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I've only recently gotten into 40k, and after doing some research I put this together. This is my first attempt at an army list, so bear with me.

HQ:
Ghazghkull Thraka: 225
Big Mek (KFF): 85

Elites:
15 Kommandos: 265
+ 2x burna
+ Snikrot

13 Burna Boyz: 195

Troops:

12 Slugga Boyz: 162
+ Nob (PK)
+ Trukk (Red paint, plank, Ram)

12 Slugga Boyz: 162
+ Nob (PK)
+ Trukk (Red paint, Plank, Ram)

12 Slugga Boyz: 157
+ Nob (PK)
+ Trukk (Red paint, Plank)

12 Slugga Boyz: 157
+ Nob (PK)
+ Trukk (Red paint, Plank)

Heavy Support:

Battlewagon (Red paint, Plank, Ram, Big Shoota): 110

= 1498

I like the list, it's fast enough for a second turn assault, and could even have elements assaulting on turn one. You have a decent number of bodies for Mech Orks as well. You may however find that a lack of ranged firepower could hurt against other mechanized lists.

I think that if you want to stick with speed freekz, get nob bikers and Wazdakka Gutsmek instead of Thraka. His Dakkakannon is like a kustom mega-blasta with AP 4 and Assault 4. He's cheaper than Thraka too. Sure, you lose the extra Waaaagh!, but you're going to zoom up to the enemy in your trukks and bikes anyway.
And isn't Thraka in mega armor? The second he's on foot he's gonna CRAWL to the enemy.

Ghaz is such a waste in speed freak lists. He should be run in hordes or not at all.

Kommandos don't fit for freakz. Drop them and either get more trukk boyz or another nob squad or something. Running 2x Warbosses on bikes with PK's could be some good anti-tank also.

Trukks are paper thin. If you use a lot of them you had best get a Mek with a KFF

Don't listen to the unbelievers who posted after you!

Your list has the beginnings of awesomeness, and we just need to tailor a few things. I run something quite similar...*very* similar, and I'm currently sitting at 59 wins, 1 loss, 1 draw in my area. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to 'Ard Boyz so that I can find out if I'm as good as I think I am against a pool of national competitors who think the same thing. =p Mechanized Orks with Ghazghkull have a potential 27-29" assault range.

A few specifics:

1. Ghazghkull belonging only in a foot-slogging list is ridiculous. He's slow and purposeful, and gimping a 30 man foot squad with slow and purposeful is a mistake. Putting him in a trukk ENSURES that he gets mixed up in close combat where he belongs. It also lets you make sure that you get to assault the biggest, nastiest thing your opponent has with him since you have such range. My favorite things to assault with Ghazghkull on the Waaaugh!
a.) big squads of terminators, preferably with them having power weapons, lightning claws, and a HQ attached.
b.) multiple units of monstrous creatures. If you can get a demon prince and some chaos close, or a couple of carnifexes within 2" of each other...whammy!
c.) 20+ model squads of anything. Marines, orks, Nob bikers, I'll take anything.
d.) Land raiders! Nothing like 7 STR10 hits swinging against a land raider to give you a good shot at popping it.

If Ghazghkull can't kill whatever he assaults in one turn, I use his nobs or another unit to counter-assault the following turn. Here's an example: Lets say that there's a squad of 10 terminators with an attached chaplain, all with lightning claws, sitting in cover. If I assault them with my nobs, my 4+ armor, 4+ feel no pain gets me nothing and I go at Initiative 1; I'll probably lose all my nobs before they get to attack. So Ghazghkull breaks away from the nobs and assaults the terminators alone. He won't die, he'll kill a few terminators, kill a few more on the enemy turn, and the next turn, your nobs charge into the back of the terminators. If you work it well with spacing, they will get into base with Ghazghkull and as FEW terminators as possible (1 or 2 at most). Thus, only the terminators in base contact with your nobs may choose to attack your nobs, and your nobs (and their powerklaws) are going to annihilate the rest of the terminators. Ghazghkull won't have a 2+ invulnerable save at this point (back to 5+) but he will have done his job, so die or not, you still came out way ahead.

2. Wazdakka is fun, but his thing is letting you take warbikers as a troop choice. Putting him with nob bikers is a waste of an HQ spot. Even worse, nob bikers are a massive waste in themselves. A nob biker grants you +1 toughness at the cost of 25 points per model. TWENTY FIVE POINTS to get +1 toughness. Its not worth it. Nobs in a trukk can do everything (and more) that a nob biker can do. Nob bikers get a 4+ cover save....you don't even get to SHOOT at nobs in a trukk until you take their transport out. And when they're out, they've got 4+ cover saves too; either from the destroyed trukk, or from the crater and wreckage it left behind. And next turn...you dump boyz out of another trukk and jump the nobs into it and keep on trukkin'.

3. Kommandos ABSOLUTELY fit speed freaks. Snikrot is one of the best entries in the ork codex. He gets to come on from any table edge, including the enemy's back table edge, which messes with their deployment, messes with their strategy, messes with their demeanor. That in itself is worth the points. An enemy afraid to deploy against their back table edge means that they're going to be closer to your trukk boyz. You win either way. Snikrot is STR6 on the charge and can take down back armor, or they can take down a heavy weapon team...or an obliterator squad...or entrenched marines....you name it. The only thing you need to remember is they have paper-shirt saves. You need to assault into cover if possible (they have stikkbombs, which won't matter against most things which are I4 anyway) so that when you've killed everything, you're in cover and the enemy doesn't get to kill you for free. Those 4+ cover saves are worth so much more than a 6+ armor save.
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With that said, here's my specific critique of your list, which....like I said....is the beginning of awesome. It just requires a few tweaks.

1. You need a second HQ, and his name needs to be "Da' Mek with da' KFF." Through some magical power, when you're playing a speed freak list, this model actually speaks. Not kidding....on the table, your little metal model opens his mouth and speaks. He only has one line, and it sounds like this: "Neener neener neener." He says it when people shoot at your vehicles who get 4+ cover saves out in the open. Trukks aren't wildly survivable, and having a Big Mek with a KFF increases their survivability by 50%. Its pretty much mandatory.

2. Your nobs: Either take 10, or drop them completely. Honestly, with your list either way works equally well. Ghazghkull can single-handedly take down anything, especially with counter-assaults from other boyz units adding assistance. I find that I use my own nobs less and less because I'm unwilling to "spend" them killing the tough stuff when everyone else + Ghazghkull can do it just as well. I haven't a verdict there yet...keep them, and toss them into assault against MEQs, plague marines, terminators WITHOUT lightning klaws, stuff like that. With that said, your 10 nobs should all be equipped differently, which means you have 10 different wound groups, which means you have to take at least 11 wounds before you lose a single model. Here's my favorite configuration: Nobs with 'Eavy armor:

1. Painboy
2. Bosspole
3. Waaaugh! Banner
4. Powerklaw
5. Powerklaw + Ammo Runt
6. Powerklaw + Skorcha
7. Big Choppa
8. Big Choppa + Ammo Runt
9. Big CHoppa + Skorcha
10. Normal Nob

All are equipped differently, they're two wound models with 4+ armor saves and 4+ Feel no pain, WS5 and the ability to pretty much kill anything and laugh off most wounds they take.

3. Anti-tank: Orks are weak at it, just come to grips with the idea. Most store-owners and TOs have weighed in against using deff-rollas against vehicles, and Rokkits just don't cut it against the big stuff. You have Snikrot, which is good anti-tank against non-land raiders. For land raiders, you have powerklaws, and rokkits aren't going to do much. Honestly...I think you should drop your deffkoptas. They're not going to deal with land raiders, which is what you need and more and more folks are taking mechanized lists. They're only going to be able to take out one vehicle at a time (if you're lucky), and they're going to get nuked as soon as they present themselves if you're playing against a mechanized list.

4. Boarding planks: I think you should add them to all your trukks. 5 points per trukk, and it gives you the ability to take down an enemy vehicle without exposing your boyz to fire and assault. I've pretty much come to the conclusion myself that they're mandatory now. Your nob gets to charge across and take 4 swings with a powerklaw against the rear armor of an enemy vehicle. The best part? Everyone is still embarked in the trukk and safe from being shot at, assaulted, or caught in the vehicle exploding if you kill it. Boarding planks + Nob with powerklaw or Ghazghkull is *AWESOME* anti-tank.

5. Bosspoles: People are going to disagree with me here, and I don't care because I'm pretentious, and I also don't lose: If Ghazghkull is in your army, your points could be spent better elsewhere. You don't need bosspoles. Presuming you're a good player, your entire army is going to assault at the same time. Turn 2 or Turn 3 depending on if you lost trukks, and if the enemy is trying to run or screen you away. That turn, Ghazghkull is going to Waaaugh! and your entire army is going to be fearless. Games for speed freaks are DECIDED turn 2 or turn 3 when you assault. There are no leadership tests there because of Ghazghkull. Either you will smear the blood of your hated enemies across the board and the rest of the game is an easy mop-up operations, or you're going to be a pile of moldering spores, and the surviving orks are going to be running away trying to get a draw. I think too many people play for the draw, which is part of why I think I do well; I go 100% at everything. But yeah, you don't need bosspoles in Ghazghkull's army; your units are either going to win and not require leadership, or lose and all be dead. As long as you're tossing multiple units of trukk boyz at stuff to take advantage of numerical superiority, you'll be fine.

6. Sluggas vs shootas: I think you've made the right choice. Someone is bound to show up sooner or later with the opinion that mechanized orks should have guns to shoot. Personally, I think that's just a temptation to only move 7" per turn so that they *can* shoot when you should actually be moving 13" (or 19") per turn to get yourself positioned for assault.

7. A note on the KFF: Put your Big Mek with a KFF in a trukk attached to a boyz squad, and put that trukk in the middle of the rest of your trukks, such that you make a block of trukks all within 6" of the Big Mek's trukk. That 4+ cover save up the field is going to generate a lot of "neener neener neener"

8. Reinforced Rams: I've also come to the conclusion that these are pretty much mandatory too. Rerolling those 1s keeps you from losing your mobility, and your list is *about* mobility. There will be many games where you can't control terrain placement, and you may have to drive through it.

That's about it!

You've got plenty of killy power with your Boyz. EVERY unit has anti-tank capability, and I think boarding planks will serve you better than rokkits. Think of it this way:

Rokkits ALWAYS need 5+ to hit. They will need 2-6 to glance/penetrate depending on what you're shooting at.
Powerklaws will either auto-hit (better than rokkits), hit on 4+ (most scenarios), or hit on 6+ (not much worse than rokkits) They will penetrate on a 2+ against EVERYTHING except a land raider. Much better.

On top of all that, you've got Ghazghkull to deal with any heavy units, scary units, etc, and a nob squad to deal with the core of your opponent's army. If you're on foot, here's a nice tip for assaulting an enemy vehicle: Completely surround it. A rhino for instance with 10 space marines in it....when you destroy it, models disembarking must deploy 1" away from your models. If you're surrounded their rhino, that means they can only squeeze 2-4 models into the wreckage where their rhino was.

Put this list together and try it out. Honestly, you shouldn't EVER lose. You will always get the assault, which is a huge advantage. The only things that will test you are completely mechanized lists because of Orks' natural inability to deal with tanks, and Nidzilla lists. You will still win against Nidzillas if you play well (especially if you can get Ghazghkull into multi-assault with two MCs). Snikrot+Kommandos can take out a MC with your Initiative order power weapons (burnas). I think you'd be well-served to add a unit of burnas into one of those trukks if you could squeeze in points somewhere. Having 12 burnas in a trukk dropping 12 flame templates over a unit pretty much guarantees that they will die. Against monstrous creatures, having 12 power weapons charging in causing wounds that ignore those 2+ and 3+ armor saves can take down Nidzillas fast.

If you somehow lose with this list, post a battle report and PM me a link to it so that I can figure out what went wrong. But the list you've made here is honestly a take all comers list that is capable of dealing with anything. I run something significantly modified from this nowadays just because of the models I have available, but if I were to play a 1500 point list, we'd have almost identical armies.

i like it! nice and fast moving charging into enemy lines i do like it but being able to take warbikers as a troop choice is really nice. It can get scary when there torn to shreds and you can just drive around and get 4+ cover save. But ghazkull is nice your choice really and Kammandos are scary two your list wouldn't be fun to receive. Also make some of those boys have choppas and sluggas there nasty in CC more orky attacks!

All of his boyz *are* choppa and slugga boyz.

And warbiker boyz simply aren't worth their cost anymore.

O.O that is a long post. I concede to Dash anything ork wise.

Toxxic wrote:Trukks are paper thin. If you use a lot of them you had best get a Mek with a KFF

I like that.

Thanks for all of the feedback, especially Dashofpepper with that really informative post!

You could always just take a couple of MaNz to be with Ghaz. Might as well just grab a looted wagon and put the burnas in there imo to get everyone mech'd up.

Just for ease of reading and use, when you submit a new army list, its better to edit your first post than to create a new one so that people looking at your army list don't have to scroll down trying to compare changes.

Notes on other input...

1. Sorry EzeKK. Dolemite, don't ever take a looted wagon. It costs too many points for its inability to do anything that you can't do elsewhere for cheaper. You have 5 troop choices in 1500 points, 2 HQs, two elites. Pretty good balance.

2. Slight modification to offer: Rather than losing a turn to shuffle stuff around, or to basically...have 10 shoota boyz on foot somewhere wondering where they fit into your list (because they wouldn't fit) put in a battlewagon. Battlewagon, red paint, boarding plank, big shoota, reinforced ram (110 points).

Better to go completely mechanized than to try shuffling in a mechanized unit with a non-mechanized unit. Now your burnas can start in a battlewagon. Drop the shootas and their trukk completely. You'll only have 4 troop choices, but that's still a *LOT* for 1500 points.

Now, your battlewagon can hold either the mek with the KFF, or Ghazghkull, or both along with the 15 burnas. Personally, if I were running your list, I'd do that. 15 burnas + Ghazghkull + Mek with KFF in the battlewagon. Run it forward 13" per turn until you're in range to start burning stuff (or assaulting with all those power weapons). Independent characters can disembark seperately, so you can drop Ghazghkull off wherever you need him to be.

Keep a trukk on both sides of the battlewagon to obstruct facing if possible; that way if someone tries taking a side armor shot at you, you'll get a 3+ instead of a 4+. Other than that, your battlewagon is going to roll up the table getting 4+ cover saves against anything that *CAN* try popping through AV14.

With your reinforced rams, you can also tank shock; that means that you can use your trukks to bunch up enemy units into a nice flaming formation.

Dash just pwns my ork theories

Yeah I can say that using tank shock to get into mass flamer formation then getting 15 flame templates.... It work well. And if I remember right you just do one template out of the BW then multiply it by the number of units with flamers inside of the vehicle so if you get 6 people under the template that would be 90 hits. Ouch...

New list is posted as an edit, I didn't even think of doing that with the second list.

I really like the battlewagon idea, having the extra 10 boyz just for a trukk didn't sit well with me. Also, it's just a way cooler army to look at with the battlewagon leading the trukks. I also increased the number of Burnas from 12 to 15 since they can all now fit into the wagon.

I still need to drop 68 points somewhere though. Any suggestions? Even if I drop all of the bosspoles, that leaves me with 48 points to get rid of.

Maybe drop some kommandos? I really can't think of any other way truthfully. Maybe drop some burnas and kommandos, 2 from each squad? Or 4 from one.

1500 points isn't my favorite number by far, but you've got to do what you've got to do.

Take your burnas down to 12, and take out your bosspoles. That should leave you 3 points over, and you can take out one boy to leave you 3 points under. Then give Ghazghkull an ammo runt.

Something to ponder that I need to address sooner or later with my own list is whether or not to give the nobs attached to boyz squads 'Eavy armor or not.

ANyway, that will take care of your stuff. Alternatively, you could drop a boarding plank off of one trukk instead of dropping a boy. Its not going to hurt you to lose one boarding plank; especially if you make that trukk up front. If you lose a trukk, it will be that one.

Realizing I put the wrong amount of points on the battlewagon (should have been 110, not 120) made point allocation a lot easier.

Dropped all bosspoles and 3 burna boyz, which put me at 1493. Added another big shoota to the wagon for some extra dakka, putting the total at 1498.

This should be the final incarnation of the list, and I like it a lot! Thanks for all of the input.

The only reason I even include a big shoota on the battlewagon is so that it has a weapon to be destroyed if I suffer a weapon destroyed result; otherwise it would go to immobilized, which makes it useless.

You're never going to get to fire that second big shoota, which makes it wasted points; if you move your battlewagon at ALL, you're only going to get to fire one main weapon, which is anything more than STR4. If your battlewagon is sitting still, you're doing something wrong. =p

If you're at 1493, I'd leave that big shoota off, and add a burna boy back in, putting you at 1508.

Now, what I'm about to suggest is going to make assumptions about your tactics, not just your list.

Drop two reinforced rams from two of your trukks. Not EVERY trukk is going to have to roll around through difficult terrain, but the possibility of it is always around. What you can do instead is just deploy and move with an awareness of which trukks have it and which don't. If you need to put a couple of vehicles through difficult terrain to keep your mechanized formation, just make sure its the trukks without.

You'll still be ok. That should put you at 1498.

Will do, I like the idea of squeezing in an extra burna.

This list is already a tested and proven one, nothing fresh about it.

The only variation of the list being ghaz OR another trukk of boyz + warboss, and nobz OR more boyz. My personal preference is to field nobz, as they are more versatile, but the points can get abit tight in a 1.5k army.

In fact, there are already numerous battle reports using this list, you can check them out at miniwargaming.

Looks really good, will be hard to deal with - think you should loose the shootas as it takes off 1 CC attack for the ability to shoot 18" [badly]! The extra CC attack is a must for Orks.

Also, not so sure about the burna boys ... at that points cost more vehicle based orks or maybe a second unit of kommandos with a nob + PK would be better?

But looks good, keep the numbers up high ... the mek with KFF is a must.

I think what he has is more solid than subbing out the burnas for more kommandos. I don't see any shootas in his list; he has all slugga/choppa boys?

I'm a firm believer that there needs to be an answer to everything in an army. In this army list, his burnas are the answer to monstrous creatures (Nidzillas particularly), large units (Orks, large SM & CSM units, Kroot, etc). If you take the burnas out and put in....anything else, you're opening a giant hole in his capability to deal with certain things.

As for kommandos specifically, Snikrot is the real value added here. He can mess with an enemy deployment and bring them closer to the mechanized orks because of his ability to get on the back table edge. Kommandos in general are *going* to strike last; even at Initiative 3, most everything is initiative 4. I don't think vanilla kommandos are worth the points unless you put Snikrot in there.

I beg to differ - You don't have to have an answer to EVERYTHING. You just need to know what you should handle, and what you can ignore.

I ll give a very old, classic example, one which perhaps every single 40k player will know:-

You don't have to kill a monolith EVERYTIME you see one, and still win the game beautifully.

Well, gamers come in different flavors.

Personally, I MUST kill a monolith whenever I see one. You can bet that I have a Warboss or Ghazghkull running up and whacking at the monolith until its dead.

That aside, being prepared to kill a monolith also means being prepared to kill land raiders, battlewagons, leman russ battletanks, Asdrubael Vect, and anything else that is AV14.

I fall into the category of people who think that a good army list should be a "take all comers" list, not a specific build to take down someone's specific army.

No one says anything about taking a specific build to fight a specific army... ...

Indeed, but being able to kill anything is better than not being able to kill anything.

Whether you kill the monolith or not is not the point; having the ability to do so if you choose to do so is. If a game pops up and you have no ability to deal with a monolith (or a land raider) and you absolutely need to...you're boned. No sir, I don't subscribe to the idea that you don't need an answer to everything.

Capture and control, and my enemy has AV14 parked on their objective, preventing me from winning, and I didn't bring anything capable of dealing with it? I think not.

Couple of things here.


1. Bosspoles are ABSOLUTELY worth it. They will sometimes keep you in a fight long enough to get a counter charge, instead of giving up the initiative to your opponent. Sure they won't help much if you lose combat by a bunch, but it's the close ones that will make it worthwhile.

2. I agree 100% on the boarding planks. They are a new mandatory for me as well. It's one thing to rely on PKs to kill AV14(something terribly unreliable), it's quite another to do it when you don't have to disembark to make your attacks, thus leaving the mob vulnerable to shooting.

3. As to Sknikkrot, I am beginning to lean towards taking him, but with the smallest squad you can take, and maybe no upgrades whatsoever. The reasons dashofpepper give for using him will still work, but you won't have wasted points on something that will get 1 kill, then probably die to the counter charge. You're opponent will usually check the see that you have Snikkrot, then deploy accordingly, regardless of how many Kommandos you have with him.


May have some more thoughts later. I have played Orks for a lot of years, I just don't post on dakka as often as others seem to.



Clay

Orkish - I also really wanted to field Nobz, but I just couldn't find a way to equip them that didn't eat up way too many points to be worth it. If I make an 1850 - 2000 point or more list, I'm definitely going to try to work them in. My friends that play generally like 500 or 1500 though, depending on how much time we have.

Primarch - For my first few games at least, I'm probably going to take less burnas and keep the bosspoles. If it turns out I really don't need them I'll drop them like in the list above, but I'm more comfortable having them, since like you said, they are really helpful in close situations.

My reason for taking Snikrot with a full squad is that Kommandos themselves are unimpressive. It seems like nobody would think twice about their deployment in a 1500 point game if all they had to worry about was 5 kommandos + Snikrot, but 15 kommandos with Snikrot is something to worry about. The whole point of that unit is fear; if they aren't worried enough to deploy closer to the center, then taking a unit of only 5 is a complete waste of points because they're going to get mauled. If it's a full squad, whether or not they deploy near the center isn't a big issue; they're either going to deploy closer to me and get jacked up earlier by the trukkas, or they're going to deploy further from me and get jacked up by Snikrot, since the unit now has some wounds to burn. I just can't see a good reason to take 5 instead of 15. I haven't actually used kommandos yet though, so maybe you're right about most people being afraid of a small squad; I just can't see why they would be.

Also, the bulk of the points cost is Snikrot and 2 burnas. The full squad is 265, a 5 man squad is still 165. For 100 more points, the unit goes from being almost worthless to dangerous, and the 100 points won't buy another unit of boyz or anything.

I also like the idea of being able to take all comers. It's true that you don't have to be able to kill everything to succeed, but I would still like to be able to kill anything if necessary. I don't like the idea of someone getting comfortable with a monolith, knowing that I can't destroy it easily.

Like I said, this is my first attempt at a decent list and I'm definitely not an experienced player, but the logic of this seems pretty solid to me. I'm going to try playing with it a bit as-is, then rework it as necessary.

Let us know how it turns out.