Total War Warhammer 3 Ogre Faction Guide

Welcome to part 1 of my Total War Warhammer 3 Ogre Faction Guide. Now the Ogres were released in Total War Warhammer 3, and they are very different from how regular factions function in building buildings in settlements.

If you are a beginner to the Total War Warhammer series, you should check out our series of beginner guides here: Total Warhammer 3 Guide for Beginners.

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Intro

So the ogre faction has some differences from other races. The roster selection is mainly made up of Monstrous Infantry, with only Gnoblar units that are regular infantry.

Second, many Ogre units have the Ogre Charge trait, which means that when they charge into an infantry unit, they will knock them around all over the place.

This means that in battles against the AI, they can be straightforward to use compared to other factions because they handle enemy infantry well.

One other exciting thing about this faction is the plethora of ranged units. Most of these aren’t available early on, unlike in other races, but they have a good selection from Maneaters (Pirate Ogres) with Ogre Pistols to Leadbelchers, which are Ogres with massive hand cannons.

They also have two types of casters: a hero called a Firebelly who has access to the Lore of Fire and the Slaughtermaster (Lord) and a Butcher (Hero) that can either have Lore of Beasts or Lore of the Great Maw.

They also have a unique resource called meat that they must manage. Each army has an upkeep cost in meat; if an army runs out of meat, it will start cannibalising itself and suffer attrition.

This is where the unique camps feature comes into play, so we will move on to the next part of this guide which is how Ogres handle settlements.

Settlements

So this is where the Ogres are different from other factions in that all their settlements (even province capitals) behave like minor settlements, so they only go up to level 3 and only have three slots available at level 3.

So to get access to level 4 and level 5 buildings, you must get those from camps. So camps cost 2000 income to create, and there is a maximum number of camps you can have that increases as a result of technology upgrades and via the upgrade tree for lords.

Now camps are vital for this faction for a few reasons. The first is that when you create a camp, it can supply meat to all armies within a certain radius, which means that while a lord is within that radius, he won’t have an upkeep cost for his army.

This allows him to stockpile meat for later expeditions. Now, losing one can be nasty because you depend on these camps to attain level 4 and 5 buildings.

Also, generally, the very first camp you build will be the one you will use to get access to higher-tier troops, and these camps don’t have garrison buildings.

You garrison these camps by having a lord move units from his army into the camp. The camp has a maximum limit of 19 units and heroes per standard army.

So effectively, these camps have a lot of slots, so you can think of them, especially the first one you build, as your capital that you must defend at all costs.

Generally, you want to build these camps in places near where you are waging war with a faction, but generally, the first one you place is more important to create quickly to help with that meat shortage you will have at the beginning of the game.

Meat

Now meat must have its section as this is the limiting factor of this faction. Now it’s thematic because Ogres are very mercantile, so they generally do everything to benefit themselves, and food is a significant factor in Ogre’s lives.

I think meat is required to keep this faction balanced in the campaign. So generally, when you first start the game, you can run out of meat very quickly if you are not careful.

This is especially important when you have multiple lords, as each lord must ensure they have enough meat individually.

Now, as I said before, camps completely cover a lord’s meat upkeep allowing you to stockpile meat, but there are also settlement buildings that increase your meat generation and tech tree upgrades.

You can also get meat by defeating enemy lords and settlements, and when you have beaten an army, one of the options allows you to turn the prisoner into more meat.

Now I often turn prisoners into the meat as keeping your meat in the positive is vitally important.

Now meat seems to be more of a problem in the early game than in the late game, as by the late game, you have upgrades that mitigate the meat cost substantially. But keep in mind that with the ogres, if you have a lord sitting idle, they should be seated within the vicinity of a camp, so they are stockpiling meat.

Also, apart from your first camp, feel free to disband camps to move them elsewhere as needed.

Managing and defending your empire.

Ogres have very few problems with income in my experience, primarily due to some of the tech tree upgrades, and if you are playing Greasus Goldtooth, you get more income bonuses.

Ogre units are generally expensive to recruit, and you probably won’t have many armies with them due to the meat cost.

But the armies that you will have will be mighty. So, with your settlements, you get Ogre Bulls going all the way up to Ironguts at level 3, a tremendously solid front line of ogres that, with Greasus Goldtooth, are cheaper than the level 2 units.

You also get Sabretooth packs going up to hunter heroes at level 3, so you will probably have access to many hunters very early compared to other heroes.

Sabretooth packs are your generic warbeast units but are a bit tougher than warhounds, furies or fell bats from other factions.

The hunter hero also has upgrades that can improve them, including giving them vanguard deploy, which can be great for getting them and the hunter behind enemy lines.

The other units you will get are from your camps. Now one fascinating thing is that the ogres have a tech tree upgrade that improves ambush chance by 25%, which is substantial, and I think the hunters can also enhance it further.

So one fundamental thing you should think about with ogres is army composition. Because ogres have so many options in the late game, including a fair volume of ranged units and even one artillery unit, you can create different armies for different situations.

The first army you create will probably consist of ogre bulls backed up with gnoblar trappers and a few sabretusk units.

Now you should keep the gnoblar trappers in to make sure you can attack flying units but apart from that, this makes for a great rush army, especially if you are playing with Greasus Goldtooth and have a formidable frontline of Iron Guts at a cheap upkeep cost.

I will call this an excellent ambush army that benefits from ambushing enemy armies. This is especially useful when playing against factions that favour ranged combat. It removes their ability to shoot at you because you start close to the enemy army.

The other advantage is that it allows you to pick your matchups ideally, so this is an example of an army you could use in the game. It gets much better when you replace the sabretusks with mournfang cavalry or even crushers.

Another army idea for players is an Ogre ranged army consisting of Maneaters, Leadbelchers, and Scrap Launchers and their other ranged options. If you’re playing this army, you probably don’t want to ambush your enemy unless you are playing a divide-and-conquer strategy.

This army wants to shoot into the enemy, but one advantage of it is that it’s not that bad in melee either compared to missile troops from other factions.

So that’s one excellent thing about the Ogre faction is their flexibility which makes them similar to the Empire and Kislev in that their unit roster is quite versatile.

Contracts

We will finish up by discussing contracts. So, the contracts mechanic is unique to the Ogres in that every ten turns, ogre players will be offered one of three contracts involving attacking a settlement or lord or taking out a hero.

These contracts generally have three benefits: they raise relations with the faction giving out the contract substantially, provide you with extra income, and often have some other kind of benefit like a rare item for completing them.

Now you don’t have to pick a contract, and there doesn’t appear to be a time limit on completing them except that if the faction offering the contract is destroyed, the contract will fail.

Now only factions that are not at war with you will offer contracts, which is why you probably don’t want to be at war with every faction around you, at least in the early game.

Intro

Settlements

Meat

Managing and defending your empire.

Contracts

Links