Help with......Ogres!?

How to beat those cowardly High Elves?

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Rebmonk
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Help with......Ogres!?

Post by Rebmonk »

I don't care what people say, ogres are absolutely brutal to play against, or maybe it is just my druchii.

Now I run the following generic 2k list:

Lvl 4 Sorc with sac dagger and PoK
lvl 2 sorc with guiding eye and tome of furion
BSB cauldron

25 spearmen naked (dagger unit)
30 rxb full command

25 witches full command banner of murder
chariot

war hydra
2 RBT

I usually run shadow on lvl 4 and metal on lvl 2. Okrams mindrazor is so helpful, and the -d3 toughness + rxb is great too. metal has generic handy spells that i can use, but i mainly go for the +1 to hit with the rxb.

So I played a 2k game against friends ogres. he brought:

lvl 4 ogre
lvl 2 ogre
cc killy ogre

2 units of 8 ogre (core)
10 scouting gnoblars
20 gnoblars

2 scrap launchers
3 of the guys that come one anywhere on the table edge.

Deployment:

Ogre unit ogre unit scrap launchers
gnoblars



RBT RXB's spears Witches, Hydra, Chariot, RBT
Scout gnoblars Cauldron

He goes first and turn 1 moves to midfield. So i have 1 turn to react before he hits my lines. scout gnoblars take out the RBT (2 6's and that's that) and the scrap launchers start to put a dent into my rxb. Magic phase he stacks up regen on both units.

So my turn to react. i don't do much, since its kind of dependent on my magic phase. I put 5+ ward on my rxb's from cauldron. -d3 toughness gets scrolled, +1 to hit from rxb gets dispelled. I chose between okrams mindrazor or the I test template and for the I test template. Kills and ogre and his ogre lvl 4.


Turn 2 his two ogre units fling into my rxb unit and spearmen unit. Impact hits and attacks and stomp attacks = dead. With my lvl 4 gone i kind of see the game as over, since killing blow doesnt work on ogres -_- I hit back with my witches and hydras but can't take the attrition.

So any tips for playing ogres in general, or my list? I'm thinking I need something to deal with their backfield, so harpies, dark riders, a dark pegasus, or manticore. Finally, i will probably only deploy like 6 inches deep, so i get 2 turns to deal with him and maneuver.

Thoughts?
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Post by Shade3413 »

To be honest with you I have yet to lose with my ogres in the new edition and all of my victories have been absolute landslides in my favor. Despite an ogre's low weapon skill the sheer number and force of their attacks cripple most dark elf units. In most ways the most reliable save you will have against them is your parry save as most druchii armor will be negated in full.

That said dark elves still have plenty of weapons that should be very effective. Dark Sun is my biggest fear as an ogre player, you shouldn't tailor your list but trust me it is effective. Also any significant shooting can cause an ogre player problems, RXBs and Bolt Throwers will tear chunks out of an ogre army quickly but you wont have many turns to shoot unless you successfully delay them.

Don't let them get ahead of you in the magic phase! I've found spamming my gut magic to be insanely effective and by turn 2 if I am allowed my buffs become far too much to handle or dispel. Use your dice in your magic phase to get rid of the most potent spells. In most cases that will be the toughness and regen save spells as ogre strength is already high enough to reliably wound on 2s or 3s and cripple your armour as I said before.

Finally don't waste your time on gnoblars, they can tarpit well at 2 pts a piece and will easily retain stubborn (in my experience) I've been able to use them to bate a 600 point chaos dragon into an irongut horde. The other player REALLY didn't expect them to hold against his scary monster-o-doom. Always shoot and magic ogres to oblivion when given the chance, nobody likes a gnoblar but nobody fears one either.
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Post by Toddums »

Lots and lots of witches?
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Lord tsunami
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Post by Lord tsunami »

id say your army lacks a bit of bulk.

you have very much points in characters. i would ditch the lvl 2. a lvl 4 with dagger can dominate most opponents by herself. no reason to use PD for your puny lvl 2 :)

25 warriors is not a good size for a sacrificial unit. either go with 15 and use them only for PD, or bump them to 35 so you can both sacrifice and fight with them. give them shields in that case. probably this is the pest option to avoid getting below 25% core.

i think CoK could be great against ogres. they really pack a punch and can also take some hits. i would probably ditch the chariot in favour for CoK.

witches seems like a good choice, but be sure to deploy them at least 8 wide. they will dispatch a unit of 8 ogres in around 2 rounds of combat that way. very nasty.

if your opponent isnt a wuss (and complains, making the gaming experience boring) id suggest 2 hydras instead of the 2 rbt... he can kill them too easily anyway.
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Auere
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Post by Auere »

Okay, I am by no means an expert on ogres, but...


2x30 RbX (shields, fc)


It may be stating the obvious, but no ogre army ever survived 120 shots per turn. Combine it with a little magic and the gauiding eye, and you have yourself a winner.
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Post by Jbtheslipperking »

You need some shades and harpies to deal with warmachines. Sugest you ditch the RBT`s for that. The RXB in big units seems to be very popular with the new edition, but against ogres they are not so good and personally I find that close combat starting in round 2 makes them less viable. As for tactics it seems to me that you are just taking the ogres right in the face in round 2 and that is not a good situation for you. One solution i sometimes use to try to stop an fast moving force is to use 10 corsairs with frenzy banner. Move them up 10 wide, give them +1 at. with coudron and them use al your magic dice to cast Okkams Mindrazor on them. Thats 40 strenght 8 atacks ( with hatred reroll ) so you opponent needs to go around them. And btw, use shadow on both mages and cast the big spell with the lv2 so you dont sacrifice the lv 4. And Tsunami is right, warrior unit need to be bigger to sustain the big blow comming.
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Post by Persuader »

MSU, who cares if he does 15hits and 12 wounds if your unit is only 7 strong?
I had some great experience with 3 x 7 witches (no command)
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Brad
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Post by Brad »

Try deploying a couple of inches back from the starting line. There's less chance of him getting a 2nd turn charge, all the better if you go second so you get your full two turns worth of shooting.
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Post by Minsc »

lvl 4 ogre
lvl 2 ogre
cc killy ogre

2 units of 8 ogre (core)
10 scouting gnoblars
20 gnoblars

2 scrap launchers
3 of the guys that come one anywhere on the table edge.


Was the 'cc killy ogre' a Tyrant(lord)? Otherwise he was cheating.
If he was a Tyrant, that means he had 400 pts in lords without any equipment, giving him 100 pts in total for equipment for 2 lord-characters.

Also, he was cheating because he can only have 2 Gorgers (the "guys comming from the edges), not 3.
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Post by Rebmonk »

thanks for the replies everyone. I will be making some tweaks and going for round 2 next week. This is sort of my all-comers tournament list, so I don't want to focus on stacking against one army.

And the third gorger really didn't make that much of a difference. It was the two ogre units up the guts that did it.
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Post by Getwisteerd »

I think gorgers are a 2-per-rare unit, but I'm not really sure about that.

I'm a bit surprised your witch elves did so little though, they're any ogre's nightmare. Assuming he put his ogres 4 wide you could put your witches 10 wide, meaning that you'll get 45 attacks on him before he gets to strike. Most of his unit would be dead. so you'll only get attacks back from 1-3 ogres (depending on your luck) and any characters he had in the unit.
Don't target any attacks on his wizards though, they are immune to poison. Also make sure to have your witches right in his unit's face. That way he won't get impact hits and can't avoid them.

And make sure to dispel his spells like shade3413 said.
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Meteor
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Post by Meteor »

Your list doesn't look too shabby for a 2000pt game. What I would do is drop the PoK, split your WE into two smaller groups, give your RXB shields and try again. Shadow is indeed an excellent lore, especially against Ogres. What I'd do be to drop that lv2 for some Harpies and Shades (or DRs since they can vanguard then march 18 straight behind enemy lines ready to charge weak units by turn 2 or be in position to rear/flank support charge). I'd personally swap out dagger for darkstar cloak instead, dagger brings up too much issue with investing in points for a stabbing unit thus less points spent on the all important combat element of the game.
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Post by Jeffleong13 »

Gorgers are 1 per rare ... so he can't have 3 of them at 2K
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Post by Deroth »

Yes he can have 3 gorgers at 2k, he is allowed 500pts in rare and 3 gorgers is less than half of that.

As for his characters he could fit a tyrant and a lvl 4 in if they only took 100pts of items between them and if it was a bruiser then he could fit it in easily.
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Post by Loki »

Deroth wrote:Yes he can have 3 gorgers at 2k, he is allowed 500pts in rare and 3 gorgers is less than half of that.


You are only allowed up to 2 of the same Rare choice under 2000 points, regardless of how much they cost.
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Post by Deroth »

ah true, I had forgotten about double rares and triple specials.
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Post by Desert icon »

Deroth wrote:As for his characters he could fit a tyrant and a lvl 4 in if they only took 100pts of items between them and if it was a bruiser then he could fit it in easily.

Ogre players can't take a Slaughtermaster if they don't take a Tyrant first.
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Post by Babnik »

Deploy your xbw units at 10 inches instead of 12 and give the first round. As ogres have M6, they will need at least 3-4 rounds to get in CC. 1 more shooting phase for you!
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Hack n slash
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Post by Hack n slash »

He might have used skrag the ogre slaughtermaster who can be a general and allows 2 for 1 gorgers in the specil slots. Then he could have cheapish bruser and butcher. Just remember that a ogre level 4 can use a max three dice to cast and a level 2 two dice so shuting him down shouldn't be that hard.
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Post by Tethlis »

Dispelling the key Remains-in-Play Gut Magic spells is crucial. Giving up a bit of your magic phase just to accomplish that feat will make combats much, much easier. I agree that your Witches should have puled up an enormous body count, and I am surprised they did not. The Hydra can do a lot of damage as well, but make sure you charge the Hydra into combat alongside another Dark Elf unit, so the Hydra has to share frontage and is therefore in base contact with fewer Ogres than if he charged in alone. This will minimize return attacks on the Hydra, and he can put his breath weapon (probably still at Strength 5) as well as his multiple attacks to good effect.

Also, as has been suggested, deploy a bit further back into your deployment zone. That would have kept you safe from Gnoblar Sharp Stuff (its very short range, and it easily incurs a lot of To-Hit penalties, so shouldn't be too accurate.) Also, as has been mentioned, the difference between a Turn 2 charge and a Turn 3 charge is huge with regard to your support units, and there's always the chance of being able to counter-charge if his Turn 2 charge fails (not that charging makes a huge amount of difference this edition.)

Scraplaunchers have gained a lot of effectiveness this edition too, so sending a Hydra or other fast, reasonably combat-oriented element after them can be well worth it. I would use my Rending Star Assassin/Shades to engage them early in the game, but you mentioned that you would like to stick with your take-all-comers list and I think that's a great idea.
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Post by A18no »

hack n slash wrote:He might have used skrag the ogre slaughtermaster who can be a general and allows 2 for 1 gorgers in the specil slots. Then he could have cheapish bruser and butcher. Just remember that a ogre level 4 can use a max three dice to cast and a level 2 two dice so shuting him down shouldn't be that hard.


Why??? They are as anybody, can use 6 dices per casting.
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Meteor
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Post by Meteor »

you need mindrazor imo, since you can't solve it with KB like with other armies. If you have that, then it's not AS crucial to remove those remains in play from ogres. it's normally better to remove their base 7 version on your turn, but yea, it involves giving up on a bit of casting.
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Jacks -Shade
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Equipment
Short Sword, MC Long Sword*, Dagger, RxB & RHB [20/10] MC Shade Cloak, 4 Throwing Daggers, 3x Healing Vials, 451C, [3]Dark Venom, [4]Unseen Chains, Food, Dark Steed- Spike

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Basic Stealth, Awareness, TWF, Suithenlu Khythan, Ride

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Eye of the Jabberwock

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Enkiel
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Post by Enkiel »

3 word : pit of shade or Purple Sun

if you have to, sacrifice a caster to get that spell through, and you'll see them go down fast.
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Hack n slash
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Post by Hack n slash »

A18no unless I missed a bit in there FAQ it says in there book how many dice a slaughtermaster/butcher can use in the gut magic section will check it out and get back.

Unless the whole bit after telling which levels there are is ignored then the restrictions apply wouldn't mind clarification thanks.
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Post by Enkiel »

hack n slash wrote:A18no unless I missed a bit in there FAQ it says in there book how many dice a slaughtermaster/butcher can use in the gut magic section will check it out and get back.

Unless the whole bit after telling which levels there are is ignored then the restrictions apply wouldn't mind clarification thanks.
with 8th edition, everyone can use up to 6 dice.
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