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We are starting a BFG league at my LGS and I was hoping to get some advice on choosing ork ships. I have some of everything including 1 battleship, a hulk and some roks. We will be playing many of the scenarios that require leadership checks so I would like to get advice for those as well. Thanks.

Orks are very literally a straight-forward fleet to play, but there is some tactical preparation and provision required to get the most out of them. While crude is appearance and execution there is more subtlety to the orks than meets the eye.

First an overview.

The first rule of naval combat, and this applies to orks as well as anyone else is: manoeuver by design, fire by opportunity. You should plan your moves two or three turns ahead, and constantly adjust allowing for what the opponent is also doing. For roks you get it easy, the principle manoeuver order, all ahead full, is automatic to you and the +2d6 movment penalty is not a downside but helpful because 2d6 gives are more even average boost than +4d6. This means you can afford to use your special red button advantage knowing that your fleet will likely stay together.

Orks also need this advantage as with their short range all ahead full is generall a good idea. Ork engqagment range is 15cm, some weapons are longer but there are unreliable gunz and rare and gimicy heavier weapons found on a handful of heavier vessels. The latter are nice if tyou have gt them, but dont amass enough firepower to do much. even ther hulks m#lances dont mean much becasue alone they will clear two shields between them, not ebnough to threaten. All firepower is best used to support the real strength of the ork arsenal the 15cm heavy gunz. Fixed firepower with good strength even for escorts and dealing double damage, what is there not to like.

Ramming is also an ork ideal, not necessarily a strength as it is as hazardous to the ork as it is to the target, you need to emphasise methods of killing the nemy which dont add to your own losses, BFG is all about attrition and self destructive attack types are self defeating in all but a hsndful of opponents. There are exceptiosn, but those are mostly target related and go for any fleet. Ram ships are also a partial exception, but more on them later.

Of the problems to watch out for leadership is your worst, apart from all ahead full do not expect to make much progress on leadership tests, and warlords are not the answer, unlike other races leaders they dont replace a poor leadership value, just add other benefits and reroll purchase opportunities. you might get more reloads than anyone else, but you are still unlikely to pas any, and will cease all new orders once one is failed. This hurts you when it comes to reload above all else, and ork players should think of ordnance as one shot weaponry intermittently given a second chance, though mileage can vary if you get a decent leadership score in a lucky place.

So what do you make an ork fleet out of? unlike most fleet lists orks have reltively little choice, there are three basic components to a ork list, ratios can vary and a battleship or hulk can do double duty on some cgharacteristics but by and large you will want the following, mixed escort squadrons, terror ships and roks. These I will deal with first.

The ork essentials.

1. Escort squadrons. Whether you take an ork pirate fleet or a Waargh fleet the strength of the ork lies in the escorts it can deploy. Ork escorts are dirt cheap and have a crucial 6+ forward armour rating; orks are more trouble than they are worth to shoot down. Exploit this to the maximum - and this is how.

Ork escort squadrons consist for two basic ship types: Ravager Attack ships and Onslaught/Slaughter gunships. the latter two are joined together because the two ships are interchangable. Recently all three vessels are equally priced at 40pts, which partially negates some of the benefits listed here, but originally Ravagers were somewhat cheaper, which helped with my recommended tactic.
Ork escort squadrons should consist of four to six ships, consisting of two Ravegers (one will do for some squadrons) with the rest filled with Onslaghts and Savages to taste. eacvh squadron, and you should have several, is deployed in a loose column, not a line unlike other fleets, with the Ravagers leading. Ravagers have torpedoes, have rather a lot of them and offer the best immeidate firepower of any ork escort, but they suffer from all the restrictions of torpedo vessels including the problem of torp salvoes hitting friendly ships etc plus random salvo strength and the unlikelihood of reloading. in fact you dont intend t reload them. With the escorts advanacing as adjacent columns the Ravagers leading the wave fire first and consquently die first to return fire, surving Ravagers if any add their 2 gunz to whatever other firepower the squadron kicks out. as you might notice Ravagers are just there to lay down a lot of firepower once, all in a line, then die, and so you can see whay it was even better when they were cheaper than other ork escorts.

Why not squadron escorts normally like evertyone else? Because ork escorts are not all the same value, Ravagers are worth far less, once they have fired, also columns are required because of All Ahead Full. The +2d6 movment can vary sufficiently that waves of escorts can overtake each other, or need to be sprwad out unnecessarily to make sure they dont. a problem when your best guns have 15cm range. The last thing you want, though very orky, is for a squadron with a high roll on +2d6 overtaking your Ravagers just before they want to fire. When moving in columns it matters less if some squadrons outpace the others, they will all be advancing in a huge mass anyway and it will even out over all.

Also remember that torpedo strength is not affected by All Ahead Full, so you can charge forwards and still get your major salvo of torps from your front of expendable Ravagers.

2. Karriers. The Karrier or terror ship is the second arm in your arsenal, and while the ship is less well priced thna other options it is sadly essential. Orks primary weakness is against bombers, the 4+ armour, which a bomber can curve around to reach coupled with poor turret values means that orks are easy prey to enemy attack craft. With ork fleets being escort heavy assauklt boats are no less a threat. So you need fighter escort. Ignore the bomma half of fighta-bommas, you can get your d3 atacks out if you need to it wont go far against all but the weakest turret values anyway, instead just deploy your atack craft as single units of fightas, use them as fightas and clear away any enemy bomber or assault boat coming your way.
Terror ships sadly only carry four squadrons for 185pts, which is only slihtly cheaper than your opponents carrier capacity, but you need your carriers more than they (in most cases) and will have problems reloading due to poor rok leadership.
This means you will need to squadron your karriers, buy enough reloads to last the game for them and hope to get a 7 or 8 leadership on at least one vessel. You should be lucky and if your reload your squadron first thing after all your all Ahead Full orders are processed you should, with the 20pt reloads avaialble be able to get your fightas moving eqach turn.

Karriers do have fairly impressive firepower at short range, but its a trap. Because of the short range they or an opponent is very likely to explode if destroyed causing a vhain reaction that can wipe out your entire karrier fleet. This is an instant lose for the orks, so as you will reload anyway take torpedo tubes for each vessel nd fire boarding torpedos as well as fightas each turn. Baording torpedos can turn, so you can spread them about and vector in each turn unlike normaly torpedoes. The turn makes them viable as long range weapin, unlike ordinary torpedoes which once evaded are essentially lost. While squadrons karriers can mass together torpedo fire its usually best not o bother unless a capital ship uis through your liones and coming towards you, then fire massed normal torpedoes (if they can connect the same turn). Otherwise fire each ship independently and spread boardiong tiorp salvioes everywhere. Your opponent will have to account for them all and the turn arcs for the salvoes are wider than they first appear.

3. Roks. Roks are the thirs arm of the ork fleet, and you neec lots of them. Slow moving and unresponsive roks are there to follow up an ork attack, just mass them behind the lfeet and drift forwards. Do not concern your self with the poor turn ability, set each rokm up so that it collides with no dangerou celestial phenomena and drift it forward 10cm a turn for the whole battle. Roks are there for thre reasons. First they are stupidly cheap at 80pts, you can afford several and must take several. Second they have longsih range and multiple arc firepower, this is important ask once you get past the ork wave you are not only able to hit weak armour but are out for fire arcs. Eldar are especially good at outmanoeuvering orks this way, though as almost all or vessels have a 45 degree turn even come capital ship classes can outmanoeuver them. Roks are tghere so that it doesnt matter so much. Got behind the escort, threatening thev lfank of the karrier squadron, then you are in range of thwe wall of roks following up and their batteries.
Third advantage is that roks, when they die, do not explode destoying each other and the rest of the bunched ork fleet. inbstead thety die with a whimper dissolving into four blast markers. Thus you dont have to worry about bunched roks.
You might notice that the background story to the battle of Armageddon described this tactic, Ghazkull himself approves of a backstop of roks behind the wave of ork ships, so it has to be good right.


More later in part 2.

Awesome, my invisible (new model free cloaking system) ork fleet needed this.

I totally forgot to update this, ho hum.

MOAR about Ram ships... they are the only reason tempting me to start them .

Ram ships do a few things no other Ork ships can. They are the most maneuverable, having a 90 degree turn radius. They are also your most defensive vessel. Rams must be set up a turn in advance, and the enemy often has the option of avoiding them. That means that you don't aim your ramships at where you expect the enemy to be- you put them where you don't want him. If he does move anyway, fine! You can ram him. If he doesn't, you're prepared for his actions.

They are also dirt cheap. This is extremely important for bomber defense. A wave of bombers can only hit the first unit to impact them- so hit a bomber wave threatening your precious karriers with a ramship. You've just spent 25 points to save a cruiser. Alternatively, you can get a pair of ramships into base contact with most any unit in your fleet, if you keep them packed tight and have the ramships trailing. This will bring your turret value up to 3 and lessen the effect of multiple waves of attack craft.

Finally, there is the shotgun formation. Taking a large squad of ramships, you simply point them in any direction once you are within 30 to 40 cm of the enemy fleet and are certain that they will advance. Next turn, you go AAF and ram anything your ships impact. You will be forced out of coherency, but you can also cover a very respectable arc with ramships. Who knows, some of them might even survive.

As far as a ram goes, consider it in turns of points- 4 ram attacks is likely to cause at least 1 wound against anything short of a Space Marine or Necron vessel. Even on a slaughter class, 1/8 of the vessel's point value is 21 points. Its a fair trade against even the humblest of vessels.

I highly recommend at least one squad of these versatile little vessels.

I agree with Gitzbitah up to a point but you have to look at ships are part of the fleet.

Ramships are there as flanking forces. The 90 degree turn is the critical asset. Congregate Ramships on an exposed flank to account for the main ork waves lack of mobility. You dont need many, they just need to be there.

The Ram is great and very orky but Ramships are not superfast and opponents can see it coming. What they might not see coming is the far more survivable job of ramming escorts. Sure escorts are more difficuot to hit, but most people dont think of ramming this way. They see raming as the way the small and brave takes on the mighty. With only one dice back, requiring sixes Ramships can ruin escortsand I highly recommend using them in this role.

again you dont need many Ramships because the odds are poor, you needthe potential, and thus you warn away enemy escorts. The first time someone loses a squardon of Firestorms to Ramships, and see the Ramships surive they learn caution, and thus regress from threatening your flank.

As far as taking out bombers is concerned use fighta- bombers. Against large waves any escort is a good trade. This is not a Ramship technique, Swords and Infidel are used this way too.