Feels weird that the new stuff still isn’t even out yet, doesn’t it, when we’ve all had the full battletome in our hands for weeks already since it leaked? I’ve started playing games with the new rules and units: there’s a couple of Ogors players locally so we’ve been happily playing against each other using proxies, ranging from the obvious Leadbelchers as Hunters (Shooty Ogors as Shooty Ogors), to the admittedly somewhat lame “Plonk something on a 160mm base and now it’s Redd”.
Let’s take a look at what I’ve been running and a few things I’ve learned so far.
The List
Babe I’m so sorry it’s just been a really long day. You’ve gotta believe me babe this has never happened before and I just need a few minutes to digest. I was thinking about work. I’ll be hungry again in 10 minutes, trust me babe. Honestly I’m usually starving.
—–
Ogor Mawtribes | Maw-cult Fanatics
Points: 1990/2000 points
Drops: 2 drops
Battle Tactics: Burning for Vengeance / Blazing Onslaught
Spell Lore: Lore of Gut-magic
Prayer Lore: Lore of the Everwinter
Manifestation Lore: Morbid Conjuration (20 pts)
Faction Terrain: Mawpit
—–
General’s Regiment
Redd the Maw, High Slaughtermaster (400)
• General
10x Gluttons (400)
• Reinforced
10x Gluttons (400)
• Reinforced
—
Regiment 1
Bloodpelt Hunter (130)
• Leave Not a Morsel
• Mantle of Entrails
10x Hunters with Sabrefangs (320)
• Reinforced
10x Hunters with Sabrefangs (320)
• Reinforced
How it works
You’re melding two pieces of tech here that caught my eye as soon as the book dropped: parking Gluttons around Redd for the 6+ Ward, and double-hopping two units of Hunters up the board (one using the BCR battle trait, and the other with their warscroll ability).
It’s pretty natural to look at those Gluttons on a 5+ save with no recursion and think “This army can’t take a punch”. But their +1 save rule is really high quality:
What I’ve learned is that in the real world, you almost always get this bonus. When you’ve charged you’ll quite often one-shot your target so you won’t be making many save rolls, and crucially it does apply to shooting. I reckon that elevates the competitiveness of the whole army: all of a sudden you’ve gone from a 5+ save to a 4+ 6++ without doing anything, and it’s already starting to look a lot better.
Your footsloggers can be lightning quick too, but only if you take Redd: his warscroll spell gets you a hero phase move, and his Depths of the Cauldron ability is your only way to access run + charge at the top of 1. What I’ve been doing is seeing if the spell goes off first, and if it does, spending a CP to give them run and charge too. Then you’re absolutely steaming up the board1 and right into the guts of their army. I’ve lived this on the tabletop and it feels great. If you fail the spell, you need to weigh up whether to still go for the run + charge or just hunker down and play a slower rhythm. I’ll usually go the latter, and just project power with the Hunters while I slow cook the combat wave – but I still usually spend the CP on Depths of the Cauldron and take -1 rend on one unit instead.
This early access to the battle trait is why I can’t get past taking Redd currently: it’s a pretty sad world where you only get run and charge after you’ve already fought, so in the list he goes. With him and two blocks of Gluttons you’re already on 1200 points (or 60% of your list) so what else are we taking?
Let’s be honest, every Ogors player (myself included) has already had the brainwave that you could just chuck another couple of units of Gluttons into a one-drop and call it a day.
But I reckon we can do a bit better than that. What are your Gluttons gonna do when they run into an army with extensive Strike First for example? In the words of a very wise man, you’ll do fookin nuttin’.
That’s where Hunters come in. They offer just as much wound density as Gluttons: it’s still hard to believe that every model (including the cats) gets 4 health each, so a reinforced unit costs 320 points for 40 health.
So once they’ve popped up and shot, they are an absolute problem. 40 health takes a big commitment to shift and if your opponent charges them, those 8 cats will pump out about 5 mortals at the start of combat before anyone even starts swinging. This is nothing like chucking 6x Boltboyz up the table.
The reinforced unit of Hunters offers 19 shots at Rend 1 Damage 2. That’s all hitting on 4s, but another nice aspect is the hard synergy with the Bloodpelt Hunter:
So have a pot with him first, and if you do manage to crack anything through, you’re hitting a key unit on 3s without spending a CP. Relative to taking Oops All Gluttons, with Hunters we’ve got equally as much wound density on the table, but way more projection of power.
Personally: I probably wouldn’t rush out and buy that many Hunters for cash money, cos I suspect they might get nerfed at some point. I’m making mine from old Leadbelchers and Bonesplitterz pigs, but you do you. If you’re into Ogors for the long haul then owning four kits might not be totally insane.
Spice of life?
There’s a question to be asked about whether spamming foot troops will be interesting to play. I can honestly say I’ve enjoyed all my games so far. I’ve got no issue running two big units of Gluttons – they are an absolute heart and soul unit for the army and I don’t want any Ogors book where running a couple of units doesn’t feel good. If you do stick with that core there’s a few other things you can do with your ~800 points. The Maulbeasts for example are fucking expensive but they do feel great on the table, and I still want to give Morga a go in place of Redd.
Why I like Hunters so much is that they offer you the opportunity to make shit happen from the top of Round 1. Although they’re foot guys, they do have their teleports which makes the army feel less linear to play, and the burst movement on the Gluttons via Redd also makes things quite unpredictable (for both players). I do have other list variants I like including one with a unit of Gorgers and a BCR monster, but I can put my hand on my big fat belly and tell you that this list is a great time.
Notes on Gameplay
I generally take first turn when I can. You can rely on the Hunters to make an early impact and either blitz your opponent with Gluttons (if Redd’s thing works) or get some defensive buffs up if it doesn’t. You can get the upper hand and start to bully people with this army.
As regards the Battle Traits: the damage really stacks up on Eat Em Alive. I already posted the table of buffs you can choose from up above, but don’t sleep on how impactful that first part of the Effect can be:
The fact that those D3 wounds are non-shitty is absolutely key. I didn’t really appreciate the power of this aspect until I started rolling dice with the army but it just stacks up again, and again, and again, and again. It’s absolutely immense. What it’s effectively doing is giving you an “Out” if your Rend 1 attacks bounce off armour: getting stuck into a protracted combat isn’t the worst place to be when you automatically grind your opponent down at the end of every turn.
That’s also why I can’t get past Maw-Cult Fanatics as the subfaction choice:
Every single turn, as you grind them down, you grind yourself back up. It brings pseudo-recursion to an army that otherwise lacks it.
Now as for that buff table, it takes a lot to get me to choose anything outside of Raw and Bloody Flesh (reduce Rend by 1). That Turn 1 movement stack is an obvious exception, but after that, I’m happy to tank and grind as you slowly win the fight, with guaranteed mortal damage and healing tilting the table your way; and with your army’s generally enhanced OC, you’ll be dominating primary objectives while it happens.
This is also another situation where QOL is sky high because the timing (End of Turn) means that if you are up against Gargants or the like, you have full knowledge of the status quo before deciding whether to switch over to +2 OC on each model2.
So you can see how all of this tech comes together in the list to give you a really direct path to winning games.
Enhancements
Don’t get too spellbound by having the book in your hands. The absolute best artefact available to the army right now is Key to the Larder from the Aqshy stuff:
The only reason I haven’t taken it here is because your Hunter will probably pop up miles away from your Gluttons, so it’s not much use in this specific list. What we’re taking instead is just making him an absolute thorn in your opponent’s side:
He’s gonna pop up right in their faces and make them hate him.
Battle Tactics
I’ve been taking Blazing and Burning.
Blazing: It’s easy enough to do damage in multiple phases with Ogors anyway, given their Battle Traits key into the Charge and End of Turn phases, so with some solid shooting to accompany your combat, you’re laughing. As noted above, the end of turn mortals from Eat Em Alive are automatic (non-shitty) so your dice can’t even fuck you out of it. In fact the main issue I’ve had with scoring Blazing 1 is the modern classic “Dammit I killed them too quickly”, which is an archetypal first world problem: you should be good for 10 points here by the end of most games.
Burning: Here’s a little trick for ya. One unit of Hunters jumps up the board with their warscroll ability in the Deployment Phase, which is outside of either player’s turn:
Then the second one comes onto the board using the BCR battle trait in your turn:
Badda Bing, you’ve auto-scored Burning 1, because only the latter unit was set up this turn:
In Conclusion
With the right list, Ogors feel great to play right now. I’ve already had games where Hunters pop up and bang off a couple of units, Gluttons sprint 18″ across the board and absolutely wreck something, and my victim opponent is just left staring slack jawed at the smoking ruins of their army from the top of the first turn.
I kinda felt sorry for them, but not that sorry. Like I would still definitely do it again.
So let me know what lists you’ve been cooking up, any tweaks you might make to this one, and what you’ve got out of your games so far with Ogors.
This article turned into a bit of a beast and I’ve been getting smashed in the day job, so I’m gonna struggle to publish next week, but I’ll try and get a game in with a Stonehorn list I’ve been working on and at least write a short piece on that over on the Patreon site.
Have a good weekend, nerds. See you on the other side.
Credit for cover image: Games Workshop
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