Enemy of the Month November: Ogre Kingdoms

[geoguswrek]

This month's enemy are the hordes of ever hungry, ever eating fatties from the mountains. The ogre kingdoms. I'll open this one straight to the floor, I'm curious as to what other peple do against them.

[WarpPhoenix]

The only person I have played that uses OK doesnt use a Butcher ever so im a little inclined to say they have little to no magic defence?

I find shooting and magic a great way to deal with them, they have toughness 4 all around sure but the best they get is heavy armour.

I was playing a big game recently and I know its not a really big trouble with High Elves since our mages fall over to a stiff wind but the Greedy fists item is pretty amazing if it hits a tough magic user, it reduces the target wizard level by 1 for every hit and its not even a magical weapon!

My biggest warning to anyone playing Ogres is the Gnoblars, those guys have surprised time after time, they're weak but who needs kills with static combat res? Having a large unit of them near the general gives a good means for a one turn tarpit and with the ogres fast movement they can take advantage of that pretty easily.

The biggest weakness that ogres have agaisnt high elves is we deny their bull charge like its nothing, HEs dont care who charges in terms of striking first so when some ogres are about 13" away getting ready for a counter charge the best thing to do is to march 10" right towards them and let them have the charge, they'll get the charge but they wont get the bull charge impact hits because they need to move 6" to get it, this tactic has served me and my swordmasters well over the games ive had with them.

Most OK players will take small units of 3 ogres and just float them around and knock out units at will, and I'll tell you right now you have to be LUCKY for swordmasters to take the charge of 3 ogre ironguts. If we have a 7 wide swordmaster unit we can rely on 5-6 wounds, if we hit 5 wounds we're going to lose many elves because they'll still have 2 guys to attack back and they'll pound our elves into the ground, but if we put down 6 wounds we'll win because we'll only have one guy attacking back and hopefulyl he'll only do 1-2 wounds, meaning the swordmasters can continue to be usefull. A piece of advice i give to any HE player going up against OK is to weaken the small units with a volly of ANY missle fire, even if you plink 1 wound from the unit that can swing the next combat they're in because we need to kill whole models.

Tyrants with the big name that gives them toughness 6 is a hard charge with a dragon, and usually the Tyrant will have a great weapon that gives him D3 wounds each so unless you take all 5 wounds from this toughness 6 model he'll probably take your dragon away from you.

Thats all ive got on OK for the moment!

[Wolf 11x]

The only person I have played that uses OK doesnt use a Butcher ever so im a little inclined to say they have little to no magic defence?

They can have pretty good magic defense. They've got some nice items like the Hellheart, a banner that lets them re-direct magic, and Gnoblar Thiefstones. I'm sure I'm forgetting something here as well.

My friend took a non-butcher magic defensive list against my Slann once. It actually worked pretty well.

[geoguswrek]

Ogres have a lot of problems against high elves. all our stuff either outcharges them, or it can walk forward and take a charge, while avoiding bull charge, as noted above.

A very good option to take is a bsb with helm of fortune and sword of might, plus dragon prince kit. Shove this infront of a unit of bulls (its best if the bulls don't have a banner, but even if they do it isn't too bad) and you'll win combat, letting you block off a unit and thus move extra stuff up to kill it.

[Griffon Prince]

Lore of Death, 3 Bolt throwers and 20 archers can pretty much do the job. Doom and Darkness works wonders.Most OK lists bring 3 casters so I'd expect to bring good magic defense. You MUST stop their stubborn spell, let the regen one go through if you have to.
Primary target would be the leadbelchers as they shoo us to hell. If you see a unit of 3+ Maneaters, target them second since they got stubborn and are immune to psych.

[mr jelly beans]

Always go for the maneaters with shooting and magic, as they are not happy in combat and they are easy points. 270 pts if you can shoot down 9 toughness 4 wounds with almost no save. Also I have never seen my leadbelchers do much in any game so I am always puzzled why so many people fear them. yes, a three man unit could het 30 shots, but it won't happen. Mine always roll four shots and a missfire. Some people might have some nice stories about how brutal they can be but I have never seen it.

Always guard your flanks, as ogres thrive on flank charges. Even two man units break ranks and cause a mess. Most ore units cant take on rankes units in the front though so just take them head on. Just watch out for the tyrant with the tenderiser. He will challenge anything for the overkill possibility and ussualy wins. He is the another thing elves would rather shoot than fight in combat.

[geoguswrek]

The tyrant is just begging for a swrdmaster champion with talisman of loec. you'll probably do 2 wounds maybe three, and then lose combat by 2 (and probably hold if the bsb+ general are around) and then chopping the tyrant down with swordsmen is easy.

Most of their magic doesn't matter too much. If they really bother you, let through some spells and then waste a magic phase dispelling them in your turn, since the really annoying ones only work in combat.

[Lord Anathir]

refused flank. Make your small army frontage an advantage versus his very wide frontage. Shoot the units on your stong flank to let you get around his side, while holding up/redirecting the units on your weak flank/centre.

Swordmasters into tyrant unit, and 20 spears with a noble will break everything else.

[scurrdi]

With the Ogres I've always discovered that just hitting them hard usually does the trick. They break pretty easily under the fold.

Then again, I haven't played against too many really tough Ogre lists.