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If this is in the wrong forum, my apologies.

I will soon be playing 7th edition orks at my FLGS. As you may recall, I played 5th edition. I will still play 5th outside of my FLGS.

Any words of advice for how I should play them?

You're no longer bound to taking a single standard force organisation chart. An army now consists of one or more detachements and the standard force org (called the combined arms detachment) is just one type of detachment. Every army has its own detachments. Some give you an extra fast attack slot in return for only having 2 heavy support slots, while others do the opposite.
A good side to look at your armies detachment would be: http://bloodofkittens.com/detachment-compendium/

However, 7th edition has also brought the uprising of the formation detachment. It's a type of detachment where the units you take are fixed, but in return you get free special rules.
A good place to discover what formations are avaible for your army can be found here: http://bloodofkittens.com/formation-compendium/


Note: Units brought in a formation do not count towards yur HQ/elite/troop/fast attack/heavy support slots in a force organisation. For example: The formation "Kaptin Badrukk's Flash Gitz" consists of the following units:
- Kaptin Badrukk
- 2 units of Flash Gitz

If you decide to take the formation and combined arms detachment (the force organization chart you are familiar with) Kaptin Badrukk does not take up a HQ slot in the combinder arms detachment and as such does not count as the compulsory HQ choice for the combined arms detachment (on the other hand, this allows you to bring 3 HQ's rather than 2). Nor do the Flash gitz occupy any heavy support slots form the combined arms detachment.


I know this is a lot to take in but the way armies are built have changed and that's something to consider. It's perfectly viable to build an army the way you used to, but people can (and a lot of them will) bring formations that buff their army.


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Another big changer, everything is scoring these days, not only troops can hold objectives anymore. Land raiders can capture objectives, unless another unit is within 3" of it.

Troops taken in a combined arms detachment are a bit better at objective holding because they hold objectives even if there's an enemy unit within 3", unless that enemy unit is also a troop choice from a combined arms detachment.

@DaPino: thanks for the advice!

Grot artillery goes from garbage to Great. Walkers go from great to garbage.

Boys before toys!

I have actually been doing very well running toys before boyz. I think Orks have a lot of specialty units that can very, very well.

However, my core to my list is the following
2x 20 choppa boyz in a battlewagon
4 nob bikers, painboy on a bike, warboss on a bike.

I always get at least a turn 2 charge. ALWAYS. If they go first and move forward, then I get a turn 1 charge. And when Orks charge, it's great, just like any edition.

But the thing is, I only run 40 boyz at games of 2000 or more. Sometimes i run a 10-boy squad ina trukk just to unlock the ork hoard detachment and use 3 HQs.

But tankbustas are awesome, warbuggies are useful, lootas and mek guns are great.

A lot of the "fun units" in 7th got really really good, while a lot of the "core units" from the old Dex got weaker.

In the old Dex, when building an ork list you basically said

"Okay, got my 1 Warboss; got my 1 Big Mek with KFF. Got my nob bikers/Nobz in a wagon, got my boyz in trukks, got my killa kanz supported by the KFF BM. Done."

In 7th, most of those core choices got at least a bit weaker. What got stronger:


-big Gunz (now Mek Gunz) got a hefty price decrease and 3 snazzy new options at the old price (of particular note the Trakktor cannon and the Kustom Mega Cannon pack a Whallop)


-Deffcoptas with rokkits went down 1/3 in price as did Deffbuggies. Both are now solid. Standard warbikes too.


-Tankbustas got buffed with removal of the old glory hog debuff and addition of melta bombs and tank hunters rule standard. Pretty sweet.

-Meganobs got shifted out of the Heavy Support (aka the most crowded slot) to the Elites slot (where they basically compete only with tankbustas). So it's totally okay to toss a min-sized squad in a Trukk as a scary distraction.



What to avoid in the 7th-Dex:

-Kommandos and Snikrot. Not much improved since 6th took away their charge out of outflank. A min sized squad with rokkits or burnas can be an annoyance but beyond that forget em


-Standard Nobs. Sadly with the (essentially) removal of Cybork Bodies and shifting the Painboy over to an Hq you can attach to anyone, the old squad of nobs with 5++/FNP is gone. Nobz are hurting in 7th-bikers are still okay but you would basically rather have flash Gits or megas always.


-Killa Kans. GW Nerfed these poor boys into next Tuesday. Hefty price increase with a pseudo-morale rule that makes them unable to fire their signature Grotzookas-ick.


-Deffrollas. Oh how the mighty have fallen. Once the best ork anti tank (and for a brief hilarious time, anti air) weapon, GW straight up halved it's effectiveness. It's dead jim, long live the reinforced ram.

Sell them and buy eldar instead.

One big change is that HQs no longer change unit types into troops (like warbosses making nobz/meganobz troops, or big meks and deff dreads). At the least, that's not an ork-only thing, just about every codex is getting that treatment.

It's also worth noting that all CC invluns are gone, which makes using nobz and meganobz tricky (or disastrous).

KFF has undergone a substantial change, in that it's a ranged-only invuln save, which is good, but it affects MODELS, not units, within 6", which is bad. And if a model with a KFF is in a vehicle, then only the vehicle gets the save.

Lastly, mob rule is........really, really bad. At best, you'll usually kill ~D3 boyz to pass a test you passed for free before, and at worst, you can have, say, 20 boyz sweeping advanced by a single model (which has happened to me). Also, the entire army is LD7 (excepting HQs) with no insurance from fear tests whatsoever, which is also often disastrous.

In 5th, shoota boyz were generally preferred to choppa boyz, but they got 1 point more expensive, which can really add up. Even before the new codex I was finding I used the extra attack in CC more than the extra shot at ranged, and with the price hike I barely use shoota boyz anymore.

Tankbustas are good. Mek guns are good (but ~$45 a model, so look into kitbashing your own unless you're made of money). Apart from that, I have little positive to say on the codex.

Overall, orks are really suffering competitively nowadays. I still model, and play just for kicks, but I don't generally expect too much.

But both the 5th strong lists of nob bikers and kan walls are basically garbage now, so have to come up with new ideas!

Let's not forget a major point of Ork fluff is that every Waaagh will eventually burn itself out eventually and crumble.

So I play every ork game FORGING THE NARRATIVE to that disastrous outcome....


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As for advice, I would say... that if I got a chance to start my Ork collection all over from scratch, I would go heavy on Bikes and Storm boyz over Trukks and Footboyz.

Boyz before toys, how many points? Bring at least 20-60 Boyz, the more the merrier. Lootas are also good. Shoota Boyz.