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I love Orkz as an army, but I see a lot of people claiming they're a badvarmy. Why are they so bad and how could they be fixed?

There's nothing wrong with Orks. They are competitive but they lack a super-powerful unit that basically all other armies have.

An army which is based on close combat should not strike last against almost everything in the game, this makes it very hard to win combats because your boyz are dead before you get to use them and having a worse result in combat risks you being swept in advances (which is almost assured, given the low initiative of all ork units).
If Orks had a higher initiative value, even just one or two points higher, they would be very very competitive. +1 initiative when charging would suit them quite well.
Also the old 'mob up' rule was really fluffy for orks, it would be nice if that came back.

More sources of Fearless would help a great deal, since Mob Rule is very unpredictable and getting swept in combat is easy at LD7 and Initiative 2.

Also, Ork characters should have some access to Invulnerable saves. Even a 5+ item would help Warbosses in challenges. Not even Gazhgkull has one (except for one turn a game). For a race that has amazing force field teknology, you'd think there'd be a few personal force field's out there. Even if they had to be 'relics.'

 docdoom77 wrote:
More sources of Fearless would help a great deal, since Mob Rule is very unpredictable and getting swept in combat is easy at LD7 and Initiative 2.

Also, Ork characters should have some access to Invulnerable saves. Even a 5+ item would help Warbosses in challenges. Not even Gazhgkull has one (except for one turn a game). For a race that has amazing force field teknology, you'd think there'd be a few personal force field's out there. Even if they had to be 'relics.'

Wrong, ghazghkull has a 6+ feel no pain do to cybork body. But I understand what you are saying.

They're only "bad" in the sense that there isn't, as SGTPozy said, an overwhelmingly abusable unit within the book. It has surprising internal balance (with only regular Nobz and Killa Kanz being really iffy when it comes to pricing) for the most part and the only other structural problem in the codex is mainly based on us having too crowded a heavy support slot, which is largely mitigated by multiple CAD's or formations. By and large the army is pretty versatile IMO, with its ability to support both very speedy lists, walker walls, and Green Tide with a lot in between the 3.

The main gripe I have with the codex is that we have a surprising lack of CC options short of the ubiquitous power klaw, with the Big Choppa being practically non-existent in comparison. I feel like they could have expanded the CC arsenal a bit more to add more flavour and options. The killsaws were one step in the right direction, but its not widely available and even just greater access to burnas in normal boyz squadz and Nobz would be great in breaking the monotony. Or at least give various versions of the Big Choppa similar to the different types of power weapons, so some can give rending, AP3, etc.

Oh, and in terms of being more competitive, probably just giving us access to invulnerable saves in close combat short of Ghazzy would be nice. It boggles my mind why they changed Cybork Bodies to only give a 6+ FNP, at least make it so that in the presence of FNP from something like a Painboy that it would stack to a 4+ FNP! Given the proliferation of Ork force fields, it isn't that far-fetched that the Warboss or Big Mek would have his own personal force field.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Pain4Pleasure wrote:

 docdoom77 wrote:
More sources of Fearless would help a great deal, since Mob Rule is very unpredictable and getting swept in combat is easy at LD7 and Initiative 2.

Also, Ork characters should have some access to Invulnerable saves. Even a 5+ item would help Warbosses in challenges. Not even Gazhgkull has one (except for one turn a game). For a race that has amazing force field teknology, you'd think there'd be a few personal force field's out there. Even if they had to be 'relics.'

Wrong, ghazghkull has a 6+ feel no pain do to cybork body. But I understand what you are saying.

He's talking about when Ghazzy calls his WAAAGH! because then he gains a 2+ invuln. save for the whole game turn.

SGTPozy wrote:
There's nothing wrong with Orks. They are competitive but they lack a super-powerful unit that basically all other armies have.

I essentially agree with this.

For the most part, the new Ork codex is a FUN codex, I believe it is pretty fairly balanced, and it can definitely be used to good effect. Orks just don't have really insanely powerful builds that can deal with the insanely powerful builds of other Codexes.

I think you can have a good game with Orks against a TAC list from several codexes. But Orks can't deal well with multiple flying Hive Tyrants, Imperial Knights, Wave Serpents, and Decurion.

There are mistakes with the Ork codex, to be sure.

All the Ork walkers have issues. Killa Kans, Deff Dreads, and the Morkanaut could all use rule tweaks, stat changes, and point reductions.
The well-balanced FOC of the last codex is gone, and the Heavy Support slot is too crammed. You can sort of solve this problem by bringing two CADs.
The Green Mob table is stupid and leaves Orks way too vulnerable to Fear effects.
The Deff-Rolla is broken and pointless.
Battlewagons are way too expensive, Orks have to spend too many points on transports which have no offensive power at all.

But there's lots of GOOD things in the new codex that I like.

Painboys are pretty sweet.
Getting an Invulnerable save from the KFF is nice, but too bad it doesn't work well in a Transport anymore.
Lootas are still just about as good as they always were.
Tankbustas are awesome now.
Flashgitz are nice. I wish they'd kept their 4+ armor though.
The Shokk Attack Gun is still awesome and fun
Mek Guns were a great addition to the game
Mega Nobz are awesome now

You could wishlist a lot with the Orks, but in the end you'd be talking about amping up their power so that they can deal with things right now that they just have a really hard time with, like the above mentioned types of armies.

This probably says negative things about my skill level, but I've often found orks to be reasonably challenging in my games against them. When I'm playing with marines, failing even one of my sergeant's two to-hit rolls (assuming I upgraded him) means I'm not taking out your nob in a challenge unless I brought a power fist thanks to your multiple wounds. Meanwhile, a single good tap with the power klaw can kill my sergeant or any other marine in the squad for that matter.

I know boys are a little underwhelming, but 4 attacks each on the charge is pretty insane. Any rear armor 10 vehicle will be going down quickly, and anything not in power armor is probably going to drop pretty fast. Even TEQ seem like an okay target for them from an outsider's perspective because you'll force the termies to roll lots of saves.

Lootas are pretty fantastic. Sure, they don't have the world's greatest BS, but they put out enough s7 dakka to make a broadside nervous. Ork shooting in general seems weirdly okay to me in that the guns are all built with BS 2 in mind meaning you don't actually take that big a penalty when you have to snapfire. That's not to say that you'll be outshooting your foes, but ork shooting really isn't *that* bad.

Nob bikers are pretty terrifying. High toughness, a variety of solid saves, and the option to stick some nasty melee weapons on all of them. Sure, you're swinging last, but you can afford to tank a couple wounds before destroying whatever it you charge.

deffkoptas are tough, slippery, and actually a pretty solid shooting unit.

From what I've seen, the downsides of orks come in the form of having less intense death stars than some enemies and having low initiative. The latter can be rough because a lucky sergeant or exarch stands to kill that pricey and important nob of yours before he gets a chance to swing.

Oh, and the current mob rule is really discouraging. Like, keeps me from starting the army discouraging. That said, the current mob rule *usually* doesn't actually make a huge difference in my games against my orky opponents. It's less harmful than it looks on paper, and it's actually pretty useful when you absolutely positively need to stay stuck into a fight. Which is good considering orks are almost guaranteed to get swept if they run.

ghazghkull has a 6+ feel no pain do to cybork body..

Just reminded me of this. OH YES THIS PISSED ME OFF.

Why did you have to break Cybork bodies? This was just an unnecessary rule change. I converted a full squad of awesome Cybork Nobz, now I just give them 'Eavy Armor instead. So sad.

Also Weirdboyz got fixed in a very good way. I haven't used them yet, but I'm really looking forward to fitting them in at some point.

probably the only thing the army really needs is for nobs to become viable. They need to be tough and fearsome - right now they are just overpriced soft units.

Murrdox wrote:

ghazghkull has a 6+ feel no pain do to cybork body..

Just reminded me of this. OH YES THIS PISSED ME OFF.

Why did you have to break Cybork bodies? This was just an unnecessary rule change. I converted a full squad of awesome Cybork Nobz, now I just give them 'Eavy Armor instead. So sad.

Also Weirdboyz got fixed in a very good way. I haven't used them yet, but I'm really looking forward to fitting them in at some point.

In what way was I wrong? Feel No Pain is NOT an invulnerable save. It doesn't work against instant death, which is becoming more and more common as the game moves forward. Also, any sane Ork player has a Painboy which makes Cybork Bodies mostly redundant.

 docdoom77 wrote:

Murrdox wrote:

ghazghkull has a 6+ feel no pain do to cybork body..

Just reminded me of this. OH YES THIS PISSED ME OFF.

Why did you have to break Cybork bodies? This was just an unnecessary rule change. I converted a full squad of awesome Cybork Nobz, now I just give them 'Eavy Armor instead. So sad.

Also Weirdboyz got fixed in a very good way. I haven't used them yet, but I'm really looking forward to fitting them in at some point.

In what way was I wrong? Feel No Pain is NOT an invulnerable save. It doesn't work against instant death, which is becoming more and more common as the game moves forward. Also, any sane Ork player has a Painboy which makes Cybork Bodies mostly redundant.

Sorry, I didn't type that comment very clearly. I wasn't criticizing, you I was lamenting that the Cybork Body changed from a 5++ to a 6+ FNP. You are absolutely right that Cybork is completely redundant. It really irritated me that they made that change. There was nothing wrong with the Cybork Body as it was written in the last codex.