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I agree with you flandarz...when I was using the real loota bomb, I spent too many command points on them. Often those command points are better spent in other places.

On the Souped up SAG, I think it is a great weapon for 80pts and two CP. The last game I played it destroyed 2 baneblades in like 4 turns. I often double shoot it. In my experience it seems to do either no damage or 10 - 13; and I am perfectly happy with that output.

To those complaining that sometimes it fails and does nothing, I think that is an issue with orks in general, especially our shooting. Our ceiling is real high, but our stuff just isn't that reliable.

i WISH i had that kind of luck against baneblades.
Last time i faced one, granted i didnt have the suped up sag, i rolled boxcars against it twice and missed every shot anyway.

I think you need the BCP app to check.

Guys to clarify I can see the lists and I get how they play, my thoughts are whether Orks are top tier or not.

The loota and grot shield combo is significantly weaker the more armies have access to a Vect stratagem. It is also exceptionally obvious and easy to play against. Without reliable grot shields Lootas are poor.

We don't have a cost effective way to deal with Knights. Knights are one of the most prevalent aspects of the current meta.

Almost every other faction had significant price cuts from CA18. We didn't. Our characters went up in points while almost all others dropped significantly, particularly named ones. I feel that we will see the fruits of these changes soon in the meta, particularly how badly we perform in comparison.

Is our playstyle really going to be more green tide and that's it? That's the best we can do? Might as well be playing index. Am I the only one a bit disappointed with this?

I feel like if we can clear the screen units, Dreadz and Manz can do alright against Knights. But I agree that Knights, and LoWs in general, are one of our hardest match-ups. Particularly the Castellan.

Big blob of MANZ can do work against a knight but dread will do poorly since the knight can interrupt combat after 1 is done hitting him.

I'm reserving judgement till after the LVO but am a bit sad to know that Nicks list didn't involve a bit more finesse than this. I think it's cool he's playing orks in the LVO and he might do great work there but GSC and beta bolters will mess up this list more easily in the near future.

I know GW has said that they want to save point changes to CA but I sure hope they realise that's a mistake. They need to adjust DE & IK and hopefully they'll help Orks out a bit there also. If the loota bomb goes out of style then it's tough to see how the Orks will compete at the highest levels

 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.

If you think you "can't escape from lootas" you've never played against someone with enough bubblewrap.

Well sure bacon, I could play a nid list that makes lootas ineffective, but its a rather boring list and I have fun doing things other than shove 200 gaunts around the table.

Ya I do agree I don't think orks will be able to compete as well in the near future I just don't think it'll primarily because of more armies having a Vect stratagem. Right now Deathwatch and DA have a higher win % versus orks in tournaments than DE and now with the beta bolters it's gonna be even worse.

 flandarz wrote:
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.

Yeah, the initial shock of the loota bomb seems to be wearing off now that people know what to expect. It's probably better at this point to go for a more flexible (if not as killy) approach rather than going too all in.

I agree. If Lootas were cheaper, it might be worth it. But throwing 500+ pts into the Mobs and Grots is just asking for someone to hamstring your entire list by wiping them.

So the most logical question is 'what is their replacement?'

Mek guns? Trukk Bustas? Walking Evil Sunz Meganobz with Grot Shield support?

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
So the most logical question is 'what is their replacement?'

Mek guns? Trukk Bustas? Walking Evil Sunz Meganobz with Grot Shield support?

Most likely just one squad of lootas and then more boys. I did see an odd ork list that did pretty well at a tourney recently. It had like 3 flyers, 2 gorkanauts, and a morkanaut in a dread waaaagh detachment. Super weird list but looked fun to play. If our other units get the price cuts they need in the next CA I think it could open up our options a lot. Would be fun to do a mass buggie list or something.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
So the most logical question is 'what is their replacement?'

Mek guns? Trukk Bustas? Walking Evil Sunz Meganobz with Grot Shield support?

It would be Mek guns, if they weren't so danged expensive dollar-wise. 18 individual shooty units for 558 total? Yes please.

yeah id be surprised to see anyone run more than a couple of proper mek gun models.
Rest are gonna be kitbashes. Trukk kits ftw

I'm a big fan of working with the Orks' strengths, personally. Sure, take some ranged stuff, but don't forget that we're a CC army. If we wanted to be good at shooting, we'd be playing literally anything else (maybe not Slaaneshi). We wanna get stuck in and chop away.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
yeah id be surprised to see anyone run more than a couple of proper mek gun models.
Rest are gonna be kitbashes. Trukk kits ftw

I have three legitimate, Games Workshop Traktor Kannons and three Smasha Guns that I got for about fifteen bucks apiece.
Just gotta dig up those 2nd edition artillery models.

 flaming tadpole wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
So the most logical question is 'what is their replacement?'

Mek guns? Trukk Bustas? Walking Evil Sunz Meganobz with Grot Shield support?

Most likely just one squad of lootas and then more boys. I did see an odd ork list that did pretty well at a tourney recently. It had like 3 flyers, 2 gorkanauts, and a morkanaut in a dread waaaagh detachment. Super weird list but looked fun to play. If our other units get the price cuts they need in the next CA I think it could open up our options a lot. Would be fun to do a mass buggie list or something.

Yea Ben's list. It came 3rd at a tournament after going 4-2.

Its a Freebooters list that gets mass +1 to hit. Probably the most interesting competitive list I've seen for a while.

 flandarz wrote:
I'm a big fan of working with the Orks' strengths, personally. Sure, take some ranged stuff, but don't forget that we're a CC army. If we wanted to be good at shooting, we'd be playing literally anything else (maybe not Slaaneshi). We wanna get stuck in and chop away.

The problem is - outside of Orkguinius we have no effective way to deal with Knights in cqc (or even make it there). We aren't particularly good at CC when compared to some other units and army compositions either. Far too glass and not enough cannon.

I don't know what our next big thing might be. I imagine a group of 10(+2) nobz with big choppas/choppas & x2choppas are going to be a pretty common staple. They're just easy to transport/tellyport and bring enough hurt to potentially earn their points back quickly.

MANZ are still too expensive, if GW lowers the killsaw to 12/18 (so more in line with everyone else) at personally I'd be a lot more interested in running them in larger squads.

I like our planes but I wouldn't call them hyper efficient, look at what a crimson hunter exarch costs. 161 freakin points.

If IK go out of style then maybe 3x bonebreakas can make a dent. They're super killy if they get into CC.

I still don't think boyz spam will ever truly make a comeback unless something changes on our end. DEathwatch with beta bolter will be tough but G-man standing next to parked repulsors/stormravens etc will chew through them quickly as well. I sort of wonder how good a 500 grot list would be though, snake them all back to a warlord or two to make them fearless and just lock it all down. Terrible to both play yourself and against but probably would win against a lot of people by virtue of board control.

Whatever the next Ork meta is I hope we get some help in the March FAQ. Our bikes are starting to look terrible when they're one of the most expensive bikes in the game and beta bolters are going to be a thing. Plus the GSC bikers are less than half the cost. Our buggies probably aren't better than the GSC ridgerunner which is like 84 points. All our CC gear and plenty of shooting weapons are costed poorly. I don't know, I'll keep trukking along with my speed freeks but at least my friends undertand now that the army they've faced really isn't all that good.

 flandarz wrote:
I'm a big fan of working with the Orks' strengths, personally. Sure, take some ranged stuff, but don't forget that we're a CC army. If we wanted to be good at shooting, we'd be playing literally anything else (maybe not Slaaneshi). We wanna get stuck in and chop away.

For a CC army, we sure do have a _lot_ of shooting units.

It’s just that they keep being hamstrung by the rules.

 flaming tadpole wrote:
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.

What happens to orks chance of winning game if those 25 lootas die before they get to even shoot once? Generally not well. That loota bomb is such a resource hog that if they lose it they don't have much else left. The trouble with one dimensional armies like loota star is that you lose it your army gets screwed.

And funnilly enough orks arent' dominating tournaments...Funny that with aeldar soups that automatically delete loota star 5/6 times prevelant at the top.


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 flandarz wrote:
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.

Of course with 3x10 grots that 15 is also fairly trivial to remove. You also need to either use some boyz etc or any T1 chargers(imperial soup can do that, so can tyranid) can disable that threat as well.

But yeah 25 is basing your army and if those go away(and dark eldars and in future GSC do that pretty much automatically) you are royally screwed.


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 Vineheart01 wrote:
yeah id be surprised to see anyone run more than a couple of proper mek gun models.
Rest are gonna be kitbashes. Trukk kits ftw

Though that only helps if you want multiple differents. 18 smasha guns is still going to be pretty expensive. 6 smasha, 6 traktor and 6 KMK more reasonable proposition though still pretty expensive. 6 mek gun+4 trukks

You can technically squeeze out a few more smasha gunz if you have some planes that aren't built as wazboms. I also feel like you could mod the traktor beams to look like smasha gunz, they don't all have to look identical.

But yeah, being cost prohibitive is probably the main reason we aren't really seeing 10 smashas in most games. The smasha gun is also basically the one unit I'm somewhat worried about getting a price hike at the next time orks are adjusted.

Ive had quite good success with the Arch Arsonist build, Big Mek in Warbike with 2 Kombi-skorchas and 1 upgraded to be the Gobshot using Kustom Ammo.

Hes killed Smash Captain, a Knight, numerous vehicles and units, hes quite feared around my LGS. He has the speed and the number of shots to chew through chaff and elite infantry alike, he probably outperforms the Souped SAG Mek and is also more durable. You can then still have your Killaklaw Warboss on bike to charge into the softened up targets, 6d6 str 5 ap 1 auto hits arent no joke in addition to his 12 str 5 ap - small arms fire.

The arch arsonist build is certainly pretty scary as well, but you need to be able to use Index units. It's also a completely different type of range, I use the SAG to shoot the things I'm guaranteed to not charge or consolidate into T1.

I personally like the KMK but that's my big gripe with it, 36" isn't enough to fulfill that role, even the 48" smasha guns might fall a bit short every now and then

PiñaColada wrote:
You can technically squeeze out a few more smasha gunz if you have some planes that aren't built as wazboms. I also feel like you could mod the traktor beams to look like smasha gunz, they don't all have to look identical.

But yeah, being cost prohibitive is probably the main reason we aren't really seeing 10 smashas in most games. The smasha gun is also basically the one unit I'm somewhat worried about getting a price hike at the next time orks are adjusted.

You could maybe try 3d printing some smasha guns, lol. I don't know if they'd turn out all wonky or not. Might be useful to just 3d print the gun part itself and then kitbash the chasis with trukk bits and stuff. I should check the internetz to see if someones actually tried that haha.

 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.

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.

I brought him to the last tournament I went to, fielding him in a Bad moonz detachment with a loota bomb as well. This is how he faired

Game 1: Killed a IG Flyer with unit inside, used 2cp shot again and killed a second flyer filled with troops. The rest of hte game i didn't have the CP to spend on him but he still was dishing out damage to vehicles and infantry. the 2D6 helps a lot with the piss poor accuracy, but with reroll 1s and exploding 6s I was averaging about 3 hits a turn. The turn I killed the 1st flyer I rolled 11 shots at S8 and got 7 hits (WAY ABOVE AVERAGE!) and it was hilarious how badly the guys face looked when I told him it was AP-5

Game 2: Eldar shenanigans list, He iced a wave serpeant turn 1 with the shoot twice strat, turn 2 he finished off a second serpeant so I could use my shoot twice loota bomb on his heavy infantry, turn 3 he killed some dark reapers and basically was just popping 2 and 3 infantry a turn from than on.

Game 3: Liquefied a Castellan turn 1, rolled well, shot twice (teamed up with lootas) and killed his pinnacle unit turn 1 before it even got to fire. The Big Mek Relic Sag did 18 wounds by itself, absolutely gross. It died turn 1 on his turn, got some ridiculously lucky sniper shots, but by that point I had made my points back and then some as well as completely neutering his list and wrapped the game up turn 3. I unfortunately didn't win the tourny because I had missed a lot of points trying to table my opponents but it was still a lot of fun.

Before you get defensive though, I am well aware how random he can be, I think he is over priced as far as CP and I do think he is situational at best, however, the damage potential is finally there for a SAG in my opinion. If they took the damage from D6 to a flat 3 and made every SAG 2D6 shots I would go and buy 2 more Big Mekz with SAGz because of how fun they are and the sheer damage potential that they can have.

Has anyone tried running a max squad of nob bikerz equipped with kustom shoota? Initially I thought about running them as evil sunz but the Speed freak detachment would allow them to double move using the strat. 28". As long as the wartrike was within 6" (his 20" range should allow one chap to be within range and therefore able to charge).

Thats after their insane shooting. You'd have to use more dakka (as they wouldn't get the evil sunz ability to assault and shoot without penalty). but as bad moons that results in 20 successful S4 hits and 30 successful s5 hits.

You could just stick with the evil sunz and loose a small bit of shooting but increase their movement by an additional 4" in total and maybe use the -1 to hit and drive by krumping strats.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
The "90" shot nob biker unit would be a fairly effective anti air unit ignoring any minuses to hit thanks to more dakka. 320 points isnt too bad...

i'd much rather run 2x12 warbikers for ~370 than 12 nobbikers for 320.
Nobbikers are one of the stinker units in the codex atm.
edit: derp, looked at wrong list for their value lol...ignore that

24 warbikers is not 370 points however. it's 552

Edit: But with that being said, I don't think nobz on warbikes are ever a good idea sadly. They're still a lot of points and all those s4 & s5 hits are AP0 and will not do much against anything other than chaff, something normal warbikers are already good at. Spending 2CP for more dakka isn't too bad, assuming there's no better target for it and they're firing at -1 to hit. I think I'd rather take a normal bike squad and invest the rest of the points towards a normal nobz squad.

Yeah, unfortunately Biker Nobz are in a weird spot, where they don't really have a role that distinguishes them from other Nob units now that the Tellyporta stratagem exists. They don't have the cost efficiency of double choppa Nobz, and they don't have the resilience or damage output of Meganobz in CC. At best, they have the "most" dakka from their warbikes, but it wastes their CC statline and we already have arguably better shooting units from Flash Gitz, and as mentioned by PinaColada, with it only being AP0 it's not going to really hurt anything important.

Warbikes/Nob Bikerz need an exhaust cloud special rule that gives them either a 5+ invuln against shooting or (ugh I hate suggesting this) a -1 to hit for enemies shooting them at their current points cost to make them worth considering competitively.