Our new book vs the old "Rewrite" discussion

Some months after our new book, which has seen a huge increase in the number of Ogre players across the board, I though it would have been fun to take a look back at what the people most wanted in the "Rewrite the Ogre army book" discussion (2008 => 2011). I'll take the most relevant want items that I've found while reading this thread quickly again and see what has been done in the new book to address it.

In no particular order :

Massive point reduction accross the board
That was incredible. Lords went up but it was legit, the rest ... Wow I can't believe I paid 42 points for a Bull with LA and IF, 80 points for a naked Maneater or 65 points for a Yettee ! DONE.

Remove the useless army restrictions
YES, THANK YOU MY LORD ! DONE.

Making Rhinox Riders an official choice
It has not been done per se, complaining about that when we received the Mournfangs would be a bit childish I'd say. DONE.

Better Magic Items
Well, that was asked before the new trend of reducing magic items in armybooks. And considering some of ours are fantastic AND that we have access to a ton of very nice common items, I'll consider it DONE.

Review the Hunter
I can safely say that it is one of the big miss of the book. The Stonehorn option is interesting, but not enough. FAILED.

Special ranking rules for multi wound units
8th edition saved us before our book. Monstruous ranks + Monstruous support + Stomp ? HERE WE ARE. DONE.

Bull charge when closer to the opponent
Hell yes, and even D3 impact hits in some cases. DONE.

Gorgers made Special :
DONE.

Bruisers or Slaughtermasters generals
Fluff is one thing, but fun and variety is more important. DONE.

Better rules for Ironfist
Considering the very low cost, the fact that it is a proper shield and that it can be used mounted, it's DONE.

Cheaper and useful Maneaters, go to Special
Easy. DONE.

Get rid of the stupid Throttle with Chain on the Giant, and make him Stubborn
DONE.

Improve Leadbelchers' shooting by a ton
24", no missfires, massive point reduction ? DONE.

Add more special characters
We got one from the past and maybe a new one which is a serious candidate for worst SC of the game. FAILED.

Yhetees cost less and resist better
They cost WAY less, but are still fragile and not that great. NEUTRAL.

More character options
We can't complain too much, we got the Firebelly and he rocks. DONE.

Easier to use and to explain Lore
Remember the times where we had to explain that our spells were-like-RiP-but-were-not ? I don't miss it. DONE.

Access to other lores
Fire, Heavens, Death, Beasts. We couldn't really ask much more, even if it comes with a tax. DONE.

More troops options
Firebelly, Mournfangs, Sabretusk packs, Ironblaster, Stonehorn, Thundertusk ... And that's not counting the multitude of new options. Nice ! DONE.

Gutplate is a piece of armour
Yes and no. The Bulls received a free armour when becoming Ogres (?!?), but no impact for the rest. NEUTRAL.

Improved and expanded Big Names
Huge no, a big fail. FAILED.

Big Names not counting in the Magic Items allowance
No, a very sad decision imo. FAILED.

A Mammoth, or a big beast !
DONE.

Mount option for Tyrants
My bet would be that it was hard to balance and they took the safe path. FAILED.

Please feel free to post things that I would have missed, but things that had some sense or came more than once.

No need for a real conclusion, isn't it ?

Looking at things with the 8th edition books it looks like we actually have one of, if not the, best books for 8th edition so far.

I feel that when the for now best books in 8th edition are updated, we may be a top tier book because we can play at every phase of the game pretty well.

True, but at lower point games I still don't do too well due to the low body count.

Remove the useless army restrictions
YES, THANK YOU MY LORD ! DONE.

You mean like you have to have a butcher with lore of the Great Maw if you want access to these other lores?  A handful of stupid restrictions did trickle in but as a whole I agree that they are gone.

Better Magic Items
Well, that was asked before the new trend of reducing magic items in armybooks. And considering some of ours are fantastic AND that we have access to a ton of very nice common items, I'll consider it DONE.

I'm gonna have to say this one is neutal.  Basically 4/8 of our items see play on a regular basis ranging from AMAZING to 'its better than other options so why not?'.  The other 4 are barely a step above rubbish.

Better Magic Items
Well, that was asked before the new trend of reducing magic items in armybooks. And considering some of ours are fantastic AND that we have access to a ton of very nice common items, I'll consider it DONE.

I'm gonna have to say this one is neutal.  Basically 4/8 of our items see play on a regular basis ranging from AMAZING to 'its better than other options so why not?'.  The other 4 are barely a step above rubbish.

Ditto, well almost...

The only magic items in the new book I ever use are Hellheart, Greedy Fist, Rune Maw ans Dragonhide Banner. The remaining 6 range from 'worse than OK' to 'utter crap' in my opinion.

I find the thiefstone very fun to play with... even if I wouldn't put it in a tourney list.

The biggest change for me was:

VARIATION!!!

The rest was just the best icing evah.

Better Magic Items
Well, that was asked before the new trend of reducing magic items in armybooks. And considering some of ours are fantastic AND that we have access to a ton of very nice common items, I'll consider it DONE.

I'm gonna have to say this one is neutal.  Basically 4/8 of our items see play on a regular basis ranging from AMAZING to 'its better than other options so why not?'.  The other 4 are barely a step above rubbish.

Ditto, well almost...

The only magic items in the new book I ever use are Hellheart, Greedy Fist, Rune Maw ans Dragonhide Banner. The remaining 6 range from 'worse than OK' to 'utter crap' in my opinion.

Remember that we also got all those funky items from the Rulebook too. Most of these wishes were written waaaaay before the BRB magic items existed. It's a pass from me, even if we lost some from our army book.

I think the magic items thing is neutral at best. The Big Names come out of magic points allowance so they should be considered pretty much the same and they tend to be looked down upon by most of us as useless.  Not to mention we effectively have no unique magic weapons because they cost way to much and arent very effective. Granted the new common items are nice, our banners are sweet (poor orc and goblin book....) and the hellheart and greedy fist are fun and effective.  But there are numerous posts on the tyrant's ineffectiveness stemming from his lack of options.  Think of how much happier we'd all be if the tenderizer was still there at 50 points or if we had 100 points of magic items and then could take one big name at cost. Their execution in the magic weapon category defintely left something to be desired in my eyes. The book is a major improvement though and i love it.  not trying to be a debbie downer, just sad about the tenderizer really.

The only magic items in the new book I ever use are Hellheart, Greedy Fist, Rune Maw ans Dragonhide Banner. The remaining 6 range from 'worse than OK' to 'utter crap' in my opinion.

I think gruts sickle (+2 casting arcane item) is a very fun and viable option. With 9 power dice and a lvl 4 slaughtermaster, you have a great chance of getting off 4 useful spells in one turn! And +7 to casting is like having two extra power dice per cast...

I was surprised that Big names costed magical points, yet some cost so many points. It's interesting that a BSB can take a magical banner and a Big name, but outside of Deathcheater you don't see those thrown together too often. With a huge increase on price I think they could have taken off Tyrant restriction and stupid on Mawseeker. If higher T still proved to ignore lower S like 7th It might be worth it coupled with toughness spells.

Outside of Giant Breaker no longer requiring a slave giant the Big Names was a huge disappointment, biggest in the book for me. I remember getting the book, flying towards the page, and crying. I then proceeded to eat gbonblars out of depression and spite for the lilun's that wrote the bloody thing.

It feels especially bad about big names coming out of magic item allowance when VC get far better abilities that they have a seperate allowance for.  On the one hand I understand that Vamp characters are supposed to be pretty sick, but on the other a seperate pool would make tyrants a competative choice instead of a cut-rate general.

Remember that we also got all those funky items from the Rulebook too. Most of these wishes were written waaaaay before the BRB magic items existed. It's a pass from me, even if we lost some from our army book.

Yes, that is the thing. That request was made back in 7th edition, where we only had access to the items of the army book which where crappy, with a few exceptions. Almost no ward saves, almost no useful magic Armors, no Crown of Command, no Fencer's Blades, ...

The list of common magic items alone make that a "DONE". The loss of the Tenderizer is sad, but we can't complain too much as we received the Hellheart, the insane Greedy Fist combo and the Dragonhide Banner.

My favorite item is the sickle, mostly because I play extremely offensively, but also should my slaughtermaster die from rolling two 1's with the dice, my manhood won't fall off.

It feels especially bad about big names coming out of magic item allowance when VC get far better abilities that they have a seperate allowance for.  On the one hand I understand that Vamp characters are supposed to be pretty sick, but on the other a seperate pool would make tyrants a competative choice instead of a cut-rate general.

.

It really wouldn't have.  It's not an issue of Big Names having to compete against other magic items.  The problem with Big Names is that they are not worth the points you spend on them, period.

Even the somewhat useful Big Names have downsides that really make them less than optimal (Giantbreaker [shudder], Mawseeker).  Being able to slap an overpriced Big Name on a Tyrant after loading him up with magic items won't make him any more useful--it'll just bloat his points even further and make it harder to distinguish between a Tyrant (who largely just helps himself) and a Slaughtermaster (who helps the entire army).

There are a few that I would say would be useful if you had the points parsed out into two different pools, and if you could take more than one bigname.  For instance, giantbreaker wouldnt have such a large drawback if you could couple it with deathcheater, provided you still had 100 points to gear him up appropriately for challenges.

That said, I do agree that for the most part they are overcosted and underwhelming.

I agree with everything in this list but I think one big one that almost eveyone wanted is missing.

Tyrants able to be mounted on something? FAIL

From the fluff side it seems silly that he cant. If the tyrant wants to ride a beast in his tribe who is going to stop him?

Plus it was a big let down on the modeling side of things.

Bignames being from the magic allowance is a big fail, and I'll say its even a bigger fail if, when Chaos gets redone, Gifts remain seperate from Magic items.

Chaos and Vamps get special abilities seperate from the magic items, why can't we?

Mawseeker also got WAAAY overcosted. It isn't worth more then 20 pts. Yeah, it was undercosted at 10 points last book, but overcompensation isn't a good thing.

Tyrants able to be mounted on something? FAIL

You're actually right, I'll add it in my list !

"My name does so that I can't take this cool weapon and must use another one". How stupid is that.

And the thing with the Tyrant is true. I would use one often if he could be mounted on a Stonehorn or Mournfang.