Saramoff here with the next installment of the new Ogre Kingdoms review. We're looking at the special characters this time.
Tradelord Greasus Tribestealer Drakecrush Gatecrasher Hoardmaster Goldtooth the Shockingly Obese:
I prefer to call him King Fatty.
So, King Fatty. The rules for 8th edition made him a monster, which means he couldn't join units and got shot to pieces. Luckily, he's a monstrous infantry now. An ogre with fear and no Ogre Charge and movement 4. Oh dear, they didn't seem to change those bits.
He has decent WS, high strength, monster toughness and wounds, only I1 and A3 with no armour. He strikes at S10 and does D3 wounds, but with no volume of attacks this doesn't present as much of a threat as it should do. Then again, he can cause some damage, if he doesn't get turned to mince for being I1.
The I1 is a huge disadvantage, mostly due to Purple Suns all over the battlefield. King Fatty doesn't even have any magic resistance to help him out. He gets a 4+ ward save though, which helps a little. Unluckily, not against Purple Suns.
What does King Fatty offer his troops? D3 enemy units within 18” and in line of sight gain stupidity, which may help if you didn't have battle standard banner rerolls helping the enemy out. +1 to combat resolutions within 18” for your units and the ability to automatically rally. This might be good and certainly may remove the need for your own BSB, but your own BSB has greater protection against Purple Suns.
I'll beat this dead rhinox until the point of Purple Suns and his horrendous initiative is understood.
So far, King Fatty isn't the best of characters to use. When you check his entry, he's 545 points of “not the best character” you'll ever see. At such a price tag, King Fatty won't see many games.
You can take him if you want, and you don't even need Ironguts fielded as mandatory anymore. You pay your 545 points, take one Initiative test and remove him off the bard in 1, maybe 2 turns. Good luck fielding a slaughtermaster to help dispel that Purple Sun too, what with 545 points of your Lord allowance being taken.
King Fatty is a disappointment, especially as the new book gave him quite a cool story too. Generally worth avoiding.
Skrag the Slaughterer:
I'm gonna get this one out of the way first and say he's 425 points. And isn't too much of a waste of points as Greasus. Most notably, he has I3 as well and is a level 4 wizard.
Skrag comes standard with good combat stats, 6 attacks from a mixture of frenzy and 2 hand weapons, immunity to poison, killing blow, terror, ogre charge and the Lore of the Great Maw to back him up. Being able to unleash a lot of attacks with reliable buffs will help out a lot, but so far he's hardly making up for those points.
Skrag allows you to remove the restrictions of duplicate gorger choices and they can be taken in units of 2. Double the killing power, less manoeuvrability. On top of this, Skrag kept his cauldron so he can buff himself and his gorgers. The more Skrag kills, the better he and his Gorgers get. Obviously, this means you want Skrag in your enemies face as quick as possible.
The benefits the cauldron gives to himself and his Gorgers are actually quite good, and don't take as many kills as before. At 15 kills, both Skrag and his Gorgers have +1 attack each, hatred and regeneration. This makes them quite a potent force, as all of them will have come on board after just 1 kill.
The best way to use Skrag then is to stock up on Gorgers, have him with a good unit, rush him right into the enemy and let the slaughter commence. Gorgers, whilst not the best choice, will get a lot of benefit from Skrag's buffs as well as his area Gut Magic buffs.
Will a Skrag/Gorger army work and will you see it often? It may not come up often but it'll be a very interesting army to face for sure. Whether it can work is ultimately up to what you face and how you use your army. It will certainly have a theme of surrounding your enemy with Gorgers whilst Skrag cleaves into models left right and center.
Skrag can work, if you take a Gorger heavy army (which he allows). Otherwise, a normal Slaughtermaster covers your wizard needs.
Golgfag Maneater:
A name familiar to the more veteran players of Warhammer Fantasy, Golgfag has been in the Warhammer lore for at least a decade, maybe even two. He totals 260 points of your heroes and has the stats of a Bruiser, other than I4 and A6 (due to 2 hand weapons). He also sports a BS4 Ogre Pistol and Light armour.
Easy Come, Easy Go means you get 2d6x10 points of free magical items to gear him with, ranging from 20 points (a potion of strength or something similar) to 120 points (whip out the Argos catalogue) to take at your leisure. It simply says magical items, so whether you're restricted to the generic items of the Warhammer Rulebook or even items from the Ogre Kingdoms book, will need clarifying. Otherwise, you get a random selection of points to work with. Be sure you know what you can get for what points, as to best equip him in any level of luck.
His boys, Golgfag's Maneaters, are properly trusted by your allies and they too trust them as well. They also steal Stubborn and Vanguard. At first this doesn't seem too bad but it means you're now with a Vanguard unit that doesn't have the other skill needed to harass warmachines or hunt wizards and you can't decide on any other rules if you take Maneaters, and you usually will. It also means you can't give Vanguard to another unit, as if you did take 2 you'd potentially have a combo of Vanguard/Sniper and Poison/Scouts for wizard/harsassment duties. All in all, it takes away from the flexible nature and makes, if you take them, a unit of Maneaters, less flexible.
Luckily, it's optional so you don't really need to care. Only if you're allied, and even then you probably won't care.
The question right now is if he's worth those 260 points over a regular bruiser. He's not vastly overpriced and the dot of initiative and extra attack is handy, and you do have a chance for a lot of magical item points to make up for it. If it wasn't for those, he probably would be a bench warmer without a doubt.
He can work and he certainly can get a whole mess of items but at the same time, if you roll snake eyes you're up a creak without a paddle and only a potion of strength. He's expensive for what he does, but not Greasus level expensive. You won't be horribly gimped by taking him but you can do better elsewhere. Just be mindful that a Tyrant is 205 points, and Golgfag is 260 and he takes up a precious hero chunk of points.
Bragg the Gutsman:
On the other hand, you have Bragg.
Bragg is a 210 point bruiser, and although he's meant to be horrifying he only causes fear instead of terror. He has the exact same stats, same light armour, in fact a lot of him is the same.
Then he has this weapon called the Great Gutgouger.
It makes him strike at one strength higher (S6 in his case) which means he essentially has a Sword of Strife. Not being worth just 20 points, the only way Bragg could cost so much is if this weapon cost another 85 points. For 85 points more, in a challenge you get Heroic Killing Blow and anything Bragg kills in a challenge forces that unit to be disrupted.
That's it.
85 points is not worth Heroic Killing Blow of all things. The disruption would be nice, but not for 85 points. Ogres did need a challenge based hero, but at the cost he asks from your hero choices you'll be hard pressed to consider him a good choice.
Bragg is a disappointment, as he looked to be a great challenge-type hero. At his cost however, he's not going to be worth it, especially when you could just take a bruiser. Bragg is unfortunately not that good and if you do have his model, it's at least a nice thing to paint up and put on your shelf.
