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Well I will start with sharing my experience playing it is in 8th.

The first mistake I made was going too heavy into the assault part of the army. My first lists focused on units that were good in the assault and I took minimal shooting. The plan was to run up and smash my opponent first or second turn.

I don't think this works, or I couldn't get it to work.

So now I take units that shoot well, and I do still being two or three units that are good in the assault, but mostly you have to shoot your opponent and really soften them up, then finish them off by charging in.

So the battleplan now looks more like this,

Turn 1- Use shooting to take out enemy units that are too good to allow them to stay in the table. Small arms fire goes to work on chaff. Position scoring units.

Turn 2- Distraction unit tellyports in if there is a while in the line to get to key targets. If not then repeat turn 1. Adjust scoring units.

Turn 3- Tellyport in or use da jump to get things into assault. Assault with units designed to do so. Nice scoring units as needed.

Turn 4- Make sure grots are in optimal scoring positions, or can get where they need to by the next turn. (These are the one or two remaining grot units that were kept in hiding and not used to grot shield) Continue to shoot and assault.

Turn 5- Focus on scoring and holding objectives. Mop up.


Other more experienced players please chime in.

i always find it difficult to describe how to properly build an ork list. The main rule i follow lately is simply "no random inclusions" - in other words i will NOT bring a vehicle at all unless its my main focus and i end up with 6+ vehicles. I see a lot of ork players do that around my area and it bothers me... "battlewagons are so crap they just die turn1 and you dont get to do anything" ...yeah...when its the only vehicle you have its going to die...try running 2 + a mork for the KFF + a trukk or two + a wazbom flying around. Guarantee one will die quick, rest will probably be fine.

landy wrote:
Waagh everyone.
I've scrupulously crawled through whole 8th edition discussion with all these "SSAG or not" and "BMoons vs Freebootaz", but I haven't found the answer for main beginner's question - "how do you play orks?".
I'm a beginner and in a desperate need for this answer since my games statistic shows that I can beat only some other necron newb. Can someone pay attention and write a short post about general orks army building and tactics?
(or at least send me to exact page of this thread)

Like the guys before me said, how to play orks is a complicated question, so let's narrow it down.
Do you have certain kind of army in mind?
What do you expect from playing your ork army?
Are there any models you want to play or some you want to avoid at all costs?
How do you feel about moving (and painting!) horde units?
What kind of games are you going to play (tournaments, regular store/club games, beer&prezel)?
If you already have models, provide a list - then we can arrange them into a better working army and/or tell you what to get next.

In general, there are a couple of things you need to know:
First and foremost, orks are not a pure melee army. In fact, we have way more shooting units than melee units. We are jacks of all trades, more similar to space marines than to khorne daemons. Shooting elements are absolutely necessary to make orks work.
Second, orks do not work like most other 40k armies. Don't listen to eldar, imperial or chaos players giving you advice, they are used to different kinds of tactics than are needed for orks to work.
Third, orks are a pretty unforgiving army. Like Vineheart said, pushing a bunch of units into a pile is not going to work and result in some pretty devastating games. Prepare to lose a lot an by a lot in your first games, even if you are experienced with another army. One of the best players in the world switched to orks and dropped from placing first in tournaments to below 10 for multiple events.

Maybe give this thread a read, the OP there had a similar problem:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/776513.page

 Jidmah wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Higher, yes, by a flippin' fraction lol.

Well about a wound vs knight.

Not enough to make his statement wrong about picking the culture for your army, not your SSAG. A lucky shieldbreaker missile turn 1 can make that wound "nothing".

Yes luck whatever can do big things. Lucky mob of grots can one shot that castellan. Point being? Players shouldn't think about luck but averages. Unless you want to lose of course

tneva82 wrote:
Players shouldn't think about luck but averages. Unless you want to lose of course

On average, no single ork will ever hit anything. Might want to rethink your stance on averages.

..and do the math on the shieldbreaker thing. Unless you want to lose, of course.

Any you know, not act like a donkeycave for once in your life.

Orks are the one faction where average dice roll expectations usually get you into more trouble than help.
When you offset not being able to hit with just more attacks the actual result can skew so heavily both directions its laughable.
Ive had so many times with the SSAG where i missed EVERY attack out of a 10die attack, then a turn or two later only have 2-3 shots but end up with 2x DDDs for 5 hits somehow.

@Iandy I believe the way to go is to understand first what kind of play style you have, than build a list around it.
You can copy any good list from the first page or from Blood of The Kittens, but you have to adapt it to your idea of game. Play a list you like, not one that "always win". I never ran lootas this ed because do not suits how i play and i still have a 70% average wins so far.
If you wanna play competitive you have to use mathammer period. You need to know how does your unit perform ON AVERAGE against vehicle or marines or knight. Some people refuse to do that and than vomit on GW or #badluck because nothing works....
Than target saturation, board control and deployment are the fundamental of any game and any army. Even a 3 knight army. They saturate. With 3 Knights....
At last but not the least, PLAY THE SAME LIST!
It drives me insane when people change list every time they lose. It is a dice game. gak happens, play again and ask yourself always, what could I have done better? What mistakes did I make?
This game has so many levels that some of us has been playing for over 20 years...

Thanks for your support, gitz. Much appreciated.

"Still struggling with Orks in f8" is extremely useful, at least to dive into the basics. Just started, gotta finish it later. Anyways the hero of that thread swims in despair, and I have no idea for how long.

Well, casual orkish fun i get mostly from building and painting, so on the table I want to enjoy the game. And to win, at least sometimes.
Horde style (all these 150+ infantry models) doesn't attract me at all, but I'm not sure if it's possible to avoid some maxed boys units.

Regarding my collection. I have about 70 boyz (and +30 are waiting for paints and assembly), 30 grots, a magnetized plane (any profile you want), gmorkonaut (magnets again), wagon, trukk, couple of deffdreads, couple of weirdboys, Ghazgkull, defkill trike, pedestrian warboss and his biker colleague, sag mek, index mek and armored mek (to make it quads I need a skaven's doomwheel, but this conversion is postponed), bunch of burnas, bunch of meganobz, ten tankbustas, ten stormboyz, 15 lootas, painboy, some bikers, two mek gunz (gonna make more later), banner nob. Hope no one is forgotten.
There are also some models in bits and plastic (wannabe looted wagon-rhino, wannabe mekadread-armiger, shokkjump dragsta, killakans trio, alternative Badrukk).

I tend to play two batallions, boyz and grots. Auto-take a unit of 15 lootas, about 10 bikers, weirdboy and warboss. I haven't seen biker's glory times, but cant resist their mobility and dakkaguns. I'm also into dread waagh - ssag, grots, lootas and stuff.
Deffskulls seems to be good kultur, your average everyday perks, no extremes. Recently I tried full evil sunz, it was enjoyable, but unrefined roster eventually punished me. Now I'm going to try full freebutaz list, not sure if I should go 2000 pts for it.

Hope that I've answered any questions of yours

When in doubt, pick a unit type you like and shove as many of them as you can down the opponents throat, laughing all the while. Be it vehicles, walkers, infantry or fast units. All of our stuff is fairly squishy and fragile so target saturation is your best bet in most cases.

If you wanna do Freebooterz, you'll probably want to do the full 2k points. It would suck to destroy an enemy unit with the "wrong" unit and not proc the +1, or to miss out on the +1 because a unit isn't in the right Kultur. Freebooterz, unlike the other Kulturz, is really an "all or nothing" Kultur.

Traditionally, the axiom for Orc players is 'Chop the Shooty ones, Shoot the Choppy ones'. Think this still holds in 8th.

As for Kulture, a Freebooterz player needs to watch target priority more than most. Sometimes it's worth shooting a small unit, or finishing off an under-strength one, to get the +1 - but it's _really_ irritating when the Dice Gods rule your shooting to fail, and all that fire-power is wasted ;-)

Points-wise, remember the lower the points level, the more points (proportionately) you will have for toys. Your opponent will, typically, have to spend more on the minimums for 'Battle Forged' than you (proportionately) and thus have less points for toys.

My 1,000 pts list for Freebooterz is two Warboss, three ten man Grots, two ten man Flash Gitz and two Trukk. So far opponents have found the firepower and durability a problem.

I made this list (not played it yet):

2000 pts, all freebooterz.

Batallion
Big Mek - KMB, KFF, oiler
Warboss on bike - da killa klaw, kustom shoota
30 boyz, 30 boyz, 10 boyz
Banner nob
Painboy - warboss, killa reputation
10 Warbikers
Wazbom blastajet (smasha, flinga, megakannon)

Dread waagh batallion
SSAG big mek with oiler
Weirdboy - da jump
10 grots x3
Gorkanaut
15 lootas

The idea is to use warbikers, jet or gorkanaut to daisy chain kultur while troops slog to crump some gits. KFF and painboy provide some durability to boyz. T1 charges come from warboss or weirdboy, maybe even ramming speed naut, depends on situation.
The only thing I am not sure now is to tellyport naut or not. I've read Nanavati's article about tactical saturation, he says that not deepstriking it gonna ease opponent shooting (since he has a target for 'eavy weapon), but my mind simply refuses to skip one turn of shooting.

landy wrote:
Thanks for your support, gitz. Much appreciated.

"Still struggling with Orks in f8" is extremely useful, at least to dive into the basics. Just started, gotta finish it later. Anyways the hero of that thread swims in despair, and I have no idea for how long.

Well, casual orkish fun i get mostly from building and painting, so on the table I want to enjoy the game. And to win, at least sometimes.
Horde style (all these 150+ infantry models) doesn't attract me at all, but I'm not sure if it's possible to avoid some maxed boys units.

Well, you boyz are either 30 or useless, and you'll need to have at least some of those in any army. The good news is that many people are having great success with running just two mobs of 30, with them sitting in the backfield, waiting for their turn to jet gumped to the front.

Regarding my collection. I have about 70 boyz (and +30 are waiting for paints and assembly), 30 grots, a magnetized plane (any profile you want), gmorkonaut (magnets again), wagon, trukk, couple of deffdreads, couple of weirdboys, Ghazgkull, defkill trike, pedestrian warboss and his biker colleague, sag mek, index mek and armored mek (to make it quads I need a skaven's doomwheel, but this conversion is postponed), bunch of burnas, bunch of meganobz, ten tankbustas, ten stormboyz, 15 lootas, painboy, some bikers, two mek gunz (gonna make more later), banner nob. Hope no one is forgotten.
There are also some models in bits and plastic (wannabe looted wagon-rhino, wannabe mekadread-armiger, shokkjump dragsta, killakans trio, alternative Badrukk).

I tend to play two batallions, boyz and grots. Auto-take a unit of 15 lootas, about 10 bikers, weirdboy and warboss. I haven't seen biker's glory times, but cant resist their mobility and dakkaguns. I'm also into dread waagh - ssag, grots, lootas and stuff.
Deffskulls seems to be good kultur, your average everyday perks, no extremes. Recently I tried full evil sunz, it was enjoyable, but unrefined roster eventually punished me. Now I'm going to try full freebutaz list, not sure if I should go 2000 pts for it.

Hope that I've answered any questions of yours

That's looking like a great collection already, you should be able to build a semi-decent "shooty orks list" out of that.

First things first, a battalion with 3x 10 gretchin and 2x weirdboyz should always be part of your army to generate 5 CP. Orks have the best stratagems in the game, more CP mean you army will be doing better.

Second would be your warlord: The SSAG. Walkers or not, use your SAG mek and make his detachment a Dread Waaagh! for 1 CP to gain access to the relic SAG and his very own "shoot twice" stratagem. Give him the Big Killa Boss trait so he can reliable damage vehicle and monsters. Deploy him in a place with good view and try to target big things. With decent rolls the target might be gone after you are done shooting twice.

The second battalion would have to bring 90 boyz (3x 30) until you get more gretchin. Boyz are unlikely to cross the field in one piece, so put one of the mobs into the tellyporta and have it arrive together with one of the others thrown forwards by Da Jump. 60 Boyz appearing in their face is much more likely to do something than just moving them across the field, getting rapid-fired by everyone and their dog before they get to charge.
The second HQ can be either a biker warboss with the killa klaw relic or a KKF mek. If you are going for the warboss, don't run him head-first into the enemy, but wait for a chance to catch a juicy target (preferably a vehicle, monster or expensive HQ) and crush it. Remember the Orks is never beaten stratagem should he be killed in close combat.

Add your lootas and if your plane can build into a wazzbom, use that with a KFF and two mek guns as smashas, or you make it a dakkajet and add two kustom-mega cannons. Smashas are more efficient, but kustom mega kannons might be better in your case as you only have two guns ready.
Lootas should be deployed with gretchin close enough to use the grot shield stratagem. When shooting them, use the Moar Dakka stratagem and re-roll the number of shots if you get a . If they are bad moon lootas, make sure to shoot them twice as long as there are enough of them left.
Make sure to utilize all that shooting to take out things that are good at killing ork boyz so they can rampage through your opponent's army without great resistance. If you add more vehicles, prioritize the anti-tank first.

You know have a solid core for a 1500 point army.

If you want to grow up to 2000, there are multiple things you can do:
- Your gorkanaut can go into the tellyporta and drop on your opponent's head, using the ramming speed stratagem to make sure it gets there. Just like boyz, just deploying within 9" will make him much more likely to kill something than having to walk through anti-tank fire. In case your SSAG is in the same detachment and doesn't need the shoot twice (because it's dead, for example), you can also use it on the naut. You can do the same with a morkanaut, but you already got plenty shooting and the gorkanaut has a great anti-infantry gun to clear screens and better melee.
- Instead (or, in addition to) the gorkanaut you can put two deff dreads into the tellyporta. Important advice on using them is to not drop them as soon as possible, but only if you see an opening where they can either catch your opponent off guard or score VP. Most shooting options on these are wasted unless we are talking about deff skulls kmb. For a full melee load-out equip them with 1 saw and 3 klaws and use the saw for the two basic attacks.
- I have no experience with it, but the mekadread can possibly used in a similar way.
- 3-5 MANz can also - you guessed it - be put into the tellyporta. Unlike the walkers, their job is not to hulk-smash something into oblivion, but to move onto an objective in cover, beat their defenders to death and stay there. Killing units is just a means to an end, the mission is decided by who has the most VP.

Most of the other stuff doesn't really add up to a coherent list (wartrike, one buggy, bikers, 10 tankbustas, Ghaz), or isn't great right now (kanz, burnas, mega mek).

As for cultures, it really depends.
- If you are moving towards tellyporting a bunch of walkers/manz/boyz in, you should go for evil suns. The extra inch to your assault move does wonders for the chance to succeed.
- Deff skulls are great for the wazzbomb blastajet and the SSAG mek, and most of your units benefit from it some way. Note that deff skulls want PK for their nob bosses as the outperform big choppas. Don't forget the wreckers stratagem if you need something gone.
- Bad moons are awesome for pretty much any shooting unit, especially lootas. Their shoot twice stratagem is nothing less than awesome.

Of course, you can mix and match by moving units from one detachment to another. Just be careful as your gretchin need to have the same kulture as your lootaz, you can't protect units from a different kulture. In addition, if the SSAG is not in the same detachment as your other walkers, they cannot be targeted Dread Waaagh! stratagem - a small price to pay for more reliable charges.

 Jidmah wrote:

- Bad moons are awesome for pretty much any shooting unit, especially lootas. Their shoot twice stratagem is nothing less than awesome.

My personal experience says that rerolling 1 for shooting is pretty useless. I just roll some crap 2-3 and dont benefit from kultur at all. "Shoot twice" is fine, but already covered by dread waagh.
I think I should rework my roster a bit using your advices, I'll show it up later. Thank you again.

landy wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

- Bad moons are awesome for pretty much any shooting unit, especially lootas. Their shoot twice stratagem is nothing less than awesome.

My personal experience says that rerolling 1 for shooting is pretty useless. I just roll some crap 2-3 and dont benefit from kultur at all. "Shoot twice" is fine, but already covered by dread waagh.
I think I should rework my roster a bit using your advices, I'll show it up later. Thank you again.

Math behind it is basically that you get roundabout 17% more hits out of any unit. Of course, on a unit which doesn't hit that often, this has little visible effect, but when you are shooting a dakkajet, gorkanaut's mega-shoota, a unit of shootaboyz or lootaz, this effect is much more visible.
Note that the shoot twice from the dread waagh cannot be used on lootaz, only on big meks and walkers. In addition, you can use both in one turn, shooting both your lootaz and your SSAG twice.

In any case, you seem to have made up your mind to use freebootas anyways, so go for it! That culture works well with pretty much everything you would want to field, you just need to make sure you always trigger it with units than benefit less from it and hold back shooting with your lootaz, planes and SAG until the trait is activated. Alternative, jump your plane next to a character and blow it up, easiest way to trigger the trait.

Don't forget it also works for the fight phase - have your warboss mob up an infantry unit or character and then go to town with a naut or boyz unit.

Don't every use the stratagem though - it's hardly worth 1 CP, let alone 3.

Just wondering Should we start working up a thread for Apocalypse Orks tactics? The gameplay hasn't quite leaked enough yet but with the Change to Strength against Personnel and Strength against tanks, there could be implications for our mech lists.

The Ork tactics revealed today too claiming that killa kans were getting a buff based on this change. I had thought of this idea Since units wound them the same as they heavier vehicles. They might finally make it out of my case.

mhalko1 wrote:
Just wondering Should we start working up a thread for Apocalypse Orks tactics? The gameplay hasn't quite leaked enough yet but with the Change to Strength against Personnel and Strength against tanks, there could be implications for our mech lists.

The Ork tactics revealed today too claiming that killa kans were getting a buff based on this change. I had thought of this idea Since units wound them the same as they heavier vehicles. They might finally make it out of my case.

related to this
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/06/19/apocalypse-faction-focus-orksgw-homepage-post-4/

Might be a very stupid question buuuuut ... what do you do with your Da Jump weirdboyz once they have cast their spell turn one? I run a rush list, and they usually then sit at the back not doing much, hanging out with grots. Am I having the wrong end of the stick here?

In several games I have da jumped the grots last turn for a line breaker point.
Or pushed the weirdboyz forward for a bit of ol' smitey.

 JeffVimes wrote:
Might be a very stupid question buuuuut ... what do you do with your Da Jump weirdboyz once they have cast their spell turn one? I run a rush list, and they usually then sit at the back not doing much, hanging out with grots. Am I having the wrong end of the stick here?

They should be pushing forward to smite realistically. Or they can cap backfield objectives using character keyword to hide. or they can da jump other squads turn 2+

Weirdboyz can dajump themselves, its not "another unit" its "a unit"

Often i'll dajump myself once theres no boyz around and just drop behind something that either wants Warpath/Fists (depending on which one i took) or just near something i wanna smite.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Weirdboyz can dajump themselves, its not "another unit" its "a unit"

Often i'll dajump myself once theres no boyz around and just drop behind something that either wants Warpath/Fists (depending on which one i took) or just near something i wanna smite.

Another unit means after the first unit. If he another boys unit has rolled low for advancing he can da jump those. But yes he can da jump himself but I wouldn't do that until it's the last option.

that was kinda the point.
Once hes jumped the boyz around him unless someone is still near him to utilize other spells he took (if any) or something close enough to smite, might as well jump himself.
It actually won me my last game since i saw a spot i could eek behind his warlord. Jumped, closest model was a character, smite. Nuked my brains because i boxcar'd but in that scenario i actually wanted that as i 1shotted his warlord with the D6 smite lol

Ok, that's clearer. Didn't actually realised he could TP himself, which would have been quite interesting in certain situation.

Thanks guys!

mhalko1 wrote:
Just wondering Should we start working up a thread for Apocalypse Orks tactics? The gameplay hasn't quite leaked enough yet but with the Change to Strength against Personnel and Strength against tanks, there could be implications for our mech lists.

The Ork tactics revealed today too claiming that killa kans were getting a buff based on this change. I had thought of this idea Since units wound them the same as they heavier vehicles. They might finally make it out of my case.

If you like to talk about the new Apocalypse game, please create a thread on the specialist game forum - in my opinion this game, while having lots of great ideas, is no more related to Warhammer40k than KillTeam.

I've been out of the hobby for a while, six months to a year, I wanted to get an idea from everyone what rules content I'll need to play again in a couple weeks. I have a few things already;

-40k rule book
-Errata for 40k rule book
-Chapter Approved from 2019
-Ork Codex
-Ork Codex FAQ

I'd like to get my hands on everything, what else is needed?

Things I need;
-Imperial Nihilus:Vigilance Defiant

I appreciate the help!

EDIT, Aw man, can only Mob Up Boyz now?

That looks like everything, unless you wanna take some Forgeworld stuff. There's a few decent Ork units in there.

I had a ridiculous game yesterday evening. I brought out Evil Sunz with a dreadwaaagh detachment. It was mostly boyz, a loota unit (15 strong) some grot screens and a battery of 6 Smasha Gunz, some other odds and ends to fill out 3 battalions and of course my Vaunted Big Mek with SSAG relic. My opponent brought out the big guns and was playing an IG army with Knight support. I somehow got turn 1 and basically ended the game in my Psychic and shooting phase.

Da Jumped a unit of 30 Boyz into range of not only his Infantry but his 2 Tank Commanders as well (10' charge), these are Evil Sunz boyz as well so 8' charge. In the shooting phase with my big mek i rolled 9 for strength and then i rolled an 11 for # of shots!, my Warboss Big Mek also had the +1 to wound Warlord trait. So 11 shots and i got.....9 hits I had 6 initial hits and 3 rerolls which all hit. 9 hits turned into 8 wounds and he only had his 4+ Invuln save which saved 2. So what did I roll for Dmg? 3 6s a 5 and a pair of 3s. In the assault phase the mob of boyz managed to tie up both tank commanders and two infantry squads and at that point my opponent said GG.

I've never one shot a knight before so this was incredible. To make up for how well it did that game, the next game we played ended with him only managing 4 dmg the entire game against a Tank Commander. Eitherway, i'll remember that game for awhile. Not as epic as the time I rolled box cars on an Eldar Wraithknight but still pretty good

That, boyz and gitz, is the epitome of ork shooting luck going to the extreme.
It happens, statistically it doesnt happen very often but its so ridiculous we remember it forever lol

 Vineheart01 wrote:
That, boyz and gitz, is the epitome of ork shooting luck going to the extreme.
It happens, statistically it doesnt happen very often but its so ridiculous we remember it forever lol

and to add an extra point. It also relied on some very bad rolls on the knights part. 2/8 saves on a 4++ is pretty poor.