Ogres are the ultimate oxymoron team. On one hand, you have super strong, super tough Ogres who can deal damage and block off significant parts of the pitch. Then on the other, you have the weakest player in Blood Bowl, with a measly strength 1 and pitiful AV6+ that makes Halflings look durable! Together, however, they make for a very challenging yet fun Tier 3 team to play, where your Ogres dominate the fighting game while your Gnoblars run around the pitch like annoying little gnats.

Along with Vampires they are, arguably, one of the harder teams to manage. Most teams take at least 4 Ogres, which means you’ve got a minimum of 4 Bone Head rolls to make every turn and you’ll often find that those 1s come at the worst times in the game. The lack of Loner helps a lot, but this is a team that is very dependent on removals to push the game their way and with Bone Heads dropping your tackle zones, even just one Ogre rolling poorly can mean teams will easily get past your lines without even having to make a Block. The Gnoblars are, while annoying to put down, pretty much useless outside of being used as assist/screen pieces or being thrown/kicked across the pitch. AV6+ will break more times than not and while they’re cheap and easy to replace it’s not uncommon for you to be down players even with the Ogre’s Might Blow. Tackle is your absolute bane as well as it means their only means of defence is countered. Titchy/Stunty is a good combo all things considered but the former does mean than AG2+ teams will run rings around you more so than usual.

That being said, they’re a fun challenge and if you can get the momentum going with the Ogres you’ll give yourself a good chance. As mentioned the Gnoblars are pretty irritating top put down early on without tackle as Dodge/SideStep is a great combo.

So before we dive into the Ogre Starting Rosters for Blood Bowl 2020, let’s check out the differences between this edition and the old one!

Ogre Blockers: Exactly the same as the old Ogres, nothing to see here!
Ogre Runt Punter: New Ogre Positional with the most hilarious name in the book I think. Basically the same but for 5k you get Kick-Team Mate. They were added just before the new edition technically but worth mentioning nonetheless.
Gnoblar Linemen: These things went DOWN 5k! Sadly they don’t get the Swarming rule their Snotling cousins have despite an otherwise identical stat line, which is a shame as it’s such a fun trait.

ReRolls: Same cost.

The other change to think about is the addition of Low-Cost Linemen, which basically means the team doesn’t count the Gnoblars initial fee in their overall Team Value. You still need to pay the gold for them and any skills they get (haha!) will be calculated, but it means this team is going to be getting some mad inducement money, so bear that in mind as we go through the builds below With that, let’s look at some Ogre Starting Rosters!

Ogres for the Ages, 4 ReRolls | TV1000 Ogre Starting Rosters:

This is a variant on the old ReRoll heavy build, with four ReRolls to help mitigate the most inopportune Bone Heads as well as to make sure you actually pick up the ball! Four Ogres is probably the minimum I’d go for with 3 Blockers and a Runt Punter to give you a very nice amount of S5 Mighty Blow and a chance to YEET the ball into the Endzone for a last chance TD. 

With the 5k drop in cost for the Gnoblars, you can actually grab 2 more for your troubles, giving you a bench of 3. This means you can be a little more liberal in your fouling (really the only thing Gnoblars are worth for!) and it means you won’t be quite as far behind when they start dying in droves. Low Cost Linemen also means you’ll be getting 155k in Inducements, (150k worth of Gnoblars + 5k cash) which can either go on a Bribe + Keg or Hireline Sports Wizard. A special mention has to go to Riotous Rookies for 100k however (grab a Keg to go with it!), giving you anywhere from 3 to 7 additional players, meaning you can quite liberally foul, throw & punt Gnoblars to your heart’s content without much cause for concern. Your only Star Player choice at 150k is Helmut who is fine, but I’d rather the Rookies or Wizard.

Going forward, an Apothecary is going to be your next purchase. Ogres are tough but it’s not impossible to break their armour, especially as you start to see Claw or MB on your opponent’s teams and at 140k they’re not cheap to replace, especially as you’re not going to be gaining an awful lot of cash by scoring TDs. After that, more Ogres is never bad but it’s going to depend on if you want less strength, for fewer Bone Heads.

Ogre or Nuthin’, 1 ReRoll | TV1000 Ogre Starting Rosters:

If you want to start with every Ogre available, then this is the one for you!  It’s not particularly optimal and will be a pretty hard challenge due to having so much Bone Head and only 1 ReRoll, but you’re starting with the maximum amount of power available to you. Low Cost Linemen means against a TV1000 team, you’ll be netting 85k in Inducements plus your 10k cash, giving you 95k to spend which unfortunately isn’t going to get you much that’s useful. I’ve never been hugely keen on the Coaches/Cheerleaders, so really you’re looking at getting the Keg, which might keep a few more Gnoblars around, then the Weather Mage which is very fun indeed, but can just as well harm you as well as hinder your opponent.

Still, 6 Ogres is nothing to sniff at and makes for a pretty hard wall to get around. You can begin to mitigate the amount of BH rolls you make but having 1 or 2 Ogres that you just don’t activate that turn, using them as just Tackle Zones while you choose the other Ogres to do some punching with. 

It’s not the best build, but it might be the most fun and you’ll just have those games where BH doesn’t come up very often, MB does work and you’ll find yourself dominating the pitch. You just need to make sure you save that RR for the most crucial moment!

Going forward, you’ll definitely want to grab more ReRolls and the Apo when you can.

Ogre’lings, 4 ReRolls | TV1000 Ogre Starting Rosters:

Something I’ve learned while playing Halflings, a team not dissimilar from Ogres, is Star Players really can help you. With ‘Lings it’s all about Deeproot, he’s almost essential, to the point where you purposely go 400TV below everyone else to get him. So, I wanted to see if you can do something similar & fun with Ogres.

To start with I’ve kept 2 Ogres & 4 ReRolls, the Ogres there to give you SOMETHING to worth with other than just Gnoblars and in many ways act as our 2 Treemen. Unfortunately, the Chef is still 400k for Ogre teams so considering we have Low Cost Linemen, we’ll just pay the 280k to get us the 4 RR’s we need really. This leaves us with 440k to spend, which we’ll use to buy 12 Gnoblars, which gives us 260k in cash + 440k in Inducmenets for a total of 700k for the first game! Thankfully Expensive Mistakes comes AFTER the game so you’ll have all your spare cash to spend freely for the first game.

For that, well Morg n Thorg is an obvious choice with his nasty MB+2 and for the first game, you can also grab Deeproot to pair up with him, giving you some serious removal. Griff Oberwald isn’t a bad shout either at 280k and gives you a decent chance at actually scoring some TDs! Stuff like Bribes, Wizards, Riotous Rookies and even Josef Bugman are good shouts at the lower end costing Inducements.

You will, of course, have less as you go on and really you might want to slowly transition into getting more Ogres as you go, but for the first few games, you can really lean hard into mass inducements.

Gnoblars Only, 4 ReRolls | TV1000 Ogre Starting Rosters:

14 Gnoblars and no Ogres….Y’know, if you’re a sadist or something…You get 2 spaces for Star Players I suppose…

Ogre Starting Rosters, Conclusion:

Ogres feel like they could be a pretty good Tier 3 team in the new edition, especially thanks to Low Cost Linemen giving them access to plenty of much-needed Inducements as they go. They’re still very much a team of two extremes and often games will come down to how well behaved the Ogres are but they’re a fun challenge and a worthy one to try out! 

Anyway I hope you enjoyed this look at the Ogre Starting Rosters, we’re nearly done with our 2020 guides, so check them out, if you haven’t already. With the release of Season Two now, there’s never been a better time to get into the game and brush up on your team builds for those new leagues!