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The Orks have become boring. This is something of a bold claim, which I fully intend to back up only with sweeping generalisations and rambling anecdotes: or, rather, this is a personal and subjective viewpoint. I bought the latest codex with eagerness, having suffered through 6th with the (inspiring but painfully outdated) 4th edition book. The pictures were nice! The cover felt good when I lovingly caressed it in the shop! New stuff went bang! But, over time, I found myself rather unsatisfied with the book. I don't want to draw a direct link between winning and having fun - I had loads of fun in 5th, even though I spent most of it being summarily dispatched by my friend's Wraithwing list - but something about how Orks work in 40k over the last year or so is simply not as fun. It isn't just being pumped by the power codices, though I must admit that Eldar is a total chore of a book to play against, and should be renamed Codex: The Somme for all the tactical play that it encourages in my army. No, what I find is that I just can't be bothered to play the army anymore. I helped to arrange a reasonably successful Escalation League for 40k in my gaming group, and all I want to do is take along my new Firestorm Armada stuff instead. Every game seems to go the same. I turn up with the Orksies. Swiftly my hopes of victory become bogged down in a game that usually involves me removing stuff really fast. None of my units seem to really impress compared to enemy ones, and I rely heavily on my limited HQ slots to make my units do much of anything. And then I don't want to play 40k again for a few weeks, until my natural enthusiasm for the game's fluff and my friends who play it draws me back.

I wonder if part of this is simple army fatigue. After five years of painting green, having managed to amass a lot of finished models, perhaps it is time to hand in my oversized cleaver and head for greener pastures? But, then again, I've already had a multi-year excursion into Fantasy, resulting in two painted armies in that system; this can't be the sole answer. It might explain my loss of desire to paint my beloved green idiots, though I usually find that upcoming games are the best motivator.

Perhaps it is that Orks just don't fit into modern 40k. Our units are not festooned with endless special rules; our armies are not typically escorted into battle by entire covens of psykers; we don't get access to the shapely and supple Monstrous Creature rules. We barely get to use Allies, even. We must rely on simple and basic units and mechanics, to the point where a slightly more powerful Plasma Cannon was the standout new addition to the book. When I look at the craziness that other books get to play around with - even my friend's Dark Angels - it seems that Orks are just built in a different way. Is this why they have become boring? Have they stayed the same, while everything else morphed into a super complex conjunction of special rules that now play a different game?

It is a true shame. I loved my Orks. Their plastic infantry model range is the best in the game, possessing both character and detail. They have given good times, and I've long been associated with their particular brand of carnage. And the new codex is actually really fun in many ways - the fluff is hilarious, there are an almost grotesque number of units to choose from, the mechanics seem to suit the army character well. But they just seem a chore to use. Am I alone in this feeling? Should I just try harder? Should I simply write ADMECHZ on the front of my codex and run my guys as proxies? Enquiring minds seek suggestions!

May I ask what types of games you are playing? Between occasional Kill-Team missions and Maelstrom of War it has really spiced up the game between me and my friends now that it's no longer about last minute objective grabbing and tabling the other player. Also with regards to the variety of lists I can bring now compared to the old dex, thanks to the Green Tide formation footslogging can actually be viable and fluffy at the same time in controlling the board and causing a psychological effect of panic over the foe over so many models. Then we have the several other formations that give our units a new lease on life. Have you used any of them? Cause it really adds to the game IMO regarding making them more interesting.

Also honestly, its nice to see that our HQ's are a big player in our army's effectiveness given that fluffwise its the biggest and the baddest Orks that get the rest of the boyz sorted out to bash things properly. If you're having issues fitting enough HQ slots in look into Mogrok's Boss Boyz formation from the Sanctus Reach: Red WAAAGH! campaign book.

To sum it all up, formations/Decurion-esque detachments are the name of the game now in 40K in terms of customizing out your force, so I'd explore that area first before dismissing Orks as boring.

I think the ork players perspective of green tide, boyz before toyz and 'powerklaws saves the day' is a really limiting factor of building a competitive ork army. No one can be blamed for thinking this way - fluff, pictures, army lists stretching back to the beginning of 40k and general discussion of tactics encourage this, as does the sweeping stat of bs2.
But from an outside perspective I see a lot of potential in shooty orks. Yes most units in the codex are naff, but some really shine for their points, namely warbuggies with tl rokkits, warbikes with tl dakka guns, kannons, lobbas, grot tanks from the deff dread list, Manz missiles and a few others. This is all theoretical on my part as I don't play orks (I have about 1k of them tucked away somewhere and haven't played them since 3rd/4th) and no ork opponent of mine ever goes truely shooty. But list building is a hobby of mine and I like to pour over units and assess their value based on their points cost from a mathmatical perspective whilst also considering things such as mobility and synergy that isn't so easy to equate mathmatically. Now I'm not saying I'm correct here and may be way off the mark but imo the previously mentioned units really shine for their points and I would love to see an ork player run armies based heavily around these. Although I think a lot of the mek gunz weapons upgrades are point traps.
I actually wrote this list a couple of hours ago using these units if you'd like to have a look (2k).
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/643794.page
Now I'm not saying that the list is top tier - I don't think that will ever be possible with orks in their current incarnation. But I do think it demonstrates that orks don't have to be green tide or boyz before toyz and may actually do better trying to shoot rather than chop (although there is a choppy bike unit thrown in there).
Hope it helps coming from a different perspective. Although tbf I may be completely wrong. But my gut and workings make me think it's a strong and utterly different take on orks.

could be burn out, you have two options if this is the case.

1: build a new army.

2: take a break from 40k.


choice 1 is potentially expensive, so if possiable I'd borrow someone else's army and see if that "does it for you"
if not choice 2 might work.

if the "losing massive amounts of people" thing dischourages you maybe a small elite army'd work? grey Knights maybe?

Although Grimskul has a very good point about the board control and psychological factor of green tide ^^^.

Honestly if you keep playing the same game in the same way with the same missions and same opponants, it can get extremely samey.

And there are soo many bad matchups for orks its not even funny.

I would sudgest switching it up and going into sub 1000 points and play on a VERY terrain heavy map.

It makes for a more interesting game that people have to think about.

Or go full HAM and go high point levels on a big table.

just switch up the game a bit and it should hopefully rekindle the fire.

Thanks for all the responses! I'm chuffed to see the internet support groups for da ladz continue to be strong. I thought that I would briefly explain how my games currently go. I usually play Maelstrom - Eternal War is dull as ditchwater to me now - and I use a fairly combined arms approach with my list. I've included a photograph of my usual list (+/- a model here and there); as you can see I'm using a fair amount of shooty stuff already, between the Lootas, the KMKs, and the Shoota Boyz. I switched from trukk rush to Ard Wagon Boyz after the codex hit, so all the ladz have 4+ saves. The Shock Attack Gun makes it in, thanks to having killed over a thousand points of Grey Knights by himself in one game. However, my record is typically poor, and I routinely seem to be destroyed at all points levels, especially by Eldar and (oddly) my friend's Dark Angels.



My last few games were at the 500-750pt values as part of the Escalation League at my local club. I don't tend to use formations, simply because I don't own 15 Meganobz or 5 Battlewagons, though I would if I could. I tested out Bully Boyz and found it to be hilarious. The latest unit to be added to my army was the KMKs, and they were stingingly expensive to buy Green Tide doesn't interest me though, since I found foot slogging 60 dudes back in 5th edition to be totally tedious as it was.

And there are soo many bad matchups for orks its not even funny.

Ain't that the truth. It seems easier than ever for my army to get crushed.

1: build a new army.

2: take a break from 40k.


choice 1 is potentially expensive, so if possiable I'd borrow someone else's army and see if that "does it for you"
if not choice 2 might work.

if the "losing massive amounts of people" thing dischourages you maybe a small elite army'd work? grey Knights maybe?

Those are the classic options, right? The thing is, I'd like to add some allies to the force instead of starting a new one, but there simply isn't an interesting Ally option for Orks. We don't get Codex Assassins or Codex Jaeger to draw upon. But I suppose that those are the ultimate fallbacks. I tried out a friend's Dark Angels in an army-swap game, and that was actually quite a lot of fun. Was good to be the one firing the Typhoon's frag missiles for once!

boyz before toyz

I think that this adage died with the new book. Boyz don't really cut the mustard any more.

IMHO The problem resides in:

- Low point games
- Not much use of Ork Codex/Waaagh Ghazghkull formations
- Scarce terrain?
- Same old opponent may give you headaches

I would suggest you ask to use some of your friends armies for a while. Have some fun with the ways the other armies play. I'm sure the little Orksies will be quite content in their storage case for a while fighting amongst themselves and when you get round to playing them again, they will be eager for 'Da Win'

For me, it's different. I happened to buy all the stuff for relatively cheap from people who quit orks in late 5-th, 6-th. So, i've bought lots of boyz - half choppas, half shootas, a truck, nobz that i convert as different characters and squad leaders, grots and AOBR boss. Thus, I'm running lots of footsloggas, a truck full of 'ard boyz and scratch-built / converted big gunz, stormboyz, a Wierdboy, kommandoes and sometimes Grotsnik when i'm up to a 1500+ game. Never liked lootas and didn't buy them even in 5-th, 6-th.

It used to be hard in 6-th but happened to be a very potent army with the new 7-th dex and ruleset! Somehow, i've won the majority of my games even vs IK and eldar. I think it's somewhat meta based as people tend to bring an unproportionally large ammount of internet-approved deathstars and hard-hitters that can be effectively shut down by our tac hordey lists. As for me, uber-killy stuff is not as hard to deal with as mobile lists with Hit&Run. Dark angels, White scars, CSM with Cypher, eldar - they're all hard to beat with footslogging orkses and require planning for two turns ahead as you don't have speed to catch them up after hit and run and the only way to negate it is block the path. That's one of the reasons i consider taking more boyz instead of Grotsnik even for higher pt games when / if i get my hands on more boyz even though, Grotsnik is a great 3-d or second CAD HQ.

A wierdboy is a hidden treasure. Noone takes them seriously until you get a force weapon off and insta kill some MC or buff the squad with +1 attack, teleport somewhere or witchfire something to death. Extra psy protection for the squad is golden too.

I think my only beef with orks is the lack of special rules like other armies formations get.

Example the necrons formations add cool rules / up grades. +1 to rp, relentless and move through cover for example. As does the new khorn demonkin book.

The ork formations don't really give any new benefit. The green tide gets to waaaagh every turn. But we could already waaagh once so nothing special. Be nice to have a bonus to the waaagh in the formation.

And the green tide and ork horde formation have the same rules which is lame. Why have 2 formations with the same bonus ?

just comparing orks now to the new codex's being released , orks seem pretty lack luster on the special rules and options.

my 2 teeth

Well I still love orks and have fun with them....I can trade/buy them from you if you want

I've only started playing Orks when their new codex came around in 7th. But I have to say they are a lot of fun to play with (and against). Got 11 games under the belt so far and I haven't lost a single one of those. Maelstrom missions are a lot of fun with fast Orks. Put the boyz in trukks and race them flat-out across the battlefield. Go for support from Bikes (lots of bikes) and stormboyz.

You should also try running units with different deployment options. Some stormboyz, deffkoptas, and kommandos always make it into my list. It gives me a lot of options, and allows me tactical versatility. If you swap the bw's for looted wagons and mega armor boss for an 'eavy armor boss, you should have enough points to get more nonsense into the list and change up how your games go.

Hey Charles, Doug here.

It sucks that your feeling this away about your favorite 40K army. Let me try and make some suggestions and also some observations to potentially help.

First off when we play, we can make any scenario and rules changes we want. Its OUR game and WE decide how to have balanced fun games!
For instance, I could bring more of a themed army. Sometimes I find my self bring mixtures of greenwing/deathwing/ravenwing and cherry picking the best units from each when we could be making fluffy army choices and home brew scenarios. This might take a little more effort on our part but ultimately its going to be worth it.
My suggestions would be to start with a 3 game campaign where the results of the games have effects on the next and see where it takes us. its a bit boring to play one game where the outcome is the end of the story. It also brings a new game dynamic to the table, for instance when characters die they do not come back or if objectives are achieved then bonuses are granted for the next game etc etc
I also think we should play on better looking terrain more often, for me if the aesthetic is right it goes along way to making me happy.(Hopefully you too)

Secondly, we haven't played a great deal of games. I'm thinking about 6 to 8 since 7th dropped. That is a really small sample size considering how important things like first turn, seize the initiative, psychic powers and maelstrom objectives are.
If I remember correctly I've had first turn ALOT and seized a couple of times too. A couple of different dice rolls here and there can go along away to success in not so competitive games like ours.


My observations about the Ork codex are as follows.

1. Leadership. Good lord I hate what they did to mob rule. That army swap game we played really showed me how terrifying it is to be an ork player and lose 25% casualties. I was so looking forward to using stormboys and then after one round a light shooting they flee. My suggestion would be to allow a character to grant a fearless bubble or to make a bosspole give leadership 8 or 9 and stubborn.

2. Lack of disruption units. Drop pods, deepstriking units , infiltrators. Most of our games involved you coming forward and me shooting and backing off. I feel like if you had some units that could enter play via these methods it would make for a more interesting game. For our homebrew games maybe a warbiker boss grants infiltrate or outflank to his unit of bikers or something along those lines? We can figure it out

That is all I can think of at the moment but I am determined to make our games more fun and plentiful. Your welcome anytime to use my dark angels but unfortunately you might run into similar inadequacy problems!

P.S I am starting a mono-Nurgle army too which might help spice things up.
Lets play soon!

Orks need to win now by showing up. Playing to win by killing your opponent just isn't really in the cards. Unfortunately, that's a big departure from their fluff and the way people who play Orks WANT to win. They WANT to win by killing stuff, and I don't blame them! (I have a sizable collection of Orks myself).

Very little can survive a large squad of Orks charging, but getting that charge is incredibly difficult when you manoeuvring options are limited.

Try to play a more Defensive Ork strategy. Get some Bastions, convert them to Orks, and make it feel like the Orks are infesting a place more than running out to get shot. If that's still boring, then it's time to move on to a new army. Might I suggest something incredibly manoeuvrable like Eldar or Dark Eldar? The first time I laid my hands on Eldar Jetbikes, I was sold!

Charles, I saw your post yesterday and I was thinking about good suggestions for you. Your army looks awesome, and on top of that, you're already using some of the best Ork units, so it's hard to give you a lot of advice, but I've come up with a couple ideas.

Also, BassDrum is awesome, I'm glad you have a friend like that to play with who wants you to have a good time at games and not just beat you into the ground.

One thing I would do, if you haven't done this already, is use two CADs. This is the single most useful thing I've done with the new Ork codex, it is the best way I've come up with to build armies. I wish I could stick to one CAD, but with Orks it's just too hard. Even with two CADs, my best games are usually ties.

Using two CADs gives you two things:

1) MORE HQs
2) More Heavy Support

More HQs let you bring more Warbosses and Painboys which are just awesome to have. Typically I bring two CADs, and I run two Painboys, and two Warbosses, or sometimes I'll run two Big Meks if I need Kustom Force Fields instead.

More Heavy Support lets you bring Battlewagons while still having enough Heavy Support slots for Mek Guns and Lootas.

Think about making these adjustments:

I see you have two Battlewagons loaded up with Boyz. In each Battlewagon, put a Warboss AND a Painboy. It's a great combo. Your MegaNobz are great on their own. They don't need a Mega Armor Warboss added to them.

You might need some more troops with two CADs. Add more Grots. In Maelstrom games, Grots are awesome for grabbing objectives. I use them all the time in 7th Edition now.

Tankbustas are awesome. Give them a try. Run them in a Truck or a Battlewagon.

I've run the Blitza Bomma in a couple of games now... and I'm turning into a BIG fan of it. It's a really fun unit to run, and it usually does BETTER than I thought it will, at least so far.

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 Sillycybin wrote:



The new mob rule encourages small elite units. Mega-armoured nobs with a character attached. Small units of boys in trukks, kommandos, burnaboys, nobs squads.

I don't understand this statement. How does the new mob rule encourage small units? Is it slightly better for small units than in the last codex? Yes. But encourages them? Half the results (4-6) only work if you have 10+ models. A small unit that is not in an assault only as a 1 in 3 chance of passing a mob rule check and then only if there is a character alive in the unit and then the small unit has to survive d6 S4 hits. I think the new mob rule encourages large units.

EDIT: Unless you mean that mob rule is so worthless, you should ignore it and go MSU, with the expectation of losing entire units more often. That has a certain logic to it.

 Sillycybin wrote:

 BassDrum wrote:


2. Lack of disruption units. Drop pods, deepstriking units , infiltrators.

You have kommandos, the supplement allows rolls of 6+ per unit to deepstrike, the weirdboy can teleport squads and there is a formation in the supplement were you can take 5 battlewagons that get scout so an extra 12" on deployment.

kommandos are elites and tank bustas and mega nobs are better elite choices.

The 6+ to deep strike is un reliable joke. And to use it you have to use the worse mob rule (+2 on the roll and more hits)

The weird boy is also to random to rely on for the deep strike.

Best disrupt unit orks have are the koptas.


The green tide is the best thing orks have at the moment when it has the right support units to back it up.

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 Sillycybin wrote:
Because these units can regroup as long as there is a nob and two boys (3 models 25% of squad, if running size 10-12 squads)

Whereas a 30 squad that goes down to 7 boys cannot regroup unless you roll insane heroism.

They can if they include an IC. If I run 30 boyz, you can bet there's a Warboss and Painboy in there.

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Orks iz da best cuz deyz da greenest.

And Green Tide is actually quite effective (and fun imo)

But if you really are tired of them, I reccommend starting a new army. About 500 points should not be that expensive and enough to play some small games with. I also highly reccommend getting into Kill Team.

 Sillycybin wrote:
Sure, depending on how you run things, but a there will never be enough foc slots or points for a warboss and painboy in each boy squad.

Your also probably not giving those units to loota and flash git squads.

If it were up to me the boss pole would make the squad fearless for no points change, it only makes sense.

They need something, that's for sure. LD8 Nobs wouldn't hurt. Bosspoles allowing an automatic 2-3 result outside of combat wouldn't be terrible.