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There is no definitive best choice. It depends entirely on who you're playing, and how you like to play. My best explanation is to compare it to a few of the armies that friends and I use.

I'm DA. My current list runs mostly bikes and tactical squads, so other than the odd plasma gun and a squad of black knights (all have plasma) and some lascannons, I've got almost nothing but AP5 in my army. Against t-shirts, I win. I'll gun down at least half of your orks before you reach me, and my bikes will constantly hit and run to get more bullets into you. Throw in the fact that I'll gun down plenty of your flimsy ork vehicles, possibly blowing some up.

Alternately, my previous list that was devastator heavy would chew up armored orks, 2 dev squads with 4 heavy bolters apiece. This is the same with necron AP4, broadsides, heavy flamers..... yeah, armor 4 will lose against just as many things.

What I'd really like to see is another ork player do the opposite, one of you go armor and one go t-shirt. I don't feel like mathing out a battle, and off the top of my head I can't accurately guess who would win that.

So, unless you tailor your list for opponents (please don't), there isn't one setup that is necessarily better than the other. My recommendation for you? Both. Play around first to see what ratio you like (put the armored ones in a vehicle, or have them run, how many do you want armored, etc. etc.), then decide on which is your favorite. Have some fun with it.

The obvious benefit is having a 50-50 chance of surviving each basic bolter wound and depending on the local meta this could be a massive advantage.
I've never played Orks so I cannot say if it is a sound option within the codex itself but to me +4pts per model just seems too much.

In a transport, maybe (limited size). Footslogging? Not a chance, more bodies should work better.

It could be used for a greentide. 10 'eavy armored guyz. Depending on the enemy, they can soak some damage on the frontline and provide some extra inches of mobility for the first turn or two or they could run around your indeps for easier look-outs from stuff like wivers. Not that it's mandatory or something but why not.

I take Carapace armour on my Vets simply because I need a better save versus Plasma 'Gets Hot' rolls. Against enemy shooting I'd generally use the cover save.

If the enemy has an ignore cover weapon though, it does actually help.

I guess most would a gree that paying a point to give an ork a 6+ armour save wouldn't be worth it as he would almost never be able to benefit, and even when he does, he's only 1/6 more survivable.

Paying 22 points to give a nob (two wounds) a 2+ armour save (and a power klaw which usually costs a nob 25pts on its own.) is a nice deal, because he can use it most of the time and when he does, it makes him 6x more survivable.

So the question is not only "what does your meta look like" but "is 4+ armour worth what it would cost to put it on *this* model".

In the case of 'ard boyz, they cost about double, but only make the model twice as survivable when they're not being hit by ap4 or better, which will be a lot of the time. This is why the consensus seems to be 'ard boyz in trukks (where they're not being hit directly and can take their save against the inevitable explosion), but don't bother when they're foot slogging and may well get a cover save anyway.

geargutz wrote:
i play orks, the most common Armour upgrade we have is the 'evy armor at 4pts per model. i have toyed with the idea of upgrading boyz with it in the hopes of making them more survivable.
my question to you guys is, "are there enough common ap4 weapons out their (amoungst your armies) that make the use of 4up worthless?"

Only on Trukk Boyz in my honest opinion. The reason is so they don't die to explosions and survive more Mob Rule wounds to keep that small, but still threatening, squad alive. It gets too expensive to give it to just any squad. It defeats the purpose of keeping things cheap but effective. Not to mention MOST armies laugh at a 4+ armor save anyway.

So my advice, just use it on your Trukker Boyz. Yes, they get a tad pricier, but keeping them alive as long as possible is key, so you can keep more bodies on the table and not lose them to explosions/mob rule.

geargutz wrote:
i play orks, the most common Armour upgrade we have is the 'evy armor at 4pts per model. i have toyed with the idea of upgrading boyz with it in the hopes of making them more survivable.
my question to you guys is, "are there enough common ap4 weapons out their (amoungst your armies) that make the use of 4up worthless?"

AP 4 isnt uber common. But Psykers tend to wield a lot of it. Chaos Daemon Flying Monstrous Creature Circus's fling it like its going outta style. Artillery features a fair amount as well.

So orks may find it being blasted off of them more often than they'd like. On the plus side... you might normally use other units to shield your orks and whats the diff between those units and say good old terrain and Eavy Armor? When you count it up, the cost to shield the orks can be greater than the armor itself and of course no vehicle can shield you in melee.

I used to tell people when I played the Witch Hunter codex that my extra 7 Sisters of Battle WERE the Rhino.

Think about it.

We're dying not only from enemy fire here. There's a difference between ld8-9 and ld7 + mob rule.

And you can't fit extra boyz for protection in a transport.

Also, think bout it: you're paying for a transport. the cost of it won't change. Now isn't it reasonable to bring something that's gona be useful for a second fight instead of a 1-use squad? You pay for delivery only once.

I think what I was saying was that the trukk becomes unnecessayr if you view the extra Orks as the trukks ablation...

Generally it's best to use 'Ard Boyz in transports. It is very rarely a good idea to footslog them, since it allows the foe to disperse their fire at will, meaning that everything that's AP4 will shoot at the 'Ard Boyz and everything AP5+ will shoot at the other Boyz - which means those 66% additional PPM are wasted.

Another ork player and myself were fighting a 1,000 point battle. He didn't have enough boyz and toyz to add up to 1,000 so he spent the points on 'Eavy Armor for all the boyz that could have it. I ran t-shirts. In the end I'd say it was a wash. While his fewer numbers survived longer which gave him an edge in the assaults my greater numbers soaked up the damage. In the end we saw the slugga vs. shoota be more decisive. That extra attack in melee was the real difference. Where sluggas met shootas the sluggas won the day. It didn't matter who had 4+ or more boyz.

However I'd agree with the trukkers idea. I save points by not buying anything for the trukks but rams and spend that on 'eavy armor. I find that the practical deployment is to charge up and when they blow the truck up that's my deployment.

Now mind you I have five trucks, a junka (Forge World) and a grott mega tank (Forge World again) so when I go toyz I go big toyz and send a wave of 7 vehicles, 6 of which hold various troops (love to have a dozen burna templates on one spot, evillicious). I find that when they use the explosive deployment method the 4+ is a game changer. I tried no 'eavy armor one time for trukkers against Grey Knights. NEVER again. I lost half my boyz in one round. Flame weapons and open tops do NOT mix well when all you have is 6+ armor save. Then when trukk go BOOM it hurt more. That battle was over by round 2. But hey, every battle is an opportunity to learn.

This all makes me wonder: are they worth it in a blitz brigade type list? I'm going to go with yes. The other day, i played a game with three boys squads, a squad of meganobs, and a squad of tank bustas as well as some other gubbins (deffkoptas, battlewagon upgrades, etc) to fill out 2k points. At the end, i'd wished i'd downgraded the other gubbins and taken almost all weapons off the wagons to give my boyz 'eavy armor. They wrecked everything they touched when they turn two charged. Then when the IG player got his turn, nearly ALL my boys died. 2 flamer templates alone nearly took out a whole squad. I think ap4 is more prevelant in the ranged combat. If you can get up close, the opponent will likely only have a few weapons on hand that are ap 4. Most close combat (except for specialist units) is ap - from what i've seen. also, it's worth noting that it lets you survive basic flamers, which is a common enough thing to run into on the field.

Those are all good points. After all, orks aren't a shooty army to begin with. They are a melee army so one should think about the melee capacities and just suck up the fact that they will get hurt bad in the ranged fights. Go sluggas and 'eavy armor. 10 points per for some seriously effective melee fighters. Load them in trukks with rams and blitzkrieg. Spend your points on some bubblechukkas and soften up the enemy troops before hitting them.