Ogres vs. Dark Elves Game Report 2/20/10

I played against Steve's dark elves. You can see his thoughts on the game at his blog.

The list I took:
Lord:
Tyrant
 - Cathayan Longsword
 - Heavy Armor
 - Greedy Fist
 - Beastkiller
 - Wyrdstone Necklace
 - Greyback Pelt
 - 2 Sword Gnoblar
 - Luck Gnoblar

Heroes:
Butcher
 - Bangstick
 - Dispel Scroll
Butcher
 - Skullmantle
 - Dispel Scroll
Bruiser
 - Battle Standard Bearer
 - Sword of Might
 - Heavy Armor
 - 2 Sword Gnoblar
 - Luck Gnoblar
 - 2 Gnoblar Thiefstones

Core:
3 Bulls
3 Bulls
3 Ironguts
3 Ironguts
9 Gnoblar Trappers
24 Gnoblar Fighters

Special:
2 Gnoblar Scraplaunchers
2 Leadbelchers
2 Leadbelchers

Rares:
2 Maneaters
 - Great Weapons
 - Heavy Armor

Initial Deployment:

From Impact Hits

I placed a set of Leadbelchers on each flank to handle the fast cavalry.  I also placed both of my Scraplaunchers on the left flank so that they would have some good shots at his line and later in the battle be in position to slam into the flanks of his main units.

I placed my Maneater/character death star type unit in position where it would for the most part, only have to worry about its left flank.  I staggered my two units of Ironguts behind the two units of Bulls with the intention of using the Bulls to set up charges with my Ironguts.  I also placed my Gnoblar Fighters where I hoped to get some decent Large Target shots with Sharp Stuff before the unit was wiped out or possibly use it to bait a charge from something.

Dark Elves Turn 1:
Steve got the first turn.  He moved his units up, picked off a leadbelcher from each unit and causing my Trappers to panic.  On his magic phase he irresistable forced power of darkness and then promptly miscasted his first spell rolling a 7 on the miscast table and avoiding a wound.  This caused his magic phase to fizzle out early and led into my turn.

Ogre Kingdoms Turn 1:
I moved my Maneater death star up in preparation for a charge from his cold one knights.  I moved my right flank Bulls up hoping to bait a charge from his hydra and my left flank Bulls up hoping to bait a charge from the chariot, hydra, or corsairs.  I also moved up my Gnoblar Fighters.  I set up my two units of Ironguts to countercharge anything that charged the Bulls and I moved my Scraplaunchers up in a flanking maneuver.

My remaining Leadbelchers moved up and unloaded into their respective Dark Rider units.  The leftmost one killed 4 riders causing them to panic and never return.  The rightmost one killed 3 riders but they passed their panic test and remained.  My magic phase accomplished nothing.

Dark Elves Turn 2:
I caught a lucky break and the cold one riders failed their stupidity test and stumbled forward.  The right hydra charged my maneater group.  The left hydra, chariot, and corsairs all charged my Bulls.  My Bulls fled and my Maneaters took the charge.

From Impact Hits

Unfortunately, my Ironguts failed their panic test when the Bulls ran through and my entire unit, Butcher and all, rolled high enough to flee completely off of the board.  My maneaters however pulled off a draw in combat with the hydra and hold.

Ogres Turn 2:
The turn starts with my fleeing Bulls (the ones that panicked a unit of Ironguts and a Butcher off the table) rallying.

I charge the rightmost hydra with both my Bulls and my Ironguts hoping to soundly defeat it in combat and overrun into the cold one riders and thus preventing them from getting the charge in the next turn.  I beat the Hydra in combat by 4 but it still managed to not break.

I charged the chariot on the left in the flank with both of my Scraplaunchers but it chooses to flee from the charge instead.  One of the Scraplaunchers is capable of reaching the Hydra however so it takes a Ld 5 Fear test to try to charge and miraculous passes slamming into the side of the hydra (or at least its handlers).  Unfortunately, even with impact hits, it only manages to kill a single handler and thus the hydra holds.

From Impact Hits

With both of my charges that I thought would win me combats completely failed, I resign myself to what I can tell is going to be a very bad next turn.

Dark Elves Turn 3:
The fleeing chariot rallied.

The corsairs charge my unit of Fighters which flee.  The leftmost hydra battle results in the death of the last handler but the Hydra holds again.

The cold one riders charge into my maneaters and win the battle even though I managed to finish off the hydra.  My maneaters and ironguts hold but my unit of Bulls flees.

Ogres Turn 3:
My unit of Bulls on the left side charge the flank of the unit of corsairs.  My hope is that with the 9 attacks and negating the ranks of the corsairs, I'll be able to win combat and force them to flee.  Instead, the death hag kills an Ogre and the corsairs kill and Ogre completely demolishing me in close combat.

My 2nd scraplauncher fails the leadership test to join the other scraplauncher in combat.

My maneaters and characters slaughter several cold one riders in combat, handily winning the battle but the unit rolls a 4 on its break test and stay again!

Dark Elves Turn 4:
The chariot charges my Scraplauncher stuck in combat with the Hydra.

The corsairs charge my other Scraplauncher.

From Impact Hits

Both Scraplaunchers are completely wiped out.

The Cold One Rider/Maneater combat involves both units completely whiffing and no wounds to anyone.  The dark elf general passes his break test yet again.

Ogres Turn 4:
My Bulls charge the Cold Ones and I finally force the general to flee and run him down.  However, the last of my Ogres are completely in the open for shooting at.  I'm completely out of magic defense.  And the rest of my line is gone.

We play through until turn 6 at which point I give up after all my characters are wiped out and my last unit of Ironguts is charged by the remaining hydra.

Conclusion:

This was easily the best game I have ever played with my Ogres.  I think the game would have gone completely differently if my Ironguts/Butcher hadn't fled off the field so early and the units I beat in close combat had actually broken.  It's really given me hope that a new book coming out this year will make them more competitive and made me excited to play my Ogres again.  I'm also planning to keep seeing what I can do with them and trying to win with the current book.

Ogres vs. Demons Pre-Game

I'm playing against Sam's Demons tomorrow and I'm planning to field my Ogres against him. I'll be taking the following list.

Core:
3 Bulls
3 Ironguts
8 Trappers
24 Fighters

Special:
1 Scraplauncher
2 Leadbelchers
2 Leadbelchers

Rare:
2 Maneaters with great weapons and heavy armor
1 Slavegiant

Heroes:
Butcher
- Bangstick
- Dispel Scroll
Butcher
- Siegebreaker
- Skullmantle
Bruiser
- Battle Standard Bearer
- Sword of Might
- Luck Gnoblar
- 2 Sword Gnoblar
- 2 Gnoblar Thiefstones
- Heavy Armor

Lord:
Tyrant
- Cathayan Longsword
- Greedy Fist
- Heavy Armor
- Giantbreaker
- Greyback Pelt
- Luck Gnoblar
- 2 Sword Gnoblar
- Wyrdstone Necklace

Full write up with my thoughts behind the list after the game tomorrow.

Updated Model Progress

I went through and organized all my models and got them set up on my hobby table so that I could take stock of what needs to be done and start figuring out what order I'm going to do everything in. With all the Ogre Kingdoms rumours that have been flying around lately, I'm thinking I may start painting them while continuing work on my Lizardmen. I have officially put my Skaven on hold while I get some work done on my other armies.

As far as my 40k Orks go. I'm really excited about the new Deff Dread and Killa Kan plastic sets that Games Workshop has just announced. When these hit the stores, I think I'm going to place an order for one of each of these. I'm also contemplating getting the Ork Megaforce as it is a really good deal.

Pictures of my armies:

From Impact Hits

Here is my Ork army consisting of 3 warbikers (1 nob), 3 deffkoptas, and ork trukk, an ork warboss, 7 ork nobs, and 40 ork boyz.

From Impact Hits

Here are my Skaven models consisting of 4 rat ogres, 12 giant rats, 40 clanrats (mostly unassembled), 20 plague monks, and a ratling gun.

From Impact Hits

My Ogre Kingdoms models consisting of 4 leadbelchers, 4 ironguts, 24 gnoblar fighters, 2 gorgers, 2 butchers, 6 bulls, Skragg, 1 tyrant, 1 maneater, 2 hunters, 40 gnoblar trappers, and a gnoblar scraplauncher.

From Impact Hits

The saurus warriors and stegadon I have been working on from earlier. Also, the three terradons I recently picked up.

From Impact Hits

More Lizardmen. This shows my slann, oldblood and carnosaur, 2 razordons, 2 salamanders, 36 skinks, 20 temple guard, and 16 cold one cavalry. I also have an additonal 12 skinks and 20 saurus warriors on the sprue.

Painting Progress

I am incredibly slow at painting but I have been putting more effort into my lizardmen lately. I have attached pictures of the progress they are all making.

First up is my temple guard champion. He is the closest thing I have to a finished model currently. I'm planning to use roughly the same color scheme for all of my temple guard models. For the paint job, I used Liche Purple, a Purple Ink wash, and a Liche Purple drybrush for the scales/skin. The weapons are a combination of Shining Gold and Mithril Silver with a Devlan Mud wash. The Shield is a Regal Blue with a Blue Ink wash to go along with my stegadon color scheme.

I've begun painting my engine of the gods as well. The current plan is to go with a base color of Hawk Turquoise and wash it with either Blue or Black Ink. Then drybrush the scales (maybe the skin too? not sure) with Regal Blue to match the shields that the saurus will all be carrying. The idea is they are using stegadon scale shields.

Another thing to consider is that this is going to be an engine of the gods model. Since that requires an ancient stegadon, I'm trying to think of ways I could make the stegadon look older so that when I paint a regular stegadon, it will look younger.

These are my saurus warriors with spears. In this picture, they are all base coated (skin/scales) with Scab Red. I have also completed the Black Ink wash though I do not have a handy picture of them in that state. The next step is to drybrush them with Red Gore and start detailing the weapons and equipment.

Catching Up

It's been a long time since I posted. I'm going to try and get better about that.

Over the Christmas/New Year's timeframe I attended Lindy Focus in Asheville, NC. It was an absolute blast.

Last weekend I played Steve of Boisterous Exuberance in a game. Lizardmen vs. Dark Elves. Steve posted a detailed write up of the game with lots of pictures on his blog which you can check out here: http://boisterous-exuberance.blogspot.com/2010/01/dark-elves-vs-lizardmen-012310.html

I've been working on painting my lizardmen recently. In particular my saurus warrior block. I'll post some pictures later. I ended up settling on a color scheme of scab red base coat, black inking, and red gore drybrushing for the skin/scale coloring. I've got the base coat down on all 20 of the models and two of them have been inked. I'm hoping over the next week I can crank out the inking and drybrushing and start on some of the finer details of the models.

In the meantime, I've been salivating over the thought of a new Ogre book in possibly May and the rumours that have been coming out surrounding it. A good summary of the relevant rumours can be found here: http://drinkinandmodelin.blogspot.com/2010/01/ogre-kingdoms-new-army-book-rumors.html

Also, one of the most impressive conversions I've ever seen can be found here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/264457.page

Ogre Kingdoms vs. Skaven Result

So I took the list described in the previous post.

I was up against a level 2 warlock engineer, Grey Seer Thanquol + Boneripper, a Plague Priest on a Plague furnace, a level 1 warlock engineer, a warp lightning cannon, 5 jezzails, 2 units of plague censer bearers, a unit of stormvermin, two units of clanrats, and a Doomwheel.

Skaven went first.

During the first magic phase, I used the Hellheart and he chose not to cast any spells. The shooting phase went well for me. I took two wounds on my Scraplauncher from Jezzails and only lost two sabretusks from the doomwheel.

During my turn I managed to kill one Jezzail with my Bangstick, get Trollguts off on one of my units, and land a Scraplauncher shot directly on top of one of his clanrats units. I managed to kill 5 rats from it. I also moved my Yhetees up in a flanking position on his plague furnace and sent in some Gnoblar trappers to force a charge from his frenzied censer bearers and furnace. My shooting against the doomwheel failed miserably, both my leadbelchers and hunter failing to wound.

On his second turn it was the beginning of the end. He got some spells initial spells off that I managed to cancel with a combination of dispel scrolls, magic resistance, and dispel die. Then he rolled 6 dice to cast the 13th spell against my Tyrant unit. Of course he rolls double 6s, my unit is obliterated. I hang in there because I think I've still got a good shot at taking down the Plague Furnace my flank charging yhetees.

On my turn both the gorgers come into play. I set them up directly behind a unit of clanrats each. I manage to make the Jezzail team flee from my magic. My yhetees get the flank charge on the plague monks/furnace.

Turns out the plague monks have a banner that does 2D6 automatic hits to everything touching the unit. My Yhetees get slaughtered before they even get to attack. They flee, the plague furnace is forced to pursue, and directly in the flight path is impassable terrain. The Furnace pursues three inches, millimeters short of having to take damage for hitting the terrain.

I concede. I had no units that could do anything to the plague furnace or the doomwheel. I was out of magic defense and the only things I was going to be able to do anything to were units of basic clanrats.

Final Ogre Kingdoms List

2 Gorgers
3 units of 24 Gnoblar Fighters
2 units of 8 Gnoblar Trappers
1 Gnoblar Scraplauncher
3 Yhetees
2 units of 2 Leadbelchers with Bellowers
3 units of 3 Bulls with addtional hand weapons (one unit has standard bearer and lookout gnoblar)
1 Hunter with 2 Sabretusks, a Talisman of Protection, and the Beastkiller Big Name
1 Butcher with a Bangstick and Dispel Scroll
1 Butcher with a Hellheart
1 Tyrant with Tenderiser, Jade Lion, Heavy Armor, and Wyrdstone Necklace

I am planning to take this list against a Skaven army. I've never had much success with my Ogres so I don't really know how this is going to work. My expectation is that Plague Furnaces and either Hellpit Abominations or Doomwheels will be taken.

For dealing with the plague furnaces, I plan to use my gnoblar to force charges that will allow my ogres to flank charge or force charges into rough terrain.

With the Hellpit Abominations, I'm hoping to use my Butchers to cast Braingobbler and force some panic test failures. This is my best shot at beating these as Ogres do not have any way of getting flaming attacks. My only other hope is that my hunter might be able to do some damage to them before they get into close combat or my Tyrant with Tenderiser can manage to get the charge and make it through the regeneration.

Against Doomwheels, the strategy is the same as with the Hellpits. I am hopeful that I can force it out of control with the Hunter's Harpoon Launcher and into some dangerous/rough terrain.

This is going to be a really rough battle for me I think but I'm hopeful that I'll be able to pull off a draw, or even perhaps a marginal victory.