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 Galas wrote:
5ppm grot shields are no different than 15ppm tau shield drones.

One could justify T3 for gretchin for the "orky" tougthness but I can't see to justify a 5+ for what are basically naked green babies.

Very valid point except that those 15ppm Tau Shield drones are T4 and have both a 4+ save, a 4+ invulnerable save, a 5+ FNP save and has TWICE the movement of a grot.

So that shield drone is wounding on 4s instead of 2 against anti-infantry weapons, and has a 50% save chance as opposed to the 16.6% the grot has, not to mention its an invuln save ohh AND it has a 5+ FNP save.

Raw numbers time. 9 grots take 13 bolter hits to kill. 3 shield drones (same points cost) take 18 bolter shots to kill. (18 shots = 9 wounds = 4.5 failed saves, 4.5 failed saves = 3 failed FNP rolls = 3 dead shield drones). And there is also the fact that those shield drones don't have to spend CP to sacrifice themselves to save an 80+pt model (assuming its on a broadside).

tulun wrote:

Ork Elite slots are uncompetitive so taking 3 x 5 kommandos is rarely ever going to be an issue. Fast attack is definitely hyper competitive, though, given how useful Deff Koptas, Buggies, and Stormboyz are. I'd even argue Nob Bikers are alright given their 30 ppm base cost and 3 wounds.

Meganobz are actually pretty useful now, especially in the middle of the board. Add a banner nob to that (nullifying the -1 hit of klaws and killsaws) and you're using 2 of 3 elite slots.

A squad or two of grots in your deployment zone gives you some tactical flexibility for doing mission actions, along with potentially serving as grot shields against turn 1 fire. I've been running both a squad of kommandos and a squad of grots for Deploy Scramblers, and am pretty happy with both. Grots handle the friendly/middle actions, kommandos are dedicated for the enemy-zone action.

I think 5ppm is probably still too expensive; going to 4 would be fine by me. But they're definitely more useful in 9th than 8th.

Hankovitch wrote:

tulun wrote:

Ork Elite slots are uncompetitive so taking 3 x 5 kommandos is rarely ever going to be an issue. Fast attack is definitely hyper competitive, though, given how useful Deff Koptas, Buggies, and Stormboyz are. I'd even argue Nob Bikers are alright given their 30 ppm base cost and 3 wounds.

Meganobz are actually pretty useful now, especially in the middle of the board. Add a banner nob to that (nullifying the -1 hit of klaws and killsaws) and you're using 2 of 3 elite slots.

A squad or two of grots in your deployment zone gives you some tactical flexibility for doing mission actions, along with potentially serving as grot shields against turn 1 fire. I've been running both a squad of kommandos and a squad of grots for Deploy Scramblers, and am pretty happy with both. Grots handle the friendly/middle actions, kommandos are dedicated for the enemy-zone action.

I think 5ppm is probably still too expensive; going to 4 would be fine by me. But they're definitely more useful in 9th than 8th.

You get 6 Elite slots dude.

Mega nobs are fine, but 6 elite slots is buckets for Orks.

If I had to guess I'd say cost will be upgraded on the new kits. So I'd suggest getting yourself nice and ready before hand. At least they'll look cool.

Hankovitch wrote:


I think 5ppm is probably still too expensive; going to 4 would be fine by me. But they're definitely more useful in 9th than 8th.

They were actually extremely useful in 8th as grot shields was a thing for popular units like lootas and flash gitz. Now both units became overcosted and taking multiple detachment costs CPs, so Bad Moons lootas shooting twice are also not a thing anymore unless going full Bad Moons.

And flooding the board with 90-120 ultra cheap dudes was useful even in 8th.

 Blackie wrote:

Hankovitch wrote:


I think 5ppm is probably still too expensive; going to 4 would be fine by me. But they're definitely more useful in 9th than 8th.

They were actually extremely useful in 8th as grot shields was a thing for popular units like lootas and flash gitz. Now both units became overcosted and taking multiple detachment costs CPs, so Bad Moons lootas shooting twice are also not a thing anymore unless going full Bad Moons.

And flooding the board with 90-120 ultra cheap dudes was useful even in 8th.

You inadvertently hit the nail on the head. Grots USED to be good for their ability to die in droves to protect actually valuable units. Giving a Loota bomb 30 ablative grot wounds for the cost of 90pts was...a no brainer. You didn't need the grots to do anything except exist and die on a 2+ for grot shields. The problem is GW yet again nerfed EVERYTHING without thinking of the consequences. The nerf to Mob up, the nerf to lootas and other shooty units, the nerf to grots. In the end all of it stacked together means grots have no use in the game. If loota bomb was still a worthwhile tactic than MAYBE 5ppm grots would be fine, but since it isn't a thing anymore grots and lootas are kind of trash now.

So the Nail on the head, GW was petrified based on the new wording for 9th that orkz would take 300 grots for 900pts and than field their remaining slots as shooty things. This would make most armies basically unable to play against orkz and have a chance of winning (300 bodies plus 1,100pts of other things is just too much to handle in most 5 turn games). So what did GW do? They nerfed grots and other cheap units giving them a hefty 66% price increase, now those 300 grots don't cost 900, they cost 1,500 and if you take that many you have very few points left over for basically anything else.

I think the easy answer would be to just make grots WORTH 5ppm if they are really that worried about people spamming horde units. And no, dropping grots to 4ppm would not make them worth taking either, again a cultist is 5ppm and absolutely destroys a grot in every single category.

I would have loved to see a 300 grot list. People can barely deal with 120 boyz now sometimes.

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
I would have loved to see a 300 grot list. People can barely deal with 120 boyz now sometimes.

The difference is that boyz (with the right buffs) can actually murder stuff that's in their way. 300 gretchin though? If your opponent goes first and is fast enough to pin you in your deployment zone or you have a mission where you can't reach at least half the objective during the first turn, that's game over turn 1. Otherwise you will just lose due to the inability to score secondaries while handing your opponent a VP for every 10 gretchin they kill.

I'm also fairly sure that drukhari will shred through three or four units of gretchin per turn.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
I would have loved to see a 300 grot list. People can barely deal with 120 boyz now sometimes.

The difference is that boyz (with the right buffs) can actually murder stuff that's in their way. 300 gretchin though? If your opponent goes first and is fast enough to pin you in your deployment zone or you have a mission where you can't reach at least half the objective during the first turn, that's game over turn 1. Otherwise you will just lose due to the inability to score secondaries while handing your opponent a VP for every 10 gretchin they kill.

I'm also fairly sure that drukhari will shred through three or four units of gretchin per turn.

for me it's less of a thing of them being effective, i just think seeing five million grots shoved out onto the board is a glorious sight.

That's a lot of money and time invested in doing nothing.

Gretchin have never really got over the removal of the rule stating you had to shoot at the closest unit. They were extremely obnoxious screening meat shields.

And now we are getting Ork boyz with T5, Grots with T3, and Beast Snagga boyz with S5, T5, and a 6+ invuln.

It's a good start. Hope the grotz get the 6+ inv save too like you guys talked about. Seemed reasonable and points-appropriate.

Grots' T is still 2 unless I missed something.

 Blackie wrote:
Grots' T is still 2 unless I missed something.

From the Community article yesterday: "That’s right, Toughness 5. In fact, many varieties of Ork throughout the codex are seeing an extra point of Toughness added to their profile (yes, even Gretchin)." – I know WC isn't 100% reliable but going on what we have available to us rn, this basically says T3 Grots.

Yeah, I missed that, it should be pretty reliable. T3 sounds appropriate for a semi-useless 5ppm model armed with S3 no-ap pistol. T2 was right when gretchins were 3ppm.

 dadx6 wrote:
And now we are getting Ork boyz with T5, Grots with T3, and Beast Snagga boyz with S5, T5, and a 6+ invuln.

It's a good start. Hope the grotz get the 6+ inv save too like you guys talked about. Seemed reasonable and points-appropriate.

^the 6+inv is from the "cheeky zoggers" specialist mob. You can already get that, it just requires you to dedicate a detachment to making only GROT units decent.

Please GW give us index gretchin!!!!

I really want to do an ork army. I did one as a kid around 2nd Ed and feel the urge to go green again. I’m really liking the new stuff coming out and I always thought that Orks should be tougher than space marines (old marines) as it matched the way Orks were described. I can’t be bothered to think about the meta. And I always though that in terms of simple physical abilities that gretchin were the equivalent of a human at least