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Hi All!

I got into 40K a couple of months ago, so I am quite a rookie in army design, although I tried to make my reading in this.
As a first step I am trying to assemble and paint a 1000 point starter army that should be an 'all-rounder' option to play friendly matches to get the hang of the game, but has some potential to be competitive in its future development.
Right now, it is more like a painting project army, I mean, I would paint only those that worth putting on the table, so your comments might save me some painting hours.

The list below is assembled by the following preferences:
- These are the minis I have at hand
- I want a painted army, therefore I tried to reduce the size of big boyz mobz as much as possible (running around with 6 x 30 boy squads is not an option for me to paint, this list is long enough already)
- The list should have potential to be competitive just by increasing miniature numbers in squads.

The list:
Around 1000 points (found some mistakes in Battlescribe calculation, so maybe a bit less)

HQ
Warboss with 4+ armour, Power Klaq, twin linked shoota, bosspole, lucky stikk
Weirdboy - Psyker level 2 - I use him as I do not really have other HQ units, and gives a chance to tellyport a mob of boyz

Elites
Meganobz - 1 with PK + Twin Linked shoota + bosspole, 1 with 2xKillsaws, 1 with PK + kombi skorcha
Trukk for meganobz with Extra armour and red paint job.

Troops
22 x slugga boyz
Boss nob with big choppa + bosspole (I know PK would be better, but I have this ready and he is beautiful).
1 x boy with big shoota
Warboss joins this unit

20 x shoota boys
Boss nob with PK + bosspole
2 x boyz with big shoota
Weirdboy joins this unit

10 x Gretchin + Runtherd - mainly as cannon fodder or to take easy objectives. Maybe not really necessary, but I kinda like the miniatures, so I will paint this unit, then why not put them on the board...

Fast attack
Deffkopta x 3 - but as three individual units, all with twin linked rokkit launchas

Heavy support
Killa kan - Grotzooka
Killa kan - Rokkit launcha
(individual units)

Other
Mek - walking just behind Killa Kans for repairs

Concept:
- Ork Great Waaagh detachment giving a slight chance to deep strike - deffkoptas and kans are single model units, so roll on this separately
- Weirdboy also giving a slight chance to move behind enemy lines
- Fast moving deffkoptas rush objectives, move together as if they would be one unit to effectively spam any enemy unit a rokkit can hurt
- Meganobz rush forward in the trukk and get close asap, distract enemy fire, survive the loss of truck then create some havoc in melee
- In general - nobz and kans take bullets, some troops, kans may have luck in deep striking causing havoc, koptas and gretchin takes care of some objectives. This whole thing gives a chance for boyz to advance (they jsut run in the beginning if they can, they never hit anything anyway :-)). The main objective is to reach melee distance for boyz and meganobz in time.

Future plans:
- Add one more boyz squad
- Add a painboy to the third boyz squad
- Same warboss in mega armour
- Increase meganobz unit size
- Add 3 x MEK guns with big mek, maybe other machines in a separate detachment
- Maybe add some bikers in similar roles as deffkoptas
- I already have some nobz and 7 lootas or maybe 2 meks to add, plus about 30+ sluggas that will be painted some time after the end of the world

QUESTIONS:
- What is your general opinion about the list?
- Is my concept valid? (I am not an experienced player)
- What should be the primary improvements to go up to 1200, 1500 point levels from the perspective of competitiveness?
- Anything else I should be aware of?

Many thanks for comments and help, really appreciate it.

Not an Ork player but I have seen similar lists to this, it shall certainly do for your first ever list.
There are a couple of things I would change; Deff Koptas will die really easy, so putting them in three seperate units will just give away FB/3 unit kills really easily; your entire army (besides your meganobz) is foot slogging, this is not a good thing for cc armies, I would definitely invest in some trukks and/or battlewagons to transport your units; and that is where my knowledge of your current army ends.
Moving up to 1200-1500; the Ork flyers are quite nice to have bombing the battlefield; Ork bikers are also strong units; besides that get more boyz and trukks.
BE AWARE! YOUR ARMY WILL MOST LIKELY BE TRASH AGAINST HEAVY SHOOTING ARMIES! But that is the cross we cc armies must bear.

Couple notes:

The grat waaagh! detachment does not exist any longer, or to be more accurate, the one that gives you a chance to deep strike doesn't. The waaagh! ghaz book has been replaced, and the new one has an updated great waaagh! detachment, which is like the necron Decurion army list.

Any rate, short answer, the only deep striking options available to any ork unit are stormboyz and a wierdboy who gets da jump.

meganobz in trukk are good, I'd probably go with just one killsaw, though. Also, reinforced rams are a requirement for me on all vehicles - it's the best 5 points you can spend. This is because trukks depend on cover for saves, but cover also has a 1/6 chance to immobilize them. Reinforced rams let you reroll this, which is great, because immobilized trucks with meganobz is sad times.

Extra armor is.......kind of eh. Trukks generally don't survive very long anyways, so 10 points to keep it moving only on a stunned result isn't that helpful, most of the time.

I personally don't think that shoota boyz are worth it. You're going to be running most of the time, especially with waaagh, so it's useless, and even when you get to shoot, I find that shoota boyz still do 70% of their work in CC, when an extra attack is more valuable than an extra ranged shot.

Other than that's it's a decent starter list. I highly recommend grotzookas on all kans, though the kan kit only comes with one.

Future suggestions:

Mek gunz are absolutely fantastic - lobbas and kustom mega kannons are my favorites. Rest aren't great. Traktor kannons are highly situational, and even against their preferred targets (flying MCs) they still rarely wound, in my experience.

Lootas are.......eh. Many people love them, but I've never been anything but disappointed by them. Tankbustas are my go-to ranged anti armor unit - mainly because their best use is in CC. But their tank-hunter rokkits can be damned dangerous to a lot of things.

Painboyz are good, especially for boyz blobs.

Mega armor warbosses are also great. Giving them DLS is cheesy, but in a codex this bad, probably need all the help they can get.

Warbikers are quite good, but models are expensive.

-add mega armor on your warboss so with lucky stick he has rerollable 2+ saves (stick him at the front of the shoota boyz blob to tank for them and watch your opponent weep; if you get hit with an ap2 weapon then look out sir it onto a normal boy) - I like to do this with 30 shoota boyz, nob with klaw, 3 big shootas and a painboy to also add feel no pain to the blob

-I find slugga boyz kinda need trukks so they can get in to pull off an assault ASAP and also consider heavy armor on them so when the trukk blows up you don't lose half of them

Thanks for all of this guys, great comments. Just one more thing. I had doubts putting smaller squads of boyz in trukks (11 + nob as I remember) because they might not be effective as they actually reach melee distance. Truck blows up they die but if armor makes them survive they could still run away just by losing 1-2 models. After the first encounter I might end up with 6-8 boyz the best, that seems vulnerable. Or usually there is no 'second encounter'? :-)

The trukk, boyz, everything is just a deliver system for the nob with klaw.

He will wreck face.

Some people even go as far as adding a basic mek with no upgrades to the unit to eat challenges just so that the Nob can attack without being picked off in a challenge.

grnsknz wrote:
Thanks for all of this guys, great comments. Just one more thing. I had doubts putting smaller squads of boyz in trukks (11 + nob as I remember) because they might not be effective as they actually reach melee distance. Truck blows up they die but if armor makes them survive they could still run away just by losing 1-2 models. After the first encounter I might end up with 6-8 boyz the best, that seems vulnerable. Or usually there is no 'second encounter'? :-)

Even six boyz on the charge will give you 24 WS4 S4 attacks which will mow through any basic troop choice in the game and it always down on the lone nob anyway to deal with anything tougher, and he's really good at it. The trukk gets a free rokkit launcha and in a cad list gets objective secured, even without boyz in it.

If you aren't giving your boss mega armour, consider giving him the killchoppa instead. Striking at I 1 with a 4+ armour save ends in tears. Lucky stikk is wasted just rerolling hits and wounds if you take and attack squig for hits instead and have a 6+ rend/instant death to wound. Alternatively, for the price of the powerklaw, 'eavy armour, the shoota, and the bosspole you can just take mega armour which with the stikk will make him damn near invincible. You should lose the bosspole anyway. You only need one in a unit and the nob in the unit he's joining has one anyway. Consider a painboy too. That extra FNP save is cheaper than a KFF and is more effective.

The kans and mek are a massive point sink for little payoff. Killa kans being notoriously underpowered. Instead try a unit of tankbustas, they're pretty much a necessity in any ork list. (Some players go so far as to fill up all their elite slots.) Alternatively, Mek Gunz provide great long range support. Lobbas, KMKs, and Traktor Kannons being the big three choices.