Hi all, My friend and I are trying to introduce 2 of our other friends to Warhammer Fantasy and so we're thinking of doing a 2v2, with one new player on each side. I'll be lending my lizards to my friend, and allying my ogres with him. My enemies will be dwarves + WoC. Can anyone think of a reasonable explanation as to why lizards and ogres would be allied? Promise of temple gold for helping repel the chaos?
Yes. Also, fighting anything Chaos or "against the great plan" (like Undeads, skaven, etc.) is also easily a valid choice. I regularly play with my ogre buddy, and it often comes down to him being mercs for my army, here to assist "the great plan" in return for "great fortune" - which the skink leaders are usually cool with, and the Saurus don't mind the tough allies - after all, those ironguts are pretty much just kroxigors without scales He also regularly uses the Maneater special character, Golgfag, which benefits alliances heavily by making his unit threat the entire lizardmen army as trusted allies, and in return be threated as such as well. Ogres are a fun bunch Also has amazing synergy with our lizardmen in terms of tactical strenghts, and their magical power, as well as their hellheart, can make such an alliance completely unstoppable in the magic phase.
Yeah I love my ogres just as much as my lizards I just wanted to make sure the fluff behind this game is alright, sure ogres are notorious mercs but lizards aren't always the most welcoming bunch heh heh. WoC + Dwarves can be explained away as.... chaos dwarves in training?
the alliance rules makes a sufficient impact on the game so that the alliances are more easily explained. Dwarves and WoC are... not on good terms, which translated into a lot of their stuff beng able to target each other as if they were enemies. For example, spells that target all enemies within a certain radius would also affect their "ally" because they hate each other so much. I honestly can't think of a good reason to why dwarves and chaos would ally. Lizardmen aren't fond of others in general, but outsiders can find a place on their side in a fight, provided they fight for the same cause (The Great Plan). Ogres are indeed notorious mercs, but they are also known to not be fond of Chaos, and Golgfag Maneater (The special character) is known to fight alongside dwarves, for example, so him and his warband are definitely fighting "the good cause", which makes him a perfect ally for Lizardmen. Also, he has this odd rule where he has no magic items, but gets to roll 2d6*10 for the points he has to buy magic items for, which is fun to flavour as "stuff the lizardmen gives him as upfront payment for his service."
The fluff in the old 5th Edition book established that Lizardmen do not normally understand the Warmblood's lust for treasure. When they figured out that the pearls they usually throw away after eating oysters were valuable to Humans, they were ecstatic. "The humans will fight for us in exchange for these...beads...?" Lizardmen wouldn't mind letting Ogres eat the other side. They wouldn't mind letting Ogres take all the weapons and armor of the other side and any treasure that is not sacred to the Old Ones.
Woc-dwarf: Id say the dwarfs are enslaved by the woc, and are forced to fight alongsside with them. This explains the hatred towards each other on the field aswell. Id add a fun factor: Dwarf warrmachines have tto roll 22+ to shoot normally, on a roll of 1 they shoot the woc player^^
How about Dwarfs and WoC aren't allies? Dwarves fight to obtain some artefact and warrios of chaos appear from nowhere because of the same reason. Why should they fight dwarfs with lesser forces? Better help them with Lizardmen (for now)!
Nothing I can really add to the great suggestions above. From a modelling standpoint, I love the idea of buying a box of Ogres and kitting them up with all the spare Lizardmen bits I've got - mercenaries lost in Lustria! I've seen some really nicely painted Ogres put together in this way.
Ogres were the great unfinished race right, the ones that the old ones could have trained to bring down chaos. From a fluff perspective it makes sense the lizardmen would try to civilise them