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Personally, I wouldn't bother taking a unit of Nobz, as tempting as it might be. They always seem to end up being a point-sink. Yes, they're killy, but they're also quite squishy, considering the points cost of the average PK/cybork Nob. You'll have to diversify them and put them in a transport, which will inevitably get shot up, and they'll end up footslogging anyway. And then get shot up.

The thing about orks is, well, they die easy. Expect that and embrace it. They're not a 'sit back and soak up the punishment' type of army.
For me, there are several principles to adhere to:

Expect everything to die.
...because they're not that tough, Orks. Not their vehicles, troops... nothing. At least, not against shooting. The only possible 'tough' unit, really, is diversified Nob bikers, but then who wants to spend 500+ points on a unit that will STILL probably get shot up within a couple of turns?

Target saturation
Thankfully, Boyz are cheap, and therefore, numerous. I run trukk boyz basically because it gives my opponent more to shoot at, instead of focussing fire on that nice, shiny, tricked out battlewagon with a high point-cost unit in, such as Lootas. Yeah, you'll lose a couple, but you don't need that many to get through, because once the surving trukk boyz get in the face of your opponent, he'll be thinking about them, and not the forcibly disembarked footsloggers creeping up to reinforce them.... Which brings me to my next principle:

Get in your opponent's face early and give him/her (yeah, right...) something to think about.
DO NOT sit back. It's not Orky, plus, that's what your opponent wants you to do. He knows our strength is CC, so he's going to want you at arms length, where his shooting will ruin your day, big style. Bad times. Instead, shove something down his throat as early as you can (stop giggling at the back, please...), something that he can't afford to ignore. I use single deffkoptas with buzzsaws, because if your enemy is meched-up (and let's face it, that's likely), he will fear them enough to focus early shooting on them. if you get the first turn, great - scout move, what? 24" with turbo-boost? Then move 12", then assault 6"... basically that's a powerklaw with enough range to start causing problems for his vehicles in turn one. He'll definitely devote significant amounts of shooting to 3 of them, especially if you've knacked 3 vehicles in turn one. Even if you don't get first turn, get up in his face anyway with the scout move - turbo-boosting makes deffkoptas harder to kill, and if he's shooting at them, he's not shooting at your trukks as much, and they just so happen to be racing 18" towards him...

Maximise Power Klaws
Always seek to maximise the number of power klaws you can bring to bear, as these are usually vital to any Ork victory. Again, I feel that a basic squad of trukk boys, in a basic un-upgraded trukk, is the best and most cost-effective delivery method for getting the maximum amount of PKs in your enemy's face. Once again, yes, he will pop a few - no, you shouldn't panic. If you adhere to the principles set out here, enough trukks should survive to cause major headaches for your enemy. It's at that point that your Warboss rocks up in a battlewagon with 19 of his mates (burnas if you have the points), and Snikrot pops up behind with his mates. Good-night Vienna.

EDIT:

Almost forgot!

Never rely on Ork shooting
Just don't. They suck at it, and nothing they can shoot is even that killy, really. It just won't win you games consistently.

Albatross wrote:Almost forgot!

Never rely on Ork shooting
Just don't. They suck at it, and nothing they can shoot is even that killy, really. It just won't win you games consistently.

Up till that point, I'd have said very good advice, but that's just flat out wrong. BS2 does not no matter if you shoot four times the shots of your opponent.

Shoota boyz and ork lootaz are some of the most reliable shooting units in the game. A unit of boyz will outshoot any equivalent unit of marines any day, while, point for point, lootaz are better than heavy weapon teams shooting auto-cannons, which is the only other spammable source of S7 shooting besides psycannons. If you add kanz and rokkit buggies, you'll get youself a decent amount of very few point efficient shooting. You should still move forward and punch your enemy in the face though. Orks are decent at both shooting and fighting, there is no point in giving up either of your strenghts.

Jidmah wrote:

Albatross wrote:Almost forgot!

Never rely on Ork shooting
Just don't. They suck at it, and nothing they can shoot is even that killy, really. It just won't win you games consistently.

Up till that point, I'd have said very good advice, but that's just flat out wrong. BS2 does not no matter if you shoot four times the shots of your opponent.

Shoota boyz and ork lootaz are some of the most reliable shooting units in the game. A unit of boyz will outshoot any equivalent unit of marines any day, while, point for point, lootaz are better than heavy weapon teams shooting auto-cannons, which is the only other spammable source of S7 shooting besides psycannons. If you add kanz and rokkit buggies, you'll get youself a decent amount of very few point efficient shooting. You should still move forward and punch your enemy in the face though. Orks are decent at both shooting and fighting, there is no point in giving up either of your strenghts.

Shooting is not an Ork strength. It just isn't. Yes, we may be able to spam S7 shots, but Lootas still die like Boyz. It's not just about the amount of shots you can lay down, or even the strength of them - it's about the combination of the two, added to an ability to soak up punishment, which ork boyz don't have. Without survivability, shooting capability is pretty pointless, because you aren't able to sit there and shoot for any real length of time. Also, Shoota boyz are not the optimal Ork boy configuration - it's not worth sacrificing the extra attack in CC for a shoota which will struggle to make as meaningful an impact upon MEQ armies, for example. There just isn't anything that packs enough of a punch, and which is survivable enough, to focus on shooting with Orks. Some shooting capability is fine, obviously, but don't focus on it. Focus on what Orks are best at, which is krumping things up close.

Albatross wrote:Shooting is not an Ork strength. It just isn't. Yes, we may be able to spam S7 shots, but Lootas still die like Boyz.

Boyz don't exactly die fast. Just have think about how fast 15 boyz die. That's 45 bolter shots, or 22 marines rapid firing. Then imagine them sitting in the very back of the board, in cover. That's 30 wounds you need to cause, at more than 24", so most multi-shot weapons are out.

It's not just about the amount of shots you can lay down, or even the strength of them - it's about the combination of the two, added to an ability to soak up punishment, which ork boyz don't have.

So eldar and dark eldar are really terrible at shooting, right? They can't soak up punishment, have less strength and shots. And contrary to your opinion, tactical marines are not great at shooting. One single ork boy does not have the durability of one marine. Two ork boyz do, and they also net slightly more hits in shooting than the marine. However, for the price of one marine you can get three ork boyz, which now have more shots amd range, are better in close combat and bring three times the number wounds. Just because you have to remove models when getting shot does not mean that your unit can not take punishment. Losing 20-30 models during one game to orks is like a MEQ player playing a flawless victory.

Without survivability, shooting capability is pretty pointless, because you aren't able to sit there and shoot for any real length of time.

Unlike most armies, orks can move up to the enemy, shoot them in the face, and then charge. Except lootaz of course, those are the only non-assault weapon in the codex. Besides, orks are pretty persistent, both to numbers and due to the KFF bringing 5+ to everyone.

Also, Shoota boyz are not the optimal Ork boy configuration - it's not worth sacrificing the extra attack in CC for a shoota which will struggle to make as meaningful an impact upon MEQ armies, for example.

I think about every single ork player in this forum will disagree with you on this. Shoota boyz get to shoot twice at any given MEQ unit before the charge, so that's about four dead marines before the fighting even started. Four dead marines that do not strike first in combat.
In comparrison, 19 bonus attacks net about 1.5 dead marines, plus another one from shooting sluggas. And that's assuming you actually get all those bonus attacks. So even with napkin math, slugga boyz are inferior to shoota boyz when simply moving up the field. Not by far, but inferior. Now add that there are some units you do not want to charge (purifiers, khorne berzerkers, nobz, anything with fortune), you now have the option to simply shoot them dead, rather than grind yourself up in close combat. Sluggas do not have that option.
Inside transports, sluggar boyz are great, as they don't get to shoot when moving cruising speed or flat out anyways.
Besides 10 tactical marines (plasma/missile launcher) will only kill 2.5 MEQ a turn, which is .4 more than shoota boyz, for 20 additional points. And those 10 marines are no more durable than 20 ork boyz underneath a KFF or in 4+ cover (by kanz, for example).

There just isn't anything that packs enough of a punch, and which is survivable enough, to focus on shooting with Orks. Some shooting capability is fine, obviously, but don't focus on it. Focus on what Orks are best at, which is krumping things up close.

If orks don't "pack enough punch", no army besides the IG does. Ork's aren't best at close combat, 'nids are better, spiky elves are better, some eldar and MEQ units are better. So if you solely rely on that you are going to lose.

Jidmah makes some good points,
My own Orks are equipped as Sluggas for Trucks, Shootas for foot.
Orks really do need that charge to get the advantage in combat. While you do loose an attack, you really make up for this by shooting before the charge. Getting some kills in before combat can really help swing things.
It's very hard to get every Ork into combat in the first round, so you'll rarely be using all attacks, but every ork in the unit will be able shoot into the enemy before charging. 30 boys with Shootas is fearsome, and more than makes up for the lost attack. Throw in some Big Shootas for extra effect.
Smaller squads are more likely to get everyone into combat, so I find Sluggas work better when filling trucks/wagons.

I'm going to have to agree with Judmah here.

Lootas do die, yes but you may be surprised how often opponents choose to ignore them when you're ramming the rest of your army into their face. That aside, with a unit of 15, getting 5-15 str7 hits on vehicles is going to make even AV13 nervous.

As for sluggas vs shootas - Shootas actually only have a minor drop in performance when it comes to assaulting, since they get to have a much better fire-into-combat result. The Shootas are also somwhat more generalist in their use, due to their ranged capability.

Really surprised that you say orks can't soak up punishment, though. Such a massive mechanic for them is all about soaking up punishement - thus Mob Rule, and "hidden" Nobs. The fact that one will have to peel away surrounding orks to get at that Powerklaw that's eating at your MEQ.

I DO agree that using them in tandem is the best way - There are many things that will completely overpower orks in CC.

I'm in the middle of something atm, so I don't have time to go through and quote all the posts, but basically, this...

grendel083 wrote:
Smaller squads are more likely to get everyone into combat, so I find Sluggas work better when filling trucks/wagons.

...is what I'm driving at. That blob of shoota boyz is not going to reach the enemy unscathed, and if your enemy had the presence of mind to bring high strength template weapons, they will arrive very much 'scathed', if at all. In my experience, more trukk boys reaching the enemy outweighs the potential upside of shoota boys shooting pre-assault.

That's the short version, anyway. The long version comes later, when I have a little more time....

The only thing that orks truly excel at is having more tries than anyone else. Their survivability, and strength is all determined by their large numbers, and redundancy.

They are not bad at shooting, they are balistic skill 2 because if they were balistic skill 3 they would be overpowered.

The argument that orks aren't survivable does no thave me sold in the current environment as well. Unless you specifically tailor to fight orks you aren't going to sacrifice antitank weaponry for more pie plates and teardrops, and then wagon bashes won't mind too much most of the time either. You also bring a 4/5++ save with you wherever you go.

If you want to compare on a larger scale 3 trukk boy squads is equivalent to 2 30 man squads of boyz. I think many people will agree that 2 trukks should make it by turn 2 to their target. I like to think in 3 turns 24 of 60 boys should be able to make it to where the trukks were the turn before.

Jidmah wrote:

Albatross wrote:Shooting is not an Ork strength. It just isn't. Yes, we may be able to spam S7 shots, but Lootas still die like Boyz.

Boyz don't exactly die fast. Just have think about how fast 15 boyz die. That's 45 bolter shots, or 22 marines rapid firing. Then imagine them sitting in the very back of the board, in cover. That's 30 wounds you need to cause, at more than 24", so most multi-shot weapons are out.

That's one scenario, yes. Another is that your opponent drops several high-strength pie-plates on them and ruins their day almost instantly. Also, you don't have to wipe out the whole squad to drastically reduce their effectiveness. Regardless, I never said that Lootas are completely useless in every possible situation, indeed, they're one of a smalll handful of viable shooting units in the codex, plus they're useful against armies that spam lightly armoured transports. Such as Orks.

It just happens to be my opinion that there are better and more effective ways to spend your points as an Ork player, particularly at lower point-value match-ups.

It's not just about the amount of shots you can lay down, or even the strength of them - it's about the combination of the two, added to an ability to soak up punishment, which ork boyz don't have.

So eldar and dark eldar are really terrible at shooting, right? They can't soak up punishment, have less strength and shots.

In the interests of keeping this friendly, let's not get into sarcastic sniping, yeah? Obviously the Eldars have other things going for them, things which Orks do not. I am aware of that.

And contrary to your opinion, tactical marines are not great at shooting.

I don't think I said they were, did I? They certainly do have better shooting options, and a greater ability to withstand small arms fire, than Orks.

Without survivability, shooting capability is pretty pointless, because you aren't able to sit there and shoot for any real length of time.

Unlike most armies, orks can move up to the enemy, shoot them in the face, and then charge. Except lootaz of course, those are the only non-assault weapon in the codex. Besides, orks are pretty persistent, both to numbers and due to the KFF bringing 5+ to everyone.

You seem to think that you're telling me something I don't know. I'm not even saying that there isn't a role for shooting in Ork armies, just that it's not sensible to focus on it. The sort of manouever you're describing has an assault focus, because the shooting is being used to augment the assault. They're not sitting back, and whittling down the enemy with overhelming firepower, are they?

Also, Shoota boyz are not the optimal Ork boy configuration - it's not worth sacrificing the extra attack in CC for a shoota which will struggle to make as meaningful an impact upon MEQ armies, for example.

I think about every single ork player in this forum will disagree with you on this. Shoota boyz get to shoot twice at any given MEQ unit before the charge, so that's about four dead marines before the fighting even started.

Really? That sounds optimistic to me. You don't seem to be accounting for the fact that 30 shoota boyz will not be 30 by the time they close with the enemy, in fact, there's a good chance that they'll be significantly weakened, meaning that they'll have less shootas to bring to bear.

And I think I'm detecting a note of hubris in your statement that 'every single ork player on this forum' would agree with you. I've heard plenty of Ork players say that they don't use shootas at all. I'm sure plenty do, too.

In comparrison, 19 bonus attacks net about 1.5 dead marines, plus another one from shooting sluggas. And that's assuming you actually get all those bonus attacks. So even with napkin math, slugga boyz are inferior to shoota boyz when simply moving up the field. Not by far, but inferior.

Well, yes, of course. I don't think anyone's seriously proposing that footslogging slugga boyz is a good idea, though.

Inside transports, sluggar boyz are great, as they don't get to shoot when moving cruising speed or flat out anyways.

Yes, and it's my opinion that Orks are better when played as a more 'kinetic' army. Trukks make them more manoueverable and reactive - less one-dimensional.

There just isn't anything that packs enough of a punch, and which is survivable enough, to focus on shooting with Orks. Some shooting capability is fine, obviously, but don't focus on it. Focus on what Orks are best at, which is krumping things up close.

If orks don't "pack enough punch", no army besides the IG does. Ork's aren't best at close combat, 'nids are better, spiky elves are better, some eldar and MEQ units are better. So if you solely rely on that you are going to lose.

Yes, because that's what I said. I said 'Never take any shooting units'. I said 'don't rely on Ork shooting', and I stand by it. CC is clearly what they are best at. That's not the same as saying they are the best CC army. I honestly can't believe that this is even a discussion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kharrak wrote:
Really surprised that you say orks can't soak up punishment, though. Such a massive mechanic for them is all about soaking up punishement - thus Mob Rule, and "hidden" Nobs. The fact that one will have to peel away surrounding orks to get at that Powerklaw that's eating at your MEQ.

Against shooting, I meant. They're not able to sit off from an enemy and shoot them up for any great length of time.

Albatross wrote:
That's one scenario, yes. Another is that your opponent drops several high-strength pie-plates on them and ruins their day almost instantly.

Several high-strength pie-plates at that range is only possible for the imperial guard. What other army is supposed to drop several high-strength pie plates? Even the IG can only do this by using their heavy support slot, and incidentally stopping that artillery from shooting anything is one of the central parts of any ork strategy. That's why every ork lists contains lootaz, buggies and koptaz nowadays.
Besides, even a large blast should not hit more than six models, who would still get cover and are not wounded on a one - unlike models tumbling out of a popped trukk, those would get all but killed in a single blast.

Also, you don't have to wipe out the whole squad to drastically reduce their effectiveness. Regardless, I never said that Lootas are completely useless in every possible situation, indeed, they're one of a smalll handful of viable shooting units in the codex, plus they're useful against armies that spam lightly armoured transports. Such as Orks.

And I just showed you that even if you wipe out 1/3 of the mob, they are still better shots than marines. Effectiveness also doesn't reduce drastically(unlike marines losing their special weapon guys), but rather linear. If you kill five lootaz, it doesn't matter whether you killed five in one unit or five across three units. The others are still doing the same amount of damage as before.

It just happens to be my opinion that there are better and more effective ways to spend your points as an Ork player, particularly at lower point-value match-ups.

To quote abusepuppy:
Now of course no one needs to make any kind of defense of the units they want to use in their army- it is, after all, their army and the decisions they make are entirely their own to choose. However, when one begins advocating other people to follow particular courses of action, one enters into the realm of public discussion, where one is expected to be able to present arguments supporting a point.
Your opinion is just that, your opinion. You are, however, presenting it as a fact, not an opinion.

In the interests of keeping this friendly, let's not get into sarcastic sniping, yeah? Obviously the Eldars have other things going for them, things which Orks do not. I am aware of that.

I'm sorry if it came across as sarcastic sniping, I just meant to show you that the durability of a unit(army) has absolutely no bearing on how good they are at shooting. Especially if you put up the toughest models as the measuring bar (ie. Marines). Nothing is as tough as marines, but even with their awesome statline, they are neither great shots, nor awesome in close combat. Not surprisingly , the best two shooting armies, the guard and tau, die much faster to shooting than orks would. Orks bring across more shooting wounds per points spend than most comparable units in other codices. There is no way to argue that's bad shooting.

I don't think I said they were, did I? They certainly do have better shooting options, and a greater ability to withstand small arms fire, than Orks.

You see, that's the error. One marine will withstand more smalls arm fire than one ork. However, you get three orks for the costs of one marine, and as soon as they get cover of any sort, those three orks are more durable than that marine, no matter the weapon pointed at them.

You seem to think that you're telling me something I don't know. I'm not even saying that there isn't a role for shooting in Ork armies, just that it's not sensible to focus on it. The sort of manouever you're describing has an assault focus, because the shooting is being used to augment the assault. They're not sitting back, and whittling down the enemy with overhelming firepower, are they?

Well you said yourself that orks should never ever rely on shooting because they suck at it. If you didn't mean to say that, ignore my answer. You should clarify what you did mean then.
The point is you could sit back and shoot the opponent, and still win. There is just no reason to do so.

Really? That sounds optimistic to me. You don't seem to be accounting for the fact that 30 shoota boyz will not be 30 by the time they close with the enemy, in fact, there's a good chance that they'll be significantly weakened, meaning that they'll have less shootas to bring to bear.

If you have one units of boyz, sure. You should still have at least two or three or five other units, which are most likely unharmed unless your opponent likes whittling down all of them a little bit without actually killing anything. Besides that, I was assuming 20 boyz, few mobs of 30 are unwieldy and inferior to more mobs of 20, due to less tactical options. So your mob of 30 would kill a lot more even if they have lost a couple of models.
Saying a unit is bad because it might get shot is ridiculous.
In addition, the argument goes both ways. If your shoota boyz lose 15 models until they hit the enemy lines, so have your slugga boyz. Except, your slugga boyz didn't shoot a marine or two dead in advance, so they take more casualties both from shooting and in combat. The chances of getting locked for three turns are higher, too.
And finally, the whole point of one of the most popular ork armies right now, the Kan wall, is to get your boyz across the board mostly unharmed. Anything strong will be busy taking down rokkit-spouting S10 walkers marching their way, and anything shooting at boyz will have to cope with 4+ cover and their natural resilience by numbers and toughness. In my experience, a lot of those orks are getting to shoot at least twice. More often if the opponent moves away from the green tide rolling towards them, which is actually not such a bad idea.

And I think I'm detecting a note of hubris in your statement that 'every single ork player on this forum' would agree with you. I've heard plenty of Ork players say that they don't use shootas at all. I'm sure plenty do, too.

Actualy, that's not hubris. Ever since I joined this forum, every two weeks or so a thread asking whether shoota boyz or slugga boyz are better pops up. And the answer is pretty much always the same, for the same reasons. Shoota boyz on foot, slugga boyz in transports.

Well, yes, of course. I don't think anyone's seriously proposing that footslogging slugga boyz is a good idea, though.

You also are saying that no one should ever field shoota boyz, meaning that no one should never field any boyz on foot. Or am I missing something?

Yes, and it's my opinion that Orks are better when played as a more 'kinetic' army. Trukks make them more manoueverable and reactive - less one-dimensional.

Can't argue that. Trukks sacrifice numbers for flexibility, which is a perfectly valid trade. Whether it is worse or better than other variants of orks is, as you said yourself, personal opinion.

Yes, because that's what I said. I said 'Never take any shooting units'. I said 'don't rely on Ork shooting', and I stand by it. CC is clearly what they are best at. That's not the same as saying they are the best CC army. I honestly can't believe that this is even a discussion.

You missed me there. They are just as good at shooting as they are at assaulting. They are the perfect counterparts to marines - jacks of all trades, who can fight each army at what they are worse than them. Orks can deliver a brutal shooting to tyranids, daemons and dark eldar, while beating up guard, eldar and tau in close combat. Charging everything doesn't work. You can and must rely on your shooting when your opponent is better at close combat than you are, and vice versa. If your opponent is a jack of all trades like you are, you have to fight him using everything you've got.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kharrak wrote:
Really surprised that you say orks can't soak up punishment, though. Such a massive mechanic for them is all about soaking up punishement - thus Mob Rule, and "hidden" Nobs. The fact that one will have to peel away surrounding orks to get at that Powerklaw that's eating at your MEQ.

Against shooting, I meant. They're not able to sit off from an enemy and shoot them up for any great length of time.

Just curious, what are you basing this assumption on? Of course, no one is going to win a firefight against the imperial guard, but you can win a shootout with about almost any other army.

To summarize, if your opinion is that trukks are the best way to go with orks, that's fine. Under that premise, slugga boyz are the most viable variant, and you can't rely on shooting as much as you can on your close combat abilities.
However, transferring the small scope of your army to battlewagon bashes, kan walls, bike armies, green tides, ork gunlines, nob bikers, dread bashes and kult of speed lists is simply wrong. All of those are successful army builds and many of them rely on ork shooting and do well that way. What you should have said is "When running a trukk list, orks shouldn't rely on shooting". I will happily agree to that. Actually, all you arguments are perfectly fine under the premise of "When running a trukk list".
What you did say is "Orks should never rely on shooting". I can never agree to that, because it is as wrong as the sky being green.

Shootas are awesome i love em i use kan wall and any unit having 9 rokkits shoved in their face followed by 60 shots then a charge in rhe case of orks quantity is better than quality plus the kff mek gives you a nice 4+ save making the boyz more survivable and your boyz woth shootas still get 3 attacks each on the charge thats 60 attacks more than enough to reduce anything to a bloody pulp especially if you have a nob with pk

Jidmah wrote:

Albatross wrote:
That's one scenario, yes. Another is that your opponent drops several high-strength pie-plates on them and ruins their day almost instantly.

Several high-strength pie-plates at that range is only possible for the imperial guard. What other army is supposed to drop several high-strength pie plates?

Um, vanilla Marines, just off the top of my head, can bring things like Orbital Bombardment, Vindicators, thunderfire cannons...

Also, you don't have to wipe out the whole squad to drastically reduce their effectiveness. Regardless, I never said that Lootas are completely useless in every possible situation, indeed, they're one of a smalll handful of viable shooting units in the codex, plus they're useful against armies that spam lightly armoured transports. Such as Orks.

And I just showed you that even if you wipe out 1/3 of the mob, they are still better shots than marines. Effectiveness also doesn't reduce drastically(unlike marines losing their special weapon guys), but rather linear. If you kill five lootaz, it doesn't matter whether you killed five in one unit or five across three units. The others are still doing the same amount of damage as before.

Hang on a sec, so 10 Lootas get, on average, around 18 shots, right? Only 1/3 of them hit, so that's six hits. If you're shooting at marines, you wound on a 2, so you average 4 wounds, which can then be saved on a 3+, meaning you actually score 1.33 kills, per 10 Lootas, per turn.

By contrast, 10 marines get 10 shots at maximum range, of which 2/3 hit, so 6.66 hits, half of which wound the average ork boy, with no saves possible, meaing you lose 3.33 orks. Obviously, the range is a mitigating factor, as lootas outrange tac marines with bolters, however, vs. shootas, that is mitigated by the marines 'double-tapping' as the boyz move closer...

Those aren't exactly awesome numbers, and it's down largely to the fact that Lootas are BS 2 and the Deffgun is AP 4. Basically this is a microcosm of the problems (as I see it) that orks have with shooting; yes they can bring a massive weight of fire, but only a third of their shots hit, as opposed to two thirds for marines. They also don't have much in the codex that can reliably pierce armour. Those shooting attacks that they DO have that are able to pierce armour almost invariably can't be brought to bear with sufficent weight to make them viable, with the obvious exception of Kan rokkits, of course.

It just happens to be my opinion that there are better and more effective ways to spend your points as an Ork player, particularly at lower point-value match-ups.

To quote abusepuppy:
Now of course no one needs to make any kind of defense of the units they want to use in their army- it is, after all, their army and the decisions they make are entirely their own to choose. However, when one begins advocating other people to follow particular courses of action, one enters into the realm of public discussion, where one is expected to be able to present arguments supporting a point.
Your opinion is just that, your opinion. You are, however, presenting it as a fact, not an opinion.

I would have thought it obvious that everything posted here is opinion, not fact. I'm not going to add that caveat to every single post I make, though in this particular instance I did. I said, 'For me, there are several principles...'

In the interests of keeping this friendly, let's not get into sarcastic sniping, yeah? Obviously the Eldars have other things going for them, things which Orks do not. I am aware of that.

I'm sorry if it came across as sarcastic sniping, I just meant to show you that the durability of a unit(army) has absolutely no bearing on how good they are at shooting. Especially if you put up the toughest models as the measuring bar (ie. Marines). Nothing is as tough as marines, but even with their awesome statline, they are neither great shots, nor awesome in close combat.

Wait, this thread is about Orks vs. marines isn't it? That's what I'm talking about. Apologies if that wasn't clear.

I don't think I said they were, did I? They certainly do have better shooting options, and a greater ability to withstand small arms fire, than Orks.

You see, that's the error. One marine will withstand more smalls arm fire than one ork. However, you get three orks for the costs of one marine, and as soon as they get cover of any sort, those three orks are more durable than that marine, no matter the weapon pointed at them.

Yes, which is why numbers are one of the things that Ork players should focus on, no argument. However, those shoota boys are relying on closing with the enemy in sufficient numbers to make their weight of shooting effective. With every movement phase they slog towards the enemy, they lose more shooting attacks (because they lose more boyz), making them less effective the closer they get.

You seem to think that you're telling me something I don't know. I'm not even saying that there isn't a role for shooting in Ork armies, just that it's not sensible to focus on it. The sort of manouever you're describing has an assault focus, because the shooting is being used to augment the assault. They're not sitting back, and whittling down the enemy with overhelming firepower, are they?

Well you said yourself that orks should never ever rely on shooting because they suck at it. If you didn't mean to say that, ignore my answer. You should clarify what you did mean then.
The point is you could sit back and shoot the opponent, and still win.

Not against marines, which is what this thread is addressing. Again, sorry if that wasn't clear. Marines have the advantage of individual toughness, reliable shooting and excellent armour-piercing capability, which means that focussing on target saturation, closing with the enemy as quickly as possible, and weight of attacks is the priority vs marines, in my opinion, not shooting.

Yes, and it's my opinion that Orks are better when played as a more 'kinetic' army. Trukks make them more manoueverable and reactive - less one-dimensional.

Can't argue that. Trukks sacrifice numbers for flexibility, which is a perfectly valid trade. Whether it is worse or better than other variants of orks is, as you said yourself, personal opinion.

Yes, it's my experience that it works better, and is more reactive than footslogging. Trukk boyz can be competitive as hell. Sure, there's a role for shooting in that sort of list - I use shooting units, for example. I just don't solely rely on them to get the job done, and I think that to do so is a mistake... Of course, as ever, YMMV.

@Albatross

Do you have some knowledge in statistics? Actually ork shooting is more reliable than marine shooting. Low quality quantity is better than low quantity quality.

If you have 12 weapons shooting:

1. With bs2 you expect 4 to hit.
2. With bs4 you expect 8 to hit.

furthermore 3 Marine weapons equal 6 ork weapons concerning expected results is that correct? (Marine hits 2/3, Orks hits 2/6)

Then we have the same average result.

But Marines have 2 possiblities to score less than expected (1 hit, no hits) and 1 possibility to score better than expected (3 hits).
So it is more likely for the marines to not match your expectations, than it is to surpass them.

Orks are the contrary. They also have 2 possibilities to score less (1 hit, no hits) but they have 4 possibilities to score better (3 hits, 4 hits, 5 hits, 6 hits)
So they are more likely to surpass the expectations than to not match them.

And the even greater difference is the following: Marines are limited to 3 hits, while orks have the potential to create the double effectiveness with 6 hits.

I like your avatar. Tinariwen, right? Great band.

Anyhow...

There are other variables to consider, one of them being range. Bolter shooting doubles its effectiveness at less than 12", meaning that 12 weapons can expect to score 16 hits. Also, the AP of a bolter cancels out the ork save, meaning you would expect to remove around 8 ork models. 12 Orks shooting would be lucky to remove 2 marines, and as the expectation is that the orks would be looking to close with the marines, they would probably have lost 4 in the previous turn, meaning they would all be dead, for the loss of 1-2 marines.

-Nazdreg- wrote:Do you have some knowledge in statistics? Actually ork shooting is more reliable than marine shooting.

The law of large numbers supports this.

By throwing a lot more dice, the orks actually have less standard deviation due to throwing more dice. This means their shooting will more often be average results.

labmouse42 wrote:

-Nazdreg- wrote:Do you have some knowledge in statistics? Actually ork shooting is more reliable than marine shooting.

The law of large numbers supports this.

By throwing a lot more dice, the orks actually have less standard deviation due to throwing more dice. This means their shooting will more often be average results.

I feel you have slightly misrepresented this.

If you have 36 shots, then you have low deviation away from the mean compared to the number 36.
Hopefully from 36 shots you expect 2 dead marines, actually the number 2 is close to the number 1 and 3 compared to the size of 36, so do not be surprised if you kill a model more or less. You can calculate the odds of 0 or 1 dead marine, for example, to see it is still quite likely you will not hit your reliable 2 dead marines.

MFletch wrote:If you have 36 shots, then you have low deviation away from the mean compared to the number 36.
Hopefully from 36 shots you expect 2 dead marines, actually the number 2 is close to the number 1 and 3 compared to the size of 36, so do not be surprised if you kill a model more or less. You can calculate the odds of 0 or 1 dead marine, for example, to see it is still quite likely you will not hit your reliable 2 dead marines.

I guess I should have been more clear. I was not using the word reliable to define 'good', but more average.

Lets take those 36 shots that you just made with the orks to generate ~2 dead marines. If you throw 36 dice, you might still get all 1s.
Compare those 36 shots to 3 PG shots from MEQ. The MEQ also will generate ~2 dead marines, but they are throwing 1/12 the number of dice.
This means that if all 3 of the dice miss their 'to hit' then your entire shot is gone. If 2 extra misses are found from the ork player throwing 36 dice its much less of impact of their overall shooting.

While it takes more than 36 tries to really make the law of averages come into account, there is still a difference between rolling 36 dice and 3 dice, ie Ork shooting is more reliable.
Note - reliable does not mean better, it just means you can expect more standard outcomes from the shooting.

If you feel like I am misreading the point still, can you please explain how 3 dice rolls are as reliable as 36 dice? I freely admit, I'm not mathamatian, just a geek

The downside of being within 12" means you are almost always going to get charged; Ork armor saves are situational as well. Since we are not in an open field, there are many 4+ and 5+ invuln saves that orks are going to abuse, where marines will gain little benefit from them.

So If I thoerycraft:

10 marines vs 25 shoota boys (equal points) (overgenrealized)

24" marines fire est 3.3 wounds, 1-2 dead orks with cover saves
18" orks fire 2.5 dead marines
12" marines 5.3 wounds, 3-4 dead orks
12" orks - 2 dead marines, plus 19 boyz charging

Now of course there are going to be other things in this battle, like pie plates, but then there are going to be counters and counters to the counter, and while theory craft is fun, it can get tedious. In this example I rounded the ork losses up, and the marine losses down, (counting a 5+ cover save).

======
To the OP,
I find that when I deal with marines (assault based armies) I find myself sitting back and trying to assault on turn 3. This lets me run Kanns with grotzookas, and battlewagons with kannons and 20 boyz with rokkits inside of them. Personally I tend to run 3 meganobs with a babysitter and then steal a trukk for them to let the 20 boyz ride in the wagon. This gives me a solid wall and many threats that allow my wagons to live slightly longer, or if they do bite it fast I have a kann wall to hide behind.

It takes a bit of practice because your army does move at two speeds, but the weight of shooting attacks allows me to whittle down the enemy into manageable chunks. Personally I support with bikers, but I could see koptas filling the same role of rushing forward turn 2 to draw fire from the approaching horde.

I know it's not the strongest list, and many people will say go Kann wall or Battlewagon, but I enjoy its play style. I will also add I do not use lootas, and sometimes I will infiltrate a squad of kommandos on a flank, and then turbo boost bikers up to support them.

I hope your tourney works well, and if you still need deffrollas in a pinch, fantacy bases are awesome when you glue them on top of each other about 40 degrees apart (so it looks more orky than perfect 45 degree angles all the time).

Albatross wrote:Um, vanilla Marines, just off the top of my head, can bring things like Orbital Bombardment, Vindicators, thunderfire cannons...

One-shot that always scatters, 24" range non-barrage(= 4+ cover) and something that I have never seen in action and is general deemed inferior to all other options, in addition to not being high strength. Whirlwinds are more scary than all of those, and I constantly play someone fielding two of those, without losing my entire army to them.

Hang on a sec, so 10 Lootas get, on average, around 18 shots, right? Only 1/3 of them hit, so that's six hits. If you're shooting at marines, you wound on a 2, so you average 4 wounds, which can then be saved on a 3+, meaning you actually score 1.33 kills, per 10 Lootas, per turn.

Hold it there, you're not shooting lascannons at boyz either, are you? Lootaz are probably the worst unit to aim at MEQ. It's the best unit to aim at rhinos, razorbacks, dreads and about any other vehicle below AV13 you can imagine. And there are lots of those in any given army, due to meching up currently being the super-secret tech. And they are damned efficient at taking down those. In addition, they are great to shoot monstrous creatures or wannabe-MCs like Mephiston or lone wolves. I would try to blow the weapons off a predator before aiming at MEQ or TEQ.
The equivalent to lootaz would be sternguard or devastators.
I also have no idea how you average 10x 1d3 to 18. That should be 20, in addition wounding on a 2+ is 5/6, so actually five wounds - resulting in 1.85 kills a turn. Even in a shoot-out against long-fangs, which are pretty much the pinnacle of long-range marine shooting, that's not bad.

By contrast, 10 marines get 10 shots at maximum range, of which 2/3 hit, so 6.66 hits, half of which wound the average ork boy, with no saves possible, meaing you lose 3.33 orks. Obviously, the range is a mitigating factor, as lootas outrange tac marines with bolters, however, vs. shootas, that is mitigated by the marines 'double-tapping' as the boyz move closer...

First of all, apples to oranges, as above. Second "No saves possible" is wrong, you should have at least 5+ cover, but lootaz really are supposed to be deployed in terrain. And third, the difference in range is massive. Being able to shoot across half the board compared to being able to shoot less than a quarter of the board starting turn one is a huge difference. If your marines start at the edge of your deployment zone and the lootaz somewhere in the middle of mine, you would lose 3-4 marines before you can even start shooting those lootaz - one shot each from 24" and not moving.
Setting lootaz asside and actually comparing troops to troops, you get exactly one round of regular shooting and one of rapid fire before you get charged (rapid fire range = 12" = charge range), killing about seven boyz(rounding in favor of the Marines) before the charge, or 42 points. Those shoota boyz have killed 4 marines in the meantime, as shown in my last post, resulting in 60 points, much more than the orks lost. And then they are going to lose combat, because of the powerklaw, so moving into rapid-firing range isn't that advantageous to them as it seems. They probably get more out of shooting their bolt pistols(if available) and charging themselves.
Even if the orks for some reason decide not to charge, the marines have then lost 40% of their shooting potential, while the orks have lost 30%. No matter how you look at it, ork will outshoot tactical marines. And it's even a great idea against many not-so-vanilla MEQ, like grey hunters, chaos marines, khorne berzerkers, buffed blood angels or black templars, because those can really hurt you in close combat.

Those aren't exactly awesome numbers, and it's down largely to the fact that Lootas are BS 2 and the Deffgun is AP 4. Basically this is a microcosm of the problems (as I see it) that orks have with shooting; yes they can bring a massive weight of fire, but only a third of their shots hit, as opposed to two thirds for marines.

Uhm, I really don't know why you keep bringing that up. I told you why this is wrong, as have others, multiple times. I'll try one more time:
One marine shoots better than one ork. Two orks shoot better than one marine. You get three orks for every marine.

They also don't have much in the codex that can reliably pierce armour. Those shooting attacks that they DO have that are able to pierce armour almost invariably can't be brought to bear with sufficent weight to make them viable, with the obvious exception of Kan rokkits, of course.

You do realize that both buggies and deff koptas have a higher chance to hit with a rokkit than a kan does, right?
And orks don't have good range anti-tank by design, if you want to call it that. You can still pretty much shoot anything which is not AV13+ to death easily.

Wait, this thread is about Orks vs. marines isn't it? That's what I'm talking about. Apologies if that wasn't clear.

I wasn't aware that the difference in durability of the army you are facing in comparison to your army impacts the reliability of your shooting.
By that logic dark eldar would be worse shots than orks, which they are not.

Yes, which is why numbers are one of the things that Ork players should focus on, no argument. However, those shoota boys are relying on closing with the enemy in sufficient numbers to make their weight of shooting effective. With every movement phase they slog towards the enemy, they lose more shooting attacks (because they lose more boyz), making them less effective the closer they get.

You are still thinking under the premise of invincible marines and everything being able to shooting all boyz everwhere at once.
Even if you fill all six troops slots with marines, and all of them are in rapid fire range to boyz, they will kill no more than 30 per turn. That is one and a half mob - out of six. Casulaties are irrelevant, because you have more than enough orks to compensate for that, and you simply can't cause as many casualties as you claim. You might be able to get 12 kills out of your vindicator shot against that ork kid at your store because he never has heard of spacing out, kffs or vehicle supression, but against any decent player you won't be able to take down any relevant number of boyz to make them worse at shooting than marines. Especially because marines take casualties, too, and 3+ armor has a pretty decent chance of lady luck kicking you in the nuts. See labmouses posts.

Not against marines, which is what this thread is addressing.

Uh, don't you believe in math or something? I just showed you that they do.

Again, sorry if that wasn't clear. Marines have the advantage of individual toughness, reliable shooting and excellent armour-piercing capability, which means that focussing on target saturation, closing with the enemy as quickly as possible, and weight of attacks is the priority vs marines, in my opinion, not shooting.

So you believe charging Grey Hunters which will return three attacks each before you get to attack is a better idea than having a shootout with them, which ork boyz will win?

Yes, and it's my opinion that Orks are better when played as a more 'kinetic' army. Trukks make them more manoueverable and reactive - less one-dimensional.

Can't argue that. Trukks sacrifice numbers for flexibility, which is a perfectly valid trade. Whether it is worse or better than other variants of orks is, as you said yourself, personal opinion.

Yes, it's my experience that it works better, and is more reactive than footslogging. Trukk boyz can be competitive as hell. Sure, there's a role for shooting in that sort of list - I use shooting units, for example. I just don't solely rely on them to get the job done, and I think that to do so is a mistake... Of course, as ever, YMMV.

@Jidmah - Rather than bother to type out any more responses, I think I'm just going to leave you to your awesome Ork shooting, because, well... Life's too short.

Good luck with it.

Jidmah wrote:

MFletch wrote:

labmouse42 wrote:

-Nazdreg- wrote:Do you have some knowledge in statistics? Actually ork shooting is more reliable than marine shooting.

The law of large numbers supports this.

By throwing a lot more dice, the orks actually have less standard deviation due to throwing more dice. This means their shooting will more often be average results.

I feel you have slightly misrepresented this.

If you have 36 shots, then you have low deviation away from the mean compared to the number 36.
Hopefully from 36 shots you expect 2 dead marines, actually the number 2 is close to the number 1 and 3 compared to the size of 36, so do not be surprised if you kill a model more or less. You can calculate the odds of 0 or 1 dead marine, for example, to see it is still quite likely you will not hit your reliable 2 dead marines.

You can pretty much count on killing at least one marine, where a unit with higher BS and less shots is more likely to kill none.

Four marines shooting plasma at other marines have a much higher chance of killing none than 18 orks shooting the same marines.

Actually:
(4/9)^4 is four plasma shots missing is less than (17/18)^36 which is 36 shootas missing.

@jidmah. I can agree with very point you have made so far. Every list I take usually has lootas and/or koptas in of just for transports.
general rule which all ork players should know is shootas footslogging and sluggas in vehicles. I don't rely on my boyz doing much damage shooting at anything, I.e. marines, but if they soften them up and make for them having less attacks in assualt thats fine with me.

True - I wonder why though.

I know its beeing re-hashed to death. But I do have faith in my ork shooting as its in mass. I run a pretty shooty list favoring shooty boys over sluggas in my large mobs. Reason is some of the things folks have highlights.

30 boys at the back of the board, within a KFF, is a lot for any army to move off an objective unless they want to really get in there and scrap. There aren't many armies who can get there super fast. Tyranids can do it, Grey knights can do it. Podding marines? Not reliably. The shootas boys will take some wounds, but probably be able to reach podding marines fairly easily. Thunderfire cannons can put a hurting on orks.. but at what cost?

People know they are going to roll armor saves vs ork shooting. Lots of people don't want to get close enough to be shot back by a 30 man unit of shootas.. as its going to shoot you, and probably assault you OR there are a unit of Trukk boys waiting to dive on your unit. Orks work on tandem's very very well. Counter fighting with Orks can work. It catches some people off guard. Refused flank can be an excellent deployment with some fast movers like Trukks, Kopters, Bikers, Wagons. Maximising your shooting is key then. A savy general who is able to look at a opponent and prioritize well can be a very very dangerous opponent in a tournment game.