As all of you know Blood Bowl has a few teams which are designed to be subpar when compared to other teams and the game developers made that crystal clear from the very beginning. Such teams have either few different players or lack in proper skills and stats. Examples would be Ogres, Goblins and Halflings.
The reasoning behind this is to give experienced players either a challenge by fielding them and/or give an opposing beginner a chance at winning. Another one would be of course a desire to own those wacky models in the first place.
Just recently I wondered if something like a subpar faction also existed in 40K. Synonyms for such armies would be a NPC army which would have very low chances at winning no matter how you would write the army list. The only armies which came to mind were all in 2nd:
1. Daemon World
2. Chaos Cult
3. Genestealer Cult
The first army was in essence a WHFB Chaos army ported into 40K. So you would have chaos warriors in plate armour on foot or mounted, trolls, minotaurs, beastmen, etc. Ranged weapons were... scarce. Lol!
The second army consisted of cultists and beastmen. That's it.
The third army is known to everybody now but back in the day it had few unit options.
Please be aware that 2nd worked with an ally system which allowed a certain percentage of other units to be included in most armies. This meant you could bolster armies to a slight degree.
So would you still play or start a faction in 40K, if GW would either change them or design them from scratch to be subpar? Such a design decision would not be hidden and everybody would be aware of it from the get-go.
It wouldn't work with 40k.
The deliberately "bad" teams in BB are there as a joke within a joke. The entire game is based in a world where all conflict was solved by the god Nuffle (NFL) getting everyone to play hyper-violent American Football. It's fine to have silly teams when the entire game is silly.
Strg Alt wrote: Just recently I wondered if something like a subpar faction also existed in 40K. Synonyms for such armies would be a NPC army which would have very low chances at winning no matter how you would write the army list
The original 2nd edition sisters of battle codex came with a note at the start of the army list section stating that the faction got weaker as the points went up due to their lack of heavy support options, etc, and suggested buying more allies.
A number of other factions were written from an allied perspective, from the Witch Hunter and Daemonhunter books of 3e to the current inquisition.
In terms of an 'NPC' type faction the one that springs to mind would be the 3e 'Advarsaries' mini-codex. They formed a kind of side-army that could be added to another army with their own HQ and troops choices to play traitor guard and similar.
They also had one of the more devastating (if circumstantial) psychic powers in the game - an Ld check to activate and a unit of your choice within 12" immediately fought a round of combat against itself. Amusingly you could normally only take them against Sisters of Battle who were just about the worst army point for point in close combat against themselves, leading to much hair pulling and little actual injury.
Gert wrote: It wouldn't work with 40k.
The deliberately "bad" teams in BB are there as a joke within a joke. The entire game is based in a world where all conflict was solved by the god Nuffle (NFL) getting everyone to play hyper-violent American Football. It's fine to have silly teams when the entire game is silly.
The 40k Community has a large vocal group of people who love winning and are utterly obsessed with efficiency and power levels. An intentionally poor army would be viewed as a pointless wasted release and there'd be vocal backlash at GW for an army not being competitive.
I don't think GW should release any armies that are intentionally bad. I do like winning, though am not a tournament player, but it just seems like they'd be better off putting effort into making EVERYTHING reasonably well-balanced, as best they can.
Plus, given GW's track record on balance, they'd either overshoot and make the army so bad it's not hard mode, it's impossible; or there would be some broken interactions that would actually make them super powerful, within some niches.
Personally, I like underdog armies; I played GSC in 2nd. I like Inquisition and SoS in 8th and 9th.
It would be cool if Imperial Agents had rules for working with each other, rather than merely working with other factions. A full IA dex is the dream, but a few changes to the IA rules and the Inquisition's Imperial Authority rule could go a long way.
Funny, Dark Eldars are top of the pack at the moment and prior to that Eldars and Tau have enjoyed some long stretch of domination. Even Necrons had a few good years. Competitively speaking, Xenos are generally doing fine. It's model wise they aren't too well, but since 9th started, Xenos have enjoyed some support.
The "underdog armies" in 40k aren't there because there's a deliberate fluff or gameplay reason to have an underdog army, so much as because they're armies GW couldn't be bothered to give real updates to.
Strg Alt wrote: Just recently I wondered if something like a subpar faction also existed in 40K. Synonyms for such armies would be a NPC army which would have very low chances at winning no matter how you would write the army list
The original 2nd edition sisters of battle codex came with a note at the start of the army list section stating that the faction got weaker as the points went up due to their lack of heavy support options, etc, and suggested buying more allies.
A number of other factions were written from an allied perspective, from the Witch Hunter and Daemonhunter books of 3e to the current inquisition.
In terms of an 'NPC' type faction the one that springs to mind would be the 3e 'Advarsaries' mini-codex. They formed a kind of side-army that could be added to another army with their own HQ and troops choices to play traitor guard and similar.
They also had one of the more devastating (if circumstantial) psychic powers in the game - an Ld check to activate and a unit of your choice within 12" immediately fought a round of combat against itself. Amusingly you could normally only take them against Sisters of Battle who were just about the worst army point for point in close combat against themselves, leading to much hair pulling and little actual injury.
Good catch. I remember those rules fondly but have forgotten about them initially.
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Gert wrote: It wouldn't work with 40k.
The deliberately "bad" teams in BB are there as a joke within a joke. The entire game is based in a world where all conflict was solved by the god Nuffle (NFL) getting everyone to play hyper-violent American Football. It's fine to have silly teams when the entire game is silly.
If you want to look for "silly" in the 40K universe, you will find it pretty easily. Here are a few examples:
- SM chapter named Ultramarines.
- SM chapter named Rainbow Warriors.
- The entire Ork faction.
- Published Imperial propaganda pamphlets which were used during 3rd to illustrate how awful life is in the Imperium.
Strg Alt wrote: If you want to look for "silly" in the 40K universe, you will find it pretty easily. Here are a few examples:
- SM chapter named Rainbow Warriors.
One of the better jokes in the rogue trader book IMO.
ph34r wrote: Where was the Adversaries mini-codex, was that in the codex Witch Hunters book or something?
Yes, though you need the actual book, not the free pdf version that GW gave away.
Page 39 onwards - rogue psyker, apostate cardinal, mutants, and traitors.
I thought the theory was that that all armies in 40K are balanced but GW aren’t very good at getting the balance.
I think some armies should be more difficult to play as long as more difficult means more of a challenge and more fun.
The idea of flop armies isn’t a good idea why spend all that money building a flop army.
I’d rather see GW release proper indexes for kitbash armies like Fallen, Traitor Guard chaos cults, dark mechanicum and so on. Probably these wouldn’t be so competitive but good for narrative play
Strg Alt wrote: If you want to look for "silly" in the 40K universe, you will find it pretty easily. Here are a few examples:
- SM chapter named Ultramarines.
- SM chapter named Rainbow Warriors.
- The entire Ork faction.
- Published Imperial propaganda pamphlets which were used during 3rd to illustrate how awful life is in the Imperium.
I knew someone would do a "well, actually" eventually.
Yes, 40k has silly things in it, especially older material but it is not a silly setting. You don't have Space Marines and T'au playing tennis as the primary mode of conflict.
The difference is between the comedic setting of Blood Bowl and the semi-serious Grimdark setting of 40k. There can and should be humour in 40k but it is not the primary goal of the setting, unlike Blood Bowl.
But you knew that already.
ph34r wrote: Where was the Adversaries mini-codex, was that in the codex Witch Hunters book or something?
GK had an old codex, where it had rules that allowed the opponent to make their leader possessed by a demon, even if they weren't playing an actual chaos army.
mrFickle wrote: I thought the theory was that that all armies in 40K are balanced but GW aren’t very good at getting the balance.
I think some armies should be more difficult to play as long as more difficult means more of a challenge and more fun.
The idea of flop armies isn’t a good idea why spend all that money building a flop army.
I’d rather see GW release proper indexes for kitbash armies like Fallen, Traitor Guard chaos cults, dark mechanicum and so on. Probably these wouldn’t be so competitive but good for narrative play
Why spent money on a flop army?
I have spent money on such an army in the past. It was an O&G Appendix army namely Night Goblins. Apart from a single giant it consisted only of night goblins and squigs.
How many times did I win with it? Not more than 50% of all battles but I surely had more fun than my opponent. Though one thing needs to be mentioned. My regular opponent knew obviously in advance that I brought the goblins along and so he wouldn't field the absolute best which his collection had to offer.
A game is after all a social contract though this pearl of wisdom isn't privy to a lot of people these days.
The idea of flop armies isn’t a good idea why spend all that money building a flop army.
Narrative, fun, the challenge.....
For example I have a specific tyranid list built that, though it'd rate 100% for "Narrative", it's objectively terrible by any metric you could use.
I'm 99.9999% certain to lose any game I play with it.
The only way(s) it MIGHT win is if:
1) we set some alternate victory conditions.
Or
2) my opponent is stupid AND the whole game consists of fluke dice rolls.
Why'd I build it? Why do I (occasionally) play it?
Purely Narrative reasons.
Plus the fun/challenge of seeing if I can get it to work playwise. (Working =/= winning btw)
I don't think sub-par factions are needed, just because you can make a fun, fluffy, sub-par list with any faction if you want to - but I can't raise any objections to them existing.
Some of those races that the Tau have absorbed could make good mini-armies, and good allys, for example.
the problem with subpar factions like this in 40k is they're not cheap, a blood bowl team, as I understand it is quite small. a 40k army, can easily run you over 2000 dollars
Why arent this black knight comments moderated to oblivion???
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BrianDavion wrote: the problem with subpar factions like this in 40k is they're not cheap, a blood bowl team, as I understand it is quite small. a 40k army, can easily run you over 2000 dollars
Paying 2000€ for having a quarantee defeat against WAAC gamers would definitly be a legit BDSM experience.
GW needs to care for all the potential costumers of the "Warhammer Hobby".
BrianDavion wrote: the problem with subpar factions like this in 40k is they're not cheap, a blood bowl team, as I understand it is quite small. a 40k army, can easily run you over 2000 dollars
This. There is a huge difference in buying, painting and playing a 40€ team of ~15 miniatures for gaks and giggles in a 30 minute game of getting crunched and doing the same with a 300€+ army made up of a hundred miniatures over multiple hours.
Given the cost of a 40k army the much better approach is to balance things properly in the first place rather than giving yourself a get-out-of-jail-free card by labelling something as underpowered. I'd also have very little faith that GW could get that labelling correct most of the time even if they did try it.
Paying 2000€ for having a quarantee defeat against WAAC gamers would definitly be a legit BDSM experience.
GW needs to care for all the potential costumers of the "Warhammer Hobby".
I mean I do own an over 2000pt all-grots ork army, that's essentially as close to that experience as you can actually get.
Theyre also the 'joke, designated loser' faction in AOS! The way GW likes to convey models that are 'just for fun' is that they give them no rules, no abilities, no weapons and then they massively overcost them and go "haha, isn't this funny? Aren't you having fun? Look, we're making you pay the same points as a chaos cultist, but we're only giving you a laspistol, downgrading your weapon skill to 5, your leadership to 4 and your strength to 2, and also you don't even get an armor save if you're outside of cover! WE EVEN TOOK AWAY YOUR OBSEC SO YOU CANT SECURE OBJECTIVES HAHAHAHAHA ISNT THAT HILARIOUS? you know, because the fluff is that orks dont care about objectives so they usually send grots to do that job which is why theyre troops choices in the first place, that was the fluff, but we got rid of it because it's so goddamn funny!!!"
Paying 2000€ for having a quarantee defeat against WAAC gamers would definitly be a legit BDSM experience.
GW needs to care for all the potential costumers of the "Warhammer Hobby".
I mean I do own an over 2000pt all-grots ork army, that's essentially as close to that experience as you can actually get.
Theyre also the 'joke, designated loser' faction in AOS! The way GW likes to convey models that are 'just for fun' is that they give them no rules, no abilities, no weapons and then they massively overcost them and go "haha, isn't this funny? Aren't you having fun? Look, we're making you pay the same points as a chaos cultist, but we're only giving you a laspistol, downgrading your weapon skill to 5, your leadership to 4 and your strength to 2, and also you don't even get an armor save if you're outside of cover! WE EVEN TOOK AWAY YOUR OBSEC SO YOU CANT SECURE OBJECTIVES HAHAHAHAHA ISNT THAT HILARIOUS? you know, because the fluff is that orks dont care about objectives so they usually send grots to do that job which is why theyre troops choices in the first place, that was the fluff, but we got rid of it because it's so goddamn funny!!!"
I think its less that and more --> Ork army must field orks, Grots are not orky enough.
Same for CSM which shouldn't field cultists.
Atleast i rekon its that logic for those two armies that come to mind with that scenario...
There's also the other option, the one were your army gets taken behind the Legendsshed which also is baseline that "joke-army" except of course that rather than being a funny side show like in BB there its more a joke at the player of said army and normally people don't laugh about that one.
To my mind *good* Blood Bowl is about the narratives, characters etc that develop over a league. Necromunda/Mordheim were meant to be like this too. The moment people start explicitly playing to win and yes, munchkining every choice to build the most cheese thing you can, the magic tends to disappear.
But if you can maintain that, you can see how you can play say Halflings, and yes expect to lose almost every game, but live for those times when one of your guys stomps to death your mate's super Witch Elf (or whatever) that's got all the good skillups. And as people have said, cost is such that nothing stops you playing halflings for a bit, then playing something decidedly top tier. If you are in a sufficiently large league, nothing stops you doing both at the same time.
40k however is increasingly streamlined to be a "game" rather than a narrative (arguably this has been going on since it started, but its very much there now). As such playing a bad faction doesn't really satisfy a narrative - it just feels frustrating, likely because you just can't do what your opponent is doing. I mean nothing stops you playing GSC, Tau, Guard etc against the top factions and trying to win - but I don't find it fun. You are usually not creating memories in the same way. "Remember when you rolled a disproportionate number of 1s and 2s and I rolled a disproportionate number of 5s and 6s? Good times."
So far lack of proper mentality and cost seem to be an obstacle. Though I don't believe the latter is a valid reason as no one forces you to collect a large 40K army.
Which armies due to fluff should be presented as underdogs? Imo Traitor Guard, GSC and to some extent Orks would fit in that category. I can still remember a couple of White Dwarf battle reports in which the greenskins were used to make the other factions look good.
Strg Alt wrote: So far lack of proper mentality and cost seem to be an obstacle. Though I don't believe the latter is a valid reason as no one forces you to collect a large 40K army.
Which armies due to fluff should be presented as underdogs? Imo Traitor Guard, GSC and to some extent Orks would fit in that category. I can still remember a couple of White Dwarf battle reports in which the greenskins were used to make the other factions look good.
Except traitor guard is probably one of the bigger threats to the IoM. the GSC cults are a sever internal danger aswell and orks are about the only species thriving in this galaxy?
If anything there should be a sever check on the whole heroic IoM theme going on.
40k however is increasingly streamlined to be a "game" rather than a narrative (arguably this has been going on since it started, but its very much there now). As such playing a bad faction doesn't really satisfy a narrative - it just feels frustrating, likely because you just can't do what your opponent is doing. I mean nothing stops you playing GSC, Tau, Guard etc against the top factions and trying to win - but I don't find it fun. You are usually not creating memories in the same way. "Remember when you rolled a disproportionate number of 1s and 2s and I rolled a disproportionate number of 5s and 6s? Good times."
That is kind of what I'm running into with my grot army.
I love modeling them - I could paint and convert grot stuff all day long, and incorporating all the incredibly goofy gloomspite gitz range into my army was a joy and a delight.
but the game has increasingly changed from 'a goofy system you throw your models at to see what happens' to 'a mental challenge of wills and wits and remembering what all your stratagems do!' and frankly there's just not much fun to be squeezed out of a 'silly' army with that kind of a setup.
All the weapons and abilities that made grot based stuff 'funny' are now just..nothing. Grotzookas used to be kind of funny to resolve, because you had like a million of these cheap little walkers that could each shovel out 2 small blasts if you got them in range, meaning you'd fling out like 12 small blasts out of a decent sized squad, and when they took casualties sometimes they'd toddle away from the enemy for a turn before rallying.
Now, you walk up to an enemy and go 'ok, how many shots, let me roll 10 d3s....now I'll roll to hit wound and you save as normal, this was all just a Big Shoota with 1 extra step. And when your kanz fail morale it's just 'sigh...OK, now we've got to the second extra phase where I lose even more models that you don't even have to worry about...'
Or lets say I include a Shokk Attack Gun - the classic, silly, orky weapon. In days of yore, I would include snotling bases in my army to use as ammo, and I'd roll on a collossally zany table to figure out what happened to the poor snots depending on what unit type I was firing them at. Maybe if I shot them at a tank theyd end up crawling through the engine workings, and it would be just a matter of time before they gum up the works and the vehicle exploded - every turn I'd roll a die and on a 6, that vehicle would blow up. Or maybe they wound up inside the opposing warrior's armor, and i'd make the snotlings melee attacks against the unit with no armor saves allowed.
Now? D6 shots, strength 2D6. oh, I hit you two times, with a strength of (rolls) six. Fun....
there's nothing really there to latch on to to tell a story. Even if I for example go 'the goal of the grotvolushun is not victory, it's visibility! We shall choose the Green Tide objective and simply flood the battlefield full of our glorious peoples' bodies for the grotvolushun and secure victory through numbers!' I just get shoveled off the table so quickly and efficiently that the objective is only possibly achievable for 1 turn. Pretty much any basic infantry unit or anti-infantry unit in the game can just kill their points value in grots straight through every available defensive buff that grots have. at 5ppm I can put down about ~100 of them on the table before I start having to bring models to contend with the task of actually kiling some of my opponent's models, and without exaggeration if I get a really good board position to attack with a lot of them they tend to kill about ~5 GEQ infantry. I have to bring my other units like Squig "Beast Snagga Boyz", a mangler squig "Beastboss" and boingrot bounderz "Stormboyz" to actually try to kill anything and inevitably it just feels like playing 1500pts vs 2000pts every time.
I mean I do own an over 2000pt all-grots ork army, that's essentially as close to that experience as you can actually get.
Theyre also the 'joke, designated loser' faction in AOS! The way GW likes to convey models that are 'just for fun' is that they give them no rules, no abilities, no weapons and then they massively overcost them and go "haha, isn't this funny? Aren't you having fun? Look, we're making you pay the same points as a chaos cultist, but we're only giving you a laspistol, downgrading your weapon skill to 5, your leadership to 4 and your strength to 2, and also you don't even get an armor save if you're outside of cover! WE EVEN TOOK AWAY YOUR OBSEC SO YOU CANT SECURE OBJECTIVES HAHAHAHAHA ISNT THAT HILARIOUS? you know, because the fluff is that orks dont care about objectives so they usually send grots to do that job which is why theyre troops choices in the first place, that was the fluff, but we got rid of it because it's so goddamn funny!!!"
Obvious (and, from the sound of it, entirely justified) snark aside, I think this does raise a good point - if you're going to have underpowered armies, don't make them boring.
I mean, this was something Orks had going for them in past editions. Even if they weren't strong, they had a lot of unpredictable but very flavourful rules that generally made them a lot of fun for both players.
Similarly (prior to 8th-9th), Dark Eldar have generally been one of the weaker factions but (especially in the 5th edition book) also enjoyed a lot of dirty tricks - single-use weapons that could cause instant death, ways to attack units by flying over them, a unit that could 'kidnap' an independent character from his unit, portals from which their reserves could emerge through.
To my mind, these sorts of things are key. I think there are many people who wouldn't mind playing underpowered armies so long as those armies are actually fun to play. In scotsman's example, where's the fun in playing an army of grots if they're just inferior guardsman?
Hell, from my own perspective, DE are good now but they've also lost almost everything that made me want to play them in the first place. Each to their own but, given the choice, I'd far rather they were underpowered but with a lot of tricky rules than being strong but bland.
The thing is, I suspect that this is at least partially due to 9th's core rules and design philosophy. For example, the removal of scatter dice means you can't just have vehicles careen off in a random direction before exploding. The changes to deep strike mean that dropping deployment portals would be almost pointless Not to mention simplifying almost everything into X mortal wounds or reroll 1s (seriously, it's crazy how every unit now has bespoke rules, yet at the same time there's so little actual variety).
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that this sort of thing almost certainly can work but GW would need to put the effort in so that people have an actual reason to play the underpowered factions over the alternatives.
I think the points raised here actually speak to maybe my worst problem with 9th, and the_scotsman has hit the nail on the head.
In 4th, my Leman Russ tank company rarely won games - it couldn't hold objectives well (though better than in 5th) and generally folded to close combat.
Even in Victory Point kill missions, the Russes would struggle because their weapon profile wasn't actually that good at killing whole units - their battlecannons prevented their other weapons from firing, and unless the enemy was reallllly clumped together, it took three to five tanks (1/3rd to 1/2 of my army) to achieve a full kill on a unit and thus earn a unit's full worth, whereas the tanks themselves were relatively easy to damage and destroy if my opponent was able to preserve his anti-tank power.
I had to carefully consider every option: Do I bring the Demolisher? It's short range puts it at risk, but it's got slightly thicker armor. Do I bring the Vanquisher? My likelyhood of earning the "big score" vp from a Vehicle Annihilated Land Raider or the like goes up, but I'm paying ~25 odd extra points for what amounts to a gambler's chance (i.e. not too much). I can bring the regular Russ, but then I don't get much in the way of anti-tank or anti-fortification power...
so, decision is how are my squadrons laid out?
Then, the decision about doctrines, which can inform the latter: thicker side armor for extra points? Anti-tank shells for the regular Russ? They become very immobile vanquishers then, so if I need AT I could just take the vanquishers... do I take ace sponson gunners or evasive driving to try to survive CC? Etc. Etc.
All these concerns affected how my army played on the tabletop, and it was not a very victorious army (against opponents who were mentally prepared to face it; I did win a lot of psychological victories where my opponent convinced themselves they couldn't win and made wrongheaded decisions therefore - which in itself is fluffy, though an NPE that is best avoided).
Anyways, my point is that in 8th-9th paradigm, ALL of those decisions are gone. Playing a Russ company in 8th and 9th doesn't make me feel like an Imperial Guard tank commander, having to make decisions about how my regiment goes to war (do we bring Tech-Priests as Rare Troops? Do we overcharge the engines on our tanks? Do we have a preponderance of well-trained crews or skimp for the cheaper crews, increasing overall numbers, etc) as well as how it behaves on the battlefield.
The decisions for silly niche armies like tank company Guard and, obviously, Grots aren't there. There are no anti-tank shells for the Leman Russ, no side-armor plating upgrades, no overcharged engines, no Rare Troops blessing/curse, no choice about crew quality in the basic Russes, no evasive driving for protection from CC, ace sponson gunners is now a stratagem that works nothing like how it used to, etc. etc.
I still have the army, but every time I break it out for 9th in preparation for a game, I decide not to play it, because the decisions I am asked to make just have so little impact.
The first army was in essence a WHFB Chaos army ported into 40K. So you would have chaos warriors in plate armour on foot or mounted, trolls, minotaurs, beastmen, etc. Ranged weapons were... scarce. Lol!
It's not possible to do in 40k because of the strength of the basic infantryman. Its not the autogun that makes a chaos cultist worth taking, its his cheap T3 body that can sit on objectives or S3 knife that can wound a titan on a 6.
Either you ignore that a chaos warrior in plate armour with a sword should have advantage in close combat over a guy with a pistol and rusty crowbar or you have created 'more elite' cultists. Either way breaks immersion.
Strg Alt wrote: So far lack of proper mentality and cost seem to be an obstacle. Though I don't believe the latter is a valid reason as no one forces you to collect a large 40K army.
Which armies due to fluff should be presented as underdogs? Imo Traitor Guard, GSC and to some extent Orks would fit in that category. I can still remember a couple of White Dwarf battle reports in which the greenskins were used to make the other factions look good.
Why should orks be underdogs? They are a threat to humanity on a level only tyranids and chaos as a whole exceed. They have multiple large empires across the galaxy, have wiped out or almost wiped out multiple chapters, including big shots like the crimson fists and imperial fists, killed a primarch and directly attacked terra. I also don't think anyone but orks has fought a hive fleet to a halt. And that's before you even start to take Thrakka's deeds into consideration. The primary reason why orks haven't archived more is because the Imperium has actually learned from the War of the Beast and now invests large amount of resources into the Deathwatch and the Ordo Xenos to make sure that orks don't rise to the same level as the did then.
They are used a lot as punching bags all over the lore and battle reports, but orks as a whole are one of the most dire threats to everyone.
Doesn't even need to be a WAAC army. I could probably randomly generate an army from my ork collection and utterly curb-stomp a R&H player with it.
Probably the main problem with GW games, bigger then cost, inconsistern rules etc. Nothing worse then two guys buying in to their Start collecting or Patrol box, one or two other box. and finding out that through share luck one picked an army which gives him something that is a 1/3 of a tournament lists, and the other just bought in to a lot of unit that should have the ,don't buy or buy after you buy an army, label stuck to it.
And it creates really angry people too. Because there are few things as far as table top gaming goes, when you ask your friend to buy and play a more casual list, and they tell you they are already doing that.
This is maybe a bit off-topic, but I actually kind of like the idea of embracing the "NPC faction" thing in certain contexts. Like, it could be cool to see some asymmetrical narrative missions (like the Challenge missions from one of the Chapter Approveds) that have juicy, flavorful rules that would be too clunky or imbalanced for competitive games.
So maybe there's a mission where my opponent's marines get to wipe out wave after wave of my tyranids, and the mission is designed such that he'll probably win or at least kill a disproportionate number of point sworth of models. But my tyranids get rules that let me respawn endless gaunts or shut off character auras with my lictors or place reusable ravener/trygon tunnels halfway through the game.
But that's probably a topic for a different thread.
Wyldhunt wrote: This is maybe a bit off-topic, but I actually kind of like the idea of embracing the "NPC faction" thing in certain contexts. Like, it could be cool to see some asymmetrical narrative missions (like the Challenge missions from one of the Chapter Approveds) that have juicy, flavorful rules that would be too clunky or imbalanced for competitive games.
So maybe there's a mission where my opponent's marines get to wipe out wave after wave of my tyranids, and the mission is designed such that he'll probably win or at least kill a disproportionate number of point sworth of models. But my tyranids get rules that let me respawn endless gaunts or shut off character auras with my lictors or place reusable ravener/trygon tunnels halfway through the game.
But that's probably a topic for a different thread.
I've done this before and it is, tbf, great fun.
I had an opponent ask for a game and his list was basically just...never going to be something that with my collection I could give him a good time against. it was a cadian list that included every single named character cadians could bring, plus a big hefty unit of regular ogryns (the terrible kind), every unit had mismatched special and heavy weapons and sergeant upgrades, etc.
So the game we played was essentially, the genestealer cultists are trying to break through a fortified imperial guard line. We didnt use Cult Ambush, and instead we had a new rule that allowed any completely destroyed GSC unit to move back on from the board edge, and any GSC unit in the charge phase could elect to fling themselves into the enemy's guns, destroying themselves and preventing that enemy unit from firing overwatch or using Set to Defend (this was our way of ensuring there was no value to the guard player NOT wiping out a unit and instead leaving 1-2 models alive)
I scored points for units that successfully broke through, he scored points for destroying units, with bonus points if his characters destroyed units in close combat (this would also allow a free use of the auto-pass morale stratagem, as they inspired the men with their bravery). it was a fun little challenge, and something i'd gladly repeat any time anyone was interested in it.
Strg Alt wrote: So far lack of proper mentality and cost seem to be an obstacle. Though I don't believe the latter is a valid reason as no one forces you to collect a large 40K army.
Which armies due to fluff should be presented as underdogs? Imo Traitor Guard, GSC and to some extent Orks would fit in that category. I can still remember a couple of White Dwarf battle reports in which the greenskins were used to make the other factions look good.
Why should orks be underdogs? They are a threat to humanity on a level only tyranids and chaos as a whole exceed. They have multiple large empires across the galaxy, have wiped out or almost wiped out multiple chapters, including big shots like the crimson fists and imperial fists, killed a primarch and directly attacked terra. I also don't think anyone but orks has fought a hive fleet to a halt. And that's before you even start to take Thrakka's deeds into consideration.
The primary reason why orks haven't archived more is because the Imperium has actually learned from the War of the Beast and now invests large amount of resources into the Deathwatch and the Ordo Xenos to make sure that orks don't rise to the same level as the did then.
They are used a lot as punching bags all over the lore and battle reports, but orks as a whole are one of the most dire threats to everyone.
because imperium players still no matter how many specific examples you give them from books will clam a space marine should be able to face an entire horde of orks (likely because the only lore they know is the space marine video game) and that a imperial guardsman should somehow be able to fix bayonet and go toe to toe with an ork. They don't even read the parts in the big rulebook that always tend to basically say "if orks banded together they could and would take over the galaxy, fortunately for all involved they are too busy fighting among themselves"
Guard is a designated loser faction as well, there's absolutely nobody I've ever met who's claimed that guardsmen vs orks in melee should be anywhere close to parity.
the_scotsman wrote: Guard is a designated loser faction as well, there's absolutely nobody I've ever met who's claimed that guardsmen vs orks in melee should be anywhere close to parity.
should have specified, Catachans vs orks being the claims i have heard. Also Ogryn, though the ogryn probably actually do have a chance 1v1
the_scotsman wrote: Guard is a designated loser faction as well, there's absolutely nobody I've ever met who's claimed that guardsmen vs orks in melee should be anywhere close to parity.
should have specified, Catachans vs orks being the claims i have heard. Also Ogryn, though the ogryn probably actually do have a chance 1v1
ogryn have more than a chance 1v1 - one ogryn can generally kill 2-3 boyz with decent rolling.
but yea, fair, the catachan vs orks matchup is less interesting now that orks are t5 i guess.
The average Ogryn would rip the average Ork in half one on one actually. They don't just have a "chance", they're superior. Just like Space Marines are superior to Boyz one on one. And bluntly even most Nobs.
the_scotsman wrote: Guard is a designated loser faction as well, there's absolutely nobody I've ever met who's claimed that guardsmen vs orks in melee should be anywhere close to parity.
should have specified, Catachans vs orks being the claims i have heard. Also Ogryn, though the ogryn probably actually do have a chance 1v1
ogryn have more than a chance 1v1 - one ogryn can generally kill 2-3 boyz with decent rolling.
but yea, fair, the catachan vs orks matchup is less interesting now that orks are t5 i guess.
I am more speaking to the fluff than the tabletop performance. Though admittedly I have not read very much about ogryns fluff, they have not been a significant part of any novels i have read yet.
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Void__Dragon wrote: The average Ogryn would rip the average Ork in half one on one actually. They don't just have a "chance", they're superior. Just like Space Marines are superior to Boyz one on one. And bluntly even most Nobs.
except space marines are not superior to ork boys or nobz. read the Primarch series Roboute Guilliman: Lord of Ultramar book and you see space marines struggling 1v1 vs orks and some falling to them. but go ahead provide me actual fluff citations vs "frankly my big bad marine generics can beat nobz 1v1 every one of them because my head cannon says so"
note marines will kill plenty of orks in open field war but mostly via bolter and ranged weapons, once it get to a melee battle it generally gets ugly for marines
the_scotsman wrote: Guard is a designated loser faction as well, there's absolutely nobody I've ever met who's claimed that guardsmen vs orks in melee should be anywhere close to parity.
should have specified, Catachans vs orks being the claims i have heard. Also Ogryn, though the ogryn probably actually do have a chance 1v1
ogryn have more than a chance 1v1 - one ogryn can generally kill 2-3 boyz with decent rolling.
but yea, fair, the catachan vs orks matchup is less interesting now that orks are t5 i guess.
I am more speaking to the fluff than the tabletop performance. Though admittedly I have not read very much about ogryns fluff, they have not been a significant part of any novels i have read yet.
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Void__Dragon wrote: The average Ogryn would rip the average Ork in half one on one actually. They don't just have a "chance", they're superior. Just like Space Marines are superior to Boyz one on one. And bluntly even most Nobs.
except space marines are not superior to ork boys or nobz. read the Primarch series Roboute Guilliman: Lord of Ultramar book and you see space marines struggling 1v1 vs orks and some falling to them. but go ahead provide me actual fluff citations vs "frankly my big bad marine generics can beat nobz 1v1 every one of them because my head cannon says so"
note marines will kill plenty of orks in open field war but mostly via bolter and ranged weapons, once it get to a melee battle it generally gets ugly for marines
Orks are noted to be considerably more dangerous in the HH era
the_scotsman wrote: Guard is a designated loser faction as well, there's absolutely nobody I've ever met who's claimed that guardsmen vs orks in melee should be anywhere close to parity.
should have specified, Catachans vs orks being the claims i have heard. Also Ogryn, though the ogryn probably actually do have a chance 1v1
ogryn have more than a chance 1v1 - one ogryn can generally kill 2-3 boyz with decent rolling.
but yea, fair, the catachan vs orks matchup is less interesting now that orks are t5 i guess.
I am more speaking to the fluff than the tabletop performance. Though admittedly I have not read very much about ogryns fluff, they have not been a significant part of any novels i have read yet.
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Void__Dragon wrote: The average Ogryn would rip the average Ork in half one on one actually. They don't just have a "chance", they're superior. Just like Space Marines are superior to Boyz one on one. And bluntly even most Nobs.
except space marines are not superior to ork boys or nobz. read the Primarch series Roboute Guilliman: Lord of Ultramar book and you see space marines struggling 1v1 vs orks and some falling to them. but go ahead provide me actual fluff citations vs "frankly my big bad marine generics can beat nobz 1v1 every one of them because my head cannon says so"
note marines will kill plenty of orks in open field war but mostly via bolter and ranged weapons, once it get to a melee battle it generally gets ugly for marines
Orks are noted to be considerably more dangerous in the HH era
Orks are noted to be considerably more dangerous in the HH era
You mean the 3rd-4th edition era?
nah I mean ther Horus Heresy era. a theme that the HH and War of the beast brought on was that the orks of modern 40k are just babies compared to what they'd be like if they where given time to grow etc.... which of course is the real threat of orks in 40k.. if they're not dealt with, decesivly and "soon" they could become too big a problem to stop.
Orks are noted to be considerably more dangerous in the HH era
You mean the 3rd-4th edition era?
nah I mean ther Horus Heresy era. a theme that the HH and War of the beast brought on was that the orks of modern 40k are just babies compared to what they'd be like if they where given time to grow etc.... which of course is the real threat of orks in 40k.. if they're not dealt with, decesivly and "soon" they could become too big a problem to stop.
Instead we get Space Marines who get bigger (Primaris/Heavy Intercessors) when they have their own supreme leader with gigantism (Guilliman). :/
Orks are noted to be considerably more dangerous in the HH era
You mean the 3rd-4th edition era?
nah I mean ther Horus Heresy era. a theme that the HH and War of the beast brought on was that the orks of modern 40k are just babies compared to what they'd be like if they where given time to grow etc.... which of course is the real threat of orks in 40k.. if they're not dealt with, decesivly and "soon" they could become too big a problem to stop.
Instead we get Space Marines who get bigger (Primaris/Heavy Intercessors) when they have their own supreme leader with gigantism (Guilliman). :/
how is that even possible, when marines were gene engineered in a time where humanity had no contact with them. Plus the triple helix DNA orks have is only compatible with eldar, for some strange reason. Trying to improve anything human with ork DNA would have the same effect as trying to saw in an piano in to a human body.
how is that even possible, when marines were gene engineered in a time where humanity had no contact with them. Plus the triple helix DNA orks have is only compatible with eldar, for some strange reason. Trying to improve anything human with ork DNA would have the same effect as trying to saw in an piano in to a human body.
That's War in Heaven lore, Eldar and Orks were both created by The Old Ones. Eldar as a servant race and Orks as a biological weapon for the war against the Necrons.
I didn't knew that. Thank you for the information. Kind of a explains why they are both psychic races, with genetic memory jobs inprinted on the entire race.
Karol wrote: I didn't knew that. Thank you for the information. Kind of a explains why they are both psychic races, with genetic memory jobs inprinted on the entire race.
Yes - one of them is an advanced, post-scarcity, ideal society with a galactic inheritance to bring their enlightened ways to the rest of the foolish races, and the other mucks about with wraithbone and writes poetry.
Wyldhunt wrote: This is maybe a bit off-topic, but I actually kind of like the idea of embracing the "NPC faction" thing in certain contexts. Like, it could be cool to see some asymmetrical narrative missions (like the Challenge missions from one of the Chapter Approveds) that have juicy, flavorful rules that would be too clunky or imbalanced for competitive games.
So maybe there's a mission where my opponent's marines get to wipe out wave after wave of my tyranids, and the mission is designed such that he'll probably win or at least kill a disproportionate number of point sworth of models. But my tyranids get rules that let me respawn endless gaunts or shut off character auras with my lictors or place reusable ravener/trygon tunnels halfway through the game.
But that's probably a topic for a different thread.
You are talking about some sort of "Tower Defense" scenario like in video games. I have done such scenarios where opponents attack wave after wave though you need a bit of fine tuning, if you want to play against another person because these missions tend to best suited for single-player games. The Space Hulk boardgame also comes to mind.
Strg Alt wrote: So far lack of proper mentality and cost seem to be an obstacle. Though I don't believe the latter is a valid reason as no one forces you to collect a large 40K army.
Which armies due to fluff should be presented as underdogs? Imo Traitor Guard, GSC and to some extent Orks would fit in that category. I can still remember a couple of White Dwarf battle reports in which the greenskins were used to make the other factions look good.
Why should orks be underdogs? They are a threat to humanity on a level only tyranids and chaos as a whole exceed. They have multiple large empires across the galaxy, have wiped out or almost wiped out multiple chapters, including big shots like the crimson fists and imperial fists, killed a primarch and directly attacked terra. I also don't think anyone but orks has fought a hive fleet to a halt. And that's before you even start to take Thrakka's deeds into consideration.
The primary reason why orks haven't archived more is because the Imperium has actually learned from the War of the Beast and now invests large amount of resources into the Deathwatch and the Ordo Xenos to make sure that orks don't rise to the same level as the did then.
They are used a lot as punching bags all over the lore and battle reports, but orks as a whole are one of the most dire threats to everyone.
because imperium players still no matter how many specific examples you give them from books will clam a space marine should be able to face an entire horde of orks (likely because the only lore they know is the space marine video game) and that a imperial guardsman should somehow be able to fix bayonet and go toe to toe with an ork. They don't even read the parts in the big rulebook that always tend to basically say "if orks banded together they could and would take over the galaxy, fortunately for all involved they are too busy fighting among themselves"
No to both of you. Orks have been presented in such a way because GW decided to put them in such a role. And labeling posts that you don't like as being sent by a "SM player" is poor form. Just take a look at those old battle reports for yourselves.
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the_scotsman wrote: Guard is a designated loser faction as well, there's absolutely nobody I've ever met who's claimed that guardsmen vs orks in melee should be anywhere close to parity.
Then you won't like the novel "Straken" written by Toby Frost.
Wyldhunt wrote: This is maybe a bit off-topic, but I actually kind of like the idea of embracing the "NPC faction" thing in certain contexts. Like, it could be cool to see some asymmetrical narrative missions (like the Challenge missions from one of the Chapter Approveds) that have juicy, flavorful rules that would be too clunky or imbalanced for competitive games.
So maybe there's a mission where my opponent's marines get to wipe out wave after wave of my tyranids, and the mission is designed such that he'll probably win or at least kill a disproportionate number of point sworth of models. But my tyranids get rules that let me respawn endless gaunts or shut off character auras with my lictors or place reusable ravener/trygon tunnels halfway through the game.
But that's probably a topic for a different thread.
You are talking about some sort of "Tower Defense" scenario like in video games. I have done such scenarios where opponents attack wave after wave though you need a bit of fine tuning, if you want to play against another person because these missions tend to best suited for single-player games. The Space Hulk boardgame also comes to mind.
Strg Alt wrote: So far lack of proper mentality and cost seem to be an obstacle. Though I don't believe the latter is a valid reason as no one forces you to collect a large 40K army.
Which armies due to fluff should be presented as underdogs? Imo Traitor Guard, GSC and to some extent Orks would fit in that category. I can still remember a couple of White Dwarf battle reports in which the greenskins were used to make the other factions look good.
Why should orks be underdogs? They are a threat to humanity on a level only tyranids and chaos as a whole exceed. They have multiple large empires across the galaxy, have wiped out or almost wiped out multiple chapters, including big shots like the crimson fists and imperial fists, killed a primarch and directly attacked terra. I also don't think anyone but orks has fought a hive fleet to a halt. And that's before you even start to take Thrakka's deeds into consideration.
The primary reason why orks haven't archived more is because the Imperium has actually learned from the War of the Beast and now invests large amount of resources into the Deathwatch and the Ordo Xenos to make sure that orks don't rise to the same level as the did then.
They are used a lot as punching bags all over the lore and battle reports, but orks as a whole are one of the most dire threats to everyone.
because imperium players still no matter how many specific examples you give them from books will clam a space marine should be able to face an entire horde of orks (likely because the only lore they know is the space marine video game) and that a imperial guardsman should somehow be able to fix bayonet and go toe to toe with an ork. They don't even read the parts in the big rulebook that always tend to basically say "if orks banded together they could and would take over the galaxy, fortunately for all involved they are too busy fighting among themselves"
No to both of you. Orks have been presented in such a way because GW decided to put them in such a role. And labeling posts that you don't like as being sent by a "SM player" is poor form. Just take a look at those old battle reports for yourselves.
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the_scotsman wrote: Guard is a designated loser faction as well, there's absolutely nobody I've ever met who's claimed that guardsmen vs orks in melee should be anywhere close to parity.
Then you won't like the novel "Straken" written by Toby Frost.
"look at all these old battlereports"
again Citation needed, what battle report, what issue or white dwarf or are we talking third party things like miniwargaming on youtube? to try and prove your position do i need to watch every official gw report ever and order every issue of white dwarf i can find to prove your point for you? you make a claim then you need to have a source to defend it. I am happy to look at any source you provide but I do not accept "orks should be underpowered because i say it has always been that way"
Catachans have been referred to as "Baby Ogryn" for as long as I've been involved with 40k.
They're the exception, not the rule. It's why whenever these goofy "WHO WOULD WIN!!!1!!" threads come up, Catachans are generally considered to be their own thing.
Anyone reasonable would have stopped reading your post here my friend. There's no point talking with people who think that a solitary ork boy is equal, let alone superior, to a space marine. Just look at how you preclude your assertion by trying to ignore a piece of lore that effortlessly disproves your assertion (namely three marines killing orks by the score in Space Marine). That lore doesn't count but yours does? Stop being biased and bluntly get over your marine envy my friend.
But sure, if you want an actual example, Saul Tarvitz outright states that the majority of the time a marine will kill an ork one on one, but ork strength is so variable that it depends.
Boys are mass-produced cannon fodder my friend. They're tougher and stronger than the mass-produced cannon fodder of some armies but that's still what they are.
2ed ork codex on page 28 it says, that ogryns are strong enough for ork warlords to often consider employing them in their armies. Unless the lore was changed later on, this seems to mean that orks respect the size and strenght of Ogryns well enough.
I have a weirder take on this in that I think any army that doesn't work the way it does in the fluff is 'sub-par'. So, for example, during the time when Nidzilla was dominant, I would consider them a 'sub-par' army despite their inherent power because they weren't acting the way 'Nids act in the fluff. That Codex was written cynically to sell a new Carnifex kit, and the rules reflected that through and through.
So if you army is powerful, but in order to make it powerful it has to look nothing like the way that army operates in fluff and artwork, then your army is sub-par because it doesn't function the way it should.
I realise that seems to put me at odds with scotsman, whose Grot army would fall under the heading of 'an army non-representative of the fluff' in that it's all Grots, but I would argue that:
1. From what he's said, he's using a lot of 'Counts As', so he has Stormboyz and Beastbosses or whatever, but with different models. 2. They did work prior to the new book, where GW made some really strange decisions regarding the Orks (reducing their shooting mobility... which makes zero sense). 3. The morale system us utterly fething broken, but it hits Orks (and grot units like Kanz and Guns) really hard.
On a game this scale you can't just up and tell people "Sorry! Your army is a joke army. You're going to lose pretty much all the time, but remember to always have fun and forge that narrative!". No. That doesn't work.
Dudeface wrote: The 40k Community has a large vocal group of people who love winning and are utterly obsessed with efficiency and power levels. An intentionally poor army would be viewed as a pointless wasted release and there'd be vocal backlash at GW for an army not being competitive.
Whilst I disagree with the first pat of that statement, I have to admit, such a vocal backlash would be in the right. And it would cause those 'joke' armies to languish with terrible sales.
There's a sizeable difference between a box of Snotlings for Blood Bowl, or a whole 'joke' army for 40k.
Karol wrote: 2ed ork codex on page 28 it says, that ogryns are strong enough for ork warlords to often consider employing them in their armies. Unless the lore was changed later on, this seems to mean that orks respect the size and strenght of Ogryns well enough.
They should do. Ogryn are massive. They're bigger than most Orks.
The game has become too tournament focused for that. Back in the old days Orks were really flavorful to play......but also very very random, playing Orks was more about having fun and wondering what wonderfully crazy thing they were going to do....they could be super powerful.....but you just couldn't really count on anything. It didnt work well at all if you wanted to count on a win, but you could always count on having a fun and colorful game. If your mad boys ever actually did anything constructive....it was like getting a victory anyway. If Orks could get spectacle points in stead of victory points....or maybe when one of the really rare hilarious things happened ig gave some kind of army wide bonus....I don't know. I think there was a way to make that army work.....but instead GW just went lazy and pretty much made them just work like every other army because that is easier.
We are talking about battle reports from the late 90s to early 2000s published in WD. Good luck recovering the issue numbers.
So, essentially he is right. You think orks should be underpowered because you say so, despite entire novel series saying otherwise.
Not providing proof when asked is the same as admitting that you are wrong, except for also displaying a notable lack of integrity.
Just for the record, my sources are:
Codex: Orks in 4th, 8th and 9th
The fluff part of the supplement that shall not be named
Prophecy of the Wolf booklet
"The Beast Arises" novel series
"Helsreach" novel
"Rynn's World" novel
"The Saga of the Beast" audio book
You might also notice that most of those have been released later than those alleged battle reports published "late 90s to early 2000s". So even if those do exist, it's fairly safe to assume that they are no longer of any relevance.
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Karol wrote: 2ed ork codex on page 28 it says, that ogryns are strong enough for ork warlords to often consider employing them in their armies. Unless the lore was changed later on, this seems to mean that orks respect the size and strenght of Ogryns well enough.
Sounds about right. From a pure gut feeling an ogryn should be slightly more powerful than a nob, but be crushed easily by an actual warboss. I think the stats reflect that well.
IIRC there should be a quote somewhere about an ork boss mourning that ogryns aren't properly green as they should be.
Anyone reasonable would have stopped reading your post here my friend. There's no point talking with people who think that a solitary ork boy is equal, let alone superior, to a space marine. Just look at how you preclude your assertion by trying to ignore a piece of lore that effortlessly disproves your assertion (namely three marines killing orks by the score in Space Marine). That lore doesn't count but yours does? Stop being biased and bluntly get over your marine envy my friend.
But sure, if you want an actual example, Saul Tarvitz outright states that the majority of the time a marine will kill an ork one on one, but ork strength is so variable that it depends.
Boys are mass-produced cannon fodder my friend. They're tougher and stronger than the mass-produced cannon fodder of some armies but that's still what they are.
Just my 2 cents:
While not having all the little extras like acid saliva or the ability to learn your enemies secrets by eating their brain, I always felt the regular Ork boy - as depicted on the tabletop - is physically as able as, or even stronger than, your run of the mill Tactical Marine. So in a melee brawl without any equipment, chances are the Ork would win.
In a typical battle situation though, the Marine will outgear and outmaneuver the Ork boy. But there isn't just 1 Boy for 1 Marine...
Jidmah wrote: They have multiple large empires across the galaxy, have wiped out or almost wiped out multiple chapters, including big shots like the crimson fists and imperial fists, killed a primarch and directly attacked terra.
...which Primarch? Only 4.5 named Primarchs are conclusively/definitively dead, to my knowledge, all either during or shortly after the HH (Ferrus Manus, Alpharius (or Omegon, I lose track), Sanguinius, Horus, Konrad Curze).
Everyone else is either a Daemon Primarch or "passed into myth and legend", though Rogal Dorn does seem to have lost a hand along the way.
they also killed him, repeatedly, in Vulkan lives, his whole sctich is he keeps coming back.I think Vulkan's died more often then Superman, Jean Grey and Optimus Prime Combined.
Anyone reasonable would have stopped reading your post here my friend. There's no point talking with people who think that a solitary ork boy is equal, let alone superior, to a space marine.
In 3rd edition (and most of 4th) an Ork Boy could regularly overpower a Marine in combat.
Also Space Marine the video game is a fairly lousy source, and the player character is a Captain, not your run-of-the-mill Tac Marine. In addition, I rather doubt Space Marines actually heal wounds by slaying opponents in close combat . . .
Jidmah wrote: They have multiple large empires across the galaxy, have wiped out or almost wiped out multiple chapters, including big shots like the crimson fists and imperial fists, killed a primarch and directly attacked terra.
...which Primarch? Only 4.5 named Primarchs are conclusively/definitively dead, to my knowledge, all either during or shortly after the HH (Ferrus Manus, Alpharius (or Omegon, I lose track), Sanguinius, Horus, Konrad Curze).
Everyone else is either a Daemon Primarch or "passed into myth and legend", though Rogal Dorn does seem to have lost a hand along the way.
Yep, it is as a_typical_hero said. To be fair though, it was one of those scenes where two combatants tumble down a bottomless chasm with only one emerging and the other one disappearing to never be seen again.
Considering the "no one killed off-screen is actually dead"-trope, there is a good chance that GW might have him pop up again anyways with some BS reason why one of the most adamant defenders of humanity didn't bother helping them for multiple centuries.
Jidmah wrote: They have multiple large empires across the galaxy, have wiped out or almost wiped out multiple chapters, including big shots like the crimson fists and imperial fists, killed a primarch and directly attacked terra.
...which Primarch? Only 4.5 named Primarchs are conclusively/definitively dead, to my knowledge, all either during or shortly after the HH (Ferrus Manus, Alpharius (or Omegon, I lose track), Sanguinius, Horus, Konrad Curze).
Everyone else is either a Daemon Primarch or "passed into myth and legend", though Rogal Dorn does seem to have lost a hand along the way.
Yep, it is as a_typical_hero said. To be fair though, it was one of those scenes where two combatants tumble down a bottomless chasm with only one emerging and the other one disappearing to never be seen again.
Considering the "no one killed off-screen is actually dead"-trope, there is a good chance that GW might have him pop up again anyways with some BS reason why one of the most adamant defenders of humanity didn't bother helping them for multiple centuries.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I have a weirder take on this in that I think any army that doesn't work the way it does in the fluff is 'sub-par'. So, for example, during the time when Nidzilla was dominant, I would consider them a 'sub-par' army despite their inherent power because they weren't acting the way 'Nids act in the fluff. That Codex was written cynically to sell a new Carnifex kit, and the rules reflected that through and through.
So if you army is powerful, but in order to make it powerful it has to look nothing like the way that army operates in fluff and artwork, then your army is sub-par because it doesn't function the way it should.
I realise that seems to put me at odds with scotsman, whose Grot army would fall under the heading of 'an army non-representative of the fluff' in that it's all Grots, but I would argue that:
1. From what he's said, he's using a lot of 'Counts As', so he has Stormboyz and Beastbosses or whatever, but with different models.
2. They did work prior to the new book, where GW made some really strange decisions regarding the Orks (reducing their shooting mobility... which makes zero sense).
3. The morale system us utterly fething broken, but it hits Orks (and grot units like Kanz and Guns) really hard.
On a game this scale you can't just up and tell people "Sorry! Your army is a joke army. You're going to lose pretty much all the time, but remember to always have fun and forge that narrative!". No. That doesn't work.
Nah, it doesn't. Codex: Orks is intended to let you run armies of Orks, I get that, my grot army is based on the gorkamorka gretchin revolooshunary kommittee fluff which I love, and so I built it with generous counts-as to run it as that and I get that.
You actually could make a joke army that's aim is to have fun and forge the narrative, it'd be fairly easy tbh. Maybe not 'you're going to lose all the time' but 'you're going to die all the time' definitely works and, honestly, probably allows you to play what feels like a 'horde' army much much better than what 40k does right now.
Give armies a 'horde allowance' that allows them to bring back a (relatively small) number of units with a particular keyword per turn (which incentivizes you to bring them in big, maximum-sized units and to play them aggressively to ensure they get killed and recycled). Tie the horde allowance number to some particular models - let's say Warbosses and Runtherds to let you bring back boyz and gretchin mobs respectively, Tervigons and Tyrants to bring back 'Gant mobs, Patriarchs and Primuses to bring back Neophytes, Dark Apostles to bring back Cultists, Commissars to bring back Conscripts, heralds to bring back the troop Daemons.
Then give those units some kind of special action you can use to insta-splat the unit to keep your opponent from being able to strategically not kill 1-2 guys and prevent the resurrection from working.
That helps to solve the problem of
-hordes just getting to win by default because they fething cover the entire board all at once and you can't do anything
-hordes requiring someone to buy 1,234,521 models just to play
-hordes getting utterly screwed by blast and morale and coherency and various other mechanics that make you ask why you'd ever field more than a min size unit
-hordes needing to reach a point of parity with elites to feel effective, which makes them not feel like cheap chaff (see conscripts in 8th)
units in AOS resurrect all the time, it's honestly the go-to mechanic it seems like to convey a super light super expendable infantry unit, I have no idea why gw is so committed to the mechanic not existing in 40k.
Anyone reasonable would have stopped reading your post here my friend. There's no point talking with people who think that a solitary ork boy is equal, let alone superior, to a space marine. Just look at how you preclude your assertion by trying to ignore a piece of lore that effortlessly disproves your assertion (namely three marines killing orks by the score in Space Marine). That lore doesn't count but yours does? Stop being biased and bluntly get over your marine envy my friend.
But sure, if you want an actual example, Saul Tarvitz outright states that the majority of the time a marine will kill an ork one on one, but ork strength is so variable that it depends.
Boys are mass-produced cannon fodder my friend. They're tougher and stronger than the mass-produced cannon fodder of some armies but that's still what they are.
boy, if only the lore for this universe came with some kind of system of statistics, letting us know what the physical capabilities of the various combatants talked about in the lore realistically would be, so we can run these 'who would win' scenarios - oh look! It does!
Looks like in terms of base stats, a naked weaponless marine has a 44% chance of outright killing an ork with his initial attack, while the ork has a 66% chance of hurting the marine but thanks to the marine's redundant organs and such the ork is basically never going to be able to deal a decisive deathblow. Things aren't all rosy for the marine though, because he's going to have a harder time scoring that one-shot kill after his initial attack and the ork becomes more and more likely to be able to wear the marine down as the fight goes on. Which makes sense, in-universe - a marine isnt going to try and armwrestle an ork into submission, he's probably got some special technique to try and jump over his reach and get behind him to snap his neck or break his back in one go rather than relying on their roughly equivalent brute strength.
Anatomically, orks have all the advantages physically that the other semi-upright apes have over us, while marines are still shaped generally like humans albeit super-jacked mega-bodybuilders. But they are built upright like we are, which loses you a ton of mechanical advantage, and physically Orks just have bigger arms, bigger torsos, bigger jaws and lower centers of gravity. Old-timey traveling carnivals back when people didn't use to give a gak about animal welfare would often do a show where they'd challenge whoever the biggest strongest looking person in the town was to come into the ring and fight a chimpanzee, and they'd take bets between this little waist-height monkey and usually this pretty strapping young farmhand, usually after the chimp had just gotten finished with a goofy clown routine. The amount of extra power you get from having your limbs and back shaped like an ape is absolutely tremendous - after all, this is an animal that can pretty lazily lift its entire body mass up into a tree with any one of its four limbs - and the chimp would basically always win the fight.
As it has always been, the marine's superior equipment (power armor) is what provides the great majority of his edge over the ork boy. A shoota is inferior to a bolter at anything but the most extreme close range (and even then the bolter is slightly better) but the ork's brute strength makes a choppa and a chainsword roughly equivalent.
Andrew1975 wrote: The game has become too tournament focused for that. Back in the old days Orks were really flavorful to play......but also very very random, playing Orks was more about having fun and wondering what wonderfully crazy thing they were going to do....they could be super powerful.....but you just couldn't really count on anything. It didnt work well at all if you wanted to count on a win, but you could always count on having a fun and colorful game. If your mad boys ever actually did anything constructive....it was like getting a victory anyway. If Orks could get spectacle points in stead of victory points....or maybe when one of the really rare hilarious things happened ig gave some kind of army wide bonus....I don't know. I think there was a way to make that army work.....but instead GW just went lazy and pretty much made them just work like every other army because that is easier.
Correct assessment. Same goes for the WHFB version. A bunch of green, aggressive goofs romping around the battlefield was a delight to play. Even Chaos Dreadnoughts were unhinged back in the day and would either follow commands or blow up your own troops. Good fun! Sadly they have nowadays sucked all joy out of the armies.
Anyone reasonable would have stopped reading your post here my friend. There's no point talking with people who think that a solitary ork boy is equal, let alone superior, to a space marine. Just look at how you preclude your assertion by trying to ignore a piece of lore that effortlessly disproves your assertion (namely three marines killing orks by the score in Space Marine). That lore doesn't count but yours does? Stop being biased and bluntly get over your marine envy my friend.
But sure, if you want an actual example, Saul Tarvitz outright states that the majority of the time a marine will kill an ork one on one, but ork strength is so variable that it depends.
Boys are mass-produced cannon fodder my friend. They're tougher and stronger than the mass-produced cannon fodder of some armies but that's still what they are.
There are many references in the horus heresey novels to orks, there is definatly variance in thier power. an ork boy in a large waagh might be able to krump a nob on a small planet of feral orks just developing. Those smallerweaker developing ork societies are more along the lines of things you will unlikely see on the 40k tabletop though, if the made some planetary defense game of hive city defense thing you might. hack a imperial guardsman might be able to take a youngling boy hand to hand (but no need as a lasgun would do the work from afar so why risk it) when we are talkign orks landing rocks (literally rocks, they shoot and put engines on asteroids and crash them into planets while aboard) on planets to invade though we have reached waagh territory. (source see the Armageddon series, war of the beast, Gulliman Lord of Ultrimar, and references to Ullanor etc). Humans shoudl be very glad that the orks find it rather unorky to wear armor (except meganobz because they are blessed by gork and mork ... also they carry a big power claw and an krump ya , source 4th edition ork codex on ork kultur)
In power armor and with a bolter and chansword a space marine can place shots that will take out plenty of orks, not arguing that at all. a space marines armor will also ignore a lot of the poorly placed ork shots. The issue i have is the space marine vs the kind of boy that GW is portraying on the tabletop in close combat (the part you cut out of the quote) being equal to a marine in power armor. the marine might be saved by said armor or may be able to prevail without being hit but its not a case of one being clearly superior to the other more along the lines of one genetically modified human in power armor vs a genetically created super warrior created by the gods in a tshirt who is tough enough that when you cut off their head a paindoc might get there in time to sew it back on and get them back in the fight.
On using space marine as a source btw that is not a GW product, it is Relic Games product published by THQ under a license to use the IP by GW. It is a fun game (have played through it several times) but not representative of relative power levels of units. GW sells a license to use their IP but what follows is not considered canon to the universe until and if GW decides to make an exemption (see dawn of war and the blood ravens references). The irony here is me pointing out that the space marine video game is all most imperial players can reference and the responce being "in the space marine game look what 3 marines can do" should not be lost here. Unless you think when a space marine does an impressive kill they spontaniously regenerate lost wounds/close up slugga wounds, and their ceramite somehow heals with the impressive finishing move then its just game mechanics and using the orks as a foil and chaff to fit a story, which is fine for a video game, just not canon (I must have missed reading about that in the novels and codexes including space marines as i have a rather large marine army with multiple chapters)
Of note I do actually like space marines, i have several space marine armies, blood angels at this point probably 5-6k points, probably 10k or more ultramarines, dark angels another 3-4k and some space wolf and iron hands models mixed in there. I also have a large ork army and I enjoy reading the novels and codexes to both (mostly listening to the audiobooks while painting and modeling) Most book references to orks show the best way t deal with them is from afar with ordinance becuase they are often not subtle and artilary / orbital bombarrdment is a greta option, but once they are in choppa range its usually a loss or a very costly victory.
But spontanous regeneration isn't something unheard for space marines. Anval Thawn for example was able to fully regenerate from wounds that were mortal to space marines many times over. To a point where he was able to even return from the state where the apothecaries declared him for dead, and he was sloted for enthronemend in the vaults on Titan. In general anyone who can be blessed with a vision of the light of the astronomicon can performed such feats. Don't even have to be a marine.
The Crimson Fist cpt Cortez was able to regenerate a severed spine in mid battle. And some of the 13th founding marines are able to both shrug off and function with damage far extending over that what regular marines can survive. And regular marines can survive and function with rib cage open, half head blown off, primary heart punctured in multiple places. Haggar was able to fight and travel long distance refusing help from others, while his insides were turned in to litteral mush and his liver having fist sized holes in it from a psychic attack.
Karol wrote: But spontanous regeneration isn't something unheard for space marines. Anval Thawn for example was able to fully regenerate from wounds that were mortal to space marines many times over. To a point where he was able to even return from the state where the apothecaries declared him for dead, and he was sloted for enthronemend in the vaults on Titan. In general anyone who can be blessed with a vision of the light of the astronomicon can performed such feats. Don't even have to be a marine.
The Crimson Fist cpt Cortez was able to regenerate a severed spine in mid battle. And some of the 13th founding marines are able to both shrug off and function with damage far extending over that what regular marines can survive. And regular marines can survive and function with rib cage open, half head blown off, primary heart punctured in multiple places. Haggar was able to fight and travel long distance refusing help from others, while his insides were turned in to litteral mush and his liver having fist sized holes in it from a psychic attack.
It is strongly implied that Anval Thawn is a perpetual, or at least a space marine equivalent of a saint. And yes tehre are cases where marines, often through thier faith in the emperor do recover or fight through things that should have killed them. That said it is often implied that faith in the emperor saved them, IE much liek a saint we have the warp entity that may or may not be the emperor funneling power into them.
Also I am not implying that a space marine captain or even Veteran of many campaigns is going to struggle one V one against an ork boy. I are talking space marine tactical or interceptor equivalent who has not had hundred or thousands of year experience where their faith and developed skills are able to bring them to another level vs the type of ork who would be part of a waagh invading a planet. Also of note these types of injuries being survived in a space marine is not particularly common whereas with orks its more a case of if the doc gets there fast enough to patch them up (and is in the right mood to not experiment on them if they do not have enough teef to pay.. or even if they do they might choose questionable upgrades like a squigg brain transplant)
Put another way not sure how much you know about US special forces but we'll use the most commonly known one, the Navy Seal. now compare thier "stats" to a normal Army Infantryman and its going to be similar. but one has experience, training and ability beyond the other one (also better equipment but even without that I am fairly certain all the extra training to sort out only the best and hone said skills is going to put the seal well ahead)
I have to say it feels wrong to imagine ork boyz being superior even in meele 1vs1 agaisnt a marine when normal ork boyz are the size of a human even if double the wide.
I mean, meele wise, Orks boyz and Kroot are equivalent going by fluff (Actually Kroot are slender and more fragile than boyz but stronger because their muscle mass is much more dense), and I doubt anyone would put a Kroot at the same level as a space marine, even naked.
THAT doesnt mean a ork boy cannot kill a marine in meele, thats not how stuff works. Battlefields are chaotic and combats are not a 100% sure thing. If a gretchin shots a sleeping Roboute Guilliman in the head with a pistol it would kill him.
But it would pretty dire if you make an super elite and expensive advanced soldier that most of the time is specialliced in meele combat that cannot win agaisnt a fething fungus that grows in 2 months, specially when in great wars, Imperial Guards would carry the burden of facing the ork hordes and space marines would be deployed in the most important parts. If tacticals cannot fight in fluff agaisnt boyz when things reach meele, how would fight any meele based space marine chapter agaisnt orks? Not even nobles or warbossess.
In most fluff, Space Marines are superior to ork boyz by a wide margin in literally every aspect. But a couple ork boyz ganging agaisnt a space marine could very easely kill it of he becomes issolated. And 3-4 ork boyz are much "cheaper" logistical wise than a space marine.
I genuinely don't know which part of my post this statement refers to. You quoted the entire thing, so it could apply to any statement I made, varying in meaning quite considerably.
Galas wrote: I have to say it feels wrong to imagine ork boyz being superior even in meele 1vs1 agaisnt a marine when normal ork boyz are the size of a human even if double the wide.
I mean, meele wise, Orks boyz and Kroot are equivalent going by fluff (Actually Kroot are slender and more fragile than boyz but stronger because their muscle mass is much more dense), and I doubt anyone would put a Kroot at the same level as a space marine, even naked.
Almost like making something taller doesn't generally make it better at fighting hand-to-hand. There's a reason when you tackle someone in american football you want to get underneath them, and what's known as a 'wrestler's build' is short with long arms.
THAT doesnt mean a ork boy cannot kill a marine in meele, thats not how stuff works. Battlefields are chaotic and combats are not a 100% sure thing. If a gretchin shots a sleeping Roboute Guilliman in the head with a pistol it would kill him.
But it would pretty dire if you make an super elite and expensive advanced soldier that most of the time is specialliced in meele combat that cannot win agaisnt a fething fungus that grows in 2 months, specially when in great wars, Imperial Guards would carry the burden of facing the ork hordes and space marines would be deployed in the most important parts. If tacticals cannot fight in fluff agaisnt boyz when things reach meele, how would fight any meele based space marine chapter agaisnt orks? Not even nobles or warbossess.
Right, they're 'specialized in melee' which is why most space marines are armed with primarily melee equip-wait, no, that's not right, i remember something about 'boltguns'....
In most fluff, Space Marines are superior to ork boyz by a wide margin in literally every aspect. But a couple ork boyz ganging agaisnt a space marine could very easely kill it of he becomes issolated. And 3-4 ork boyz are much "cheaper" logistical wise than a space marine.
Yeah it's almost like 'humanity is in deep gak' is kind of "the theme of 40k" and theyre supposedly facing a whole bunch of crazy superhuman intergalactic space horrors.
I genuinely don't know which part of my post this statement refers to. You quoted the entire thing, so it could apply to any statement I made, varying in meaning quite considerably.
sorry - nah it doesn't "put you in conflict with me". I'm fully aware that the desired army style that I want to pursue is something gw has been actively discouraging for many many editions, which is why I have a tendency to purposefully use my proxy units as the more competitive elements within the codex to offset what I know will be woefully underpowered units like grots killa kanz and grot tanks.
my mangler squig used to be a barebones Bonebreaka with the forktress upgrade, my squigs used to be a 30-block of boyz with the mushroom shaman from gobbapalooza as a da jump/warpath warpehead, and I used to have a whole bunch of big gunz proxying as mek gunz to give the list teeth.
Now, the mangler squig is gonna be a squigboss, the squigs are gonna be beastboyz, I dont think I can *quite* get away with boingrot bounderz being squighog boyz because of the massive size difference which makes the stats feel pretty silly, so they'll stay Stormboyz and the Fanatics are now going to be kommandos with a snot pump wagon as a klaw nob.
The whole point of having flexible units and flexible subfactions that I dont commit to is so I can try to bring competitive units to compensate for how bad I know the core of my army is going to be.
Running the numbers, a Tac Marine without gear has a 39.51% chance of doing a wound to an Ork on the charge. Each turn after that, it's down to a 22.22% chance.
An Ork Boy without gear has a 55.56% chance of doing at least one wound, and an 11.11% chance of doing two in a single fight.
If we assume they strike simultaneously, that means you're looking at...
Round One 39.51% chance of Ork Death
11.11% chance of Marine Death
Round Two 52.95% chance of Ork Death
40.74% chance of Marine Death
Round Three 63.40% chance of Ork Death
64.88% chance of Marine Death
So it's really only round one where the Marine has a significant advantage, due to having two wounds.
Kind of cool how math works out to display the fluff perfectly.
Marines shoot until the orks get close enough, then switch to combat and try to land a decisive strike. In many situations, this will leave the marines victorious. However, if they fail to kill the orks or there are too many of them, it's a brawl where marines die just as easy as orks.
Jidmah wrote: Kind of cool how math works out to display the fluff perfectly.
Marines shoot until the orks get close enough, then switch to combat and try to land a decisive strike. In many situations, this will leave the marines victorious. However, if they fail to kill the orks or there are too many of them, it's a brawl where marines die just as easy as orks.
Well, this was without any gear-including armor.
That's a HUGE advantage Marines have over Orks-they have good armor, whereas Orks do not. But yeah, in my opinion, a naked Ork Boy should be a match for a naked Marine.
Galas wrote: I have to say it feels wrong to imagine ork boyz being superior even in meele 1vs1 agaisnt a marine when normal ork boyz are the size of a human even if double the wide.
I mean, meele wise, Orks boyz and Kroot are equivalent going by fluff (Actually Kroot are slender and more fragile than boyz but stronger because their muscle mass is much more dense), and I doubt anyone would put a Kroot at the same level as a space marine, even naked.
THAT doesnt mean a ork boy cannot kill a marine in meele, thats not how stuff works. Battlefields are chaotic and combats are not a 100% sure thing. If a gretchin shots a sleeping Roboute Guilliman in the head with a pistol it would kill him.
But it would pretty dire if you make an super elite and expensive advanced soldier that most of the time is specialliced in meele combat that cannot win agaisnt a fething fungus that grows in 2 months, specially when in great wars, Imperial Guards would carry the burden of facing the ork hordes and space marines would be deployed in the most important parts. If tacticals cannot fight in fluff agaisnt boyz when things reach meele, how would fight any meele based space marine chapter agaisnt orks? Not even nobles or warbossess.
In most fluff, Space Marines are superior to ork boyz by a wide margin in literally every aspect. But a couple ork boyz ganging agaisnt a space marine could very easely kill it of he becomes issolated. And 3-4 ork boyz are much "cheaper" logistical wise than a space marine.
i welcome sourced data, but according to multiple ork codexes, and the book xenology the typical ork boy is over 2-2.5 meters tall, in freedom units (the inferior system by far) this translates to over 6 and a half feet to 8 feet. Also of note that is as the ork stands very slouched and with more a gorilla build than a human one so hunched and stocky.
There are certain human cultures in the 41st melinum that do attain this height. In the primarchs Alpharius head of the hydra (one of the best 40k books to dat btw, highly recommend) it is noted that alpharius and his marines are on a world where the populice is abnormally tall and so they can without armor pass for members of the not yet imperial society as well built but not abnormal height citizens I would need the book at hand but i recall it saying 2.5 meters tall. different authors have varied the sized but it is noted this is an abnormal size for humans due to the planets makeup so it would seem that an average ork would actually be tallet than a human (models also show this), and larger waagh boys would be closer to the size of a space marine out of power armor.
as for space marines vs orks in combat scenes, again see war of the beast, roboute gulliman : lord of ultrimar, Armageddon series, and references to Ullanor in heresey novels. they have no problem dealing with orks in mass at range. a well placed bolter shell or 3 does the job to at least incapacitate and disable an ork. once its metal to metal though that is nto the case.
Also of note you don't seem to have a good grasp of ork maturity. an ork boy is not ready to fight in 2 months. They seem to, from the very few mentions in books featuring the lifecycle to take 7-9 ish years after being born from spores (hatched or blossomed depending how you look at it) younglings living a feral lifestyle of hunting and trying to just survive based on thier preprogramed genetics to be ready to join an ork tribe. Faster development than a human for sure but orks are not Tyranid fast (of note this is probably one of the scariest thing abotu Tyranids). There is a reason it takes around 50 years from a world putting down an ork invasion before the orks are back to a ork society ready to take to the stars again. Also of note the genetic preprogramming is significant. with a human or even a space marine a lot of their training is done over years, the ork does not have years of training but they have genetic (memories might not be the word but maybe programing?) knowledge of how to fight as if they were. As an example a Mek did not go to school or study under another mek, they just know how to make trukks, battlewagons, and if called upon and given the resources even Stompas. a youngling mek might be trading thier services making crude but servicable choppas and slug throwers in exchange for scrap to make more and food.
Jidmah wrote: Kind of cool how math works out to display the fluff perfectly.
Marines shoot until the orks get close enough, then switch to combat and try to land a decisive strike. In many situations, this will leave the marines victorious. However, if they fail to kill the orks or there are too many of them, it's a brawl where marines die just as easy as orks.
Well, this was without any gear-including armor.
That's a HUGE advantage Marines have over Orks-they have good armor, whereas Orks do not. But yeah, in my opinion, a naked Ork Boy should be a match for a naked Marine.
I'm fairly sure there are multiple arenas scattered across various factions where this theory is put to a test
the_scotsman wrote: sorry - nah it doesn't "put you in conflict with me". I'm fully aware that the desired army style that I want to pursue is something gw has been actively discouraging for many many editions, which is why I have a tendency to purposefully use my proxy units as the more competitive elements within the codex to offset what I know will be woefully underpowered units like grots killa kanz and grot tanks.
It sounds cool. I'm sure opponent's get a kick out of seeing all Grot armies. Do you have The Red Gobbo in there some where?
the_scotsman wrote: my mangler squig used to be a barebones Bonebreaka with the forktress upgrade, my squigs used to be a 30-block of boyz with the mushroom shaman from gobbapalooza as a da jump/warpath warpehead, and I used to have a whole bunch of big gunz proxying as mek gunz to give the list teeth.
I always wanted to do a Tyranid army using Guard minis. Guardsmen running forward with twin daggers as Hormagaunts, various converted Sentinels as the big bugs. Things like that. Doubt it would ever work, but it sounds fun.
the_scotsman wrote: Now, the mangler squig is gonna be a squigboss, the squigs are gonna be beastboyz, I dont think I can *quite* get away with boingrot bounderz being squighog boyz because of the massive size difference which makes the stats feel pretty silly, so they'll stay Stormboyz and the Fanatics are now going to be kommandos with a snot pump wagon as a klaw nob.
At least you've found a lot of workable 'counts as' solutions.
the_scotsman wrote: The whole point of having flexible units and flexible subfactions that I dont commit to is so I can try to bring competitive units to compensate for how bad I know the core of my army is going to be.
I took the opposite tack with my Primaris army.
When I eventually got a Primaris force I decided that I didn't just want more Ultramarines, and didn't want to mix them with my Deathwatch. I could have them be whatever I want them to be, but in the end I chose White Scars for the same reason I chose Red Corsairs for my Chaos: Advance and charge is really easy to remember.
Yeah, I use the Red Gobbo, the original Makari, and the AOS 'gobbapalooza' set as various and sundry counts-as characters.
I also have a kitbash of my original silly gretchin conversion (the grot model with the baseball cap, which I painted as a boston red sox cap and then gave him an ork power klaw because it looked silly) where I kitbashed a killa kan with the AOS megaboss to create 'Grotzghkull')
Among them, this crack team masquerades as basically every ork character model I happen to need at the time - runtherds, painboyz, makari and ghaz, a waaagh banner nob, and most recently the red gobbo and a couple lieutenunts have been running as Mek Boss Buzzgob, Nitluckle and Lunk because Buzzgob can give a turn-long (including shooting phase) +1 to hit to a single unit of killa kanz which makes them quite the effective shooters.
Currently the grot list is primarily fairly mechanized, with grot tanks, a grot megatank, 3 deff dreads (an old metal deff dread as a 'mega kan', a looted carnifex, and a looted dreadnought with gretchins piloting it), 6 killa kanz, ghazghkull and makari run as Goffs with the gretchins basically just running in min squads and hiding around the board trying to score and do actions. Makari's FNP aura works for all GOFFS not just core or infantry, because gw was incredibly lazy with orks' 9th ed rules and while that resulted in a lot of underpowered stuff it also resulted in an incredibly sloppy implementation of CORE where they put in CORE restrictions on a couple character auras and psychic powers and that's basically it. All the named characters and minor characters just kept their auras exactly the same as before with no CORE.
the list is still pretty underpowered, but it at least has some kind of plan - aim to use heavy antitank shooting turn 1 to remove elite or armoed threats to the vehicles, hide all the infantry profiles from the enemy's guns, and make use of ghazzy's super-waaagh to benefit both the rokkit heavy shooting and the walking dreads and kanz.
JNAProductions wrote: Running the numbers, a Tac Marine without gear has a 39.51% chance of doing a wound to an Ork on the charge. Each turn after that, it's down to a 22.22% chance.
An Ork Boy without gear has a 55.56% chance of doing at least one wound, and an 11.11% chance of doing two in a single fight.
If we assume they strike simultaneously, that means you're looking at...
Round One 39.51% chance of Ork Death
11.11% chance of Marine Death
Comparing that to the 3rd ed codex (which was in play for 9 years, 1999 - 2008).
(without gear first, as you did)
25% chance of Ork Death
50% chance of Marine Death
This doesn't take into account initiative, which had it's own little design space where it could be ignored/bypassed depending on what's going on. But in terms of raw lethality you can spot a pretty big difference between then and now.
(With gear - Slugga Boy with Choppa)
20% chance of Ork death
25% chance of Marine death
A really big factor was charging, which granted an extra attack. This created a really critical opportunity for the Marines, as they doubled their single attack (and therefore lethality) on the charge. Orks however would usually double their initiative on the charge (evening out that stat advantage) and only getting them a 33% boost in lethality (4 attacks vs. 3).
Orks charging
33.3% chance to kill a Marine
Marines charging
41.5% chance to kill an Ork
This put Marines individually on the back foot against Orks unless the Marines charged, which was just about perfect, imo.
H.B.M.C. wrote: We're using in-game stats to argue fluff now are we?
They're not disconnected, and both will inform a players model of the universe. But mostly I'm pointing out that there was a definite era in which Boyz were quite a bit more capable.
*not dissimilar to similar comments regarding a certain Tyranid mdel that starts with C.
The way 
