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shootas or sluggas in a battlewagon? I'm not entirely sure. Other squads I'm already building to put in battlewagons:

Lootas, Burnas, Nobs.

I'm thinking shootas for now (and I've already built 12) since they're a ranged threat and project just as much damage (or more) on the turn they charge. I'm not entirely sure, though

Its like this:

If you're in vehicles, you want slugga / choppas. You're going to ride up to the battle as fast as orkishly possible, pile out and assault.

If you're on foot, you want shootas. Those two shots make up for the -1 close combat attack.

I will weigh in with a contrary opinion.

5th edition has become VERY unsafe for infantry at close range. Its ok to be relatively far away from an opponent and on foot but when you are up close, the protection afforded by a transport is vital.

My current IG army has 13 vehicles and each of those has a heavy flamer. I would absolutely love it if you voluntarily debarked to power klaw one of them. However, if you opened up one of my chimeras with lootas, then my squishy guys fall out, 40 shoota shots, measured from any point on the hull of the open topped battlewagon would more than take care of my veterans.

Keep in mind that if the situation does call for it, shoota boys CAN assault, they have the same awesome nob with power klaw, and just one less attack on the charge. If you are close enough to confidently shoot first then charge, then shoota boys actually net more damage (albeit not wounds that can count towards combat resolution)

You can stick with the shootas. I won't think you are crazy

Shootas. The only time I run c/s is in a trukk.

Shootas in a BW are golden. You do not drive at maximum speed up to the enemy, you advance at 7" per turn with your RPJ so it's harder for enemies to kill it in hth and you shoot. You only get out of your BW when you absolutely must charge something.

I run 3- 4 BWs in 1750. 2-3 of them are filled with shootas (19+pk bp nob) and a KFF BM (in which case one of the mobs is 18+nob so there's room).

You're immune to Lash and you're fairly resistant to shooting. And 2 squads of shoota boyz will kill squads with shooting.

It's also worth nothing that Shootas give your units an 18" sphere of influence. Choppa Boyz sitting on an objective are little more than scenery that you paid 150 points for. Shootas can objective hump all day, moving as necessary, and still be quite effective as offensive units. Unless you absolutely know that you'll never have to do anything but drive up at max speed and dump out a dozen charging Boyz, shootas maximize your utility.

Well, I never do anything except run up at full speed and assault. I don't get shot at because I go from my transport into assault. Honestly, I don't think ork vehicles are sturdy enough to run around acting as shooting platforms unless its a battlewagon full of Lootas hanging out on the back table edge.

Dashofpepper wrote:Its like this:

If you're in vehicles, you want slugga / choppas. You're going to ride up to the battle as fast as orkishly possible, pile out and assault.

If you're on foot, you want shootas. Those two shots make up for the -1 close combat attack.

I'll second this. The comfort of knowing that come by T2 you will have covered 26" of table and then have another 2" disembark+waaagh d6"+6" assault range makes me want to take sluggas/choppas in my vehicles.

On the other hand....there's nothing like 15 lootas in a BW blowing the frak out of things.

I'm fielding shootas in Bwagons right now and have no complaints. The shootas give more tactical versatility, as Shep said.

And I'll heartily second Shep and budro's comments about staying embarked. In the increasingly mech-heavy environment, you really need to have ways of popping transports at range, because you don't want to end up trading valuable troops units for cheap Chimeras, etc.

The longer you can stay embarked (the particulars and flow of the game permitting, of course), the better off you are. I've found this is especially true for Burnas, BTW.

I agree with dashofpepper, I like choppas in the BW, its just the ork way to go. BWs aren't LRs, they will get popped if you give the enemy enough time, using them as shooting platforms isn't always as effective as one thinks it will be. Unless you wanna run a double KFF build to really give your BW extra toughness and be able to move them seperately, I really don't feel that BWs are ideal for fire platforms. Drive straight ahead with the 14 AV in their face, waaaagh and unload, devastating. I like to put nobs with a boss in my BWs, drive it right into the heart of their armor HQs, and pk away.

That being said, shoota boyz do have a place in the BW, everything that the pro-shoota people said is true, they can function as extra protection for those boyz, and they are certainly ideal for objective sitting, but thats why I feel the choppas work better, If I'm running 3 BW sometimes I will load one with shootas to drive at an objective while my choppa BWs tie the enemy up, but in the end I feel the more effective build is straight CC based, as an ork list should be.

I've seen both builds work well, its really a choice of play style and preference as far as I can see. But I'll stick with the choppa boyz personally.

The point of BW orks is to have lots of open topped AV14 vehicles, with a +4 cover save (from the KFF meks) full of nasty things that really benefit from the extra protection. Its much better to use them as mobile firing platforms than big transports. For this reason, if you have any BW not filled with lootas or burnas, they should have shoota boys in them. They dont need to go and assault the enemy, but they can if you want.

For a much faster assault orientated army look at mek orks in trukks. Trukks have the advantage of being faster and much cheaper than battlewagons, so are much more suited to carrying slugga boys than battlewagons, while still gaining the 4+ cover save from a KFF.