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So I was just reading an interesting topic on OnG war machine defense:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/399741.page

And it got me wondering: Are OnG better-suited as a defensive army? Because most of the fluff to me tends to describe them as ladz who'd prefer to get into the thick of fighting as soon as possible (well, for the Orcs at least, not necessarily gobbos). What are your opinions on this? Does anyone have a lot of experience playing as/going against defensive OnG?

I played against an all goobo/troll/mangeler/squig/pump wagon/shooty army a few weeks ago. It was pretty tricky and he almost beat me. He couldn't drop my messanger running around with 3 protectors n the last turn.

Hardest things: he was easily outnumbering me, he had units of goblins everywhere. I could't get to his back line squishee stuff until I broke a unit of gobbos. He had 3 blocks of 50 all with faniatics, and netters.

He had a hard time deploying and moving through terrain. He failed 2 terror tests in a row from the bloodthirster. However I'd like to play it again.

Well, the idea was, the quicker you get into combat, the quicker you avoid Animosity. You don't have to take tests if you're in combat.

You still can't make an army completely out of Special/Rares. But it's a lot easier to avoid Animosity now.

I personally don't think they have Empire/Dwarf-level ranged gunlines that they can just sit forever chopping up the enemy. Or even magic. I think against a lot of armies they will lose that war of attrition. What they have is very very cheap decent toughness CC units they can grind down the enemy with.

Very few armies in the game can beat them in points fielding horde against horde. So might as well take advantage of that. Using other items to back them up and keep the enemy on their toes is great, but I don't think it's their primary strength.

O&G gunline is fierce.
Take 6 bolt throwers, 2 rock lobbers and 2 doom divers.
Deploy them Up front.
Deploy night goblins with fanatics behind the machines, and characters and wizards behind the night goblins.

You'll get 2 turns of shooting before the machines get hit (they screen your infantry), but the fanatics will tear into the enemy on their way in. The combination of warmachines, magic and fanatics often does so much damage, that the goblin infantry can actually mop up.

By pinning units behind warmachines, you don't have animosity pulling blocks out of position.

-Matt

Wow matt, That strategy sounds absolutely nasty.

A nice thing to consider, as well, is that with how Fanatics work now you'll - most probably - be able to set them up so they're released and the enemy - instead of having the Fanatics plow through them - has to continue through the Fanatics. Every through-Fanatics causes 2D6 hits. If the Fanatics survive, somehow (say they only plow through 1 or 2 before panicking), what will they hit? Your War Machines that'll only take D6 hits, are 3-4 wounds, and are wounded on 6's? Your 40-50 Goblins behind that might be getting Soft / Hard Cover and thus avoiding much damage from enemy shooting?

Mind, the obvious drawback to "War Machines up Front" is, well, they only fire once or twice (depending on who gets priority), thrice if fighting something like a typically static Dwarf army who is suddenly finding they've somehow been out-gunned (or, alternatively, has Snaggla running through their War Machines come Turn 2).

Interesting viewpoints guys, it definitely seems possible with gobbos or night gobbos you can potentially (or in reference to matt, successfully) make a defensive one. But going back to duke's point it seems that if your army is more focused on Orcs than it would be ideal to have an offensive army to avoid Animosity.

Anyone played Orcs as defensive? It seems like it wouldn't make sense to haha, but I could be wrong .

ragnil wrote:Interesting viewpoints guys, it definitely seems possible with gobbos or night gobbos you can potentially (or in reference to matt, successfully) make a defensive one. But going back to duke's point it seems that if your army is more focused on Orcs than it would be ideal to have an offensive army to avoid Animosity.

Anyone played Orcs as defensive? It seems like it wouldn't make sense to haha, but I could be wrong .

Pure Orcs can be defensive as in "never breaks", but not quite in the same manner as how Dwarves can be "Comes out of it better than the enemy". It's only, what, 315pts for eight ranks of T4 light armor & shield models? Less without command?

Also, Savage Orcs can be somewhat durable versus Magic. Mork's Spirit Totem gives one unit anywhere between a 5+ and 2+ versus direct damage, and a Shrunken Head / S-Orc / Obsidian-Something combo gives you another unit between 4+ and 2+ for direct damage ward saves. Heck, if you really want to be durable: BSB + SOrcs = 2+ to 5+ Ward v Direct Damage; Shrunken Head + Obsidian MR(2) item = 3+ Ward v Direct Damage; SOrcs + Obsidian MR(3) item = 3+ Ward v Direct Damage. Three units that have very good odds (66% for BSB unit, 100% others) of shrugging off magic thrown at them. They're also somewhat defensive with their Wizards: Great Shaman w/ Fencers Blades & something Ward = 3 WS10 S5 attacks in the first round of combat on a T5 /5+ model, potentially S8-S9 A6 if they get Fists. Not many armies have Casters this combat capable without putting them on a monstrous mount / being a monster themselves.

However, besides "Haha no Direct Damage" or "Quickly men, wear out his arms!", there isn't too much Orc option for defense. The only pure-Orc War Machine is Boar Chariots, which works for counter-charging but if you counter-charge it means you've already lost the Boyz first-round bonuses. Most of the magic options are pro-active instead of re-active too (except Warpath, which you're definitely going to want to aim for being somewhere in the army).

That's what I thought. While I wasn't expecting anything near the "sit in the back and wait for you to come to us" dwarf-kind of defensive, I didn't think about the sheer weight of our numbers to act as a defensive tactic in it's own right (unless I misread?)

And that's pretty sweet about the Savage Orcs. It's definitely something to look into as I continue to work on building my army.

Sheer numbers works insofar as:

1) Steadfast. If you have 8-10 ranks of models, and the enemy is attacking with 3-4 ranks, they need to kill 4-7 ranks before you lose stubborn (barring certain modifiers). Orcs, while more costly than Goblins, can still afford this, as a minimum sized rank with shields is about as many points as a naked spear chukka. Not amazing, but at T4 5+/6+ save it's not bad either.

2) No longer victory points for "half size". Either you killed it, or you didn't. With 40-50 models, that's a lot of T4 to kill, and many players may not find it worth the investment of energy when there's more choice targets (characters, Black Orcs, War Machines / Chariots, overly pimped Gobbos) sitting around to be picked apart. Statistically, versus arrows, 5 Boyz w/ Shield and LArmor are a smidge more durable than a Spear Chukka, and you're less likely to see a single rank of Boyz than you are a single Spear Chukka.

Mind, your Orcs can fight back. Sort of. Basic boyz with Hand Weapon & Shield are only good at this at the first round, really (and if going with HW&S, you're probably looking at Boyz v Big 'Uns), as there they strike back with their WS3 attacks at S4. Even if only about 10-12 S4 attacks, that's still somewhat decent for an anvil unit without buffs. Just not enough to turn a tide against many of the "Like a reaper scythe through molten butter" hammer units.

~ ~ ~

Yeah, SOrcs have pretty good magical resistance potential due to a base 6+ Ward Save. Mind, you should still take a scroll or two (Feedback and Dispel tend to be my favored options, Feedback for a six-dice spam you can't dispel with dice but also can tolerate the repercussions for a risk at Mage-asplodey, Dispel for six-dice spam you can't risk) to take into account that not everything's direct damage. Nothing worse than your SOrc Big 'Uns having to re-roll 6's or fighting at WS1..