I met a new friend who plays Ogres and we had our first game the other day. I am used to playing wit WAAC players, some of whom delight in destroying others. It was refreshing to play against this chap as he is truly in it for the fun of the game. Having suspected this, I made a solid list without going overboard. His list could have been more competitive, but he refuses to use mournfangs. He even called them broke! I like this guy, so we had a fun battle.

2000 points I had:
The Unkillable Lord & BSB (RGromil, RPres) in a unit of 27 Hammerers
39 GWpn. Longbeard warriors
20 Longbeard Rangers with TAxes
A Cannon- Engineer, forging, reload, and fire runes
25 miners, no upgrades

He had:
Slaughtermaster with Shattering Sword thingy- 6+ ward and breaks magic weapons and some other stuff. He was Equipped with a bound fireball spell and Ogre lore.
Hunter on a flying carpet
Hounds x2 (did not join hunter for obvious and no scout rule or anything)
2 units of 9 Ogre bulls
1 Unit of 7 Ironguts, with hugeweapons and magic standard of coldness.
5 Leadbelchers
Hugo the Giant

I deployed the rangers in the tower to take advantage of their axes but he always seemed to be half an inch too far the whole game. His shooting was deployed opposite and I decided taking out the leadbelchers was a priority then the giant.

I never got the chance as I rolled a misfire on the cannon turn one. Rerolled thanks to the rune and misfired again. I rolled on the chart and got a 1, then proceeded to use the Engineer's ability to roll a 2 and blow my only arty to pieces. I felt much better the next turn as he used my tainted guest artillery dice and misfired with two of his leadblechers killing 2.5 of them just to take out some of my rangers.

My opponent was new to 8th edition and his Ogre book. I was teaching him all along the way. He started laughing that I knew his army better than him thanks to employing Dogs of War in my Empire days. Giant mechanics are tricky to learn and remember when to test fall downs and such. He was aware of supporting ranks and was delighted when I pointed out monstrous infantry get 3 support attacks rather than one. :thank_you2: He got to roll twice as many dice as expected and I got to feel good about teaching someone the ropes and being honest.

I took a fireball and lost one Hammerer in order to dispel his regen/toughness spells. We waited for them as their leadbelchers continued to inflict self-casualties. My miners did not enter until round three and I put them on the board to protect Flint and Hammerer company's flank. They held up very well thanks to some bad rolls. He cast the Great Maw nuke spell on a 27 by using all his dice the next phase. I luckily dispelled it with 3 box-cars, but we worked out what would have happened just for fun. The great maw would have eaten most of my Hammerers in one gulp were it not for the scatter dice.

Having failed to reach me I got in my charges and rolled well, matching up against his units and performing admirably in combat. He only lost the combats by 5 and 8 but stayed with one unit using his general's leadership. The horde chased after the Bulls with a mighty 3" to 13. :dwarf:

Meanwhile, the hunter had been hanging out at the Chaos hill of statlines and randomly received +3 to his attack profile. Confident in his killing ability and new to 8th edition as my friend was, he proceeded to charge my horde and go squish. Additionally, his leadbelchers destroyed themselves this turn, making me feel better about my cannon and Ranger casualties.

His Slaughtermaster joined the combat and faced Admiral Flint Ironstag. (Unkillable Lord) As the build did not allow for a magic weapon his magic weapon eating sword got thirsty. It still gave him a ward save and extra strength, but was dissapointed as its other ability is to restore lost wounds vampirically- but we all know how many wounds he got off the Unkillable Lord build. He took three of five wounds as the BSB Snorri Mrk-III and the hammerers beat on the ogres. I managed to block the troll guts and toughness spell at the expense of letting his spell through giving +1 strength to all friendlies within 12". I took casualties because of this but still beat him in combat thanks to our superior weapon skill diminishing his attacks.

My miners fled after taking out a bunch of Ironguts. They actually were a good match except for what I think was eight attacks coming from the sabertusks. I made up for it by finishing off his Slaughtermaster and breaking the unit by 9. Many Hammerers died to bring us this combat victory. My Horde proceeded to chase the other ogres off the table in the proceeding rounds. I messed up the map as they had reformed to 5 files but still dished out the Longbeard S6 of hurt.

His Ogres rallied as the sabertusks and Hugo charged into my unit, killing off the hammerers and leaving two independent characters to duke it out. Snorri Mrk-III wounded the Sabertusks and Flint fended off being eaten in one gulp, leaving one wound left on the giant.

On a possible charge, I charged the ogres with the Horde wich they fled from automatically off the board, awarding me VPs. Meanwhile the battle went on- next

The sabertusks and bulls were diestroyed causing the Ironguts to panic and run. Meanwhile, Hugo managed to pick up my Unkillable Lord and kill him- throwing him into Snorri Mrk-III and killing him. The giant rules are unmerciful that way. :rtfm: :secret:

So there you have it. Sorry the text doesn't match the pics so well, but you get the idea. It was a victory for me and victory for both of us as we had a fun we had not had in a long time. Fie on Waac players when you can just play for the fun of it. :yes:

I'm going to try to get him to make a little more competetive lists, but if games continue to be lighthearted like this, I may get the chance to field my Gyrocopter and Slayers.

Now I need to type less, and play/paint more! Cheers to my Dawi brethren. :beer1: