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Just curious whether anyone's run the numbers on the best way to run a hidden unwieldy weapon in your ork boyz squads.

Since challenges are so dangerous for our Nobz, most people I know have shifted to including two characters in boyz squads, one to accept challenges where you think the klaw/saw wielder might be mitigated with invulns or killed before/as he swings.

The conventional buy is a simple choppa slugga Mek with the nob sporting a Klaw and Bosspole.

For 55 points you get 4 S9 attacks on the charge. And that works...alright. Not awful. Looking at the other options though I can't help but think maybe, maybe there's another option here.

Options:

1: The Old Classic.

Nob with Klaw and pole, Mek with nothing. 55 points,

Pros: cheap, Mek doesn't have to die because he can just decline the challenge.

Cons: The Mek usually has to decline. That means he's 15 points doing diddly. Also 4 S9 AP2 attacks, while good at whacking vehicular targets, isn't great at getting through high rear armor targets or walkers.

2: More Choppy!

Nob with Big Choppa and Pole, Mek with Killsaw. 65 points

Pros: Armorbane attacks paired with S7 attacks from the nob means you can attack vehicles strategically to aim for the wreck rather than explodes, and you're slightly better at penning vs heavy armor. Also, double the beat sticks vs infantry that can't kill the nob in cc but would threaten a naked Mek. If this is a squad of Trukk boyz rolling with Eavy armor I can see this being a solid arrangement.

Cons: 3 S7 attacks is simply not 4 S9 attacks. Particularly with it being more expensive your power vs heavy infantry and MC targets is worse. With a big blob meant to delay, that might be bad, but in a squad of Trukk boyz they shouldn't engage those kinds of targets anyway.

3: More Brain Lasers!

Nob with Klaw and Bosspole, Weirdboy. 75 points

Pros: The points are creeping up but this arrangement truly seems to be the best in flexibility. You've got the Weirdboy, a psyker who might have crappy powers but at 35 points for 2 Warp Charges that's bonus. If it helps, simply think of him as a Nob with a Power Maul. And if he does get a decent power like warpath or power vomit, well, sweet!

Cons: takes an HQ slot. My trukkspam army comfortably gets into two cads and I don't need Dok's so this is doable, but in a list where HQs are scarce this is unlikely to be useful.

Thoughts? Opinions? Any other options you can think of?

The cons for the first option are wrong, because it seems your understanding of declining challenges are wrong. If your opponent declares a challenge you get to chose to accept or decline. If you accept you get to decide who accepts, but if you decline your opponent gets to choose which character doesn't get to fight. So the pro is completely wrong because of reason above and the con of the mek declining means that your nob with klaw and pole doesn't get to fight.

That being said, I would suggest option 2 or 3 or just go for even more points of Nob with klaw and pole, and Mek with killsaw (unless this is unavailable or stupid. I have no clue as i don't play orks)

Ahhhh, right. Well that just makes option 1 even more unsavory.

Klaw and saw is 20 points more, and brings you right back to square 1 when it comes to challenges. I think it's better to save the points and just deploy intelligently trying to avoid fights I won't win.

The Mek has to take the challenge or else the Nob gets benched for the fight (challenger gets to pick who sits out if you refuse the challenge). The mek's only job is to repair its transport and to die in a glorious challenge ( Challenges make me so angry. Zero reason why a nob would give a squig what some zoggin space marine captain thinks about honorable and glorious combat. The nob is going to tell him to "Zog Off" and continue removing space marine heads from their bodies. )

Ive never been a huge fan of the whole Killsaw Mekboy because its a little bit better than the Nob at cracking open lower AV vehicles (loss of an attack is really big and the lower base strength diminishes the power of its armorbane somewhat.) and you still need somebody to tank the challenges. A single Nob with a PK isn't the ideal vehicle cracking tool (manz, tankbustas, lootas, mek guns have that covered fairly well this edition) but that Nob is vital to killing 3+ or 2+ armor save infantry.

Weirdboy (or Painboy in the more common cases) doesn't help you with your challenge issue. Also Weirdboys also have really good powers (Da Jump, Warpath, Killbolt, Warp Vomit, and even Frazzle) for cheap so its not worth casually throwing away a Weirdboy in a challenge. Just wish we had Space Wolves level of HQ slots to fit all our Painboyz, Big Meks, Weirdboyz, and Warbosses into the army.

I wouldn't be throwing away anyone, optimally. Tanking with a T4 2W model is gonna be fine unless it's a special character of some kind (in which case why are you fighting them anyway, ork boyz are for bullying not for tackling dedicated cc units head on)

It's not terribly likely for any basic sarge type to whack a 2 wound model. With the nob it's just about not risking it.

the_scotsman wrote:
I wouldn't be throwing away anyone, optimally. Tanking with a T4 2W model is gonna be fine unless it's a special character of some kind (in which case why are you fighting them anyway, ork boyz are for bullying not for tackling dedicated cc units head on)

It's not terribly likely for any basic sarge type to whack a 2 wound model. With the nob it's just about not risking it.

Yup, and given how ubiquitous Painboyz are in most Ork mob squads they have a 5+ FNP for back-up most of the time short of Trukk boy mobz.

With regards to PK hiding, that's why for most of my units I try to have at least 2 units of boyz (particularly for trukk lists) to engage with the same target so even if they force one Nob down with the PK, the other squad's PK can still swing.

Don't take meks or weird boys, you will regret it in kill point missions since they both count.

Protecting your klaw step one.

Place nob in back. Challenged characters have to be within three. He won't be.

Step two.

Pile in after everyone at step 1 initiative. Kill stuff. He can try and challenge next round if he is still there. By then they have often lost something like zealot, furious charge or even just the extra charge attack and your odds of surviving and winning go up. Or their character might have already bit it

 Orock wrote:
Don't take meks or weird boys, you will regret it in kill point missions since they both count.

Protecting your klaw step one.

Place nob in back. Challenged characters have to be within three. He won't be.

Step two.

Pile in after everyone at step 1 initiative. Kill stuff. He can try and challenge next round if he is still there. By then they have often lost something like zealot, furious charge or even just the extra charge attack and your odds of surviving and winning go up. Or their character might have already bit it

This works great until you role ten inches for the assault and your nob is there anyways. Not being a jerk it's good advice I just thought I'd mention when it fails.

Anything you can't beat with the bucket of dice that slugga choppa boyz put out should have been shot in the first place. No reason to plan for a challenge if you are always just cutting up shooty gits and shooting things you don't want to challenge. It's a big part of why I've stopped taking a klaw on Nobz, the boyz will likely win or lose the fight why did I need a 40 point nob?

 Rismonite wrote:


This works great until you role ten inches for the assault and your nob is there anyways. Not being a jerk it's good advice I just thought I'd mention when it fails.

Anything you can't beat with the bucket of dice that slugga choppa boyz put out should have been shot in the first place. No reason to plan for a challenge if you are always just cutting up shooty gits and shooting things you don't want to challenge. It's a big part of why I've stopped taking a klaw on Nobz, the boyz will likely win or lose the fight why did I need a 40 point nob?

IMO the reason is often the unit of boyz isn't in one piece by the time they get to the enemy unit (between trukk explosions, enemy shooting, overwatch, mob rule, etc). The thing is a single Nob can cut down on average 1-2 space marines which is about half what the other 11 slugga boyz in a trukk squad will kill assuming they are at full strength and the enemy doesn't deal any casualties to them. Between overwatch and the enemy swinging first your often going to have around half your boyz alive to swing. That one PK nob on the other hand will crush a few marines by himself and his damage output doesn't go to gak when stuck in prolong combat compared to your now str 3 boyz. Losing combat means a sweep most likely so that PK investment means your more likely to stay in the fight or even win the engagement. Even in a battlewagon unit with more total boyz having the PK has always been a worthwhile investment as long as the entire squad doesn't get murdered from shooting or some volume of attack melee unit.

Indeed. Quite often, the power klaw does as much damage as the rest of the squad. Hell, in a trukk boyz unit, the mob is pretty much a power klaw delivery service.

Meks are nice, but frankly I agree with Grimskull - the best insurance is to tag-team something important with multiple mobz. A generic sergeant usually struggles to take out a nob - especially if said nob has eavy armour and/or a painboy, so it's only captains and the like that matter - and frankly anyone's HQ characters usually kill sergeant equivalents.

 Orock wrote:
Don't take meks or weird boys, you will regret it in kill point missions since they both count.

Protecting your klaw step one.

Place nob in back. Challenged characters have to be within three. He won't be.

Step two.

Pile in after everyone at step 1 initiative. Kill stuff. He can try and challenge next round if he is still there. By then they have often lost something like zealot, furious charge or even just the extra charge attack and your odds of surviving and winning go up. Or their character might have already bit it

Thankfully I haven't played a kill point mission since 7th dropped.

So, I tested this in a game last night, going with 2 Trukk boyz squads and 2 Battlewagon shoota boyz mobs. Took one Trukk squad as naked Mek, 1 Trukk as saw Mek, and both wagons with Weirdboyz.

The Weirdboyz definitely win in my eyes. Particularly because one rolled Killbolt and just rocked. Took HP off a dreadnought, a razorback, and instagibbed a centurion. He never had to challenge but the other one did, and had he been a Mek would have just died (took 1 wound to a power axe sarge) but he didn't, and doled out an extra 3 wounds in the combat.

The Meks weren't bad, I used the killsaw to kill 1 dread in a squadron but the other one finished me off. The other one just died to a sarge.

Not the most competitive marine list ever, but heavy flamer dread squadrons, assault cannon razorbacks and drop pod centurions isn't the weakest thing ever. I'll run the list a couple times for more data but I definitely enjoyed how the Weirdboy squads worked.

Old Classic is the best. But I wouldn't add a Mek since you should be going for trukk boyz and they should only engage those targets they will obliterate - tac squads, devastators, eldar guardians or avengers, cabalites and other non-cc-units. They won't have characters that can deal 2 wounds to Nobs. If there is such a character you've probably run into a beatstick and about to be wiped out anyway so don't bother.

 Vankraken wrote:
( Challenges make me so angry. Zero reason why a nob would give a squig what some zoggin space marine captain thinks about honorable and glorious combat. The nob is going to tell him to "Zog Off" and continue removing space marine heads from their bodies. )

Couldn't agree more. I hate the Challenge mechanic in general, and it just sucks extra hard for Orks. Even when we win, we lose. At least 7th Edition fixed it a little bit so that a piddly Sergeant can't suck all the Power Klaw attacks from our Warboss.

Anways, when I can find the points for it, I include Meks with my Boyz in order to take the sacrificial challenge. When you put 3-5 squads of Boyz on the table though, assuming you take a double-CAD, spending 60 points on sacrificial Meks sucks. So usually I only put in 1 or 2.

My order of priorities is:

1) Keep distance of the Nob so that he can't be challenged at the start of the fight.
2) Use a Mek to accept a sacrificial challenge.
3) Double-up on Power Klaws. Usually this means having a Warboss / Nob or a Big Mek Power Klaw / Nob in the same squad. When a challenge is issued, I refuse the challenge, and opponent can pick ONE of my Power Klaws to sit out, but he can't pick BOTH. This definitely sucks when the Warboss doesn't get to swing, but if you're going to have a Big Mek in a squad, this gives you some incentive to pay for the Power Klaw upgrade on the Big Mek, since his stats and the Nobs are identical. If there's no challenge? Holy crap that's a lot of Power Klaw for the opponent to deal with.
4) Don't spend the points on Power Klaws and use Big Choppas instead.
5) I've never used this option... what self-respecting Ork would? But the Warboss IS initiative 4. So you can give the Warboss a Big Choppa instead of his normal Power Klaw, and he actually has a chance to fight and win challenges against Initiative 4 or less armies. But let's be honest. You ALWAYS give the Warboss a PowerKlaw. HE'S THE BOSS!!