Out of curiosity, why are you building a 2500 list for friendly games? The only thing that ever gets up that high is 'Ard Boyz. ><
1. Nine Killa kans. You just need to.
2. If the
SAG *must* stay, then you *must* replace the Warboss with another Big Mek, who in turn has a
KFF. If you cannot or will not, remove all vehicles from your list and go foot-slogging. Use the tools at your disposal to pwn non-Orks, but don't do it half-heartedly.
3. A single battlewagon (also being the single vehicle) in a 2500 list is a colossal mistake. Its going to attract all the anti-tank fire in an enemy list because it has your nastiest unit, it moves faster than everything else....that's all there is to it. Mechanize your list or don't, but don't pick a piece from every klan and jumble it together into a gooey mess.
4. Stormboyz: Again; you have two speeds of orks: Those that move 12" per turn (at least) - battlewagon and stormboyz, and those that move 6" per turn. Pick a speed; your whole army needs to match it. If you want a fast army....put those orks into trukks or more battlewagons. If you don't want a fast army, remove the battlewagon and the stormboyz. As is you're planning on delivering elements of your army piecemeal to the enemy to eat. Turn2-3: Here's a battlewagon and some stormboyz. They're a more immediate threat and in your face now (not to mention separate from the rest of the army) so focus all your firepower here and rapid fire me down please. Turn 3-5: Here's my killa-kans. I'm at midfield now and the battlewagon and stormboyz are gone. Snipe me for a turn or two with your lascannons and missile launchers (and scatter lasers and everything else). I didn't bother bringing a
KFF so I'm wide open for you to kill. Template the boyz too.
5. I think bubble-wrapping your Lootas with Gretchin is a nifty idea. If they're there purely to bubble-wrap, 19 is probably nine too many if you want to use them as individual Loota shields. *shrugs* Then again, the rest of this needs some hard anviling into some semblance of theme so who cares, right?
And finally, I want to talk to you about thematic play.
I'm going to work off of a couple of assumptions.
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1. Playing Warhammer
40k is fun.
2. Playing Warhammer
40k and winning is more fun.
3. Playing Warhammer
40k and losing is less fun.
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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?
