2k Tournament List - First Attempt With Ogres

Hello chaps, apologies for the standard opening post asking for advice.

I spent a hefty chunk of last year painting roughly 5,000 points of Skaven so my natural second army had to be one with a far lower model count and the obvious choice was Ogres. Since the turn of the year i've been working through my Ogres and with three tournaments coming up over the next couple of months I thought i'd give them a run out in one of them. I've played one game, against Lizardmen, which I lost narrowly with a similar list to the one i've created below.

The tournament is 2k and I wanted to run a level 4, which ate a lot of points, and by the time I added the Bruiser I had no chance of using a second caster. Mournfang, Leadbelchers, Sabretusks and Ironblaster are must haves....from what i've gathered talking to other players and reading through this forum, so I guess the main thing i'm asking about is the build i'm using and the size of units i'm using.

All advice appreciated and if possible any tactical suggestions re deployment (i'm used to running hordes of rats) and what to be aiming to engage with using each unit. I've only been playing for about 12 months and in that time only played about 11 games due to other commitments, so I really am coming at it from a noob perspective. Cheers.

Slaughtermaster - Level 4, Dawnstone, Dispel Scroll, Enchanted Shield - 343pts

Bruiser - BSB, Heavy Armour, Ironfist, Armour of Destiny - 188pts

7 x Ironguts - Full Command, Banner of Eternal Flame - 341pts
9 x Ogres - Bellower, Standard Bearer, Ironfists - 292pts

4 x Leadbelchers - Bellower - 182pts
4 x Leadbelchers - Bellower - 182pts
4 x Mournfang Cavalry - Bellower, Heavy Armour, Ironfists - 260pts
1 x Sabretusk - 21pts
1 x Sabretuck - 21pts

1 x Ironblaster - 170pts

Total - 2,000pts

Why not give both characters a 4++

Slaughtermaster - Level 4, Ironfist, Armour of Destiny, Dispell Scroll = 363 (4+/4++)
Bruiser - BSB, HA, Enchanted Shield, Talisman of Preservation = 184 (3+/4++)

Standard of Discipline is generally better on Ironguts to bump the Ld of your General. Also the points on your Mournfangs are wrong, they add up to 290, not 260. Your Ogres are also 308 not 292 and the BSB should add up to 184. You've paid for Heavy Armour and Armour of Destiny which both count as Heavy Armour.

Either way you need to trim some points to get that unit of Mournfangs in so you could drop a unit of Leadbelchers or reduce their sizes to 3 rather than 4 and add some extra toys?

How about this?

Slaughtermaster - Level 4, Ironfist, Armour of Destiny, Dispell Scroll = 363 (4+/4++)

Bruiser - BSB, HA, Enchanted Shield, Talisman of Preservation = 184 (3+/4++)

7 x Ironguts - Full Command,Standard of Discipline - 346pts
9 x Ogres - Bellower, Standard Bearer, Ironfists - 308pts

3 x Leadbelchers - Bellower - 139pts
4 x Leadbelchers - Bellower - 139pts
4 x Mournfang Cavalry - Bellower, Standard Bearer, Gleaming Pennant, Heavy Armour, Ironfists -305pts
1 x Sabretusk
1 x Sabretuck

1 x Ironblaster

Total = 1996

Thoughts?

This list is pretty much the same as before, every unit is still there however your characters are now much tougher to take down, you have less Leadbelchers but your Mournfangs have a standard which gives +1 static CR and the Gleaming Pennant will allow them to re-roll their first failed Ld test meaning they can operate out of the BSB's range early game and not worry about fleeing. If you wanted the Dawn Stone on the Slaughtermaster you can drop a Sabretusk to make up the points as there are 4 left.

In my opinion this is a more optimized version of the list you already put up, it was pretty solid but just a few tweaks REALLY improve parts of the army. You put the SM and BSB in the Ironguts to give them a Ld 9 bubble which comes with re-rolls thanks the Inspiring Presence and the BSB ability. This is so useful to Ogres it's not even funny! Bulls can take a fair amount of punishment so you can hold stuff up with them and have the Mournfangs or Ironguts combo charge with them. Mournfangs excel at chewing out T3 and to a much lesser extend T4 troops, send them out of a flank and watch the fireworks, just make sure you get the charge. Leadbelchers although smaller in number should be able to blow away most enemy chaff while yours (Sabretusks) can re-direct or hunt war machines. Ironblaster should move and shoot at priority targets such as monsters and war machines, don't forget it's a chariot with S5 and T6. It's tough as nails in combat so try to get it there but don't rush it, move and shoot until a favorable charge comes around them slam it into combat.

Hope this helps. 

Thanks for this, MD.

Not sure what went wrong with the Mournfangs, but dropping down to 3 Leadbelchers in order to keep the Mournfangs at 4 makes sense. The ward saves will be a massive help and I had meant to include the Standard of Discipline, but couldn't find the points for it.

I hadn't considered the Ironblaster in combat and a lot of your tips will definitely come in handy. Tournament isn't until Mid-June so i'll need to get some practice in before hand. Cheers, dude.

Any time Nomis! I'm happy to help if and where I can.

At lot of people consider the Ironblaster a cannon that can move and to a certain extent they are right. However it's shortened range and the fact it's being dragged around on a chariot also lends itself to combat. D6 S5 Impact hits followed by 1 Gnoblar attack, 3 S4 Ogre attacks and 3 S5 Rhinox attacks is nothing to sniff at! It's quite capable in combat and it's also incredibly resilient so it can be used as a mobile firing platform until it's in a position to charge in and crush face.

What I tend to do with my Ironblasters is deploy it in a favorable position (usually on high ground or a flank) and each turn I'll move it to get a good firing position whilst also gaining ground. When a charge becomes viable which shouldn't be to bad 6" + Swiftstride then I will either send it in for the kill or re-position to target war machines or monsters should they cause a threat. I'd definitely recommend getting in a few games to get a feel for the army as a whole, nothing teaches you how the army works better than experience.

Something to consider is to run your unit of Mournfang in 3's as when you start with 4 if there is only 1 left you are rallying on snake eyes but with 3 you are on full leadership.  with the saved points you can fit in the dragonhide banner for all those rerolls.

Just something to think about

I ran a similar list at a 2000 tourney last year, off the top of my head it was something like this:

Slaughtermaster, fencers blades glittering scales, scroll, dragonbane gem?

BSB, HA, IF, dragonhelm, sword of striking, dawnstone

8 IG, Mus, Std of discipline

8 Ogres, IF, FC

10 gnoblars (there was an objective that required infantry)

5 Leadies, Mus.

4 Mournfang, Mus, Std, gleaming pennant

2x1 sabretusks

Ironblaster


Slaughtermaster ran in the guts for Ld 9, BSB went in the ogres to stiffen them up in combat. It did very well for me, 4th over all and best ogre general.

I ran the list suggested by Mastero and playing in the tournament this weekend. I'll update on how it went.

The only thing I have to do now is work out what order to do my spells in, which is one of the things I struggle most with.

Hi,

Is this for Throne of Skulls by any chance?

If so i'll be there and taking Ogres too!

I'd recommend dropping the dawnstone on your slaugtermaster in your original build - no point spending 25pts to reroll a 5+ armour save!

No, dude, it was a tournament in Northern Ireland called Machohammer.

For a first attempt with the Ogres the list worked pretty well, I came 19th out of 26, which seems awful but the event was incredibly close because it wasn't a 20-0 system, it was all about victory points so you could lose all of your army and your opponent would get 12pts, but if you killed 90% of his in the process you were coming out with 10 or 11 points of your own. I ended up in 19th, but 6 points short of 7th, that's how close it was.

Game One - Lost 12-0 to Orcs and Goblins (140 - 2275)
This loss was 100% my own fault. My Ironguts, with SM and Bruiser, got flanked by a unit of trolls and won combat, but if I had turned to face them I would have been flank charged by Savage Orcs so I held in the hope that I could survive another round of combat, get my Bulls into the Savage Orcs and then turn to face the Trolls next turn. Next turn came and the Trolls wiped out the entire Irongut unit, but for the SM and Bruiser. My Mourfangs got charged by a Pump Wagon and two Chariots and I failed every single one of my impact hit saves, so there were two of my three main units gone in next to no time. The Bulls didn't hold out for long against the Savage Orcs. Nobody to blame but myself and this point I was dreading the rest of the tournament.

Game Two - Lost 4-3 to Dwarfs (610 - 701)
This one was a great game because my opponent was such a good guy, but we ended up wasting so much time chatting and laughing that we didn't finish it and that's why he managed to win.....just. Everything went well and on turn 4 I had three of his units packed into the corner of the board with my Mournfang, Bulls and two units of Leadbelchers all either within charge range or in combat. Unfortunately, because we had let time get away from us we were forced to end the game on turn four and I can take some solace in the fact that I would almost certainly have wiped him out in the next two turns if we had been allowed to finish.

Game Three - Won 6-4 against Dwarfs (1230 - 772)
Not much to say about this game other than the fact that it would have been a whole lot more emphatic had my SM not miscast on the final magic phase and ended up cast into the realms of Chaos, 363 points to my opponent in one fell swoop.

Game Four - Won 12-2 against High Elves (2275 - 504)
This was a complete white wash. The Ogres really came into their own and the Leadbelchers were the stars of the show. I recently played against Dark Elves and had no shooting, so my opponent's fast cav just danced around me, but in this game the Leadbelchers wiped every unit of fast cav out within a couple of turns. The Ironguts and Bulls walked through two nits of Swordmasters and in the end my opponent gave up when his unit of Phoenix guard had been front charged by the Ironguts and flanked on either side by Leadbeclehers and Mournfang.

Game Five - Drew 8-8 against High Elves (1592 - 1516)
The first turn of this game was traumatic. I moved forward and stayed 13" away from him, hoping that he'd move forward or else fail his rolls of 8 for a charge....he rolled 8 on both and charged the Bulls with Swordmasters and the Ironguts with Mind Razored Phoenix Guard. The Bulls held, the Ironguts were wiped out and going into turn two I was without my General and BSB. However, he had miscast on the Mind Razor and neither of us had magic for the remainder of the game as he lost his wizard levels and couldn't cast any of his spells. The outstanding performer for me was the Ironblaster, it took care of two Phoenix, a Bolt Thrower and a unit of Archers. The Bulls managed to hold and then got the Mournfang in to deal with the Swordmasters and the Leadbelchers dealt with two units of fast cav, another unit of fast cav and the second bolt thrower. In fairness to my opponent, though, the result was skewed by a scenario that awarded victory points for remaining in the middle of the table, which meant that his Phoenix Guard wiped out the Ironguts and then didn't move again for the rest of the game, which meant I could march worund the rest of the board and clean up. That probably seems mad, but the scenario awarded 4pts, so rather than risk the Guard he decided to let me get on with it and even if there was a draw he would end up winning by 4pt i.e. in terms of victory points it was a draw, but in terms of victory points and scenario he won 12-8. It suited me because I got extra points and it suited him because he could have lost the PG to the MF etc.

Overall a very enjoyable tournament. I'm fairly gutted about that first game, if I hadn't been so scared of the Savage Orcs I might have finished top ten. That said, I usually play Skaven and the Ogres are so much more fun. They're mobile, combat is great and shooting is top notch. Nothing to do with them being so good, though, it's the fact that it's relatively simple. Having played Skaven I found the tactical side of it quite annoying at times and the random elements even more so. Getting to just push forward and smash face was great fun.

Thanks for the suggestions guys, really enjoyed the list and will definitely use it again.