next time I play him I will post a battle report. I was just hoping to get some good tactical advice before then. The fell bats on the windshield was referring to how ineffective charging the ironblaster would be with them. Also given that the knight unit is the only unit his gutstar is worried about and the gutstar can tear through almost any of my other units and then reform, it is pretty hard to get a flank charge with them. Also it is a risk anyways because if I whiff the rolls with my lord and he passes his break test (with the bsb who I think has the stubborn item) then does a combat reform and I'm fighting that unit head to head next turn with no strength bonuses from the lances.
How to beat ogres
- Thread starter estwheadn
- Start date
-
The masquerade of murder returns! A new game of Vampires Amongst Us has begun. Unmask the killers, trust no one, and try to survive the night. Find out more and sign up now!
That's the trick with chaff:
1. You never charge with them, you let them be charged instead!
2. Since that unit is not frenzied, at the end of that massacre, they are left with 2 choices: overrun or reform:
a. Reforming will waste them another whole turn, because the units stays in place, having advanced about... what, 2-4 inches on the board? that's wasting their entire M6.
b. overruning, which lets them gain a bit more distance, closing in on your army, but at the expense of gaining too much ground and becoming vulnerable to a flank charge.
3. Neither of the above scenario is flawless, sure, but it leaves you with choices for your next turn: Reform? then I keep throwing chaff at it, all day, placing my units so that they will not have an advantageous overrun, next turn. Meanwhile, I will destroy everything else I can get my claws on, where I will have an assured-ish victory. Staying mobile is key here. Only engaging in combats you are certain to win on the charge with your cavalry, and staying out of the frontal arc of said deathsar.
Overrun? well, maybe he is into position for a juicy flank charge... even skeletons may win that combat. If not, they are certain to maintain that line for at least another turn, since skellies will not crumble from said flank combat. You have another turn, possibly two to keep wrecking stuff with your unhindered cavalry / Hexwraiths. See those expensive cannons? they are worth more than skellies / zombies / dire wolves for sure.
4. In the end, any deathstar will loose if it's flank charged from 2 different sides, plus a rear charge with Ethereals or such. Wear him down and deny his killy unit any worthy victory points with expendable stuff!
1. You never charge with them, you let them be charged instead!
2. Since that unit is not frenzied, at the end of that massacre, they are left with 2 choices: overrun or reform:
a. Reforming will waste them another whole turn, because the units stays in place, having advanced about... what, 2-4 inches on the board? that's wasting their entire M6.
b. overruning, which lets them gain a bit more distance, closing in on your army, but at the expense of gaining too much ground and becoming vulnerable to a flank charge.
3. Neither of the above scenario is flawless, sure, but it leaves you with choices for your next turn: Reform? then I keep throwing chaff at it, all day, placing my units so that they will not have an advantageous overrun, next turn. Meanwhile, I will destroy everything else I can get my claws on, where I will have an assured-ish victory. Staying mobile is key here. Only engaging in combats you are certain to win on the charge with your cavalry, and staying out of the frontal arc of said deathsar.
Overrun? well, maybe he is into position for a juicy flank charge... even skeletons may win that combat. If not, they are certain to maintain that line for at least another turn, since skellies will not crumble from said flank combat. You have another turn, possibly two to keep wrecking stuff with your unhindered cavalry / Hexwraiths. See those expensive cannons? they are worth more than skellies / zombies / dire wolves for sure.
4. In the end, any deathstar will loose if it's flank charged from 2 different sides, plus a rear charge with Ethereals or such. Wear him down and deny his killy unit any worthy victory points with expendable stuff!
That makes sense. To try and keep the death star in place by throwing chaff at it one unit at a time. But that means I'll have to hang back all my chaff units. In that case I should probably not vanguard the wolves then? Also flank charging the unit seems risky since for each flank charge I'm giving the ogre player the opportunity to make 6 S6 attacks
You should still vanguard because you want this to start on turn one . If you go first, you vanguard 12" to the center of the board, then on turn one, move 9" to your target (usually will put you 3-4" away) and place them at an angle so if they charge (they will), they either only move the 3-4" or overrun and potentially give up a flank. If you go second, you still vanguard, but count on being charged on turn one, so place them so that an overrun gives you the flank, and a reform allows either a counter charge or multiple charges on the same unit, hopefully on flanks. If you go second, any ethereals could easily tarpit any overruns and reforms you don't want to deal with.
Get him to give up his real list, because the one you posted in your very first post is around 3300 points beating that with a 2500 point list is not possible. a 2500 ogre list sporting 2 cannons and a gutstar has a lot less tricks up it's sleeve than what you've posted.
If his BSB has the stubborn crown his only save is a 4+ armoursave. You can mince that with your lord almost just as easy as killing the RnF guts.
Well you bring a unit of 8 CH's use them as a shield for your TG against the cannons along any terrain that might work in your favour is not 100 safe as the TG is huge and blocking it entirely can't be done from every angle.
Your vargs should be able to kill the cannons you will deal 3-4 wounds pr round of CC while he will deal a little under 2. If you don't break him (he's ld 7 loosing by 1 or 2) you will halt him from shooting another round.
Your SH should be reserved to sit where ever you opponents MF's are especially if he doens't bring the dragonhide banner.
The stonehorn has frenzy he will have to charge and overrun afterwards.
The list you've posted feature a unit of 50 zombies I would generally split that up into two units. You gain a banner for BnG, you gain a drop, you gain another speedbump unit. One that has the potential to be huge if hit by IoN.
You have deployment and a lot of chaff he has big clunky units that begs to be pushed around to your advantage.
Will look forward to the bat. rep.!
It is
! with Unbound rules, that list can face a 3x Mortis Engines + Blood Knights and they'll go to town with those ogres ! EDIT: or... Morghasts !haha but on a more serious note:
6 Str 6 attacks are good, granted, but not ideal (also, that deathstar has only 2 ranks? I'd expect like.. an 18 man unit at least) however you have quite a lot of advantage adding Nightshroud to one of your characters (it can be a Hero vampire or a Wight king, up to you!). Plus, against such enemies with low WS, you should use Beguile as a defensive vampiric power to further decrease their chance to hit and affect a single model (3 attacks) at the same time. Bonus.
as Bullhax just said, in a 2500 pts list, he can't field that many units, and chaff becomes much more valuable. That'll teach people to stop using deathstars when facing VC / UL. This is one of those "how could my evidently superior guys lose against those obviously inferior guys?"
The deathstar will be 3 deep 6 wide 16-18 ironguts + his two characters. So 9 S6 attacks. Some of those will be near a nightshroud though so only S4 on some of those attacks depending on the position of the nightshroud bearer.It is
haha but on a more serious note:
6 Str 6 attacks are good, granted, but not ideal (also, that deathstar has only 2 ranks? I'd expect like.. an 18 man unit at least) however you have quite a lot of advantage adding Nightshroud to one of your characters (it can be a Hero vampire or a Wight king, up to you!). Plus, against such enemies with low WS, you should use Beguile as a defensive vampiric power to further decrease their chance to hit and affect a single model (3 attacks) at the same time. Bonus.
as Bullhax just said, in a 2500 pts list, he can't field that many units, and chaff becomes much more valuable. That'll teach people to stop using deathstars when facing VC / UL. This is one of those "how could my evidently superior guys lose against those obviously inferior guys?"
ideally, the Nightshroud bearer will be in the second-to last position in the front rank, so that he can touch 2 out of 3 models at least (and also to "protect" the Lord there).
I know they are not defenseless, but are much more manageable that way! and that is only counting a single flank charge, where the V. Lord may either face any of those characters in a challenge, or just munch 2 ogres by himself. The main issue here would be steadfast, for sure, so:
You need to remove at least 4 ogres to remove steadfast. This is only possible if the two vampires strike their average rolls and deal 8 - 12 wounds themselves, plus any black knight or hungry murderous horse you can get to wound. However, the usual tactics are "Make Way" and have the two characters there to prevent the majority of said Cavalry striking at the ogres directly, thus placing your characters around the centre of the unit should allow you to direct attacks at the unit much better.
Usually the BSB is much weaker than the Lord, so... a Hero Vampire should have no problem killing it with a lance and then red furying into the Unit. If somehow the entire Horde (minus the characters) were to turn around and face the cavalry, you'd be in seruous trouble, but a couple of things can make said scenario livable:
Screaming banner can save your day, alongside Beguile.
Nighsthroud can wear down some attacks, but the vampires should have dealt 16 - 24 wounds by round two. That is 5-8 ogres not attacking... bad thing is, they'd still have 12 ogres attacking, which is still very bad D:
If somehow the two vampires survive to be on their own by then, they could wear down the unit, deflecting some attacks here and there, without any negative CR bled.
My point is, that unit is beatable on the charge, but you absolutely must do so in the first round. Ignore the characters (if able) and just munch through as many Irong guts as possible. If not, there is always Purple Sun (lore of Death on both vampires, Lv 4 and 2 just to be sure) and hope for the best (unboosted version will clip the entire unit just fine, no need to go 24+ cast).
I know they are not defenseless, but are much more manageable that way! and that is only counting a single flank charge, where the V. Lord may either face any of those characters in a challenge, or just munch 2 ogres by himself. The main issue here would be steadfast, for sure, so:
You need to remove at least 4 ogres to remove steadfast. This is only possible if the two vampires strike their average rolls and deal 8 - 12 wounds themselves, plus any black knight or hungry murderous horse you can get to wound. However, the usual tactics are "Make Way" and have the two characters there to prevent the majority of said Cavalry striking at the ogres directly, thus placing your characters around the centre of the unit should allow you to direct attacks at the unit much better.
Usually the BSB is much weaker than the Lord, so... a Hero Vampire should have no problem killing it with a lance and then red furying into the Unit. If somehow the entire Horde (minus the characters) were to turn around and face the cavalry, you'd be in seruous trouble, but a couple of things can make said scenario livable:
Screaming banner can save your day, alongside Beguile.
Nighsthroud can wear down some attacks, but the vampires should have dealt 16 - 24 wounds by round two. That is 5-8 ogres not attacking... bad thing is, they'd still have 12 ogres attacking, which is still very bad D:
If somehow the two vampires survive to be on their own by then, they could wear down the unit, deflecting some attacks here and there, without any negative CR bled.
My point is, that unit is beatable on the charge, but you absolutely must do so in the first round. Ignore the characters (if able) and just munch through as many Irong guts as possible. If not, there is always Purple Sun (lore of Death on both vampires, Lv 4 and 2 just to be sure) and hope for the best (unboosted version will clip the entire unit just fine, no need to go 24+ cast).
Blackearth
Zombie
Have you throught about putting your knight bus only 3 wide that would minimise his attacks against you. Plus if your vamp has beguile that should reduce his hit as well.
No I haven't considered putting them 3 wide but that could be really effective at cutting down my losses. I should only be facing 3 ogres which is still ~27 attacks. That's still a lot of attacks but a lot better than 54. And I would be losing 6 knight attacks (since I normally run them 6 wide). I liked Demian's idea of screaming banner, until I realized that ogres don't worry about fear 
I'm thinking of dropping the wight king and a vargheist to get a vampire hero into the bus. He should help with magic, carry the book of arkhan and I can stick aura of dark majesty, beguile and dread knight on him. In that case I would probably give the vampre lord a lance or great weapon and give him the night shroud
I'm thinking of dropping the wight king and a vargheist to get a vampire hero into the bus. He should help with magic, carry the book of arkhan and I can stick aura of dark majesty, beguile and dread knight on him. In that case I would probably give the vampre lord a lance or great weapon and give him the night shroud
Concerning 3-wide units:
In the Best scenario, you charge with both your Cavalry and a Spirit Host / lone Cairn Wraith, Cavalry on the flank and ethereal anywhere but that same flank. Even though the Ethereal may die due to Character's attacks, he will pin down said character, preventing him from Making Way to said flank, and allow your vampires to deal those 12+ wounds they need in order to break the unit. If they don't, the ethereal itself will prevent the unit from turning around, and that is pretty much an auto-win.
- Those Units, will not break Steadfast, as they have no ranks (unless you are Bretonnia). That way you can carry a banner, and have some supporting attacks, plus enemies would have to declare which of your characters they would be striking, and that can lead to dividing the damage output.
- Bad news is that, if you smash a horde in the front, Nightshroud will only protect you from 2 out of 9-12 Ogres attacking, and those are a lot of Str 6 hits, so it is never recomended to take on a horde, except with a much better horde (think Grave Guards with a hell of a lot of characters, providing synergies like Vlad von Carstein, Tomb Prince/king, AoDM Vampire with lore of Heavens -> iceshard blizzard OR Fear Incarnate to re-roll that fearbomb (Vlad causes Terror, so they will not be immune to it). If you don't plan on doing so, keep reading
- You need to provide Terror for that particular combat. The way to do it is with Supernatural Horror on a vampire, plus the Aura of Dark Majesty to ensure a better result. The Black Knights would carry the Screaming Banner and you'd hope that is enough to trigger that fear.
- Another solution is simply combo-charge with any Terror-wielding unit, and we have them aplenty: Cairn Wraith / Banshee / Black Coach.
- This setup trusts much of the winning/losing to the fear roll, and with their BSB, that's a bit unrealiable, but when it does, significantly lowers their damage output, since you'd be affecting all of the horde. Still, the odds are not in your favor if you face it head-on.
- if you are going for full-on Ld bombing, you may want to try the Helm of Discord to nullify a character.
- If you really believe in your dice (or rather, your opponent's bad luck) scratch all that and go with a Vampire Hero on a Coven Throne: heavy debuff to their Ld, with everything you have / can use, and when the time is right, smash that unit with the Battle of Wills's 6+ result, and let the ogres tear each other apart.
In the Best scenario, you charge with both your Cavalry and a Spirit Host / lone Cairn Wraith, Cavalry on the flank and ethereal anywhere but that same flank. Even though the Ethereal may die due to Character's attacks, he will pin down said character, preventing him from Making Way to said flank, and allow your vampires to deal those 12+ wounds they need in order to break the unit. If they don't, the ethereal itself will prevent the unit from turning around, and that is pretty much an auto-win.
To add to the Terror causing list, Hexwraiths. They're fast enough to keep up with your BK bus, and Ogres don't like high Strength Ethereals.
Pirate Robot Ninja of Death
Vampire Thrall
I haven't read the rest of this thread, so this might have been covered already. However, keep in mind that ironblasters are CHARIOTS, and thus the beasts pulling them cannot attack you except from the front. Thus if you charge them in the flank or rear (which should be easy for vargs) you're golden.
Otherwise, I have learned the following fighting Ogres a lot:
1) Their leadership is poor. With general and BSB around they're solid, but outside that they tend to run away if you push them hard.
2) sabretusks cause panic checks. Ogre players like to forget this, but if a sabre tusk is destroyed near their ogre units or flees through them make them roll those checks.
3) a lot of ogres' hitting power comes from stomps. Things that can't be stomped (i.e. cavalry, other MI, etc.) are good options against them.
4) Never underestimate the number of wounds their little units can absorb. A unit of 9 ironguts has 27 wounds, plus characters.
5) As per above, charge ironblasters in the flank.
6) Take out their shooting! Ogre shooting is nasty.
7) Be very careful about the hellheart. Miscasting vampires will shred whatever unit they're in, leaving you vulnerable to taking a cannonball to the face. Hang back with your vampire-containing units until your vargheists have knocked out their cannons.
8) Overwhelming force: the only way to kill a gutstar is to either whittle it down first, or throw everything in your freaking army at it. Thus either throw a purple sun through it before engaging, or chaff it while you kill everything else before hitting it with all you've got.
9) Harmonic convergence is always scarier than comet.
My point:
- Ehereals: they have very few tools to deal with them. The more you bring, the more the match turns in your favor.
- Chaff to redirect their hard hitting units
- Purple sun: usually, the game over for the ogres.
- Blender vamps: they always work,
As you can see, we have easy acces to ALL the things that bring pain to the fatties. In fact, it is one of the most unbalanced match ups in the game...to our favor. Specially if he doesn´t take the hellheart, an item almost specifically made against vamps.
- Ehereals: they have very few tools to deal with them. The more you bring, the more the match turns in your favor.
- Chaff to redirect their hard hitting units
- Purple sun: usually, the game over for the ogres.
- Blender vamps: they always work,
As you can see, we have easy acces to ALL the things that bring pain to the fatties. In fact, it is one of the most unbalanced match ups in the game...to our favor. Specially if he doesn´t take the hellheart, an item almost specifically made against vamps.
Pirate Robot Ninja of Death
Vampire Thrall
My point:
- Ehereals: they have very few tools to deal with them. The more you bring, the more the match turns in your favor.
- Chaff to redirect their hard hitting units
- Purple sun: usually, the game over for the ogres.
- Blender vamps: they always work,
As you can see, we have easy acces to ALL the things that bring pain to the fatties. In fact, it is one of the most unbalanced match ups in the game...to our favor. Specially if he doesn´t take the hellheart, an item almost specifically made against vamps.
Ogres invariably bring either a firebelly or a level 4 heavens, both of which can deal with ethereals at range. Unless you're spamming ethereal (bad call in the current meta), or bringing ethereals that are cheap enough to not worry about losing them to magic missiles (i.e. spirit hosts or Lore of Undeath), it's probably not something to crutch on outside of a tailoring scenario.
Depending on your list, ogres can cause some pretty significant issues for a lot of VC units. They're quite a bit faster than a GG brick, for instance, and will likely get the charge on us. Impact hits plus stomps can generate a lot of SCR, and you need to do a whack of wounds to them before they're losing attacks in any appreciable numbers. Not a position you want to be in.
Similar deal with something like mournfang against our tarpits. Automatic D3 impact hits plus stomps plus 6 attacks per model will put a lot of hurt on skeletons in a hurry, and we'll suffer some pretty substantial crumble losses.
Also if you're facing Ogres without the Hellheart then either it's a comped environment, and you're taking concessions as well, or the opponent is "self-comping" out 'cheesy' choices, but you can bet your ass it will start making appearances as soon as you start winning games consistently.
Ogres have a lot of weaknesses, and aren't a particularly bad matchup against most anyone compared to other armies in the meta. They are solidly middle tier in the current power rankings. HOWEVER, they have a lot of tools, and a good Ogre player is something to be respected. Strong magic, stronger magic defense, powerful shooting, and a giant fuck-off points denial unit that will make you sorry if you don't give it adequate respect.
Hellion Nox
Grave Guard
- Konrad
- Grave Guard are decent picks vs gutstars
- Blender Lord
- Pit of Shades (shadow) / Purple sun (death)
- Curse of Years
- Banshee / Tgheist (though harsh vs 2 cannons)
- Spirit Hosts!
- Warmachine hunters
- Book of Arkhan
- if playing UL, casket of souls
- Grave Guard are decent picks vs gutstars
- Blender Lord
- Pit of Shades (shadow) / Purple sun (death)
- Curse of Years
- Banshee / Tgheist (though harsh vs 2 cannons)
- Spirit Hosts!
- Warmachine hunters
- Book of Arkhan
- if playing UL, casket of souls
Draykorinee
Grave Guard
The only times that someone will charge an ethereal unit is A. the charging unit's static CR is higher than the number of wounds you can cause (this is typically against Spirit hosts or lone models) or B. They have magic weapons. If neither of those apply, then they maybe trying to tar pit, but the only successful way to do that is generally if they spent way more points on that unit than you did, so that would be fine. So if it's A or B, then try to avoid, but remember that you can only avoid a charge on your turn (we can't flee).