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Author Topic: Trying to make Ogyrns viable  (Read 1455 times)

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Offline Calamity

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Trying to make Ogyrns viable
« on: May 6, 2016, 04:40:19 PM »
I know I said I gave up the Forge, but it's hard to walk away completely.  And I thought that this topic was good enough to instigate a possible return to it.  I'll use the levels of response to this conversation to decide if I should finally give it up or not.     

I have some ideas to try and make Ogyrns a viable choice in an IG army.  The three big issues with them are:

1. They're way too damn expensive for what they are and what they can hope to achieve.  They are, in my opinion, one of the most overpriced units in the entire game.  And that bothers me because I believe that IG units should be, with a few exceptions, dirt cheap (and very 'basic' too in comparison to other armies units in order to justify that).

2. They lack an effective delivery system.  They're too big to fit into transports in decent numbers.  So they usually have to walk it.  Which, considering that they have pistol range weaponry at best, means that they are easily avoided and are rarely were they need to be.

2. They aren't very good.  They're marketed as this super tough and very strong melee unit.  But they aren't tough.  High toughness and wounds aside, their average armor save let them down.  And they aren't strong in melee.  They don't have any MEQ killing weaponry, and a lot of their attacks will be blunted by armor saves.  They have poor leadership, so they're easily pinned or routed.  And this is assuming that they even get into combat in the first place, which is difficult as outlined by point 2.

So how do you make them worth taking?  Here's my suggestions:

1. Give them a massive points decrease.  I would say, 20pts per model for basic Ogyrns, 35pts per model for the power maul and brute shield Bulgyrns, and 50pts for the slab sheild and grenadier gauntlet Bulgyrns.  With Bone Heads being an extra 10pts.

So now, a basic unit of Ogyrns is only 70pts.  Cheap enough to consider taking for fun.  You can use the points you get back now to either buy them a transport or increase the squad size to a number that makes them a threat.  Since they're a slow unit with no shooting attack and no MEQ killing weaponary, that's why I suggested this price for the Maul Bulgyrns.  Finally, the slab shield Bulgyrns become the most expensive because they're the most 'strategic', with the sheild wall ability benefiting your army as a whole.

2. Increase the range of Ripper Guns to 24", and change the abilities of slab shields to:

A model with a slab shield increases its armor save by 1, and units add 1 to their cover saves from bulgyrns with slab shields.  In addition, if a model with a slab shield is in base to base contact with another model from the same unit with a slab shield, it adds +1 to its toughness.

What are these two changes about?  Since ordinary Ogyrns are not a decent melee unit, one way to make them actually useful is to re purpose them as a shooting unit.  The ripper guns on the new plastic models to me look more like a machine gun than a shotgun when compared to the old metal versions.  Especially due to the way they are held.  And with a decent range, they can now reach out to strike enemy units, which makes up for their footslogging slowness.  A big unit of them could be used to camp around an objective and ward off fast moving units like Jetbikes.

As for the slab shields, it's stealing the DA's ability yes, but I think it makes sense.  Plus, a basic unit of them would now be Toughness 6, with a 3+ armor save and 9 wounds for 160pts.  That would really make them like a mobile Aegis wall!  This is why I suggested the points increase and to make the slab shields the upgrade option rather than the power mauls.  And they really are a stone wall unit because their shooting attack is rubbish and they won't inflict that much damage in cc.  It would mean that the IG would finally have it's 'bully' unit (like dreadnoughts and monstrous creatures) that can really take ground and force the enemy back.  Which is good because we're slow as hell.

Some other ideas I pondered was to give Ogyrns Smash, so that I'd be giving them MEQ killing power weapons without giving them MEQ killing power weapons, you know?  But this is way too OP.  Another idea then was to give their melee attacks the rending rule, to represent the Ogyrn just tearing the target apart with their immense strength.  But it seems a bit clumsy to me.  And another feature I think the IG should have is masses of low to no AP weaponry, so I'm fine leaving this feature out.  It makes Marines better, as it should be.

Thoughts?



« Last Edit: May 6, 2016, 10:30:14 PM by Captain Calamity »

 


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