Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Why bother? Your opponent has to be an utter gobshite to get hit by all those templates. If they stay in a battleagon they'll only move 7" a turn and shoot--who in this mechanized world is going to be caught by something that slow? If they get out to assault they are hitting on I3 and have a terrible save. Of course if they win close combat they are then subject to enemy shooting with their terrible save. I like the idea of dropping all those templates but it seems I have a better chance rolling a 6,6 with a shokk attack gun then meeting a marine player who is going to let me template his termies. For 15 points I'll take the two and a half boyz please.

As a player of a tyranid horde army I disagree with you. Burnas are all sorts of effective! If they sit in a battlewagon I have to dedicate my seriously lacking ranged/droppodded anti tank firepower to disable them, or they will rumble and multi flame me into oblivion. Sometimes they even manage to tank-shock my screens to squeeze me even tighter.

I made the mistake of lovingly converting 8 burnas for my BF a year ago. That still haunts me. They usually wipe whatever unit they shoot at and seriously hurts one or two units that just happens to stand close by.

I'd certainly agree that when faced with a true horde army burnas are useful. Unfortunately there are few horde armies these days in tournaments.

That is sadly very true.

I'm not an ork player and rarely play against them, so forgive me if this idea seems far fetched or if its not possible. In my sister's army one tactic I do is it tank shock my opponents infantry into neat little piles, thereby forcing them to cluster and only then do I unleash templates on them. Is this tactic viable in an ork army?

dumplingman wrote:I'm not an ork player and rarely play against them, so forgive me if this idea seems far fetched or if its not possible. In my sister's army one tactic I do is it tank shock my opponents infantry into neat little piles, thereby forcing them to cluster and only then do I unleash templates on them. Is this tactic viable in an ork army?

It would be if you spammed Trukks with reinforced rams, letting them count as Tanks, or used Looted Wagons/Battlewagons in a similar fashion. It would be an unusual kind of Kult of Speed army, to be sure, but it would have its charm. Especially if you threw in a few Deffrollas on those Battlewagons to straight up crush the opponents you couldn't flame. Hm...

Umm, excuse me, I have a new list to write up...

EDIT: Just as I posted, I realized that Trukks, being front armour 10, are extremely vulnerable to any high-strength melee weaponry the targeted unit might have, so I'd be cautious around Tactical squads and the like that might be packing melta or powerfists. Still, all a Death or Glory attack would do is wreck the vehicle and force your boys to get out, right next to their enemies and ready for an Assault, so...

Burnas are actually very good. They are a good assaulting force to dislodge anything in cover, even multiple units with screens. They drawback is that they have the survivability of a normal boy, so they must be screened by boys/grots or in a transport. Against mechanized armies they struggle to find a roll till late game a lot of the time is their biggest flaw.

Burnas are great. You'd be surprised how often they get used, too. I've had them wipe out whole terminator squads from a single volley. Clip just four and that's 60 S4 hits and 30 wounds. Don't roll any 1's!

As far as no one letting you get close, well, of course they aren't going to try to LET you get close, but **** happens during a game. Rhinos pop and tac marines are left out in the open. Stuff deepstrikes and are standing right there when they can't pop your BW. Your tankbustas, riding shotgun with them, pop open a transport and the burnas are right there to finish the job. Hordes are occasionally encountered via other ork or Nid players.

As an ork player, burnas have been my MVPs many times. I've had worse luck with Lootas, whom everyone seems to fear and praise, but that's probably just because I'm not used to gunline orks.

You left out a way to use them. Drive 12" (13" if red"), hop out and burna down anything near you. Threat range is something like 22". They are going to be in range.

Course this gets you out of your trukk/wagon, but frankly they are just Orks. It's about as expensive of a squad as a big Boy squad, but much killier (as it should be, being elite. It's a tradeoff vs. being scoring).

Don't forget the power weapon madness they're capable of. Hey! nice oblits....well they were. Same with termies, Nid MCs even. You'll need 6's most of the time, but with 45 str 4 power weapons I think you can scratch up a few 6's there.

Burnas are nasty. They're fragile, but they're really effective against almost anything. In a BW they're not afraid of gaunts, MCs or termies. I always have a group of burna boyz in my BW list.

Mech or not, opponents get into range as if by magic, and when they are in range, they die. Wandering around with a 15" obliteration zone in every direction is a powerful tool, and one that I don't field without. I am not stretching the truth in telling you that I have killed 2 groups of nurgle marines, 2 groups of khorne marines, a demon prince, and a group of obliterators in 1 game using them (nevermind the vehicles that their wagon destroyed by ramming), and they are frightfully good at what they do. That's not their typical level of butchery, but they rarely fail to pay for themselves and then some.

How is a any player supposed to create a vacuum of roughly 33" in diameter around your burna wagon and never step inside to get templated? They can't. And it isn't like you can get them out of their wagon in order to fix the issue, as more likely than not, if you pop one wagon, they'll just jump in another and continue their tour of the world's best spots to set fires.

They are amongst the most rock solid units in the codex, and doubting them only indicates that you've never tried using them.

Carnuss wrote:They are amongst the most rock solid units in the codex

Imagine if the burnas still had 2d6 for armor penetration like the 3rd Ed. codex...

:drool:

Yeah, but you'd be giving up 6 point boyz by going back to 3rd edition. Since the standard ork boy is arguably one of the best models in the game for his price, I wouldn't want to go backward.

alanedomain wrote:

dumplingman wrote:I'm not an ork player and rarely play against them, so forgive me if this idea seems far fetched or if its not possible. In my sister's army one tactic I do is it tank shock my opponents infantry into neat little piles, thereby forcing them to cluster and only then do I unleash templates on them. Is this tactic viable in an ork army?

It would be if you spammed Trukks with reinforced rams, letting them count as Tanks, or used Looted Wagons/Battlewagons in a similar fashion. It would be an unusual kind of Kult of Speed army, to be sure, but it would have its charm. Especially if you threw in a few Deffrollas on those Battlewagons to straight up crush the opponents you couldn't flame. Hm...

Umm, excuse me, I have a new list to write up...

EDIT: Just as I posted, I realized that Trukks, being front armour 10, are extremely vulnerable to any high-strength melee weaponry the targeted unit might have, so I'd be cautious around Tactical squads and the like that might be packing melta or powerfists. Still, all a Death or Glory attack would do is wreck the vehicle and force your boys to get out, right next to their enemies and ready for an Assault, so...

Nah, reinforced rams let you count your front armor as 2 higher when resolving death or glory attacks, so you are fine =) Trukks become AV12 for DoG, Battlewagons stay AV14 since it caps out at 14.

And yea, I did this a bunch with Trukks + MANz with Kombi-skorchas vs Nids a few days ago, worked well. Genestealers are very squishy when up against heavy flamers

number9dream wrote:Nah, reinforced rams let you count your front armor as 2 higher when resolving death or glory attacks, so you are fine =) Trukks become AV12 for DoG, Battlewagons stay AV14 since it caps out at 14.

And yea, I did this a bunch with Trukks + MANz with Kombi-skorchas vs Nids a few days ago, worked well.

Indeed, though you do need to be careful about chain fists. Monstrous creatures cost too much to typically want to stand and do the DoG, but terminators aren't that expensive, and can quickly put your vehicles out of commission with that average of 15 armor penetration roll... But then again, I like smooshing over terminators as much as anything else. Smooshing is an all inclusive pastime that incorporates as much diversity in the smooshie side as possible.

Carnuss wrote:Yeah, but you'd be giving up 6 point boyz by going back to 3rd edition. Since the standard ork boy is arguably one of the best models in the game for his price, I wouldn't want to go backward.

Oh, I know. The codex is stronger overall for sure, but there are some things I miss. Skarboyz (duh), cyborks, looted Leman Russes and Landraiders, the old Check Size and Mob Up rules, etc. Everything changes. No complaints.

Yes, the 3rd edition codex did have some nice things in it, but overall the 4th/5th edition dex is pretty damn good, all rule conundrums aside.

And like any unit, burna boyz are utter garbage if used incorrectly. But really the few changes they made in how the game is played, they are a terror unit for sure. Most of the games are played on the long table edges. Therefore making it all to easy to get into template range of other units. Besides it doesnt take much to line them up in a BW correctly anyways. Sure some situations will make them look much better then others, but they almost always make more then their points back in death anyways.

I would personally spend the points on Lootas.

I've enjoyed using them, but I don't run 15. I think it's too many points. Usually, 10 Burnas will work pretty well for me and makes for some interesting games.

DO DA BURNY DANCE! DO DA BURNY DANCE!"

That quote alone is why you run burna boyz. Let alone the fact that you can upgrade a few to meks to fix the wagon they are in. Or Lead them with a Big mek with a Burna and kff behind a kan wall covered by 3+trucks. plus the meks add some range shooting.

Burns are interesting, because they are very much a finesse unit.

However, they can be devastating, and can wipe out almost anything when used properly.

Actually, I think they will wipe out anything that is practical to use.

Burnas against nob bikers. Also known as "Allocate this!".

15 Burnas in BW. Roughly ~350p
8 Nob bikers with mixed melee equipment ~500p

15 templates each hitting 4 targets. 60 hits. 20 wounds. 3 saves per model. 12.5% chance to fail 3 saves and die. 37.5% chance to fail two saves and die. 37.5% chance to fail only one save and live. 12.5% chance to make all the saves and live. So that is roughly 4 dead, 3 that has lost 1 wound and 1 unharmed. And the best part is that the nob controller doesn't get a say at all as to who dies and who lives :-)

dont forget feel no pain cuts those wounds in half, so you will only do about 5 wounds between the 8 models. Still not bad, but much worse than the 4 dead nob bikers you mentioned.

15 burnas in a BW with the mek with kff/pk/cybork, trukks in support carrying boyz with nob/bp/pk, using the BW and KFF for protection. RPJ to get em over there!

It eats armies alive.

I have 15 burnas in my mechanized orks.

Lets presume that you run mechanized orks for a moment. Rather than thinking about how poor they are in close combat, let me ask you this:

If you play a tyranid player, how are you going to beat them?

You have two flavors of troops: 12 in a trukk, or ~20 in a battlewagon depending on how you like to build your lists. The weakest of the tyranid units are I4, meaning that you're never going to go first, and between tervigons spitting out gants, gargoyles, or any of the other things that have made the new Tyranid codex powerful...you've got no ability to charge them effectively.

Burnas have always been in my list so that I had an answer to Tyranids. Ghazghkull Thraka for MCs, burnas for combi MC/horde duty. 15 of them because a 6 wound T6 MC is going to take a swipe or two at me, and I'm going to need all those boys to kill the MC. 10 burna boys, losing 2-3 from the MC and bringing 7-8 to swing back needing 3+ or 4+ to hit and 6+ to wound....very likely isn't doing 6 wounds. 15 burnas might be able to.

Burnas are in my list because my list is a take-all-comers list, and there *is* no better fits-all solution to tyranids than Burnas. Lootas work there too, but genestealers infiltrating, or doing their crazy turn2 appearing from nowhere crap to come beat on your Lootas hurts. My list has both.

As always, gotta agree with Dash.

Obviously they are great against hordes. Thats basically their job anyways. But not to mention, you can murder marines with a well done drive by. Simply because of all the saves they have to make. Ive learned the hard way that normally, its a bad idea to take them out of the transport they are in, just let them do their burny thing, and your golden. But when the scenario arises where they are assaulting something, then again all those power weapon attacks, you just cant ignore that, plain and simple

I think burnas are a great unit, but a lot of people play the transport rules wrong, which artificially increases their value.

A good number of players think you can move 12" (or 13 with RPJ) in a trukk and still fire without disembarking, however this is not the case.

One thing thats fun is that you get to go before Terminators, as long as they don't have LCs.

Using your power weapons is very effective against them, anyone that goes before you, just burn them.

Snikkyd wrote:One thing thats fun is that you get to go before Terminators, as long as they don't have LCs.

Using your power weapons is very effective against them, anyone that goes before you, just burn them.

I'm surprised this wasn't brought up earlier. Aside from all the horde killing potential, surely orks with POWER WEAPONS offers enough influence to convince anyone of their value.

willydstyle wrote:I think burnas are a great unit, but a lot of people play the transport rules wrong, which artificially increases their value.

A good number of players think you can move 12" (or 13 with RPJ) in a trukk and still fire without disembarking, however this is not the case.

why would they have to get out to shoot?