To Horde or not to Horde.

[Vomikron Noxis]

Sorry to dredge this one up from the depths, but it didn't seem worth starting a new topic....

I'm pretty new to Ogres and I'm thinking the Horde might just be the way to go... Thing is, I'll be playing 2000pts only. With this in mind, would you a) run a horde at this lower level, and b) what else would you include? I've been playing around with a few lists and the Horde really does eat up the points!

Lastly, as I'm a real noob, is the Horde the way to go? Or am I better off sticking with a more "conventional" army while I learn the ropes?

Cheers!

[rothgar13]

The Horde is what I'd recommend, personally, though it's more of a "I'm here to kick arse and take names" sort of army, but that's what I like doing when I play Warhammer anyway.

Now, at 2K you may find it a bit of a squeeze, because the entire kit of support units you want aren't exactly cheap. At that point, I'd suggest tweaking the approach a bit (if you still want to bring the Horde) by emphasizing certain support units (Sabretusks and Ironblasters, mostly) over others. I'd also trim the number of characters in the army so you can have a bit more room for nice things.

[Vomikron Noxis]

With that in mind, perhaps something along the following lines:

Slaughtermaster, General, Level 4 Upgrade
+  Fencer's Blades, Greedy Fist, Dispell Scroll
+  Lore of The Great Maw
- - - > 385 Points

Bruiser
+  Ironfist, Heavy Armour
+ Battlestandard Bearer, Rune Maw
- - - > 198 Points

13 Ironguts, Musician, Standardbearer, Champion, Lookout Gnoblar
+  Standard of Discipline
- - - > 609 Points

1 Sabretusk

1 Sabretusk

1 Sabretusk

2 Mournfang Cavalry, Heavy Armour, Ironfist, Musician
- - - > 150 Points

2 Mournfang Cavalry, Heavy Armour, Ironfist, Musician
- - - > 150 Points

3 Maneaters, 3 x Brace of Ogre Pistols, Poisoned Attacks, Scouts, Standardbearer
+  Banner of Eternal Flame
- - - > 206 Points

Ironblaster
- - - > 170 Points

Just a rough idea really, still with 69pts spare...

[Torga_DW]

Maybe i've missed something, but don't you need a minimum of 18 ogres (less for each character in the unit) to form a horde? 6x3 formation? Otherwise you don't get the third rank of attacks.

[Vomikron Noxis]

Whoops! Yeh you do indeed (I'm putting that down to my noobish ways...)

Ok so let's imagine I bump the guts up to 16 (+ 2 characters), how does it look in principle? Of course I'd have to drop something to get the points for the extra guts...

[Ghunter]

Maybe i've missed something, but don't you need a minimum of 18 ogres (less for each character in the unit) to form a horde? 6x3 formation? Otherwise you don't get the third rank of attacks.

Technically, a Horde formation is obtained by making 6-wide ranks. 6 Ogres on a single rank do form a Horde, but there's no benefit. Starting from 13 Ogres, you can use the Horde rules to make this 13th attack, up to an 18th Ogre.

[Vulgurth Elfnosh]

So, is there any significant benefit to adding models past the 18 threshold needed for a horde? Especially if they're carrying GW, it would mean you could absorb more casualties prior to striking.

I'm finding it difficult to get many more than 16 IG into my own list. But will the unit still be effective at 18 models, or will I lose to many attacks against the enemies opening salvo?

[Wildcard]

My own distaste for using hordes is well documented.  In ogre terms a horde always means a deathstar, simply because yo run out of places to put characters outside it!

In an ogre deathstar the characters do all the work.  They prevent your rank and file getting killed and do most of the killing.  Since this is true.....the only reason to go to the trouble of going horde is points denial.  At which points your opponents mops up around the horde while feeding it chaff and you end up with a draw. Again.

[danielking4812]

I like ogre hordes actually more than IG hordes. They cost a lot less and I disagree that it always means a deathstar, although any ogre horde is usually pretty powerful. Check out my revised horde list in the army list section.

[Sandals]

If I was to run a Horde, I think that 1) it would be Bulls and 2) it would be on it's own. I would still have my unit of 9 Ironguts for the characters to go in, making two threatening units rather than one. 18 Bulls is only 606 points after all.

Of course, the downside to this sort of build is that you don't have the points for all the toys, such as Mournfang, Ironblasters and Maneaters, but there are always sacrifices to be made.

[Wildcard]

Hordes only work if your opponent brings hordes.  If they don't play ball then any decent opponent will never allow the horde to do anything significant, and they'll mop up your chaff.

If you put together a unit of 18 bulls with no characters in it, then your low initiative and weapon skill will tell as you'll have plenty slaughtered before they get to strike back. If an opponent bothers to engage you with anything other than redirecting chaff.

Wouldnt it be better to take 2 units of 9 bulls and get around the flanks or threaten counter/support charges?  I believe that 2 units like that will be superior in the majority of situations than a single unit of 18.

As sandals says, you will miss out on the toys doing anything else, and we have too many good tools in the box to not be using them.  Bulls are not really the answer to any problem an ogre list faces.  Things like ironblasters, maneaters and leadbelchers can be.

[Shadowlord]

Hordes work, and they work well and not just against other hordes.

I can see a problem with hordes at lower points, and if, as it seems most on the web do at least, you only play pitched battle with limited terrain or terrain rules.

In higher point games with all the randomness of 8th you still have enough points to get chaff, blasters and what not.

[candycake]

Wouldnt it be better to take 2 units of 9 bulls and get around the flanks or threaten counter/support charges?  I believe that 2 units like that will be superior in the majority of situations than a single unit of 18.

Hordes work, and they work well and not just against other hordes.

Oddly enough I think both of these comments are true and to some extent depend on the milieu.

WC is a very accomplished tourney player. In my (limited) experience of that world I completely concur that a horde will get you a draw. Lots of draws. Against other experienced tourney players you are not going to get big wins and they will do just as WC says. Yes, you will get lucky or get a chumpbash and come away with a big win because your enemy miscalculated but equally you will get it wrong, get flanked by a horrible killy unit and get mullahed just as often.

In a non-tourney, fluffy, club, beer'n'peanuts, garagehammer environment a horde can do very well. I have always been very anti-horde but ran one in a couple of club games and tabled my opponent well before t6. In doing so I also came to recognise the fragility and undoubted disadvantages that the horde presents.

I am happy to take a horde now and then for a friendly but I am not convinced that I would take one to a ranked tourney.

[Shadowlord]

If tournaments apply all the variations of 8th ed there is no way a battle line/tactic will look the same in any given fight.

This is where the game differs from those who apply it and those who don't.

And where the result will look completely off interwebz strategy.

[Wildcard]

If tournaments apply all the variations of 8th ed there is no way a battle line/tactic will look the same in any given fight.

This is where the game differs from those who apply it and those who don't.

And where the result will look completely off interwebz strategy.

That being the case, surely having a more flexible list would be better then? 

[Gralph Boarbiter]

That being the case, surely having a more flexible list would be better then? 

That depends entirely on what you consider "flexible."  Is MMU more flexible than a horde?  That honestly depends on how each is built and supported and what it is facing.  Against "tough" lists, I've found that MMU really struggles because they simply cannot commit enough force to break a given point of the opponent's army.  Against lists with lots of chaff, a horde can struggle where an MMU list might struggle slightly less.

Effectively, a properly-supported list is good, regardless of your personal preference, and one that isn't supported correctly is going to fall apart.  That said, I genuinely have to wonder if the MMU-style players aren't having to go up against Life Slann and Shadow Dark Elves and Daemons with a flying Loremaster: Death and all that in nearly every game or something.  It may just be that my environment is rather magic-happy, but I've found that if you go the MMU route, it's very easy to lose 1/3-2/3 of a unit every magic phase.

[Wildcard]

I face those kind of armies at most events, MMU hasn't let me down yet.  At those same events I've seen horde players struggle.  Just calling it like I see it.

[danielking4812]

Also, with a horde, you want to not get out deployed or out moved. Mostly, I think you would just need to build around a horde. If you have enough smaller units, such as a horde of ogres, 3x sabretusks, gnoblars, and something like two units of leadbelchers, I think that it is reasonable to play a horde. Even at tourney level, if you make sure that they can't flank/ rear charge you, not much can destroy a whole horde of ogres with 1 pump from a spell from the lore of the great maw.

[Wildcard]

Yes, a horde is hard to kill.  Everything else you have will die.  Your horde will get some of their chaff, fed to it to keep it away from anything expensive.  You don't kill anything worth points either.  This is my point.

[danielking4812]

What if you have leadbelchers, though. Then they can shoot by your horde, protecting the flanks, and  shoot at people far away.

[Wildcard]

What if I don't tke a horde and double the amount of leadbelchers?

[danielking4812]

What if the leadbelchers are not that great in combat?

[rothgar13]

Here's the deal - you can't just plug a Horde into a MMU list and expect it to work. You also can't bring some borderline combat-worthy units along with the Horde and expect it to work (at least not with an Ogre Horde) - they'll just gun for those instead. The way I've made the Horde work is to bring rock-hard units along with it. Ironblasters and Mournfangs are both hard to kill, and apart from the mandatory 3 Cats and a handful of Gnoblars to keep my deployment drop total respectable, that's the only place anyone's getting any points out of me.

And the main point of the Horde is actually to deliver overwhelming force to a combat - the reason I have 15 IG's and 3 characters in there is because even against the smallest unit frontage (5-wide 20mm infantry), I'm still getting 4 of those 6-wide Ogres in base contact. A minimum of 36 attacks (without counting Impact Hits or Stomps!) tends to kill things. An Ogre Horde is arguably the most efficient sort in terms of getting people in fights. It also means you have the ability to protect your army from nasty magic better (Rune Maw), and you have ability to take some casualties on the chin but not lose the game. A unit of 9 Bulls that loses 6 of them is done for the game, unless you want to cough up those VP's; a Horde that loses 6 'Guts changes formation and keeps going.

[Wildcard]

Errr... Against 5 wide 20mm models you get 4 ogres in base contact max (3 ogres are 120 wide, plus your corner to corner on one side).  That's 6 ogres out of the fight.

If you want to do a horde, follow rothgar's advice, he knows what he's talking about .

[Shadowlord]

That being the case, surely having a more flexible list would be better then? 

Oh, I am not saying that a flexible list is the same as a horde.

I am saying that a horde works much better when you use 8th to the fullest something many tournament scenes do not.