Dealing with Ogres @1600 points

[starkey]

Good Morning All,

I have been taking part at my local clubs fantasy league, starting with 2 group stages and then semi final - final knockouts.

For the group stages you could bring whatever list you wanted and swap between games etc, however for the semi finals you need to submit lists.

These are the two lists that i used in the group stages

Loremaster: Book of Hoeth; Enchanted Shield; Biting Blade. 300

Noble: Enchanted Shield; Dragonhelm; Elven Steed; lance; heavy armour; shield; Battle Standard. 132

7 Silver Helms: High Helm; musician; standard bearer; shields. 191
5 Ellyrian Reavers: bows. 85
5 Ellyrian Reavers: bows. 85
10 Archers 100

19 White Lions of Chrace: Guardian; musician; standard bearer (Banner of the World Dragon). 327

Frostheart Phoenix 240
Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower 70
Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower 70


and

Archmage: Book of Hoeth; Talisman of Preservation; Level 4 Wizard. 320

Noble: Enchanted Shield; Dragonhelm; Elven Steed; lance; heavy armour; shield; Battle Standard. 132

7 Silver Helms: High Helm; musician; standard bearer; shields. 191
5 Ellyrian Reavers: bows. 85
15 Archers 150

20 White Lions of Chrace: Guardian; musician; standard bearer (Banner of the World Dragon). 340

Frostheart Phoenix 240
Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower 70
Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower 70

I am the only non Ogre player in the Semi's so I know that I will play ogres in both games.

What would be the optimum list to run against Ogres as I have never played them before with High Elves and unsure on what would be the best way to take them down.

It appeared like the Ogre lists were running lots of bulls and maunfang + ironblasters

Any input would be much appreciated

[John Rainbow]

Hey Starkey. Interesting questions about Ogres - I tend to find they are one of the toughest matchups for HE (and maybe in general) as they can abuse a lot of good rules in 8th ed. i.e. stomp, monstrous support attacks, etc. As for taking them on, let's see what you can do...

Ogres are fast across the board so chances are they will get to combat with you at some point. This makes up for their big weakness which is generally poor armour saves (on actual Ogres) and dislike for shooting. I have had a lot of success against Ogres with just Archers and RBTs though. If you can get a toughness debuff off on them you can put a lot of wounds through with just Str.3 shooting as they tend to have little or no armour save (Ironguts, Bulls, Man Eaters all have poor or no AS). The best idea here would be to concentrate fire on a single unit in order to remove it from being combat effective and then when they get to CC, your own units can take on whatever is left.

In both of your lists I feel the Frostheart is a liability. They aren't really that good against Ogres as they generally don't care about the -1 Str or the ASL as they have enough attacks and strength to kill you off anyway and you won't get stomp. The lack of other targets for the Ironblasters is a problem also as it means they will just shoot this as it is your only real target (with one exception we will get to in a minute). I would take out the Frosty if you are certain to face Ogres, it just isn't that good against them and in general, isn't a good all-comers unit anyway. As I said, you have another big target for cannons here and that is your BSB in the helms unit. A couple of casualties in there and he is in trouble as he won't get a 'look out sir'. Just be careful with this.

Ogres tend to use Deathstar units and you can take advantage of this too by either using an avoidance strategy or going for one of the BIG spells - they really hate Purple Sun and Pit of Shades in particular. In fact Shadow is a general all-around good Lore against Ogres as Withering helps your shooting and Mindrazor/Pit are obviously win buttons against them. Havign said this a lot of other lores are also effective i.e Death, Metal (Final Trans has a v. long range and Searing Doom on Mournfang), etc.

Last piece of advice is that by far one of the best units in the Ogre book is the Sabre Tusk type cat thing (chaff unit). A good Ogre player will ruin your day with these. Be sure to take them out early and be aware that they have very poor Ld and don't take advantage of any Ld bonuses for generals, etc. You can use this to your advantage by panicking them, etc.

Hope this helps, JR

[starkey]

Thanks for that in depth review. Do you think it's worth keeping the silver helms or replacing them with more shooting?.

I've made some modifications to the list taking on board what you said

Archmage: Book of Hoeth; Talisman of Preservation; Level 4 Wizard. 320

Noble: Enchanted Shield; Dragonhelm; lance; heavy armour; shield; Battle Standard. 122

8 Silver Helms: High Helm; musician; standard bearer; shields. 214
5 Ellyrian Reavers: bows. 85
15 Archers: musician. 160

26 White Lions of Chrace: Guardian; musician; standard bearer (Banner of the World Dragon). 418

Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower 70
Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower 70
10 Sisters of Avelorn 140

1,599 points

I added the sisters to add more shooting, at str 4 and flaming to remove possible regent from his bus.

I also bumped the white lions up to 26 to allow me to run them 7x4 and the bsb will sit there along with the Mage (who is running shadow

Finally I added 1 more silver helm to replace the bsb in the unit

Thoughts

[John Rainbow]

Try taking a look here too:
http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic. ... 98&start=0