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Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 00:36:02


Post by: NecronLord3


Just finished my first 40k tournament and it was amazing. I was really happy to have attended. I was really shocked to see the number of Valkyries on the boards. It seemed like at least a 3rd of the players were running Imperial Guard with a pair of Valkyries. The real shock though, was the lack of Orks. I honestly saw more Necron(myself included of course), Dark Eldar, and Squat(not combined) armies than I saw Ork armies. I only personally saw 1 but I also reviewed photos from the Tournament and it appears there were around 3. Anyone know what could have cause the Ork army to have lost so much popularity? They are fairly new and very competitive, maybe its just to difficult to get that many boyz ready for a 1850 point tournament?


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 00:41:15


Post by: Dashofpepper


You have to be quite skilled to win with Orks because they have glaring weaknesses that it takes a good general to circumvent.

As opposed to IG and certain spacewolf builds, which are pretty much easy street.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 00:50:35


Post by: Iron_Chaos_Brute


I came here expecting a sad story about a lost Ork army...so phew!

That said, Dash is right. IG mech gunline kills with math. There are some wrinkles, but they're small-it just kills with math.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 01:00:02


Post by: wileythenord


I was at adepticon and i counted 5 ork armies while I was there, and I only looked at the yellow tournament.

But still that is a poor showing.

I was happy that I wasn't the only Dark Eldar player there!


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 02:02:25


Post by: Skarboy


Orks have a middling codex with some very glaring weaknesses. A good general can overcome to some degree, but against another good general, one with a better codex, it's an uphill battle. Don't get me wrong; orks can still win games, but in tourneys, to do well, you need massacres, which are hard for them to pull off, especially against the power armies like IG or SW in the hands of a good opponent.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 02:59:38


Post by: I grappled the shoggoth


Orks won team tournament. They cant be that bad, right behind wolves and ig in power levels, but so is everybody else.

Problem the orks face is that you only have 1 option. Move across table to apply fist to face.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 03:16:24


Post by: RiTides


I grappled the shoggoth wrote:Orks won team tournament... Move across table to apply fist to face.


True, and true


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 03:29:21


Post by: Snikkyd


Well, it could have little to do with the power of Orks, there just weren't much of them for some other reason.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 03:41:38


Post by: Redbeard


I played orks in a small event friday night (and won it), and got a top-ten finish playing orks on Sunday in the yellow championship. For what it's worth.

Orks did also win the team event, and Dakka Detachment One got seventh in the team event with orks.



Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 03:43:27


Post by: RiTides


Great points... I wouldn't count too much on the math/theory by itself... clearly, they're competitive.

Perhaps it's just the large numbers of models that drove people away from them for this event. I know 'Nids aren't the most competitive thing out there, but that's a deterrent for fielding a force of them, too...


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 03:46:27


Post by: I grappled the shoggoth


The thing with orks, as ive said before, is you have no tactical options. If you want to get across the table and kick ass they are the best army in the game. But that is all you will ever do. Assuming you dont bring some absurd army, like 9 koptas, 45 lootas, and shoota boyz.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 03:51:51


Post by: RiTides


You grappled the shaggoth!?

Sorry, I couldn't resist . You're right about the tactics... see "apply fist to face" comment above


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 04:12:07


Post by: sexiest_hero


There is a web site that shant be named that says orks sucks. thus nobody brings them. Sad because I think roket filled orks can do a number on mech armies. Ity's still better than the fantasy Daemons who rule all. Sad that people think they have to take IG and Wolves to win. I hear Nids had a poor shoing also.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 04:17:28


Post by: Dashofpepper


sexiest_hero wrote:There is a web site that shant be named that says orks sucks. thus nobody brings them. Sad because I think roket filled orks can do a number on mech armies. Ity's still better than the fantasy Daemons who rule all. Sad that people think they have to take IG and Wolves to win. I hear Nids had a poor shoing also.


Someone linked me over there. I posted for Stelek and all the fanbois that they were welcome to meet me on Vassal and to put their money where their mouth is - my orks against their....I don't care. No takers yet.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 04:19:10


Post by: Valhallan42nd


I grappled the shoggoth wrote:Orks won team tournament. They cant be that bad, right behind wolves and ig in power levels, but so is everybody else.

Problem the orks face is that you only have 1 option. Move across table to apply fist to face.


But what an option to have...


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 04:20:25


Post by: Centurian99


I'm back... (kind of)

We did pretty well with Orks. There were a lot of guard armies and SW armies, but Orks showed up pretty regularly, just not as much as they did last year (when they were relatively new and shiny.) New and shiny always is more popular, especially the ones that people have had a chance to tweak.

We did pretty as an Ork team, and I faced two ork armies in the Blue Championships. Going into round 3, an Ork KOS army was top seed, with my Daemons in 2nd. We basically knocked each other out, although I technically won.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 04:22:51


Post by: Iron_Chaos_Brute


Dashofpepper wrote:
sexiest_hero wrote:There is a web site that shant be named that says orks sucks. thus nobody brings them. Sad because I think roket filled orks can do a number on mech armies. Ity's still better than the fantasy Daemons who rule all. Sad that people think they have to take IG and Wolves to win. I hear Nids had a poor shoing also.


Someone linked me over there. I posted for Stelek and all the fanbois that they were welcome to meet me on Vassal and to put their money where their mouth is - my orks against their....I don't care. No takers yet.

Well of course. You aren't drinking the Kool-Aid, so you can't play competetively. Duh. YTTH ripping aside (someone once posted that Stelek is a combination of 40K genius and idiot-and I agree) I think too many people got scared of the "invincible IG".


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 05:16:00


Post by: Pipboy101


I grappled the shoggoth wrote:Move across table to apply fist to face.


What else does an Ork want to do but that. It fits the fluff and looking at my 2010 Ard Boyz Ork army lined up on my table it is alot face smacking to go around. While IG and SW are the new armies out there that are really strong there is nothing more satisfing then an enemy seeing his best unit smacked out of the park by a hopped up baseball player in the first round of assault. Point for point Orks are just a much more fun army wto play and will never sux no matter what the new shiny codex that comes out.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 06:22:55


Post by: Nurglitch


It's kind of nice that Orks behave like they do in the fluff eh?


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 07:01:34


Post by: Milquetoast Thug


Dashofpepper wrote:
sexiest_hero wrote:There is a web site that shant be named that says orks sucks. thus nobody brings them. Sad because I think roket filled orks can do a number on mech armies. Ity's still better than the fantasy Daemons who rule all. Sad that people think they have to take IG and Wolves to win. I hear Nids had a poor shoing also.


Someone linked me over there. I posted for Stelek and all the fanbois that they were welcome to meet me on Vassal and to put their money where their mouth is - my orks against their....I don't care. No takers yet.


Oooh! ooh! I think I can consider myself enough of a "zombie" (or "ynquisitor" or whatever) to sympathize with those dudes... and I would gladly give you a shot on vassal... as soon as I'm done with work and exams and my wife lays off me for a bit.

But seriously, I'll play you on vassal. I'm not going to pretend that YTTH isn't flawed at times, but it's not like the guy doesn't have reasonable points.

That said, I disagree with his frankly myopic view on orkz - I personally like stelek 's tactical view of 40k and all, but I view things like this:

at a hypothetically "highest" possible level of competition, where no one runs anything except super-optimized lists and no one ever ever fethed up tactically... then yes, orkz would be really bad, as would be few other armies (chaos, to boot)

But that's not really how it works, practically, in 40k. people do make mistakes, dice do get hot, and few lists are in fact "super-optimized" - and it is through these 2 qualities that you see orkz do well at tournaments (since not even tournament armies are as fully tweaked out as they could be).

That said, they aren't one of the best armies in the game (even through some people seem to think they are for some reason), and they do have issues with mech, but it's fething slowed to imply you can just roll over them like he does. playing against orkz is like playing against zangief in street fighter 2 -in theory, it's a walk over, but in practice, one empty-jump means you just lost like 30% health to spinning pile driver. Don't get me wrong - in old street fighter 2, at the highest levels of play, you almost never see zangief - which is the point stelek is trying to make about orkz. Hypothetically, in ideal competitive conditions, orkz shouldn't be able to hack it.
But really, just because of the nature of 40k, games never get to that level of "quality", for lack of a better term. It's just not practical in a hobby where it is obscenely expensive and often not very rewarding to trick your army out the nth degree (why trick out your army if it makes people not want to play casual games against you, after all?) Hence, orkz do alright at the current level of play.

It's really dumb to underestimate them - but to extend the street fighter metaphor, they sure as hell ain't Sagat. (That would be guard, obviously, but with MELTA MELTA MELTA instead of TIGER TIGER TIGER).


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 07:15:44


Post by: Dashofpepper


And a challenger has arrived to defend Stelek's Blog and my attacks upon his credibility as an anti-ork theorist!

More news as it develops.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 07:33:04


Post by: Blackmoor


Milquetoast Thug wrote:
at a hypothetically "highest" possible level of competition, where no one runs anything except super-optimized lists and no one ever ever fethed up tactically... then yes, orkz would be really bad, as would be few other armies (chaos, to boot)


Prove it.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 08:46:54


Post by: Shinkaze


I grappled the shoggoth wrote:Orks won team tournament. They cant be that bad, right behind wolves and ig in power levels, but so is everybody else.

Problem the orks face is that you only have 1 option. Move across table to apply fist to face.


Orks won the team tournament the year before. The team tournament requires alot more than just massacring your opponent. It has alot of soft scoring.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 12:03:21


Post by: Redbeard


Milquetoast Thug wrote:
at a hypothetically "highest" possible level of competition, where no one runs anything except super-optimized lists and no one ever ever fethed up tactically... then yes, orkz would be really bad, as would be few other armies (chaos, to boot)

But that's not really how it works, practically, in 40k. people do make mistakes, dice do get hot, and few lists are in fact "super-optimized" - and it is through these 2 qualities that you see orkz do well at tournaments (since not even tournament armies are as fully tweaked out as they could be).


I played against two or three armies in the style of YTTH. Razorback Las/TL Plas spam, Eldar light-walker spam, etc. (with my orks), mech-guard spam. First, they're boring. Second, they have glaring weaknesses. I guess if part of the theory is that you'll do well against other lists of this nature, then if you don't, it's not your fault, it's the fault of the opponent who brought something non-competitive and beat you, right?


That said, they aren't one of the best armies in the game (even through some people seem to think they are for some reason), and they do have issues with mech...


I wouldn't have thought so from my games this weekend. My kan list killed its fair share of tanks. My battlewagon list made parking lots out of mech guard and mech space wolves. There is nothing that proper application of a powerklaw cannot solve.


Hypothetically, in ideal competitive conditions, orkz shouldn't be able to hack it. But really, just because of the nature of 40k, games never get to that level of "quality", for lack of a better term. It's just not practical in a hobby where it is obscenely expensive and often not very rewarding to trick your army out the nth degree (why trick out your army if it makes people not want to play casual games against you, after all?) Hence, orkz do alright at the current level of play.

It's really dumb to underestimate them - but to extend the street fighter metaphor, they sure as hell ain't Sagat. (That would be guard, obviously, but with MELTA MELTA MELTA instead of TIGER TIGER TIGER).


That all depends on how they're used, doesn't it. Melta-melta-melta means you're in range of ork close-combat. And one unit of orks can kill a lot of guard stuff in one turn (multiple tanks and units). If you send one unit with meltas to get the job done, our forcefields save us If you send more, you lose more than the tank you killed is worth. And so guard is the uber-army here?

If you make up imaginary conditions and then claim that those imaginary conditions are what is "competitive", you're basically laying out a strawman argument that can't be disproved. I can make the claim that Tau are the most competitive army in the game if it's played in optimal conditions too, and then state that the reason tau aren't winning is that too many people are running theoretically bad lists that hurt them. Can you smell the BS from where you are? The environment that matters is the real world that we play in, not the imaginary one where everyone is running spamcrap lists. In the real world, orks are plenty strong, and have far more options than most of these super-optimized lists - and more fun to boot.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 13:18:45


Post by: Milquetoast Thug


Redbeard wrote:
Milquetoast Thug wrote:
at a hypothetically "highest" possible level of competition, where no one runs anything except super-optimized lists and no one ever ever fethed up tactically... then yes, orkz would be really bad, as would be few other armies (chaos, to boot)

But that's not really how it works, practically, in 40k. people do make mistakes, dice do get hot, and few lists are in fact "super-optimized" - and it is through these 2 qualities that you see orkz do well at tournaments (since not even tournament armies are as fully tweaked out as they could be).


I played against two or three armies in the style of YTTH. Razorback Las/TL Plas spam, Eldar light-walker spam, etc. (with my orks), mech-guard spam. First, they're boring. Second, they have glaring weaknesses. I guess if part of the theory is that you'll do well against other lists of this nature, then if you don't, it's not your fault, it's the fault of the opponent who brought something non-competitive and beat you, right?


I'm not too concerned with "boring", but the idea you outline above (bolded for clarity) is Stelek's idea, not mine. But yes, that is what he would argue. I find that to be a weak one and part of why he takes a lot of heat - reasonably so.

If one compares list building to a scientific endeavor, and we build lists based on certain principles (as Stelek does, mobility, vehicles, redundancy, etc)... and then lists that do not follow this as well do better than we expect - then wouldn't we normally conclude that maybe something is wrong with our list building principles? if it was our own list's failing, that is one thing, since we can examine our own playstyle - but when orkz and chaos continue to do well, we might want to examine our principles of list building. The problem is the other examples are all anecdotal - "I killed X tanks with powerklaw" type affairs, which might lead one to assume the theory doesn't need changing.


That said, they aren't one of the best armies in the game (even through some people seem to think they are for some reason), and they do have issues with mech...


I wouldn't have thought so from my games this weekend. My kan list killed its fair share of tanks. My battlewagon list made parking lots out of mech guard and mech space wolves. There is nothing that proper application of a powerklaw cannot solve.


This is an example of the above - in general, the Stelek school of thought states that meleeing vehicles to kill them is abad idea, due to how 5th ed works... and then you inform us that that it does work. Either the theory is wrong or your opponents are "bad", but I think stelek fails to consider the first possibility seriously enough.

That said, I would like more context on how you won your games.


Hypothetically, in ideal competitive conditions, orkz shouldn't be able to hack it. But really, just because of the nature of 40k, games never get to that level of "quality", for lack of a better term. It's just not practical in a hobby where it is obscenely expensive and often not very rewarding to trick your army out the nth degree (why trick out your army if it makes people not want to play casual games against you, after all?) Hence, orkz do alright at the current level of play.

It's really dumb to underestimate them - but to extend the street fighter metaphor, they sure as hell ain't Sagat. (That would be guard, obviously, but with MELTA MELTA MELTA instead of TIGER TIGER TIGER).


That all depends on how they're used, doesn't it. Melta-melta-melta means you're in range of ork close-combat. And one unit of orks can kill a lot of guard stuff in one turn (multiple tanks and units). If you send one unit with meltas to get the job done, our forcefields save us If you send more, you lose more than the tank you killed is worth. And so guard is the uber-army here?

If you make up imaginary conditions and then claim that those imaginary conditions are what is "competitive", you're basically laying out a strawman argument that can't be disproved. I can make the claim that Tau are the most competitive army in the game if it's played in optimal conditions too, and then state that the reason tau aren't winning is that too many people are running theoretically bad lists that hurt them. Can you smell the BS from where you are? The environment that matters is the real world that we play in, not the imaginary one where everyone is running spamcrap lists. In the real world, orks are plenty strong, and have far more options than most of these super-optimized lists - and more fun to boot.


I'll have to get to this later, (I have an exam! why am I even posting now?!) but I will simply say for now that it brings up some excellent points. Sorry for inadvertently strawmanning. I mean this.

Also, I was using Sagat as an amusing metaphor - Sagat can control space from across the screen in a very aggressive manner whilst still being dangerous up close, whereas orks, like zangief only have one strategy in most situations - apply klaw (or SPINNING PILE DRIVER) to enemy face. While I like to use SF in this way, the metaphor does break down after a while.

But this does bring us to the question of theory vs. reality, which I'll get to this evening.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 15:10:13


Post by: Redbeard


Milquetoast Thug wrote:
This is an example of the above - in general, the Stelek school of thought states that meleeing vehicles to kill them is abad idea, due to how 5th ed works... and then you inform us that that it does work. Either the theory is wrong or your opponents are "bad", but I think stelek fails to consider the first possibility seriously enough.

That said, I would like more context on how you won your games.


Well, a lot has to do with synergistic defense. The Kustom Forcefield is a great piece of equipment. In a kan list, it gives a 4+ save to your kans, who then give a 4+ save to boyz behind them. Lootas outrange a lot of things, and can pick off glass-hammer squadrons like land speeders or eldar walkers, valkyries, and good stuff.

I don't know that kans are the best example though - the championship games, I was running battlewagons. AV14 with a 4+ cover save, some are going to get close. Once I'm close, that's a lot of boyz on your side of the field, stopping you from playing your game. 20 boyz can charge a bunch of tanks, and even if I only get some glances and shakes, that means you're not hitting me back much. In a kill-point game, I'll happily trade my 20 boy unit for 2-3 tanks.

Deff-rollas let me kill a tank in the movement phase (huge tactical edge, as I can decide to disembark if you die and there are passengers to assault, or stay inside if I don't). I had one wagon that carried the warboss and some nobs. I could ram/rolla one enemy tank, disembark the boss to assault a second, and have the nobs inside the wagon use a boarding plank to hit a third, all in the same turn. The boarding plank is another excellent piece of equipment. Against skimmers (who can dodge the ram) or walkers (who could hurt the wagon), the plank means I get multiple S9 or S10 attacks just by pulling up alongside you.

Both the rolla and the plank give you a way around the usual problem of assaulting vehicles, which is that the occupants get to go after the assaulters. But the rolla gives me the option for that first charge, and the plank means I'm assaulting (with multiple high-strength hits on back armour) without leaving my tank...

If your defenses are lots of multilasers, which can't hurt the battlewagons, vendettas, which can be shaken or worse by loota fire, missile-troops, who miss often and can only glance, and meltaguns, which require you to be in ramming and assault range, and my forcefield saves any of those on a 4+ to-boot, with multiple wagons bearing down on you, I like my odds well enough.





But this does bring us to the question of theory vs. reality, which I'll get to this evening.


I'm interested in what you've got to say about this.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 15:29:03


Post by: Da Boss


Enjoyable discussion.
I think Orks can handle mech, but it all depends on build. I've been horde focused for a while, and I do okay. But I do know that if I make a mistake, because of the nature of the list, I'm probably now heavily committed to a bad course of action that will lose me the game.
Battlewagons are easier, because you can recover more easily from mistakes, and also, because your choices are more obvious and your weaknesses harder to exploit. I don't own enough BWs to run that list right now, and I'm too poor to buy them.
Kan Wall looks pretty good too, though I haven't run it myself.
One other build I want to give a better look is "elite orks"- Nobs, Meganobs, Burnas, Lootas, Snikrot Kommandos, with some trukks and maybe a wagon. Each element is really good at dishing out a particular type of damage or exploiting a particular weakness, but kinda fragile too. Only 2 scoring units is a big problem too. That said, it worked in my (brief) playtesting phase.

I'm suprised, given the BW ruling, that we didn't see more BW spam lists at Adepticon- looks like a very strong build to me, with some pretty solid anti-tank.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 15:33:53


Post by: Blackmoor


Back to the topic of why there is not that many orks…

I think a larger part of why there were so many ork players a year or two ago and there are a lot less now is because a lot of people buy armies that are new, play them for a while, and then move on to the newest codexes (and thought to be the most powerful armies).

Some of those Space Wolf and Mech Guard armies that were at Adepticon were ork armies before. Now the ones that are left are the true ork army players. Those people who love the army and were the ones that played it before the new codex came out.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 15:37:54


Post by: Da Boss


Good point, Blackmoor.
I see a lot of people in my environment gearing up towards Blood Angels


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 15:38:04


Post by: Redbeard


The ruling came out kind of late, and if you thought it was inviable with a month to go, you probably hadn't built or tested the list.

I bought, built and painted the wagons in two weeks (Neal@thewarstore rocks for getting them to me in time to paint them), and went into the event having never played the list before.

Most people don't want to take a list they've never played to a major event.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 15:43:23


Post by: Davicus


Milquetoast Thug - Why not get Stelek to prove his points himself? Realize he never dared enter any GT or the Ard Boyz, and often criticize how bad the tournaments were? Trashing talking requires minimal effort - I can easily theorize why I should run faster than Usain Bolt :-).

Edited by moderator. Let's leave the primary school-level insults in the playground, shall we?


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 15:53:11


Post by: Janthkin


Blackmoor wrote:Some of those Space Wolf and Mech Guard armies that were at Adepticon were ork armies before. Now the ones that are left are the true ork army players. Those people who love the army and were the ones that played it before the new codex came out.

And us, Blackmoor.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 16:05:21


Post by: Kirasu


All I gotta say is being a bandwagon ork player was no where near as expensive as IG or SW.. If people want to jump on the IG mech ship and spend 1000$ then Im sure GW is very happy

Ive been playing BA for ever and Its going to be a bit strange to see everyone jump to my army after years of scorn :p


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 16:07:17


Post by: Da Boss


Seriously, at least 3 guys in my club are looking at starting. Blood Angels are the new black!


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 16:19:03


Post by: Droofus


If someone wants to think orks are underpowered, then let them! It'll be easier for me to sneak up on them and krump 'em!

There are plenty of aggrieved Eldar players over at 40k online who think orks are overpowered. There have even been mutterings at my LGS to that effect.

Just goes to show that army power is all in the eyes of your local metagame.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 17:59:20


Post by: Milquetoast Thug


Redbeard wrote:
Milquetoast Thug wrote:
This is an example of the above - in general, the Stelek school of thought states that meleeing vehicles to kill them is abad idea, due to how 5th ed works... and then you inform us that that it does work. Either the theory is wrong or your opponents are "bad", but I think stelek fails to consider the first possibility seriously enough.

That said, I would like more context on how you won your games.


Well, a lot has to do with synergistic defense. The Kustom Forcefield is a great piece of equipment. In a kan list, it gives a 4+ save to your kans, who then give a 4+ save to boyz behind them. Lootas outrange a lot of things, and can pick off glass-hammer squadrons like land speeders or eldar walkers, valkyries, and good stuff.

I don't know that kans are the best example though - the championship games, I was running battlewagons. AV14 with a 4+ cover save, some are going to get close. Once I'm close, that's a lot of boyz on your side of the field, stopping you from playing your game. 20 boyz can charge a bunch of tanks, and even if I only get some glances and shakes, that means you're not hitting me back much. In a kill-point game, I'll happily trade my 20 boy unit for 2-3 tanks.

Deff-rollas let me kill a tank in the movement phase (huge tactical edge, as I can decide to disembark if you die and there are passengers to assault, or stay inside if I don't). I had one wagon that carried the warboss and some nobs. I could ram/rolla one enemy tank, disembark the boss to assault a second, and have the nobs inside the wagon use a boarding plank to hit a third, all in the same turn. The boarding plank is another excellent piece of equipment. Against skimmers (who can dodge the ram) or walkers (who could hurt the wagon), the plank means I get multiple S9 or S10 attacks just by pulling up alongside you.

Both the rolla and the plank give you a way around the usual problem of assaulting vehicles, which is that the occupants get to go after the assaulters. But the rolla gives me the option for that first charge, and the plank means I'm assaulting (with multiple high-strength hits on back armour) without leaving my tank...

If your defenses are lots of multilasers, which can't hurt the battlewagons, vendettas, which can be shaken or worse by loota fire, missile-troops, who miss often and can only glance, and meltaguns, which require you to be in ramming and assault range, and my forcefield saves any of those on a 4+ to-boot, with multiple wagons bearing down on you, I like my odds well enough.





But this does bring us to the question of theory vs. reality, which I'll get to this evening.


I'm interested in what you've got to say about this.


The ork/tau paradox

Ok, so I got an hour to write this up, so let’s get to it.

First, let me just talk a bit about the paradox in question. It’s a paradox from our dear frenemy Stelek.

In a nut shell, he claims that Orkz are one of the worst armies in the game, and Tau one of the best. You can go on his blog if you wish to see his view points on why this is – but I won’t link it unless specifically asked.

But basically, the main points were something like this:

-Tau have highly survivable vehicles, orkz have poorer surviving vehicles

-Tau can kill tanks easily, orkz have trouble doing so without klaws (lootas only get you so far)

-etc etc.

Now, we can just go ahead and say “he’s a gak” and leave it at that, but this would be a mistake, I think, since Stelek’s raising of the issue gives us, the rest of the 40k community, and opportunity to examine the claims he’s making – and possibly grow because of it. This is particularly important since many of the claims he’s making aren’t REALLY that unreasonable at first glance.

Let us consider a tidbit from David Sirlin, another guy who’s viewpoints meshes with mine –


Imagine a majestic mountain nirvana of gaming. At its peak are fulfillment, "fun", and even transcendence. Most people could care less about this mountain peak, because they have other life issues that are more important to them, and other peaks to pursue. There are few, though, who are not at this peak, but who would be very happy there. These are the people I'm talking to. Some of them don't need any help; they're on the journey. Most, though, only believe they are on that journey but actually are not. They got stuck in a chasm at the mountain's base, a land of scrubdom. Here they are imprisoned in their own mental constructs of made up game rules. If they could only cross this chasm, they would discover either a very boring plateau (for a degenerate game) or the heavenly enchanted mountain peak (for a "deep" game). In the former case, crossing the chasm would teach them to find a different mountain with more fulfilling rewards. In the latter case, well, they'd just be happier. All "playing to win" was supposed to be is the process of shedding the mental constructs that trap players in the chasm who would be happier at the mountain peak.


The point, ostensibly, of stelek’s mission is to “improve competitive gaming in the 40k community”, and I think the above reason –that the game might be more fun if it were more “competitive” (whatever that means). If nothing else, it would be more fun if the people who lose all their games to cheesy lists… weren’t losing all their games, because they improved their own lists and tactics. As a person who once lost all my games, I can agree with this seemingly admirable mission.

I think, in many ways, I understand the mindset of stelek, and understanding this mindset is important to understanding why he says the things he does.

So, what’s the paradox, then?

Well, tau almost never win tournaments, not even getting close, whereas orkz win quite often.

So, the question is “why”? The answer might be theory vs. reality.

Basically, Stelek’s tacticas and army lists are build around a certain kind set of “rules”. Principles. For instance, in chess, winning principles might be to develop early, capture the center, etc. But in chess, I can tell you, these ideas I just listed are “classical” in nature. There is also a “modern” school of thought wherein one eschews going for the center to instead let the other guy capture it, and overextend himself. And they do work rather well, since I play them almost exclusively when I play chess.

So, there might be multiple schools of thought. So what?

Well, the thing with stelek is his school of though emphasizes mobility, redundancy, use of vehicles when possible, use of long range when possible, and a preference of shooting over assault. The idea is you take lots and lots of vehicles (which are durable, mobile, and usually move and shoot long ranged guns), which are hard to kill in assault, and you kill the other guy’s to reduce his mobility and capability to fight back. This is nothing game-changing, exactly, this is just how 5th ed works. Shooting is emphasized over assault since you can be shooting on turn one, assault, maybe not, and because you can fire 3 units of shooting at one unit in the shooting phase – where as assault tends to be more of a one on one affair.

Based on this view, it is obvious why stelek views orks with distain and tau as great – because tau adhere to the above principles almost to a tee, where as orkz blatantly ignore the above principles. But to bring back our classical vs modern school of thought…

Well, as far as I can tell, as a tau player, the above analysis holds true – in annihilation missions. In objective missions, tau has a hard time mainly because their troops are slow and fragile, they have to shoot units off objectives instead of assaulting them off , and they cannot really afford to wander into midfield until they have neutralized most of the enemy’s threats to their firepower. Shooting units off objectives like plaguebearers and such is a massive pain in the ass without markerlights (which everyone will kill first), and without crisis suits w/ plasma within 12’’ (which means you either deep struck which is bad for a lot of reasons, or you somehow walked a bunch of crisis suits into the other guy’s deployment zone, which is hard to do for the reasons above).

Orkz, yes, have a vehicle that is fragile as gak, and a Land raider equivalent with worse side armor, terrible fething rules on some units – but these qualities overlook how they may be able to rock the fething house in objective missions. Orkz have a deceptively large charge range, which may lead opponents to be inclined to keep their distance the first couple turns – in turn leading to it being harder for an opponent to take objectives. Additionally, while I do think ork boyz are an overrated unit (no retreat wounds HURT), they are a cheap unit and that means a ork player will likely have a lot of troops to throw around. Orkz can basically, as noted by Redbeard, “stop the opponent from playing his game” bye getting too much crap in his face. Taking opponents out of their comfort zone - that’s a big deal.

Inidentally, these qualities – large charge ranges (via lash), and excellent troops are also part of the CSM goodness, another army that sometimes places well, although I think they have more noticeable problems in 5th ed. (at this point, orkz might be better at killing tanks than CSM are, which is one part of it).

Now, I don’t think Orkz are tops, nor tau horrible – I think they might rest somewhere in middle – but the above are qualities overlooked by a more myopic view of the game – not necessarily a bad view – but a view that doesn’t take everything into consideration.

I’m sure Stelek is partially right- part of why tau do poorly and orkz do well is also in part to tau being hard to play/lots of 4th ed armies in west coast and such/whatever but come on, there is no way that’s the only reason orkz do so well. That would be absurd. It can’t all be just due to massive foot armies stalling for wins, or else you’d see a lot of all foot guard armies kicking ass, which as far as I’m aware, they’re aren’t.

Anyways, that’s might take on the situations. Thoughts?

(I might repost this as a discussion topic later on, but only if others feel it is worth doing so).



Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 18:16:51


Post by: Da Boss


Nice analysis. I guess it tends to point towards being flexible in your outlook. Stelek's principles and the way he hunts for them tends to make his lists wacky and sometimes one dimensional, but then again, sometimes it works. Of course, sometimes sticking too rigidly to these ideas leads to inflexibility of outlook which leads to statements like "orks suck".

You're also spot on that the real tournament scene is nothing like a pure optimised environment, and 40K as a game really doesn't want to be played that way.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 18:25:12


Post by: Ozymandias


I don't have much to add other than we played against a "Stelek" list in round 1 of the TT (when asked where online they go, the reply was YTTH). On my/Reecius' side we were against IG and on Whitedragon/Platuan4ths side they had SW razor spam. We went second which should have been a death knell to an IG list like they had but with tight play and some good tactics we kept them to a draw on all three objectives and scored more points overall. We almost won the secondary but Reecius had some bad rolls and we couldn't kill 5 dudes sitting in our deployment zone.

The list was good, better than ours in fact, but I see people reading YTTH, building Stelek approved lists, then losing/drawing against inferior lists cause they haven't developed the proper tactics to use yet. It goes back to theory vs. reality and number crunching vs. experience.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 19:48:44


Post by: Iron_Chaos_Brute


Milquetoast Thug wrote:Stuff

This is dead on, not only in respect to Orks/Tau but also to YTTH.

It can be really easy to get caught up in the groupthink on any forum-but what's really required at all points is a critical approach.

If Stelek starts preaching about how Orks suck, your first thought shouldn't be, "OK." or, "Nu-uh!", it should be, "Why does he think that? He's presented information and viewpoints that I both agree and disagree with in the past, so this one is worth examining."

Of course, certain people will spring to defend either OK or Nu-uh immediately and we get "ZombYes vs. Scrubs".

And Sirlin == Awesome


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 19:49:56


Post by: Redbeard


Sirlin is an interesting view. I don't necessarily share all his views, but it's worth reading.

Ok, so on to this paradox. I think Stelek's basic premise is wrong...


Well, the thing with stelek is his school of though emphasizes mobility, redundancy, use of vehicles when possible, use of long range when possible, and a preference of shooting over assault. The idea is you take lots and lots of vehicles (which are durable, mobile, and usually move and shoot long ranged guns), which are hard to kill in assault, and you kill the other guy’s to reduce his mobility and capability to fight back. This is nothing game-changing, exactly, this is just how 5th ed works. Shooting is emphasized over assault since you can be shooting on turn one, assault, maybe not, and because you can fire 3 units of shooting at one unit in the shooting phase – where as assault tends to be more of a one on one affair.



First, 40k is about assault, not shooting. It should be readily apparent to anyone looking at a game set in the far future, with weapons like artillery tanks and aircraft that carrying a sword into battle is a bad idea...




And yet, here we have this game where a third of the rules are dedicated to assault, all of the main characters are designed for assault, and the rules favour getting stuck in. Obviously, the designers want assault to matter.

Why is assault better?

Lots of people will tell you that assault is better cause you can kill opponent models on their turn as well as yours. That's a red herring, and has nothing to do with it. Afterall, if you can kill their models on their turn, they can kill your models on your turn... so let's abandon that line of reasoning.

Assault is better for the following reasons:

1) Assault can prevent units shooting, even if it doesn't kill models. If my battle plan is to assault you, and your battle plan is to shoot me, and I can stop your plan outright just by getting to you, that's in my favour.

2) Assault has an inherent mobility built in. Models move twice as far as normal when they have something to charge. They also get to move further when they win a fight.

3) Wounds inflicted in assault are worth more than wounds inflicted by shooting. What does that mean? Every wound I inflict in an assault also gives me a leadership modifier on your break test, or an extra set of wounds added for combat resolution. And I can sweep large numbers of models all in one move. Shooting wounds doesn't get me anything other than the one model I shot. In fact, shooting at troops in 5th ed is even weaker than it was in 4th ed. There is no more -1 penalty for being below half strength, and there is no more last-man-standing test each turn. You have to shoot, and kill, every man in a fearless squad, and may have to kill every man in a non-fearless squad to get them out of the game.

4) Shooting something out of cover is pretty darn hard in 5th edition. 40 points of grots (10 wounds) can rock a 3+ cover save on an objective by going to ground with a Ld re-roll and you can shoot quite a lot at them for two turns before they're gone. And that's only 40 points of models.

5) GW makes it so assault is better. Seriously. Look at all the models with hand-to-hand weapons. They need to sell those models. If those models sucked, people wouldn't buy them. Everything is skewed to make sure that assault armies can actually get into assault in some way. That's a primary requirement for the ruleset. If the assault models couldn't reliably get to assault in some way, the whole game concept breaks down.

In a way, the more potent shooting becomes, the more nerfed shooting will be in the next edition. This is a game that is about hand-to-hand fighting. Marneus holds a set of doors against 1000 orks, Horus and the Emperor fight hand-to-hand, and so on.



What else is flawed in Stelek's basic assumption? The concept that long-range is feasible. By the 40k rulebook, 1/3rd of all deployment options have the armies start as little as 18" apart. Most tournaments I attend have amended Dawn of War to have a 12" no-man's land down the center of the table, because pushback is harsh. But Dawn of War, with the inherent Nightfight, and close initial distances mean that your long-range guns just aren't that effective. Furthermore, in objective missions, long-range doesn't get you a lot, because your opponent knows where you need to be eventually. Armies, as a whole, are also faster in 5th ed than 4th, simply because of run moves. Dreadnoughts and MCs close on you roughly 50% faster than they did in 4th ed. And, as stated above, most assault armies have a way to close the distance faster, whether that is by movement options, deep striking, outflanking, or combinations of the above.

Is long-range shooting useful? Sure. Is only long-range shooting useful? Not at all. The basic principle of game design that allows assault armies to function at all dictates that regardless of what your range is, I have to be able to get Marneus into assault with you or people won't buy Marneus.


So, Stelek is wrong, because Stelek is approaching the analytical breakdown of the game with the wrong basic premise. If your initial premise is flawed, all the logic in the world building from that position won't help you.

Orks win because orks are designed to get stuck in, and the game is designed to reward armies that get stuck in. Their lack of range isn't an issue, because they don't seek to fight you at range. They have just enough long-range shooting (lootas), to reliably neutralize the biggest threats that you're presenting while the other boyz move up the field.

Tau don't do well because the weakness designed into the army (being weak in combat) is compounded with the shooting weakness built into the game. Tau can never be so good that they can reliably shoot other armies off the table, and so whatever enemy models make it to the Tau will probably win the game.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 20:19:52


Post by: Reecius


Orks won the team tournament. I saw a number of them, but yeah, IG and Wolves dominated the crowd.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And yes, Ozzy and I beat "Stelek" lists with out 'what ever we had available to us' lists. We just threw what we brought on the table based on the models we had, went second and still won, although it was a minor victory.

Those guys we played though were great guys and the most fun opponents of the day.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 20:27:29


Post by: Kirasu


Im constantly amused that people put any clout into steleks blog.. I wasnt even aware he plays 40k besides scrawlings online.. From what I heard he got kicked out of all his stores or no one wanted to play him anyhow

Theoryhammer is fairly pointless because every gaming area has totally different metagames and power players

Over saturation of a list tends to bring its demise.. Just like nob bikers were "kings" a while ago and everyone had to bring psyker battle squads to deal with them.. Well people dont bring battle squads and nob bikers arent kings. Perhaps people just got used to seeing them



Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 20:32:46


Post by: Reecius


I agree with you, the more we talk about the annoying man in Utah, the more attention he gets, which is playing into his game.

It just feels good to beat his "super duper" lists with basic, well rounded armies like Ozzy and I used. Tactics and skill beat lists.

And P.S., Nob Bikers won with Team Tournament, so they aren't dead and buried just yet!


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 20:54:56


Post by: ph34r


Indeed, but the nob biker lists were a bit more balanced than the stereotypical "22 nob bikerz this is my whole army". Still, nice to see them hanging around.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 21:00:09


Post by: Reecius


Yeah, that is true, they only had a 5 man squad each (so 10 per 2 man team), with tons of lootas and some boyz.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 21:15:09


Post by: Iron_Chaos_Brute


I have a friend who runs a couple of wagons and a 5-man Nob Biker squad at 1750. Works very well for him. Until he runs into a PBS


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 21:54:58


Post by: CaptKaruthors


Overall I think Redbeard is on target. However, ranged shooting can also save armies by extending the time they have to shoot. Basically, IMHO the success of a shooting army is based on the time it is allowed to shoot. If you can successfully keep your guns firing consistently for 5 turns, a shooting army can pick apart an army designed for assault. It really comes down to Skill and Tactics like Ozy said. My army was so close to going 3-0 on sunday it wasn't even funny. Sometimes the impossible becomes possible and you just have to eat what the dice gods feed you. When the dice turn south on you at critical moments of the game all the planning and tactics in the world can't save you sometimes.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 22:54:57


Post by: Augustus


Reecius wrote:I agree with you, the more we talk about the annoying man in Utah, the more attention he gets, which is playing into his game.

It just feels good to beat his "super duper" lists with basic, well rounded armies like Ozzy and I used. Tactics and skill beat lists.

And P.S., Nob Bikers won with Team Tournament, so they aren't dead and buried just yet!


I saw that army, I wondered, how did they make it pass all the JOTWW players? Did they even meet any?


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/30 23:24:52


Post by: Old Man Ultramarine


A fine read, gentlemen.



Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/31 00:05:55


Post by: niceas


I don't normally wade in on 40k discussions, but I have to say that the statement that the game is designed with an eye towards CC which inherently puts the Tau at a disadvantage is bang-on correct. Armies with a propensity to assault will tend to win over armies that tend to shoot.

One other factor that wasn't really mentioned above is that the amount of damage that you can do in assault is higher than what you can do with shooting. Yes, you can squeeze off a lot of shots at a marine force with rapid-firing whatevers, but it still amounts to only two shots per model, and unless you are using Plas, they are still saving on a 3+. On the other hand, if you charge in with melee oriented troops, you can easily get 3 attacks per model, and as such have the potential to do more damage.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/31 01:57:29


Post by: Reecius


I saw that army, I wondered, how did they make it pass all the JOTWW players? Did they even meet any?


I talked to them and they said that they had a tough match up with mech IG, but that the mission favored them and they pulled off the win. I would assume they played wolves as they were so prevalent, but with 110 teams, it is quite possible they got lucky and missed JoWW or a PBS.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/31 02:09:28


Post by: Janthkin


Reecius wrote:
I saw that army, I wondered, how did they make it pass all the JOTWW players? Did they even meet any?


I talked to them and they said that they had a tough match up with mech IG, but that the mission favored them and they pulled off the win. I would assume they played wolves as they were so prevalent, but with 110 teams, it is quite possible they got lucky and missed JoWW or a PBS.

JoWW isn't too hard for Nob bikers to mitigate - lootas will frag the important rhino(s), and the Nobs can spread out horizontally to limit the number of models hit to 1. At that point, it's probably not worth the Wolf player's time to use Jaws; Living Lightning would do more damage amongst the Lootas.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/31 02:19:58


Post by: Reecius


That is true, although a canny opponent could tank shock them into a pack then hit them with JoWW, but at that point may as well must tank shock the Nobs off the board, which I find works better anyway.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/31 02:58:43


Post by: Muskie


This is a really good thread. I never went to Adepticon but I've talked to people who have gone and obviously I can read stuff on the internet. The problem and thing I always bring up when so called internet experts speak up is well it varies a bit.

1) If you have enough time to post as much as Stelek and Corpse over at B&C do, you have enough time to paint an army and show up at one of these tournaments. Surely then your superior skill and army list will see your face in White Dwarf imminently.

2) The thing about these optimal lists, especially in the US of A and the UK is they always seem to be played on tables with too little terrain in my opinion. It still says in the rule book as I looked last night, that "the more terrain the better the game". This along with emphasizing the kill, kill, kill mission above all else would obviously favour shooting armies.

3) Point size and table size. I played in a local tournament it was 1250 points in a store and we had to use 4*4 tables. I think 500 points per every two square feet is about right. So 1850 points on a 6*4 table let alone 2000 or 2250 is way over crowded. Combined with little terrain shooting particularly barrage shots say form Hammerheads become much more effective.

I think Tau should be a pretty good army, of course I think the same about Dark Eldar and most armies, yet I always play Nurgle or lately mixed CSM. I have played orks. But if you put tau on a big battlefield with little terrain, the orks should be beaten crossing the wide open expanse. Flip that and put the tau and orks on a smaller table with tonnes of terrain and the orks should have better odds.

I'm tired of Stelek this and that, I'm tired of BoLS this and that, to me the true winners are the guy like GMM studio who produced a cool looking army that everyone looked at online. He's a mercenary painter, but it was probably profitable for him to do well appearance wise at a major tournament too.

I'm working on a good all comers list that isn't cookie cutter and I seem to paint well enough, maybe I'll have to come on down to Adepticon and finish 48th or something.

;-)


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/31 03:40:05


Post by: I grappled the shoggoth


Muskie wrote:

I'm working on a good all comers list that isn't cookie cutter and I seem to paint well enough, maybe I'll have to come on down to Adepticon and finish 48th or something.

;-)


You can prove your tactical abilities by placing next to last like I did a few years ago


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/31 08:08:10


Post by: Reecius


You should come to Adepticon just for fun if nothing else. It is a great time, I truly enjoyed the entire event.

And hey Shoogoth, at least you beat out one guy!


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/31 13:27:11


Post by: Da Boss


My hope is to fly over for it next year, if I can. Depends when the schools go on holidays, but I'd love to come to the event, it sounds brilliant.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/31 16:46:59


Post by: WhiteRaven


Reecius wrote:
I saw that army, I wondered, how did they make it pass all the JOTWW players? Did they even meet any?


I talked to them and they said that they had a tough match up with mech IG, but that the mission favored them and they pulled off the win. I would assume they played wolves as they were so prevalent, but with 110 teams, it is quite possible they got lucky and missed JoWW or a PBS.


Hi,

I was one of the Sons of Shatner players.

Our lists:
Warboss w/Claw, Cybork Body, Bike
5 Nobs w/2 Claws, Doc, Waagh Banner, Bosspole
30 Shoota Boyz w/3 Big Shootas, Claw, Bosspole
10 Grots
12 Lootas
3 Kannons
68 Models, 3 Troop Choices each.

Our opponents were as follows:

Round 1: Olmecs - Guard, Black Templar, Nids, Tau (Totally not optimized list)
Round 2: A Team - Guard, Nids, Demons, Orks (very themey with good generals, but not terribly optimized)
Round 3: 3 Foot 2 - Quad Leafblower Guard - Only difference was one player had a OH Inquisitor with Divine Pronoucement
- Primary was 2 objectives on their side of the table worth 8pts to us, 2pts to them, and vice versa for 2 objectives on our side.
- Secondary was Kill Points
- Cannot remember Tertiary

(At this point we had 4 games with complete battle points, so we decided very quickly a massacre was very unlikely) My team chose to hunker down on our objectives, and send the Nobs forward to hopefully force them to stay back long enough they couldn't tank shock us off our objectives (They were unable to kill any nobs turn 1, turn 2 they killed 1 of six, so it wasn't till turn 3 they forced a morale check on 1 squad...breaking it with the PSB). The tactic worked we ended with Primary Draw, Secondary Win, Tertiary Draw.

Our other team managed to kill the Divine Pronouncement inquisitor Turn 3 after he got pinned when his Chimera died, so he only did it to one Nob Bike Squad (Dawn of War, we went second) that didn't get escorted off the table. And then managed to get most of the battle around some very lucky rolling by Carlosthecraven's Warboss (he absorbed 10+ lascannon wounds without taking one).
Round 4: Chuck Noris (Defending Champs) - Quad Iyanden Eldar

Overall we couldn't really have asked for a better draw. But we also play well enough to know Nob Bikes are no longer indestructible, so they aren't always thrown forward Turn 1 in hopes of crushing everything turn 2.

Honestly we were far more worried about Lash than we were JotWW. Getting pushed away from being a threat and clumped together for pie plates, plus pinning check is a much bigger danger in our minds than us allowing a tank shock (when we are way more mobile) and JotWW a big group.

Orks have something other lists lack in our opinion that still keep them top tier. Handfulls of dice to throw at any problem, with a difficulty for opponents to prioritize targets. Thus reducing the highs and lows of rolling a little. In a game where everything gets a save now...you goal is to force opponents to roll them.

Later,
WR


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/31 17:12:05


Post by: Platuan4th


Ozymandias wrote:The list was good, better than ours in fact, but I see people reading YTTH, building Stelek approved lists, then losing/drawing against inferior lists cause they haven't developed the proper tactics to use yet. It goes back to theory vs. reality and number crunching vs. experience.


This. A thousand times, THIS.

The SW Razor Spam WD and I faced should have beaten us. They didn't know the tactics required to actually beat us(bring their mounted WG and GH units into our faces and assault our units), instead relying on the LC/Twin PG Razors to sit back and shoot at us from range(which killed 2 Vendettas and a Valk the whole game, as well as some immobilized Chimeras). We knew they didn't really know what they were doing when they used their last MM/HF Speeder to Melta the Demolisher they were terrified of the whole game(rolling a 1 to hit, too), instead of flaming our infantry off of the objective last turn.

Things like that typified the whole game and the only reason we drew was that they finally assaulted last turn with a Rune Priest and his squad.

It all came down to Stelek's "Shooting over Assaulting" theory vs our reality experience.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/31 18:06:33


Post by: I grappled the shoggoth


Reecius wrote:You should come to Adepticon just for fun if nothing else. It is a great time, I truly enjoyed the entire event.

And hey Shoogoth, at least you beat out one guy!


No I didnt


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/31 20:48:18


Post by: Reecius


Well if you got second to last then you beat out one guy in the standings, is what I meant.

@Plautan and Ozzy
Yeah I agree, those guys were still learning the finer points of tactics. Not that we are tactical geniuses or anything, but our experience with the game allowed us to overcome meaner lists.

@WhiteRaven
Nice to meet you guys, and congratz on the win. We played next to you guys round three in the Team Tournament.

Man, I wish we would have pulled at least one soft match up, everyone of our games was really tough. It sounds like you guys earned the win though, so good on you.

See you guys next year, America needs to take that TT title back!


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/31 21:34:35


Post by: Mannahnin


Orks are still good, for the reasons enumerated in the thread.

The only games I lost at Adepticon, out of 11, were 2 of my 3 against Orks. Both of those games were mostly lost due to my bad play against the vortex grenade and stasis missiles in Gladiator, but the Ork armies themselves were hard enough to put the players in the position to win.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/31 21:43:52


Post by: extrenm(54)


I grappled the shoggoth wrote:The thing with orks, as ive said before, is you have no tactical options. If you want to get across the table and kick ass they are the best army in the game. But that is all you will ever do. Assuming you dont bring some absurd army, like 9 koptas, 45 lootas, and shoota boyz.


In the fianl round of the team tournament, My team, "The A-Team" Fought the Dakkadakka detachment. Yakface and friends were running 45 lootas, 9 kans, 2 big meks, lots of koptas, and shoota boyz. I believe they got 5th overall. It was a really good list. We had soundly defeated almost all of our other opponents, but earned 0 points against that army.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/31 21:55:17


Post by: Janthkin


extrenm(54) wrote:
I grappled the shoggoth wrote:The thing with orks, as ive said before, is you have no tactical options. If you want to get across the table and kick ass they are the best army in the game. But that is all you will ever do. Assuming you dont bring some absurd army, like 9 koptas, 45 lootas, and shoota boyz.


In the fianl round of the team tournament, My team, "The A-Team" Fought the Dakkadakka detachment. Yakface and friends were running 45 lootas, 9 kans, 2 big meks, lots of koptas, and shoota boyz. I believe they got 5th overall. It was a really good list. We had soundly defeated almost all of our other opponents, but earned 0 points against that army.

'ere now, we only had 15 Lootas each (for a total of 30/coalition). (Are you Horton or Charlie? edit: NM - I found your Gladiator batrep, which answered the question for me.)

But yeah - Lootas are the ultimate in versatile tools, as you can point them at any non-AV14 target and get useful results. Really, in a game that all about rolling dice (and forcing your enemies to roll saves), Ork shooting can be quite effective. I'm not sure why Mr. Shoggoth is so down on Lootas & Shootas.



Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/03/31 22:00:04


Post by: I grappled the shoggoth


NO no you guys misunderstood me. I wasnt saying lootas and shootas are bad units at all.

Just that the standard ork tactic is run across table and apply choppa to head with no tactical options.

UNLESS you run an army made up of nothing but lootas and shootas. Thats an exaggeration obviously. Absurd referring to it just not being that common.

Its certainly a nastier build, and I feel its nastier then choppy orks, but its absurd in the way blackmoors eldar are. Its just not a list you expect to see.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/01 01:11:10


Post by: carmachu


Ozymandias wrote:

The list was good, better than ours in fact, but I see people reading YTTH, building Stelek approved lists, then losing/drawing against inferior lists cause they haven't developed the proper tactics to use yet. It goes back to theory vs. reality and number crunching vs. experience.


That should go without saying. No list, no matter how good, will do the job alone. You have to know what your doing with it, its strengths and weaknesses.

I can for example, play my mech sisters list in my sleep. I know how it works, why it works, what it has trouble with and so on. I have the models painted for say, the immolator spam list, but I wont do as well with it as I would my old mech sisters because i havent played the immy spam list nearly as much as the mech sisters one.

And my ork lists I'm still trying to wrap my head around how to play, as its very different from playing sisters.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/01 03:16:07


Post by: Centurian99


Yeah, that was the funny thing about our list. When it came down to it, it wasn't an assault list. The Kans and Dreds gave us some credible strength in assault, but the real strength of our list was in shooting. In my last game, against extrenm(54)'s teammates, the assaults were generally lost by me and Blackmoor. But our shooting was what really won the game for us. Shoota boyz, lootas, and kans can put some serious firepower down.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/01 03:29:32


Post by: Snikkyd


I grappled the shoggoth wrote:
Reecius wrote:You should come to Adepticon just for fun if nothing else. It is a great time, I truly enjoyed the entire event.

And hey Shoogoth, at least you beat out one guy!


No I didnt



What, did he not show up or something?


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/01 04:46:30


Post by: I grappled the shoggoth


No I thought he meant beat one guy in a game. I dunno how that last guy got less points then me. I threw my last game and still got 8 points.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/01 13:44:32


Post by: carlosthecraven


Hi

I read earlier that the team tournament winners rely on soft scores. That is absolutely true, but I would point out that the Team Tournament winning orks had the highest battle score as well as excellent soft scores.

I would also concur with DD-1 it is the strength of Ork shooting that gave us the edge in most of our match-ups. Assault was certainly important for mop-up but shootas, lootas, and cannons apply lots of pressure on the enemy, disrupting armour and applying real pain for infantry within 24".

Cheers,
Carlos the Craven


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/01 20:44:19


Post by: Reecius


Oh yeah, the Sons of Shatner won by a pretty dang large margin, they definitely earned the victory.

Although next most battle points, they were team pink and they had a girl on the team, so they get some serious respect points!


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/01 21:27:44


Post by: Dashofpepper


Thought I would share:

I threw the gauntlet at Stelek to play against my Orks (on Vassal if nothing else). He told me to suck less.

I responded with:
------------------------------------------
Stelek:


I don't think you got my message, so let me rephrase.


To my knowledge, you don't attend major events, you don't win competitions...you haven't credibility as an effective army list writer. People use your lists in major events and get curb-stomped.


I'm throwing down the gauntlet. I don't think you have the credibility to speak on orks, nor do I think you know what you're talking about, and I'm willing to prove it. Instead of telling me to suck less, come show me that I suck. Craft your list that you think will roflstomp orks...and PLAY against me. I'd take the opportunity to demonstrate how out of context your limited knowledge of orks and their capabilities are.


Again; Dashofpepper on Skype and Vassal and dakkadakka. And I was literal about putting your money where your mouth is. You've got a post offering to put your money where your mouth is for people to use your lists; I'd like to demonstrate a good old fashioned beatdown using the army you think sucks against one of your preferred lists.


If you're not tactically capable of presenting a challenge, feel free to nominate a champion to fight in your name, with your approval. And yeah - lets put some money on our game. Wink
---------------------------------------------------

I'm always willing to play someone who thinks Orks suck and personally educate them on their mistaken assumptions.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/01 22:05:57


Post by: Ozymandias


I never thought I would say this but Dash, you're my new hero!


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/01 22:10:44


Post by: Steelmage99


I don't what this to be looked at as an unconditional defense of Stelek, but one doesn't have to be a good player to be a good list-builder.

Nobody dismisses the advice/strategy of a football coach based on how well the old guy can "bend it like Beckham" himself.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/01 22:16:44


Post by: Snikkyd


I don't think I've seen anyone challenge Stelek's Ork views, so good for you.

And you have a point, go look at the Ard boys Ork lists he puts up. Seriously? He's putting up crappy lists and saying they're the best Orks can get and people believe it when they're far from optimal.

One list was basically Ghaz, Grotsnik, and a ton of boys with Cybork bodies and thats all. Not to mention 4 squads were Ard boys, which is illegal since you can only have one squad of them. The funny thing is, he said all flamers would destroy them. Really? 120 Orks with 4+/5++. Yeah, they won't last one round of shooting lol. My point is, I really don't think he even knows what he's doing with Orks.

Out of interest Dash, have you put people in their place before when they claim Orks suck?


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/01 22:17:10


Post by: Janthkin


Steelmage99 wrote:I don't what this to be looked at as an unconditional defense of Stelek, but one doesn't have to be a good player to be a good list-builder.

Nobody dismisses the advice/strategy of a football coach based on how well the old guy can "bend it like Beckham" himself.
Not a great analogy - soccer has a physical skill/innate talent component that 40k lacks (in the absence of proven psychokinesis).

I don't believe you can be a good list-builder without being a good player, if your intent is that the lists you build actually get used to play the game.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/01 22:25:48


Post by: Steelmage99


OK.

Then compare to script-writing teachers or chess coaches instead.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/01 22:33:59


Post by: Janthkin


Steelmage99 wrote:Then compare to script-writing teachers or chess coaches instead.

Chess coaches might be an okay analogy, but I'd imagine most of them are better-than-mediocre players, wouldn't you?


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/01 23:14:03


Post by: Platuan4th


Janthkin wrote:
Steelmage99 wrote:Then compare to script-writing teachers or chess coaches instead.

Chess coaches might be an okay analogy, but I'd imagine most of them are better-than-mediocre players, wouldn't you?


The thing about most Chess coaches is that they used to play and KNOW the game. And, Steelmage, are you honestly suggesting that a script-writing teacher has never written a script? Or are you saying that they've never written one that's been used for a stage-production/movie? There's a severe difference there.

Stelek can occasionally write a good list, but from the tactics he suggests with those lists, he doesn't really seem to know the game and how it's really played.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/01 23:37:01


Post by: whitedragon


Yes the Razorback spam list had all the tools to hand ol' me and Plat our asses, but they had no idea what they were doing at all. They were deathly afraid of my Demolisher, even though I don't think it killed a single model during the entire game. Actually, we only bagged their Land Speeders because everything else was protected by the damn Stormcaller. I broke alot of Razorback lascannons though. The demolisher stayed on the center objective and they didn't know what to do.

When it finally was the end of the game and we held the objective with a PCS and my Inquisitor (and Plat's Primaris), they finally charged GH's led by the Rune Priest in to wipe out the PCS. However, for some reason they didn't multicharge the Demolisher as well. That should have been a no brainer (in my mind anyway, attacking a stationary vehicle with marines with Krak grenades, powerfists and frost weapons, hello!). They also had a lone speeder left that could have them obliterated the Inquistor's squad with one blast from the heavy flamer, essentially winning the game, but instead they wiffed with a multimelta on the demolisher, and only charged the PCS.

So...poor decisions (Regardless of the strength of the list) led to a draw that should have been a major victory.

They were good guys though, and their army was painted very nicely. (Iron Hands "counts as" Space Wolves, with Iron Priests as Rune Priests.)


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/02 00:50:29


Post by: Dashofpepper


Snikkyd wrote:

Out of interest Dash, have you put people in their place before when they claim Orks suck?


Actually no....while I've put people in their place who claimed that I sucked, or that their ork list was the best in existence, I've never run into someone witless or stupid enough to make this particularly absurd claim.

And mods, before I get in trouble for Dakka Rule #1...being polite to each other....I'm not referring to a dakka member, nor someone who reads these boards. He doesn't count in that equation.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/02 01:29:17


Post by: Iron_Chaos_Brute


Dashofpepper wrote:
Snikkyd wrote:

Out of interest Dash, have you put people in their place before when they claim Orks suck?


Actually no....while I've put people in their place who claimed that I sucked, or that their ork list was the best in existence, I've never run into someone witless or stupid enough to make this particularly absurd claim.

And mods, before I get in trouble for Dakka Rule #1...being polite to each other....I'm not referring to a dakka member, nor someone who reads these boards. He doesn't count in that equation.

Just so you know, Rule #1 extends to current and former members. So calling Stelek names is technically a no-no.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/02 02:03:21


Post by: Dashofpepper


Iron_Chaos_Brute wrote:
Dashofpepper wrote:
Snikkyd wrote:

Out of interest Dash, have you put people in their place before when they claim Orks suck?


Actually no....while I've put people in their place who claimed that I sucked, or that their ork list was the best in existence, I've never run into someone witless or stupid enough to make this particularly absurd claim.

And mods, before I get in trouble for Dakka Rule #1...being polite to each other....I'm not referring to a dakka member, nor someone who reads these boards. He doesn't count in that equation.

Just so you know, Rule #1 extends to current and former members. So calling Stelek names is technically a no-no.


Just to be a rules lawyer, I didn't refer to Stelek or anyone else.

I just mentioned that I'd never met anyone who was witless or stupid enough to make that claim.

If there is someone on another website, or another blog or who is making claims I find that way....that's their business, but it isn't here.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/02 02:06:34


Post by: Iron_Chaos_Brute


Dashofpepper wrote:
Iron_Chaos_Brute wrote:
Dashofpepper wrote:
Snikkyd wrote:

Out of interest Dash, have you put people in their place before when they claim Orks suck?


Actually no....while I've put people in their place who claimed that I sucked, or that their ork list was the best in existence, I've never run into someone witless or stupid enough to make this particularly absurd claim.

And mods, before I get in trouble for Dakka Rule #1...being polite to each other....I'm not referring to a dakka member, nor someone who reads these boards. He doesn't count in that equation.

Just so you know, Rule #1 extends to current and former members. So calling Stelek names is technically a no-no.


Just to be a rules lawyer, I didn't refer to Stelek or anyone else.

I just mentioned that I'd never met anyone who was witless or stupid enough to make that claim.

If there is someone on another website, or another blog or who is making claims I find that way....that's their business, but it isn't here.



Just making sure we toe the party line.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/02 03:36:26


Post by: Reecius


Dash........You rule!!!

Haha, that was awesome!

But the person in question never, ever takes up the challenege, he hides under his bridge in Utah like a Troll and just hurls insults at people, and makes claims he doesn't back up.

I hope he is a nice guy in person because, wow, has he been such an ass to so many people on line. He is to the point now where he can't go to a big tournament for fear of getting pimp slapped on sight by so many people out there whom he has insulted/pissed off/etc.

The sad thing is that he does have good knowledge of the game. If he was less of a monstrous douche bag he would be accepted by the community and more people would listen to him. He has just been so unnecessarily rude to so many people that he's dug himself a big pit to stew in.

Edited to follow Dakka protocol! Haha.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/02 03:50:09


Post by: Darkzephyr


I'm just curious..

Who is this Stelek fellow that seems to come up a lot in recent forum threads. I'm kinda curious to see his "Website" too, or the "Website which shall not be named".

Also, what is the Vassal and YTTC?

It sounds like the Vassal is a place where you can play-test 40k Armies online. If so, that's something I would be very interested in. Can someone link me to that site?


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/02 03:58:22


Post by: number9dream


http://yesthetruthhhurts.com

It's his blog and it has good content a lot of the time... it's just that sometimes (like right now), instead of being about 40k it's about some personal vendetta between him and Belloflostsouls. Sigh.

He posts a lot of good quality stuff and seems willing to help almost anoyne that asks, but like Reecius said, diplomacy is NOT his strong suite so whenever someone disagrees or he finds what they say stupid, well... :[

As for Vassal it's a program that lets you play a ton of different boardgames online, as long as you have the right modules downloaded. The 40k modules were shut down by GW, but you can still find them via google and the servers are still running as the main Vassal client was not shut down. There's just no official website for them, and posting direct links to the module is against Dakka's rules I think.

Snikkyd wrote:I don't think I've seen anyone challenge Stelek's Ork views, so good for you.

And you have a point, go look at the Ard boys Ork lists he puts up. Seriously? He's putting up crappy lists and saying they're the best Orks can get and people believe it when they're far from optimal.

One list was basically Ghaz, Grotsnik, and a ton of boys with Cybork bodies and thats all. Not to mention 4 squads were Ard boys, which is illegal since you can only have one squad of them. The funny thing is, he said all flamers would destroy them. Really? 120 Orks with 4+/5++. Yeah, they won't last one round of shooting lol. My point is, I really don't think he even knows what he's doing with Orks.

Out of interest Dash, have you put people in their place before when they claim Orks suck?

To be fair, the cybork army wasn't something he actually said was good. It was fullfilling some weird criteria or something, I dunno - someone requested a pure horde army or some such.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/02 05:06:17


Post by: Dashofpepper


Its not illegal to link to them and there's 50,000 threads about Vassal around here, with links, strategies, tournament announcements on Vassal, vassal guides....

Just google Vassal 40k. MIniwargaming.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/02 14:33:15


Post by: Frazzled


Dashofpepper wrote:You have to be quite skilled to win with Orks because they have glaring weaknesses that it takes a good general to circumvent.

As opposed to IG and certain spacewolf builds, which are pretty much easy street.


As a guard player from the ancient times long have my ears waited to such words.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Dashofpepper wrote:Thought I would share:

I threw the gauntlet at Stelek to play against my Orks (on Vassal if nothing else). He told me to suck less.

I responded with:
------------------------------------------
Stelek:


I don't think you got my message, so let me rephrase.


To my knowledge, you don't attend major events, you don't win competitions...you haven't credibility as an effective army list writer. People use your lists in major events and get curb-stomped.


I'm throwing down the gauntlet. I don't think you have the credibility to speak on orks, nor do I think you know what you're talking about, and I'm willing to prove it. Instead of telling me to suck less, come show me that I suck. Craft your list that you think will roflstomp orks...and PLAY against me. I'd take the opportunity to demonstrate how out of context your limited knowledge of orks and their capabilities are.


Again; Dashofpepper on Skype and Vassal and dakkadakka. And I was literal about putting your money where your mouth is. You've got a post offering to put your money where your mouth is for people to use your lists; I'd like to demonstrate a good old fashioned beatdown using the army you think sucks against one of your preferred lists.


If you're not tactically capable of presenting a challenge, feel free to nominate a champion to fight in your name, with your approval. And yeah - lets put some money on our game. Wink
---------------------------------------------------

I'm always willing to play someone who thinks Orks suck and personally educate them on their mistaken assumptions.



Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/02 16:14:04


Post by: Dashofpepper


Aww..


And for folks who are curious, here's the relevant Link


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/02 16:35:41


Post by: Redbeard


And yet they keep winning. I dunno, maybe he's just plain wrong.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/02 16:50:34


Post by: Mannahnin


Most real life events are BS. The only events which count are the ones he runs locally or in his head.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/02 16:53:24


Post by: I grappled the shoggoth


Im now imaging some crazy obese guy with a huge neckbeard sitting at his table painting, and mumbling to himself about some game he is playing in his brain.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/02 17:16:00


Post by: Platuan4th


Mannahnin wrote:Most real life events are BS. The only events which count are the ones he runs locally or in his head.


I thought I heard his local store banned him from running events there?

Wouldn't that mean that the only events he runs would be in his house?

[creepy, gravely voice]
"Hey kids, wanna play some 40K? I've got tables in my basement."
[/creepy, gravely voice]


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/02 17:40:23


Post by: lambadomy


Mannahnin wrote:Most real life events are BS. The only events which count are the ones he runs locally or in his head.


This actually is probably main point, ridiculous or not. Tournaments are three to five games against a grab bag of armies:

"stuff I have painted, sure it's 48 fire warrior Tau but it's painted!"
"my fluff army that I really like with 6 spawn"
"my optimized YTTH list I've never played before last week"
"my 4 year old optimized 4e army that I've played every week and know like the back of my hand"
"whatever the top army was two codexes ago when I could afford it/had time to paint it"
"whatever the top army is now because I always can afford it/have time to paint it"
"the one guy with a dark eldar army in the state"
"some awesome army that is the paper to your rock"
"some terrible army that also happens to be the paper to your rock"

etc, etc.

Then the missions often do all sorts of weird things outside of the basic missions in the book, often making the game very different tactically, sometimes just making the game confusing, but almost invariably changing the game and what would be optimized listbuilding.

Since all of this exists, a large portion of "optimized" lists won't do well, or they won't do as well as supposedly "bad" lists or codexes. Match ups, missions, etc all matter and unless everything is some perfect world of Stelek lists and Stelek missions played by masters of mobile shooty armies, stuff isn't going to go the way it was predicted.

The only way to really test any of these theories would be to run 100's of games in a ladder or tournament setting, keeping detailed track of results, mistakes, etc. Even then you'd only be optimized for whatever those specific set of missions were, and heaven forbid a new codex comes out.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/02 17:46:31


Post by: generalgrog


The fact that he says Ghazgull "sucks" should make any serious 40K player dismiss the guy entirely. Not to mention all the other nonsense he comes up with.

GG


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/02 17:52:39


Post by: Augustus


lambadomy wrote:...The only way to really test any of these theories would be to run 100's of games in a ladder or tournament setting, keeping detailed track of results, mistakes, etc. Even then you'd only be optimized for whatever those specific set of missions were, and heaven forbid a new codex comes out.


Yes, I think you have said it best here, and empirically stated it quite well.

Also

"The only guy in the state with a Dark Eldar army..."

Made me laugh, I think I know that guy in my state.

Indeed.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/03 01:34:52


Post by: Reecius


But, love it or hate it, the tournament system is what it is.

You have to work within the confines of reality, not purely in theory which counts for less. We will never have a 1,000 round tournament with all "optimized" lists, so to say that is the baseline for passing judgement is silly. So if you have the perfectly optimized list in theory, it is still inferior to the worst list in reality because a theoretical list can win no games while a terrible list in reality can potentially win all of its games.

Reality is what matters and tournaments are the reality of competitive play.

Besides, we see the same names winning or nearly winning consistently, which goes a long way to proving the argument of skill over luck in a tournament setting.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/03 02:40:41


Post by: lambadomy


Reecius wrote:
Besides, we see the same names winning or nearly winning consistently, which goes a long way to proving the argument of skill over luck in a tournament setting.


This is only true if they're not also usually coming with whatever the newest latest greatest army/codex is (or continuing to play what is considered the top codex if the newest doesn't hack it). Not to say that they're doing that, just that its a variable that needs to be worked out.

Of course, a lot of time the value of a codex is probably misinterpreted because the best players happen to be playing it, not because it's actually great.

Who knows. I do think it is pretty obvious that skill matters a lot more than codex or army. But figuring out how much exactly is hard.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/03 14:32:34


Post by: carmachu


generalgrog wrote:The fact that he says Ghazgull "sucks" should make any serious 40K player dismiss the guy entirely. Not to mention all the other nonsense he comes up with.

GG


I thought the statement "When your old Codex is FAR more competitive than your new Codex," it was dismissable.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/03 16:38:38


Post by: Snikkyd


carmachu wrote:
generalgrog wrote:The fact that he says Ghazgull "sucks" should make any serious 40K player dismiss the guy entirely. Not to mention all the other nonsense he comes up with.

GG


I thought the statement "When your old Codex is FAR more competitive than your new Codex," it was dismissable.



Oh, and don't forget " A CC army that loses in CC" That made me laugh. Has he ever even seen an Ork charge? Clearly not.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/03 16:42:13


Post by: Dashofpepper


Well, my offer stands to Stelek and his defenders.

I had one challenger step up to defend Stelek against my Ork Onslaught. He didn't use a standard Stelek list because he felt that Stelek is increasingly losing his ability to create an effective list, so he modified it, and we duked it out.

Game ended on turn3 I think, with the loss of two deffkoptas in exchange for a tabling.

Not calling him out; he's a fun opponent.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/03 17:00:40


Post by: Nurglitch


Stelek's problem is that he dismisses the opinions and experiences of people whose opinions and experiences do not match his own. It means that YTTH is an echo chamber of sycophancy.

But likewise dismissing Stelek's own opinions and experiences, rather than trying to understand their context and hence their value, is playing his game, the stupid game.

If you want to evaluate the state of tournaments accurately, you have to accept people's opinions and experiences as valid and figure out the difference in perspective, rather than dismissing them because there's a difference in perspective.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/03 17:09:46


Post by: generalgrog


Snikkyd wrote:
Oh, and don't forget " A CC army that loses in CC" That made me laugh. Has he ever even seen an Ork charge? Clearly not.


Well to be honest, the standard ork boy squad isn't all that UBER. They are indeed good in a lot of situations, but I have seen my trukk boy squads "bounce" off of other close combat oriented squads(space wolves, black templars, etc.etc.). Now, a maxed out 30 man boy unit is a different story(if they make it intact).

GG


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/03 18:00:11


Post by: Redbeard


No, he's right, a maxxed 30-man ork squad can lose combat to quite a few units. Six bloodcrushers can drop 30 orks in two rounds (wounds, not taking a lot of wounds, combat res, and then finishing them off). Thunderwolves too. Trukk boy squads need to work in concert with other units, 12 men just isn't enough when everyone else swings before you and you've got t-shirts for saves.

But look at what you're comparing. A trukk boy squad is 110ish points (incl PK nob). If they charge 10 space wolves (without any upgrades), they're already down by 30%.

This is also why good ork players tend towards running shoota boy squads instead of sluugas. The loss of one attack/model (and still getting 3) is fairly insignificant, compared to being able to unload the dakka 12" sooner, especially against those units that are better in CC.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/03 18:21:00


Post by: Snikkyd


Yes, but around 20 Boys can destroy almost anything, even dedicated CC units easily. Even Shoota Boys can, Trukk boys OTOH, aren't quite as good, but thats why you need to multi charge.

However, 20 Shootas can charge into 10 GH and win, especially if they shoot first. I consider that to be plenty enough CC power. Thunderwolves and Bloodcrushers are the best of the best for CC IMO, but they are Elites and Boys are Troops. Thats why we have Nobs and Warbosses and Ghazghull. And Burnas



Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/03 23:47:50


Post by: Nurglitch


Whether they can and whether they will are questions that are linked, but not always given the same answer.

Take twenty Slugga Boyz assaulting ten Grey Hunters, no fancy gimmicks.

Suppose firstly that the Slugga Boyz get the Slugga shots, all in range, and no casualties put them out of range: 20 shots, 6.60 hits, 3.30 wounds, 1.10 unsaved wounds.

The Grey Hunters counter-attack on Ld8 or 73% of the time, and fail 27% of the time, or 0.73 and 0.27 repectively.

So 73% of the time they have 27 attacks, 13.5 hits, 6.75 wounds, 5.60 unsaved wounds. About 6 dead orks. 27% of the time they have 18 attacks, 9 hits, 4.5 wounds, 3.74 unsaved wounds. About 5.1 on average.

14 Orks attack at I3 with 56 attacks, 28 hits, 14 wounds, 4.62 unsaved wounds. About 5 dead Grey Hunters.

So the Orks can win, but you shouldn't expect them to win much of the time.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/04 00:04:44


Post by: generalgrog


Yeah I had a situation the other day where I charged 2 trukk boy squads into a grey hunter squad, with a rune priest, a wolfen, and some other upgraded dude with wolf claws.

Long story short, he killed 12 boys and I killed 4 grey hunters. Both squads failed their Ld checks and bounced. I did forget to shoot my sluggas on the way in though, so I may have been able to kill 1 or 2 SW's on the way in, but not gauaranteed.

On a side note my 17 ork ard' boys squad did get to finish them off when I waaaghed into them later.

Not to mention the fact that Ghazzgul and his nobs charged(with the help of snikrot and kommandos) and wiped out a unit of thunderwolf cav with canis wolfborn. They didn't really need the kommandos help but it made things go faster.

This another reason why I think it's silly to say Ghazgull sucks.

GG


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/04 01:34:30


Post by: Snikkyd


I should note that Boys may need 2 rounds to finish off Grey Hunters. In my tests, the Orks actually lost the first time, took some Fearless wounds, but finished off the GH the next round, wich they probably will in Nurglitch's example.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/04 01:43:46


Post by: carmachu


Nurglitch wrote:Stelek's problem is that he dismisses the opinions and experiences of people whose opinions and experiences do not match his own. It means that YTTH is an echo chamber of sycophancy.

But likewise dismissing Stelek's own opinions and experiences, rather than trying to understand their context and hence their value, is playing his game, the stupid game.

If you want to evaluate the state of tournaments accurately, you have to accept people's opinions and experiences as valid and figure out the difference in perspective, rather than dismissing them because there's a difference in perspective.


I like SOME of Stelek's opinions on some items. But otherwise yeah I do seem to find it more of an echo chamber then anything else, the same opinions reverberating around, rather then letting folks with experience speak, it gets dismissed, like dashof pepper's challenge in that thread.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
generalgrog wrote:
Snikkyd wrote:
Oh, and don't forget " A CC army that loses in CC" That made me laugh. Has he ever even seen an Ork charge? Clearly not.


Well to be honest, the standard ork boy squad isn't all that UBER. They are indeed good in a lot of situations, but I have seen my trukk boy squads "bounce" off of other close combat oriented squads(space wolves, black templars, etc.etc.). Now, a maxed out 30 man boy unit is a different story(if they make it intact).

GG


While still on my learning curve, I quickly learned that charging a full truckboyz squad into a squad of howling banshees w/ farseer wasnt the smartest idea.....


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/04 05:48:27


Post by: Dashofpepper


Redbeard wrote:

This is also why good ork players tend towards running shoota boy squads instead of sluugas. The loss of one attack/model (and still getting 3) is fairly insignificant, compared to being able to unload the dakka 12" sooner, especially against those units that are better in CC.


How about a meeting of your shoota boys vs. my slugga boys so that I can demonstrate my feelings about this statement?

Vassal is only three clicks away.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/04 06:26:38


Post by: neiltj1


DashofPepper knows what he is talking about. He posted a KOS list in one of several ork threads over in "40k army lists". this made me come back to KOS after a sabbatical thru most of 4th ed. My orks routinely "roflstomp" other armies including the "top tier" IG mech lists.

as for Ghaz being a crappy character, he recently killed 6 chaos termies, a chaos sorc, and 1/2 a chaos squad all by his lonesome. In fact my opponent was in awe, and was talking of bringing Abadon just to deal with Ghaz.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/04 06:57:23


Post by: Centurian99


Just for my own two cents...

In the championships, my daemons took down a 190 model ork army, then took down an IG Mech army. Then I ran smack into a kult of speed army, and came out on top, but essentially we knocked each other out.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/04 14:44:29


Post by: Redbeard


Dashofpepper wrote:
Redbeard wrote:

This is also why good ork players tend towards running shoota boy squads instead of sluugas. The loss of one attack/model (and still getting 3) is fairly insignificant, compared to being able to unload the dakka 12" sooner, especially against those units that are better in CC.


How about a meeting of your shoota boys vs. my slugga boys so that I can demonstrate my feelings about this statement?

Vassal is only three clicks away.


I don't play miniature wargames to play games online. If you're playing KoS, sluggas are probably more appropriate, as you need the extra attacks when you charge. When you've only got 12 boyz in a trukk, you need all the hits you can get.

That said, I think that the matchup between KoS and sloggers is about more than whether you picked shootas or sluggas. Whoever gets the charge tends to win in ork-on-ork engagements.


Orks MIA at Adepticon 2010 @ 2010/04/04 16:29:07


Post by: Dashofpepper


Redbeard wrote:
Dashofpepper wrote:
Redbeard wrote:

This is also why good ork players tend towards running shoota boy squads instead of sluugas. The loss of one attack/model (and still getting 3) is fairly insignificant, compared to being able to unload the dakka 12" sooner, especially against those units that are better in CC.


How about a meeting of your shoota boys vs. my slugga boys so that I can demonstrate my feelings about this statement?

Vassal is only three clicks away.


I don't play miniature wargames to play games online. If you're playing KoS, sluggas are probably more appropriate, as you need the extra attacks when you charge. When you've only got 12 boyz in a trukk, you need all the hits you can get.

That said, I think that the matchup between KoS and sloggers is about more than whether you picked shootas or sluggas. Whoever gets the charge tends to win in ork-on-ork engagements.


And since a KoS led by Ghazghkull have an army-wide threat range that can pretty much double anything a slogging army can do, and outrange anything in a landraider or on foot, those sluggas are always getting the charge.

Playing against daemons is a very careful affair of what half of your army you got, whether its slaneeshy, tzeenchy, or khorny (hahaha), and making sure that the fight doesn't turn into a middle of the field brawl.