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We had a 600 point tournament in my area yesterday to get used to the new rules. We had a good turn out with several new players showing up to try out the "new" game. Lots of rules questions and general discussions going on, but one theme I kept hearing over and how was Orks.

Ork Boyz are too good for just 6 points each.
Orks can take up to 180 wounds of scoring units realatively cheap.
Those same Orks will be fearless for most of the game.
Any army that is geared to beat that many Orks, probably won't win against many other armies.
Max Ork troops + Lootas + Snikrot are already very popular in the big tournaments.
Etc.

No one was whining, just discussing the new rules. It also helped to see a couple of guys with over 50 Orks in our 600 point format. They didn't loose many games. I had to leave early so I don't know who won, but they were in the running.

So has 5th turned into rock/paper/scissor armies?
Is every army going to get nasty stuff when their codex comes out (in a few years...)?
What are you guys finding that beats that many Orks?

It's not as bad at higher points levels. 180 orks is rather unwieldy. There is a limit of how many boyz you can fit in combat/shoota range.

Players will have to get used to using less las/plas and more template/multi shot weapons. Which are probably a good idea against all the new cover anyway.

the game is changing. everyone has been saying this for months, even the designers. they wanted to get away from small armies of expensive stuff, and as a result, are geared to kill them. orks and tlos do this. you cant kill 180 orks with plasma guns, especially if theyre in cover. so guns with a higher rate of fire become better.

all it means is that you need to change your army a bit. it will take some a little longer to realise then others.

orks are over powered compared to the previous generation of army lists. when you learn the rules well and start to build armies that will work in them they will seem pretty balanced.

Orks do well at lower point levels, where they can load up on effective troop choices. Play a few games at 1500-2000 points and see how they do. The new Orks do force you to tool up a bit for anti-horde work.

I disagree. the 180 boyz + 30 lootas + 2 meks is a good army, but it's rather boring to play, and has significant weaknesses.

additionally, so many ork players are playing this army that it is not hard to develop good tactics and strategies to use against them.

After a while they will begin to lose. A lot. Because everyone will know how to beat them. There are TON of viable units in the ork army other than the 30 ork mob. Trukk boys have their uses, warbikes and deff koptas have their uses. Battlewagons, and killa kans have thier uses. Kommando's and stormboyz have their uses, ec.

I think you will start to see ork armys with 2-3 30 boy squads + a mek, and then use their points for elites, fast attack and heavy support choices, rather than have ONLY mobs of 30 orks.

I just yesterday played a 2k game against a quasi Horde Ork army. My opponent had roughly 120 Boyz with some Mega Armoredz, 3 Trukks, a full squad of Lootas, and a squad of Shootas

I was playing Imperial Guard with 2 LRBTs, 1 LR Demolisher, a Hellhound, and lots and lots of las/flamer squads plus some rough riders and plasma vet squads in chimeras.

The masses of templates, and the new blast rules to scatter less and hit more models, killed roughly half of the boyz before they could close into combat. Once into combat, I simply kept my platoons spread enough that I could flame them twice but they could only ever assault one squad. The Hell Hound made its points back very quickly. By the end of Turn 6 I had him more or less tabled and had only lost about 1/3 of my force. The new consolidation rules definitely hurt assault heavy armies more than the Run rule aids them. Flamerthrowers also will undoubtedly see a huge rise in popularity.

So in short, yes, the day of 30 man ultra elite armies slinging AP2 at 24" is pretty much dead and gone if you want to be competitive.

A lot of it has already been said... Templates are MUCH more lethal to horde forces like Orks. Fire volumes are going to go up. Orks may still be a top list, but there's a lot of trends running against them as well.

Don't forget the No Retreat rule. This is starting to look to me like the most overlooked change in 5e. It really hurts stuff like Gaunts and Orks that don't mind taking a beating as long as they take somebody with them, and are Fearless.

Normally you'd be happy to hit a squad of Space Marines, and lose, say, 3 Orks for every 2 Marines you kill. 18 points for 30, you're winning handily. But with No Retreat, losing the resolution means you lose even more models, and 3:2 quickly turns into 2:1, or 12 points for 15. It's a lot harder to sustain that level of inefficiency when you just had to run through HBolters and Frag Missiles for a turn or two.

Phryxis wrote:

Don't forget the No Retreat rule. This is starting to look to me like the most overlooked change in 5e. It really hurts stuff like Gaunts and Orks that don't mind taking a beating as long as they take somebody with them, and are Fearless.

Well, better than having them run away instantly because of the morale-penalities for loosing combat, isn't it?

I agree with others, the game has changed some what and shifted away the MEQ focus for more horde armies (especially Orks). I don't think this shift will stay around for very long, if even half of the Space Marine 'dex rumors are true.

I think the best part of all these horde armies combined with the new scatter rules and no partials is the basically ignored blast weapons are getting a new lease on life. Last weekend, I employed my Guard army's seven grenade launchers to hilarious effect against everything. They earned their 8 point value back several times simply by dropping templates on everything, as it was going to hit something no matter where it scattered. They did much much better than the plasma guns you're "supposed" to use with Guard.

The ork horde isn't invincible. Pick the most expensive mob in the front rank, put a ton of fire into it, rinse and repeat. Once their numbers begin to drop, they'll run like anyone else. If that doesn't work, form a two-tiered battle line and shoot them to pieces after they rip up the first line, as they won't be able to consolidate into you. Flamers are particularly good at this.

open_sketchbook:

Something that I used to do in 4th edition, that worked well and seems like it should work even better now, was stagger Imperial Guard squads with Grenade Launchers and Missile Launchers in front of Imperial Guard squads with Flamethrowers (sometimes ordinary squads, sometimes Veteran or Special Weapon squads). The Grenade Launcher and Missile Launcher would get their blasts in, and after the Orks hit, then the Flamethrowers would run up and spread out to lay down templates on the Ork mob. If the mob spread out during its consolidation, then all the better because it meant less template overkill.

Now that there's no worry about spacing your units so that they don't get consolidated into, and there's no template overkill, no partial hits, and so on, it should be pretty fun. Not to mention squads armed with Grenade Launchers can support an advance...

Mind you, I did Flamethrowers and Grenade Launchers because that's what came in the Cadian box, but it worked and I'm looking forward to sweeping forward with a line of boomy-burny death the next time I break out my Chapter Serves PDF.

sourclams wrote:So in short, yes, the day of 30 man ultra elite armies slinging AP2 at 24" is pretty much dead and gone if you want to be competitive.

Amen for that.

Bring on the days of 32 Ork elite armies slinging AP3 at 24"!

Any thoughts on a Tyranid response to the new Orks? I've been having difficulty fending off the boyz in CC and his Lootaz are chewing me up in a shooting match. With no kill-zone 'Stealers aren't hitting like they used to and PK's are dicing up my 'Fexes.

On top of it all the particular player in question has never failed to finish off a unit in CC on my turn, leaving himself plenty of time to move/shoot/assualt on his own turn. I'm not kidding about the never part either, in over 6 games it's gone that way every single time.

Any ideas?

Biovores will do nasty things to his Lootas, as well as just about anything that has Deep Strike. In combat, use your superior mobility to gang up and take his mobs down individually. Hormugaunts are an idea.

DaisukeAramecha wrote:Any thoughts on a Tyranid response to the new Orks? I've been having difficulty fending off the boyz in CC and his Lootaz are chewing me up in a shooting match. With no kill-zone 'Stealers aren't hitting like they used to and PK's are dicing up my 'Fexes.

On top of it all the particular player in question has never failed to finish off a unit in CC on my turn, leaving himself plenty of time to move/shoot/assualt on his own turn. I'm not kidding about the never part either, in over 6 games it's gone that way every single time.

Any ideas?

Barbed strangler and deathspitters send orks (and everyone else) on their way.

In 4E, I laughed at the strangler fexes.

Now, you don't laugh as much, so long as it's not just THREE of them.

Oh and CC fexes make Orks cry when you've got the hang of them.

6 MC are alot easier to move than 180 orks.

Mine didn't feel like such a horde afterall. I ran a 1500 point Ork army at an RTT last weekend that totalled 109 models. A couple of things I noticed that was huge in 5th edition.

-I couldn't draw LOS through my Boyz mobs with my Lootas. There is just too much getting in the way. If you can't find hills/multi level ruins, LOS could be very tricky running 180 Boyz (I only had two squads of 30 Boyz in my list....and two squads of 14 Lootas)

-Terrain features can help bottleneck your Boyz, and like everyone else mentioned, blast weapons can get very irritating.

-Trying to fit that many Boyz into the deployment zone of Spearhead (table quarters) can be problematic.

-Finishing a tourney game in the time limit would be difficult (theorize at this point; we used 2 hour time limits and I finished every game on time).

-Painting 180 Boyz. This was the main reason I ran only 109 is b/c I was just tired of painting and took an expensive Flash Gitz squad just to paint less. This is one big reason I don't think you won't see too many Ork armies.

No, you will lots of Orks at RTT's. You just won't see lot's of well painted Orks at RTT's

Stelek and Nurglitch, thanks for the advice. I'm not much of a fan of the Nidzilla style list, but ganging up as much as possible may be my best bet in CC.

I'll give biovores a try again, they've been dodgy for me in the past, partly due to my terrible trend of scatter rolls.

I used to run Biovores and Zoanthropes in my very warrior heavy army back when they were beasts (all 3 months of it).

They were easier to use then than I think they are now, since everyone was trying to gun down the warriors...

Biovores don't imo warrant replacing a fex with two blast weapons. They just don't have the capability the fex ones do.

Orks might seem all powerfull now, but I believe that will change when people get the hang of them and stop making the same boring anti-MEQ armies.

I dunno, played a 500pt game against orks the other day, cleaned up pretty nicely. My custom Chapter has TYBB (true grit and counter attack in non-marine players terms) after a really sh!tty shooting fase with their two flamers (only 5 boyz hit, 3 killed) the 30 ork mob and my 10 man squad went at it for 3 turns, at the end, there were 4 orks left and no marines, but my second squad (las/plas) rapid fired them out, never even got to roll my big guns, it ended just like that.

las/plas arent dead yet, still need them for meqs and light vehicles that are a waste of a dev squads time, especially with how much more usefull the frag missle quasy-barrage to your hordes face tactic just got.

supperior troops in the stat line are still superior, you just need to learn how to propperly weild them, as has been stated in this thread several times already.

dont know how much longer my tactic will last tho, probbably gonna get nerfed in next dex... :(

From my (limited) experience, my Ork army was a more dangerous shooting army and assault was mainly for clean up duty. With the amount of dice I was able to get, despite having a BS2, dropping units wasn't too terribly difficult.

Darrien13: I suppose you are right. My stating there won't be many Orks is a relative term. Last weekend, our tourney had 16 players, two of which fielded Orks. That's two Ork armies that may not have been there if there was not a new codex. From zero to two, that's a pretty impressive increase.

Locally, I've seen 3 others talk about building their Orks, but I'm the only one who seems to have gone through with it. The building and painting of so many models is stopping others right now.

Plus Orks only come 10 in a box, which I was really suprised to find out.

My submunition rounds make hordes cry now.

The New Ork Menace,

Will soon evolve from the mis-conceived, overcluttered 120+ ork list to far more balanced forces of around 70-80 and a better mix of Buggies Kannons and other things.

There is a misconception that the orks should be a "horde" that charges forward to the enemy. If you look at their rules this is the totally wrong way to run an ork list. Having only 3 initiative is a vast weakness for orks in CC. Orks need to be played laterally...side to side! The ork player should avoid running into enemy fire zones at all costs, and instead play a cautious flanking game with buggies running cover to snipe key targets, while kommandos sneak up from behind. The great ork assault is only dangerous within the magic 12" charge range because that allows the shooters AND the ferocious charge that makes shooter orks the best unit in the game at present for point cost. So the orks are supposed to manouver and draw the foe to get the other sucker to get close enough for the big WAARGH!

The best unit in the new codex is the Lootas. But they are static and can only offer one tactic of holding cover and denying territory (By shooting things that enter their covered arcs into tiny pieces) It is a damn fine tactic though in a game where every second fool thinks he is "supposed" to charge like the British at Balaclava way back there in the Crimean war!

If orc players delve deeper into their codex they soon understand that Buggies, Bikes, and Kommandos become vital to get something else happening.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Shock attack gun, and the fact that ork players can get 2 of these range 60" AP2 large template monsters! If the ork can roll a couple of 7's or 9's and scatter onto something this is serious POWER for 60 points.

If he rolls 2's and 4's though its hahaha!

A 12!!!!!! SHHHEEET! Man, my 60 point gun just "vanished" a thousand points worth of landraider full of terminators and the other guys Abaddon!

Look out for ork lists that have two SAGs, two squads of 10 lootas, Kommandos and a handful of buggies in addition to their troops.

It is a powerful force for the points cost.

Tyrannids are the army that already have the most obvious answer to new orks.....

6 carnifexes with barbed stranglers! That isn't cheesy though, that is just obvious. Hormagaunts also ruin all the best laid ork plans, cos they are so fast they can get in before the orks sneaky plans are ready to be hatched.

Tyrannids have always been a power-players dream army and they have plenty of things to win with! Ork Kommandos are nowhere as mean as the Brood Lord with his face hugging buddies! And no Ork HQ can cope with a Hive Tyrant in CC. So I think nid players just need to see a really well balanced ork list and then go shopping in their own codex because they are easiest the best set up to squash green skins without too much trouble.

For other armies big templates and flamers are going to be the obvious choice in ork extermination.

The nice thing is that orks were less than competitive and now they got some chances to do well! haha!

It will be a bit of re-education as guys find lists that can defeat orks and also fight ok versus nidzilla and the Tri Falcon, and Chaos lash list.

That is why GW is busy right now rewriting YOUR codex so that soon YOURS will be the most powerful army list on the block.

A beautiful, never ending cycle of re-invention.

Will I dump my present orks for Space Marines next month? MAY DO! Depends on exactly whats being offered this year!

Orc Town Grot wrote:Will I dump my present orks for Space Marines next month? MAY DO! Depends on exactly whats being offered this year!

Dibs on his orks!

@ Orc Town Grot.

You must be a Blood Axe player. You'd better not let any Goffs hear about your 'sneeky planz' or you'll be missing a lot of teef soon!!

@Orc town grot, have you played the 5th ed missions yet? Due to the 5th ed missions, 5-6 squads of 30 boys is the best selection you can make for Orks. Theytake objectives, they are VERY hard to push off objectives and they are worth one KP. Your buggies and bikes idea creates alot of easy KP's that cannot hold objectives.

70-80 Orks?

At 1750 marine players will be approaching 70-80 lol

Not 70-80, but certainly 40-50. Running 70-80 marines would pretty much gimp you for anything but fighting a giant mob of Sluggas.