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hi all who plays warhammer fantasy.

i played warhammer 40k in a long time (around 2 years) and i begin to get interest in warhammer fantasy, so now im started with orcs (converted some leftover miniatures/mmodels i dont use from 40k to fantasy orcs).

right now i have:

a black orc warboss (made from an AOBR warboss)

2 black orc big bosses (1 made from a nob from AOBR and 1 from boyz bits with boyz nob torso)

1 orc shaman/great shaman (made from a weirdboy)

5 orc boyz and 1 boss (made from leftover boyz)

2 spear chukkas with 4 grots (spear chukkas made from sprues and found some grots in my bitz box)

i want to hear you guys what units i should get and what to field so i know what to get when i have some money for it.

I have two units of 30 night goblins with spears, shields, full command and nets with 3 night goblin fanatics in each. with a unit of 2 snotling basses in front of each for some cover. I use them to watch the flanks of my unit of 20 black orcs with FC. I suggest putting the black orc warboss on a chariot.D6+1 impact hits are nice.

Your gonna need blocks of night goblins and orcs. skip on common goblins and big uns. goblin light cav can be very useful

on specials, you have a good amount of warmachines. black orcs are ok but a bit overpriced. only boars worth taking are savage. chariots bring all sorts of fun. squigs are interesting, they are your only source of non swarm skirmishers.

rares are kinda meh. giant is a giant. pump wagon is alright for a flanker. only worhtwhile thing is the goblin doom diver as an extra warmachine

character wise, black orc warboss is almost a must for orc lords. black orc BSB is also good since he can actually have normal weapons (pair him up with dispel dice banner) savage orc characters are ok I suppose. only take common goblin characters. that 1 extra I is not good compared to the 1 extra ld. prefer the little waaagh magic but big waaagh is decent. good amount of magic stuff. for example martogs best basha is a well balanced weapon while something like one hit wunda is hilarious to mix up. plus with the new common list, you can equip heavy armor and etc.

Actually, Big 'Uns are of some use. You need to slap a BOrc with them, but I find them a somewhat cheaper alternative to a BOrc brick for the Spirit Totem. They can be represented with regular Orcs, however, so they don't really need any special representation. I tend to use them as a hero- / lord-complimented hammer as well, since the plethora of S5 attacks (you can easily get 20+ from a six wide front with no magical equipment) can often provide more than enough active combat resolution.

I'll agree on the war machine bit. Two-to-four Bolt Throwers, 0-2 Stone Throwers, and 0-2 Doom Divers are often sufficient for standard gaming purposes barring tooled lists (ex: 3K Gunline w/ 12 BT's, 6 ST's, and 4 DD's). You technically can consider BTs covered, so the other war machines are open to you.

Rare, as kenshin said, is meh. Giant works best for fun and drawing stupidly high amounts of firepower: It tends not to do much otherwise unless used as support. Pump Wagon can do well guarding flanks and the back of your army, but that's about it. Too slow to run along the sides in later turns, too frail to reliably draw fire, and so on. Trolls are hit-or-miss: Four or five can handily say "Feth off" to someone's cavalry, especially if near your general & BSB, but against most RnF they only have the purpose of taking a 120pt Fanatic Delivery System (Park Trolls so their front is about 6" away from the front of your Goblins, let enemy charge at Trolls, deploy Fanatics through trolls in such a way that enemy is forced to land on said Fanatics when they line up against the trolls, enjoy 2D6-6D6 S5 hits).

Characters, BOrc Lord as a general and BOrc Big Boss as a BSB are both pretty much standard / mandatory. I don't give him the Spirit Totem, because it's normally on a brick and that 5+ / 4+ Ward (whichever you feel like buying) is a life-saver for the guy.

Savage Orc characters work decently with the Magic Resistance items, especially when with Savage Orc units, as it's fun getting a 5+, 4+, or even 3+ ward against the enemy's magic against your bricks. More cost effective against magical sniping too.

I'd say Night Goblin characters have their function, actually. I tend to take my Lord as a situational brick, though (Shaga's backed up with a 1+ / 5+ save), so I'm often times able to use his Leadership on them anyways. For fringe Goblin units, yeah, use Common Goblins. Otherwise, use a Night Goblin as it's cheaper and better barring Leadership. They work best as Lords (Goblin characters), as the WS5, A4, and W3 are big boosts over the WS4 W2 A3 (unless you're taking a Brimstone Bauble delivery system).

Orc characters can often dish out about as much as a Hero against a brick as a Lord. Lords are more effective for hunting bigger stuff, or taking a beating, but Heroes are often more than sufficient (Heck, one of my favorite models is a 135pt BOrc with a Boar, Heavy Armor, and Bigged's Kickin' Boots so that he's a 3+ save with 4 WS6 S6 attacks: not shabby for a 'cheap' support character).

For standard troops, yeah, Night Goblins with Orc Boyz. Night Goblins should have Hand Weapons, Shields, Nets, full command (only 8pts for the odd super-character tie-er up-er), and two-to-three Fanatics. 6x6 Block is under 250pts, often needs to lose at least 13 models before it loses stead fast (if not 19+), in combat against S4 or lower enemies it's a 6+/6+ save (not amazing, but something for Gobbos), a fine Gobbo Character Holder, and so on.

Orc Boyz should either be Choppa and Shield (in which case it's a brick meant to tie the enemy up until your characters kill the enemy) or Choppa and Extra Choppa (which is a sort-of fighting unit, but much better with Big 'Uns). While it's arguable for Big 'uns if you should take a Champion (the only gain being +1A for 15pts), for standard Orc Boyz it's obvious: +1 WS, S, and A for that cost? Not shabby at all.

Besides Common Goblins and Snotlings, the other core choices aren't particularly bad. They're just situational and list dependent. Forest Goblins and Wolf Riders, at times, can handily clean up the flanks / guard the flanks while absorbing lots of the enemy's fire (having even just one turn of twelve Thunderers and an Organ Gun shooting something other than your general's brick is sometimes a game-winning sacrifice). Other times, they're just sitting there with their points down the drain.

Arrer Boyz aren't bad, and can fill the third roll of Orc Boyz (pseudo-shooty at cheap cost, so extra brick too), but unless you can get your hands on a lot of them for cheap they simply aren't practical to buy.

Savage Orcs are the same way. You can get some good bang for your buck out of them in many situations: Make them Big 'Uns, and while almost as much as BOrcs you're looking at a lot of possible active combat resolution. As mentioned earlier, you can also get the most bang for your buck out of them with Magic Resistance too (MR2 character in SOrc unit = 4+ Ward against most offensive magic). The catch being, money and point wise, expect to get robbed. Thirty of them will make a horrendous dent in your wallet, and if you're taking them you probably won't have much in the way of other specialist blocks now.

Minsc wrote:
Arrer Boyz aren't bad, and can fill the third roll of Orc Boyz (pseudo-shooty at cheap cost, so extra brick too), but unless you can get your hands on a lot of them for cheap they simply aren't practical to buy.

Forgot about those guys. They're decent I admit, wouldnt mind fielding a few. really all you need is to attach some extra bows on a normal model. I have PLENTY of extra bows left over from my many purchases from wargames factory

For your larger units take some orc boyz with additional choppa's. Savage orcs are nice as well for frenzy as they have 2 hand weapons as well and this gives the front rank 3 attacks per model, they also have a 6+ ward save for war paint. For the points price of Big'Uns you can almost get Black Orcs and I think looks and fluff wise the Black Orcs are just cooler and they perform well too as you can use a variety of weapon combos as you please and can be switched even during the game. My favorite unit is a horded unit of goblins with shortbows 10x5 with a BSB that has the spider banner. This gives you 35 poisoned volley shots, 20 'stand and shoot' poisoned shots and 30 CC poisoned attacks. Pretty decent little unit. These units are a good start to the backbone of your army. I'd say get this stuff first then worry about war machines, chariots, ect.

thanks for all the great tips guys! i think im gonna try makeing a list and show it here for you to judge if you like.

btw. if you want to see some pics of my orcs i currently have, just say it and i will post it here.

kenshin620 wrote:Forgot about those guys. They're decent I admit, wouldnt mind fielding a few. really all you need is to attach some extra bows on a normal model. I have PLENTY of extra bows left over from my many purchases from wargames factory

Yeah, if you can convert them I say you might as well go for a few: I run a brick 36 big, full command, and it only puts me back a little shy of 250pts. It's just as durable as Additional Choppa boyz, but slightly cheaper. Less attacks, but their Champion + attached characters can usually do enough to whittle down enemy RnF that charge and it's still 11 S4 + 2 S5 attacks (base) on the first round of combat - not bad at all for a shooting unit.

Exodus2013 wrote:For the points price of Big'Uns you can almost get Black Orcs and I think looks and fluff wise the Black Orcs are just cooler and they perform well too as you can use a variety of weapon combos as you please and can be switched even during the game.

Personally I'm more fond of the Big 'uns, as they take up core as well as having just as many WS4 S5 attacks the first round as BOrcs can put out. Then again, my play-style often works around having big bricks with numbers to spare, and if you're trying to avoid casualties and win combat through CR instead of grinding the enemy to dust as you pass Steadfast after Steadfast, BOrcs can be better.

There's probably a lot of old Orc & Goblins players that got the 5th or 6th edition starter (can't remember which) that contained a bunch of 2 choppa orcs and orc arrer boyz. I have 50 from that era. Plastic, single pose, and difficult to geometrically fit it ranks deeper than 3, but you can probably get them for a lot less than the metals.

Incidentally, let me put my support in for these Arrer Boyz. I've used them in small units of 12 or so that can move, fire with everyone, and charge for choppa attacks (and break ranks). I've also used them in big bricks where a turn or two of volley fire has been useful in conjunction with their non-trivial CC abilities.

I take both Big'Uns and Borcs. One will usually be small, one large with Mork's Spirit Totem. I think which is which just depends on personal preference. I think a small unit (15 or so) of either one with the Banner of Eternal Flame is a pretty useful cheap hammer/regenerating monster counter.

Obviously the first thing to do is get a sizable unit of Orcs. I would suggest cobbling together at least a few of the 5th ed boyz, a regiment box of current orc warriors and a few sprues of Black Reach Orks from bitz barn. That way you'll get lots of head and body options, plenty of extra weapons and a much more varied unit unit than most. You'll also have about 30 orcs which is the best sized unit to have

Then I'd get a chariot and then some trolls. That's two tidy support units for your big block of boyz.

Then i'd play a couple of small games with what you have and then work out what you're missing.

I would say you should include at least one doom diver they are really accurate now. For orc equip them with either additional choppas or shields. Snotlings don't have much use other than having a unit that you can put your shaman in and not worry about animosity. BOrcs are good but don't put them against other armies elites unsupported the won't win.

What is optimal size for block of the ork boys?

Spellscape wrote:What is optimal size for block of the ork boys?

I kinda like 6x5 myself. it varies though depending on what you want