The stubborn horde of ogres

@ Gutlord, you are killing me. My list.

SM, lvl4, lore of heavens, +4 ward, powerstone.

BSB, Runemaw, HA, GW

Lvl1, Maw, scroll, GW

17IG, horde
7 Ogres, IF, 3X3, SM in front with std and bellower, lvl1 behind.
2 MF, IF, HA
2 MF, IF, HA
4 ME, Brace pistols, poison/sniper, std flame banner
3 leadies
3 leadies

So that's more than one unit to worry about. I break up with 1 MF and leadies on each flank. The MEs and Ogres with wizard bunker goes where I think it will do most good. They are last drops. Simple list. IG is the heart, but the support units are also tough.

I dunno, apart from the bull unit (which is okay but not amazing), all your support units won't stand up to a stiff breeze. It might work well, but all those ME, MFs and LBs are going to need to avoid being charged by basically everything!

I would love to hear how that list does. I think you could probably use the little units to dance around or bait and flee - but I'd be concerned about a lot of things.

Very true. I have to do the charges, but I'm a fast moving army. MFs control me from getting flanked. Its by no means a finesse army. We Ogres aren't known for patience. The army I have the hardest time with is WoC.

I wasn't suggesting I like the list, I was just putting forward a possible list using the irongut horde idea, as in that format its somewhat easier to see the problem(s) with it: the army is almost literally one unit.

I use 9-10 model gutstars (plus characters) in pretty much every game and they are hella effective. I do like that list, though I'm not sure of having the tyrant, personally I would probably drop him and take another ironblaster plus an extra mournfang or some leadbelchers.

however I would keep the bsb in the gutstar. unless you think that the horde is going to take most of the charges/combat damage of course., or if you think it would be better for the horde not to run if it goes tits up (though tbh keeping the gutstar on the table is probably the better idea)


but yea, i like that list. Both of those units (horde and gutstar) are seriously scary in their own rights. having to face off against both will probably be a nasty experience.

I plan to try a horde when my local escalation league gets to 2400pts. not sure theres room for it at 2000.

You're probably right on the BSB. I was just pondering. I have a common dilemma - I can only have one Stubborn Crown! Total pest. It usually goes on my BSB (I have enough trouble getting both a SM and a Tyrant under the Lords cap) and the other caster is toting the hellheart. Whichever unit carries the stubborn crown, I can bet I wanted it on the other unit!

You're probably right on the BSB. I was just pondering. I have a common dilemma - I can only have one Stubborn Crown! Total pest. It usually goes on my BSB (I have enough trouble getting both a SM and a Tyrant under the Lords cap) and the other caster is toting the hellheart. Whichever unit carries the stubborn crown, I can bet I wanted it on the other unit!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if a unit of maneaters has stubborn as one of their two special rules, any characters that join the unit would also be stubborn? Hence one way around it would be to run a unit of maneaters with stubborn and another unit with a character with stubborn hat.

you're not wrong, but that means you either have a horde of bulls and a unit of maneaters, which are more expensive than ironguts and generally arent str 6 (unless you make them MOOOOORE expensive), or you have a gutstar and a unit of maneaters, which generally wont be horde and thus not applicable to this thread, OR so insanely expensive it'd never see play sub-4000 points or so.

edit: It is a dilemma chosing where the crown goes, but making sure your egg basket is stubborn is prolly a good idea. plus in the gutstar you can easily hide the bsb in the 2nd rank, saving points on defensive items.

Justinar: Yes, absolutely. Hmm! It's expensive, to be sure. I don't use maneaters as the basis for a gutstar because they are somewhat wasted if they're not in the front rank, but it is a way of getting stubborn. We'll see if Golgfag gets errata'd to actually have Stubborn too, that might be another route.

That's pretty sweet actually. The more I think about it, the more I like it. It costs about 100 points more for 9 with only XHW as upgrades (probably worth paying for 3x great weapon too) and more still if you want heavy armour, but it's workable. I may have to try this!

Of course, if you want to get really crazy, there's the ol' horde of maneaters 

Sparfunk - the horde-o-maneaters does work at 2500 points. Sure, one unit costs you 50% of your points and it's very risky - but it can pay huge dividends. Few opponents can deal with a Scouting, Poisoned horde of maniacs with considerable shooting capability and horrendous combat capability on their flank turn 1!

I just need more Maneaters and I'll try this at a tournament sometime. Also there's no reason you really NEED S6 in a gutstar. I've actually been running my "gutstar" as bulls with 3x characters and I find it works much better than with Ironguts as it's cheaper and allows my ironguts to punch somewhere else and I've had plenty of success with it. Besides, you'd only need to upgrade 3 of them to have great weapons and keep the rest cheap.

how would you equip a maneater horde like that?

I ran 12x brace of pistols (24 shots!) for the first two ranks and great weapons for the third but I think I'd drop the great weapons for XHW to save points if I did it again. Great weapons are Overkill in a unit with poison anyway.  Poison, scout and the gleaming pennant as their portable BSB.

With the old book I ran a horde at 3000 points.  From the battle report:

Turn 3
Dave charges everything that can. Dispels so I have two of each spell (T +1 and Regeneration). Combat is the horde vs. two hydra's (one with one wound left, each on a flank), six cold one knights (on the flank with the strong hydra, not all in combat), 12 shades and assassin (rear), and 46 corsairs. Dreadlord and SM are in challenge.
He wins combat by one and we hold, crown of command. Wounded hydra is killed.

Turn 4
Ray big combat continues. I pour all attacks I can into the corsairs.  We win by three. Hydra and shades/assassin flee.

Dave rallies both, but neither in the fight now leaves only the COK's and corsairs fighting. We kill the rest of the corsairs, reaching Dave's break point and winning.

If you can dispel/hellheart the big spells and get into combat.  A horde that is stubborn is just plain nasty.  So many wounds, so many attacks.

Haha...there's something about a scouting horde of ogre's that makes me smile.

It is possible on 2500 points to fit in three REALLY, REALLY bad-ass units (including the horde) and still have support for them:

Slaughtermaster, General, lvl4, Fencer's Blades, Greedy Fist, Scroll, Lore of The Great Maw - 385 Pts.

Bruiser, Ironfist, HA, Crown of Command, Luckstone, Dragonhelm - 163 Pts.
Bruiser, GW, Armour of Destiny, BSB - 191 Pts.
Firebelly, 2xHw, Ironcurse Icon, Talisman of Preservation, Lore of Fire - 172 Pts.

6 Ironguts, M, S, Lookout Gnoblar, Std. of Discipline - 298 Pts.
17 Ogres, Handweapon & Ironfist, Lookout Gnoblar, M, S, C - 579 Pts.
10 Gnoblars, Gnoblar Trappers - 50 Pts.

6 Leadbelchers, M - 268 Pts.
1 Sabretusks - 21 Pts.
1 Sabretusks - 21 Pts.
4 Mournfang Cavalry, HA, Ironfist, M, S, Dragonhide Banner - 350 Pts.

Total: 2498

So the stubborn bruiser goes with the horde of bulls and all the other three characters occupy the front rank of the ironguts. You now have:

- a stubborn horde of ogres (with lore of maw spells in support)
- a three-wide gutstar with three extremely tough characters soaking up the damage in the front rank.
- a Dragonhide mournfang cavalry unit - always scary!
- all the usual support in leadbelchers, cats and trappers.

I would suggest though that if you have that gut star that the horde is superfluous.

I have to say I'm very much a fan of the gutstar, though that comes from one game with a unit of 11 bulls that did *alright* so I swapped to 9 guts with bsb in and they have done amazingly in every game. The trick is just having enough so that the two ranks get to fight back then suddenly everything dies.

Poison scouting maneaters does sound pretty rofl, so I will have to give that a go. Maybe it will motivate me to convert a bunch of pistol wielding maneaters (will probably be cheaper than buying finecast ones.)

I will try the horde, for sure. Though I'm thinking that a solid gutstar with support plus another sizeable unit on the board (maneaters or bulls) would be a better choice.