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Been playing 40k for about 5 months now. I play Orks and my primary opponent plays Space Marines. I am going to show both lists from this past weekend's game so you can see what I am up against and how I prepared for it. We rolled annihilation and I lost by about 3 points.

Here is my opponent's list:
Space Marines 1200

HQ: Captain
Power Sword
Storm Bolter
(He ran w/ terminators)

Troop 1: Tactical Squad
Space Marines incl. Sgt x7
Sergeant - Power wep & Bolt Pistol

Troop 2: Tactical Squad
Space Marines incl. Sgt x7
Sergeant - Power wep & Bolt Pistol

Heavy 1: Devastator Squad
Missile Launcher x4

Elite 1: Terminators
Terminator x8

Elite 2: Dreadnaught
Assault Cannon

Elite 3: Dreadnaught
Assault Cannon

Fast 1: Land Speeder
Assault Cannon

Here is my list
Orks - 1200

HQ 1 - Warboss
Powerklaw, bosspole, 'eavy armor, cybork
(Ran w/ Nobs)

HQ 2 - Big Mek
Powerklaw, Bosspole, 'eavy armor, kustom mega blasta
(Ran w/ burna squad)

Troop 1 - Nobz
Nobz x5
Powerklaw x2
Big Choppa x2
Bosspole
Painboy
Cybork
'Eavy Armor

Troop 2 - Slugga Boyz
Boyz x25
Nob w/ powerklaw & pole

Troop 3 - Shoota Boyz
Boyz x21
Big Shoota x2
Nob w/ powerklaw & pole

Heavy 1 - Zzap Gunz
Zzap Gunz x3
Ammo Runt x3

Elite 1: Lootas
Loota x5

Elite 2: Burnas
Burnas x7
Mek w/ KMB x3

Fast 1 - Deffkopta

Fast 2 - Deffkopta

After the game I regretted taking the deffkoptas as they are EASY kill points, but their original conception was the advantage of range on the SM squads. I figured they would enable me to pick away at those squads while my boyz moved up the field.

The burna unit was positioned behind the nobz. The idea there was that they would terrorize the termies while using the Nobz for cover. Unfortunately, I am the world's worst roller and they did little to nothing. I always seem to miss w/ all but one zzap gun and my lootas tend to get 1 shot each more often than not. After the game I figured that I have a 33% success rate no matter WHAT I am rolling (including 2+ to wound with PKs.) Are my dice cursed or is this how every Ork player feels?!

Anyway - there are the lists. Maybe someone out there can give me some advice as to where I went wrong and how I can better spend my points.

I play SoB. My first game was vs Ork hord. He had Gazkill(sp?) some mech boy with a massive forcefield. A character that can infiltrate? He came at my rear flank.
He had his bad-ass models in front and took dead from the rear. He got in assault. I could not shoot because he was tied up with a lone model. The set up was table 1/4's. I had a mechanised army. This was my very first game. i did not get my template models to the front to be useful. The 4 missile launchers are still a problem.

I play SM and have an easy solution for you:
Charge, get your Orks into assault range as soon as you can, Orks will beat SM in assualts most times, in my experience anyway. Try using bikes with Power Klaws, instead of the Koptas, gives you a bit more hitting power. That's my suggestion anyway, good luck regardless.

Let me first tell you where you need to improve your list.

HQ
Big Mek with KMB is the worst way to outload a Big Mek. Give him the KFF, if you deploy right you can give pretty much your whole army a 5+ cover save. You could also give him the Shokk Attack Gun and put him with the Lootas or have him chill by himself, though I feel the KFF is the best value for your points.

Don't combine cybork and eavy armor, its a waste of points. Go one or the other. Since your opponenets seems to be packing a lotta ap 3 and 4 stuff with the assault cannons and missiles, as well as power weapons, maybe you wanna use just the cybork. Same goes for your nob squad.

Troops
Slugga boyz are best used when in a transport, I don't know how much money you have to spend, but try putting them in a BW or in two trukks. Either that or switch them to shoota boyz. Always have the Nob with a PK.

I've never been a big fan of uge choppas unless you use them for wound allocation madness on your nobs. If each one of your nobs is equipped differently, then you can divide out the wounds as you please, rather than having to kill a nob every time you take two wounds. It makes a big difference.

Heavy Support
I don't like the zzap guns. They are only as good or better than the kannons 1/3 of the time, and if you roll over a 10 for str, the gun still only counts as str 10 and you have to killa grot crew. Change them to kannons, they're just better.

Elites
Lootas are only effective in groups of AT LEAST 8. Optimal squad size is 13 I feel, takes 4 losses to cause a moral check, and of course they get more shots on average, which is what ork shooting is all about. If you can manage it, its best to have two squads of lootas working together to cover the most of the field and to help cover each other if one comes under threat. Dreadnoughts will fall to a big group of lootas everytime.

Never take meks, never. The KMB isn't really very good unless you take it on a killa kan, and the mismatch of ranges with the rest of the squad makes it an inefficient unit. If you really want to surprise those termies, take a big squad (12) of burnas in a trukk, get up close, dont shoot so they can use the burnas as power weapons, and jump out and surprise those termies with 21 str 4 power weapons attacks. What 2+ save? How are the termies equipped? If they're rocking lightning claws, then this isn't a good idea, if they're using PFs or TH/SS, then you'll get the initiative on them and absolutely wreck them.
As you have it now though, run them behind the big group of boyz at those termies. Have the boyz get there first, then come in next turn with the burnas.

FA
I'm not a fan of the deffkoptas myself, I feel warbuggies are the better option for TL rokkits, but as you have them try to outflank with them to avoid some first turn missile fire. Think about giving them buzzsaws to make sure that the get the kill on those dreads. Make sure of course that they come in close enough to hit them however.


-Seems to me like you have the beginnings of a good force, you just need more of what you already have. that and always remember that list building is about knowing what you DONT need. don't waste points on stuff that isn't worth it.

Let me know how your next game goes. Hope I was of help! Good luck and keep waaaaghin'!

You don't have much of a battle report, but here's some thoughts. Lootas and burnas were made for breaking through infantry armor. You just need more of them in each squad, and some better luck on your rolls. Jones is right about the mek. They aren't worth it unless you are in a transport and you want a chance to repair damage.

Nobz aren't that great a screen. If you are marching to your enemy on foot and you already have a Big Mek you really should have a KFF. If you want to screen bullets on foot and the KFF isn't enough for you then drop the koptas and take a couple kans. Have them run in front and soak up the small arms fire. I'd either put grot zookas on them for infantry or rokkits on them for armor. Only do 1 weapon type per unit. Don't mix load outs on kans. It will make them less effective.

If you are going to take nobz on foot you want them to stay alive to hit the enemy line. Not soaking up bullets in the front of your army (regardless of how armored you made them). They are expensive, and they are made for CC.

Other bullet screen ideas are Grots. A 30 count grot unit covering the entire front of your army is a nice cheap bullet screen. They will die fast, but they will die instead your more expensive units and they are dirt cheap.

Otherwise I'd truck/BW up and speed toward the enemy as fast as you can with a KFF Big Mek. You want your boyz and nobzz to close fast and get as many units to the fight as possible. You can make a shootey ork build, but it's harder and less reliable than the CC ork army builds. This army really has a CC theme to mostly all it's units.

Practice at judging distance. You really want to get the charge. Orks getting the charge = win. Orks missing the charge to take lots of bullet fire before getting counter charged = ork salad. Remember that you can run in the shooting phase if you think you need those extra inches to get in assault range. IMO it's better to be sure than to pull out those pistols.

Odd, I can see Indigo_jones' comments when I hit reply in the review message box, but not when I am normally viewing the topic.

Anyway. I agree with pretty much all he said. Big guns, like heavy support teams for IG I don't feel are the best. They're either picked off at range without too much difficulty, even in cover, or they are ignored and you miss too many shots with 2 BS to have your opponent care. They're also often an easy kill point unless you sit back and protect them. But you're an ork. We're made for getting stuck in and krumpin' stuff. (at least unless you go 100% shooty)

For the meks in burnas or lootas squads, I concur. Don't ever take them if you have the models or money to avoid it. Being on a lower budget myself I understand plenty that it's just what you have and you work with it. If you do end up taking them to get enough points for w/e game or something, put them with the burnas and have just them shoot before you charge into melee since they are assault weapons. The AP2 can kill a model or two before you get in and it works out alright.

The Nobs could use a few more models in the group. They can cost a good amount of points, but if they're foot slogging, with only 5 models, or 6 with the warboss, they can get shot down w/o making it. Even if you have a transport it's best to have more just so they're a deadlier melee unit. With only 6 and 3 of them being power claws you could charge into a group of 10 berzerkers and have most of you're models dead before you get to the initiative 1. Also, if you're ever going to put stikkbombs on a mob, nobs is the one to go with. Putting them on 30 boyz is too expensive and they usually attack last or tie anyway. On nobs, even if you have a max group, it's just 10 points and then you can charge through cover and still be able to attack first, which can help quite a bit.

Orks are a really good army, and able to play a variety of game-styles well. Some of the best advice I've heard for orks is to pick what you want to play, whether it's horde, shooty, mech, dreadmob or w/e, and go all out on that style. Mixing styles makes you overall less efficient usually.

Someone mentioned the lack of a good battle-report. I left it off to keep the post short, but I will describe it as quickly as I can to give some clarity. Unfortunately, there are no pics, so I'll do the best I can without getting too wordy or causing confusion. These are the highlights:

Nobs were the tip of the spear w/ burnas close behind and DKs and shootas providing supressing fire. They took just about everything a 1200 SM list could throw at them for two turns straight until they were reduced to just the Boss, PK x2, and Painboy. I assaulted on my second turn and they were no more. The terminator squad, however, had been cut by about 50% by that point, so the BIGGEST threat was neutralized.

By this point the Burnas, although taking cover, were reduced to mush as devastators and dreadnaughts opened up on them. They were gone before I got to move them in round 3. The land speeder was also downed (weapons disabled and immobilised) in the mix here somewhere too, so the game was close so far.

Shootas were center table now, using a series of ruins as cover as they shot at one of the Marine Tac Squads and continued forward.

The sluggas were deployed behind some LoS terrain and by turn three were closing w/ a dread. I charged by turn 3 and the unit actually got tied up for THREE rounds. That was the 33% rate I was talking about. My PK Nob did little. I mean - that's why he's there, right?! When I did succeed in killing the dread, it exploded - as always - and inflicted 4 wounds to my unit.

Can't remember all the details, but by turn 5 the other dread was weaponless and immobile. Also on the KIA list was a tac squad & both Koptas.

Going into round seven I had 4 shootas left in my shoota squad, 19 boys in my slugga squad, all 3 zzap gunz, and all five lootas. My enemy had 2 termies w/ a capo, a single devestator, and a 5 man tac remaining. His dread and speeder were immobilised and weaponless, but as I interpet the rules - this is still no Kill Point right? Having a good shot to win if the game went beyond 7 turns and feeling cheated for having to actually waste more shots on vehicles that were little more than terrain, I was aggrevated to say the least. We called the game at the beginning of round seven (boyz could not have gotten in the mix if they wanted to and Zzap gunz were also out of range.) It was obvious that on his turn the SM player would finish off the shootas and have the game in the bag. With 7 KPs to 3 there was little the Orks could do.

indigo_jones wrote:Don't combine cybork and eavy armor, its a waste of points. Go one or the other. Since your opponenets seems to be packing a lotta ap 3 and 4 stuff with the assault cannons and missiles, as well as power weapons, maybe you wanna use just the cybork.

Originally I figured the 4+ would give them more survivability, but to be honest, there was a lot of cover in the center of the table I used until I hit CC w/ the termies. I'll try dropping the 'eavy armor next game and add another bork.

indigo_jones wrote:Troops
Slugga boyz are best used when in a transport, I don't know how much money you have to spend, but try putting them in a BW or in two trukks. Either that or switch them to shoota boyz. Always have the Nob with a PK.

Unfortunately my 40K spending is on hold for awhile. In a few months, I will be purchasing some new stuff. Right now, the question is whether to stay Green or go w/ something else.

indigo_jones wrote:Heavy Support
I don't like the zzap guns. They are only as good or better than the kannons 1/3 of the time, and if you roll over a 10 for str, the gun still only counts as str 10 and you have to killa grot crew. Change them to kannons, they're just better.

What I like about the Zzaps is their stats. When I look at 3 AP2 shots per turn at BS3 w/ ammo runts I believe they should threaten the termies. Instead, I roll 2s to hit and 3s on STR and they do little more than make me feel cheated for spending hours scratchbuilding them. I may drop big gunz all together as I am not enthusiastic about any of the other gun's stats.

indigo_jones wrote:Elites
Lootas are only effective in groups of AT LEAST 8.

I was thinking of beefing them up, so now I will try that. Before you responded I was thinking of two units of 5, but your comments have made me second guess that option.

indigo_jones wrote:If you really want to surprise those termies, take a big squad (12) of burnas in a trukk, get up close, dont shoot so they can use the burnas as power weapons, and jump out and surprise those termies with 21 str 4 power weapons attacks. As you have it now though, run them behind the big group of boyz at those termies. Have the boyz get there first, then come in next turn with the burnas.

I will drop the meks. I like burnas a lot, but lack of transports and no option for a bosspole tends to make me feel that they are a point sink. I thought they would be a great second wave to the nobz, but they got tied up with crappy rough terrain rolls and I opted to use the KMBs. I guess this is a double whammy for the Meks and good reason to drop them. When I design a list and want to include burnas, I feel like I should put a Big Mek or Boss w/ them because of the bosspole/powerklaw factor. I had them get tied up w/ a dread on a seperate game and I was frustrated that they could do nothing.

Do I run them w/ a HQ and deploy them behind the nobz (or sluggas) for survivability or replace them with a ten-man outflanking kommando unit w/ 2 burnas & Snikrot (or a nob)?
Also - I was under the impression that you can't take a trukk unless it is for a unit that has the "dedicated" ability. Am I reading the rule wrong?

As far as the DKs - I doubt I will ever use these guys again. They are far too squishy and suck too hard at shooting to be worth their while in points.

To Indigo and the other posters (quoted him cause everyone seemed to back him up) thanks for your time. I appreciate the advice and look forward to hearing more insight. I will post a revised list a little later.

Well even though i know your short on spending what i like to do is have a battle wagon w 4 big shootas, wrecking ball, armour plates, kannon
but inside would be 10 nobz accompanied by a mek w kff, burna then 9 burnas. my battle wagon would run circles around my enemys squads isolating them from the rest of their forces burning them up and deploying my nobz around. what the best part though was i had 4 trukks loaded w boyz hugging the wagon because the kff gives all vehicles a save. also if you can roll good sometimes i will have 2 squads of completely buffed kommandoes behind cover on their side of the field. this distracts the enemy making the opponent half thinking of mobilising their squads to destroy the threat. plus what i didint mention was keep the vehicles together then when there close to the enemy fan out.

Tau_etheral are you saying you put a unit of nobz and a unit of burnas into the same BW at the same time? If you are that's against the rules. Page 66 of the BRB. "A transport may carry a single infantry unit and/or any number of independent characters (as long as they count as infantry), up to the total of models equal to the vehicle's transport capacity". You can have the same transport service both squads, but only one unit (plus ICs) may embark the BW at a time.

The good news is that you should be able to crush his army. Orks suffer against mech -- not marine horde.
He has a total of 14 scoring models on the table, and once they are removed, the best he can hope for is a draw in objective games. He also gives up 8 VPs. You can build a 1200 point ork list and give up as many or less.

Here are my suggestions for your list

Get Snikrot and use him to kill his devastators. Snikrot is made of awesome-sauce, using him with 15 kommandos and 2 burnas will change your game. Modify your Big Mek model and call him snikrot. For your kommandos, paint orange camo on em and it works great. It works because they think it does

Drop your Big Mek -- he does not really fit into your army. As above, turn him into snikrot

Your nobs are a great hitting unit, but you need more than 5 if your gonna run them. You can find them on ebay for serious cheep.

Don't assault his terminators with 5 nobs plus a warboss -- assault them with 90 ork boys after firing 90 sluggas into them! Terminators die to mass volume of fire. When you shoot 90 sluggas/big shoota shots into him, he will be making 15 saves and lose between 2 and 3 termies. When you assault and roll 90+ attack dice, he will lose termies. They just can't survive volume of dice.

I put big shootas into my slugga squads so I can shoot them at terminators -- people here disagree but I've found good effect to that.

Field your slugga boys in units of 30, not 25. Orks are cheep, trade them from your friends. Buy 3 squads of them. At 215 points for 30 orks + nob + PK its easy to fit 3 into 1200 points. If your saving your money, try and work out trades with people who bought AoBR.

Drop your Zzap gun. You can toss it on a BW if you like the model.

Your burnas are to small -- they need to be 15 strong in a BW to be effective.

Drop your lootas. 5 of them is not enough to do anything -- you need to get 15 to be effective.

Boys before toys! If your going horde, you should be tossing 100 models down for 1200 points. Swamp the marine in green!

The Deffkopas are good anti-tank, but your facing a horde marine army. For now drop them and get more boyz.

Overall, if I were you I would horde up. At 1200 points, its a huge advantage to horde up, and he just won't be able to kill all your army in 5-7 turns. Grab some objectives, and give up less than 8 VPs by using fewer units. Kill his troops, and then grab all the objectives -- let him kill boys until you win the game.

Orks can do anything that any other army can do and do it better than they can. However, they cannot do everything that any other army can do. Make sense? If you make an ork assault army, they'll out-assault any other army in 40k. If you make a shooting army, you can outgun IG or Tau. If you go foot-slogging, or mechanized, or kan-wall....all those options make you a completely awesome army, but there's a catch. You can only do one of
them at a time with an army list.

If you combine a mechanized and a foot-slogging list, you're going to lose. If you have part assault, party shooting, you're probably going to lose. Your strength is in being able to pick something and be completely awesome at it. So before giving you advice on where to go next with your army, you need to pick a theme and build around it. If you want a bike army, or a shooting army; an outflanking army, mechanized, assault, figure out what your playstyle is and start building your units and armylist around that idea.

THAT is the strength of Orks.

Well thank you for pointing that out. anyways i must agree with lab mouse on his ideas. use either snikerot or da vultures to reak havoc on there devastators. if their hugging the edge use snik if there in the middle use vulcha. next i agree with lab on use lots of boys but if you had like four trukks you could use them as mobile mobs blocking you from getting shot up by his squads because the only thing that could do damage is the rocket launcher, this would be helpful also if you want to pick off a certain unit the trukks isolate them from any support

Well - here is the revision. As we normally play 1000pts, I cut the list down by 200. I took a compilation of all the advice given and threw together a list I thought may be more competitive.

BIG MEK BOLTZ' GREEN WAVE

HQ - 125
Big Mek Boltz
Power Klaw
Bosspole
Kustom Force Field
Cybork

Troop 1 - 190
Slugga Boyz x25
Nob
Powerklaw
Bosspole

Troop 2 - 190
Slugga Boyz x25
Nob
Powerklaw
Bosspole

Troop 3 - 170
Shoota Boyz x20
Big Shoota x2
Nob
Powerklaw
Bosspole

Heavy 1 - 60
Kannon x3

Elite 1 - 105
Loota x7

Elite 2 - 160
Kommando x9
Burna x2
Nob
Powerklaw
Bosspole

Battleplan
A single squad of 25 sluggas will be strewn across the field to provide cover to the shootas and Big Mek squad behind them. Big Mek will be deployed w/ 25 sluggas in a position that will offer the front squad with a KFF. Kannons & lootas will combine fire each round on a single vehicle target before moving on to whichever target seems most vulnerable in later rounds. As the sloggers approach midfield, Kommandos will outflank on my opponents edge and attempt to take out the smallest enemy unit. If all goes well, I plan on losing the frontal mob on its first assault, but the Mek will be close behind with a full squad of sluggas and a shoota squad laying down fire.


Well - there it is. I will try it next time I play and let you guys know how it goes. Let me know if you have any more suggestions.

Ive been tooling up to start an Ork army too (1000 points, mostly vs marines and chaos marines) so this thread is very timely.

Overall then, its better to go CC rather than Shooty with Orks? I really like Shooty and hate getting shot up as I try to close the distance for CC....

FlightMek wrote:Well - here is the revision. As we normally play 1000pts, I cut the list down by 200. I took a compilation of all the advice given and threw together a list I thought may be more competitive.

BIG MEK BOLTZ' GREEN WAVE

HQ - 125
Big Mek Boltz
Power Klaw
Bosspole
Kustom Force Field
Cybork

Troop 1 - 190
Slugga Boyz x25
Nob
Powerklaw
Bosspole

Troop 2 - 190
Slugga Boyz x25
Nob
Powerklaw
Bosspole

Troop 3 - 170
Shoota Boyz x20
Big Shoota x2
Nob
Powerklaw
Bosspole

Heavy 1 - 60
Kannon x3

Elite 1 - 105
Loota x7

Elite 2 - 160
Kommando x9
Burna x2
Nob
Powerklaw
Bosspole

Battleplan
A single squad of 25 sluggas will be strewn across the field to provide cover to the shootas and Big Mek squad behind them. Big Mek will be deployed w/ 25 sluggas in a position that will offer the front squad with a KFF. Kannons & lootas will combine fire each round on a single vehicle target before moving on to whichever target seems most vulnerable in later rounds. As the sloggers approach midfield, Kommandos will outflank on my opponents edge and attempt to take out the smallest enemy unit. If all goes well, I plan on losing the frontal mob on its first assault, but the Mek will be close behind with a full squad of sluggas and a shoota squad laying down fire.


Well - there it is. I will try it next time I play and let you guys know how it goes. Let me know if you have any more suggestions.

I think you should win.

I'll attest to pour fire into the termies. They are tough cookies when you throw just a few hits at them (even high STR and AP) but if you just mass shoot and assault they will melt. 1/6 shots kills a terminator. For 8 termies that means 48 wounds will kill the whole squad.

Take out the LS and Dreads with the Loota / Cannon combo. Snikky's got the devs. your boyz got the rest. Good luck.

good luck. If this works out for you I still suggest considering a 30 model grot unit as a bullet shield. They are cheap (both for pnts and real life cash), and it's better they die then your boyz that could actually contribute to an assault.

Also don't throw out your deff koptas.

If you read some of the other ork tactic threads on dakka people have been suggesting that deff koptas are actually great blitz units. The tactic was 2 model kopta squads with 1 buzzsaw (and TL Rokkits on both if you have the pnts though it's the rear armor assault that is important. This probably works better if they are cheaper with just big shootas). The koptas turbo boost on their scout move and shoot then assault the enemy rear armor.

I always tried to outflank with the koptas, but this seems like a better strategy. I didn't think you could turbo boost on the scout move, but after reviewing the scout and turbo boost rules there is nothing preventing you from turbo boosting on the scout move and then assaulting on your first turn. You do need to end you move more than 18" from your starting point to get the cover save bonus and 12" away from the enemy per the scout rule.

That's actually a pretty good chance to pop most non LR armor round 1 which is of course great. Otherwise the koptas will definitely scare your opponent and they will concentrate fire on the koptas to take them down which means they aren't firing at your infantry with full strength. Remember that a unit doesn't need to kill things to earn it's points back. If it distracts the enemy and keeps the more important stuff alive for a few rounds that also counts toward judging a unit's worth. I'm gonna try it next game and see how well it works.

*appended*
It was Alerian's strategy to give him credit.