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So I've slowly been getting into 40k after playing a few games with a friend. He owns Tau, Orks, and Marines, so I had the chance to get a feel for each of them. I really liked the feel of the ork army and decided to make a list I would try to buy models for. But I figured I would let you guys hack at it so I don't buy a list.

Anyway, I really like the warbike squads and the fluff behind Wazdakka so keep in mind, I'm sticking with the Evil Sunz/Speed Freak theme.

HQ:
Wazdakka

Big Mek
-KFF
-burna
-pole

Elite:
Nob Bikers x 5
-3 PKs
-painboy
-pole
-Waagh!
-cybork x 5

Burna Boyz x 8

Troops:
Boyz x 12
-Nob w/ PK & pole
-Trukk
--RPJ & plank

Boyz x 12
-Nob w/ PK & pole
-Trukk
--RPJ & plank

Warbikers x 7
-Nob w/ PK & pole

Warbikers x 7
-Nob w/ PK & pole

Fast Attack:
Stormboyz x 9
-Zagstruk

Heavy Support:
Battlewagon
-rolla, RPJ & 2 shootas

2 Big Gunz
-zzap guns
-4 extra crew

3 Big Gunz
-kannons

Block of text talking about list. Feel free to skip.
I think it fits the theme pretty well. Its not necessarily a mean/heavy list by any means. I thought about getting another wagon somehow, but I wasn't sure what to cut.I basically flipped a coin between the Big Gunz and a unit of Lootas. Both were about the same cost and filled the same roll. However, I liked the higher strength and the possibility of popping a Raider with the zzap guns, even though it is 5 shots instead of a possible 27. I really like the burnas in the wagon as they just leave a trail of ashes where they pass units and the Mek gives them a nice save, along with the boyz. All of the Nobz are different builds, so wound allocation is helpful there.


Other models I plan on buying along with this list.

Battlewagon
Biker Warboss
20ish more boyz
5-6 Meganobz
Tankbustas
A couple tanks for looted wagons. Probably IG. I like the way they look and really want to Ork them up


Thanks for the help

-JOO

I'd take a take a tricked out bikerboss instead of Wazdakka. It's cheaper and stornger than Wazdakka. Wazdakka's really just good for taking bikers as troops and since you have the fast attack spots you eally don't need him. I'd also drop the biker mobs for a couple more wagons and more nob bikers. Also If your playing Kult of Speed i don't really think stormboys are that great because you can get just as many boys in for less points with a trukk or wagon. Also on your wagons if your using them as transnports and using rolas you only need a single big shoota so you have a gun to take a "Weapon Destroyed." More wagons will be really useful to help keep your truks alive. Also I've heard zzap guns aren't worth the points and are to unreliable I'd just get some kannons or use the points to buy something else.

As mentioned take wazdakka for taking bikers as troops or don't bother.

Mek is ok and so are burnas but you only have one wagon which is easy to target prioritise so you need to get another one in there.

Drop the stormboyz and gunz because they don't do alot and 10 stormboyz won't last at all.

Thanks for the tips guys. I made a few changes to the list

HQ:
Warboss
-bike
-klaw
-attack squig
-cybork

Big Mek
-KFF
-burna
-pole

Elite:
Nob Bikers x 5
-3 PKs
-1 big choppa
-painboy
-pole
-Waagh!
-cybork x 5

Burna Boyz x 8

Lootas x 10

Troops:
Boyz x 12
-Nob w/ PK & pole
-Trukk
--RPJ & plank

Boyz x 12
-Nob w/ PK & pole
-Trukk
--RPJ & plank

Boyz x 18
-Nob w/ PK & pole

Fast Attack:
Warbikers x 7
-Nob w/ PK & pole

Deffkoptas x 3
-2 TL rokkits
-1 KMB

Heavy Support:
Battlewagon
-rolla, RPJ, riggas & shoota

Battlewagon
-rolla, RPJ, riggas & shoota

So I added a wagon, droped the gunz, dropped a unit of bikers, replaced wazdakka with a biker boss, and added 18 boyz. Also swapped the stormboyz for some deffkoptas so I didnt lose the flanking unit. The new unit of boyz goes in the new wagon, the boss goes in the nob bikers and makes them a scoring unit.

So I kept the same number of scoring units while making my vehicles less prone to prioritized shooting

What do yall think of the new list?

-JOO

Give the big mek a KFF so the wagons get a cover save.

Give the big mek a KFF so the wagons get a cover save.

He has one in both lists...

-JOO

List #2 is much better than the first. Let us know how it goes once your Waaagh! gets going!

I detest your list. :(

Before I ork rage on you, you said that you like Wazdakka and the fluff, and also that its not a mean or heavy list......do you *want* it to be a mean list, or are you content with fluffy? You can have fluffy and mean, but I don't want to direct you where you aren't trying to go.

Why the detesting?

I lean more towards the fluff side of the list building, but I don't want the army to be a piece of on the battle field either. I don't really want, or need, a mean list.

I had Wazdakka in the first list, and I dreaded pulling him out of the second one, but in the second list, the warboss brings just as much to the table for less points.


Now let the rage commence

-JOO

I'll pick on you for the easiest one:

You have nob bikers, burna boyz, Lootas, and warbikers all at small to mid-sized strength.

With leadership 7 behind you....you've got a 50/50 chance of any of those units breaking and running when they take hits. Hell, 8 burna boyz - kill their battlewagon, they'll statistically take 2-3 hits, your 6+ armor won't impress even yourself, and....good chance that they're done.

Trukk boyz serve a purpose - with a multitude of trukks, you can make up for smaller boyz units by insuring that they get up to combat faster through a combination of MSU doctrine and a KFF reinforcing their survivability. But you only have two trukks. You might be able to hide those 2 trukks behind the 2 battlewagons depending on deployment, but as it stands now....you're presenting what I would literally call an optimal list for killing in front of an opponent.

1. You have 4 vehicles; that's a fantastic ratio for your enemies to use their anti-tank on.

2. You have small infantry/elite/fast attack choices - perfect for all the anti-infantry weapons in any given list. I play mechanized or foot slogging...combining the two to the extent you are doesn't work well.

3. You only have 5 nob bikers. 2-3 lascannons, a single demolisher template....a ravager, a predator, a battle-cannon, leman-russ battle-tank with plasma cannons....even exterminator russes, a Colossus, manticore....all the things that can do VERY bad things to you, and you're making their job easier by only taking a few nobs. Go big or go home.

4. This is a mechanized world - the first thing I want to know when I look at an opponent's list is where their anti-tank is. Here's yours:
-Warboss on a bike; turn2-3 threat.
-Nob bikers; turn 2-3 threat
-Deffrollas; turn3-4 threat unless I'm rolling up to meet you.

I'm discounting the Lootas and deff-koptas. A single Loota squad of 10; they can certainly hurt AV12 or less if they roll well, but good deployment can mitigate that, and since you only have one squad of them - a template or two will take them down. Hell, two squads of 5 is preferable to a squad of 10. Then they can range the board from opposite sides to try for some side armor. You vs me: You're going to see my deffrollas and that's it. And your deffkoptas don't have buzzsaws - so while they can fly around and be a nuisance, they can't reliably alpha-strike because they're missing the punch. If you get turn1, they turbo-boost up to 24" across the field, move 12", fire a TL rokkit, and then the important step - assault and auto-hit a vehicle that hasn't moved yet. That's incredibly useful. They're for opening up transports to spill units out for the mob to attack, or for taking down a manticore turn1 if you can get to it, or a predator; even shaking / stunning is good enough - you just want to negate those big guns from firing back at you.

And your battlewagons don't have grabbin' klaws, so anyone with a skimmer (Tau, Space Marines, Eldar, Dark Eldar, IG) can plop a skimmer down in front of you to disrupt your mobility, and there's nothing you can do about it. Favorite tactic when I'm playing DE against Orks - flat out an empty raider 24" across the board and land in front of your battlewagons. When you try to ram, I dodge on a 3+, and you're stuck going nowhere....more turns for me to shoot at you.

The moral of the story here is that you're not customizing. You're grabbing a random unit from different themes and playstyles and throwing them into a hodgepodge list to see what it does. I understand fluff, but where's yours? Your army is not only not themed, its not fluffy, and its not potent - sounds vicious, but it has nothing going for it at all. The best I can do is copy and paste something I wrote for a tactic guide and paste it here for you to read in the hope that you'll start from scratch and aim for a themed (and fluffy!) list. Not every ork list has to be supercharged, but at LEAST theme it!

Here's what I wrote elsewhere:
-----------------------------------------------------------
I'm going to work off of a couple of assumptions.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Playing Warhammer 40k is fun.
2. Playing Warhammer 40k and winning is more fun.
3. Playing Warhammer 40k and losing is less fun.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Human nature and natural selection demand that we continually seek to improve ourselves. Having an A type personality probably doesn't hurt this effort, but if you lose a game of 40k and don't reflect on the game with, "What did I do wrong? What could I have done better? How can I prevent this from happening again?" then I can't really talk to you.

If this thought process and those three assumptions *do* apply to you, then read on.

******
Orks are a unique codex. An ork boy is significantly cheaper than just about any other model in 40k, and is basically a platform from which many things spring (other kinds of ork variants - stormboyz, lootas, nobs...). If you read the fluff, every ork starts in the same place, and as they develop, they lean towards on klan/society, which is how they figure out what kind of ork they're going to be.

In other codexes (space marines and their variants being the most prolific), basic troops are well-rounded models. You ever play Final Fight? How about ANY kind of game with character selections? You've got the big, strong guy that's slow...the average Joe....and the weaker but very speedy character. This applies in 40k as well. Space marines are like your average, well-rounded Joe. Orks are NOT. You can't mix and match orks in any order you like to make a generalized list.

This is *not* called power building, its called understanding your codex, how your codex is designed, and using it as such. Every time someone calls "playing a theme" to be "powerbuilding" I want to stab them in the F***** eye. If you look in the Ork codex, do you see the codex writers putting in pictures for the sample armies of some Lootas backing up a squad of meganobs in a trukk, who are advancing next to some buggies and a deffkopta or two?

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They even TELL you how to make your army. They tell you what the Ork klans are - Bad Moons, Kult of Speed, Deffskullz, etc.

That kind of thematic army construction is the intent of the Ork codex. That is what makes orks powerful. The ork codex is written so that you can design an army list that is absolutely ridiculously powerful, but it is NOT made up of average Joe units; everything is specialized towards a specific goal. When you build an army list, you should follow the thematic advice given to you in the Codex. PICK a theme. There's a lot of them:

Green Tide. Mechanized Assault. Mechanized Shooting. Ork Gunline (Moar Dakka), Kan-Wall. Dreadz of Fury. Kult of Speed. Outflanking Goodness. Rebel Grotz. Nob Bikers. Super Units. Orky Burnas.

All of those things have something in common - the lists were designed with a theme in mind, and have the synergy to work together towards that goal. When you start combining those themes to make a list, you're being counterintuitive to the very style that the orks were created for.

Remember this: Orks can do anything that any other army can do, and they can do it better than that army. However, orks can only do it one at a time. You can outshoot a Tau Gunline. You can out-assault a khorne army or an army of genestealers. You can put down more templates than IG....whatever your goal in mind is....orks can do it better, but it has to stick to that theme. Orks are not meant to be universal, middle-of-the-line armies.

To give another analogy...if you've ever played an MMO, there are different classes. Fighter, Tank, barbarian, mage, cleric, wizard, hunter, ranger, red mage, death knight, rogue, whatever.....its all based on the game you play. The class you pick sets you on a path for the kind of game you play, the skills you get - they are pre-defined roles.

40k armies fit into that kind of typification. Except for Orks. Orks would be the generic class. You start with a neutral character, with skillpoints to assign, and you can make orks any kind of army you want them to be. People fail with orks because they want some of everything. Instead of making them a fighter, or an archer, or a guardian...and they would be better fighters, archers and guardians than every other type...they split points between all three to make a Figardian. F.A.G for short.

Do you want to excel in something, or be a F.A.G? That's what it boils down to.

Are you a F.A.G?

So what changes do you recommend I make? I'm fairly new to the 40k world so I'm not exactly familiar with all of the little things involved in the game.

Here's another copy/paste of something I wrote elsewhere. Pick the theme you like the idea of, and that's the starting point.

-----------------
Here's a quick take on those various lists. Please remember something important: Every list needs to be tailored for point allocations. What I'm putting down here is an "optimized" list where you get the maximum ability from it, so if you're playing a 1,000 point gunline, three full squads of Lootas + supporting units and troop choices isn't really what you're going to play. You'll have to tweak to match your needs.

Green Tide:
Green tide is actually an apocalypse battle formation, but is a common name for a foot-slogging ork army list. It consists of mobs of 30 shoota boys, a nob with a powerklaw, and either a unit of gretchin or a unit of boyz or 'Ard Boyz (maybe even with Mad Dok) screened across the front to give the rest of the army a 4+ cover save as they advance up the board.

Mechanized Assault:
12 slugga boyz+Nob/PK stacked into trukks, perhaps some battlewagons in the mix, covered by a Big Mek with a KFF...an elite unit or two (kommandos, lootas, burnas) tacked into the mix depending on your personal playstyle - they get into close combat as fast as orkishly possible; with Ghazghkull leading the mix, that's usually turn2.

Mechanized Shooting:
Instead of slugga boys, you have shoota boys, preferably in battlewagons, with a KFF screening them, rolling around the battlefield pouring firepower into enemy units. Alternatively, (and one of my favorite setups) this is 3 Loota squads inside battlewagons sitting on the back table edge, Big mek with KFF in the middle one in a trident formation \|/ to present front armor across the battlefield, surrounded by a unit of gretchin to prevent assaults on rear armor.


Ork Gunline:
Three squads of Lootas form the backbone of this, either sitting in cover or with a screening unit to give them a 4+ cover save, heavy support of big guns or some dreads/kans to provide long range firepower, with the obligatory shoota boy squads.


Kan wall:
One of the current meta-game favorites: Three squads of three killa-kans, protected by a KFF mek (or two) marching up the field screening mobs of shoota boys behind them.


Dreadz of Fury:
Three DeffDreads for Heavy Support + 2 Deff Dreads for troop choices, with a KFF mek screening them for a 4+ cover save, set for either long ranged fire support or close ranged pwnage; I prefer the STR10 DCCWs.


Kult of Speed:
Straight out of your codex! Boyz in trukks, mechanized element + Stormboyz. Ponder this for a moment: 6 trukks full of boyz screened by a Mek with a KFF, in turn screening 3 units of Stormboyz who can move as fast as the trukks moving flat out...that's a lot of fast moving destruction.

Outflanking Goodness:
Kommandos as elites and Deffkoptas as fast attack, as many of each as you can fit in, often with Deffkoptas equipped differently for wound allocation spread outflanking (unless you get turn1 and put your deffkoptas out for a turn1 turbo-boost).


Rebel Grotz:
Instead of six units of boyz, you get.....gretchin! Bwah ha ha. Not particularly scary in themselves, but using covering units or terrain, able to go to ground for a 3+ cover save, making them incredibly difficult to remove from an objective, especially with other gretchin (inside killa-kans) are krumping around the battlefield.

Nob Bikers:
Two warbosses + 20 nobs = 2HQ + 2Troops. 22 models = 1750. Diversified wargear and weaponry let you spread wounds around instead of removing models, and the unit is incredibly tough, has the ability to get anywhere fast, and kill anything fast.

Super Units:
Similar to Nob bikers in having an army with a low model count: Warboss Krumpmaster and the Megaboyz; a couple units of Meganobs, or my personal preference, units of regular nobs with diversified wargear for wound allocation magic - in vehicles!


Orky Burnas:
Start with three units of burna boys. Put them in battlewagons if you like. Mek with a KFF to screen if you do, and you have an army of combination templates / power weapons. Alternatively, a warboss makes nobs a troops choice, and you can give them all kombi-skorchas for some real carnage.


Battlewagon Spam:
Did you know that you can field 8 Battlewagons in a single army list? That's right...eight battlewagons. Three Heavy Support, Three dedicated transports for elite unit nobs, and two warbosses making two units of nobs troop choices so that you can take two more battlewagons. I think any time you have vehicles, you should have a KFF floating around, so I wouldn't advocate going for 8....but you can do a lot of things with a list of Battlewagons.

Now that is some delicious copy-pasta. You sir are a gentleman and a scholar.

I'll can really see how sticking to a theme makes for easier list building. I'll see what I can cook up with this in mind.

-JOO