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People forget that prior to SW, IG were the target of all this same irrational hate.

QFT. People just love to whine and complain, instead of changing tactics and adapting.

Fearspect wrote:
Here is where I stopped taking you seriously. If you are jumping out of a working rhino, you are doing Tactical Squads wrong.

Tactical squads actually need to get outside of their rhino to shoot anything. They don't have those guns for decoration.

Fearspect wrote:

Glad you did skip that one, it seems clear to me that you are overwhelmed by powerful units despite them being used sub-obtimally. I can see why you would have difficulty dealing with TWC when you dismount troops to shoot plasma at them. They still suffer the same weaknesses everyone does when trying to assault a vehicle: they are near impossible to hit, then you get another defacto saving throw on the vehicle damage table.

Shep really knows what he is talking about, even a cursory glance at his posts indicates that. Simply handwaving away his extensive (and incomplete) list of things other SM codices do better will not make them go away.

People forget that prior to SW, IG were the target of all this same irrational hate.

When did I ever once say I attempted to kill TWC with dismounting troops to shoot plasma? Are you slowed or something?

If I want to kill TWC, I will cast null zone, shoot vindis at them and then charge with Lysander+TH/SS terms. Whatever isn't killed will be escorted off the board. This is best case scenario though, but thankfully due to SWs players narrowmindess to only spam STR 8, and take a couple meltaguns, I can usually get the charge out of a Land Raider. Last game I played against cookie cutter SW twc, I charged out turn 2, and only had to kill his frenisian wolves to break combat, and escort the unharmed TWC lords off the board.

Not all armies can really kill TWC effectively (Back on topic, take deffrollas on those battlewagons!), and they are still the top CC unit in the game.

IG probably got all that hate because they were in the same position that SW are in now. You play the most abused codex, deal with it.

Psst... Rhinos have a firepoint. Anyway, you are just showing your ignorance of commonly known tournament tactics at this point...

Probably the #1 reason you are having problems with armies that have TWC in it, by the way, is because you are playing with Lysander and Vindicators in your own

Fearspect wrote:Psst... Rhinos have a firepoint. Anyway, you are just showing your ignorance of commonly known tournament tactics at this point...

I am quite aware that firing specials out the top hatch is a common tactic. There is times tough, by choice or not, when your Marines are on foot and are gonna be taking charges left and right. Im not arguing about GH anymore. Its pretty common knowledge, and quite obvious that GH are the most powerfull point-for-point MEQ troops in the game.

Fearspect wrote:Probably the #1 reason you are having problems with armies that have TWC in it, by the way, is because you are playing with Lysander and Vindicators in your own

I never once said I had problems against TWC. I have never lost against a TWC list. I have issues with the codex in general, and I know some people have a great difficulty with TWC.

The most powerful point-for-point MEQ troops in the game is a TH/SS Deathwing Squad with CML and an Apothecary.

Fearspect wrote:The most powerful point-for-point MEQ troops in the game is a TH/SS Deathwing Squad with CML and an Apothecary.

Touche, I forgot about the recent FAQ.

Its still a good troop in a crap codex though, unfortunatly.

Firstly, OP, I have found that Snikrot is beastly against Space Wolves. Shut down some firepower in their back field wihile you march the mass of your troops to smash them in the face. It's a rough battle, but I have done it at 2000 and fewer points.
At everyone else; are we sure that we aren't confusing broken with just really effing good? The codex is good, nobody can deny that, and I'm sure most of us can agree that it is the best marine codex out there. But it in no way breaks the game. Breaking the game imo is when you create an army list/ codex that degenerates the meta into either everyone plays that or the answer to that army. And sure, we can argue that price prevents that, but still, I haven't seen either online or locally, a degenerate meta.
Sure, one can argue that SW are the easy button for marines, allowing anyone to win with marines so long as they play that book. However, locally SW are not as dominant because we have smart players that don't go "OMG, broken!!!" but instead "I know I'm playing SW, so I'll play my list this way." But it still hasn't created a degenerate meta, which imo is the defining factor of broken.
Congrats SW, you are hated because you are good, just like all non-Nid books to come out lately. But that is all you are, really stupid good. And that can still be beaten.

..

Shep has had nothing but sound advice this whole thread.

Are puppies unbeatable? Hell no.

Are they very strong? Hell yes.

Can orks beat them? Certainly.

Can it be an uphill battle? Sure, especially if the puppies go first and it can depend on the mission as well.

Are orks 'pigeon holed'? Could be if you want to bring an all comers list. Look at sourclams post above about other armies in similar straits.

To be fair, imweasel, 40k is an uphill battle no matter what armies are playing if your opponent is going first...

Thanks for all the tips people, especially Redbeard & Shep.

I played like 10 games with Jihallah one week and tried various lists against the SW and failed miserabely. I will try some of the suggestions (such as Snikrot) and see how I go. I am glad to know that I am not the only Ork player that has difficulties with this codex.

I didn't mean for this thread to turn into a whine thread about the SW. Yes they are tough, and yes they have the best codex in the game (hence people like my mate Jihallah playing Choas as SW). Not only are the SW tough but Jihallah is also an excellent player and I actually look forward to playing his SW because even if/when I lose I am always learning more about the game.

Now a whine thread about the stupid JotWW power - that is a whine thread worth creating. I wonder whether GW play-tested that at all...

To the OP:

You seem to have gotten this already but I think shep is one of the more talented ork players after reading several of his battle reps and reading his aforementioned opinions in this thread, i'd say go with what he says. It was said a couple times before, but you can certainly take a cut throat list to counter another cut throat list. Tourney v. Tourney seems fair to me as does Friendly v. Friendly. Snikrot is sexy and Ghazzy is as close to an invincible character as we can get so if you want to go toe to toe with them, take those two for sure. And last time I checked, lootas were disputably the best elite choice for orks. Id take them in any list.

To the rest:

In the spirit of not taking ourselves and the game to seriously I would like to posit this theory...

If you are an ork player, you are under the gaze and influence of Gork and Mork.

If your Waaagh pleases them, then they will smile upon you...or grimace...or make some guttural noises of approval as they cause all your dice to roll 6s. (Aside from ld tests of course )

If your Waaagh does not please them, or perhaps they're in a bad mood that day, then they will turn their gaze elsewhere or laugh at your misfortune as you role 1s and 2s.

The best way to assure that you are one of the favored Waaaghs is by conducting yourself in the Orkiest of manners possible. This includes finding the quickest way from point A (your deployment) to point B (the nearest krumpable head) and simply reveling in the carnage of battle regardless of consequences.

That's my suggestion

Fearspect wrote:
People forget that prior to SW, IG were the target of all this same irrational hate.

It's ALWAYS the most recent codex, unless that codex was weak ('5th 'nids) or extremely rare (Sisters). If there is no hate for the most recent book, it's the clearest signal you'll ever get to get out of the army while you can. Sometimes it's a single trick or two (5th Chaos for Lash), and sometimes it's a cornucopia of asskicking (IG, SW, BA), but if the new book isn't pressing the meta *somewhere* enough to make people scream it's unlikely to be a good book.

I mean, what do you think happened when the very first SW, BA, and DA books hit?

I love that theres so much discussion on TWC, a topic that doesn't help the OP (as mentioned on the front page, I don't have TWC).

I am a big fan of GH (as mentioned by some in the thread, I'm of the opinion they are one of the best troop choices in the game, both for cost and versatility), Speeders, dreads. I like using a pair of vindicators too, I haven't used them for awhile i realized the other day (being dicking around with Logan and Bjorn lists and getting the feel for using speeders since i got them recently), so I'll be cracking them out in the next few games

Redbeard wrote:

jmurph wrote:, you can't blubber about how overpowered the SWolves are

Funny, from a guy with a SWolves icon.... SWolves are the most overpowered codex I've ever seen. You get 5 missiles that can split fire for less than vanilla marines get four missiles. That's not overpowered? You get mounts that boost your actual toughness (as opposed to effective toughness, like a bike) making your characters immune to the most readily-available instant-deaths. You have the best anti-psychic tools in the game. You have the best psychic power in the game. Along with the ability to take 4 HQs, letting you double up on it if needed. You've got, at your disposal, the hardest-hitting deathstar in the game, the cheapest, most effective fire-support units, and a very solid core of all-arounder troops that can pack melta weapons, and can generally be relied to get 3-attacks, even when charged (compare to 1 for vanilla marines).

Look, there's a reason that people have stopped playing 'their' armies, and started playing them as counts-as Space Wolves. If SWolves weren't overpowered, chaos players wouldn't be using their codex. Vanilla marine players wouldn't be using the codex. I feel sorry for old-time SWolf players because they're getting lumped in with all the codex hoppers, but that's how it is. It's a broken codex that decimates the metagame and provides an easy-win solution for not-so-good players to fall back on.

I have now learned alot.. I feel somewhat cheated that I went to the dakka mini-tourney at warhammer world and everone in attendance got roflstomped by some random bloke with 4 posts who was playing a vanilla SM army as "counts as" Space Wolves.

In fact, I wont play in a tourney again. That bastard walked off with the Battleforce easily with his proxy counts as 15 ML army ...

He might as well have mugged us at gun point!

Shep wrote:It takes just a glance at both books and typical space wolf armies to see that battlewagons are quite difficult for space wolves. There is probably a thread right now, somewhere on the internet, where someone is asking "What do I do against deffrollas with my space wolves?"

Take battlewagons with deffrollas, and roll right over all of his razorbacks, if his thunderwolf cavalry gets in the way rolla them too. You can comfortably fit 4 battlewagons in a 1500 point army and still include some loota fire support and a substantial model count of boys.

Space wolves don't typically take maneuverable anti-tank shooting units, theirs are static or move 6" max, and can't punch armor 14, their answer to battlewagons will probably be thunderwolves. If they don't also have thunderwolves along with their long fangs, then you'll really have no problem. Even if they do, you still have answers...

Use loota fire and shoota boy fire in oder to saturate the thunderwolf units so that they won't be able to gaff deffrolla wounds onto any accompanying fensrisian wolves. Once most or all the fenrisians are dead, line up as many tank shocks as possible, 4 tank shocks means 4d6 deffrolla hits, and 4 leadership tests, two things that hit them right in the breadbasket. 12 wounds caused on average from 4d6 hits, IDs 4 lords/TWC.

Moast spacewolf lists include a front line melta group of 3. And some landspeeders. But as long as you can get the charge on them you should be OK!

What I do for space wolves is create a 'gun line' of shoota boyz and keep a few slugga boy mobz in reseve. I use maximum size mobz of 3 shoota boy mobz and 2 slugga mobz. You should use a kff mek to keep them alive and lootas to pop the rhinos and then shoot the grey hunters with the shootas. If you space the boyz out there will be no room for the logan drop pod to land. Snikrot is good for holding up long fangs and Kanz can take the land raider. You can get all of this in 2000pts. The idea is you need kill as many assult troops as you can whilst keeping slugga boyz in reserve, when the shoota boyz die bring on the sluggas for a counter attack. Normally squads will only have 3 or four members in by the time the sluggas come on and somtimes its good to charge multiple units.

moonshine wrote:What I do for space wolves is create a 'gun line' of shoota boyz and keep a few slugga boy mobz in reseve. I use maximum size mobz of 3 shoota boy mobz and 2 slugga mobz. You should use a kff mek to keep them alive and lootas to pop the rhinos and then shoot the grey hunters with the shootas. If you space the boyz out there will be no room for the logan drop pod to land. Snikrot is good for holding up long fangs and Kanz can take the land raider. You can get all of this in 2000pts. The idea is you need kill as many assult troops as you can whilst keeping slugga boyz in reserve, when the shoota boyz die bring on the sluggas for a counter attack. Normally squads will only have 3 or four members in by the time the sluggas come on and somtimes its good to charge multiple units.

Now this is a strat I should probably look at. As Jihallah mentioned in his last post, GH are the core of his 'whip ass' not TWC. Me boyz don't like being counter-attacked while on the charge so much.

However I must admit that it is a little off-putting running Shoota Boyz and trying to out-shoot a SM/SW codex. I see how keeping some distance migh be valuable, but even if I am taking more models, hitting on 5's against power armour? Could be asking for a beating...

Use Killkannons.

dirtypete wrote:However I must admit that it is a little off-putting running Shoota Boyz and trying to out-shoot a SM/SW codex. I see how keeping some distance migh be valuable, but even if I am taking more models, hitting on 5's against power armour? Could be asking for a beating...

The reason I run shootas is beacuse I've learned that when playing against sw the best tactic is to try and 'weather the storm'. I don't try to kill them all, just soften them up a bit so it's not so bad being charged, If you destroy their rhinos you could get 2-3 rounds of shooting done before they charge. After they attack the idea is to counter attack them beacuse you can't kill them all but you can kill enough of them to make it easy for the slugga boyz to kill 1 or 2 squads when they charge multiple units.

GH units have a huge weakness, their LD is only 8 so if you spam them you aren't able to put WG with them and it sucks when lootas pop a rhino and the squad gets pinned. Also Necrons are really good against the ML spam. The ML can't do jack to the monolith and then the 15 destroyers pop out and dakka the fangs to death (just happened to me today actually, and I can't wait for everyone to start laughing at me because I lost to necrons. necrons are no joke with the new meta game of lots of low armored vehicles).

A unit of six Grey Hunters, with special ranged weapon, special close combat weapon, Wulfen, Wolfguard, Icon, and one regular Grey Hunter. That's five single-wound complex unit: Two wounds are required for a Morale test. You only need to inflict six wounds to kill the unit.

They'll be Ld9 because of the Wolfguard, but their cost per model will go up. Again, what other Space Wolf units have 6 models? Long Fangs with Wolfguard.

Talk about eggs in baskets. The basket is, of course, a Rhino/Razorback. The thing is that many of the weapons that are good at killing AV11 units are also good at killlng Space Marines.

What the Orks need to do is spread that firepower around. Hence the need for large units of Lootas, backed up by Battlewagons with Killkannons. Take Shoota Boyz and Rokkit Launchas in those units. A couple of Drednoughts would round out the army nice, or perhaps a couple of units of Nob Troops, or one and one.

For example, imagine that you have two scenarios:

Scenario 1
You have a unit of Shootas and a unit of Lootas facing three enemy Razorbacks all topped up with the unit above, or something that reduces the unit to 5 to accomodate a Wolflord or Rune Priest. Supposing that, somehow, the Razorbacks are all equally distant and identically armed (Stronos pattern), what would you shoot, and in what order?

The Lootas can shoot through the Shootas without giving the vehicle a cover save (infantry don't give vehicles a cover save). Pick a Razorback at random and shoot with the Lootas, then whatever happens shoot with the Shootas.

The Battlewagons have AV14 to the front, and they can become closed topped while dishing out killkannon firepower: It has the same effect as a Battle Cannon where Power Armoured infantry is concerned.

Alternatively, there's room for 12 Lootas to fire out of an open-topped Battlewagon, but that's eggs and baskets again.

Don't take the fight to the Space Wolves until you've shot them up. In some case, you may need to actively retreat.

A single boy wih a shoota can be expected to kill 0.11 Space Marines. So with nine boyz, you have a reasonable expectation of doing one unsaved wound, or one casualty.

A single boy with a rokkit launcha gets 0.27 Space Marines without cover, half of that with cover. That's basically 2+ on 1D6 if you have three shooting. You want to maintain that 13"-18" range, so 9 Shootas and 3 Rokkits in range is good. Six Grey Hunters with Boltguns, wait, minus the guy who has a Melta Gun, and the Wulfen, so either four shots because it's Rapid Fire between 12"-24" and they stood still, or eight shots because it's Rapid Fire under 12" since they moved closer.

At four shots vs Orks with no cover that's 1.32 expected casualties without cover, at eight shots that's 2.64. So you should lose three Orks while they lose two Marines. Do that trade for three turns, and you can reasonably expect to wipe out the Space Wolves while losing nine Orks. You lose 54pts of Shoota Boyz while he loses a unit of Grey Hunters. I expect Grey Hunters to press on since they maximize firepower that way, and the 18" range allows Shoota Boyz to move back into that choice-zone of standing still and let logistics sort it out, or charging forward and hoping to get into combat. Give yourself plenty of room to fall back though.

If you try to assault SW with Orks, it won't go well. You have to shoot them.

If someone is using max Long Fangs with TWC and Razorback GH, then really the only thing you can do is take an equally spammy list and fight it out.

Like 30 Lootas, 9 Kannons, 9 Warbuggies, and then the rest in Shoota Boys, or Warbikes and Wazzdakka for some extra speed.

I think that a properly built Wazdakka list can do some damage to Wolves. You can outrun TWC most of the timje, so as long as you load up on fire support units like I just mentioned, I think you'll be fine.

Of course, this style of Ork list is not something everyone can do, or maybe even wants to, I'm just saying, if your opponent is using the very best units out of SW, then your best bet to win is to do the same thing with your own. SW aren't good because of LF and TWC, there good because people spam those units relentlessly.

Bluggh. The meta-scenario-analysts are coming out of the woodwork with generalities that don't play out.

Big Meks in Rollawagons stuffed with Boyz are your best bet. It's not a hard counter, but it should give you the edge needed to at least put up a proper fight.

A Battlewagon is a pretty good foil for:

Longfangs, due to AV14 front and 4+ cover
TWCav, due to S10 insta-deathing tank shocks against Ld8
Razorback spam, due to AV14 and 4+ cover again, as well as the ability to crush vehicles in the movement phase

Try 4+ Rollawagons with Snikrot support and Deffkoptas, as has already been mentioned. The advantage is this is also a general all-comers type list. The Green Tide Gunline was popular about 18 months ago (well, not popular, but viable), however the advent of Tcav deathstars, FNP assault troops, and a resurgence in popularity of walking Terminators (SW and DW) really cut down its potential.

Mike Noble wrote:If you try to assault SW with Orks, it won't go well. You have to shoot them.

If someone is using max Long Fangs with TWC and Razorback GH, then really the only thing you can do is take an equally spammy list and fight it out.

Like 30 Lootas, 9 Kannons, 9 Warbuggies, and then the rest in Shoota Boys, or Warbikes and Wazzdakka for some extra speed.

I think that a properly built Wazdakka list can do some damage to Wolves. You can outrun TWC most of the timje, so as long as you load up on fire support units like I just mentioned, I think you'll be fine.

Of course, this style of Ork list is not something everyone can do, or maybe even wants to, I'm just saying, if your opponent is using the very best units out of SW, then your best bet to win is to do the same thing with your own. SW aren't good because of LF and TWC, there good because people spam those units relentlessly.

Thanks again all for the tips. will try a shooty list next. interesting that there is the suggestion to take kill cannons - most tips i've seen tell me to avoid them.

I love the advice in this thread, considering my the units I "spam" are dreads, speeders and razorbacks, not TWC and long fangs

How about some tactical advice on how to get into a headbutting match you can win? That might actually be useful

Lootas chew up the Razorbacks and then the Dreadnoughts. The Killkannons on the Battlewagons and Boyz shoot up anything that spills out. Boyz can handle Speeders with Shootas and Rokkits.

Nurglitch wrote:Lootas chew up the Razorbacks and then the Dreadnoughts. The Killkannons on the Battlewagons and Boyz shoot up anything that spills out. Boyz can handle Speeders with Shootas and Rokkits.

The boys seem to have trouble getting in range of the speeders. And Generally the hunters don't mind getting in a pissing contest with da boyz. Some advice on trying to mitigate the pain you receive in the enemies turn and some advice on squeezing the most amount of pain out of your units would be good.

I'm pretty sure that you don't want to take anything foot slogging when it comes to orks when they are fighting space wolves.

You need to mech up and try not to take killa kanz when doing so.

Jihallah:

I think I already pointed out holding your Shoota boyz at that 13"-18" range from Grey Hunters to mitigate the 'pain' of Grey Hunters "getting in a pissing contest with da boyz". You can expect four Grey Hunter casualties with all 30 Orks opening fire. It's not unreasonable to expect two Grey Hunters killed per turn by twelve Shoota Boyz per unit including 3 Rokkit Launchas. That's out of six wounds that need saving per turn, which can be rough for six-strong complex units of Space Wolves.

So why twelve? The Boyz unit can have a footprint of two ranks fully spaced within the 5" sweet spot, and six boyz in each rank at full spread gives you the ability to shoot at targets up to 32" apart with a footprint of 14". Since they're armed with Assault weapons, they can adjust to stay beyond charge range of the Grey Hunters. And, of course, the more casualties you can inflict on the Space Wolves, the fewer that they can inflict on you.