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Are Grots any good? I am planning to make an ork army with a kan wall but i was wondering if Grots would do just as good as killa kanz

Also I have seen a lot of lists where they have 6 troop choices being 4 ork squads and 2 grot squads. Is that legal?

One more question-I was going to have a kan wall with 120 boyz behind it and a weirdboy/big mek so when i get ere we go i send 30 boyz to the enemy. I also have kommandos with Snikrot coming in from reserve but that is all i have. Would that be sufficient enough to take on armies if there is nothing else to shoot at but the kan wall? (1500 points)

Here's a thread discussing pros cons and uses of grots: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/271171.page

Grots aren't as good of a screen IMO as kanz. Charging into strength 10 power attacks is a little intimidating and kans are immune to most small arms fire and even if your opponent is elevated they will still give boyz cover. Turrets on grav-tanks or troops in buildings or on hills don't have their LoS blocked to a majority of the unit when grots are in front. Kans also mount much superior weaponry.

OTOH, grots are much cheaper. Still, I prefer kans for screening and grots for objective-holding.

As far as your army plan goes, with that many models on the field you're going to have trouble finding space to deepstrike a mob of 31 safely. With no lootas you're also going to have trouble clearing blast templates before you do this and it would only take a single thunderfire cannon or leman russ or railhead to end that entire unit. So basically you've got a good chance of getting a mishap, then if you don't get a mishap you're going to get blown to smithereens, and only then if your opponent is completely unprepared and this is only if your plan works, which you only have a 31% chance of getting on any given round anyway. The kan wall itself and snikrot are pretty solid though.

daemon wrote:One more question-I was going to have a kan wall with 120 boyz behind it and a weirdboy/big mek so when i get ere we go i send 30 boyz to the enemy. I also have kommandos with Snikrot coming in from reserve but that is all i have. Would that be sufficient enough to take on armies if there is nothing else to shoot at but the kan wall? (1500 points)

This is a GREAT plan. for this plan i would not use Grots. stick with your theme you will do well only sugestion i have is possibly Deffkoptas for anti tank (TL rokkits+Buzzsaw)

kans are better IMO for a shield wall, however i can take out those kans alot faster than i could a horde of grots, so it really depends on what army your facing and their preferred choice of weaponry. Overall i'd go for the kans with a decent mix of weaponry (grot somethings are good, 2 shots at S7 blast i think)

Kans would be better for being a wall then grots hands down. The kans have an armor value, meaning youve got to penetrate it then roll on the damage to make it go bye bye. Where as with grots, you just shoot them. Hell pretty much spitting at them will kill a grot.
On the cheap grots would work, but a kan wall is way better if you had to compare them. Armor, better weapons and the change to use a DCCW attack? Sign me up

When using grots for screens, remember the following
* Their cheap. Its OK if you lose 10 per turn due to firing.
* Their job is to protect your boys on the way to the fight.
* If your opponent shoots at the grots, you win.
* If your opponent shoots at the boys, they are getting cover so you win.
* The grots are there to be destroyed by an assaulting force, so your boys get the charge.
* Your grots can tie up a MC for the entire game if your opponent rushes one forward.

Kan-walls are great, but they give your opponents melta's something to target. Also, as a squad, they have additional problems.

To represent this, treat all immobilised results as destroyed (wrecked) and all stunned results as shaken. p64 BRB
the player controlling the squadron allocates the glancing and penetrating hits to squadron members as he would allocate wounds to members of a normal unit. p64 BRB

What does this mean? A penetrating melta weapon destroyed the kan on a damage roll of 3-6. It means a vendetta gunship can destroy all 3 in 1 turn of firing.
In today's melta-meta, personally I would find the grots more durable than the Kans, but YMMV based upon the players at your FLGS.

the Kans have a 4+ cover save from the KFF mek, which can help mitigate those shots. Also the thing about Meltas versus Orks: If you're in range of the melta, generally speaking you're way too close. You destroyed a Kan squadron. Congratulations. Prepare to receive an assault from 60 boyz.

However, Grots do work well. The only concern I've ever had is I don't think they benefit from Mob Rule, so the danger of them taking 25% casualties and fleeing may exist.

Kroot Loops wrote:the Kans have a 4+ cover save from the KFF mek, which can help mitigate those shots. Also the thing about Meltas versus Orks: If you're in range of the melta, generally speaking you're way too close. You destroyed a Kan squadron. Congratulations. Prepare to receive an assault from 60 boyz.

However, Grots do work well. The only concern I've ever had is I don't think they benefit from Mob Rule, so the danger of them taking 25% casualties and fleeing may exist.

Well, remember grots have squigs, so you get to re-roll that leadership of 7. While its not fearless, its a better than suck.

Kroot Loops wrote:the Kans have a 4+ cover save from the KFF mek, which can help mitigate those shots. Also the thing about Meltas versus Orks: If you're in range of the melta, generally speaking you're way too close. You destroyed a Kan squadron. Congratulations. Prepare to receive an assault from 60 boyz.

However, Grots do work well. The only concern I've ever had is I don't think they benefit from Mob Rule, so the danger of them taking 25% casualties and fleeing may exist.

1 Kan from the squadron must be within 6" of the Mek, and the Kans can be 4" apart. 6" between the mek and 1st can, 4" between the next 2 cans and the wall grows quite large. Life sucks for the other side unless they have lootas or a lot of autocannons.

Okay so i will probably go for the kan wall. The reason i asked was because i wanted to fit in two squads of 5 stormboyz (There is a tactica on this somewhere on dakkadakka). I figured i would take out 20 boyz and 2 kanz for these squads. I would change up the squads to 4 squads of 25 boyz and then give each one a rokkit. It takes some wicked maneuvering of terrain to make the strategy work though. I don't know how to fit the lootas in though...

My list's points is roughly like this (No codex with me)

weirdboy-85?

KFF Mek-85

4 Kanz with the 5 point gun-160

4x25 shoota boyz-760

2x5 stormboyz-about 170

10 kommandos with Snikrot-185

Any ideas on how to fit them? ( I really like stormboyz)

Rokkit boyz should be dropped should be dropped from your boyz squads. you cant shoot with them unless the boyz dont move and even then you waste all the other boyz shots shooting a rokkit at a vehicle. take big shootas instead.

Stormboys, lootas, Kans, Kommandos... Pick a theme and go all out in that theme. you are all over the place with long range, fast attack mobs, Kans... Orks need a theme! You want a Kan wall? then get more kans, and more boyz behind them. You want a "green tide" affect behind those cans, it gets scary when you do that!

Kommandos - Up that squad to 15, 2 should be burna, 1 should be Snikrot. It will do much more damage that way.

Rule Number 1 for orks should be "Ork Boyz before toyz!" They are you crushing hammer, use them as such.

What do you guys think about putting grotsnik in with a grot screen? Seems like it would guarantee to get them into assault unless your opponent poured everything he had into them.

Kaltak wrote:Rokkit boyz should be dropped should be dropped from your boyz squads. you cant shoot with them unless the boyz dont move and even then you waste all the other boyz shots shooting a rokkit at a vehicle. take big shootas instead.

Stormboys, lootas, Kans, Kommandos... Pick a theme and go all out in that theme. you are all over the place with long range, fast attack mobs, Kans... Orks need a theme! You want a Kan wall? then get more kans, and more boyz behind them. You want a "green tide" affect behind those cans, it gets scary when you do that!

Kommandos - Up that squad to 15, 2 should be burna, 1 should be Snikrot. It will do much more damage that way.

Rule Number 1 for orks should be "Ork Boyz before toyz!" They are you crushing hammer, use them as such.

Rokkits are assault 1 so they can move and shoot, and with a much longer range than Shootas, you can pop a couple shots off at enemy armor before the rest of the boyz get in range. It really depends on how you plan to deal with armor.

The weird boy can be fun, but he can also wreck your plan of attack with his randomness. An alternative to consider is a second KFF Mek, as it will let you spread your wall further and/or have a back up incase your first mek bites it.

Kroot Loops wrote:Rokkits are assault 1 so they can move and shoot, and with a much longer range than Shootas, you can pop a couple shots off at enemy armor before the rest of the boyz get in range. It really depends on how you plan to deal with armor..

Rokkits have a 6" range advantage over shootas. That's not very much. Use deff-koptas if you want more rokkits.

The other problem is that if your shooting your rokkits at a vehicle, your shoota shots are wasted plinking off the armor. It has more synergy to give your shoota squads big shootas.

Personally, I even give big shootas to my slugga squads, as they are a 3 are a great upgrade for 15 points. When my sluggas assault they get 9 STR 5 extra shots on the way in, which is nice. Ive even used 3 slugga squads w/big shootas (9 shootas total for 27 shots) to snipe off objective holders on the bottom of turn 6.

labmouse42 wrote: It means a vendetta gunship can destroy all 3 in 1 turn of firing.

10 gretchin can wipe out 10 terminators in one turn of firing too, that doesn't mean it's likely. A vendetta's chance to destroy a single kan with a 4+ cover save in a squadron: .40625 or 40.625%. This is all 3 tl lascannons firing, mind you. That means that 2 vendettas working together on the same kan squadron will destroy a single kan 4/5 turns of shooting. That's what I like to call 'sustainable losses.'

So just to clear up, Grots are pretty wasteful in 1500 points. They are cheap but points can be used for better things...right?

Yes. the only things they are really good at is a grot screen, and a cheap scoring unit IMHO.

Kaltak wrote:Yes. the only things they are really good at is a grot screen, and a cheap scoring unit IMHO.

They also Kill lone MC with surprising ease. To date I've lost 3 Wraith lords to these little sods.

If your opponetnt dosnt have any thing to hit the back field you can use them as a objective squater as they are troops and score.

daemon wrote:So just to clear up, Grots are pretty wasteful in 1500 points. They are cheap but points can be used for better things...right?

Not really. In my 1500 list I field 1 squad of them for objective camping. Here are the uses I have found for grots.
Mobile Cover
Grots can screen orks and provide a 4+ cover save for the advancing boyz. Why lose 6 point models when you can lose a cheaper one? When facing a heavy assault based army, like 'nids, the grots can also take the hormagaunt charge. When the grots wipe, your boys can mop up the mess.

Camping Objectives
40k is not about killing models, its about winning the game. The game is about objectives and VPs. Why would you put a 215 point ork squad on an objective near your table edge when you can put a 107 point grot squad there instead? That frees up more points for the boys on the offensive.
If their taking fire, just go to ground to protect them. The 3+ cover save goes a long way.

Grabba Sticks
This is more of a neat tactic when it appears rather than a game strategy. If you have 3 runtherders with grabba sticks, you can lower attacks by 3. This means the Carnifex, Avatar, Dreadnought, DP, etc... are getting 1 attack per assault phase. While the grots may never be able to kill the MC, it will be tied up for the rest of the game killing one 3 point model a turn!

Humor
Grots provide great humor when they do actually get a chance to shoot. You can boast about how they are 'da best shots' with their BS of a 3. Noone expects them to do anything, so when they actually do kill MEQ its quite funny for all parties. If you play in a WAAC environment, this does not get you any mileage, but for friendly games its fun.

Tri wrote:

Kaltak wrote:Yes. the only things they are really good at is a grot screen, and a cheap scoring unit IMHO.

They also Kill lone MC with surprising ease. To date I've lost 3 Wraith lords to these little sods.

That's not so much the gretchin as their runtherds, who can take an upgrade to be able to wound anything on a 4+

I run a Kann wall and this tourney I found out why mek is superior. Both my Big Meks were lashed and then my Kanns were picked apart. I tried to move my boys back into some sort of advance and yup lashed again and the big meks ignored because they were placed to far from the kanns. Next turn they were insta jibbed. I love the kann wall but look at the prices of the models, you can get trucks for around the same price and the metal models are being replaced by plastic this summer.

As I understand Lash, you stop moving when you hit another unit or impassable terrain. So it *should* be possible to set up the Kan Wall in such a way that your Meks can't easily be lashed away from your Kans. Maybe something like:



(excuse my poor artistic abilities)