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are there any other strategies?

do i have to really commit to one theme ? like all mech or nothing?
or can i go like

3kans, unit of lootaz, battlewagon, some warbikes?

Of course, you can play any way you like.

Lots of Battlewagons works too, as does a huge horde.

Personally I like a more combined arms approach myself.
Boyz mobs, lootas, bikers, trukks, a Nob squad, Meganobs, a battlewagon, maybe a Kopta or a few Buggies.
It works fine for me. Then again I play with a regular group of seven people (small pond) and doesn't waste my time with tournaments.

yeah thats exactly what i mean, it have to be boring to bet on one card, i am no competetive player myself so i am glad you feel the same

Almost all of the advice I've seen given boils down to "specialize or die." It also tends to revolve around tournament-style power list building. While I'm sure these players have plenty of experience backing up their claims, if you aren't trying to build a power list, then their opinions don't mean gak. I think a more balanced (or scattered, depending on your perspective) list would be more fun to play, if not more "effective." Different methods, different goals. Have fun with it.

I'm going to work off of a couple of assumptions.
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1. Playing Warhammer 40k is fun.
2. Playing Warhammer 40k and winning is more fun.
3. Playing Warhammer 40k and losing is less fun.
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Human nature and natural selection demand that we continually seek to improve ourselves. Having an A type personality probably doesn't hurt this effort, but if you lose a game of 40k and don't reflect on the game with, "What did I do wrong? What could I have done better? How can I prevent this from happening again?" then I can't really talk to you.

If this thought process and those three assumptions *do* apply to you, then read on.

******
Orks are a unique codex. An ork boy is significantly cheaper than just about any other model in 40k, and is basically a platform from which many things spring (other kinds of ork variants - stormboyz, lootas, nobs...). If you read the fluff, every ork starts in the same place, and as they develop, they lean towards on klan/society, which is how they figure out what kind of ork they're going to be.

In other codexes (space marines and their variants being the most prolific), basic troops are well-rounded models. You ever play Final Fight? How about ANY kind of game with character selections? You've got the big, strong guy that's slow...the average Joe....and the weaker but very speedy character. This applies in 40k as well. Space marines are like your average, well-rounded Joe. Orks are NOT. You can't mix and match orks in any order you like to make a generalized list.

This is *not* called power building, its called understanding your codex, how your codex is designed, and using it as such. Every time someone calls "playing a theme" to be "powerbuilding" I want to stab them in the F***** eye. If you look in the Ork codex, do you see the codex writers putting in pictures for the sample armies of some Lootas backing up a squad of meganobs in a trukk, who are advancing next to some buggies and a deffkopta or two?

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They even TELL you how to make your army. They tell you what the Ork klans are - Bad Moons, Kult of Speed, Deffskullz, etc.

That kind of thematic army construction is the intent of the Ork codex. That is what makes orks powerful. The ork codex is written so that you can design an army list that is absolutely ridiculously powerful, but it is NOT made up of average Joe units; everything is specialized towards a specific goal. When you build an army list, you should follow the thematic advice given to you in the Codex. PICK a theme. There's a lot of them:

Green Tide. Mechanized Assault. Mechanized Shooting. Ork Gunline (Moar Dakka), Kan-Wall. Dreadz of Fury. Kult of Speed. Outflanking Goodness. Rebel Grotz. Nob Bikers. Super Units. Orky Burnas.

All of those things have something in common - the lists were designed with a theme in mind, and have the synergy to work together towards that goal. When you start combining those themes to make a list, you're being counterintuitive to the very style that the orks were created for.

Remember this: Orks can do anything that any other army can do, and they can do it better than that army. However, orks can only do it one at a time. You can outshoot a Tau Gunline. You can out-assault a khorne army or an army of genestealers. You can put down more templates than IG....whatever your goal in mind is....orks can do it better, but it has to stick to that theme. Orks are not meant to be universal, middle-of-the-line armies.

To give another analogy...if you've ever played an MMO, there are different classes. Fighter, Tank, barbarian, mage, cleric, wizard, hunter, ranger, red mage, death knight, rogue, whatever.....its all based on the game you play. The class you pick sets you on a path for the kind of game you play, the skills you get - they are pre-defined roles.

40k armies fit into that kind of typification. Except for Orks. Orks would be the generic class. You start with a neutral character, with skillpoints to assign, and you can make orks any kind of army you want them to be. People fail with orks because they want some of everything. Instead of making them a fighter, or an archer, or a guardian...and they would be better fighters, archers and guardians than every other type...they split points between all three to make a Figardian. F.A.G for short.

Do you want to excel in something, or be a F.A.G? That's what it boils down to.

Are you a F.A.G?




*EDIT* I'm adding information for the tactics article I'm working on.

If you're running a foot-slogging list, shoota boys are your friend. Slugga boys belong inside vehicles. In fact, I think you should convert your slugga boy mobs into shoota boys. In 5th edition, the shoota boy is the most efficient point purchase across all 40k.

Think on that - for 6 points...SIX POINTS....you get an infantry model with an assault 2 STR4 gun, who is WS4, STR4, T4 on the charge. In terms of math hammer between shoota and slugga boys, it's pretty simple. Slugga boys have +1 attack in close combat, and shoota boys have +1 attack outside of close combat. Since your Orks on the assault are only I3, you're going to strike last meaning that 30 boyz are going to take some casualties before getting their attacks back.

On the flip side, shoota boys get 2 shots before assaulting, and the enemy doesn't get to shoot back first and cause casualties - putting in any kind of hurt before you assault is incredibly valuable. And since it has an 18" range, you can shoot into a unit even when you don't have range to assault this turn. My advice for green tide:

Take all your troops choices as shoota boys. Consider taking a squad of gretchin - you can spread them across your front lines to provide 4+ cover saves for your whole army. Alternatively, you can take a squad of ork boyz to do the same. If you make them 'Ard Boyz they gain considerably in staying power.

Want to get real freaky? Take a squad of 'Ard Boyz, stick Mad Dok Grotsnik with them for a 4+/4+. Spread that unit out 2+ coherence to minimize the damage that blast templates can do, and have the whole thing move+run in front of your army. Your screening unit has 4+ armor saves, 4+ feel no pain, and the rest of your army has 4+ cover saves now. If your points allow it, what really tops off the list is adding some fast attack Stormboyz. You can put them into close combat, or have them multi-assault to shake/stun some tanks/artillery, have them get in fast and tie up enemy units (hello Tau!), or if the situation doesn't call for it, you can leave them behind your screening unit and keep them in reserve to get in where you need supporting assault units at.

wow you got me dashofpepper, i will follow a theme now, your post got me at 2 oclock in the night like preach dont know how to explain it

haha wow that was awesome....lol wow enough said.

I aim to please.

Pepper, I think you put too much thought into this, but your absolutely right.

Try this, play some friendly games, and but just a random take some of everything type of lists. And see how you do. Sure you might not lose everyone, but youll get your teeth kicked in alot.
NOW, pick a specific style of Ork list. Anyone from what pepper mentioned, and Im talking build that type to the purest form. All green tide, all kult of speed and so on. Now play those buddies of yours again and see how different the end result is. I can tell ya when Im just goofing off and playing fun games, IF I win, its not by very much and the games tend to be really close. But when I want to try out a different idea in my trukk boyz list, I bring the pain. All my boyz are in trukks, Ill usually have a nobz squad with my boss in a battlewagon, and a nobz squad in another trukk. So everything is in some type of vehicle, and I can tell you just that, with little thinking behind the strategy can hulk smash my opponents lines something fierce.

Your avatar is a little Hulk Smash. =p

Dash can you give me real quick sample armies from those words?

Green Tide. Mechanized Assault. Mechanized Shooting. Ork Gunline (Moar Dakka), Kan-Wall. Dreadz of Fury. Kult of Speed. Outflanking Goodness. Rebel Grotz. Nob Bikers. Super Units. Orky Burnas.

excellent idea Bendercz!!!!


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Some friends of mine here in my country told me i should use 2 units of 10 meganobz on in each battlewagons.
I really dont want it, because i dont find the MN so good.
Im too new in the game, i only have played 4 games. So i had a lot of bad moves, i forget my stats, some rules.
With the help of Dashofpepper, i have improved a lot in my game. But, sometimes i just can´t see in medium games, like 1500 pts, some of his ideas in a list, like 3 units of 15 lootas in 1500. So is because of this, i ask for your help, like Bendercz did, can you please, show us some examples of those lists. I see some of them is spare posts in the forum. Im building a extensive library of posts with some tips from dashofpepper, in a word doc. I find this way quickier to read and find. But some of those armys i simply never heard of.
Thanks for your posts, and from all friends in the forum, you are really helping some of us.

bendercz wrote:Dash can you give me real quick sample armies from those words?

Green Tide. Mechanized Assault. Mechanized Shooting. Ork Gunline (Moar Dakka), Kan-Wall. Dreadz of Fury. Kult of Speed. Outflanking Goodness. Rebel Grotz. Nob Bikers. Super Units. Orky Burnas.

Reading Dash' post above, I took had a similar question pop up in my mind...I mean, I can think of what most of those mean, but not all.

So I also wouldn't mind a quick break-down of the list above, if possible.

If orks could reliably deal with av 14, they would be a very solid army.

If orks don't have to deal with heavy armor, they can and will be quite successful.

With the meta shifting somewhat from that, I think you can do fine with orks.

Here's a quick take on those various lists. Please remember something important: Every list needs to be tailored for point allocations. What I'm putting down here is an "optimized" list where you get the maximum ability from it, so if you're playing a 1,000 point gunline, three full squads of Lootas + supporting units and troop choices isn't really what you're going to play. You'll have to tweak to match your needs.

Green Tide:
Green tide is actually an apocalypse battle formation, but is a common name for a foot-slogging ork army list. It consists of mobs of 30 shoota boys, a nob with a powerklaw, and either a unit of gretchin or a unit of boyz or 'Ard Boyz (maybe even with Mad Dok) screened across the front to give the rest of the army a 4+ cover save as they advance up the board.

Mechanized Assault:
12 slugga boyz+Nob/PK stacked into trukks, perhaps some battlewagons in the mix, covered by a Big Mek with a KFF...an elite unit or two (kommandos, lootas, burnas) tacked into the mix depending on your personal playstyle - they get into close combat as fast as orkishly possible; with Ghazghkull leading the mix, that's usually turn2.

Mechanized Shooting:
Instead of slugga boys, you have shoota boys, preferably in battlewagons, with a KFF screening them, rolling around the battlefield pouring firepower into enemy units. Alternatively, (and one of my favorite setups) this is 3 Loota squads inside battlewagons sitting on the back table edge, Big mek with KFF in the middle one in a trident formation \|/ to present front armor across the battlefield, surrounded by a unit of gretchin to prevent assaults on rear armor.


Ork Gunline:
Three squads of Lootas form the backbone of this, either sitting in cover or with a screening unit to give them a 4+ cover save, heavy support of big guns or some dreads/kans to provide long range firepower, with the obligatory shoota boy squads.


Kan wall:
One of the current meta-game favorites: Three squads of three killa-kans, protected by a KFF mek (or two) marching up the field screening mobs of shoota boys behind them.


Dreadz of Fury:
Three DeffDreads for Heavy Support + 2 Deff Dreads for troop choices, with a KFF mek screening them for a 4+ cover save, set for either long ranged fire support or close ranged pwnage; I prefer the STR10 DCCWs.


Kult of Speed:
Straight out of your codex! Boyz in trukks, mechanized element + Stormboyz. Ponder this for a moment: 6 trukks full of boyz screened by a Mek with a KFF, in turn screening 3 units of Stormboyz who can move as fast as the trukks moving flat out...that's a lot of fast moving destruction.

Outflanking Goodness:
Kommandos as elites and Deffkoptas as fast attack, as many of each as you can fit in, often with Deffkoptas equipped differently for wound allocation spread outflanking (unless you get turn1 and put your deffkoptas out for a turn1 turbo-boost).


Rebel Grotz:
Instead of six units of boyz, you get.....gretchin! Bwah ha ha. Not particularly scary in themselves, but using covering units or terrain, able to go to ground for a 3+ cover save, making them incredibly difficult to remove from an objective, especially with other gretchin (inside killa-kans) are krumping around the battlefield.

Nob Bikers:
Two warbosses + 20 nobs = 2HQ + 2Troops. 22 models = 1750. Diversified wargear and weaponry let you spread wounds around instead of removing models, and the unit is incredibly tough, has the ability to get anywhere fast, and kill anything fast.

Super Units:
Similar to Nob bikers in having an army with a low model count: Warboss Krumpmaster and the Megaboyz; a couple units of Meganobs, or my personal preference, units of regular nobs with diversified wargear for wound allocation magic - in vehicles!


Orky Burnas:
Start with three units of burna boys. Put them in battlewagons if you like. Mek with a KFF to screen if you do, and you have an army of combination templates / power weapons. Alternatively, a warboss makes nobs a troops choice, and you can give them all kombi-skorchas for some real carnage.


Battlewagon Spam:
Did you know that you can field 8 Battlewagons in a single army list? That's right...eight battlewagons. Three Heavy Support, Three dedicated transports for elite unit nobs, and two warbosses making two units of nobs troop choices so that you can take two more battlewagons. I think any time you have vehicles, you should have a KFF floating around, so I wouldn't advocate going for 8....but you can do a lot of things with a list of Battlewagons.

awesome, thank you dash

I agree with most of what has been said here. Infact all but one aspect. Although I do agree that theming your army is not only much more effective, and should not be considered power building. I tend to disagree with how you messure the amount of fun your having. I know it seems trivial, but it raises certain questions. I strongly belive that the quality (not who won or lost) of a game has much more sway over how much you enjoy it. An appropriate diccotemy would be playing a game of, let's say soccer. There are some people who will enjoy them selves more if they wipe the floor with the opposing team. And in many cases that is the main objective. For instance in a tournament. But in a tournament you will be playing opponents with a comparable amount of skill. In the case of Warhammer it would be both skill and army lists. But if you play like this all the time, for instance against friends, then the only objective is having fun. There is nothing at stake. Just getting together with some buddies to play a game you all enjoy. So why does your army need to be effective? If you both have an understanding then that is the perfect time to flip throught the dusty pages of the codex and start pulling out combos that are not effective, but are interesting to watch performe. At one point you mentioned human nature, and how humans naturaly feel better when they win. But the thing you arn't considering here is that humans also can get the same feeling without detracting from other people enjoyment. By your logic in a game of warhammer there will always be one player who enjoyed themselves more then the other, and that person is always the victor. This is often the case in tournaments, or in instances were one or both players have not overcome the basic human instinct to win. But as was mentioned before, these lists are not for either of these cases, they are for having fun. You mentioned that in the codex you don't see mixes of themes, that is beacuse codex is trying to guide people towards a winning stratagy, and also fluff does not really alow for it. You can easily enjoy yourself more in a game that you lose by a landslide then a game that you conversily win by a landslide. With orks in particular, if you look past who is winning or losing then seeing a huge group of grots get blown to smitherines wilst trying to clear a path throught a minefiled is very humerous, and will undoughedly make everyone watching the game lol. So why aren't you? Playing an interesting game also tends to have more long term gratifications, if someone sees you play a hilarious mix of troops then there is a good chance that the next time they play you, they too will field a more relaxed list. The atmoshere is more calm and fun, and you can laugh at your misfortunes and tryumphes alike. I appoligise for ranting like this, it's just I felt that such a long and well versed opening statment deserved an equivalent response. And any time you like, dashofpepper is welcome to join our local debating team.

despoiler52 wrote:GIGANTIC WALL OF TEXT!!

I debated in high school and throughout college - while I missed it fiercely (in part because I pretty much always won), that was a long time ago. =p

i have recently begun an ork army, im doing the kan screening army, dashofpepper i fing your words a relibal source of knowlage message me if you have anything more on kan screening

i have recently begun an ork army, im doing the kan screening army, dashofpepper i fing your words a relibal source of knowlage message me if you have anything more on kan screening

...Waaagh? wrote:i have recently begun an ork army, im doing the kan screening army, dashofpepper i fing your words a relibal source of knowlage message me if you have anything more on kan screening

I like kan spam. I also sometimes like spam in a can!

What point level are you looking at?

spam spam and eggs lobster and spam bacon sapm and eggs.... (montey python)

For your kan list....the foundation is nine killa kans (with Grotzookas preferably), 58 boys, 2 nobs with powerklaws, one mek with a KFF. After that you can start refining, but that basic foundation is 920 points. Build from there.

thz man i stick 2 dat

Dashofpepper wrote:

despoiler52 wrote:GIGANTIC WALL OF TEXT!!

I debated in high school and throughout college - while I missed it fiercely (in part because I pretty much always won), that was a long time ago. =p

Ya, I sufure from a phobia of paragraphs. I kinda dought anyone bothered to read the whole thing, and thank you to any who did. But I stand by my point. To "...Waaagh?" have you looked at the price$ of killa kans? Sadly they are like 35$ a pop, buying nine is like that's (plus tax, almost 360$ canadian) It is however an uber awsome army to play, make, convert paint. Basicaly it's all round awsome. Juste try not to play against many DE players.

In the meantime, you can scratch build them from plexicard. Styrofoam: http://www.miniwargaming.com/content/eHMlgwXPNl8e

In my experience GW don't let you play a model unless it's like 80% GW matirial.

despoiler: i read it too and i think you are 100% correct, enjoying the game is really important

evyrobody wants to win ( i am really competitive at sports ) and they enjoy it too, but the point is someone wants to ONLY win, those people goes to tournaments and competitive gameing and there are others who spends night painting converting those flash gitz and field them under any circumstances and they go crazy when they kill something with those gitz

in friendly games its important to win of course but you can have few beers and enjoy lost battle too

i hope i explained myself clearly ( english not my native language )

One question about the Kann wall. I screwed up and all my boyz have sluggas and choppas. I ordered the Kanns already. Is this going to huglely impact my games? I know with sluggas they should be running but the Kanns with grotzookas will be raining a lot of death every turn. Running the 6 Kanns 3 rokkits and three big shootas and grotzookas. I guess I could say my Orks have shootas and it should matter very little since it is a free upgrade. Not sure on large tourney rules but local ones dont seem to mind.

Not sure why everyone points at orks when talking about "themes" and "Powerbuilding." Maybe because most people play SM and they are as versatile (i.e., generic) as they come? Almost every army has a "theme," orks just get multiple themes. That makes them fun to play and a bitch to collect, as running upwards of eight legitimate tactics requires a crapload of models, even if they are 95% plastic at this point. It's a sad lot to bear...