O&G ..should I bother?

I am now the owner of several Night Goblins and O&G fast cav.. woot, I think

Between a crazy miscast table and Animosity I'm a bit hesitant to build and paint such a force, but here are my initial thoughts towards 2250:

Warboss
lvl 2
lvl 2
lvl 2
6 units of Night Goblins
4 units of Fast Cav
4 Bolt Throwers
2 units of Squigs
Doom Diver
GIANT

..so more Goblins than Orcs, but huge infantry blocks that are not ASF, 4+ Ward, Fear, ItP or Hate everyone pretty much suck imo. The Night Goblins are just Fanatic delivery systems. Bolt Throwers and Doom Diver for all the big nasties. Fast Cav down the flanks. Squigs for needed ItP and crazy majik all over the board. Finally, a missile magnet GIANT

Will it work?

man thats a ton of 4 pt minis to paint,but any player hates fanatics,twirling death.spider riders are good for the fast cav(poison attks is always good)
while im not a O+G player,i have played against them alot.You have more shamans in yours then ive seen before.the 100 pt sword is awesome for your warboss .bolt throwers just plain kick azz in my point of view.
I,d say it would work ---ne ways theres a fricken giant in there and those are fun as hell.Most tourney lists ive seen have 2 giants and 2 fast cav. one of each on both flanks with the bulk in the middle.
i,d say its worth it even if it becomes just a fluff.

JJM wrote:

i,d say its worth it even if it becomes just a fluff.

I think that sums it up rather well.. best to stay away.

I found a real nice statement on another site in regards to O&G which pretty much sums up my feelings..

Quote :

Even to a player who does not "need" to win, they are frustrating. I like many aspects of Warhammer, from the dark humor to the brutal sadism of some race, from the painting of hordes to the detailing of one command model, from the planning of a strategy to the gratification of seeing it work out. Orcs satisfy many hobby needs, but in the game itself they are a big green ball of frustration. I don't "need" to win, but winning is, plainly, more enjoyable than losing, all other factors aside. When you lose because your otherwise well devised plan is derailed by animosity or stupidity, it take you "out of the game" so to speak, and reminds you that the army was playing you, not the other way around.

Personally I feel that O&G are simply the most fun army to play in fantasy and have far more variety than you can see with any other army (21 different unit entries not counting Big 'un upgrades and gear options? Yes, please!). I'd say from your post, though, that they simply won't be your cup of tea. If you're interested though, you should check out the O&G boards (just google "Da Warpath"). The board is an absolute treasure trove of tactics and army building advice.

Admittedly though, a truly "well devised plan" for O&G is all about using enough redundancy that you can afford to botch a few animosity rolls. 1 unit set up to flank-charge seems to always fail, but 2 set up to flank-charge will rarely both squabble. It's like crying that you lost due to bad luck when you botch a big LD 9 test (3 LD9's in a row and you have a case for bad luck). You're more likely than not to pass it, but if you didn't have a plan for the eventuality of failing it, then your plan was too weak. Sure, an extreme run of bad luck can shut down your entire army, but that's true for any army. A well built O&G army with plenty of cheap redundant units and careful unit placement can be even less luck-reliant than many armies out there, but achieving this takes a heck of a lot of skill (more than I can muster most days!).

The army composition you are considering honestly looks like it will result in a pretty frustrating game for both sides. Over-usage of fanatics tends to annoy the heck out of most opponents and unlike other annoying things that some armies will spam, fanatic spam tends to result in your army being slaughtered 2-3 turns after they all hit the table (the enemy army has taken heavy casualties, but isn't wiped out and all you have left to finish them off are the surviving "fanatic delivery" units.) Also, most players plan for fanatics and can frequently draw them out on the first turn with cheap flying troops, fast cav, or scouts. This leaves your main offensive punch spinning around killing your own units and splatting on terrain/eachother while the enemy slowly advances to you (or worse yet while you advance through them). Heavy magic/ranged sounds good on paper behind a wall of fanatics, but O&G ranged tends to miss too much to focus on and O&G magic tends to lose too many spells per turn to get through a decent magic defense due to squabble/miscast-deaths/situational spells. There are quite a few strategies for O&G that lead to more enjoyable games and lots of nasty uses for fanatics, but spamming fanatics is best used for ticking off somebody that you hate to play against, especially if you don't like being taken "out of the game".

Thanks for the reply.. well said..

I have found that yes you do need a redundancy at least with the fanatics but I think that you can mix it up quite well and and still have a successful game/army.
The main thing is to not worry about Animosity, it's going to happen... and when it does it will most likely annoy you, but if you understand that it is just apart of what your army does then there should be no real issue.
I do not recommend taking an O&G army to a tournament if you have only played a couple of games as the likely hood that you will miss something is great.
O&G magic is great and there is no such thing as too many of these little buggers... ok some redundancy here but Seriously its all good! Especially when you steal one of their casting dice each time and use it to dispel their stuff. Even the Lizardmen have trouble keeping up with being able to cast all their spells vs. Gobbos!
I do not disagree with anything that was mentioned above about fanatics coming out and even killing your own guys but as long as you anticipate taht happening you should be good to go!
Take some units that dont squabble and kick butt like Squig Hoppers, Giants, and for the love of god make sure you fit at least 1 rock lobba, Bolt throwers are nice I like them but I prefer my Lobbas because of my accuracy in guessing, The throwers work pretty good though not knocking them...
Spiders and Wolves Good flanking and very maneuverable use them to slow the buggers trying to get away from the fanatics!!!

All I ask as I have said play at least 2 games with the O&G and then make a decision!

makari wrote:

All I ask as I have said play at least 2 games with the O&G and then make a decision!

I know, I know..

..but look at what I could do with all those Night Goblins Sean

Tzeentch Horrors
..cute little itty bitty wizards running around

I like my OG army. But I've never played with anything else and am whopping 1-1-5 playing with them. I'm kinda a quirky gamer though. Animosity, stupidity don't bug me very much but fantasy isn't exactly my main system to play. If it was I probably would be a tad more annoyed with the mechanics.

OMG i love the horrors idea...they look really cool and soo appropriate considering the casting properties of the squad. I play daemons and wish i would have tought of this. Alas I have to use all my goblins in my chaos dwarf army