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While I think Orks aren't okay as is, I also think fixing them might not require drastic changes. The boyz mobz hit plenty hard enough if they arrive mostly intact...the problem is that they rarely do that outside of CoD games. The two ways to solve this is either give them more footspeed or make them more resilient. IMO, footspeed doesn't feel right, so the focus oughta be on the resilience of the mobz.

I'd be interested to see how Orks play if you give boyz a slight points break, fix the Waagh checks and give them more reliable saves, either through fixing of Gretchin, more access to KFFs (think Gungans) or both. With more boyz on the table and 5+ cover saves they can rely on, footsloggas might fare quite a bit better.

Focus the rest of the efforts on fixing wargear, cleaning up and consolidating a lot of the ancillary unit types, and bringing in some aspects of the Feral list (Weirdboyz and Squiggoths, anyone?) and you might have yourself a codex.

Are you serious? DE are an MEQ's worst nightmare. They have a REALLY tough time against IG and Nids, but against anyone else DE are brutally effective.

On topic:

Orcs deffinately need help. KOS and Fearl Orcs are tough, no doubt, and fun to play but they need to be incorporated into the basic codex, as others have stated.

I would like to see:

Toughness 5 warboss. The Orcs lack a HtH monstrosity, which they need and fluff wise, deserve.

Clan options: similar to SM traits and IG doctrines. I want to be able to customize my mobs. Allow players to pay to be Goffs with the extra point of strength, etc.

Include new units: squiggoths, weirdboyz, etc. I would like to see some more variety.

And, as everyone else has said, NEW VEHICLE MODELS!! god dang, the old ones are terrible.

Stickbomb options on boyz, things like that. they need a big overhaul, and a characterful, fun army like orcs would only benefit the game as a whole if more people pleyed them.

Posted By yakface on 09/16/2006 3:57 AM

The fact that the majority of the Ork players feel that very little needs to be done to the codex (if that is truly the case) is immaterial. The current Ork players make up only a small percentage of overall players, and that's the whole problem!

These are the same people who constantly say: Why do we need new Ork vehicle models, half the fun is converting Ork vehicles yourself!!!

It's like Ork players are punk rockers. They like their little niche and they don't want their army going mainstream cause then they'll feel like what makes the army special to them isn't theirs alone anymore.

BULLCRAP!

Orks should be just as much an uber-power army as any other codex. We should see (non-Feral) Orks at the top of GT winner lists again.


If GW just does make a few changes here and there to the Ork codex after nearly 8 years, I say shame on them.


Footslogger Orks *cannot* be tooled to outshoot a shooty army. They are to slow and too expensive to be a true horde army. They lack durability and the truly poweful CC unit to be an elite CC army.

In short, they do a whole bunch of things decent, but nothing really well.


Orks deserve better. They deserve a massive line of new models after 8 years and they deserve to have a truly strong army list after 8 years.

Thank you for saying it far better than I could have.

One more year and we'll see how it goes.

Are you serious? DE are an MEQ's worst nightmare. They have a REALLY tough time against IG and Nids, but against anyone else DE are brutally effective.

You wouldn't mind explaining this a bit? DE are a MEQ's worth nigthmare? DE is the weakest army in the entire game and a MEQ player who doesn't wipe them off the table in every mission imaginable is a lot worse than just clueless. By your admission the DE should be an extremely good GT force since what you mostly encounter at GTs are SM, Chaos and some Eldar. If you don't mind can you name a Dark Eldar GT winner either in fourth or third edition? Failing that, can you name a Dark Eldar GT player who has scored 100 or higher battle points? I know I can't, because I haven't ever even seen them make top10 in a GT qualifier not to mention actually winning anything. My own experience of Dark Eldar is seeing 20 Disintegrators and Lances on the table on turn one, and seeing none on turn four. In addition to bringing the succesful DE players to light, please post the brutally effective worst nightmare -type of DE army in the army list forum, and explain there how it's going to beat IW and Pod Marines in a tournament environment.

Therion, in the U.S. we've had at least two DE GT winners, one in 3rd edition, and one in 4th edition, IIRC. Marc Parker (who is a multiple GT winner) won with a Wych Cult in 2005, and a gentleman from Texas (someone help me out with the name) won one with a Raider rush army in 3rd edition several years ago. I know there's been other good finishes by DE armies as well.

While I think Reecius was overenthusiastic regarding the effectiveness of DE, saying "a MEQ player who doesn't wipe them off the table in every mission imaginable is a lot worse than just clueless" is off the mark too. I won't claim that DE can consistently hang with the ubertuned GT lists, but maybe you simply haven't seen a good player utilize the army effectively? I think the army was better under 3rd edition than 4th, but DE players have adapted using WWP tactics.

Mainly the webway portal ones, Wych Cult and otherwise that I have been hearing the best results from.
They can avoid the first turn loss issue, and can still get good use out of raider fleets. Decent in close combat as well.
Still, not nearly as powerful as many of the marine variants.

Yes, the DE are highly effective. I admit, i may have been a little too, as gorgon put it, "overenthusiastic" in my deffense of them, but they are far from the worst army in the game, wihtout a doubt.

The maxed empty raider dark lance army is very effective, and wych cults are extremly viable.

and if i am not mistaken, hasnt't Xtapl from these boards had a great deal of success with the DE?

@therion
while we may have both gone a bit overboard with our claims, i can not see how you could say they are the worst army in the game, or how they should be wiped off of the table by any marine player turn 2. They have speed, anti armor punch, and brutal HtH. I would gladly take a tooled out DE list against a marine player and i think that it would be an enjoyable and tough match up.

I didn't go overboard at all in my statements, and  the game between us wouldn't be enjoyable or tough. The maxed empty raider army you talk about is a piss-poor list.

One GT win in the US (where people generally like to play weak armies) in this edition is quite far from being a MEQ player's worst nightmare especially as you have what 10 GTs per year? I strongly suggest you just make that post and explain your strategy instead of just throwing empty claims in the air.

hahahahaha, jeez buddy, i didnt realize defending Dark Eldar would get your panties in such a bunch. You act like its a personal insult. I admit, Dark Eldar are not the ultimate MEQ crushing army that will never fail, no army is. But I was reacting to you statement, and they are NOT the worst army in the game, and by no means would two optimzed lists with high level generals end in a wipe out in every imaginable mission. That is very obviously a rediculous statement.

The fact that so many GT's are taken by MEQ's has as much to do with the fact that the majority of players at GT's play MEQs as anything else. They are hands down the most popular armies in the game. In a pool of good players with in which 90% take MEQs, it doesn't take a rocket scientest to predict the end result.

As much as I do not want to get into a pissing contest, you have no clue how a game between the two of us would end, no matter which army either of us played. And it is pointless to even debate such a thing as it will most likely never happen.

At any rate, chest thumping on the internet is absolutely pathetic, so I will leave this alone. If you think they suck, then ok, i dont feel that way.

Nuff said.

First of all, Craftworld Eldar win a lot more GTs than MEQ do, atleast untill the new book hits the shelves. Secondly, well, another one bites the dust. You come to the thread guns blazing calling DE the MEQ players' absolute worst nightmare, and when I ask you to back up your statements you start to cry and proceed to write some incoherent babble. Well done.

Therion, let's be fair...you asked for one winner (actually, you asked for a lot less than that), and I gave you two. You can say the competition was weak, but all those guys could do was beat the armies they faced. I'm not going to get behind Reecius' "nightmare" statement, but I think a well-composed, well-played DE army isn't an automatic win vs. anything other than clueless players like you said.

Now, I'm not even a DE player, but my take on WWP DE vs. drop pods is that reserve rolls and the roll for first turn would be huge factors. If DE get first turn, they should be able to safely drop WWPs on their turn 2. That'll allow them to pit the majority of their army coming in on their turn 3 against half the SM force that came in on turn 2. With enough disintegrators and agonizers, DE can dish out enough damage to make the game pretty interesting. However, if SMs get the first turn, the DE player will probably have to drop on turn 1, as the pods coming in on SM turn 2 will endanger the WWP carrier and thus everything in reserve. Then on DE turn 2, only half the DE force will emerge and obviously it becomes a tough road for the DE.

In my experience facing them, DE are quite a glass hammer...but they're still a hammer that will hurt if they get the opportunity.

I wouldn't want to face IW with WWP DE, as the ordnance would really threaten the carriers. But then who doesn't match up poorly with IW? Again, I'm not arguing that DE are a top GT army, just that the truth lies somewhere between "nightmare" and "clueless."

@Therion; DE are better at killing MEQs them most people give them credit for. Having a 10 man squad that have 2 blasters and 2 dark lances for 110 points means that they can easily shoot Marines up, but low leadership and T3 does not make it easy. The Archon will shadowfield and Talos help survive aginst Marine close combat or short range shooting. Using a several Haemonculi will webway portals that are screened by warrior squads allow you to compete with Drop pod armies to an extent (although it's a little risky), allowing your close combat units to engage the Drop pod marines with out taking causulties first.


DE is a unforgiving army but it's tricky and very powerful. I'd hazzard to say it's a better army list then IG, Orks, and Deamonhunters. It's as good as Tau, Old Eldar and SOBs.

Therion talks as if Europe is the land of super armies, the Americans would never dream of.  We have some very good players and instead of taking the cheese of the month army. They tend to follow their own way. I really doubt the power players of Europe could come to the states and win our big tourney, Adepticon. Who knows maybe some adepticon winners will come to Europe.

The strength of the DE army comes in the WWP wyche list. Being able to deliver ~3 wyche squads into CC with little to no shooting casualties is very strong against MEQs, especially when you have 3 triple DL Ravagers backing them up.

The weakness of the DE army is against anything that isn't MEQs, they simply don't have the horde killing power to deal with large amounts of troops.

The DE are a very skill dependent army that has many poor matchups and are very fragile, and yet in their niche, they can be very strong.

The DE can deal with hordes too. Massed str 3 attacks seem designed for killing hordes. It really comes down to how the army is built. Wyches don't crush MEQs with there close combat attacks so much as survive in Close Combat long enough for their succubus and weak but plentiful attacks to wear then enemy down.

When I first desided to play DE I was trying to build a better IG army (I always played Infantry heavy). I learned that DE warrior squads can be better at killing MEQs, point for point then IG squads, but the leadership tricks that IG have make a far more resilent army.

The list I play was Archon and Incubi retiue in raider, 6 Squads of Warriors each 10 man strong with 2 blaster and 2 dark Lances, 2-3 Haemonculi with gear and webway, 2 talos', and a 8 man wyche squad in raider. The Warriors and Haemoculi start on the table and try to advance or shoot up the enemy. I try to wait until turn three to drop the webway, but I'll drop them quicker if nessary. The Key is to get two webways out at once and try to have them atleast 18"s apart. This really increases your threat range for the raider bound melee squads. The Talos are mostly counter charge. Aginst Very static shooty armies, I'll try to run the Wabways deep into the table, using Warriors to keep the Haemoculi alive to deliver them.

To all Ork players, Sorry about the thread jack. I feel your pain, I play Orks as one of my main armies too.

Posted By skkipper on 09/29/2006 2:31 PM
Therion talks as if Europe is the land of super armies, the Americans would never dream of.  We have some very good players and instead of taking the cheese of the month army. They tend to follow their own way. I really doubt the power players of Europe could come to the states and win our big tourney, Adepticon. Who knows maybe some adepticon winners will come to Europe.

Therion is a very good player playing against other very good players with absolutely brutal armies.  I think he would do quite well in the states as he has one the sharpest minds for tacticts and army strengths I have seen,  Do not undersell him.

Nice replies people. Although I don't actually believe in most of the things you say about Dark Eldar, atleast you guys are trying unlike the worst nightmare guy. A few things:

In theory the worst army in the game might be a decent army nevertheless -- It's just a question of game balance. Tau isn't very competitive either but on occasion a Tau player will still gather a lot of wins and make it to the top tables, and the same applies to any other army. My opinion is that DE are too fragile to be anything else than the most handicapped list in the game simply because an equal points amount of Marines can exchange shots with them indefinately and end up winning big. I believe you can do funny things with Dark Eldar if you are on top of your game and know your opponent well, but this is all assuming that the opponent does not know what he is doing. Believe me or not but some players have such massive egos that eventhough they might be some of the best players around they still take the most effective army imaginable to tournaments.

Secondly, if you read closely I didn't make any claims about which country or continent or planet has the best players. I merely said that Americans tend to play weaker armies and the lists are much more varied. Some armies that are all but extinct in Europe still get played in the US. On many occasions I've cited this fact as a good thing. In addition, Europe only has one meaningful GT every year (EU population 456 million) and from two to three qualifiers to play in it, instead of more regional state wide GTs with a smaller pool of participating players. National tournaments of course exist and they are indeed numerous, but the meaning of a GT win is quite different in the EU and in the US.

Good Points Therion, US does play weeker armies over all, but that's because of GWUS and their GT and RTT rules, IMHO. Back in Second Ed and Earily Third Ed, My friends and I used to play the most broken(good) lists we could but we would do poorly do to the Tournement scoring. When 60% of your scores come from Painting, Sportsmanship, Army Comp and The Judges wims (yes, I've seen the judges in USGTs just subtract points from an over all score and call it their right as judges). More then anything this has left US players with less brutal armies as they have been punished for there efforts. It's funny I always assumed (and was told) that the US was the brutalist players and everyone else was nice and sporting. And Really that's what it comes down to "being Sporting". Sportsmanship means doing everything in your power to even the playing fields. GWUS (or maybe just GW) has pounded being sporting into us so strongly that Europe might have much more brutal armies and our only defense is to call it "cheesy or Bready" becasue that's what we have be trained to say.

Also THe US does not have GTs anymore, atleast not the way we used too. Now the closest thing we have is Games Day RTTs. I could be wrong, but to the best of my knowledge and checking the USGW site the GTs are dead in the states.

Finally, anyone playing aginst my DE need to know what I;m going to do in detail, other wise the DE will pull out some devistating manuvers.Terrain will also play a huge part in DE success. With decent terrain, a lot of the DE's weakness become less pronounced, but with low terrain they are meat on a hook. Also what can stand up to an equal points of Marines in a Shooting match and survive (that's the Marines main strenght, its' an Army that's resistant to small armys fire) and Yes I know that Necrons probably could, until you factor in heavy and speacial weapons.

Therion, I think you're right regarding more diverse lists in the U.S. My impression (only an impression since I haven't played in Europe) is that the lists there are more cookie-cutter. I don't chalk that all up to comp rules, however. The U.S. GT scene is all but dead now, but when it still had a pulse, it had moved away from quantitative comp scoring to squishier "theme" scoring. Yeah, that system was open to "tanking," but I don't think the threat of theme tanking was the only thing holding people back.

IMO, part of it is a contrast in attitudes between European and U.S. tournament players. If a U.S. player had come up with the uber-Seer Council army and won a GT with it, they'd probably be scorned in some circles, but recognized in others for having the ingenuity to completely break the army list and win with it.

However, if multiple players copied that winning list and brought it to the same tournament in the following year, I think a majority of U.S. players would see that development as unoriginal and unimaginative. I can understand the European attitude...it's a competition, so why not bring what you think gives you the best chance to win? That's perfectly logical. But I think many of the better players here would rather bring their own idea and try to win with it their way, as per the Sinatra tune. Again, that's not a value judgment on European players, just one person's observation about different attitudes.

The reason I didnt start in with the theory hammer is that ultimately, it is pointless. At that stage of a budding *female dog* fest, no matter what either of us said our only goal would be to disprove the other. Neither of us would have changed the other's point of view, or accepted any good points and it would have most likely degenerated into a flame war that made us both look like fools. Talking theory and tactics on forums can never really prove anything other than potentialities of one result or another in a very limited context. Untill you actually put models on the table and start rolling some dice, its all just talk. Theory hammer can't possibly account for all of the variables involved with a real game of 40K.

So when you called me out on the playground to "throw down a list" in the tactics section it made me laugh, what really would that prove? that i can make an imaginary list that would beat your imaginary list? that is pointless and ultimately unproveable, and smack talking and aggresion on line is juvenile and idiotic considering any 14 yea old dOOd can do it form the safety of their PC.

But, as others have said, the DE can very deffinately give MEQ's hell. Dropping two to three WWP in an opponants back line and bringing three full Wych squads into HtH with an enemy gunline is brutal. Hell, you can drop WWP's from warrior squads on your front line and wyches will still be highly likely to make it into combat the turn they come in (moving an average of 25.5", not taking into account the chances of one out of three squads rolling the 12" charge with the comabt drugs). The 6 min maxed warrior squads can shoot like hell for their points. They have the same BS and LD (baring the chapter master) as a SM las plas squad but have more wounds. Their only real weakness to SM's is the dropping Libby with Fear, which is a brutally effective against them, i admit.

Archons can destroy an entire SM shooty squad a game turn in HtH starting turn two.

Ravagers can drop 9 plasams cannon templates a turn on the move, which when utilizing terrain and focused fire can severly limit return fire.

Any mechanized list is toast Vs. all of the Dark Lances on the board.

Against Drop pod armies, put your hard hitters in reserve. If you go first, drop WWP's turn 2 to counter the pods, if you go second drop it turn one for the same effect.

Deamon bombs can be countered due to the high amount of shooting in the line squads which can do a hell of a lot of damage to enemy fast movers coming in to deliver the deamons, combined with countercharging from wychs. The agonizer and 4+ invul makes wyches excellent for taking out greater deamons, deamon princes and SM characters.

I could go on, but again, we can only speak from our own experiances, and you may have seen plenty of DE players get ground under powered armored boots, I have seen a lot of the frederick's of hollywood all stars beat SM players into the dirt.

At any rate, as i said, this is all just hot air untill you play a game. I stand behind my assertion that the DE are not the worst army in the game, period, and that they are in fact, brtual against MEQ's. The dubious distinction for worst list goes to walking orcs, IMHO, who very dearly need a rewrite in their codex.

/ignore Reecius

OK. So, let's get back on topic. I'm looking for Ork Codex rumors. Anyone?

You wouldn't mind explaining this a bit? DE are a MEQ's worth nigthmare? DE is the weakest army in the entire game and a MEQ player who doesn't wipe them off the table in every mission imaginable is a lot worse than just clueless. By your admission the DE should be an extremely good GT force since what you mostly encounter at GTs are SM, Chaos and some Eldar. If you don't mind can you name a Dark Eldar GT winner either in fourth or third edition? Failing that, can you name a Dark Eldar GT player who has scored 100 or higher battle points? I know I can't, because I haven't ever even seen them make top10 in a GT qualifier not to mention actually winning anything. My own experience of Dark Eldar is seeing 20 Disintegrators and Lances on the table on turn one, and seeing none on turn four. In addition to bringing the succesful DE players to light, please post the brutally effective worst nightmare -type of DE army in the army list forum, and explain there how it's going to beat IW and Pod Marines in a tournament environment

 

The problem with dark eldar not being a force is that you have to learn how to use it and the model dont inspire alot of conversion in the golden deamon people.

You could give a chimpanze a couple of hours to read the marine codex and he will have either drop pods or a mauled list "all royalty checks for using Ed's name should be mailed ASAP" those are the most powerful out of the list and there is a reason they work. Not bashing on you marines out there, you are using the cards dealt you.

Dark eldar require alittle thought and practice. You have to use speed and shock and allittle faith in the dice rolling average " please just be average" and there is no reason you should lose to marines.

I have won with dark eldar along with yarbough I believe his name was back in 3rd. I won with wichs in fourth because people said the army  couldnt do it.

I could swear we had this dark eldar debate on hear before but here we go.........................

I think witch cult is more powerful of the 2 lists

6 raiders with 7 or 8 witches in each ..1 blaster and succubus with agonizer and plasma haywire gernades

1 lord tooled out  ....drugs punisher gernades shadow field

1 Lt.     punisher drugs gernades

3  ravagers 2 disintigraters one dark lance

2 raider squads 5 men dark lance

4 packs of dogs

you should be hit from on turn one by both lords and one squad and all vehicles should be stunned or dead unless they are behind cover.

1. standard mission 12 in all raider move 12 deploy 2 inch in front fleet 1-6 inch 12 inch charge for 3 different units. lets see thats 12+12+2+12+3= 41 inch on average  how are those last 7 inches doing. Be honest and tell me you already knew they on average move that fast. and if you say ill just stay back than the raiders jump 24 behind cover within said 41 inch range for turn 2 charges instead of turn one.. 

10 independent dark lances not counting the ravagers. that can go tank or infantry hunting with the disintigrators firing on low pwer for 6 str4 ap3 shots with the dark lance all hitting on 3's.

the regular dark eldar is close to the same but you use 2 units of incubi with as many witches as you can fit.

 

If you refuse to believe that they are good and that us Americans are week players" I dont know where that crap started, " havnt seen any of you guys come across the pond and show us how to play. The pound to dollars is almost 2 to 1 so its cheap for you to do it. cowboy up and come on over for a GT. I dont think you could handle Adepticon so start at a GT.

 

and in responce to them not doing well over there so it sucks, maybe just maybe the good players are over here and your the one in the minors....

Marc Parker

@stormboy97: I do agree that the Wyche list is awesome, but I can't stand the thought of losing my Talos. Those guys are close combat monsters.

I hear you, but I gave in to the extra ravager when I went witches and never looked back. just love the extra fire power

Feel free to start a thread about DE tactics in the tactics forum.