I have been a bit slack lately with gaming reports, busy with work and moving offices (and towns), and getting my place in Timaru ready to rent out.
I've finally achieved my goal after 14 years of moving to our bach at Kakanui near Oamaru and have transferred to our Oamaru office so now instead of a 5 minute bike ride or 10 minute walk to work I now have a 15 minute drive or 30 minute bike ride (on my new e-bike purchased for the commute).
There could be worse commutes than following the stunning North Otago coast in the morning.
I had to pop up to Christchurch for a weeks training for work at the beginning of December so arranged a couple of games of Kings of War vs Martin and Mark. I stayed at a hotel in Cathedral Square. It is now 11 years after the devastating earthquakes the Cathedral is still a ruin, though work is now being undertaken ot repair it. the central city had emerged new and envigorated and unlike the previous version designed for pedestrians and has a really nice vibe about it.
The site of the fomer CTV building where the bulk of the fatalities occured now a memorial park to the victims.
My army had been tweaked post Conquest incorporating some of the changes from Clash of kings 2022.
- 1x Boomer chariot regiment
- 1x warrior regiment
- 2x boomer regiments- screeners and chaff
- 1x Hunters horde
- 2x Siege Breakers
- Manny the Mammoth- the big deal.
- 2x boomer sergeants
- 1x Beserker bully
- 1x Nom Nom.
Some interesting changes. The warriors replaced the beserker braves frm Conquest- having decided the Def 5 and melee 3 would be more handy.
The boomer chariots have stealthy and this has proved a real boon vs shooting in the games I've played with it and has been invaluable because of this.
Manny- brutal 2, very inpsiring, Manny is the brains behind the whole ogre outfit.
Game 1 vs Martin.
We played ona 3ft wide board so only had a narrow deployment zone which really worked in my favour vs a crap load of Dwarf hordes! At Oamaru Onslaught Martin deployed his war machines behind the dwarven hordes but this time he wouldn't be able to. This battle was push. I put my tokens on my siege breakers on the far right, Martin put his tokens with his crossbow horde and only late in the game relasied he couldn't win as his crossbows were stuck near his baseline while the siegebreakers had pushed over half way. I managed to roll up the dwarves on the hill on the right and rolled up the dwarf line to take a 4-2 victory. It was a good fun game, and thoroughly enjoyed the change to catch up with Martin again.
Games 2 vs Mark's Abyssals.
I didn't know what to expect from the abyssals so was quite wary of it. It is another beautifully painted army of Mark's. We played Salt the Earth.
The demons were quite a combined arms force with some heavy hitting units, some shooters and various flying demons. It ended up a bit of a bloodbath but in the end we managed a 2-2 draw, thanks mianly to Mark forgetting that he went first and so failing to protect a key objective on the final turn. As so often happens attrition of units slowly wore down the ogres and I ended up just hanging on for the draw. It was a very close game and nice to get in another game in vs Mark. Once again Manny performed well and was MVP.
Mark got behind my line with one of his flying demons.
Nom Nom, chariots and boomers did a 180 degree turn and blew it away with some focused fire.
Game 3 vs Gordon's elves- invade.
Gordon has finally retired his invincible dwarves (I am sure he is feeling sorry for Josh and I) and trying out a few new armies, including elves. this army was a beast, lots of shooting, 3x bolt throwers and various units of elf cavalry. The army had tabled Josh's goblins a few days earlier and so I was a little wary.
As with the last couple of games I was relying on the boomer chariots stealth to protect my main units form shooting but I got over confident on turn 1 by leaving a unit of siege breakers in the open and so Gordon promptly hit them with everything including the kitchen sink (bolt throwers) and I only just kept them on table thanks to Gordon failing to get a 7on the 2nd nerve test. The siegebreakers were then healed by Nom Nom but spent quite a bit of the game wavered.
My main aim this game was to avoid the elves shooting as much as I could. Gordon tempted my hunters to charge some silver breeze and then shot the hunters off the table. Gordon used his nimble cavalry really well, taking out my chariots and only some clever use of Nom Nom to block some of the cavalry stopped hm once again rolling up my flanks. In the end though the ogres managed to just get more points over half way on turn 6 but of there was a turn 7 then the elves would probably win and luckily the ogres rolled low.
Those bolt throwers were a real beast to face- three of them were a really nasty threat!
The elves shooting phases were pretty dangerous but the ogres just hung on for a win. It was a good fun game vs a very mobile army which was quite dangerous on the table top, and my first victory vs Gordon n a long, long time.
I was down to using characters to block charges in the last turn or so.
Game 4 vs Gordon's Brother hood
I made a couple of changes- dropping the hunters that haven't performed that well for a horde of bog standard warriors (Def 5), adding a sacred horn to the boomer chariots and swapping a boomer sergeant for a warlock with a conjurer's staff.
Gordon has been very busy rebasing mini's and tried another new army today- the Brother hood wtih 5x nmounted regiments and 2x infantyry legond + various characters and a phoenix. Another new army full of stuff I've not fought before but after 15 or more games with the ogres I feel I am getting more able to using them effectively. I still make plenty of mistakes but have a fairly good grasp of their strengths and weaknesses.
We rolled and got the Kill mission and so to me it sounded a lot easier for my ogres than an objective mission, especially since Gordon had 5 units of cavalry and/or knights. Having been outflanked time and time again I decided to turtle up and defend a single table quarter vs the brotherhood to try and minimise the opportunities for the knights to outflank me.
Gordon's army lacked shooting but had plenty of healing and managed to heal most of my damage, it wasn't unit the 4th turn we had a hand to hand combat. Gordon was worried about my defence in depth and I mainly wanted to avoid his being able to turn my flanks and hoped to take out a couple of units if I could. My boomers and his knights ended up in a stale mate most of the game as Gordon was concerned about the threat of a siege breakers counter charge while I knew that if I advanced too far forward the knights mobility would potentially unhinge one of my flanks and it would be game over.
As you can see I gave Gordon free reign over the table.
A very nice model subbing in as a phoenix.
A stalemate developed till turn 5.
I pushed forward the boomers but worried about his knights 16-18" charge ranges.
At the bottom of the screen my warrior regiment took out a unit of lesser knights (mounted villiens) after rolling some outrageous dice (7 hits from 9 needing 5s!)
The warrior regiment and chariots countercharged a legion of infantry and finishedthem off when Manny charged in the rear.
Maybe not our best game when it came to action but I wanted to test the tetsudo defence vs mobile armies and it worked well. Gordon played a lot more restrained than he normally does so it was a bit of a game of cat and mouse.
Final thoughts
I am really happy with how the ogres have been performing lately and feel I am getting to grips with them. They hit hard but are also very fragile to attrition and shooting, so the boomer chariot is a welcome addition to mitigate that a bit. Even so I often am struggling to keep my units alive later in the game so and rarely feel that I have things completely under control, one good round of shooting or melee can be very dangerous so it is never an army I feel is dominating the game.
My favourite units:
Boomer regiments- everyone takes hordes but I like the flexbility of regiments and they screen my harder hitting units and can act as chaff. They always perform well.
Warriors- both regiment and now horde. Great value (for ogres). I like the defence 5 and melee 3. Not a flashy unit but dependeable.
The mammoth with the big deal- damn good value upgrade. The rampage D6 is the icing on the cake as far as I am concerned.
Siege Breakers- they are damn solid game after game and usually one of my toughest units.
Boomer sergeants- No inspiring but damn, I love 8 shots with piercing 1!
Craig
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