Faction Focus: Bloodsail Ogres Part II

 Welcome back to the second part of the Bloodsail Ogres faction focus! This one is coming a little late, as yesterday had me rather busy with work (sorry everyone), but we are going to be getting into the real technical aspects of running the army today. Feel free to comment on the post and let me know what you think of these faction focus articles, and let me know what you want to see next!

Deployment Strategy

If you haven't read the first faction focus article for the Ogres, I strongly suggest you pause here and go read that first, otherwise some of what is to come may seem a little confusing. Deployment with the Ogres in my opinion is where the game will either be won or lost. Obviously each game will be different, and you will need to keep [your opponent's units in mind when deciding how you want to approach the deployment phase; however, the deployment strategy can follow the following scheme closely in most situations.

As a castle style army, the goal of our deployment is going to be attempting to accomplish a few crucial points to help us control the game:

1. Is there a piece of passable terrain that we can use to score two objectives?

2. How can we score presence utilizing the terrain piece or without the terrain piece?

3. How swiftly can I get to El Dorado to begin securing the objective?

Here is a deployment example using the first scenario from this season's tournament pack.

Scenario 1: This season's maps don't really have any terrain features covering two objectives, but we can still make this work in our favor. If you get to choose sides, I would definitely pick the side closest to the swamp. This will allow for one objective capture, and the possibility of small presence (or big presence if you wanted to get a little more risky with your units). You should be able to make it to El Dorado by the end of turn one to benefit from your positioning. Rodrigo is one of the few units that can go off on his own without support. You will be losing a little firepower in El Dorado, but he can easily still poke from our second objective while his teammates cover him from El Dorado. Now lets move on to our first turn and discuss setup for the rest of the game.

Early Game Setup and Strategy

    The first turn for the Ogres, as with many factions, is going to be about setup and securing our positioning on the map. The Ogres having ranged attacks though can EASILY start dishing out damage and controlling the opponents moves in the first turn. Using our deployment example above, let's get our early game setup accomplished and set ourselves up for success.

The moves I made in order were the following:

   1. Used Jolly Roger to move all my units forward 3" (including Rodrigo because we kept him in our 6" bubble). 

   2. Activated Ackimo, moving into El Dorado and setting up for the possibility of an early stun (don't forget to fish while close to Narom). If the possibility to get an attack off isn't available, we can take a battle prep action for an extra inspiration. At this point, Ackimo has already begun to threaten the opposing player's side of the map from a relatively safe location.

    3. Double movement action for Kush the Mastbearer. This will get him into position to tank some of the incoming damage and threaten a melee attack that could apply spotted. He is also helping us to begin getting points for presence.

    4. Narom moves into El Dorado in order to begin covering both objectives with his harpoon shot. Take an attack action if the opportunity is available at this point, especially if Ackimo was able to pull off a stun. This could be an early first blood for you. 

    5. Double move the Ogre Crewman so that he can also be in El Dorado and provide his buff to Rodrigo on the second objective. This will also secure our small presence we setup earlier. 

    6. Lastly, move Rodrigo onto the second objective. He won't be in range of the Crewman's buff initially, but at this point you can elect to take a second move action to get the buff or make an attack on a threatening model.

Obviously, this is in a perfect world and will depend on what the opponent does as well, but hopefully you get the idea of what we are trying to accomplish in our first turn and beyond. Keep your castle together, pick your targets and get the kills. The following turns will consist of setting up kills with Ackimo and Narom, as well as defending El Dorado using ranged attacks and Kush's melee capabilities. Focus on one target at a time, as with the amount of healing some factions have you could be outpaced if proper focus fire isn't achieved. 

Countering the Ogres

    The last part of this faction focus is going to be for the non-Ogre players, looking into how to counter their strategy and pick up a win against them. They have a few key weaknesses that can be exploited, and when they are, you can seriously hinder an Ogre player and keep them from playing the game in a sense. 

    The first way to counter them, and honestly the simplest way, is to beat them IN DEPLOYMENT. In the example I showed above, if you prevent the Ogres from picking a side closest to a terrain piece near the center, they will have a much harder time attempting to get to El Dorado and could be delayed by a turn. If played correctly, you can score a first blood before they do and focus on killing a key piece in their force before it gets to El Dorado. Ogre's can be extremely fragile and susceptible to focused fire if not in El Dorado. If they are forced to set up El Dorado on the outside edge of the map instead, they will miss out on controlling the center, presence points and being able to utilize their range effectively. So think about deployment, and how to stop them from getting to El Dorado (or at least delaying it).

    The second way to counter Ogres is to bring models with high amounts of attack dice. The Ogre passive ability only applies to attacks that deal more than one damage per hit, therefore high amounts of attack dice can deal much more damage than a high damage attack with low attack dice. The Lord of Fury is a fantastic example of having high amounts of attack dice capable of dealing with Ogres.

    The last way to counter Ogres that I have found is to either stun lock their units utilizing Voltaris or another source of stun to limit the amount of actions they can perform or utilize push mechanics to clear them out of El Dorado. The latter is going to be the best option, but you will have to manage your activations and pay attention to which units have already activated for the Ogres, otherwise they will just move back in before you get the chance to pick your target off.

    I hope you guys have enjoyed the last two articles on the Bloodsail Ogres. I'm excited to continue reading providing Bloodfields blog content, and possibly some video content in the future to go alongside this. Comment which factions you want to see next, or what topics you would like me to cover in the future. Any feedback is appreciated! Stay tuned for a unit review of the newly released Vampire Hunters and possible tactics. See you next time!

Faction Focus: Bloodsail Ogres Part I

 Good morning, everyone! I am excited to get this blog kick started to help others improve at Bloodfields, and be able to compete in the arena. For our first faction focus, we are going to be taking a look at one of the top factions from last season's tournament as well as a faction making up 3 of the lists for this season. Today, we will be focusing on the overall playstyle of the Ogres, as well as how to build an effective competitive list for them. Without further delay, let's get the ball rolling!

Quick shout out to our resident Ogre experts who helped me gather information for this post:

Seriphos, Stregi and misdrak

Playstyle

The Bloodsail Ogres are a faction that typically likes to play what is referred to as a "castle" playstyle. The main source of this playstyle comes from one of their key units, Rodrigo De Ogra and his El Dorado passive which we will talk about later in this post. The ogres will want to play to their ranged strengths and use El Dorado to their advantage to score at least two objectives, and lock down the battlefield. If done correctly, this is a HARD combo to break through as the Ogres are extremely hard to kill in these conditions. Attributing to their survivability is their passive ability: 

Ogre: Each unsaved hit cannot deal more than 1 damage to an Ogre.

This means that the 2 damage or higher attacks that are crucial to the damage output of most factions is negated, and it will take much more for just one of your Ogres to fall. Combine that with the inspire changes granted by El Dorado and the armor buff provided by Jolly Roger (more on this later) and you have an incredibly tanky force that can group together in terrain and secure their postion.

Faction Rating

With how strong their combo can be, and their survivability, the Ogres are receiving a rating of S tier from me. If the faction is played well, they can dominate most games in my personal opinion. They are a relatively easy army to play, with a complexity rating of 1 star. With such ease of access and possible combinations, they are easily one of the best factions to play right now. They are not without fault though, but we will touch on that Thursday when we get into more detail on countering the Ogres as well as how to pilot them.

List Building

Finally on to the fun part, building a list to play with. With the current seasons competitive rule set, the Ogres are given a 200 point budget for their lists. This is a little restricting; however, it is more than enough to get what we need in a list. Lets start off by going over the three key units every Ogre list should be running. 

1. Rodrigo De Ogra - A staple piece for the army. He is the main inspiration engine that keeps the faction moving throughout the game. His El Dorado passive is what we focus the army build around, selecting a terrain piece and locking it down with our castle playstyle. Changing all inspire results to hits/saves is absolutely HUGE, and can easily swing a losing game to a winning one or start a snowball effect. He also has the Ogre Pistol attack for good synergy with things like the Mastbearer or the Crewman. Make sure he is an auto-include in all of your lists.

2. Captain Narom - As one of our primary damage dealing combos, we want Narom in our list to be accompanied by any source of consistent stun we can get such as Voltaris or Shotcaller. The critical strike on Narom means that all skulls are going to bypass armor and deal two damage for EACH unsaved hit. This combined with other buffs like that of El Dorado mean that he will likely hit both shots, and at least one should be a critical. 4 HP targets will be killed in one or two attack rounds, giving you the advantage. Make sure to stun the target first so you get the bonus of switching a blank result to a critical. Give him a Potion of Might or a Potion of Perspective if you have the extra points on hand to make him even more lethal.

3. Last but most certainly not least, is the Jolly Roger, another support element for our army. Being 26 points, he is a cheap source of extra defense, allowing us to change one armor result to an inspire in every defense. As we know now, this combos well with El Dorado meaning we have an automatic save while in El Dorado. He can also help us get closer to El Dorado faster with his Sea Shanties ability. Familiar Tune is a good control tool to help position your own units as well as move enemy units out of position (or to be within range of Narom).

Honorable mention: Shuaavek Shotcaller for the extra damage capabilities he can bring and the stun.

Now for the example list:

This list has everything we need to run a competitive Ogre army. Rodrigo for the El Dorado passive, Jolly Roger for the extra movement and defense, Captain Narom with a Potion of Perspective to get a early kill in the first turn or two. Ackimo synergizes with Captain Narom, getting 5 ranged mastery for an increased chance of stun application. Kush Mastbearer will give the Crewman and Rodrigo 4 Ranged mastery, making their Ogre Pistols a little more consistent. With the Goblin Spotter, he also helps get the half range bonus for the Ogre Pistols. The Crewman is included to add another Ogre Pistol, and give +1 attack dice. This army will hold down El Dorado and be able to dish out serious damage.

I hope you enjoyed reading part one of the Bloodsail Ogres faction focus! I will upload part two this Thursday to discuss countering Ogres as well as how to play them in depth.