Animosity - The Bane Of Greenskins,, one out of six times...

Alright, so we've had the book for well over a year now, and I want some feedback on this subject from you lot.

When the book arrived, I was relieved to see that they changed the animosity rule, even though they hadn't quite changed it the way i had hoped. It's still not a LD based attribute, and the results can be equally devastating, now that charging often isn't the thing a greenskins general wants his troops to do.

So how do you find that the rule works? I personally still find it terribly irritating. Not because my orcs charge off, but because they charge of nearly no matter what I do... The're is hardly any tactical way that I can reduce this factor, it just randomly determines that I loose 1/6 games, because my greenskins suddenly charge of. Had they made this rule LD based, or just granted some bonus for having a normal hero/lord in a unit, I would have been far more satisfied.

And.... How do you deal with it?? -Any tips and tricks are welcome.
- I personally often have two main blocks. One of black orcs, the other with a black orc character.

- I know that some people turn their chaff around whenever they move them forward to block units, simply because squabbling is better than charging of.

- Does anyone have success with just living with it, and always expect that you units charge of? And if so, do you always have a backup plan? Cauz usually, a disrupted battleline is just a certain loss in my book...

- Also, do anyone use two orc shamans, simply to ensure that you get hand of gork? cauz that seams like another way to ensure that squabbling units still get where they are supposed to... It doesn't help if they charge something though...

I agree with you. Animosity can be a real pain and sometimes you can lose cause of it. There aren’t much ways to avoid it. You have BO characters, but they are too expensive. Other way is what you said, use your own chaff, or even redirectors to avoid the charges when you don’t want to do them. This is better with goblin big bosses on wolf, as wolf riders suffer from animosity too! . The best way to move with this army, is to have a plan B if the unit you want to move (or not) and be prepared if that situation comes real next turn.

Changing a bit the rule would be enough, because is a bit unfair to do marches when you don’t want or stop in the same spot doing nothing. I think it could be this way: if you fail animosity (1 on a D6) you are forced to charge or to move and then charge as usual, but if you have a champion, big boss or warboss in the unit, he can hit some guys and put calm and do whatever you want (similar as BO characters, but with base strength of the character with highest Ld, for example). That way you let move with more freedom certain units. Also, BO characters could make a unit have a free normal movement if they fail animosity. Just some ideas .

There’s no excuse for a change in animosity. Some of you might remember when beastmen have the “indiscipline” rule. They had to check Ld to see if they could move. Now look their ability, if they pass the Ld in combat each combat, they have hatred! What the hell? . So my opinion is that it could be a change in animosity rules, without ruining OnG movement phase as it does nowadays.
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About the orc shamans, you can still use a L4 instead of 2 L2. You can include in your army a little bunker of 10 BO, so you can avoid animosity. I’m a big fan of using 2 L2 shamans, but in my all-goblin army, as the cast value of the spells you need is lower and you have mushrooms!

I like it. I'd prefer some more variation in the results on the animosity chart, but it's OK like it is. Sure it screws up plans, but I'm quite OK with that even when it's infuriating.

Theo

As the competitive gamer that I am, Animosity is the reason O&G is never going to be my army of choice at anything above the club tourney level. Unreliability is a recipe for disaster at a GT or any other venue with serious competition. If it must be kept around, I'd rather have it be a Ld test, so it can be somewhat mitigated by savvy army construction.

Well I like it when the orcs screw up and do something unexpected as well, IF it is because I haven't done my playing right. If my deployment saw my blogs away from general and BSB, or if i wasn't carefull and got my characters killed. Then it would be fun and full of character as well (no boss, no control).

This, more or less. Except I don't like it even at a friendly level. I feel the animosity rule could be implemented in a fun and unique way that isn't designed around frustration.

If animosity is such an issue then stock up on black orc characters, it's just part and parcel of our army. Trolls, A-rocks, giants, chariots etc all dont suffer from it, its just our big blocks of troops. In my tournament army I have one unit of SObigunz with a blorc BSB, a unit of trolls & a block of steadfast NGs as my big blocks. Out of them only the NGs can fail, and I dont really care. Out on the flanks its small squig herds which is fine too, the biggest annoyance for me is when my diverting wolf riders go flying head-first into my opponent's armies, giving them an overrun and wasting a diverter! For this reason I take a lone character on mount too just in case I need to off-set, hell often if the unit is forced to overrun (frenzy) it can turn out decent for me as I can force the unit to present a flank!

Arfa da Grate

The way I have been playing recently is with a plan that every unit that can take it will fail it. This means tiering up charges, blocking my own LOS and making sure my chaff does its job. It is slightly unforgiving but it has worked so far

Most people tend to forget that something that you can´t rely on is something your opponent can´t rely on too. Back in the days I played a couple pc games on a so called pro gamer level and the most annoying thing is an opponent or opponents who have no real plan. It wont win them games but playing vs "professionals" means you can predict many things they will do and from what they do I can foresee what they will do/what their overall plan is. No back on animosity: Animosity means, your opponent cant be sure you wont do "stupid" things. So he have to include some random movement/charges into his planning. So in the end it comes down to who is better to manage unforeseen things like a charging orc mob where no charge seems to be happen. It influence the O&G player more than his opponent but you have more experience with it because you have to "work around" it in every game.

edit: My experience so far is at least funny to say so and besides my BO´s everything can be the affected by animosity. But I like it somewhat, since I try to play mindgames a lot.


This post has been edited by Wechselbalg on Jun 14 2012, 04:32 PM

Well it's more like he will never take into account that you will at some point shoot yourself in the leg, but eventually you will and then he's giving the double thumbs up

This post has been edited by Squigkikka on Jun 14 2012, 04:47 PM

here's my trick just roll for the unit that must stay and attack! i have never rold 1 for the first one but most of the time the middle is like 4-3-2-4-6-and then u have 1, 1 in ur pool and if it's not ur main unit who cares and sometimes ur lucky and even throw a 6!

I agree with Wechselbalg! Sometimes, animosity make us do things that we should not do. Like charging when you need 10-11-12 or charging a redirector unit...

We only need a little luck to get this 10-11-12 to complete a super charge, to destroy the chaff unit and overrun in a unit, to roll 6 after the animosity fail to move another 4 inches and complete a charge... Maybe Mork is on my side but I don't feel that animosity is that bad.

I always put a black orc with my main shaman though... you don't want to skip a magic phase.

I just HATE that they FAQd away the ability to "animosity-charge" after vanguard moves.

If that was possible, animosity would be my friend.

what do you have in your army that can vanguard and that you want to charge anything???

I admit, I am one of the few people who run 10 Wolfs with spears....
I vanguard them close to chariots, warmachines, chaff, razorgors, small flanking units etc.

Its not that I am overly excited about charging with my wolves, its just that it beats sitting still and getting punked.