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Fighting some dark eldar for the first time this week and a little dakka knowledge wouldn't go a miss So I know he will be fielding a 1500 pt list mainly consisting of raider mounted witches i think 3 or 4 squads of 8 and 3 ravagers. along with a couple of raider mounted warrior squads.
As this foe is totally new to me i was thinking a horde army like 2 big 30 boy squads a 20 boy squad 20 ard boys. then 10 lootas and a big mek sak and 15 grots for fire support and objective holding. then a warboss on a warbike with 6 bikes (boys) with a nob and pk and 7 kommandos to flank and smash.
Any help much appreciated I would like to put up a reasonably good fight

I just asked a similar question in the Orks tactica, but mine was far more vague as Ive no clue what the new DE player has. Sadly he didnt show last weekend, so maybe this weekend. I hope you get your answers, because Im still curious how to handle them

I'm a de player. If I was tailoring to face orks (like you are to face de) then I'd be spamming venoms. Venoms will be your biggest threat; they're cheap as chips and will take 12 shots each per turn. Your next threat will be the warriors in the raiders.

The trick to facing de is to shoot down the fliers; their advantage is speed - take it away from them. They will not win in a war of attrition, or if you can make them fight your entire army at once. Once their troops are footslogging it's hard to lose.

Take lootas. Shoot the fliers. Protect the lootas.

If you take a slow horde, you will likely be gunned down by splinter / lance / dissie fire.
Slow targets and Foot Lists tend to get fairly well mauled by DE (It's why 'nids have such a hard time with them, because that's all they can bring). Conversely, small elite armies get spammed to death aswell...

A mobile MSU list or with enough bodies that it can outspam the gunfire (doesn't sound like he has any Venoms from what you know, which will be good) , or something with a lot of mech (AV10-12 is fine being AV12+ is wasted), certainly spamming Str6+ weapons will see you straight though, being the Str6 will glance DE vehicles on a 4, pen on a 5 (5, 6 for the AV11 on ravagers) and cause instant death on the squishy troops (negating the FnP).

AP5 will negate their regular saves, limiting the whole army to their cover and invulnerable saves (which are pretty much limited to 2+* on HQs, 6+* on certain others, 4+* in CC with Wyches and 5+* on vehicles.)
Furthermore, all the vehicles apart from the flyers are open-topped, so you get +1 to the damage tables.

At the end of the day, you need to play more aggressively than they will, wiping out their fragile hammers before they can whittle you to death.

Just take a lot of Shoota Boyz, Wyches suck against them and they may not even get to charge you with that many Overwatch shots. Don't bring too many heavy vehicles, since he's probably bringing Haywire grenades and DL. Ork armor is crappy so his Ravagers won't do much if you refrain from taking vehicles (Oh, you vaporized 3 Boyz! Congrats!). Don't take 'Ard Boyz, just get more Boyz. Shoota Boyz.
A Horde is a good idea if the board isn't very large, but if they have space to maneuver, you just won't ever be able to reach them.
Take Lootas, they absolutely RAPE DE vehicles.
Hope that helps.

Orks against Dark Eldar is a bit sticky, since the key to beating Dark Eldar is to pop their transports early, and you can't do that easily at BS2. Take Grots for fire support and lots of Shoota Boyz.

Orks can't pop DE transports? Due to BS2? That's what Lootas are for. Why does everyone complain about Ork BS? They get so many shots that it doesn't matter.

Lootas

Dakkajets

Shoota boy mobs

Lobbas for those elder squads once you pop their transports

perhaps an aegis defence line with quadgun

perhaps a couple of looted wagons with boomguns for indirect fire pieplates.

As to HQ, perhaps the bigmek with kff to defend your gunlines, personally I'm really enjoying rediscovering the shokk attack gun mek, perhaps take one with a warboss on bike with a bike squad for plugging gaps?

AP5 4+ poison weapons do not take away 5+ KFF cover or 5+ FNP. Put Mad Dok Grotsnik with 30 Boyz screening 456,456,454 Boyz behind them. KFF Big Mek in second Mob or Bike Boss. 2X15 Lootas. I won all 3 matches with Grotsnik and a Bike Boss at an 1850 tourney a few weeks ago.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Orks against Dark Eldar is a bit sticky, since the key to beating Dark Eldar is to pop their transports early, and you can't do that easily at BS2. Take Grots for fire support and lots of Shoota Boyz.

Yeaaaa apparently you havnt played against a good shooty Ork build.

Noone loves lootas more than me, but I'm not sold on full sized squads of them, a squad of 6 can put out 6 to 18 autocannon shots, that's 2 to 6 average hits with autocannons, that should be plenty to off most middle armour vehicles leaving you points for other things. 15 of them is potentially 45 shots with average 15 hits, which is overkill for takedown on just one target. I'd rather save the points to put into something else.

I would think about being able to shoot at as many targets per turn as possible. DE were what made me change from one 15 man Loota squad to 2 or 3 smaller ones. I didn't tailor just to face DE but they did cause me to rethink my lists. The other thing to consider is the shields they can take that reduce your range by 6 inches. Not to big a deal going from 48 to 42 on the Lootas but going from 18 to 12 is huge for shoota boys. DE will out shoot you they can put out allot of accurate fire against a mob of boys and reduce their numbers real fast however if you can pop their transports early you should come out on top. Just remember that they get cover saves on those transports and there will be 10 or more most likely.

Edit: And every time I have faced them they have been scared to death of my lootas trying to stay out of their range. Usually if they thought about it more they would be better off closing in on the Lootas fast and getting more shots but they seem to be unwilling to commit to that. You can take advantage of that if your opponent does the same.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Noone loves lootas more than me, but I'm not sold on full sized squads of them, a squad of 6 can put out 6 to 18 autocannon shots, that's 2 to 6 average hits with autocannons, that should be plenty to off most middle armour vehicles leaving you points for other things. 15 of them is potentially 45 shots with average 15 hits, which is overkill for takedown on just one target. I'd rather save the points to put into something else.

In 5th I'd have agreed with you, but with the damage table getting so much softer, you really need that many lootaz to make sure the vehicle dies, because you can't just shake and ignore them anymore.

In 6th, the AV10 2-3HP vehicles will get glanced to death easily.

On average, 5-6 glance/pen results will drop any DE ship (1/3rd should be stopped by the 5+*)

Looters are definetly a good idea then.. i was thinking a boss biker with some nobs aswell to flank and smash but obviously need to draw the fire away from them. I can field to dakka jets aswell which i also thought could work. what do you think about zzap guns? or are lobbas the way to go. I know hes gunna try and snipe me then close in for the kill at the end,, i want to hit him hard and fast before he has a chance to even think i want him to react to me instead of the other way round show him what the boys are made of. I can field a pretty good variety of stuff so go nuts with sum more ideas. thanks dakkerites

 Jidmah wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Noone loves lootas more than me, but I'm not sold on full sized squads of them, a squad of 6 can put out 6 to 18 autocannon shots, that's 2 to 6 average hits with autocannons, that should be plenty to off most middle armour vehicles leaving you points for other things. 15 of them is potentially 45 shots with average 15 hits, which is overkill for takedown on just one target. I'd rather save the points to put into something else.

In 5th I'd have agreed with you, but with the damage table getting so much softer, you really need that many lootaz to make sure the vehicle dies, because you can't just shake and ignore them anymore.

Except now, if your able to get a shake result, the vehicle is down a HP right off the bat. I completely agree with MGS, I have ALWAYS taken small groups of Lootas usually 3x5 or if I need an elites slot, Ill do 2x7ish. They always perform for me, and are even more deadly at punching out vehicles.


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 gingermist wrote:
Looters are definetly a good idea then.. i was thinking a boss biker with some nobs aswell to flank and smash but obviously need to draw the fire away from them. I can field to dakka jets aswell which i also thought could work. what do you think about zzap guns? or are lobbas the way to go. I know hes gunna try and snipe me then close in for the kill at the end,, i want to hit him hard and fast before he has a chance to even think i want him to react to me instead of the other way round show him what the boys are made of. I can field a pretty good variety of stuff so go nuts with sum more ideas. thanks dakkerites

Here, Ill save you 10pts per model, for nearly the same effectiveness. Drop the Nob Bikers and take bigshoota koptas instead. They have the same gun, but it shoots 36inches instead of 18, are 10 points cheaper and can go much faster then bikes when needed. So if you only took 5 nobz with your boss, Ive saved you 50pts, thats almost another loota mob. Youd be pleasantly surprised at how deadly a bunch of TL bigshootas can be. So the boss can still krump any vehicle or what have you, and the koptas can still soak up wounds for less points.

Basically, Nobz just arnt worth taking anymore, 6th has really taken their umph

 gingermist wrote:
Looters are definetly a good idea then.. i was thinking a boss biker with some nobs aswell to flank and smash but obviously need to draw the fire away from them. I can field to dakka jets aswell which i also thought could work. what do you think about zzap guns? or are lobbas the way to go. I know hes gunna try and snipe me then close in for the kill at the end,, i want to hit him hard and fast before he has a chance to even think i want him to react to me instead of the other way round show him what the boys are made of. I can field a pretty good variety of stuff so go nuts with sum more ideas. thanks dakkerites

Dark Eldar transports are even more vulnerable in 6th, thanks to glance-to-death. Small loota squads are the way to go imo, 5-7.

If you want to take a warboss on a bike, just take regular bikes to back him up, nob bikers really REALLY ain't what they used to be, with the FAQ taking down their (ch) status and GW making it really clear they hate wound allocation shenanigans.

Dark Eldar have nothing with the armour necessary to warrant considering zzap guns. Lobbas are great to take down hidden units and fire indirectly so you can hide them behind los blocking terrain. They will fire with bs3 and a unit of 3 lobbas will link their templates, so when one hits... bingo! Small, lightly armoured units of D Eldar will evaporate in a red mist. Also, with the new artillery rules, the big guns are all T7 monsters, so the grot crew are now effectively T7... that's bloody great.

Deffkoptas lost their turboboost scout move and that blows, they used to be great light vehicle breakers but have lost much of their effectiveness now and remain relatively expensive.

I like the idea of shooting the crap out of the dark eldar with lootas to break their vehicles then dropping multiple pie plates to smush the pansies when they are disembarked.

So, IMO, good choices are:

HQs: Maybe the warboss on bike, with a regular biker boyz unit, Big Mek with KFF, Big Mek with Shokk Attack

Elites: Lootas, Burnas (especially for open topped vehicle 'burny dance' stacked 15 burna template horror...

Troops: all good, I think 6th currently, shoota boyz are the shiz. If you take the Big Mek with shokk gun, take a mob of grots to surround and cushion him.

Fast Attack: Dakkajets. Maybe some buggies with rokkits to harass the Dark Eldar light vehicles

Heavy Support: cheap looted wagons with boomguns, Big Guns - esp lobbas.

Also, food for thought, don't forget fortifications for anti-air guns and esp allies with guns and higher BS (I think imperial guard for cheap hq and troop mandatories to allow you to field trios of basilisks or other artillery..)

I play against Mech Wych DE on a regular basis with my Orks and they really are not an issue with my shooty build. DE raiders took a huge hit in 6th edition due to HP, exploding open-topped vehicles taking strength 4 hits, and overwatch. By the time his wyches get to you they are such a small unit they can't do anything useful. Shoota boyz are key for Orks period in 6th edition. Lootas still really strong (I run them in 12-15 man units). Dakka Jets are really good. Aegis Defense wall is overpowered for Orks!

Dark Eldar is moving towards Mech Warrior builds in my area which is a tad more scary with 10 Warriors in a raider with splinter racks. That can dump out some firepower.

thanks for all the advice guys.. defo gunna field lootas smaller squads i think like 7 and a looted tank boom gun big mek shock attack a big squad of shooters two smaller ones, lobber battery dakka jet... stil havent deceided if one enough should i take two?

 gingermist wrote:
thanks for all the advice guys.. defo gunna field lootas smaller squads i think like 7 and a looted tank boom gun big mek shock attack a big squad of shooters two smaller ones, lobber battery dakka jet... stil havent deceided if one enough should i take two?

Consider if your opponent will take Dark Eldar flyers? If he does, he'll grab air superiority very quickly against just one dakkajet.

Fortunately you can consider this:
You need 6s to hit his aircraft, big deal for most armies... your lootas need 5s against ground targets anyway, so not a massive jump for them... also if you take a fortification and don't put anyone in it, it's firing with bs 2, so it could use it's own BS if unmanned.

I'd be tempted to consider 2 dakkajets with all the trimmings, also an aegis defence wall with the quad gun and put the shokk attack gun in there with his 'bodyguard' of grot herd... let one of the grots man the gun, taking the BS up to 3 (formidable for orks...) and then you have potent air power and anti air from the aegis manned by the grots and the loota squads if they aren't too busy taking down raiders and venoms.

I think that all the suggestions are great so far. Another unit to continue is burnaz. I have personally used them to AMAZING effect against Dark Eldar. They will completely wipe entire squads in one turn. Plus getting 10 d3 overwatch hits if you are charged is potentially enough to kill the unit outright haha.

They may become a huge target, but if they are keeping your lootas safe, that's a fair trade. Use those lootas to down all the transports and then have your way with the panzy contents that fall out

Perhaps a burna bommer would be good as well? In tandedm with your lootas knocking down those raiders etc, the bommer(s) can drop flame templates on the contents, again, making them do the burny dance all the way home (in Hell!).

-VardenV2

It's a pretty close matchup at face value. Both of you have easy to kill infantry, and flimsy, flimsy vehicles, and have lots of low/mid-strength shooting. Cue bloodbath.

In any case, the big deal is to be able to handle the vehicles. Thankfully, they're almost all AV10, all open-topped, and the worst one (venoms) only have 2HP.

And you're orks. A pair of 20-boy shoota mobz can take down a raider every time they shoot. Lootaz, as others are mentioning, are going to absolutely shred whatever they shoot at. If you're moving in the dakkork direction as of late, you probably have a bunch of big shootaz as well, which will likewise pick things out of the sky. If you're really that worried about it, you can obviously take a dakkajet as well.

Probably the dark horse solution here is bikes. They're fast. You're fast. They're flimsy, you've got dakkaguns and klaws. The guys inside are crummy, and you've got friggin ork bikes so krump their faces in. Plus, you get a permanent 4+ cover save. The only problem with this is that your opponent has poisoned weapons, so the +T won't help, but for everything else, you're beating your opponent at his own game.

Something else people are forgetting to mention, are rokkit buggies. They were good against DE in 5th, and are still good against them now. 12 inch movement AND a 24 inch TL rokkit shot? Yes please. On a standard table, the DE wouldnt have much area to be faster then you with a 36inch threat range.

Or even just shoota buggies. 90 points for an average of 5 S5 hits per turn? That's basically enough for a venom a turn, and will do most of the work against raiders through glances. Plus, there's always the chance for a pen, which might actually do something, given open-topped.

They're also good against the squishy little elves inside as well.

Im thinking of building some hotrod buggies to add to my recently fond love affair with bigshootas. Id probably make them so they could be either rokkits or Bigshootas, but seriously, Bigshootas are just the tits IMO

I also thouyght a dakka jet with a burna bomber in tow would be a good idea

Against DE? I wouldnt take the bomma, Id just take another DAKKAjet. Those things will smoke a vehicle each, per turn. And they shoot such a high volume, they will ALSO smoke a boat load of troops a turn, specially on a WAAAGH!

Im a de player and an ork player. My best advice would be to take as many lootas and shoota boyz as you can, its almost impossible for de to win once their transports are gone and their all av10 so you shouldnt have much of a problem blowing them up

Assuming he knows hes playing orks hes probably going to rock venom spam most likely with night shields which means he'll be playing keep away as long as he can. So i cant stress how important the lootas will be because assuming the above, he'll have twice the firing range as most of your army. Hope this helped and i wish you best of luck


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Im a de player and an ork player. My best advice would be to take as many lootas and shoota boyz as you can, its almost impossible for de to win once their transports are gone and their all av10 so you shouldnt have much of a problem blowing them up

Assuming he knows hes playing orks hes probably going to rock venom spam most likely with night shields which means he'll be playing keep away as long as he can. So i cant stress how important the lootas will be because assuming the above, he'll have twice the firing range as most of your army. Hope this helped and i wish you best of luck


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Im a de player and an ork player. My best advice would be to take as many lootas and shoota boyz as you can, its almost impossible for de to win once their transports are gone and their all av10 so you shouldnt have much of a problem blowing them up

Assuming he knows hes playing orks hes probably going to rock venom spam most likely with night shields which means he'll be playing keep away as long as he can. So i cant stress how important the lootas will be because assuming the above, he'll have twice the firing range as most of your army. Hope this helped and i wish you best of luck

Agreed, I'd take 2 dakkajets. I'd try out a burnabomba against another ork, imperial guard footslogging and especially against tyranids. In the Eldar, Dark Eldar and marine case, I'd prefer dakkajets for their versatile anti light vehicle/anti small infantry unit capability.

Remember that with Dakkajets to get BS 3 against the DE vehicles they will need fighta ace as they don't get strafing run against skimmers IIRC.