Hi everybody!

Which Orc is better, Bolg or Azog?

Should I separate the AUJ and BOFA profiles in the poll?

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When you take Azog, I think you pretty much always should take the White Warg, because it gives that extra move distance to make it to enemy heroes quicker or ones that are concealed slightly, so that you can make more use as the I am Master rule during the game, it also gives you 3 extra might points to counter the heroic strikes of heroes that want to avoid losing a combat and facing the 3+ wounds. Finally, when you charge a hero on white warg and win, you are wounding with 8 dice on 3+, as opposed to 3 dice when you charge on foot, which can pretty much be enough to take out a hero in one turn with a bit of might, as opposed to two or three turns when on foot.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Does that mean that Azog on foot is not as good as Bolg? I know that Azog has a great potential, but he is not as safe as Bolg. When you don't know what your opponent will play, Bolg might be better.

I think the problem with Azog is the fact that he needs that one big hero who he can kill in one turn. If you play against an army with a lot of cheap heroes, he is not worth his points. Whereas Bolg can kill lot of warriors and also mid-level heroes.

Do you agree with my thoughts?

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I think it depends more on the size of the game.

In smaller battles, Azog is probably better because he has 6 might (with the White warg), and his lower defense is a bit less relevant, while Bolg is unlikely to stack up the 10 kills for his special rule, but in larger battles, Bolg's higher defense will be a huge factor (Terror and Harbinger of Evil will help as well), and once he gets those 10 kills, the free might every turn will outweigh the extra 3 initial might that Azog gets.

The fastest Bolg can reach 10 kills is 2 turns (charge into 2-4, heroic combat-> kill all of them->charge another 2-4; next turn, charge 2-4 and kill them). It's actually safe to expect to get the 10 kills on the 3rd turn of Bolg being in combat if you are able to play it aggressively (sometimes it's not possible).



The wounding on 3s rule only comes into play against characters that are defense 6 or higher because he is burly with a 2h weapon, and Bolg (and the AUJ Azog) has an axe, which allows him to piercing strike up to a potential strength 8 anyway.

With 4 attacks on the charge and F7, it's pretty safe to assume you will roll the 6, and even if you don't, using a might point to win a fight when wounding a D6 or lower hero on potential 2s with 8 dice is well worth it.
It really just comes down to whether you want 6 might and can afford to have a D5 hero, or you are willing to drop down to 3 might for the D7 hero that can potentially get infinite might.

That is an interesting thought; I never looked at it that way. However, I don't know if Azog is better in smaller games, because it is less likely that he will be able to fight against a big hero. In a smaller game, he will also be a bigger part (in%) of your army. This means that ignoring him is even better than at a big game. Because a small game means (for me) 0-400/500 pts. In this game, he will be 50% of your army.
If I know the army of my opponent, I can take Azog, but for a tournament, I would take Bolg.
I have never seen anyone who gave Azog a lance, why? Wounding heroes on 2s on the charge and nearly all warriors on 4s or better seems very good.
I think that there are not much situations in which Azog is better than Bolg. As already mentioned: Bolg can piercing strike, this will make him a good hero killer. If he looses the fight, it's only a chance of 33% that his D will drop under Azog's normal D.

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He already has burly and a 2h weapon, so the lance does nothing.
Also, he doesn't receive bonuses against heroes because his special rule states that he always wounds on a 3+, and the FAQ states that it cannot be modified by any means.

Okay, that makes sense.

I noticed an other argument for Bolg, when you compare the BOFA profiles: Bolg can do a piercing strike and Azog cannot do it. This means that Azog has a disadvantage against monsters in comparison with Bolg.

Am I right or is there no pro argument for Azog apart from his M&F and the special rule?

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Well of the 2 I think in long term Bolg might be better for the following reasons (my point of view)

- got his special rule that gets the more benefits the more he kills so even killing cannon fodder just to tie him up its always a plus, to tie up azog make him eventually waste might and that comes for the 2nd point
- Defence 7, Bolg can actually afford to lose combats and still be crack to get wounded since with his high defence it can deflect quite nicely blows at him even included the random S4 armies/heroes takes some efford to wound bolg. Azog unlike Bolg with a defence value of 5 he can´t afford to lose many combats, of course he uses might points to mitigate this, but we are talking a model that for example mounted on a warg its like 1/3 more than Bolg.
- Bolg always re-rolls rolls of 1 to wound vs dwarves and elves meaning that he got a fairly good chances to wound anything at every turn if he wishes too against these foes.
- Bolg can get a cheap mount that unlike the white warg of Azog, it allow Bolg to charge elven cloak targets :P
- Visually Bolg seems far more appealing than Azog :)

If you are taking a big hero like this, you do it always to take out big keypoints. Heroes need to swing the battle in their favour at the beginning of the game. When you are already losing big time it is too late to do anything about it.

My reasons why azog is way better:
-Azog on the white warg can guaranty fast kills early in the game of about any oponent in 1 turn, this means you can stop any tactic your oponent has in turn 1 or 2. Bolg can't guarantee anything.
-the white warg doesn't easily get shot, a normal warg does. A big hero without a mount is just a waste of points.
-bolg only gets good after 3 turns of combat when you are very lucky. Most games I play, at that time you are totally disadvantaged because you are outnumbered because of that big points sink that doesn't even kill anything while on foot.
-With such a big hero, you need to win every single fight at the start of the game to make your points back. Azog can guarantee to win, bolg cannot.
-Defence makes no difference. These guys are offence and should be played like that. They should not lose a fight, or maybe a single one. Then defence 5 or 7 doesn't matter.

There are a lot of good arguments on both sides. However, let me just bring some arguments into question:

Is it a pro argument, that Bolg can only get a normal mount? Think of him on the white warg.

What do you do with Azog against a goblin horde? If your opponent does only have normal captains, Azog is not worth his points. He is also in a bigger danger to be wounded by the goblins.

Is Bolg's second special rule better than Azog's? Azog makes your whole army stay on the battlefield.

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From my experiences against them both I'd say that Bolg is my personal favourite. He's solid even on foot, S5 and Burly with an option to piercing strike still produced several dead models when he won fights: he can often kill as many ordinary models as other heroes on the charge each turn once the lines meet. However, I'm not saying Azog is inferior, it's just they're better at different things. Azog is better at killing the major heroes, but the flip side is that he's often more expensive than the big heroes he's out to kill, so the making his points back by killing another heavy hitter idea doesn't always work. Another thing to note on this same subject is that if Azog doesn't win, which against heroes around the same cost as him is NOT always guaranteed (Heroic strike being the wonderful thing it is), those heroes can often knock enough wounds off him that you have to rethink your strategy. Bolg is a bit different, being D7 is forcing even most heroes to wound him on 6's but he doesn't have the hitting power against the big heroes. I like to think of Bolg as a really big, massively powerful conventional hero whereas Azog is a more specialised hero-hunter who can still deal the damage against line infantry. I prefer Bolg because of this mindset, I go for what I'm used to

I do also think that this is best thing about Bolg.

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While I remember I think that the BofFA profiles for both Bolg and Azog are much better than their original ones, but they may be kinder to Azog. After all, If you're going to spend 225 point on Azog with the WW then you'll spend 250, it's not much to pay for 2 more fate, which is very useful for him, and a 12" stand fast in an evil army is a godsend even though you will probably have a warhorn anyway. It means that he can help your army just by being around, which helps him make his points cost worth it: with such an expensive model you want him to do something other than just kill. Bolg also got a buff, 3 fate D7 heroes are not known for being easy to take down and the Ancient Enemies rule is nice but not game-changing. However, new Bolg can get a mount, which IMHO makes him a completely superior choice all on its own, especially for a hero that relies on killing models quickly to unlock his full potential.

You are right, I think that there are not a lot heroes that Azog can kill better than Bolg.
My only problem with Bolg is that I dont like the miniature.

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Bolg is by far better. Of course youre only going to use them both in high point matches. People saying Bolg will hardly use his rule....well, if you dont get to use minimum of two of them within 3 turns of combat youre doing it wrong.

Azogs like minimum a TON of points to be useful. Off his warg, hes garbage. Shoot at him, or heroic strike till hes out of might....trap him etc and hes too soft.

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