WHFB: Ogre Kingdoms Review Part 7

Lords and Heroes.  Let's do this, shall we?  I'm not going to cover special characters because I don't care for them in my games, they don't interest me.  Either they are strictly better than the normal choices, like Teclis, or they are completely unusably over priced.  So I just ignore them.

-Lords and Heroes-

Tyrant:  The big guy.  His stat line is definitely fighty, he is a match for a Chaos Lord.  And much like a Chaos Lord, he is completely useless in competitive lists.  The reason is you simply cannot spend 275+ points on a character and equipment that won't influence the game until Turn 3.  The only other time to bring a fighty Lord is for leadership qualities, but that only works in armies like Empire and Skaven where your fighty-lords are dirt cheap.  For you fluff balls (I kid, I kid) ignore this and tool him out with ridiculous equipment like the Sword of Swift Slaying and go to town.

Slaughtermaster: 285 points for a naked Level 4 caster is about on par for other army books, except this guy gets a decent combat stat line.  Not bad.  My advice is to not be tempted to tool him for combat to make an "all arounder" Lord choice.  This guy is the Grey Knights Librarian of the Ogre Army.  His Gut Magic buffs are vitally important to the success of your Ogre Force, and you need to gear him as such.  Please see my magic item review and user comments for how best to do that.  It goes without saying that in any army of 2k or higher, this is an obligatory choice.

Bruiser: Much like the Chaos Exalted Champ and Lord, the Bruiser is the cost effective fighty character.  This guy should be carrying a Battle Standard unless you have a fantastic reason for him not to be, and he should have the Crown of Command in every case, unless you're going to put him into a unit that will already have Stubborn.  If you plan on your Slaughtermaster to reliably casting Regeneration on his unit, the Dragonhelm is a nice, cheap magic item to give him.  With Heavy Armor, Iron Fist, and Dragon Helm, he will have a 3+ armor, 4++ regen, and 2++ ward vs Flaming.  Not bad defense for your Stubborn BSB.

Hunter: A couple reasons to bring him: you want to mount a fighty character on a Stonehorn to make a uber tough deathstar point sink; you think a Sabretusk deathstar is a cool idea; you want a cheaper fighty character with cooler equipment options than the Bruiser gets and don't need a BSB in your army. 

Butcher: Look at the stat line your L2 gets for 135 points!  That's a steal.  I would almost always take one in order to ensure my L4 gets the spells her wants.  Easy choice.

Firebellies:  A pretty crap unit.  Seriously, you don't see many people in tournaments with Fire Magic, with good reason.  All the Lores have offensive spells.  The others, though, add some utility.  Fire doesn't.  Unless you are a fluff bunny or really need a breath weapon in your army for some reason, steer clear.

-Summary-

Ogres have some cool choices here.  The Hunter and Firebelly are both OK and garbage respectively from a competitive standpoint, but they have a cool factor that will get them both played.  The Bruiser and Butcher are both strong choices with stat lines that are superior for their points costs, plus they bring value to your force by being BSB and a wizard respectively.  The Slaughtermaster is just hands down great.  I compared him to the GK Librarian in terms of the utility he brings to your army, but he is actually better than that.  The GK Libby is hard to use effectively without a Land Raider or big Termie unit, whereas nearly ever Ogre Army should use a Slaughtermaster.  The Tyrant is a losing proposition.  If you want an insanely expensive bad ass beater, bring a Hunter on Stonehorn.  If you want a value choice, bring a Bruiser or Hunter.  The Tyrant really doesn't have a great purpose.