How do rate the Ogre Kingdom army ??

I have been talking with people and asking their opinion on the ogre kimgdom army. Since I don't know much players, I was deceived to hear the opinion of certain people saying that the ogre army is not strong enough and that it is not considered a tournament army.

Personally, I have been playing warhamemr for less than a year and entered my very first tournament in a conflict. I had my share of strong opponent's but I managed to finish overall in 4th on 50 players. My die rolling was average and i'm still in the learning process. So from my point of view in a short period of time, is quite positive.

What is your opinion and comment you have about these hunger raged beasts ?  Do you really thing the army is average ?

They're great, I personally think. They're also hilarious.

They have alot of flaws which means they dont do that well at tournaments.. However, that doesnt mean they cant do well, now does it? Seeing as you are winning alot with them I dont see a reason to fear the cababilities(sp) of the army..

From a gaming point of wiew Ogre Kingdoms is weak Why? Here are some pointers, but I know Taladryel posted some good reasons on the old forum.

- Bad WS makes it difficult to hit.
- No static CR unless you bring Gnoblars.
- You will always be outnumbered on the battle field.
- Due to no armour you will easily be shot to pieces.
- Medicore Leadership
- Generally all our units are too pricey. Especially Maneaters and Yethees (IMO).

And another drawback that bothers me is all the restrictions to the list, like no more Gnoblar fighters than Bulls, Butchers can't be general etc. Ok, all of it got good fluff reasons, but you can't let fluff decide all rules. Look at for example the statement in our fluff that Ogres got leathser skin that's even bulletproof. Why can't we get LA as standard for all units? Just an example.
In my opinion OK is a very balanced list, (just in need of a few strategic tweaks),  but that makes it too weak when all the other armies has something that can be abused. And in a tournament setting that is important. IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO MAKE A CHEESY LIST WITH OGRES!
 If that's a good thing or not is up to yourself, but I think it's a good thing. Makes the game better IMO, but as a little revision of some rules and points cost wouldn't hurt.

I think ogres are fine.  What they lack is an "uber" build, like the Tzentch flying circus, Bre RAF, Skaven SAD, Southlands Skinks, Necro summon horde, etc.

Personally, I'm fine with Ogres lacking that kind of a template.  I don't think those builds are particularly fun or sporting, and the reason I started Ogres is because I wanted to play a fun, sporting list.

I think these guys have hit it on the head.  The ogre list is VERY fair; too fair considering the cheese others can bring to the table.  It has nothing that is over the top.  Plus it is very challenging.  I have found ogres are easy to win with versus poor opponents, but against GOOD opponents with solid armies...a very tough sell.  The lack of static CR , low WS, and low leadership is brutal against a talented opponent.  The first two are especially nasty together, because to overcome lack of static CR, you desperately need hits and wounds, but the low WS robs you of any real certainty of getting hits.  My iron guts, which should ROCK in hth, routinely let me down due to whiffing their 4+ to-hit rolls.  It KILLS me.

To win, you have to make all the parts work together.  You NEED your bull charges.  You NEED to get in flankers.  You NEED to protect those fragile yhettees until the right moment.  You NEED to use maneaters very carefully.  You NEED to be very adept at gut magic use.  Other armies just run their huge regiments out there, absorb their damage, and then still pound you with +5 static CR.  Or they shoot / cast you into oblivion.

Like I said, versus poor players, ogres are easy, IMO.  Vs good players, they are very very challenging.   Every aspect of your game needs to be sharp.

It is a balanced army, like others have said, low weapon skill but high wounds ends up evening out.

My only issue is that the people i will be playing have much much larger armies then I do...to me, that is a little bit of a fall back which is something that COULD be countered by magic...but unfortunatly, with only one caster against a big army, its going to be dispelled ALOT.

Thank you for most replies and I can't wait to read the others.

From what I was told, ogres have no armour or hardly, no ward saves, WS is bad, the leadbelchers are not always good, Yhetees are easy to kill so they must stay in cover and impact hits might land but again against a 2+ armour save, there are chance that impact hit's will not land and of course the cost.

What balances out, they cause fear so outnumbering mean auto break for some armies. If you can cast trollguts and remain in play, that can help to compensate for the missing armour and ward save. Magic seems good for the ogres so I guess fielding 2 butchers is the very minimum.

In a way, Yarislav the Vast is right, if you play against poor to mid players, you have chances. Against someone that knows alot about tactics and knows how to hit your army to make it hurt, might be very difficult. I play with a friend that has 3 armies and I must of played him a good 30 times by now and if I tie him, it's because he's having a bad dice roll game. Winning against him is a big challenge. He told me, against my tyrant with 7 ironguts, for sure he will take 2-3 units and a hero or something else to increase hi CR. Yes I did came in forth at conflict but 2 players out of 3 were not that great. I can't wait to face hard opponent's like my friend.

I hope that by me creating this topic won't make it sound like me and others nagging about everything, only that it's good to see the point of view from everyone and maybe some good players might give their opinion to help some see it on a different angle.

another thing, low numbers means we have to take LD tests early...

think about it, whats 1/3 of 6 (standard size unit from what i can understand)

Ogre's may cause fear, but they may be running after losing 2 of thier own anyway...

Ogre's may cause fear, but they may be running after losing 2 of thier own anyway...

And since you rarely outnumber anyone, fear isn't that big a deal offensively.  The best part about it is that YOU never have to worry about it (except with gnoblars).

I was just reading a thread over on Underempire.net where some guys were maintaining that Ogres sucked because they were cheesy, and that the only people that liked ogres were the people that played them. They suggested that it is impossible to beat the Ogres at anything, as we have good movement, we can make up for ranks with gnoblars and our characters have good combat stats. And apparently the bull charge is just plain beardy.

I thought this was sooooo funny on a Skaven forum, of all places, that I bookmarked it.

The fact is, the Ogre list isn't very versatile. It is very balanced (and, IMHO, it is balanced at a better power level than most armies) but it doesn't offer the capability of designing many different builds.
Most armies have a variety of different styles of play (Empire has the gunline, TVI infantry horde, crusade, CoU, etc). The Ogre builds are essentially play the same. Whether you play MSU, or several large units, the techniques will be similar. Whether you take no gnoblars, or 100, the overall techniques will be similar, as the important parts of your army remain the same.

This is due to there not being an enormous variety of different units in the Ogre list, combined with their cost. There are bulls, and then bulls with great weapons (IG), and then bulls with cannons (LB), and bulls that are basically characters (ME). And then there are gnoblars. We have nothing like cavalry or chariots in our core, and even yhetees and scrappas in the special category are a bit iffy as you are still needing to maximise your points in the core units.

And then there are all of the reasons that everybody has already mentioned about the fact that our 'monsters' just plain aren't that good.

To use the Empire example again, 2 Free Companies gives me four attacks at WS 3 for 10 points. True, these are only S3, but frankly I have trouble seeing how 1 bull is going to equal 7 FC in HtH.

Ogres just aren't a very good army. That's kind of why I like them.

What Groghog has said does worry me a bit.  I wonder if I will get bored with ogres quickly due to the lack of variety.  The models are cool, but like he said, almost everything is a bull or bull variant, so you can't REALLY explore alternate configurations too much.  This is exacerbated by the high points cost per model.

Like I said, ogres ROCK against bad players.  I am sure they seem like steam tanks to the player that has no clue.  But their few advantages have GLARING weaknesses to counterbalance them.  Possibly the challenge will keep me interested where the lack of troop-type variety could not.

OK is a great balanced army, it is really hard to make a beardy list.  Sooping up characters really cuts into troop amounts more so that other armies.

An ambiguously written magic rule set is frustrating, but let's hope that GW will get on that soon.

The fact that a Lord level mage can't be taken until 3000 points is a downer, list variants are limited.

Skrag may be taken in <3k

If anyone would have the choice or suggestions to make on stats, rules or the figs of the ogre kingdom, what would you suggest ??  ex: better WS..

Maybe there are some GW staff or Phil Kelly that come on this forum and reads up on what we talk about. I guess it would be great to let him or them know the opinion of some ogre players.

Hmm, the first one that comes to mind is that belchers suck at what they do, compared to similar troops.  What I would do that I do not think is over the top:

- They shoot a HAIL of metal, so they should just hit on their basic BS.  Period.  No modifiers for cover, skirmishing, etc.  If you made them auto-hit like salamanders, then they would be uber-cheesy like salamanders.  But since no one is fixing salamanders...hmmm...  lol

- Mis-fires cause d3 hits, not d6.  It is too brutal to take d6 hits, IMO. But then I always seem to have at least ONE misfire in every volley.  Or maybe limit the hits to the model that misfired...

I've wondered why normals bulls are less disciplined/brave than ironguts, make 'em ld. 8 imo. Also give them lightarmour as standard (without raising their cost!) and let the armour option be upgrade to heavy armour at the same cost.. I would also lower the cost of AHW by 1 or two points to make it more viable compared to a IF..

Make leadbelchers roll for hits instead of attacks.. Hmm, a fun thought / alternative, how about the misfire were like now, but in addition you would fire a cannonball at str 7

Make maneaters ld. 9 and lower their cost to 78 points (yes exactly 78 :p ) or keep cost but make them T5.. An option for AHW + IF would be cool aswell..

The hunter
a) starts with two cats at his current cost and you can either buy up to two more at +20 points each or remove the option and stick to two (or lower his cost by 40 points and let the options stay the same)
b) Alternatively keep his current cost but make him a move-and-shoot'able..

Remove the slaughtermasters "there must be a tyrant " rule.. I havent seen a fluff reason in the book for this rule..

Make rhinox riders official..

Remove the scraplaunchers "must charge" rule or lower its cost by 20-30 points.. Harpies etc. have it too easy redirecting a machine worth 165 points

Make the giant stubborn, he's close to useless otherwise If it doenst fit fluffwise, call it "too stupid to realise danger!"

There's something wrong with yhetees, cant figure out if they should either get cheaper or get a special rule to help with their low ld.

3 ogres to form a rank!

Make ogres only need to be 3 wide to get ranks!  A 4 wide ogre unit is crazy expensive, the extra frontage is almost always useless (attacks lost), and the unit is totally unmanueverable.

there are only four things i can currently think of about the army that bother me;

1. the cost of champions, i really don't see a way to justify spending 20 points on one attack, and this is standard for everything except gnoblars, i don't think it would be too rediculous to wish to see it drop, even if only a little.

2. Basic armor save for bulls. If an ogre's skin is supposed to be so amazingly tough, it would make sense to give them an armor save. if they felt they didn't want bulls with heavy armor, they could give them light armor as standard and not give them any options for an upgrade, or they could at least count the gutplate as some form of armor(isn't that the point in it, to protect their gut?).

3. An FAQ sometime while the game still exists would be really nice, i have these really pretty rhinox riders(6 of em) that i am dying to use officially, and there are quite a few nit-picky rules questions that it would be nice to get an answer from.

4. i think making them have 3 models to get a rank is an excellent idea, and since you would have to have 6 in one unit just to get +1 CR, it really doesn't seem like it would be too far in the other direction.

Aside these things that bother me, i think OK is a very balanced army that forces you to be a good general if you want to win often, which is very refreshing(especially coming from a 40k background, which is very simplistic on a strategic level.)

i love the fact that there is no cheesy/beardy/broken/etc. list that you can make with ogres that will make opponents look at you with disdain and disgust(with the possible exception of using a tenderiser).

I'd just like to see some new units in the Core section. Units are actually different from the bulls, rather than just differently equipped.

Perhaps some of the units from the gnoblar horde army could be incorporated.

It's good, why would we else be collecting it?

I had the chance to play alot with the ogres and here is what I came up with:

-Slaughtermaster should be allowed in 2000 pts game.
-The hunter is not that great, you can't move and shoot, saber tusk I can't complain because they are only worth 20 points each.
-Bulls and ironguts are okay but I do think they cost too much. They should take 5 points off each model; bulls (30) / Ironguts (43). Giving them more armour is not the best solution since they have the possibility to regenrate if the spell is in play.
-Leadbelcher should have at least a BS of 4. Ex: tonight I rolled 20 shots, out of that 6 shots landed and out of 6, only 1 wounded... so much for the joy I had for not getting any misfire's and then to see that only 1 wound on 20 shots. And most of my games is the same. For 55 pts,  hmmmmmm...
-Yhetee's are a problem, for 65 pts a model !!  They should at least have a leadership of 8 or a better toughness.
-Maneaters, the people I know never take them because they cost too much in point wise.

Impact hits from bull charges are okay but it's nothing to get excited.

Like most people have said Ogres are very well balanced, I disagree with leadbelchers not being useful, and they can win against good players if you are good but a poor player won't win just based on the Ogres army list. And if your good the Ogres will kick a bad players butt and make it look real ugly too.

I have only a little time before work so I can't read everyone elses posts or delve far into mine.  But from my experience OK are a fine army.  I have won the vast majority of my games, am new to fantasy, reletively new to 40k (only 2 yrs experience) but win alot in both settings.  Infact, some at my store go so far as saying that OK are broken/cheesy/beardy (whatever you call it).  I have heard stories of an ogre player getting smashed by all other players, but a bret. player who was doing well in a campaign, always lost to ogres and lost bad at that.  Now people can say that I and some others play outside of the normal gaming/competitive world, and they may have a point in some areas as there are no empire players at my store and cannons are certainly deadly, but in general I have seen little to suggest that ogres can not be an effective army.  Yes, there are some drawbacks in our army, but most armies have some drawback or another, and there are things that we do have that are very strong.  Personally, I don't think gut magic is all that bad.  Having unlimited spells that can remain in play, and knowing all the spells in your lore is a big advantage.  Sure we can't go magic heavy like some armies, but then again I don't think that that is necessarily all that effective, and is IMHO quite boring to play/play against.

Hey all.  I can't quite put my finger on it either, but something in the list does feel a little....off.  That said, I do think people might be going over the top with thier suggestions.  My personal experiences with OK have seen me massacre every opponent playing a CC based army (VC, Daemonic Nurgle, Skinkless Lizardmen, Chaos) and do extremely poorly against armies with shooting ( #@%!ing HE, DE, Dwarves and Empire).  Initially I thought this was due to my playing a more MSU style originally, but the results have stayed consistent even as my army selection and tactics have evolved.  The problem is the EXTREMELY poor Ld of Ogres (on par with Beastmen!) and the lack of any save (not that it would help against Repeater Bolt Throwers or cannons, of course).  I would love to see all ogres ld boosted to 8 (fairly modest and frees my tyrant to babysit my gnoblars, scraplauncher a little more) and maybe a "tough hide" 6+ ward save vs shooting.