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So I played my second game ever last night, and I noticed a common occurrence in both of the games I played that I wanted to discuss.


Originally I had A Gorka Morka strategy, pelt them with the lootas from the back row and move battlewagons full of burnas, boys and nobs to his lines. But in both games, my opponent's reaction to being shot by my lootas was to immediately throw everything he had at them, charging across the battlefield with melee units and deepstriking near them. In both games I ended up having to turn my battlewagons around to save my lootas. Part of the reason this happened is I'm new and I started my lootas too far forward, and I could probably stop this from happening by deploying them farther back. But I had a second idea. I could make my opponent charging my lootas part of my strategy instead of a desperate reaction: Start the lootas far forward, with my battlewagons parked next them, maybe with kannons, so it looks like I'm dumb and I'm using them for fire support, then when they charge the lootas, unload the boys on top of them and crush them. Even though the other player knows I have guys in the wagons if they look at my army list, its kind of hard for them to worry about it when they're not on the board and the lootas are pelting them.

"All warfare is based on deception" - Sun Zu

This could work for you. Against "seasoned" players it probably won't, but it is an interesting idea and your use of misdirection in the foreplanning is promising.

That said I wouldn't pay for any upgrade to "look dumb" as you could use the points elsewhere. I have only seen one list that uses Kannons on Battlewagons, and that list had the lootas site inside and fire out of it.

If all else fails, try it! School of Hard Knocks is the best academy anywere.

You're relying on the enemy to make a mistake. Letting the opponent decide who achieves victory seems counterproductive.

Have fun making a go of it, but if you just hid the lootas properly then the burnas would have more mobility to seek out their targets. Put the burnas between the target and the lootas, rather than beside. It's a more resilient formation.

Corollax wrote:
You're relying on the enemy to make a mistake. Letting the opponent decide who achieves victory seems counterproductive.

Have fun making a go of it, but if you just hid the lootas properly then the burnas would have more mobility to seek out their targets. Put the burnas between the target and the lootas, rather than beside. It's a more resilient formation.

Yeah I guess you're right. I was thinking if the lootas looked too protected maybe they wouldn't be attacked, but then you have lootas pelting you with shots the whole game anyway, so they pretty much have to attack the lootas.

As a slight variation, try putting your lootas far from your home oblectives but within range of the ennemy.
Then your opponent as the following choice: commit resources to deal with them or being pelt by them.
If he goes after them with long range firepower,it is that much firepower not going in the rest of your army, If he commits CC units or deepstrikers to deal with them,those units will not be near your objectives reducing their usefulness and the pressure off of your main force.

During the listbuilding you can either write them off as distraction and leave them to their potentially sorry fate or include some kind of surprise to ambush his reaction force.
The best way to do that would be in the form of fast or outflanking units to be able to either support them or your main force.
I am not sure how best to do that with the Ork codex tough, not being an ork player myself but that is a general strategy that can work with almost any codex...
Adding a aegis line or bastion could insure that you always have cover at a location that is relevant for that,but that would bring the cost of the sacrifice up.
That would also make the bait more credible as well as increasing the amount of resource the ennemy as to commit to deal with it.
Keep in mind tough that if your opponent needs to much resources to deal with the threat you increase the chance of him ignoring it.


That being said i am not a very experienced player myself so you might want to take my suggestion with a grain of salt but i used that kind of strategy in the past with relative succes.
Sometimes the tactical advantange of sacrificing something is more important than getting your points back.

As i like to say: Victory requires sacrifice.

This might work, but it seems that getting lootas within say boltgun range is not a good idea. Maybe since Orks are pretty cheap, you could dedicate a truck to being the "bodyguard" for the loota squads and leave them in the back. Remember that deep strikers can only shoot and you will be able to get the charge off on them.

I'd keep them back, they are a juicy target at any distance because of their 48" range.

You're right to use them as a bait unit, putting them on a flank with scope of the whole battlefield and deploying your units away from them but still in striking distance is a great strategy if you're going up against alpha strike units.

Also, keep them in squads of 10 or less, when they aren't fearless they can go to ground in ruins or area terrain to gain a 3+ cover save, while only hitting on 6's they'll still be able to blast their main targets (av 13 and under and fliers)

@Martell, i meant within range of their own guns...not those of the ennemy,if any tactical can shoot them from their deployment zone the ennemy doesn't have to spend any more resources to get rid of them.

As for using lootas as bait it works everytime against me,as the prospect of having them getiing a good roll on the number of shots when at significant strengh is just too horrible to consider to do nothing about it.
Just adjust your strategy against armylists that can get at them witouth putting too much effort into it, in those case it is better to play them more conservatively.

Ah yes then. I like the idea of having them in some kind of cover but not close to objectives. Takes advantage of the fact that drop pod troops are foot slogging after they drop.

I have used loota's to position my enemy before. Some people over react to them sending very expensive units at even a small squad of loota's. One game against blood angels I put 10 loota's in the back of my deployment and 3 cc dreads drop podded down to them meanwhile the rest of my force charged forward and my burna wagon did a number on his death company. I was able to handle the rest of his army while his scary dreads that can chew through a whole squad of boys in one turn (stupid continue to roll unlimited wounds) were having to try to run every turn trying to get back in the fight. This probably only worked because in previous games vs this person my lootas would just immobilize all his dreads then move on to something else it drove him nuts =P

Why are you turning around to save your lootas?

If they draw all your opponents attention instead of the Battlewagons full of Boyz and Burnas your opponent is just a failure. Let him take your lootas out, and then slam into him with the rest of your army. Or just take the objectives and laugh as he loses the game(you are playing objective games right?)

I find that a single fragnought can take care of most loota squads. Then it gets to run around and cause additional trouble!

i'd have the same reaction if my lootas were in trouble in a purge the aliens game, otherwise i would just go "SUCKS TO BE YOU!!" to my lootas and keep surging.

Willing to be he left his scoring units wide open for picking off by charging those lootas. If you can effortlessly or with minimal risk take out a bunch of scoring units, do it. Wipe them out then hes forced to table you to win, or wipe yours out and hope he has more points via warlords, firstblood, etc.
I won one against Nids that way. He took 3 groups of Genestealers for troops, i plastered them faster than he took out 4 trukk boyz and a wagon boyz in front of my lootas/kannons. Then my MANz just sat there pissing off his MC's while my remaining boyz booked it into the Razorwing trees for a 4pt objective