers of cheap troops to swim in and steal victory points left and right.