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Akiasura wrote:
There is still haywire, dragons, guard, not to mention eldar regularly take more than one wk. Not to mention a melee wk can still one round it if it gets even slightly lucky, and eldar are possibly the best army in the game at removing the bubble of orbs surrounding a stompa.

The stompa isn't good because it has armor values. Same reason the Knights aren't considered op but merely good. The WK and tau MCs are amazing because of their mc typing, which provides a host of bonuses in surviving. The wk being crazy cheap is just icing on the cake.

Grav also knocks the stompa over quite easily

Edit
Not to mention the stompa costs more. You can't compare stompa plus other units versus just a wk...a wk is good but it won't take out 3x its points.

FW stompa is not 3x points.

It's usually around 550-600, has 12 HP, decent shooting and fearless bubble. If it's a Buzzgob mek stompa, it has 2 s10 ap1 massive blasts, a bs2 D-shot and bs2 lifta-dropa. And d6 void shields to boot that are gona be a good way of surviving a few turns. Another option is a kustom stompa with an ability to take 2 massive s: D blasts, hellstorm s6 ap3 flamer and a massive s7 ap4 blast for around ~560 depending on how many big shootas you take.

Not telling it's an answer to everything - it's just an option that works.

 koooaei wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
There is still haywire, dragons, guard, not to mention eldar regularly take more than one wk. Not to mention a melee wk can still one round it if it gets even slightly lucky, and eldar are possibly the best army in the game at removing the bubble of orbs surrounding a stompa.

The stompa isn't good because it has armor values. Same reason the Knights aren't considered op but merely good. The WK and tau MCs are amazing because of their mc typing, which provides a host of bonuses in surviving. The wk being crazy cheap is just icing on the cake.

Grav also knocks the stompa over quite easily

Edit
Not to mention the stompa costs more. You can't compare stompa plus other units versus just a wk...a wk is good but it won't take out 3x its points.

FW stompa is not 3x points.

First, we were originally discussing the Stompa, not the FW stompa, which has a different name.
Second, you were comparing the stompa plus bully boyz and bikes to a WK without any support. That's easily 700 points for the stompa plus 200 in support, making it about 3x the cost of the WK. If it's the FW stompa it's 500-600 points for the stompa plus another 200 points in support, which is a bit shy of the 3x mark but still quite close.

If you want to make a comparison of equal points to a normal stompa plus support, do the same with a WK. The WK can easily bring several units of scatbikes and a unit of hawks or dragons if it has to, and still easily win. You can't just place all the advantages on one side to make an argument. Or we can discuss roughly 600 points from all armies.

If it's the forge world stompa against the WK, you can still fit dragons or hawks in there. And once the shields are down, Hawks do work and are cheap. I've seen them in tournament lists pretty often, they aren't even an off meta option.

 koooaei wrote:

It's usually around 550-600, has 12 HP, decent shooting and fearless bubble. If it's a Buzzgob mek stompa, it has 2 s10 ap1 massive blasts, a bs2 D-shot and bs2 lifta-dropa. And d6 void shields to boot that are gona be a good way of surviving a few turns. Another option is a kustom stompa with an ability to take 2 massive s: D blasts, hellstorm s6 ap3 flamer and a massive s7 ap4 blast for around ~560 depending on how many big shootas you take.

Not telling it's an answer to everything - it's just an option that works.

The FW stompa is certainly the better option than the original stompa. Won't get any argument from anyone on that, the original stompa was hot garbage.
Still, this doesn't really work against grav weapons or what eldar can bring. 12 HP can be one rounded by a melee WK or wraithguard, possibly FD with some incredibly lucky roll. The void shields certainly help, but are too random for how much the thing costs (still nearly double a WK, or 1 Centstar, both of which can one round it).

The Stompa is a threat to cents, but cents are going to teleport or drop in and just one round it. The WK isn't too worried about the guns, while they can shoot it down with the help of some friends over 2 turns, or jump forward and melee it, possibly one rounding it. In relation to the rest of the Ork army, the stompa is excellent. The problem is orks are really awful against the better armies, so that isn't saying much. It's just too expensive for its output and low toughness and speed.

I'd invite you to try an Ork army against a competitive Marine or Eldar player. It's not going to go well, Stompa or no. Both have too much shooting, especially eldar, and the Marines can create deathstars that the enemy can really struggle to stop.

I'm not comparing a stompa to a WK to begin with. It's not supposed to be trying to kill one. It's gona press on the rest of the eldar's list which it does pretty good with it's firepower and ability to stay alive for at least a few turns.

I don't think that a melee WK is problematic. As your main goal is to not let it fight a stompa. And there's no difference between a melee and non-melee wk for the rest of the codex other than 5++.

And i'm not talking about codex stompa at all. I stated clearly: "...cheezy FW stompa it it's allowed...".

 koooaei wrote:
I'm not comparing a stompa to a WK to begin with. It's not supposed to be trying to kill one. It's gona press on the rest of the eldar's list which it does pretty good with it's firepower and ability to stay alive for at least a few turns.

What exactly are you pressing? Eldar troops are either in transports or small units, and the Stompa has mainly blasts as its offensive weapons. It's anti-tank weapons are on BS 2, and eldar transports are quite fast. You most likely will get 1 turn of shooting before they dump their cargo. There simply aren't good units for it to fire upon. The Stompa has awful shooting power for the points, and is slow. I don't think I've ever seen a Stompa survive against a competitive eldar list past round 2, eldar are simply too good at knocking over tanks. I rarely see an ork on the board after turn 4, 5 at the latest.

You aren't comparing it to a WK, but you did say it could survive one. To be fair, this is somewhat true. Outside of melee, it can't one round it (then again, the stompa is 2x the points, so it would be the worst unit in the game if it could be one rounded at range by something half its points in one turn). However, comparing it to other LoW that are taken in competitive lists is natural in this discussion, and it comes up short. It also doesn't address the other anti-tank options the eldar have (WG, FD, Hawks). The shields protect against hawks, but most of the other choices can kill it over 1 or 2 rounds. If the WK manages to drop the shields by round 2, the eldar can then one round it.

This isn't even bringing marines into the equation, which just knock it over without trying. It's too many points in a mediocre unit.

 koooaei wrote:

I don't think that a melee WK is problematic. As your main goal is to not let it fight a stompa. And there's no difference between a melee and non-melee wk for the rest of the codex other than 5++.

How are you stopping the melee WK? Your army is very slow, scatbikes pick apart every troop choice Orks have very easily, and the WK is incredibly fast and tough for the points. I'm having a hard time picturing how you stop it outside of some lucky rolls, otherwise it will most likely reach combat by turn 3 at the latest. Two if you play forward at all (you being the ork player). Then its 5 attacks at Str D in melee.
Granted, the melee WK is not common. We can stick with the cannon model for this discussion...I can't recall seeing the melee version taken in competitive lists in some time.

 koooaei wrote:

And i'm not talking about codex stompa at all. I stated clearly: "...cheezy FW stompa it it's allowed...".

My mistake, I looked at a post further down and it seemed you were discussing both.

I can see the stompa being quite good against some competitive lists. Necrons, for example, since they tend to bunch up around spyders and the Str 10 blasts or Str D weapons help with the RP rolls. But against Tau, Marines, Eldar, and Daemons, the stompa seems to fall flat. If you have some BR that explains otherwise, or have some strategies that would help, I'd love to hear it. I own 2 stompas, but they fall over against Eldar and Marines in my experience. Marines especially just drop in and laugh all the way to the bank, like they do against any overcosted tank. Daemons and Tau seem to struggle more with killing it, but they also don't care about its firepower.



To answer the OPs question, there probably aren't any off meta counters to top tier lists. 40k, despite the rules bloat, is an incredibly simple game since very few units have any type of real synergy. Usually transports and HQ are the only units capable of this, and transports are often a simple case of +movement speed. HQ there might be one or two who have a subset of powers that help. Some armies can do more, Necrons and Tau for example, but these armies are considered top tier already. Formations would be the other exception, but they aren't off meta.

Basically, in 40k, its very easy to look at a unit or formation and say "this is crap" or "this is excellent" and be right. Look at eldar. No surprises, the same units that were good at release are good now, some time later. Same for Tau. Same for Necrons. Marines got some additional formations, but the centstar and bike spam have been good since release and are still doing fine. Guard were crap at release and are still crap.

TLR
This game is not WM/H were some weird combo of rules stacking will polish a turd into a gem, as was the case in MK2 with some tier lists (I believe it was Denny who had one like that, the one with all the drudges). It's pretty simple, I doubt you'll find something "off-meta". Even, for example, the Tyranid list that makes lictors good spams flying tyrants and other MCs to do all the real work in the list. I believe it's called Lictor Shame.

Akiasura wrote:

How are you stopping the melee WK? Your army is very slow, scatbikes pick apart every troop choice Orks have very easily

Ork bikers are slow?.. Scat bikes and warp spiders is something you're dealing with running a stompa. They don't outrange you finally. And they'reforced to take so many cover saves, they'll fail eventually. And if you're running a kustom stompa, they might even not get the saves.

You just need to play against it to see for yourself. FW stompas are banned in most tourneys for a reason. They surely aren't revenant titan level of silly but they pull their weight.

 koooaei wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

How are you stopping the melee WK? Your army is very slow, scatbikes pick apart every troop choice Orks have very easily

Ork bikers are slow?.. Scat bikes and warp spiders is something you're dealing with running a stompa. They don't outrange you finally. And they'reforced to take so many cover saves, they'll fail eventually. And if you're running a kustom stompa, they might even not get the saves.

Unless Ork bikers are your whole army...yes the army is slow. Bikers are also slower than the typical eldar army, with its skimmer transports and jetbikes. So yeah, the orks are a relatively slow army compared to eldar or marines. There is a reason objective games favor eldar and marines over all other armies, but especially the slower ones like well...orks.

Again, how are you dealing with scat bikes and spiders? They are small units. You'll be lucky to earn half your points back before the thing falls in turn 2, maybe close to your points by turn 3. Cover saves just make it worse, and that's assuming no LoS blocking terrain they can hide behind. If the Stompa was 300 points, killing 100-150 points a turn would be a good use of its time. It's not though. Remember, it's not uncommon to see 80-130 pt scatbike units, and its doubtful you'll kill the whole squad with one shot.

They don't need to out range you. With a 36" gun on the scat bikes, they can just shoot the troops while hawks and dragons target the stompa on turn 2, along with the WK. It's relatively easy for bikes and spiders to earn their points back against the Orks, especially if they are spamming expensive choices like bikers. And against bikers, you can get 1.3 kill per bike...a unit of 3 can kill 4 bikes a turn, earning half it's points back in one turn. That's disgusting amounts of firepower against one of the tougher ork units.

 koooaei wrote:

You just need to play against it to see for yourself. FW stompas are banned in most tourneys for a reason. They surely aren't revenant titan level of silly but they pull their weight.

I haven't heard of FW stompas being banned specifically. I've heard of a super heavy ban, and some FW bans, but nothing targetting FW stompas in particular. That would seem weird to me...there are a lot of stronger things in the game that don't get specific bans. Riptide formation and WK being obvious examples. Do you have a link?

I have played with and against them. They usually do about 300 points worth of damage, say crippling 4 squads of eldar troops, and then it explodes creating a big deficient in points putting me down on attrition. Against marines it does a lot worse, since they just drop in and remove it.
It does well against SW since it does damage to their TWC. I've had it do very well against Necrons and okay against Tau depending on their list. But eldar and marines shut it down. It's why I asked for strategies that work or a Bat report against a competitive force. I have a feeling I won't get either though.

Bring more D and super heavys than they can deal with..?

hellhammers or whatever it was called that can ignore cover and st10 for massive lulz?

Akiasura wrote:

Are we going back to vassal thing

 koooaei wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

Are we going back to vassal thing

If that's where your argument ends, alright.
I'd settle for a single link, batrep, or even detailed advice that isn't "it just works". If you don't have it, I'll leave it alone since the op will make the final decision based on what we've stated.

Not sure how I missed it, but the ultimate MC / GC killers:
Kataphron Destroyers.
Bar the glaring issue of a lack of Invuln, but 6 Grav shots from one guy, and expecting to, probably, have 9 of them in this scenario, no problem.

 Buddingsquaw wrote:
Not sure how I missed it, but the ultimate MC / GC killers:
Kataphron Destroyers.
Bar the glaring issue of a lack of Invuln, but 6 Grav shots from one guy, and expecting to, probably, have 9 of them in this scenario, no problem.

The thing with no transport?

i forget if they can infiltrate or scout or not.

but i guess you could stick a BBBFF on it for that.

there is also the IA instant death vanquisher for IG

Akiasura wrote:

I'd settle for a single link, batrep, or even detailed advice that isn't "it just works". If you don't have it, I'll leave it alone since the op will make the final decision based on what we've stated.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/674971.page#8354552

vs tau with riptides, stormsurge, etc.

It was not an optimal stompa build. The ork player screwed up cause he shot at a ghostkel that than popped the 'only snapshots' thing which nulified the shot. In the end it still pulled it's weight and made the day together with grots.

 koooaei wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

I'd settle for a single link, batrep, or even detailed advice that isn't "it just works". If you don't have it, I'll leave it alone since the op will make the final decision based on what we've stated.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/674971.page#8354552

vs tau with riptides, stormsurge, etc.

It was not an optimal stompa build. The ork player screwed up cause he shot at a ghostkel that than popped the 'only snapshots' thing which nulified the shot. In the end it still pulled it's weight and made the day together with grots.

You must have misread the thread title and my posts.
It says counters to eldar and SM.

I've already stated that the Stompa does well against Crons and Tau in my experience. Surprisingly, Tau don't do well against AV spam (and 12 HP is somewhat like spam, as long as you don't have D weapons) and neither does your standard cron list when compared to eldar or marines.

Well, from the top of my head here's what came up in the ork thread recently.

Imagine that, it didn't have a hard time killing Terminators, which is super strange because Terminators are known for being super durable.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Imagine that, it didn't have a hard time killing Terminators, which is super strange because Terminators are known for being super durable.

Did you even read it or saw the word "termie" and rushed with the comment?

That's sw, another army that the stompa does very well against, which I mentioned.
I'm not saying it's an awful piece all together. I'm saying it's awful against Sm and elder specifically, since they aren't overly concerned by its shooting or can remove it without too much effort. Sw can't spam grav and probably want to smack it to kill it, while the thing IDs their best unit.

Looks like they had some allies in there.


We are discussing competitive marines and elder. That means cent stars with biker grav spam or a gladius. It means wk backed up with scat bikes, dragons, and spiders (Hawks if the faq isn't in place). It doesn't mean the armies I've already agreed it does well against like tau necron or wolves. Those are certainly top tier armies, no doubt, but it's not what we are discussing.

 koooaei wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Imagine that, it didn't have a hard time killing Terminators, which is super strange because Terminators are known for being super durable.

Did you even read it or saw the word "termie" and rushed with the comment?

I read it. One of the sentences was literally "it moved up the board and killed his termies".

Like, I'm supposed to be impressed by that?

He talks about the opponent making mistakes, such as deploying badly, not understanding his army, and literally says it was a game he should have lost. This proves the stompa is good against an opponent who is making poor decisions. Probably not the best example.

Of course, it could be argued the mistakes were from an intimidation factor.

Regardless if its a good example or not, it's not related to the topic at hand. It's specifically competitive SM and Eldar, which isn't what the report showcases.

Please refrain from moving the goalposts. I don't want to turn this into another mutilator thread, though I think its already too late for that...

Orks have no counter to competitive Eldar/SM lists. Anything an Ork can do the Eldar/SMscan do better, with the exception of spamming bodies....but since Scatbikes are a thing, not exactly effective.

The only time an Ork list beats a competitive Eldar/SM list is when the Eldar/SM player doesn't understand orks and kills the wrong units in the wrong order. Otherwise the Eldar player just deletes whatever he wants until the game is over.

How can they understand orks if there are no orks around =D
That's the main reason why greentide did so great in it's time.

 koooaei wrote:
How can they understand orks if there are no orks around =D
That's the main reason why greentide did so great in it's time.

Until some tactical genius (Sarcastic font) figured out that if you assault the green tide on two different sides you can easily keep it bogged down in CC the entire game, spending the entire time just consolidating into CC to get wiped out because S3 boyz aren't to be feared, even with 3 attacks.

Or if your one of those players who didn't bring any unit capable of even getting into Assault (Scatbike army or possibly tau) just send a MC or GMC into CC with it and watch all those useless S3 hits do nothing. And then spend the rest of the game shooting the handful of other units that the ork player has, game ends with the ork player holding no objectives. This actually works btw, it just depends on whether or not your close to a Nob with a PK or a Warboss with a PK. But since they are easy to avoid you can force them to spend 2-4 turns consolidating into CC.

but your right, a lot of people forget how to fight orks because they are never seen at the tournament level because they suck so bad. So in that sense they are a counter meta to eldar/SM. Just keep in mind that it isn't BECAUSE of the unit, but simply BECAUSE the unit is almost never seen a lot of players forget how to target correctly.

Sst. Don't spoil the SM player rite of passage ; )

SemperMortis wrote:


Until some tactical genius (Sarcastic font) figured out that if you assault the green tide on two different sides you can easily keep it bogged down in CC the entire game, spending the entire time just consolidating into CC to get wiped out because S3 boyz aren't to be feared, even with 3 attacks.

The thing is a lot of tourney armies don't have meaningful cc that can assault from different angles. It's either one deathstar or 100% shooting. And just a few MC will go down cause there's still a lot of PK and some other stuff. Though, at the time of GT being great, it mostly utilised tankbustas with meltabombs to get rid of MC and IK. And VSG tokeep the tide protected. None of this things work now that's why the tie is way weaker atm.

Also, i constantly play against SM with my orks and have decent results with trukk bully boyz, 30 choppaboyz with bikerboss and bikerdok, some chaff, ranged support and VSG. I'd not call it a counter but it works.

 koooaei wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:


Until some tactical genius (Sarcastic font) figured out that if you assault the green tide on two different sides you can easily keep it bogged down in CC the entire game, spending the entire time just consolidating into CC to get wiped out because S3 boyz aren't to be feared, even with 3 attacks.

The thing is a lot of tourney armies don't have meaningful cc that can assault from different angles. It's either one deathstar or 100% shooting. And just a few MC will go down cause there's still a lot of PK and some other stuff. Though, at the time of GT being great, it mostly utilised tankbustas with meltabombs to get rid of MC and IK. And VSG tokeep the tide protected. None of this things work now that's why the tie is way weaker atm.

True, there is usually very little CC in a SM or Eldar competitive list. It's often a deathstar or GMC. SW and Necrons are different of course, but that's not the topic.

Mostly they ignore CC because the vast majority of armies can't have a unit that waits till turn 3 to do damage, and only eliminates one squad at best before being shot to death. The vast majority of CC units in 40k are hoping to tie in attrition, and never expect to come out in front. This makes a heavy CC force traditionally quite awful for the last few editions. This wasn't the case in 3rd, because you could get multiple units, so a single CC squad could destroy 2-3 units allowing it to go way up in attrition for some risk in a way shooting at the time could not.

This is starting to change. Daemons, Necrons, and SW can all run multiple CC units and do well. Not best in the game, but still very competitive. Sadly this does not apply to orks.

Referring to GT, SM's deathstar is honestly strong enough that they can hold it down quite well. Even a centstar, with invisibility, can hold it down pretty well, and an actual bike squad built for CC does well. Eldar have a GMC and scatbikes now, not to mention spiders. Necrons have wraiths. SW have their army list. Daemons have seekers. Most of the top tier armies have units they take often enough that out CC or just wipe orks off the table in a way that is best described as...trivial. Orks are simply over costed, weak defensively, not fast, and lack a punch after the charge, assuming they get it.

 koooaei wrote:

Also, i constantly play against SM with my orks and have decent results with trukk bully boyz, 30 choppaboyz with bikerboss and bikerdok, some chaff, ranged support and VSG. I'd not call it a counter but it works.

No offense, but this doesn't mean anything. SM are not like eldar, where most of the codex is good to amazing with only 1-2 duds. SM have a lot of horrible units, and a select few that put them way over the top if certain combos are used. It's very easy to defeat a weak SM list if they are spamming LRs with regular terminators for example, even for Chaos. This does not make CSM an effective counter.

Unless you are facing biker deathstars, centstars, TFC, some sternguard, minimum troops, OR the gladius, its not competitive SM. Given previous reports, I don't think your opponents are typically using competitive lists, so anecdotal evidence will be very ineffective here.

By all means though, you could always provide a battle report of an Ork player against competitive SM or Eldar. Same as all the other threads where this kind of discussion shows up.

Btw, did you find a link declaring the FW stompa singled out as banned?

I mostly face centstars with libconclave. And he started taking honor guard cause centstars weren't doing too good against orks. Now honor guards with buffs are very dangerous for the points - you basically have to play around them.

 koooaei wrote:
I mostly face centstars with libconclave. And he started taking honor guard cause centstars weren't doing too good against orks. Now honor guards with buffs are very dangerous for the points - you basically have to play around them.

Then it should be relatively easy to provide a BR against a competitive list. Not like last time, where the lists were extremely casual and pretty much the perfect set up to prove a point, but not remotely close to competitive.

I'm not moving the goal posts, if it works it works. I'll gladly try it myself again using your strategy if it does, but I'd like to see some evidence before I do. I don't play often enough to just try something randomly, especially something I've already seen fail myself. I had a similar discussion with someone regarding Hawks and they convinced me that I was wrong and had overlooked some wargear that made them excellent. Granted the current FAQ made them...pretty terrible again outside of anti-flier tech, but I get some games in with some of my favorite models again.


Any links to tournaments making FW stompas uniquely illegal? Or was it a generic ban?

Was a generic ban "Against Escalation and FW all in all". It's slowly disappearing but ~80-90% GT-s in Russia still ban them. Most european tourneys also ban escalation and i think around 1/3(?) are against fw and more have specific bans against fw superheavies. ETC last year for example.

Daemonettee and seekers, a unit of 10 seekers can kill a wraithknight in 1 turn if you get half decent rolls, if you want to garrentee that get a loci of beguilement and they dont stand a chance, from memory seekers cost around 12 points, so 120 points (170 or so with herald and loci) and you have one dead wraithknight

If you like tzeench a few burning chariots will make short work of wraithknights with their str 9 ap 2 d3 shots