8th Ed. Ogre Death Stars; aka how I learned to hate my friends.

Actually, Raithial, the very fact that what you just described is VERY magic dependant it makes it less effective versus an ogre deathstar. Please remember that if the slaughter master has a greedy fist and lore of death then every HIT he is causing against your slann causes him to lose a level of wizard and one spell. Lore of Death has two different spells that have the sniper rule and cause automatic hits. So after a few rounds both of your slann will be turned into rather expensive floating toads.
Most of the good buffs from the lists you just mentioned are either A) Not remains in play and thus if the caster can't recast it every turn you're gonna burn out fast, or B) Have low casting values and are easily dispelled on the ogre player's turn by simply using his power dice. In addition, those huge base sizes make use of a hellheart quite funny, since there is a good chance your own slaan is now going to blow a chunk out of his own unit.. or potentially vanish.
If defeating an ogre deathstar was as easy as "throwing more magic into the game" then it would be a non-issue. The fact the deathstar can handle casters and melee fighters alike is what makes it so incredibly formidable.

 

Played a Deathstar of 18 Bulls + Butcher + BSB, + Blah, Blah, Blah....

10 Skink , 3 Salamanders and Ancient Stegadon
Slann with Lore of Metal.

Plague of Rusted the unit. Reduce his Armour save to 0
Enchanted Blades of Abian on Ancient Steg 4d6 Poison shots that are, +1 to hit, Armour Piercing & all wounds count as Flaming. Only Takes 1 wound to take care of Regen.
Shoot with unit of Skinks now that regen is gone and no armour auto wounding on 6s.
Salamaders - Cause a casualty and cause immediate panic

Think it is good advise is use Skirmishers to out maneuver the giant unit.

Keep Sallys just out in charge range in front arc, they are Swift Stride so if he charges run away, use Skinks to redirect. Try to keep Steg in the Flank for a Charge if needed, but otherwise use him to pepper unit with shots.

Yes it is a lot of dancing about but the use of small unit of Skirmishers to lead him around by the nose by being more maneuverable than him is the best bet, he has all his points tied up in that unit.

While you lead around the big block with skirmishers use block like Saurus on the flanks to take care of the peripheral garbage and let the quick stuff pick apart big unit or otherwise make it non-effective.

 

Hello,
I'm pretty sure that you don't hace LoS vs the purple sun, but that is to be cheacked out.
And since when Enchanted blades count as flaming attacks?
Anyway, here in Europe we have the ETC format, and thuss a squad is limited to 450 points, so There is a maximum of 9 IG i think(I don;t know the point value). I Find that a Skrox unit is ideal for fighting the Ogre death star. After all I was awarded the Squad of the Year here in Poland. You just need to get if in the flank, And with some Heaven magic (I use a Heaven Slann, but some people use a Death Slann and have 2 Priests
And i don't know how a Skrox unit will fight vs an 18 IG unit...

 

Don't all Lore of metal spells count as Magical Flaming attacks as per the Lore attribute?

 

Rulebook faq, 3rd page, errata about look out sir (page 93 on rulebook)

 

You mad my day!!! thank you!!! I'm starting to use the Death Slann more often!
And the "flaming attack" special rule in the Lore of Metal only apply on magi missile, and direct damane spells. (If you have cards, than you can see where the lore attribute is listed

 

Yes, but apparently the cards say something different. Stupid.

 

Only Magic Missile and Direct damage spells are Flaming attacks. I support my theory by the fact that in the lore att it also says that there are no armour saves allowed, whereas the enchanted blades give Armour piercing special rule... whatfor?

 

Then, just for the sake of argument, and in hind sight would actually have worked better

Same tactic but Lore of Fire -
Flame Cage the DeathStar unit, if it bounces to other unit who cares, still helps.
Flaming Sword of Rhuin +1 to wound Flaming Attacks both shooting and Close Combat

Real Reason for Metal is for Plague of Rust, gets rid of Armour saves and Final Transmutation - get it off and he is picking up expensive models on any roll of a 6.

 

The flaming sword is actually +1 to Wound, so Kroxigors will auto wound, because There is not a word about not beeing able to wound on a 1+. And you Can Try the Burning Head, because You don't target a unit. And I think the Flame storm dosen't bounce too, because you put the template anywhere, not on the model

 

I know wouldn't be that simple, but I none-the-less think that those two lores combined make for an excelent magic-phase, especially when you phase-out 6's on two mages, and atop of that have one hell of a magical defence.
I recently beat a deathstar to death with that build and it only took me a single turn of combat to shatter it completely. to the point where he was taking losses so fast he couldn't possibly keep up with it.
While this might have been a lucky break, I did deck out to deny him his magic-phase nearly completely, and in turn boosting my own magic phase so that he couldn't possibly keep up with the numbers being cast.
it's not neccesarily adding "more" magic as you put it, but to use the magic you have to greater effect. And just for the record; I have yet to find a slann that died of a miscast on my side of a battlefield. So far I've hardly ever come short of my casting value and decking out with the Cupped Hands and the Lore of Life's Throne of Vines, I make sure that Irrisitible force isn't as much of a problem should things go haywire.
Surely those things come as no suprise to a Lizardmen player.
My strategy has always been straight-forward; take controll of the battlefield using your skinks, then bring in the Saurus/slann. using an advance squad like terradon-riders, skink skirmishers and the likes to take out enemy warmachines, mages and other juicy targets, and let the saurus handle the bulk of the core while your slann will face off in a magic duel against the opponents magic phase (and with the right build this will for 75% result in a victory for you)

I just went to the extreme with my strategy against the deathstar by overbuilding it into a giant hedgehog.
My Terradon Riders and Skink Skirmishers went and took out his warmachines, while I confronted his mage with my own. Knowing full well he had Lore of Death at hand, it seemed like a good shot to really kill anything I could find. This resulted in the giant-buffed Saurus Horde as described and my opponent took so many losses that he was unable to sustain combat for more than a single turn, fighting Horde with Horde.
After that, it was a simple job for the Terradons and skinks to clean up the board.

by all means I did have a lot of luck here, but I stopped him in his track whenever he tried something, by not hessitating and striking with determination at his most vital organ; his Deathstar. I hate waiting around and harassing hordes for extended periods of time; anyone who has seen me play my High Elf Cavalry list will know this, so I want to see each combat last no longer than 2 turns.
I have now seen what this strategy will do, and I will continue to use it against this Ogre Death-star untill it backfires on me.

 

Something i had success with was a death slann 2 skink priests one of whom takes the cloak of feathers and terrifying mask of EEEE! on first turn my flying skink moves up to the flank or rear if possible but most importantly out of charge arc. Magic phase cast doom and darkness and both skinks cast Iceshard blizzard following movement phase had the masked skink charge and see if they can pull of that Ld check of a 4 thus fleeing towards your units meaning its quite unlikely they will be able to rally on any further turn. In fact if your quite confident declare the charge with the saurus even if they arent in range yet as when the ogres have fled from the skink of doom its likely the saurus or indeed any unit cant catch them on the now closer charge and run them down.

 

Thats a very good idea..... Assuming that the ogre player will dot dispell at least one of those spells, then he roll 3x1 on his runemaw banner, and lastly he won't know that ogres cause fear so Terror vs Fear is only fear

 

Everything you ever do with be subject to things going right. tbh 18 ogres at WS1 with getting hit by multiple units is not much of a problem at least not that ive experienced

 

I'ld like to point out that a unit that is often discounted straight away in preference for the slann could be effective here. I'm talking about the old blood on carnie. Now he's not cheap.

A naked old blood on carnie is 355 pts.
Carnie has ws 3 (not a problem vs ogres), s 7 (good for high toughness and armour of ironguts), t 5, w 5 and a4. Now his initiative is 2 but he will hit before the ogre greatweps. Now the main thing that makes this guy shine is his special rule, Ultimate predator. This allows all unsaved wounds to be multiplied into d3 wounds. Ideally you would try to get this roaring beast into the flank (rear if possible) of the rune maw star unit - means no supporting attacks back and less importantly more cmb res. Now you spread the carnies 4 attacks between the 3 iron guts on the flank and have a reasonable chance of killing a few or at least hurting them badly.

Now onto the oldblood, he is initiative 4 so he will strike first, his s 5 is not that good so you could consider an ogre blade to make his s7. I think the blade of realities (75pts) should be considered in this build since I hear that ogres do not have great Ld on ironguts (8 i assume?) and each hit causes the target to take a unmodified ld test or be slain outright (great for multiple wound ogres). Now that build seems like it can dish out the hurt to that unit, first any hits by the old blood have a chance of slaying them outright, then you work out his wounds normally, then carnie attacks with a nice s 7 and causing d3 wounds.

I must admit that this is a bit of a glass cannon since when 3 ogres finally do retaliate with their greatweps on the carnie, he will likely go down in 1st round. But could he and his rider have mauled the unit enough that it is no longer that untouchable, scary deathstar?

I think this build could potentially kill 5 or 6 ironguts in 1 round if you're lucky or swapping one out for the slaughtermaster or bsb provided he is careless and lets you get your carnie in basecontact with characters.

I think the old blood and carnie should just be considered for this since the enemy build's highest strength is to shut down magic and if you take a slann, you are just playing to his strengths. Death magic could kill the oldie before he gets in there which is another problem. Whatever setup you take, I don't think this will be an easy fight and its just cheese.

Thats my $0.02

Forgot to mention terror from the carnie (reminded by the posts above) which causes fear in the ogres, gives us a chance of them failing it which makes them ws 1. This means the oldblood and carnie could likely survive the 1st round of fighting and then slaughter another load of ogres in the 2nd round, possibly breaking the unit? That first fear test on the ogres is probably going to decide the eventual outcome of the combat.

 

Combine this with say 3 Jungle swarms or more to the front of the deathstar (3 deep 1 wide to limit attacks on them) to hold them in place and make sure you get the flank with the carnie. Then like 3 units of skirmishers which are always useful vs ogres. A unit of chamos and/or terradons for any ironblaster, which you charge with them to hopefully save you from a turn or two of shooting. A couple of naked skink priests, one with dispel scroll to provide limited protection from death magic to oldblood, could run the other with cupped hands and deliberately attempt (6 dice something) to throw a miscast on the slaughtermaster (could get lucky) or scroll of shielding/sivejlr hex scroll/feedback scroll all for oldblood protection. The purpose of the priests is not to cast offensive magic but to provide cheap death magic protection to the oldblood. Add ironcurse icon (5pts) on the oldblood for a 6+ ward for him and the carnie vs the ironblaster.

I guess the oldblood on carnie would be a true monster vs mournfangs too, auto slaying mournfangs based on a ld test would be nice (i guess their ld is 8 or 7?). Not to mention d3 wounds from carnie and old blood normal attacks. I think he would beast most units in the ogre list. Auto slaying thundertusk on a Ld test aswell ?

Add in a salamander or two for possible panic checks and to attempt to get rid of regen