So far no love for the ogres 
Let’s change that!
What are your thoughts about the different choices in the army list?
Feel free to post anything regarding tactics or list ideas.
3 Likes
Ogres are ogres and should do well, they just can’t rely on boomers as much anymore.
Haven’t Boomers stayed the same?
1 Like
So I’ve played Ogres in WHFB since they were released - as well as all the years of AOS so far - and am a huge fan of Big Guy style armies, especially in KOW, where hordes of Large Infantry tend to be favored by the ruleset, if a little less so in 3E. It’s a genuine surprise that I haven’t built an Ogre army yet (Fun Fact: I’ve had one bought and ready to go for years now), but frankly the list has just never seemed competitive to me. Or to put it another way, since I don’t actually want or like armies that are ball-breakingly competitive, it has never been clear to me how Ogres win.
Shooters were crutches pre-COK, Boomer spam was always a thing (not any more?), Siegebreakers were preposterously good (the one time I played Jesse Cornwall with my Sallies, I burned his entire army away by Turn 3, except for two hordes of 'Breakers and their two ASBs; those units went on to tie the game by absorbing charge after charge and murdering everything that went into them, with one horde holding on at Turn 6), Hell On Wheels was super hot for one COK season, Boomer Sergeant spam was a COK-boosted thing as well. Of those various skews, chariots seem to have survived the best, particularly in an edition that has not been kind to chariots, likely because most chariots shoot but Ogre ones couldn’t be bothered to (huge shrug for boomer chariots, has anyone actually used those?)
That brief 2E retrospective aside, I will say that I’m unexpectedly excited to finally build my Ogres. Part of that is that my current new army - Trident - and my prospective new army - Stalkers - are both quite popular and either weaker / stronger than I anticipated, and the other part is that 3E seems to be the grind edition. For all I can tell, Ogres just want to brawl (#thosefeels), and while 2E was not kind to brawler lists, 3E might be amenable to just getting stuck in. I can dig that.
It helps that my prospective build is based around Hunter hordes, who got some love in 3E (Sp 7! Yes!), with a chariot legion (also buffed!), couple giants (now colossal I guess!), a blaster (happily reworked!), token goblin chaff (left entirely alone!), and handful of heroes (all cheaper or buffed!). So unlike my TR, who were largely nerfed across the board, or NS plans, which got some serious points hikes and lost unit entries I was planning on, Ogres sorta got buffed in all the ways I wanted to run them. I.e. not boomers or breakers 
I have a couple other thoughts - that combining the various sergeant level heroes into one was smart, that Grok still being so good is kinda bad - but not much other experience to do a whole run down.
EDIT: You know, Boomers weren’t nerfed much at all? What are people on about? Maybe they take more negatives now (maybe?), but on the flip side they can take Fire-Oil or that arrow item. As in, not much changed all told.
EDIT2: Wow, I’m really excited about boomer chariot troops now! 100x100 little cubes of death to replace the loathesome goblin scouts I wasn’t very excited to slot in. Comes at the cost of messing with a blaster 
but on the whole a lot more interesting of a ‘chaff’ drop.
3 Likes
Boomers are still good and the Hordes unlock
My 2 cents.
I love my boomers. Not being able to put elite and vicious (Both melee and range) on them does hurt. Boomers are still great at taking out chaff that is blocking your charges. Great support unit.
Crocodogs is basically a cheap one use Elite in melee that I think is an auto include.
I do like pot shot on shooters on that they can move up and still shoot so they are not left behind. I still prefer boomers.
Excited to try Ogres in 3e. So far have only used my KoM and EoD.
1 Like
Boomers are still good, what’s messing people up is the changes to cover. You only ignore cover if you’ve been given the halt order while you’re in it. No more running into the woods and Booming stuff off with ease. Also with breath attack not being a thing anymore stealth hurts our feels.
Siegebreakers are pretty amazing, for 40 more points than warriors you get +1 crushing str and big shield. That is awesome.
The red goblins blasters are good, I’m just too stupid to use them properly.
Berserker bullies are legit OP and I love them.
Ogres are in a good spot this edition.
7 Likes
I was thinking about what items support the different units the best. This is all theoretical talk. Please do correct me, if I am wrong somewhere or of there are other good options I missed.
Red Goblins:
Honestly, I wouldn’t give them anything. It is just not worth it. Other thoughts?
Warrior Chariots Horde/Legion:
Wine of Elvenkind: the extra pivot will help keep them maneuverable even with the big footprint
Maccwar’s Potion of the Caterpillar: also great if you want to avoid get stuck in terrain and for unhindred charges.
For me it is a tough decission between these two.
Boomer Horde:
Fire Oil: as mentioned above, a great addition due to its dual use in melee and shooting
Blessing of the Gods: useful to score more hits
Chant of Hate: if you field a 2nd unit I would consider it as an option to make sure that the scored hits wound the target.
Warrior Horde:
Crocodog is an auto-include here, as mentioned above.
So they really need more?
Shooter Horde:
Never used them…
Hunter Horde:
Crocodog for sure.
Mead of Madness: the extra inch can come in handy.
Other than that I really can’t think of something that is necessary or an auto-include. In the 2nd edition I gave them the Brew of Haste, which is obsolete as they already have a movement of 7. Except you want to make them extra fast…
Berserker Brave Horde:
Never used them…
Siege Breaker Horde:
I am really undecided here. Do they really need anything?
Blood of the old King: you make sure to kill the unit you’re engaged with, but at a price.
Blade of Slashing: if you can spare the points…
Thats my 2 cents. Happy to discuss.
2 Likes
Just remember BotG and CoH do not help Boomers in the Range phase. They are only Melee now.
For the hell of it, here’s what I’m looking at for Ogres sometime next year:
Ogre Warlock
Sergeant
Army Standard - War Bow
Warrior Chariots Legion - Cat Potion
Boomer Chariots Troop
Boomer Chariots Troop
Hunters Horde
Hunters Horde
Hunters Horde
Hunters Horde
Giant
Giant
Seems pretty average in power level. Doesn’t have many tricks, wants to scrap and has the speed to get there plus the beef to get work done. Looking forward to it, particularly as a break from all the ‘finessing’ my TR will be doing until these boys arrive 
1 Like
I don’t think so. Only bought ranged attacks and spells don’t benefit from the units special rules. The other way around is not excluded. Is there a rule somewhere that says that? I can’t find any in the book.
Just checked the RB. You’re absolutely right. I’m wrong. Don’t know where I heard that.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think you have remotely enough unlocks in either of those lists? Chariot regiments only unlock one thing each, and the Warrior regiments nothing but troops.
Got it. Large Infantry Regiments don’t unlock.
Hunters and Legions of chariots looks like the future. Go big or go home. Avoid the phalanx armies.
1 Like
Four large infantry hordes unlock 8 troops and 8 H/M/T/WE (max 4 each)
One legion unlocks four troops instead, and it seems from the picture on the RB that it any combination of 2 H/M/T/WE.
Regiments of LI dont unlock, sure. They also dont require unlocks themselves, and I don’t think you can run out of unlocks so easily with Ogres…?! Or did I miss something somewhere? I still can’t understand why people complain - unless they were running zero hordes in the past.
1 Like
I mean, the limit on LI regiments 100% limit the number of builds in the game. That’s a mathematical fact, and overall a change for the worst, if we consider more possible builds as a marker of game success (I absolutely do, and I think the relatively few functional builds seen in GW games is one of the markers of those systems’ limitations on a mass meta scale).
But as for Ogres, the only regiment spam I remember seeing was brave spam to power warlocks, which never really turned out that well and was invalidated in other ways in 3E (warlocks don’t charge up with regiments, plus have a +3 cap). Quite literally, every Ogre army I faced on the table had 2x Boomer hordes + 2x Siegebreaker hordes. That comes out to the same number of 2E drops as it does 3E drops (because no war engines or titans in 2E), and still makes for a pretty solid core.
To some extent I think the Ogre comment is a straw man argument, since the unlock change certainly appears to limit Ogre builds, specifically MSU builds. However the reality is that most real Ogre armies were already indeed spending 800+ points in 4 core hordes in 2E, so nothing has really changed. It’s the corner case regiment-heavy builds that suffered, but hey, I’m a skew player too and all my armies have had to be rebuilt.
Well had my first game 2250 v3 vs undead.
He had vamp dragon, vamp on Pegasus, 2 x zombie hordes, 2 x flying Barry white hordes, couple of werewolf regts, 2 x vamp regts, necro and some sort of big zombie thingy.
I had 1 x boomer horde, 2 x warrior hordes, 2 x sb hordes, 1 x regt scouts, mammoth, giant, blaster, biggit, std bearer, sgt, bully and boomer sgt.
Won the game through both attrition and objective markers. Sorry don’t have book in front of me but it is the 5 token game where you allocate 2 tokens as 2 points and the rest 1 point.
MVP giant. He ate both Barry white regts.
No 2 was mammoth. Held up the flank for 4 turns against 2 x werewolf regts and sucked in the vamp on peg.
Both SB hordes got trashed. Boomers couldn’t hit for crap and ended up in a bar fight with the dragon vamp. Warriors did their heavy lifting and survived the battle(just). Scouts, bully and biggit all died within 2 turns against dragon vamp and Barry whites.
All in all a great game. No real strategic hints. Ogres still grind. Couldn’t translate wounds to kills with boomer Sgt. He needs a buff of some sort. Sgt needs a buff to do something. He is a basic ogre hero without any buff.
I am not sold on the chariot list spam hence went for ground ogres.
Against a strong fly list albeit against a player with a new list the ground ogres work.
Certainly I feel in objective games ground Ogres are competitive. Inexperienced players with chariots will I feel come to grief. Speed may not be your friend. This is especially true now shooting is not what it was under v2.
Due to the duality of things and the way Battle groups work I don’t know if one chariot unit would work. In addition I feel chariot heroes are flanker and not grind support.
I may be proven wrong in the near future but ogre foot hordes are still the mainstay of an Ogre Warhost and you just vary lists through whether you take double chariot units OR double foot units as the second strike package.
Now that Mantic has spammed MSU Ogre lists and efectively made us take 200 point unlocks as the cheapest option, (we have the mantic hate upon us (why mantic, just why?)), it sort of makes sense to play a 5 horde list. Unlocking inspiring will be a challenge unless you double dip in STD Bearer etc.
Add to that RG scout chaff, some monster mash and a mix up of heroes and you have the list.
Brutal is still a great tool in the toolbox to have.
Picking up TCc1 when charging down from Hills certainly means terrain must now be considered in game play more than before . As has always been the case inspiring must be used effectively.
In all still a great game and Ogres are still a great army to choose. Shame about the nuke.
Who knows maybe a PDF will fix it.
4 Likes
Thank you for the write up. I think there are a couple of ways to play ogre in the 3rd edition.
One concept is surely a pure ogre horde list, another with a strong chariot center. Next weekend we’ll have a gaming day I hope I can test both concepts.
With monsterous infantry regiments not unlocking
Shooters and all goblins irregular…
No war machines
One hero per unlocking horde /chariot regiment
The cheapest unlocking unit being 200 points
Orge list building is a challenge. Flavourful fluff wise I guess but a challenge.
2 Likes
I agree Gelfling. Im challanged because I dont want an 10 drop Horde block army. I tried it and didnt like out deployed it was on some scenarios. Also, it felt like one mistake and it all toppled down. not forgiving is what Im getting at.
Legions of Chariots seem like a strong appeal. Huge nerve and powerful. I think Id want to throw in some Hunters to get up the table faster and line up some charges with the chariots and prevent flanks. Throw in Titan and some blasters and force some bad trades. Maybe a horde of Boomers in there to do some burst damage on flankers, but they can still charge and do damage, watching the back line.
The drain life spells support could be good but I think it needs at least a def 5 -/17 unit type to work.