Here's the stuff Ogre Kingdoms are made of. Let's get the tactics going!

Orlanth @ Dakka forums wrote:

This text is 100% accurate, but still deliberately not complete. However I have updated this post with my original text, which I then cut very thin because I didn't know how much detail I could add to a review. Enjoy.


The Army Book.
This is a good one, GW have learned their lesson on fluff lite books and provided a good rundown on ogres their society history and religion. Its all new stuff from GW though it is reminiscent of Chaosium's Trollpak (early 80's Runequest). There is more colour print than I have seen in previous publications, with full colour drawings or photos on most pages. The rules seen reasonably well written and includes a lightly cynical writing style (Chaosium style honestly) that downplays just how utterly nasty ogres really are. Its more convincing that the usual Chaos is ub3r fluff we see. While the writing is downplayed much of the artwork is not including a picture of a brutal attack on a Kislevite caravan and of an ogre cave with captives in large cages hanging high up above waiting to be eaten. The background is well written and witty, I wont spoil your opportunity to enjoy it for yourselves. I will instead stick to a few salient points.

a. The first thing to learn is that Ogres are NOT Chaos, this is NOT a Chaos army book. If you expected to integrate Ogres with the Beasts, Mortals and Daemon armies, sorry.

b. Ogres worship the Great Maw. (For those who know Glorantha the Krarsht Cult will come to mind here.) The religion is centered around eating, pigging out is a religious experience and being fatter is being holier and well as mightier. Not that the ogres would recognise piety as any trait, food is food.

c. Ogres are mercenaries. Many of the units in the list can be used as mercenary Rare choices. Dogs of War armies take available ogres as Specials instead. They keep all their special rules as they are taken directly from this army book. So in affect Chaos armies can add some Ogres after all, but so can their opponents...

d. Ogres come from lands far to the east of the Old World. They are very well travelled though as some of the models indicate. If we were to correlate the world maps they come from Siberia. p.s. By this standard you Yanks are Dark Elves

e. Chaos Dwarves are mentioned in the background directly, indication that GW has not abandoned them a la Squats.


The Miniatures.
The Ogres look good, however the basic Ogre Bull is fairly plain so as not to distract from the more extravagent ogres. The basic ogre has a pair of trousers and boots and a big metal shield over the stomach. This is probably a plastic kit. This gut plate has ceremonial as well as practical uses. They tend to carry big clubs unless upgraded to nastier weaponry. Ogres appear not to make much except gut plates and clubs, but scrounge items made by others putting them to good use. They look even less technically advanced than orcs, but possibly even more resourceful. Some of the more well travelled ogres can be equipped with a large array of looted items including firearms of various sizes, armour and weaponry. Some miniatures deserve special mention, but I will leave this until I describe them in the list.

Ogres.
The basic ogre profile is: 632443237 and they 'champion and 'hero' up from there in pretty much the usual way. There are exceptions, but it would be unfair to list too much.

Ogre Special rules.
Bull Rush: Get one normal impact hit on a 6" or over charge at normal strength.
Cause Fear
US3 each
Nobody likes a Groblar: Ogre characters can NEVER lead a Gnoblar unit.
Bellowers: Ogres dont have musicians but some can shout unusually loudly which acts as the same. Not really a special rule.

Ogre weapons.
Ogre club. A hand weapon that counts -1 armour save if not used in conjunction with any other weapon.
Ironfist. Can be used as an additional hand weapon or as a shield.

Gnoblars
Gnoblars are S2 goblins with bigger ears and a few nice rules. They dont have much in the way of weaponry, just jagged scraps to poke and throw.

Gnoblar Special Rules.
Largely insignificant: A bit like 'ignore goblin panic' except noone cares. Not even other Gnoblars.
Bicker: Animosity except that if you fail they always do nothing.
Sharp Stuff: Gnoblars throw sharp objects, any sharp objects, twice each. 8" S2.

Gnoblars can be added to the bases of characters. As walking wargear. Different gnoblars have different effects.
Luck Gnoblars: One rerolled save.
Tooth Gnoblars: Eat one for +1 casting roll. Yum.
Sword Gnoblars: add 1xS2 attack at the Ws of the character.
Lookout Gnoblars: Can get 'Look out sir' in units of 3+ bases.


OGRE CHARACTERS

The Lords cost 200pts, the Heroes about 130pts plus add ons. There is a fairly short list of magic items, mainly totemic stuff and a few enchanted weapons banners and the like. The main bonus is that most of the magic weapons are great weapons.
Ogre characters can also be given Big Names at 10-35pts depending on the name. These names are crude titles like Wallcrusher, Longstrider and Kineater. If you think of these as crude equivalents of 'Knightly Virtues' then you arent far wrong.

Tyrant - Your standard Ogre Lord
Slaughtermaster - A 'Wizard Lord' up to a point. You need to have a Tyrant to take one.
Bruiser - Ogre Hero with BSB options as usual.
Hunter - Pay extra for a scouting hero. He gets a Harpoon Launcher - S5 bolt thrower wielded as a crossbow with special rules for damaging large creatures. And can take Sabretusks, big cats that accompany him or can be freed up as fast cavalry. They are about as hard as a two wound genestealer.
Butcher - Your standard 'Wizard'. Dont make the mistake of thinking this will be a 1A pushover. He is just less than a hero but with a little 'simple' magic.

CORE

Ogre Bulls.
Your standard ogres are mandatory, 1+. They are 35pts each and quite nasty. They start off with only an ogre club you can pay extra to upgrade their weaponry a little. You can add hand weapons (+4pts), or replace the orge club with hand weapons and irocnfist (+5pts). They can be given light armour (+3pts). They get commands at +20/+10. They replace old Ogres rules as Dogs of War, well as you can take them, they are better than the older ogres and cost the same - why not. Bull champions are called Crushers. Some of the pictures show Bulls ranked up with a rank bonus, including a 3x2 unit.

Ironguts.
48pts for a little extra leadership, heavy armour and a great weapon. Dogs of War can hire them too. Commands as for Bulls. Irongut champions are called Gutlords (the turkey pick of the names in this army book).

Gnoblars.
The 'Skinks' to your army of 'Krox'. Hand weapons and sharp stuff. No commands except a champion called a Groinbiter (makes up for Gutlord). At 2pts each these are made for full ranks to add to your Ogres command. The miniatures are ranked up deep and wide, though suspect they are useful mainly as four wide and very deep for outnumber tag teams with an Ogre units with full command. They nicely go together.

Gnoblar Trappers.
6pts to scout and skirmish. Your only 0-1 unit. Champions are called Snarefingers. The models are much more varied than the regular Gnoblars, most are carrying beartraps or snares. Though there are no rules for them in battle.
Entourage: They also benefit from a Hunters leadership if he is within 12". if within 6" they can throw sharp stuff to assist him if charged without the -1 to hit penalty.

SPECIAL

Leadbelchers.
These are fun. Each has light armour and a stolen cannon held as a shotgun and supported by chains. The ammo is not shot, but any scrap metal they can shoot. The miniatures are shown loaded and unloaded, I suspect you add the scrap yourself. Favoured scrap includes spears, swords, ogre clubs etc, basically anything except roundshot. Range is only 12" S4, but they use the artillery dice to determine number of shots. Oh they are Dogs of War too. I think we will be seeing a few of those at 55pts each. They can have a bellower and a Thunderfist champion but no standard bearer.

Yhetees.
Talled and lankier than Ogres, their weapons are covered in ice and count as magical. If the unit is hit by fire magic though the ice melts to normal weaponry, a nice touch. They also completely ignore terrain and undefended obstabcles in movement. Stats are similar to an Ogre but they are a little stronger and a little faster moving and a lot fast in attacking. 65pts each, or more for a Greyback champion. Sorry they are not for hire.
Aura of Frost: Any enemy in BTB is at -1 to hit. Immune to Ice Magic.

Gnoblar Scraplauncher.
You will like this. First its a chariot, T5 W5 4+ save. Its pulled by a Rhinox, S5 A3. This looks like a mammoth with a rhino head and two big horns in a V. The chariot itself is on skis is crewed by six Gnoblars, yes they ALL attack. To top it off it has an S3 stone thrower that can fire in a 90 degree forward arc and can fire while moving. The Rhinox must charge if it can do so, unless it passes its Ld5. At 165pts it not much cheaper than a steam tank, but its a combination of chariot artillery and unit.


RARES

Maneaters.
These Ogres have seen the world as mercenaries and have come back with the spoils. They have upgraded skills and leadership and cost 80pts each. Some of them have stolen Cathayan longswords which are well made so they add +1Ws and I, -1 save. Or they can have a brace of handguns, yes Empire handguns not pistols! Though they look like pistols to ogres and have pistol rules advantages. They are stubborn and Immune to Psychology. They have no command. They are Dogs of War (naturally). The miniatures are characterful and varied.

Slavegiant.
A giant carrying slave chains and wearing an iron mask. The chains have spiked balls on the ends. Just about like a regular giant but has some extra attack options involving its chains. It costs 175pts. One of its special rules is called 'Broken'. Some players may see this as having a double meaning.

Gorger.
A 75pt eating machine. Armed with teeth and claws. Its not far off the statline of an ogre hero. It has Killing Blow and is Unbreakable.
Ravenous: It must end up closer to the enemy each time it moves.
Bloodscent: This thing just turns up, and finds the battle about the same time 40K Reserves do.

Dogs of War
As usual.


OGRE MAGIC

Ogre Butchers (level 2) and Slaughtermasters (level 4) use Gut Magic. They can all cast any of the six spells. They are all cast on 3+ and are dispelled if in play on a 7+. Each time each turn a successfully cast spell is reused add a further 3 to the casting cost.

They don't count as remains in play for the purposes of the Butcher casting them.
Ogre enchantment spells only work on real Ogres, not ogre allies. Each ogre cannot benefit from more than one spell at a time (not including any nasty Remains in Play the opponent gets to cast on them).
Most ogre spells have a backfire effect causing a wound, Ogres will eventually kill themselves if they cast too often. Ogres also have their own extra punitive miscast table, but dont usually need to use too many power dice.

Bloodgruel: Self healing spell, can backfire.
Braingobbler: 18" range panic causing spell.
Bullgorger: +1S to target.
Bonecrusher: 18" 2d6 S2 magic missile, no armour saves, with a S4 backfire.
Toothcracker: Target +1T and Stubborn, with a S6 backfire.
Trollguts: Target gets Magic Resistance(2) and Regenerates, automatically backfires.

Most spells ranges are 6", Slaughtermasters cast up to 12" with these spells.

As you can see, Ogres can spam out a lot of magic each turn even if they dont take many mages. However remember that they have a relatively poor item selection and as an ogre each 'wizard' is already expensive. Opponents of Ogres will avoid scroll caddies in favour of dispel dice boosting items for a much better return. Gut Magic laughs at Dispel scrolls.

SPECIAL CHARACTERS
Skrag the Slaughterer, Prophet of the Great Maw.
An upgraded Slaughtermaster costing 400pts. The more models he kills in melee on a table from 1 to 15+ the more advantages he gets. These advantages are nice and include a full heal and Regeneration, 'twin linking' his hand weapons, Unbreakable etc every Gorger in the army also gets a lesser but not insignificant bonus too as Skrag kills more and more.

Greasus Goldtooth, Overtyrant of the Ogre Kingdoms.
An upgraded Tyrant counting as Two Lords and a BSB who costs 565pts. He is extra fat and reclines into battle carried by a tide of gnoblars. He is a real Chav ogre with more bling than MrT.
The gnoblars are a very bad idea. Nurgling palanquins were obviously magical, this is like the Lilliputians all picking up Gulliver and running. To be honest this looks really daft as a miniature too. For kids only.

I think VC players are in for a hard time. No autobreaking Ogres or other benefits from fear, and multiwound/multiattack high S creatures the lot of them. I had 3 Ogres wipe out 30 Zombies in a couple of turns. Good movement, and the ultimate Spirit Host killers - Yhetees.

Banshee's and Gaze of Nagash can be good, but Curse of Years suck of course.

Why does the Curse suck, pray? I'm seeing one major magical defense - Trollguts - and without a fairly maxed-out list (multiple spellcasters, few units) that's not going to be placed on too many (although granted it'll be going on at least one unit a turn, as their casters know all the Gut Magic spells automatically)

I can't see the average Ogre army as including too many wizards, myself - they're probably going to attract players who like their combat and don't plan too well for other phases - so you're left with average Dispelling power. If you can get a Curse off on an Ogre unit and keep it running - easily done if you can put pressure on them to use their dice on other stuff - it'll make mincemeat of them, certainly more than throwing S4 hits at the big lummoxes.

There's a greater than average risk of the Curse being Dispelled with Power dice, what with Gut Magic's low casting costs, but that's hardly any reason for referring to it as sucky.

Of course, I've probably missed something, so feel free to drill holes in this argument, but on the surface at least the Curse will be reaping a hefty tally of expensive Ogres.

(and I would hardly call the Ogre background 'witty'...)

I can foresee Death magic coming in handy here - more attack spells and the ability to knock down Leadership values, so we can keep hitting them with enough S4 hits to make a difference and hamstring their Break tests. Doom and Darkness could be useful for VC armies with lots of terror-causers - Black Coach and a Wraith or two, and I'd consider a Blood Dragon VL/VC or VC Thrall with the Wailing Helm, just so that they're not getting it all their own way in the psychology stakes.

Hard part's going to be beating them in combat... as far as I can see march-blocking and hitting them with the fast and hard stuff is going to be the way forward. A small Ogre unit should crack under the impact of Black Knights, a Coach and Doom and Darkness. A big Ogre unit will run roughshod over all and sundry, but I'll deal with this when I face it.

I think the closest comparison to existing armies would be with Bretonnians - fast, hard-hitting units that take up a lot of board space each and are quite clumsy, magic not their biggest strength and capable of negating psychology. With that in mind, sneaking Summoned units on between them to slow them down and then, as above, slamming a unit at a time with our hardest and fastest would be the way forward. The devil, however, is in the details...

Of course, it's hard to write about tactics when we don't know about standard Ogre list practise yet. Get back to me in three months and I'll have a better plan.

Thanks for the low down NIB. Them causing fear is a massive blow for us... Though i don't see them numbering much... I'm pretty sure we'd be swarming them from left, right and rear.

Summoned Crossbow-Skellies would be quite useful here. large target, Str 4 shots.

Going to be quite tough to play against a good player... but we'll see.

IMO Curse of Years suck because of the small number of dice you roll, and the 3 wounds on each model. How many dice will you roll for a unit, 3-4 on average? If you're lucky you will cause a single wound in the first turn, you can completely forget about panic tests. And in the next turn it's not sure the wounded model will take another wound. No model will die before your third turn and by then it will probably be too late. Gaze is so much better. *edit* Talking about Ogre units here.

Knights will be really good, and loads of crossbow Militia, true. Terror causing VC units will almost never outnumber though, so they will have little impact in the games. Besides the Hell Banner of course.

Don't be afraid of talking about army books before they've come out, we all know that it's more fun when people throw about all sorts of wild speculations. :)

Time to arm those Grave Guards with Halberds, seeing how killing blow doesn't affect ogres.

Halberds seem a good choice here, though the Drakenhof Guard is better. In fact the Sylvanian army should be a good pick against the Ogres with their focus on fighting characters that gives some much needed punch, since the ordinary swamp-outnumber-waitforopponenttolosearoundofcombat-autobreak don't work.

In fact, the key to success vs OK seem to be the same as vs Chaos - load up on elites and rares, with a tad less effectiveness of magic though.

But we're in for a hard time no doubt. Giants... I just knew it. I hate Giants, they almost always make back their points against me. VC really struggle to deal with them, see Cypress' thread on the topic.

You want nightmares? 3 units of Leadbelchers, Yheetes, 2 Slave Giants, the rest Ogres...

I edited the first post for an easier read. Should I make it a quote to get that nice white background?

Does it cause a wound or KILL? I can't remember... if it's a wound on a 6 then I retract my earlier statement, but I believe it does in fact kill flat out.

Let's see now.

Ogres attempt to charge unit with terror in there.
Ogres take fear test.
Ogres fail fear test.
Ogres stall (not under every possible circumstance, true, but if it's a big target and a small unit...)
Unit with terror-causer charges Ogres.

And isn't it usually better to charge than be charged? I reckon getting your attacks in before the hail of S6 nastiness could be more than just a 'little impact'.

A wound. An outright kill would be really unbalanced, killing characters, Giants, Bloodthirsters etc.

The difference between Terror and fear is huge of course. Where a failed test would have caused them to flee, they now stand still, and your charge can maybe be diverted in their movement phase. With their 12" charge it's not sure you can charge them back either.

And you will probably have only one model/unit on the table that cause fear to them which will limit the impact. A decent player will watch your deployment and act accordingly to neutralize the fear from your single unit, we don't know what Ld the hero characters will have yet. If it's a single VC model with Terror, it can't be everywhere in the unit either, so slamming flank/rear is good options.

Furthermore because of their good M their charges can likely be declared within the Ld of the general. But it's a moot point anyway, since your Terror unit will be charged by a Slave Giant. :blink: I hate Giants.

All in all, little help from VC Terror, with the exception already mentioned. And maybe a mounted Wraith with the Cursed Book can be of some nuisance, I don't see many magic missiles coming from the Ogre army.

spirit hosts and banshees are all the go for against orges. and huge units (30+) of skeles or zombies will hold up the orges as they proberly wont have ranks. When you think bout it the orges wont have the combat resolution to do much against us. Units with heros will snap the orges as will knights

Just use the Rod of Flaming death to make their wepons normal again.

simple :D

I have a question, are the Gnobblars, Gorgers, Slave Giants, and Scraplaunchers DOW as well?

No. Gnoblars are very much Ogres-only.

N.I.B. - point taken about the Curse, then. Must be that I'm used to casting on one wound models...

I'm still not convinced about Terror... a BD Vampire or VC Thrall with the Wailing Helm, a Wraith or two, a Black Coach... maybe the big nasties... we've a lot of ways to cause Terror, most of which deploy as characters and so could well be going down after the Ogres' battleplan has been revealed.

darkesstemplar- maybe 30 some Skellies could hold Ogres up for a long while, but 30 Zombies won't. I've tried.

lamby- we don't know the exact description of the Yhetees' weakness (what is fire magic exactly?), and if Rod of Flaming Death is defined as such an attack. It would be fine if it was, but other than getting a shot at the Yhetees it pretty much blows, since you have to cause a casualty to instill a panic test. Hard to do vs T4 3W models.

The Rod and multi VC Terror units, no one brings such an army to a tournament. I understand that you talk about tweaking here, picking your list when you know what army you will face but I'm more thinking about all-comers list such as you use in tournaments. Every bit counts though, keep 'em coming!

Yhetees are scary stuff. No more protecting your flanks with terrain, and with an average unit having 10 str5 attacks on the charge these things are nasty.

Yep, Yhetees seems like a nobrainer choice to me.

I believe 'fire magic' is any attack that is defined as 'flaming' and has a magical source. It's all about rearranging the words to find the hidden meaning... whether or not GW has bothered to explicitly state that the Rod of Flaming Death is 'flaming' is a different matter...

I do know what you mean about all-comers lists vs tournamenting though, and in your defence I've found terror's normal effect to be more or less useless. My Wraith has caused one test in the four battles I've used him in...

Had a game against them on saturday and massicared them. They aren't that hard, you need to play agressive. The the lord level orgre isn't as hard as he seems. I think orgres are like brets need to charge. their units are good at attacking but need to charge so they don't get hit back cos toughness 4 and a 6+ save isn't that great.

Haven't face the wizards yet though

Haha at last some "useless" items will have their uses now. I'm talking about: Hell Banner (auto-breaking ogres!), Frostblade (why not? can prove effective), Rod of Flaming Death (fire magic missile plus causing panic test whatsoever) and maybe some more...

The Rod is not likely to kill and Ogre. No kill, no panic. Gnoblars that's another story, but we really don't need any fancy stuff to deal with them.

But it steel needs to be tested. Maybe if, by an accident, i would drop an ogre to 1 wound (with gaze f.e.) then rod can pop out as very good.

Banshee's and spirit host will be the way to go against the ogres. Yet to encounter any but there are a couple of ogre armies listed in my next tournament so with luck will get a chance first hand to see how my Lahmians do against them.

Agree Curse is a waste of time, they should suffer badly from gaze however and all our usual tactics should work. In the long run our ranked units should win a combat eventually . . . just got to keep them around long enough for it to occur.

Indeed, you will need large bloocks to tie them up and then move in for the kill with an elite unit from the flank...

The Cursed Book will be very good against Ogres, since they have very little static CR (no ranks and no outnumber) and therefore depend on caused wounds to win their combats.

nib hit it on the head there, their main problem is lack of static combat res.

the rod is ace, especially against yhetees as it negates their magic weapons (host anyone?)

but be careful, even if they dont charge, ironguts etc, will do more than enough damage to bo winning the combat....

Now it might even work to sent in a vampire count in on his own, as the ogres will have only 2 basic cr for a uunit against the vampire: outnumbering and standard you will be able to maybe even break them with a single character.

A point raised by Nemesys

Question on unit size, if for example you have a wraith leading your unit of 29 skeletons are the ogres basing their fear test on a unit strength of 30 or just the single model (the wraith?) this of course will have a big affect on the game...

Cbt

So far I've only playd 2 games against the ogre kingdoms, it was a 2k match and here is the lessons I've learned that we can use to our advantage.

1: Bats are almost useless, They can only be used to march block which we can do much cheaper.

2:Direwolves should stay away from any ogre units, though they work when flanking gnoblars, because only the kills will count for CR, (ranks are ignored, the wolves has the flank, while the gnoblars has an outnumber), and the olves should be able to kill more gnoblars than the other way arround.

3:Though ogres has movement 6 they are still highly immobil when being behind him, only the leadbelchers or a stray scraplauncher can threaten a character that has gotten behind his line, with bat/wolf form.

4: Keep your characters (especially you general away from his tyrant, he is most likely to have the tenderizer, (D3 wounds), and 5 attacks with S7 and D3 wounds can take out the toughest lord.

5: Use his leadership, take out his flankers, they are very easy to panic. Another way to use this is by using banshees. (I gave 8 wounds to his tyrant in my game using 2 banshees, he ward saved 3 before he fell).

6: Get the charge, ogres are not as strong as you exspect, and if you get the charge most units could brake them. (throw blocks into the ironguts, and knights into his bulls). If its impossible then move within 6" and avoid his impact hits.

7: Ghouls take them out very easely, but don't try to allocate attacks on their butchers, (without a very good reason), they are imunne to poison.

8: magic missiles can really hurt them. 'nuf said

9: Try to brake throug his line, and he will have to turn around to get you, enhancing your chance to charge.

Thats what I can remember right now, I might put more onto this later though..

cheers

I disagree. Just because we have other ways to march block doesn't mean we can't use a cheap unit that always works and require no succesful magic or spending of bloodline powers. They can act as charge blockers too if the need arises, though not so good as Wolves. But I see your point, like against chaos armies Fell Bats are not likely to cause a single wound during a game, not counting Gnoblars.

50 points Dire Wolves are not there to cause wounds but mainly to force the worst Ogre threats chasing them out on the periphery giving us time to pick the rest of the army apart.

Good points the rest!

@ CBT

I'm not sure. I think it's based on the single model, since that's what they're actually scared of. But they're taking a test, which is an improvement on their not taking a test.

They only fear the Wraith, so that's US 1. And only if the charge bring them in BTB with the Wraith model.

Thanks N.I.B. I should hope they will be going into the Wraith though - if you've let one of their clumsy great units get around to your flank without a chance to reposition yourself, you have done something very, very wrong.

How powerful are the Ogre magic items? I'm pretty sure my Vampires can still handle themselves, but better safe than dead (again).

Hell Banner on a BsB in a militia unit with spears, could be good

I have 5 games against Ogre Kingdoms - 3 as Necrarch and 2 as Strigoi.

Thier units should be treated the same way as Minotaurs, Ushabties etc. Both charging Black Knights or a Strigoi (tactical charge) can break a unit and Ogres don't have many.

Spirit Host on a flank is as devastating as ever. Preventing them from marching with the Bats or setting traps with the Wolves are tactical tricks that work quite well. Separate their units. Without mutual support they only look tough. Gnoblars are harmless at best (in my Necrarch army 55% of the models are Thg 4) and can be taken care of when there is nothing better to do.

As Strigoi I've summoned 2 units of Ghouls and blocked their unit's movement, turning them into easy prey for the Vampires (both Count and Thrall simultaneously attack a unit causing on average 7 wounds). In both games I had no problems to massacre them.

As Necrarch things were different. I have no killing machines (wrong bloodline ;) ) and only 5 Black Knights (flankers). In exchage I cripple their magic (I find Staff of Sorcery quite useful with 7+ dispel dice) and have overwhelming magic phase on my own. The standard Invocation + Vanhel's works well (flank, not rear), the Gaze is a good spell against them, and I disagree about the Curse: it softens their unit for a charge - staying a full turn it causes half Ogre models to have 2 wounds only (the first ones to be removed as casualties) - so if rolled, why not make use of it. The first game I've ever played vs. Ogres was a SV for me and the other two - a slaughter (though not so easy as with Strigoii).

My experience is that it's vital to impede their march move, soften their units with magic/Banshees and outmanoeuvre them aiming for huge CombRes. VC's best units seem to be Black Knights, Spirit Hosts and Ghouls (on a flank with wounded Ogres they can do a lot of damage even in HtH). Grave Guards hold positions, nothing more.

Soon I will be facing an Ogre Kingdom's Army for the first time. Generally if I know what army type I will be facing, I look at the army book and figure out a general plan to combat the armies overall strengths and exploit thier weaknesses.

So for ogres, they don't rely on ranks to win combat , more on kills and they have fear. So flanking to win with zombies to win CC and auto run is out.

thier goblin-like rank bonus guys will go down easily, but other then that, what else can I do except hope for a lucky round of combat with my troops? (I generally try not to overly rely on my vampires to win my combats for me, since I only use 2 in 2k)

So what are your tactics/advice for facing a 2k ogre kingdom's army?

my advice:

to do:
banshees!! OK are scared silly of banshees!!
have the best CR bonuses possible:
ie as many ranks, std, mus, outnumber. if you max these out, the OK will need to score at least 5 cas to equal your CR. if you have a vampire in there, its even better!!

make your frontage only 4 wide to reduce the amount of models he can get in base contact.

hit him in the rear with small dire wolf units to panic him.

use bat swarms and hit him in the flank

guard your flanks
hug his troops so they dont get the impact hits
they hate black knights with the hell banner!! win+outnumber =auto break!!
hit the gnoblars in the flank with lots of dire wolves and they will run away.

do not:
let him charge you (obvious!)


more later, at work now... :)

Ok ive only ever faced an OK army once with the brets (we won)

I faced those horrible yettie creatures and they can be nasty, against them was a unit of 15 rather depleted zombies. Now I beat them off with the luck of getting strike first spell though and the raise spell, after two turns I ran them down.

Do not get charged by them, they hurt like crazy.

All up I found my magic saved me that battle and those little goblins thingys dont worry about them they just kept running in the battle I was in.

Bring Superior numbers, Undead staying power, and Invok / Macabre to bear on the foe, and you'll quickly outnumber and swamp them.

OK go down easily to a decent rank bonus, and lets face it. if they kill soime skele's... who cares?

you should pretty much rule the magic phase, and their magic attack spells are largely ineffective in attack, but pretty good in Def/enhancement.

Basically, if an unranked ogre unit gets stuck in combat for one or two turns while your Heavy Cav deal with opposition, and wheel to face their rear... The ogres are going to get owned.

Black knights are gods against ogres...

Negating all armour and wounding on 2's. The only drawback is the reduced Killingblow effectiveness...

Vampire Thralls on Nightmares add a nice kick to the cav unit, which can unleash the pwn on basically any army.

A decent unit can knock off 2/3 orgres (no mean feat with 3 wounds each) and then overrun into other units / deal with other, closer units.

Low armour saves mean that even humble skeletons with Hellish vigour can do some damage, with a wounds or two possible. More, if you use spears (which I don't ;))

Remember. You don't need to kill them one to one.

Just run them down ;)

I was thinking of this, until I read that the hell banner is 60 pts and the BK can only take 50 pts worth of banner, so that would mean I'd have to waste a hero slot on a BSB to carry the banner.

But this brings up an interesting question. If I have a BSB with the hell banner in a BK unit with the Screaming banner, do the effects overlap, causing ogres to roll 3 dice on thier fear check against the BK's charge, then take the highest 2?

(too much points to spend on one unit, but still, an interesting combo)