Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

My play style ranges greatly. Ive played Orks for a few years now, learned how to really stomp some Oomie booty, and aliens alike, and learned my codex pretty much from the inside out. So Ive decided to start my official 2nd army, with the IG. I figure having an Imperial army cant be a bad thing.So yea, Ive got a nice start to how Im building my force, and Ive always been that guy that shows up with "less then stellar" units along with a solid force. Its a great way to judge if a unit is actually worth it. Because I know that my troops are solid, I know the limits of my HQ, I know when I should bring in the nobs and so on, so if I end up failing hard, its because X unit didnt perform. Sometimes it happens, other times.....it surprises you. Thats how I like playing, theres been more then a few times that Ive used WTF units (FlashGits) and just stun people with how well they can work.

Now Im not telling every new/old player out there to jump on aboard and start using this new fantastic unit! Because Im also smart enough to know, they dont play the way you play with the standard army build. Just throwing FlashGits into a build wont get you very far, you have to actually work the build around those units, build it so that the army compliments them. The best part about using rarely fielded units, is when you figure out how to use them properly, people arnt really sure how to counter it at first. They always think "this guy brought FlashGits, what an idiot" so Ive already the upper hand, because they think I have no clue what to do, and why not, I brought FlashGits, no kans, and no BW to the table. Now I also have enough experience to know, every build has its strengths and weaknesses, and in building a FlashGits army for example, I know right off the bat, AV14 will be a serious PITA, because theres no DCCW, theres no ramming with a deffrolla, but thats obviously the weakness of this army build. The strengths? It will pulverize infantry and heavy infantry like no ones business.

You have to take a few things into account when finally being brave(stupid) enough to step out of the box and do something different. This is mainly why I started trailing off on this train of thought, like any good Ork player, Ive read and discussed tactics and such with DashofPepper, he really is a very clever player, and could probably turn any army into a winner. But I realized in reading his threads and such, that MOST of the players out there, play a cookie cutter list, and say the same things as the last 10 guys (I call this copeypastey) and it gets boring. So some advantages of building outside the box, is people just dont expect to see this force, I can bet 99% of you, would have no real clue on how to face my FlashGits army. Sure I can post it here, and over discussion/thinking, youd come up with a nice counter (CURSE YOU SM PLAYERS AND YOUR LANDRAIDERS!!!*shakes fist*) BUT in a tournament style setting, local or otherwise, if I just showed up, shook your hand and pulled out my army, you would instantly scratch your head. Its like that for any "different" style of army, infact when Dash started playing DE, it was mainly for that reason, no one knew how the hell to fight against DE, because at that time NO ONE fought against them.

Ok so few things to think on.
First, you have to build your army around what your wanting to take.
Second, always make sure your core is solid. By core, Im talking the standard FOC, you have to take, mandatory units. This is important, for me, depending on game size, will normally be at least 3 x20 boyz mob, rokkits, PK nob, and of course your HQ, and since a FlashGits army is supposed to be shooty (its there strength, more on that later) Itll be a KFF Mek. Thats a solid core, bunch of boyz, we all know what a good boyz mob w/KFF can do when in capable hands.
Thrid know the strengths/weaknesses of what your putting on the table. This one is very important, and surprisingly, many people dont do this. If you want to improve your game, just learning this little tid bit will help alot.

These guidlines work for any army, not just Orks, Im using Orks as this is my main army, and I do well with them. So lets break it down a bit.
you have to build your army around what your wanting to take
Basically, when you want to venture on your own, it helps to actually START with what your planning on using, then it helps ALOT to theme your army with them. Simply because its the easiest way to focus on the units strengths. FlashGits will be my example. You dont just throw in X unit, and expect it to do well, because many times, the "crappy unit" will not mesh with your standard force, and meshing well is the name of the game. Is it a shooty unit? Is it a CC unit? What does it do well (this will be covered in strengths/weaknesses) Shooty. Gits are shooty. So obviously, putting them in a shooty build would allow them to mesh well with the army. So From there build on, the core will obviously be shootas, so now I know, well my solid core will be 3 x20 shoota boyz mobs, w/KFF mek, or 2 meks, or for some CC goodness, take a Boss or thraka. Then look at each section on the FOC and see what would work for your army. Lootas would be a GREAT addition, so elites will mostly be Lootas if not all of it. Fast attack, this is tricky, because really, the only FA an Ork player uses is rokkit buggies and koptas. Ill say buggies. Why? Because Im going to make a Wall army, for my FlashGits. So 3 squadrons of cheap rokkit buggies, in the KFF bubbles. Now, they have a 4+ cover save, and they spread out to grant the rest of the army, a 4+ save as well. They arnt AS good at the wall as Kans, but they will still make it work. So now, Ive got cover everywhere, and everything will shoot your brains out. Nice start.

The second was already covered, its as simple as know what is a good core for your army. If your a new player, well then read tacticas, ask questions, learn through playing. And NEVER expect to be awesome at first. I didnt open the Ork dex and instantly got where I am today. I took my lumps.

know the strengths/weaknesses of what your putting on the table
This is easily dead even with the most important thing to know of your army, or any army really. Again, Ill use my FlashGits army as an example. Now, the Gits strengths are obvious, they are geared towards shooting things down. So shooting is their strengths, but they are also Nobz, so they can tackle a CC decently enough, not as good as a Nobz mob, because they have no power weapons and wound shenanigans, but even a basic nob can kick in heads. So they are decent at CC as well. Well what are their weaknesses? Well, they cant tackle a tank to save them,they are susceptible to PW attacks and they have a low LD, and they are pricey. Yes price is just as much a weakness as anything. For their cost, I could add in ALOT more boyz, or have a nicely tooled up Nob mob. So with price youll need to learn how to use them, other wise, youll regret it. So lets examine upgrades, maybe these can fix some of those problems.

Again when looking at the unit, any unit, but more so in the case of "crappy units" you need to know/learn what upgrades best suit them, so you dont further waste points. Again, Gits are my example. They can take 3 weapon upgrades, shootier/blastas/more dakka. Now I know from playing them alot, blastas just isnt my cup o tea, so depending on how many Gits you have, that saves you 45pts. Its a wound waiting to happen, and these guys only have a 4+, its a gamble, and being so pricey already, I dont like chancing it. So now they are range 24 inches (remember they are assault, so move first, that means their threat range is actually 30 inches 24+ 6inch move = 30 inches) str6 assault2. So for most of their targets, they are wounding on 2s, thats a good start. They can take ammo runts, I say go for it, they are cheap, and rerolling shots can make the difference, specially on a good AP roll. Painboy? Yes. Instantly, they all have FNP, doubling their survivability. Thats where I personally leave them, cybork is nice on Nobz, but not so much on Gits, because the Gits dont want to get into a fight, they want to shoot, and a 4+armor 4+cover 4+ FNP, they should be ok.

So now my units, are strong (could actually pop a transport, but thats what Lootas are for) and tough, so really their only weakness now is AT. Not much you can do about it, again, every build has them, and theirs really nothing you can do about them, just remember what they are, and keep yourself out of situations where they will be forced to use those weaknesses. And the same principle goes for any army and their "less then stellar" units. Use the steps I mentioned, think it through, and tweak it as you go. Make sure to have a nice synergy throughout your army, and they will do well on just those ideas. For example on mine

Rokkit buggy squadrons are out front, they are fast, so can be anywhere they are needed quickly, they have TL rokkits, so they have a bite, they are armor and so use the 4+ cover from the KFF, and they are cheap, so if I start losing them to the enemy, its ok, they are doing their job, and if ignored, they grant a 4+ to the army
The KFF Mek is their to be a cheap HQ, and grant the bubble of awesome.
The boyz are their for bodies, adding on wounds, taking wounds,tie up units and allowing the Nobz to do what they are paid for
The Lootas are their to pop transports and stack on wounds to anything else
The FlashGits are their to really put a hurting on anything outside of the transports.

This army is going to be constantly moving. They are all covered, and they vomit bullets. Keep them tight, but not so tight that you screw yourself, Im not talking base to base, Im talking unit, keep the units close. Why? So they can cover one another, if 1 unit can shoot at a target, then another one should be able to as well. Youll want to have the Gits hammering on Y unit, then have the boyz shoot them, and assault them. In a perfect set up, the unit will die to small arms fire, if not, they will be weakened and the boyz will finish them off.

Last pearl of wisdom. Dont EVER buy a unit and expect to get its points back, thats the first reason people start thinking units suck, and are a waste. Gits will more then likely NEVER get their points back on their own. BUT, add their fire power to another unit, and they will turn the tide of your games, THATS where they shine. If you mow down a bunch of tough guys with good armor saves, AND THEN assault with boyz, your boyz will come out with alot less dead bodies then normal. And thats how you should look at any OTHER "less then stellar" unit. Not at how does it do by getting back points, but rather, how can I use this one unit, to help out the other units I have. People to often, look at units and think "wow for X points itll kill this much!" NO! Thats not the way to do it. You want to use X unit with Y unit and assault with B unit to kill of Z unit. Focus fire more or less. The easier it is for you to kill of your enemy, unit by unit, the faster youll win your games, and the more youll realize, that "less then stellar" are actually rather good. Except for Aun va, that guy is just fethed

Lol it's cool how one can break the min/max trend by building a list this way. Will it work in serious competition, or is that the intention?

Great write up, you can certainly apply this to ANY game system, not just 40k This stuff is especially pertient to Malifaux in my mind, as there is such a variety of troop types that you can really narrow your vision by only picking a few of your "faves".

Cheers!

Ah well Im glad you folks liked it so far. As far as competition, I dunno. Part of me is really contemplating running this build in some local games/events and seeing how it works out. I can tell ya, against my group it does rather well, but I dont think thats a very good example of how it works, as 1 group is small, and you get used to how people play. Im sure youve heard of that "big fish,small pond" thing. So I might just get a bit more serious next year and hit some locals and see what really happens.

Well said, really.

Back when I still used to play magic tournaments, you could easily push over half of your opponents in a tournament by bringing a so-called "rogue deck", a deck that you pretty much build yourself and has no resemblance of the current top decks. Many opponents simply can't break out of their trained though-schemes and improvise in such a situation. Consider it as a proof of concept, though MTG has much more options than WH40k, of course.

Well coming from you Jidmah, I take that as a compliment, as I think you are easily one of the more competent Ork players on DAKKA. Thats yet another reason though, why I like running "odd" lists. People are too trained, for a lack of a better word, on how to deal with THIS army build, and THAT army build. So when you see the standard army build, you instantly know "ok well terrain/dice rolls aside, I handle them like this" and as a player that wants to be good or better then good, you REALLY cannot get into that rut. And playing a list like the one I posted, for any army, can give you a nice edge simply because, other players arnt sure how to tackle it.

I agree completely, being different than the meta is a strength of it's own. And who doesn't like diversity?

My entire army is built around that concept. All that expensive AT is wasted against footsloggers.

I was thinking of adding rough riders to my list for pretty much the reasons you gave: nobody expects them, still deny the enemy his AT, fits the theme, to counter the internet consensus on them.
(I just need to figure out if furious charge works on lances)

There ya go, way to think outside the box, Ive only seen a handful of people on DAKKA even mention rough riders. (From looking at the rule, Id say as far as furious charge goes, it would work on the charge, after your initial power weapon charge. Reason I say this, is furious charge adds +1 STR on the charge to your statline, whereas the hunting lance IS STR5 on the first charge) Anywho, yea they could be a nice trick up your sleeve, as like you said, people RARELY face them.

I like this philosophy, with the added caveat that that sometimes it takes multiple "bad" choices to make it work.

Dark Reapers in footdar = Fail

Fire Dragons in footdar = Subpar

Avatar in footdar = Mandatory



Yet somehow: Dark Reapers + Fire Dragons - Avatar = "WTF just happened?"

And Tankbustas. One of the funny things is that almost all players who face them (that don't play Orks themselves) think they have Tank Hunters. If they don't ask, I'm certainly not going to disabuse them of that notion- but the Busters are rare, and supposedly a 'bad' unit, and so they tend to concentrate on them more than they should, either keeping their tanks out of range or pouring more firepower on them- both of which let me control the battlefield, with paranoid mech'd up armies panicking.

The confuse and conquer tactic seems to work more often than not. I like to try out the so-called subpar units from time to time, and am regularly surprised at how well they perform.

I have yet to try out Pyrovores.

I really like what you did here KingCracker, considering I am trying to come up with a working AirCav list for IG.

Tuagh wrote:I like this philosophy, with the added caveat that that sometimes it takes multiple "bad" choices to make it work.

Dark Reapers in footdar = Fail

Fire Dragons in footdar = Subpar

Avatar in footdar = Mandatory



Yet somehow: Dark Reapers + Fire Dragons - Avatar = "WTF just happened?"

Very much this, I should of put that up there somewhere, that part of figure out how to use "less the stellar" units, you may have to simply add more of them 1 unit of FlashGits is meh to ok, BUT when you have 3 units of them, well then, now youve got something to write home about, because their is enough of them, that chances are good youll get a good AP roll, and have more to spread around and cover other units with their fire.



Basically I wrote this, to try and get people to start thinking DIFFERENTLY on how they build and or give tactical advice. Copypastey builds just drive me nuts. Infact, I stopped posting in Tactics for a month or so, because I got burned out answering the SAME 2 or 3 tactical questions day in and day out. I mean, I LOVE me some lucky charms, but I damn sure dont want to eat them 5 times a week.

And again, this isnt just for thinking about using "less stellar" units, but also to look at your army overall differently. Like I said up there, NEVER look at a unit, and think "This will make its points back" because thats just a stupid way to do it, and then leads to "crappy units" when really, most units are pretty decent in their own right. If you instead, look at units as "Ok well X unit can do this, so it would actually work great paired up with Y unit" That is how a good player does things. Only siths deal in absolutes and all that

Completely agree KingCracker! Another example are Pyrovers:

It is well known that Tyranids have problems to wipe out units sitting in terrain, because of the lack of Grenades. So when that unit of 10 Chaos Space Marines awaits the charge of let's say 6 Genestealers, he considers himself in a pretty good situation.

But then out of nowhere I lay down my 3 Heavy Flamers from my Pyrovores that just walked out of their Spore Pod, and easily flame 4-5 Marines. Now the Genestealers have a good chance to win the upcoming fight!

Feluca

SPODs, one of the few things they actually did right in the Nid codex

feluca wrote:Completely agree KingCracker! Another example are Pyrovers:

It is well known that Tyranids have problems to wipe out units sitting in terrain, because of the lack of Grenades. So when that unit of 10 Chaos Space Marines awaits the charge of let's say 6 Genestealers, he considers himself in a pretty good situation.

But then out of nowhere I lay down my 3 Heavy Flamers from my Pyrovores that just walked out of their Spore Pod, and easily flame 4-5 Marines. Now the Genestealers have a good chance to win the upcoming fight!

Feluca

There's potential advantages, to be sure! I actually just used (to great effect) Stranglewebs on my unsuspecting opponent. Never saw it coming.

Anvildude wrote:And Tankbustas. One of the funny things is that almost all players who face them (that don't play Orks themselves) think they have Tank Hunters. If they don't ask, I'm certainly not going to disabuse them of that notion- but the Busters are rare, and supposedly a 'bad' unit, and so they tend to concentrate on them more than they should, either keeping their tanks out of range or pouring more firepower on them- both of which let me control the battlefield, with paranoid mech'd up armies panicking.

You don't even have to exploit the lacking knowledge of those units. I once borrowed a bunch of tank bustaz from a friend to be able to field a battlewagon bash with three full units of them(Nobz and Gretchin as troops). I think that guy still has nightmares about one battlewagon destroying three chimeras and a hydra in a single turn. Admittedly, it was kind of list tayloring, but no one would call you out on that when you are fielding tank bustaz.

Another underused unit is the special weapons squad. People say they are useless because vets are better than everything, bs 3, ld 7, and being so small that they always die.

But I've found in numbers that special weapon squads really complement blob guard. Their weaknesses that make then a "noncompetitive" unit are really illusions. 6 bs 3 weapons still beats 3 bs 4 guns. ld 7 doesn't matter because if they have already gotten to the point of needing a morale check, they are already dead. In my blob list I use them as a disposable coversave and anti-assault screen. When it comes to assault the dying to a stiff breeze is actually an advantage, because there is guaranteed to be no survivors, which gives me a shooting phase.

Has anybody been able to make techpriests work? I always try to make "noncompetitive" units work, but techpriests have so far resisted my every effort.

Interesting thread KC. I play and have only ever played two armies: SM and IG. In the case of SM I have become quite good at scout only builds. I like the look on peoples faces when they see I have brought no tac squads. Their face is even better after they've lost to 5 scout squads. I never really had to get used to the BS3 because I also play guard. I just wish the LSS could be taken as a dedicated transport. Maybe next edition. Granted, the first dozen or so games I played I had my ass handed to me. You really need finesse with scouts. They play ALOT differently than the common builds and personally I find much like a game of fantasy which requires quite a bit of pre-game planning and thinking.

In the case of guard there are a few units that I always run which had the guys at my flgs scratching their heads at first. First was the sentinel. I suppose it is not really "bad" per se but it has to compete with the vendetta. There is no question that the vendetta is decent with three tl-las. It just has such a big footprint and takes only one shot to put it out of action. For less points, a sentinel squad adds mobile hwts that are much easier to keep safe, offer a number of tactical advantages, are way more robust, and fit in my case alot better. The next concerns some of my loadouts for my veteran squads. I have given them tons of different kits and they perform well with almost an kit you give them... as long as you play them with a little thinking geared towards that kit. There are two reasons why melta/plasma vets are so popular. First, there is no doubt they are effective. Second, however, is that they are easy to play with. Drive up and shoot. Other loadouts require the use of tactics that aren't really all that straight forward and are certainly not advocated by netlist fanboys. Often times they are even scorned. Vets with grenade launchers?...And a hwt?...In a chimera?...Plasma pistols? It's surprising how well black-listed kits perform if you just think, practice with the setup, and take things in quantity.

Osyr wrote:Has anybody been able to make techpriests work? I always try to make "noncompetitive" units work, but techpriests have so far resisted my every effort.

If they could take a dedicated chimera maybe. Even if they were IC. Sadly, all these are a negative and so they just cannot bring much to a list.

Well color me impressed DAKKA, this thread is not only doing well, but there are alot of you out there that do what this thread was intended for, use "less the stellar units" and use them effectively.

My brother LOVES scouts as well, and even made his own codex that allows him to make an entire scout army, its pretty cool TBH, Ill have to PM you later for some tips on how you run your scouts.

Ive been planning an IG that uses alot of lascannon sentinels as well, for the cheaper/smaller foot print frame of mind as well. Ive been told many times already "no no no, take vendettas" Well no, then my army would look like everyone elses army, I also was planning on putting a lascannon in my vets in chimera squad as well. Basically, I would be spamming lascannons and they would be all over the place. But still, all I ever hear is "NO! Meltas only, heavy weapons suck" Im sorry, but Im failing to see how 11 lascannons in a 1200pt list is going to be bad, specially when most of them are BS4, and Mech is the way 5th is just played.

Keep it going fellas, I love hearing people being brave enough to use these units, and get results from them.

Another way to use vet that nobody uses is snare traps. People say " foot vets, why use them in assault when you could meltaspamz". I've found a vet squad with snare traps is a nice surprise when hidden in a blob squad. The enemy charges the blob squad knowing that blobs are only good on the charge, but doesn't notice the vets in there. (humies, deyz all look alike) The enemy has a massive shock to learn they don't get their charge bonus but I do. It's a very effective tactics vs. Blood Angels.

I guess that confirms techpriests are useless. All they bring is plasma cannons without vehicles. I still love them though.

Veterans may not join blobs.

I know they don't, but one can have the squads overlap the same area. When the enemy charges they will end up multi-assaulting both squads.

I like the people who say 'Giving BS4 Guard Flamers are bad.' and never bothered to try and take enemy held objectives with them. One Heavy Flamer and Two Flamer Templates in a Vet Squad with Demolitions, Shotguns, and a Sergeant toting a power weapon is one of the cheapest means to dig out troops from sitting on Objectives.

And there's people who say you have to 'Max out X special weapons for Vets in order for them to be effective'. One or two specials are fine, really, and it frees up 10-15 points for augmenting your vehicles.

Mathhammer is irritating because people assume on probabilities. The more guns you have, the more bullets will hit, the more wounds you do.

Osyr wrote:I know they don't, but one can have the squads overlap the same area. When the enemy charges they will end up multi-assaulting both squads.

Hiding a different unit indistinguishable in another one and then tricking the opponent into multi-charging them though he would never want to do so if he knew is borderline cheating, but at the very least not being a good sport.

Dont get me wrong, MAthHammer, even on a basic level, is a handy tool for figuring out the possible survival of units and so on, but I get incredibly annoyed with people that just swear by those figures, mainly because they just look at it in 1 on 1 figures. Well you cant beat this unit with your boyz because of *math hammer numbers* see? Yea well I almost NEVER run my boyz alone into a situation like that, Ill just swarm your unit in most cases or hammer the ever loving hell out of them with another unit first. Most those hardcore advocates for it, dont seem to understand that, sure in a perfect scenario, the likely hood of X unit beating Y unit, isnt so good, but a smart player, again, will play to the strengths and weakness of their army. I KNOW what I shouldnt throw my boyz at, I KNOW why I shouldnt throw Nobz into, and so on, so unless I have no choice, or Im caught offguard, your perfect scenario wont happen

This advice is true, I will use necrons as an example.

I built a list involving phariahs and flayed ones as my focus and tabled 2 opponents.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. My own "bad" units (Techmarine and Sword Brethren) have performed excellently in the roles I got them for (Adding oomph to a Crusader Squad and counter-charging, respectively). Everyone keeps hammering down on how bad Sword Brethren are, and yet, for 35 more points than a standard Crusader Squad (5 men, melta and powerfist) you get a unit with a pair of lightning claws, a power weapon and a veteran skill! Sure, you lose scoring, but I dare say that it's worth it when you smash into a Grey Hunter pack and watch them dissolve before being allowed to strike.

I love scout sentinels. One 40pts bugger with an autocannon pretty much never fails to cause mayhem way above his pts level. Last tourney he:
1: took a secondary objective for me by hiding in the corner he entered in (25% of pts)
2: took out a rhino, then death by longfang
3: Shot and kicked an auto/las predator in the rear armour from turn 2-5, never actually killing it, but keeping it from shooting the entire game
4: Took out a collossus in close combat then death by veteran plasmaguns
5: Locked three warwalkers in combat for three game turns, then death by kicking elf-machine just a bit too early, letting the warwalkers eat my nearby infantry and deny me a win :(

Note, game 1 and 3 were KP missions

Fun thread you got going here!
Personally, I like to use the Mawloc , who often gets overshadowed by the much better trygon, and the trygon is better. But the mawloc is far from useless. He never fails to come in turn 2 since you can juse burrow him on turn one. Plonk him down on a vehicle and if he survives the opponents shooting, he's a exellent tankbuster, and even if he doesn't survive, that's probably 2-4 squads that didn't fire on your gaunts, stealers or trygon. Only thing to remember is to never EVER assualt anything with WS, since he has low WS and few attacks. But vs tanks, he's a MS so =)

Also

But I realized in reading his threads and such, that MOST of the players out there, play a cookie cutter list, and say the same things as the last 10 guys (I call this copeypastey) and it gets boring.

Thank you, I hate when reading army lists for example, chaos, and all you get in respons is: "Not enough plague marines, more obliterators, chaos lords are worthless"