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So Ive been trying this hobby for a few months now and have come to the conclusion that either Orks are not competitive or I'm just not getting the Waaagh. Over 75 percent of the local game store plays Space Marines and I don't seem to be able to kill them with much success. I really , really dont't want to play a different army. That being said I feel as if I might have to if there isn't a solution to killing Space Marines with a great deal more reliability. I would also like to add that for me , winning with a degree of regularity is a whole lot more fun then ooooo look what cool stuff just happened wasn't that neat. Anyways, these are the problems I'm having with Space Marines in specific and Orks in general:
- Orks (from the fluff) are supposed to be an assault based army. But with our very low initiative we dont beat Space Marines in combat. Yes there is normally far fewer of them but they go first and kill over half of a 30 man squad on the assault. Then the few boys who do get to swing are hitting to little or no effect do to SMs low armor saves. So the one weapon in the assault that matters the PK cant make up for the mountain of dead orks. Now its time for combat resolution and Orks lose that fight. O but wait we are fearless so we lose even more boys due to CR. Now what does this mean It means that a normal squad of 10 SMs will decimate a 30 man squad of orks.
- Ork Special characters DO NOT compete with SM Specials. Of the ones in our codex only ghaz is worth a piss and when going against most the SM combat orientated Specials he loses due to their higher initiative or other psycho rules. See The Space wolf special and the Nurgle one in specific
- Ok so we have established that despite the fluff orks aren't assaulty, so they must be good at shooting, after all GW must have created some kind of game balance right? Well yes we have a terrible BS but thats ok we throw a gajillion shots into the air. Problem is they are are middle of the road bolter shoots with no real str or ap to them. This means that SMs get almost all of their saves 90 percent of the time. This especially true IF facing a Nurgle list. With some math hammer over 60 shooty boys trying to take out a squad will average about 2 deaths.
- Hmm, so if our regualr troop choices can't assault or shoot wortha hell the answer must be in the other sections. Well due to GW's decision to go for funny over balance almost all of the ork units that should kill stuff reliably DON'T. Wether its the Glory Hog special rule or the " throw 2 dice and hope You get something useful special for SAGs, ZZZAps, and Flash Gits", a real lack of options are out there.
- So, last chance it's gotta be the specials that rock for Orks. Well other then Ghaz most of the ork specials seem to work on the the if its quirky it must be good rule. None of the ork specials give you any dependability except Ghaz due to random unnecessary odd "fun" rules of chaos. Problem, is Ghaz doesn't even rock that hard plenty of other Special characters can and do beat him senseless like a whooped dog.

Now I HATE space marines and I really, really want Orks to work. I play orcs in fantasy and love them. I play orcs in almost every other game I can. If its green I tend to like it. All I want is a simple " Go forth, Hit the thing in front of you until it stops moving, then laugh" list. I dont want to be the damn good guy ( and yes Chaos is just a different paint scheme for SMs) Is their any way to make Orks go from LOL funny I get to make silly models , to actually scary competitive I win games.

I'm going to work off of a couple of assumptions.
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1. Playing Warhammer 40k is fun.
2. Playing Warhammer 40k and winning is more fun.
3. Playing Warhammer 40k and losing is less fun.
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Human nature and natural selection demand that we continually seek to improve ourselves. Having an A type personality probably doesn't hurt this effort, but if you lose a game of 40k and don't reflect on the game with, "What did I do wrong? What could I have done better? How can I prevent this from happening again?" then I can't really talk to you.

If this thought process and those three assumptions *do* apply to you, then read on.

******
Orks are a unique codex. An ork boy is significantly cheaper than just about any other model in 40k, and is basically a platform from which many things spring (other kinds of ork variants - stormboyz, lootas, nobs...). If you read the fluff, every ork starts in the same place, and as they develop, they lean towards on klan/society, which is how they figure out what kind of ork they're going to be.

In other codexes (space marines and their variants being the most prolific), basic troops are well-rounded models. You ever play Final Fight? How about ANY kind of game with character selections? You've got the big, strong guy that's slow...the average Joe....and the weaker but very speedy character. This applies in 40k as well. Space marines are like your average, well-rounded Joe. Orks are NOT. You can't mix and match orks in any order you like to make a generalized list.

This is *not* called power building, its called understanding your codex, how your codex is designed, and using it as such. Every time someone calls "playing a theme" to be "powerbuilding" I want to stab them in the F***** eye. If you look in the Ork codex, do you see the codex writers putting in pictures for the sample armies of some Lootas backing up a squad of meganobs in a trukk, who are advancing next to some buggies and a deffkopta or two?

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They even TELL you how to make your army. They tell you what the Ork klans are - Bad Moons, Kult of Speed, Deffskullz, etc.

That kind of thematic army construction is the intent of the Ork codex. That is what makes orks powerful. The ork codex is written so that you can design an army list that is absolutely ridiculously powerful, but it is NOT made up of average Joe units; everything is specialized towards a specific goal. When you build an army list, you should follow the thematic advice given to you in the Codex. PICK a theme. There's a lot of them:

Green Tide. Mechanized Assault. Mechanized Shooting. Ork Gunline (Moar Dakka), Kan-Wall. Dreadz of Fury. Kult of Speed. Outflanking Goodness. Rebel Grotz. Nob Bikers. Super Units. Orky Burnas.

All of those things have something in common - the lists were designed with a theme in mind, and have the synergy to work together towards that goal. When you start combining those themes to make a list, you're being counterintuitive to the very style that the orks were created for.

Remember this: Orks can do anything that any other army can do, and they can do it better than that army. However, orks can only do it one at a time. You can outshoot a Tau Gunline. You can out-assault a khorne army or an army of genestealers. You can put down more templates than IG....whatever your goal in mind is....orks can do it better, but it has to stick to that theme. Orks are not meant to be universal, middle-of-the-line armies.

To give another analogy...if you've ever played an MMO, there are different classes. Fighter, Tank, barbarian, mage, cleric, wizard, hunter, ranger, red mage, death knight, rogue, whatever.....its all based on the game you play. The class you pick sets you on a path for the kind of game you play, the skills you get - they are pre-defined roles.

40k armies fit into that kind of typification. Except for Orks. Orks would be the generic class. You start with a neutral character, with skillpoints to assign, and you can make orks any kind of army you want them to be. People fail with orks because they want some of everything. Instead of making them a fighter, or an archer, or a guardian...and they would be better fighters, archers and guardians than every other type...they split points between all three to make a Figardian. F.A.G for short.

Do you want to excel in something, or be a F.A.G? That's what it boils down to.

Are you a F.A.G?




*EDIT* I'm adding information for the tactics article I'm working on.

If you're running a foot-slogging list, shoota boys are your friend. Slugga boys belong inside vehicles. In fact, I think you should convert your slugga boy mobs into shoota boys. In 5th edition, the shoota boy is the most efficient point purchase across all 40k.

Think on that - for 6 points...SIX POINTS....you get an infantry model with an assault 2 STR4 gun, who is WS4, STR4, T4 on the charge. In terms of math hammer between shoota and slugga boys, it's pretty simple. Slugga boys have +1 attack in close combat, and shoota boys have +1 attack outside of close combat. Since your Orks on the assault are only I3, you're going to strike last meaning that 30 boyz are going to take some casualties before getting their attacks back.

On the flip side, shoota boys get 2 shots before assaulting, and the enemy doesn't get to shoot back first and cause casualties - putting in any kind of hurt before you assault is incredibly valuable. And since it has an 18" range, you can shoot into a unit even when you don't have range to assault this turn. My advice for green tide:

Take all your troops choices as shoota boys. Consider taking a squad of gretchin - you can spread them across your front lines to provide 4+ cover saves for your whole army. Alternatively, you can take a squad of ork boyz to do the same. If you make them 'Ard Boyz they gain considerably in staying power.

Want to get real freaky? Take a squad of 'Ard Boyz, stick Mad Dok Grotsnik with them for a 4+/4+. Spread that unit out 2+ coherence to minimize the damage that blast templates can do, and have the whole thing move+run in front of your army. Your screening unit has 4+ armor saves, 4+ feel no pain, and the rest of your army has 4+ cover saves now. If your points allow it, what really tops off the list is adding some fast attack Stormboyz. You can put them into close combat, or have them multi-assault to shake/stun some tanks/artillery, have them get in fast and tie up enemy units (hello Tau!), or if the situation doesn't call for it, you can leave them behind your screening unit and keep them in reserve to get in where you need supporting assault units at.
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Automatically Appended Next Post:
Yes, that was a copy and paste.

Now read some more:

Here's a quick take on those various lists. Please remember something important: Every list needs to be tailored for point allocations. What I'm putting down here is an "optimized" list where you get the maximum ability from it, so if you're playing a 1,000 point gunline, three full squads of Lootas + supporting units and troop choices isn't really what you're going to play. You'll have to tweak to match your needs.

Green Tide:
Green tide is actually an apocalypse battle formation, but is a common name for a foot-slogging ork army list. It consists of mobs of 30 shoota boys, a nob with a powerklaw, and either a unit of gretchin or a unit of boyz or 'Ard Boyz (maybe even with Mad Dok) screened across the front to give the rest of the army a 4+ cover save as they advance up the board.

Mechanized Assault:
12 slugga boyz+Nob/PK stacked into trukks, perhaps some battlewagons in the mix, covered by a Big Mek with a KFF...an elite unit or two (kommandos, lootas, burnas) tacked into the mix depending on your personal playstyle - they get into close combat as fast as orkishly possible; with Ghazghkull leading the mix, that's usually turn2.

Mechanized Shooting:
Instead of slugga boys, you have shoota boys, preferably in battlewagons, with a KFF screening them, rolling around the battlefield pouring firepower into enemy units. Alternatively, (and one of my favorite setups) this is 3 Loota squads inside battlewagons sitting on the back table edge, Big mek with KFF in the middle one in a trident formation \|/ to present front armor across the battlefield, surrounded by a unit of gretchin to prevent assaults on rear armor.


Ork Gunline:
Three squads of Lootas form the backbone of this, either sitting in cover or with a screening unit to give them a 4+ cover save, heavy support of big guns or some dreads/kans to provide long range firepower, with the obligatory shoota boy squads.


Kan wall:
One of the current meta-game favorites: Three squads of three killa-kans, protected by a KFF mek (or two) marching up the field screening mobs of shoota boys behind them.


Dreadz of Fury:
Three DeffDreads for Heavy Support + 2 Deff Dreads for troop choices, with a KFF mek screening them for a 4+ cover save, set for either long ranged fire support or close ranged pwnage; I prefer the STR10 DCCWs.


Kult of Speed:
Straight out of your codex! Boyz in trukks, mechanized element + Stormboyz. Ponder this for a moment: 6 trukks full of boyz screened by a Mek with a KFF, in turn screening 3 units of Stormboyz who can move as fast as the trukks moving flat out...that's a lot of fast moving destruction.

Outflanking Goodness:
Kommandos as elites and Deffkoptas as fast attack, as many of each as you can fit in, often with Deffkoptas equipped differently for wound allocation spread outflanking (unless you get turn1 and put your deffkoptas out for a turn1 turbo-boost).


Rebel Grotz:
Instead of six units of boyz, you get.....gretchin! Bwah ha ha. Not particularly scary in themselves, but using covering units or terrain, able to go to ground for a 3+ cover save, making them incredibly difficult to remove from an objective, especially with other gretchin (inside killa-kans) are krumping around the battlefield.

Nob Bikers:
Two warbosses + 20 nobs = 2HQ + 2Troops. 22 models = 1750. Diversified wargear and weaponry let you spread wounds around instead of removing models, and the unit is incredibly tough, has the ability to get anywhere fast, and kill anything fast.

Super Units:
Similar to Nob bikers in having an army with a low model count: Warboss Krumpmaster and the Megaboyz; a couple units of Meganobs, or my personal preference, units of regular nobs with diversified wargear for wound allocation magic - in vehicles!


Orky Burnas:
Start with three units of burna boys. Put them in battlewagons if you like. Mek with a KFF to screen if you do, and you have an army of combination templates / power weapons. Alternatively, a warboss makes nobs a troops choice, and you can give them all kombi-skorchas for some real carnage.


Battlewagon Spam:
Did you know that you can field 8 Battlewagons in a single army list? That's right...eight battlewagons. Three Heavy Support, Three dedicated transports for elite unit nobs, and two warbosses making two units of nobs troop choices so that you can take two more battlewagons. I think any time you have vehicles, you should have a KFF floating around, so I wouldn't advocate going for 8....but you can do a lot of things with a list of Battlewagons.

I never understood how other ork players have trouble with marines, I find them the easiest army to beat with orks (if were talking vanilla). As good as Dash's advice usually is (didn't read this one, I'll trust its good) you probably just need more practice, hang in there, it'll come.

Ok WOW thank you.

From this I gather you believe ORks to be a solid Codex and its my playstyle or lack thereof thats the meat of the problem. I can see what you say aboutneeding to specialize and that gives me cause to rethink what I'm doing with my army. On the plus side this also gives me some hope that I'm not wasting my time on an antiquated'"useless" codex. Thank you again.

That being said I know I dont enjoy green tide and would like a much more battlewagon orientated list perhaps the lootas in battlewagon idea. I know I want to avoid anything thats too random, that is far too frustrating for me. Only issue I see is still a lack of High str Low Ap weapons to kill things with. Flash Gits rules are not reliable and str 7 ap 4 wont kill the big boys like land raiders. Tank boys should be the answer but unless I'm nuts no one uses them due to glory hog.

If you want some more targetted advice, it might be worthwhile to post your list up in the Army List forums, I dont know orks very well, but other people (Like Dash) certainly do!

On the Land Raider topic, from what I've gleaned by reading BatReps/tactics, Deffrollas on battlewagons are your best bet, and with Burna Boyz in the wagon youve got some nastiness to destroy anything that comes out of the wreckage (Feel free to correct me if this is off the mark!)

Man, Orks are my least favorite army to play against with my Space Marines.

You're still new, you'll figure it all out in time.

Get more boyz! more meat shields in battle is a winning strategy, take advantage of their low point cost!

I have some advice, and this will be from an opponents point of view since i play space marines, tyranids, and necrons.

Out of my 3 armies marines is my WORST choice against orks.
Orks rape me if built properly. Remember always boys before toys.

I play against orks about 3 times a week, usually combat patrol. If ork boys with shootas shoot at my marines i am happy. Even an ork with a shoota is better in combat, he still has base 2 atks and on the charge +1atk +1str +1ini. Shooting is pretty much what boys should do before they smash there guns on your head. Also a must in my mind, HARD BOYS are a great value, a squad of 10 is only 100 points. on the charge its 40 atks (2 base +1 charge +1weapon bonus) they are also fearless at ten. That squad will easily kill 125poinds of sterngaurd. (as this seems to happen to me alot) Running is a lot better an option a lot of the time, dont bother with your 10shots from pistols, just run those hard boys. 10 shots is garbage, 40atks is decent.

Remember always boys before toys. !!

txscotch12
You must be looking at the orks the wrong way, or trying to mix in units or something. The ork boy is awesome.
for 6 points he is WS4 T4 and STR 4 x 4attacks on the charge. That 30 man squad has 120 attacks when charging!! 60hits 30wounds! (stats dont include the nob)
Dashofpepper has made a great effort with that post (though at a different date as this is copy paste). Go thru it and then read some battle reports. Come back to the army lists if you still think orks suck but really? No they are great

If you'd like to focus on battlewagons....

Try this: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/279952.page

That's my 2,000 mechanized list. Its take-all-comers, and has an answer to pretty much everything as well as the redundancy necessary these days against pretty much everything.


In terms of how to deploy, how to use things, how to prioritize targets....try some of my Ork battle reports. Each of these links to the first round of a tournament, and inside are links to every other round of the respective tournament.

'Ard Boyz prelims: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/295067.page
'Ard Boyz semi-finals: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/299935.page
Blood Bath: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/285191.page
Atlanta Circuit Opener: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/284021.page
SVDM: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/281869.page

yeah for 6 points an ork boy is a really amazing buy....
don't know the secret to making a wicked ork army, but I do know it can be done.

As a vanilla marine player, I really have a rough time with the orks. It is always a bloody battle! I am about 50/50 with my buddy who has a trukk list, and is working on a kan wall.

You know, I play Magic the Gathering too, and there's a simple deck in Magic that's usually competitive. It's had many forms, but at this point, it's just called "The Red Deck."

The Red Deck is basically spells that do damage and fast cheap creatures (Magic starts at 20 life, ends when your opponent is at 0, so knocking him down to 10 with fast 2/2s and then playing 1 mana spells that take off 3 life each time is very viable).

There is a principle - If you want to beat the red deck, you'll beat the red deck. Despite this, it is often very competitive, and is known to win events.

Orks are the red deck. The key to beating them is simple - redundant mobile armor, and enough firepower on the board to end all loota/Warbuggy squads turn 1. There's no real actual answers to this in the Codex - the best you could probably do is 3 units of 3 warbuggies and 3 loota squads.

Some armies do this better than others. Any Space Wolf list that starts out with '3 squads of 5 long fangs' and ends with 'grey hunters in rhinos' is bad news. Mech guard isn't exactly great either. In contrast, Dark Eldar typically can't even put enough Dark Lances into a single loota squad to force a morale check if they're in cover (nevermind taking them all off the board). Their skimmers will pop, shortly followed by their internal organs. Any space marine list designed to hunt other space marines (lots of plasma, etc.).

For instance, the following list will lose to most solid builds of orks:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/309814.page
5 Long fangs can put down quite a few templates on a Loota squad, and Logan means that squad is going away, but split that 3/2, and its suddenly not sure anything is going away. Meanwhile, as soon as you get close, those preds are going to go from 'problem' to 'amusement' as 6" move with d6" run and 6" assault means you better keep running 12" for your 6+ to hit, or your pred is going bang. Frankly, the list just doesn't put out enough threats to orks, and orks will win.

Something like this, on the other hand, can present serious problems (despite needing some very real optimization):
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/309710.page

The orks have a few things to mitigate this:

1) Snikkrott (w/optional Warboss upgrade) - yes, things like Hellhounds backed by Vendettas with troops in Chimeras will still tear you a new one, but there's no reason you have to lose to the guy who recently discovered the whirlwind and still thinks they're the be all and end all. Also does mean things to units like Long Fangs, who are a waste in close combat. Also, you note how most ork special characters are not reliable. Snikkrott is the definition of reliability, and with the attached IC, he's very solid.

2) Cover saves for lootas - don't let 4 missiles with templates force a leadership check, get in cover and spread out.

3) Panic them - the more time they spend trying to protect an objective/their ranged unit/whatever, the less time they spend doing something useful.


P.S. Trukk boyz are fail. If you're taking lots of 12 man squads in trukks, that's probably why tac squads keep breaking your CC.

I'd like to hear what kind of list you use, I think if you retool your list, you can do a lot better. Dash's first post is a pretty good start.

There are armies that I fear with Orks, marines are not typically one of them, except certain SW builds.

BTW RisingPheonix, are whirlwinds really that great against Orks? I mean, they ignore cover, but its only Str 4, so its not really any more threatening than say, a Leman Russ shooting you while your Orks have cover (from terrain or KFF), which, isn't always the "lol everyone dies" blast people think it will be.

Snikkyd wrote:
BTW RisingPheonix, are whirlwinds really that great against Orks? I mean, they ignore cover, but its only Str 4, so its not really any more threatening than say, a Leman Russ shooting you while your Orks have cover (from terrain or KFF), which, isn't always the "lol everyone dies" blast people think it will be.

My experience is that whirlwinds are typically terrible for orks if you're taking loota squads, as unless you have room to string out every loota squad while in cover, they can easily force a leadership check on each shot that hits.

But no, I'd be more scared of a list that included Vendetta Gunships for anti-armor with Hellhounds for anti-infantry, and any way to take out lootas. That's pretty much my nightmare force, as Vendettas end Battlewagons and the like, and Hellhounds are just bad, bad news as soon as the vehicles are gone.

First, let me say thx for the positive encourgement its nice to know that im not wasting my time with a "fun" but uncompetive codex. Seeing as how the general consensus is get more games in thats what i'll do
ok so the two lists at my gw store that prompted me to post this are essentially like this:
- NURGLE squads of 10 with 5 toughness and feel no pain ( these eat my 20 man squads np and firing shootas is a less then fun exercise in futility) plus a 5 man terminator squad with Typhus with up to 11 attacks who is re-rolling hits and wounds going at initative 5 and using a force weapon which if it wounds Ghaz insta kills him, they also are toughness 5 with feel no pain (this unit has eaten a 30man squad with Ghaz in it before I got a chance to attack after I charged him) and lastly every unit he has has grenades that disallow the extra attacks from charging so Ghaz has 5 and my sluugga 3 or shootas 2
- SPACE WOLVES not quit sure what his death star unit is but he brings 2 Land raiders and inside one of them he has a Named IC plus a wolf priest and a cubic but ton of little guys essentially they get to counter charge and roll a shoe box of dice that makes me jealous before i can swing, these are all at a higher initative also and all power weapons so again the charging unit is dead. i have tried shooting at them before after they ate a unit but the squad is so large that the IC and priest dont die before they get in range to eat some else. that plus the best advice i can find for dealing with land raiders as orks is IGNORE them. so the death star unit has free run of the board

we usually play annihilation and not missions with about 2k worth of points

my army looks like this (typing this at work without codex so some number may be off, my apologies)

HQ
Ghaz
Big Mek(KFF)

TROOP
NOB Bikers(cyborg bodies)
Painboy
PK waagh
Pk bosspole
pk
BC kombi scoorcha
BC
Shootas x 18 (home for KFF) in battlewagon
NOB PK + BP
Shootas x 19 in battlewagon
NOB PK + BP

ELITE
Lootas x 9
lootas x 9
Burnas x 11 in BW with Ghaz for lots of power weapon goodness

HEAVY
Battlewagon x 3 (kannon, Big shoota, grot riggers, rpj, deff rolla)

Pretty sure i didnt forget anything

P.S> thx for all the help and encourgement

Not a bad list, its similar to mine. In fact it almost is except I don't have Ghaz, and I have tankbustas instead of Burnas.

Ghaz is immune to instant death, the force weapon wont work on him, don't forget that.

I use a Biker Boss,KFF Mek, 8 Lootas,15 Tankbustas,10 Nob bikers,2 Boys units, some grots and 3 Wagons.

While i feel orks are definitely tier 2 (so are vanilla marines imho), most of your points about orks were completely off ...

a 10 man tac squad wont kill half of a 30 squad of boyz who assault them, at most theyll kill 3 statiustically, if you dont pass a 6+ save ...

26 boyz + pk nob swing back.

104 atks, 52 hits, 26 wounds, 4.x dead tac marines from just the boyz, nob swings kills 2-3.

So you win combat by 3-4.

The only really dangerous things are like double flamer assault marines with twin lc sarge and a chaplain in tow ... that will wipe out 30 boyz before you get to swing if they get good flames and the charge.

I'm going to say you should read some of dash's battle reports, as your problems seem to stem from generalship, and not the list.

edit: just saw the most recent list you had posted, get rid of nob bikers and use battlewagon nobz instead. Nob bikers are terrible vs a competent player, they fold like limp noodles. Back when the ork dex was new and everyone was terrified of them they were good, then everyone remembered they have a lot of s8+ fire that does wonders for thinning out those annoying dudes.

Yeah, but how much damage can you really cause when they turbo boosted for 3+ cover, and have a T5 Warboss taking some of the hits, negating instant death to some extent. Its easy to say that you can kill Nob Bikers when you have lots of Str8, until you realize you probably don't have enough str8 weapons to do it in one turn, and then the rest of the army hits you untouched because you wasted all you anti tank weapons killing the Bikers. They are a great distraction unit, and can still survive long enough to cause some damage.

I hear people say not to use Nob bikers because "everyone knows how to counter them" but the counter is always to blast the hell out of them, which isn't really a hard couner to any particular unit IMO, its just a method of killing anything, and the bikers can survive it better than most things.

Well, if the ork player is using nob bikers, theyre at least 25-40% of his entire armies cost if equipped and large in number.

Therefore theyre almost certainly going to be a priority target, so all of my heavy weapons are going to burn them.

So theyre eating 2-6 str10 large blasts a turn, 2 str 8 large blasts and however many tl lascannons i feel like shooting at them, so yea, theyre dead in 1 turn, 2 if they pass every single cover save.

As for them being better able to survive the being blasted to hell and back ... not really, theyll get their 4+ cover save, 3+ if TB and then die messily, the warboss can take a str10 hit from the manticores and be ID'd if he wants sure.

But back on the main point i was making which is nob bikers vs nobz in a battlewagon, if you think that a 3+ cover save and then dying instantly is better than not being able to be shot .... >.>

sounds to me you aren't using your furious charge. +1 initiative means you go at the same time as SM. they also get +1 str from that also

If I may throw my hat into the ring:

I play a Kult of Speed army and have found it to be a very effective force. It's essentially built around two units of Nobs in Batllewagons, backed up with Boyz in trukks. Now, despite it's lack of numbers, it has the massive advantage over most opponents of being ridiculously fast, which means that generally I get to pick and choose where to hit an opponent's force.
As a result of this, it has only lost 2 out of the ten games I have played with it, one to a Blood Angels force that was as fast as I was, and the other to a mechanised Death Guard army.
Themes are what work with orks, far more perhaps than any other army. A themed ork army, when played right, is unstoppable.
This is, of course, 'cause I read you liked Battlewagons.

Smarteye wrote:sounds to me you aren't using your furious charge. +1 initiative means you go at the same time as SM. they also get +1 str from that also

Orks are I2 base. marines always go first.


if you charge 10 marines they will get 12 attacks before you. 3 will likely be from a power weapon, unless there is a PF which is good news for you as it will go after your boyz.

of those 12 attacks, 6 will likely hit and 3 wounds that is likely 3 dead boyz.

19 slugga boyz with a PK nob will have 57 attacks and 3 PK attacks. 28 normal attacks hit, 14 wound, marine player should fail 4 armor saves. PK will likely kill 1 more marine. you have won by 2 and marines are testing on Ld7.

10 marines will take alot of orks with them(especially if they got to shoot you up), but will die when you reach CC unless you only have 12 or so orks left or they rob you of the charge. DON"T LET THEM STEAL THE CHARGE. if they do you are screwed as they will kill 6 orks on average and you will kill even less marines then average.

Nob Bikers or Battlewagons will run over those Plague Marines without much trouble.

Regular boyz bounce off Plague Marines.

I think it's important to note in the mathhammer discussions that frequently not all boyz in a squad get in there on the charge. Unless they're coming out of a battlewagon, 20-30 boyz are usually too loosely grouped due to templates for all of them to get in there.

That being said, 20 boyz will take down 10 tacs no problem.

I think honestly your problem is you took no boyz. At 6 points per, the basic boy is an incredible unit, and passing him over for a few gakky nob bikers that all die to termies anyway seems insane.

OK, haven't managed to read the whole thread (though Dashofpepper's posting is excellent).

Marine players hate orks. Befriend a marine player, and swap armies for a game. You'll very quickly work out what they hate.

Your small tactical squad has to take out 30 fearless(ish) T4 boyz. If the boyz close, then each one gets 4 attacks on the charge. With tactical marines getting one attack each, they aren't going to whittle down the numbers enough to survive.

Your LR may have to be glanced to death, but you can only do so much damage at once, and you don't want to get close to a PK.

Once you do that, you'll know how to frighten a SM player.

The one thing not to do with orks (and others have said it) is to try and do an all-rounder army. Others do it better, and marines do it best. Going all rounder against marines is like the tau trying to go CC against 'nids.

Let us know how you get on.

As others have said going with a theme works best. Orks love theme..fluff wise I mean and it works just as well in there codex which is odd since most other codexs fall apart when you try to stick with a theme.

One very important thing is that you need to have a strong core of boyz. The 6 point boy is the back bone for ork armies. Alot of people will say boyz before toyz and its very true. If you wanna go mech great but have a strong core of boyz in trukks before you take anything else. If you wanna go with a footslogger or green tied type list then a few big soild boyz squads are a must as well.

Orks are prectically the only army that does VERY good when you build it like GW intended.

most marine builds GW shows you or when they tell you how to use your units is utter garbage. newbs listen to them and buy units that look cool, but don't work together.


Orks work exactly like GW tells you. Boyz before Toys is 100% true. Play to a theme with orks and you will win almost all your games with possable exceptions for players who know how orks work.

Robbing ork of the charge is the best way to stop them. 60 Str3 attacks at I2 are alot less scary then 80 Str4 at I3. Get the charge and let your mass of attacks take you through.

Pretty much everything to be said about Orks Vs MEQ has been said here. The only thing I can really add is get used to the difference in casualties between Orks and SM.

My MEQ friends are horrified at times by the sheer number of boyz I will throw away in a turn and are often surprised that despite the massive losses I still manage to force a draw at the least. Another poster, albeit more whiny and ruder asked why Orks should be sold in the first place because of the losses we take. My answer is in my sig.

I haven't read though DoP's stuff, but I'm sure it's all good.
I'm just here to say that I play Orks and I thoroughly enjoy getting matched up against Marines/Necrons because it's usually an easy win.

The twos things that can really screw a big mob of boyz are Space Wolves and their Counter-Charge rule, and a meaty Chaplain/Assault Terminator combination multi-charging you and causing massive numbers of No Retreat wounds.

Just about everything else can be soaked up.