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I'm noticing a trend toward battle wagon rush armies from my Ork brothern. I'm new to 40K and the Orks why the avoidance of the Kan Wall? I see a lot of army lists on here asking about them, but it seems like the majority of the battle reports describe wagon-ish lists. Are Kan/Dread armies vastly inferior? IF so, that is disappointing. I bought my army based on the rule of cool and am building the kan wall. So, far I'm shooting for 1500 points and was leaning towards the standard 9 kans 2 dreads. However, it seems like the only thing hurting this army is the ability to punch back while it slowly advances.

So, why not field the kans and instead of dreads take lootas or koptas for those hail mary pass situations to kill the enemy's big guns. After that just stroll on over there and krump some stuff.

I'd love some opinions of both players and oponents of the kan wall. Why the hate?

I played KoS since 2001 and just this summer switched to Kan Wall. Play what you like.

That being said, one of the great advantages of Battlewagons is the game goes a lot faster! Also the Battlewagons can give you more flexibility. If you only have foot troops, the opponent can pick you apart at their leisure.

Some of my most effective lists have been Kan wall lists... I just like building Battle Wagons and kustom building Looted Wagons far too much to footslog

Both are valid tactics and both can work quite well if done right just with different Pro's and Con's

That said I just build my new Deff Dread and it looks too awesome not to use in my next battle

Edit: Shouldn't this be in the "Tactics" forum?

Orks have many different builds and can still keep up with 5th edition codices

battle wagon is popular cause you don't have to spend a ton on models and you don't need to paint 180+ models and with deffrollas it can crush armies, but I don't see them as being the only viable choice. I still run a pure horde army with a 180+ guys backed up by lootas, lobbas, and suicide koptas and I do fairly well(as long as I don't forget to run all of my army). The downside of this would be the time issue in tournaments but since I don't usually play tournaments this isn't a problem.

Battlewagon rush armies field large(20 boy)units and deposit them quickly. The games go faster, and you can respond better with the mobility. In addition, your boyz live longer until they deploy, and few things are as good at popping vehicles as deffrollas.

A lot of it depends on what army you face, and what tactics they use. Both are viable and competitive armies. That said, you've had comments from a Born Again Kan Wall player, another Kan Wall, and a Green Tide player.

I'm a Speed Freeks player, myself. Battlewagon, Trukks, Warbikerz. Koptas. But play what's fun. Sometimes I go for more Green Tide. Sometimes it's massive lobbas and boomguns. You'll find your favorite......doesn't mean you'll stick with it every single time.

In general, Kan Walls don't scale up in points values as well. You actually become limitied by the cheap points cost of your Kans, making it actually fairly difficult to fill up to a 2500 point list. At the 2500 point level, you have so many Boyz on the table that your Kans cannot cover them all, so you'll inevitably have squads dying en masse. Additionally, in a tournament environment, the horde army plays extremely slowly, and makes it difficult to get through any reasonable number of turns.

(Yes, I realize some people can play hordes quickly, but that involves substantial practice, and, I find, shadey movement phases, i.e. moving only the front then filling in.)

On the flip side, Battlewagon rush helps to overcome one of the largest weakness of Orks; anti-tank, and more speifically, anti-AV14. It makes fielding units like Burnas more feasible, as 15ppm units aren't stuck walking with a 6+ save. Last, but not least, the speed of the list, combined with Ghazghkull's Waaagh!, allows you to charge anywhere on the board on your second turn. Also, it plays much faster than a horde does, saving substantial amounts of time in the movement phase. Finally, it scales up to 2500 points better, allowing you to field choices more viably without having to walk them, such as Burnas, Nobz, and Ghazghkull.

Overall, Kan Walls are definitely not a bad list, however, in my experience, they aren't as good at high point levels or tournaments. Also, at too low of points levels (1000 points especially), a properly built Kan Wall is simply unbeatable by most armies.

Kan Walls, for me, get reserved for the casual 1500-1750 game in which you have 4 hours to devote to finishing.

Deathsadvocate wrote:battle wagon is popular cause you don't have to spend a ton on models and you don't need to paint 180+ models and with deffrollas it can crush armies, but I don't see them as being the only viable choice. I still run a pure horde army with a 180+ guys backed up by lootas, lobbas, and suicide koptas and I do fairly well(as long as I don't forget to run all of my army). The downside of this would be the time issue in tournaments but since I don't usually play tournaments this isn't a problem.

At 2k points you're probably running five wagons. I do anyway. Those wagons are $66 apiece, and the deff rolla upgrade sprues are an extra $13.25 each, costing you $79.25 per wagon for a total of $396.25 in your wagons alone. You'll probably be running 3 mobs of 20 boys in those wagons, and a couple nob mobs in the other two wagons, plus a warboss and a KFF mek, and some deff koptas.

My 2k kan wall runs 3 mobs of 20 boys, 9 kans, 2 deff dreads, 2 KFF meks, and 42 lootas. It's less expensive than the battlewagon army, and doesn't have that many more models to paint.

Maybe at 2.5k points, you'll be running more boys, but you won't see 180 boys in a kan wall list, only in a green tide style list, with no kan wall.

I do give a slight competitive edge to the BW rush style army, and BW armies are definitely better for tournament play due to the time required to move all the infantry turn after turn. In a BW army you won't have to deal with moving your boys until turns two or three since they'll be riding in style.

I'll have to echo shealyr here. I used to play Kan Wall and did quite well with it, but its lack of mobility, one-trick pony nature (I'll explain later), and point scaling are what hinders the list.

Mobility and point scaling shealyr covered, but what do I mean by one-trick pony nature? Well, this is so because Kan Wall is screwed over by deployment type, things that ignore cover saves, things that can Deep Strike behind the wall, and armies that can kite the wall.

I've played both Battlewagon rush and Kan wall.

Battlewagons you get less in your army as the Wagons take up about 500 points, maybe more. They are also costly as well. The army itself is faster to assault and can be in assault by turn 2. The major problem I've seen is lack of ranged anti tank.

Kan wall can be a bit of a pain in the arse as it takes ages to move stuff and depending how mcuh scenery you're using the army can bottleneck, not good for templates or blast templates. It's also pretty slow as well and a fast moving army can avoid it mostly. The good points is the kanz are cheaper than Wagons (but you need more boyz) and a massive horde looks better to me

personally i love the fast stuff, i love gettin up in the opponents face 1st/2nd turn and seeing them squirm.
kan walls just take too long to bring the hurt, it gives the opponent too long to shoot at them lol

Have none of you thought to add in a fast element to a kan wall style list? I am a kan wall player myself, I have an epic record of success in this style list with over 40 wins and only 5 losses. You can complete a 2500 pt list with quality units and still have FoC leftover, you are all doing it wrong if you are having problems.

My kans list:

2000 pts

Big Mek, kff
Big mek, kff

3 units of 30 boys, nob pk
1 unit of 29 boys, nob pk
1 deff dread, dual rokkits
1 deff dread, dual rokkits

3 units of 3 rokkit buggies

3 units of 3 rokkit kans

and to reach to 2500 pts add 3 units of 10 lootas, or 2 of 15 depending on your personal tastes in lootas unit size(it varies by player).

What about meta considerations? I find myself reaching for the Kans less with Grey Knights and the general spam of auto/psy cannons about.

MegaD

MegaDombro wrote:What about meta considerations? I find myself reaching for the Kans less with Grey Knights and the general spam of auto/psy cannons about.

MegaD

My best game vs GK Draigo wing was with kanz, KMB BS3 AP2 gun. Yes they can pop me but I can facemelt them and we had the same range.

Dave-c wrote:Have none of you thought to add in a fast element to a kan wall style list?

My Kan wall uses Deffkoptas - excellent for alpha strike and distraction purposes.

Cool thread! Great tips in here. Thanks guys!

I just tried a Kan wall for the first time. It did well vs the nurgle daemons I fought, but the skimmer DE player destroyed me as they were too fast and just ran away from me when I got close... Lootas would have helped. I'm trying a BW rush soon for the first time.

Lootas are a must in any Ork list tbh.

Thanks everyone! It sounds like I'm not setting myself up for failure I just need to be careful about supporting caste troop/elite selection.

Good deal! Thanks again and happy hunting.