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so here's my first stab at a basic mech list.

big mek w/KFF
big mek w/KFF

15 burna boys
15 urna boys

12 boys
nob w/power klaw
bosspole
trukk

12 boys
nob w/power klaw
bosspole
trukk

12 boys
nob w/power klaw
bosspole
trukk

12 boys
nob w/power klaw
bosspole
trukk

2 battlewagons

this is roughly 1400 points
the vehicles are bare and will get a few upgrades but i wanted a base list to work from.
most likely this will go up to 2000 points eventually.

the main idea is simple... each mek rides in a BW with a squad of burna boys and each wagon is flanked by 2 trukks.
pick a tabke edge and hit it while trying to avoid taking on the entire enemy force. spread them out if i can.

i have 6 bikes and 6 koptas i'll probably throw in to beef up points as well as the vehicle upgrades.

any thoughts or suggestions?

It's not looking too bad. Might consider adding PKs to the big meks so that you can have vehicle threat to those squads. Or Could switch one Big mek & burna squad for 18 or 19 boyz with either a warboss or Ghazghkull.
Probably could still take the Nob & PK on the squad too for an additional PK. With only one KFF you'll have to group up your vehicles in a brick pretty much. This isn't a bad thing though, throw it at one side of their army until it's dead, then move to the rest.

That way you have an assault force for killing most units (boyz & boss), and a force for killing 'ard units such as plague marines, terminators, etc. The power weapons make short work of them.
If you wanted could give a burna to the big mek for another one to that squad. That part is more up to you though.

Also boarding planks for trukks can be a worthwhile investment. Strike with the Nob & PK on the driveby without ever getting out.
Deffkoptas could also work out following the vehicles up the board w/ rokkits. Can use them for popping transports or shooting at deep strikers behind you.

I'd suggest adding 3 squads of 2 Deffkoptas with TL Rokkits. I hear that Scouting them and then Turbo Boosting first turn is pretty good at letting you take out tanks on your second turn.

thanks guys.
looking for more input...

Might be overkill to have 2 units of burnas, but that's your call. Trukks, battlewagons could use boarding planks and maybe grabbin klaws to deal with vehicles. BWs need a gun of some kind so that "Weapon Destroyed" doesn't immobilize you.

I like Deffkoptas w/ rokkits and buzzsaws. With a turboboost scout move and the first turn, you have a 42" charge range and 60" effective range with the rokkits.

Overall, fine start to a mechanized list.

30 burnas are not set in stone but i figured if one is killy then two should be extra killy
is 2 units overkill?
suggest an alternative? i was thinking a big mob of boyz or maybe a unit of nobs.

usernamesareannoying wrote:30 burnas are not set in stone but i figured if one is killy then two should be extra killy
is 2 units overkill?
suggest an alternative? i was thinking a big mob of boyz or maybe a unit of nobs.

"Overkill? This isn't a game of kick the ouphe!"

A Nobz mob is usually a good idea, since the excel at killing everything that doesn't shoot them to death first. Meganobz get expensive (both pointwise and in $$) but they make sense in a mek list.

Alternatives?

Well, Ghazghkull Thraka turns a D6 Waaaugh! into a 6" Waaaugh! and provides killy as well. I think you could do much worse than to sub out a KFF mek for Ghazghkull. Definitely need some boarding planks for anti-tank, grabbin' klaws are very useful too.

alternative to a burna unit.
someone thought 2 may have been too much.
like i said this was a bare list. all vehicles will have planks, rams and maybe red paint.

Yes, 2 burnas is overkill. Even against swarms, you will likely find yourself out of targets to kill with just 1 burna group.

A good replacement, at only marginally higher cost, is Ghazkull and 18 boyz. You lose your extra mek with the new HQ selection, but shouldn't be hurt by it since it isn't difficult to keep all of the vehicles within 6" of a central wagon. You are replacing ~300ish points with ~330ish by doing so, with considerably more than 30 points of punch added to your bottom line effectiveness.

I like it. I dont think 2 Burna boyz squads is overkill. Once people know how awesome they are at clearing their infantry units, they will probably work on taking them out first. With 2 of them, it ensures that your going to get them close enough to kick the hell out of everything. Their also amazing against MCs since all of their attacks are power weapon attacks. I would keep them.

I do agree though that Ghazzy is a must. Yes hes 225 points but hes worth it. 1 KFF mech will be enough to cover all of your vehicles. Remember, your going to be getting stuck in on turn 2 with Ghazzy, so 1 KFF mech will do alright.

The only weakness in this list is the lack of PKs. If you move up to 2000 points, just add in a squad of Nobz, or Mega Nobz in a BW with ghazzy and your set. Actually...your list is the exact same as mine if you would increase to 2000 points. I havent been dissapointed with my list yet and its hella fun to play. Take a look.

HQ:
Ghazzy Thraka

KFF Mech

Troops:
12x Sluggas
1x Nob w/PK
Trukk
-Reinforced Ram

12x Sluggas
1x Nob w/PK
Trukk
-Reinforced Ram

12x Sluggas
1x Nob w/PK
Trukk
-Reinforced Ram

12x Sluggas
1x Nob w/PK
Trukk
-Reinforced Ram

3x Mega Nobz (Ghazzy with these guys)
Battle Wagon - Dedicated Transport
-Deff Rolla
-Boarding Planks
-Grabbin Claw
-Red Paint
-Big Shoota

Elite:
14x Burna Boyz (Battle Wagon)

14x Burna Boyz (Battle Wagon)

11x Kommandos
Boss Snikrot

Heavy:
Battle Wagon (Burnas)
-Deff Rolla
-Big Shoota

Battle Wagon (Burnas)
-Deff Rolla
-Big Shoota

Total: 1993


Also, the Kommandos add A LOT to this style of play. Run snikrot with them and you can really cramp the opponents play style. No snikrot doesnt have a PK, but with him you ALWAYS know where their going to come in at (any table edge), and that in itself is worth the 85 points.

I hope this helped man.

Bad_Sheep37 wrote:I dont think 2 Burna boyz squads is overkill. Once people know how awesome they are at clearing their infantry units, they will probably work on taking them out first. With 2 of them, it ensures that your going to get them close enough to kick the hell out of everything. Their also amazing against MCs since all of their attacks are power weapon attacks. I would keep them.

Easier said than done. With a lascannon weighing in at only a 3% chance of actually destroying AV14 protected by KFF, they don't tend to require redundancy. If, by some chance, your vehicle does disappear, get out, and take the other wagon. Yes, they will take heat. Yes, they will be shot at. Yes, once in a rare while, they might even lose their wagon early in the game. However, there's enough redundancy built in by having so many vehicles to move between that you don't need to put another 450 point unit on the field with the exact same job.

If you go that route, you now have half of your 2000 point army tied up in units that could have been replaced more efficiently by just about anything... Such as 3 groups of trukk boyz, 2 groups of wagon boyz, Ghaz and some boyz in a wagon... While the initial buy in for a unit at 15 points per burna is worth it, the second pales next to the overall value of 6 point boyz with a klaw.

Considering you can only have a Max of 6 squads of trukk boyz, I still think its worth taking the second unit of burnaz. What other Elite option is better? I really dont think another group of Nobz would be. Sure the Nobz can take out armor with all the PK attacks, but in most cases, you can use deff rollas for that anyways. Also, If you CANT use deff rollas, just ignor them. Yea IG will give you a hell of a time if its Meched out, but that list is going to suck to play against anyways...even with 2 squads of Nobz in the wagons. The burnas can take out MCs just as easy if not better than your Nobz with PKs can, PLUS they wipe infantry like nothing. Burnas are a more versital unit therefore you should take 2.

Also, if you only take 1 squad of burnas and they get popped turn one, who in their right mind would want to take their Nobz out of the BW so you can give the burnas a ride? I know i wouldnt. I wouldnt even want to get anything out of the BW that its already in. Either way, if they get popped your pretty much losing those points. If you jump the Nobz out of the wagon to make room for the burnas, then you pretty much losing the Nobz points as well. So that just doesnt make sense.

I wouldnt take anymore Kommandos, considering you cant have another snikrot so your never going to know where their going to be coming in from. Lootas have no place in this list. More boyz....why. 12 is enough to stick in there and take out whatever you assault.

@ Carnuss
My question to you. What do you think would be a better alternative to the burnas? Nobz just incase he runs into a REALLY heavy mech list that 1 squad of nobz and 3 deff rollas cant take care of? Orks will ALWAYS suck at taking out armor, so why not gear out to take out MCs and mass infantry considering the new Nid codex is out and we all know they love their MCs.

Just my 2 cents.

Bad_Sheep37 wrote:@ Carnuss
My question to you. What do you think would be a better alternative to the burnas? Nobz just incase he runs into a REALLY heavy mech list that 1 squad of nobz and 3 deff rollas cant take care of? Orks will ALWAYS suck at taking out armor, so why not gear out to take out MCs and mass infantry considering the new Nid codex is out and we all know they love their MCs.

Just my 2 cents.

From my experience, there just isn't any need for the extra templates. Not to say he needs the elite slot for anything, so much as they points are just better spent supporting the rest of your boyz. Once your sluggas are stuck in, unless you are jumping out of your wagon with those burnas, you aren't helping them. My army at this point has settled on:

1 wagon w/ burnas and KFF
1 wagon w/ Ghaz and his 18 best friends
1 wagon w/ 20 boyz
1 trukk w/ 12 boyz
1 trukk w/ 12 boyz
1 trukk w/ 12 boyz
Snikrot and friends

The individual details for each group is more or less the same with nobs, powerklaws, and vehicles decked with killy bitz(oh, my!). That's ~300 attacks hitting on turn 2 with 6 klaws buried inside. I then have 3 deff rollas and a burna squad rolling around inflicting damage as necessary, and 3 trukks running around tank shocking troops to a) cluster the enemy into template shaped teardrops, b) run units off the board, or c) provide an escort for units that break and run that I don't want to see rally.

The 1 group of burnas tends to be more than they can deal with, and any units that "get away" from the burnas usually do so by burying their face on the end of the boyz' klaws rather than actually doing anything useful.

I'd add that burnas are going to be less useful to you on 1/3 of your games than boyz are. Anytime you pull dawn of war, the burnas get to lose their turn 2 effectiveness, and really don't enter play until turn 3 unless you want to offload them. Boyz can come off the back of the board on dawn of war in turn 1, and still usually see combat on turn 2 as long as the enemy isn't hiding out in the back couple of inches of his deployment zone. Thankfully, that's a rarity due to Snikrot getting inside most opponents' heads.

In DoW, you have to shrug and accept that more boyz will be more likely to help your core troops effectiveness than an extra 350 - 450 points in burna wagons tied up waiting for turn 3.

As far as the units hurting you by taking out another wagon's cargo, that isn't typically a problem. On turn 2, you are on the opponent's grill slamming klaws into things he doesn't want klaws slammed into. So the wagon tends to be empty anyway. Your burnas just have to casually slide from old and busted over to new hotness, then move as they see fit. If the boyz miss their wagon due to units scattering to get away from them, you've probably already won, or have come very close to winning, anyway.

Carnuss wrote:Yes, 2 burnas is overkill. Even against swarms, you will likely find yourself out of targets to kill with just 1 burna group.

A good replacement, at only marginally higher cost, is Ghazkull and 18 boyz. You lose your extra mek with the new HQ selection, but shouldn't be hurt by it since it isn't difficult to keep all of the vehicles within 6" of a central wagon. You are replacing ~300ish points with ~330ish by doing so, with considerably more than 30 points of punch added to your bottom line effectiveness.

1. Stop stealing my stuff.

2. This list needs more cowbell. Srsly.

You will note that I no longer disagree with you about whether Ghaz earns his points. It is written in the Book of Pepper, chapter 3, verse 18, "Lo, and I did look across the field, and I saw terrible suffering and woe distributed upon my enemies." So said, Dash, and it was so.

thanks a lot guys, this was what i was hoping for.
the only problem that i see with ghaz is the fact that my group tends to shy away from special characters.

You could casually suggest it, and tell them it's not like the bosses are anything different from any of the other BS people can field. I mean, a tervigon or maxed out hive tyrant is arguably as good as most special characters.

If they disagree, that's fine. Take a warboss in mega armor, and grab a deff dread. Don't expect to see the deff dread do anything, as he'll definitely be 1 turn behind your trukks at the beginning of the game no matter where they are going, but he can sometimes pay off. You'll be pleasantly surprised at how quick he can polish off crisis suits, the new nid warriors (even when they bring an alpha), or whatever else you see drop down in a pod/deepstrike.

I'd also add that if your boyz don't crush whatever they connect with on turn 2 and the battle draws on with counter charges and such, he can come in and quickly eliminate any non-monstrous-creature threat that might have been giving them problems. He'll just tend to eat it if you try to pin him on an MC.

Between the two units, you've lost Thraka's 7 Str 10 on the charge, and replaced it with two units that carry 6 Str 10 on the charge apiece. They aren't as likely to live through the whole game as Ghaz is due to instant death and vehicle damage charts being less forgiving than Ghaz's special rules, but between the two of them they'll likely still have at least 1 of the 2 models rolling around playing with enemy units by the end of the battle.

usernamesareannoying wrote:thanks a lot guys, this was what i was hoping for.
the only problem that i see with ghaz is the fact that my group tends to shy away from special characters.

Tell them he costs as much as ~15 equipped boyz in a battlewagon.

Gorkamorka wrote:

usernamesareannoying wrote:thanks a lot guys, this was what i was hoping for.
the only problem that i see with ghaz is the fact that my group tends to shy away from special characters.

Tell them he costs as much as ~15 equipped boyz in a battlewagon.

Or you could throw a fit about them fielding landraiders, since they are in the same cost range, and are among the unholy terrors that orks have to deal with.

Carnuss wrote:

Gorkamorka wrote:

usernamesareannoying wrote:thanks a lot guys, this was what i was hoping for.
the only problem that i see with ghaz is the fact that my group tends to shy away from special characters.

Tell them he costs as much as ~15 equipped boyz in a battlewagon.

Or you could throw a fit about them fielding landraiders, since they are in the same cost range, and are among the unholy terrors that orks have to deal with.

Those and Monoliths. Oh god, how I hate facing Monoliths and Land Raiders. Curse you AV14/14/14!!!

The main problem that i have is the trukk boyz... In my experience, 12 boyz do not do much work by themselves. You would need some long range support to soften your enemy first if you expect to wipe them off in one fell swoop (which you would need to do because boyz suck without furious charge)

Oh, and ghaz or a warboss kicks over a land raider or a monolith like nobodys business

ghastli wrote:The main problem that i have is the trukk boyz... In my experience, 12 boyz do not do much work by themselves. You would need some long range support to soften your enemy first if you expect to wipe them off in one fell swoop (which you would need to do because boyz suck without furious charge)

I would never suggest that you attack anything other than maybe a group of tau or artillery crew with a single group of 12. The reason why mech orks are so effective is being able to zip around and pick their battles. You multi-assault, cluster klaws on the same targets, and generally never see a unit of 12 by themselves unless there is an easy target to pick off that's too far away for your whole army to turn after it.

2 groups of trukk boyz are all it takes to put down one of the new big nidz in the codex. Would you assault it with one group of 12 and hope for the best instead of hitting it with two groups at the same time? Of course not. You cluster the klaws and celebrate victory within a single assault phase. Another method, depending on how shooty the opponent is, is to drop just enough pressure on the enemies you assault that you will win combat in ~2 combat phases, to block yourself from being eaten alive by incoming fire after massacring the unit you attack.

If you are controlling your troops properly, you shouldn't be losing combat, making break tests, or losing troops to combat resolution checks often, since you are typically able to pick your battles, and weight them heavily in your favor. You don't even have to worry about shooting on your Waaagh! turn causing leadership checks, which means, the first chance that that group of 12 even has of breaking will be turn 3 (read: game's half over, and the opponent should already have no front line) more often than not. If counter charges hitting exposed groups of 12 are a concern, wall off the battles with your massive number of vehicles to seclude the enemy, then cut them into tiny pieces like they are in a blender without the other units being able to interfere. If you are going to get torn up by shooting from the back of the board, have Snikrot multi-assault into whatever is shooting at you, manipulate LOS with vehicles, and keep your KFF in a good position to help where possible.

Basically, you make a unit of 12 boyz good by never presenting an exposed target to the opponent. When you assault, you assault where you can win, and bring as many boyz as you need to make that a certainty. Will that happen exactly as described 100% of the time? Probably not. In fact, I would count on losing a group one group of 12 per game due to abuse that wasn't fully planned for, or a counter charge you couldn't quite wall off. But who cares... It's 100 points out of 2000.