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I told a friend of mine that I started playing 40k, and he instantly ran out to buy an army. I appreciate his enthusiasm, and I'm looking forward to having a new opponent. I'm on a 100% win streak since I began playing a month ago, but the only players I've played against are my kids and some neighborhood kids that have a Warhammer club going at school. Not to shrug off their mAd skEELz, but I don't get the impression that any of them have read the rule book, and they haven't spent any time working on tactics. Just basic "build an army, stand, fire, hope you win" kind of battles so far. The greatest challenge I've dealt with to date is my son, which I've dug up tactics sheets for. His FoF has proven a good challenge, but still beatable.

We're playing very small point limit due to kids having limits on the amount of funds they can dump into their armies.

So my friend went with nids, and went got suggestions from more experienced players on how to smash me... A lesson that my kids should take to heart, as it has given him a good base to go on without ever having played a game of 40k.

Today he plans to field one of two possible groups.

1) An army with plenty of template attacks. My army thrives on bulk groups of shootas (generally 2 groups of 20 shootas with a bike boss), so I'm quaking with fear on what a load of templates landing on me will do.

2) A heavy CC with plenty of beast rule charges. Having an effective charge range of 6 move + 1D6 run + 12" charge seems like it would give him the charge in pretty much every instance unless I field trukks, but trukks thin my herd a bit, with very few points to work with.

I found a good thread here on the board on this topic, but it was started in 2004 and presumably would be a different discussion under 5th edition rules, where I keep hearing people say that the Orks are truly a top tier army. So I want to begin the discussion again rather than pile onto the existing thread.

What would you do in either of the above cases? It's safe to say he will do one or the other. There will probably be a hive tyrant or a carnifex in either of the possibilities, but that's not completely definite. Does anybody want to drop in any words of wisdom for a player that has been tested but only tested by those who you might not call a true test?

Ah, I left out two important notes on this.

1) My current tactics are heavily influenced by the tactics sheets you have posted here on the Dakka Dakka tactica. That should give you a basic idea of what I do today, and what would need to be altered if you don't think that groups of shootas are the way to go with this fight.

2) The point limit we typically play with is 500 points, and we are about to start a league where the points will advance by very small numbers each week from 500 starting points. So assume that any battle group that I would be playing with in the immediate future would be around say 500, then 525, then 550, etc..

not much you can do about templates landing on you, other than deplaying units as a stretched out line rather than clumped together in a template-shaped circle

close combat is a problem, as your shootas are fairly short-ranged (and orks are terrible shots anyway) - unlike say marines who could perhaps try shooting the nids to death. But there aren't many nid units which can charge 12", so a big ork mob should be able to absorb such a charge then give some hurt back.

You do have the advantage of most of your weapons being Assault, so at least you can keep moving and shooting, although nid weapons also work the same.

What other models do you have besides boyz? i'd have thought Lootas would do quite well against most elite nids.

Lootas do quite well against just about everything

My current available models:

6 Warbikez (I used one of the Nobz from these as my warboss)
6 Defkoptaz
2 Trukkz
90 Boyz
17 Nobz
12 Lootaz (Currently working on increasing this number)
12 Burnaz (Increasing these by virtue of increasing Lootaz. Need to buy another set of Boyz just to throw the arms on them)
Warboss
Big Mek w/ KFF
Big Mek w/ SAG

I've definitely got time and funds to get other stuff if need be, but I have to field 2 troops and an HQ, so I'm not sure that I have a lot of wiggle room on what I'm fielding at the moment. Pairing the boyz down to a smaller number would get rid of Fearless pretty quickly. 2 stacks of 20 orkz isn't a lot to begin with. I could field 180 points in Lootas, but between that and the 150 points of warboss (bike + pk + cybork + squig), that only leaves 170 points to drop into 2 groups of orkz.

That means if I went with 2 groups stripped down to only 10 boyz, that wouldn't leave enough points to even throw a Nob with a PK into each group.

You might think of getting some Grots, either when they come out in plastic, or by the expedient of converting them from Warhammer Fantasy Goblins.

If you have a couple of units of Grotz screening your Orks, you'll be able to get cover against shooting (even template weapons - they can only attack one unit at a time!) and a screen against those early charges.

When are the models coming out? Is that part of the big January 1st Ork release?

When are the models coming out? Is that part of the big January 1st Ork release?

(Why is it that about half the time when I click on POST on this forum, I see the message posted twice? It did that just now, and when I initially posted my topic. Is there a secret handshake to make that stop? Something I get in a Cracker Jack box, perhaps?)

Winning, winning... Just play him with what you've got, mix some firepower with heaps of boys, and learn from the experience, thats my opinion . Good luck though.

In 500 point games, your always going to be very tight for points, so I would recommend that you replace the nobz with more boyz. Nobz are good, but quite expensive, so you may be better off just spending he points on something cheaper but more effective for its points, if not boyz, lootas are definitely an option, and there are probably others I just cant think of them right now...

For 500 points you can get the following;

Big Mek
- Power Klaw
- Kustom Force Field
- Kustom Mega Blasta
- Boss Pole or ‘eavy Armour

20 Shoota Boyz
- Nob
- Power Klaw
- 'eavy Armour
- Boss Pole
- 2 x Rokkit Launcha's

20 Shoota Boyz
- Nob
- Power Klaw
- 'eavy Armour
- Boss Pole
- 2 x Rokkit Launcha's

That’s 41 models, all foot slogging and if they have at least one model within 6 inches of the Mek, they will all benefit from a 5+ cover save.

All the weapons in the mobs (including the Mek) are Assault so they can stay mobile. The Rokkits, Power Klaws and Kustom Mega Blasta can take out most armour if needs be.

The only downsides are that it could be a rather boring army to play, game in and game out and the Mek is highly expensive for its base points cost.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/218932.page
A very similar Ork 500-point list to the one above, only without lots of upgrades.

I wouldn't recommend the KMB just because of Gets Hot!, and also I dont think you can carry it along with the KFF as they both replace the slugga. If it came down to having KMB or KFF, I would say KFF wins out with ease every time.

Instead, I'd run my Big mek against Nids with a Burna. It can be either a flamer (highly effective against hordes) and a power weapon.

Breadhat is right with regards to the KFF and the KMB.

I also agree that going with the Burna would be good.

Burnas are the better choice for the Big Mek for lotz of reasons:

-Can be a Flamer.
-Can be a Power Weapon (but not both in the same turn).
-Big Mek is basically a big Nob, so a PK would make him S8, good but he shouldn't be charging vehicles in the first place.
-Big Mek needs that Initiative, he's not as good a fighter as a Warboss, nor is he as strong, but you still want a PW that strikes in Initiative order for him.