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I'm a newer member to Dakka Dakka, but before I joined I had always had the same pesky question that I constantly put into the back of my head because it scares me, and I've gotten the sense it scares the lot of you as well.

The question: How do you, as an ork player, handle units that are actually good/amazing in assault? For a while I've been able to go around ignorant to the answer to this question, but lately I've had to put up with Grey Nights and Khorn Beserkers among a list of units that just chew me up. I've attempted beefing up on dakka, but in the end, when you're rolling the dice the BS is still that of an ork; and a tactful opponent can make a waste of your shots. I've considered Meganobz, but their points cost (and money cost) are pretty much the opposite of what orks stand for. Are my views on something incorrect and need to be changed, or is there just something I need to learn that I've been to busy hording it up to figure out.

help

A squad of ten boyz does dish out alot of attack dice, but they hit last against nearly everything. Make sure you are taking 20+ boyz, so after the beating you can show em up real proppa.

As stompy as the boyz are at assault, Nobz are the true dedicated assault unit of the Ork codex, and with a Waaagh! banner and Painboy they are dead killy. Better make sure they get the assault if you're fighting MEQs primarily, since Furious Charge lets them swing at the same time as space marines. of course, if that doesn't work, you can always use moar boyz.

Always get the charge. Always. Because orks are pretty good when assaulted into. Orks are deadly when they assault. Learn to judge your distances well, and time your waaghs well. As a marine player who plays against mostly orks, I learned that the best I can do in assault is not let my opponent assault into me.

i play against one of my friends a lot who plays blood angels and his bad-a unit is that asterath guy with the assualt squad. a squad of 20-30 boyz with choppas and power claw nob will eff him and his whole squad up once they get locked in combat. too many boyz. yeah 20 boys will die probably but hey thats a point win and youll automatically win your morale test if things go way bad.

I do not know about greyknights.

But hammer terminators in vanilla marines you have 1 hammer marine for 40 points. Get a squad of 5 for 200. For that you get over 30 orks. If 30 orks charge the terminators they need to save vs 90(?) attacks, witch is quite bad. In theory they only need to force 30 saves. On average (if no power claws, no shooting etc) they kill 3,75 terminators, terminators max kill 12 back, and then the orks kill the terminators next round and then you charge on.

Against bloodletters it is harder since they have better WS and high inisiative, but in the end 16 points for a power weapon is to mutch vs orks. In fact, bloodletters are better vs marines then orks.

In fact a green tide list is a dificult oponent. In that list your are loking at 4/6 groups of 30 orks with upgrades. Good luck killing that.

yeah 20 boys will die probably but hey thats a point win and youll automatically win your morale test if things go way bad.

But that's the weakness of them.

Orks have crap armor saves so the Fearless losing saves bring them down.

Remember that not all assault units are great at assaulting the same things. Hammernators will make mincemeat out of your Meganobz, but regular Slugga Boyz will at the very least bog them down for several turns, and if you get the charge, will rarely fail to sort them out in short order. Units with a lot of attacks (striking scorpions, etc.) are best handled with Nobz, who have tolerable damage resistance and multiple wounds. Anything that relies purely on massive numbers of attacks will hate you for throwing a few Meganobz at them, but these units tend to be cheap, so a few will do just fine, given the multiple wounds and 2+ armour save. Power Klaw-armed Nobz in your units will be pricy, but generally will go a long way towards insuring that you always have the right weapon on hand for dealing with the threat.

Land Raiders are, of course, the exception.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
BTW, enemies will great armor but relatively low S will fall pretty easily to Kans and Dreads even more than Meganobz. Your 'Ard Stuff should be AT, obviously, but they pack some serious heat in melee as well--4 DCCWs is nothing to sneeze at.

3 rules of Playing with Orks.

1: Get the charge

2: follow rule one

3: More boyz



Time your Waaagh.

on a standard long table edge deployment, and assuming you deploy as far forward as you can. you should be able to assault, assissted by Waaagh, by turn 3, 2 if your opponent doesn't move backwards.

practice judging distances. try guessing the distance between 2 objects, measure and compare. you can get quite good.

Grey Templar wrote:3 rules of Playing with Orks.

1: Get the charge

2: follow rule one

3: More boyz



Time your Waaagh.

on a standard long table edge deployment, and assuming you deploy as far forward as you can. you should be able to assault, assissted by Waaagh, by turn 3, 2 if your opponent doesn't move backwards.

practice judging distances. try guessing the distance between 2 objects, measure and compare. you can get quite good.

Pretty much everything he said, just more of it.
And remember when in doubt, Advance.

Use screnning units to absorb the charge of your enemy's best units. Set up counter charges to then go in and get the charge on them and wipe them.

Your best assault unit is either Nob Bikers or Nobs in a truck/battlewagon. Both hit like bag of hammers and both are fast enough to get the charge.

What does your list look like? Without that it is hard to give you advice that is really going to help you. You may have a list that is holding you back.

I'm not ruling out the posibility of my list being bad, but I'm pretty sure it's good. It's a classic kan wall, with more more more more boyz, and lootas. I also throw a squad or two of 2 deffkoptas in to fsu behind the enemy lines.

But after reading this, I think a good idea might be to throw some small squads of gretchin ringing around my boyz in the kan wall to tie up units for a brief period of time, then charge into them, it would also protect me from being out flanked ^_^. Or better yet, putting Nobz in the middle of my ork boy mobs in the kan wall, sort of like a gusher, you pop the inside and the rest comes at you. Although that would be rather pricey.

Grey Templar wrote:
3 rules of Playing with Orks.

1: Get the charge

2: follow rule one

3: More boyz



Time your Waaagh.

great simple advice, just as everyone know, it's harder than it sounds, but a skill worth taking. I liked the advice of practicing judging distances too, that could prove helpful.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
well heres the list I made to deal with assault armies
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/340542.page#2340159

Commented on your list.

Grots are good screens, but make sure they are small squads as they are likely to run away. Boys are good screens too, as they can be fearless and hit harder. Grots are very good objective holders, which is what you typically see them used as.

The key to Foot Orks is the WAGGH! Without it, you will almost never get the charge off against another assault army. The WAAGH! allows you to get that extra D6" reach which gives you an edge.

What you can try doing is running screening units of Grots to protect you from enemy assaulters and then when you get in range for a WAAGH! (remember, you can declare a WAAGH! after you roll the run dice, so you can wait to see how far you go before using it) and then charge.

Also, as I said about your list, ditch the meks with the lootas, total waste. I'd even consider splitting them into two units so they can shoot more vehicles per turn.

trash wrote:I'm a newer member to Dakka Dakka, but before I joined I had always had the same pesky question that I constantly put into the back of my head because it scares me, and I've gotten the sense it scares the lot of you as well.

The question: How do you, as an ork player, handle units that are actually good/amazing in assault? For a while I've been able to go around ignorant to the answer to this question, but lately I've had to put up with Grey Nights and Khorn Beserkers among a list of units that just chew me up. I've attempted beefing up on dakka, but in the end, when you're rolling the dice the BS is still that of an ork; and a tactful opponent can make a waste of your shots. I've considered Meganobz, but their points cost (and money cost) are pretty much the opposite of what orks stand for. Are my views on something incorrect and need to be changed, or is there just something I need to learn that I've been to busy hording it up to figure out.

help

What are you using against these assault armies? What is your current normal configuration?

I definitely agree on splitting your Lootas into 2 smaller units. Remember its the same number of lootas on the table, so if you HAVE to shoot the 2nd mob at the same transport its ok. BUT chances are decent that you can pop 2 transports a turn.
And yea, work on gauging distance, that can give you a HUGE advantage in a game, it sounds a bit whatever but it is true. Ive caught alot of players by surprise with a well placed WAAAAGH! My personal best was getting 4 units of boyz, a mob of nobs + warboss into assault on the same turn. Man when that was all over the table was suddenly less crowed, and very very green afterwards.

Also MANz are good, but they are very specific with what you throw them at. If it has alot of power weapons forget it they will be a waste of a turn and points for you. Keep in mind they are basically a suicide unit for Orks, Ive raped MC and troop squads with 4 MANz and a waboss. They are great for punching a whole in lines.

KingCracker wrote:I definitely agree on splitting your Lootas into 2 smaller units. Remember its the same number of lootas on the table, so if you HAVE to shoot the 2nd mob at the same transport its ok. BUT chances are decent that you can pop 2 transports a turn.
And yea, work on gauging distance, that can give you a HUGE advantage in a game, it sounds a bit whatever but it is true. Ive caught alot of players by surprise with a well placed WAAAAGH! My personal best was getting 4 units of boyz, a mob of nobs + warboss into assault on the same turn. Man when that was all over the table was suddenly less crowed, and very very green afterwards.

Also MANz are good, but they are very specific with what you throw them at. If it has alot of power weapons forget it they will be a waste of a turn and points for you. Keep in mind they are basically a suicide unit for Orks, Ive raped MC and troop squads with 4 MANz and a waboss. They are great for punching a whole in lines.

I have always wondered about splitting my lootas into smaller units, as I have always been of the opinion to take a bigger unit to make them kill more before I have to take a break test. It just seems like giving the opponent a Christmas gift making them kill 2 or 3 to cause a test. What are everyones thoughts on this. Thanks in advance.

Most tournament lists run a mix. Several small squads and one big.

The reason why, is that you can target more units and the enemy needs more units to target yours.

MSU in 40K is mathematically superior to running larger and fewer units in almost every scenario.

You are right in that you take checks earlier, but consider this: would you rather fail a test and lose 2-3 lootas or fail a check and lose 11-12? A failed check on a larger squad means you lose more models.

There are ups and down to it, but typically the smaller units are better.

.....but with more models you will be less likely to have to make the check, which I thought was the point? I can see both sides, I'll have to game play experiment until i form my own opinion.

Reecius wrote:Most tournament lists run a mix. Several small squads and one big.

The reason why, is that you can target more units and the enemy needs more units to target yours.

MSU in 40K is mathematically superior to running larger and fewer units in almost every scenario.

You are right in that you take checks earlier, but consider this: would you rather fail a test and lose 2-3 lootas or fail a check and lose 11-12? A failed check on a larger squad means you lose more models.

There are ups and down to it, but typically the smaller units are better.

Well, 11-12 lootas won't be making any checks at all and if they are taking casualities at a rate where they are below 11 orks and taking tests then they are probably dead anyway.

@trash and Grey Templar

If you take 3, 5 man squads, 2 casualties causes a check on a unit which they have a 21/36 chance of passing. It would take 6 casualties (2 on each squad) to cause a check on all 3 squads. That means you have good odds that two of them will not run away while one will, losing 3 Lootas.

3 units can shoot and destroy 3 targets a turn. They have the potential to be 3 times as effective when split up. They can all shoot the same target if needs be, simulating the effect of 1, 15 man squad. If the enemy shoots at you, they must shoot at 3 unique squads to stop you from shooting back. They require 3 times the effort to silence. You have made your units much more efficient this way.

If you take one squad of 15, 4 casualties causes a check. Now you have 42% chance of losing all the rest of the lootas. That is 2 less casualties and much higher odds of losing all of them.

This unit can only shoot at one target and will often be overkill.

One enemy unit can shoot at and destroy the entire loota mob.

There is a reason why KPs were put into the game, and that is because it is mathematically superior to have many small units than few large units in almost every circumstance. MSU is more efficient in offense and defense.

Does that help to explain it?

if you have 15 and lose 4, you're fearless

you actually need to lose 5 to take a test, and thats all at once.

Ah yes, good point, I forgot about mob rule! Haha.

In that case it would take about the same amount of casualties (6) to really make it scary.

However, the principles of MSU that I stated above apply in general as to why more units tends to be superior to less.

About the only advantage i see with having 3 units is your enemy will have to shoot at 3 different targets.


however, those targets only need to take 2 casualities each before testing on Ld7 which will only pass about 55% of the time. and it isn't that hard to just vaporize 5 orks in the first place and not even get to a Ld test.

Once watched an boyz mob (30 strong) get charged by 20 Ymgarl ... he lost 18 boys and since they chose the the extra toughness they only managed to kill 2 Ymgarl ... they took a further 16 wounds ... worst of all the nob made his saves so they couldn't be shot.

next turn they switched to extra attacks ... it was very bad luck for that nob.

@Grey Templar

Well, play it how you want to. It is also quite clear that three units can kill three times as many units as 1 can, but hey.

If you look at most tournament lists, they tend to max out the force org chart, at least in the good slots. MSU is why. It just flat out works better in most cases.

But as always, play the game how you like to play it.

Reecius wrote:@Grey Templar

Well, play it how you want to. It is also quite clear that three units can kill three times as many units as 1 can, but hey.

If you look at most tournament lists, they tend to max out the force org chart, at least in the good slots. MSU is why. It just flat out works better in most cases.

This concept don't extend to ork boys mobs

@ moar boyz advocates

Sorry, but "moar boyz" is not the all-inclusive answer to any question. While the basic Ork boy is fantastically cost-efficient at 6 pts, he fails to scale up well to higher point values.

If you're playing at 2000-2500, then "moar boyz" should not be your solution. When assaulted by a dedicated assault unit (essentially anything with more than 1 attack), your boyz will fold like a house of cards. Which is why you should be forming your list around the question of "how do I guarantee that I get the charge."

9 times out of 10 (the 1 other time being Land Raiders), the single best way of ensuring that you get the charge is to take out transports. Every Ork knows that the shiniest bitz is always in the metal bawkses, so those need to be your target priority.

Lootas and Rokkits, and to a lesser extent (or greater, with Land Raiders) Deffrollas, are your key to a successful Waaagh!

If you pop their transports, your ability to get the charge is substantially increased, and the game becomes much, much easier.

striderx wrote:

Reecius wrote:@Grey Templar

Well, play it how you want to. It is also quite clear that three units can kill three times as many units as 1 can, but hey.

If you look at most tournament lists, they tend to max out the force org chart, at least in the good slots. MSU is why. It just flat out works better in most cases.

This concept don't extend to ork boys mobs

Hahaha, obviously not to Ork Boyz, I didn't think that even needed to be said!

Lootas though, can absolutely go MSU, just like MANs, Deffkoptas, etc. Boyz? No, obviously not.

This is why I usually will make my mobs in 20s when on foot. Sure 30 can be cool and all, but the whole fearless rule thing can bite you in the ass, and when it does Id rather lose less points if possible lol. Sides 20 boy mobs still kick alot of ass and swarm like nobodies business

Lootas and Rokkits, and to a lesser extent (or greater, with Land Raiders) Deffrollas, are your key to a successful Waaagh!

If you pop their transports, your ability to get the charge is substantially increased, and the game becomes much, much easier.

that's good advice if I've ever heard it.