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SemperMortis wrote:

 Castozor wrote:
Since we are discussing the (amongst other things) souped up shocka. I used it last game and while it didn't do much whole game it then made it's points back 4 times over by one shotting a Doom Ark and 2 castellan robots (it was a 2v2). But we ran into an issue, does the SAG keep it's strength for the whole shooting phase when fired twice? Or do I need to reroll its strength when I fire it again with the Vigilus stratagem.

I always play you have to reroll everything, but that is something I would like to see get answered because it is a fairly important question.

It's actually rather clear in a sense. NORMALLY as per rulebook if you roll some d6/d3/whatever for stat etc it's for the phase. HOWEVER for attacks specifically rulebook says they are rolled every time you make attack. Ie not for phase. Why GW knows. In any case this means SAG, since it's making attack, rolls all random stats again when it shoots. Movement addition by say advancing meanwhile would be for the phase so if you advance and roll 3" and have ability to move again in same movement phase that's 3" again.

For lootas there's specific exception in their rules so it's through shooting phase. No such exception to SAG. Ergo it follows rulebook and rolls again those stats.

Very clear eh?-) Why GW went for this convoluted way I don't know. Funnily enough lootas have exception to exception. That's not common even for GW game!

found the rules for the specialist detachments...

I find it really comical they mention Killa Kanz get the Dread Waaagh keyword. Theres no clause to give them access to the strats so its literally for the warlord trait repair bonus...lame

SemperMortis wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

PiñaColada wrote:
Is you big mek a SAG big mek? If so, check out the relic from the dread waaagh detachment in Vigilus defiant. It's 2d6 shots instead of 1d6. That guy is going to wreck face if he gets to hit on 4's.

About that... I have used that relic three times so far and it did next to nothing. As soon as -1 to hit or invul saves are involved the 2d6 shots hitting on 5+ simply don't cut it. Two hits which might be wounding on fives have not been doing much for me, and I'm not wasting the shooting phase re-roll on the strength roll. The dead shiny shoota I have been running just for the heck of it has killed more than the relic SAG and costs less CP.

The relic gets you on average 7 shots for 2 hits with 1 roll of a 1 and a roll of a 6 which means two rerolls, one of which can reroll a 1 again, overall its almost exactly 3 hits a turn on average. Average strength is 7 as well. I have had amazing luck with this thing, I was about to kill a Broadside in a single round of shooting with it, and than used the shoot twice strat to kill his buddy. Basically earning my points back and than some with 1 round of shooting and some CP

The thing with average is that you are not evaluating how likely those averages are. The SAG is highly unreliable as you can get any combination of high strength and low shots, low strength and high shots, low strength and low shots which end up simply not doing jack against your target. Rolling 6 (or worse) for strength and 6 (or worse) for shots against T7 target is very likely to happen and suddenly you find yourself looking a two hits wounding on fives, and simply not wounding at all on average without deff skulls. Since games tend to be decided by turn three or four, you get three tries at best to roll a lucky combination of high strength and decent shots (let's say anything five and higher), and then not fail your hit or wounding rolls.

Or you happen to face Allaitoc, Nurgle or Knights, then the SAG will simply suck unless you get really lucky.

The SAG is a decent cheap HQ, but the souped up version is not worth 2CP in my opinion.

Eh, 2CP isn't that steep for something that has the potential to win a game. Obviously those games are gonna be few and far between unless you start investing command rerolls, but very rarely is it not at least going to make back its points and then some. It's not amazing but when you need a HQ for your third battalion anyways I'd say its worth a roll of the dice more times than not.

few times ive ran a SAG i can say its atleast done something every game. Unlike previous editions where every like 30 or so games i'll get boxcars and delete something but the other 30 games i delete myself or shoot myself across the board or roll a strength i cant even hurt with at all

 Jidmah wrote:

The thing with average is that you are not evaluating how likely those averages are. The SAG is highly unreliable as you can get any combination of high strength and low shots, low strength and high shots, low strength and low shots which end up simply not doing jack against your target. Rolling 6 (or worse) for strength and 6 (or worse) for shots against T7 target is very likely to happen and suddenly you find yourself looking a two hits wounding on fives, and simply not wounding at all on average without deff skulls. Since games tend to be decided by turn three or four, you get three tries at best to roll a lucky combination of high strength and decent shots (let's say anything five and higher), and then not fail your hit or wounding rolls.

Or you happen to face Allaitoc, Nurgle or Knights, then the SAG will simply suck unless you get really lucky. The SAG is a decent cheap HQ, but the souped up version is not worth 2CP in my opinion.

I'm of the completely different opinion. Now don't get me wrong, 2CP is steep, and the weapon is still unreliable but the improvements are well worth it IMO. If you aren't playing Bad Moons (or you are but want the "showin' off" strat elsewhere) then you get access to "kustom ammo". He's a character so assuming you put him in a ruin and screened him properly (and "splurged" on the oiler) he's fairly tough to bring down. If someone shoots him down you can use "Orkz is never beaten", which you can do on the non-relic version as well but 1d6 shots is probably never worth it. So a lot of situational improvements are introduced or just more viable with the relic in addition to the extra d6 shots.

Plus, a character in you backfield surrounded by a unit of grots should surive a couple of turns easily. If he gets 4 turns of shooting then he should be able to nuke something. Or at the very least make your opponent vary of where he's placing stuff. I like the guy and I do want to try and use him alongside a normal SAG big mek at some point. I don't think that's a great build but it's pretty fun when your backline artillery consists of untargetable characters.

The SAG is far too swingy to be a good weapon. Its variance in shots is between 1 and 6 or 2 and 12 if using relic and the variance in strength is between 2 and 12. This on a BS5+ model? No thanks.

There's too many times I've seen people shoot vehicles with this thing only to roll weak strength or roll high strength but miss all of their shots. Sure - if you're lucky you might get a good result but the same can be said of a ton of our weapons and as Jidmah said - invulnerables, FNP and - to hit mods kill the weapon dead.

E - the SAG has decent synergy with Mek guns, if you're going that way. Able to repair them every turn isn't bad (but it means the SAG has less visibility as he can't sit on a building).

In other news it seems that competitive players are starting to place Orks as a 'gatekeeper' faction which I think is correct. We have shenanigans and strong builds but unfortunately they are about as obvious as an Ork and the majority of them can be easily countered. Lootas + Grot Shields will become irrelevant as more factions get access to a Vect stratagem. Boys are the only troop in the game to go up in points from index to codex and their inefficiencies compared to other units is really starting to show (Acolytes at same points anyone?), our new Buggies are universally too expensive (sometimes hilariously so), our bikes are way too expensive (particularly as all other bikes had a points drop in CA18), sure we can DS a Gorkanaut for 2CP but its obvious what you're doing and the opponent can counter appropriately, we have no real efficient ways to deal with Knights (Orkguinius relies on relics and he dies in the process).

I'm really interested to see what Nick Nanavati does with us and particularly whether he keeps playing Orks after the GSC codex drops. It seems to me that our 'tricks' are known and worse easily countered so we will struggle to compete at the top tables. Thoughts?

Nicks going with a classic FLOOD the board list.

116 boyz in his list. 3 groups of 28 and 3 groups of 10 to mob up with. Almost guarentees he will get off green tide once or twice during the game so expect to chew through about 150+ boyz if you up againgst him.

I don't have the BCP app but I thought the LVO lists are online right now? Anyone in this thread eager to confirm & dig up Nicks list? (and any other "big name" players' ork lists)

I'd also be interested since he's clearly a tier 1 player (and the guy who really brought attention to shining spears at last years LVO if memory serves) so it'd be cool to see what he brings

Edit: Somewhat ninjad. Can you post the list if you have access to it Eihnlazer?

 Eihnlazer wrote:
Nicks going with a classic FLOOD the board list.

116 boyz in his list. 3 groups of 28 and 3 groups of 10 to mob up with. Almost guarentees he will get off green tide once or twice during the game so expect to chew through about 150+ boyz if you up againgst him.

Those mobups prevent greentide though.

And getting it off twice would be quite a trick seeing it's one use only ;-)

@PinaColada Why you think they would be out? I see no such announcement anywhere on their own site.

Ilgoth wrote:
@PinaColada Why you think they would be out? I see no such announcement anywhere on their own site.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/240/757805.page#10333807

Sounds like they are.

They are up, but I Wont be posting them over directly as that would be rude of me.

I can give some hints towards some of the lists if anyones interested though.

Fair enough. Which clans are present in his list? Any other big names running orks that you've noticed?

He's doing the standard evil sunz boyz and bad moons lootastar.


It's a fairly one dimensional list for him, but when your playing orcz that's probably the only way to go.


I cant see him having any trouble with any army but Druhkari tbh.


As for other big names, I don't have the top 50 ITC memorized so didn't notice if there was anyone else. Although, I heard 60 out of the top 100 players on ITC were attending.

Okay thanks. Man I don't know, horde orks plus loota star doesn't seem like it's top tier to me. You'll have to assume that what 25ish% of all the matchups will be space elf soup with access to Vect and then you're most likely borked. I guess it might do well here but that list is surely dead when the GSC codex is also allowed (and boyz spam will have a tougher time when bolters get their beta rule implemented)

Maybe there are some nuances in the ITC ruleset that really switches things up but that doesn't scream winning list to me.

ITC is great for Green tide. You can stick boyz inside enclosed ruins and the only thing that can hit them is ignore LOS weaponry. The list is basically immune to mortal wound spam because of the amount of models it has.


It will have a rough time againgst Druhkari as I stated, but atm that's the only thing scaring it other than triple gallants with Emporer's wrath mortars and hydras.


Im playing nids and I am absolutely terrified of this list. I cant do anything about the lootas since he's just gonna completely surround them with the rest of his guys. Turn 1 he kills my swarmlord with the lootas, then starts deleting my units 1 by 1 and I cant kill the boyz fast enough to stop it.

My only chance is if I can go first and somehow kill all the grotz turn 1. Then my hive guard will be free to smoke his lootaz and boyz over the course of the game.

The enclosed ruin rule could come into effect (sidenote, I hate that rule) but most ruins aren't going to be big enough to house 30 boyz are they? Especially for them all to be 1"+ away from every single wall for that rule to be really abuseable

Edit: And yeah, I understand that your nids might have a tough time against this list. It's certainly strong but as you noted Drukhari are going to be real tough on it. One would assume plenty of space elf soup, hence my doubt about it. For later tournaments you can easily slot in a small detachment of Cult of the 4-armed emperor for that "Vect" strat to easily counter grot shields. Meaning even if this list works here, it seems like it's the last huzzah for it when both eldar soup and tyranid soup can counter it

PiñaColada wrote:
He's a character so assuming you put him in a ruin and screened him properly (and "splurged" on the oiler) he's fairly tough to bring down.

My experience is quite the opposite. Some combi-bolters from terminators, seraphim, jump characters, any harlequin unit of your choice, bloat drones, inceptors, TS psykers, a flyer or just simply snipers and the SAG is gone. In a meta where I keep losing 2-3 death guard characters per turn (4W/T5/3+/5++), a T4/4+ model has no chance of surviving multiple turns.

If someone shoots him down you can use "Orkz is never beaten", which you can do on the non-relic version as well but 1d6 shots is probably never worth it.
So a lot of situational improvements are introduced or just more viable with the relic in addition to the extra d6 shots.

If I do, I have now spent 4 CP on something that has a decent chance of doing absolutely nothing, which is almost an entire battalion worth of CP. I could just bring two SAG instead of the one relic and have more CP to spend on other stuff.

Plus, a character in you backfield surrounded by a unit of grots should surive a couple of turns easily. If he gets 4 turns of shooting then he should be able to nuke something.

Quick run-down of its fate during my last 4 games:
1) Killed by a troupe turn 2 that wanted to take the objective he was sitting on. They shot a hole in grot screen with the help of their transport and plasma grenades.
2) Killed turn 2 by seraphin. The screen was wiped out using the burning decent stratagem so the sisters were free to shoot the mek out of its ruin. If he had survived the pistols, they could have charged him.
3) Killed turn 3 by a Hemlock Wraithfigher seeking to score a "kill a character" maelstrom objective.
4) Killed turn 1 by Illic and some rangers after admittedly dealing some nice damage to a hornet, almost killing it.

Or at the very least make your opponent vary of where he's placing stuff. I like the guy and I do want to try and use him alongside a normal SAG big mek at some point. I don't think that's a great build but it's pretty fun when your backline artillery consists of untargetable characters.

At least in my metagame every player has some space in his list reserved to target backfield units, since you basically auto-lose maelstrom and most of the CA2018 missions if you don't. SAG meks are easy targets for most fast or deep-striking units, and gretchin either keep bleeding models due to excess bolters and stubbers (or similar xenos weapons) or get wiped out to get VP or clear space for turn 2 deep strikers.

In general, this is not a huge problem as gretchin and SAG are dirt cheap for what they do, but the two extra CP feel wasted most of the times, since I could just be running another relic for less CP.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
ITC is great for Green tide. You can stick boyz inside enclosed ruins and the only thing that can hit them is ignore LOS weaponry. The list is basically immune to mortal wound spam because of the amount of models it has.


It will have a rough time againgst Druhkari as I stated, but atm that's the only thing scaring it other than triple gallants with Emporer's wrath mortars and hydras.


Im playing nids and I am absolutely terrified of this list. I cant do anything about the lootas since he's just gonna completely surround them with the rest of his guys. Turn 1 he kills my swarmlord with the lootas, then starts deleting my units 1 by 1 and I cant kill the boyz fast enough to stop it.

My only chance is if I can go first and somehow kill all the grotz turn 1. Then my hive guard will be free to smoke his lootaz and boyz over the course of the game.

Is LVO really so light on terrain that you can't protect swarmlord from lootas? Here you can hide a knight...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jidmah wrote:

PiñaColada wrote:
He's a character so assuming you put him in a ruin and screened him properly (and "splurged" on the oiler) he's fairly tough to bring down.

My experience is quite the opposite. Some combi-bolters from terminators, seraphim, jump characters, any harlequin unit of your choice, bloat drones, inceptors, TS psykers, a flyer or just simply snipers and the SAG is gone. In a meta where I keep losing 2-3 death guard characters per turn (4W/T5/3+/5++), a T4/4+ model has no chance of surviving multiple turns.

Where those grots are? Flyer shouldn't even be legally possible to park next to SAG. Lots of deepstriking to remove both grots AND SAG seeing all bolters etc from enemy DZ should be long way from having range.

 Castozor wrote:
Since we are discussing the (amongst other things) souped up shocka. I used it last game and while it didn't do much whole game it then made it's points back 4 times over by one shotting a Doom Ark and 2 castellan robots (it was a 2v2). But we ran into an issue, does the SAG keep it's strength for the whole shooting phase when fired twice? Or do I need to reroll its strength when I fire it again with the Vigilus stratagem.

Read the rules in the BRB about randomized characteristics.

tneva82 wrote:
Where those grots are? Flyer shouldn't even be legally possible to park next to SAG.

Those grots were mostly riddled with shurikens, playing dead. A unit of shining spears cleared them out with their catapults since they didn't want to shoot the target they were going to charge. There was a smite from the hemlock and probably some other shooting involved, but the majority died to the bike's shuriken catapults. With the unit wiped out, the hemlock was the closest model and fried him.

Lots of deepstriking to remove both grots AND SAG seeing all bolters etc from enemy DZ should be long way from having range.

The only thing of those four that deep struck was the sisters. The sisters player usually runs three units of dominions in repressors, those are plenty of bolters exactly where you don't want them. Also a friggin' annoying road-block for both boyz and wagons.
Keep in mind that they aren't just killing gretchin and a SAG, they are usually doing that in order to get more VP. In the case of the sisters, this was the eternal war mission from CA2018 where the objective in the enemies's deployment zone was worth 3VP at the end of each battle round. This move basically won them the game, despite getting butchered by boyz on the front lines.

@tneva

Its not light on terrain but you cant escape from lootas. They can just "Da Jump" the lootas to somewhere they can see him and nuke him.

There is literally no way to hide a monster or vehicle from the lootas on turn 1. Granted, you can make it a trade (make the lootas jump away from their grot shield to get the target) which might not always be favorable for the orcz.

The souped up SAG is fantastic. Consider, its -5 AP, even if you roll a low str, it can still do some serious work. Last game, I killed two Leman Russes (with relatively poor rolls). Previous game, a lascannon predator (it really performed poorly in this game, but still more than made up its points). Game before that, 11 hp to an Imperial Knight and a handful of wulfen. YMMV, but I suggest you forget about trying to rationalize it with math hammer - there are too many variables and just use it for a few games.

I mean I understand Jidmahs point, if the relic SAG hasn't been doing much in his games other than getting splattered then obviously investing 2CP feels too steep. That hasn't been my case (or Grumblewartz's either it seems).

I think it really comes down to whether you're okay with that investment yielding absolutely nothing every once in a while when playing. I am, even though I burn through CP like it's nothing (I'm guessing all ork players are) I still don't ever regret of going for it and chucking the relic SAG on him.

PiñaColada wrote:
Okay thanks. Man I don't know, horde orks plus loota star doesn't seem like it's top tier to me. You'll have to assume that what 25ish% of all the matchups will be space elf soup with access to Vect and then you're most likely borked. I guess it might do well here but that list is surely dead when the GSC codex is also allowed (and boyz spam will have a tougher time when bolters get their beta rule implemented)

Maybe there are some nuances in the ITC ruleset that really switches things up but that doesn't scream winning list to me.

All space elf variants combined make up about 18% of the field with DE being included in around 8% last time I checked. That was before the last 100 or so lists had been added so it might have gone up slightly since then, but either way your odds of drawing a matchup against DE are 10% at best at least in the earlier rounds. I don't necessarily think orks will win the whole thing, but I'd be surprised if we didn't have at least one representative in the top 8 given we have 2 of the top 5 current ITC players using them.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
@tneva

Its not light on terrain but you cant escape from lootas. They can just "Da Jump" the lootas to somewhere they can see him and nuke him.

There is literally no way to hide a monster or vehicle from the lootas on turn 1. Granted, you can make it a trade (make the lootas jump away from their grot shield to get the target) which might not always be favorable for the orcz.

True that. But then swarmlord in exchange of loota bomb. You can da jump lootas yes. Grots less so. And not many have enough bad moon grots to cover multiple locations sufficiently(3x10 is laughably small screen)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 flaming tadpole wrote:

PiñaColada wrote:
Okay thanks. Man I don't know, horde orks plus loota star doesn't seem like it's top tier to me. You'll have to assume that what 25ish% of all the matchups will be space elf soup with access to Vect and then you're most likely borked. I guess it might do well here but that list is surely dead when the GSC codex is also allowed (and boyz spam will have a tougher time when bolters get their beta rule implemented)

Maybe there are some nuances in the ITC ruleset that really switches things up but that doesn't scream winning list to me.

All space elf variants combined make up about 18% of the field with DE being included in around 8% last time I checked. That was before the last 100 or so lists had been added so it might have gone up slightly since then, but either way your odds of drawing a matchup against DE are 10% at best at least in the earlier rounds. I don't necessarily think orks will win the whole thing, but I'd be surprised if we didn't have at least one representative in the top 8 given we have 2 of the top 5 current ITC players using them.

18% and 5 games so odds would be good you meet at least one in any case. ESPECIALLY if you are going for the top spots which means, funnily enough, that you are playing against other top spot teams which, funnily enough, tend to be heavily involve aeldar soup since it's either aeldar or imperium soup that's generally dominating top spots. Sure there are tau, grey knights etc but since those aren't fighting for top that much they are of less concern if you are aiming for winning tournament.

8% not 18%. 18% is the total representation of all space elf lists. In any case you act as if your just gonna auto lose against DE, I can't help you if that's been your personal experience but if that was the reality orks wouldn't be winning GT's like they have been where, funnily enough, a lot of aeldar soup is present.

It's certainly not an auto-lose matchup but the loota bomb feels like a liability when facing them since it's hard countered. Not that I personally like the loota bomb strategy but I'm happy to be proven wrong.

Do you need the BCP app to see which players are bringing what army or is that just needed to see the specific lists? I'm guessing an IG,Castellan & 3xshield captain combo is going to be laughably common. A winnable, but not perhaps easily so, matchup for an ork horde list.

Have Orks won any major tournaments? Haven't really kept up.

I just run a mini-Loota Bomb now. 15 with a 3x10 Grot Screen. 25 Lootaz and 60+ Grots to guard them is just a heavy investment, in points and CP. I feel like you should bring some Lootas, but not base your entire list around them.