Army List Creation Strategies (2012)

There was a comment on a board not too long ago, I can’t for the life of me remember where it is now, which stipulated that Ogre Kingdoms have one or maybe two basic strategies for building an army.  Essentially, our ogres are a one trick pony.  You get a couple of IGs, two IBs, a gaggle of Mournfang Cavalry, grab that gut magic, and presto – instant strong army. 

I disagree.  I’ve learned many kinds of army builds from the fine folks on this board and I wonder if you would help me sort out my list of the different kinds of viable armies we can build. By “viable”, I just mean that the army is capable of winning its fair share of battles in the hands of your average general. 

For this list, I’ve tried to focus on different ideas that are used as a focal point when building an army.  Essentially, what's otherwise just a tactic makes it onto the list either when (1) your army points are spent primarily on units supporting that tactic or (2) when every unit you consider is included or not as a function of that tactic.


Balanced
Includes strength in every phase and some basic capability in most aspects of the battle.  Some Sabertusks or Gnoblars for deployment and redirection, a decent sized unit of IGs or bulls, a general and a bsb, at least one strong caster, some IBs or Leaddies for shooting, Cav or scouting MEs for mobility, disruption, and/or cc.


Melee-focused
This kind of list ignores strength in other aspects of the game and plans to win the battle principally through close combat.  The main strategy is to forgo extra casters or blocks of Leadbelchers and simply weather the first round or two of shooting and magic to get into hand to hand an rip up your opponent.  This kind of army likely uses maw/beast magic or maybe a Tyrant and a Firebelly.  You will very likely find a unit of Mournfang Cavalry or MEs on the flank or opponent’s backfield. This army might include 1 or 2 IBs for shooting the big guys or war machines, but will eventually throw those chariots into combat as well.


Gun Line
A gun line focuses on shooting to weaken and destroy the enemy.  It will be heavy on the IBs and Leadbelchers and often includes a heavens caster. These lists probably have some trapper Gnoblars to screen the Leadbelchers and some cc units to mop up the gore left behind by the shooting.
Danielking4812 has worked hard to make an ‘Ard Boyz list that exemplifies this strategy:
http://www.ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php?topic=23852.0


Horde
A horde invests a significant amount of points into one large unit of bulls or IGs.  Most, if not all, other units play a supporting role (e.g., redirection, flanking, tar-pit).  This army style’s main advantage is the astonishingly large number of attacks it can deliver from 3 ranks of ogres.  The army employs some defensive measures, such as Trollguts or the Rune Maw, to help ensure the unit’s survival.  The army also relies on tar pits, redirectors and chaff removal to enable the horde to engage with its choice of enemy units.


OgreBus
Similar to, but distinct from, a horde list, this army centers around a strong, deep unit of ogres, 3 models wide and 4 or 5 ranks deep, with 3 Characters in the front rank.  This setup forces your opponent to allocate their attacks to these hard-to-kill models rather than the unit itself, thus denying your opponent a lot of combat resolution.  This strategy still requires some supporting units for the bus, but I suspect not as many as a horde. 

This might also be considered a component of another strategy, but the amount of points you sink into this unit – both directly and through supporting units – warrants its inclusion as a main strat, I believe.

Rothgar13 is crafting an excellent example of this kind of list in the army lists section:
http://www.ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php?topic=23971.0


Deathfist
This is a tricksy list which seeks to reduce or eliminate your opponent’s magic phase by hampering or killing his wizard(s).  The strategy is based on taking a SM, equipped w/ the greedy fist and the Death magic lore, then targeting the enemy’s casters with the character-killing spells.  It’s worth noting that you will also have to take a butcher in order to satisfy the Maw lore requirement.  In addition to placing the SM in a unit and marching him close to your enemies, you can also equip him with a magic carpet to get him as close as possible as soon as possible (also good for casting Purple Sun on your opponent early in the game).

Other than the particular gear setup, this seems to be a flexible strategy in relation to the composition of the rest of the army. I included it on this list, rather than considering it an ancillary tactic, because you must invest a significant amount of points to have a large effect on one aspect of the game.  This is a focused, high risk/high reward strategy.


Fast
One of the ogre’s great strengths is close combat.  Accordingly, a fast list values getting into cc as soon as possible over all else.  Cavalry, scouting MEs, IBs, the banner of swiftness, and the like might all play a part in this list.  Even a hunter and his Sabretusk pack (w/ vanguard/swiftstride) could shine in this sort of army.

Full disclosure – this one’s totally my idea.  I haven’t seen anyone discuss this on the forums, though I certainly could have missed it.  So, it’s not widely tested or analyzed, but I’ve had good luck w/ it.


MMU/MSU
Multiple Medium/Small Units
Ogres hit hard and having a lot of units around only highlights that aspect.  This kind of army fields many medium or small units which has the effect of mitigating the power of your opponent's strong  or large units.  He must inefficiently focus the resources of his powerful units to destroy one of your many units which mitigates your losses while providing you with many choices of how to employ your forces. This tends to be a fairly mobile army giving you lots of choices while reducing the impact your opponent can have on your army. 

Added: This type of list is often used with area buffs, such as Trollguts.  Also, MMU/MSU is comparitively more powerful in smaller games (e.g., <=1000 points) as there are fewer tools for your opponent to deal w/ many units of ogres.

Note: Please help me out here.  I’m not experienced with mmu/msu and I probably described this poorly.

I absolutely agree that ogres are not a 1 trick pony. I think I know the comment you were talking about, but I think it was made a while ago. Now a days, almost everyone on the form I think agrees that you can go several ways with ogres, such as the stuff you've made above. In fact, because of all the competitive play styles,  By the way, MMU and MSU are usually used with bubble buffs I think, kind of like vampires, because lots of ogres + trollguts = awesome. Also, just the amount of units you'll have on the table will be hard to deal with, as even getting rid of 6 ogres takes work. Usually better at around 500-1000 points because not much can deal with a bunch of ogres at that point level.

Your MMU/MSU is mostly accurate.

One of it's strengths is that spells that typically devastate an Ogre Kingdom army require multiple applications to have the same effect. I suppose that would be the "reducing the impact your opponent can have on your army." That tends to be the focus of MMU/MSU. The army I am playing in an escalation tournament has been right in the middle of MMU/MSU. I've gone 20-0, 7-13, 7-13 with it so far with those being points in the single digits from being draws on turn 6. I'm even using Yhetee and a Stonehorn to get better comp scores and giving harder armies a rough time because while they might whittle away one unit a second one crashes into them and they lose theirs as well.

The idea for a Fast list is also one I've been toying with.. I just can't fit everything I feel it needs..
Core is flexible between all styles with a choice to be made on in the ironguts banner.
Special is where the hard choices are multi mourfangs units, and some combination of three maneater units with  scout/ITP, vanguard/stubborn, swiftstride/poison.
Rares are starved for point, ironblaster will only get 1 turn of shooting, I see a place for the stonehorn but not the points.
Its worth a discussion at least to toss around ideas.

On the idea of fast list I actually think Yhettees might find a place in a list like this.  It's still kind of a long shot for them because flaming attacks are such a hard counter to them (and available to all armies) but with a list that focuses on manuverability you may be able to avoid unfavorable match ups.

Thanks for the shout-out, and for reminding me that I probably should go back to 3-wide.

I completely agree with your point, by the way. There's more than one way to skin this cat. I prefer the Gutbus and the Ogre Horde, but I acknowledge that others have found success with different styles.

On the idea of fast list I actually think Yhettees might find a place in a list like this.  It's still kind of a long shot for them because flaming attacks are such a hard counter to them (and available to all armies) but with a list that focuses on manuverability you may be able to avoid unfavorable match ups.

There was a great thread about Yhettees (link below) that tried to find a good use for them.  One of the strong contenders was as fast flankers or light cavalry. Go to the last page for a solid wrap-up by Bob the Butcher.
http://www.ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php?topic=21910.0

Thanks for the shout-out, and for reminding me that I probably should go back to 3-wide.

I completely agree with your point, by the way. There's more than one way to skin this cat. I prefer the Gutbus and the Ogre Horde, but I acknowledge that others have found success with different styles.

Of course!  I've learned a lot from the ppl on this board, so it's not hard to find examples of awesome. 

Do you know of any other ways to skin this cat that I missed?

By the way, MMU and MSU are usually used with bubble buffs I think, kind of like vampires, because lots of ogres + trollguts = awesome. [...] Usually better at around 500-1000 points because not much can deal with a bunch of ogres at that point level.

Good point — I'll add it in.

Thanks for the shout out for me too.

Also, you should probably mention that these can be somewhat combined, too, like my list has both gunline + horde.

Indeed, given our core choices that tends to happen to a lot of the paradigms here given.

I would like to add some to the deathfist, because I think the description so far is a bit narrow. I think a list aimed at supporting a deathfist should do a lot more than messing up some magic phases. I think it should be able to mitigate support all around and the deathfist is just part of the machine to do that. Don't stop at magicsupport, go for leadershipsupport as well, warmacinessupport, chaffsupport etc. When you do it right, you are facing some bare blocks and most of the time, we do that a lot better. The fearfactor the fist provides gives you more opportunity to do that, people might let some spells slide to save dice for a deathfist attempt on the main caster later on for instance.

The deathfist isn't particularly impressive. One spell doesn't say it all so you should provide for him messing up. Bring snipermaneaters to shoot coopcasters and champions (which you don't want to face ones we can declare challenges), bring leadies to shoot small supportunits, bring ironblasters to deal with warmachines. As Sitaavanu ones pointed out, the aim is to catch em with their pants down ones you hit combat.

Also, usually you don't wan't to take out wizards first. It should probably go:

1. BSB
2. General
3. Wizards

Also, mention not to use it at non-competitive games.

Also, usually you don't wan't to take out wizards first. It should probably go:

1. BSB
2. General
3. Wizards

Also, mention not to use it at non-competitive games.

You can't really make a blanket statement like that - it is 100% dependent upon what army you are facing.

Also, usually you don't wan't to take out wizards first. It should probably go:

1. BSB
2. General
3. Wizards

Also, mention not to use it at non-competitive games.

You can't really make a blanket statement like that - it is 100% dependent upon what army you are facing.

Very true, most of the time i'm gunning for my opponents BSB, then their level 4, then the general, then level 2s.  But rarely do I actually find myself in a position to take out characters in that order.  You have to be flexible, and realize that against TK for example that a level 4 is 1000% more important than the bsb etc.

Not to mention that there are some BSB's out there that just won't go down to shots. You pick at whoever is vulnerable, or barring that, whoever is more important (which is army-dependent).

Army depending, yes. My point was that deathfisting is not just for wizards.

Deathfisting is just for use against wizards, for nobody else would suffer loss of levels due to the greedy fist.

The Lore of Death (specifically the sniping ability of Caress of Laniph and Fate of Bjuna) is not just for targeting wizards.

@Philoscifi:  Excellent work summarizing different competitive army styles.

-Snark

Thanks!

I should make it a little more explicit, I think.  I was under the impression that deathfisting, as snark mentions, is the combination of the death lore and the greedy fist in order to strip wizard levels from the eeevil opponent's wizards and then rule the magic phase w/ an iron fist.  Using just the death lore w/o the greedy fist to target characters, on the other hand, is a tactical choice you can make that doesn't necessarily need the same level of investment.

Now, an army devoted to target-killing characters would be another sort of strategy to consider.  I presume to go all out with that sort of thing, you would use lore of death, sniping MEs and maybe a geared character to challenge other characters in cc.

Has anyone tried that sort of army (i.e., geared mostly towards killing characters)?  Any success?

That's kind of how my Ard Boyz (RIP) army is. I have a deathfist, 6 sniping/poison maneaters, & 2 ironblasters - all of which are capable of sniping characters out of units.

What's interesting is that my enemy last night (wisely) buried his level 4 Tzeench & BSB in the 2nd rank of a unit of 2-wide pink horrors (with full command), severely limiting my ability to snipe them out with my maneaters... very clever.

I have yet to sap wizard levels with the greedy fist, mostly due to range (and my opponent's desire to not lose levels) but it has allowed me to bubble soulblight or get off doom and darkness at key times.

Deathfisting is not just for wizards, it's a style of play that focuses on character assassination.  Saying otherwise is like saying because you have a cannon you built a monster hunting list.  It is simply one tool in the army that focuses on a specific style of play the core of a Deathfist army is:

lvl4 SM with deathfist
Butcher
6+ ME w/ sniper & poison

The goal of the army is to rip your opponents character support out from under them.  It's not about stripping wizard levels.  This seems to be a very common misconception and thought I should clarify.  It's about getting rid of the armies leadership (general) rerolls (BSB) and gaining magic dominance (lvl4).  At that point all you have to do is line up good match ups and your opponent will crumble.  The biggest weakness to a deathfist list is an army that has too much hero support for you to reliably strip away.

This is the style of list I play exclusively with ogres, everyone has their nitch (how to horde, 18leadies, etc) but when it ogres this is the only way I play them.  I have gone something like 25 games with this style list and only lost 3 times now and I think 2 draws.

I was under the impression that deathfisting, as snark mentions, is the combination of the death lore and the greedy fist in order to strip wizard levels from the eeevil opponent's wizards and then rule the magic phase w/ an iron fist.

That is indeed the deathfist in the strictest sense, but if one thinks about it the way Sitaavanu did just now, the SM itself is just a glock in the machine, a machine aimed at character assasination or, if one wants to expand this style even further, support assasination in general. The greedy fist just makes this style of play a lot more effective. This style of play therefore also makes the most of the deathfist SM. Obviously the effectiveness of such an army depends greatly on what you face, but it is a lot of fun (as Sitaavanu pointed out some weeks back, thanks for that )

Exactly. Death as a Lore is a very good way to remove support models with low leadership/strength/toughness. I had someone Spirit Leech my Ironblaster just the other day. Ld 9 against Ld 7 and he rolls a 6.

Eliminating support means the main units are at a disadvantage in the fight. He then proceeded to attempt to assassinate my BSB and was successful at killing my general with a failed "Look out Sir" from a Cannon shot. Without the leadership bonus my army was on it's back foot the whole time. It wasn't Ld9 with a Re-roll it was, "Crap, if I lose this combat... even if Steadfast... it will be a single Ld7 roll. Maybe I should rethink that charge."