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I was reading a few battle reports and came across a Ork player swearing by Grotsnik and a unit of Ard Boys for 1850-2000 pt competitive Grand Tournment play. Initially I did some tinkering in my list, and think he fits a nice little niche I seem to be lacking, which is a attrition, late game unit. I'd have a T4, 4+ armor save, 4+ feel no pain unit as long as he is alive, which is pretty nice, very nice for Orks. But i'm debating the cost factor of basically 100 extra points for my unit of Slugga Boys. I like my 1850 list, but its a easy bump to my 2K list just to add him in.

Have folks had good experiences with him? The downside I can see is he is then tethered to the unit as he cannot leave it, unless the unit dies to the Ork and he's the lone soldier remaining. I also would have the KFF to give the unit a cover save, so it would be more survivable then normal to small arms.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

He basically makes a unit nigh unkillable, especially a large mob of boyz. It either draws all the fire or none. Against GK though, it's crap, and you basically need the whole mob to carry cybork parts as well, but as is the unit is in some ways better than a nob squad.

Don't place the KFF in the unit, instead place it in a unit nearby, it's easy enough to snake some boyz over for the save.

Doesn't he cause the unit to have Rage? Not ideal for a late game unit really. Not sure how he fits with Ard slugga boyz. Doesn't seem like a match made in heaven.

He's not really that good, especially when you consider the other excellent options that Orks have for HQ.

I've never taken him as an Ork player, but have gone against him as a SM player. Wasn't too scary at all. My combat units (Assault Terminators, Tactical Terminators, Honor guard, Dreadnaughts ) didn't care about 4+ or FNP... and my shooty stuff (vindicators, Typhoon Speeders, Predators, Devastators, Tacticals with Plasma/Melta) doesn't really care about 4+ or FNP since we assume everyone is probably getting 4+ cover anyway... so literally all Mad Dok does is give Rage for 100 points.

Actually "one scalpel short of a medpack" is worse than rage. However, it's really hard to dodge a mob of 30 orks and he brings and extra powerklaw to the mob. You definitely need rokkits in that mob though, to prevent cheap vehicles from forcing them to move somewhere you don't want. Your lootaz and buggies should also be picking off any landspeeders or rhinos trying something funny.

Note that many of the shooty things you named would still allow FNP, as you need AP2 or better or S8 to ignore that. So unless you are shooting lascannons and krak rockets at the mob, he would get FNP saves from that. And having a lascannon predator or a unit of devastators blow up 20 points of 'ard boyz a turn isn't exactly something that will get their points back.

For the GK argument: Sure, in close combat, they are regular marines vs regular boyz. But regular marines usually die to boyz, and your unit is still cheaper than theirs. Also, not all GK will carry a NFW, they often have to trade them for unit upgrades or heavy weapons. Even against purifiers, they aren't so bad, because 4+/FNP will make purifying flames really unspectacular.

Grotznik is pretty much flootslogging armies only though, GW's funky ruling in the FAQ makes him close to unusable with trukks or battlewagons.

I've had great success with him attached to Snikrot's Kommandos, and in a Battlewagon with Slugga Boyz deployed in the middle of the table.

For my own orks, I used the Grotsnik + Snikrot + Ghaz bomb very effectively. Coming out of your enemy's deployment zone, there is very little than can stop this unit from accomplishing its goals, whatever they may be.

The FNP is absolute gold in close combat. Of course, you don't have the advantage of being able to use a 4+ armour save, but with 6+(4+) the probability that a kommando will die once wounded is only ~0.42. In comparison your space marines have a 0.33 probability of death after wounding. Not bad, considering we're talking about orks here.

The result of this extra durability + killing power is the ability for your (normally) one-and-done Kommando squads to wreck the opponents backfield for multiple(!) turns. He will have no choice but to fire at your Kommandos, letting your more deadly troops close the distance without being harassed.

I wouldn't recommend going with my setup if you do want to put Grotsnik in a squad of Kommandos though. Just too many eggs in one basket, and if they don't come in until late in the game, they will in most occasions, be a waste of ~400 points. On the other hand though, when they do come in, nothing short of shooting every available weapon at their squad will be enough to waste them. Use Kommandos as ablative wounds for Ghaz and Grotsnik, use Ghaz to protect Kommandos from small arms fire.

Going back to your original question though, Grotsnik is still very effective as an upgrade for your Slugga boyz. He may get pulled around by drop pods and landspeeders, but again its a matter of your opponent putting an excessive amount effort into eliminating a unit that really doesn't cost you a whole hell of a lot (in terms of what they are able to absorb). Hell, stretch his squad out (wisely) in front of the rest of your ork footsloggers and suddenly you have a 34 wound, 31 ork, 4+(4+) save, 2 PK toting, walking cover save that is capable of wrecking any other squad in the game (even those pesky purifiers).

Jidmah wrote:
Note that many of the shooty things you named would still allow FNP, as you need AP2 or better or S8 to ignore that. So unless you are shooting lascannons and krak rockets at the mob, he would get FNP saves from that. And having a lascannon predator or a unit of devastators blow up 20 points of 'ard boyz a turn isn't exactly something that will get their points back.
.

"Many" of the shooty things meaning? The secondary weapons on vehicles (autocanon on a pred and heavy bolter on a Typhoon)?

Anyway, my point is, the lascanons/missiles/etc... fire at the vehicles and knock them out and once that is done, they pour fire into the 'ard boys. yeah, it's probably not the most effective shot, but it's better than shooting at normal boys. A krak missile kills 10-point 'Ard Boys with FNP at the same rate that it kills 6-point boys. A lascanon, plasmagun, meltagun, vindicator do the same. The only time that 4+ or FNP actually comes into play is against a Flamer or some bolters. If that is what you are trying to get resiliency from... then go ahead and pay the points, but consider that 30 boys taking the 'Ard Boys upgrade is 120 points plus the 100 points for grotsnik... that's enough for another unit of 30 slugga boys. Does he make the unit more than twice as resilient?

On getting the extra powerclaw... I agree that sounds good. 30 fearless boyz with 2 powerclaws would be pretty good. But... better than the other HQ options? Maybe.

-Myst

Mysticaria wrote:
Anyway, my point is, the lascanons/missiles/etc... fire at the vehicles and knock them out and once that is done, they pour fire into the 'ard boys. yeah, it's probably not the most effective shot, but it's better than shooting at normal boys. A krak missile kills 10-point 'Ard Boys with FNP at the same rate that it kills 6-point boys. A lascanon, plasmagun, meltagun, vindicator do the same. The only time that 4+ or FNP actually comes into play is against a Flamer or some bolters. If that is what you are trying to get resiliency from... then go ahead and pay the points, but consider that 30 boys taking the 'Ard Boys upgrade is 120 points plus the 100 points for grotsnik... that's enough for another unit of 30 slugga boys. Does he make the unit more than twice as resilient?

-Myst

True, but we should be assuming our ork player is using more than just mobs of boyz. If his lascannons, plasmaguns, meltaguns, and vindicators are all firing at the 31 strong mob of 'ard boyz, then they aren't firing at your nobs, meganobs, kans, lootas, koptas, bikes, or buggies. And even if he is targeting 10p 'ardboyz with his heavier weapons, he's still running into the problem of getting through 30+(!) wounds. Sure, 10 points are getting burnt for every shot directed towards them (as opposed to 6), but there is very little chance that heavy weapons alone will be able to eliminate the squad, and them, along with the rest of the orks will just be getting closer. He will be forced to concentrate his bolters/flamers onto the squad, and those are the weapons that are least effective against them. Again, giving the rest of your army time to close the distance.

If course the argument that the 'ard boyz are not worth another 30 ork mob of sluggas is completely valid. But here I think its more of a matter of taste. The Grotsnik squad CAN be worth 2+ Sluggas. Position them correctly, force your enemy to fire on them instead of your more fragile units (koptas, bikes..) and you've made your money back. With another squad of sluggas your opponent is not going to be faced with the problem of 'urgency'. He knows that he can use his longer-range and more powerful shots to take out the lurkers and use the lower strength shots to take care of the boyz. He can compartmentalise and prioritise his fire into optimal patterns. With the big FNP 'ard boyz squad, he is FORCED to make a change to his game-plan and waste not only time, but valuable heavy weaponry.

We need to think about this problem not only in terms of what you're bringing on paper, but also in terms of how it will be affecting your opponents decisions. Toss in a wrench from out of left field and all of a sudden he needs to formulate a plan on the spot, instead of using his 'tried-and-true' methods. Then, all you need to do is sit back and watch him start making bad decisions.

TL;DR - They can be better than another squad of sluggas, but as your play varies, YMMV.

Sekminara wrote:
The Grotsnik squad CAN be worth 2+ Sluggas. Position them correctly, force your enemy to fire on them instead of your more fragile units (koptas, bikes..) and you've made your money back. With another squad of sluggas your opponent is not going to be faced with the problem of 'urgency'. He knows that he can use his longer-range and more powerful shots to take out the lurkers and use the lower strength shots to take care of the boyz. He can compartmentalise and prioritise his fire into optimal patterns. With the big FNP 'ard boyz squad, he is FORCED to make a change to his game-plan and waste not only time, but valuable heavy weaponry.

Good point and well reasoned. That is the trick... if you can get the opponent to change their game plan and play to your strengths, then it should be good. The challenge here is that FNP doesn't affect all enemy units the same way, and there are a few that can just ignore it. One should make an assessment on the liklihood of facing off against opponents who will be affected by the FNP blob. If it is likely, then its probably a good play.

I do recognize that I play a fairly nontraditional SM army (lots of tactical terminators and vindicators) and that my anecdotal experience may be skewed. Maybe against other SM armies, and against all other armies out there, such a unit would impact the gameplay more.

-Myst

I've toyed with the idea of a Grotsnik wall in a kan or tide list. Get a 30 man boyz squad with cybork or 'eavy in a line or even a semi circle, behind them the boyz and/or the kanz, 2 inches coherency add 1 for the actual model and you are looking at a 90 inch barrier. At the start of the turn they have to move to the nearest target but that is generally going to be straight forward or forward and to the right or left still moving up field and giving cover saves. I would definitely pack lootas and green barons to take down kiting threats and transports. The nice thing about this list is you can still pack a 2nd HQ and Snikrot is nice too. I haven't tried this but I like the idea of it, Grotsnik and his boyz have wracked up about 1000 pts for me in a game, 2 assault squads, vulkan with an assault terminator squad and their land raider and then half of a tactical terminator before the game was over and he still had over half a dozen boyz left.

Mysticaria wrote:One should make an assessment on the liklihood of facing off against opponents who will be affected by the FNP blob. If it is likely, then its probably a good play.

I do recognize that I play a fairly nontraditional SM army (lots of tactical terminators and vindicators) and that my anecdotal experience may be skewed. Maybe against other SM armies, and against all other armies out there, such a unit would impact the gameplay more.

I hate these guys.

With a Necron list i'm "playing the odds" with massive amounts of mid-level firepower. Annihilation barges (s6/s7 Tesla with high ROF and "interesting" D6 results) don't do well against FNP, mass gauss (s4/s5) from Warriors, Immortals, Ghost Arks etc. same.

Krak/Lascannons, what's that? Necrons have limited ranged AT capability (a handful of s8 ap2 Harbinger of Destruction crypteks), we sub in Scarabs and CCB's for tankbusting. Which get eaten by thumpy foot units.

Even the Imotekh Lord of the Storm lightning equalizer with a D6 s8, ap5 doesn't do much, just too many of the buggers in too few units. Aaaand, Night Fighting doesn't help either.

These sorts of units are perfect Necron killers.

Mysticaria wrote:

Jidmah wrote:
Note that many of the shooty things you named would still allow FNP, as you need AP2 or better or S8 to ignore that. So unless you are shooting lascannons and krak rockets at the mob, he would get FNP saves from that. And having a lascannon predator or a unit of devastators blow up 20 points of 'ard boyz a turn isn't exactly something that will get their points back.
.

"Many" of the shooty things meaning? The secondary weapons on vehicles (autocanon on a pred and heavy bolter on a Typhoon)?

Anything but plasma, lascannons and krak rockets. That includes frag rockets, bolters, flamers, heavy flamers, heavy bolters, which is basically a list of everything that's good against boyz, except for that vindicator.

Anyway, my point is, the lascanons/missiles/etc... fire at the vehicles and knock them out and once that is done, they pour fire into the 'ard boys.

Once you have shot down nine kanz (most likely combination with that unit), they'd be in your face.

yeah, it's probably not the most effective shot, but it's better than shooting at normal boys. A krak missile kills 10-point 'Ard Boys with FNP at the same rate that it kills 6-point boys.

Who in their right mind shoots krak missiles at boyz? The frag option is what makes makes the missile launcher so awesome, which is now useless. So you are actually killing less points by shooting a missile launcher at 'ard boyz than you would when shooting it at regular boyz.

A lascanon, plasmagun, meltagun, vindicator do the same. The only time that 4+ or FNP actually comes into play is against a Flamer or some bolters. If that is what you are trying to get resiliency from... then go ahead and pay the points, but consider that 30 boys taking the 'Ard Boys upgrade is 120 points plus the 100 points for grotsnik... that's enough for another unit of 30 slugga boys. Does he make the unit more than twice as resilient?

Actually four times are resilient, and pretty much auto-winning any combat against not-all-pw-units. If you are forced to aim heavy anti-tank and plasma weapons at boyz, yes that's damn worth the points. And even then, how many lascannons, rocket launchers and plasma can you field? Enough to shoot down 31 models with 5+ cover? At 2000 points I count a maximum of 19 such shots a turn, killing an average of seven 'ard boyz a turn.

On getting the extra powerclaw... I agree that sounds good. 30 fearless boyz with 2 powerclaws would be pretty good. But... better than the other HQ options? Maybe.

-Myst

Well, he basically is a warboss, the second best HQ in the codex. Unless you need a second KFF, you aren't losing out on much by fielding him.

Speaking as someone who has run the Dok, he is a lot better than what the internets would have you believe. Yes, his rage rule is annoying, but it can be mitigated.

I only run him in my green tide lists. In this list, he was with 30 ard boyz and Ol Zogwort. Almost everyone laughed at this list and told me it would never work. Dok helped keep Zogwort alive in CC, which was a distinct plus.

As for all of the reasons mentioned above, yes 30 'ard boyz and Dok completely suck ... in a vaccuum. However, I also had 5 more mobs of 30 behind this wall of death. So, as far as rage was concerned, there was no room behind me to kite me around. And, if you chose to fire solely on those ard boyz, then you weren't firing on my 150 other boys coming at you. And, if you are not whittling them down in the first two turns, you quickly run out of time to kill the rest in the remaining time left. With 180 boys on the board, you need to kill around 35-40 boyz per turn. No easy feat for any army.

My take is to try it out and play test it. If you like, the internets be damned.

Full disclosure: The best way I saw Mad Dok kited was to tank shock a land raider straight into the ard boyz. The rage rule made them play ring around the land raider while my nob and dok banged on it for 3 turns until they finally managed to wreck it.

Heh, well said.

I have been running a list with Dok, 30 choppas(no cybork or armor) and ghazz in a huge green deathstar O' Deff. It is an amazing unit. It would solve the landraider kite problem for ya Green .

During the fight for Armageddon Campaing at the GW stores here, one kid collected boyz from all the people at the store to create a massive green tide of 278 'ard boyz, added the dok and cyborked them all. At the end of the game more than 100 boyz were still standing and had a total of fifteen units locked in combat with them.

Jidmah wrote:During the fight for Armageddon Campaing at the GW stores here, one kid collected boyz from all the people at the store to create a massive green tide of 278 'ard boyz, added the dok and cyborked them all. At the end of the game more than 100 boyz were still standing and had a total of fifteen units locked in combat with them.

Oh dear lord, the thought of rolling that many dice makes my brain hurt.

Jidmah wrote:During the fight for Armageddon Campaing at the GW stores here, one kid collected boyz from all the people at the store to create a massive green tide of 278 'ard boyz, added the dok and cyborked them all. At the end of the game more than 100 boyz were still standing and had a total of fifteen units locked in combat with them.

So... Much.... Win....