Albillos Black Company go to Farm Wars.
With another of the series of One Day Tournaments held in a “Barn in a Field” fast approaching I finally decided to take my Ogre Army, I have been saying for the past two Tournaments that I should have brought my Ogres but let myself get diverted at the last minute to other armies. This time, however, with the Ogres firmly off the bench it was time to take them to Cumbria! The Ogres were the first army of Mantic Models I built and played with nearly seven years ago and so returning to them, with a bit of a revamp in the painting department, is quite a steep learning curve as they are no longer the same Ogres they used to be. Also I have been playing Free Dwarfs almost exclusively for the past four Years and so playing an army with a completely different style of use is going to be a challenge. Still I need to get more practise so the Ogres will be the Army of choice for the next couple of Tournament seasons at least. One of the reasons for writing this blog was to help me improve my game as well as to share my Journey with my Reader and so I am putting digit to Keyboard to document this next step in the Journey of the Ogres.
They have been to one Tournament already and I lost all three games, so far I have not managed to pull off a win with the new format of my Ogre army but equally I am determined not to bring back my own spoon from this Farm Wars!
So I have had a good think about the list and made a few revisions (basically I have reverted back to a list I was going to use but, you guessed it, changed my mind!
This list is more weighted towards combat than the previous shooting list, I found that sitting and shooting didn’t really suit my style of play (Run in, fight , Die , occasionally more slowly than my opponent for a win )
So this time I will be trialling an horde of Hunters with the Brew of Haste, this gives me a speed 8, Pathfinder unit with Melee 3+, Crushing Strength (1) and ensnare. I will need to keep them safe from shooting as they are only Def 4 and I also need to remember they are not an elite Cavalry unit, but if they are supported properly I think they can be a really useful unit to have in my army. I also love the models for the Hunters.
I have kept the three Regiments of Warriors with the Matriarch Re-deploy Rule as I am still on the fence about how useful this rule is , but the Warriors themselves are great little units that I use to slow down my opponent, screen other units and sacrifice them to gain an advantage(although the number of times I throw them in to sacrifice them and they hold out for two or three turns is scary) I dropped the Crocodogs off the Warriors as I am forever forgetting to use them but as I had 5 points left over I have plopped the War Bow of Kaba on one unit just for some funny shooting shenanigans in games and of course the fact that they unlock is also very useful.
I have kept the two Hordes of Siegebreakers, they did a lot of the heavy lifting in my practise games but also I have upgraded the Artifacts to give them both Waver mitigation, I could almost guarantee that the Horde with the Mead of Madness would be the Horde that wavered in nearly every game. So the fact that they are now headstrong means it is my inability to roll a 3+ that is handicapping them but at least I have tried. I have found that the Siegebreakers supported by Nomagarok are a strong combination and I will keep them as the core of the army for now.
I have put “The Big Deal” back into the army for three reasons, It is a big, tough Monster that can deal a bit of Damage to high toughness opponents, Very Inspiring is useful and so is the extra Brutal. Although it is a large points sink, it has been quite a good supporting piece in my practise games and makes an extra Def 5, high nerve unit for my opponent to deal with. And I do like the Model I have for the Mammoth as well.
The above seven units are the Battle Line units of the Black Company, a compact mass of tough warriors with supports. Now I will describe the Character I have chosen for the army. Although there is a large number compared to the number of drops , they are all scoring units as I have taken no individuals and they can all dish out damage in Combat ( yes, even Nomagarok can fight)
I have taken two Berserker Bully’s to boost the threat projection of my army , with speed 6 and wild charge (D3) and 7 attacks at Crushing strength(2) they are able to pack a punch, although they are only Def 4 they are unwaverable and their charge range, coupled with being nimble means that they are quite capable of getting into the flanks of units where they can cause considerable damage. Coupled with the Big Deals extra Brutal they are capable of routing regiments on their own. I have boosted their damage outputs by giving them the Blade of slashing and Mace of Crushing to give them a little bit of help. The fact that they now inspire all is an added bonus as they used to only inspire berserkers and , again, the models are some of my favourites in the (old) Ogre range. I used to run two Berserker Bully’s in my previous Ogre army and they were quite effective, so the task of re-learning how to use them well has been undertaken again.
The two Ogre sergeants on Chariots that I have been using have now been stripped of their large crossbows, although the move and fire option seemed attractive, in practise the shooting was ineffective at best and the faf of finding shooting lanes to prevent them firing with cover penalties was taxing. I also found that the drop to Def 4 made them very vulnerable to plink shooting and their height 4, while it gives them certain advantages, made them difficult to hide against the ubiquitous Lightning Bolt that is the weapon of plink shooting choice. On the other hand having a height 4, Nimble unit with 16” charge makes for a great threat projection (similar to the bully’s) but with the added effect of Thunderous charge added on and if you can get them coming off a hill …… I have given one sergeant the Orb of Towering presence as there is nothing more annoying than that nimble Chariot marching 16” to win a board section from the troop you left to guard it ! and the other has the Tricksters Wand as that Height 4 allows him to target those Spellcasters lurking in the back and cause them problems galore.
Nomagarok, what can I say about this fellow that hasn’t already been said by the intelligentsia of KoW ? Not a lot really, with his Lightning Bolt, Bane Chant and Heal being boosted by the presence of Ogre units, he is an ideal Support piece to bolster a battle line. He is inspiring and at a pinch is Melee 4+, Crushing strength(1) with 5 attacks and so can do damage in combat and he is a scoring unit. He is all kinds of good for the Ogre Army and features in nearly all of my builds and the model is superb!
Kuzlo and Madfall are the last ingredient for the Black Company, a 16” march, Nimble scoring unit with a nerve reducing aura that stacks with Brutal and can enthrall units to boot is fun to use. Throw in Regeneration 4+ and native Hex and he becomes a very annoying little fella that can cause people to devote a lot of effort into removing him while the rest of your army gets stuck in, or they can ignore him until he pops up to cause disruption to combats and take out small units in the flank. Quite a useful addition to the Black Company and one that is fun, if a little taxing, to use.
So this is the reasoning behind the revision of the Ogre List I have been using and I shall be monitoring its performance over the next couple of months and hopefully blogging about it. Even more hopefully I won’t be reporting the acquisition of any more Wooden Spoons!
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