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So, I had my first game on Sunday at Adepticon Championship... it was against a footslogging ork army. I actually play orks, a horde with over 150 models and refuse to play it in a competitive enviroment as it makes people misserable. Sunday the dice rolling was rediculous. Like 60+ dice per hit and 30 wounds then saves, etc... took FOREVER. Several CC's going on at the same time with misc Initiatives on IC's, squads and whatever... OMG! Its was a mess. I must admit my opponent really was less familiar with orks than I was, so most of the time I had to hold his hand and guide him into beating me to get the game moving along. TURN 4... GAME OVER. I was playing for a 6 round game and was unable to finish my plan.. lost the game... boo hoo... I have lost games before... nothing new there... BUT, the nature of the horde, especially FEARLESS ORKS makes it totally opponent unfriendly.

WHAT A MESS!

So... My question is this... how, in a tourne setting, does a CC army, Especially ORKs, finish a game in a timely manner without just moving all the models in a pile... and make CC a sloppy mess?

What army were you playing? If you were taking fast turns as well then there is little to be done. Sometimes people have to look up their unit's stats, and that would slow things down. Being an encyclopedia for the rolls to hit/wound, and being vocal about them would speed things up:
"You need 4's to hit. Ok, now 4's to wound, and I get these saves."
"Thats an assault 2 gun, so roll 30 dice, hitting on fives."

Simply put, some people shouldn't attempt to play horde armies in a tournament setting. It'd be more fair if 20 minutes were allocated per player turn, but things don't roll like that.

The ironic thing was that I was playing orks... HOWEVER, I was playing the nightmare nobz. I only had 56 orks... IN TRUKKS... everything was made SUPER fast. Only 5 scoring units...

I litterally was like "hit on 4's... wound on 5's... No, they get 4 attacks on the charge. My WS is ... etc... "

I had to show him how lobba's works... IN HIS ARMY. "just place this thing here... and i will pick up what you kill... SUPER."

He just had WAY too many units for his level of play. Stuff was everywhere doing stuff so each turn was so SLOW. I would move up... that was pretty much my turn. Trukk would blow up... then they boyz got out... back to his turn... Rinse Repeat. Turn 4 I made contact. Game over. Game over Litterally.

As this was my first round... it really soured my games the rest of the day.
It is tough to shake that off.

Sounds like the problem was the player not the army.

For me, I have about 8 to 10k in orks, and sometimes take out a footslogger force. For a tourney setting, I'd use the spiffy skirmish style trays I got from GaleForce 9. Big wooden ovals with cut outs for the bases of my orkies, spaced about 1.5 inches apart. I base them the same as my army, makes setup quite easy. They come in 10,15,20,25 or 30. John will probably cut just about anything you need. When I requested some larger ones, he had no problem knocking them out. Once I get to assault range I move the boys off the trays.

you finish it in a pool of your own blood.

mikhaila's got a good suggestion. Something else is both players co-operating to move the armies so that it isn't just one person moving all the Orks one at a time.

Well, Redbeard took 200-odd orks to Adepticon and he seems to have finished (or all but finished most of his games, so I'd say it's the player. As you said, the amount of stuff he had to do was just beyond his level of play.

It's definitely a challenge, especially for less experienced players but it is do-able if both players concentrate on making their movement and shooting choices as quickly as possible.

I watched Mark Parker play some of his games for a few minutes and he has a pretty good style where he just measures for the front models in the unit and then just 'shoves' the back models forward into roughly the right position.

I'm sure here and there a few models are getting (or not using) a little extra movment but for the most part the important movement (the front of the unit) is being properly measured.

Obviously if the Ork player's opponent is taking his time as well when moving and shooting then it really doesn't matter, the game just isn't going to go the full distance.

Keldrin wrote:Simply put, some people shouldn't attempt to play horde armies in a tournament setting.

Agreed, but some people are pretty proficient with their armies and can handle it.

In third ed I used to play against a buddy who had a huge 200+ gaunt swarm that he was very quick with. 6 rounds with time to spare and walk around while others were finishing their games.

All said, if you dont feel like you can handle it without becoming the player who basically stalls out your opponent due to your poor and slow manuevers, then dont bring a horde army.

Because thats all you are accomplishing, is stalling.

I read Redbeard's report and was blown away by those numbers... I should have seen it coming when placing each model was tough for him. I was like "they are orks bro... put them up front, pull em back and release!"

I suppose it was even worse that I knew I was having an uphill struggle from the begining and really had to "work" at a plan to beat a guy that was out of his element.

FYI, turns out he had 2 squads of 24 Ard boys and lost his points for the game... To be completely honest, the ard boys really were not the problem... again, the speed of play was just terrible.

I find a dice cup/bucket works great for when you're running the new Orks and need to roll a ton of crap very quickly.

The whole "move the front ones and push the back ones" thing also works out.

I've also seen mikhaila and his trays and may end up going that route if/when I build my shooty Ork horde for tournament use.

The first time I took my Tyranids to a GT (2001), I struggled to complete games. I think I ended up with three draws that would have been wins if I had one more turn. I remember calculating that it could have been a top 3 finish (I think I finished 12th).

The next year, I built movement trays and practiced playing quickly and didn't have any problems completing games. Although I did find the trays helped me the most during deployment. I often had to remove them from the trays early on due to fleet rolls creating traffic jams and such.

A couple of things I used to help speed things up (I think I got at least 5 turns each game).

1) IF you're running a horde, you know your guys only move 6". Get something six inches long and use it, instead of a tape measure to do your movement. It's really easy for both you and your opponent to see. I used the GaleForce 9 blue movement thing they handed out to everyone at Adepticon last year. That also makes it really obvious to your opponent that you're not cheating movement, so that's a good thing.

2) For the love of god, do something so you can tell your mobs apart easily. I had each mob coloured like a different ork clan. You can see from the pictures (in the thread linked above) which boyz are in which mobs. That saves a lot of time.

I had two mobs (goffs and blood-axes) that were too similar in colour, so I made a point to deploy them on opposite sides of the field.

3) Know what you're playing with so you don't need to waste time looking up rules, or questioning things. Also, you have a ton of models to lose, so don't nitpick at your opponent's moves, that just slows stuff down. If he sneaks an extra inch movement or range here or there, it's not a big deal, it isn't like you're running an elite force here.

4) Don't skimp on the placement. Getting the forcefield mek in the right place, and having all the mobs protected by him is crucial to the army working. So, do take the time to make sure you get that right.

5) Just get used to playing fast. Know your stuff, know your opponent's. Keep things simple. Rokkits can hurt anything, so point and click and see if they work.

6) Powerklaws can hurt anything. Often, with my opponent's OK, we'd skip the boyz attacks and go straight to the powerklaw in combat, to see if we even need to roll the boyz. Orks initiative is so bad that you're pretty much going after your opponent anyway, so let them take their attacks, then roll your powerklaw, then the boyz. Of course, there are times when this isn't right (if he has a chance to pull models to deny your claw, for example), but if you're in combat with a hive tyrant, it's either still alive or its dead and it makes no difference if it's the nob's 4 attacks or the boyz 30 that drop it.

7) Be friendly, but keep things moving. While I'd have liked to take more pictures during the games, I think that's not appropriate when you're short on time. I only really took deployment photos - after that, just concentrate on playing the game.

That's my tips.

I played footslogging orks in 2003 at the Chicago and Columbus GTs. At Chicago, I did a poor job of quickly moving through turns and was called for it (by a friend I played at the tourney). I learned to play faster, think faster, and act faster. I did the "measure the first row and fill in" movement. At Columbus, I ticked off a DA player who was taking his time deciding which mob of boyz or grotz to shot with his 6 lascannons. Because on turn 6, I would have his whole army into melee, and I asked him,
"Can you please hurry up your turn, I really need to get to turn 6 to have a chance to win?"
"I'm try to decide on my plan."
"You have 6 lascannons left. Shoot them at anything. There's a bunch of orks that are all the same left."

Getting in six turns with a horde army can be done, but you have to practice at it, just like you do anything else.

It really helps if you blast the orks away at a terrific rate. In the finals at the invitational I was up against the footslogger Ork horde, and the game really speeded up once I burned them down.

More seriously:

In my experience the killer isn't the Horde's movement, it's picking out all the dice to roll for shooting. Encourage the Ork player to have 3 piles for his lootas (pick up all 3 if they get a good round, 1 on a bad round, etc.), and one for his shoota/big shoota units, with different colored dice for each one. If necessary bring your own dice to lend him. You are doomed to a short game if he starts rolling in flights and maintaining a count of hits, wounds, etc.

Fortunately the Orks are a late-game weighted army, so he's probably your ally in terms of trying to get all 6 turns in.

And it isn't horde armies. I heard a few players didn't make it through the turns very quick just because they are very slow players. Not exactly stalling, just not fast reacting.

The very reason I like smaller forces is that it is less things for me to think about... I can see how dealing with tons of models/variables make for a slow go.

Redbeard, could you start an Article about how to play quickly with a horde army? You definitely have the credentials for it!

I saw a guy at a tourney with a footsloggin' ork army with oodles of grots. He had the grots on the gf9 bases to move them faster. He also timed himself with a stop watch so he could keep up with how fast he was moving. He prided himself on getting in all 6 turns. He also used the stop watch to keep his opponents moving. He said if he could move all those orks in so many minutes, the other guy should be able to finish his turn in the same amount of time.

The Khorne player I played had a clock with him... I found it funny that my turns went faster than his and I was playing orks (NOBS... but orks)! Does not take too long when you only have 5 scoring units!