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Good god. It looks like Chaos are going to be redone before Orks.I'm gobsmacked. I'm always optimistic that we're gonna get some attention finally,  and GW always  confound me. I just can't believe it. It makes no sense. Chaos are really good sellers, why give them even more attention? Surely working on ranges that don't sell well would increase profits?
Surely it's also a matter of customer service?
In my time as a wargamer I've started two gaming clubs, run 6 tournaments, gotten around 40+ players into the hobby, and invested about 5000 euros in products (mostly Orks). I know I shouldn't  take it personally, but jesus christ. I've been cheerful about it in the past. I've played Orks through thick and thin. I've put up with my 100% losses  recently (And before you say I must be a bad player, I used to have a 60/40 win/loss ratio at 40K and I have about the same at fantasy. I'm an okay player), and by recently I mean for the last year. I've put up with a lot. I've given a lot. I just want something back.

Yeah yeah. whining on the Internet makes no difference, everyone has heard it before, I should quit the game, I should play another army, I should just enjoy Orks as they are, I shouldn't care about winning...
Blah blah *fudge*ing blah.
You're probably right. I just needed to vent some anger. Sorry.

Trying to play a Codex Ork list against a modern 40k army is like rolling a boulder up a hill, only to have the boulder roll back down as you near the top.

I keep on trying to do it, after doing very well with my other armies (Marines of various builds, varient Ork lists like KOS or 3 Pie Plate varieties) and I get this idea in my head of "I can make it work".

And then I roll up and get a game against someone using my own Marines against me, with plenty of Dakka, and a Seek and Destroy mission. And the Boyz simply die, because it's a mission where they don't have to move forward, so I die. And despite the fact that I crammed an ungodly amount of Rokkits, it took so much work to kill TWO AV13 Predators. If I were against Skimmers, it'd have been even less pretty - instead of just losing by about 300-400 VP's because one flank collapsed it may have been a slaughter.

What pisses me off too is that they're talking about Chaos and freaking Apocalypse which has to be the damned dumbest idea I've ever heard. Ohh, TWO whole rumored superheavy kits, and limited rumors at that, and rules to play 3k point games - YAY that's going to do so well. Meanwhile it pushes back the release of Orks again, leaving us with ever dwindling options as other armies get updates and we have less and less to cope with.

Chaos I can appreciate getting done, but more as a marine player than an Ork player. They're going to tone down one of the most abusable codex's out there. That's good for the game, but god damn it could have waited while you bring an army BACK TO THE TABLE as a playable force in the context of how the game is played today.

What pisses me off the most is that I'm too attached to the army to sell it and just build another force that I know I could enjoy playing.

I hear ya. During medusa I tried to cheese out my list, and got completely wiped out by turn 3.
Pie plated out of existence.
These days, my regular opponent is a tyranid player. I just find myself outclassed no matter what I try. I find that I have to play flawlessly, and rely on at least one or two mistakes from my opponent.Actually, my biggest ally currently is the ignorance of your average player of what Orks can do. I'm gonna try one last gasp list ( lots of shoota boyz, flash gitz, scorcha trakks a dakkawagon and a looted russ with a mob of killa kanz) before we create our own homebrew ork list. Because the game just isn't fun anymore for me. I'm not a relentless GW basher by any means- I love fantasy, and have 4 armies I'm perfectly happy with. I love their models, and most of their background (not too fond of all the "faith" fluff and the current obsession with humourless writing. But there's still plenty of good stuff.)

I just want Orks to get some attention. Seriously. Chaos did not need a redo. None of the excuses cut the mustard.

"Chaos are really good sellers, why give them even more attention? Surely working on ranges that don't sell well would increase profits?"

Uh, because that's the entire point of every business out there?

"Hey, Bill? These pizzas are selling off the shelves as fast as we stock them! Y'know what seems like a good idea? Stocking more brussel sprouts that nobody buys!" What?

...
You've misunderstood me.
(I'm not sure how, as I was fairly clear)
Chaos sell well because they have a nice set of models, cool background in their codex and black library series, and strong (some say overpowered) rules.
Orks do not sell well because they have an incomplete set of models, very little available background and a very weak set of rules.
It's not comparable to brussel sprouts and pizzas- GW control the quality of their own products. Chaos sell well- great! Good for GW. Good job on the range and rules. Orks selling badly? Just fix up the rules, fill in the gaps and you'll have similarly high sales for them- more profit. Chaos sales aren't going to go up by that much.
Of course, I'm just speculating, maybe Orks would bomb. But if anecdotal evidence is anything at all to go by, a lot of people will start ork armies when the new list comes out. (If it ever does).
And the rules aren't that hard to fix to my mind.

Posted By Da Boss on 04/02/2007 5:57 AM

Chaos did not need a redo. None of the excuses cut the mustard.

Orks are broken and underpowered.

Chaos is broken and overpowered.

One of these effects more people negatively than the other.

(And, I should point out, I make the second statement as a Black Legion general)

Posted By Lowinor on 04/02/2007 7:04 AM

Posted By Da Boss on 04/02/2007 5:57 AM

Chaos did not need a redo. None of the excuses cut the mustard.

Orks are broken and underpowered.

Chaos is broken and overpowered.

One of these effects more people negatively than the other.

(And, I should point out, I make the second statement as a Black Legion general)

Which pretty much results in: "Hey Ork players, enjoy your crappy rules!"

Or in my case, start other armies that actually work with the way 40k is played!

I thought it was funny at the time, but I realize just how sad it kinda is.  When I first started using Marines after over a year of playing Orks exclusively against Power Armored foes, my first game on Turn 3 I had a thought of "Wow the game seems so much more balanced when you have a 3+ save".

Posted By Lowinor on 04/02/2007 7:04 AM

Posted By Da Boss on 04/02/2007 5:57 AM

Chaos did not need a redo. None of the excuses cut the mustard.

Orks are broken and underpowered.

Chaos is broken and overpowered.

One of these effects more people negatively than the other.

(And, I should point out, I make the second statement as a Black Legion general)

An FAQ could fix chaos being broken. Orks lack 24 choices from their codex.

Posted By YankeeBoy on 04/02/2007 6:41 AM
"Chaos are really good sellers, why give them even more attention? Surely working on ranges that don't sell well would increase profits?"

Uh, because that's the entire point of every business out there?

"Hey, Bill? These pizzas are selling off the shelves as fast as we stock them! Y'know what seems like a good idea? Stocking more brussel sprouts that nobody buys!" What?

Orks sold well for the first two edition when they were very fun to play.  When they neutered  them in the third edition and took away the fun/powerful aspect they lost a lot of players.  No support for the Orks  for a decade also makes people upset.  I myself would love to see a reintroduction of Pulsa Rokkits, the Shokk Attack Gun, and the great equalizer Bad Moon Nobz in Mega Armor .

Hey, it sucks to be an Ork player. That's the beginning, middle, and end of it. Ork players are getting screwed over by delaying their codex more.

But it's not like GW has set out to screw over Ork players -- they have a legitimate reason to do Chaos before Orks for the overall health of the game: Overpowered brokenness is more detrimental to the game than underpowered brokenness.

Posted By Dice Monkey on 04/02/2007 8:55 AM

Posted By YankeeBoy on 04/02/2007 6:41 AM
"Chaos are really good sellers, why give them even more attention? Surely working on ranges that don't sell well would increase profits?"

Uh, because that's the entire point of every business out there?

"Hey, Bill? These pizzas are selling off the shelves as fast as we stock them! Y'know what seems like a good idea? Stocking more brussel sprouts that nobody buys!" What?

Orks sold well for the first two edition when they were very fun to play.  When they neutered  them in the third edition and took away the fun/powerful aspect they lost a lot of players.  No support for the Orks  for a decade also makes people upset.  I myself would love to see a reintroduction of Pulsa Rokkits, the Shokk Attack Gun, and the great equalizer Bad Moon Nobz in Mega Armor .

I'll bet you Orks sold plenty well in 3rd Ed when the KoS rules came out and they were a stupidly good army.

Wonder how well that lines up, army power level vs. sales. 

Posted By Lowinor on 04/02/2007 9:01 AM
Hey, it sucks to be an Ork player. That's the beginning, middle, and end of it. Ork players are getting screwed over by delaying their codex more.

But it's not like GW has set out to screw over Ork players -- they have a legitimate reason to do Chaos before Orks for the overall health of the game: Overpowered brokenness is more detrimental to the game than underpowered brokenness.

I can see your point of veiw. And even understand it. But I feel that the fact that chaos is overpowered is less important that one of the leading 40K races is in such a shoddy state. I also see no need for new chaos sculpts. These are resources which could be put towards an Ork range. So they may not have set out to screw us over, but they are.
In an incredibly infuriating way.
Incredibly infuriating.
I'd write a letter or something but I think they're immune to guilt.

Oh, and sorry- less power armoured forces would be good for the overall health of the game in my opinion.

Given that I went though the Orky Pain this weekend of playing against a decent space marine army, I need to vent some more.

I don't even know exactly how the Orks are going to get revamped to make them competitive, even when GW gets to them.

It sure as hell isn't going to work that well as an assault based army that only moves 6" a turn. Templars don't even work like that and they have Power Armor and bonus movement for taking casualties! On the sad flip side, if they gave Orks fleet then we'd be too powerful (probably).

Even an all mounted KoS like army would need serious re-thinking compared to what it is now. Points costs, stats, everything is just plain off. Look at how well KoS does now for a pointer on just how bad it is.

What doesn't help matters are the "I like being uncompetitive" type mentality that a lot of Ork players have currently. With my luck GW will listen to the people asking to keep things largely the same in the codex and will screw the pooch on making the army competitive. I was considering sending a letter to Jervis via White Dwarf (he had a mailing address in one of the last issues) but I figure what's the point other to know I sent a letter asking "Have you people PLAYED a game of 40k with the Ork rules against a normal army?"

The most irritating thing for me is one line under the first entry in the book:
"Your army must include a Warboss"
So Orks are illegal in combat patrol then?
Idiot rule. You can't legally lead an ork army with a big mek or painboy either. Not even KOS.
But I think orks could be fixed really easily. Make 'eavy armour available to all troops except trukk boys.
Make mobs one entry.
Make choppas +1S instead of reducing saves (a completely stupid rule to my mind)
Then you get for 15 points a 4+ saves, S4 ork with a shoota that can fill any role. Or for 14 points a 4+ save slugga. It'd go a long way. Another idea would be a tellyporta that would let you deep strike a full sized mob of Orks onto the enemy.
They're easily fixed. And if by competitive you mean "has a chance against most armies" then I'm all behind you. Fleeting orks would be stupid though. Really, really stupid.

Posted By Da Boss on 04/02/2007 10:37 AM
The most irritating thing for me is one line under the first entry in the book:
"Your army must include a Warboss"
So Orks are illegal in combat patrol then?
Idiot rule. You can't legally lead an ork army with a big mek or painboy either. Not even KOS.
But I think orks could be fixed really easily. Make 'eavy armour available to all troops except trukk boys.
Make mobs one entry.
Make choppas +1S instead of reducing saves (a completely stupid rule to my mind)
Then you get for 15 points a 4+ saves, S4 ork with a shoota that can fill any role. Or for 14 points a 4+ save slugga. It'd go a long way. Another idea would be a tellyporta that would let you deep strike a full sized mob of Orks onto the enemy.
They're easily fixed. And if by competitive you mean "has a chance against most armies" then I'm all behind you. Fleeting orks would be stupid though. Really, really stupid.

'Eavy Armor Orks without Choppas acting as they are now? For 14 points? 

Dude 'Ard Boyz as they are now for 12 points a pop and real choppas (which'd be better) aren't worth it.  Sadly since they got rid of troop screening if it doesn't have a 3+ save it isn't worth it - too many weapons that "Aren't AP3" "Are AP4", which means you may as well not have a save.  It's a problem with the game and its the reason you see nothing but 3+ save units or stuff that has special rules or circumstances to mitigate their problems.

Orks don't have special rules or circumstances that mitigate their crappy saves. 

I don't even think I could have an honest discussion about ways to re-do the orks, because every time I think of something to fix them it either completely changes the context of the army, keeps them sucky, or makes them too good. 

It's going to take a rediculous amount of work, and sadly the more I think of this I realize that GW has to pull a hell of a Codex out of their ass if they want to make Orks an army I'm happy to use on the table top - especially after using other armies like Chaos, Marines, Tau, or even Necrons.

Posted By Voodoo Boyz on 04/02/2007 10:29 AM
Given that I went though the Orky Pain this weekend of playing against a decent space marine army, I need to vent some more.

I don't even know exactly how the Orks are going to get revamped to make them competitive, even when GW gets to them.

Bring back Pulsa Rokkits for one, having something that will stop all movement and shooting within 2d6 inches and randomly turn around and move vehicles would be a great plus to foot sloggers.  Improveing the screening rule for gretchin and giving them larger units (say 80 in a unit would give them enough of a meat shield to reach combat and fight.    Addin some fun things like a Shokk Attack Gunn and a Squig Catapult and you would get anarmy that is much more fun to play and have a great chance of jumping on an enemy before they can shoot you to ribbons.

I don't know what Pulsa Rokkits do, but if I'm firing them with BS2 models, then I don't see them doing a whole lot (but boy oh boy would I kill for something that could say always penetrate a skimmer, just because I'd love to F*** with Eldar, because I f$#@ing hate Eldar).

Grots, like KFF's won't do much when the vast majority of enemy units I'm weary of can move away from me and fire, and with the large number of shots and boyz mobs being expensive, a 5+ cover save = WHOOPTY DO.

If I want a 5+ cover save that won't go away I use a Big Mek with a KFF and stick him in the middle of a squad without joining the unit = untargetable 5+ cover save for 47 Points.  Guess what, it still sucks.

I pay 237 points for 20 Orks with 3 Rokkits, a Power Klaw Nob with the LD bonus. That's 3 points shy of a unit of 5 Terminators with 2 Assault Cannons. Tell me that the two are anywhere near equivalent.

Sure adding some shooting elements that don't suck would help things a lot, but if I'm at BS2 it's going to be a joke. I've done the whole "shooty Orks" thing and it's friggin laughable. You'd think 20 Flash Gitz with More Dakka and 4 Big Shootas would do a number on anything - except when they just kill 2 Marines, who laugh it off and keep shooting inflicting far more casualties, despite my "always on" 5+ cover save.

Maybe make the Grot/KFF save a 4+, that'd possibly help some more, but on the whole I'm becoming convinced that an army of assault troops who only move 6" a turn is doomed to languish forever. There's a reason that almost every other assault unit in the game has a movement bonus ala fleet.

Pulsa Rokkits never made a roll to hit you pointed them and rolled up to 12 d6 in that direction and moved it than rolled again for area of effect. It was completely random but when it hit it was devastating imagine a whole lot of space marines on their butts vehicles rolling off the board and skimmers crashing to their doom. They were also useful for demolishing buildings as if the building was in the pulse radius it came crashing down usually squishing all inside.

You also have to realize they changed the orks from a shooty horde army to a mediocre slow close combat army with nothing to help them get into combat (ala fleet 'nids).

it could be done. Ferals can be brutal. Make the clans vicious in a similar fashion for each clan.
-Ork landa rules
-The aforementioned return of shokk and squig.
-Ork stompas in regular games.
-Return of ork weirdboyz
-boost their strength and/or Initiative. Or make them cheaper (yes show us what a real horde is)
-Squiggoths
-fall forward leadership breaking rules.

Ferals were great because we got WS3 S4 2A Choppa Boyz for 7 points a pop, the Pig-Dok's with BS3 Rokkits and a 3+ chance to go to S5 for your Boyz didn't hurt either.

Oh that and Squiggoths with 3 Kannons at BS3, for 180 Points, that made things real nice. But of course it gave Orks a kill-all type army on the level of Chaos, Space Marines, and even Eldar. And thus it had to be squished. Still, that's the kind of thing that happens when Pete Haines starts playing Orks.

Exactly. Where there is a will there is a way. Orks have been known as being the ?wackiest? of the races, as well as the green tide. The clans could be modified such that each has strengths sufficient to make it a MEQ contender.

If we can think a few immediately, there shouldn?t be an issue here.

Snakebites (or whatever the cave ork type clan was)
-ferals with squig catapults, squiggoths, boars etc. I?d tone down the BS just slightly however, balanced by skullcrushing power and lots of infiltration opportunities. Mayhaps weirdboyz to give broad area cover saves. Import some more nice things from WFB for this army.

Speed freeks.
KOS. Add in a larger vehicle or two. OR give the basic buggy thingy an invulnerable or jink save of some sort to everything (sorry I haven?t seen them in so long I forgt what they do).

Black Skulls (the ones with the big teeth)
Lots of stuff. The most ?techie?. Give them pulsa rockets, shokk attack guns, some nice super heavies or super heavy ?lites?. Lots of cheap heavily armored units with BS3.

Goffs
The pounders. Multiple squadrons of cheap dreads and cans. Price discount on heavily armored nobs. Landa rules akin to a large pod for 40K (or whatever the Armageddon rules are) so they can deploy these Ork monsters swiftly into the enemy deployment zone.

The IG wannabees (I forget)
Looted IG vehicles. Rocket troops. Give them upgrades to have a plethora of BS 3 shooters.

jfrazell you mentioned something I forgot, Orks has a 6 + d6 strategy rating to represent the unpredictablility of Orkish action . So they went first more often than not.

well here is a classic exaple of the problem with orks


I haven't taken them outta the box in over 2 years- and only lurk on the forums here instead of my massive amount of posting on all issues-
basically the lack of support for orks has sapped my will to actively participate in the hobby

ah well- maybe i'll make a proper return soon

I dunno, orks can do well in a number of matchups, when played well. I, at the last minute, decided not to bring godzilla nids (with mietic spores) to the adepticon gladiator last weekend and took my freaks instead. I ended up in the top ten, including a massacre against the same godzilla list (with spores) that I'd been considering playing.

I do not disagree that the codex is horribly outdated, and needs some attention, as the 'successful' builds are very very restrictive, but to say orks can't compete is wrong. They can compete - but they need to focus on only a handful of the units in their codex to do so.

And I don't see bringing back wackyness as a solution either. To me, goofy has no place in the 40k universe, and orks should be scary, savage and barbarian. Maybe things can go wrong for them, but they're not clowns.


Potential Fixes:

1) Trukk boys don't suffer from entanglement when their rides blow up. This would give them a reliable delivery system, and allow the ork player to pick a couple of early fights, blocking up some fire lanes for other boyz to run through.

2) Make the warboss T5. And let him always have the option to ride a bike like the KoS one. T5 on my warboss (from the bike) made all the difference at adepticon, as all of a sudden, he could go toe-to-toe with chaplains, daemon princes, hive tyrants and the like. They'd put a couple wounds on my boss, and then I'd instant-kill them with my powerklaw (or just pound them down, in the case of tyrants).

That's really the only statline suggestion I'd have. Basic Orks are fine at S3 with choppas.

3) Give every mob the ability to bring a mek w/ a forcefield as well as a nob. That would do wonders. And make the field work like it did in 3rd ed, where all penetrating hits became glancing.

4) Reprice some of the wargear. Orks pay a lot more for their powerklaws than anyone else. And some of the wargear is just pointless now.

5) Remove some of the 0-1 limits. Why can't we have more than one battlewagon? Or more than one looted tank? These are the really fun things to convert anyhow. No other codex has more random unit limits. No more than two gun batteries... No more than two burna squads.

I'd support removing the caps on certain things except lotted tanks/vehicles. I'd give that as a particular clan. I'd rather see a plethora of orky vehicles and tanks coming at me then looted guard junk.  EPic has a range of orky armored vehicles to choose from which would add to the orky feel - gunwagons and flak wagons would be excellent.

 

 

Some orky codex thoughts.

Lots of the list should depend on the war boss.  Perhaps, setting up the warboss so he has to pick a clan and a "style" for lack of a better word.  So a warboss could be a Goff, and have "Da biggest and da meanest", allowing him to use Goff style units as troops but limiting his ranged options (being a goff), and giving him +1 S, +1 T, +1 W, but a -1 BS (style).  A style could either benefit the army, or just the boss.

Some obvious styles: feral, smarty (+1 bs for all models at 1pt/model), KOS, etc.  When clan and style mesh, you get a very specialized army, when they don't you get character.

Make Nobs a free bonus for any mob over 10-15, whatever seems appropriate.

Give all orks feel no pain on a 5+, and nobs and others on a 4+.

Grot mobs take up no space on the force org table.  Along the same line, standard mobs can be taken in any category...  up to 15 mobs of orks with grots!!!!  waaaaaggghhhhh  the GREEN TIDE

Orky scout units, perhaps Kommandos...  scout and infiltrate would be scary for them...

Make shootas useful, maybe 24" S6 AP- Rapid Fire and +1S in close combat (alla orgyn weapons), sluggas could then be S5 AP- pistols

Bring back SOME of the randomness, but not the comedy.  Maybe squads advance on a 1 on a d6 (like black rage).  Shokk attack guns would be ok, but they have to fit in standard rules, NO SPECIAL TABLE.  A few of the really powerful items could have Gets Hot! or something similar.

Kult of Speed works so long as there is a good amount of terrain on the table, and I do mean a good amount of terrain - not just in deployment zones, that block LOS, with some in the deployment zones too.

Without the terrain, the KOS will not function well seeing as Skimmer tanks (and speeders) can see over screening Buggies/Trukks due to the LOS rules.

A lot of these ideas sound nice, and if Orks are going to stay only moving 6" a turn with no movement bonuses it will take things like a 5+ FNP save with a Grot/KFF save.

Also giving us KFF's that force glancing hits would go a long way towards helping Ork vehicles stay competitive.

A simple fix for Orks would be to nick an idea from dawn of war and let meks have a weapon that automatically stuns vehichles.
I don't think orks need a big power up. Just a bit of one.As for the clans, I'd just leave them as are- Clans mix in tribes, you have goffs and blood axes and deathskulls and snakebites and bad moons and evil suns all in the same tribe fullfilling different roles.
Not purist clans.

I certainly didn't intend to imply unmixed clans.  Simply that a Goff war boss would have access to Goff Skar Boyz as troops instead of elites, meaning they would probably have more, and so on.  Maybe a loota boss (forgot which clan) would allow you to take lootas as whatever organization type they stole their gear from.