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I was going through the big rulebook and I was wondering what would be the best ally, I was thinking and army that can have a lot of artillery or high ap weapons since ork lack in that department since ther are more competitive things to put in those spots since kan wall no longer works, lootas are still good against light stuff but the only real wa to kill arm 14 is with claws and it can sometimes be hard to get to them since they are shooting the crap out of you, I was thinking a squad of lemen russes or a chaos vindicator, what do you think?

I'm thinking tau. A nice crisis suit commander, some minimized fire warriors, then a squad of broadsides for all your tank popping needs. You're also more likely to be able to field that at a lower point level than a trio of Leman Russ Tanks.

My friend who is an Ork player is adding Tau to his army, taking Broadsides to make up for the lack of range anti-tank.

Tau, hands down.

Firewarriors to camp objectives, deep striking helios suits are awesome for some added MEQ/TEQ/anti-armor. Broadsides, because, well, yeah.

They make up for all our army's deficiencies.

A squad of Russes and a squad of Broadsides (both modelled as orky equivalents) seems very tempting.

I've been adding guard to great success. Their mindset syncs up well with Orks (the rolling lots of dice part at least, although Guard can be scary in CC in a pinch)

I've had 2 schools of though about how to do it.

1. Ultimate green tide: The idea behind this one is, IG can bring tons of infantry who can put out crazy amounts of shots and attacks, Orks can bring tons of infantry who can put out crazy amounts shots and attacks, perfect fit!

Pros:
-Guard platoons only take up a single troop slot. In the past, I usually had a problem breaking past 1 HQ and 2 troops in my foot guard lists until I reached at least 1k points, and usually more than that (not counting russes of course) This means taking guard as an ally isn't a big deal, even at high points levels, since they can maximize their limited slots fairly easily.

-Guard platoons can bring special, heavy, and power weapons that orks lack. They also bring them at a higher BS, and have orders that can boost that accuracy even further. Not to mention abilities like FRFSRF, which allows guardsmen to put shoota boys to shame.

-Guard platoons can be deployed however you need. What I mean is, the way combined squads work is this. Say I bought 4 infantry squads for my 1st platoon. I can choose to deploy them as a 40 men uber blob, a 30 man blob and a 10 man squad, two 20 men blobs, or even 4 seperate squads etc. Essentially, you can adapt according to the situation.

-Guard platoons can use the boyz as cover, who proceed to use big Mek KFF's to get their own +5 save. Think of it as an inverse kan wall. Of course, you could always screen with gretchin, conscripts, or even use a barebones infantry platoon if you felt like it. Need to test it some to see what the best way is.

-Guard platoons can bring more guys than a shoota mob per slot (to put it in perspective, a boyz mob can bring at most 30 guys. A single guard platoon can bring 136 guardsmen! ), and have better special weapons like plasma, not to mention heavy weapons like autocannons and lascannons. Throw in HWS's, SWS's, a PCS, and even conscripts for screening (if you somehow see them as better priced than gretchin )

Cons:
-Guardsmen are called weak for a reason. Yeah, they've got a better armor save than orks, but it's still canceled by most basic anti infantry weapons. They rely on cover just as much as orks, and T3 means they're even easier to wound.

-Rely on commissars for LD. Whereas orks have built in fearless till they drop to low wounds, Guard rely on a 35pts (45pts if you have a brain and give him his power axe) upgrade commissar to provide stubborn and LD9 with rerolls. However, the good news is that when a guard platoon is down to 4 guys and a commissar stuck on a point, they'll still be LD 9 stubborn with a reroll, whereas the orks will be LD7 with a reroll (provided you didn't forget your bosspole)

-They can get out of hand quick pointswise. Platoons have tons of extra crap you can buy for them. If you're not careful, you can easily waste hundreds of points on useless upgrades and not even think about it.

2. Armored Krumpany: Orks have battlewagons that are awesome. Guard have leman russes and chimeras that are awesome. Combine the two and you have a mean armored force that can adapt fairly easily to a variety of targets. Here you can go either way for the main army. Main with orks would allow tons more battlewagons, but limits how many russes you can bring, and means that if you want lots of chimeras you're going to have to do armored fists platoons, which aren't as efficient as vets. Or, you can just go with a CCS and 2 vet squads mounted up with plasma and melta and use them as a cheap flanking force to try and take an objective or kill off a critical target.

If you chose having IG as your main army, you could take up to 3 battlewagons, if you take a warboss (1 troop nob choice, 1 elite nob choice, and 1 regular battlewagon in the heavy slot for whatever you want, probably lootas or shootaboys) This would give you a nice, hard hitting core to a mech heavy guard list, as the AV 14 fronts synergize with Russes, and the av12 sides synergize with chimeras. Not to mention throwing a warboss and two nob mobs into an opponent's battleline is going to cause all kinds of chaos, and that's not counting if the battlewagons live and go vehicle hunting with their deffrollas. This would give you time to move the rest of your army into position, or even have the nobs handle a nasty threat trying to close in with you. You could even use them as "nob missles", sending them off towards something you want dead and daring the enemy to either try and kill them, or deal with the rest of your list.

Obviously, both need tweaking, but I still see uses and strengths to both lists, and I'm deffinitely going to be trying them out in the near future.

I think all our allies of convenience are worth it one or the other way.

The IG, Chaos, Necrons and Tau all provide us with long-range firepower, as well as some troops that can hang in the back without being dead weight like gretchin.

Units we want from...
...the IG - Vendettas, LRBT, Basilisks, Manticore, Marbo
...CSM - Daemon Prince, Sorcerer, Terminators, Plague Marines, Berzerkers, Obliterators, Havocs, Predator, Vindicator, as well as any HQ beaststick
... Necrons - Surfboard Lord, Cryptecs of almost any kind, C'Tan Shard, Warriors, Immortals, Scarabs, Spiders, Doomsday and Ghost Ark
... Tau - Broadsides, Hammerhead, Pathfinders to support either, maybe Crisis Suits.

So you basically can choose between having great stuff in one or two slots with attached "garbage", or you can have ok stuff(but not great) in all slots. Of course, even fire warriors or IG veterans are better at sitting on objectives than gretchin are, but not for free.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@MrMoustaffa

I disagree that platoons are more useful than boyz. They do get heavy weapons, but still not a lot of them. You also can't move with them, so your opponent won't be subject to FRSRF often - he is busy fighting orks on the other side of the table.

T3 as opposed to T4 evens their increased numbers out pretty quick. I would field a larger platoon to get some chimeras, but not to blob them up. Orks are simply better at hordes.

One of my common double-allies is an IG player, by trial and error we have found out that it's better if I bring the bodies, and he brings the big gunz.

Jidmah wrote:I think all our allies of convenience are worth it one or the other way.

The IG, Chaos, Necrons and Tau all provide us with long-range firepower, as well as some troops that can hang in the back without being dead weight like gretchin.

Units we want from...
...the IG - Vendettas, LRBT, Basilisks, Manticore, Marbo
...CSM - Daemon Prince, Sorcerer, Terminators, Plague Marines, Berzerkers, Obliterators, Havocs, Predator, Vindicator, as well as any HQ beaststick
... Necrons - Surfboard Lord, Cryptecs of almost any kind, C'Tan Shard, Warriors, Immortals, Scarabs, Spiders, Doomsday and Ghost Ark
... Tau - Broadsides, Hammerhead, Pathfinders to support either, maybe Crisis Suits.

So you basically can choose between having great stuff in one or two slots with attached "garbage", or you can have ok stuff(but not great) in all slots. Of course, even fire warriors or IG veterans are better at sitting on objectives than gretchin are, but not for free.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@MrMoustaffa

I disagree that platoons are more useful than boyz. They do get heavy weapons, but still not a lot of them. You also can't move with them, so your opponent won't be subject to FRSRF often - he is busy fighting orks on the other side of the table.

T3 as opposed to T4 evens their increased numbers out pretty quick. I would field a larger platoon to get some chimeras, but not to blob them up. Orks are simply better at hordes.

One of my common double-allies is an IG player, by trial and error we have found out that it's better if I bring the bodies, and he brings the big gunz.

That's the thing though, they CAN move with them. FRFSRF got FAQ'd to just adding an extra shot, meaning the lasguns now can double tap up to 24" even after we move. Also, movement is counted on a model by model basis. Heavy weapons chilling out near the front of blob can sit in place while the blob moves up around them, and still fire at normal BS. Yeah, this only works for a turn or two, but that's a turn or two of extra autocannon shots at normal BS. And even when they move, they can still snapfire the heavy weapons.

With the new deployments, the orks might be fighting as far as 40" away from you, so you'd have to move. And if you're snap-firing heavy weapons, you might as well be shooting rokkits.
Autocannon heavy weapon teams actually get less average hits than same points invested in lootaz. So I wouldn't do that anyways.

The problem is that platoons (and their orders) work on the assumption that the enemy is coming towards you. When being ally to an ork army, this is not going to happen. You are much better off spending as few points as possible on IG troops and invest on the things they actually do better than we do.

So, if Broadside is the way to go, and I'm seeing this a lot of places, I have two questions.
One: What does the broadside have over the Russ.
Two: Why are Broadsides "No longer available" on GWs site?

Jidmah wrote:With the new deployments, the orks might be fighting as far as 40" away from you, so you'd have to move. And if you're snap-firing heavy weapons, you might as well be shooting rokkits.
Autocannon heavy weapon teams actually get less average hits than same points invested in lootaz. So I wouldn't do that anyways.

The problem is that platoons (and their orders) work on the assumption that the enemy is coming towards you. When being ally to an ork army, this is not going to happen. You are much better off spending as few points as possible on IG troops and invest on the things they actually do better than we do.

It's pretty obvious we're going to disagree on this one, so I'll leave it be, but the whole point with my idea was that you were moving up with the guardsmen as well, not hiding in the back. Hence why orders still worked, because all the guardsmen (or at least most) would be moving up alongside shoota boys. Stuff isn't going to be 40" away most of the time, because my guardsmen would be moving up right there with the orks, letting them take the lumps in close combat while they kept shooting. Of course, you could always use a platoon to camp an objective, but that's not exactly what I tend to do with them. Like I also said earlier, still need to toy around with it a bit anyways, so we'll see what happens.

However other things you mentioned were good points. For example, unless you need lascannons, no point in grabbing heavy weapon squads as lootas do it much more efficiently. Throwing autocannons in with your platoons, PCS, and CCS are never a bad idea though, since they're very cheap compared to a dedicated heavy weapon squad. The big things you're probably taking though are going to be a russ or two, a vendetta, and maybe marbo, with your choice of platoons or vets based on the list you run.

I'm very interested to see a list of what you are suggesting .Moustaffa

I like the idea of just massing out on some heavy weapon teams with lascannons, their effective, cheap-ish, and have a psyker with the psykic tree with the skyfire rule, I would do biomacy but I cant give them to my army since it would be an army of convinence alliance, although some yau stuff wood also be good, I already own some too, though if they took broadsides off they prob are going to be romoved in the next book or something, which hints that they will come out soon, I guess will just wait and see

Rumor has it they are just getting a finecast update along with a number of other models.

Broadsides deal high strength, long range attacks, Lootas deal mid strength ranged attacks.

So Broadsides offer low AP, high strength range - there is no equivalent to Broadsides in the Ork Codex, thus they fill a significant gap in our threat range.

l0k1 wrote:I'm very interested to see a list of what you are suggesting .Moustaffa

Well, this still needs some work, but here's a basic start to give you an idea for what I have in mind. Basically, same principles as the original green tide list everybody loves so much, just that this one adds a couple of guard platoons to help bring some additional plasma upfield as well as spread out power axes, which will be a lot harder to take out than a single nob with PK in close combat (or so is the theory) I'm currently stuck on whether I want only infantry, or if I want some extra air support in the form of a few dakkajets and a vendetta or two. Right now, the list sits at exactly 189 infantry models, so it deffinitely needs tweaking. I know I can easily crack 200 infantry if I rearrange a few things.
Will probably drop the CCS and instead grab a Lord Commissar, which will let me drop a commissar from one of the blobs, saving a few points, as well as a few other little tweaks here and there.

Also, as a little bit of a disclaimer, I am by no means a super competitive player, so this probably isn't the most face smashing list possible, especially with orks/guard. This is just something I really want to give a try.

That's a lot of infantry. Though I'm curious why you took 'eavy armor on the nobz since they'll be using boyz to screen them from shooting and if you're challenged it'll be by something with an AP 2 weapon.

clicked it by accident Fixed it now.

That would explain why it seemed the mobs were coming up wierd, to me at least, points wise. Oh well, I'll take those 20pts and put them towards GL's on the PCS's.

Not really sure where to take the list from there though. I'd like some more longer range shooting, as well as a way at range to deal with AV 14. May end up cutting some infantry for at least a vendetta or two, as well as maybe either dakkajets or blitza bombas, not really sure yet.

Lol was curious about that. I was thinking of using guard allies for more long range, high strength stuff myself to deal with 2+ armor save spam. I've got 3 LRBT that have been sitting around lol

Devil Dog tanks might be interesting and worth a look as well.

l0k1 wrote:Lol was curious about that. I was thinking of using guard allies for more long range, high strength stuff myself to deal with 2+ armor save spam. I've got 3 LRBT that have been sitting around lol

Devil Dog tanks might be interesting and worth a look as well.

Devil dog is the same points as a vendetta, and unfortunately is easier to kill, and not as accurate. Otherwise, I'd be using the heck out of them. Not to mention they compete with vendettas in FA, and with 6th the vendetta got so good to the point where it's almost insane not to take a couple in an IG army.

Leman Russes are also a great choice, but nothing would be wrong with an ordnance battery hidden in the back providing fire support. LRBT's would probably work really well in a BW bash type list. All that AV14, your opponent will learn what fear really is . Plus, you can throw in a cheap armored fists platoon to go and grab objectives while your boys go and handle all the fighting!

l0k1 wrote:That's a lot of infantry. Though I'm curious why you took 'eavy armor on the nobz since they'll be using boyz to screen them from shooting and if you're challenged it'll be by something with an AP 2 weapon.

Uh, you realize that your opponent can challenge you, too? 'eavy armor on nobz is mandatory to not accidentally die to all those free/mandatory squad leaders, like space marine sergeants, warlocks or similar. Besides, I seriously doubt that it's possible to completely prevent wounds from being allocated to the nob. Skipping it is really 5 points saved in the wrong place.

Jidmah wrote:

l0k1 wrote:That's a lot of infantry. Though I'm curious why you took 'eavy armor on the nobz since they'll be using boyz to screen them from shooting and if you're challenged it'll be by something with an AP 2 weapon.

Uh, you realize that your opponent can challenge you, too? 'eavy armor on nobz is mandatory to not accidentally die to all those free/mandatory squad leaders, like space marine sergeants, warlocks or similar. Besides, I seriously doubt that it's possible to completely prevent wounds from being allocated to the nob. Skipping it is really 5 points saved in the wrong place.

Im aware the opponent can challenge. I see where things got mixed up, blasted auto correct. Though just about everything an opponent will use to challenge our unit will be character with a power/force weapon, or a hammer/PF. All will deny that 4+ save. Heck, anything but the Hammers/PFs will go before you and probably slaughter your Nob before he gets to do anything. Keeping him towards the middle of the mob will can keep him out of range of the challenge and with wound allocation being front to back he'll be stick around for a while. The only exception I can see would be Precision Shot/Strike wounds. Even then a 4+ save isn't hard to deny these days. It's better than a 6+ by far, but not amazing.

Also if Eavy Armor on a Nob is so good, why have I not seen a single ork list that uses it?

I haven't enough knowledge of all the codices here. However, I will comment anyway.

IG can really abuse the allied FoC which does it for it for me.
You probably long range high strength goodness and melta, both IG can bring. Also their troops fit nicely, not be an obvious target for plasma like power armour, then their tanks actually fit reasonably well with orks with the new rules levelling the playing field somewhat.
I would go spamming of heavy weapon squads with maybe a blob infantry squad. Marbo seems awesome, then might as well take a flyer, with heavy choice tanks only chosen if they fit the ork list.

So the question I have is if you took Tau would their broadsides be too big a target, in too small a number not to be targeted and destroyed early on?

MFletch wrote:I haven't enough knowledge of all the codices here. However, I will comment anyway.

IG can really abuse the allied FoC which does it for it for me.
You probably long range high strength goodness and melta, both IG can bring. Also their troops fit nicely, not be an obvious target for plasma like power armour, then their tanks actually fit reasonably well with orks with the new rules levelling the playing field somewhat.
I would go spamming of heavy weapon squads with maybe a blob infantry squad. Marbo seems awesome, then might as well take a flyer, with heavy choice tanks only chosen if they fit the ork list.

So the question I have is if you took Tau would their broadsides be too big a target, in too small a number not to be targeted and destroyed early on?

As a guard player, I can tell you right now HWS's are nowhere near as good a value as lootas. 75pts either gets you 3 BS 3 2 wound autocannons, OR, gets you five 1-3 shot autocannons with higher toughness, slightly less accuracy, and a lot more flexibility.

Now if you needed something like lascannons for example, they might be a viable choice, until you realize it's 105pts for a 3 lascannon HWS, and for a measly 25 points more, you could buy a vendetta instead.

l0k1 wrote:Im aware the opponent can challenge. I see where things got mixed up, blasted auto correct. Though just about everything an opponent will use to challenge our unit will be character with a power/force weapon, or a hammer/PF. All will deny that 4+ save. Heck, anything but the Hammers/PFs will go before you and probably slaughter your Nob before he gets to do anything.

I wouldn't count on every space marine sergeant, imperial officer or commissar having a power weapon. Those things cost points, too, so it's not a no-brainer to put a 15 point sword on a model that's supposed to stay in the back. You can also allocate wounds to those power-weapon wielders by shooting them with characters, which will make those 15 points simply go away. I think, once the dust has settled a little you'll find no more power-weapons than you did before 6th.
Furthermore, a lot of squad leaders, especially if you look outside the IoM, simply don't get to ignore armor, like Warlocks, some Exarchs, Pink Horror Champions, Sorcerers or Cryptecs (do tau get powerweapons at all?). All those might still potentially kill your nob, much less so with 4+ armor. I might be a bit biased here, as my local meta includes very few space marines (about one or two out of ten), but I don't see devastator sergeant with power swords being common just yet.

Keeping him towards the middle of the mob will can keep him out of range of the challenge and with wound allocation being front to back he'll be stick around for a while. The only exception I can see would be Precision Shot/Strike wounds. Even then a 4+ save isn't hard to deny these days. It's better than a 6+ by far, but not amazing.

That's for turn 1. It's not unlikely to stay in combat for more than one turn, in which case the enemy character can still challenge you. You also have to allocate wounds from closests to furthest, so your can easily be forced to allocate wounds from some john does to him.

Also if Eavy Armor on a Nob is so good, why have I not seen a single ork list that uses it?

For the same reasons no one took battlewagons until dashofpepper did, I guess?

I'm pretty biased because my environment is heavy MEQ. Though keeping him in the middle will keep him out of challenge for 1 turn and after the pile in move he'll get his attacks, but at least he will get to swing as opposed to not swinging at all.

Looking at Necrons personally. A Ghost Ark with warriors, a lighting cryptek with Voltaic Staff, and a Lord with a Res Orb, should be some fantastic anti-vehicle.

With the open topped rule mixed with everything that's inside, you're going to be tossing out an average of 5 glances on any vehicle within 12" - some really nice anti-vehicle firepower, that the Orks lack. Not to mention being able to use to zoom and drop warriors on an objective - combine that with the Ghost Ark's durability, repair, and the Res Orb, they should be very hard to shake off.

...expensive choice, though. 364pts... arguably too much for Allies.

I'm not very familiar with the IG codex but I was thinking of just taking a small troopers unit (just to meet the allies requirement) and a primaris psyker (what I really want from the IG list). I figure since Orkz didn't make the cut for all the new psyker love then I would take what seems like the best psyker I can get from the allies of convenience available. I might later throw in some looted Russ' but I really just want a fully functional psyker. Any thoughts on throwing the IG one in with my Orkz?

i think that tau will probably be the best way. Their long range guns and AT will make up for the ork's range. I also forget whether markerlights work with only the units in the tau codex, or if they would work with an ally, as markerlights would help with the squads putting out the long ranged fire. I have only played with the orks in the AoBR box, but what i have seen of them tau seem like a good idea.

I'm not wild about the Tau HQ choices some I'm less inclined to bring them along. The markerlights are only going to work for the Tau units.

Here is another allies question: In games under 2000pts, if I take some allies am I allowed to field 3 HQ choices (2 Ork HQs and 1 allied HQ) or is it just 2 HQs (1 Ork, 1 allied)?