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Nurglitch wrote:Let's suppose Lootas are a nail that needs hammering. What sort of hammer would you, as a player, use, and how would you use it?

I'd use a sledgehammer, with a horizontal swing so you can take out more than just the Lootas.

One has to assume optimal use of the Lootas. For example:

1. Sniper Scouts won't work. Large Ork units are basically fearless, and could also kill off an Ork to reroll tests if I'm not mistaken.

2. Artillery: Thunderfire are not ordnance, so require LOS, that is dangerous. Whirlwinds could work. But, if the Ork player deploys properly a large template will only hit 4 at a time, if it stays where you put it. This is tough if there are 45 lootas! Still, 3 whirlwnds has a nice ring to it.

3. Sternguard: Ammo ignores cover saves, which I presume would also take care of intervening troop cover saves. But, you need to be within 12 inches to get rapid fire. I'm not sure the Sternguard could drop close enough to the Orks to survive the retaliation, shooting AND hand to hand combat.

4. Orbital Bombardment: well, its late at night....

5. Tyranid pie plate weapons: have to run the math hammer on this one, assume 15 Lootas, two shots, 10 hits, 7 wounds (darn strength 7), 1-2 unsaved wounds on Carnifexes, 2-3 on a tyrant guard. Versus maybe 3 dead Lootas a turn if you don't drift too much, or drift in the right direction at least.

6. Razorback rush-your 40 point heavy bolter Razorback isn't bad, he can only shoot three of them a turn....Ouch.

7. Swooping Hawk Spam with an Autarch: That sounds like alot of fun actually. Potential for 15 large templates a game taking no casualties in return.....

8. Lictors??

9. Deep Striking Raveners??

15 lootas is 225 points, average 30 shots, 10 hits; 3 miss, 3 penetrate, 3 glance. Oouch.

3 Marine Landspeeders with 2 Heavy Bolters each are 180 points. That gets you 12 hits/8wounds/7 dead after saves?

So, dual bolter Speeders can put damage on Lootas, if you get the first shot, and if you don't have to deal with a KFF....

30 horse whipped gretchen

From playing Lootas fairly often (2 units of 14-15), there have been a couple of units that just beat them down.

-Dreadnought w/ heavy flamer (Ironclad could be worse) exiting from a Drop Pod. Drop Pod rules are very player friendly when rolling for scatter.

-Snikrot with two Burnas in the unit.

-Outflanking War Walkers with Scatterlasers and or Shuriken Cannons.

These have been situations where my Lootas got blown right off the table.

I have to step in and say a few things...

First off, as an ork player some of these things are pretty off....

If the ork player gets to go first, and he is any good, a huge amount of deep strike real estate is gone.

If you are heavy drop pod, a demon, have a lot of deep striking units in your army, and I'm deploying first, then I'm deploying my lootas back a bit in my deployment zone. I'm placing a unit of shoota boys in front, and then on my first turn of movement I'm placing my shootas in such a way that you just aren't going to get a heavy flamer, or any 12" shooting on my lootas on the turn you land.

It's not always foolproof, and if there is a deep striker that can get close more consistently than anything else it is a drop pod. But let's just take units that deep strike then shoot 8-12" right out of the 'loota answer' column.

Lootas get solved a couple different ways.

One way is to make yourself loota proof. 3+ and 2+ armor saves, toughness 6+ with 3+ armor, armor 14 vehicles, 60"+ range shooting, barrage weapons

If you don't make yourself loota proof, then you'll have to be able to hurt them.

Here would be my faves to hurt them.

whirlwind (incendiary only)
lootas
snikrot+kommandos
space wolf scouts
an assault unit in a land raider crusader or redeemer
empty land raider redeemeer
stealth team markerlights followed by mass missile pods or submunitions
mass mortars
mass shadow weavers
mass lobbas

Particularly useful combos include anything that can whittle down lootas followed by weapons that cause pin tests.

Here's a loota quiz for you...

you shoot 15 lootas down to 7 on turn 1. They pass their morale test. On turn 2 do you...

A) shoot at the 7 man loota unit again and wipe it out.
B) shoot at a fresh loota unit, taking it down to 7 and hoping it fails a test.
C) shoot a little bit at the first loota unit, making it take another leadership 7 test, and then kill 6 on the fresh loota unit, hoping it fails a leadership 9 morale check.







my answer is A. Lootas are full of overkill, their weakest link is that they can only kill one thing a turn. If things go well for their morale tests, you could end up leaving them with 3 loota units to spread fire every turn, even after two full rounds of shooting at them. Even 6 or 7 lootas can wreck a vehicle or hurt an infantry unit quite easily.

Assault units that don't appear at table edges or assault out of armor 14 transports can be loota proof, but they can't be loota answers, either their transport gets blown up, or they get intercepted by shoota boy screens.

Just keep in mind that you can win games without touching lootas, depending on how your army is built.

example... an army made entirely out of wraithlords, wraithguard, pathfinders, and jetlocks could just pretend that the lootas didn't exist, put some heat on shoota boys, and win objective games handily.

A rhino rush, or grav tank rush, or monstrous creature army will have to find an answer, or at least hurt one or two of the loota units in the game to make it through intact.


I'm just patiently waiting for elite slot thudd guns for imperial guard. I think if GW can make an infantry based guard army that can outshoot a 45 loota/9 kannon/9+ big shoota list, then ork players are going to have to make list adaptations or concede all of their games against IG. If GW doesn't do that, then I think we're gonna keep seeing 45 lootas .

Daemons:

With Daemons its a tossup as to whether you actually try and do anything about the lootas, but if you do the answer is to drop a Grinder nearby and glare menacingly, maybe flamer if you got a lucky scatter. They've got one shot at 1/3 to hit, 1/6 to glance, 1/6 to immobilize, which will take 2 or 3 lootas to achieve, good enough for the round that matters.

Regwon wrote:
hellhounds will kill lootas, but only if you get the first turn. if you dont, your hellhounds will go down in a blaze of deffgun fire.

True, but when you hide your HH behind a Leman Russ you can make sure to get the first shot. What might be more tricky is to get it into range without closing the distance to any klaws too much to lose two tanks.

Lord Solar Plexus wrote:

Regwon wrote:
hellhounds will kill lootas, but only if you get the first turn. if you dont, your hellhounds will go down in a blaze of deffgun fire.

True, but when you hide your HH behind a Leman Russ you can make sure to get the first shot. What might be more tricky is to get it into range without closing the distance to any klaws too much to lose two tanks.

well you would have to deploy them up the the line, and your opponent would have to deploy his lootas up to the line as well. when have you ever seen that happen? it will take you at least a turn to get inot range and by that point you have powerklaws to worry about as well.

Shep wrote: If GW doesn't do that, then I think we're gonna keep seeing 45 lootas .

So you're saying you actually see that all the time?

Regwon wrote:
well you would have to deploy them up the the line, and your opponent would have to deploy his lootas up to the line as well. when have you ever seen that happen? it will take you at least a turn to get inot range and by that point you have powerklaws to worry about as well.

I said it's tricky, did I not? Mind you, it's not going to work under all and every circumstances but looking at the weapon it's worth to consider.

However, it's far from impossible. Many variables may have an effect. Of course some other unit could be in the way but you didn't bring only two tanks to a game, right? In this case, the question isn't "What is good against Lootas?" but "What is good against an Ork army including Lootas?" and then I'm not restricted to the one Hellhound. If you focus on the unit you might well overcome this. Also, not all scenarios have you set up 24" apart. Yes, the lootas could set up at the base line but that might mean bad fire lanes or shooting through their own guys, thereby voluntarily diminishing their fire power by 50%. There could also be three units of Lootas making it impossible to present AV 14 to each and all of them etc. However, if the HH hits, it hits them good.

Alternatively, you could perhaps shield your HH from the Lootas and have the inferno cannon fire at something entirely else all game long...