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Orcs & Goblins Army Book Questions

Suggested Changes to the Ogre Kingdoms Army

by Avian

The Ogre Kingdoms army probably holds the record for the army book that was out the shortest period of time before players started suggesting improvements to things they thought was sub-par. Here is my take.

 

Contents

Army list entries

Other stuff

 

General changes

Armour options
It seems to be a new trend with recent army books to do away with options for body armour and only allow shield upgrades. I have reflected this by removing these options in all the below entries.

Champions
I feel that Ogre champions are quite overpriced for what they do and to rectify this I suggest increasing ogre and yhetee champions to WS4. This follows the trend with Orcs and Beastmen and also provides a link to the Maneaters.

 

Army list entries

 

Characters

Tyrant
- Basic equipment includes heavy armour instead of light for no cost increase
Comment: See comment on armour upgrades above.

Slaughtermaster
Fine as they are

Bruiser
- Basic equipment includes heavy armour instead of light for no cost increase
Comment: See comment on armour upgrades above.

Butcher
Fine as they are

Hunter
- Basic equipment includes throwing spears (count as javelins) for no cost increase
Comment: Apparently, the option to move and fire the harpoon launcher is out of the question, but the Hunter comes with spears on the model and would benefit from a BS4 S5 thrown weapon.

 

Units

Bulls
- Basic equipment includes light armour for no cost increase
- Ironfist option increased to +6 pts
- Crusher gains WS4 for no cost increase
Comment: See comment on armour upgrades and champions above. Over all, I don't think the armour justifies an increase in the basic cost, as unless you also buy an Ironfist, light armour is not particularly good.

Ironguts
- Gutlord gains WS4 for no cost increase
Comment: See comment on champions above. Overall, Ironguts are a decent unit and don't require much work.

Gnoblar Fighters
Fine as they are

Gnoblar Trappers
Fine as they are

 

Leadbelchers
- Thunderfist gains WS4 for no cost increase.
- A Misfire only inflicts D3 hits on the unit, rather than D6
Comment: See comment on champions above. It's rather sad, but with the chance to cause Panic on themselves due to a Misfire in 7th edition, I feel that firing the cannon is a bit more risky than it deserves to be.

Yhetees
- Gain +1 Attack for no cost increase OR base cost reduced from 65 to 55 pts
- Greyback gains WS4
Comment: See comment on champions above. The main problem with Yhetees is that while they can get places rather quickly, they struggle to achieve much when they get there and suffer from being horrendously expensive

Scraplauncher
- Counts as a monster which causes D6 impact hits when it charges, rather than a chariot. Note added that enemy attacks are resolved against the Rhinox's WS of 3. No cost increase.
Comment: Good overall unit, but completely waste against anything with S7+ war machines. These weapons inflict multiple wounds for a purpose and don't need to kill a Scraplauncher easier than a Goblin Big Boss!

 

Maneaters
- Comes with heavy armour instead of light. Base cost increased from 80 to 84 pts
- Add option for additional hand weapons (+4 pts), flail (+4 pts) and halberd (+6 pts)
Comment: See comment on armour upgrades above. Maneaters are a nice unit, but could do with more options.

Slavegiant
- Throttle with chain attack swapped for Smash with chain attack, which relies on a failed Initiative test rather than a Toughness test (i.e. the same as other Giants get). No cost increase.
Comment: Lack of Stubborn fits with the background and everything, but the unique special attack makes him worthless against bigger foes.

Gorger
Fine as they are

 

Other stuff

Since there is a lot of other stuff, I shall only list the ones I think require improvement.

 

Gnoblar attendants

Sword gnoblar
- Attacks from a Sword gnoblar are Armour piercing for no cost increase
Comment: These are currently pretty much useless. A slight increase to reflect that a gnoblar often has a chance to stab from below, where it hurts the most, makes them slightly better.

 

Big names

Mountaineater
- Change minimum roll needed to wound from 3+ to 4+ for no cost increase
Comment: Nobody ever takes this, because it only works against things with S7 or more, of which there are very few. At least now it also has an effect on S6 attacks.

Deathcheater
- Change it from only affecting one model in base contact once per game to all models in base contact once per game for no cost increase
Comment: I was stuck with this crappy Big name for an entire campaign season, giving me ample time to find out how useless it is.

 

Magic weapons

Sword of Striking
- Cost reduced from 30 to 25 pts
Comment: As a rule, the common weapons are way more expensive than they are worth.

Sword of Battle
- Cost reduced from 25 to 20 pts
Comment: As a rule, the common weapons are way more expensive than they are worth.

Sword of Might
- Cost reduced from 20 to 15 pts
Comment: As a rule, the common weapons are way more expensive than they are worth.

Biting Blade
- Cost reduced from 10 to 5 pts
Comment: As a rule, the common weapons are way more expensive than they are worth. Considering that an Ogre club does the same, this is especially true for the Biting Blade.

Skullplucker
- Cost reduced from 30 to 15 pts
Comment: For a weapon that is worse than a basic club against almost everything, this is way too expensive. Even at 15 pts this may be overpriced.

 

Talismans

Cathayan Jet
- Cost reduced from 30 to 20 pts
Comment: Seriously overpriced as it was.

Spangleshard
- Cost reduced from 30 to 15 pts OR to 25 pts and change the required roll to equal to or hgiher than the to wound roll, rather than just higher
Comment: Rediculously bad item. Is in no way worth the cost as it is

Talisman of Protection
- Cost reduced from 15 to 10 pts
Comment: As with a lot of other common items, this one is not worth the cost.

 

Arcane items

Grut's sickle
- Cost reduced from 35 to 15 pts
Comment: Paying 35 pts to transform wounds (which you have already paid a lot for!) to Power dice just isn't worth. Not by a long shot.

 

Enchanted items

Brahmir Statue
- Change to giving everyone -2 to psychology tests, rahter than -3 against Chaos and Skaven for no cost change
Comment: Crutch items against specific armies are stupid, they just encourage players to tool their armies against specific opponents.

Rock Eye
- Cost reduced from 20 pts to 10 pts
Comment: Pretty worthless and in no way worth 20 pts. Ruleswise it falls into the category of stuff you spend spare points on, since it doesn't actually do anything, and I think the price should reflect this.

 

Magic standards

Ragbanner
- Cost reduced from 35 to 25 pts
Comment: For the same cost, the Kineater Big name is far better, even if it eats out of your General's magic item quota. I don't think I have actually seen anyone take this banner.

 

Of course, the trend in army book rewrites is equally to drop items that don't work at all and introduce new ones instead of reducing the cost, but I will not go into this here.

 

Other related articles

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