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I want to start a footslogging army but they just don't seem like they would do very well. All the ork armies i see that are successful use trukks and what not but i wasn't planning on using any. Is the only viable way of keeping your boyz alive to put them in transports?

I think my list has potential.
It uses basically
Grots for cover saves
Old Zogwort+Warboss/Weirdboy
Shoota Boy squads
Lootas

The main idea is that Shoota Boyz are the staple of a foot slogging army as they can fire while covering ground to make up for their lower CC attacks (compared to Sluggaz).

Also because they're Shoota Boyz they can protect the Lootas from outflanking/quick units much better than Slugga Boyz while still making their way into CC.

The grots of course grant cover saves to all the Boyz behind them.

It can and does work very well. There are always going to be those lists out there that can take care of mass horde, but those are few and far between. A lot of people in 5th "Mech up" and gear their army to take down mech.

Now while marching 150+ boyz accross the field is a pretty tough list, its also EXTREMELY boring to use. My first ork army was a "green tide" and while I won almost all of my games, this list made me put my orks aside. After the "WOW LOOK HOW AWESOME 150 BOYZ LOOKS ALL LINED UP" wears off, its just boring and can really take the fun away from the game when you have to bust your ass to get all of your movement done, plus your running, plus your assaulting....siiiigh

what about a list like 75 shoota boyz, warboss bike, kff, 20 stormboyz, 5nob bikers, 18 grots

Like i have been trying to make a footslogging list (due to the fact i dislike using vehicles) and i just can't seem to find a good one. Im going to the store today to ask around but i just can't decide.

Many people seem to report success with foot Orks, especially Loota/Shoota armies with Grot or Kan screens.

I agree. Footsloggin' Orks is still a competitive build and lots of the other top builds out there at the moment struggle to deal with horde. 30 boyz with a hidden powerklaw in it is nothing to sneeze at, and Orks are so cheap they can field 120+ boyz and still have points left over to buy huge piles of Lootas to shred light armor or a Snikrot Kommando squad to ambush gunlines, or any of the other half a dozen very potent Ork options.

Footslogging orks have serious problems. They are slow and are handicapped by 2 (Dawn of War and Spearhead) of the 3 deployments. In tournaments you'll be facing mechanized armies that can move and shoot so don't expect to get into combat very soon. CSM armies with Lash of Submission are common at tournaments and they will give any footslogging list a hard time.

my army is a hybrid where the purpose of my 3 fast moving units is to draw my enemy closer to my small horde. I don't know if it would work though as i haven't met any ork players to talk about strategy

daemon, there are strategy discussions all over the forums here for ork players. Do some browsing.

As for foot-slogging orks: In its pure form without the application of tactical common-sense, foot-slogging orks aren't particularly competitive against "some" builds. Those are builds with a lot of flamers and templates.

There are several ways to make foot-slogging orks competitive, and these manifest themselves in different "subset" themes of ork play. The "Kan-wall" is one of the more popular themes. Massed Lootas is another. Adding several squads of stormboys is potent as well. Snikrot helps is a lot of ways. Outflanking deffkoptas do too.

It all really depends on what models you have in your foot-slogging armory and what you can put on the table. Can you build a foot-slogging army-list that is competitive? If we're defining foot-slogging simply as "no vehicles" then absolutely yes. Your theme is particularly important though, as is the importance of covering units, sluggas vs. shootas, spacing, and quite a few other things that really have to be discussed in the context of a particular list or style.

One of my favorite foot-slogging lists:
45 Lootas form a centralized firebase against the rear table edge.
29 Gretchin+2 runt-herders form a protective shell 6" away from the Lootas with strategic "filler" gretchin so that nothing can get a free flamer on the Lootas or jump between them.
Several mobs of shoota boys on either side hugging cover to handle objectives and provide medium-range fire.
Several outflanking/scouting deffkoptas to handle leman-russ type vehicles with heavy front armor and weak rear armor.

If you don't want a static firebase:
29 Gretchin + 2 runt-herders providing a front screen.
Alternatively, an 'Ard Boyz mob doing the same.
Alternatively, an 'Ard Boyz mob with Mad Dok, or the gretchin with Mad Dok doing the same.
All the orks in their 30 ork blocks marching up behind the gretchin with 4+ saves.
Several outflanking/scouting deffkoptas to handle vehicles.
Snikrot/Stormboyz to direct model-flow / battle.

The problem is though that with 1500 points there is not much room for auxiliary units after putting in a few squads of normal boyz with their kff.

several squads of stormboyz? Could you expound more on this as stormboyz are my most favourite units in the army and i'd really like to utilize them to their full potential with my footsloggers.

What? Where did I mention a KFF anywhere in there? Did you even read what I wrote?

Why would you take an HQ choice to give you a 5+ cover save when your whole army already has a 4+ cover save?

daemon wrote:what about a list like 75 shoota boyz, warboss bike, kff, 20 stormboyz, 5nob bikers, 18 grots

That is why your having your problems. Your army is trying to do multiple things, when you should be focused on footslogging and shootin. Here are some tips.

Boys before Toys
With a 1500 point army, you should be able to field 3-4 squads of 30 orks with nob and 3 big shootas. Make your grot squad 29 strong with 2 runtherders. That gives you ~120 to ~150 models.

Snikrot and Krew
This unit of 15 kommandos with 2 burnas helps green tide armies quite a bit. Snikrot will come from behind your opponent and cause a lot of chaos. His job is not to 'get his points back' but to cause disruption in your opponents like while the rest of your boys are running to him.

Pick a Theme
Drop the bikes. They are cool, but they don't match your theme. Even the stormboys don't fully mesh with shootas. As shoota orks lootas would be a better fit.
This is the best advice Ive ever read for orks.

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.

Yeah, I think foot slogging generally relies on screens to do the saves and not a KFF. KFF is usually more of a mechanized army HQ choice I believe. But of course it all just depends on what you are doing.

Grot screening and kongo-lining are great ways to make sure your boys get cover saves. Its a 4+ save with no big mek needed.

I use footslogging Orks and have taken them all the way up through the 'ard boyz '09 tournament (city tourney, top 3 advance to state tourney, top 3 advance to national finals. I placed in top third at nationals.) I also regularly stomp the locals with my competitive force (undefeated as of yet). You can have a very successful Ork army without Ork vehicles, but there is a caveat: you must still be able to reach out and touch your enemy turn 2 or earlier. I recommend lootas to do so on turn 1 and then some kind of fast element. Stormboyz, warbikers, nob bikers, and to some extent snikrot kommandos. Nob bikers are obviously the most effective and costly of these, with the others having different levels of efficacy.

Here's a 1500 point outline you might enjoy:
Warboss with PK and the other goodies on bike 150
15 lootas 225
30 shoota boyz, big shootas, klaw nob with pole 235
30 shoota boyz, big shootas, klaw nob with pole 235
25 gretchin, 2 runtherds 95
20 stormboyz, klaw nob with pole 280
20 stormboyz, klaw nob with pole 280

Alternatively you can downgrade the warboss to a walking boss, lose 9 grots, a runtherd, and a loota to squeeze in a second walking warboss (PK, 'eavy armour, cybork body) or some more lootas and split the big loota mob into 2 smaller or whatever 100 points floats your boat for. Either way the plan goes something like: Stormboyz fly up 1 flank (biker boss turbo-boosts to join closer mob, preventing it from running but it shouldn't need to), shootas come up middle/other flank, leaving the enemy boxed in by 100 Ork bodies squeezing them into a corner with no place to go, lootas take down targets of opportunity and dismantle threats, and gretchin take objectives or protect lootas or screen shoota boyz, depending on mission and opponent. The first proposed list is 141 bodies on the field, enough to intimidate your opponent for sure.

Also, I disagree strongly with those who popularly say on this forum that Orks should pick one thing and do only that thing. Orks are not one-dimensional, they are generalists. To use a shoota mob most effectively you shoot as you walk up and then charge. It's the epitome of a general unit. Even nob bikers have excellent dakkaguns to soften up their enemy. Taking all assault with no shooting support is leaving oneself foolishly vulnerable. The flip-side is similarly foolish with Orks but difficult to do since PKs are easy to get into a boyz mob and a basic boy is ws 4 with 2 attacks. Like the codex says, no matter what Ork army you're fielding, you will probably end the game in assault. Part-mechanized isn't good because of target saturation failure, not any fault of trying to do more than one thing.

Dashofpepper wrote:Why would you take an HQ choice to give you a 5+ cover save when your whole army already has a 4+ cover save?

It's worth noting that an infantry screen doesn't provide cover from valkyries raining missile pods into your mobs or barrage weaponry. Generally a screen is fine though.

As far as getting hosed on deployment, dawn of war sucks for footsloggers but spearhead I have no problem with.

Another thing to keep in mind is that it takes some time to get good at moving 120+ models on foot in a timely and tactical fashion. If you aren't playing in a time constrained setting then it's nothing to worry about. If it is something you intend to play in tournaments then you'll need some practice moving lots of models and not making errors.

Dashofpepper wrote:What? Where did I mention a KFF anywhere in there? Did you even read what I wrote?

Lol Dash yes i did. The kff mek was just my add on cause i thought they always needed it incase the grots die.

I also agree Culler as a player in the GT that i cannot remember went with a hybrid ork army (or in some tournament) and ranked very well. Hes mentioned somewhere on da waaagh.com. You are also right that the list you outlined is extremely appealing for me. the only problem is that i don't know if it would be strong or not even with a sound tactic although it does sound incredibly fun. If you don't mind i would like to post it up on the army lists forum to see the type of comments it gets ( im paranoid about lists for preserving money)

daemon wrote:You are also right that the list you outlined is extremely appealing for me. the only problem is that i don't know if it would be strong or not even with a sound tactic although it does sound incredibly fun. If you don't mind i would like to post it up on the army lists forum to see the type of comments it gets ( im paranoid about lists for preserving money)

Not at all, I would encourage it actually and see if any suggestions come up that tickle your fancy, and I'm glad you liked it. It's your army list, customize however you like. I can say that after experimenting with the fast element in hybrid lists in my earlier days (warbikers, stormboyz, and nob bikers), nob bikers are typically the optimal unit to fill such a role. Also, 1 unit of stormboyz in 1500 points often doesn't have the staying power to hit all the time but 2 units should mean some serious havoc.

Footslogging orks run into some problems, but I think they can still be competitive. And hey, "you can't deal with 50 orks now and 100 more orks later" IS a theme, a theme that some people have used to great effect, a guy in my club is planning on running a list like this, with some kommandos, some deffkoptas, and Ghaz. You may run into some problems with this kind of list if there's someone who CAN deal with 50 orks right now first turn, but those people are few (and the answer to them is to outflank, then question becomes the same only backwards, "You can't deal with 100 orks now and 50 more when they come out of reserve!")

@Dash: Grotsnik can't really help Grotz out with his FNP because they are toughness 2, so boltguns cause instant death, therefore no FNP....Cybergrots would be annoying as hell though.

"Theme" is more than "Do only one thing" Theme has to do with how your army works as a whole. Your army should be able to back its units up and be able to take on all comers.

That seems to be the problem with the basic ork player.The general concept is that their units are too weak to be strategic so by focusing on one thing you can get the job done.

daemon wrote:That seems to be the problem with the basic ork player.The general concept is that their units are too weak to be strategic so by focusing on one thing you can get the job done.

So your saying thats not the case? In which case I agree. There's more to Orks than just getting 180 boys and rushing towards the foe. You need to get protection, a bunch of Orks which a 4+ cover save is awesome, which is why I like Grots a lot. Plus, they have very little ant-tank beyong PKs, so a static firebase like Dash mentioned is neccesary.


But yes, I do believe Foot Orks are perfectly viable, just as much as any other Orks build. I don't see them very much but I hear about people doing very well with them.

And to be honest, Boys on foot last longer than boys in Trukks. Theres so many of them, and they should all have cover, so only flamers will pose a threat, and many people know how to deal with those.(Plus you'll charge them before they get in range most of the time anyway), 12 boys in a trukk, is fairly easy to deal with.

Culler wrote:I use footslogging Orks and have taken them all the way up through the 'ard boyz '09 tournament (city tourney, top 3 advance to state tourney, top 3 advance to national finals. I placed in top third at nationals.) I also regularly stomp the locals with my competitive force (undefeated as of yet). You can have a very successful Ork army without Ork vehicles, but there is a caveat: you must still be able to reach out and touch your enemy turn 2 or earlier. I recommend lootas to do so on turn 1 and then some kind of fast element. Stormboyz, warbikers, nob bikers, and to some extent snikrot kommandos. Nob bikers are obviously the most effective and costly of these, with the others having different levels of efficacy.

This.

You cannot really build a stronger core set of troop choices than 3-4 25-30 strong shoota mobz with a pk nob and as many big shootas as possible.

Stick grots in front of them and they'll outshoot marines, out assault anything bar berserkers (if they get the charge). Are surprisingly resilient and will win you games.

But you desperately need either some long ranged shooting capability or some speedy assault units or if points allow both.

Why?

Because those shootas can't really get into the game until turn 3 and that's 2 turns your opponent has to shoot the crap out of you. If he has decent counter-assault then he can shoot you up on the way in then charge you and break the horde. That isn't hard and a pure horde is easily stopped by say a standard 2x lash list with obbies and zerkers.

You need to be able to take down his big shooting threats or shoot down his assault threats before they have the opportunity to shut down the green tide.


As for the poster who said that 2 of the deployment options are a problem. Dawn of war isn't so bad, you just lose 6" of movement at the start. If you have some warbikers/stormboyz then you quickly regain that loss and your opponent is on the same back foot too usually. It hurts the lootaz and shootaz build though.

Spearhead is a massive arse though. I usually deploy my grots in an L shape at the corner with 2 shoota mobz behind it then first turn flatten out the grots and move up the shootas behind them in a pair. Almost everything else gets reserved. Since you don't enter play from your corner but rather your long table edge you'd be surprised how much extra distance you can gain using reserves in spearhead. I've moved kanz on and got charges with them straight away, bikers or stormboyz will have it even easier. It's like a superior outflank.

Also, I do believe Lootas can take down Demon princes pretty well, which is one more reason to take them.

I've played footsloggers a few different ways. The core of all of the different variants is 4 mobs of boyz, however. I suppose, if you were stuck, you could downgrade a mob to some grots.
Lootas are pretty much essential for footsloggers who don't take Kans. I've used stormboyz, and perhaps I need a second unit, but I don't find them that impressive. I must say, I do find the KFF useful, as it can be difficult to get a good screen going for your units all the time.
Snikrot and his kommandos are brilliant in this list, I find, as they break open the opponent's castle.
My current list is:
Big Mek with KFF
Boss on bike with cybork body, klaw, squig (tank hunting)

4 big mobs with all the trimmings
14 Grots with a Herder

15 Kommandos with Snikrot
15 Lootas
That's 1750, but it's not hard to shave it down to 1500- drop the grots, a loota, a couple of komandos and the biker boss.
I beat triple vendetta gaurd with it tonight, in Dawn of War deployment. They just couldn't kill enough of my dudes.

With lower point games, footslogging orks will devastate everything with sheer model numbers.

I usually play with a buttload of slugga boys with flanking deffkoptaz and some kommandos to steal and hold objectives. I have been fantastically successful.

I approve the grot screen... 120 points so you can save yourself 180 points worth of wounds... awesome...

In addition, Last time I checked, it sucks when your ladz get assaulted with the grots in front it people will have a hard time getting past the grots without just shooting them to bitz...

Personally Though... if you have a 100 points hanging out... I would upgrade those grots to shoota boyz or slugga boyz... T4 fearless means you are not stuck waiting for your grots to rally to get back you cover save.

What's the general consensus on Killa Kans? Are they a suitable replacement for the Grot screen?

As for the notion of hitting on turn 2: DashofPepper often talks about having your entire army hit at once. Opinions?

Snikkyd wrote:Also, I do believe Lootas can take down Demon princes pretty well, which is one more reason to take them.

Shoota boyz take down daemon princes pretty well, and honestly orks have nothing to fear in CC from a DP, they simply have too few wounds and attacks to kill a mob before the mob kills it.

Make sure you have lootas to back up your army... or some form of fire power... and have killa kans as well.

willydstyle wrote:

Snikkyd wrote:Also, I do believe Lootas can take down Demon princes pretty well, which is one more reason to take them.

Shoota boyz take down daemon princes pretty well, and honestly orks have nothing to fear in CC from a DP, they simply have too few wounds and attacks to kill a mob before the mob kills it.

Yeah but if it's a lash prince, you want to get it down early.