I have a 2k battle against Ogres coming up as part of a mighty empires campaign. Anyone got any useful tips to tip the balance of power in favour of the scaly ones?
Re: Any tips against for Ogres? Ogres are probably the weakest army around so they should pose that much of a threat (you shouldn't underestimate them tho). Spear saurus with 24 S4 attacks absolutly demolish ogres while taking little damage themselves. They also have SCR in their favor. Everything in the army is vurnarable to shooting so concentrete magic and skink fire on their Ironguts and Rhinox Riders. The list has 3 major threats: Rhinox Riders; hits hard, good move and good impact hits. They were introduced in WD 309 so they aren't a part of the army book but they are generally accpeted at tournaments as they are one of the very few things that are even remotly good in the Ogre list. With 5 T5 wounds each even poison will have problems bringing them down, but mass shooting and baiting them works well as they are semi frenzy (needs to charge if they fail a LD test on LD 7). Tyrant: This guy hits like a truck. Don't let him near any character, the most common set up is the tendiriser which gives him S7 and every wound is multiplied to a D3 wounds (which means keep your stegs away from him aswell!). I recommend avoiding his unit unless it is small enought to shoot down. A tyrant in a big unit of bulls or ironguts can take out pretty much anything in the LM list, even TGs. Bull charge: all ogres causes impact hits on the charge. This can really mess your units up but they only get their impact hits if they charge from more than 1/2 their move, so if you just jam units as close as possible (closer than 6") they lose a lot of their combat effeciency and with move 6 they will always get the charge anyway. Ogres are very fragile against shooting and magic and can't match LM in CC either. They get destroyed by saurus (they actually do less damage, don't have any SCR and much save and LD), skinks will cause havoc, they have nothing except the Tyrant that can even hope to damage stegadons and Terradons Drop rock ability will cause a ton of damage and they only have 1 short ranged unit that can shoot them down.
I agree, with Erians for the most part, but you have to be careful of some of his magic items, I prefer chief's over priests against the ogre's as the Great maw banner, allows them to move around your spells, try not to get bogged down into close combat, skinks will wreck his units as he can't spread the wounds around as quickly.
Generally speaking, I agree with the above. The first time I squared off against Ogres, I got demolished. That said, I was completely unaware of how the army functioned and what its strengths were. When I know I'm going up against Ogres now in a 2K+ game, I don't even bother with Saurus. Slaan w/ TG, Stegadon with EoTG, 3 or 4 units of skirmishers, all kitted out. The rest of the points I have left over are usually for CoC or hunting packs, which work surprisingly well against the Big Nasties.
Skink skirmishers, more skink skirmishers and still yes, more skink skirmishers. Those ogres don't run around with a lot of poison immunity and I have had particularly good luck in shooting at them with darts. Terradons sound like a good idea and maybe even, Razordons? Thats pure speculation though.
Sallies work well against his gnobler forces but no real ogre player uses blocks of those, be careful of the butcher, gut magic is pretty potent and he is immune to poison, so I recommend a priest or scar vet to take care of him. I find a Skink chief with Warspear on a stegadon will do wonders on everything but the gorger.
I'd be tempted to run this; Oldblood -Pirahna Blade -Bane Head -Glyph Necklace -Enchanted Shield -Carnosaur So 1+ Armour save, 5+ ward save with the Oldblood causing double wounds (and even quadruple wounds on the Bane Head target!) plus d3 wounds caused by the Carnosaur. This should be able to tear through those multi-wound ogres!
That's quite a good setup for beating ogres. Just charge, chop, overrun, repeat! What really helps against ogres: SKINKS I think that's clear enough. Poison is just made to beat ogres. Add in that carnie-lord of you, and you will have great odds of winning. Only their charge is threatening to our Saurii, after that; prepare to chop! Sallies and razordons (razordons in general) aren't that suited to deal with ogres. A template weapon vs ogres? not so much... And razordons....meeh...I'd steer away from them any day of the week-> instead: buy more skinks! You can do so much against ogres, while they only have some stuff that you have to watch out for. As mentioned: the Tyrant is the most obvious threat. Take a look at gut magic on forehand, or it might catch you by surprise. It is quite good once you get to spam it. Remember to dispell those RIP spells!! The Hunted
Battle report here http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/mighty-empires-campaign-battle-versus-ogres.3410/