Why does GW hate Orks?

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**Vankraken**

the ancient wrote:
Vankraken wrote:
the ancient wrote:
I dont think they hate them, but theyre a hard one to get right. Orks have been turned into the cannon fodder/ lucky roll race.
Doesnt help with the LOTR, Elf v Ork movies
They were always the lucky roll race. They can nearly shoot, they can chop and theres lots of 50/50 game winners.
If all the races got thrown at a wall. It will end up green, half the time.

Problem with GW is they don't understand design enough to realize how problematic their random rolls are. For the Orks most of the lucky roll results are slightly above average "good" result while the "bad" result is generally abysmal. A lot of other armies get a similar good result but without the chance of a bad or weaker result. The risk/reward isn't there so they tend to get ignored for things that are more reliable. Go big or go home style gameplay isn't exactly ideal for competitive play but even in casual games the big isn't big enough and the go home is far too common. The Zzap Gun, Bubble Chucka, Smasha Gun, Deffstorm Mega-Shoota, and Shokk Attack Gun are all weapons with extreme RNG with their results that really hinder their reliability. The Zzap and Smasha guns are really designed to take out vehicles and yet their RNG strength is another random variable that makes it difficult to rely on them being effective in any way. Trying to shoot at an AV13 Knight with a Smasha Gun but you rolled 2 so now all 5 of your Smasha Guns have zero chance to harm the knight. For similar points you could probably get lascannons that are going to always put out Str 9 shots. The 1 in 6 chance of Str 10 and AP1 isn't worth the rather high chance of rolling low strength which makes the weapon entirely useless. The only three RNG weapons that I think work decently enough is the Snazzgun for Flash Gitz, Deffgun for Lootas, and the Blitza Bommer's Boom Bomb. The Bomb Bomb has a very slight chance of failure but it also has a very slight chance of a critical success (being able to shoot all their weapons into the rear armor or something) while the Deffgun on average is equal to an autocannon but can go +1 or -1 on its total shots. The Snazzgun at least has reliable strength and volume of fire so that if it rolls poorly for AP it can still just throw a lot of dice at the thing to force saves while the upside is that 33% of the time its ignoring all armor and 50% of the time it can chew through MEQs. Just like in games like MtG or Hearthstone the RNG cards need to have a decent enough positive with a small enough negative to justify the unreliability of the ability. Added RNG in itself is a negative trait for an action, even something like a heavy weapon team being able to take an autocannon or a deffgun for the same points would generally opt to take the autocannon because getting 2 shots is reliable while D3 could overkill or fall short which results in higher wasted potential.

See theres your problem. Dey dont gaf about wasted potenshun, theys Orkz. Its either blow gak up, or miss it by a mile, or blow themselves up.
Theyre a fun army to play, and play against. It might not be comp. But with a few lucky rolls,theyll can stomp Eldar into the dirt

The issue is the good results don't have enough dakka and its far too likely to be underwhelming. The Shokk Attack Gun is the better of the extreme RNG weapons because at least its high rolls obliterate things while the failures can often times be comical. Most of the stuff like the Smasha Gun is random purely for the sake of random and doesn't really offer much in the way of excitement or gameplay variety. The old Ramshackle rule was fun because it caused interesting things to happen. Often times Orks have RNG that's negative purely for the sake of making something stupid (not fun) happen such as the Cowardly Grot rule for Killa Kans (yeah pseudo morale checks for my walkers, oh boy such compelling gameplay). Mob Rule is the same where you feel like your special rule is a penalty but your getting little in return.

That's really the meat of it in that the RNG isn't really fun. A Smasha Gun isn't exciting when all it does is either have enough strength to potentially penetrate armor (still got to roll all your to hit, to armor pen, saves, etc) or it doesn't and just plinks off the vehicle armor. Cowardly Grot rule makes my already underperforming Killa Kans unable to fire the only decent gun they have (grotzooka). Mob Rule kills more of my models after they already lost a decent amount of models because Orks have terrible leadership. RNG that is interesting are things like the Jokereo who randomly upgrade the squad with some modifier, it has a negative (does nothing), 4 positive results of various usefulness, and a jackpot that is 2 upgrades. Your rolling the dice to get something and you might get nothing or it might be something really cool, Ork RNG for the most part lacks that and feels more like a pass fail check being tacked onto the other dice rolls we are already needing to make (to hit, to wound, etc). Orks need less fizzle and a lot more BIG BOOM in their random stuff to make it interesting.

**Grimskul**

Vankraken wrote:
the ancient wrote:
Vankraken wrote:
the ancient wrote:
I dont think they hate them, but theyre a hard one to get right. Orks have been turned into the cannon fodder/ lucky roll race.
Doesnt help with the LOTR, Elf v Ork movies
They were always the lucky roll race. They can nearly shoot, they can chop and theres lots of 50/50 game winners.
If all the races got thrown at a wall. It will end up green, half the time.

Problem with GW is they don't understand design enough to realize how problematic their random rolls are. For the Orks most of the lucky roll results are slightly above average "good" result while the "bad" result is generally abysmal. A lot of other armies get a similar good result but without the chance of a bad or weaker result. The risk/reward isn't there so they tend to get ignored for things that are more reliable. Go big or go home style gameplay isn't exactly ideal for competitive play but even in casual games the big isn't big enough and the go home is far too common. The Zzap Gun, Bubble Chucka, Smasha Gun, Deffstorm Mega-Shoota, and Shokk Attack Gun are all weapons with extreme RNG with their results that really hinder their reliability. The Zzap and Smasha guns are really designed to take out vehicles and yet their RNG strength is another random variable that makes it difficult to rely on them being effective in any way. Trying to shoot at an AV13 Knight with a Smasha Gun but you rolled 2 so now all 5 of your Smasha Guns have zero chance to harm the knight. For similar points you could probably get lascannons that are going to always put out Str 9 shots. The 1 in 6 chance of Str 10 and AP1 isn't worth the rather high chance of rolling low strength which makes the weapon entirely useless. The only three RNG weapons that I think work decently enough is the Snazzgun for Flash Gitz, Deffgun for Lootas, and the Blitza Bommer's Boom Bomb. The Bomb Bomb has a very slight chance of failure but it also has a very slight chance of a critical success (being able to shoot all their weapons into the rear armor or something) while the Deffgun on average is equal to an autocannon but can go +1 or -1 on its total shots. The Snazzgun at least has reliable strength and volume of fire so that if it rolls poorly for AP it can still just throw a lot of dice at the thing to force saves while the upside is that 33% of the time its ignoring all armor and 50% of the time it can chew through MEQs. Just like in games like MtG or Hearthstone the RNG cards need to have a decent enough positive with a small enough negative to justify the unreliability of the ability. Added RNG in itself is a negative trait for an action, even something like a heavy weapon team being able to take an autocannon or a deffgun for the same points would generally opt to take the autocannon because getting 2 shots is reliable while D3 could overkill or fall short which results in higher wasted potential.

See theres your problem. Dey dont gaf about wasted potenshun, theys Orkz. Its either blow gak up, or miss it by a mile, or blow themselves up.
Theyre a fun army to play, and play against. It might not be comp. But with a few lucky rolls,theyll can stomp Eldar into the dirt

The issue is the good results don't have enough dakka and its far too likely to be underwhelming. The Shokk Attack Gun is the better of the extreme RNG weapons because at least its high rolls obliterate things while the failures can often times be comical. Most of the stuff like the Smasha Gun is random purely for the sake of random and doesn't really offer much in the way of excitement or gameplay variety. The old Ramshackle rule was fun because it caused interesting things to happen. Often times Orks have RNG that's negative purely for the sake of making something stupid (not fun) happen such as the Cowardly Grot rule for Killa Kans (yeah pseudo morale checks for my walkers, oh boy such compelling gameplay). Mob Rule is the same where you feel like your special rule is a penalty but your getting little in return.

That's really the meat of it in that the RNG isn't really fun. A Smasha Gun isn't exciting when all it does is either have enough strength to potentially penetrate armor (still got to roll all your to hit, to armor pen, saves, etc) or it doesn't and just plinks off the vehicle armor. Cowardly Grot rule makes my already underperforming Killa Kans unable to fire the only decent gun they have (grotzooka). Mob Rule kills more of my models after they already lost a decent amount of models because Orks have terrible leadership. RNG that is interesting are things like the Jokereo who randomly upgrade the squad with some modifier, it has a negative (does nothing), 4 positive results of various usefulness, and a jackpot that is 2 upgrades. Your rolling the dice to get something and you might get nothing or it might be something really cool, Ork RNG for the most part lacks that and feels more like a pass fail check being tacked onto the other dice rolls we are already needing to make (to hit, to wound, etc). Orks need less fizzle and a lot more BIG BOOM in their random stuff to make it interesting.

Exactly, you hit the nail right on the head with regards to all the Ork random tables they've put in the current ork dex. If there is a risk/reward system on the table there has to be enough benefit from the reward to balance out the potential risk from the RNG table. Currently speaking there's not enough ways for Orks to mitigate it to work in their favour nor are the rewards anywhere near enough to warrant the risk.

It's not that hard to implement either, things like Zzap Guns could have any of their strength rolls that go past 10 be auto-pens/wounds. Smasha Guns could take after their lifta droppa namesake and roll to see from a table, on a 1 it does nothing, on a 2-5 it inflicts a wound or glance at its AP, if the model survives at the end of the turn it gets thrown D6" somewhere as determined by the scatter die. A 6 is the same as a 2-5 except it takes D3 wounds/HP. That kind of stuff.

**Agent_Tremolo**

Oh, please. Stop it with the "Orks are random but fun!" thing.

The enthusiastic Ork player that can win any match with a combination of wits and luck, and has lots of fun doing so is one of those rare breeds of 40k player that seem to exist only on the Internet. The sad reality, though, is that playing Orks is a frustrating chore.

For most of 2014 and 2015 I was the last active Ork player in my area. In 2016, I've grown tired of micromanaging hundreds of models for little to no payback and finally come to accept that Orks belong in the shelf or the ebay list, not in the tabletops.

**oldzoggy**

ThatGuyFromThatPlace wrote:
Experiment 626 wrote:
Martel732 wrote:
oldzoggy wrote:
Most of us do. But this is a big stock market listed company that has been there for 30+ years and these sort of things directly effect sales. There is no way that GW isn't aware of what is powerful in their game and what is kinda weak or the aversion of random tables by some of their costumers.

I don't think they are. Truly. I don't think they even play their own game.

They do play their own game, just not in any kind of actual, organised hyper-competitive style.

I am with Martel on this one. Anyone who bothered to playtest the recent ork nonsense would have realized that .. .

.... :\

I never claimed that orks are good. You guys are completely missing my point.
My claim is that GW knows that orks are underpowered compared to the top tier armies. This is on purpose and not the result of some incompetent rule designer.
The average player doesn't start ork for their table top performance. GW has created the Tau and eldar codex for those players. The new ork codex is made for players who start the army even when they know that they will be fighting an uphill battle in the game.
Seriously just look at the huge number of " should I play orks or ... threads" on this forum alone.

**VeteranNoob**

Before I comment I just want to be sure that you think they hate them because the rules are not good or they haven't gotten any new rules or great units ?

**Experiment 626**

VeteranNoob wrote:
Before I comment I just want to be sure that you think they hate them because the rules are not good or they haven't gotten any new rules or great units ?

Orks have a great model line overall, with only a few holes left to fill out.

Their problems from what I've gathered from a couple Orky mates is that;
1. They simply don't fit the context of the current meta...
Shooting is absolute king, and mobility is key in Maelstrom missions. Meanwhile Orks are a predominantly foot-based horde army full of cheap, non-existent save units, who above all else are geared mainly for the Assault phase.
Orks simply lack the resiliency both in their infantry, and in their vehicles to stand up to the damage output of the Shooting phase. When they do (eventually) make it into assaults, they either can't reach with enough bodies to overwhelm the foe, or else get beaten down by overall cheaper & much deadlier deathstar type units.

2. A couple of their key army-wide rules were butchered, and/or upgrades they should have kept were inexplicably removed.
I only ever hear moans about Mob Rule, while the Orks lost their meager invuln save upgrade for some stupid reason on the few platforms that could take them.

Overall Orks would be an easy fix. They just need some polish and a couple of key rules amended. They're nowhere near the complete clusterfeth that CSM's or Tyranids are in.

**HoundsofDemos**

Orks were a solid army back in 5th. The problem is their current book is made for a game that doesn't exist any more.

**oldzoggy**

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Orks were a solid army back in 5th. The problem is their current book is made for a game that doesn't exist any more.

The current book is weaker then their previous one ( the 4th edition book ). Just pick up your old ork codex and read it, it will feel like a huge buff.

**MeanGreenStompa**

The latest Ork codex was phoned in by a couple of writers who didn't like orks very much.

It's soulless garbage. The revised mob rule was the single straw that broke the back of my 40k playing.

**ThatGuyFromThatPlace**

Experiment 626 wrote:
VeteranNoob wrote:
Before I comment I just want to be sure that you think they hate them because the rules are not good or they haven't gotten any new rules or great units ?

Orks have a great model line overall, with only a few holes left to fill out.

Their problems from what I've gathered from a couple Orky mates is that;
1. They simply don't fit the context of the current meta...
Shooting is absolute king, and mobility is key in Maelstrom missions. Meanwhile Orks are a predominantly foot-based horde army full of cheap, non-existent save units, who above all else are geared mainly for the Assault phase.
Orks simply lack the resiliency both in their infantry, and in their vehicles to stand up to the damage output of the Shooting phase. When they do (eventually) make it into assaults, they either can't reach with enough bodies to overwhelm the foe, or else get beaten down by overall cheaper & much deadlier deathstar type units.

2. A couple of their key army-wide rules were butchered, and/or upgrades they should have kept were inexplicably removed.
I only ever hear moans about Mob Rule, while the Orks lost their meager invuln save upgrade for some stupid reason on the few platforms that could take them.

Overall Orks would be an easy fix. They just need some polish and a couple of key rules amended. They're nowhere near the complete clusterfeth that CSM's or Tyranids are in.

Let me address veteran first: Ork's were given back, flash gitz the new units were the "Morkanaut/Gorkanaut" which was utter garbage and the Mek gunz which are good, but lack range, and realistically most of the gun options for Mek gunz are ignored, you either use the anti-aircraft, KMKs or old school lobbas/kannonz. Thats about it, the new guns are trash. So We have been given 3 new units in this new codex, 1 (Flash gitz) is a revision of an older unit and is garbage, comes standard with a Boss Pole instead of armor.....fail. 2: Nauts, are so incredibly bad its not worth talking about, let me put it this way, you will never see one in any list that is remotely competitive. and 3: Mek Gunz, a rehash of our existing artillery with a handful of new loadouts, only 2 of which are useful.

As far as new rules? Yeah we got some new rules, but they all sucked, my biggest problem with how GW handled the orks is that they took anything that was good in the 4th edition codex (last time Orks got an update prior to 7th) and nerfed it into the ground. Kanz became utter trash, Nob Bikers are so over priced you never see them anymore, Deff Rollaz on Battle Wagonz? I haven't seen one in so long I had to go look at my old ones to remember what they looked like, Cybork Upgrade went from a 5+ Invul to a 6+ fnp.....wtf?, KFF went from a 5+ cover save for every unit touching a 12 inch diameter bubble around the person carrying it, to a 5+ invul (Only against shootin) for models in range. The list goes on and on. If it was good its gone, if it was mediocre (kanz) they made it worse.

Orks as of right now seem to be getting more attention then ever before, we had a new codex, a new supplement, an update to the supplement, and a couple other cool things. And yet after all those new releases, new models and new rules the orks are still one of the weakest factions in the game. I am not saying I want to be super OP like almost every Eldar unit, what I am saying is it would be nice to get to a table and feel like the game is starting on equal terms instead of me being at a severe disadvantage, almost from the get go.

**Experiment 626**

ThatGuyFromThatPlace wrote:

Let me address veteran first: Ork's were given back, flash gitz the new units were the "Morkanaut/Gorkanaut" which was utter garbage and the Mek gunz which are good, but lack range, and realistically most of the gun options for Mek gunz are ignored, you either use the anti-aircraft, KMKs or old school lobbas/kannonz. Thats about it, the new guns are trash. So We have been given 3 new units in this new codex, 1 (Flash gitz) is a revision of an older unit and is garbage, comes standard with a Boss Pole instead of armor.....fail. 2: Nauts, are so incredibly bad its not worth talking about, let me put it this way, you will never see one in any list that is remotely competitive. and 3: Mek Gunz, a rehash of our existing artillery with a handful of new loadouts, only 2 of which are useful.

As far as new rules? Yeah we got some new rules, but they all sucked, my biggest problem with how GW handled the orks is that they took anything that was good in the 4th edition codex (last time Orks got an update prior to 7th) and nerfed it into the ground. Kanz became utter trash, Nob Bikers are so over priced you never see them anymore, Deff Rollaz on Battle Wagonz? I haven't seen one in so long I had to go look at my old ones to remember what they looked like, Cybork Upgrade went from a 5+ Invul to a 6+ fnp.....wtf?, KFF went from a 5+ cover save for every unit touching a 12 inch diameter bubble around the person carrying it, to a 5+ invul (Only against shootin) for models in range. The list goes on and on. If it was good its gone, if it was mediocre (kanz) they made it worse.

Orks as of right now seem to be getting more attention then ever before, we had a new codex, a new supplement, an update to the supplement, and a couple other cool things. And yet after all those new releases, new models and new rules the orks are still one of the weakest factions in the game. I am not saying I want to be super OP like almost every Eldar unit, what I am saying is it would be nice to get to a table and feel like the game is starting on equal terms instead of me being at a severe disadvantage, almost from the get go.

When I said that Orks have a great model line, I meant it in the literal sense; almost everything is now plastic kits, designed within the past 10 years.

What's left that needs a plastic kit for Orks? Tankbustas, Battlewagon, Looted Wagon, Skorcha-Buggy, most of the characters (Painboy/Wyrdboy/non-MA Big Meks/etc...) The basic Boyz kit could use a face lit as well, but that's about it.
Most, if not all of their various plastic kits come with at least 1 of each possible upgrade that particular unit can take, with IIRC, only the main ground-based vehicles really needing a proper 'upgrades sprue'.

Overall that's a solid state for the army. The glaring issues are almost entirely rules related, making Orks an 'easy' fix.
Now go look at that the sad state of the CSM model line, where over 50% of even their basic upgrades are entirely missing, and half or more of their units still have no viable (or even actually existing!) plastic kit. (Havocs for example are about 14-15 years old, while Chosen have been waiting only 15 years for an actual kit!)
Hell, even Sisters have a more complete model line!

I wouldn't say that GW "Hates Orks", they've just given them a couple of bad rules updates, likely because whatever designer(s) were tasked with their rules either doesn't play them at all, or was just hugely indifferent to them...
CSM's are a truly 'hated' army, since those poor scrubs don't even get a viable model line to at least build a nice looking display out of.

**Grand.Master.Raziel**

Scourged wrote:

With the heavy hitting poster boys/elves/others, the models are taken at face value. Sure, yeah, you can change the paint and add some heraldry; most do. But actually converting the model? Using spare bitz to create something unique and different? Or (shock!) finding a third party alternative? Such things are a rarity with those factions, and discouraged by their aesthetic. When was the last time you've seen a Rhino, or Riptide, or a squad of Necrons look any different from the rest?

I actually started kitbashing Marines back in 4th edition, when they had the Kill Team rules. There was a WD article featuring an IG kill team that was full of groovy conversions, so I figured why not do something like that for my Marine kill team? Since that fateful day, it's been hard for me to be satisfied with the standard pose.

I've also got a couple of Mk IVa Rhinos. They began life as Mark IIIc Rhinos, which in turn began life as a VDR creation I'd intended to be a superior version of a Predator. It was going to have 2 weapon stations that could both fire on the move. I made them with Rhino hulls with Land Raider glacis plates (for the front gun station). I'd made two of these things before it occurred to me no one would ever let me use them. So, I used plasticard to make a little extra part I could drop into the gun position to be a driver's station. I thus converted Mk II Rhinos into Mk III Rhinos.

There's more to this story though. I left them in my car in the hot sun. For some reason, what really got warped was the Land Raider bit on each of them. So, I was going to fix them either with the original Rhino glacis plates or plasticard when I got the idea to instead extend the cab, give them a look more like some of the European military vehicles I've seen pictures of. That's how I wound up with a couple of Mk IV Rhinos!

**VeteranNoob**

Ok, thanks for the answers. Good points and I have to agree. Love the models, bought the new stuff two years ago and was surprised how poor shooting was, specially all those new mek guns I bought. My Gorka- and Morkanoight are both fun to look at but that's bout all. I don't care for competitive 40K but when I do play in events the only way I can win is through a green tide, including Gretchen. My smallest army was my 99 Green Balloons and biggest was something like 150 boys and 80 grots. The giant unit of Megnobs usually kills the knight or Wraith Knight before dying. It's a bummer since they are so much fun but the only time variety worked was when I ran Sanctus Reach, planet strike for two months. I do like mob rule at times but I have to again have giant units. And my storm boys can't keep up. It does feel like they are not up to current meta

**G00fySmiley**

yea... basically somebody at GW said.. you know orks were a middle tier army in 5th... what can we do to stop that. Video games are so popular and the Orks get killed in droves so that must be their purpose. the biggest nerf was cybork from 5++ to 6+ fnp which was pants on head stupid. add in to that breaking the one semi reliable metal box opener (deffrolla) it used to be fun orky shenanigans ram your tank into their tanks and assault the gooey middle was the plan (a lot could go wrong with that plan mind you) Nob bikers are now so expensive nobody runs them and lacking the inv save they get disappeared by ap4 weapons that ignore cover. 9everybody seems to have those now) really we needed the 4th edition codex just updated to fit the power creep. This would have left us in t he middle but that was sadly not the path GW went.

**Experiment 626**

G00fySmiley wrote:
yea... basically somebody at GW said.. you know orks were a middle tier army in 5th... what can we do to stop that. Video games are so popular and the Orks get killed in droves so that must be their purpose. the biggest nerf was cybork from 5++ to 6+ fnp which was pants on head stupid. add in to that breaking the one semi reliable metal box opener (deffrolla) it used to be fun orky shenanigans ram your tank into their tanks and assault the gooey middle was the plan (a lot could go wrong with that plan mind you) Nob bikers are now so expensive nobody runs them and lacking the inv save they get disappeared by ap4 weapons that ignore cover. 9everybody seems to have those now) really we needed the 4th edition codex just updated to fit the power creep. This would have left us in t he middle but that was sadly not the path GW went.

There were more than a few rumors at the time that Mat Ward was given the Ork codex project - well before he left GW. It's not completely impossible that he at least laid out the bulk of the codex before leaving, and then other(s) were left to simply finish off what he'd mostly done.
Same thing happened to Beastmen in Fantasy with their pre-8th ed book... Andy Hore wrote the vast majority of it, left before it was completed, and then Kelly got the task of completing another's work. Turned into a right disaster for the poor Beasties too.

Doesn't excuse that GW went as half-baked as they possibly could on the Gaz supplement re-do, but, we do know that Ward doesn't like Orks (he stated as much when he was "forced" to do the 7th ed Orc book - and it was universally hailed the worst book of all time in Fantasy), and we know he was horrible for letting his personal bias get in the way of rules writing... (right up there with Pete Hains and his IW rules.)

Just a wild conspiracy theory of course!

**JustALittleOrkish**

I honestly havent played a proper game since the late 90's but back then Orks and CSM were extremely popular and quite successful. Especially during the 13th Black Crusade, when Chaos actually won. GW was clearly freaked out by this, as their fluff and model line are clearly geared towards everybody loving the SM's. It sounds like they have tried their hardest to draw players away from the Orks, 'nids and CSM in an effort to force people to love what they love

**Skuzbag**

i played orks for 15 years almost exclusively. The new codex came out and i switched to Space marines. I would rather play the 3rd edition ork codex than the piece of garbage current one. It was at least fun random. The current codex I sincerely believe wasn't even playtested.

**Martel732**

Playtesting doesn't forge the narrative!

**ThatGuyFromThatPlace**

Just because I am bored I thought I would list a bunch of the Nerfs from the 4th edition Codex to the current 7th edition codex

1: Deff Rollaz, effectively gone from the game, went from 2D6 S10 hits to D3 auto hits ONLY if the unit chooses to death or glory, translation, useless
2: Ghaz, Lost 1 bonus attack on the charge, lost his 5++. stayed the same point cost. Only 225pt character I know of in this game without an invul save.
3: Cybork, Went from granting user a 5++ to giving the user a 6+ FNP
4: Killa Kanz, Went up in price from 35pts a model to 50! Lost the use of dreadnought CCW, So instead of having S10 attacks they have S7 attacks now.
5:Warbikes, lost there 4+ cover save, replaced with Jink. Because you know Ork shootin is already to good and needs to be nerfed.
6:Flash Gitz, Lost 4+ armor and got 6+ armor
7: Mob Rule, going from using model count for your leadership to the current system is a major nerf, I have seen arguments stating otherwise but the fact is the numbers don't add up. The current argument is that its good for smaller units....no, not its not. For small units the only benefit is if you roll a 2 or 3, and your nob is still alive, otherwise its GG still.
8: Ork Boyz, now have to pay for there Rng18, S4 AP6 Assault 2 shoota, not worth it.
9: Ork Boyz NOB, can no longer independently take Eavy Armor.
10: Mad Dok, used to give the option to give ANYONE in your army a 5++ for 5 pts a model. Anyone, including Meganobz. Who wouldn't pay for that nowadays?
11: Special Characters, Bye bye Wazdakka and Zogwort
12: Nobz, actually dropped 2pts a model ( of course they raised the price of Bikes for Nobz by 2pts) lost the ability to upgrade to a painboy for 30pts.
13: BattleWagonz, went up 20pts in price, but the KillKannon dropped 30pts!!!!! of course nobody takes it because its a Rng 24 S7 AP3 Ordinance weapon which is useless on a transport.

I could go on for a bit longer but I really just depressed myself a lot. Mostly I just miss my Battlewagonz running around with Deff Rollaz ramming things.

**matphat**

I've traded gaming time for a focus on getting my whole Ork army painted up to a high table top quality, with full basing, and some custom bitz to bring out the character.

I figure about the time I've polished off 3500 points of that quality, Orks will have a codex worth playing and I can deploy a shining example of what an army SHOULD look like.

And if that never happens? I'll give them to some kid who's interested in the game and wash my hands of the whole thing.

**ThatGuyFromThatPlace**

matphat wrote:
I've traded gaming time for a focus on getting my whole Ork army painted up to a high table top quality, with full basing, and some custom bitz to bring out the character.

I figure about the time I've polished off 3500 points of that quality, Orks will have a codex worth playing and I can deploy a shining example of what an army SHOULD look like.

And if that never happens? I'll give them to some kid who's interested in the game and wash my hands of the whole thing.

Ive got my whole army painted to table top standard or better, the only thing I haven't done is base them. I do have about 4-8 Nobz/Boyz that need to be painted and 3 new killa Kanz I need to assemble and paint...thats it. I also have something around 4,500pts (No upgrades) worth of Orks.

If GW never comes out with a good codex i'll probably burn there HQ to the ground in revenge.

**Melissia**

Cause there's no Ork fans in the staff, and they're basically just fanboys writing for their own faction without really giving a gak about good design. Most people in the Proposed Rules section are more concerned about design than GW is.

**Chute82**

I just painted up 68 storm boyz from 3rd and 4th edition. Stripped them and decided to repainted them, figured I have about 2 more years to get my orks all repainted till the next codex.

**the_scotsman**

Not to show up and parade on your rain, but surprisingly I've found a good bit of utility with the new Ork-curion in my latest games with the "council of Waaagh".

With the 2++ save, the Ghaz mini-formation creates a pretty formidable mini-deathstar, and its easy to construct your army in such a way that it counters other deathstars by just having limitless chaff to throw at your enemy.

I've run it two ways - one with all the barebones boyz squads in trukks (all with rokkits and rams) backed up by bikes/koptas/stormboyz and one with the barebones boyz squads just footslogging, backed up by masses of MSU footslogging minimum sized squads in all the aux slots.

The Ghazzystar can run The Man Himself with 2++ and EW as well as a mega-armor stikkboss, which lets you sort the wounds between a 2+ rerollable armor save or a 2++ invuln in the case of S10 or AP2.

The former list is a fairly straightforward turn 1/turn 2 donkey punch fast assault list, with Ghaz smacking whatever is the biggest concentration of armor on the enemy team while everyone else tosses themselves bodily at the enemy. You establish board control early and hold it by assaulting the enemy and tying them up.

The second list just rolls in like a fearless green tide that doesn't need to stay in unit coherency. You've still got your mini-deathstar to handle one hard target, but if you run into a deathstar it can't face (which is honestly fairly rare, the beauty of a Ghaz-star is it punches on par with most punch-stars while being less expensive, and it survives against most tank-stars because they tend to lack mass AP2 so you can tank with the stikkboss) then you can just toss fearless bodies at them and force them to deal with your mobs and mobs of boyz, tankbustas, what have you.

The Ghaz-star has a favorable matchup against Decurion wraiths (many of the attacks can be tanked on Stikkboss thanks to rending, and mass S10 is definitely the best way to kill wraiths, albeit somewhat slowly), Thunderwolf-star (small ones Ghazkhull can tank for, large ones you'll take out a bunch of them with the S10 and they're more expensive than you are), inquisition henchmen-star (AP3 not AP2 means stikkboss can tank forever) but if there's something you're really worried about, hey, they can just not fight it.

**Runic**

GW doesn't "hate" Orks or CSM, or their players, and nothing anyone says will make it so. Simply ridiculous and untrue.

It's just that GW isn't capable of writing balanced rules, and this time around Orks got the sour end of the stick. There are a few staples who almost never suck (Eldar, Space Marines) but the rest varies from year to year and edition to edition. Even Tau were a mediocre army at best at one point back in the day.

Orks can however make some respectable builds (just like Dark Eldar can, even if they are few) and do well. I got my ass handed to me by an Ork Trukk army in a tournament a while back, and I was packing the Skyhammer Annihilation Force and some White Scars Centurions aswell. The opponent was a good player and it goes to show that armylists win games, players win tournaments.

**Nithaniel**

the_scotsman wrote:
Not to show up and parade on your rain, but surprisingly I've found a good bit of utility with the new Ork-curion in my latest games with the "council of Waaagh".

.

What points level are you playing these at?

When I come to play a game with my orks I look at it as playing a video game only you have to turn the difficulty setting up from easy (eldar/tau/) to Medium (marines/daemons/Necrons?) to difficult (nids/GK/SoB/D.eldar/KDK) to legendary (Orks/CSM)

**the_scotsman**

Primarily 2000 points. Just the standard in my area, we haven't really jumped on the 1850 train for our normal games.

Each army does have a distinct "skill ceiling" and "skill floor". You see this pretty commonly in a lot of competitive games, and frequently the easier to play armies are indeed considered a good amount more powerful than the harder ones.

Meta eldar lists and standard deathstar focused superfriends lists are way easier than playing a good game with one of the less powerful and more technical factions, and orks have absolutely shifted into one since the last meta. In fifth, with wound allocation shenanigans, powerful Kan wall lists, and less odds calculation for charging, orks did have a far easier time of it.

Currently I would say they have a "skill floor" (the amount required to play them at a competent level vs the other armies, the level you'd expect a person with no experience at all to perform) on par with the most traditionally difficult factions, like Dark Eldar. Their skill ceiling (what you can do with a theoretically perfect general) is lower than the top tables capable armies for sure.

I would say their skill floor ends up somewhat higher (as in, they are worse off) than Chaos Marines and Blood Angels, but I would say they cap out at a somewhat higher level.

With a theoretically zero skill general, I would say the very very worst armies would be

Tyranids < Dark Eldar < Orks < Chaos Marines < Blood Angels < Chaos Daemons

Daemons get dragged down into the bottom tier because they have a lot of the same 'trap options' nids do, though not QUITE as bad. in the game of throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks, though, power armor does tend to be a pretty big advantage, so I rank CSM and BA a little higher just on durability of their average stuff.

But when you get to where you cap out, you see something a bit more like

CSM < Orks < Blood Angels < Dark Eldar < Tyranids < Chaos Daemons

CSM have a very small space where skill matters, and their huge disadvantages and the huge disadvantages of Power Armor armies when it comes to assault capabilities, common meta weaponry and the heavy volume of fire start to just beat them like GWs red headed stepchildren. Orks do slightly better just because they can flood the board and play the mission no matter what.

**Knockagh**

I genuinely don't think they are deliberately putting out bad ork stuff. It's just orks are a unique race that have a very defined culture and role not only in 40k but across fantasy worlds and it's really hard to translate that into fluff friendly rules, that allow your to win!

GW went for comedy effect orcs which I'm not so keen on, thankfully that is being counteracted by recent fiction from BL, so we shall see what happens......orks do though remain absolutely an awesomely cool army to see someone bring to the table. So well done all you ork players.

CSM may have had it tough but I'm guessing as the heresy progresses you will have some pretty darn amazing models coming your way, so get the wallets ready!

**the_scotsman**

FW making more than 2% non-marine models? I'll believe it when I see it. They've realized they can copy paste 95% of a suit of power armor, change the knee pads, elbow pads and backpack and marine fanboys will buy a 5000 point army and rave about how "Mark VXCIIITQ" power armor is just the coolest best thing ever.

FW has been "Space Marine/Imperial Knight-World" for years now. If we get more than one Ork model for 30k I'll eat my hat.

**Kap'n Krump**

Because GW hates fun, and orks are fun.