My 2500pt Ogre army!

Looks something like this..

2471

LORDS:
Lv.4 Slaughtermaster (IF, Hellheart, AoD) = 388
Gut Magic

HEROES:
Bruiser (BSB, GW, 2+, Ironcurse) = 191
Lv.1 Firebelly (GW, Scroll) = 154

CORE:
9x Ogres (FC, IF) = 323
6x Ironguts (FC, Discipline) = 308

SPECIAL:
4x Mournfang (FC, HA/IF, Dragonhide) = 360
4x Leadbelchers = 172
4x Leadbelchers = 172
Sabretusk = 21
Sabretusk = 21
Sabretusk = 21

RARE:
Ironblaster = 170
Ironblaster = 170

The Lv.4 SM has 4+ armor, 6+ parry and 4+ ward.  He also carries the Hellheart to mess with enemy wizards.  I guess it goes without saying that he's been officially approved to carry armor because the designers failed to catch it.  That's perfectly fine with me!  I just wish all Ogres could parry with Ironfists regardless of what weapon they're carrying.  Visually, that would make more sense to me because of the way Ironfists look.  Anywho, the rest of the heroes look pretty standard.  BSB enjoys a 2+ save and carries a Great Weapon, the Firebelly carries a scroll and Great Weapon himself.  All 3 of those heroes will sit comfortably in the 6 Irongut unit for a total of 2x 3x3 blocks to make up the main belly force.

The Special slots are also pretty standard:  3x Sabretuks as better Eagles, 4x Mournfangs with all the bells and whistles, and 2 units of 4x Leadbelchers so I can shoot things to death.  I was thinking maybe cutting the squad down to 6x Leadbelchers and then buffing up either the Ironguts or Bulls, what do you guys think?

Lastly, I'm taking 2x Ironblasters because I think shooting big ass S10 cannons is ridiculous.  Plus, they're not bad in combat and they're really tough to kill!

Other things I might do is as follows:
SM takes Glittering Scales and Fencer Blades to make him almost unhittable in combat.
I find room for another Bruiser with 4+ ward for another beatstick.
I drop some Leadbelchers and maybe a Ironblaster for more Core units.

Is it me or is this army really small?  I normally deploy 100+ elf models to the table and this is looking quite sad!  I guess I should be counting wounds and not actual models?  It just looks really funny to me lol.

In a pickle: Vamps or Ogres

Right now, I'm still pretty undecided.  Both armies are 8th Ed. books which means balanced, fun and well-designed.  I currently own High Elves and I used to have Dwarfs.. but I sold them off because I didn't "feel" them.  I always ended up going back to High Elves..

Right now, the only thing I have built for Vampires right now is my 10x Dragon Princes to be used as (well, Dragon Princes) Blood Knights.  I have nothing for Ogres but a whole bunch of stuff for my Vampires.  This totals up to 80x Mantic Ghouls, 30x Mantic Zombies and 40x GW Grave Guard still sitting in boxes.  Let's list a bunch of pros and cons and see what happens:

First, I need an army that's radically different than High Elves.  Let's go over what High Elves are known for:

• Elite troops, everywhere, nothing is expendable and everything costs an assload of points.
• This also means they ASF, re-rolls to hit with high WS and Initiative
• Masters of magic, know all the lores, wields High Magic
• Dragons are big and powerful, have Griffon friends and Eagle allies
• Fairy little girly Elves connotation
• Aesthetically beautiful pleasing to look at; a beautiful army made of silver and azure
• Everything is on infantry bases or cavalry bases for the most part
• Requires expert generalship to win out these days.  I'd rate HE as one of the hardest armies to play right now if you avoid the book and Teclis due to the nature of the army.
• Probably somewhere in the middle for popularity
• Assloads of models to assemble, but this is my first army and I have everything already

So what about Ogres?

• Big and fat; monstrous troops, cavalry and monsters all over
• Still elite because of the points that goes into everything gives you..
• High toughness, low armor, but a lot of wounds per model.  Low WS and low Initiative.
• Not masters of magic, but have interesting hungry Gut magic
• No Dragons, but Giants, Cannons pulled by Rhinox, Mourfangs (bearcats), freaking Mammoths!
• The exact opposite of little girly Elves with big, burly, fat, questionably manly, full-retard Ogres
• Aesthetically hysterical to look at.. not beautiful in the slightest but.. interesting..
• Bases are mostly monster bases with lots of chariot and monster bases too
• Requires solid generalship since your Ogres are few, your charges must be well-calculated and you have to know which models you can break with combat and which ones you can't.  Primarily melee-orientated army.
• Not a really popular army, a plus for me
• Very few models to assemble because everything is big and burly

OK.. now Vampire Counts..

• The core of the army is expendable troops with elite supporting elements
• Crappy WS expendable troops with powerful fighter lords, cavalry, killing blow elite infantry and cav
• A mix of points spread around.. dirt cheap fodder and expensive elites
• Very solid magic with a good mix of movement, augments and power
• Big Undead Dragons, Terrorgheists, spectral ethereal stuff, Coven Throne, and flying Vargheists
• Not really girly per se, but Vampires have that emo connotation about them (e.g. Twilight)
• Aesthetically a mix of zombies, skeletons, Vampire Knights (HUGE!), ghosts and a mix of the above
• Bases are very diverse too; core is mostly infantry with powerful knights to giant monsters
• Pretty low generalship I'd say.  In 7th Ed, it was all Innvo-spamming GGdeathstar and Blood Knight bus of doom.  In 8th, almost nothing changed.  Regen Banner in a GGstar with +1 to hit or BK bus in almost all games.
• Probably the biggest bandwagon of Fantasy to date (think GK to 40K)
• A fucking million models to assemble because of all the cannon fodder

The biggest problem I have right now is that I simply cannot decide on what army I want.  In a nut shell, VC really appeal to me because of Blood Knights and fighty Vampire Lords.  I'm not a huge fan of undead, I don't care much for the whole zombie-revive undead mechanic.  Aeshetically, I just want to see fully armored vampiric knights riding into battle, smashing against anything in the game and winning.  It's a pretty linear way of thinking when it comes to Vampires I think.  I really hate the emo connotation and the caster lord in a bunker playstyle what might be effective.  It's really all about the Blood Knights for me, Blood Dragons or mauling the opponents in vicious hand-to-hand combat.  I want superiority in WS, skill and martial prowess.  Maybe that was one of the reasons why I was attracted to High Elves but also Khorne Daemons.

Ogres also appeal to me because they're funny.  I think if you want playstyles, Ogres are pretty much the exact opposite of High Elves.  They're slow, low WS but fast to get into combat and just smash things aside.  They're vulnerable to I-test spells or anything that can dispatch them before they can do serious damage.  The low WS doesn't help either, showing me that the army is pretty much made out of brawlers and lowly-trained fat people who use their guts as protection.  However, they do have BEARCATS! in the form of Mourfang Cavalry.  My wife calls me bear because she thinks I'm big and burly (maybe I'm getting heavier?) and this is something that I'm willing to accept.  They also have awesome cannons, radically eccentric fluff and powerful warbeasts.  I also think they're pretty characterful simply because the Ogres themselves are funny, almost a parody of wargaming.  I can't really picture an army made of Shreks.. can you?  Definitely something different from the seriousness that is High Elves (and me for that matter).

Well, there you have it folks.  Everyone knows me as the guy that plays High Elves but now I'm looking for a second army to offset that.  I just don't know!  Help! (more below)

Sample Ogres list

So I've been toying around with the new Ogres army book recently and man do I think Ogres are funny.  Truth be told, I've been looking around for an army that's on the opposite end of my High Elves and I think I might of found the right one.  High Elves are small in stature, elite, loves Dragons and has powerful game-changing magic.  Ogres are big and fat, ugly as sin, has a pretty small army size (I guess they're elite?), and are just overall hysterical because they're physically everything High Elves aren't.

I don't know, what do you guys think?  What would you say are the opposite of High Elves?  I already have a VC army sitting in the closet, but I don't think I'll break them out just yet.  From the looks of things, 8th Ed. is heading in a great direction and all the books I've seen so far are balanced.  For the first time in forever, Games Workshop has been writing balanced books.  I know right?  Crazy..

As for my Ogres list, check this thing out:

2501

Tyrant = 322
Heavy Armor, Great Weapon
Dragonhelm, Giantbreaker, 4+ Ward
Other Tickster's

The Tyrant here is supposed to be me on the battlefield.  A personal avatar if you will.  He's big, powerful, is swinging at S8 (-5 to your armor!) and has a 4+/4++ save.  Not the best save in the world, but with his ability to make other folks re-roll successful ward saves, he's bound to do a lot of damage.  With S8 attacks, anything with a 2+ save gets no armor saves against him.

Lv.4 Slaughtermaster = 285

Maybe I only need a Lv.3 with Ogres, but I decided to spend the extra 35 pts to bump the Slaughtermaster up to a Lv.4.  Time will tell if I need more on him.. but for now he's running naked.

Bruiser = 191
BSB, Great Weapon
2+ save, Dragonfire

Simple Bruiser BSB with a 2+ save and the Ironcurse item to give the unit a 6+ save from Warmachine fire. Better than nothing I suppose.. the other contender is the 2+ ward vs. fire/flaming attacks.

Lv.1 Firebelly = 154
Great Weapon
Scroll

Just a scroll caddy + S4 breath in close combat.  The Firebelly also allows me to take away those Regen saves so my Tyrant and Bruiser can go to town.

7x Ogres (Ironfists) = 259
Full Command

The Slaughtermaster chills in this unit and just buffs up the rest of the army and provides dispel support.  When needed, they go charging in after the main blocks of units engage.

9x Ironguts = 422
Full Command

The main fighting force of the army right here.  With 9x of these dudes, the Tyrant, BSB and Firebelly, I form a 4x3 unit of face-breaking fun.  One of the strongest units in the entirety of Warhammer, anything that gets caught in its path gets completely trampled into the ground.  Now.. if only I can get into combat without getting molested by Purple Sun or Pit of Shades..

6x Leadbelchers = 258

These guys are at 6x right now but I'm also thinking about dropping them to 4x (in 2x2).  Right now with 6, they're putting out 6d6 BS3 S4 armor piercing shots with no moving to fire penalty at 24".  That's pretty damn impressive.  But with 2x2, they're small and agile enough to shoot down Eagles on my flanks and with the extra points, I can buy Sabretusks to go Warmachine hunting.  I don't know, what do you guys think?

4x Mournfang (Ironfists) = 360
Full Command
Dragonhide Banner

A huge threat to anything that lives and breathes.  On the charge, they put out 4d3 S5 impact hits, 16 WS3 S5 attacks, 13 WS3 S4 attacks, re-rolls all 1s to hit, wound and failed armor saves (Wolf Standard in WHFB wtf!), has a 2+ armor save with parry and is T4 with 3 wounds each.  Talk about the bulkiest heavy cavalry to ever grace the game of Warhammer.  Damn.  If I want the unit I'm holding onto to stay still, I just pop the Dragonhide Banner's S3 breath attack and everyone that gets hit is striking last next turn.  Ridiculous.

Thundertusk = 250

It's a freaking mammoth, why not?  Comes stock with 6" ASL aura to all enemy models effected, built in Stonethrower, Bolt Thrower and random 12" S6 Killing Blow ranged attack.

Ogres, Sisters and other news

It's been a long time since I made an update and I apologize for that.

First, I'd like to say that I'm officially an homeowner.  I'm now knee deep in moving so I'll remain elusive until that's all done.  Then there's a few repairs I need to do with the house so who knows when I'll get back to minis.  However, I have been keeping up with my minis news via White Dwarf, updates from every known forum on the internets and from my fellow bloggers.  Thanks everyone!

The second thing I'd like to talk about is the Sisters codex.  I was disappointed when I checked out the first WD where it had the special rules.  I was disappointed again after seeing their point costs in the 2nd WD.  Needless to say, I think they're going to be a middle of the ground army that adheres to fluff and fun more so than competitive play.  They're just not that good, especially now that their Faith points are not guaranteed and the powers themselves are weaker.  Kirby said it pretty well in his review here.  One of my biggest gripes with the codex is how unreliable their FP system is.  Sure, you can stack HQs in the unit to make it more reliable, but putting more RNG in a RNG-based game is not good game design imo.  It simply takes away with what you can do with them in the future.

I guess my only other follow-up for 40K is the Nova open.  It's been a while since I commented on the metagame, and the only thing I have to say about it is that it sucks.  There's just so many MEQ players these days that tournaments don't facinate me anymore.  Grats on the Draigo player taking GK to the final rounds, can't say I saw that coming.  Wonder what his list was.

And lastly, I want to say that I'm very excited to get my Ogre Kingdoms book in the mail.  For the first time in a long time, it appears that GW has finally gotten their shit together in terms of designing books.  If you look at the current trend of 8th Ed. books, all the books are balanced and tame compared to the 7th Ed. atrocities.  I still think the super killy spells is bad news bears in terms of game design, but the balance of 8th Ed. Fantasy is going in a great direction.  This, on top of the ridiculously awesome models they've been putting out is nothing short of awesome.  Let's just hope GW keeps this up.

That's it for now guys.  Let me know what you think.