Ogres Part 3 of ? Core Units

Greetings,

This post is going to be looking at the Core choices for Ogres. Again it is going to be more of my brain-thingy-stuff-happenings-ish upon why I went the way that I have.

Ogre Bulls

These are meant to be the basic unit in the Ogre army. They are actually pretty solid all things considered. For 35pts you get a 3 wound, multiple attack, Fear causing model. They have some interesting upgrade options and some nice rules, which made a lot of people really try to avoid being hit by an Ogre charge.

Unfortunately with the Ogre book being written during 6th Edition so they have, drum solo please, DUN-DUN-DUUUNNN!!!, a restriction.

5) 1+ Bulls unit

Now the Bulls aren't bad as a unit, on paper. They look quite tasty. and it is only after you have played a few games that you realise how different 'on paper' and 'reality' actually are. You are going to need to get the charge first off. Ogre Bulls can't function as counter-punchers. Even when you tool them up with armour and ironfists they are still pretty poor.

Most Ogre players use Bulls in small units of 3 and use them as throw away units (or MSU [Multiple Small Units]) or speedbumps. Some Ogre generals use Bulls as a Death Star. This tactic will me mentioned later in the Ironguts section as they are normally the unit that get Death Star-ed.

Equipment-wise the Bulls get to pick a slew of things. Extra hand weapons, Ironfist and/or light armour. I didn't take anything as I wanted as many of the fatties as possible on the board. Even if they aren't as survivable, they just end up costing too many points and they don't make their points back or their equipment just doesn't cut it against their opponents.

The main drawbacks for the Bulls under 7th are the need for ranks must be 5 models wide, unlike in 6th when you only needed them to be 4 models wide. So for a static combat resolution of 1 just from ranks it would cost the Ogres 350pts, with no upgrades at all. I have used a Bull unit as a Death Star, but I used 2 Characters in it. It wasn't stunning, and not as fun as my Irongut Death Star. Bulls still had the same issues in a big unit as they did in the smaller units.

I have recently started to use them in units of five or six as they get benefits from having to take six wounds before they need to take a break test. When they hit a unit, it normally has a good chance of breaking the basic rank and file units of most armies. Against the elites or massed spear regiments they have more issues. If the rumours for 8th for Ogre-sized models are true, these units will do even better in the future.

Ironguts

Ironguts are the main units that most Ogre players will use in their force. They hit hard at S6 with multiple attacks. They are a unit that can cleave their way through pretty much anything if they hit them. Again they do also have a similar issue as the Bulls with their average weaponskill.

When they hit things on the charge, they do crush most stuff in a single round so long as they kill stuff. They don't have much static combat resolution so they gain all of their combat resolution through killing stuff.

They have no options for any extra shinies. All they have is the great weapons and heavy armour, and the only boost that they have is an extra point of leadership over the Bulls to show their elite status. If you do take these again you can go one of two ways. MSU or Death Star.

MSU is not as good as it used to be. A lot of people are more aware of how nasty multiple small units of Maneaters are and the units themselves start to take up a hell of a lot of the deployment zone. When one flees it can start a very heavy Mexican wave of fleeing Ogres...

The Death Star is good for scaring people. I have 8 Ironguts with a full command and I put a Butcher and my General in the unit. The Butcher has the Skullmantle and a Dispel scroll. The Bruiser/Tyrant is equipped pretty simply. The Bruiser is there to splat anything with either a basic S8 magical great weapon, a Brace of Handguns for the occasional snipe or for a stand and shoot and he has a 5+ ward. The Tyrant is armed similar but he will have an extra 50pts of equipment depending upon what I feel like giving him.

With a unit strength of 30, fear causing, 1 rank and a Banner with buff spells given from the Butcher, this unit is a monster. I even had this unit rear charged and they nuked the attacking unit and the one pinning it in place. The only thing is that the unit costs a hell of a lot of points. At 48pts each they are expensive, but when they work they will easily make their points back.

The do have a single restriction, which isn't really much of one, but I must point it out...

6) Ironguts unit size is 3-16

As far as it goes, I'd not be too worried at this restriction. That is a HUGE price tag and not that harsh of one to deal with.

I've been using units of 6 recently in an attempt to get used to how 8th will change how the Ironguts are used.

Gnoblars/ Trappers

Gnoblars suffer from a watered down animosity that is similar to Orcs and Goblins, but they get no good result. They have 'OOOHHH!!! SHINY!!!' where they spend a turn fighting over something or you can move them normally. They are worse than Goblins too.

Gnoblars were very hard to like from a modelling perspective. You only get so many bodies and you mess about with the different heads. Not only that they are only 2pts each and I didn't want to paint that many models that are worth bugger all.

They also have a restriction...

7) You can't have more units of Gnoblar Fighters than you have Ogre Bulls.

This restriction doesn't really kick in until you start dealing with the Special choices, but it is another thing that restricts your choices.

Trappers on the other hand are worth every point spent on them. Being able to scout and march block from the off can annoy the hell out of most generals. I've had my Trappers fired at by a multitude of things which completely outweigh even their potential effectiveness. They do have an option for a champion that is BS4, but I only get him if I'm shy of points. The only issue is that they have a horrible restriction.

8) You can have a single unit of Trappers in your army. You may add an extra unit for every Hunter in your force.

OK, so I have to give up on my magical defence/offence to get one of the best units in the Ogre list?

KKKHHHAAAAAAAAAANNNNN!!!!!

I normally use them in units of 8 or 9. 9 is better than 8, due to casualty tests, but other than that I never expect them to see the end of turn 3.

I know that some of these guys are unpainted and I apologise for that (I also have another 5 squirrelled away). I'm trying to be enthused to paint Gnoblars, but I can't...

Well that took a hell of a long time. I'm going to post this and go and do other stuff.

Regards,

English Pillock

Greetings,

This was from my battle against Daemons for the Warhammer League that I'm running. This game did not go well for me. I did manage to really badly hurt a Daemon army in my first game against them in the League, but that was just a fluke it seems.

The Daemons belongs to one of the foreigners that frequent Orctown. They are stunningly painted and the Daemon Prince, isn't. He is actually meant to be a Bloodthirster. Either way I lost, but no one likes playing against Daemons, and even those who are playing them in the League don't like using them. They are just playing to win. I hope 8th sorts out a lot of the Daemons overpowered nature.

Regards,

English Pillock

Orks at Orctown

Greetings,

This weekend there were a lot of Orks on show that had been painted and converted by the Korean gamers who frequent or work at Orktown.

The first three images are a Skorcha conversionusing the flamestorm turret and fuel canisters from the Baal predator. I did have a very amusing conversation about the practicalities of having a flamer on a fast and unarmoured vehicle. All I could think of is burning Quorn (fungi-based vegan/vegetarian foodstuff) with the Orks being a fungi-based lifeform.

The second model is a conversion that is used for Wazdakka. This guy is absolutely enormous, and he does manage to scare the #%&^ out of any opponent so badly that he is normally the highest priority target.

The final image is of Orks targetting a stunningly painted Night Lords Rhino with lots of Forge World goodies added to it. It has been armies like these, that frequent Orctown, that have made me want to get better at painting.

Hope you like these images. I'll be putting up some more gaming images from the weekend tomorrow. I do need to hit the sack as it is stupid o'clock in the morning here.

Regards,

English Pillock

Gaming at Orctown Piccies

Greetings,

Here are some photos of my armies in action against other people's armies at Orctown before and during the League (I'm Lizardmen in the League) that I'm running. I'll post more about this later. Hope you like the piccies.

Regards,

English Pillock

p.s.

I'm the suave gentleman in the black.

p.p.s.

SEE! NOT! A ! MONKEY!!!!

p.p.p.s.

OOK!

Finished Khador

Greetings,

I have finished painting and naming my 3 Khador models that I have at the moment and I played my first game of Warmachine at Orctown yesterday.
It was a close run thing, and I don't think that the guy whom I played against was going easy on me. I was doing quite well until the last turn when dice karma kicked in...

JAAASOOOOOOOOOONNN!!!!

*ahem*

This little outburst will be talked about in a later post.

I did enjoy it though. It will take time for me to get used to the totally different way of gaming as compared to the GW, Black Powder or the other systems that I play.

First, here are some family shots of the Khador minis I have. I haven't done anything else to the first two Khador models as they don't need them, but I did manage to borrow some Khador miniatures from the gaming club at Dolgoji, 'Miniatures Zone,' because of being invited there on several occasions and not freaking them out...

Here is a good picture of Sorscha's face that Jude, the boss at Orctown did for me. Ivan is the Warjack on the left Pyotr is on the right. The symbols are a simple substitution script that Privateer Press use for the Khador language.

On the reverse is word USSR as I was going to have a Soviet style symbolism as my schtick for them. Hammer and sickle, Soviet star et al. After I tried to paint it I decided against it. The USSR bit is staying, everything else was too much effort to keep consistant.

Regards,

English Pillock

Bretonnian peasants...

Greetings,

Now I know that a lot of people have given me a lot of abuse for how quickly I can throw an army together and my Bretonnians were definitely a major area of annoyance from my friends and fellow gamers. I know that they aren't the best and I don't say that I'm proud of them. The only thing I'm proud of is that I did 40 in about a week or so. The archers were done over two weeks, but I did all of the commands in that time-frame too.

The way that I painted my Bretonnians is definitely a lazy way of doing it. It is fast, and it most definitely isn't pretty, but if you want a vast mob of dishevelled scum in a short space of time, this is one of the routes you should follow.

I used the following GW paints and inks; Dehneb Stone, Tallarn Flesh, Chainmail, Boltgun Metal, Badab Black, Gryphonne Sepia, and Devlan Mud.

1. Remove the models from the sprue -duh!
2. Glue the body centrally onto the base. Check for possible ranking issues at this stage. If you mess up for ranking up here you might be able to sort it out later on but it is best caught early.
3. Glue the heads and weapon arms onto the body.
4. Give the model a generous basecoat of Dehneb Stone. Make sure you get everywhere apart from all of the shield arm socket. This needs to be left clear so the plastic glue adheres to it properly.
5. Paint all of the flesh Tallarn Flesh. There isn't a lot so don't go overboard or you will have a lot of cleaning up to do.
6. Once the Dehneb and Tallarn is dry go over the paint with a heavy coat of Gryphonne Sepia. This gives the model a good base-colour as it looks slightly like leather, especially when used in conjunction with other washes.
7. Paint all of the metal items on the model with Chainmail or Boltgun metal. Boltgun is darker than Chainmail, but you can alter their appearance with the other inks that I used for their colour scheme. Again be carfeul with the problem of accidently painting over areas that have already been done so.
8. The spear or halberd staff should be neatened up with Dehneb stone to neaten up what the ink has potentially done with the heavy coat of ink.
9. The shield should be coated with Dehneb and the metal trim is gone over with one of the metallics.
10. When it is dry go over the shield with Badab Black. The rest of the peasants can be coated with either Gryphonne, Devlan or Badab. The use of layering these washes changes the way that the models look and they still have a coherent look about them. The metals can be gone over with the three different washes, but be careful that they don't look too different, unless you want different ones for different units.
11. The shields just had a heavy coat of Badab Black, which collected near the bottom and gave them some interesting effects due to the shields design and their casting.
12. You can also go over one of the previous washes with a drybruhing of Deneb Stone then a single wash to create more variants of the paint scheme. This is especially effective for the archer with the furs.
13. The bases of mine have just been painted snot green as I haven't yet gotten around to putting flock on their bases. But following your normal basing routine sould be fine.

The command groups have the same basic paint scheme on them, but the banner bearers have had one of the GW Foundation paints painted on the background with the shield painted black. These were then gone over with Gryphonne Sepia to give the off-beige colour.

You can also do similar with the archers. These models are great for playing about with the inks due to the detailing of their casts. The banners will need pinning though, as you get next to nothing to affix it to. You can see how this worked with the step-by-step Bowmen in the above image.

I hope you will find this helpful. I did a similar thing with my Bretonnian Knights, but I'll show them at a later date.

Regards,

English Pillock

Toxic Orange Blood Angels (AKA The Emerald Tears) and Khador minis

Greetings,

Here are the Terminators that I have painted up for my Blood Angels successor Chapter. I used to use them as basic Marines, but since I didn't want to go Mech or Deep strike they couldn't cut it very well.

The models are 10 Black Reach, 5 basic Termies and the ones from Space Hulk.

I'll get some better pictures tonight when the light is more even (and after I dust the models).

The paint scheme is pretty much Solar Mecharius Orange, Dehneb Stone then playing around with the GW inks. Even if you aren't a fan of GW paints normally try the inks. They can be painted over and layered so that you have multiple ahades showing through. This is how I achieved the funky powerfists.

It was my Bretonnians where I went to town with the washes. I'll go over this when I look at my Brets in the future though.

Here are some pictures of my Khador. Sorscha's face is not my work, but a quick 15 minute job from the boss of Orctown on Saturday.

I will warn anyone who hasn't built metal models from Privateer Press that they do look hellishly ugly and they are most definitely ones that frustrated me. The plugs for the arms of the Warjacks were horrible to get the arms to stay in with superglue. I went through a third of a bottle of GW superglue (since I hadn't been to a model shop to get better), and I used a mess of Zipkicker to try and stick the arms in. It took 3 attempts!

Once they were built I set to this paint scheme, Mechrite Red, Solar Mecharius Orange, Dehneb Stone, Blood Red, Chainmail and Charadon Granite. The inks used were Badab Black, Gryphonne Sepia, Devlan Mud, Baal Red, Arsumen Blue and Leviathan purple.

The orange parts were inked with Baal then Leviathan. The reds were covered just with Leviathan. The cream was hit with Badab. The silver was hit with Badab. The greys/blacks were hit with the blacks and brown inks.

The face of Sorscha I can't comment on unfortunately...

Regards,

English Pillock

Disclaimer!

Greetings,

AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


*Ahem*

It is amazing at how much work we have to do now not to be sued out of hand by accidently breaking copyright laws...

Regards,

English Pillock

Ogres Part B of ?

Greetings,

This post is going to be about selecting the characters for an Ogre army and what restrictions you have for doing so. This is going to horrify a lot of people with the limitations that they have and where they come from.

Lords

There are only two choices of Lord in the Ogre Kingdom Army; the Tyrant and the Slaughtermaster.
The Tyrant is the combat character and the Slaughtermaster is the Lord level shaman.
You can only have a Lord when you hit 2000pts, and a further Lord for every 1000pts thereafter. Fair enough, so far. Reading through their descriptions in the Ogre Kingdoms Bestiary I wanted to have a Lord level shaman as the Ogre Magic is actually quite good.
Now the disappointment came.

After reading through the army selection restrictions I could only have a Slaughtermaster after I had already bought a Tyrant. So I couldn’t use him until I had hit 3000pts? What the %#&^!!!

Ok, ok… Bit calmer now. Let’s have a look at the Tyrant.

WOW!! Good statline. Basically a monster that leads my army. 200pts… ok, expensive, but in big games I can have two or more right? Right…?

OH, YOU ARE %#&^@!* KIDDING ME! 0-1! 0-1!!! AARGHHH!!!

So just in the Lord choices I have two restrictions.

1) No more than a SINGLE Tyrant
2) You cannot have a Slaughtermaster until a Tyrant has been taken.

Ugh…

Oh, well, let’s have a look at the Heroes. They may be better, right…?

Heroes

There are three Heroes in the Ogre Kingdoms army. Bruisers, Butchers and Hunters.

Bruisers are the combat heroes and one has an option to upgrade to a BSB. Butchers are shamen and the Hunter totes a siege crossbow for shooting stuff!

Bruiser is 70pts cheaper than the Tyrant, can only take 50pts of magic items and a slightly reduced statline. Not too bad all things considered.
Butcher classes as a level 2 spellcaster. He knows all of the Gut Magic Spells… Looking, looking… He cannot be the army general!

KHAAAAN!!!!

3) The Butcher may not be the army general.

I knew it! I knew that there’d be a restriction!

Alright let’s look at hero number 3; the Hunter. 36” S5 move or shoot weapon… Hmmm… Ld9 ooohhh… Can be given kitties…
Loner…. It was going so well! He can’t join any units, nor can he be the army general!

4) The Hunter may not be the army general, nor may he join units.

So I can't have a magic heavy Ogre army. Grrr...

As far as the other restrictions from the restrictions without the addition of items or big names.

Items and Big Names give more restrictions left right and center.

I'll be going through the Core troops next. Items and Names will be some time after that...

Regards,

English Pillock

Ogres. Part I of ?

Greetings,

Now for myself Ogres were the first army I started playing with on a regular basis for Warhammer Fantasy.

"What were the reasons for choosing such a lackluster army?" I hear you cry. Quite simply put; 14 Ogres can hit 750 to 1250pts. What was in the Battalion? 14 Ogres and 24 Gnoblars.

I'd also never seen them being played when I went into the store, nor had I actually heard anything bad about them.

To start with I got the Batallion set and the Army Book and read it on the subway trip from Orctown (Orctown is the only GW retailer in South Korea and they do a mess of other systems, but that is another post entirely) to Anyang-si (Anyang-si [안양시] is a city south of Seoul where I was living and working at the time I'd started my Ogres).

Korean subway etiquette is, at times, totally alien to that of London and at others it is a carbon copy of it. I was happily reading through the army book and at times giggling like a loon and recieving the standard amount of strange looks for firstly being a foreigner and secondly for giggling.

The army book was actually funny in a kind of macabre way (I have a black, burnt and occasionally still on fire sense of humour at times). This coupled with the idea of only having to buy, build and paint a relatively few number of models was highly entertaining. So much so that I not only missed my transfer, but I ended up correcting my mistake and missed my transfer going back the other way! Never has an army book engrossed me so.

Getting back to my apartment an hour later than I should have done I had roughly figured out what I wanted to do for the Ogres. I was going to make a Tyrant/Bruiser model, 2 Butchers, 3 Ironguts, 6 Bulls and 2 Leadbelchers. The Gnoblars were ignored. I didn't want to spend time dealing with a unit that would only come to 50pts at most and would be left behind due to their lack of speed and their chance of bickering.

I built them rapidly and set towards painting them in my very lazy way (this is a trend that is only now starting to change as my painting is better and is still improving).

I was able to get a lot done and I managed to have a 500pts game with 8 models that were partially done. I can't remember how it went, but I do remember that I really enjoyed how they functioned.

I had started down the path of the horizontally challenged and I have slowly managed to reach a rather high number of Ogres. Here is the list afore I finish this and add a piccie to the header.

Tyrant/Bruiser

4 Butchers

2 Hunters

18 Bulls (3 Banners, 3 Bellowers)

18 Ironguts (3 Banners, 3 Bellowers)

16 Trappers

8 Leadbelchers

Scraplauncher

Slavegiant

5 Maneaters- Brace of handguns

5 Maneaters- Great weapons

5 Maneaters- Cathayan longsword

Next Time on... (might as well be a segue...)

I will look at some of the units and see how things did in hindsight.

Regards,

English Pillock

English Pillock to Earth... Come in Earth....

Greetings,

This post is going to be pretty strange, all things considered. What it is going to be is my ideas and purpose (changed from 'porpoise'... f*$&%*#@ spellchecker!) for this blog. I'll also include a little about myself if you want to have a bit more of an insight as to where I'm coming from.

i)
Hopefully it will allow me to astound you with the pearls of wisdom that fall out of my umm... errr... thingy-in-my-head.... spam?
Umm, no that's not it...
I'll come back to this later...
I hope...

ii)
It will be a showcase for my Wargaming things (of which there is a vast multitude. A lot of which is painted, just not very well).

iii)
It will be a place for me to bitch and rail against the inherent unfairness of certain games and the arguments between WAAC (Win At All Costs), Fluff armies and hopefully everything inbetween those two opposing factions.

iv)
I'll be doing some battle reports and detailling what me and my reprobates (friends and associates) have been doing at the local gaming store and which part of the hobby we have been currently obsessing over recently.

Me, Myself, I and the Crazy Thing that also lives inside my head...

First off, I'm English and suprisingly proud to be so. I still bitch and despair as to what is happening to my homeland, but I'm proud of where I came from. I do have a very English sense of humour, so I apologise aforehand if you don't think something is funny. You obviously don't have the same or similar sense of humour as mine.
Not my fault.
Deal with it.

I'm actually teaching English in South Korea partially due to the first point and it also allows me to see the world from another point of view.
I'm enjoying teaching over here, but I needed to do something as a hobby other than spend masses of money travelling around Korea or go into cameras, which would be even more expensive than the little hobby that we love or loathe, but hopefully enjoy.

I play multiple systems and I have a number of armies or factions in the ones that I take part in.

Warhammer 40K

Blood Angels- 3500-4000pts-ish (I need to have a proper census of these nutters)
Eldar- 2500 - 3000pts-ish (they are back in the UK and I'm not 100% sure of points)
Tau- 3000pts (but I'm not enjoying my Tau in 5th Ed. due to how I built the army)
Tyranids- 6000pts (most is in the UK, but it will be coming back with me when I'm doing the VISA run)

Warhammer Fantasy

Bretonnia- 3700pts (PEASANTS!!!!)
Lizardmen- 6200pts (...hiss...)
Ogres- 6000pts (FAT-FIGHTERS!!!!)

Bloodbowl
Lizardmen- 6 Saurus, 12 Skinks
Khemri- 20 models (back in my locker...)
Ogres- 6 Ogres, 10 Gnoblars

Battefleet Gothic
Tyranids- ?pts (your guess is as good as mine. 3 BB's, 6 CL's and 27 escorts)

War of the Rings
Rohan- lots (back in the UK)
Rhun- 1600pts

Trafalgar
2 x 1st Rates, 2 x 3rd Rates, 6 x 5th Rates

War Machine
Khador starter box

Black Powder
British Napoleonic- Lots
French Napoleonic- Lots

Painting Style

I have a rather lazy painting style that a lot of people like, but they are horrified when I tell them how simple it is. Mainly it is a simple base coat of GW foundation paints then using various quantities of other GW paints and inks. Before anyone says that GW stuff isn't the best, I'm aware of this, but unless I order from outside of Korea I'll be dealing with what I'm used to.
I have improved a hell of a lot from my Ogres and nids that look sticky and shiny compared to my Bretonnians and my Warmachine stuff that looks like they have just come out of a coal mine, but in a good way.
I'll put up some photos when I do a showcase of my armies and ecplain how I painted them and why I did it that way. It may be insightful to someone... Maybe... Ok, doubtful, but I can hope.

Next Time on... (Sorry, I couldn't resisti it...)

I'll drag out my Ogres and go through why I did what I did and give some ideas on what to do and not to do with them. This will likely all change as soon as the rumoured 8th hits the horizon though so be warned...

Chat to you anon...

English Pillock

p.s.

BRAINS!!!

p.p.s.

That was the thing inbetween my ears right? Or was it a cabbage?