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Lately I've been wondering how many of you deal with those armies that outnumber yours by a ridiculous amount. For example let's say Space Marines against Orks at a...1,500 point level? Do you try to give them the run around and take them on in the fewest amount of numbers at a time with the majority of your force, fill them with holes and hope it evens the odd, or just charge straight into the mess? Alternatively, do you just bring more template weapons >_> ?

3:1 hardly seem fair, but then again I don't care if they are whining about them only outnumbering us 3:1

"No Mercy for the Misguided"

Well I never use a "Bring more X" strategy as that would be custom building lists depending on who you're facing and I feel that if people have to resort to that to win they should just quit now.
That aside it depends on my force & my opponents, terrain, mission objective but I usually follow a "Fill them full of holes approach" I stand and shoot until they are too close for my comfort, then I hop in my transport & run away to a better position. Generally you just have to avoid your opponents strength (CC for Orks, or shooting for Guard) and remember that even though they may outnumber you 3:1 you have quality that they don't. (I.E. 1 SM will hold up a lot longer than an ork and have a better kill ratio)

Orks have really good troops choices, SM have average (if not subpar) troop choices.

The difference in stat lines is really clear, and at an average of slightly less than 3 Ork boys per marine, the optional weaponry basically makes up the deficit.

BS2 is complete garbage, and only a large squad of Shoota boys will be able to overcome that. Marines still have a decent counter for everything in the Ork codex, and at a fair point cost. Flamers are free, Rhinos are cheap, and Vindicators can lay serious damage into any Ork army.

If they outnumber you by a ridiculous amount, there there's a fair bit you can do tactically to deal with them, but strategically speaking (i.e. 'army list'-wise) you need to make sure that they can't rapidly redeploy to short-circuit such tactics.

The most obvious one is to refuse a flank when they've set up evenly in their deployment zone. Kill the closest stuff and wait for the other half to hurry up and walk into your guns.

Another obvious one is to execute multi-charges, getting as much low quality crap into combat with high quality assault troops as you can realistically win again so that the loss is distributed to their units. One such example of this is charging Tyranid big bugs and little bugs and concentrating attacks on the little bugs so that the big bugs fall to No Retreat! and the little bugs take more casualties.

In addition there's spreading fire. Usually you should concentrate on one unit until it's dead and then move on, but chances are that they have enough small units that demolishing any one will be overkill against that unit, and therefore underkill against all the others. This is especially a good idea against vehicles because they're easier to suppress than ordinary units since the latter can be Fearless, and usually have leadership rules to help them pass morale and pinning tests. So don't be afraid to shoot a tank or transport until it's Shaken or Stunned, and then move on, particularly if it means units survive till the next turn, and you knock out at least some units each turn while holding others at bay.

Wrexasaur wrote:Orks have really good troops choices, SM have average (if not subpar) troop choices.

This is a misnomer.

I think it would be more accurate to simply say that orks have efficient troop choices.

If you were to cut a Space Marine's ballistic skill from 4 down to 2, take away his bolter, and move his armor save from 3+ to 6+, cut his initiative in half, and take away a point in strength.....well, he would probably be six points too.

So yeah; 3:1 if a space marine is 18 points sounds about right. Think of it this way in a vacuum:

If space marines fire 100 bolter rounds at orks, they will get 66 hits and 33 wounds. Orks have a 6+ armor save, and 33 die.
If Orks fire 100 shoota rounds at Space Marine, they will get 33 hits and 16 wounds. SM have a 3+ armor save and 5 die.

And that's why one is cheaper than the other. There's obviously more related to initiative, STR3 sucks if you don't get the charge in....etc.

my basic strategy against orks is to try to reduce their mob size to about 15 boyz or so per squad with shooting, then assault them with tactical marines. generally speaking, a 10 man tac squad assaulting the orks can kill 5 boyz and loose less than that when the 10 remaining orks attack... meaning I win combat. Then, they are no longer fearless, and I can run them down. If my tac squad has a flamer, I can normally count on reducing them to 20 orks from heavy support shooting, then the tac squad flamer + bolt pistols kill ~ 5, so my charge has a chance of breaking them.

I also rely on creative use of my vehicles to block off their counter charge routes... if I am going to charge 2 tac squads into 2 squads of orks, out of 4 squads of orks, I will make DAMN sure I have a wall of rhinos between me and the rest of the orks, so they can't counter charge my marines. you can tank shock through orks with little fear, most of them won't risk a death or glory (its really idiotic for them to do so, even against a rhino the nob has like a 50% chance of dying).

Against heavier ork forces, like nobs, make sure you get your terminators / dreadnoughts / CC support unit in with them. If you don't HAVE a cc support unit, well then hit them with vindicators / lascannons missiles.

of course, these strategies work only for mechanized marines. Gunline Foot marines will be completely owned by orks (you can't kill enough before they get to you... not possible). Biker marines have a similar approach to orks, but as I've just started playing my biker marines, I haven't had a chance to try out enough strategies to post anything related to it.

edit- 3:1 isn't a fair fight at all. If it was 4:1, maybe the orks would have a chance, but probably not

In all honesty, usually its going to be an even battle.

Its just kind of a natural mentality that if you are outnumbered you are going to be wrecked. But you will be okay. The only things I worry about in ork armies are walker spam, nob squads, and the AV 14 front armor vehicles.

Sure they have some cool special characters but everyone does so I'm not scared of them. Yes, even ghazgul.

Dashofpepper wrote:

Wrexasaur wrote:Orks have really good troops choices, SM have average (if not subpar) troop choices.

This is a misnomer.

I think it would be more accurate to simply say that orks have efficient troop choices.

If you were to cut a Space Marine's ballistic skill from 4 down to 2, take away his bolter, and move his armor save from 3+ to 6+, cut his initiative in half, and take away a point in strength.....well, he would probably be six points too.

So yeah; 3:1 if a space marine is 18 points sounds about right. Think of it this way in a vacuum:

If space marines fire 100 bolter rounds at orks, they will get 66 hits and 33 wounds. Orks have a 6+ armor save, and 33 die.
If Orks fire 100 shoota rounds at Space Marine, they will get 33 hits and 16 wounds. SM have a 3+ armor save and 5 die.

And that's why one is cheaper than the other. There's obviously more related to initiative, STR3 sucks if you don't get the charge in....etc.

You can't just compare number of shots, you have to compare the units by points cost.

180 points of space marines, is a tactical squad with a missile launcher and flamer.
180 points of orks is 30 shoota boyz

At 24" they can shoot 8 bolter rounds and a frag round, lets say it hits 4 orks. The bolters hit 5 times, so that's a total of 9 str 4 wounds. Because we rounded down on hits, we'll round up on wounds, so that's 5 wounds against the orks. That's either 5 dead orks, or 2.5 dead orks if they have cover. So that's either 30 points of orks, or 15 if they have cover.

At 24", the orks can move forward 6" and fire their weapons at max effect. 30 shootas is 60 shots. 20 of those shots hit, and 10 wound, 3 space marines fail their saving throws, but here's the kicker: the sergeant, heavy and special weapon all have a chance to die, which reduces the total effectiveness of the SM unit. Overall, that's roughly 50 points lost, or more if one of the important models dies (even though they're "free").

At any point you're worried about fighting ork mobs or gaunt swarms, you've built your army wrong. Both are easy to kill in mass with any army that can generate a modest amount of firepower and/or CC specialists for counter-charges. Large mobs are very unwieldy to maneuver and very susceptible to templates, blasts, and simple volume of fire. Fearless units are very susceptible to No Retreat wounds with any number of exploits.

The point costs are, generally, balanced, so it's list building and tactics that should win (and luck).

OP - youve already lost a big part of playing the game. Looking at the table, and getting nervous from seeing that many Orks, is going to ruin the way you think during the game. Ive always said that half the game is getting into your opponents head. And obviously Orks are in there and we havnt even started yet.

Yes Orks out number your SM by alot, as far as numbers go. But your SM will kill so many more Orks then we will ever kill SM, and thats counting a complete wipe out. Dont look at the numbers and think about how many more there are, look at it as how many more your going to kill. If you get a good shooting phase your going to drop so many Orks in a single turn, that in most cases it shakes the Ork player. Its hard for an Orky player to lose 20 or so Orks in one turn and not panic a little.

If your playing (and loosing from the sound of it) against a horde orky force, you need to maximize your output of shots. Remember that pretty much every Ork will NOT get an armor save from your SM weapons. So youve just got to wound them and thats a dead Ork. Templates and high volume of fire weapons will crush Orks. So do some more planning an stop whining about how many more Orks there are, the SM player I play against alot, does very well at thinning my numbers down thats for sure. We are a pretty close match most the time so you just need to get better at playing against the boyz

Mechanising your army seems to be a really great tactic against swarms. It gives you the ability to outmaneuver the swarm and then choose where to fight your assaults.

I run two vindicators and a crusader in my list for just those reasons.

They are good against all comers and really help thin out the hordes.

willydstyle wrote:
At 24", the orks can move forward 6" and fire their weapons at max effect. 30 shootas is 60 shots. 20 of those shots hit, and 10 wound, 3 space marines fail their saving throws, but here's the kicker: the sergeant, heavy and special weapon all have a chance to die, which reduces the total effectiveness of the SM unit. Overall, that's roughly 50 points lost, or more if one of the important models dies (even though they're "free").

If the orks were 24" away there is no way the entire 30 man squad would get into range. Only the front line of orks would be in range. At that point it all depends on how much terrain is around and how many ranks deep that forces you to be. Theory-hammering this out isn't going to give you a good idea on how to actually fight a horde army. Read some batreps or play a few games and post what happened. It's not as scary as it sounds.

I've played many games. I was simply pointing out that comparing cheap models to expensive models is not as simple as "100 shots form these guys is not as good as 100 shots from those guys."

I forget what the exact quote is, but all I have to say is..

"They outnumber us? Good! That means we can fire in any direction and still hit the bastards!"

Dashofpepper wrote:

Wrexasaur wrote:Orks have really good troops choices, SM have average (if not subpar) troop choices.

This is a misnomer.

I think it would be more accurate to simply say that orks have efficient troop choices.

Okay...

Orks have efficient troops, while SM have inefficient troops, as your example would suggest.

I would say that on a scale of 1-5, Orks have a rating of 4-5 for troops (not even getting into the option to use Nob bikers...), while SM have a rating of a pretty solid 3. Without having to write 4 paragraphs explaining why, I would say that the various factors are summed up pretty easily with a system like this.

A two point scale on the other hand... is limited in explaining the nuances of each army. SM gain their strength from other things than troops, Orks can rely on their troops to do 2/3 primary roles. Anti-infantry, Anti-vehicle, but not so much against fast units. Tac squads can 3/3 roles, but do none particularly well, and are not to be relied upon.

Basically, a squad of 20 Shoota boys is going to do something serious (like put 3-4 wounds into a tac squad); tac marines will be able to take a few shots then tarpit something. Neither are useless, I just feel it is clear that Orks have much better troop choices.

"they won't escape now"

Wrexasaur wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:

Wrexasaur wrote:Orks have really good troops choices, SM have average (if not subpar) troop choices.

This is a misnomer.

I think it would be more accurate to simply say that orks have efficient troop choices.

Okay...

Orks have efficient troops, while SM have inefficient troops, as your example would suggest.

I would say that on a scale of 1-5, Orks have a rating of 4-5 for troops (not even getting into the option to use Nob bikers...), while SM have a rating of a pretty solid 3. Without having to write 4 paragraphs explaining why, I would say that the various factors are summed up pretty easily with a system like this.

A two point scale on the other hand... is limited in explaining the nuances of each army. SM gain their strength from other things than troops, Orks can rely on their troops to do 2/3 primary roles. Anti-infantry, Anti-vehicle, but not so much against fast units. Tac squads can 3/3 roles, but do none particularly well, and are not to be relied upon.

Basically, a squad of 20 Shoota boys is going to do something serious (like put 3-4 wounds into a tac squad); tac marines will be able to take a few shots then tarpit something. Neither are useless, I just feel it is clear that Orks have much better troop choices.

Tacticals get Combat Squadding/Tactics (be it Ultramarine Tactics, or Vulkanator tactics)/Free Multimeltas/Missile Launchers/Flamers, and the option to buy a Rhino if so desired, or to grab better firepower in the form of a Razorback. Their low numbers and relatively better save make them more resilient to template weapons relatively speaking.

Orks are better at holding objectives in cover due to their toughness per point, and ability to go-to-ground, at least until the cover-breaking weapons come out. Assuming they can bring enough models to bear (Engaging the enemy in an enveloping formation so to speak), they can outshoot Marines point-for-point. However, bringing maximum firepower to bear on an opponent, without setting yourself up to be templated to death, is more difficult to pull off in-game than raw mathhammer odds would indicate. Additionally, while they can get a cheap fast assault platform in the form of the Wartrukk, the inherent vulnerabilities of keeping an Boyz Mob undermanned, mean that Trukk Boyz work better in support of more durable units to "pull" attacks away from your unarmored Orks.

These units must be rated relative to what role they play in respective armies. That said, we can all agree that Flash Gitz suck.

willydstyle wrote:I've played many games. I was simply pointing out that comparing cheap models to expensive models is not as simple as "100 shots form these guys is not as good as 100 shots from those guys."

Just to clear this up I meant for the OP to play more games and read the batreps and he'll understand that being outnumbered isn't as scary as it sounds. And I fully agree on the second point.

Shas'O Dorian wrote:...building lists depending on who you're facing and I feel that if people have to resort to that to win they should just quit now.

This is a bit harsh, don't you think? I bet every great tactician used different tactics depending on what enemy he stood against. Relying on a single tactic for all types of enemy is, quite frankly, tactically unsound.

For a local example, look at all the people magnetizing their models. Why else would they do that, if not to be able to customize their armies depending on what enemy they face?

It's not to customize one's army depending on the opposition, but so that you don't have to buy multiples of the same kit to enjoy different configurations of your own army. In particular so that people won't have to face the same 2000pt army when they play with you.

MagicJuggler wrote:Tacticals get Combat Squadding/Tactics (be it Ultramarine Tactics, or Vulkanator tactics)/Free Multimeltas/Missile Launchers/Flamers, and the option to buy a Rhino if so desired, or to grab better firepower in the form of a Razorback. Their low numbers and relatively better save make them more resilient to template weapons relatively speaking.

Combat squads have the clear weakness of adding KP to your detriment, and combat tactics are only useful in a handful of situations. Vulkanator tactics costs quite a few points, and are not on the same level of being a standard skill.

Orks are better at holding objectives in cover due to their toughness per point, and ability to go-to-ground, at least until the cover-breaking weapons come out. Assuming they can bring enough models to bear (Engaging the enemy in an enveloping formation so to speak), they can outshoot Marines point-for-point. However, bringing maximum firepower to bear on an opponent, without setting yourself up to be templated to death, is more difficult to pull off in-game than raw mathhammer odds would indicate. Additionally, while they can get a cheap fast assault platform in the form of the Wartrukk, the inherent vulnerabilities of keeping an Boyz Mob undermanned, mean that Trukk Boyz work better in support of more durable units to "pull" attacks away from your unarmored Orks.

Simple answer is Battlewagons, which provide more than enough space for Shoota boys. All shots fire from the same point on a vehicles hull, so it really doesn't matter that shoota boys have a hard time getting in range while on foot. I would consider using shoota boys in a trukk, a pretty clear waste of points.

These units must be rated relative to what role they play in respective armies. That said, we can all agree that Flash Gitz suck.

Meh, they aren't great, but they can actually be decent given the right army composition.

MagicJuggler wrote:

These units must be rated relative to what role they play in respective armies. That said, we can all agree that Flash Gitz suck.

Whoa whoa whoa. They dont suck. The are over priced nobs with some pretty hardcore guns. Sure there are units that do the job better for less or much more efficiently. Besides they have the potential to really knock over some units with good rolls of the dice. But taking them in a competitive game where winning is a preferred outcome, yea they would be the last thing to take

KingCracker wrote:

MagicJuggler wrote:

Besides they have the potential to really knock over some units with good rolls of the dice.

If 'good rolls of the dice' are a consideration, then any unit has the potential to 'really knock over some units'. All you need is more dice, since they're rolling good.

But taking them in a competitive game where winning is a preferred outcome, yea they would be the last thing to take

You somewhat redeem yourself by this follow-up.

daedalus wrote:I forget what the exact quote is, but all I have to say is..

"They outnumber us? Good! That means we can fire in any direction and still hit the bastards!"

I believe it began with "We're surrounded?" Makes a bit more sense this way, but the intended badassery was conveyed in your post, regardless.

Chesty Puller, USMC, was reputed to have said during the Korean War:
"We've been looking for the enemy for some time now. We've finally found him. We're surrounded. That simplifies things."[

Off topic, but Chesty Puller is the kind of name you just can't give to your kids these days.

orks are not a bad group. Their troops just are meant to do one thing, assault OR shoot, not both. Unlike marines orks dont have the 4/4 for ws and bs. We can shoot, but it requires alot more focus then the SM does. We can be assaultive, but requires us to focus on the roll, we cant multitask. I guess that would be the biggest weekness we have.

You think SM are bad? You should try Tau. Tau doesn't have much of a troop choice so your armys are mostly elites and heavys. Your lucky if your only out numbered 3:1 by a single unit of orc troops vs your whole army.