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Hi guys, was wondering what units we have access to will be good against gk? He typically takes 2 combat squaded nova power guys, duel dk and termi squad. Would massed bikers be a good option? Or tones of boyz? (or maybe something else?)

Battlewagons are basically immune to cleansing flame. Use vehicles to protect your boys then drown them in bodies when you're ready to assault

I play both and have pitted my GK against a friend's Orks, but not the other way around. I lost that one game, but this was in 6th before I had a lot of PAGK models. His 2x squads of Lootas put way too many saves on my termies, and even shootaboyz can do some damage over a few turns. In the new codex, we have even better HS options than lootas in the form of Big Guns and maybe even Flashgitz + DT BW -- they will penetrate PA half the time and even NDK/Terminator armor one third of the time!

Cons: Dreadknight + Purifiers are a bad combo to face. Expect the DK to flame your open-topped transports and then punch them apart in the assault phase. Next turn even more soul burn is in range. :(
Pros:He will think he wants to be in combat, but so do you. Novas can't be cast if they're tied up in 20+ boyz.
GK have very little in the form of AP except NDK and Hammers. Do you own any Mega-Armored models?
You will also see nothing with skyfire. Maybe some snapfiring psycannons could take out a Dakkajet, but that's a whole squad of shooting NOT going into your boyz, which is a good think.

Secret tech: Try getting a Weirdboy to inflict Force Staff hits on the NDK (it's a MC, not a walker like some of my opponents have thought). Probably won't go through the 2+ save, but worth trying. Maybe you get lucky and roll one of the two blessings. Just a lvl1 is OK, since he is going to deny almost any witchfires you attempt. But at least you will get your own slight bonus to deny the novas.

Mostly, I think you will win this matchup with mobility and surviving the first turn. Hold some warbuggies or deffkoptas in reserve. Then they can unload a counterpunch after you've hopefully weathered his first turn DS/shunt moves. Ride your transports to a few objectives and then try to hit them all at once. So to answer your original question: maybe bikes are better if you have a lot of them? Lots of jinking T1, then dakkagun at range like a madman. But I also just suggested a lot of other FA slots that could be good, so massed boys (maybe even Green Tide formation) could work, too. Depend on what you are more used to playing.

Good Luck and let us know how it goes!

basically you need to use your sheer weight of numbers to kill things, gk's cant field many units in an army they are the elite of the elite style armies and just cant handle being swamped in corpses and kanz, also battlewagons would be useful as would anything av14+ (like da big stompa naturally) as they also dont have good counters to handle av14

What do you have?

At the moment i have, a lucky stikk warboss
2 pain boyz
20 slugga choppa boyz (nob p klaw)
4 squads of trukk boyz12 with shootas, nob p klaw
And a battlewaggon with 4 big shootas :p

I'm torn between getting more boyz to bulk out the army or bikes to spam dakka :p

My main worry if the duel dk, i find them difficult to kill with my csm (plasma guns) while I'm kinda relying on a nob with a klaw to kill him, hopping not to fail a fear test :p

A couple of corrections:

Cleansing Flame can be used in CC, and it can hit Flyers, which is why Cleansing Flame is such a powerful ability. Tie up his Purifiers in CC all you want, the only thing stopping his nova are bad dice for him and good dice for you.

Nemesis DreadKnights are quite weak for their size, and can be torrented to death just like any other squad of Terminators (a NDK is functionally a 5man GKT squad as a single MC model). If you want to kill it, shoot it to death with your big shoota's and shok attack guns.

GK have poor anti-air, and either take a Fort with AA, Allie some AA, take a Stormraven over other units, or they ignore your Flyers. So take Flyers, if you can. Any counter your GK opponent uses is less points he has to effect your horde.

It is incorrect to think you can beat GK with Mega Nobs. It is correct to think you can stall out GK with tons and tons of Boyz while you win the mission. You win by preventing them from being effective.

A good GK player will attempt to set the pace of the game by getting inside of your decision loop, forcing you to react to them. A good counter to GK players is to shut them down by mobbing them in CC as soon as possible, which locks down the GKs mobility and any range advantage. Their low numbers will work against them when being forced to make 5-6 saves per model, despite being individually much better in CC. And as long as the GKs are locked down in CC, you can take objectives, play to the mission, and literally run amuck around the table with your units not in CC (which the GK player will have few to none if you play right).

Where you will fail is when you try to focus down one GK unit at a time. This plays to the GKs advantage, allowed them to stall you out by wasting time not playing to the mission.

SJ

You don't have much choice basically. All you have is an armored rush list.

Cleansing flame is a real killer of msu mellee units. Try to avoid getting multiple squads hit by cleansing flame.

If you're coming after a squad with a few little mobs - go for the wipeout or don't go there at all. A single sucksessful manifestation of cleansing flame will shrink your numbers significantly.

However, not all is so bad. For example, you've got access to DLS megaboss. He'll invalidate all non-ap2 attacks. However, i'd think twice before tanking all the instant death swords with him - if the force weapons pass. You can just use him for killing in any case. 4-5 s10 ap2 attacks with rerolls everywhere are gona hurt.

FNP boyz are quite durable and can handle gk in mellee. They're also cheap enough to tarpit NDK and strip a wound or two with a pk nob. Though, have barebones meks there for challenges.

Larger squads are better in this case - cause of cleansing flame danger. But smaller squads are also invaluable for point grabbing and forcing him to spread focus. If you feel he's too strong to get beatenthere's alwayz an option to just throw stuff at him one at a time and go for objectives. You're gona be a lot more numerous. Use it.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
A couple of corrections:

Cleansing Flame can be used in CC,
SJ

Nope. Please stop playing it this way. Per BRB, witchfire powers cannot be cast while in close combat. Blessings, sure. And I do agree that Cleansing Flame will hit flyers. But I thought this was settled in a YMDC; you can cast novas INTO but not OUT OF combat.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/617677.page

OK,
Speaking with what I consider a fair amount of experience:

Burna Wagons absolutely turn terminators that have deep struck near you to molten slag. Similarly, mega-armored nobz with kombi-scorchas in a wagon are fantastic especially if you can keep a mega-mek with KFF in there too.

We don't really have a good answer to monsterous creatures with the exception of combat and massed PKs.

Lootas have traditionally done well for me against dread knights (en masse). Dorkanauts might work but I refuse to buy that silly model. Don't bother with Kans or Dreads IMO.

Shokk Attak Gunz are OK too (vs termies)... if they hit.... and don't blow up.

Otherwise.... you are out of luck. People might say big gunz but I have not had good luck with them. To short of range and the GKs are on top of you immediately.

I play both armies although mostly GKs, which I also face orks with. Heres what I got:

Full boyz mobs, painboss, pk nob, boss, mek. Two of these or maybe one with mad doc are key. They will make a mess of things especially NDKs and they really push GKs away from your gunline of..

big gunz- KMKs. These things are excellent against GKs, and well most anything but especially against expensive termies/meqs. I would also recommend a single battery of traktors in case he brings a raven. If not you've wasted 66 ish pts but well spent if he does. Join a SAG big mek to one of the above for T7 and bubble wrap with boyz and/or gretchin.

Another shout out to flash gitz btw, they've done nothing but impress since their new snazzier snazzguns hit. These will evaporate meq and sometimes MCs too. Put them in a BW for safe keeping and consider a KFF big mek with killsaw and stixx for another hidden klaw and rerolling everything basically outside of combat since GKs lack ap2.

Gotta agree with avoiding walkers of all sorts here and I would add bikers to this list as well honestly unless its a TAC list. Lone koptas are still fine and in fact a pain in the ass since GKs have very few units meaning they can't go chasing cheap scoring units around.

MANZ I have seen work but if the opportunity permits he will put the proper tool to bear (NDKs) and they will just get krumped. Klaws in mobs is betta IMO.

 SkrawnyNob wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
A couple of corrections:

Cleansing Flame can be used in CC,
SJ

Nope. Please stop playing it this way. Per BRB, witchfire powers cannot be cast while in close combat. Blessings, sure. And I do agree that Cleansing Flame will hit flyers. But I thought this was settled in a YMDC; you can cast novas INTO but not OUT OF combat.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/617677.page

Your right. I did mean into, not out of. My bad.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
It is incorrect to think you can beat GK with Mega Nobs. It is correct to think you can stall out GK with tons and tons of Boyz while you win the mission. You win by preventing them from being effective.

A good GK player will attempt to set the pace of the game by getting inside of your decision loop, forcing you to react to them. A good counter to GK players is to shut them down by mobbing them in CC as soon as possible, which locks down the GKs mobility and any range advantage. Their low numbers will work against them when being forced to make 5-6 saves per model, despite being individually much better in CC. And as long as the GKs are locked down in CC, you can take objectives, play to the mission, and literally run amuck around the table with your units not in CC (which the GK player will have few to none if you play right).

Do GK terminators come with power fists/some other kind of AP2 melee weapon as standard? If not, then this advice surprises me somewhat. Usually, a clever Ork player uses boyz to drown terminators in choppa attacks, much as you suggest, whereas meganobz would be instagibbed (though they would certainly take a few down with them); but I did not think that was the case with GK termies. If they're striking at initiative then I would much rather have them bouncing off my mega armour than shredding my boyz.

Standard GK weaponry is a force sword; AP3. They have to pay 10pts for the AP2 unwieldy hammer. Consensus for generic GK lists is 2 hammers per 5 termies. That's (assuming no charge bonus) only 4 attacks, half of which whiff, plus the occasional roll of 1 to wound; not great vs TEQ. Maybe offset by the fact that the init4 weapons still have Instant Death (force); haven't done the odds on that one.

Though they start at a relatively cheaper cost compared to vanilla marines and fill a troops option.

Taken all together, I agree that Meganobs should do fair to good vs GKT.

I was just pointing out that GKT are easy to kill in shooting than eliminate in CC, and locking them with a throw away unit of Boyz is less wasteful than locking them down with Mega Nobz. For every wound that gets through from a Force active GK, you lose a model. Which is cheaper: a Boy or a Nob?

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
I was just pointing out that GKT are easy to kill in shooting than eliminate in CC, and locking them with a throw away unit of Boyz is less wasteful than locking them down with Mega Nobz. For every wound that gets through from a Force active GK, you lose a model. Which is cheaper: a Boy or a Nob?

SJ

Almost the same. Boyz will have no save while meganobz will save 5 out of 6 wounds thanks to armor. But an occasional hammer or a dreadknight will kill meganobz dead. However, meganobz are much harder to remove with ranged attacks. So, it's not an even thing like vs assault termies, for example. Both boyz and meganobz have merits in this case.

So, if you have MANz - they'll find a place to make an exchange with termies. Preferably with lobbas sniping out hammers beforehand. Or rush for the backlines and stay there in safety of 2+ armor. If you don't have MANz - well, no big deal. Boyz can handle it too - just need more of them.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
I was just pointing out that GKT are easy to kill in shooting than eliminate in CC, and locking them with a throw away unit of Boyz is less wasteful than locking them down with Mega Nobz. For every wound that gets through from a Force active GK, you lose a model. Which is cheaper: a Boy or a Nob?

SJ

Just because individual boyz are more expendable than nobz doesn't mean that needlessly throwing them away is always the best option. Maybe this is just a different playstyle, but I think it's a bit defeatist to assume that all you can do against GKT is stall them with cannon fodder tarpit while you get objectives.

Boyz can lock the GKT down for maybe one turn while they get slaughtered and then end up killing each other due to mob rule tests. Meganobz, on the other hand, can actually wipe out the GKT, and the unit cost is still less than the GKT unit (and less than a fully kitted out boyz unit, in fact). This then leaves the boyz free to get objectives or attack better targets.

Boyz are not mere cannon fodder to me; sure, they can perform this function, but if they are used against the right target, with reasonable numbers intact, they are devastating. Given the chance, I would still prefer to use them aggressively.

They can unload a counterpunch after you've hopefully weathered his first turn DS/shunt moves.

For GKT, I would go for MANZ or Flash Gitz. Even if FnP Boyz with Nob PK may do the job.

What about the DK? what would you throw at him?

Boyz do the job once again. Preferably with a mek to die in a challenge and let the nob or boss do their thing.

So 1000pts:

29 Shootas
1 Nob PK BP
1 Painboy
1 Mek

x3

?

MANz were the bane of my existence when I played GKs.

That and Nob Bikerstars.

 TranSpyre wrote:
MANz were the bane of my existence when I played GKs.

That and Nob Bikerstars.

Not so much for me. I'd Mega Nobz approaching any of my guys, and I'd start thinking how much of a waste that is. Oh well, different strokes, I guess.

SJ

 total0 wrote:
Hi guys, was wondering what units we have access to will be good against gk? He typically takes 2 combat squaded nova power guys, duel dk and termi squad. Would massed bikers be a good option? Or tones of boyz? (or maybe something else?)

I fought a couple unitz of flash gits in Battle Wagons and they were REALLY effective OVER TIME. Obviously, they often had to run forward to block, then back up and so on but over time they really were impressive.

So guyz, from your experience, what would be (let's say 1kpts) the optimal Ork army to beat GKs?

There's no such thing as optimal ork army

Basically, you'll have chances to beat gk with any average ork list without need to tailor. Cause every average ork list either has enough boyz with pk nobz, big gunz, fast stuff or a hell ton of walkers. And everything listed here works vs gk. Just not in a point and click way. I think that actual tactics means much more here rather than paper-scizzors unit combinations. But tactix vary depending on many factors including terrain, gaming turn, the exact opponent list, etc. Common advice have allready been given in the thread.

Gk are best as an alpha-strike list. And that makes one of the main ork's problems solved allready. This problem is getting to the opponent which is usually done with numbers - be it the ammount of footslogging boyz, the ammount of fast transports/units or the ammount of walkers in a walker wall. And now, the opponent is coming for you. Just use your numbers correct and you'll be fine.

 RedizDead wrote:
So 1000pts:

29 Shootas
1 Nob PK BP
1 Painboy
1 Mek

x3

?

So for you this may work?

Sure, why not. I'd take at least 1 warboss, however.

 RedizDead wrote:

 RedizDead wrote:
So 1000pts:

29 Shootas
1 Nob PK BP
1 Painboy
1 Mek

x3

?

So for you this may work?

HAHA! yeh at 1000 pts 90 boys on the field facing a DS/shunt GK list would be great to see he'd DS in his what? 10-15 dudes and DK? Then you'd pump into him 180 shots minus dead boys, ouch. whats that on average? probably around 20+ wounds from your shooting? he's gona fail some saves there Then your gona charge him

Do let us know how that list pans out, sounds like the boyz gona be fightn' over who actually gets to take a chop at des' 'umies!

Actually, against Orks, I rarely DS Alpha Strike, preferring to start wih everything on the table and Shunting Turn 1, while Gating my TDA. I'd rather be the one closing the gap on my terms.

SJ