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So i have a friend who plays orks, yet doesnt know any of the tournament builds and competitive armies. So i decided to act on his behalf and ask about it. I had no idea as i play DE.

As a general rule, spam lists work best with orks in competition. Battle wagon Brigade and Horde lists come to mind, not to mention loota spam. I myself run a kan wall list with decent success. What sort of list does your friend like to run?

he's been prefering shoota boyz lately. he likes the idea of the kan wall (i dont seeing as he has no KFF) unfortunately when he started he had all his orks kitted with the slugga and choppa combo. he has ghaz, mad dok, and a a couple deff kopta's and some bikers. He lost to my DE in a 2k list (we proxied alot). last time i saw him win was a while ago and that was with ghaz and alot of orks.

Maxed out lootas, meganobz joined by Gazzy in a BW, and lotsa boyz will devastate.

he also has loota's not a great amount (about 7) but again proxy's will make that go from 7 to like 30. He does have alot of meganobz. and 2 battle wagons.


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he also never uses boss poles. is this a problem?

Bosspoles are necessary for ork squads when they go below about 11 boyz (in which case they cease being fearless). Keep in mind some units do not have Bosspoles and ergo cannot take them unless joined by a IC with one (i.e. Bosspole wielding Warboss).

It's a good idea to mass as much dakka at effective ork units while screening his orks from your army with cheap, expendable troops.

There are four basic strategies that you'll see a lot of, and then hybrids branching off from them. One key thing to keep in mind with all units is that if they are boyz, they always get a nob with a PK in the unit. Everything else is negotiable depending on preference.

Nob Bikers

This is essentially just 2 groups of nobz completely kitted out to take advantage of wound allocation, with a couple of groups of grots kept in reserve. It is important that every nob be completely unique in its configuration, and that you include a painboy. Different people have different preferences over how many PKs they take, whether or not to take Cybork upgrades, etc... The general consensus though is to make the units as killy as possible.

You always bring two warbosses for this build, also on bikes. The warbosses allow the nob units to count as troops, and you don't need a KFF since the two units that matter already have built in 4+ cover saves due to their bikes.

This is the force that was dominating tournaments last year or the year before, but largely dropped off in popularity. It's biggest weakness is strength 8+ shots, which will ignore FNP, and cause instant death, dramatically reduce the lifespan of your kitted out nobz.

Mech Orks

The punchline on this one is orks hit your frontline turn 2, and they do it with enough vehicles and cover saves that you really can't prevent it from happening. Key components to this army include:

- Ghazghkull Thraka (his Waaagh provides resilience for small units when it counts, and ensures most units can move into position for the same turn's assault phase)

- Big Mek with KFF (He grants 4+ cover save to all vehicles)

Other than that, the exact makeup varies. Usually you can count on a few of the following:

- Wagons to transport tough units.

- Trukks to transport less critical units.

- Typically you'll see a burna wagon, as the burna wagon is one of the most deadly selections from the ork codex.

- Some people will bring a deathstar unit such as nobz in a wagon. Others will just keep it to lots and lots of regular boyz. Either way, they are deadly.

It is among the stronger lists in the ork codex, and is comparable to most other assault-heavy codex's mech lists in reslience. It's strongest asset is its assault range and the resilience given by the KFF. It's biggest weakness is that comparative to non-mech lists, it has very few boyz on the table. In the event that the game begins to turn South, there isn't much recovery room due to lack of options once your troops start getting knocked off.

Kan Wall

This is a mechanized front placed in line blocking off large groups of sluggas from being assaulted and providing a 4+ cover save to the whole force. Typically there are two KFFs to provide better coverage. The whole unit runs forward as quickly as possible seeking immediate assault opportunities, and relying on the walkers in the front to absorb assaults from the enemy.

It is an effective strategy, and can be modified to take Deff Dreads as additional troop choices bringing the total walker count to 11 running across the field. It does reach the front of the enemy on turn 3 unlike mech orks, which gives the opponent an extra turn to deal damage to it before reaching its target. Usually that is mitigated by the sheer number of boyz and the size of the groups it allows you to field providing a great deal of resilience. Since it tends to occupy the whole board, it is prone to assaults from outflanks and attacks from behind.

Green Tide

This is just waves of boyz and typically 3 full groups of lootas. The boyz, in this case, are almost invariably shootas, which overwhelm opponents through sheer weight of shots. Since shootas are actually relatively effective in assaults as well, the boyz tend to move forward the whole game seeking CC, but moving only 6" per turn so as to take advantage of shooting the entire way up.

It is prone to being assaulted by CC specialists in vehicles, which can wipe the floor with multiple groups of shootas at a time if they concentrate their numbers and assault the seams between groups. The defense they have to mitigate this is of course the lootas, which have a tendancy to mop the floor with transports.

You forgot one, it's not really a 'list' but it is a tactic that some of these lists use, some of them don't though.

Loota Battery

sometimes all the way up to 45 of them, but mostly less Every once in a while you'll see a true gunline built with this at it's core, and then some kannons or maybe bunker-wagons in heavy support, and some form of shooty HQ. This is slightly different from the Green Tide, though the idea is the same.

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I've never seen what I would call a Kult of Speed, Mech Orks has too many battlewagons for my taste. Should have more bikes

With the exception of the nob bikers list, loota batteries can fit into any of the above armies. While lootas aren't the absolute best unit for the job in every single situation, their combination of high strength and sheer number of shots makes them capable of filling multiple roles. I can't recall many games where they didn't pay for themselves. Particularly, the fact that they sport a 48" range makes it difficult for them not to be in range of something, and usually whatever the something is will typically not be happy about that.

That said, I definitely wouldn't call a loota battery a tactic. At most it can only occupy a third of your points, and doesn't have any troops built into it. So you will have to have a build, and then decide whether or not lootas will be within that build.

Nob Bikers

This is essentially just 2 groups of nobz completely kitted out to take advantage of wound allocation, with a couple of groups of grots kept in reserve. It is important that every nob be completely unique in its configuration, and that you include a painboy. Different people have different preferences over how many PKs they take, whether or not to take Cybork upgrades, etc... The general consensus though is to make the units as killy as possible.

You always bring two warbosses for this build, also on bikes. The warbosses allow the nob units to count as troops, and you don't need a KFF since the two units that matter already have built in 4+ cover saves due to their bikes.

This is the force that was dominating tournaments last year or the year before, but largely dropped off in popularity. It's biggest weakness is strength 8+ shots, which will ignore FNP, and cause instant death, dramatically reduce the lifespan of your kitted out nobz.

I want that drop in popularity to come where I play! I can count on one hand the number of non-biker ork lists I have played. Its an obnoxiously over-powered list list and I am a guard player so that is saying something. They take so little thought to play that a nob bike player could have like 4 games going at once like you see people do with chess. "Ok Turbo-boosting here, next table multi assaulting these 5 units, next table 4 3+ cover saves...all made"

That's interesting. In my area, I'm only aware of one guy who brings nob bikers to tournaments. I'd add that I don't think anybody in the world has ever taken nob bikers to a "fun" game given how much whining they have to be prepared for over the wound allocation rules. Most in my area are mech lists. Both are pretty effective at punching opponents in the face on turn 2 in a way that is both hard to stop and hard to recover from.