Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The person I play against the most is an Ork player, and I think out of the 10 games we've played together I've beaten him agrand total of twice with my Space Marines. Is there something I'm missing here? Do Marines just struggles against the greenskins? He likes to run 30 boy shoota squads or mass nob bikers...and it feels like no matter how much firepower I pour into either of these units, they just keep coming. I remember one game I was able to bring SIX FLAMERS to bear on one of his 30 boy squads and he still had enough left to crump me.

I've tried a variety of tactics. Mostly I bring a couple tac squads with flamers/missile launchers in rhinos, a couple thunderfire cannons, and some sternguard or bikes. In my experience terminators and land raiders have proved essentially useless- there's nothing more frustrating than losing a landraider to a single nob with a powerklaw.

Any advice?

what chapter do you play?

Thunderfires should be really great against orks...I don't remember the different shots' stats, but I usually end up removing between 6-8 boyz a turn from one TFC, if you have several, take several, and keep your target priority straight. I dunno if I would really bother with rhinos, since it's not like you need to drive to him. I would consider an assault squad with two flamers and a combi-flamer, trading in jump packs for a drop pod, to drop right up on either a high value target, like lootas, or to seriously soften up a mob from the get-go. That would be a really great distraction. Haha, I hope nobody I play against reads this....

I can say for certain that Vanilla Marines have it really hard against orks, even if the ork list isn't that great. Most other space marine armies (Space wolfs, Blood angels etc.) are much stronger and crush Orks pretty well.

BA do not crush Orks. Space Wolves do because of Grey Hunters.

The marines, in general, are an overrated army. The people putting them in the top of tier 2 have not played games with and against them. So don't feel bad, Orks have a scheme that translates very well to 6th: lots of cheap T 4 wounds.

I have yet to play another ork army. But in my time playing as orks, I have never lost to marines. (I did lose to grey knights. damn psybolt ammo) I think the trick to beating orks though would have to be for you to bring less expensive elite units. So forget the land-raiders and the terminators and just bring as many small units as possible. If you have everyone in one big unit, then I just point my boys and charge them. If you have 6 5-man squads, I now have to move from one to the other.

Also try to remember this, even if your squad will lose in melee to the orks. try to get the charge on them. Charging orks may seem silly, but by charging them, they lose that extra attack and their furious charge, which is a huge part of their melee.

Umm, what else? maybe bring heavy bolters. and maybe a couple vindicators.

as far as nob bikers go, yeah those guys are tough. I have only ever lost my entire nob biker squad ocne and that was to cypher with 10 chaos terminators and I totally forgot they had cybork, so I didnt roll any invuln saves. that was very silly of me. But that was the only time that unit has even been completely destroyed in a game.

Depends what he runs if he is foot slogging a bunch of boys dropping a bunch of marines from drop pods on one flank can work really well a disposable flamer group in drop pod to hit lootas in the back can help to. If he puts the boys in wagons drop podding meltas on the rear armor can ruin their day. I know when playing against marines when I play my orks I cringe when I see a couple drop pods and stern guard or even tacs or dred with heavy flamers. Nob bikers is a different problem though.

Icculus, I agree with you, but marine lists generally shun heavy bolters as crappy weapons. Because they are. The average marine TAC list is too preoccupied with Taudar and FMC circus. The Orks hit them right where they can't take it.

It all stems from marines having poor firepower because of poor numbers.

I think the best way to defeat the Orks might be to delay them and box them out of the objectives for as long as possible.

Do the boyz start in Trukks? Make sure to blow up the Trukks so they are on foot ASAP

Not much you can do about the Nob Bikerz, You basically need to get as many Terminators in the assault as you can and hope for good dice. In order to do that you need at least 1 Land Raider, and as you observed that is a big point sink to lose to 1 Nob Power Klaw.

I agree with Icculus, you need to charge the Orks if you have a chance. If there is a squad of 20-30 Boyz, take 20 marines with 2 flamers, use 1 squad to rapid fire and the other squad to charge and hope for the best.

 reticent_bassist wrote:
I think the best way to defeat the Orks might be to delay them and box them out of the objectives for as long as possible.

Do the boyz start in Trukks? Make sure to blow up the Trukks so they are on foot ASAP

Not much you can do about the Nob Bikerz, You basically need to get as many Terminators in the assault as you can and hope for good dice. In order to do that you need at least 1 Land Raider, and as you observed that is a big point sink to lose to 1 Nob Power Klaw.

I agree with Icculus, you need to charge the Orks if you have a chance. If there is a squad of 20-30 Boyz, take 20 marines with 2 flamers, use 1 squad to rapid fire and the other squad to charge and hope for the best.

Statistically it should be better to charge, shouldn't it? 2 flamers, 2 frags, and 16 Bolt Pistols should cause ~11-12 dead Orks, and when you charge in with 39 attacks (I assume one Sarge is locked down by the Nob) you should kill another 9-10, which, hopefully, should get them beneath the critical 10 threshold and easily allow you to sweep them.

Rapid firing with one might cause slightly more casualties but far less in the combat phase, meaning that it will be much tougher to sweep them and increasing the risk of the inevitable PK nob having his fun.

YMMV, it's what I would do with my Chaos Marines.

Too bad marine players can't field terminators anymore in a TAC list.

One list that I've had trouble with recently with SM has been bike armies. T5 can make a huge difference when shooting only S4 shots and if you get the charge on a mob, the orks will need 6's to actually wound you (since boyz are S3 base).

Other things that hurt:
- Thunderfire Cannons
- Telepathy (Hallucination, Terrify, and Puppet Master can all cause trouble for Orks)
- Stormtalons (not

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Statistically it should be better to charge, shouldn't it? 2 flamers, 2 frags, and 16 Bolt Pistols should cause ~11-12 dead Orks, and when you charge in with 39 attacks (I assume one Sarge is locked down by the Nob) you should kill another 9-10, which, hopefully, should get them beneath the critical 10 threshold and easily allow you to sweep them.

Rapid firing with one might cause slightly more casualties but far less in the combat phase, meaning that it will be much tougher to sweep them and increasing the risk of the inevitable PK nob having his fun.

YMMV, it's what I would do with my Chaos Marines.

Wouldn't it nearly always be better to just rapid fire all the way? If talking about just boyz here, 40 shots hitting on 3s wounding on 4s and orks get no save, vs 40 swings hitting 4s wounding 4s and 6+save? Not to mention that you almost definitely wouldn't have all 20 marines swinging when you do charge in, plus now not having to worry about dealing with the say ~40ish overwatch shots, or failing the charge if you killed 8 too many boyz with pistols? Then you get to overwatch them. Plus if you shot enough of them, they MIGHT (though not likely) fail THEIR charge against you, or at least put them in a spot where they're not sure if they should shoot at you before charging. Against bikes I'm not sure which I would choose, but I think against boyz I would always rapid fire all the way.

Land raider spam works

I've run into a similar situation in my group. I cannot for the life of me beat our ork player with my vanilla marines. I'm not worried about his boys in trucks, or his deffkoptas or his big mek or anything else. This nob bikes with painboy and power klaws is the most brutal unit i've faced so far. I can't come up with anything that can take it out and he jumps from unit to unit chewing em up until he tables me. I've tried massed firepower and its good enough to remove a few nobs but that squad keeps coming. With my vanilla marines i've beaten 2 different cron players many times, tabled the ba player a few times, tabled a nid player, and beat a chaos player a few times. I've given up on my vanilla marines beating the ork player and have moved on to grey knights, ig, and a tau ally for either the grey knights or ig. I'm hoping to have some better luck with those guys against him.

You said you beat him a couple of times. What did you do different in those games that you didn't do in the others? Or was it a lucky day from the dice gods?

Grav cents with Tiggy probably have the firepower to stop him. But that's a very specific build, I know. I find it infinitely amusing that the brand spanking new C:SM codex still has issues against 4th edition Orks.

Try attaching a chaplain or two to 10 assault terminators with lightning claws. Zealot gives you reroll hits and shred gives you reroll wounds. Could decimate a 30 man group of Orks if your rolls go well in pretty much one round

As an ork player i can tell ya that i haven't lost to a marine player in a long time cause marine lists are no longer tac. Orkses ain't afraid of mass bikes or mass droppods. Though, every time i play as a marine vs orkses - i don't have much trouble killing da boyz and alwayz go victorious. Orkses ain't a tough nut to crack when you know how they work.
A single tfc completely shuts down a mob or two. It snipes out nobz. To make it super-effective you need a kan-opener vs wagonz. Some grav cents - just 3-4 of them - no more. Fast flanking AT like bikes. Some meltadrop. Don't waste too many points on it. Msu work vs orkses. And you need a single striking force like a bike cm with some guyz for precision strikes and to confront nob bikers when they're thinned down a bit. Regular tacticals in rhinos work wonders vs da boyz if you position them correctly.

 RavenGuard55 wrote:


You said you beat him a couple of times. What did you do different in those games that you didn't do in the others? Or was it a lucky day from the dice gods?

Once he ran a large group of Meganobz (instead of his usual nob bikers) and my Chapter Master managed to wipe out nearly the entire squad with his orbital bombardment. The other he ran some kind of kooky "no boyz" list that had five deff dreds and a ton of buggies. So, by no means a conventional list.

Martel732 wrote:
BA do not crush Orks. Space Wolves do because of Grey Hunters.

.

100% with the above statement!

My opp. drop podded 6 units of Grey Hunters on my NobBikerz and boyz and it was pretty bad.

I still won but Grey Hunters are the best Counter for Orks.

Also any Str 10 weapons will quickly destroy Nob Bikerz. Wolf Lords and Demolisher shots are your friend.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

 reticent_bassist wrote:
I think the best way to defeat the Orks might be to delay them and box them out of the objectives for as long as possible.

Do the boyz start in Trukks? Make sure to blow up the Trukks so they are on foot ASAP

Not much you can do about the Nob Bikerz, You basically need to get as many Terminators in the assault as you can and hope for good dice. In order to do that you need at least 1 Land Raider, and as you observed that is a big point sink to lose to 1 Nob Power Klaw.

I agree with Icculus, you need to charge the Orks if you have a chance. If there is a squad of 20-30 Boyz, take 20 marines with 2 flamers, use 1 squad to rapid fire and the other squad to charge and hope for the best.

Statistically it should be better to charge, shouldn't it? 2 flamers, 2 frags, and 16 Bolt Pistols should cause ~11-12 dead Orks, and when you charge in with 39 attacks (I assume one Sarge is locked down by the Nob) you should kill another 9-10, which, hopefully, should get them beneath the critical 10 threshold and easily allow you to sweep them.

Rapid firing with one might cause slightly more casualties but far less in the combat phase, meaning that it will be much tougher to sweep them and increasing the risk of the inevitable PK nob having his fun.

YMMV, it's what I would do with my Chaos Marines.

And while your 2 tac squads are killing that blob of 30 orks the other 4 blobs of 30 orks wipe the planet clean of the rest of your army. WAAAGH!

advice: bring 3 thunderfire cannons.

Any Ork players ever have their Boyz go up against a vanilla Chaplain teamed up with 10 Assault Terminators with lightning claws?

Make sure to stay a looong ways away from the Orks. Facing them at range is your friend: We Orks have maybe three units that have a chance of causing damage at range.
Aircraft are also a pain for us. We've got Dakkajets, sure, but a decent interceptor shot takes one out for the count. (Even a roll of 1 on the damage chart sucks because it cripples our accuracy.) The closest thing Orks have to AA Besides Dakkajets are Lootas. Lootas cost as much as Marines, but get a T-shirt save. Take a TFC, use the Igores Cover shot, and cripple him.

We've also got no psychic protection whatsoever, and as such are the best army to use Maledictions and Witchfires against. An enfeebled Ork squad is hilariously easy to kill, and embarassingly helpless in close combat.

Tanks are also hard for us, until the boys get close... Vindicators are great. Heck, if you aren't already using the Heavy Support slot, *Whirlwinds* work wonders with Greenskins.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Johnnytorrance wrote:
Any Ork players ever have their Boyz go up against a vanilla Chaplain teamed up with 10 Assault Terminators with lightning claws?

For that cost, though, the Ork player gets at least 80 Ork Boys with Shootas. Assuming they get 1 Turn of firing and then assault you, that's 4.5 dead Terminators before you even get to strike. With the remaining Terminator squad, (Assuming 4, not 5 dead,) You'll only cause an Average of 11-12 casualties... Before having the squad wiped.
Even if we assume that the Orks get no chance to shoot and you get the assault, you'll only get to kill 30 at a time. 30 Ork Boys will kill about 1 Terminator with overwatch, you'll kill 16-17, they'll kill maybe one more...
And then the other 50 Ork Boys charge and wipe you again.

Even under ideal circumstances, Assault Terminators can't stand up to their points in Boys.

U're writing like you got all 90 clustered up in one place. While termies ain't great overall, they still put some pressure on da boyz espetially when they can take out a nob with a challenge. Though, termies are one of the worst counters to boyz. Better go with more marines, really. Or bikers for fast maneuvring and t5. We ain't got much ap3 so you got nothing to fear. And t5 3+ is almost as durable as t4 2+.

 koooaei wrote:
U're writing like you got all 90 clustered up in one place. While termies ain't great overall, they still put some pressure on da boyz espetially when they can take out a nob with a challenge. Though, termies are one of the worst counters to boyz. Better go with more marines, really. Or bikers for fast maneuvring and t5. We ain't got much ap3 so you got nothing to fear. And t5 3+ is almost as durable as t4 2+.

It's approximate mathhammer. Obviously I can't calculate exact model placement, turns of movement, assaulting through cover, who went first, or dozens of other variables that could effect the results. So, I assumed one big happy group.

T5 3+ is about as good as T4 2+... But only against low-mid Strength. Against Rokkit Launchas, Deffguns, or Boomguns (Three of the Orks' primary ranged weapons,) T5 3+ is no better than standard Marines.

Basically, my point is that you shouldn't attempt to weather the Ork's firepower. Either stay out if their range, or kill them before they hit back. Any amount of Ork firepower brought to bear is devestating, through sheer volume of fire. You can't live through it, (ESPECIALLY not with Vanilla Marines, kings of low model count/mediocre survivability,) so you've got to avoid it entirely.

Hate to give this away but.... TFC and vindicators. the TFC dropped in a mob of boys always hurts and a vindicator str 10 large blast is a pain for the greenies :,(

I play against SM a fair bit and have a lot of success.

My mate runs an Ironclad Dreadnought with 2 heavy flamers that he drops in a Drop Pod. Can completely wipe out my backfield units like Lootas in 1 hit. In saying that though, I have taken it out by glancing its rear armour with sluggas the first turn.. It is definitely a good choice.

Another unit that hurts is Assault Marines led by a Chaplain. They pack a lot of punch and always do a LOT of damage to me.

Other than that, I'd just say templates.. Stay away from the Heavy Bolters and Lascannons and go with plasma and Melta (great against Open Topped vehicles)

Long story short, you the marine player need more dakka.

Double Heavy-Flamer dreads.
Once a unit of boyz/nobz is down to a manageable size, hit it with any pinning fire you've got.

I'm coming from a CSM perspective, and I like me my Forgefiends. Managed to control and keep a unit of Nobz away from my few remaining models on the critical game-winning objective late-game by pinning them in the wreckage of their trukk. S8 AP4 pinning ftw.

One big issue fighting Orks with any 'dex is targeting priority. People just don't know what to shoot at first. Do you try blast the front ranks off the 30-strong boyz mob that hasn't reached midfield yet, or do you put down the Lootas messing up your nice everything?
You choose the Lootas, right? Great choice, 'cause by the time they're dead you've got 30 boyz gleefully bashing away at what's left of your skull.
Koooaei said it right, to paraphrase: You're DOOMED until you know how the Ork genocidal rampage/religious crusade/pubcrawl really works.

Blasts/Templates and psychic powers.

The former wipes big boyz blobs, the latter because we have absolutely no defense whatsoever due to our ancient codex. Someones already mentioned this already, but maledictions just crap all over Orks