Competetive Ogre play, point denial

Ogre-friends,

In my seeking to become a better WHF-playing, I have started to wonder more about point denial as an underlying part of army composition and gaming style. Previously I have tried to focus on the aspect of panic-"denial" as a conscious way of choosing and positioning my troops so easy caused panic test are avoided: Placing easy units 6"+ away, using gleaming pendant on units I know will roam outside the 12" BSB, use more gnobblars as they do not casu panic in ogres and finally do more calculation to charge to achieve steadfast and deny CR to my opponent (eg. the classic situation of not support charging with zombies as they pose as easy targets and hence CR).

But now I see my gaming meta focusing more on not loosing points while maybe accepting also not making a lot of points back. I mean a victory of 600-400 equals the same score as 1600-1400 (depending on the scoring system, excluding "blood on the dance floor" rules). And should I need to make 1600 points then I am also in the risk of exposing my own army to heavy loses.

Does anybody out there have some Ogre specific rules of thumb you use or how do you deal with this?

In this aspect I tend to like a defensive Heavens list rather some, as it can incorporate magic defense and offense with HH and sniper ME, lots of hard hitting spells to kill of easy targets and even some fliers/monsters worth tons of points. Or maybe the tyrants builds where he keeps your star-units untouchable. Not that I fancy tyrants in other builds than the beast-characters lists, but htat is another topic.

I don't usually run a deathstar myself.  I run my list as Multiple Medium Units (MMU).  I'll maybe have 2 decent blocks of IG with a char and maybe a block of ME and some MF.

That along with units of 3 naked ogres and 3 lone sabre tusks gives me the ability to feed the enemy deathstar cheap fast units while I mop up the rest of his army.  After that I'll start focusing and setting up multiple charges against his deathstar as a finishing move.  A lot of times the game doesn't even get that far, I'll just distract his deathstar and bash away the rest of his army and usually bag a win like that.

Firebellies (with ruby ring somewhere)  helps a lot in a MMU list because fireball really wreck enemy chaff units.

I find that simply using two or three characters in one medium sized unit (I usually take 8 Ironguts and 9 Bulls in my list, or something like that) really stops the enemy getting a lot of points in combat as you have T5 on most of your models instead of 4. Also, since they have to split attacks between your characters, it's likely that all of them will survive- which means you can attack back with your full amount, as well as use Bloodgruel to regain some wounds.

Combining this with Gut Magic buffs makes this even better, as most enemies will really struggle against toughness 6.

I nearly always take Gut Magic with my Slaughtermaster and a level 2 Butcher, because that way you can get all 6 spells, which guarantees you the buffs you need. Take a BSB and sometimes a level 1 Beasts Butcher (for Wyssan's Wildform) on occassion and you have enough buffs to make things really uncomfortable; you just have to fit it around your points cost. If I take all four of those characters at 2000pts, I run them all naked except for a dispel scroll and an additional handweapon each.

It worked for me in my last tournament, as I got three wins out of three, and each of them were massacres!

Honestly, I've never had a problem with this.  I usually table people(not to sound arrogant).  The gutstar works like a charm if they also are hoarding.  If they are going MSU or MMU, then the gut star is much less effective.  Use leadbelchers and mournefang to deal with them.  Leadbelchers shoot and mournefang are too fast to avoid.  take 2 units of both and you're fine.

In a 2k you can take 1k in special

Leadbelchers 6,  Mus  -  268

Leadbelchers 6,  Mus  -  268

Kitty  -  21

Kitty  -  21

Mournefang 4, HA, IF, Mus, Banner, Dragonhide  -  350

This is 934 in special.  It's fast or it shoots, so it won't be avoided