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Fixing my old list (http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/670246.page)

I played against my friend, and I got absolutely destroyed. Well, not absolutely since I put the hurt to most of his units, but I still lost. I was playing against Chaos Daemons and he had 2 units of Bloodthirsters, 1 of Possessed Space Marines, and a Hellbrute. I thought I'd be able to destroy him easily since he's melee, but he gave me a few nasty surprises.

The thing I most noticed was that 1. Orks can't shoot to save their lives. Literally. That 2 BS is absolute BS. 2. Ork armor sucks. I was tempted to buy 'eavy armor for my Boyz, but that could have easily gone towards another unit of something else. I'm just not sure what to play here. I guess this list is the best I could do on my own:

HQ: 122 pts

Warboss (+Eavy Armour, Twin-linked Shoota, Power Klaw, Bosspole, Lucky Stikk)

Troops: 226 pts

10x Shoota Boyz (+Boss Nob w/ Big Choppa, Kombi-weapon w/ Rokkit Launcha)

10x Shoota Boyz (+Boss Nob w/ Bosspole, Power Klaw, Twin-linked Shoota) (+1 Boy w/ Rokkit Launcha)

Fast Attack: 60 pts

Deffkopta w/ Twin-linked Rokkit Launcha
Deffkopta w/ Twin-linked Rokkit Launcha

Heavy Support: 90 pts

Deff Dread (x2 Power Klaw, Big Shoota, Rokkit Launcha, Grot Riggers)

Total: 498

My strategy is to hold the Deff Dread in front of the Boyz and whatnot with a nice Deffkopta escort. The Warboss and Power Klaw Nob on the other squad mean that I can take down big guys with either Boyz squad. I noticed that Warbikes are cheaper than Deffkoptas- maybe I should just get those instead? They have higher fire volume which would mean more chances to actually hit something, and their higher numbers means one Melta shot won't wipe them all out. I dunno, I thought I needed a deep strategy but Orks aren't exactly what I had in mind, I thought they'd shoot better- those Deffkoptas infuriate me when they miss because they'll most likely get popped in the next turn.

Any ideas on what could help? Maybe I need a change in strategy? I would like to win at least once with these guys, so please don't be afraid to comment!

I wouldn't take a kombi-rokkit on a nob. One shot with a rokkit hitting on 5+ is a waste of points. I also wouldn't buy a twin linked shoota as a nob upgrade either. Just give them the free shoota and a good weapon to smush things.

When it comes to shooting, I think that warbikes are some of the best units in the ork army. Twin linked, S5 and 3 shots means that they're a lot more likely to hit something than a normal ork. Though if you wanted to go shooty you would really want Lootas. They're great shooty guys. A biker boss and some bikes can be a real pain for a lot of armies though, so it's not a bad idea to consider them. Plus whatever they get into combat with can't shoot your other boys and dread, so that's a bonus too.

I would put a skorcha on the dread. Skorchas are great. Sure, they're short ranged, but you should be running a lot of the time anyway.

The deffkoptas are nice, but at this points level I don't know if they're really gonna shine. Bikes probably would do better for you.

Remember, strategy wise you want to move forward as fast as possible. So dread, boyz and boss should run in the shooting phase instead of trying to long range snipe things. When you get into shoota range you can try to mass fire and hope for the best, but if you only have a big shoota or a rokkit that can hit, you're better off running. If someone shoots at the boyz, try going to ground for a chance to get a cover save. Anything that helps you survive those few turns before you get in there is good. Don't send your boss after the hellbrute. That guy could kill him instantly, so make a nob with a klaw take it out. Your boss should smush other things, like the enemy leader.

It's important to remember that when it comes to orks 1 shot is never good. If you can shoot a lot, run.

evilbuttertart wrote:
I wouldn't take a kombi-rokkit on a nob. One shot with a rokkit hitting on 5+ is a waste of points. I also wouldn't buy a twin linked shoota as a nob upgrade either. Just give them the free shoota and a good weapon to smush things.

When it comes to shooting, I think that warbikes are some of the best units in the ork army. Twin linked, S5 and 3 shots means that they're a lot more likely to hit something than a normal ork. Though if you wanted to go shooty you would really want Lootas. They're great shooty guys. A biker boss and some bikes can be a real pain for a lot of armies though, so it's not a bad idea to consider them. Plus whatever they get into combat with can't shoot your other boys and dread, so that's a bonus too.

I would put a skorcha on the dread. Skorchas are great. Sure, they're short ranged, but you should be running a lot of the time anyway.

The deffkoptas are nice, but at this points level I don't know if they're really gonna shine. Bikes probably would do better for you.

Remember, strategy wise you want to move forward as fast as possible. So dread, boyz and boss should run in the shooting phase instead of trying to long range snipe things. When you get into shoota range you can try to mass fire and hope for the best, but if you only have a big shoota or a rokkit that can hit, you're better off running. If someone shoots at the boyz, try going to ground for a chance to get a cover save. Anything that helps you survive those few turns before you get in there is good. Don't send your boss after the hellbrute. That guy could kill him instantly, so make a nob with a klaw take it out. Your boss should smush other things, like the enemy leader.

It's important to remember that when it comes to orks 1 shot is never good. If you can shoot a lot, run.

That changes my perspective a lot. So Nobs are good for Bosspoles, Power Klaws, and Mob Rule rolls, right? I was thinking of changing the Deffkoptas for Bikers, but now I've cemented my decision; I'm doing it. It does sound nice to have some speed with my Warboss- he usually gets popped by the biggest thing my opponent has while he's slogging. I just looked Lootas up and holy crap! 3 shots with a 36'' range?? That's insane! I do have a few questions, though.

Should I take a Deff Dread, or the Lootas? And if I should take the Lootas, what does their Heavy weapon description entail? I know Assault means they can shoot and then charge, so what does Heavy do? And for the Warbikes, I see that the Warbikers have ranged weapons independent of their Dakkaguns. During their shooting phase, can they shoot their, say, Slugga or something along with their Warbike's Dakkagun? Because that would be great for some guerilla warfare, all those shots at once. I know Orks suck at shooting, but I don't like to get into melee unless I know I can win- my IC's usually get challenged and murdered across the board.

Yes, Nobs are definitely there for klaws and poles, not for their access to shooting weapons.

Deffdreads are great at low levels because a lot of the time units can't do much to them in close combat., but a few heavy weapons or even special weapons like meltas and plasma guns can wreck them. So if you find it gets blown up too much, then swapping it may be a good idea. A deffdread with a skorcha and some klaws can be nice to take an objective too or to deal with jinking bikes.

Lootas are one of the best choices in the book. the squad gets D3 shots each turn, so a group of 5 of them can potentially fire off 15 shots. Even with their bad shooting skill, that's a lot of shots. Something will get hit. If you do take them, I recommend not taking any meks with them. Meks are great if you want to throw them inside a battlewago or something so they can keep fixing it, but otherwise just get another loota. As for how heavy works, you can only fire snap shots if you move with heavy weapons and you can't assault after firing them. But they should stay away from assaults and with their range if you deploy them in a good spot they shouldn't have trouble reaching stuff.

A warboss on a bike with klaw, boss pole, lucky stick joining into a group of bikers can make a mess of things. Along with a 4+ armor save from being in a bike, they also get +1 toughness, so it's harder to wound them. Then the twin linked dakka and being able to jink make them really useful units. A warboss that doesn't get in combat never lives up to his potential.

And no, you can't shoot both your slugga and your dakkagun in the same turn. So don't take any ranged weapon upgrades for your boss/nob on bikes. That dakkagun is really all you would want on them. But a group of 5 bikes shoot 15 shots and are all twin linked so you re-roll misses, which means they're great at softening something up before running them over in combat.

So here's what I'd run

( 140 ) Warboss - bike, klaw, boss pole, lucky stick

( 110 ) 10 Shoota Boyz - Nob - boss pole, power klaw, shoota
( 90 ) 10 Shoota Boyz - Nob- boss pole, big choppa, shoota

( 87 ) 4 Warbikers - Nob - big choppa

( 70 ) 5 Lootas

General tactics: run shoota boyz through cover and try to get somewhere close to shoot and assault. Lootas set up somewhere in cover and shoot at things. Bikers rush headlong into the enemy, deploying out of sight to prevent first turn casualties. You shoot with the bikes, you assault with the bikes and let the boss krump things while the nob just smacks things around and the boys lay down a bunch of attacks. You should see your boss get into combat a lot more this way and his cost is not much different with better stats.

edit- i forgot to add in the stck's cost! d'oh! thanks for catching that strugglingfish. Editted the list to reflect that.

It should be noted that Warboss - bike, klaw, boss pole, lucky stick is 140 not 115.

evilbuttertart wrote:
Yes, Nobs are definitely there for klaws and poles, not for their access to shooting weapons.

Deffdreads are great at low levels because a lot of the time units can't do much to them in close combat., but a few heavy weapons or even special weapons like meltas and plasma guns can wreck them. So if you find it gets blown up too much, then swapping it may be a good idea. A deffdread with a skorcha and some klaws can be nice to take an objective too or to deal with jinking bikes.

Lootas are one of the best choices in the book. the squad gets D3 shots each turn, so a group of 5 of them can potentially fire off 15 shots. Even with their bad shooting skill, that's a lot of shots. Something will get hit. If you do take them, I recommend not taking any meks with them. Meks are great if you want to throw them inside a battlewago or something so they can keep fixing it, but otherwise just get another loota. As for how heavy works, you can only fire snap shots if you move with heavy weapons and you can't assault after firing them. But they should stay away from assaults and with their range if you deploy them in a good spot they shouldn't have trouble reaching stuff.

A warboss on a bike with klaw, boss pole, lucky stick joining into a group of bikers can make a mess of things. Along with a 4+ armor save from being in a bike, they also get +1 toughness, so it's harder to wound them. Then the twin linked dakka and being able to jink make them really useful units. A warboss that doesn't get in combat never lives up to his potential.

And no, you can't shoot both your slugga and your dakkagun in the same turn. So don't take any ranged weapon upgrades for your boss/nob on bikes. That dakkagun is really all you would want on them. But a group of 5 bikes shoot 15 shots and are all twin linked so you re-roll misses, which means they're great at softening something up before running them over in combat.

So here's what I'd run

( 140 ) Warboss - bike, klaw, boss pole, lucky stick

( 110 ) 10 Shoota Boyz - Nob - boss pole, power klaw, shoota
( 90 ) 10 Shoota Boyz - Nob- boss pole, big choppa, shoota

( 87 ) 4 Warbikers - Nob - big choppa

( 70 ) 5 Lootas

General tactics: run shoota boyz through cover and try to get somewhere close to shoot and assault. Lootas set up somewhere in cover and shoot at things. Bikers rush headlong into the enemy, deploying out of sight to prevent first turn casualties. You shoot with the bikes, you assault with the bikes and let the boss krump things while the nob just smacks things around and the boys lay down a bunch of attacks. You should see your boss get into combat a lot more this way and his cost is not much different with better stats.

edit- i forgot to add in the stck's cost! d'oh! thanks for catching that strugglingfish. Editted the list to reflect that.

The cost of a few things are off, so I changed up the list to factor that in. PK's are pretty expensive and either way I can rely on my Lootas and Warboss to pop big guys in case my Nobs can't get there fast enough- I'll give the Big Choppas and use the +2 Str and +1 Str from charges to amplify the Nob's strength to something worthy of killing big things. I'll go with your strategy, but I did have a question. Since I'm already using Warbikes, why not change my Boyz squads to Zhadsnark's Warbikers? They're cheaper than Boyz by about 6 points and count as troops.

I really need to make a 1000 point army with this setup. 500 points is not comfortable at all, I had to cut some corners By the way, does my biker warboss need eavy armor?

Here's the new list:

HQ: 144 pts

Warboss (+Eavy Armor, PK, Bosspole, Lucky Stikk Warbike)

Troops: 192 pts

10x Shoota Boyz (Boss Nob w/ Big Choppa +Bosspole)
10x Shoota Boyz (Boss Nob w/ Big Choppa +Bosspole)

Fast Attack: 87 pts

3x Warbiker (+ Nob w/ Big Choppa)

Heavy Support: 70 pts

5x Lootas

I'm not sure why I'm fielding less guys than before. In the Daemons game I gave my Warboss and his Boyz a Trukk, I had three Deffkoptas and two Kans along with a squad of Shoota Boyz. Hmm...

Your shoota boyz are the wrong points. You have them at 96 points for each squad, but they're 90 each. Your bikes are the wrong cost as well, they're 69 points. Your warboss doesn't need 'Eavy armor because he gets a 4+ save from the bike. I'm not really sure where you went wrong with your points. Nobs are 10, big choppas are 5, 10 shootas are 70...The regular shoota is free for a nob too.

Warboss - 140
Shoota boyz - 90
Shoota boyz - 90
Bikers - 69
Lootas - 70

total: 459

so you have 41 points left over. That would be why you have less. That's enough for 2 more bikes or 2 lootas or 5 more shoota boyz.

edit- looking at your original list, you have the points for your boyz wrong there, too.

Warboss - 122
shoota boyz- 90
shoota boyz- 118
deffkoptas- 60
deffdread- 90

total- 480

How are you calculating your boyz cost?

evilbuttertart wrote:
Your shoota boyz are the wrong points. You have them at 96 points for each squad, but they're 90 each. Your bikes are the wrong cost as well, they're 69 points. Your warboss doesn't need 'Eavy armor because he gets a 4+ save from the bike. I'm not really sure where you went wrong with your points. Nobs are 10, big choppas are 5, 10 shootas are 70...The regular shoota is free for a nob too.

Warboss - 140
Shoota boyz - 90
Shoota boyz - 90
Bikers - 69
Lootas - 70

total: 459

so you have 41 points left over. That would be why you have less. That's enough for 2 more bikes or 2 lootas or 5 more shoota boyz.

edit- looking at your original list, you have the points for your boyz wrong there, too.

Warboss - 122
shoota boyz- 90
shoota boyz- 118
deffkoptas- 60
deffdread- 90

total- 480

How are you calculating your boyz cost?

I'm using Battlescribe. I think the problem with the Boyz is that I didn't upgrade a Boy to a Nob- I just added a Nob to the 10 Boyz. I changed that, so a single squad of 9 Shoota Boyz with 1 Nob that has a Bosspole and a Big Choppa costs 89 points. Is that about right? Likewise, a properly built Warbike squad has two Warbikers and a Nob with a Big Choppa (no Bosspole because my Warboss is joining this squad) for a total of 69 points. I checked the Codex and my calculations seem to be ok now. I'll report back once I've finished choosing the rest of the army now that I have a surplus of points!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Alright, here is my new list that uses the right values and cuts out the unnecessary costs like Nob ranged weapons:

HQ: 145 pts

Warboss (+PK, Bosspole, Cybork Body, Lucky Stikk, Warbike)

Troops: 178pts

10x Shoota Boyz (+Nob w/ Big Choppa, Bosspole)
10x Shoota Boyz (+Nob w/ Big Choppa, Bosspole)

Fast Attack: 105 pts

5x Warbikers (+ Nob w/ Big Choppa)

Heavy Support: 70 pts

5x Lootas

Total: 498 pts

The strategy here:

-Warboss joins Warbikers, creating a 6-strong hammer to go into CC quick and then provide fast guerilla support with Twin-linked Dakkacannons. CC is excellent thanks to a PK-aided Str 10 Warboss and a Charge and Big Choppa-aided Str 7 Nob.

-Shoota Boyz go around soaking up damage, taking potshots at stuff (and hopefully hitting), but mostly rushing at stuff. Biding time until they're close enough to an important target, then have my Warboss declare a Waaagh to bring my BC Nobs close in for the kill- these Shoota Boyz CC first, shoot second. They never ask questions.

-The Lootas provide support by putting dents in heavy armor or straight up murdering it (I'm picturing a nice and dead Hellbrute), or softening up the infantry the Boyz will be hitting if my opponent has nothing big.

What do you guys think?

-20 choppa boyz with a pk nob might be better since they can make better use of the mob rule table - plus you might want to run them each turn and then make use of waaagh ability of run + assault

-to fill out the troop slot consider a base unit of gretchin for 35 points

-5 lootas might not do much - on average you will get 10 attacks with 3 hits - consider taking a group of 5 tankbustas with 3 bomb squigs (thats 3 auto str 8 hits) - tankbustas are considered one of the current best units. Also, the str 8 means you will insta kill any multi wound toughness 4 models.

 chaosmarauder wrote:
-20 choppa boyz with a pk nob might be better since they can make better use of the mob rule table - plus you might want to run them each turn and then make use of waaagh ability of run + assault

-to fill out the troop slot consider a base unit of gretchin for 35 points

-5 lootas might not do much - on average you will get 10 attacks with 3 hits - consider taking a group of 5 tankbustas with 3 bomb squigs (thats 3 auto str 8 hits) - tankbustas are considered one of the current best units. Also, the str 8 means you will insta kill any multi wound toughness 4 models.

1. If I could afford a bigger mob, I would. However, I need two troops and Boyz are the best for soaking up hits
2. Gretchin? Dude, I might as well just give my Boyz 'Eavy Armour, or get 2 more Lootas or something
3. Lootas have a Deffgun, not a Shoota. They get 3 48'' shots per turn, which means I'll fire 15 shots per turn. That means 5 shots- Definitely worth it considering they're Str 7 and that range is honestly ridiculous. Remember that this is a 500 pt game, they'll take down 1-2 dudes or an entire tank per turn, and this is from a long distance- they're the best shooty option I have.

lootas actually get D3 shots per turn, rolled every turn before you fire. So there are turns you'll get 5 and turns you'll get 15. Even still, lootas are a great option and I think your list is about are good as a 500 point ork army can get. Your shootas have objective secured too, so don't be afraid to run them off to claim objectives if you're using them in the game.

Your boyz are still short by 2 points. They're 90 points per squad. You are short by two points anyway, so it doesn't matter in this list. I think you should find that you do a bit better next time, especially as you get used to how your units play. Just remember, the hellbrute can potentially kill your warboss in 1 hit in close combat, so be careful when you fight it. Might be better to just focus lootas on it. a good round of shooting could take it out.

evilbuttertart wrote:
lootas actually get D3 shots per turn, rolled every turn before you fire. So there are turns you'll get 5 and turns you'll get 15. Even still, lootas are a great option and I think your list is about are good as a 500 point ork army can get. Your shootas have objective secured too, so don't be afraid to run them off to claim objectives if you're using them in the game.

Your boyz are still short by 2 points. They're 90 points per squad. You are short by two points anyway, so it doesn't matter in this list. I think you should find that you do a bit better next time, especially as you get used to how your units play. Just remember, the hellbrute can potentially kill your warboss in 1 hit in close combat, so be careful when you fight it. Might be better to just focus lootas on it. a good round of shooting could take it out.

Aw man... that really reduces my Lootas' effectiveness... at least the constant there is a nice 7 Str shot- they'll beat up any MEQ they encounter with a 2+ to wound.

I really do think I'm getting a better hang of it- shooting comes second, assault first. My army is based around this concept, except for the fact that I do realize Shootas are sometimes better for softening up your enemy before charging so overwatch isn't as terrible. The Warbikes were an awesome suggestion, they'll be my hammer. With that in mind, would my Warboss be the beat candidate to kill the Hellbrute? If the Lootas don't poke him full of holes, I won't be able to afford to wait for my next turn- I could lose troops unnecessarily. I could rush my Bike gang in with the Nob and Boss in the back, and with a Str 10 PK and Str 7 Big Choppa I should be able to kill him in one turn. The reason why I'm confident that my Boss won't die is because he's in the back and he has the Nob to take the hit for him as well. Hopefully I'll tweak my strategy some before I have another game, which should be this weekend. Thanks for your help, man, and I'm still taking suggestions!