Fears for Ogres

Now i dont mean this to be a ranty doomsayers post or anything like that, rather just a thread to see what peoples thoughts and ideas might be.

I must admit first off, ive only flicked through a copy of the Khaine book, but i have a growing concern that Ogres might , as an army, disappear in 9th

I have the idea that End Times will run for a while then 9th will come along and GW will set it in the times AFTER End Times. This would allow them to reduce the number of armies;

Elves...(dark,high,wood)
Humans....(empire,bretonia, maybe dwarves)
Chaos....WoC, DoC,beastmenn)
Undead....(TK, VC)

etc, etc.

as such i cant really see where Ogres would fit, the only obvious thing being, as mercs for any army (you buy a unit or two, no Ogre army) or they get rolled into the 'humans' book.

I really hope im completely wrong in this as i love my Ogres and feel ive only just begun to play around with lists and games etc.

JoS

I don't think this would happen.  As an army they are very popular in fantasy.  A lot of people like the army for their small model count for a start. 

My main concern is the competative side of things considering the large amount of multi wound dealing weapons / characters out there at the moment.

Kind regards Zolas.

My thoughts are that they will not remove the Ogre's, but instead put them in a "Not really Bad Guy's" army.

for example, Ogre's and Dwarf's (Skaven's?).

This would make more sense than just removing them, and we could have a bigger book just for those armies.

This is my hopes, but nothing will probably happen. We should be fine...

Of the remaining armies (Skaven, Lizards, Dwarfs, Ogres, Orcs and Gobs, Empire, Brets), its getting somewhat fuzzy how, if at all, they'll get merged.

Skaven and O&G merging seems as good as I can come up with for those two armies - I hope you enjoy painting a lot of models.

Brets and Empire also feels most natural, but uninteresting. Maybe throw half the ogre army here as Mercenaries?

Dwarfs and Lizards... well, it makes about as much sense as merging High and Dark Elves. Throw the other half of the Ogres here for more crazy fun.

Didn't ogres originally start as a unit in the Empire?  Then, skip past Dogs of War and suddenly they had their own army.  I think it would make most sense if they were absorbed back into the Empire.  The problem is the massive fluff change/development done to make them a separate Army now makes that quite a bit more challenging

Honestly, I expect we'll see some love in the next book.  The next book is themed around skaven, but since I expect the last book to focus on the Empire, Dwarfs, and Bretonnians, I expect to see skaven, O&G, and Ogres in the next.  It's a coin toss as to when the Lizards are gonna show up.

Plus, all the multi-wound stuff is on the uber-special characters, and most tournaments and local leagues are probably going to be a little iffy about using them.

And as a final reassurance, rumors say that 9th ed will be pre-end times, or just not mention it period.  Not sure about the reliability of that, but that's whats in the ether.

I was on the receiving end of Karl franz ascended the other day at a  tourny and I can tell you it was unpleasant.  Pretty much wiped 3 units on his own (mournfangs, unit of bull, and half of my gut star). 

I agree with you though that the characters will just get banned.  They really out balance monstrous infantry and monsters.  Particularly making ogre kingdoms very weak.  Bad enough with things like warp litghning cannons, doowheels, magma cannons as well as the nasty spells such as purple sun and dwellers below just to name a few of the nasty things.

I certainly hope we get our books coming soon.  Eager to see the ogre love! 

Kind regards Zolas.

The characters are annoying because they're all over the spectrum from a bit naff to downright broken. The Glottkin are pretty balanced and maybe even a little overpriced for what they are, but Karl Franz Ascended is savage and Nagash is downright the best unit in the game.

It's really a per-unit basis, but sadly most tourney organisers don't tend to like thinking and just do sweeping bans. Not sure why they like that though, given that GW is often criticised for not thinking certain units through...

Nagash is actually quite easy to take out!

I played a game the other day and he died in turn one! Ok I got a bit unlucky, but I think he would have died in turn 2 if I'd been lucky!

So my first fielding of Nagash ended without him so much as moving, and I was suddenly playing a 3000 point army against a 4000 point army! Still enjoyed the game though, to be honest I quite like the randomness of some games.

Umm... how? Cannons hurt him, but anyone who doesn't have reliable artillery can't do too much, and he's quite easily screened by monsters...

Great response here, these are the kind of things i hoped to get

Hopefully im totally wrong and Ogres will still be an army in their own right Although i agree with Zolas and others, the number of multi-wounding units and characters out there is going to quickly turn us in gnoblars
KF for example would be much better tied up killing 10 gnoblars out a unit of 100 a turn instead of possibly (extreme) 10 ogres a turn

On a side not, ive seen a lot of things about skaven and lizards being together in the next book :0

JoS

On a side not, ive seen a lot of things about skaven and lizards being together in the next book :0

That... seems a weird combo.

I have a feeling that they might do O&G with Ogres, since those are some of the major armies of the "Badlands", but also with a final book of Empire, Ogres will maybe have some "legion" formations with Empire, WoC, or maybe others?

I doubt they'll team up with Dwarves, that's just such a weird combo... other than that they're both mainly mountain dwellers... But, even still, some of their remaining choices to "legion"-ize don't look like easy explanations. But, who knows, I feel like they've already killed it with the new crazy magic phase, as the 50% character limits have changed the game slightly (only in favor against Ogres, until we get some big special characters to help us out...).

Oh well. Hopefully they'll have better rules and balance in 9th edition. In the meantime I won't be buying any of the End Times books until one has Ogres featured in them. And even then, that's a "maybe"

Of all the armies I would love to team up with Ogre's I'm hoping for 3:

1. Empire,  Seriously having a mounted priest with your guts re-rolling hits from hatred and priest buffs is simply sick!  Great comba for that alone!  I've taken out gutstars super easy in doubles matches with this. 

2. Dwarfs pretty much because I love the new range of models and have always wanted a dwarf army.

3. Orc and Goblins as a think this would put much needed boddies into our army.  Though my issue with this is that our gnoblars may become a little redundant.

Kind regards Zolas.

With rumours pitting lizards against skaven, I'm more and more expecting an Empire list with Dwarf and Ogre allies.