3 Big Guys, 3 different play styles. Use the Quiz below to make the correct choice for you.
Following extensive research we have developed a proprietary algorithm that evaluates your innate tactical preferences, psychological profile, and variance tolerance. The short quiz below will analyse your responses across multiple validated domains, to accurately identify the monstrous asset that best aligns with your strategic temperament and emotional resilience.
Current accuracy rating – 73% agreement with user-reported preference, 87.5% accuracy with what the user actually should play.
[last updated 142/08/2026]
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The Rub
Yes, the algorithm is a bit of fun but there is more to think about when selecting a big boi for your CC team than which is your coolest model (the three pics in this post come from Andrew Davies collection… all cool models which makes it harder still).
So, below is a more detailed strategic take:
Minotaur
Mino is about max damage output. If you are taking him, you are committing to blitzing with him early and often, rolling 3D into 3D to maximise the chance of getting someone down but accepting that you pay for that by losing your blitz 1/6 times. You can lean into his shtick by taking Claws; make him a proper monster. Juggs also makes him more reliable.
To make the Mino work you need support, as a scary cow is high on your opponent’s kill list and the armour means he will leave the pitch on lots of your drives. So, you need to 155+k of value quickly.
The implications of adding a primary, unreliable, blitzer is that your beastmen aren’t blitzing as frequently. Your build therefore doesn’t benefit as much from claw/mb Beastman. Rather you need to maximise the value from the Sports Cow by providing support so he doesn’t get pulled away, isolated and removed too early. That means more Guard needed on support pieces. Guard is great anyway, but it does mean riskier blocks elsewhere.
Playing against a danger cow on a standard 8-turn drive isn’t usually too bad. Yes he can high roll, but the Frenzy means you adopt a buddy system in defence and make sure you can pound him early. Option 2 and especially for short drives, is probably best to just feed him something low value at a sub-optimal angle so that he’s pulled out of position. Once he’s too far away to blitz anything useful, he’s stuck rolling 4+ to get relevant again. Similarly on offence, it’s quite easy to get the Mino to separate himself from his herd relatively easily.
Ogre
How you use the Ogre depends a little on what skills pack is available. The big advantages over the Mino are obvious; higher armour, which (coupled with thick skull) means he is the Big Guy who will spend more time on the pitch during each drive. That makes him much better suited to standing and soaking up activations and acting as a pivot piece around which the team can play. Stability is your watch word. You don’t need high rolling.
Guard is my go-to on the Ogre, Block if you can, Stand Firm isn’t bad. Let him take up a position in the centre and your Chaos warriors can strength bully most opponents.
You play around him, moving him onward with your cage and jamming everything in defensively with the Ogre in the thick of it. If the Ogre takes Guard, you can go all Block on the warriors and/or smatter in some damage output. Generate more hits from the rest of your team by playing in your opponent’s face as your route to attrition…. Note that the All Block build doesn’t need to rely on damage output as much (variance), you can generate field position through Strength alone.
In this build, your Beastmen have blitzing roles. Almost every turn, they are the ones who will be looking for soft targets. Building a killer blitzing beastie is a good shout.
Against Chaos with an Ogre you don’t necessarily need to fight the big guy. It depends on your team strat in general, but I tend to take the fight elsewhere when I can. Chosen are quite fast and able to reposition compared with most bash teams, so usually the plan is a classic peel off the beastmen and try to work toward attrition there, then isolate or slow the Warriors and Ogre at the right time to force separation.
Troll
The biggest benefit of the Troll is that he is cheap. The 35k you are saving relative to the Ogre comes at the cost of speed and stupidity. He needs a friend if you are going to activate him. Also, with no Thick Skull, he is more likely to leave the field than the Ogre (still better than the Cow ofc), but owing to Regen is more likely to come back for the next drive.
So what does that do for gameplay and build? Well there is a case for not skilling the Troll at all. Keep him cheap and activate him minimally. A 3D block on the LOS and whenever else available or last action 2D, and always a cheeky no-real risk vomit on scoring turns. The rest of the time he can be jammed into positions to be annoying. Ideally you don’t need to activate him often. Back corner, front corner leap frog drives for example.
If you do decide to skill him, Guard is, ofc, good. Stand Firm increases his annoyance factor. Tentacles could work too in certain matchups…. indeed, this is undoubtably the best piece if you want to load up a big guy with Tents (e.g. if you want to play a more dynamic form of a Nurgle playstyle). Tents on a cheaper Troll means you aren’t paying extra for Movement that you will rarely use, Horns and Frenzy that you don’t need to get in position and, most importantly, for a lower armour piece. Indeed, it is a very bad idea to give people extra reason to hunt down your Mino, they already want to hurt it; giving them a free block rather than wasting activations to generate a blitz is a recipe for disaster.
If you don’t skill the Troll, your game plan isn’t necessarily to play tight to him all the time. I know it sounds weird, but letting the player who needs a babysitter soak up the opposition away from where you want to go can be effective. Not all the time, but choosing the press point and sending him off to be annoying works very well. It can also allow you to present a wider front to your line.
Realistically, the difference between Troll and Ogre is smaller in terms of gameplay/build. Choosing the Troll, other than to fit a tournament budget, is likely to free a skill elsewhere. That might allow a stack depending on the ruleset. You probably do want that freed skill to be Guard (possibly Block Guard) so that you can fight elsewhere.
On a league build, the Ogre is probably a better long-term choice.
No Big Guy
Chosen don’t need a big guy really. Indeed, it wasn’t all that long ago that the only big guy option was the Mino and most people played without a Big Guy at all.
In the 2023 ruleset, with fewer positionals on opposing teams, there is a more of a case for a lower variance, more dynamic team that can play in a more reactive, concentration-of-force style. Using their surprising mobility to bring their S4 pieces to where they are needed.
Having no big boi also counters another issue with Chosen; the Beastmen are quite fragile (although Thick Skull helps). Removing the Big Guy can allow and extra sub (or possibly two depending on cut points).
While a big guy can sometimes demand the attention of more than one opponent piece; that turn when he misbehaves at a crucial time and/or those turns when he’s stuck on 40k lino mean that a comparative lack of bench can be felt quite hard.
FWIW, I prefer a Guard Ogre, Silentknight and Dusher Block Ogres,
Chofling goes Troll then Mino; “1 – troll, cheap punchbag, vomit
2 – mino, never loses TZs, can smash cages, but loses out of top spot as you have several blitzers
3 – ogre, flexible but I’d rather a fixed role for big guy and build team around that”
TIm and David Burrows both lean Mino.
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