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Alright, so the Orky bug has bitten me again earlier this month, and I've got a 1500 point list that includes some Boyz, a Warboss, a Big Mek, some Lootas, some Burna Boyz, and a unit of Nobz. Exact details will follow in spoiler tags.

I know I can include another Ammo Runt somewhere, and if someone has a suggestion as to where, that'd be great. I also know that Orks in large footslogging mobs should have shootas instead of sluggas and choppas, but they're modelled already and have been so for years. I don't want to get rid of the Lootas or Burna Boyz, I love em way too much to get rid of em. But that's not why I'm here.

My thing's about the Nobz. I have a box set of 5 of them which I have yet to build, as well as another 4-5 with power klaws and sluggas and bosspoles which are already built, and 1 with a big choppa which is already built, as well as 5 Black Reach Nobz with Choppas and Sluggas. My concerns are mainly about points-to-effectiveness, and I'll list my concerns in bullet point form for clarity.

-I've noticed that my unit of 6 Nobz and Trukk cost roughly the same as a 30-Ork mob of Boyz with some nice upgrades. Would I get more effectiveness overall from ditching all the Nobz in that mob and including another 30-Ork mob of Boyz with sluggas, choppas, and a few big shootas and/or rokkit launchas, plus a Nob with a Power Klaw?
-If so, how much more effectiveness would I get?
-Would it be enough to outweigh any cool factor? [I'm a big fan of the "commander and his personal retinue" thing]

-If there is a deficiency, is there a way to improve my Nobz without otherwise significantly reducing the number of Boyz I have? [Reducing the 30-strong mobs to 20 each and getting rid of the 'Ard Boyz upgrade on the 20-Shoota Boy mob would be perfectly acceptable.]

Other questions:
-Would it be better to have 2 more Big Choppas instead of the 2 Kombi-scorchas?

Note: My regular opponent prefers Space Marines, but can also play Eldar or Sisters of Battle.
Note: My regular opponent and I play footslogging lists, mainly because I don't like the way that vehicles tend to require specialized weapons to destroy, and since I provide all the models, scenery, and I write the lists, and she generally just enjoys playing sometimes and is fine with pretty much whatever... That works for us. So vehicles are not a concern whatsoever. In fact, the Trukk is the only vehicle in the lists I've written to be used, and I'm not sure I even want it to stay in the list instead of including another nob.
Note: I may be able to pick up more Nobz, and even a Painboy, before this game is played. It likely will not be played until after the 24th, when I will - probably - have some money in my miniatures budget. Not too too much, but enough for two boxes of Nobz or a single box and a Painboy.

This recent thread should answer your questions:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/389062.page

Basically you should include some powerklaws, a painboy and a Waargh! Banner in your nobz unit, that way excel at killing many things that boyz simply can't handle. In your case for example assault marines, seraphims or striking scropions.

By using nothing but big choppas you get expensive boyz and nothing else, as you already noticed.

Note that one box of nobz includes enough gear to outfit about fifteen(!) models. Three boxes is complete overkill. Just get some AOBR nobz of ebay and use the extra gear on them.

Yea I think the Nob box set is a fantastic deal. I almost NEVER say that about GW pricing but they hit it on the head with that one.

Jidmah wrote:This recent thread should answer your questions:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/389062.page

Basically you should include some powerklaws, a painboy and a Waargh! Banner in your nobz unit, that way excel at killing many things that boyz simply can't handle. In your case for example assault marines, seraphims or striking scropions.

By using nothing but big choppas you get expensive boyz and nothing else, as you already noticed.

Note that one box of nobz includes enough gear to outfit about fifteen(!) models. Three boxes is complete overkill. Just get some AOBR nobz of ebay and use the extra gear on them.

Alright, thanks. ^_^ I read that thread and your advice, and it was very helpful indeed.

Heh, it's funny, because those three units you mentioned - Assault Marines, Seraphim, and Striking Scorpions - are each included in the lists I wrote up.

I don't particularly like eBay - due to paranoia about getting screwed over in some way, yes it's irrational - but I do have 5 AoBR nobz that haven't been fiddled with, that I could take the arms off of. ^_^ Added to my current unopened box of 5, that's more than enough Nobz to fill a modest 7-8 sized mob of Ork Nobz and have some left over in case I want to expand.

I'll fiddle with my list a bit. ^_^

Nah, many people just buy AOBR for the marines and then put the orks untouched onto ebay. Never had any greater problems with that other than deff koptas with their flying bases broken off. But nothing impossible to fix.

Jidmah wrote:Nah, many people just buy AOBR for the marines and then put the orks untouched onto ebay. Never had any greater problems with that other than deff koptas with their flying bases broken off. But nothing impossible to fix.

Yeah, I guess.




So I fiddled a wee bit and came up with this.



Had to fiddle with my Boyz to get the points for the Nobz, but I think I'm okay with the current setup of Boyz. The Nobz unit is pretty much a copy/paste of a unit described in the thread you linked me to.

Oh, and I am curious about something else. The Space Marines list I might be playing against has a unit of 8 Honor Guard - all with power weapons of some sort of course, including two relic blades and a thunder hammer - and Chapter Master with a Lightning Claw going with them. I remember reading about how units with lots of S4 power weapons will cause Nobz to "shed wounds like crazy." How should these Orks go about dealing with those pesky 'umies?

Pouncey wrote: How should these Orks go about dealing with those pesky 'umies?

Attack the honor guard with your boyz instead of your nobs, and shoot them with your looters when the opportunity allows.

The list is very scattered in focus.

You have half the army as sloggers, and half the army in trukks.

Orks excel when you take one good concentrated focus, and then you build around that core with supplemental units.

I'd look into adding in more transports, as a few trukks are way to easy to blow up, or switch to horde and work in how to protect the Nobs as the army stomps forward.

juraigamer wrote:

Pouncey wrote: How should these Orks go about dealing with those pesky 'umies?

Attack the honor guard with your boyz instead of your nobs, and shoot them with your looters when the opportunity allows.

Got it. ^_^

Would it be acceptable to attack the honor guard with a unit of Boyz, then rush the survivors my next turn - assuming they're still locked in combat of course - with my Nobz, so that the Honor Guard can't attack my Nobz that turn? Or would that be too risky if I were to fail to kill them all? Would it be better to use my Burna Boyz here in place of Nobz?


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WarOne wrote:The list is very scattered in focus.

You have half the army as sloggers, and half the army in trukks.

Orks excel when you take one good concentrated focus, and then you build around that core with supplemental units.

I'd look into adding in more transports, as a few trukks are way to easy to blow up, or switch to horde and work in how to protect the Nobs as the army stomps forward.

Okay, more Boyz it is, and less Trukks.

Any ideas on how to protect my Nobz? All I've got is to hide them behind my Boyz, but since the board I play on has buildings, it may not be so easy to protect them like that, from guys up on higher floors.

Two more pieces of advice:
- Orks should either be all fast or all slow. Mixing trukks with footsloggers usually doesn't end well unless you're really careful. Either get bikes/trukks/battlewagons for everyone or have everyone walking.
- Meks are probably the most worthless model in our codex at the moment. Their weapons don't fit well in neither lootaz nor burnaz. In addition their chance to kill something is about as high as them killing themselves. If you could field an all-mek unit they might be decent, no matter how you put it, their are downgrades for either unit.

As for the honor guard:
That kind of unit is exactly the kind you shouldn't charge nobz into. At least not while they are at full strength. Your best bet is to shoot them, then shoot them some more. However, if you must charge them, them hitting at 4+ and non-relic blades wounding on 4+, combined with 5++ cybork it will not outright kill most of your nobz. Best use the scorcha on them before the charge. Good thing is, as they don't have terminator armor, there is not invul save for them and every pk wound will take one down.

Just don't count on your nobz squad doing much after that. However, in my experience they don't need to, as this is the only really powerful CC unit in the vanilla codex other than assault terminators. And nobz should stay away from those anyway, as they are their perfect counter unit.

Jidmah wrote:Two more pieces of advice:
- Orks should either be all fast or all slow. Mixing trukks with footsloggers usually doesn't end well unless you're really careful. Either get bikes/trukks/battlewagons for everyone or have everyone walking.
- Meks are probably the most worthless model in our codex at the moment. Their weapons don't fit well in neither lootaz nor burnaz. In addition their chance to kill something is about as high as them killing themselves. If you could field an all-mek unit they might be decent, no matter how you put it, their are downgrades for either unit.

As for the honor guard:
That kind of unit is exactly the kind you shouldn't charge nobz into. At least not while they are at full strength. Your best bet is to shoot them, then shoot them some more. However, if you must charge them, them hitting at 4+ and non-relic blades wounding on 4+, combined with 5++ cybork it will not outright kill most of your nobz. Best use the scorcha on them before the charge. Good thing is, as they don't have terminator armor, there is not invul save for them and every pk wound will take one down.

Just don't count on your nobz squad doing much after that. However, in my experience they don't need to, as this is the only really powerful CC unit in the vanilla codex other than assault terminators. And nobz should stay away from those anyway, as they are their perfect counter unit.

Got it. Shoot the units that are good at close combat.

Should I take the Meks out from the Lootas and Burnas, and add yet more Boyz, without converting the Meks to their more normal kin, and just go with 8 Lootas and 8 Burnas? Fiddling like that, I also had the points to give one of my Nobz a kombi-shoota-rokkit launcha in place of his slugga/choppa combination. I'd lose one S4-5 attack, and gain a 1-per-game rokkit and a shoota. Not sure it's worth it, since the odds of that rokkit hitting are slim to nil, but I dunno where else to spend the 5 points except on 'eavy armor for a Nob somewhere.

That'd give me something like this...

I usually put a second bosspole on my nob squad as I really don't want then running away if my bosspole died. Also my big choppa nob with the boss pole tends to do ridiculous things in games vs IG and thus gained himself the name "Manslaugher" with a body count of more than two hundred imperial guardsmen
If you use combi-rokkits I usually add ammo runts. Twin-linked rokkits work much better than single shots.

Burnaz usually should be 10 or more, otherwise they get slaughterd in assault. Your warboss also should be with them.
Lootaz should generally be 5 or 15. Five so you don't care if they run away, 15 so they stay fearless long enought to do some serious damage.

Jidmah wrote:I usually put a second bosspole on my nob squad as I really don't want then running away if my bosspole died. Also my big choppa nob with the boss pole tends to do ridiculous things in games vs IG and thus gained himself the name "Manslaugher" with a body count of more than two hundred imperial guardsmen
If you use combi-rokkits I usually add ammo runts. Twin-linked rokkits work much better than single shots.

Burnaz usually should be 10 or more, otherwise they get slaughterd in assault. Your warboss also should be with them.
Lootaz should generally be 5 or 15. Five so you don't care if they run away, 15 so they stay fearless long enought to do some serious damage.

Kay. ^_^ I think the bosspole would be better than the kombi-rokkit.

Okies. I could proxy the Meks as Burnaz, or, if I drop my Lootas unit down to 5 - cause I don't want to bring them up to 15, to be honest - I could build my two remaining Lootas/Burnas boxes as Burnas, and have 11 Burna Boyz - since 1 would have to be built as a Loota to replace the Mek from my 5-Ork Loota Boy mob. I had been thinking about making more Burna Boyz and fewer Lootas, so I wouldn't be opposed to that. And yup, I will definitely include my Warboss with my Burna Boyz. ^_^

:: fiddles ::

That would actually leave my Boyz completely unaffected... I like...

Looking good

Pro tip: Don't use the burna heads for your burnaz, but collect about 8-12, and then use them, some AOBR boyz and backpacks from meks and boyz to build some great looking kommandoz. No need to pay $37.25 for five orks(kommandoz box) more than once.

Jidmah wrote:Looking good

Pro tip: Don't use the burna heads for your burnaz, but collect about 8-12, and then use them, some AOBR boyz and backpacks from meks and boyz to build some great looking kommandoz. No need to pay $37.25 for five orks(kommandoz box) more than once.

Oooh, if only you had told me this before I built 4 of my Burnaz earlier this morning. Oh well, there's still 12 Burna heads left! : D 8 from my 2 unopened boxes, and another 4 if I can find my old Burna Boyz frame from when I built my Lootas. ^_^

Also with your lootas if you don't want to get the unit up to 15 run 2 units of 5 lootas. A lot of my list include 3 units of 5 I find running them in units of 5 instead of one unit of 15 helps b/c I don't have to commit all my shoots into one unit. If the shots from 5 loots don't finnish the target, then I can use the other unit/s to finnish the job. If they do finnish the target then the other unit/s can move on to the next priortey

More modeling tips for ya on the Lootas/Burnas

Since the mek is a waste, youll have a KMB just sitting there. So what I did, was simply chop the front part off that sorta looks like a flamer nozel, and add a piece of small tubing in between the nozel and the KMB gun body. Presto, it looks like a skorcha, now all youve got to do is build a tank from some cheap ink pens or something and youve got a burna boy.

KingCracker wrote:More modeling tips for ya on the Lootas/Burnas

Since the mek is a waste, youll have a KMB just sitting there. So what I did, was simply chop the front part off that sorta looks like a flamer nozel, and add a piece of small tubing in between the nozel and the KMB gun body. Presto, it looks like a skorcha, now all youve got to do is build a tank from some cheap ink pens or something and youve got a burna boy.

That's pretty nifty. Could I use a cleaned-out ink tube from the pen as the piece of tubing, or would it be too thick?


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RustyNails wrote:Also with your lootas if you don't want to get the unit up to 15 run 2 units of 5 lootas. A lot of my list include 3 units of 5 I find running them in units of 5 instead of one unit of 15 helps b/c I don't have to commit all my shoots into one unit. If the shots from 5 loots don't finnish the target, then I can use the other unit/s to finnish the job. If they do finnish the target then the other unit/s can move on to the next priortey

I guess you also don't end up rolling a 1 for your unit's number of shots and get a low number of shots for 15 guys, instead you get 3 opportunities, one for each unit.

Also, I was reading up on how to organize better for playing a horde army, and I have an urge to paint the rim of my Boyz' bases. It'll be the only painted part of most of the minis, not counting black spraypaint on my Boyz.

^^^
Depends on the ink pens you get. Some, like most the clicker pens, have really skinny tubes and would be ok to possibly to thin. I seem to use regular ball points with the cap, the tubes in those seem to be the size I use for everything. But as always, these type of things are about preference.

And ink pens are great for many reasons. You get a whole bag of them for a buck at the dollar store, the ink tubes are small enough for guns and supports and what not, and the pen casing is another diameter of round plastic. Just an FYI, when using the ink tubes, be sure to glue the ends closed so ink doesnt ever leak out

KingCracker wrote:^^^
Depends on the ink pens you get. Some, like most the clicker pens, have really skinny tubes and would be ok to possibly to thin. I seem to use regular ball points with the cap, the tubes in those seem to be the size I use for everything. But as always, these type of things are about preference.

And ink pens are great for many reasons. You get a whole bag of them for a buck at the dollar store, the ink tubes are small enough for guns and supports and what not, and the pen casing is another diameter of round plastic. Just an FYI, when using the ink tubes, be sure to glue the ends closed so ink doesnt ever leak out

Alrighty then. ^_^ Thanks. ^_^


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Hmmm, another ticklish issue...

My Big Mek. I like the Shokk Attack Gun, especially since against my opponent's usual Marines it's one of my few ranged options that ignores their armor saves. Seems incredibly useful for putting the pressure onto those Honor Guard. Those Honor Guard are scary...

For a roughly equivalent number of points, I could instead equip him with a KFF and a Cybork Body, drop 'eavy armor on the Warboss, and add a plain Nob to the Nobz mob. This would remove a powerful ranged weapon - that admittedly has blown up in my face before - that would serve an incredibly useful purpose, but the KFF would provide a nice cover save that would help with bolters and heavy weapons blasting me apart as I advance on foot.

However, our board does have a lot of terrain on it right now. Lots of woods, and lots of ruined buildings not on bases - we treat the ground floor of those ruins as clear terrain, with the walls being difficult terrain to move through.

[The exact configuration of terrain changes each time, and I'm letting my opponent set up the terrain next time, so I can't plan the terrain ahead to give myself an advantage - and I wouldn't do that anyways - nor can I take a good, long look at the board before the game and figure things out mentally.]


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Ya know, come to think of it... I could buy some push-fit Boyz, and build more Lootas and Burnas...


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Oh yes, and it also turned out that I didn't need to get more Nob bodies. ^_^ I had five unbuilt Nobz, which were easily built into 5 of the Nobz I needed. I don't have Painboy or Waaagh! Banner models quite yet, though they're next on my list, so that brings my models accounted for up to 7 of 8. And wouldn't you know it, the last one I need has 'eavy armor, a choppa, a slugga, and the obligatory Cybork body. Sounds like a great time to add some armor plating onto an AoBR Nob! ^_^