Bretonnia finally get a Big Guy! It only took for them to get completely renamed and redone for them to get it!

Well, the Imperial Nobility Ogre is pretty much exactly what you’d expect it to be, with identical stats to its Human equivalent, costing the same amount and pretty much doing the same job you’d expect it to do. The main difference is it has some slightly different support units around it compared to the bang average Human Linemen, but when it comes to skilling them up, well for the most part you’re going to be going along the same lines as with a Human team.

It is, first and foremost, going to be as a centrepiece of your team which you pivot around, using it as an anchor as you move up the pitch to create space and hopefully deal some damage. Bone-Head isn’t the worst of the nega-traits, but you’ll need to be keenly aware of when to activate him or when to leave him be and just let him be a wall of strength with live tackle zones.

Randomised Skills:

Random skills on Big Guys are a big no for me, simply as they require very specific skills to increase their usefulness. The Strength category for Primaries isn’t all bad if you feel the urge but for me, I’d rather just wait and get what I need. It might be worthwhile to roll later on after they’ve already got a few skills and the pool is smaller, but by then you’ll already have a very expensive piece.

You’ll likely be choosing the General category for Secondaries and again there’s a lot of stinkers here for an Ogre that just won’t get used.

The Anchor | Imperial Nobility Ogre Build

Primaries: Brawler, Guard, Stand Firm, Break Tackle
Secondaries: Block, Dodge
Characteristics: ST

This guy is your typical “stand in the middle and punches things”  Big Guy and for that, you need him to be a tough reliable piece that’s hard to move and hard to knock down. With the new SPP system, Block is now always going to be priority number one for me. 12 SPP is a lot, but it’s as cheap as you’re going to get and hopefully with Mighty Blow, you’ll grab a few CAS’s and perhaps an MVP if you’re lucky.

There’s an argument to be made to get Brawler first and honestly it’s very tempting, to the point where I’d say if you’ve stuck on 6-8SPP and starting to see a few Block Linemen appearing on the rival LoS, grab it for sure. It’s a fantastic skill and one of my new favourites and will allow the Ogre to deal with those Block pieves better and when it’s combined with Block itself, he becomes that much more reliable.

Guard & Stand Firm are another great combo, making your own LoS pretty tough and hard to hit. Break Tackle of course great on a Big Guy and while isn’t as good as it once was, he’s essentially dodging as an AG3+ piece which will be very useful in a pinch.

Dodge if you can save up for it us very useful, comboing with BT and just making him hard to put down. It’s going to be expensive by the time you get round to it, likely being your 5th/6th Advancement but it’s very much worth it if you can get him that far.

As for Stats, well obviously Strength 6 is awesome as it allows you to freely 2 Die other Big Guys, or get 3 Dies with just one assist vs Strength 6. If you manage to get that far and don’t quite roll high enough, MV never a bad shout. If you managed to roll a 14, the AG is the way to go, as combined with Break Tackle means you’ll be dodging on a 2+ and you can pick up the Ball, if you’re feeling frisky!

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As typical with Big Guys, there tends to be only one way to go with them, as that big piece in the middle that puts the hurt on and gives your team some room to manouvre. There are no Right Stuff players on Imperial Nobility teams so unfortunately there’s no TTM shenanigan builds we can look at. Really the biggest change between this edition and 2016 for the Ogre is the inclusion of Brawler, giving them a very rare built-in ReRoll without the need to worry about Loner. It’s such a good skill on these guys and it’s hard not to recommend it over Block as the first skill, but the latter is cheaper in the first advancement so, it’s worth gabbing that first instead.

That’s it for the Imperial Nobility Ogre Build! Head over to our Noble Blitzer, Bodyguard, Thrower & Retainer Linemen builds for more BB2020 fun!