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If you're running a mob of 30 shoota boyz do you use big shootas with them or rokkit launchas?

If you're running a mob of 30 slugga boys do you use big shootas with them or rokkit launchas?

Please advise

Russ

depends what your playing against but i'd say take big shootas if anything, you get 3 shots so your more likely to at least hit something. Whereas the rokkits you only get one shot, you need them to pop transports and stuff but rely on other areas of your army for that.

I know big shootas got better relative to rokkits, recently, but I still like rokkits. It seems like the new debate between plasma and melta in 6th. At first you're wowed by the new cool stuff of the multi-shot gun... and then you're back with your single-shot S8 weapon eventually.

Big shootas are certainly better against fliers and flimsy transports (well, against most stuff in general), but then you're going to come up against necron ark spam and wish you had SOMETHING that could penetrate AV13. Or you're going to come up against MCs, or you're going to come up against something with multiple wounds at T4, or you're going to come across a vehicle that needs to be dead NOW and you wish you'd have brought something that had a chance of taking it down in one shot.

Also, if most people seem to be abandoning klaws, then you're starting to look at a dangerously low-strength army if it's all just choppas and big shootas. S5 spam is great, but it doesn't do EVERYTHING.

What Ailaros is basically saying is that my Russes would love you to bring nothing but big shootas.

I'd say shootas in Boyz squads if anything, and rokkits/ other tank hunting stuff elsewhere... standard army building really. Tools for the job and all that.

I understand where the rokkit guys come from, but this isn't quite like with guard where you're only wasting a few lasgun shots to hit a tank. You're wasting almost 60 shoota shots to try and kill a tank. With 3 rokkits, only one will probably hit, and said rocket has very little chance of actually killing said vehicle. I mean, if the rokkits had the melta rule or something, yes, they would be much better. But they way they are right now, they REALLY suck at their job.

The only time they can really do damage is when used en masse, a la tankbustas or even rokkit koptas.

For a mob of shoota boyz, I think the answer will always be big shootas, just because if you're going to make a unit that annihilates infantry, you may as well make SURE it annihilates infantry. Besides, you can get plenty of rokkits elsewhere in our codex.

On sluggas though, that's a tougher call. I'd probably give them a try there if I ever had to footslog them, or had them in a battlewagon. A battlewagon with 4 rokkits, 2 rokkits in the mob, and a kannon, MIGHT have enough firepower to kill a transport on it's own, letting the boyz hop out that turn and assault it. That said, I'd much rather just let my kannons, lootas, warbikers, deff koptas, or Dakkajets handle the vehicle killing as that's what they do best, and let the boyz get to killing the squishy gitz inside.

So here my rationale for the question. I'm new to Orks so forgive me.

If Sluggas have a shorter range then Rokkits make sense if they are supposed to move across the board and get into combat.

Shootas might just want to take big shootas since their likely target are infantry.

Is this sound reasoning?

Russ

Pre 6th edition, I used to always take rokkits on everything (well, rokkits on anything I couldn't take flamers on ): Boyz, trukks, Kanz, dread, trakks, and deffkoptas. In the old editions, I took the rokkits on the low prob chance that one of the boyz would get lucky, hit something and blow it up (vehicle). I did this cause the boyz could handle the infantry. Rokkits and boyz gave anti tank and anti infantry in one unit. Things are different now for orks...

6th edition is a shooters game. For the orks it means you gotta take options that throw more dakka and specialize your units. The boyz get big shootas cause each one throws three shots. For anti tank I take twin linked stuff like deffkoptas and trakks/buggies or I take units that chuck a heck of a lot of stuff- lootas throw a lot and tankbustas throw a lot.

Sure, but rokkits still DO add versatility. If you're playing up against a mech-heavy army and they blow up your couple of units of koptaz or tankbustaz, you don't want to leave the rest of your army with NOTHING that can handle AV13+

Put another way, your boyz squads are ALREADY really good at those things a big shoota is useful against. Adding a big shoota really isn't adding much to what the squad is already doing. The loss of a big shoota from a mob in order to buy a rokkit isn't a big loss.

What IS a big loss is when you're unlucky and your specialists fail to break open a transport, and now your shootas are stuck throwing shots into the front of a chimera or onrushing dread, or whatever.

The cost of rokkits, both in points and in slots isn't very high for a little bit of insurance. I mean, I play foot guard and my regular line squads still get a meltagun.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I understand where the rokkit guys come from, but this isn't quite like with guard where you're only wasting a few lasgun shots to hit a tank. You're wasting almost 60 shoota shots to try and kill a tank. With 3 rokkits, only one will probably hit, and said rocket has very little chance of actually killing said vehicle. I mean, if the rokkits had the melta rule or something, yes, they would be much better. But they way they are right now, they REALLY suck at their job.

The only time they can really do damage is when used en masse, a la tankbustas or even rokkit koptas.

For a mob of shoota boyz, I think the answer will always be big shootas, just because if you're going to make a unit that annihilates infantry, you may as well make SURE it annihilates infantry. Besides, you can get plenty of rokkits elsewhere in our codex.

On sluggas though, that's a tougher call. I'd probably give them a try there if I ever had to footslog them, or had them in a battlewagon. A battlewagon with 4 rokkits, 2 rokkits in the mob, and a kannon, MIGHT have enough firepower to kill a transport on it's own, letting the boyz hop out that turn and assault it. That said, I'd much rather just let my kannons, lootas, warbikers, deff koptas, or Dakkajets handle the vehicle killing as that's what they do best, and let the boyz get to killing the squishy gitz inside.

I agree, big shootas are better on shoota boys. you have too many shoota shots to waste on vehicles, so go with the big shootas so you can maximize your anti infantry

on slugga boys(slugga boys are usually worse than shoota boys) you take rokkits. They shots are shorter ranged, and there are less of them. + you might really need to open a transport and str8 does that.

 Ailaros wrote:

What IS a big loss is when you're unlucky and your specialists fail to break open a transport, and now your shootas are stuck throwing shots into the front of a chimera or onrushing dread, or whatever.

The cost of rokkits, both in points and in slots isn't very high for a little bit of insurance. I mean, I play foot guard and my regular line squads still get a meltagun.

While I agree about the versatility thing, I disagree with this. If orks could get a meltagun or even a plasma gun in their mobz, then I would be all for it. However, this is a rokkit. It is not great at cracking vehicles at all. If you've got 3 in a mob and we're shooting at a rhino, one will hit. Said rokkit will glance the rhino on a 3 (aka, not kill it unless you softened it up) and has a +4 of a pen. Out of these results, the only result worth getting if you want to assault the contents is explosion, which you only get on a 6. That just has far too many "ifs" for me to see it as a reliable way to get through a transport and assault the squishy survivors inside. And that's a rhino. I'd hate to see someone going up against a chimera wall or some of those necron transports and trying to rely on rokkits to crack those transports, even if you've softened them up a bit.

Which is why, unlike guard, you can't just stick rokkits in the boyz mobs and expect good things to happen. I'd much rather take some lootas, tankbustas, kannonz, etc. and let them focus on killin the wagonz, so my boyz can get to krumpin the survivors. And in all honesty, none of orks anti tank options are really that expensive, so it's not like it's hurting anything. Heck, the points you save off taking away the rokkits in the mobs will go a long way towards fielding an actual antitank unit, which not only gets you better firepower, but also gets you more dakka, and more bodies on the field, which is only a good thing for orks.

Right, I'm not saying that a single rokkit is super-effective here. What I'm saying is that you won't really notice a big shoota in huge mob of shootas. You likewise won't really notice a rokkit (as it's not terribly effective). The difference is that a big shoota will always only ever do what a shoota does. You're basically paying to add 1 more shot to a 30-boy squad that already has 60 shots. The rokkit, on the other hand, can do something that the other 58 shots in the squad will never do (rather than somewhat rarely).

I mean, what's more likely, you saying "oh, I wish I had just ONE MORE shot in that shoota mob!" or "boy, I wish my shoota mob had something to shoot at this turn".

Neither of them are terribly likely, but my money's on the latter, rather than the former. Of course, if the squad has a klaw, then the answer is to spend the shooting phase running if there's nothing worth shooting, but as people seem to be abandoning klaws...

Ah ok that makes more sense.

That said, I've had my big shootas pull a surprising amount of weight in the firing phase. Plus, after finally getting a game in with warbikers, I've learned that massed S5 shooting can do a heck of a lot of damage to light transports. Sadly, boyz mobs can't match this level of firepower.

It may well just come down to personal preference. All I know is that I dont trust my rolls with rokkits unless they're twin linked, so I'll stick with big shootas.

Wait we're not using claws anymore? That's just not orky!

See? This is what this thread is suppose to do! Get us thinking and discussing how best to stomp the universe flat! I love it!

I read and understand your thought that rokkits with boyz adds versatility - but it only works if you hit something. I'd rather focus my boyz on killing what they can kill, an leaving the other stuff to focus on killing what they can kill. Big shoota is not the same as a shoota they're firing 36" and your getting 9 shots as your advancing. I'd rather shoot at something I can kill 9 times rather then shoot at something I can kill 3 times. Chances are Im gonna miss if I only shoot 3 times.

Our twin linked rokkit vehicle stuff is really cheap. You can get one for like 40-45 pts. Buggies, trakks, deffkoptas. I just have better results firing a squad of deffkoptas' rokkits and rerolling misses then I do 3 rokkits from boyz units. Also I use lootas and tank bustas to fire at vehicles. If I wanna hit with a rokkit, I'll fire 15 of the buggers from my tankbustas.

But its all personal preference. When I'm putting units down I'm trying to line up tank hunters with targets and boyz with targets. If I run into a guy running a lot of chimeras or rhinos. I advance a little slower with the boyz until I crack a few in front of them.

Concerning taking the PK or not...well I'm considering trading in the PK for Big Gunz. Theyre almost the same price, but while my nob is not punching stuff every turn, the big gunz could be. and they're a heck of a lot tougher then a nob. Yeah, I know no PK is very unorky but Orks getting they butts kicked like this in CC, in 6th edition, is unorky too. Opponents should be nervous about getting into CC with Orks. They're not cause this edition doesn't favor Orks in CC. Its a shooters game.

My next game Im gonna try stripped down nobz just with the BP and EA-maybe a BC im not even sure about that now. The nobz's job is just to keep the boyz from breaking, and the boyz do the work. He work even accept any challenges. The points I save (+25 per unit) Im buying kannons to fire every turn at targets. I'll let people know how Im doing.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I understand where the rokkit guys come from, but this isn't quite like with guard where you're only wasting a few lasgun shots to hit a tank. You're wasting almost 60 shoota shots to try and kill a tank. With 3 rokkits, only one will probably hit, and said rocket has very little chance of actually killing said vehicle. I mean, if the rokkits had the melta rule or something, yes, they would be much better. But they way they are right now, they REALLY suck at their job.

The only time they can really do damage is when used en masse, a la tankbustas or even rokkit koptas.

For a mob of shoota boyz, I think the answer will always be big shootas, just because if you're going to make a unit that annihilates infantry, you may as well make SURE it annihilates infantry. Besides, you can get plenty of rokkits elsewhere in our codex.

On sluggas though, that's a tougher call. I'd probably give them a try there if I ever had to footslog them, or had them in a battlewagon. A battlewagon with 4 rokkits, 2 rokkits in the mob, and a kannon, MIGHT have enough firepower to kill a transport on it's own, letting the boyz hop out that turn and assault it. That said, I'd much rather just let my kannons, lootas, warbikers, deff koptas, or Dakkajets handle the vehicle killing as that's what they do best, and let the boyz get to killing the squishy gitz inside.

So new to the Horde, yet his understanding is great. Thumbs up to you MrMoustaffa. This is correct. Boyz are not tank hunters, they are generally not vehicle poppers (though they can do the job against AV10 rather nicely) they are either for tarpits, or taking wounds for the rest of the horde. Those 2 things, are what they are meant for. If all you had to take out vehicles were boyz, and nothing else, then sure, go with rokkits I guess. But I used to spam feth rokkits like a crazy person in 5th, and take it from me, they are a waste of points on boyz.

Your forgetting that you shouldnt compare Boyz to Guardsmen, it just doesnt work. Sure in a guard squad, that special weapon can be pretty useful, but in boyz, our BS is just not good enough to support that point sink. Thats why we have other units in our armies that deal with heavier vehicles

 Ailaros wrote:
Sure, but rokkits still DO add versatility. If you're playing up against a mech-heavy army and they blow up your couple of units of koptaz or tankbustaz, you don't want to leave the rest of your army with NOTHING that can handle AV13+

Put another way, your boyz squads are ALREADY really good at those things a big shoota is useful against. Adding a big shoota really isn't adding much to what the squad is already doing. The loss of a big shoota from a mob in order to buy a rokkit isn't a big loss.

What IS a big loss is when you're unlucky and your specialists fail to break open a transport, and now your shootas are stuck throwing shots into the front of a chimera or onrushing dread, or whatever.

The cost of rokkits, both in points and in slots isn't very high for a little bit of insurance. I mean, I play foot guard and my regular line squads still get a meltagun.

Versatility is nice, but not at the cost of points and opportunity. Every time you shoot a mob of boyz at a vehicle above AV10, you wasted an entire mob of shooting, for three rokkits which have a huge chance of not doing anything at all. And 30 points are is a lot for such unreliable weapons. If it were a melta, even at BS2, I'd be completely with you. But it's neither AP1 nor 2d6 armor penetration, meaning it has too many points of failure to actually harm vehicles in a meaningful way. A rokkit has no more than a 5.55% chance to actually take off quantum shielding, and a 2% chance to actually destroy or immobilize an AV13 vehicle. Totally not worth wasting 10 points per rokkit and all those shoota shots. Before you start gambiling in order to destroy vehicles, maybe rethink your army composition to include more anti-tank elsewhere.

And "nothing" to handly AV13 isn't true anyway. We still got PKs, unless you dropped them because you were afraid of challenges. Unlike a rokkit, a PK will destroy almost any vehicle.

Since you're an IG player, maybe think of this: A CCS with a flamer, a melta gun, a missile launcher and a plasma pistol is very versatile, it has weapons efficient against MEQ, TEQ, light and heavy vehicles, and horde units, so why doesn't every IG army have such a squad? Because specialized shooting units are better, so you don't waste half your squad's weapons (90% in the case of boyz) when shooting anything.

in shootaboys squads - big shootas (and possibly no PK's)
in choppa boys squads - PKs and no special weapons.

Verses space marines there is very little to chose between the options in terms of space marine kills per point. I just prefer to keep my squads simple - choppa boys always run so don't make use of the special weapons. Shoota boys shoot, mainly agains infantry, and it just feels more orky to go for the extra shots

AV shots tend to come from lootas or cannons or coptas as they have the range or mobility to get to the target.

Not to get off topic too much here, but I've noticed myself looking into shoota mobz without a nob as well (or at least one with just a big shoota/choppa and no klaw) just as a way to have a cheap scoring unit. It's mainly for my biker lists though, where I just need something that can guard a home objective, but 20 shoota boyz with just big shootas is only 130pts for a unit that can hold its own in the back or tarpit something, and thats pretty darn cheap for what you get.

However, if I didnt have all the klaws running around on those bikes and koptas, they'd be back in the mob in a heartbeat. You gotta have klaws SOMEWHERE, I've learned that the hard way

Personal opinion, Big shootas in shoota boy mobs, nob with pk in slugga boy mobz.

Rokkits are great when fielded en masse, which the boyz can't do. Buggies and deffkoptas are a better place for them.

Also I'm with Mr Moustaffa, I don't run a pk nob in my shoota boyz. I just run a large block with three big shootas and keep them supported by other units in case of the dreaded sentinel stymie.

I also don't bother to try and PK vehicles down anymore. The chance of explosion is too high and I always loose a handful of orks when it happens.
Actually, the fact that Orks only have the PK as a viable for high AV makes me mad. Why should I have to sacrifice nine boyz every time I want to pop something AV12?

Jidmah wrote:Versatility is nice, but not at the cost of points and opportunity.

Well, 10 points doesn't seem so much of a sacrifice if it removes the chance that 200 points of boyz will have nothing to shoot at. High, perhaps, but not unreasonable.

Secondly, the point is about options. Taking a rokkit in a squad of shootas does not mean that you're going to go around wasting shootas to shoot the rokkit. Far from it. The point is that there will be some times when your shootas are ALREADY going to be wasted because they have no targets. In this case, the rokkit will allow that 200 point unit to do anything at all, rather than just twiddle its thumbs. Even if this event only happened every other game, it would still be worth taking. Actually, it would be worth taking even if it only happened a number of turns equal to the cost of the rokkit divided by the cost of the mob.

Plus, it's not like the rokkit does NOTHING when the shootas are shooting either. It still has the chance to add an Ap3 ID zinger to a mob of shoota fire. It's not like you're completely removing the rokkit's killing power when not shooting it at vehicles.

What we're talking about is a giant pile of guys that exist to lay the smackdown on infantry. It's what they will be doing most of the time. The question is do you want to give them an upgrade that does this job a tiny bit better, or do you want to give them something that does this job a tinier bit better, but can also attack things that the rest of the shootas can't even hurt.

matphat remember boys with 4s on the charge can glance anything with AV10 in the back with 6's since its taken aginst back armor in CC vs viechles. thats alot of dice to roll for 6's

"Big shootas in shoota boy mobs" was certainly the common view in 5th, but that was when shoota mobs weren't nearly as popular as they are in 6th, and there were far more slugga mobs around (sometimes with other special weapons).

So yeah, maybe "big shootas in shoota boy mobs" is still the way to go, BUT we need to boost our specialised high-strength shooting elsewhere (tankbustas, lootas etc), coz most vehicles are even harder to take down in 6th than in 5th.

MrMoustaffa wrote:]Not to get off topic too much here, but I've noticed myself looking into shoota mobz without a nob as well

Actually, maybe this is the way to go. Just take the 3 extra boyz instead. I mean, if you're talking about a big mob, they're going to be fearless anyways, and if they're in cover, it's going to be awhile before said fearlessness is broken. Furthermore, 3 shootas is probably going to be more useful than a big shoota anyways.

Perhaps we're entering into a nobz-optional world?

Id disagree. Vehicles are by and large, easier to kill now thanks to glancing the piss out of them. Sure you can repair the glances with most armies, but what about when you glance it more then the HP they have? Well, its toast. And IVe not only done that a couple times, but Ive had it done to me. Its a pretty nice way around the HP being fixed later.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ailaros wrote:

MrMoustaffa wrote:]Not to get off topic too much here, but I've noticed myself looking into shoota mobz without a nob as well

Actually, maybe this is the way to go. Just take the 3 extra boyz instead. I mean, if you're talking about a big mob, they're going to be fearless anyways, and if they're in cover, it's going to be awhile before said fearlessness is broken. Furthermore, 3 shootas is probably going to be more useful than a big shoota anyways.

Perhaps we're entering into a nobz-optional world?

I can see that happening. Im actually pretty lucky in the fact that MOST the people I play with in our group, hate the challenge rules, and so they dont use them, despite me protesting that its the rules. Fine with me though, as my Nobz are still badasses AND I get overwatch . But yea, I could see making Boyz mobz big enough to just enjoy the fearless that they have.

Actually, the more I think about it the more this might be true. I mean, a mob of boyz can ALREADY take big shootas and rokkits. They don't need a nob for this. Furthermore, the bosspole only works when the mob has been shredded, and even then, it just gives a reroll. If there are only a couple of guys left on the table, what you're looking at is just more casualties to an already decimated squad. It seems like it wouldn't get a whole lot of use (outside of perhaps trukk mobs), and would be somewhat questionable of its use even then.

Really, it seems like the only thing that nobz really bring to a boyz mob is a klaw. If you don't want the klaw, then why even bother with the nob?

Makes the mob a good deal cheaper thats for sure. A good 40 to 45pts per mob could go toards a unit of biker nobs, which WILL kill something, or kannonz, koptaz, you name it. Things that can kill tanks too, and yet get you more shots, more bodies, and more flexibility. Huh, maybe I'll start a thread about that later, that could be an interesting topic.

Back onto this though, if we stick with the big shoota/rokkit debate for a 30 strong shoota mob, you'd get an extra dead marine for each choice. The rokkit that hits is almost guaranteed to wound and ignores armor entirely. The big shoota will get 3 hits, roughly 2-3 wounds, where said marine will probably fail his save. So if we look at it that way you don't really lose killin power against MEQ. Against guardsmen yeah, not as great a choice, but maybe that added flexibility is worth it to you.

However, I'm liking the idea of just taking the points I was using for nobs and just buying more killy stuff to hunt tanks instead. Let the shoota mobs stay nice and cheap, and let them dakka on survivors from vehicles.

Good discussion.

I've been finding that my Boyz mobz do not need a Nob to really be effective, but DO need 3 special weapons to be worth their salt in this ed.

I think rokkitz are very useful, but the key is to load up on them army-wide.

3 Rokkitz is OK, but 20+ is way more effective and really mitigates the 5's to hit. That one lucky roll where you get 10+ hits is VERY satisfying.

RE Nobz, I'm finding them less and less useful as squad leaders. For their points it's better to take them as Nob mobz.

Okay, so if we assume no nobz for a moment, and that the rokkit v. shoota debate is for upgraded boyz, does that change anything? I guess it does sort of polarize the idea of shootas for shootas and rokkits for sluggas a bit more.

Although I have to wonder if they're worth it at all. For the price of 3 big shootas, you get 5 more regular shootas, and more time until you lose fearless, and more bodies to hold objectives with.

Perhaps boyz mobs should just be kept literally as cheap as possible now?

 Ailaros wrote:
Okay, so if we assume no nobz for a moment, and that the rokkit v. shoota debate is for upgraded boyz, does that change anything? I guess it does sort of polarize the idea of shootas for shootas and rokkits for sluggas a bit more.

Although I have to wonder if they're worth it at all. For the price of 3 big shootas, you get 5 more regular shootas, and more time until you lose fearless, and more bodies to hold objectives with.

Perhaps boyz mobs should just be kept literally as cheap as possible now?

For the cost of three big shootas you could almost get three reg boyz with shoota (3 pts short). The big difference is 9 shots w/ big shootas at st 5 going 36" vs 6 shots at st 4 at 18". I still think the Big shoota is better buy.

I like dropping the nob in a huge blob but no way in trukks or bw.