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In the third article in this series I said that the fifth final instalment of the OnG in 8th series would focus on the Lords and Heroes, and I wasn’t lying. I’m going to ignore special characters, and instead spend all my time on the generics. Not because I personally hate SC’s, it’s just that by and large I don’t find them interesting. They are either unplayable or incredibly broken. Plus, in keeping with greenskin fluff, the generics are quite numerous. As a result of their plurality, I’m going to keep each entry somewhat brief, sticking to a focus on their role in the army.
The first up will be the tried and true Orc Warboss. This guy is a quite a beast for a mere 115 points. He provides a nice leadership 9 aura, which is nothing to sneeze at in an army that suffers from Stupidity and/or Frenzy in a lot of it’s key units, and low leadership in the other. His advantage is his cheapness, he is the cheapest Orc lord in the book. In a chariot spam list, his cheapness when mounted on a chariot is pretty nice. Mounted on a Boar, he becomes a pretty cheap killing machine. You might want to avoid tooling him up with too much equipment and magic items, since you’re buying him for cheapness and leadership ability, not because of magic swords.
Savage Orc Warboss. I’m not a fan, honestly. A lot more expensive for an extra attack and a 6++ ward. Killy characters at the Lord level are stupid wastes of points anyway, so spending an extra 40 points upgrade from a normal Warboss on a killy character is dumb.
Black Orc Warboss. Are you worried about animosity? And do you want the absolute killiest Warboss you can kit out? If so, this is the character for you. For everyone else who actually wants to win games with cost efficient units, you can safely skip this lower echelon option.
Goblin and Night Goblin Warbosses. I kinda like these guys. Give them a 50 point Goblin chariot and a great weapon and you have a pretty killy unit for around 120 points. No real reason to use them instead of the hero level characters unless you’re out of hero level points.
Orc (and Savage) Great Shamans. Here we have the generic upper tier Orc casters. Are you in love with Big Waaagh! Spells? Me neither. Especially avoid the Savage Orc Great Shaman, because while the 6++ ward is nice for 5 points, you never want Frenzy on a caster. It may not happen often, but charging into close combat against your will with a Lord level wizard is usually a precursor to losing the game.
Goblin Great Shaman. The one, and only, reason to take this guy over the NG Great Shaman is to take the Arachnarok Spider as a mount. That’s more of a fun choice than a competitive one, ofcourse. But enough people do it that it bears mentioning.
Night Goblin Great Shaman. This little guy is one of the cheapest L4 Wizard Lords in the game and gets Magic Mushrooms, which basically makes him a little mini-Slaan. Yes, that’s an exaggeration, but it’s still a huge advantage. This is the default L4 wizard choice in the book, and unless you have some pretty amazing reason to buy a different this will be what you go with. His only drawback is he can’t take any kind of mount, but usually that isn’t an issue.
Orc Big Bosses. The normal one has cheapness going for it. The Savage one has killing power going for it. The Black Orc has defensive and leadership ability going for it. Since the best use for these knuckleheads is being bearing the battle standard, I am partial to the Black Orc for the BSB due to his defensive capabilities and leadership role. When building one for killing power, ala chariot spam or mounted on boars, go with the vanilla and Savage respectively.
Goblin Big Bosses. I love these little guys. Less than 100 points each mounted on a wolf chariot with a spear. Not a bad purchase once you’ve maximized your Specials chariot choices. The other mount options are rather ‘meh’ though.
Night Goblin Big Boss. 34 points with a great weapon. Buy 5 of them. The entire front row of your Night Goblins are individual characters who have to be singled out in close combat who hit with 3 str 6 attacks each, not to mention the guys with spears hitting from the 3rd row. This also means your casters will go in the second row of the unit, so if anyone wants to get to your casters in close combat, they will have to throw some serious firepower at the unit. And thus, the Night Goblin-star is born. Probably the best magic bunker that OnG can take.
Orc Shamans. Pass.
Night Goblin Shamans. Tremendous value thanks to magic mushrooms. The ability to generate extra dice for your casting attempts means you can dominate the magic phase by pushing through multiple castings of Sneaky Stabbin’. There are very few OnG lists that don’t want multiple copies of that spell cast per turn. These extra dice chew up your opponent’s dispel dice, and allow your Great Shaman to push through the bigger spells with greater ease. Again, they can’t take a mount, but you don’t need them mounted anyway when they are safe and sound inside the Night Goblin-star.
Stepping back, what do we have? Effective- but cheap- casters. Cheap, killy characters. And decent enough variety to support both fluff/theme lists as well as competitive lists of nearly any sort. There is a lot to like in this section of the book, and frankly some of the options are so attractive that it can lead you towards going a little too top heavy in your army construction. When constructing your OnG lists, remember to buy your characters after you buy the Boyz and the Toyz so you don’t over load your list with characters and neglect the guts of the army.
