Idea – 12 model ogre ambush army

Last year during Clash of Kings everyone -and their mother- was playing an ogre army. I seriously estimate the amount of ogre and nightstalker armies to be half of the player base. – And they did well. Not entirely, due to this success, I have thought about starting an army myself, but always resisted to join the bandwagon.

Fortunately, the 8×8 or 9×9 ogre armies got nerfed in the Clash of Kings book afterwards. Explanation: in the 2022 army lists, ogre warrior regiments unlocked unlike normal large infantry. This gave rise to a new army build: take as many warrior regiments as you can, each unlocking a monster or character. Most armies took 8 warrior regiments and 8 characters for a 16-drop ogre list. Others took 18 drops by taking 9 regiments and 9 characters. In the Clash of Kings 2023 supplement this change was partially reversed by limiting the warrior regiment unlocks to 3 per army. For the sake of the game, a good change.

For Ambush, however, nothing has changed! Warrior regiments (any large infantry regiment, actually) unlock, but getting more than 3 regiments in would be a challenge.

Ambush

We tried Ambush once last spring. I was sceptical at first, because: tiny armies and so on. Instead of being right, I was pleasantly surprised! I played 5 battles in an afternoon with plenty of downtime and the battles were tactically interesting. Yes, it’s not as balanced as 2,300 and yes, a single dice roll can derail a game, but being able to play 5 games in an afternoon is a great boon too! Here’s a couple of pictures from said day, including my 7-ear old daughter piloting my Basilean army.

The success means that we’ll be playing ambush more often in our gaming group. 750 points is a great point level which limits things like dragons in favour of smaller armies. Of course, there’s units that are downright nasty @ 750 points such as the general on winged beast or hydra, but we took a gentleman’s agreement not to take more than one such unit.

Why the ogres then?

Recently, my goblins got finished. The process of building this army took over two years and I’m not gonna do such a large project again soon. While mailing with a mate of mine, the subject of ogres came around and we discussed the options of building a low-model count ogre army.

With the start of Ambush, starting an ogre force became even easier! In this challence, I thought up two 12-model ambush armies:

Option 1: Bue-gres option 1:

• Warrior regiment (3 models, 120 points)
• Warrior regiment (3 models, 120 points)
• Hunter regiment (3 models, 135 points)
• Sergeant, crossbow (130 points)
• Warlock, lightning 3 (95 points)
• Warlord, crocodog(165 points)

750 points

Option 2: Blue-gres option 2

• Warrior regiment (3 models, 120 points)
• Warrior regiment (3 models, 120 points)
• Siege-breaker regiment (3 models, 150 points)
• Berserker bully, blade of slashing (140 points)
• Goblin blaster (65 points)
• Warlord, crocodog(165 points)

750 points

Both armies feature two regiments of warriors led by a warlord.

The first army choses hunters to park in terrain and uses shooting to create some battlefield dominance. 5 shots and lightning (5) is enough to deal with light units, which you will see in Ambush.

The 2nd army trades the hunters and the shots for another big hitter, the bully and a squad of high defense siege breakers. The army is rounded out with a goblin blaster, a war machine that does either of two things: blow itself up with a dud or obliterating whole battlelines. In the oge army, the blaster can hide behind the large dudes to prevent being shot at.

I think the 2nd army is more hitty, while the first is more flexible. And as the difference is 5 models (of which I already have one), I will probably paint both.

when, then?

Eventually. Once.

Currently, I painted up a single model for testing. As I wasn’t too happy with the results, I’ll probably redo it one time. The models still need to be printed. At least 11 of them.

And then, maybe, when and if i’d like….