Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I am going to be playing my orks against eldar eventually and I really don't know what to be using against them. My army basically consists of 5 units of 30 orks, 2 units of 20 stormboyz, 1 big mek with kff and a warphead. From fisrt sight I look at swooping hawks and know that they will be destroying my orks. Other than that I don't know much else about what eldar can do to an ork horde army. If anybody can post any tactics that work against eldar than it would be appreciated. This is mostly for 5th edition rules which is probably when my friend and I will have our armies finished. He's a big fan of the warp spider, wave serpent, and swooping hawk models so he'll probably be using those, but anything can change. I'm basically looking for general ork vs. eldar tactics. I was considering dropping 1 boyz unit and getting 2 10 loota units.

The lootas will be important for taking down falcons. Orks may be the scariest opponent for an Eldar player. You will be able to swamp his infantry with boyz, and although he will kill some with harlequins, mass shuriken and template weapons, you'll easily be able to overrun him if you can hit him with your horde. The problem will be catching him. If his units stay in their transports, you will absolutely need a way to destroy the transports.

I haven't play tested the rumored 5 ed. rules -- partly because I'm a bit dissatisfied with them, and partly because I think it is highly likely that there will be significant differences between what we have seen and what we will finally get -- but I imagine that this advice should be applicable in 5 ed. as well as 4 ed.

Hawks lack punch, so don't sweat them. You should mostly be worried about skimmers, pinning weapons against your smaller units (lootas and tankbustas) and countercharges from Scorpions. Take out the skimmers with Lootas (or just shake them if he has more than 2 skimmers). use a unit of shoota boyz to whittle down anything like Hawks or Avengers that may shoot and evade you.

The Spiders will shoot you hard, but lack the numbers to take a 30-strong horde down with a round of shooting. Although they have Withdraw, if you catch them with Stormboyz with a powerklaw, they should be either dead or fleeing shortly.

Eldar fear Orks, indeed.

Lootas and Kannon batteries. Your biggest worries against eldar should be their transports/vehicles moreso than their infantry.

Their infantry tend to be low-numbered and specialized and if are surrounded by enough orks will get smothered.

The kannons and lootas are the best our army has to offer against annoying skimmers like that and are the perfect strength/quantity to deal enough glancing hits to take those bastards down.

Thanks for the replies. I had been lead to believe that it was the other way around with orks fearing eldar, but now I see how a basic large unit of orks can drastically outnumber eldar's low numbered specialist elites. As I currently do not have any lootas in my list, is there anything that would be alright to drop for 1 or 2 units of 10 lootas? As mentioned I have a warphead, big mek, 2 units of 20 stormboyz, 5 units of 30 boyz, and a deffkopta. All the units have nobs with bosspoles. I was thinking of dropping a full unit of boyz and a deffkopta for 20 lootas, but I'm not sure if that will take away from my horde strengths.

It sounds like you will need a dependable firebase to take down the skimmers...

10 Lootas will not be a consistent firebase.... one unit shooting at it could cause 3-4 wounds which is a test you will more than likely fail
then all your points are completely wasted

I would work your points to only take Lootas in 15 to max out their return for you

either one or two units will be ok... 2 units would be better, (I think 3 large mobs work just fine) but if you really want to go with the large horde, then keep it to 1 unit of 15 and throw some rokkits in the mobs to help with the antitank


don't forget, that the lootas aren't just good for skimmers, they can really put the hurt to infantry, and with eldar, you could wipe out whole units

by the way, mobs of shootas will work pretty well with a large horde... just make sure you have rokkits in with the sluggas, so you aren't forced to waste the shootas shots just to take down the skimmer

I have eldar, and am starting an ork army, and I dread the thought of facing an ork horde with my eldar... yikes

The thing with eldar is that they can have the right tool for any job. The problem with eldar is that they don’t always know what the job is before hand. Right now the power build armies are things like mech eldar and nid zilla. Mech eldar is good at taking on most other armies and it is very difficult for most other armies to deal with. The thing is that orcs are a new player on the field and lots of people don’t yet know how to deal with them. An eldar army can be kitted out fairly easily to demolish orcs (or any other opponent really) but it has to be designed that way from the start. Warp spiders and (to a larger degree) swooping hawks are units that are generally not all that great in the grand scheme of the eldar army. However they are really good units for dealing with orcs, so don’t dismiss them out of hand. If your friend is making an army to take on all comers, swooping hawks are going to be more of a liability than help. On the other hand, if he knows that he’s going to be fighting orcs most of the time, they will probably help him out a lot. All in all though, so long as you guys are not specifically designing your armies to kill each other, you will probably find your forces fairly well balanced.

Why does everyone think Hawks are so great versus Orks? S3 weapons, even with continuous fire at medium range, just aren't that helpful. Closing in more to Intercept is suicide. The grenade template isn't a big deal. So why the praise?

I'd say _do_ take Spiders seriously, as ignoring them means lots of S6 shots every turn. Just try to catch them in ways that will further your advance. If your opponent is flanking you with them already, don't turn back to chase them though. Just get stuck in, and hit them with an opportunity charge if they're left opne to one.

The big things you will need to survive are Bladestorms, Striking Scorpion countercharges, and S6 shooting on your way in.

Lootas are a very good idea if you expect to see skimmers at all. Heck, they're useful period.

Savnock wrote:Why does everyone think Hawks are so great versus Orks? S3 weapons, even with continuous fire at medium range, just aren't that helpful. Closing in more to Intercept is suicide. The grenade template isn't a big deal. So why the praise?

While strength 3 weapons are not great, they are BS4 and get 2 shots at 24" each turn. Combine this with the fact that they move 12" means that slugga boys can't hurt them because they will never be in range to do so. Shoota boys on the other hand can (if they get lucky or the hawk player gets slopy) so its not fool proof. The bombs are unreliable at best and there isn't any point in taking intercept (I don't think anyone here has yet to advocate it) so no need to consider either of those options really. Heck, there isn't really any good reason to take the exarch at at all. Just keep the hawks out of sight of the lootas and plink away at the orcs till they die.

While strength 3 weapons are not great, they are BS4 and get 2 shots at 24" each turn. Combine this with the fact that they move 12" means that slugga boys can't hurt them because they will never be in range to do so. Shoota boys on the other hand can (if they get lucky or the hawk player gets slopy) so its not fool proof.

This is quite the understatement. 24" = range of lasblasters = 18" + 6" = effective range of shootas. The only time you won't get shot at is when you judge the distance absolutely flawlessly and you roll well enough to pick off the models that are in range. Oh, and you better hope he doesn't have special weapons, too.

All in all, a terrible plan.

Leave the Hawks on the shelf (nothing new there), or yo-yo them. All they will achieve on the field is a messy death.

The problem I find is that 2 S3 shots at BS4 vs T4 = 4/9.
2 S4 shots at BS2 vs T3 = 4/9.

So that's equal chance. If you have 4+ armour save then Hawks are twice as good in shooting as shoota boyz. Thing is... shoota boyz are 6pts....

Those nasty mobile heavy flamer warlock types were pretty nasty in conjunction with tank shocking falcons in my experience. I still won the game, but one decisive turn by the eldar player almost swung it for him. One of the most exciting games of 40K I've played in ages.