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I am looking into making a Mek Ork army but most of the lists I look at don't include meganobz. I was wondering, why not? Now, I am still learning the rules and I am yet to even play my first game but it would seem that a meganob is less points then upgrading a normal nob to have a pk. What am I not understanding?

They are essentially teminators without a shooty element, no ATSKNF or X++ save, and no BP. So they die to any power weapons and tend to run away.

A tricked out Nob squad will have better WS, more flexability, More wounds (sooo many more), better shooting options, be faster out of a transport. and actually cost a comparab;e amount.

Their biggest problem is that regular nobz inhabit the same codex.

Pros for Meganobz over regular nobz
- for less than the price of a nob with a klaw you get a nob with a klaw, a 2+ save and a twin-linked gun.
- that 2+ save makes them very tough versus small arms fire

Pros for regular nobz over Meganobz
- Feel no Pain
- 5++ saves
- fully complex unit means it takes a lot more wounds to start killing them
- WS5
- BOSSPOLES!!! Meganobz are massive cowards who flee constantly whereas Nobz will actually hold some of the bloody time if they lose cc.
- big choppas for cheaper cc ability
- they don't have slow and purposeful

A nobz mob and a Meganobz mob of similar size will work out at roughly the same price too.

Consider my nobz mob

Painboy - all models have cybork
klaw
klaw and bp
waaagh banner
regular boy
skorcha - 255pts

6 meganobz - 252pts

You've gained a 2+ save and a 12 klaw attacks but lost FnP, the invulnerable save, all the init 4 attacks, the poison weapon and the bosspole.

Meganobz can work but they need somebody with either high leadership or fearless to babysit them. They also need a transport to get over their slow and purposeful problem but regular nobz need a transport too reall.

They do make a good bully unit. Nobz probably equipped can go toe to toe with most anything in the game. Meganobz kept really cheap (i.e. min of 3) can be dumped out of a trukk to go pick on something middlingly good in cc (like a tac squad) and maul it. Or you can use a cheap squad in a trukk (maybe with a boarding plank) to go after vehicles.


I know Dash uses them in his Ghazzy lead army but I'm not sure of his reasons for preferring them over regular nobz.

? His hard boys list runs 'Mized nobz...

As for your guys, I'd honestly sonsider 5pts for a BC as well, the Str7 on the charge is actually quite nice/brutal (for the silly str to points ratio).

Chris; 2 things:

1) The auto T-L Shootas is definitely a shooty element; 5 meganobz has 10 re-roll to hit(definite plus) 18" Str 4 shots, which is only 12" less than Terminators and has a worse AP.

2) While the Big Choppa is dirt cheap for the High Str granted; gaurdsmen flak armor(or the single shoulder pad on an Ork boy) still has every chance to stop the Giant two handed Buzz-saw Axe(or just really large any kind of blade). Point is they are not Power weapons, So regular Nobz with BC charging Meganobz will likely not actually kill any Meganobz, while that same squad will in turn get Murdered by the Megas at I1. Conversely the Megas will get murdered by howling banshees.

For those of you bemoaning the loss of FNP, I would like to point out that a 4+/FNP has a 75% chance to ignore a wound that is not AP4 or better or S8 or better, and a 50% chance to ignore any AP3 wounds that are not also S8 or better, and no chance to save any wound that's AP2 or better.

By comparison a 2+ save is 83% chance to ignore any wound that is not AP2, regardless of strength.

There are no circumstances or weapons under which the Mega-armor's 2+ save is not strictly better than 'eavy Armor's 4+ backed by the Painboyz Feel No Pain. And the 2+ armor is not lost if you lose the Painboy due to effects like Mind War, Telion, Zogwort's curse, or simple bad luck on torrent of fire.

There are relatively few things in the game that Nobz are more initially durable than MegaNobz to. Mostly anything that's AP2 or AP1 and under strength 8, including basic power weapons. And only because you can spread the wounds around on a complex unit, which means while you lose fewer models for the first few wounds, you lose more models to the following wounds, once you've saturated your 2 wound complex unit.

That said, the options that Nobz have are a pretty significant advantage. MegaNobz pretty much need an HQ unit to babysit them, if you intend for them to be a deathstar unit, and not a throwaway glass hammer unit. The lack of bosspoles and Waagh banners are definitely noticable.

To answer the OP's question, I love my MANz. I will take MANz over regular Nobz almost every time, with two exceptions. If you're going to go for a really big unit (at least 8 upto full 10 strong), Nobz advantages start to outweigh their higher cost and lower overall durability. The second is if my list does not have a lot of vehicles. MANz *need* transports, and if theirs is one of the only vehicles on the table, they'll be walking far too soon. In that case, Nobz on bikes (even more expensive, but now slightly more durable against many types of damage) are useful.


I run them in one of two ways.

First is the 'MANZ Missile' (or torpedo or rocket, depending on who is talking). 3 or 4 MANz in a fairly stripped down Trukk. The unit will cost you less than 200 points, and can reasonably wreck almost any sort of support or backfield unit, and does a decent job against non-dedicated assault units (tac squads, most Eldar aspects, IG platoons, etc). Point and click. First turn you flat-out the trukk in hopes that you get close enough to assault before your trukk is brutally destroyed from under you. Unless they dedicate a fair bit of AP2 fire, you can probably get at least 1 or 2 into combat, and if they do dedicate it, that means the rest of your army is not being targeted. This takes advantage of the fact that most AP1 and AP2 weaponry is also the high strength anti-tank weaponry.

The other way to run them, is to stick a Warboss in with them in a unit that's at least 5 strong, call them troops, and give them a battlewagon (with at least a deffrolla and armor plates). You've now got a very sturdy unit which can steamroller most any unit the game (with a few exceptions, like other Terminators and some MCs) and still be scoring. This works even better if you also have Mad Doc Grotsnik in the army, as you can give them 5++ saves too. The MANz bomb is a bit more of a second wave unit. Let your faster units tie things up and then roll up and just decimate them with 20-40 powerklaw attacks. This is especially good if you can charge multiple tied up units at once.

Overall, as I said, never ever take MANz without a transport. SnP makes them legitimately too slow to get into combat during a game that may only go 5 turns, unless you can get at least one or two turns in a vehicle that guarantees they can move 12 or more inches.

They can not have a painboy, and therefore can not get Feel No Pain. They can not get an invulnerable save, and therefore will be devoured by power weapons. If they're in a vehicle you can choose your battles, however, and throw them against more vulnerable units. Then again, if you're going after vulnerable units anyway, there's not much of a point in taking a big expensive squad of MANZ.

Brother - as noted above MDG CAN let them havea 5++ save, if you want the liability he can be

In larger-sized games, I run both. I typically have run two Warbosses (1 vanilla and 1 Thrakka). I give Thrakka a squad of five (heavily converted) Meganobz and toss 'em in a battlewagon. Then, I give the vanilla 'boss a squad of 9 regular Nobz (w/ banner and painboy) and let them cruise around in a trukk. It works really well, actually. When possible, I either use the two units to flank the enemy or pair them up to bust through the centerpoint of particularly nasty battlelines. So far, it's been effective.