Ogre Kingdoms Rumors

With a new book just around the corner, rumors from everywhere start pouring in, giving us hints as what is coming for the Ogre Kingdoms. To give you a rough idea of my background as an Ogre Player, here's a recap of my games so far ;

46 games under 7th ed rulebook. 10-4-32

36 games under 8th ed rulebook. 23-3-10

Lord and Heroes.

The biggest news is the Firebelly, an Ogre Mage using fire, with fire attack and a S4 breathe. I can easily see that one in most list, especially to kill anything with regen (just think of him hitting before a whole unit of Ironguts, removing the regen for the S6 attacks that follow). For something around 120 pts, he's definately a taker.

Another big news is in our magic phase, where all spells are apparently no longer RiP, but instead stays until next magic phase. This is something i'm not a big fan of, as it remove our ability to stack up buff, and force opponent to use his Power Dice to dispel some of our buff. Lets just say its gonna completely change how i see Ogre's Magic. The Lore attribute is really nice ; After casting a spell, on a 2+ you regain a wound, and gain +1 to cast the next spell.

The second big news about magic is that we can now have Death, Heavens and Beast. A quick rundown of each lore, and what it means to us Ogres ;

Death ; What once was our bane is now our allies.

Spirit Leech : considering our leadership is usually decent, it could prove useful against weaker race (like Skaven for example). Useful? not really.

Aspect of the DreadKnight : need to use the big version, as almost everything in our army cause fear. Terror on 9+ ? could have its use.

Caress of Laniph : good spell against low S ennemy character. Most of the time won't kill a character outright, but just do enough to be considered (especially against Pendant of Khaeleth user).

Soulblight : -1S -1T is nice, to make a combat even more in our favor.

Doom and Darkness : -3 Ld is nice, especially coupled with our Fear causing units.

Fate of Bjuna : another good spell against low E ennemy character.

Purple Sun : not sure anyone would risk using it, and misfiring.

Overall : Death is a lore i never bother with, as its not really easy to kill a character with wardsave. But i think it could definately work well with Ogres, with just 3 dubs spell.

Heavens : Outside of the comet, who can name a spell from that lore? I couldnt until last night when i failed to dispel a Chain Lightning with my Dark Elfs.

Iceshard Blizzard : -1 to hit is nice, especially since most of our army is WS3. Finally, everyone else will hit us on 4 (6 if they fail their fear test). A pretty useful hex when you're running out of wounds.

Harmonic Convergence : Rerolling 1s is nice, but situational. Of course, if you have 3 ironguts rolling 6 1s to wound, you'll be happy to reroll them, but it would be pretty low in my "must cast" list.

Wind Blast : too situational to be considered.

Curse of the midnight wind : this can be nice against low Strenght, low WS or poisoned attack. But just like Harmonic Convergence, too situational to be considered.

Urannon's Thunderbolt : Magic missile too strong for simple infantry, and too weak for monsters.

Comet of Casandora : a nice anti artillery spell, whenever it falls.

Chain lightning : It's good, and with some good rolls, it can keeps on going and going and going, etc...

Overall : Maybe a lvl2 with the signature spell would be useful, but i wouldnt spend more on that lore.

Beast : a nice mixt of Hex, Buff and Direct Damage.

Wyssan's Wildform : +1 S/T. This turn a unit of bulls into killer machine quite easily.

Flock of Doom : low S magic missile. Useful? not sure.

Pann's Impenetrable Pelt : Not sure its gonna be that much needed with our character already at least T5...

Amber Spear : Not that impressive magic missile, except with the upgraded version. But then, you'd hate rolling a 1 on your first to-wound.

Curse of Anraheir : the good ol' -1 to-hit. Still like it, and in a much stronger lore than Iceshard Blizzard.

Savage beast of horros : How to turn a mage into a tyrant. I like it, and i'm sure my opponent will hate it.

Transformation of Kadon : Not sold on that.

Overall : The buff are nice. Can they beat what Gut magic offers? not sure.

So yes, 3 extra lore is nice, but Heavens might be left out from the start.

Magic Item are still pretty much unknown, except the hellheart that now cause miscast automatically to all ennemy mage within 5D6. This and a dispel scroll can definately turn a magic heavy army into something manageable easily. As soon as you have a difficult magic phase, use dispel scroll. Once that's done, you have another "easy way out" with the Hellheart, hoping for at least a good D6 less Power Dice, or at best, a dead mage.

Core :

With Ironguts and Bulls 5 pts cheaper each, its definately gonna be easier to field larger unit, or to at least keep large unit, and add some goodies. Will we see the end of 9+ Bulls/IG in units? i'm not sure. You have to keep in mind that our look out sir start sucking pretty fast in small unit, and unless your metagame are light on artillery, you need that extra 2+ Save...

Gnoblar are apparently going up in price, while doing nothing more (as of now). If this is the case, i can hardly see them do more than redirect from Runemaw (if its still available at all). It's a blessing as much as a curse ; i never wanted to paint the buggers.

I'm not expecting to drop my core to 25%, simply to be able to have a decent enough unit to babysit my characters. And since you dont want all your eggs in the same basket (and be called a death star carrier), you'll need at least 2 or 3 units. 9 being a good number, you're looking at 900+ pts in a 2500 pts army.

Special :

That's where the fun start.

Leadbelchers are finally worth taking, without a need to reload, and no misfire anymore. Sure, they lose the possibility to do 10 hits/Leabelchers, but i'd much rather a maximum of 6 without the risk of killing my own unit. At apparently 43 pts, a very shooting heavy list is possible.

Yhetees are still unknown, except that they are now apparently 44 pts, and if we follow SoM, now flammable.

Maneater, down to 50 pts, are worth considering. Still a few rumor i'd like to get more details on, such as their special rule available (and their price), but i think they could be very solid (like in 7th ed). Their special rules (up to 2 for a unit) : poison, sniper, stubborn, swiftride, strider, vanguard, itp, scout. It's kind of a "build-a-bear" type of unit. It's nice, but for 10 pts more than Ironguts, and special, not sure i'd add them.

Mournfang Cavalry had a pretty bad preview when the model first came out, simply because they weren't Rhinox. I personally love the model. Once upgraded, they should be around 70 pts, with a possible 2+ armor save, 3 wounds, D3 impact hits and 7 attacks each. I think they could do well against just about anything, especially against low Strenght units. I think they look strangely like the Necropolis Knights, stats wise, which isnt a bad thing. 6 of them could do an amazing job.

Gorger with price increase and moving to special, are gonna be harder to field. I think they are still the best annoyer we got in the game, and the fact we can get more in an army is nice, but what if they go up to 90 pts? that would be a major turnoff.

Rare :

Scraplauncher apparently doing the same thing it currently does, but slightly cheaper (an educated guess would be 160-155 pts). Even with the new book, i think 1 will be required, and 2 recommended in a 2500 pts army.

Ironblaster, one of the new model, seems to be a bit on the powerful side. With its own misfire chart (again...), my guess its that you won't want to misfire with it, but it can move and fire, roll 2 dice for bounce (and chose the highest), and S10 grapeshot. All this at something around 175 pts, gonna have to find some room for at least 1.

Sabertusk can now be a unit. You can make from 1 to 10, and even have a Hunter join them. The question is ; can the hunter stay in the back, or is he forced in front like some special character handler are? I can hardly see a use of that unit, even for mage hunting.

Stonehorn, the giant "everyone hoped it would be a mammoth" new model, beside being a fabulous model, is pretty nice. For roughly 250 pts, you get a walking dragon-like stats, 4+ armor and some sort of protection against multiple-wound weapon (My guess is its just in cc). You can also equip it with a bolt thrower that do not pierce rank (um, why?).

It's brother, the Thundertusk, is nothing to sneeze at. It carries a catapult (still unknown if its an upgrade or just default equipment), and cause everything 6" around it to Always Strike Last. A little less killy, but still, ASL can be quite useful in some situation (like, when you want to take down a Heroic Killing blow ennemy before he gets a chance to kill your tyrant).

Thank god they placed Scraplaunchers and ironblaster in rare too, otherwise i think we would be seeing alot of those.

Overall, if those rumors are true, its gonna be a very fun book to play with, and you might see much more of my beloved Ogres on this blog in the coming years.