Top Tier Army #1 - Ogres!

[Dementedlytwisted]

So do you want to know what the top tier armies for WoW Minis are?


Lucky that you have found me... for I know them all

My name is Mike Bauman. I was a lead playtester for the WoW Minis game for the last two years, and now I have come to share my knowledge with you...

You will be seeing a lot of armies that use some very unique characters. There are a boat load of new cards and abilities and strategies to work with, but I have seen them all, and today you will see how one of these armies work

OGRE SMASH!
Monster 3v3 army - 19 points

Crushridge Ogre
-Boulder Toss
-Chain Lightning
-Healing Wave

Boulderfist Warrior
-Boulder Toss
-Heroic Strike
-Charge


Boulderfist Warrior
-Boulder Toss
-Heroic Strike
-Charge


This army has the highest life total in the game, and uses it to the fullest. Defense is basically ignored, and therefore at first glance the Ogres seem to be slow and clumsy, but the gameplan with these guys is to take someone out NOW! The Boulder Toss is there to soften up anyone who might be too tough for normal means, and then you smash head first with the 7 dice melee attack. If your opponent is running an armor team, then put in Heroic Strike and with the reroll from the Crushridge Ogre, you should average about 6.5 damage per attack before defense. The crit will also trigger almost every time you attack, so if you are playing on a 2 VP board, you can use the enemy as a ping-pong ball, firing the crit to send an opponent to the other side of the board, where the 2nd Boulderfist can finish the job with another 6-7 damage, leaving you with the victory points.

The clock mechanic created for the World of Warcraft Miniatures game is very interesting, but this army plans to exploit a feature of this system; the death clock. Whenever a character dies, it ticks up two turns from whatever clock it is currently on. While a 5 tick attack seems arthritically slow, it only costs about 3 ticks because whatever you hit with this attack will DIE! Then they tick up two, and by the time they join the fight, Manny and Papi are right on time to swing again. The Crushridge is there for the artillery support. any Warriors or Paladins trying to stay the course and soak damage can eat a nice helping of Chain Lightning before they take the power swing. Having a 4 tick 6 dice Lightning Blast also means that you can keep guys like Gorebelly and Hodoon down and out while the Boulderfist use the cloth wearers as Home Run Derby practice. And don't be afraid to move all in with this army, a 6 tick attack doesn't matter if you finish the game with it.

Mike 'VenoM' Bauman

Note - as a little spoiler for you guys, I'll let you in on some of the lists that I will write up each week on tuesday nights. Here's the lists for the next 4 weeks, see if you can come up with them by the name.

Next Week - Blue Man Group
Two Weeks - Zoom-a-Zomm-Zomm
Three Weeks - Extraordinaire Gentlemen
One Month - Feel the Fear

[Thirtytricks]

Seems great. My friend used a similar band against me (slightly different action bar cards). I had paladins, but I just couldn't heal enough through the onslaught, and I got completely crushed.

Ogres are serious threats. They have so much HP !

[DarkAngel1979]

The team is top tier. But the card selection is all wrong, IMO.

I hope to demonstrate at Rochester and bring back a tourney report for the site. ;)

[Dementedlytwisted]

that would be great Dark Angel. You know I will be there with the Fearsome ones duking it out.

[DarkAngel1979]

Does that mean you'll be playing the tournament(s)? I'm surprised. I know WotC has a clause in its contract forbidding playtesters and employees involved in releasing a new game/set from participating in competitive events where they'd have a substantial advantage over other players due to their intimate knowledge of the game. I thought it was a standard industry practice.

[CitizenFry]

My understanding is that such agreements usually only apply to a) current employees and b) limited events. I think non-employee playtesters are allowed to crush people at Constructed. :D

[Dementedlytwisted]

actually although UDE may or may not have those types of rules in place, they are meant to protect players at events such as Pre-releases and Release Events. Any format that we would be running in Rochester would not be held under that clause if it does exist. I do not believe that UDE has this policy but I will check my NDA to find out.

I do know that at Gen-Con there were people who were allowed to play in the Invite only Miniatures tournament that were playtesters, but they were not allowed to win any prizes, merely play in the tournament so they could get some of the first product they had worked over two years in developing.

Also, I am sad to say that due to the recent cutbacks at UDE I am not a playtester for this game anymore, although I can say that I had a hand in some of the work until the most recent cuts. (Can't say much more than that, sorry :( )

[t569ssgoku]

Agree on the miniatures, disagree on the ABCs. How did it end up going at NY?

[DarkAngel1979]

The big tourney in Rochester NY is next weekend, so you'll have to wait a few days still for a report. :)

At least three of us Montrealers doing the trip.

[Dementedlytwisted]

good to hear that you guys are making the trip down.

In playtesting (Remember this was over 10 months ago that we stopped working on set 1) The ogres had somewhere along the lines of a 75% win ratio. Now I think that due to the metagame it might be better to take Execute or Mortal Strike instead of Heroic Strike. You will frequently hit 5-6 dice anyways and you have the Crushridge's reroll ability.

[BLyons]

Not running Cleave on both Warriors in this party seems like a crime.

[Dementedlytwisted]

I took down a 2nd place finish at the Rochester Charity tournament with the Ogres and I took many of your advice to change up the cards in this army. This is what I ran in ROC

Crushridge Ogre
Boulderfist Warrior
Boulderfist Warrior

Charge
Cleave
Execute
Mortal Strike
Heroic Strike

Boulder Toss
Boulder Toss

Healing Wave
Chain Lightning

After playing a Bleakheart Hellcaller army in round 1, I had a tough matchup in round two against Namrah Irana and Graccus. I got lucky that I packed the Execute in this matchup as I was able to throw a boulder at graccus and get him down to 2 hp even though he had Blessing of Protection up. He was expecting me to use an attack to kill him and execute got in there under the BoP. After that the mages were an easy clean-up. The third round I played a Archmage Arugal army that also had bleakhearts. the game wasn't close because I killed Arugal before he went after tick 5. He got to use the Crushridge on tick 9 to make a 6 for 8 attack and kill an ogre. It wasn't enough though as Arugal was out of the game and the other ogres used a combination of Boulder toss' crit and Charge to take out the last VP's

The last round was the most interesting as I played a Mojo Shaper Oja'mon army that had 2x Mojo and 1 Morganis Blackvein The game ended 14-11 because A) I was in a hurry and picked Tanaris instead of Winterspring and B) Because I didn't pack Execute and had to throw rocks at the Stoneclaw Totem

In hindsight I would probably put in a second Execute instead of the Heroic Strike (I never even packed the card, and usually you do 6 damage per attack without it) Or maybe even pack a Grounding Totem. If Mojo Shaper's are going to be as popular as they have been this weekend, having Execute to kill off totems is a must in this army. Many people say I should have 2x Cleave but most players will not allow you to line them up twice for that attack. I won the game against Arugal because I Cleaved with one Boulderfist and he expected the face down card on the other to also be Cleave. He was shocked and subsequently killed when the card was a Charge to get into attack range a tick faster.