Fresh born to Fantasy Battle

Hey there, As a WH 40k player, I wanted to start my adventure in Fantasy Battle. 6th Edition in 40k so far is seriously f***ed up, and I heard, that 8th edition of FB is actualy getting fun, plus my friends start to play it more and more, so I decided to give it a try. After some researching about armies, I decided to go with Ogres. I did minor research about every unit, whats good, whats not, etc, so I got myself for a start a battalion, extra box of 6 ogres and Ironblaster.

So I'd like you to ask for a help, how to think, while constructing my list. Particulary I realy like Leadbelchers. I'm keen to go either both ogres and ironguts, or single guts blob as core, and make special characters off from ogre models, or if reaaly forced to - from leadbelchers. I think I'm going to like how magic system works in Fantasy Battle, so I'd like to go with heroes like Slaughtermaster / butcher, firebelly. What items should I look at, while equiping them, and what not?

Second thing: Ranks. How wide / long should my blob ranks be? And where should be my special characters placed? Should my SM , Firebelly etc be placed in first ranks, or in second ranks? I'm used to alot of 2+/3+ saves in 40k, but seeing more 4+/5+ saves in FB, seems like front ranks of special characters wouldn't be so resilent, or am I missing something?

I might miss alot of rulings, but hey, I want to get a hand on it .

well you're along the right lines with where to start with an ogre army.
i'd add to your list a box or two of mournfang and a sabre tusk or two as well.

characters are pretty easy to convert out of standard ogre bodies, especially with all the spare bits you get from mournfang/IG and the bigger kits like the stonehorn.

ranks vary widly dependent on role. if you are going for a single large unit of ironguts, you need to go wider to make use of all those expensive high strength attacks.
if you are just using ogre bulls as a carrier for a couple of killy-characters, then narrow is fine (3 wide) to deny the enemy easy combat res from the core models.
it will also vary in-game. you can reform wide-narrow and narrow-wide during your turn and at the end of the combat phase, so you're not stuck with one choice.

armour counts a lot less in WFB, high strength attacks chip away at your armour. S6 attacks will take your shiny 1+ save to 4+. lots of stuff dies in WFB, including characters. its all part of the mechanic, so get used to stuff dying, units running away and battle-lines crumbling. its all good fun :-)

just as a heads-up, a lot of the things that 6th ed players don't like actually started here in fantasy, so if you dont like challenges/duels, random charge ranges and rolling for psychic powers then i'd move along, nothing to see here! :-)

Thanks for reply . It's not about rulings in 6th. 6th in 40k has serious balance issues, and huge implications, that flyers bring to the game. GW is just f**ing his own customer wallets, to counter fire with fire. Rulewise, I know what to expect in WHFB, so no worries .

About ogres themselves. I think I'm going to realy like stuff like firebellies, hellheart, slaughtermaster, blasters, and MFC with dragonhide banner (they are going to be my next pick, most likely   )

So for the list. I want to achieve in my list something like this. Preferably from 2000 to 2500 points

Slaughtermaster lv4
Bruiser BSB
Firebelly lv2 with Hellheart
as Core, not sure, but idea of Gutstar sounds nice to me.
3x or 4x MFC with Dragonhide banner, IF, HA
2-3 single Sabertusks
4 Leadbelchers to take out chaffs
Ironblaster (maybe even two)

Didn't look at it point wise. Also not sure how to equip my Characters, or how to go with the Core units. I wondered, if Fighty SM with fencer blades + glittering scales would work out. Sounds cool for me. Overall I think this would be a nice goal to achieve for me.

Mainly, I'm going to play against Skaven player. How would you equip such loadout?

Some ogre tricks that I like:

1) Because we are a low leadership army. A bruiser BSB and banner of discipline are almost a must. Being able to reroll failed leadership tests is Huge.
2) Because we rarely have steadfast and have point heavy characters and units, many people take crown of command. I always do.
3) I like to give the slaughtermaster gruts sickle. Then, you have a high likelihood that with 8 power dice, you can 2-dice four spells. I love watching the enemy squirm trying to figure out what to dispell. So with a lvl 4, gruts with the +2, and the lore ability for +1, you can pump up your spells to +7. Thats like 2 free power dice almost...
4) At your point level, I think leadbelchers should come in 6's. Can you get 2 more boxes of leadies? Then you can field 2 units of 6 leadies, or 3 units of 4 if you so desire. Also, it's really important to give leadbelchers a musician. Being able to swift reform and then shoot is huge. And being ld 7 and usually on the flanks, if they panic, they will get a +1 to rally.
5) firebelly is a solid choice. A lot of people like to give him ruby ring for the kindleflame effect. I like a heavens butcher. ice shard blizzard is a great hex to protect our armies, especially since we are low ws and vulnerable to shooting attacks. And if you get lucky and get harmonic convergence, even better. And if you are going to play alot against skaven, heavens is really a great choice. The comet can squish a lot of them at once. Against large units of low ws, low str attacks, sometimes poisoness attacks, curse of midnight wind is awesome. Even the stupid wind spell is usefull if you can cast it on a large unit of clan rat and have it blow into impassable terrain, board edge, or another unit.