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I just played against a dual nob biker army list for the first time, and trounced the guy wiping him out on turn 5. The mission was 4 objectives and dawn of war. I went first and he decided to stay off the board and come in on turn 1. In essence we had just 4 turns to do all the damage to each other. I was wondering if this list was optimized or not.

Warboss
8 nobs each with different gear 2-3 claws (wauggggh banner)
1 painboy

Warboss
8nobs each with different gear 2-3 with claws (wauggggh banner)
1 painboy

10 Lootas

10 gretchin with an orc

Snikrot w/ 10 kommandos, i saw burnas 2 -3 of them

Well, I seems to be optimized. No real flaws in the list.

Seems optimized. What list were you using?

Chaos, not entirely optimized.

Demon Prince of Nurgle w/ Nurgles Rot
Sorcerer of Slannesh w/ Lash, familiar, Warptime

8 Chosen, 4 meltas, 1 flamer in a rhino with a combi-melta.

7 Plaguemarines, 2 melta guns, champ with powerfist.
8 Khorne Beserkers, champ with powerfist (deployed in Landraider with demonic possession)
9 Tzeentch Warriors, Sorcerer with Bolt of Change

Defiler
3 Obliterators.

I never used Nurgle's Rot, nor Warptime. My beserkers never left the landraider, my oblits flamed up snikrot and the commandos, but otherwise did nothing else they were out of range of the bikers.

Sazzlefrats wrote:I just played against a dual nob biker army list for the first time, and trounced the guy wiping him out on turn 5. The mission was 4 objectives and dawn of war. I went first and he decided to stay off the board and come in on turn 1. In essence we had just 4 turns to do all the damage to each other. I was wondering if this list was optimized or not.

Warboss
8 nobs each with different gear 2-3 claws (wauggggh banner)
1 painboy

Warboss
8nobs each with different gear 2-3 with claws (wauggggh banner)
1 painboy

10 Lootas

10 gretchin with an orc

Snikrot w/ 10 kommandos, i saw burnas 2 -3 of them

The lootas don't even have redundancy. A single 10 man loota squad isn't optimized in any list, much less this one. They should be dumped completely.

Rest of the list is fine but he needs to figure out what to do with the rest of his points. I'd swap out the grots for a boyz unit or get more spendy on the nob units. He of course had cybork bodies right?

Kommandos are good in a nob biker list but not great against space marine armor.

10 lootas on foot? 10 grots?

And most importantly of all only 2-3 klaws??

I dont think this is optimized at all.

PanamaG wrote:10 lootas on foot? 10 grots?

And most importantly of all only 2-3 klaws??

I dont think this is optimized at all.

What would be then? I want to know what might have been missed. For sure the warbosses had claws, I know that 2 nobs for sure had claws, I just can't recall if 3 nobs had claws or if it was just 2. I know he was rolling at least 10 claw attacks on the charge, (it was so much overkill that I didn't bother really paying attention.

i'd take out 1 or 2 on each nob biker squad and ATLEAST put another loota squad. they come great in big numbers.

Sazzlefrats wrote:

PanamaG wrote:10 lootas on foot? 10 grots?

And most importantly of all only 2-3 klaws??

I dont think this is optimized at all.

What would be then? I want to know what might have been missed. For sure the warbosses had claws, I know that 2 nobs for sure had claws, I just can't recall if 3 nobs had claws or if it was just 2. I know he was rolling at least 10 claw attacks on the charge, (it was so much overkill that I didn't bother really paying attention.

A better list would drop the lootas and kommandoes entirely, double the grots, and then have about 5 klaws per squad on top of the warboss. If there are points left over buy a unit of troop boys with shootas to reserve for late game home base grabbing. He should be throwing 20-30 PK attacks at you per squad with boss.

PKs are just too expensive to buy up a bunch of them. I run a PK on the warboss and a PK on 1 Nob then back that up with Big Choppas. That gives you Str 7 hits on the charge and doesn't force you to attack last with everything. Plus you can get 5 Big Choppas for the price of 1 PK.

The Bikers are alright but the rest of his list didn't have much sinergy. And why the heck did he start up everything in reserve? You want those 2 biker units in the table.

Bikers in reserve are great if you get the bottom of the turn. Boost on 24" get your 3+/4+ then assualt 18". That gives your opponent 1 round of shooting while you have the advantage of being where you want denying shots, if he is more than 6" from the board edge then you get your assualts off.

Nox wrote:PKs are just too expensive to buy up a bunch of them. I run a PK on the warboss and a PK on 1 Nob then back that up with Big Choppas. That gives you Str 7 hits on the charge and doesn't force you to attack last with everything. Plus you can get 5 Big Choppas for the price of 1 PK.

What? Thats like saying the nobs themselves are too expensive. big coppas are useless. You lose an attack, dont ignore armor, and regular boys are st.5 on the charge anyway. PKs are what let you steamroll armies.

Clay Williams wrote:Bikers in reserve are great if you get the bottom of the turn. Boost on 24" get your 3+/4+ then assualt 18". That gives your opponent 1 round of shooting while you have the advantage of being where you want denying shots, if he is more than 6" from the board edge then you get your assualts off.

Absolutely. Come on in your opponents face with a 3+ cover save and one turn to shoot. Now I like that! Dawn of war also loves nob bikers imho

PanamaG wrote:

Sazzlefrats wrote:

PanamaG wrote:10 lootas on foot? 10 grots?

And most importantly of all only 2-3 klaws??

I dont think this is optimized at all.

What would be then? I want to know what might have been missed. For sure the warbosses had claws, I know that 2 nobs for sure had claws, I just can't recall if 3 nobs had claws or if it was just 2. I know he was rolling at least 10 claw attacks on the charge, (it was so much overkill that I didn't bother really paying attention.

A better list would drop the lootas and kommandoes entirely, double the grots, and then have about 5 klaws per squad on top of the warboss. If there are points left over buy a unit of troop boys with shootas to reserve for late game home base grabbing. He should be throwing 20-30 PK attacks at you per squad with boss.

5 Klaws per squad is pretty much the right mix.

Nox wrote:PKs are just too expensive to buy up a bunch of them. I run a PK on the warboss and a PK on 1 Nob then back that up with Big Choppas. That gives you Str 7 hits on the charge and doesn't force you to attack last with everything. Plus you can get 5 Big Choppas for the price of 1 PK.

Running 1 PK per squad will make you woefully inneffective against any other Nob Biker you run into. Your list will be at a distict disadvantage if you skimp on the PK's.

My big question is why run this list anyway? It's not like it hasnt been done to death, not a lot of originality you can bring to a Nob Biker list.

Of course if riding on other peoples coattails is your thing, more power to you. I prefer to be at least a little original.

PanamaG wrote:

Nox wrote:PKs are just too expensive to buy up a bunch of them. I run a PK on the warboss and a PK on 1 Nob then back that up with Big Choppas. That gives you Str 7 hits on the charge and doesn't force you to attack last with everything. Plus you can get 5 Big Choppas for the price of 1 PK.

What? Thats like saying the nobs themselves are too expensive. big coppas are useless. You lose an attack, dont ignore armor, and regular boys are st.5 on the charge anyway. PKs are what let you steamroll armies.

You don't lose an attack, PKs are special weapons that don't get extra attacks from things like sluggas.

While it is true that you don't ignore armor with big choppas they are far from useless. A Str 7 attack means that you wound just about everything on a 2+ and you have the ability to penetrate things like walkers as well. Finally, the cheaper cost allows you bring more units to the party.

Anyway, I've never been too concerned about Min/Maxing my Orks. I still haven't even fielded my bikes. I usually run a bunch of boyz backed up by a couple of Nob squads in trukks. If I ever play Orks in a tournament then I will probably run the bikes.

Sazzlefrats wrote:I was wondering if this list was optimized or not.

Don't think so. I would not have taken Lootas. As also mentioned there could have been more Power Klaws.

The lack of other distracting targets is a weakness here. That Lootas squad will do nothing after the bikes get into CC and Grots, while great for Rear Echelon defense and objective squatting, require something else to distract from them.

I would have probably used at least a Trukk squad or two instead of the Kommandos and Lootas and a footslogging squad of Shoota Boyz with Big Shootas for home objective holding.

Nox wrote:

PanamaG wrote:

Nox wrote:PKs are just too expensive to buy up a bunch of them. I run a PK on the warboss and a PK on 1 Nob then back that up with Big Choppas. That gives you Str 7 hits on the charge and doesn't force you to attack last with everything. Plus you can get 5 Big Choppas for the price of 1 PK.

What? Thats like saying the nobs themselves are too expensive. big coppas are useless. You lose an attack, dont ignore armor, and regular boys are st.5 on the charge anyway. PKs are what let you steamroll armies.

You don't lose an attack, PKs are special weapons that don't get extra attacks from things like sluggas.

While it is true that you don't ignore armor with big choppas they are far from useless. A Str 7 attack means that you wound just about everything on a 2+ and you have the ability to penetrate things like walkers as well. Finally, the cheaper cost allows you bring more units to the party.

Anyway, I've never been too concerned about Min/Maxing my Orks. I still haven't even fielded my bikes. I usually run a bunch of boyz backed up by a couple of Nob squads in trukks. If I ever play Orks in a tournament then I will probably run the bikes.

You lose an attack compared to slugga and choppa. You cant really compare a BC to a PK because of the cost and power difference. Inmy opinion a BC is just a slugga choppa combo with one less attack and more st.

Anything that doesnt have a good armor save is going to be hurt by st. 5 anyway, most likely on 3s or 2s. Anything you need st. 6 or higher against is going to have a nasty save.

I agree with the rest though.

OK I see what you mean by losing an attack vs Choppa/Slugga. I really hadn't thought of it that way. When compared that way the only big advantage the Big Choppa has is that it can damage vehicles on a 3+ vs the Choppa needing a 5+ (with 6 being the only chance to penetrate).

But then if your PKs are still alive it doesn't matter anyway.

The Green Git wrote:

Sazzlefrats wrote:I was wondering if this list was optimized or not.

Don't think so. I would not have taken Lootas. As also mentioned there could have been more Power Klaws.

The lack of other distracting targets is a weakness here. That Lootas squad will do nothing after the bikes get into CC and Grots, while great for Rear Echelon defense and objective squatting, require something else to distract from them.

I would have probably used at least a Trukk squad or two instead of the Kommandos and Lootas and a footslogging squad of Shoota Boyz with Big Shootas for home objective holding.

That "standard" Nob Biker list uses 2 Nob Biker troops and then a 3rd troop specifically for objective holding. Depending on your point cap you may only be able to afford grots for this task and that's just fine. If you have more points to throw around I think a 20 size shoota boyz unit can take it's place. Ideally you aren't spending too many points back here though since your opponent should be firing at the nobs until either he loses or you do.

One weakness in the standard list is that it can have issues with gun line armies like Tau or Guard. Armies like that can get an enormous amount of shooting crammed into one round and a lot of it tends to be stuff that can really make the nob biker point investment laughable. Things that ignore cover saves come to mind, or weapons that are str 8 or higher and cause instant death and/or stuff that bypasses FNP. If an army can come close to wiping one of the biker units before it reaches assault range that army has a chance at winning. If any army like this gets a full second round of shooting then the nobs are going to be in serious trouble.

A way to contend with gun lines is to use Kommandos and Snikrot. This gives you an answer to gun line nonsense and allows to pick off squishy shooty units prior to their 2nd or 3rd shooting round. The only caveat is that you have to get a favorable reserve roll. I can see a late Kommando unit showing up to be a real problem. Maybe make it a small unit with a minimal point investment that can tie up enemy shooting while at the same time not being pivotal for victory.

Callin' BS. Why wasn't he in your face on the 2nd turn multi-charging your whole army and steamrolling you off the board with bikers.

What did you kill his nobs with?

I think maybe he didn't want to turbo boost on the first round in hopes that he could hit me with both the bikers and snikrot at the same time. He did have a crazy amount of fear of my lash sorcerer who was deployed right at the 24" mark on the board (behind a building). I also spread my entire army out along my deployment zone when I rolled on at turn 1. There was no multicharging, thats a tactic I use, not one that I let be used on me. If he had turbo'd directly into my army on turn 1, for sure I'd have wiped out one unit while taking minimal losses in combat. All bets off with the 2nd unit of bikers, nothing I would have been able to do about them.

Turn 2, he did turbo boost behind another building, and was in charge range for a turn 3 charge on my nurgle with nothing I could do to stop that. What hurt him was that I was allowed to shoot with a few units on turn 2. Most of my army was out of position because I know about snikrot, and how fast ork trucks are, and I gave the bike units as much respect as I would a battle wagon with nobs in it. Wisely my opponent avoided my landraider, oblits and defiler that were castled on one side of the board, and went after my "weaker" flank, that had 7 nurlge marines. I figured he'd ignore my objective "goal tending" unit and attack the heart of my army, but I guessed wrong. Anyhow turn 3, I had killed a number of bikes, 4 from one unit and 3 from another. He wiped out my nurgle marines handily, even though I was sitting 1/2" deep in a forest. However his other bike unit couldn't reach my tzeentch another 15" further away than my nurgle guys, and my sorcerer was just lashing one bike unit a turn, sadly my best roll was to push a unit 6" away, I kept dragging them into forests and buildings hoping that either they fail a pin check, or crash into a tree and take a few wounds.

My demon prince meanwhile was flying and running right into the lootas, I took 2 wounds before i reached them, and killed them in a single round of combat.

Essentially I was doing the MSU approach, and attacking from all angles, but nothing stayed castled up. On turn 4 for example, my demon prince was in one of his quarters (opposite the bikes) my landraider with beserkers was in his other quarter and contesting two objectives. My oblits and defiler were sitting in a corner waiting for something interesting to happen, and in the the big fight scene quarter was my sorcerer, tzeentch, and nurgle, and my chosen in their rhino was well.

I did my best to scare him into being overly cautious, I forced him to accept the fact that if he wanted to charge me he'd have to charge into forests and ruined building terrain, and I kept my sorcerer with wings just inside lash range, but outside charge range, and I keep lashing him into or through difficult terrain (no fnp there)... On turn 5, my defiler wrecked on unit in h2h and my DP dp'd the other unit off the board.

whitedragon wrote:Callin' BS. Why wasn't he in your face on the 2nd turn multi-charging your whole army and steamrolling you off the board with bikers.

Ifurita wrote:What did you kill his nobs with?

Melta guns, dragging them into forests, forcing him to charge into forests, basically anything I could think of to deny him FNP. At the end, my DP and my Defiler finished off the last stragglers of each unit.

Clay Williams wrote:Bikers in reserve are great if you get the bottom of the turn. Boost on 24" get your 3+/4+ then assualt 18". That gives your opponent 1 round of shooting while you have the advantage of being where you want denying shots, if he is more than 6" from the board edge then you get your assualts off.

Duhhhh, I didn't read Dawn of War. Still, wow, how didn't he roll you with the nobs? It looks as if they'd omgwtfpwn anything they came into contact with on your list. And you said the Oblits didn't do much.

Nobs Lootas
Nobs




.................................................sorcerer demonprince
............................................................chosen
.........................Nurgle........Tzeencth......Landraider..... Defiler...... Oblits

That was the set up, why he came in on the far left, no clue, but I moved everyone too far away closer on my turn, and everyone too close fruther away. The whole thin worked out rather nice in the end.