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as a loyal ork player who's played through 2 codex's it was disappointing when the new codex came out and games workshop gave the orks the biggest nerf i could think of...mob rule.

mob rule at first seems like it could be a perk, after you fail your leadership test you get another chance of standing your ground, but after many games with this new rule, i personally believe this is possibly the worst thing to happen to the orks.

i almost always play truck boyz, so my boy squads were always 12 or fewer (i rarely run large squads due to bad experiences with blast templates on some of my first games). i can count on one hand the instances that my truck boyz had passed their mob rule test. infact i rely more on their leadership tests then the actual mob rule.

here's the rule as described in the codex (paraphrased a little).

if the unit fails a morale or pinning test, roll immediately on the following table:
(1) born to fight: if the unit is locked in combat, it passes the morale or pinning test, if not locked in combat it fails the test.
(2-3) breaking heads: if the unit has one or more characters it suffers d6 str4 ap- hits and passes the test. hits are randomly allocated but not on ork characters (excess hits are lost). if the unit doesn't have any characters it fails the test.
(4-6) squabble: if the unit has 10 or more models it suffers d6 str4 ap- hits and passes the test. hits are randomly allocated. if it has less than 10 models it fails the test.

there is very little about this table i like. taking hits when you pass mob rule almost always hurts your unit, making me wish i had failed the test and rely on a regroup later on.

one other major issue is that the cut off on units with close than 10 or fewer models is common enough so that you almost always rely on getting a 2 or 3 on the table. even if your unit started with max boyz, eventualy after takeing enough damage by both enemy fire and mob rule you will have to rely on that 2 or 3. worst, the damage is the same for both small groups and large groups when you role either "breaking heads" and "squable". making the damage even worse for smaller squads than it is for larger squads.

how can we fix this?

maybe revert to the old mob rule from the old codex?

here it is as is written...

mob rule!
....ork mobs may always choose to substitute the number of orks in their mob for their normal leadership value. if an ork mob numbers 11 or more models, it has the fearless special rule.

ok, this is better. yeah sure it favors large groups of boyz like the new mob rule, but you can choose to use it or not. a squad of 6 boyz can still use their ld value of 7. whats better is you never have to worry about hurting your own guyz like you do for the new version.

only problem with the old rules is that its the "old" rule. a big mentality for 40k is to always use the current codex no matter how op or nerfed it is, so mixing elements from multiple codex's is often looked down upon. recently i asked my local gaming group if i can run my orks with the old mob rule, and in an instant they both said no. i think this was the result of the "anti old codex mentality." it made them unreasonable to my blight despite them both agreeing with me on multiple occasions that the new mob rule sucks. whats weirder is that they are more open to house rules since they are ok with running multiple relics on warbosses and big meks.

so would a better solution be to make up a completely new rule? admittedly i havent really thought of an alternative besides running with the old mob rule.

any other ideas? has anyone tried house ruling something else that seems fair and has worked very well?

you sir have just tread upon a subject that has seen a lot of debate in this forum. Believe it or not but the majority of people think the new MOB rule is better. I personally am on your side and think that it sucks. Of course, i also run 30 man mobz all the time so I used to be fearless until near the bitter end.

maybe i just have very bad luck for rolling those numbers i want. and even if i do hit the ones i want i just groan when i have to take loses to just pass a leadership test. heck the imperial guard doesnt have it as bad as us. they only have to sacrifice one model to the commissar to pass their tests, we potentially have to lose 6!

Good luck with that - wargamers in general and especially 40k gamers are often terrible RAW snobs and prefer to play with gakky rules than to simply fix them so everyone can have a good time.

I would simply explain to both of my opponents that I'm not having fun using this rule and would enjoy the game a lot better without it. If they still disagree then maybe a new game should be found - god knows theres a ton of far better ones out there

What I hate about Mob Rule is that its a whole lot of dice rolling for little effect most of the time. The same way I have to roll 60 dice needing sixes when my massive shoota mob overwatches.

indeed, though playing a different game would be difficult. there are few other games out there that allow the sheer amount of minis we field. 40k is one of the few that is all about massive armies slugging it out while supported by a variety of vehicles, monsters and super-dimensional horrors. maybe if warzone came out with rules that supported large scale play of that i might think about it (i understand they have an orcs faction, stand ins would work for me).

about the only in game way we can fix this is the big bossple from the ghaz supliment, a stompa walking next to the boyz, or the mad dok himself. this is why i run a dredd mob most often, because i never have to worry about leadership on walkers...just meltas.

speaking of ghaz, i like this supplement, some of the formations are fun and play testing them was fun, but they made the bloody mob rule even worse, by having you add 2 to your mob rule roll, making it impossible to role "born to fight" and very unlikely to roll "breaking heads", and also instead of d6 hits it is now d3 +3 hits.....WT- bloody-F, they thought we needed an even worse nerf?!

here's a few possible houserules i thought up.

make "breakin heads" only do d3 str 4 ap- hits. (makes it not so hard for smaller squads).
change the boss pole so that instead of a reroll, it adds 1 or 2 to your roll on the mob rule table, or we change the table to: (1) born to fight (2-4) breaking heads (5-6) squable

ghaz supplement
get rid of "da boss is watchin" completely. this rule doesn't even make sense fluff wise. the well organized armies of ghazghkull thraka, the prophet of the waaagh, are even less disciplined than any other ork battle force in the galaxy?

Didn't warzone get re-released? I've got my sci fi skirmish fix more than sussed with Infinity, would be keen on another ruleset that lets me run massed battles with less dice.

The only problem with the new mob rule that i have is that random wound allocation which is simply too time consuming to roll off. It'd be better if an ork player could simply pick casualties himself like in the greentide - that'd also allow some positioning tricks like making charge distances larger for your opponent. Another option - more fluffy one - would be to kill models closest to characters. Might even introduce something like Chain of crumping heads - akin to chain of command. Where the larger meaner orks (determined by toughness, str, wounds, etc) crump heads first.

wow, almost forgot about random wound allocation. everyone i play with hates this mechanic. it happens for everyone that suffers infantry in an exploding transport.
i like the wounds from the character idea, but doesn't work if you dont have any characters in the mob. maybe it should be the front models, since they are most likely to be under pressure because they are the ones taking all the fire, and wounds allocated to the front models applies in most situations.

as far as warzone is concerned, im not sure about what the game is like, but the re release is on kickstarter last time i checked. but as far as switching to a different game, ill most likely just accept the rules and then play it with warhammer fluff and models (i already made and collected too many to just give up on them )
same might go for this maelstroms edge.... will have to look at it and its lore in book format b4 i decide anything.

The old rule was a little overpowered sometimes. Maybe suggest to your group using the old rule (with Ld maxing at 10 of course) but substituting stubborn in place of fearless.