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A buddy of mine whom plays Orks wants to field a army of Gretchen. However due to the no power claws its a very vulnerable army to tanks but they may have found a good balance.

WARNING:
Any and all suggestions can be made "Only" if the suggestions do not involve adding Ork Boys or nobs.

He plans to field a list like this.

HQ: Mad Doc Grotsnik
Elites: Two units of 15 lootas with Cybork Body

Troops: Six troops of gretchen. Two troops with 30 Gretchen and three Runt Herders with Grot Prods and the others have only 22 gretchen.

Two heavy Choices of Two killa kans with Rocket launchers.

Here is what I think of it..

PROS:

1. Opponents only expect two things. 1. Inexperienced players will expect Lots of boys, a mega nob squad, Lootas and Ghaszskull thraka. 2. Experienced players may also expect kan walls or Shooting Orks. It is completely unexpected and no one has ever field that army before..or if they have its not well known because not many people are willing to pay that much money for Gretchen.
It will catch them on surprise allowing them to think your playing a crap list and not take it seriously..therefore they make a crap ton of mistakes by simply deluding themselves they think they can shoot down the entire list before it reaches them.

2. Everything has an invun save and moving that much models and rolling all that dice could spam up a bunch of time. Giving you an advantage for that ard boy tourny. I mean could you imagine if by some chance you were to make it to Semi finals and telling your opponents you Massacred your preliminary opponents with the same list?


Cons - Other than lootas and Kans, Not a whole lot of Any tank...Oh and the mad doctor.

Crappy armor...oh...wait...orks..Duh

Its gonna be a pain in the ass to deploy all of that in spear head...almost impossible I think....OMG spear head would be soooo bad..Everything else would be great though!

Field Gen wrote:A buddy of mine whom plays Orks wants to field a army of Gretchen. However due to the no power claws its a very vulnerable army to tanks but they may have found a good balance.

WARNING:
Any and all suggestions can be made "Only" if the suggestions do not involve adding Ork Boys or nobs.

He plans to field a list like this.

HQ: Mad Doc Grotsnik
Elites: Two units of 15 lootas with Cybork Body

Troops: Six troops of gretchen. Two troops with 30 Gretchen and three Runt Herders with Grot Prods and the others have only 22 gretchen.

Two heavy Choices of Two killa kans with Rocket launchers.

Here is what I think of it..

PROS:

1. Opponents only expect two things. 1. Inexperienced players will expect Lots of boys, a mega nob squad, Lootas and Ghaszskull thraka. 2. Experienced players may also expect kan walls or Shooting Orks. It is completely unexpected and no one has ever field that army before..or if they have its not well known because not many people are willing to pay that much money for Gretchen.
It will catch them on surprise allowing them to think your playing a crap list and not take it seriously..therefore they make a crap ton of mistakes by simply deluding themselves they think they can shoot down the entire list before it reaches them.

2. Everything has an invun save and moving that much models and rolling all that dice could spam up a bunch of time. Giving you an advantage for that ard boy tourny. I mean could you imagine if by some chance you were to make it to Semi finals and telling your opponents you Massacred your preliminary opponents with the same list?


Cons - Other than lootas and Kans, Not a whole lot of Any tank...Oh and the mad doctor.

Crappy armor...oh...wait...orks..Duh

Its gonna be a pain in the ass to deploy all of that in spear head...almost impossible I think....OMG spear head would be soooo bad..Everything else would be great though!

Building a list which has a key element of "great at wasting time at tournies" is disgustingly bad taste. You won't make any friends with this one, and I suspect you would get rolled over by any decent mechanized list.

Hey there to field a grot army thats a little bit more durable and with a bit more kick to it look at the forge world models, there's a Grot mega tank for 70 points base they can have 2 heavy turrets with a choice to have twin link custom mega blasta and rock it launch's 3 medium turets with the same weapon choice as a killa can mob, a pinical mounted shooter and 2 boom canister's 1 shot per game - Strength 4 AP 5 10 range 5" blast pinning. they also have a 5+ invun save exept to ordanance weaponry plus each turret can target a seperet squad to the rest of the tank's shooting xD but here is there con's at the start you gota roll a dice and like a looted wagon if you roll a 1 you cant do any thing with them and they also have a kinda vehicle slow and perpusfull where you roll 2 dice then move it the resulting distance but a pro of this is you can go all the way to 12 inch's (13 inch if red paint job) and fire all your weaponry or sacrifice shooting and roll 3D6. Also you can take Grot tank battle mob's 10 all around armour but you can have 6 in a squad they are 30 points base they weapons are every thing a killa can' can have plus they are eliets if you take 1 big mek so and again has a 5+ invun and the slow and perpusfull thingy so basicly it would be awsome to take.... 3 mega tanks and 3 squads of 3-6 battle mob's ><
the mega tank's armour is 12 front 11 side 10 rear and the battle mob tanks are 10 all around

My idea of a list if I am ever to do a gretchin army would be this: (1750)

HQ
Big mek + custom force field

Troop's
2 Squads of 30 grot's with runt herders every 10 (if playing objective games split them into 5 squads of them)
12 ork boy's (shoota's) to acompany big mek

Transport
Truck with grot rigger's and reinforced ram

eliets
3 squads of 5 battle mob's all armed with rokkit launcha's and a tank comanda (comanda's alow you to reroll the movment dice)

Heavy support
3 grot mega tank's with x2 twin link custom mega blaster's 1 normle custom mega blasta, 2 big shoota's and a shoot (each)

and I have every intention of using this list some day when I get the models I mean I want most of them for apocolyps so mayswell try them out in a 40k set up of grot based army xD

Sorry about my spelling by the way

The redeeming factor of Orkz is the ability to kill or compete with just about every other army on the charge. At best you may tar pit other units, but you will not beat many, or even any at all. Although Cybork will give them a 5+ invul save, making them twice as durable as Boyz, these Grots will be exponentially more saves being that S4 and above wound on a 2+, so you will be losing more models at 8 points than Boyz at 6. They do not have the Mob Rule, so they will always be LD7 or less, and definitely less if you lost combat, which means you will be at most LD6, and that has a successful Morale Test rate of 66% with a Squig Hound. You won't be prolonging the matches as you will be wiped from the table with ease by every army out there. If you are bent on pursuing the theme of this folly, I would go with more Killa Kanz. 6 Rokkits and 3 Grotzookas.

Fun facts:

Suppose 30 Grots and 3 Runtherdas charge a unit of 10 Tactical Marines. They get 60 S3 attacks and what, 9 S4 attacks? The Tacs swing first, let's assume the Sergeant has a BP/CS combo. That 12 attacks, hitting on 3's, wounding on 2's, so 7 wounds, about 5 dead Grots since you're taking Cybork.. You get 50 attacks back from the Grots, 25 hit, about 4 wound, killing 1. The Orks get about 2 wounds through, so maybe 2 Marines die. So, on average you lose the combat by around 3. Well, at least you can re-roll that LD test on a 4!

So, the bulk of your army pretty much can't kill anything. I guess if you charged a squad of Guardsmen or Fire Warriors you'd win. Let's not even think about what a squad of Grey Hunters or Blood Angels Assault Marines would do to the Grots. In fact, if I were playing a DoA army against you in a tournament, all I'd have to do is run at you, Meltagunning as many Kanz as I can. I'm not terribly scared about ending up in CC with them, as every squad has a Power Fist, so I can handle a few of my squads ending up in CC with them. The rest of your army can't do squat to that list, because nothing else ignores FNP.

Just FYI, a full squad of Assault Marines with 2 Meltas, a Power Fist, and a Priest nearby will average around 16 wounds on a squad of Gretchin on the charge, and it takes 72 Gretchin attacks to get a wound through FNP. In other words, if it were somehow possible to multi-charge every single squad of Gretchin at once with a single Assault Squad, and if all the Gretchin were somehow able to swing, and you include all the Runtherdas, the Gretchin would lose combat by enough to test on a 2.

The bottom line is that this army is about as frightening as a cup of warm milk. You noticed that it lacks anti-tank, but it really lacks anti-everything.

The only reason to every make a grot army is to have a fun time in a friendly game. Grots are only really useful for sitting on objectives, or bubble wrapping lootas.

MrEconomics wrote:Fun facts:

Suppose 30 Grots and 3 Runtherdas charge a unit of 10 Tactical Marines. They get 60 S3 attacks and what, 9 S4 attacks? The Tacs swing first, let's assume the Sergeant has a BP/CS combo. That 12 attacks, hitting on 3's, wounding on 2's, so 7 wounds, about 5 dead Grots since you're taking Cybork.. You get 50 attacks back from the Grots, 25 hit, about 4 wound, killing 1. The Orks get about 2 wounds through, so maybe 2 Marines die. So, on average you lose the combat by around 3. Well, at least you can re-roll that LD test on a 4!

And grots do NOT have Mob Rule, so they are NOT fearless and your huge mob just got swept. So, this great idea of taking 8 point grots does worse than straight up 6 point slugga boyz.

If you're gonna run grots, you need to run them at 3 points a piece and literally swarm your opponent with numbers. You can field 180 grots and 18 runtherders for 720 points. That leaves you a ton of points to field other units to compensate for your sea of grots. Lootas, Kans, whatever. Your opponent will have to wade through this mess to get to your killy units. But, I would not expect the grots to do much.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

bombboy1252 wrote:The only reason to every make a grot army is to have a fun time in a friendly game. Grots are only really useful for sitting on objectives, or bubble wrapping lootas.

They also are great as a fronk rank. Cover saves for your boys. Opponent has to charge through them first, etc. They don't do much, but your opponent either wastes time killing them first or he gives your boyz cover saves. Either way, they can contribute.

If you want a grot list then surely you have to max out on kans and run a Big Mek with KFF to advance behnd them ...

Grots are only useful for objectives.

Well the mobs are about as squishy as squishy can be but the forge world models are rather strong and you can take alot of them Grot tank mob's has any gun the killa can, can have and you get 6 in a squad with a vehicle 5+ invun save so you can get anti infantry and anti vehicle on them. Grot mega tanks are the same exept they got 5 weps of anything the can's can have and all wep's can target individual unit's. Both these type of tank's also have shooter's both can move up to 12 inch and fire all pay load and they hit on 4+ rather than 5+ and the mega tank is twin linked on its 2 heavy weapon plat forms. Also you can take 3 mega tank's to fill up heavy support and 3 mob's of upto 6 Grot tank mob's as elites so thats a total 21 tank's in this list and with a big mek there just for the forcefield thats prity decent. Im not saying it will be amazen and frankly the tanks are expensive and you need the imperial armour 2 book just a Idea list to make a grot army that would have some fire power to it and if you want some mele power then take out a mega tank or 2 for can's.
Please bare in mind that I am full aware that this list is not a competitive one it is just a list idea for a giggle or 2 not for a serious game and I got most of the tanks for apocalypse formation's for my ork's. also you would not be aloud to use this list in most tournaments or at least in England you wont....

Just a Idea for them tiny wee little grot's!

Some gretchin facts:

They tarpit a walker or a monsterous creature quite well.

They die a squishy bleedy green death to a group of boyz/scarabs/something with high number of attacks and you just wasted 200 points.(this is their biggest problem-units with high # of attacks)

I generally find 10+rh(non cyborked) to be the best configuration to run in from reserves or hide behind something then sprint to objective late game. Low points and a scoring unit is probably their best function-it generally allows you to move your shoota boyz further forward so they don't have to camp an objective in the back.

Sometimes players will actually shoot at them. I had one guy dump 3 units worth of firepower into a group of 20 once (they were cyborked) and he killed 7, they stuck around because of the squig and he wasted a whole round of his shooting.

They can actually assault and kill scout squads with a round of shooting and 2 rounds of cc-have done it several times.

They are good bubble wrap for lootas/SAG/even a KFF mech that slogs.

if you are going to run a cybergrot army, you are still going to need a unit that can actually kill stuff-because outside of scouts I have never seen them kill anything. Even cyborked they still die fairly quickly to units that have large # of attacks.

rather than how this can't be done, let's look at the best way TO do it.

1. First of, drop the doc and the cyber on grots, you are paying 2 2/3 the cost of a grot for 1 cyber grot, lets keep them as cheap as possible.

2. for hq, take 2 kff meks, similar ability, less overall cost.

3. when facing orks, i've found that 3 10-man loota squads usually do better than 2 15s.

4. max out kans

5. In FA, look to the grot tank from forgeworld. KillaKan weapons options and prices on a tank with some crazy rules, some good, some bad, but one of the best is that they all have a 5++.

I don't have the dex in front of me, so i can't make you a full list of what would be good, but it would look something like this:

HQ-
2x KFF meks

Elite-
3x 10-man loota squad

Troop-
6x 30 grotsw/18 herders

Fast- as many grot tanks as you can fit (i think they're fast, yeah?)

Heavy- 3x 3-man kans

now this list looks much more realistic and looks like it could win some games, but the key to the entire army would be placement of the KFF meks

Grots R OP wrote: Some gretchin facts:

They tarpit a walker or a monsterous creature quite well.

Actually, they don't. They can do OK against standard Dreadnoughts if they charge, as it only has 2 attacks, and they have a slightly better than 50% chance to pass an LD test on a 5 if they have a reroll. Against anything with 3 or more attacks, there's too much of a chance that they test on 4 or less. Remember, if they run, they're probably dead.

So, they can absolutely fill in when necessary to tarpit, but they aren't reliable in that role, especially in contrast to something like Wyches, which can expect to tie a Dreadnought or MC up for 4+ rounds even without the ability to harm it.