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Which is a better choice to take? An Ork list with a core of Shoota Boyz, or a list with a core of Slugga Boyz? Does it vary depending on the style of list? I have seen lists around using Sluggas, but it's often asserted that Shootas are better.

In the end, I imagine it comes down to pure preference, but I am curious as to why people prefer one over the other.

I'm curious, because I've prepared a mob of one type, but I am undecided on which style list they fit, and whether they can fit either mechanised or footslogging (kan wall style) or whether they are limited to one only.

On foot, shoota.

In transport, slugga.

Of course, da Goffs iz all sluggaz all da time.

I'd say a balanced list. Shooting is okay and shootas are awesome basic weapons... but you have to remember that, along with BS2, your enemies get cover saves too. That extra attack in close combat doesn't get a cover save, and it hits at WS4 instead.

I tend to run a ratio of 2 shoota squads to 1 slugga squad, unless doing a dedicated KoS trukk rush.

Melissia is right, enemies might get a cover save - eh, most things you shoot at would get an armour save. That's not a big deal.

And, in general, close-combat wounds are 'worth more' - the modifiers to Ld which you can't get in assault are pretty crucial.

But, here's the big difference;

If you have 30 slugga boyz, you have one course of action - move towards your enemy until you're close enough, and then charge. And, there are things out there that laugh at 30 slugga orks charging them. Sad, but it's true. Try charging 30 orks into 8 bloodcrushers sometime. They swing first, even with your furious charge. They'll kill 10 of you before you swing. Then you'll hit home with your 80 S4 attacks, hitting with 40 of them, and wounding with 13, even. After their armour saves, you'll be lucky to inflict 5 wounds, and with their wound-allocation tricks, you might remove -one- from the table. You just lost the combat by 5, and lost 5 more boyz as a result. Next round, the crushers are barely diminished in strength, and cut down 8 more boyz, leaving you with seven boyz swinging at S3 and hoping for a '6' to inflict even one wound before testing Ld needing snake-eyes, and eventually being either swept, or running away below half-strength.

Right... Charging Thunderwolves leads to much the same situation. Charge a blood angel unit with a nearby Sang. Priest - you'll be sent packing...

If you're a one-trick pony, and your opponent does the trick better, you're SOL.

That's why shoota boyz are the better overall choice. Against not-so-hard units, shoota boyz can still charge and win combats - 3 S4 attacks each on the charge is nothing to laugh at. But against the big nasties, you can shoot them up, make them come to you... And hopefully reduce the force that they charge you with.

And that extra 12" threat-range goes a long way to dealing with pesky threats like HF speeders - where your S4 shooting has a chance to kill that speeder before it is close enough to fry you up.

That's why I said a balanced list. IE, roughly half and half. Using shootaboyz to soften a target up (say, from within a battlewagon-- multiple battlewagon lists are hardly uncommon) and then charging with slugga boyz can work quite well against expensive units.

As demonstrated by Redbeard, shoota mobz are clearly superior when on foot and unsupported. If you are running a horde of boyz with only a couple KFF meks, definitely go shoota. However, I feel that slugga mobz are superior in almost any other situation.

In any kind of transport you should be moving at least 12" every turn, which is too fast for passengers to fire. Using shoota boyz in transports is trading that CC attack for a shot you never get to use.

In a Kan Wall list, I think sluggas are a better choice as well. If the target is too hard for the sluggas, throw a couple Kans or Dreads at them to turn the combat the other way. Shootas can soften them up on their own but once you reach the enemy, the Kans should be in combat anyway so why not completely annihilate them with Sluggas?

Depends on what you want. I consider shootas better value overall, due to their versatility, but sluggas have their role. Clearly, any shooting list, shootas are better, and shootas can shoot + assault as well as sluggas. But sluggas clearly win out in any fast attack force, gaining the extra attack after a waaagh, for example. If combat goes beyond the first turn, sluggas are better (though they both tend to suck at this point).

Overall, as an ork player, I try to minimize my dependence on either, as neither is particularly awesome at what they do. Sluggas lose to every dedicated assault unit in the game and shootas cannot outshoot other volume of fire units or reliably do more than cull infantry hordes (other orks, gaunts, Guardsmen, etc.), which isn't that valuable a skill.

I had never really considered shoota boyz. All my orks are built as slugga choppas.

The benefit of shooting vs assault is that your opponent doesn't get to fight back in shooting (until his next turn). So you can kill your opponent in your turn without the risk of him killing you. But next turn your opponent will shoot and then assault you!

To build on this discussion; How do people feel about special weapons? Big shootas or rokkits?

Rokkits on huge mobs of thirty boyz can mean you'll likely get at least one S8 hit per turn. This is valuable to an Ork army as it means you might pop that transport before you assault it.

Except that shoota boyz, even in a 30-man mob, can't reliably shoot anything of size off the table. They can kill about 3-4 Marines, 7-8 Guardsman. Not bad, but hardly overwhelming force. If you're looking to wipe something out, you still need the assault.

Special weapons depends. I never buy them for sluggas; mine are always running/moving 12+, so they never fire them. For foot shootas, it depends on the build. Usually big shootas to keep their role as anti-infantry and to increase their range, but occasionally rokkits if my anti-armor is light or if I want a multipurpose unit. Too bad units can't split fire...

I never take Rokkits in boyz squads. I'd rather save the points for something more dedicated to that role. Koptas are my personal favorite.

*Sigh* Look, yea everyone says that shootas belong on foot and sluggas belong in trukks...and i can see their point. But honestly 12 boyz in a trukk is just going to die, you think 30 won't survive? than how do you expect 12 to even get their licks in? So then, do I prefer shootas? NO! I can see the argument for them, but it has always worked better for me to take 20 boyz in front of a squad of thirty and crush my enemies with waves. Now plenty of people will slap me in the face and argue that it will be better to soften the enemy up with shoota fire before assaulting, but while i can agree with that it has always worked better for me to NOT WASTE MY WAAAGH! ABILITY with shootas beacuse i like marching, running waaaghing, and then assaulting on turn one and crushing them on turn two. if i dont get the assault on turn one then 90% of the time i get ti on turn two and table my opponets by turn 3 beacuse all my squads push them back to thier table edge and even if they kill 3 squads of my boyz guess what? i got 3 more squads of 30 plus nobz plus whatever i feel like beacuse i dont waste points on takeing trukks that only hold 12 boyz!

I don't mean to rant but it really erks me that every one dissagrees with me yet i have a 2000pt list of nothing but slugga boyz, nobs and deffdreads, yes deffdread not kanz, that has only been beaten once, two days ago, by a top notch BA player.

So, what do i prefer? sluggas. waves and waves of sluggas.

Anyone who only sends one Trukk mob at a target deserves to get them wiped..

I feel like you would be decimated by template heavy mech guard.

Claypool wrote:Anyone who only sends one Trukk mob at a target deserves to get them wiped..

I feel like you would be decimated by template heavy mech guard.

The on trukk thing, yea, that would just be stupid.


like i said (I think, i was in a bit of a hurry) I believe in using the points you will be saving from not taking trukks, to buy more boyz.

As for the template thing, you would be suprised. Like i said, I am actually pretty talented at useing my waaagh! to get into assault on turn one if not turn 2, and beaacuse of that they cant shoot you. to prevent a ton of templates i just keep smaller squads of 20 in front, than i put 2 or three full size squads behind. keep the rest of my boyz in reserve, and have the dreads either behind everyone or at the sides close to a Kff mek. This is the general basis for my list. sometimes it vary with how many boyz, how many nobz, what HQ ect, but my 2000pt list is an aggressive march, run, Waaagh!, assault list. I can keep templates under controll beacuse if they can get my boyz when thier not assaulting than ill just bring up more boyz. got something tougher? ill bring in the nobz.

Templates aren't all that and a bag of chips. I had a guard player challenge with tons of the large blast templates. It hurt, ill give him that but templates can't pin a group of 30 boyz and for every boy that fell i just brought onother one in. I did get lucky tho that my dreads got into assault pretty quick.

In pitched battle, it is impossible to assault turn one...

6" move + 6" Assault leaves you 12" short, assuming you both deployed at the front of your deployment zones.

Even if they moved and ran 6"+1d6", you'd only get a 1st turn assault one every six games.

I would deploy against my table edge, forcing you to get into assault (6+1d6) (6+1d6) (6+1d6+6) turn three at the earliest, assuming perfect run rolls.

Than ill get you turn 2 or 3 and you will still have lots and lots of boyz to deal with. I mean in a hoard army, especially orks you have to get used to how many you can lose and still be effective. I've learned that if you rush the enemy like i do it doesn't give them a lot of options.

sure you can hug the edge and shoot and shoot and shoot, but i would have to deal with the same thing with trukks and shootas. Shootas might be more effective, but that's more times im going to get shot at.

zane2131 wrote:

Claypool wrote:Anyone who only sends one Trukk mob at a target deserves to get them wiped..

I feel like you would be decimated by template heavy mech guard.

The on trukk thing, yea, that would just be stupid.

Or, sometimes, it's just what you have to do. Ideal circumstances, yes, send multiple trukks. Not always possible. If two trukks go down on the first turn, adn the one that's left could charge those guys with the MLs, don't you take the charge, and hope? Because not taking it is worse - they're going to kill your trukk.

I think this is the biggest difference between the old ork codex and the new one. In the old codex, the individual boy cost more, but that meant that you had more points of punching power in a single trukk. One trukk of boyz could charge almost anything and have decent odds. Between striking at I4, instead of I3, on the charge, and having the choppa rule, you got your hits in, and they counted. They also didn't deteriorate as much in the 2nd round. Now, there are too many things that shrug off one trukk of orks, leaving you very vulnerable when your opponent takes out one trukk and accepts (and then defeats) a charge from the other.

Why would you only have three Trukks?

Someday I will field a nine trukk list, someday...

Melissia wrote:Why would you only have three Trukks?

Maybe it's a 500 point game? The same basic concept scales you know. If it's a 1000 point game, and I've got 5 trukks, and my opponent pops 4 of them right off the bat?

Considering that IG can field a chimera w/ multi-laser and heavy bolter + squad w/ missile launcher for less points than orks can field a trukk + boyz + PK nob, it's is entirely feasible that for every trukk you field, they have seven shots that can get pens versus your open-topped vehicle. Cover saves can be failed. Stuff happens. It doesn't matter how many trukks you bring, your opponent could have enough long-ranged shooting to drop all-but-one of them before you got in charge range.

Claypool wrote:Someday I will field a nine trukk list, someday...

I field 8... but 5 of them have nobz, not boyz.

At 2k, I field seven and five have boyz.

I use a mech list so all my guys usually start in a transport of some sort...i default to shootas due to versitility but the trukks i fill w sluggas due to the fact that 12 shootas wont do much...20 can do some damage however...

Ive found it best to think of it dash's way:

Shootas gain an extra attack out of CC
Sluggas gain an extra attack in CC

In the end it all comes down to personal preference I prefer shootas usually...

i liek to take a mix of both:

Shoota boyz in a battlewagon, and slugga boyz in a trukk. Anything to get moar versatility and powerklaws into a list.

So from what I gather from the thread, this is the thoughts so far:

Trukks: Slugga
Battlewagons: Shoota
Footslogging: Shoota

And then somehow it became an argument on how many trukks to take.

Battlewagon is shoota/slugga. It depends what kind of Battlewagon you take. If it has a Deff Rolla, slugga, cuz you should be moving 13" each turn. If it has a ton of gunz, shoota, cuz you'll be moving at combat speed.

Claypool wrote:Battlewagon is shoota/slugga. It depends what kind of Battlewagon you take. If it has a Deff Rolla, slugga, cuz you should be moving 13" each turn. If it has a ton of gunz, shoota, cuz you'll be moving at combat speed.

You mean RPJ?

Any Ork vehicle ever should have RPJ. I just assume all of them do now.

Not at all. On a trukk, you're paying a 14% premium for a 5% speed increase. I'm not sure that's worth the points.

Trukks are fragile to begin with. Every upgrade is points handed to your opponent at some point - none of them survive a battle. The only one I find myself using is the Reinforced Ram, as it makes terrain concerns go away, and offers tactical flexibility in moving through enemy screens.

You make a good point there. However, I'm terrible at judging distances so that extra inch has saved my butt more than a few times.

I run Ram, RPJ, and Boarding Planks on all my Trukks and I usually put Rokkits on them too.