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I've been thinking about picking up orks as they are a cheap faction to play as well as amusing. My question is in the current mech environment and abilities like Cleansing Flame and the incoming Necron Tesla weapons can the orks compete?

I raise you Blood talons.

Actually cleansing flame is a tricky one. A Crowe list will always be really hard. Strangely I have found it ok as you can skirt around the few units they can bring and not give them any assault but I play a shooting list.

Well, if you're aiming for competitiveness, orks aren't much cheaper to start as any other army. As far as I've read necron tesla is only available on a single character, and we don't know yet whether that on is usable at all. Cleansing flame is good against boyz, but by no means a game breaker if you are playing it right. Purifier spam isn't much worse than an entire army overly stacked with flamethrowers.

orks are still cometetive, the trick is to have enough cannon fodder for your nasty units to hit home

Jidmah wrote:Well, if you're aiming for competitiveness, orks aren't much cheaper to start as any other army. As far as I've read necron tesla is only available on a single character, and we don't know yet whether that on is usable at all. Cleansing flame is good against boyz, but by no means a game breaker if you are playing it right. Purifier spam isn't much worse than an entire army overly stacked with flamethrowers.

Green tide is cheap and competitive. You buy a few AoBR and then some nob boxes. Deathwing, Ravenwing and Grey Knights may be cheaper.

If they flame you, you'll be in assault range, they will even try to get close to you: orks love this.
The issue with the cleansing flame is the one ork tactic of charging into combat and having more models then the enemy can possibly try to kill with boyz doesn't work. Loosing 5/12 of your boyz as you charge in is a game breaker.
If you want you could think of it as you charge in with 20 then you are fighting marines with an extra 4 attacks per model this is insane. You can get around it but still.

I find with Orks that I win more often than not in casual games, but get a pretty even spread between wins, draws and losses in tournaments.

I think it's because Orks have very good troops choices (Boyz and Nobz and small units of objective grabbing Gretchin) relative to most other armies, at least if you can get into close combat. But when you go to tournaments far more people are rocking the best units of Space Wolves, Blood Angels, IG, GK, etc. which have equally good troops choices but with better and more reliable support options.

Yes, Orks are competitive. I won a local league and tournament with my orks. Competition included quite a bit of cleansing flame. Yes, it hurts a lot; I had to balance my list between shooting and melee in order to do well.

Orks are the most competitive of the 'old codexes' including necrons, DA, BT, and tau. Those other special abilities can really lay down the pain, but orks run with enough boyz to be able to take a beating like that and survive to krump 'eads.

-cgmckenzie

MFletch wrote:

Jidmah wrote:Well, if you're aiming for competitiveness, orks aren't much cheaper to start as any other army. As far as I've read necron tesla is only available on a single character, and we don't know yet whether that on is usable at all. Cleansing flame is good against boyz, but by no means a game breaker if you are playing it right. Purifier spam isn't much worse than an entire army overly stacked with flamethrowers.

Green tide is cheap and competitive. You buy a few AoBR and then some nob boxes. Deathwing, Ravenwing and Grey Knights may be cheaper.

If they flame you, you'll be in assault range, they will even try to get close to you: orks love this.
The issue with the cleansing flame is the one ork tactic of charging into combat and having more models then the enemy can possibly try to kill with boyz doesn't work. Loosing 5/12 of your boyz as you charge in is a game breaker.
If you want you could think of it as you charge in with 20 then you are fighting marines with an extra 4 attacks per model this is insane. You can get around it but still.

A decent green tide would still require lootaz, kommandoz and either looted wagons or big gunz in addition to the AOBR boyz and koptaz, easily propelling the price to that of an average marine force.

If you charge you boyz into purifiers, that's your fault, just like it's your fault that you lose a vehicle if you end its move next to a bunch of meltas. There are many ways to deal with purifiers as ork, why should you chose the single one that doesn't work?

Orks are plenty competitive. You could argue that they aren't at the very top, but Grey Knights are a problem for nearly every army out there right now.

As others have noted, there are many tools available to deal with cleansing flame. One of the best, IMO, is to remember that footslogging orks can (and arguable should) carry shootas. Even at BS2, 60 S4 shots will start dropping purifiers.

The fact that Orks keep winning tournaments is pretty good evidence that Orks can win tournaments.

Yup they are pretty tough when used correctly. The problem is, you have to figure out how to use them the right way against other armies. Im a shoota guy myself and do really well with shooty builds. There are some weaknesses in Orks as well though, AV14 can be a bitch to take out, and if you dont plan your moves right, you will really take it in the ass against a good player. You just have to really play to their strengths for Orks to be good.

They are definitely not an army you want to just take a mish mash and see what happens. Im not saying you should only run Kan wall/BW spam, as you can take other builds that still work rather nicely, you just have to again, plan it all out.

I was quite surprised to see Orks labelled as a "cheap" force to play

Since I play casually, I can't really say if they are competitive, but I hold my own against players who do play with a competitive mindset. At the very least, they are doing pretty damn well considering their codex age, but they were a late 4th ed release, along with Daemons, so that mitigates the codex creep issues, considering they were made with 5th ed in mind.

They certainly aren't a "weak" codex, and I'm always surprised when I hear someone say they are. They aren't "top tier", but then some might dispute that if you've been rolling well

They have their weaknesses - low leadership, a high number of risk vs reward units/equipment, and can only reliably deal with armour in close combat via assaults or ramming to name a few. But they also have their strengths - global CC competency, Mob Rule, cheap units, arguably the only race that can effectively swarm in the current meta, and so on.

Their codex also allows for a nice variety of different builds that allow for success, and only one or two or three of their units do not see regular use.

My concern is that the meta is continually punishing hoard armies like Orks and nids by introducing new anti infantry abilities and weapons to newer factions as well as encouraging a mech heavy environment. This said Orks most reliable way of popping tanks is assaulting with a power klaw nob. How easy can it be with so many vehicles to pop while avoiding these devastating anti infantry abilities and weapons?

Bring yourself a KFF and laugh at the wimpy 'umies in power armor.

-cgmckenzie

I haven't played Orks and I've been debating on starting them, but the cover save the KFF grants doesn't sound THAT spectacular.

l0k1 wrote:I haven't played Orks and I've been debating on starting them, but the cover save the KFF grants doesn't sound THAT spectacular.

The KFF is what turns Orks from a sub par 4th edition codex to one which can stay in touch with 5th edition codices (the same way a couple of Eldar, Tau and Chaos builds can compete with 5th edition books). Its easily the most valuable support unit/upgrade in the codex and one of the best in the game. It DOUBLES the survivability of all your vehicles, which is massive. If you roll well for the KFF then you get across the board in one piece and run people over, if you roll badly then you can quite often get crushed in return.

Well the KFF IS pretty spectacular when your running 5 Battlewagons with AV14 in the front. Your wagons will be breaching their lines on turn 2 so your opponent needs to do quite a bit of AV14 popping on turn 1. Not to mention you will prob be running some deff koptas for that alpha strike.

Bottom line is, Orks have their strengths and weaknesses like every other codex. You just have to have units that your willing to sacrifice in order to get your important units to the front lines. In most cases, I use the deff koptas as stated above, OR even a nice large squad of Storm Boyz. Something that is fast and that can pose a threat if their not dealt with.

p.s Orks aren't cheap by any means.

I think that the new mech heavy environment has made an unmentioned and previously unreliable units extremely useful now: Tankbustas.

With so many vehicles on the board, it is very easy to get Tankbustas within 24" of at least one of them turn 1 with a Battlewagon. And if there are few vehicles, then the BW makes chasing them down easy. For those worried about being 'kited', they don't have to move towards or shoot at the closest enemy vehicle, just one in LOS. And they can 'split' their fire with Bomb Squigs, who have to go after the nearest vehicle, but hit on a 2+. When I load up 15 with a KFF Mek and a couple of Trukk Boyz screaming towards the enemy out front, they just wreck things. Especially if a GK player has invested heavily in Terminators, then there are usually few to no vehicles. Once they are removed from play, I can give them 4 and 1/6 IK wounds from 24 inches out that they have to take 2+ saves from. Just stay away with your 4++ AV14 and pepper them all day.

Also when fighting GK, I keep my Deffkoptas behind a wall of Boyz, Trukks and BWs, or even Nob Bikers. They get a 4++ cover save and Twin Linked Rokkits, the best shooting an Ork can have! Those jerks still get their 2+, but no FNP and they are IK. They also get really peeved when I back them up with Nob Bikers and then shoot with a BUNCH of twin linked shots and not assault. I can usually win seize ground and tie/win capture and control missions. Annihilation is really tough as GK tend to have less then half the Kill Points on the table I do.

I like to bring Snikrot as well to try to influence them into moving away from their board edge and closer to me. And he and the Deffkoptas are great for contesting objectives at the end of the game.

Bad_Sheep37 wrote:p.s Orks aren't cheap by any means.

They are when you buy lots of AOBR lots or buy a used army

l0k1 wrote:

Bad_Sheep37 wrote:p.s Orks aren't cheap by any means.

They are when you buy lots of AOBR lots or buy a used army

With the used part, any army can be comparedly cheap. However Orks tend to hold Value pretty well from what I've seen.

That said though I bought well over 2k pts for around 300$ IIRC

After that I picked up a 3rd Battlewagon, and a box of Nobz to finish making a 1750 WYSIWYG

sometimes you can get lucky, sometimes you can't.

My orks are currently 5-0-1

Had a draw vs Daemons

Beat
Eldar
IG
Orks
Nids
SW

I'm still a new Ork player and have a ways to go, but I think I'm well on the right track.

l0k1 wrote:I haven't played Orks and I've been debating on starting them, but the cover save the KFF grants doesn't sound THAT spectacular.

It doesn't, does it? And an Ork player may not realize it themselves.

But as soon as you go up against one, it suddenly becomes an infuriatingly effective wargear that nullifies your attempts to kill even an open topped vehicle with 10 armour all around.

Remember, it's a 4+ to nullify fire from anything.

My ork trukks have had lascannons, meltas, assault cannons, and more fired at them to no effect. Various times, a player has wasted their entire first turn firing their entire arsenal at my trukks without any satisfactory result. It's fantastically demoralizing for an opponent.

The funniest is at times when Open Topped saved the day. "Glancing 4? Driver stunned! Owait... open topped... weapon destroyed :("

l0k1 wrote:

Bad_Sheep37 wrote:p.s Orks aren't cheap by any means.

They are when you buy lots of AOBR lots or buy a used army

AOBR makes boyz cheap, nothing else.
For a competative battlewagon bash you can add 4x $66 of battlewagons, as well as 4x lootaz/burnaz worth $25 and a bigmek for $22.50. Including two half AOBR boxes, your close to $400, and you don't have Ghazghkull Trakka, Buggies or a nobz box yet.
A kan wall comes in a little cheaper, as you only need 3x 44.50 of kanz instead of the BWs, but an additional big mek and more boyz. Again, you haven't bought additional support like kommandoz, bigger loota squads yet, and all slugga boyz are inferior to shootaz or a shoota/slugga mix.
And let's not talk about Trukk lists, KoS or Bikes at all. MANz and bikes are worth their weight in gold.

For that kind of money, you can easily start almost any army, save for imperial guard or sisters.

Jidmah wrote:

l0k1 wrote:

Bad_Sheep37 wrote:p.s Orks aren't cheap by any means.

They are when you buy lots of AOBR lots or buy a used army

AOBR makes boyz cheap, nothing else.
For a competative battlewagon bash you can add 4x $66 of battlewagons, as well as 4x lootaz/burnaz worth $25 and a bigmek for $22.50. Including two half AOBR boxes, your close to $400, and you don't have Ghazghkull Trakka, Buggies or a nobz box yet.
A kan wall comes in a little cheaper, as you only need 3x 44.50 of kanz instead of the BWs, but an additional big mek and more boyz. Again, you haven't bought additional support like kommandoz, bigger loota squads yet, and all slugga boyz are inferior to shootaz or a shoota/slugga mix.
And let's not talk about Trukk lists, KoS or Bikes at all. MANz and bikes are worth their weight in gold.

For that kind of money, you can easily start almost any army, save for imperial guard or sisters.

I figured you could have a half decent army just picking up AOBR boyz, nobs and Deff Koptas.....Hmmmm this assumption of being the cheaper faction to play was one of the bigger draws for me. Slightly disappointing.

Don't get me wrong - you can get a semi-decent army by just tossing together whatever is in two boxes of AOBR and a nobz box. That's exactly what I did. Just don't count on winning tournaments with that army just yet.

Thats kinda the point of starting an Ork army. If I want to play in a tournament or otherwise serious game I have plenty of GK to field either Draigowing or Purifier spam. The ork army would be my fun but still tough army, which is why I'd like to not dump as much money into them as I did with GK. Also due to my work schedule I'm not able to make most tournaments so my friends and I usually casually play apocalypse.

Then, by all means, go for it. Adding one piece at a time works pretty good with orks, so you don't need to invest all that money at once.

Orks are cheap if and only if you play green tide.
You spam models and ignore the expensive battlewagons or trukks. Sure you need some not AoBR models but not too many.

This is competitive but will never win tournaments as you will be timed out as you try to move so many models.

Battlewagon spam adds up the price in line with a marine force with rhinos or razorbacks for example.

If cost is an issue as I suggest above just go for deathwing, ravenwing or grey knights.

Query: How do Orks (without using a battlewagon) reliably kill a Blood taloned dread with AV 13 and a multimelta.

two words: POWER KLAW!

In which squad? I've attempted it in with boys, but even with 30 of them I have not landed a destroyed on the blighter. (3 games, 5 squads)