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What army is the best at beating Orks?

How many armies can beat down or shoot up 120+ Orks in 4 rounds (you only get in 4 turns when you play Orks).

So far my record against Orks is only 0-1-4. Since the new codex was released, I have only finished one of the games, and that was a tie.

What I really hate about the Orks is that only one of the losses would still be a loss if we got a full 6 turns in.

I would have won 2 and another game (against Redbeard) the outcome was still in doubt. At the end of 4 turns they either killed all of the units that they can get to easily and can now be shot up, or they were quickly running out of scoring units, or they were spread out over the objectives and will be thinned out enough to be counter attacked in the later rounds.

So what army can kill Orks the fastest?

Why are you only going 4 turns?


Tau give me problems with them being so shooty and being able to back up on assault phases. That stinks. Makes it hard to assault them.

This may seem obvious but Nid Zilla beats them in 3-4 turns. pump out enough worms and watch them fall. The Big plates from the sniper fex's help alot too.

Screen with stealers and by the time they get to your ranks the little bugs can mop them up.

Stealer shock works pretty well.

lots of armies are very good against orks. nidzilla with lots of high strength pie plates, certain dual lash chaos builds, necrons and IG do quite well. against horde armies you just have to put out enough fire power to kill at least one mob per turn idealy 2. against KoS armies the raw fire output you need is less but you need enough high stength attacks you take out trucks and at least mitigate some of the damage when the bikes charge you.

standard marine armies have a tough time against horde but find KoS easier (if they have enough Las/Plas squads). mech eldar have the same situation but can use their mobility to their advantage, same with DE.

it all depends on what army you play and your list composition. some list will be great against orks and some will be awful. just remember to always play a game until the end. a lot can happen in the last 2 turns so make sure you finish them all properly.

Any army can be tailored to kill orks, it's a matter of being able to -also- kill other things. I don't think the horde would work quite as well in a regular (non-titan-allowing) tournament because people wouldn't be so geared up to kill big things. When orks face a 400 point unit of 10 wraithguard who get one volley before being dragged down by powerfists, they're happy orks.

My teammate and I faced a 200+ ork army with Guard/Arbites in the team tournament. We lost one guy (plasmagunner who blew himself up) and they never got close enough to our lines to really be a threat.

I've played against them in RTTs with more-mechanized eldar than you ran in the gladiator and had no problems then either. Lots of S6 shots with timely drop-off shooting from Dire Avengers and two fire prisms made a mess of them.

Keys;
You should have at least one big template in your army. Fire Prisms are good for eldar. Big templates really force the ork player to consider the placement of their guys and spread out more than they want to. Against an army without templates at all, I'll put my guys into tight formations. Small blast templates are annoying, but big blast templates force the spreadout, and that means that I'm attacking over a wide area, which leads to the best key to beating orks:

You need to deploy really tight and let them to come to you. Refuse a flank, hunker down in a corner. Don't make the distance between you and them the 24" minimum that the mission allows for, make it the 40" that the table allows for. In the TT game we played, the only shots that we had in range on the first turn were the Russ's battlecannon and the two exorcist launchers.

That gives you some indication of how much space (and therefore time) we put between ourselves and the horde. They had to move for at least two turns before their rokkits were in range, and three turns before their shootas were. And, in the TT, they got two Waaagh moves (one-per-player) but still couldn't overcome that distance.

Obviously, you need multi-shot heavy weapons throughout the army. You can't bring nothing but lascannons and brightlances and have a chance.

Shoot one squad until there are 7 boyz left in a unit and they probably run. Unless they're going to assault you the next turn, move on to the next squad when you get one down to 7, and not before. It's vital that you focus fire and break units. If the entire damage output of your army is worth 23 boys, there's a good chance that you can drop one mob per turn if you focus fire. If you split those 23 casualties up between two or three different mobs, none are even taking break tests.

Rely on your troops for mass firepower. Dire Avengers are excellent at thinning out orks as they advance. Sisters/Marines with bolters are good too. Min-maxed las/plas squads are not. Even guardians work in a pinch - your 30 guardians were one of my biggest concerns in our game, because any model they killed would have to be taken from those who would be able to assault the next turn. If you can inflict enough casualties with guardians (and 30 firing should get you 10 orks) that there's no one within 12" it means you get to fire again the next turn.


Which armies do really well:

In my experience:

Non-mechanized Sisters have the guns and range to keep the horde at bay. Mech Tau and Mech Eldar (lots of skimmers, not just 3 falcons) both can give them pause, especially with hammerheads and fire prisms taking their toll (only to improve in 5th as well).

Dual-lash chaos rocks the orks too, as it can focus fire on one unit while forcing two other units back each turn, keeping the incoming threat to a managable size.

And, while I haven't played it, I'd imagine that destroyer-heavy necrons would own horde orks.

Centurian99 wrote:Stealer shock works pretty well.

The devourer flyrant really hurts orks, as long as you keep him out of range. (The guy I played got over-aggressive and I caught his tyrant on a waaagh turn) Oviously any gargantuan critter with a stomp attack is going to take its toll in a hurry. But I'm not sure that stealers do that well without that.

I haven't played your build, how do you cope with the volume of fire that the shoota boy mobs can put out?

Space marines can put more heavy bolters on the table than anyone. I imagine the old SM SAFH with HB and flamers in place of Las plas would do quite well. I would also add an Inq with gun servitors and an Emp Tarot to increase my chances of getting the first volley off.

Darrian

thedarksaint wrote:Why are you only going 4 turns?

I play in tournaments that are timed with 2 hour rounds. Setting up Orks takes a while, and then moving and shooting them slows the game. Maybe I will just deploy my whole army to quicken the set up.

Russell wrote:This may seem obvious but Nid Zilla beats them in 3-4 turns. pump out enough worms and watch them fall. The Big plates from the sniper fex's help alot too.

Screen with stealers and by the time they get to your ranks the little bugs can mop them up.

Centurian99 wrote:Stealer shock works pretty well.

Saturday I took a tame Tyranid list to an RTT and I went up against a KoS army. It was an escalation mission, so I wandered up in the beginning, and they charged forward and killed all of my troops. Then behind them I have a lot of TMCs with a 2+ save that were tearing them up with shooting in round 4. But then the game ended. I would have blown what few units that he left off of the table in rounds 5 and 6 if we were able to get that far, but at the end of 4 turns it was a minor loss for me.

Redbeard wrote:
My teammate and I faced a 200+ ork army with Guard/Arbites in the team tournament. We lost one guy (plasmagunner who blew himself up) and they never got close enough to our lines to really be a threat.

That is why everyone takes Snitrot and his band of kommandoes. A lot of armies can’t shoot up Orks when they have him rampaging through your army.

I've played against them in RTTs with more-mechanized eldar than you ran in the gladiator and had no problems then either. Lots of S6 shots with timely drop-off shooting from Dire Avengers and two fire prisms made a mess of them.

And in my experience, Lootas blow skimmers off of the table, so Mech Tau and Eldar have a lot of trouble with Orks (if they have lootas).

Redbeard wrote:
Keys;
You need to deploy really tight and let them to come to you. Refuse a flank, hunker down in a corner. Don't make the distance between you and them the 24" minimum that the mission allows for, make it the 40" that the table allows for. In the TT game we played, the only shots that we had in range on the first turn were the Russ's battlecannon and the two exorcist launchers.

Walking Orks are pretty slow, so you can set up at the back of the table and shoot them up. Two of the losses though were objective missions that you can’t get to. My Demonhunters blew the crap out of an Ork army, and I in rounds 5 and 6 I would have gone forward to claim the objectives but in round 4, I could not get out of my deployment zone. In our game Redbeard, you just had too much stuff for me to claim the objectives, and I needed those 2 turns of shooting to whittle you down some more.

Blackmoor wrote:
That is why everyone takes Snitrot and his band of kommandoes. A lot of armies can’t shoot up Orks when they have him rampaging through your army.

I've been on both the giving and receiving end of snikrot and his merry band. He's a chump - any sort of counter-assault unit will see him off and he'll cost you, at most, one turn of shooting. Don't get me wrong, that turn can be critical, but snikrot isn't some miracle worker. He's got 15 boyz with him, at most. Orks die fast these days, even in assault. Every army (barring Tau) has something that will drop that unit, whether it be eversors, rough riders, assault marines, or even stock chaos marines.

And in my experience, Lootas blow skimmers off of the table, so Mech Tau and Eldar have a lot of trouble with Orks (if they have lootas).

Lootas are good, but they're fragile as all hell. A unit of 15 will break more than half the time if you can put eight wounds on it, and many people run less than a full 15. IMO, Lootas are the #1 priority target in an ork army, even moreso than boyz closing on you, just because they are so dangerous, and also so fragile that it doesn't take a lot to run them off. Skimmers move&shoot, while lootas stand-still&shoot, so barring games without terrain, you should be able to get the drop on the lootas - even if it means eating a few rokkits the following turn - the risk of a handful of rokkits is necessary because, as you say, the lootas will down skimmers if given the chance. But the move&shoot on the skimmers means, at least until 5th ed renders them into turrets, that you should get the first shots there.

Walking Orks are pretty slow, so you can set up at the back of the table and shoot them up. Two of the losses though were objective missions that you can’t get to.

Well, you gotta run fast objective grabbers to at least contest them. I don't know how that's going to work in 5th ed.

I dunno, it is a hard army to beat, as you said, because there is, all at the same time, some really nasty shooting, a whole lot of stuff coming towards you, and the possibility of a kommando coming in on your back line, all of which consipiring to keep you off the objectives.

Centurian99 wrote:Stealer shock works pretty well.

Stealer shock with a Trygon you mean?

Entirely speculation here as I've not tried it, but how about necrons with a monolith phalanx. Use the big mofos to skimmer-wall your crons in and march on the objectives guns blazing. Orks should have a hard time bringing the 'liths down, especially when you're particle whip sniping the klaw nob out every chance you get.

A lot of people will cry foul at 3 monoliths, but horde orks are 'bringing it' why shouldn't you?

Redbeard wrote:

I've been on both the giving and receiving end of snikrot and his merry band. He's a chump - any sort of counter-assault unit will see him off and he'll cost you, at most, one turn of shooting. Don't get me wrong, that turn can be critical, but snikrot isn't some miracle worker. He's got 15 boyz with him, at most. Orks die fast these days, even in assault. Every army (barring Tau) has something that will drop that unit, whether it be eversors, rough riders, assault marines, or even stock chaos marines.

BEFORE or AFTER he murders a crucial unit that the orks cannot get to otherwise? Like an enemy loota squad, Reapers, etheral causing everything to break, guard command hq, the list goes on....

I dont understand how you can call such a tactically brilliant unit a "chump", thats ridiculous.

Noone has said anything about Eldar. I was going to say Scorpions with Fortune, but they get all those pie plates now, don't they. Seer Council with fortune?

But Ork boyz > Eldar Troop. Except maybe 4 man Spearlock squads which can do a suicide run and charge, probably get their points back at least.

And it is ALWAYS better to charge then get charged, especially against the orkses.

I would just charge them.

It's true regarding the templates. That and try to take advantage of their poor leadership when you can. They'll run, and they don't mob up anymore.

Deadshane1 wrote:
BEFORE or AFTER he murders a crucial unit that the orks cannot get to otherwise? Like an enemy loota squad, Reapers, etheral causing everything to break, guard command hq, the list goes on....

I dont understand how you can call such a tactically brilliant unit a "chump", thats ridiculous.

Because I playtested him, fairly heavily, before settling on my adepticon list and he didn't make the cut. Your millage may vary, of course.

Here's the thing; Assume your opponent is a good player, and assume that they're aware of what he can do. Given those parameters, it isn't hard for a static shooty army to deploy their firebase without any 'crucial' elements in a location that he can get to. You're facing orks, so you should already be deployed near the back of your deployment zone, to force them to cover the greatest possible distance. So, he shouldn't be able to come on right behind you. And, if you deploy your most-expendible units on the edges of your 'castle' you know what he's going to hit. Ok, so he murders a unit of tac marines. Or guardians. Or whatever. And then the counter-assault unit hits him and he breaks and he gets cut down, cause ork initiative is crap and he doesn't have enough boyz with him to hold up to a real assault unit, nor a bosspole.

Ok, I grant you, he's going to murder some armies. If guard aren't set up well, he'll run through them like butter. Tau should fall pretty easily too. But, against other armies, he's just going to hurt/tie up one expendible unit for one turn, before the countercharge wipes him off the table. And, he's going to mess with some player's heads. But, are they the ones I'm going to worry about? What's snikrot going to do to Centurion's army? I'd rather plan for facing him than the guy with 4 infantry platoons that snikrot will roll.

And, the pricetag on his unit is the same as on 30 normal boyz with a PK nob. My question, when running the horde, was "is this unit as generically useful, for its cost, as more boyz". Because, the key to a true horde army is outnumbering. Lootas are expensive. They're good, but considerably easier to kill than boyz (morale, not model deaths), for ~3 times the price. Stormboyz are good, but outrun the forcefield, and are twice the points. Snikrot, Lootas and Stormboyz all have their place, they're all good units, but after playtesting, with my style of play, I found that more boyz were better. They stood up to more fire, they didn't make my opponent's target selection easier for him.

I dunno. Maybe I'm wrong. But, like I said, I playtested all the 'hype' units (the aforementioned stormboyz, lootas and snikrot) rather than relying on theoryhammer, and I was underwhelmed by his performance, given my style of play.

Beat them by joining them.

Dark angles with their new 'you don't get cover saves hahaha' whirlwind would probably give orcs a real headache. The problem is that the army would suck against just about everything else.

Redbeard wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:Stealer shock works pretty well.

The devourer flyrant really hurts orks, as long as you keep him out of range. (The guy I played got over-aggressive and I caught his tyrant on a waaagh turn) Oviously any gargantuan critter with a stomp attack is going to take its toll in a hurry. But I'm not sure that stealers do that well without that.

I haven't played your build, how do you cope with the volume of fire that the shoota boy mobs can put out?

Generally, terrain & target saturation. I'm going to take at least 33% casualties on my way in, but if things go my way, at least half my genestealers make it into assault.

Actually, everyone's focused on the Trygon I used at AdeptiCon...personally, I think I could have gotten greater effect from dropping the trygon + lictor and taking more raveners and genestealers. He was really quite the underpreformer. About the most major thing he did do was draw fire for a turn...and then die.

Redbeard wrote:

Deadshane1 wrote:
BEFORE or AFTER he murders a crucial unit that the orks cannot get to otherwise? Like an enemy loota squad, Reapers, etheral causing everything to break, guard command hq, the list goes on....

I dont understand how you can call such a tactically brilliant unit a "chump", thats ridiculous.

Because I playtested him, fairly heavily, before settling on my adepticon list and he didn't make the cut. Your millage may vary, of course.

Here's the thing; Assume your opponent is a good player, and assume that they're aware of what he can do. Given those parameters, it isn't hard for a static shooty army to deploy their firebase without any 'crucial' elements in a location that he can get to. You're facing orks, so you should already be deployed near the back of your deployment zone, to force them to cover the greatest possible distance. So, he shouldn't be able to come on right behind you. And, if you deploy your most-expendible units on the edges of your 'castle' you know what he's going to hit. Ok, so he murders a unit of tac marines. Or guardians. Or whatever. And then the counter-assault unit hits him and he breaks and he gets cut down, cause ork initiative is crap and he doesn't have enough boyz with him to hold up to a real assault unit, nor a bosspole.

Ok, I grant you, he's going to murder some armies. If guard aren't set up well, he'll run through them like butter. Tau should fall pretty easily too. But, against other armies, he's just going to hurt/tie up one expendible unit for one turn, before the countercharge wipes him off the table. And, he's going to mess with some player's heads. But, are they the ones I'm going to worry about? What's snikrot going to do to Centurion's army? I'd rather plan for facing him than the guy with 4 infantry platoons that snikrot will roll.

And, the pricetag on his unit is the same as on 30 normal boyz with a PK nob. My question, when running the horde, was "is this unit as generically useful, for its cost, as more boyz". Because, the key to a true horde army is outnumbering. Lootas are expensive. They're good, but considerably easier to kill than boyz (morale, not model deaths), for ~3 times the price. Stormboyz are good, but outrun the forcefield, and are twice the points. Snikrot, Lootas and Stormboyz all have their place, they're all good units, but after playtesting, with my style of play, I found that more boyz were better. They stood up to more fire, they didn't make my opponent's target selection easier for him.

I dunno. Maybe I'm wrong. But, like I said, I playtested all the 'hype' units (the aforementioned stormboyz, lootas and snikrot) rather than relying on theoryhammer, and I was underwhelmed by his performance, given my style of play.

Well, if you figure Adepticon....

Neal Cauley's orks (the ones who won the invitational) had a full snikrot unit.

So did Marc Parkers and he came close to a gladiator win with what seemed to me a close game against Bill Kim (centurian99), again, full snikrot unit.

DaBoyz won DaTeamz tourney and their team featured Snikrot as well in one of the lists.

Seems to me that Snikrot had a pretty darn good weekend, I doubt all those good players are into wasting points.

I dont think anyone can logically deny that the unit is tactically awesome.

(sorry if I'm derailing the thread a bit)

Deadshane1 wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:Stealer shock works pretty well.

Stealer shock with a Trygon you mean?

I've really got to write up the batreps. Like I said to Redbeard - the trygon really didn't do much. IIRC:

Game 1 - comes in turn 2 (praise the Lictor), scatters off target into the middle of nowhere. Takes three wounds from obliterators shooting. charges obliterators, fails to hit/wound. Obliterators use powerfists to kill Trygon.

Game 2- Doesn't come on - opponent concedes beginning of turn 3 as he realizes I've only got to kill 2 or 3 more necrons to force phase-out.

Game 3 - Comes on turn 2 (praise the Lictor), stomps 5-6 orks, dies to massed Ork firepower (kannons, lootas, shootas)

Game 4 - Comes on turn 4, stomps 5-6 orks, dies to massed Ork firepower (kannons, lootas, shootas).

His most major advantage is simply the Ravener brood that comes in from reserve using his DS point as a board edge. That's the most dangerous thing he does.

Snikkrotts great against an army that plans to sit back and shoot up an Ork mob. he was essentially useless against my army, because I was assaulting the Orks.

Centurian99 wrote:Snikkrotts great against an army that plans to sit back and shoot up an Ork mob. he was essentially useless against my army, because I was assaulting the Orks.

And that's what I found too. That against some armies, he was effectively useless or had marginal effect. I don't deny that he had a good weekend, although an interesting question to ask might be, would Marc still have won the games he won without Snikrot, and, whether trading him out for something else (more boyz) would have helped Marc when he fought against Bill?

Lash is useless against some armies (mech eldar) and very tactically flexible, providing near auto-wins in many cases, and it only costs a tenth of what Snikrot's unit costs. That's an auto-include. I don't think Snikrot is an auto-include unit. And, on that, I'll try to stop derailing the thread too

WC_Brian wrote:
Beat them by joining them.

Never!!

I also don't play MEQs which seem like they do well against the Orks.

I have been trying to come up with lists that do well against both Orks and MEQs and it is hard to make a list that can take them both on. Especially a list that can kill both Orks and Necrons.

I think certain builds of IG can give orks a good run. The 1850 list I am testing for the Necro has pounded my ork opponents. Does 120-130 orks count as a horde? LOL. Massive amounts of templates, multi shot weapons do wonders. The other little thing I think works great is GK terminators. They easily dispatch orks with ease. Clearing the kill zone and protecting yourself from PK attacks is rather easy with them. They are loads better than standard terminators for fighting orks. In 5th edition, this will be more difficult. But I plan on switching back to my dual LRC Templar list then. LRC crusaders are going to be awesome in 5th. Especially when I am delivering Templars into the heart of an ork horde. The shooting combined with the close combat will make an effective one-two punch.

Capt K

I think Grey Knights in general do well against horde style armies. They all have storm bolters and the psycannon/incinerator is murder on hordes. Orks have a real problem dealing with AV14 hence the LRC effectiveness against them.

Grey Knights have an additional advantage in assault with True Grit and that wonderful S6 which is absolutely going to cut through Greenskins like butter. Of course, they'll be outnumber 4:1.

Teleport Attack Squads or Terminators can drop into the back field and mulch up some Lootas. Tank Shocking LRCs with charging Terminators backed up with inquisitors shooting psycannons makes for a bad day for orks.

Don't forget the holocaust. Especially come 40K 5, with free countercharge, holocaust is going to be worth its weight in gold.

I played Neil's orks in the finals at the invitational and he won our game narrowly, primarily due to Snikrot coming in at just the right moment. Against someone who is mowing down your field crossers Snikrot is worth his weight in genestealers.

I'd say Necrons, in answer to the original question are an excellent anti-Ork force. Massed Destroyers + Immortals make a mockery of Ork footslogging advance, backing up as fast (or faster) than the boyz advance, C'tan sort out their hardest combat units and the Monolith is very hard for them to handle. The crons are also better able than most to weather the endless saves that shoota boyz and lootas force, and quite capable of stopping the AV 14 blitz if that's how they are playing it.

This is not to say that the Crons have an edge vs. Orks, I think that a great Necron list and a good Ork list can have roughly an even game. I'm just so impressed by the new Orks that I think this is the best that can be done vs. them.

Another idea would be twin-lash chaos, piling them up for pie plates and shoving them back/out of cover.