Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

If the terminators have the advantages, they'll win. If everyone takes lightning claws for the I4 and +1 attack as well as shred, then you take a CML for every 5 men and you have 48" between the two armies before the Orks crash into the Termies and the Orks have no cover, you could feasibly remove more than half of them before they reach you. More if you pull casualties from the front of the mob as in standard 40k rules. But if you're talking just regularly equipped 40k Termies on a regularish board (maybe bigger kinda like apocalypse just for the size of the armies) with regular 40k rules in place and upgrades like shoota/big shootas, rockets, nobz, power klaws, eavy armor or God forbid a painboy, it's no contest, the Orks will stomp em good. I would predict Ork losses at leas than 25%. I would like to see what the actual outcome would be though.

Fluffwise, an entire company of deathwing terminators would slaughter the gak out of <1000 Orks. theres probably propaganda stories of one terminator killing a thousand Orks and a company destroying an entire WAAAAAGH while sustaining minimal casualties. I would still suspect it to be a crushing victory as the Termies just lure the Orks into close quarters where their numbers count for nothing, catch them on storm shields, shred them with power weapons and lightning claws and psychic powers, Smash them with hammers and fists, roast them with flamers, thin the herd with rockets and plasma cannon shots and scythe through the first wave before they strike with assault cannons. Also TDA is much tougher in the fluff than in gameplay. Basically the only thing that kills a terminator is a "rend" like the lucky, quick, sharp strike of a genestealer or being vaporized by a lascannon. Being drowned in bodies means nothing to a terminator. They'll just walk out the other side dragging their 100+ foes with them.

 Otto Weston wrote:
Interesting. According to your math-hammer the Termies wouldn't even be able to take on 8-1 odds and yet in the fluff if would be more like 80-1 if not more.

I really wish this game was more fluffy.

Fluffy won't sell enough models.

The downside to the Space Marines being the most popular product (to a ridiculous degree) is that they have to find ways to sell more of them. Hence why in 7th Edition, the Tactical Squad is probably the worst troop type in the game.

Actually, when I think about it more, this is hopeless for the orks in any sort of traditional game table with sides.

The morale checks totally mess it up -- you only have to kill 3 in a fresh squad (then 2 out of 7) to force a morale check with Ld7. Chances are, with 700 orks behind them they won't be able to retreat 2d6 inches, and then the unit is destroyed. I mean, with frag cyclones, and some deep strikes with 3 unit squads (to maximize number of squads hit), a third of the orks could be removed in T1, and a whole lot left with two kill morale checks.

 BoomWolf wrote:
It dice theory, orks would win.

Yeah, and it's not even close.

Even on the table, it would be pretty lop-sided. Yes, deathwing has much, much better force concentration, but that's about it. Terminators are designed to be used strategically to attack weak points, while ork boyz are designed to throw vast piles of dice at infantry units. Infantry units like terminators. If anything, boy mobs are a hard counter to terminators just as much as a plasmicide unit is.

When 4 shoota boyz statistically win against 1 terminator I can't imagine an 8:1 ratio will see the terminators doing all that well.

As mentioned, though, it would be pretty awesome to see.

4 shoota boys beat a termi by statistics?

intresting.

But this does not invalidate the fact that in "real game" models take space on the battlefield, meaning you cannot get them all in at once.

Shoota boys have only a 18" range, so as long the terminators maintain range and cause enough kills to push the horde out of range again, they will aquire a great number of kills before the shootas even get a chance.
And even when the shootas do start shooting, they will be outnumbered in the "in range" numbers, all the ones outside range not contributing to the damage output.

And if some run away, they further block the path to other orks.

And even once CC is reached, there is a limit of how many orks can swing, anyone too far behind will just be waiting his turn and not actually do anything.


I highly suspect that if it will be played out for real, not even half the terminators would be killed, if only because of engagement ranges and the fact only a limited number of orks can engage at any given moment. its the fact the numbers are so big that gives the termies a chance here, a 10 vs 80 fight would be far worse for them than 100 vs 800.

Yes, terminators do have better force concentration, but it's easy to overblow that advantage. Remember, that even if the ork army can only engage a third of its army at a time, it can throw three whole waves at them. Plus, if the terminators don't have much by means of flamers you can really pack those orks in there. 800 orks take up less than 1/4 of a regular table in close order drill.

In any case, the force concentration advantage certainly can't make up for eight to one problem on its own.

Also, I'd note that sluggas are worse for terminators, assuming they can get the charge in, as each charging slugga kills 1/6th of a terminator, and gets to swing first.

To put that into perspective, consider just 3:1 sluggas on the charge. They shave off .08 with shooting and then .5 with chopping, which means there's a half chance that the terminator won't even get to strike, and if it does, it may kill a single ork, which then lay another couple of chances to get a 1 the next turn.

And that's the reason force concentration won't cut it. If only 200 orks charge, and they kill 39 terminators with a shoot and charge, even if the remaining 61 terminators can somehow manage to beat them off, there's still three more waves of 200.

A few flamers and assault cannons can't cut it against wave after wave of light infantry. Which they shouldn't.

I want to see this battle happen. Even if you had to play regular marines as the terminators, and any figure possible as the orks

 Otto Weston wrote:
Interesting. According to your math-hammer the Termies wouldn't even be able to take on 8-1 odds and yet in the fluff if would be more like 80-1 if not more.

I really wish this game was more fluffy.

If it was more fluffy, you would have either A: a total of 10 marines on the board in a 2k points game, very boring for you and each death would hurt a lot or B; every non marine army would need 500 models, and nobody would play them, for cost, time to paint and assemble, room it takes up, moving during your turn ect.

While it wasn't terminators I took ~18 marines +3 dreadnoughts all in drop pods plus 20 scouts (roughly 4.2k points) against same size 'Nid army. Was very brutal on the Marines as I just didn't have the numbers to face off against a big horde even with alpha strikes, I was nearly wiped from the board by end of turn 5. The volume of shooting and attacks horde can put out is tough if you can't stop them getting in range.

Fun game though, I still want to try a complete first company in terminator Armour as I think that would be tougher but it would be giving him even more points to play with. I also want to repeat it but with normal marines but in my Thunderhawk and Storm Eagles (I have enough for the whole company) as I think the vehicles would make it a very different game due to the number of 5" templates that can push out.

 Ailaros wrote:
Yes, terminators do have better force concentration, but it's easy to overblow that advantage. Remember, that even if the ork army can only engage a third of its army at a time, it can throw three whole waves at them. Plus, if the terminators don't have much by means of flamers you can really pack those orks in there. 800 orks take up less than 1/4 of a regular table in close order drill.

In any case, the force concentration advantage certainly can't make up for eight to one problem on its own.

Also, I'd note that sluggas are worse for terminators, assuming they can get the charge in, as each charging slugga kills 1/6th of a terminator, and gets to swing first.

To put that into perspective, consider just 3:1 sluggas on the charge. They shave off .08 with shooting and then .5 with chopping, which means there's a half chance that the terminator won't even get to strike, and if it does, it may kill a single ork, which then lay another couple of chances to get a 1 the next turn.

And that's the reason force concentration won't cut it. If only 200 orks charge, and they kill 39 terminators with a shoot and charge, even if the remaining 61 terminators can somehow manage to beat them off, there's still three more waves of 200.

A few flamers and assault cannons can't cut it against wave after wave of light infantry. Which they shouldn't.

This man speaks truth. You could fit 800 boys in dawn of war deployment on a standard table while only having 8 boys touching your starting edge.

Someone earlier mentioned splitting them up into 10 boy units, but I think keeping them as chunks of 30 is actually more beneficial. There's a higher threshold for morale checks, and, until you fall below 10 boys, half the mob rule results just make you auto-pass. They have a 58% chance to pass on LD7 before that as well. So only 21% of the morale checks actually cause orks to flee, until the mob drops below 10. (This is assuming again that we're just talking boys and no nobs or bosspoles, because that drops the probability of a 10+ unit fleeing from shooting down to a startling 6-7ish %, or 1ish% with a bosspole.) Generally by the time a unit flees, it's so hurt that it wasn't much of a loss anyway. Someone may bring up the squabble wounds, but seriously, it's like 1 and a half boys die per squabble on average. Hardly noteworthy.

Lightning claws battle is interesting. I'll do the math on it with board positioning as best I can due to boredom. I'm also going to give them a few advantages. A: they get the charge, and B: orks ran out of ammo for their sluggas before the battle. Strictly melee vs melee. (This does mean the actual result should be a bit more favorable for orks than what my math ends up at.)

If the solid line of 48 LC's plus the 48 behind them, and 4 behind them, charge while miraculously not taking wounds from overwatch or prior shooting, they knock out 112 boys. This is the first line of 72, plus 40 of the next line. With a 3 inch pile in, 216 orks could swing back, killing 18 termies. After that, roughly half the ork squads in the combat flee and get wiped, the other half succeeding on squabbling and losing about 6 boys. So 102 orks are left in combat, and several spots are open thanks to entire blocks of ork being wiped out due to fleeing and being trapped. 226 boys lie dead, 18 termies lie dead, and 574 boys remain. Good charge by the termies, but now it's the ork turn, where units filter into the vacuums left by dead squads and get furious charge and bonus attacks. Roughly 114 new orks should be able to swing in. The termies only kill 61 this round. Let's be generous and say they ALL got guys who just charged in. 17 more termies die. Again about half the orks flee while some stick around thanks to squabble, and another 5ish boys die, leaving 72 in combat. Roughly 364 orks have died, compared to a mere 35 termies. On the termie turn again, 49 orks die, and only 2 termies drop. An average of TEN orks remains in combat with them after half the remainder flee and some take squabble wounds. 426 orks dead, 37 termies down.

Here's where things go bad for the imperium's finest. It's the orks turn, and the imperium is about to get hit by a giant fresh wave of furious charge from the remaining 374 boys. Again, 216 orks swing in, with only 10 NOT furious charging. 47 charging orks go down to claws, again assuming that they avoid killing the ones who are only S3, and with pile ins from the back, 35 termies drop on the counter. Half of the orks run, and some squabbling happens, causing about 160 orks to die this round, leaving 103 in combat, and 111 chilling behind.

This is where things turn really bad. There are only 28 termies left, and it takes 48 of them to make a solid line across the table. Orks are now free to pile in through the open 30 inches of space in their lines, getting on their sides and rear. All the orks are getting in next round.

On the termie turn, only 21 boys drop, while 7 termies go down. The gaps in the termie lines now are 40.5 inches wide total with only 21 left. Half the orks flee, leaving about 38 in combat that have all positioned themselves nicely for the last wave of orks to waltz right in. Only 149 orks are left though. A note here is that it is entirely possible that some of the recently fled orks may no longer be trapped due to gaps in the ork lines, but I'll ignore that possibility.

Ork turn, all 149 boys are in, with 111 getting FC. 16 of those drop from the 21 termies' attacks. 19 termies drop from the orks attacks. The orks actually win the combat this round and don't take LD tests, and there are only 2 termies left to fight off 133 ork boys. The result here should be obvious, as even though only 20 something boys could surround each 40mm base, that is plenty enough to finish them off. They'll kill 1 or 2 more boys while they go down though, leaving 131 victorious boys.

There ARE still some variables that I didn't bother to mess with, such as boy squads falling below 10 and not being able to squabble, but in reaction to that, I also ignored mob rule results of 1 (auto pass if in combat) for the simulation. That, combined with the ork shooting that would realistically happen, and the moments above where I gave the termies the benefit of the doubt on whether they attacked furious charge orks or s3 orks, makes me guesstimate that the real average would be an ork win with about 250-300 orks left. Still bloody for sure though.

 Pyeatt wrote:
I want to see this battle happen. Even if you had to play regular marines as the terminators, and any figure possible as the orks

You could always do it on VASSAL too, it'd probably be way faster to move everything... less cool though of course.

Hm.
But wouldn't failed morale tests on the ork squads not lead to them being removed? After all there are hundreds of models behind them, which means they cannot move their full 2D6 towards their edge and therefore be destroyed? Which would mean every failed morale check would wipe a squad.

He accounted for that. In fact, the above math is pretty biased towards the marines here, assuming half the orks are always killed out of mob rule, and that those who are always break, and are always destroyed by no escape.

And the termies always get the charge, and never take a casualty from overwatch, and that all of them have lightning claws. And even in these circumstances, the terminators still struggle.

Also, what fluff has terminators deploying in the open and beating orks 80:1? The only fluff I can think of of terminators beating odds are in very asymmetric circumstances, like on space hulks or in canyons where the baddies are forced to attack only a few at a time.

That would be some interesting math, actually. Assuming the same number of termies and orks, but put them into a position where a line is only a few models wide.

Chapter Tactics are also a factor to consider. Imperial Fists/Sentinels would amplify shooting power on their basic weapons, making more hits land. Carcharodons have Fear, which can go against basic Orks. It's minor stuff overall but still worth considering.

Oh, right.

Or chaos terminators. 100 CSM termies with combi-flamers, power mauls, MoN, and the fear icon might be a rather different story.

30 Ork unit would be a horrible idea. Sure, it sounds good to say that it takes 10 kills to force a morale check, except it's almost impossible not to kill 10 Orks with each Heavy 2 Blast Cyclone at 48". Then you'd have 20 remaining units doing a morale check at the same time, and how on earth do you retreat 2D6 on 20 units with a packed table? You'd be losing 2/3 of your squads at a time due to no route to retreat. At least with small squads, there's a chance you can find a pocket to cram them in to.

Remember that your standard deployment zone is 24x72 = 1,728 square inches, not including terrain, of which you will jam-pack nearly 50% (800 square inches). If you have terrain at all, your deployment options will be extremely limited.

You could hold units in reserve, but I think that would be worse, as T2 would be a mess with 66% of them trying to move on from the table's edge, and being destroyed if there's no space. Besides, then they're further, and another turn away.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ailaros wrote:
Oh, right.

Or chaos terminators. 100 CSM termies with combi-flamers, power mauls, MoN, and the fear icon might be a rather different story.

Yeah, anything that's template, blast, or fear would cause issues. I am not a fan of Ld7.

 Ailaros wrote:
He accounted for that. In fact, the above math is pretty biased towards the marines here, assuming half the orks are always killed out of mob rule, and that those who are always break, and are always destroyed by no escape.

What he said. I made some generous assumptions to the marine side because that's easier than doing the full calcs.

Also to typhoon guy. Mob rule is good, that's why 30 boy blocks are good. Only like 1 of 4 squads actually flees from ld7 tests.
If you put them in 10 man cells, then every other squad will break.

Fighting in an open field, orks definitely win, so they get my vote. I do think the termies could win with smart terrain usage and positioning though. A few choke points would make it tough for enough bodies to ever get in range.

Hmm, let's see...

Deathwing company has terminator armor and superior firepower.

Orks have numbers on their side and while they're bad at ranged combat, they typically do great in melee.

This one is a bit of a stalemate for me.

In the end it comes down to 3 things, luck of the dice, the terrain of the battlefield, and the skill of the generals in manoeuvring their armies respectively.

The more open the terrain, the more it will allow the Orc Warlord to bring his superior numbers to bear. But it will also reduce his chances for cover saves against incoming fire. So that is pretty much a wash when concerning the value of movement, compared to the value of cover.

The real factors for the terrain present will be impassable, dangerous, and lethal terrain. When the terrain causes casualties from entering it, that will certainly help the defender's side. In this case I refer to the Deathwing as the Defender. The defender will want to buckle down, and probably run a refused flank sort of deployment.

Impassable terrain helps create choke points for the defender, limiting the maneuver ability of the attacker to bring his numbers to bear. Playing a battle on the desert dunes will be a drastic battlefield compared to a mountain pass. Any student of warfare will know this.

Another thing to consider is the mission parameters. What if the Deathwing are the Attackers and the Orks are the Defenders? What if there are autowin conditions to the battle? There are a lot of different ways an Apocalypse battle like this can play out.

In the end, if all factors are even, (terrain, generalship, luck, and points value of perspectives armies.) It is my experience that the higher model count will win. Assuming no list tailoring is going on.

I'm going to have to lean on whether or not there is terrain/buildings to deal with.

In an open field I think the Orks would eventually overrun the Terminators, albeit with with ridiculous casualties.

If there is terrain or buildings to deal with, a couple of Terminators could easily setup choke points and kill the Ork forces trying to push though.


But we are all forgetting the real problem here! I don't think my kitchen table is big enough to hold that many models! (joking)

SYKOJAK wrote:
In the end, if all factors are even, (terrain, generalship, luck, and points value of perspectives armies.) It is my experience that the higher model count will win. Assuming no list tailoring is going on.

I don't know if I'd go that far. To take an extreme, a Baneblade with all options is worth 640 points. Call it a ratio to 100 Boyz (60 points per 10 basic squad, but at least they want a Rokkit) to 1 baneblade. There is not a hope in hell that 800 Boyz could kill 8 Baneblades. I do mean zero, even if the Baneblade commander is a total idiot, since the only weapon the Boyz have that even has a chance of damaging a Baneblade is a Rokkit Launcha.

I think in 40k there are many examples of expensive units that are very powerful against armies that are low-strength, like baneblades, imperial knights, and so forth. Or, you could put it another way -- an army without a super-heavy is at a pretty big disadvantage against an army with.

Cothonian wrote:I'm going to have to lean on whether or not there is terrain/buildings to deal with.

In an open field I think the Orks would eventually overrun the Terminators, albeit with with ridiculous casualties.

If there is terrain or buildings to deal with, a couple of Terminators could easily setup choke points and kill the Ork forces trying to push though.


But we are all forgetting the real problem here! I don't think my kitchen table is big enough to hold that many models! (joking)

Actually, table size is a very significant issue, since the Orks take up tons of space, and it's a great disadvantage to be packed too tightly. The Orks would have the greatest advantage if the setup were that the Terminators were in the middle of the table, and started of surrounded. That type of thing is actually makes for pretty cool scenarios