How to beat ogres

[estwheadn]

How to beat:

slaughtermaster (+6 to cast, fencer's blades + glittering scales)
gutstar in horde formation (like 20 models) with slaughtermaster and bsb
1-2 units of mournfangs
2 iron blasters
stonehorn
6 or so leadbelchers
6 or so maneaters
gnoblar block
a couple sabre tusks
+ maybe a hunter and some other ogre stuff

Here's the army I plan to start running:
knight bus
lots of chaff (wolves, fell bats, spirit hosts)
a couple big core blocks
crypt horrors
vargheists
terrorgheist

This army beats me in every phase of the game except maybe deployment. His slaughtermaster is better at magic than my vampire lord (+6) to cast, his deathstar trounces mine with weight of high strength attacks and 60+ wounds! It will decimate my entire skeleton bus in one round. I can't kill his general in a challenge. The whole army is M6. And with 2 cannons, leadbelchers, maneaters and a hunter he has a lot of ranged power that can really hurt my knight bus.

All he has to do is use his shooting to blast a path through my chaff for the gutstar and it's pretty much over once that unit starts to get into combat. Failing that he can sit back and blast away at my knight bus and then my whole army will crumble by the time I reach him. It is also likely that the ogres will go first since I have so many drops. Usually by my first turn the tbat will have caught 2 cannonballs and it's scream is turned into a mild hoot.

The only advantages I have are ethereal units.

BTW I don't use Lore of Death

 

[Deamon]

Never played against Ogres but 1 Tbat is not enough when there are canons around... you need more target saturation.

Hexwraith could also help you.

 

[Alabaster427]

Some things that may help:
Rod of Flaming Death
Casket of Souls
Mortis Engine
Dual TGs
Black Coach (only recommend with a casket)
Hexwraiths
Spirit Hosts
Lore of Death or Shadows
Cursed Book
Other MI, such as Ushabti, CHs, Varghs, Sepulchral stalkers, etc.

 

[Atrophus]

You forgot Konrad in that list @Alabaster427

 

[Alabaster427]

You forgot Konrad in that list @Alabaster427

I was going from a UL standpoint, and it's basically a coin toss between him being stupid good or just being stupid.

 

[najo]

First, Ogres are move 6. Players forget that. I know you mentioned it in your text, but really play like he is cavalry. Ogres bring a fast hard force and can be on you before you know it. You need to redirect him, pin him with ethereals where you can and know how to outmanuver and attack him in the soft spots.

Second, avoid him and pull teeth. So for example, his saber tusks and iron blasters are big threats. The saber tusks are going to hold you in place and the iron blasters are going to soften you up. Hexwraiths remove both of these threats, possibly in one turn. The next biggest threat is the mournfangs. The one with the magic banner you need to redirect. The one without one you need to engage with hexwraiths.

Third, half of warhammer is efficient list building but the other half is effective gameplay. You need to deploy, move and engage properly on your terms to beat ogres. Two tactics will help you do this. First one is assign a A B or C value to your units and his. A is the hardest nasty units, B is the moderate powerful ones and C are your chaff/throw away units. Throw your C units at his A, your A at his B and your B at his C's. Win those match ups and then control coming at his A with your A and B.

The next tactic is a denied flank. The basic idea is deploy in a manner that you get him to deploy with his army spread out and his units supporting each other in the wrong places. Then you deploy so one of your flanks can quickly move to the other side of the board, leaving a slow element of his army out of the fight. You then circle the board on the opposite flank and attack him in his deployment zone in his flank and press the attack. Ideally getting his units tangled up on each other.

During all of this, avoid his main death star. Focus on killing his reach (i.e. cannons) and then heavy hitting B units. Make sure you don't give him any charges you don't want to take. When you end a move, make sure your out of his charge arcs. Minimize where he can engage.

 

[najo]

Oh, and I believe Lore of Vampries does most of what we need. But Lore of Death is good too, Sniper spells can clean out those characters, soullblight brings his units down a notch and Purple Sun wrecks his blocks. But Lore of Vampires has some powerful support tools your army needs, especially raise dead and van hels.

 

[Alabaster427]

When I first replied, I thought I hadn't ever played ogres before, but when I was reading najo's post I remember that I have played them once. T beat them only because I had a unit of hexwraiths and Heinrich Kemmler who was just ethereal the whole time.

 

[Bullhax]

first off how does he get 6 plus to cast? his lore atribute let him add 1 to the next spell after a sucessful cast. Only way to get to 6+ is book of ashur and lore attribute. If that is the case his loadout is 30 points over max limit.

That army is 3300 points at least given a naked hunter and maneaters. How many points do you play? If you use ethereal you can hold up most of his units..

I'd skip the TG's if he brings two cannons.

Well a blender can take out a lot of ogres they're T4 and have HA, he has his lord, his BSB and champ. you have to direct attacks against that leaves half his frontage you can target regular units with.. I'd ignore the gutstar most of the game.. Hexwraiths are very good.

How can you not kill his general in a challenge? with a lord with QB and RF you hit on 5+ rerolls, with the ogreblade you do between 2 and 3 wounds pr round of CC before RF.

 

[estwheadn]

the thing is that i want my army to be an all comers i dont want to tweak it towards ogres. i would have to swap out the vargheists for hexwraiths which im not sure is such a great trade in an all comers army
also ogre generals have 5 wounds and the slaughter master heals himself

 

[najo]

Hexwraiths are mostly all comers, just be careful how you deploy and move when play against wood elves.

Another option, run a couple wraith heroes in your units and then have them charge out or pop out to redirect his stuff with little SCR.

 

[Bullhax]

the thing is that i want my army to be an all comers i dont want to tweak it towards ogres. i would have to swap out the vargheists for hexwraiths which im not sure is such a great trade in an all comers army
also ogre generals have 5 wounds and the slaughter master heals himself

That is still very doable if you want TG's you need target saturation bring two.
what was you point limit? how does he get 6+ to cast?
there is two rounds of cc pr magic phase even if you engage in your turn he needs to cast spells sucessfully to heal. Might take more than one turn but he will go down.. how many lords heros do you plan to run in the bus and what kit are you thinking?

 

[najo]

Target saturation can be done with multiple unit types too. You just need to present threats that draw the same type of fire and can dish out more damage than they will take.

 

[estwheadn]

He gets the +6 from grut sickle. And I think he gets +7 if he got a spell off.
This is the list I'm using:

vampire lord: nightmare, shield, lvl 4, HA, Great Weapon, Other Trickster's Shard, Talisman of Preservation, Charmed Shield, Book of Arkhan, rf, qb, summon creatures
wight king: barded steed, lance, nightshroud, ironcurse icon, luckstone

3x 5 wolves
5 wolves with champion
50 skeletons: fc, banner of swiftness
50 zombies: musician standard bearer

10 black knights: barding, lances, lichebone Pennant
2 fell bats
2 fell bats
spirit host
spirit host
4 vargheists: champion
8 Crypt Horrors: champion

terrorgheist

 

[owain_b]

That is still very doable if you want TG's you need target saturation bring two.
what was you point limit? how does he get 6+ to cast?
there is two rounds of cc pr magic phase even if you engage in your turn he needs to cast spells sucessfully to heal. Might take more than one turn but he will go down.. how many lords heros do you plan to run in the bus and what kit are you thinking?

He'll be getting +6 to cast with grut's sickle, could potentially get +7 with the lore attribute.

I have to say my second army is ogres and I think I'd like to play VC the least with them! Ethereal really screws with ogres as they don't tend to have many characters with magic weapons and tend to have low static combat res, but be careful of the firebellies, they can ruin hexwraiths.

Ogres are typically low leadership, so with the cannons, which are also pretty good chariots you might be better off with banshees hiding in units than Tbats, ogre cannons are the most accurate in the game and even 2 tbats won't last long. I know if I was sat across the table with my ogres looking at 3 or 4 banshees I'd feel like it's going to be an up hill struggle

 

[Steapa]

How to beat:

slaughtermaster (+6 to cast, fencer's blades + glittering scales)
gutstar in horde formation (like 20 models) with slaughtermaster and bsb
1-2 units of mournfangs
2 iron blasters
stonehorn
6 or so leadbelchers
6 or so maneaters
gnoblar block
a couple sabre tusks
+ maybe a hunter and some other ogre stuff

Here's the army I plan to start running:
knight bus
lots of chaff (wolves, fell bats, spirit hosts)
a couple big core blocks
crypt horrors
vargheists
terrorgheist

This army beats me in every phase of the game except maybe deployment. His slaughtermaster is better at magic than my vampire lord (+6) to cast, his deathstar trounces mine with weight of high strength attacks and 60+ wounds! It will decimate my entire skeleton bus in one round. I can't kill his general in a challenge. The whole army is M6. And with 2 cannons, leadbelchers, maneaters and a hunter he has a lot of ranged power that can really hurt my knight bus.

All he has to do is use his shooting to blast a path through my chaff for the gutstar and it's pretty much over once that unit starts to get into combat. Failing that he can sit back and blast away at my knight bus and then my whole army will crumble by the time I reach him. It is also likely that the ogres will go first since I have so many drops. Usually by my first turn the tbat will have caught 2 cannonballs and it's scream is turned into a mild hoot.

The only advantages I have are ethereal units.

BTW I don't use Lore of Death

14 Ironguts and 1 tyrant and a lvl 4 slaughtermaster charged my 40 skeleton spear horde with 2 vampire lords and a tomb prince. The vampires killed 8 ogres before they could swing, the ws5 skeletons killed 6, the tomb prince with a great weapon cut down the slaughtermaster. The tyrant killed 3 skeletons.
He lost by a million. I ran the tyrant down.

I looked at the bulls and smiled.

My opponent conceded.

And thats how you deal with ogres.

 

[Seneschal]

A tyrant with no stubborn crown? Yikes! Such a big investment with two lords in a very big gutstar, it'd be wise to take the CoC

 

[estwheadn]

How did you manage to kill 8 ogres with the 2 vamps? That's 24 wounds. And the skellies are doing 5 wounds on average, I have a hard time believing they did 18 wounds. Also I don't see how the tomb king could outright kill a 5 wound model with just 4 attacks. And that also means they didn't get any buff spells on them which is rare.


Anywayany ideas on how to beat an army like that with the list that I posted?

 

[najo]

We've been giving you tons of ideas. I beat Ogres all the time. Your main issue is your taking units with vulnerability to the cannons and it sounds like your running up and engaging him face to face. You need to outmanuver ogres and hit them in soft spots. Banshees are a good idea too.

 

[Bullhax]

He'll be getting +6 to cast with grut's sickle, could potentially get +7 with the lore attribute.

I have to say my second army is ogres and I think I'd like to play VC the least with them! Ethereal really screws with ogres as they don't tend to have many characters with magic weapons and tend to have low static combat res, but be careful of the firebellies, they can ruin hexwraiths.

Ogres are typically low leadership, so with the cannons, which are also pretty good chariots you might be better off with banshees hiding in units than Tbats, ogre cannons are the most accurate in the game and even 2 tbats won't last long. I know if I was sat across the table with my ogres looking at 3 or 4 banshees I'd feel like it's going to be an up hill struggle

Grut's sickle is not an option when he has fencers/glittering scales.

I totally agree, i play ogres too and VC is scary as hell. Getting my MF unit tied up by a 45 point model hoping my banner bearer is in the right spot is not a good place to be..

Well he's looking at a non tailored list but still.

Anywayany ideas on how to beat an army like that with the list that I posted?

As said we've given you tons. You still haven't answered one of the bigger questions, how many points do you play. It's rather important since I have no clue how many points we get to use to beat the 3300 point ogre list you've posted..

 

[owain_b]

Grut's sickle is not an option when he has fencers/glittering scales.

I totally agree, i play ogres too and VC is scary as hell. Getting my MF unit tied up by a 45 point model hoping my banner bearer is in the right spot is not a good place to be..

Well he's looking at a non tailored list but still.



As said we've given you tons. You still haven't answered one of the bigger questions, how many points do you play. It's rather important since I have no clue how many points we get to use to beat the 3300 point ogre list you've posted..

Yeah good point didn't notice that, there is no way a slaughtermaster can get +6 to cast and have fencers blades and scales.
The best thing you can do is have a really good read of the ogre book and get a feel for what they do and what their weaknesses are, but basically it's leadership and static combat res, oh and low initiative. If you went heavily ethereal they would have a hard time winning and everything would be in your favour, but if you are not wanting to taylor the list including 3 - 4 banshees are good against a lot of lists and could work very well against ogres.
Also death magic is great against ogres, lower LD further, death snipe low ld with spirit leach and purple sun ends gutstars. So as others are saying you have loads of ideas, I would be more than happy to play against that list, as long as 110 points isn't being spent on slaughtermaster magic items

 

[estwheadn]

Maybe he doesn't have that equipment all at once lol. It really doesn't make a big difference in the long run. Most likely he doesn't bring grutsickle and the lore attribute gives him +1 to cast or dispel. All of the ideas I've read so far are 'add this to your army' or 'add that to your army'. That just isn't the kind of feedback I was hoping to get from this thread. Otherwise I'd have posted it in the army list section. I posted the list I'm building, it's 2500pts

I have the two ethereal swarms and that is usually good enough for a tac list. I don't think banshees are worth it given their high cost and the average die roll on 2d6 is 7. I'd like to hear some suggestions on how to use the fell bats since to ogre warmachines they are basically just large bugs that end up on their windshield. The wolves don't do much better so my usual way of dealing with warmachines is pretty much neutralized. And I am am also not sure how to outmaneuver an entire army of M6 models with a lot more ranged firepower than me

 

[Alabaster427]

Maybe he doesn't have that equipment all at once lol. It really doesn't make a big difference in the long run. Most likely he doesn't bring grutsickle and the lore attribute gives him +1 to cast or dispel. All of the ideas I've read so far are 'add this to your army' or 'add that to your army'. That just isn't the kind of feedback I was hoping to get from this thread. Otherwise I'd have posted it in the army list section. I posted the list I'm building, it's 2500pts

I have the two ethereal swarms and that is usually good enough for a tac list. I don't think banshees are worth it given their high cost and the average die roll on 2d6 is 7. I'd like to hear some suggestions on how to use the fell bats since to ogre warmachines they are basically just large bugs that end up on their windshield. The wolves don't do much better so my usual way of dealing with warmachines is pretty much neutralized. And I am am also not sure how to outmaneuver an entire army of M6 models with a lot more ranged firepower than me

If you are running UL, take two units of 5 horsemen archers and you can scout them 12" away from his cannons. Otherwise, try to vanguard your wolves to hide behind buildings, keep them in a way that only one can die per cannon.

 

[DanteAlSimmon]

I dont know what kind of feedback you expect to be honest:/
its very hard to give you anything else from the info you put out.
Could you make a battle report of your next match with him? might clear up what goes wrong.

Ethereals and death magic is the no brainers, Chaff'ing up that Gutstar is vital and should be first priority.
Wolves, spirit hosts and bats are some of the best chaff in the game imo for the one reason that they all exist in the same army book.

2 unit wolves
2 Spirit hosts
2 or even 3 units of 2xFellbats.
= all the chaff you will ever need.

He wont be able to shoot it all down unless you mindlessly send it into his range one at a time.

Regarding your "Fell bats on windshield" comment ...if he shoots on your bats, its in your favor! Thats one turn those bullets/balls don't go against you important targets.
(You DO remember that your bats are skirmishers right? meaning Leadbelchers will have a hard time hitting them.)

Also: if your bats die before they get to block anything, maybe you should keep them hidden until they do, OR simply just put them in front of something Turn 1.
He doesn't get to shoot before his move phase, so they will per definition serve their purpose before he gets to deal with them.

Yes it seems like a terribly tough list, but it might simply come down to him outplaying you.

Have you tried taking up restriction sets?
ETC, 2MD and Swedish wont let him put up a list like that.

 

[Demian]

....no hellheart?

That makes me a happy undead as that just ruins up everything effortlessly.

With so many redirectors, and no Crown of Command on that star...

one really bad flank charge with Black Knights + lord + any character with a Nightshroud to lessen return attacks, and that star goes poof, specially if you can Ld debuff and/or cause Terror (optional).

Or, with so much shooting, you could go with Blood Knights instead !