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So I've been mulling this over for a while and I'd like to get other opinions on the use of grotz. I've heard people say that they no longer even use boyz at all I've heard that they're good for cheap objective babysitting, is there anything else that they can do? To look at them I assume they're of little use offensively stand alone, but what place do they have in combat, if any? I've heard opinions on both sides....they're garbage....they're great. what kind of balance do you want between grotz and good ole boyz? just looking for people's experiences and opinions.

I've played a few games against orks were my opponent has been using a squad of gretchin, but they never really seem to do anything other than get ignored because if they do into combat they have low leadership, and at only strength 2 they'll be needing 6's to wound anything, while Meqs will need 3's and 2's to kill. However despite not being very good in CC oddly enough though they shoot as well as Guardsmen, although their weapons are only 12 inches with one shot. Their lack of armor save isn't too severe because most weapons will negate the average ork's armor save anyway and you'll have other stuffs for that. Personally though I think they're more of a novelty rather than a competitive piece, but that's just me and I haven't used horde armies before

6 squads of 30 grots is 540 points, + 180 for runtherds.

Thats 198 models.

It looks good on paper.

Try painting that, and then placing it on the table every time you want to play.
1-2 squads of 29 grots is a great meatshield, for your slightly meatiershields, for your PK nobs.

I usually field a unit of 10-20 grots to fill out my list when i have some spare points, and they earned back thier points, but never any more than that
but i don't know how effective an all grot army would be

I use grots for objective baby sitting, and take no boyz.

Boyz really aren't good at assault. Sure if you manage to nurse 20 surviving boyz into combat, they have 3-4 attacks each for 60-80 attacks (best case scenario, that you actually get to use all of them). That will kill like 5 marines and the PK nob will kill 2-3 or so by him self. All those extra boyz are just escorts for a PK? Seems like a waste. Add in the fact they will get creamed in combat, with their I2-3, and you will lose combats you come out ahead in. Fearless wounds you won't make, means that you will have very few boyz for the second round of combat. All those extra wounds for the PK end up being combat resolution for you opponent. If I were to run boyz they would be kamikaze truck boyz that get to assault once, and then they die.

Taking boyz for shooting isn't terrible, is it? 50+ bolter shots, and 9 heavy bolter shots is quite a bit of shooting. Until you look at the fact that only 1/3 is going to hit, and only about half will wound, and then they will get cover or armor saves. They are able to put a good amount of firepower down, but with short range and large units, you aren't able to concentrate firepower. Some armies don't have enough shots to take a big ork mob all the way down, but in general those armies have good assault units. Those mobs are also really easy to kill with pie plates (like guard, nids, SM, and tau put down) and massed flamers.

I personally take a couple units of 19 grots with 1 herder. They can hide in cover, sit on objectives, and generally keep your list legal. I also take at least 1 unit of counts as troops nobs or mega nobs. That way you can have an aggressive scoring unit that is survivable. I save quite a few points on buying specialized units. Grots are very specialized, what they are good at is being ignored, and keeping you legal. The points savings allow one to buy things like burna boyz, lootas, nobs/meganobs, battle wagons, stormboyz, warbikes, MSU biker nobs, kans, or whatever else suits. Almost all of those units do a better job at killing than a typical boyz unit.

I won't fault anyone for running boyz, I just haven't had much luck with them.

What is funny for Grots to do is take 30 with 3 herders, all the herders have graba sticks. -3 attacks is funny. Go up against IC or MC and laugh as they get bogged down with 1 attack each.

An all grot army really does seem so fun to play, but not very competitive or fun to do. Like Rory said, even painting 40 of them would be a LOT of work for something that'll die so easily.

As a bug player, even having 40 gaunts and another 15 guys is a lot of moving. I can't imagine that grots would be very good with such low leadership. Even if they do sit in cover, it wouldn't take me much shooting to unseat them. Even my basic spinegaunt would hit on 4's with rerolls, wound on 3's and do that x20.

Playing a horde myself it's all about cover saves, so it seems like using a small unit as a screen is a good idea, especially if there's a mek with a KFF to give them some chance survive.

Orks is fur fightin, grots is just fur carryin stuff!

And clearing mine fields!

You'd be surprised how good grots are. But I wouldnt take a WHOLE army of them. take 1-2 squads of 30 grotz + 6 runtherds. Use them as a meatsheild for your boys. And use them as a distraction.

Scenario: I got 30 grotz (3 runtherds) + 10 nobz w/ pk. Enemy has 5 wraithguard *shudder* which he intends to shoot the nobz with and some (10) howling banshees. I charge him with my grotz. There are 30 of them (3pts each) and the enemy has 1 attack each. he kills 5 a turn and if my guys try to run away, the squighound makes them re-roll. The nobz get to grips with da banshees and I will probably win.
That means his wraithguard are USELESS.

Grots are my loota babysitters for those units trying to out-flank. And just in case the opponent forgets their troop choices and likes to give away obj.

Grotz are better used as cannon fodder rather than babysitting. You could simply use them as a cover save provider or to tie up enemy elites.

Uriels Flame, do you just let them wait next to your lootas until someone comes to get you? Or do you do something else?

Just make a big semi-circle against where I think my opponent is going to out-flank. He can't assault my loota's, and if he wipes my grots, he gets face full of dakka next turn, and furious assault by the lootas.

They're not choppa's (oh how I miss those rules), but it'll get the job done.

I do the same thing with my ripper swarms guarding my biovores. It always works and the last time I tried it I actually won combat against a jump pack chaplain!

Personally, I can't understand why Ork players using a foot slogging army don't always have a screening cover of gretchin running up the field in front of them. All those 6 point boyz now have 4+ cover saves.

Not to mention the fact you have an assault screen for things that would otherwise deny you the assault ...

80-120 points to make sure that the boyz have the assault and are not wiped out because they were denied the assault is kinda good