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In an effort for me to still enjoy the 40k hobby, could someone please explain actual tactics to beat orks... As of right now, any build seems to pale, as orks do everything more effeciently and WAY cheaper than any other list.

By this I mean Competitive orks:
Battlewaggon Spam w/rollas (5+BW w/rollas)
and
the Green tide (120+ orks)

Ideas on different builds that would at least have a running start at both being competitive in the Tournament setting, and also make a run against orks?

I know others in my local gaming area are just as frustrated with orks.

I can remember sort of feeling this way against the TMC Devourer lists... However, I always felt I had a chance at getting the win against the TMC as I would build my list to make sure of it, I just don't feel that orks have any sort of "counter".

The most basic Problems:
*The KFF: this to me is totally insane that it has not been properly faqed. No Way it is supposed to hide 120 orks and make vehicles ignore everything 50% of the time. WAY OTT.

*30 wounds and hidden claw in a fearless unit.

*Vehicle AV14 that Auto hits with rolla D6STR10 hits!!!! WTF (the only thing in the game that really does not have to worry about this is a vehicle that can dodge) Not to mention it has 20orks ready to jump out as well...

Am I missing something here? Orks just seem WAY too good. Not only are they good... I personally have ZERO fun playing with the list and Zero fun playing against the list. The game boggs down horribly with all the models and all the dice rolling.

This just me or what?

Since everyone has been las/plas and letting their heavy bolters gather dust for years... Of course the now viable 'green tide' is making people upset.

How is 5 BW any different than 5 Landraider spam? How is Green Tide Any Different than Spinegaunts spawn? These tactics are not Ork only. They are just more viable in 5th.

*KFF has always given boyz all over the table cover. It has for at least 3 editions. Boys have crappy saves and cover doesn't help with mass shots. In fact, KFF is only really valuable for dreds and vehicles... Proppa use of grots can screen 120 boys easily and give them cover saves.

If you were any good with guess weapons you could splat the KFF mek if he is really that troublesome. Or pop the vehicle he is in. If every unit in the ork army is getting invulnerable cover, use the new wound allocation rules to force that model to take armor save rolls.

If anything KFF got nerfed. We used to take them on *ANY* mek. So burna boyz, Dethkoptaz, Nobsquadz could all take them. You could easily run a list with 5 KFF on the table no sweat.

*30 wounds in a hidden klaw fearless unit? You mean a slow unit you can easily shoot up and assault on your own time. Also they have slow initiative. And with the leadership problems, when that unit gets below 15 models and begins to take tests it is going to RUUUUUUUUN. How is this any different than three, 10 man units with inviso powerklaws? There are ways to handle massive units... People have just been avoiding playing swampy armies so people avoid taking 'anti-swampy' shooting.

Flamers, Pieplates, High shot, low AP... dig them out and give las/plas a rest.

*Death or glory... He is risking everything with d6 hits, Screen your vehicles with tankbust meat and death or glory them. Not to mention the ork vehicle takes a recoil hit too. For years no one tank-shocked EVER because the risk was not worth the reward. While it is 'good' it isn't OMFG amazing. Remember, orks are really hurting for tankbusting ability. They cannot hit a vehicle with a cheap heavy weapon from 36" away on a 3+ like other armies. They need a 150pt 100$ pile of crap to ram across the table at you to even have a CHANCE to damage a tank AV 13 or 14. So much can go wrong with a BW deathroller attempting to bust vehicles.

People have already begun adjusting in my area to the new Ork codex in 5th edition rules. The Green tide was fun for a while but most of us orks have moved onto other viable lsits like dredwalls, 100% shooting armies and Speed Freek lists.

wait till the new marine dex comes out and people start pulling out the salamanders armies against orcs. 10 man assault squads with 3 twin linked flamers make orcs weep.

What army do you play? Kinda hard to help when we don't know what tools you have access too.

I've been helping a friend construct and paint an ork army. It won constantly at first, but everyone in my gaming group was able to adapt. We have a tyranid player that can beat the orks, we have an eldar player that can beat the orks, black templars are able to beat them, even imperial guard has lists that can beat them, lists that are still good against marines. Even, gasp, the two dark angels players in the group have walked away with wins against a tuned ork list.

If you came back and posted the army you play, I'd love to help come up with some ideas to beat orks in the context of your army list

How the hell are people worried about battlewagons?

D6 S10 Hits? Ok, it's got to get to you to do that first, and if you have Meltaguns those tanks die.

And it's not like you don't get armor saves vs. those things and if it's moving towards you your vehicles can move away.

And as for the horde of Boyz, it's called Pie Plates. Just about every single army has them. Use them, they work.

Orks on foot are not slow at all... only slow to roll sets of 60+ dice for shooting/CC attacks/wounding. If there were only just one 30 ork squad... sure... but 3 and 4 of them.

Armour 14 in this edition is wicked good all over town, AV14 for mad cheap.

Armour 14 that eats everthing is insano good.

That mek will NEVER take forced wounds... he is always too deep in a squad or in an unstoppable AV14 deathmachine.

And, the KFF with 5th and going to ground... the boyz are at a 4+save.

The landraider cannot eat another landraider with D6 Str10 attacks... nor can the landraider pop out 20 boys with a Klaw and tie up/destroy ANY UNIT IN THE GAME. For only 150pts... not 250pts.

The death or glory option against a BW... not so hot. Odds are quite abit in favor of the BW waxing through... oh the melta gun... sure, if you took the melta, the flamer for hordes is prolly out. Not too many things can handle 2D6 Str 10 auto hits in trade.

Oh... forgot to mention... the huge units of orks... all scoring?!?!?! Again, another instance of Orks doing something better than other armies for cheaper.

Oh... scratchbuilt BW are pretty easily done. Not really $100 per... If it was really like the squigoth where noone could afford one and/or convert... no big deal. Chop up a landraider/lemun russ... all set.

I play:
BlackTemplars
Nids
RavenGuard
Eldar
Chaos
Necrons
Orks

20 boys with a claw will tie up and destroy any unit in the game? Hahahahahaha

THE SKY IS FALLING, THE SKY IS FALLING

Seriously, instead of freaking out about what the army is capable of why not try to find what you can use to beat it.

What army do you play would be a start.

I said tie up/Destroy.... meaning not necessarily both. This was only to illustrate its simple utility as a cheap unit that can do anything.

NOTE... I am only talking about BW in mass. One, two or 3... sure, fine, whatever. In mass they can push an army off the table.

Khornatedemon wrote:20 boys with a claw will tie up and destroy any unit in the game? Hahahahahaha

THE SKY IS FALLING, THE SKY IS FALLING

Seriously, instead of freaking out about what the army is capable of why not try to find what you can use to beat it.

What army do you play would be a start.

He listed them in the post right above yours... Seven minutes before you posted.

Eric

1. Orks are slow when you take 30-man units because of A) the amount of space it takes to put them in and B) the amount of terrain the unit will move through due to it's size.

2. Meh. Unlike landraiders they die REALLY easily when you hit them in the AV10 rear armour in cc.

3.Does it eat everything? You can configre it to be reletively anti MEQ, reletively anti intfantry or reletively anti tank. When you start trying to combine all of them it gets A) Really expensive for something that will easily die to a PF hit and B) not particularly good at any single one.

4. Hit it in cc with something fast and hitty. Or invest in a vindicar assassin.

5. But, if they go to ground then they can do nothing next turn, giving you another turn of shooting them to bits.

6. But it CAN pop another landraider at 48" range with 2 Str 9 TL shots and unload a squad of marines with a PF sarge.

7. Why bother taking the Str 10 hits when you can run up to it with 1 specially tooled up squad with meltas and shoot it in your turn?

8. For 30 shootaboyz with 3 rokkits and a pk nob it is 245pts. For that amount of pts you can get a squad either A) the same size/larger than it or B) With much better armour. Plus, orks don't really have squad good for sitting back and holding objetives in thier own deployment zone.

9.Your point being? I imagine even if they were 100$ each to make then people would still use them anyway. Landraiders, for example, are pretty expensive, yet peoplestill use them.

theblklotus wrote:I play:
BlackTemplars
Nids
RavenGuard
Eldar
Chaos
Necrons
Orks

Black Templars- LRC spam, terminators with double AC backed up by grimaldus and two huge crusades. Pick one or both of those. Both of those lists can beat a tuned ork list.

Nids- See Stelek's nid tactica. Short version, hive tyrant with whip and scytals, tyrant guard with whips, carnifexes, spinegaunts. Everything has cover, orks crash onto the tyrant units, carnifexes countercharge. You can put barbed stranglers on the carnifexes to focus more on beating orks, with 6 big templates a turn, you can eat away at the lootas really fast, and then its just shoota boys trying to kill 40+ T6 wounds with 3+ saves.

Ravenguard- Book coming out in a month.

Eldar- jetlocks... lots of them. The only ork answer to jetlocks is nob units with FNP, you didn't mention them so try for a 10 strong jetlock unit. They don't die, and they beat shoota boys in CC by such huge margins that they chew them up FAST. Fire dragons in wave serpents are great for killing orks too. Use the wave serpents to tank shock the boys into as tight of a formation as they will go, by tank shocking them with two serpents, then get out and drop 2 crack shot flamer templates on them. It kills a sickening number of orks. This will help the battlewagon situation too. As will the jetlocks.

Chaos- two lashes, noise marines, obliterators, large terminator units... The stuff that is good anyway is actually pretty good against orks.

Necrons- Necrons are in pretty bad shape, they need a new book. but even in the shape they are in, 3 monoliths are very tough for non-battlewagon orks to deal with. Necrons probably can't beat battlewagon orks, but their book is in such bad shape that that is the least of their problems.

If you are looking for a list that will beat a good ork player 100% of the time i can't help you. But you seem to own a lot of armies that have pretty good games against orks when they use the right tools.

MagickalMemories wrote:

Khornatedemon wrote:20 boys with a claw will tie up and destroy any unit in the game? Hahahahahaha

THE SKY IS FALLING, THE SKY IS FALLING

Seriously, instead of freaking out about what the army is capable of why not try to find what you can use to beat it.

What army do you play would be a start.

He listed them in the post right above yours... Seven minutes before you posted.

Eric

Yeah well unfourtunately i had to do stuff at work while i was typing. My guess for seven minutes. Try again

I'm under the impression that the 6 wagon list breaks the game wide open. Anyone seen a viable counter lists or strategy to the following:

2 KFF bigmek
3 x nob, wagon, rolla, red, armored plates, riggas, 2x shoota, klaw/plank/flavor
3+ x 20 boyz, klaw
3 wagon, rolla, etc...

Operate under the assumption that every wagon will have a 4+ cover save from the KFFs and every wagon will be either filled with 20 boyz with klaw, several nobz with oneshot heavy flamers, or giant nob squads with FnP and nastiness.

Has anyone seen a list like this defeated? Because I've played a number of games with it against typical tooled up lists and it's just annihilated everything without breaking a sweat (like only losing 2 wagons over the course of 3 games).

Melta guns that are not mounted don't stand a chance. Their threat range is 6" move + 6" melta against armor 14, compared to the wagons threat range of 21-27" (13" move, 2" deploy, optional 1d6" waaagh, 6" charge).

Traditional antitank doesn't fare much better. IG lascannon for instance: 2% chance of destroying a KFF'd open topped battlewagon from the front. To put that into perspective, you can expect to kill one battlewagon per 50 lascannons fired. Considering that the orks will start ~35" or less from your line (if you're hugging the back edge and they drive on turn 1), you have 2 turns to stop them. Did you bring the 150 lascannons it will take to on average kill 6 wagons over 2 turns? (note to the skeptical, there's a .8% chance to immobilize it, which it has a 50% chance of repairing automatically at the START of the turn).

When they get there, the boyz get out to take the objectives and the wagons wreak havoc on whatever can't stop them. As the orks get ground down to mobs of 10 or less, they remount when possible and stay scoring to hold objectives and retain KPs.

It is a DISGUSTINGLY powerful list, and if you haven't experienced it - I really don't think you're in a place to comment on it.

theblklotus wrote:Orks on foot are not slow at all... only slow to roll sets of 60+ dice for shooting/CC attacks/wounding. If there were only just one 30 ork squad... sure... but 3 and 4 of them.

18" range with shootaz. If you are a unit within 18" you deserve 60 assault 2 shots in you.
Against smurfs:
*30 shoota boyz
*60 shots
*20 hit
*10 wound
*3 go unsaved

OMFG so if somehow 30 shoota boys unloaded on 10 space marines chances are nothing would happen and 3 guys die? Not to mention the 5 other units behind that unit who are not in range of anything?

How about CC?
Against smurfs:
*30 slugga boyz (180 pts)
*90 Attacks
*45 hit
*15 wound
*5 go unsaved

Smurfs with Bolters (150 pts)
*10 marines
*10 attacks
*5 hit
*3.5 wound
*3 go unsaved

I am not seeing the problem especially since Sm attack first and getting 30 boys into BtB is hard if not impossible.

Armour 14 in this edition is wicked good all over town, AV14 for mad cheap.

Armour 14 that eats everthing is insano good.

And armor 12 sucks and BW are very easy to shoot side armor in as they are often massive.

That mek will NEVER take forced wounds... he is always too deep in a squad or in an unstoppable AV14 deathmachine.

Splat him with a pieplate he will. Shoot his unit up he will with wound allocation. Bust his vehicle and he will with wound allocation.

And, the KFF with 5th and going to ground... the boyz are at a 4+save.

No ork would ever go to ground. The KFF needs to stay mobile with the boyz and boyz can't afford to go to ground unless tankbustaz in cover holding objectives. And if the mek is in a unit with grots then he risks losing combat and being wiped out.

The landraider cannot eat another landraider with D6 Str10 attacks... nor can the landraider pop out 20 boys with a Klaw and tie up/destroy ANY UNIT IN THE GAME. For only 150pts... not 250pts.

Landraiders are good and reliable. I would take twinlinked lascannons on BS 4 for tank-killing reliability over D6 str10 hits from physically bumping vehicles. 20 boys are not amazingly good by any means. And if you got 'tied up' by them then it isn't the rules fault it means your ork opponent OUTPLAYED YOU.

The death or glory option against a BW... not so hot. Odds are quite abit in favor of the BW waxing through... oh the melta gun... sure, if you took the melta, the flamer for hordes is prolly out. Not too many things can handle 2D6 Str 10 auto hits in trade.

The *ONE* vehicle we want to bust is the one vehicle with two of the best tank piercing guns in the game. And you don't have to destroy the tank to stop the tank to stop the shock. Since most BW are going to be cheaped out and OPEN-TOPPED it is pretty easy to stop ordestroy it with a multi-melta. And D6 means you roll 1's not every ork is rolling 6's every shock. It is a risk and the ork player has more to lose than the recieving player if he plays correctly.

Oh... forgot to mention... the huge units of orks... all scoring?!?!?! Again, another instance of Orks doing something better than other armies for cheaper.

You mean like an ork unit who can't regroup while under 12 models because it is half starting strength and is no longer insta-fearless?

Oh... scratchbuilt BW are pretty easily done. Not really $100 per... If it was really like the squigoth where noone could afford one and/or convert... no big deal. Chop up a landraider/lemun russ... all set.

You mean a 55$ land raider? With 10$ of ork models as crew? With 15$ of metal bitz for weapons? and 15$ of syrene and plasticard for conversions and Dethrollaz? most Orks are not making BW out of a 5$ scooby doo van from the dollar store. Decent battlewagons easily cost 75$+ if you base it off a GW tank.

New orks are in no way unstoppable or overly strong. And when they take extreme lists like Dethrolla spam or green tide they give up things like 45 lootaz or Dred walls or Speed freeks fully mech. All viable. People just have not seen orks do a 'tide' or battlewagons for like 8 years so now they are forced to attempt to figure out tactics against it. Ask an Ork player and they can tell you exactly how to beat them as they have been getting beat by people playing regular armies and know those tactics well.

My only loss/draw against my orks in all the games (15+ half in 5th edition) I played was in 4th edition. 15 pirahna and the mission was loopy.

None of the ork players in my area really know much about losing with orks. Not I, nor anyone else that plays with the orks.

On turn 2 I would realistically expect to take down 2 Rollas with drop guard and melta fire. Then Hellhounds wreck the inhabitants. I have the option of putting all of my infantry into reserve and dropping in, making Orks very vulnerable to objective grabbing/denial. Likewise I can decoy with my tanks in tablequarters or dawn of war scenarios, forcing his rollas to bunch up in an effort to take down my armor while all my other stuff bounces around killing orks or objective grabbing. If he ignores my tanks then... I have tanks lobbing death at side armor 12 and 5+ save Boyz mobs.

Against the Green Tide, I've got 3 Hellhounds killing Orks with no save at 24", Officer squads packing 12 flamers killing Orks with no save, line squads with a flamer each killing Orks with no save, and Allied Witch Hunters rapid firing and assault bogging where necessary, with the added effect of piling them up in a ball to die with no save to flamers.

I could face either army with the usual list I run and feel confident enough to put money on the game.

Moz wrote:
Operate under the assumption that every wagon will have a 4+ cover save from the KFFs and every wagon will be either filled with 20 boyz with klaw, several nobz with oneshot heavy flamers, or giant nob squads with FnP and nastiness.

Has anyone seen a list like this defeated? Because I've played a number of games with it against typical tooled up lists and it's just annihilated everything without breaking a sweat (like only losing 2 wagons over the course of 3 games).

This is a list I would expect to see at a GT. But it breaks not because of the ork codex but because almost any army taking 5+ big tanks is going to exploit the law of averages where you have more 'AV14' than most average armies are expecting to bust. Especially since tankbusting leaves you vunerable to the other extreme, hordes of swampy crap.

But this also goes into GW's first rule... 'if you are willing to pay the money to WYSIWYG an army like this, you deserve an advantage'. 30 nobz modeled with appropriate gear and 6 BW is not cheap or common or easy, especially since most of us have not been able to take more than 3 BW for years and BW sucked in 4th and didn't get REALLY good until 5th. So my fear of seeing 6 fully converted, modeled and painted BW with 30+ nobz (since we really only got metals) on a table in a tourney is not something that keeps me up at night.

Now if I am going to fear six 5.99$ tonka trukks with unpainted proxies and plastic boyz 'count as' nobs then yes, the list would be something to fear... but then I would simply not play him because he hasn't respected me enough by attempting to WYSIWYG or model the army so I am not going to respect him enough to play him.

I heard the new SM Thunderfire Cannon was going to be brutal for Horde armies. Don't know much about it though.

theblklotus wrote:I play:
BlackTemplars
Nids
RavenGuard
Eldar
Chaos
Necrons
Orks

For fighting the Ork horde...

Gunline Armies - Have one or two squads ready to run up and greet the green tide. Give them flamers or grenade launchers. Run up but do not assault. Maybe add a vechile on each side to further box them in. They can only assault your greeters and cannot consolidate into your firing squads afterwards. Repeat as necessary.

Templates - Use them. Marines get Whirlwinds (cheap) and Missile Launchers (flexible) which can be used well against non-Orks. Eldar have Fire Prisms and can put 2 Flamers in a Storm squad to be used as Greeters. Put 6 Eldar Missile Launchers on a squad of Warwalkers. Guide them. Watch opponents change mind about Frag rounds.

Fearless - Use it against them. If you are an assault army your only option is to hit a single squad or two and hit them hard enough to win combat. If they are still Fearless and loose combat, they loose a lot more to No Retreat. If you fall out of combat, consolidate in such a way that they can only counter assault one squad.

Flank Them - Put all of your army on one side of your deployment zone. If they deploy all opposite of you then your template weapons are that much more effective. If they spread out then they should be all over their own deployment zone, which takes some of them out of the game.

Ork on Ork - Stelek and Darrian13 pretty much covered it here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/214783.page

to repeat what was said earlier:

OMG JETLOCKS!

especially for BW.

They hit back armour... str 9 AV 10... no cover saves, so even if you are hitting on 6's you should get a pen/2 warlocks:

10 warlocks have a 75% chance to destroy one moving 12 inches (6 to hit) on the charge
5 warlocks have a 51% chance.

This doesn't take into account immobilized which is nearly as good

Also they brutalize ork boyz:

squad of 10 jetlocks with charge (and enhance) vs 30 boys:
2/3 hit, 5/6 wound, 5/6 fail save
90% of the time they'll kill between 11 and 19, with a mean of ~14.5

orks hit back with 20*3 attacks
1/2 hit, 1/2 wound 1/9 fail saves, avg ~ 2 dead (including the claw attacks)
and then the orks take another 9-17 fearless wounds...

Worst case scenario (like bottom 10%) you wipe out near 2/3 of the squad.

yeah...

How are people taking more than 3 battle wagons?

GMMStudios wrote:How are people taking more than 3 battle wagons?

Units of Nobz and Meganobz can take battle wagons as dedicated transports.

:O

Oh my...goodness....I never realized that....

I might do that over nine buggies and more bikers....

EDIT: Taking the six BWs would be good but not if I have to take three nobs sqauds...just arent worth 20 points to me.

During the last two days I had two battle vs Erik's Orks.
One with my mech Eldar army and the other with Slaanesh.
The mech Eldar army was led by a large Seer Council killing about 90 Orks, three troop units, 3x30. This game ended after round 5 and so it was a draw.
The Slaanesh army with two lash DPs did also very well. I held one of two mission objectives but he could contest with a Battle Wagon (my Oblits were not able to destroy). He lost all his troop units and had only the Lootas intact plus the Wagon, while I suffered only a few casualties (NM squad, 2 DPs, Rhino).
In fact, these two armies can do well vs Orks.

Hmmm. Wuestenfux, do you think the Seer Council did better point-for-point than Harlequins would have in that situation? Destructor must have helped, but I wonder about the points-sink. More details, please!

Templates and if you are all out of templates, massed fire power!!!

The orks do have an expensive answer for the seer bike squad, being 10 nobz with FNP and heavy armor + banner. It's hard to squeeze it in 1850 with the rest of the wagons and boyz, but it's an extremely effect counter to many obstacles. It usually leaves you with one less 20 man boyz team, which is kind of a big deal with troops being so important.

Klaws & big choppas square off with bike-seer for instant death attempts, and the rest of the boyz work on warlocks.

It doesn't hurt that the squad is half the cost of the seer team and will win against it handily regardless of who gets the charge (though the nobz in a wagon do outrange the bikes).

Nob team cost to beat 700+ point seerbikes: 350

Farseers can swing this if they bring mindwar and succeed for 2 wounds on the painboy.

Yeah I agree with Moz, I have play vs. similiar style ork armies and it is disgustingly powerful.

Capt K

Suggestions for a Farsight list against some of the Ork lists mentioned?