Rethinking Our Orcs & Goblins: an all-infantry experiment?
We spent part of the weekend doing one of our favourite Warhammer things: staring at army lists, second-guessing old choices, and trying to work out whether a weird idea is genius or completely doomed. This time it was all about Orcs & Goblins in Warhammer: The Old World, with Stas digging through notes from previous games and trying to rebuild the list from the ground up.
What kicked this off was a mix of old experience, fresh list-building thoughts, and one of those tiny rules rediscoveries that somehow changes how we look at a unit.
Dropping what didn’t work
The first clear conclusion was that some previous picks just weren’t pulling their weight.
Stas is pretty sure he’s done with the Night Goblin Boss on Giant Squig as BSB. In practice, it just didn’t work out the way he wanted. If the list includes a Battle Standard Bearer going forward, the current thinking is much simpler and much sturdier: put the BSB with the Black Orcs.
That feels like one of those classic Orcs & Goblins list-building lessons: fun options are everywhere, but not every fun option survives contact with actual games.
Night Goblins are still tempting
At the same time, Stas still wants access to Night Goblins with Fanatics. That means unlocking them properly, so instead of taking a Night Goblin Boss, he’s leaning toward taking a Night Goblin Shaman instead — partly because that also lines up with advice from a video he’d watched before and is now revisiting for inspiration.
And honestly, that sounds very relatable to us. Sometimes the best list-building progress isn’t finding a revolutionary combo, but finally accepting that the boring-sensible option is probably the right one.
Too many options, very Orc problem
Then we got to a very Orcs & Goblins kind of dilemma:
- boar units?
- chariots?
- more infantry?
- artillery?
- a bit of everything?
As Stas put it, one of the coolest things about Orcs is that there are so many options — and one of the hardest things about Orcs is also that there are so many options. We know that feeling very well. A book full of toys is great right up until you actually have to commit to a list.
The funny rules rediscovery of the day
Then came one of those moments that makes army-building chats worth it all by itself.
Stas suddenly realised again that Night Goblins have one less Leadership than regular Goblins — which he already knew — but then immediately had a much bigger revelation:
Night Goblins aren’t Impetuous?!?
Which led to the equally good follow-up exchange where Michał basically reminded him that, yes, apparently he already knew that too. Maybe even taught it to him at some point in the past.
We love this kind of hobby conversation because it’s so real: half of playing long enough is rediscovering rules you definitely once knew with complete confidence.
Looking back at game notes
The more serious part of the discussion started when Stas went back through his rough notes from Dragon #3. Those notes still need cleaning up before they become a proper write-up, but even in raw form they pointed toward some strong patterns.
The early conclusions were pretty blunt:
- the Doom Diver always dies because it’s such an obvious high-priority target,
- the boars always die because opponents really don’t want to allow a flank charge and will commit their own cavalry to stop them,
- the Black Orcs almost never make it into combat.
That is… not exactly a glowing review of the list elements that are supposed to provide pressure.
And that led to the big experimental question.
What if we just stop pretending we’re fast?
Instead of trying to include fast units and artillery that keep getting neutralised, Stas started wondering whether the answer might be to go in the opposite direction entirely:
forget speed, forget artillery, lean into infantry, and just wait for the opponent to come to us.
It’s a very bold idea, and also one that immediately raises a lot of doubts.
Even Stas was quick to point out the obvious problem: this probably sounds much worse into armies like Dwarfs or Wood Elves, where the opponent is perfectly happy to keep distance, shoot, and punish a slow advance — or even punish not advancing at all.
Still, as an experiment? We think it’s a genuinely interesting direction.
The experimental all-infantry draft
Here’s the draft list Stas posted into the chat:
++ Characters [611 pts] ++
Black Orc Warboss [312 pts]
(Hand weapon, Full plate armour, Shield, General, Wyvern, Biting Blade, Talisman of Protection)
Black Orc Bigboss [104 pts]
(Hand weapon, Great weapon, Full plate armour, Battle Standard Bearer, On foot)
Orc Weirdboy [65 pts]
(Hand weapon, Wizard [Level 1 Wizard], On foot, Battle Magic)
Night Goblin Oddnob [130 pts]
(Hand weapon, Wizard [Level 3 Wizard], On foot, Illusion)
++ Core Units [470 pts] ++
11 Black Orc Mob [166 pts]
(Hand weapons, Full plate armour, 6x Shields, 5x Great weapons, Boss (champion), Standard bearer, Musician)
10 Orc Mob [102 pts]
(Hand weapons, Additional hand weapons, Frenzy, Warpaint, Big Stabbas, Boss (champion), Standard bearer, Musician)
30 Night Goblin Mob [202 pts]
(Hand weapons, Shields, Netters, Boss (champion), Standard bearer, Musician, 3x Fanatics [Fanatic ball & chain])
++ Special Units [166 pts] ++
11 Black Orc Mob [166 pts]
(Hand weapons, Full plate armour, 6x Shields, 5x Great weapons, Boss (champion), Standard bearer, Musician)
And yes, as Stas immediately described it: an experimental draft, all infantry.
Well… almost. The Warboss is still on a Wyvern, so this isn’t exactly a static brick with zero mobility. But the core idea is clear: stop spending points on support pieces that keep dying before they matter, and instead put more weight into solid blocks and characters.
Is it a bad idea?
That was the direct question in chat, and we don’t think there was a definitive answer yet.
The most sensible response was probably Ender’s: it needs testing on the table. There was also a comparison to a video series about building up Dwarfs from 500 to 2000 points, where the early versions reportedly skipped gyrocopters and artillery and leaned more heavily on infantry, with only some shooting support.
That doesn’t prove the Orc list works, of course, but it does support the broader point that not every army has to start from “take all the obvious toys.” Sometimes a focused concept is better than a diluted one.
The biggest concern: getting trapped on the flanks
The real worry came up a bit later, and it’s probably the key issue for this whole experiment.
At 1250 points, opponents are much more likely to have access to a proper mix of tools: cavalry, artillery, mobile threats, and enough board control to create awkward situations. If we bring basically no fast elements and no ranged pressure, do we just accept that our infantry blocks can be boxed in and threatened from both flanks?
That’s the heart of the problem.
Against Dwarfs, there’s an extra layer of pain: their infantry can still shoot effectively, so they don’t need to close the distance in the same way. An all-infantry Orcs & Goblins list may be trying to play a waiting game against an army that is perfectly happy to punish waiting.
So the question becomes less “is all-infantry funny?” and more:
- can the list control space well enough without cavalry or chariots?
- can Fanatics and unit placement discourage flank pressure?
- can the Wyvern create enough threat on its own to stop the opponent from freely dictating the game?
- and are we actually fixing a problem, or just replacing one set of bad matchups with another?
Where we are now
Right now, this feels less like a finished list and more like the start of a proper experiment — which is honestly our favourite stage of army-building.
We’ve got a few working assumptions:
- the old BSB setup is probably out,
- the Night Goblin Shaman is probably in,
- Fanatics are still attractive,
- some previously automatic inclusions may not actually be worth it,
- and the “just bring more infantry” plan might be either a clever reset or a glorious disaster.
Which, for Orcs & Goblins, is a very appropriate place to be.
We’re really curious how this idea performs once it actually hits the table. On paper it feels risky, but it also comes from real observations rather than pure theoryhammer, and that always makes it more interesting to us.
If nothing else, this is exactly the kind of list discussion we enjoy most: not chasing the most optimised answer, but trying to understand what our army is actually doing in real games — and then having the courage to rebuild from there.
For now, the verdict is simple:
it’s weird, it might be bad, and we definitely want to see it tested.