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The more I think about the Boyz in 5th Edition the less I think that they're all that great.

Primary Long Range Anti-Tank? Gone, Lootas suck for this now. And Tankbustas will STILL suck for this.

Fast Assault Units? Blow now thanks to Trukks having a much harder time hiding to deliver payloads, Similar problem with Storm Boyz. On top of this, once our fragile (and sometimes expensive) Assault Units hit combat and wipe their target, they're now without KFF or Cover Saves, generally, and will get shredded by retaliatory fire. As far as I'm concerned the whole "no-consolidate" thing makes Trukk Boyz a complete non-starter.

Awesome CC Character? Completely nerfed by the requirement to Join units. The Warboss on Bike was so good because you could get him stuck in, sit in combats by turning the Klaw off on the turn you charge if there are no consolidate options, and the ability to just kill whatever he touched as long as it didn't have rending. Now the only "good" thing left to the Orks require more support, in the way of KFF Meks and the Boss needs an Escort unit to not get blown the hell up, and just about all of his options for that are expensive or not durable.

Hordes and Hordes of Boyz? Can now suck on template shaped deaths. Given our horde like nature, as long as the right targets are chosen, scatters will mean very little as you will always be able to hit a mass of troops.

Gains
Kommandos can come in via side table edges, without Snikrot. Probably useful as they're our only easy way to get to enemy tanks who will be a huge problem if they throw templates. Still this isn't that great due to the random nature and necessitates multiple Kommando Squads.

Assaulting Tanks means hitting rear armor, and assault means vehicles get no cover saves. PK Nobz now penetrate most vehicles in the game on a 2+ if in assault. This along with the previous point helps with not having long range anti-tank options anymore, but it doesn't help if opponents are smart and use meat screens for their tanks to stop assaults.

Run rule means Boyz Mobz have more options in terms of engagement.

Concealment to Vehicles means 4+ Cover Saves. KFF Meks now can make Kanz, Wagons, or maybe Dreads even more durable. Kanz seem to be one of the big winners here.

Conclusions

So, why is it exactly that people are thinking Orks are going to be this awesome be-all-end-all army in 5th? If your opponent keeps on taking Lootas you can deal with them fairly easily due to Templates and their limited LD; and they're not that good against Vehicles anymore since they primarily glanced things to death in V4.

Sure if you take a V4 built army against the Horde of Running Orks, you've got problems, but with the fact that you can't consolidate hop into combats now, and that any army with a brain will include templates just because they have to be able to face Horde Orks (or horde anything), I'm not seeing Orks as this super army that people should be so afraid of.

Ramming makes it seem like those pesky little truks could do a fair but of damage (or at least clog up the place with flaming wrecks) after they've dropped their payload. Or not. A truk fulla Orks smashing into a rhino is a fun sight to behold.

The whole concealment thing seems like a GREAT boon, since ork troops only have a 6+ save anyway. Makes grots really worth taking too.

Fearless in CC seems like a big one since your leadership is modified by you casualties (of which they generally take alot)

Honestly, they look pretty friggin nice in this edition. Sorry if I'm missing things. Had to type this real quick.

~TS

I forgot a major benefit: Charging a large unit of Boyz is now going to be a very bad thing to do because all models get to move up for counter attack, which means we can handle many assault units, barring a couple of really nasty ones.

Fearless in combat isn't bad, but again, sometimes it's a negative as you're one of the few units in the game an assault unit can count on assaulting and being stuck in it through your own turn, being free to consolidate and then move+assault afterwards.

This problem is mitigated by the counter-attack rule somewhat, but I see it as a potential issue, especially for mid-sized mobz that may have been shot down a bit to say 20 boyz, who get charged and then lose ~6-7 of their number, not doing enough casualties to win the combat, but sit there due to fearless, only to get wiped in their turn as they get pushed below fearless and then LD mods make them run like grots.

Basic boyz aree uber-cheap, uber-good in combat (the inability of enemy units to limit the kill zone is gross), and uber-durable. Add plentiful cover saves onto the hordes and they’re just sick. You can still take the KFF if you want to, but you may not even need to, as layered screens make the horde a giant pain to kill. The fact that they remain scoring down to the last model is ridiculous.

I agree that Trukk boyz will suffer. Their numbers are just a bit too low, and the Trukks will really miss the ability to hide behind Area Terrain. That said, their special rules for Trukk damage may still allow them to work. Stormboyz will be a bit less awesome, but you can still take big units.

Big units + lots of cover saves = awesome.

Stupid question: can vehicles claim a cover save from non vehicles? Meaning, can you put out some bikes or deffkoptas and use them to screen your trukks?

it won't be the same as hiding, but a 4+ cover save will help KoS out a lot.

1) Cover from units
A huge line of Grots in front of your army will provide everyone with a 4+ cover save in 5th. It's the good old days of Grot shields again!

2) Counter Charge
You will nearly always have every boy in your mob involved in a fight

3) No kill zone
The enemy will never be able to deny you your full attacks - including your power claw - by clever casualty removal

4) Run
Get across the board even quicker with your mobs!

Things are going to be very interesting for the Orks in the new edition. They would be insanely overpowered if it werent for a few mitigating factors like the inability to consolidate into units after combat.

Did they get rid of the last man standing tests?

Generally when you shoot at a unit of Boyz and it's "down to the last man" then that means you're taking a LD test for casualties, which means you're running.

Once a unit of Boyz gets thrown below the fearless level, they're generally taking a morale test which sends them running.

Small remnants of big mobs will run at the first thing that sneezes at them if they're still around when they're at that low of a model count; which is one reason I'm not liking Trukk Mobz in 4th Ed, let alone problems they and other Ork units have in 5th.

I don't think the Layered Defense idea works very well. Things on hills, or Skimmers on flying bases (large flying bases) can claim to not have screening problems so you get no 4+ save. And even if you did do the staggared defense, the ones up front don't get cover saves and will go away very quickly.

Grots blow for this and cost as much as 20 orks with worse LD problems and not as much staying power.

KFF's will still be integral to making Orks work, even more so now, since we lose other "effective" choices, which means we need more Boyz, which means we need more KFF coverage. Plus KFF's + Kanz is one of the few new good things Orks get in 5th.

Also Staggared lines isn't always a good way to go, especially if you're trying to charge a shooty opponent since mobs upfront can flub a run roll and screw up the ability to advance.

Example:

111111111111111111111

2222222222 333333333
2222222222 333333333

If Mob 1 Flubs the run roll, you're hosed.

Now I prefer a KFF with a multi pronged assault

111111111 2222222 33333333
111111111 222M222 33333333

Where M = KFF.

Now depending on how the rules are worded you can theoretically screw the KFF if you can intersperse mobs within each other to get a 4+ Cover save.

Say:

1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1

So that Mob 1 always provides screening to Mob 2 and vice versa, but you have to worry about the two mobs not running at the same rate, still it makes assaulting just one mob almost impossible, forcing a double assault with both units getting the counter attack rules....

Can't wait to read the book tonight.

EDIT: Wow that last thing of interspersed mobz may be something big depending on how the rules are worded, especially since you can only "target" one unit for shooting, and the majority of the mobs will be screened that way since you can remove casualties from the back even if those models are "out of range" but the models up front who are doing the screening are in range.

Did I just identify the first 5th Ed way of getting 0 Sports scores?

I'm curious to see how 5th handles interspersed units and whether they can really grant each other cover saves.

Obviously an ork unit of 1 guy left isn't too scary, but having a unit which started at 30 need to lose AT LEAST 20 models before it even considers not holding an objective is a big step up from being automatically non-scoring once 16 die.

Benefit: Cheap grot units to 'wall off' table edges against infiltrators and scouts coming in from reserves. I don't know how much we'll see this tactic used, but I think it could be a big part of some army builds. Having a cheap counter to it will be nice. While we might not fear having people come on and assaulting us, denying people from coming on and melta-gunning the rear of a battlewagon is important.

I think Lootas still have a place in the list. They're not uber-great, but I think they can force a unit to take enough armor saves and/or destroy anything AV12 or less.

I don't think Orks will be OMG-tri-super-falcon broken, but I think they will be a good army in fifth. I think orcs might be an army that pulls a lot of draws and is hard to get big wins or big losses with.

dietrich wrote:
I don't think Orks will be OMG-tri-super-falcon broken, but I think they will be a good army in fifth. I think orcs might be an army that pulls a lot of draws and is hard to get big wins or big losses with.

This is what I see as well. Other than an amy that is unprepared for any kind of horde, everything you go up against will have the ability to hurt you pretty badly. You on the other hand will put the orc strengths to use and return the favor, but since your ultimate power lies in close combat you will kill something, then get killed in return. Repeat process until neither side has many units on the board.

Meph

Is there a point to taking Snikrot if Kommandos can come in on the sides of the table without him? Wouldn't it be better to take a PK Nob now?

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Ozymandias wrote:Is there a point to taking Snikrot if Kommandos can come in on the sides of the table without him? Wouldn't it be better to take a PK Nob now?

Ozymandias, King of Kings

This was listed in my first post under "benefits".

Basically Kommandos replace Lootas as Ork Tank Huntas in 5th ed.

Both units still point and laugh at "Tankbustas" for being so bad at their job.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:some stuff with ascii figures

This thread needs moar picks please!

I agree with Voodoo on the KFF vs. Grot screens. The KFF is far more flexible. Just ask any horde Tyranid player what it's like when their front brood rolls a "1" for fleet. Plus the KFF can help after consolidation. It'll be harder to keep screening units in the right spots after things start hitting CC. I do think a min-sized Grot unit makes some sense to protect Lootas or something similar in case deploying in cover really limits your firelanes.

Regarding Kommandos, the advantage of Snikrot is that you can tank hunt anywhere along their line. I don't think it's going to take long for players to start deploying tanks in the center of their formation, away from any scouts or infiltrators.

I also think we'll see (with time) tables start using more "solid" terrain pieces to create some safe areas. In 4th edition, battlefields suddenly became very wooded and very flat. In 5th, they're going to get hillier.

Voodoo, it doesn't answer my question though. Is there a reason to take Snikrot?

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Sorry, didn't think that was an actual question - but more of a rhetorical "Why take Snikrot when a PK Nob is preferable?".

Generally, I don't see much reason to take Snikrot over a PK Nob. He *can* come in and hit wherever he wants, and he's S6 vs Tanks rear armor with re-rolls to hit, which isn't bad, but generally you want the PK coming in. I'm thinking that you may want to just max out elites with three small units of Kommandos w/ PK Nobz, just to come in, whack the tanks, and die. The problem of not coming in where you want them is mitigated by the fact that you can take multiple Kommnado Squads.

Plus it's not like you'd want to take any of the other elite choices anymore as it is now anyway. :(

Maybe I'm just a bit dense, but I'm still thinking Lootas are viable, in fact, still can be very important.

Locally, lots of folks love area terrain for the simplicity of gaming. As an unfortunate side effect, this led to a lot of lanes of fire being restricted. I found big Loota units not nearly as effective as I thought they would be.

In 5th, with true LOS, it will be much harder to hide from Lootas. You can also be more focussed on getting the best lane of fire possible as it is going to be easy to get the Boyz/Grotz in front of them to ensure a 4+ cover save.

With cover saves applying to vehicles, I'm going to want to ensure I get as many hits on a vehicle as possible from one unit. I can't rely on, say a las cannon to do the work. I need to saturate the target, so statistically speaking, my opponent will fail some of the cover saves. Also, their weapons are AP4. MEQ's gain no additional benefit from cover, but are more prone to have LOS drawn to them. More fragile units, yes, will get cover saves.

Now, it's not all peaches and cream with the flanking reserve move. This, however, is very situational and you need to be mindful during set up if flanking is a possibility.

Dietrech has an interesting plan regarding Grots; line up on the flanks to mitigate flank attacks. Interesting potential.

What's wrong with Lootas? Vehicles might be more durable, but the notion that that translates into Lootas being a worse unit strikes me as a bit off, as does the idea that outflanking trumps Snikrot.

I'm on the same page as Sarigar with regard to Lootas. They should still be solid.

Lootas should be more solid because of the cover saves. Playing against them before, all it took was a target priority test and you could put enough wounds on them to make them run. With a 4+ available pretty easily, they should stick around longer.

Vehicles can still be glanced to death, as blown-off weapons and immobilized stack, and at least don't shoot back...

Voodoo Boyz wrote:The more I think about the Boyz in 5th Edition the less I think that they're all that great.

You speaking of hordes or something else?

Voodoo Boyz wrote:Primary Long Range Anti-Tank? Gone, Lootas suck for this now. And Tankbustas will STILL suck for this.

I beg to differ on the Lootas. They make excellent anti-tank units and can rip infantry up. Given you can screen them with a 4+ save or put them in cover to get said save...they do not 'suck'.

Tankbustas can be loaded into Trukks, and offloaded near enemy tanks. With a few tank hammers giving auto penetrations on anything but the AV14 LR and Lith (and the demolisher) I think you'll see they aren't nearly as bad you seem to think they are.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:Fast Assault Units? Blow now thanks to Trukks having a much harder time hiding to deliver payloads, Similar problem with Storm Boyz. On top of this, once our fragile (and sometimes expensive) Assault Units hit combat and wipe their target, they're now without KFF or Cover Saves, generally, and will get shredded by retaliatory fire. As far as I'm concerned the whole "no-consolidate" thing makes Trukk Boyz a complete non-starter.

How are trukks having a harder time delivering their payloads?

You sound like the whiny asses who picked up DE for cheap and declared raider armies 'dead'.

Storm boyz have a hard time delivering their payload? REALLY?!? Guaranteed turn 2 assaults, anywhere on the board? This is difficult?

Yes, you'll have to figure out how to charge multiple units with orks. Wait a minute...there's something wrong with your analysis.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:Awesome CC Character? Completely nerfed by the requirement to Join units. The Warboss on Bike was so good because you could get him stuck in, sit in combats by turning the Klaw off on the turn you charge if there are no consolidate options, and the ability to just kill whatever he touched as long as it didn't have rending. Now the only "good" thing left to the Orks require more support, in the way of KFF Meks and the Boss needs an Escort unit to not get blown the hell up, and just about all of his options for that are expensive or not durable.

So...you stick him behind a trukk. The trukk zooms 18" up a flank, hiding behind cover. The warboss zooms behind the trukk, hiding behind it. When it's time, you run the warboss out and kill whatever you need to and the trukk boyz take another target on.

By the way, zooming a warboss behind terrain is still a deadly tactic. Thinking otherwise is folly, at best.

It's not like you can ignore a warboss with a klaw. Oh autopen on almost all vehicles? Yes please. 6 attacks charging? Yes please.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:Hordes and Hordes of Boyz? Can now suck on template shaped deaths. Given our horde like nature, as long as the right targets are chosen, scatters will mean very little as you will always be able to hit a mass of troops.

I don't run hordes of boyz for this reason, it was valid in 4th but so-called 'great players' did it. In 5E, I hope they bring the living carpet of 'yes you kill 5 orks every small blast, and 10 every large'.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:Gains
Kommandos can come in via side table edges, without Snikrot. Probably useful as they're our only easy way to get to enemy tanks who will be a huge problem if they throw templates. Still this isn't that great due to the random nature and necessitates multiple Kommando Squads.

Yes, this is correct.

You run Snikrot, 2 kommandos, 2 normal storm boyz, zagstruk stormboyz, and whatever else you can afford.

Most Ork players believe the Ork Boy is the way to go. Well, you can deal with them in many ways.

A turn 2 multi-assault from kommandos and storm boyz shreds armies. Really. Toss in a few Boyz on trukks and you have a bad day all day.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:Assaulting Tanks means hitting rear armor, and assault means vehicles get no cover saves. PK Nobz now penetrate most vehicles in the game on a 2+ if in assault. This along with the previous point helps with not having long range anti-tank options anymore, but it doesn't help if opponents are smart and use meat screens for their tanks to stop assaults.

So bring kommandos and storm boyz. You really can eff people up.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:Run rule means Boyz Mobz have more options in terms of engagement.

It just means they hit on turn 3 (possibly 2) instead of 4 (possibly 3).

The horde isn't bad, but the more funnel terrain that exists the more likely it is you are going to eat template death in large numbers.

Tyranids can do hordes. IMO horde orks cannot.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:Concealment to Vehicles means 4+ Cover Saves. KFF Meks now can make Kanz, Wagons, or maybe Dreads even more durable. Kanz seem to be one of the big winners here.

Not really, they are squadrons and lack mobility.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:So, why is it exactly that people are thinking Orks are going to be this awesome be-all-end-all army in 5th? If your opponent keeps on taking Lootas you can deal with them fairly easily due to Templates and their limited LD; and they're not that good against Vehicles anymore since they primarily glanced things to death in V4.

My honest opinion? There's alot of bad players out there that can't get their head around Orks, and instead think they are uber.

You still glance vehicles to death with lootas. It still works fine.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:Sure if you take a V4 built army against the Horde of Running Orks, you've got problems, but with the fact that you can't consolidate hop into combats now, and that any army with a brain will include templates just because they have to be able to face Horde Orks (or horde anything), I'm not seeing Orks as this super army that people should be so afraid of.

They never should have been afraid of them in the first place. I enjoy seeing big unwieldy slow blocks of crappy troops myself. Firepower + mobility beats them every single time.

My conclusion:

Orks are dangerous, don't get me wrong. The unimaginative 'Waaghh...I'm dead?' armies aren't top army builds. Alot of people focus on how important certain units are, and how others suck. Frankly, I can find a place in an Ork army for EVERY unit. Does running shooty orks mean I want to run CC orks? Only if they are suicide units. Does running CC orks mean I want to run shooty orks? Only if I don't mind losing them to enemy shooting. There are lots of builds that are dangerous.

The one that gives me the biggest worries is the focused assault army. People think it's 180 orks. Furthest thing from the truth.

I fear this army more than the ork horde army run by and for new players.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/212734.page

It's smaller, and it's gonna waagh all those orks into you on turn 2. If you have ANY kind of static shooting army, you will be assaulted where you setup.

It isn't pleasant.

yeah, I think orks will still rock in 5th. They may not be an auto-win button, and tactics may have to be changed but the orks are still a rock solid list.

Lootas main goal, for me anyway, has been long range anti-tank first, anti-troop second.

In 5th the effectiveness of Lootas on most vehicles drops drastically, especially if they're in cover, but the primary reason is the fact that Glancing hits don't do a heck of a lot now. Given that Lootas are S7 and most tanks I'm concerned about are AV13 or better, I don't see them doing a lot of damage.

Sure I can hurt AV12, which may get more common, but otherwise it's just going to be an uphill battle. Most of the time I'm better off just running at the things and whacking them with PK's.

For survivability issues, I think with the increased template weapons we're bound to see and with outflanking maneuvers they're going to look like a nice juicy target that is fairly easy to hurt.

I will experiment with them in the new rules, but I don't see it working out as well as in 4th.

Glancing hits do plenty, Voodoo.

On almost any result, the vehicle can't fire. That's golden by itself.

On a 5+, you take off a weapon or immobilize it.

It does not take a tremendous amount of dice rolling to get alot of glancing hits.

I'll take just *one* glancing hit. Just because you cannot kill vehicles outright does not make them bad.

They're different.

When you run into alot of Eldar, Tau, and Marine mech you'll not regret taking lootas. They shoot those vehicle armies apart.

I agree that the ork codex will not be so great in 5th edition. The problem is the person that wrote it... a few no brainer units that everyone takes and the rest is crap. If he put half as much time into as he did eldar I am sure it would have been a much better codex.

G

I think it's worth taking Snikrot to come in off the enemy's long board edge. With a few big mobz coming across the board, it encourages the opponent to hug the back of his DZ for a few turns, which should give Snik a choice of units and vehicles to come in and deal with.

In fifth, is it like fourth for vehicle damage, where a second Immob becomes Wpn Destroyed, a second Wpn Destroyed is Immob, and once you're Immob and out of Gunz, it's Vehicle Destroyed? I think it is, which means Lootas can still Glance a AV13 to destruction. At the least, you should stop it from shooting, while not as good as destroyed, still buys you another round.

Yes it is like that dietrich.

I also think orcs are still great in 5th. They get run and coversaves all over the place esp. since marine armies dont benefit that much for the cover save part. The ability to jump into someone elses trukk is also really neat. Put your bikeboss with your biker nobz and he is good to go too.

I definently dont agree on the no brainer part of the orc codex, so much in that book is useful that there really is only a few things you really dont want.. like skorchas. If you wanna see nobrainer look to CSM.

Everyone I know who uses Snikrot loves what he can do on the table.

G

I think this whole thread is Ork propaganda.

Orks gain a little, and lose a little. They are still a top teir list.