Yesterday was quite quiet, which was sort of expected with the late change of date. In the end this turned out quite well for me. I had the time for a couple of games as well as a good browse around the racks. I even rattled a few blisters and bought some more to add to the tiny collection of miniatures I have already.
Both battles were against the same chap who had played a bit, but not recently, and had come up for the game. He’d got a mercenary amy that he’d made up from whatever he could find, which included some ogres. These are always a challenge to fight, especially in smaller battles (we played once at 24 and then at 36). Being so tough they are an expensive unit, and a classic demonstration of the problem that having such elite troops gives you – not much of anything else. I fielded my normal, basic Orc Warlords army, replete with 4 units of gobbos to back up the orcs themselves. They didn’t much like the look of the ogres.
In the end I hope I demonstrated the way you fell these problem units by using positional play. Both times the ogres were wiped out, with the first time being relatively straightforward. They ate a goblin uint, as expected, but had been faced with two orc units as well and couldn’t avoid them. These included my shaman (who fought like a demon) and were carefully blessed in expectation of the fight. In the second battle I did something similar, with a one-two from the pair of orc units being enough to finish off the ogres. Only just enough in the second game though, as the first unit (with the hero in) got ground down (to make their bread¹) after nerfing its charge. However, a combination of blessings and careful sequencing of actions allowed the orcs to carry the day.
Both games were very entertaining and showcased a lot of the aspect I was aiming for in God of Battles, especially the wealth of hard choices that constantly evolve during the game. My opponent is clearly going to be rather dangerous when he’s had a bit more practice and has finessed his army. Will he bring ogres next time? Possibly not. He said they were the quickest way to make up the points when he was packing the army for the day, which is fair enough. We’ve all done that. I think they’re a fun thing to take on occasion, but not something to rely on as any regular opponent will work out how to neutralise them.
Naturally I forgot to take pictures…
Quirkworthy 
Thanks again for the games Jake. Getting soundly thrashed like that gave me a better appreciation for the level of tactical depth in the game. It certainly gave me plenty to think about going forward.
Hopefully I’ll be able to make it up there for some more games in the future. I already have some thoughts about an ogre-less option, I’m sure that I have some dwarfs kicking around somewhere…
As long as you enjoyed the games 😉
Don’t write off the Ogres too quickly. Though they may be too many eggs in one basket for 24 points, they can be very effective in larger games once you start getting the hang of it 🙂
Absolutely. Never write off ogres. Like all the other powerful and costly units, you cannot ignore them. Most of the plans to deal with them require a great deal of care and even then they can still go wrong. The only thing they cannot mitigate much with skilled use is being in more than one place at a time.
Can you enlighten more on your one-two tactics Jake?
This was simply putting the ogres into a position where they were on their own but I wasn’t. In both games I was able to use one bait unit to dance about in front of them while two orc units closed. The idea of the one-two is that you hit them with one then the next and don’t allow them the chance to recover or choose their fights. Because you get to fight first more than they do, and because you have hopefully tanked up with blessings and so on beforehand, you should be able to cause quite a bit of damage before they can move off to pick on someone less dangerous.
The first time this cost me the bait unit, the second time one of the orc units. So it’s not without losses. However, getting rid of the ogre threat was worth it each time.
My ability to do this was mainly down to the lack of much else in the Merc army because of the ogres cost, plus his using them aggressively. You kind of have to do something with them to get any value out of them, but this left me able to use my bow to recoil back the rest of his units or press them back with my own attack. Leaving the ogres a bit exposed. As I outnumbered them I could pick where I put my extra units while much of the rest played for time.
Or something like that 😉