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Looking for some help making a working army out of the orks I have just rallied to my call.

I picked up the extra bitz box from some wargamers at my store(AoBR and some random bitz it seems), the battleforce box, and a box of lootas(Love me some dakka!).
it would be great if you guys could help me work out a 1000 point army or 500 point army that does not get crushed by them that would help me alot!
I don't mind losing but my last battle was not a good show for my orks and the moral of my men has gone down!

I don't think a solid 1500 point list can be done yet(that's what the locals run 90% of the time it seems)

here is the list of models i have to work with:
(they don't seem to mind proxy's, but I don't want to get out of hand.)

3 x warboss 1 with PK
2 x ork mek /w kustom mega-blasta
4 x ork bruna
4 x ork loota
5 x ork nob
57 x ork boyz
3 x ork boyz /w big shoota
3 x DeffKopta(they don't look so hot...)
3 x war bikes
1 x trukk



thank you very much for your help and your time!!!!!!!!!

edit #1
I'm also trying to figure out what my next buy should be- help in that area would be nice as well! mind you I have only just started painting my boyz.
edit #2
confirmed by my friend from school , ork boyz /w big shoota not kommando's.

*admins if this is in the wrong area i'm sorry, please just move it and don't delete.*

Your issue is trying to rally orks, they are not that organised. However if it is about turning up at a battle at the right time their natural instinct and desire is better than Creed.

You'll need the nob box set to upgrade your AoBR nobs into wound allocation night mares. Also I think you are low on nobs with pk and bosspole which always lead boyz squads.
Mek with kff would be a valuable addition to your army.
You need more Lootas to make your current ones successful.


Warboss with attack squig, cyborg, PK
Mek with kff
Nobz with stuff
30 boyz with nob with pk and bosspole
30 boyz with nob with pk and bosspole
kopta with buzzsaw and rockets
kopta with buzzsaw and rockets
kopta with buzzsaw and rockets

Would be your list. It is all foot slogging. To go by car you need loads of technicals for it to work, i.e. loads of battlewagons and trukks.
You add lootas once you have a good number of them. If you find green hordes are not for you, or you fancy a change then you'll just need to invest in the battlewagons and trukks.

wow thanks for the fast reply, I can check my bitz box, I know a few bosspole's and 2 or 3 some pk's are in it to toss into my boyz! (hidden PK i think is the term?)

I have been looking at my two mek's and have been trying to think of a way to make him look like a big mek after reading about KFF. time for some google magic!


i'm looking at a green tide and/or kan wall army as my end game. if that helps you all xD.

I assume your 5 nobz are the 5 AOBR nobz. If so, your next buy should definitely be a nobz box followed by a big mek with a kustom force field. After you some powerklaw nobz, you can get either killa kanz or battlewagons, whichever you like more.

You can't really get a decent army for 1000 points yet, other than fielding everything you have. A possible 500 point army list without adding any new models:

HQ
Warboss
- PK, 'eavy armor, boss pole

Elite
4 Lootaz + 1 Mek

Troops
20 boyz
*Warboss goes here*
20 boyz
- Nob. boss pole (a steel jaw counts as poss pole, so use that AOBR nob)

Fast Attack
3 Warbikers

You could also trade the warbikers for a kopta and add big shootaz to your boyz instead.

Otherwise, below you find my usual advice I give any new ork players. Just skip the things you already have

I'll just repost what I've advised many people before you. Most of them are still around dakkadakka playing orks, so it can't be all bad

Best buys after AOBR in order:

1. Nobz box. Lots of klaws, big choppas and combi weapons. Don't be affraid to cut of the AOBR nobz arms to fit the better weapons on. Bonus: Nobz work quite well in low-point games, which you are playing at this point.
2. Boxes of Boyz. You can't make Shootaboyz out of AOBR boyz easily(stupid arms), so get the regular boxes. Each one allows you to build an additional boy /w rokkit and a nob /w PK and bosspole. You can add the rokkits and one nob to your other boyz, put the AOBR big shootas with your shoota boyz.
3. Kanz OR Battleweagons. Actually fully up to you which one. If you like huge amounts of boyz, go kanz. Magnetize the kanz arms, so you can switch weapons later. If you like tanks and ramming them into everything, go battleweagons. Do not glue any turrents onto the hull, so you can switch them. Last, but most important: Do not buy both kanz and battlewagons, as they don't work well together.
3. Yeah, two thirds. Get Lootaz&Burna boxes. Each box is missing three bodys to build all lotaz and burnaz, do not build the meks. You can use boyz boxes to compensate. If you keep the burna heads and use regular ones, you can use them and all the spare backpacks you will have by now(meks, boyz) to build quite good looking kommandoz. You need more bodies for that though, but AOBR boyz work fine.
4. BigMek with KFF. One of our best HQs, save boyzs, kanz and battlewagons.
5. Do not buy the battleforce, you do not want one trukk, three warbikes and twenty boyz. No ork army wants them in that combination, too many boyz for a trukk, too few trukks for the boyz, too few warbikers for anything.

If you got all that, you'll have pretty good idea where to go from there.

Well first, welcome to the Horde, once you figure out your place with them, youll love playing Orks. They are both fun, and brutal. A couple quick things. those KMB meks. Turn 1 into a loota, and the other into a burna boy, because there is literally nothing more useless then a KMB mek. Use some random gun bits and such to turn the one into a loota, as long as it looks like it shoots alot, youll be fine. The KMB, into burna is pretty simple as well, cut the whole end off (the part that vaguely looks like a flamer end) add some tubing (I find that a qtip shaft works perfectly) to length, and glue it all back together, presto, 1 burna boy and 1 loota, now youve got at least enough to make a 5man loota mob.

As for your list. With what you have, playing a smaller game is about it, dont EVER try to push your army past what its comfortable with, because youll just be screwing yourself, specially as a new player, you havnt learned how to really play with your army yet, so handicapping yourself just for the sake of playing isnt going to be fun. Also, this early on, your pickings are slim, so Ill just write what I can, with what you have.

Warboss 110
PK
TLshoota
attack squig
cybork
eavy armor

Warboss 110
Same as above

x20 boyz 135
nob
bp (boss pole)

x20 boyz 135
nob
BP


Thats 490, so add 1 Bigshoota to a mob? So theres a 500pt army for starters. Stick each warboss in a mob of boyz, so they dont get shot up, and make sure your models are at maximum coherency (meaning 2 inches apart from the bases) so you have a better chance for taking templates. If done correctly, youll only lose 1 or 2 boyz per small template, and no more then 5 for the large templates. Also with them spread out, you can use terrain to your advantage, doing things like, hiding half of your mob in terrain or behind a building, so that the unit as a whole will get a 4+ cover save. So basically, your moving, running until you are within range to WAAAGH! then you move, call WAAAGH!! run, then assault. The warboss is the heavy hitter for your mobs, the nobz, well, they are ok hitters (without PKS) but they have the BP which will let you reroll your Ld tests.

Its not too much here, but at 500pts, the table is usually smaller, meaning the game will be closer. Itll also help you grab some basics in Ork trickery (like the mentioned 50% hiding in terrain trick and spreading out) and I can guarantee you, that at 500pts, youll have a good chance of krumping alot of armies at those levels. After that, just add what you have, and practice list building with what you have. What I always do, is add units on paper, with every upgrade possible, with everything I have in my army, that way, if your total comes to say, 935 pts, youll know that you should be able to comfortably do an 800pt game. And like I said, dont ever just add the most expensive upgrades, and add everything you have just cause, if you do, youll be hanging yourself.



As for units to buy from here. More lootas are always good, and youll want more boyz for sure. Have you decided what type of Ork army you want to play yet? Because that will help you figure out better, what to buy/add. Because if you want to play horde, buying a bunch of trukks is a waste of your money. Or vice versa, if your thinking a horde type, having a few boyz and trukks, again wont make sense. But mainly, youll want to make sure that your nobz, are FULLY kitted out. Buy a box of nobz, and make a couple w/PKs and so on, look around this forum for building up the perfect Nob unit, itll tell you exactly what to do. Because even with say 5 kitted out Nobz, they will seriously hurt your opponent. And funny enough, you have a random trukk, and one of my fav tricks with Nobz, is stick them ina trukk, and put it in reserves, that way after a few turns, they come in, and everything (or most everything) should be in combat or already messed up from combat, then you zip the trukk to where ever you need the nobz to kick in teef. It works pretty good, mainly because if most things are in combat, they cant shoot at the trukk, which without a KFF, is pretty easy to kill. And speaking of KFF, thats a pretty important unit as well. Either make (use one of your warbosses youve got, youll only ever need 2, and youve got 3) or buy a KFF mek, its easily the best HQ in the codex.

Good luck

wow the help i'm getting is crazy thank you all thus far! I go to paint some green on my boys and come back to some solid reading.

@Jidmah

I like the idea of learning on 500. and yes the 5 nobs are AoBR.
after reading what you have said i'm looking at getting a nob box asap mostly for the klaws and extra bitz.(I did find 2 laying in the bitz box I got form my freinds )

I have also added your little list to my note book of orkyness to help me make my next few buys over the coming year.

@KingCracker

First off love the beard. Also I already love the ork codex, I read about 5 codex's before picking orks. It was the sense of humor and a handful of the unites that just did it for me. ('extra killy bit' still gets me after my 7th read)

with your advice I am turning 1 mek into a loota and saving the second (for now , I have a extra shootything and back bit from a loota so it will be a easy fix.)
Understanding the limits of my army is something I love that both you and jidmah said and I never thought of it that way before, I'm gonna stick to 500 and 750 games till I can hold down a solid 1k+ army.

Again saying getting a nob box asap tells me this is my next buy.

Next thing on my too do list(already started!) turning the more damaged of the 3 war bosses into a big mek. I need to get some green stuff and i'm gonna dig around my old toy box to see if I can find anything that would work for the KFF.

As far as the army I'm wanting to build, a mix of foot slogging and kan wall is my idea. My Favorite clan is the deffskulls and oddly my favorite unite in the ork codex is loota's- so honestly something along that idea.

My main goals for the rest of the week is to finish painting my boyz, turn a mek into a loota, and mabye a warboss into a big mek. that will give me 5 loota's to work with! DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA!

Lastly great bearded one, I'm going to run something close to your list and Jidmah as well as some of the tactics both you recommended. a battle report will be expected as it will be my first official attempt to win!

*Also I'm wanting to blog my coming of age story as a new warboss some way, is their a place for that on dakka dakka?*

again thank you everyone for the help! its been more then I expected!

One thing I would add to all of this incredibly useful information: Proxy stuff.

Play a couple games with some random objects that are roughly the same size as whatever you're going to buy, just to be sure that you actually want to buy those things.

Well, there is a DAKKA Blog section where you can chronicle the rise of your WAAAGH! Best part is, you can let it lapse for a yaer, and bring it back, and no one whines about necromancy And oddly enough, it kindda motivates you a bit.

Also, the AOBR boss is a great platform for building a bigmek, because its so broad, its easy to put things on him. And digging in a toy box is a very useful Ork skill to know. Same with dollar stores. The weirder the gak they sell, the better for us. Heres my first KFF Mek, I added some devastator backpacks with some gears from a toy truck. Pretty simple, and for added flexibility, I stuck a flamer on the KP as well, that way I could build him any way I wanted, and itd always be WYSIWYG (hard to see the gears ontop, but whatever it works right lol)




Also, post a link to your battle rep once that happens, I want to see how you do