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Was looking to start a new army come this Christmas...and I choose Ork

I'm fairly good at playing Eldar already and somewhat with Chaos...but Ork has a crazy codex lol >.> A lot of the units just scream "WOW that's really iffy" ...well pretty much the whole codex screams that...along with WAAAGH!

Anyone care to show a sample list that would be good for getting started? Or an overview of the most popular/uselful units and not so great ones or some strategies/tactics that I should be aware of?

Thanks. =)

I thought the Dakka Dakka Ork Tacktica article was a pretty good description of the units. From the rules, it doesn't sound like 5th edition changed any of the units a whole lot.

I think the main two ways to play in 5th edition seem to be a Speedfreek army with lots of transports or a swampy army filled with shooting units. Technically you can take a 5 dred or 2 dred and 9 killa kanz army. That is a lot of walking dreads but I am not sure that list is viable.

Also, Warboss on a Bike seems to be king too. And a Powerklaw on any character that can take it.

Find a friend who plays marines, you and him both buy the new 60$ boxed set and then swap your marines for his orks.

Also the green tide box set should be on sale now (100 orks and a warboss for 175$) Not too bad. Try and find some cheap lootas they're just way to useful to not take. Find something you love about the army and work with it. This won't help you win, but it makes the game worth playin.

I don't waste my time with tournaments, so I have the opportunity to field fun stuff instead of always optimizing to the Nth degree.

I like a core of Boyz (3 to 4 units) supported by Lootas and perhaps a Kanon Battery. Some fast units like Bikers with Biker Boss, Meganobs in a Trukk and a Dethkopta to do some early harassment. A few walkers to go along with the Boyz and either a Big Mek with KFF or a SAG jus for the fun factor.

The world is pretty much your oyster if you don't go to tournaments IMO.

there is so much you can do with orks they dont really have a standard build. it depends what you want to do really. you can do shooty, kult of speed (mechish), horde or any variation there of.

a good way to start is to get a mek, a few big mobs of boys or trukk boys (depending on taste), some lootas and some storm boys. thats a pretty good beginning that gives you some good shooting and great combat ability.

with orks you have to remember that they are a lot cheaper than almost every other army (appart from nobs, theyre more expensive), so you can have loads of them. a shoota boy looks rubbish on his own, but when there are 25 of them for the same cost as a marine tactical squad, it looks a lot better. almost everything in the codex is playable to some degree (which doesnt happen very often) so you can have a lot of variety. basically just pick some stuff that you like and play with it. chances are it will do ok.

I like Ghazkull and 5 nobs with 4 big choppas and a pk in a battlewagon supported by lootas, loads of boyz, and a shokk attack gun

hope that helps

the sag and lootas are awesome in a game against nids i took ddown an unwounded hive tyrant in 1 turn with 5 lootas and 1 big mek and didnt roll double 6s for strength

Pesonally, I would avoid SAG mek. I had always taken it, but I more or less just realized how useless it was. It can get very lucky, so if you want something that is very hit or miss (most likely miss), but has a big payoff, it is one of the better choices for that. Also, now in 5th, you need to stick it in a squad or it will die... quickly, and it will most likely be giving out cover saves as well.

Anyway, I like going with the mob approach (for now), as I have just got enough to run it, and will soon get more with the black reach set. If your troops are all mounted, then you really want to have your whole army mounted or on something that moves fast, except for possibly a squad of grots that could stay behind to hold an objective.

If you have footslogers, you can chose most other options. You could get a fast branch of your army that will do some damage, and probably take some fire off of your boyz, or you could get some big gunz or walkers for slow fire support.

I disagree about the SAG

if you're choosy about your targets.. the AP2 and usually 6-8 str is plenty enough damage

the odds of rolling the doubles isn't that bad. and they can hurt them just as bad as they can hurt you so whatever.

mine has earned an uge pile o teef. biggest kill to date.. abadon and his entire retinue (rolled boxcars and a hit on the scatter) 600 points or so down the tubes the very turn they deepstrike in.. priceless.

NaZ

I love Kans. So cheap with big shootaz...just remember they are grots, and will do most of their kills with shooting. Battlewagons full of Meganobz will just clean up anything they come across.....unless it's 5 Support IG with a Demo Charge (BAH! Happened in my last game, wiped out a squad of 6 MANZ with a 10 point demo charge. Embarrassing!). Deffrollas are fun AND killy! Lootaz....point their guns at things, then those things dissapear. I have also seen Flash Gitz mutilate everything they point their guns at as well. Don't believe the hype about Orks having bad shooting, it's just hype!

Well, everything everyone has said is good, and Voodoo's tactica is great too.
Here's my thoughts.
Footsloggers- Generally works around a bunch of 30 strong mobs with force field toting big meks. Sometimes lootas or something to add some firepower. The reason you want 30 strong is to keep them fearless for longer, and provide albative wounds for your Nob- ork boys die really fast to any shooting. Usually a high model count army that tries to maximise the impact of the sheer number of bodies- most balanced forces won't be able to kill that many boys, and their anti tank is totally wasted points. Shootas used to be king, but with Run in 5th Sluggas could be used too. If you are using sluggas though, it might be an idea to save some points and drop out the heavy weapons- they're just going to be running the whole time anyway. I've played and had success with this list but I don't like it. It's samey to play with, frustrating to play against, and it's a pain to keep track of and run.

Kult of Speed:
This is what I enjoyed running in 4th. Not as powerful as the footsloggers some argued, but I thought it had potential, and was certainly much more fun. The idea is based on tonnes of trukk mobs. 6 Trukk mobs, a biker boss, a trukk of meganobs and some lootas was roughly how I ran my list, with a few buggies and maybe a looted tank for fun. It swamped the enemy with mobile powerklaws and masses of boys, and generally did very well against a wide range of opponents provided there was enough cover on the table. If the table was sparse (or 85% size 2 difficult terrain as happened to me in one badly run tournement), you generally got shot out of your trukks and defeated piecemeal. Still, I had some great games with this list against Guard, marines and Mech Eldar, and nidzilla hates it.
I think in 5th it's much less good. All those trukks and small units give up lots of kill points, the changes to LOS make it much harder to hide your trukks, and the changes to combats make it much harder for small ork mobs to win, and if they do win, they are pretty screwed next turn unless you managed to pull off a simultaeneous assault, which is tricky.

A popular list for 5th that I have seen is battlewagon rush. Good if you like converting (I don't).
Basically, 3 battlewagons or similar with 20 strong boys mobs in them, and maybe some stormboys. The wagons are kept cheap with deff rollas and just steam forward and smush enemies. HQ could be a PK boss on bike or a mek for cover saves for the tanks. Variants include taking as many wagons as possible by taking Nobs squads and using the dedicated transport rules.
I only own two battlewagons at present, and I find converting to be a chore so I probably won't run this until GW finally get off their fat, lazy arses and release a plastic battlewagon kit instead of another marine recut/uprgrade sprue/pointless remake of an existing unit in plastic. (I'm not bitter at all, no sir)

The list I currently run looks like this:
HQ:
Warboss with powerklaw, attack squig and warbike.

Elites:
10 Lootas

Troops:
10 Nobs with 'eavy armour (+4), mad dok (feel no pain) Waagh banner (+1 Ws), Bosspole and one powerklaw.

30 Sluggas with powerklaw nob and 3 rokkits.

30 Shootas with powerklaw nob and 3 big shootas.

Fast Attack:
20 Stormboys with powerklaw nob and bosspole.

Heavy Support:
Battlewagon with deff rolla, armour plates and 2 big shootas (Nobs go in here)

Kind of a balanced combined arms army. Has the warboss for tough targets, the nobs for stuff that orks have trouble with like Khorne chaos or marine vets, 2 big mobs to do what big mobs do, stormboys to threaten and tie up and a battlewagon for antitank and transportation. Not too many models, so I won't get too pissed in the movement phase. Works pretty well in 4th or 5th. Probably weak against very focused lists.

I'm not a mad big tourny player or anything, but that's my outlook on playing orks.
There are some wackier builds, like nob bikers as troops or nobs and meganobs as troops, but they are kinda one dimensional and easy to beat.

I'd like to give you some feedback here.

I've been playing kult of speed since codex armageddon came out.. and never looked back.

by the time 30 boyz cross the distance that a trukk can cross in 2, their down to 15 boyz or so anyway. might as well take a mob of 12 and throw them in a trukk.

now this doesn't apply if you have like 120-150 boyz of the field.. if you really feel like painting that many knock yourself out.

the regular nobz.. I dunno. I have a mob of nobz and a mob of MANZ.. and I've honestly been doing better with the MANZ. I run a mek with a KFF w/ them in a battlewagon.

your wagon needs only:
red paintjob, grot riggers, extra armor, 1 big shoota
dont forget your deffrolla!! damaging piece of wargear that cannot be wpn destroyed? yes please!

warbiker boss has always served me well. rock on!

10 lootas.. bump this up to 12-15 so you have room to take casualties and still roll on LD 10.

stormboyz have been mediocre for me in 5th. too damn expensive dispite their movement. but then again I play trukk mobs so everything of mine moves like crazy.

NaZ