Today’s article is a guest piece by Andy Jennings, showcasing and celebrating his sensational Ogors army. The love and creativity that has gone into this project is unparalleled. Over to you mate.
So Ogre1 Maneaters have always been terrible.
If my reputation as a huge Maneater aficionado has sufficiently preceded me, you might think that’s an odd way for me to start this article… but rules-wise, it’s hard to think anything else. From their first, massively overpriced, appearance in Warhammer 6th edition twenty years ago, to their various Age of Sigmar incarnations where underwhelming rules meet cumbersome bases, Maneaters have never been a better prospect on the battlefield than the same points of Ironguts.
But rules aren’t what make them my favourite unit in any Games Workshop setting; it’s because they’re the gold standard for a kitbashing project. I’ve always been a better modeller than a painter, and for those of us who solve our problems with a full bitz box, a pin vice, and a roll of green stuff2, a unit whose dress code is “literally anything anyone else in the setting is wearing” is a limitless playground. As a result, while my games of Warhammer Fantasy were won3 with the token block of Ironguts with no customisation and rusty steel, the tiny glob of Maneaters were the pride of the army.
So after a break from the hobby to sulk about The End Times, when I finally caved to peer pressure and picked up Age of Sigmar at the top of 3rd edition, the first recipients of some nice new round bases were my beloved Maneaters. And after taking them to my first one-dayer at my FLGS and getting comprehensively battered, I put them back in the cupboard the moment I got home and immediately started a Nighthaunt army. And while it was fun to occasionally win a game, and shove my two Mourngul around the table4, I kept a candle burning for the Maneaters with the knowledge that a nice new Ogre battletome would eventually land… and that candle got pretty toasty when WarCom articles appeared talking about a heroic trait to allow all-Maneater armies, and make them actually work!
And then we got this nonsense…
So we got lots of command points to spend on… having the same control score as a unit of Ironguts, who were actually good in a fight? And they didn’t have the GUTBUSTERS keyword, so they were locked out of all the infantry-specific buffs, which Ironguts got to make them even more useful? And for good measure, basically all the Maneater models got removed from the store during that release?
Finally concluding that Gee Dubs had given up on Maneaters after the first hookup during the Bush administration, I decided to take a different approach to get mine on the table. While I’m sure Coolest Army trophies must have existed back in the square base era5, it’d never occurred to me to use my green stuff fixation to build an army specifically geared to win one. With visions of finally winning a trophy that wasn’t a spoon6, I started shunting the Maneaters back onto 40mm round bases, as well as building even more to populate a 2000 point army, and in no time at all, I had the core of The Maneater Legion founded – an entire army of Maneaters, banding together to fight for the absolute highest bidder.
That’s quite enough words now, you probably want to see some models. Let’s get the boys (and girls) out.
Ironguts
Champion: Orc Boy. Standard: Brettonian Questing Knight. Musician: Empire Halberdier. Other Guy: Flagellant
The oldest surviving model in the army is naturally in charge of leading the unit full of Old World models… and naturally, when the biggest weapons go to the biggest Ogres, surely there isn’t a bigger weapon than an entire chariot? He set the tone for giving comically oversized weapons to all my Irongut champions, to remove any ambiguity on who gets removed last.
The musician is built around a Wargames Atlantic Landsnekt Ogre, because that seems exactly like the sort of kit you’d want for Maneaters. But when the rest of your army is as plump as Games Workshop’s Ogres, another company’s skinnier offerings stand out a bit. Even with some substantial padding, he still looks like he could use a good pie or three.
Champion: Idoneth Namarti. Standard: Stormcast Warrior Chamber. Musician: Skaven Plague Priest. Other Guy: Helsmiths Anointed Sentinel
Accepting the march of time does involve accepting the things that’ve changed in the meanwhile. So this unit has more of a focus on warriors specifically from the Mortal Realms. As much as I dislike Stormcasts and everything they stand for7, I couldn’t really skip them in an army like this.
Key things to point you at:
- The rotting shark wielded by the champion is a Zombie Shark by Reaper; I was going to try and work out how to strap an Allopex to a Gutbuster, but I went into an unfamiliar gaming store on a trip to the States, went down a different aisle, and decided “permanently having a top-heavy model” was a much more interesting problem.
- The Anointed Sentinel is the newest Irongut in the army, one of the more simple kitbashes (cut a Gutbuster in half and keep the legs, glom some green stuff into a Sentinel’s torso, unite the two), and was made possible by an opponent’s extremely generous bitz donation. Hopefully David enjoys the callout in this article!
Champion: Disciples of Tzeentch. Standard: mismash of Khorne themes. Musician: Maggotkin Blight King. Other Guy: Hedonites Lord of Hubris
Four Ironguts, four Chaos gods… seems like an easy theme, right? And yeah, pretty easy, not much to say about these guys (although I might redo that banner to be a bit more Blades of Khorne). I do find myself constantly irritated that my favourite model (the guy entirely themed off of the Lord of Hubris, my favourite Hedonites of Slaanesh model) is the rank-and-file scrub, and therefore comes off first every single battle.
Gluttons
Champion: Empire Knight. Standard: Moonclan Git. Musician: Cities of Sigmar Steelhelm. Other Guys: High Elf Spearman, Dwarf Warrior, Lizardman Saurus Warrior
I try to avoid any unmodified 3D prints in The Maneater Legion, because it’s much less fun if I haven’t carved three models in half and drilled in a paperclip to pin something. But look at that brave knight’s moustache and noble steed! I couldn’t say no, and neither could you.
The Lizardman was an homage to the very first Maneater I kitbashed at the kitchen table in my student digs twenty years ago. He’s still got the same 6th edition Saurus club his ancestor wielded, donated by a cousin who had a Lizardman army in his childhood dinosaur phase, and his gutplate is a 5th edition Saurus shield from the very first New Edition Big Box nearly thirty years ago. So a fair amount of making me feel old pedigree and prestige in one model.
Champion: Witch (A)elf. Standard: Hobgoblin Wolfboy / Gitmob Wolfboy. Musician: Jester. Other Guys: Wood Elf Wardancer, Dwarf Trollslayer, Iron Golem
There’s a long tradition of lady Ogres starting a new life as Maneaters – one of the nine original Maneaters was sporting a fake beard, a brass bra, and a massive rolling pin. But the only fat girls in circulation right now are the Gorger musician, and the Forge World expansion pack for the Ogre Blood Bowl team. So there was only one choice for getting a Witch Elf into the army, that involved lots of scraping down Forge World resin and pretending that Witch Elves like full face masks.
Leadbelchers
Rat Ogre, Chaos Dwarf Blunderbusser, Lumineth Sentinel, Cathayan Rocketeer
I’d be more unhappy with how this unit came out if I took Leadbelchers more than once an edition – wouldn’t it be nice if a unit canonically carrying four cannons could put out more damage than the same number of bowmen?
The Cathayan Rocketeer was finished long before they were released as an army for The Old World, although I could’ve borrowed some design notes from their appearance in Total War 3, if I wasn’t in my End Times sulk at the time. Still pretty close, I’d say, although I may well strip him back and repaint him to match the current Gee Dubs colour scheme.
Gorgers
Champion: High Elf White Lion. Musician: Squig! Other Guys: Chaos Warrior, miscellaneous Undead, the original Ogre Gorger
Champion: Ironjawz Weirdbrute Wrekka. Musician: looted Dragon bones. Others: Idoneth Morrsarr harpooner, Rockgut Troggoth, Beastman Minotaur
I’m still not convinced that Gorgers needed to be a unit lore-wise, even as I love popping them up behind enemy lines and drowning inattentive lone heroes in a firehose of attacks. But even the Gorgers of the Maneater Legion love a spot of cosplay.
You’ll notice that these two units look very similar, despite having wildly different outfits. This is because they’re the only non-Hero Ogre unit to get a kit in the lifespan of Age of Sigmar. Modern Games Workshop kits treat customisability the same way I treat a stained T-shirt, and they’d rather have every unit in jarringly identical Power Rangers poses than let you make meaningful choices yourself. I have a feeling that we’re going to see a similar loss in customisability when the range refresh happens and the plastic kits get updated. Also, someone get those damn kids off my lawn, I can’t quite reach my cane.
Gnoblars
There are at least twenty of these buggers, I’m not listing them all. Why not play Spot The Gnoblar in the comments section of Pete’s socials?
What do Gnoblars look like in an army pulled from every corner of the Mortal Realms? What about every base filler, swarm participant, and general tiddler that’s come out in the last 20 years? I’m still not convinced they’re actually useful in-game, as I believe screening is a thing you do when you aren’t trying to club your opponent to death before the end of Turn 2.
I could do a whole second unit of these with the remaining ideas I have, but it’s apparently catastrophically difficult to find some of these bitz – if anyone’s built Glutos Orscollion without the tiny waiter, let me know so I can nick it off you.
Mournfangs
Savage Orc / Bonesplittaz Boar Boy, Skaven Doomwheel
You might have noticed a heavy Gutbusters slant to my army, and that’ll be the “I started this in Warhammer 6th edition” mindset. But this is a kitbashing exercise first, so we needed some representation of Ogres riding things into battle, and this pair actually made it into a tournament or two last year.
I had grand ambitions of making the Doomwheel rider into more of a monowheel motorcycle, but that fell foul of “being annoyingly fiddly”, so now it’s a reference to the 90s-era metal Doomwheel instead.
Frost Sabres
2000-era Cold One, Raptoryx, Dire Wolf champion, Orc Boar
Clinging on by the tips of their Finecast claws, and filling some very specific tactical niches, Frost Sabres were definitely going to make it into the army in some form. And of course, since I wasn’t going to take more than two units of two, there’s space to do one for each Grand Alliance. In practice, I usually only bring out Timon and Pumba to the right, because the Raptoryx is both stupid-looking, and so prone to breaking he couldn’t even make it to his base for the photo shoot.
I could’ve used a more modern Drakespawn or Raptadon for the Order-oriented lizard, but I think we’ve satisfactorily concluded that I’m permanently stuck in the mid-2000s, and I find the fat derpy Cold One of the era extremely comforting to have around.
Ironblasters
Chaos Hellcannon, Kruelboyz Kill-Bow
Why I’ve made two Ironblasters, I’ll never know – I’ve never taken both of them at once, and with the Scourge variant disincentivizing it, I probably won’t any time soon. I do at least have the choice of picking which one I’m vibing with for a particular tournament.
Scraplauncher
Baby Arachnarok and Gnoblar attendant
I’ve not got a Scraplauncher in the Legion right now8, but the Scourge version has hit a price point where it’s worth a go. And this charming chap dropped through my letterbox halfway through editing this article, accumulating paint while the Cancon coverage has been crawling ‘cross the blog, and may already be poised to hose sticky goo over enemies of the Legion by the time you read this!
Gutbuster Heroes
Tyrants: Ironjawz Megaboss, Kharadron Admiral. Bloodpelt Hunter: High Elf Shadow Warrior
I saw someone running a Megaboss with an Ogre head as a Tyrant at the first GT I went to after I decided to create The Maneater Legion, and immediately nicked the excellent idea. The second guy saw solid rotation until the end of 3rd edition, when Tyrants doing impact mortals was 50% of the damage output of the army.
Prophets of the Great Maw
Slaughtermaster: Necromancer on Corpse Cart. Butchers: skeleton on Ossiarch Soulmason throne, generic Nighthaunt gheist
A subtle theme I picked when creating the army was that all the wizards would be aligned with Death armies, as there’s only a small number of either of those. This doesn’t really get picked up, as I tend to average about 0.75 wizards per army – this isn’t a Tzeentch army, this is huge fat monsters trying to eat their enemies.
I do like a good pin made of a paperclip, and the logical extreme of that is two of these guys being built out of paperclips – the Slaughtermaster and the skeleton are both different flavours of green stuff glommed onto wireframes made from everyone’s favourite document binders.
One of the reasons this isn’t a painting guide is demonstrated by the fact I made a custom mix of pallid flesh tones for the zombies pulling the Corpse Cart, only to immediately discover it looked identical to my Ogre skin mix (which hearkens back to the classic drab they had in – take a drink – Warhammer 6th edition in the mid 2000s).
Great Mawpot
Huge pile of treasure
Well, what horde of mercenaries isn’t going to be motivated to defend its big pile of treasure and paychests? And what kind of trophy-hunting kitbasher would I be if I didn’t try and kitbash my own faction terrain?9
Most of the treasure chests are 3D prints, with some spares from other kits, and the big baddy is just the Casket of Souls from the Nighthaunt Endless Spells. There’s one plastic gem, and there’s the mirror from a Contorted Epitome, which was my absolute nemesis in 3rd edition.
Also, you see those tiny gold coins all over the place? You might think they’re some sort of premade pieces, or a rod that’s been cut down. You didn’t think I was forced to make rolls of green stuff, and cut them into hundreds of tiny discs, would you? WOULD YOU? THAT’D BE ABSOLUTELY MENTAL!
The Snake-Khan Rhagnos
Kragnos: …erm, Kragnos?
Technically, this guy came from my pre-Maneater rebased Ogre army, but having made sure he took colour and style notes from the official version, he didn’t need any work to be ported over to the world of Maneating. Because while I very much respect Kragnos as a tool for giving my army some monster charges (as well as turning enemy monsters into marmalade with up to 36 mortal wounds on the charge), I’m not exactly impressed with the AliExpress Dragon Ogre Shaggoth we got as a model. Much more fun to find a cool Ogre sculpt, sticking him on a giant snake, and uniting the two.
Fun trivia: the snake was chosen to pair with a unit of Mournfang riding giant worms I started building in Warhammer 8th edition. That unit never made it off of square bases.
The Token Frost Lord on Stonehorn
Tomb King on Warsphinx
Three years into the project, I’m finally preparing to sell out and get a Frost Lord on Stonehorn like every other Ogre player. I’m probably not joining the Stonehorn Monster Truck rally, but one seems like an interesting change of pace from Kragnos, and I didn’t have a better idea for getting Tomb Kings involved. Naturally, the Necrosphinx is quite a bit smaller than a Stonehorn, so I had a copy 3D printed at 120% scale to make sure I couldn’t take it to Warhammer World the other week.
…Maneaters?
Heroic Warhammer Quest hero, Shrek, Father Christmas
Remember the part where this is a kitbashing exercise first? Sometimes, stuff doesn’t fit in a nice AoS-themed box, so it hangs out on a 50mm base not making outings (or occasionally popping out as Yhettees, to confuse everyone involved).
They’re also all festive models, celebrating Christmas, the Warhammer Quest campaign my boys ran over Tabletop Simulator during Covid, and the release of a new Shrek film now we’re no longer under a Tory government.
Yes, I know that Santa’s on a 40mm base right now, but he was on a 50mm base before Christmas, and my FLGS decided that this Christmas’s one-dayer required Santa on the smaller size. He’s at least magnetised now, so I can stick him on a fresh new 50mm if that comes up.
Endless Spells
Krondspine Elemental, Forbidden Power
Ogres don’t have their own Manifestation lore yet, and I’ll be interested to see if Gee Dubs have remembered their plan to give everyone one by the time they get to our next battletome10. But for now we have a choice of a Maneater-specific Krondspine, or some more general Ogre-themed Forbidden Power.
See all those coins? You can probably see the dividing line where I had to start CUTTING AND GLUING MORE OF THOSE BLOODY THINGS.
The Pile of Shame
Mournfang: Aggradon rider. Gorlok Blackpowder as himself.
I wasn’t planning to do the Aggradon rider, but winning the Scar-Veteran model as a spot prize at my first GAF Jamboree made the decision for me. I just need to pick a second one, and that’ll do me. Meanwhile, I couldn’t not get the only currently-named Maneater in the army, even if he’s currently hanging around with the Legends warscrolls. Naturally, he’s been kitbashed a bit, because of course that’s a thing I’d do.
Everyone enjoyed the Grotmas Regiments of Renown as a kitbashing exercise, if not for their tabletop efficacy. As you can see, so did I!
Goroan Scions: Ogre Mawtribes. Stumblefoot Gargant: Slavegiant. Nurgle’s Gift: Gnoblars.
- The Goroan Scions let me resolve the question of how to include Ogres as a type of Maneater, by doing it on a unit that isn’t Ogres. Unfortunately, their first outing at a two-dayer pointed out how much I rely on Ogre-coded movement tech, when they immediately got left behind in every game.
- The Stumblefoot Gargant was my old Slavegiant, given a fresh lick of paint, abs that weren’t sculpted by a chimp, and chains repurposed from the ones I keep cutting off of chaintrap arms – the very best arm in the Ogre range
Mawpit: …a flat piece of foamboard and some spray foam off-camera
Rumours from annoying people on the TGA forums suggest that with the range refresh, the Mawpot is going away and the Mawpit will reign alone. Which means I should get round to building another pile of treasure chests and gold coins. This time, featuring an Ironblaster cannon to protect their hard-won riches!
Denouement
I’ve been running the army for three years at this point, clocking about 30 tournaments, and at the first tournament of 2026 (shameless plug for the tournament vlog I made) they’ve landed a full-fat Coolest Army trophy!
As you can see, I also landed Runner-Up Coolest Army at Tracksuit GT last year, which was a lovely nod at an excellent tournament, but did highlight how often I’ve been the bridesmaid and not the bride. There are some fantastically creative armies in the UK Sigmar scene11, and it’s been a pleasure to set myself against them.
And now I’ve got the trophy, and almost have a space to display it and the army12, most of the Legion can take a nice break in a display case. I’ve got some FeC that are apparently kicking all kinds of arse with players who aren’t me, and I’ve got… a new experiment to run…
If you want to see more adventures in green stuff, or want to ask me for a longer breakdown of any of these guys, why not follow me on BlueSky, the least atrocious social media platform? @andyjennnings314
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^12: You may have noticed, in spite of my slap-dash cropping efforts, all the army pictures are backdropped with the concrete walls of my completely unfinished office – the display cases are coming after there’s flooring, insulation, skim on the walls, and paint. And that’s happening after… hang on, let me unroll the to-do list…
- Not Ogors. Unless you’re talking about some wacky new kind of Beastman, it’s not a fucking Gor. ↩︎
- Back in my stoner days, green stuff frequently replaced Blu Tack when constructing makeshift bongs, because I apparently wanted something less watertight and considerably more expensive! ↩︎
- Well, more usually lost. The Destro mindset of “go forwards until there’s nothing left” was a bit more challenging in a world where you had to actually wheel and manoeuvre your infantry. ↩︎
- I feel the Mourngul is a microcosm of this entire article; I really liked the model, built the entire army around taking two of them, heavily kitbashed one of them, and was so annoyed when they got sent to Legends halfway through a GHB season, I haven’t run Nighthaunt since. ↩︎
- Somewhere in the dank depths of my Facebook page is a potato-quality picture of a Chaos Dwarf army very much going for a “gnomes via My Little Pony” vibe.
↩︎ - I’ve gotten better at not crashing straight into last place these days, but I’ve managed to leave a tournament with two Wooden Spoons, and another time they just gave me the Wooden Spoon at the end of the first day, after seeing my performance and making an educated guess. I think that was the tournament with the Chaos Dwarf army from one footnote ago… ↩︎
- Here’s a ludicrously deep cut for you: did any of you read “Mogworld”, the first novel by everyone’s favourite acerbic British video games critic, Yahtzee Croshaw? Do you remember the epilogue, where they crowbarred gold-armoured angelic superbeings into the setting to try and solve the main plot thread? And how that was presented as a stupid, short-sighted fix to the problem that nobody actually liked? DO YOU SEE MY HEAVY-HANDED PARALLEL? ↩︎
- I’ve not emotionally recovered from building the monstrously fiddly old metal Scraplauncher, then taking it to Warhammer World, knocking it off a table, and seeing it splash on those heavy stone floors they have. Fifteen years ago. ↩︎
- We won’t talk about the Charnel Throne I made for my FEC, that was mostly made of papier mache, and now wobbles like a jelly and smells like wet dog. ↩︎
- Since we’re only halfway through the edition and they forgot to give anything to either Maggotkin or the Hellsmiths, the first new faction in years, I’m not holding my breath. ↩︎
- Although I think at this point, if you take a FEC army that’s all Bretonnian models, your prize should be a badge saying “Yes, Very Clever, Join The Line Over There”. ↩︎
- You may have noticed, in spite of my slap-dash cropping efforts, all the army pictures are backdropped with the concrete walls of my completely unfinished office – the display cases are coming after there’s flooring, insulation, skim on the walls, and paint. And that’s happening after… hang on, let me unroll the to-do list… ↩︎
Plastic Craic 