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After some time to think I've decided that I'm more interested in Orks than 'nids right now (granted I'll probably do 'nids eventually). I love their aesthetic and mind set, and I really want to start making some Trukks and Battlewagons from scratch. I've also found out about the awesome looking (and cheaper) orc models from Kromlech, which would allow me to get Meganobz and an awesome looking Warboss instead of getting the underwhelming Grazhkull model. Here's their "warchief" model: http://bitsofwar.com/home/242-orc-warchief-in-juggeranut-mecha-armour.html#idTab1


How should I get started? Should I buy the "Start Collecting! Orks" box? What would I get next?
Do you know of any good army lists? I'm aiming for 1500 points.

I'm also curious about how likely I am to win. Do you have any advice for playing Orks?

The start collecting works set isn't that good, unless you love Jeff dreads. Most work players do not field.

The first step would be to come up what a kind of ork army you want to play. There are quite a few ork theme lists / play styles and most of them do not have that much overlap in models

The grot box however is a good place to start. It's cheap, decent qualityand you can use them in almost any build.

 oldzoggy wrote:
The start collecting works set isn't that good, unless you love Jeff dreads. Most work players do not field.

The first step would be to come up what a kind of ork army you want to play. There are quite a few ork theme lists / play styles and most of them do not have that much overlap in models

The grot box however is a good place to start. It's cheap, decent qualityand you can use them in almost any build.

Can you give me a basic rundown of what those army types are?

Also why are Deff Dreads (Did you call it a Jeff Dread on pupose?) unpopular?

Start with bunch of trukk boyz(trukks you will always need - to transport boys, tankbustaz or meganobz)
Get few lootaz/burnaz boxes - use some simple boyz to make use of both weapon sets in a box.
Bikers are never a bad choice, and deffcoptas.
Think MadMax - bunch of smaller transports around a big wagon or two with some bikers and coptas around.
What to fill a transport with is THE question.
Tankbustaz are good, meganobs are good too, open topped wagon with burnaz inside would make me scared - and while I try and remove it - you can get some of your fast units like bikers, coptas or boyz in trukks on some objectives.
Some grotz and mek gunz as your backline is good - like a ubit of two of grots and same with the artillery.

Walkers such as deffdread killakanz and gorka-morkanaugth are good as ROCK choice - some matchups you will loose horribly, some wont be ready for all that armor. I always dreamed of clanking orky walker army with a towering stompa in center and flood of cheap grots and boyz beside it to screen from melta. No moneyz tho

 MrVulcanator wrote:

 oldzoggy wrote:
The start collecting works set isn't that good, unless you love Jeff dreads. Most work players do not field.

The first step would be to come up what a kind of ork army you want to play. There are quite a few ork theme lists / play styles and most of them do not have that much overlap in models

The grot box however is a good place to start. It's cheap, decent qualityand you can use them in almost any build.

Can you give me a basic rundown of what those army types are?

Also why are Deff Dreads (Did you call it a Jeff Dread on pupose?) unpopular?

walker in general in this edition aren't really good. You can play them but they are not very cost effective.

A part from the basic stuff (boyz trukk warboss and hqs) the most useful units in our codex atm (from what i understand) are:
-warbikers
-mekgunz
-meganobz (in a menz missle or with the formation)
-tankbusta (somebody disagrees after the grandee nerf but i still find them relay useful for dealing with armoured models/vehicles from range)
other units that personally i find useful are:
-deffkopta
-buggy in some situation
-loota
for the HQ slot:
-warboss
-painboy
-big mek

You can easily find some used model at a reasonable price on the Internet.

a part from that it really depends what models you like and what style you want to play, if you want to play a big blob of orks list, or a list with a lot of bikes and fast vehicles, or something in between, you can also try and make a dread mob list with a lot of walker if you really like them.

i would start with some trukk boyz and then add up some bikes loota and tankbusta.

Orks aren't very competitive at the moment so approach your project with that in mind. Also being a horde army they can be expensive and time consuming to build up.
All that being said they are fun and you'll never lack for willing opponents.
Boyz in trukks should be the bulk of your force.
Lootas are good as are burnaz.
Nobz in eavy armour are decent.
Bikes and possibly deffkoptas are solid
Gretchin crewed artillery is good.
If money is a problem I'd buy from ebay, learn to strip models and then repaint. Also conversions look great in an Ork force, so don't be afraid to proxy in anything that works. I plan to buy WW2 model kits to convert into my tanks and artillery.

 MrVulcanator wrote:

 oldzoggy wrote:
The start collecting works set isn't that good, unless you love Jeff dreads. Most work players do not field.

The first step would be to come up what a kind of ork army you want to play. There are quite a few ork theme lists / play styles and most of them do not have that much overlap in models

The grot box however is a good place to start. It's cheap, decent qualityand you can use them in almost any build.

Can you give me a basic rundown of what those army types are?

Also why are Deff Dreads (Did you call it a Jeff Dread on pupose?) unpopular?

my phone hates 40k terms and auto corrects them : \
orks always becomes Works and apparently deff becomes jeff. I love the model, its just that it doesn't really work on the battle field due to its poor speed and lack of survivability.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also on army types yeah sure.

There is the olskool approach that we used to call green tide ( before that formation ) It was just boyz in squads of 30 + 1 nob supported with some kind of cover thing screen this could be a screen of killa kans, gretchin or a KFF . This way isn't played that much since 7th editon doesn't like this way of playing as much as the 5th edition did.
Here are some old discussions about them.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/541493.page
http://www.40kforums.com/vb/showthread.php/39328-How-to-use-green-tide
http://kens40k.blogspot.nl/2010/07/ork-tactica-part-1-da-green-tide.html

There is what most players now cal green tide. This is just a single formation that blobz all boy squads into 1 big unit. There is an apocalypse version of it this one is really good, especially since there are a ton of nasty things you can do with it in apocalypse. There is also the 7th edition formation in the old ghazzkull book, this one is not as great since it offers less bonusses but some players really like it. I am not one of them ( and have used the formation ) it looks fun and all on paper but is hard to manage on the battle field and really simple to counter if you know what you are doing.
It did however win some tournaments when most opponents didn't knew what the hell it was.
Her is an idea what it looks like. https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2014/10/09/da-boyz-test-list-tournament-report-green-tide-tankbustas-hammerhand/

The trukk boyz style lists. Just tonz of boyz + pwkl nobz in trukks. Its fast and most tournament players use a variation of this list. But it is also quite fragile. An alternative of this was the Tank busta's in trukks build, since tank busta's used to be really good until they got faqed into having only 1 melta bomb :\.

Its often combined with a

Bike list -> uses da rippa he can be found in this file of dubious origin, and he makes bikes troops : D
https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/fw_site/fw_pdfs/Warhammer_40000/Ork_Dread_Mob_Army_List_Update.pdf

Here is a link to the combination lists.
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/05/40k-tactics-orks-winning-tournaments-say-waaagh.html

There is the ork walker type list. Sometimes called Dread mob. Its just only walkers. Its cool but it doesn't really work that well in an edition where walkers are bad. However things do change a lot if you build it like this, and just go dual cad with 2 kustom stompa's ( the ones in IA8 they are cheap enough to pull it off ).
http://i463.photobucket.com/albums/qq352/slipwing/WH40K%20Orks/Dread_Mob.jpg

The AV14 wall.
Just spamm battle wagons and do whatever you want. You can fill them with loota's or mega nobz or boyz whatever your taste. Used to work like a charm, isn't really that strong anymore since AV14 can be graved to death in an instant.

Bully boyz lists.
There is a formation that makes MANZ fearless this is great but also quite expensive.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/619975.page
https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2014/07/03/i-got-orks-on-ma-brain/

The grots lists. The slightly idiotic idea that "you are better of grots". Look it up its still out there. it just spamms tons of grots. Note if you include a kustom stompa they do all become fearless ; )

The big bad stompa list.
Just build a stompa, and fill it to the max with repair rolls + the waaagh ghazzkull 4++ "KFF" relic.

The I do not want to use trukks nor battle wagons type of lists. -> There are also other transport options like looted wagons av11( white dwarf), big trakks av12(IA8) and gun wagons av13( IA8). some players like this more than fast but exploding trukks or expensive battlewagons.

Shooty gunline type of army.
Just spamm lootas and mekguns etc, and buy some fortifications. Orks could outshoot tau a while ago and can surprisingly still outshoot some armies

Burna tricks.
Burna wagon ->Max out Burna's in a battle wagon this is slow and needs to come way too close but will usually evaporate any unit it tutches, sunce it can use all the flamers from the hull. Do not expect this to work a second time vs the same opponent, if he has some wits.
Burna pipe line -> Also kinda gimicky. The pipe line allows all burna's to have torrent this creates a 18" ranged wall of flamy doom, that combines well with long ranged stuff such as loota's and mek guns to lure them close, Sadly most armies shoot further than 18" so this tactic doesn't work a second time.

Most casual ork players combine some of these tactics into a "well balanced" army.Have fun exploring and whatever you do give the plastic deffkopa's, the lucky stick + a mega armored warboss and 20 point ruins fortifications a serious look. There are also some more obscure builds such as a kommando build but I am sure that you can find them yourself.






Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also be aware of the time each article is written in.
Lists based on tank busta's make for example a lot more sense pre FAQ, and the rules/meta has changed a lot since 5th this have their effect on the articles out there.

To do orks, you kinda need to get the troops out of the way first.
I second what Dash above says: start with Trukk Boyz. The new boxes that include a trukk and a box of boyz for a discount is great. Get about 6 of them, or buy some of the push-fit slugga boyz from the Battle for Vedros line (if you can find it). Then assemble them as slugga boyz and a nob with power klaw and boss pole. Save the special weapons (rokkits or big shoota) for later.
Then buy 4 more boxes of boys... assemble them as shoota boyz and use the special weapons from above here.
Buy two boxes of grotz and get them painted.
Buy another box of boyz and 2 boxes of Lootas/Burnas. Between the three boxes you can make squads of 8 lootas, 8 burnas and 4 meks with various gear.

Get all that assembled and painted, and you'll have the core of an ork army. Yes, that is somewhere in the area of 150 models and only 6 vehicles. Welcome to orks.

Another advantage of starting with a lot of trukk boyz is it will give you lots of boy sprues.

This will let you pick and choose pieces for each squad, allowing you to give each squad a theme (e.g. use more horned helmets on a Goff mob, fur on snake bites, roughshodden equipment for death skulls, swanky for badmoons and so on).

Doing this will help you distinguish which boy belongs to which squad on the table and also reduce the 'omg I have just an unending horde of boyz to keep buying and assembling' factor.

If you are planning on taking a bit of a mix of sluggaz and shootas, it might be worth picking up the old Warhammer fantasy orc box; it fits together well with the 40k stuff, and just adds a bit of variety to your pieces / choppaz.

Dach wrote:
Start with bunch of trukk boyz(trukks you will always need - to transport boys, tankbustaz or meganobz)
Get few lootaz/burnaz boxes - use some simple boyz to make use of both weapon sets in a box.
Bikers are never a bad choice, and deffcoptas.
Think MadMax - bunch of smaller transports around a big wagon or two with some bikers and coptas around.
What to fill a transport with is THE question.
Tankbustaz are good, meganobs are good too, open topped wagon with burnaz inside would make me scared - and while I try and remove it - you can get some of your fast units like bikers, coptas or boyz in trukks on some objectives.
Some grotz and mek gunz as your backline is good - like a ubit of two of grots and same with the artillery.

Walkers such as deffdread killakanz and gorka-morkanaugth are good as ROCK choice - some matchups you will loose horribly, some wont be ready for all that armor. I always dreamed of clanking orky walker army with a towering stompa in center and flood of cheap grots and boyz beside it to screen from melta. No moneyz tho

100% agree with this. There's a really good Ork player at my FLGS who's lists incorporate what Dach said.

Would the Battle for Vedros starter set be a good idea? It's got a Warboss
Deffkopta
5 Nobz
12 Boyz.

No idea whether or not it has all the weapon or armor options of buying the sets separately.

They are all snap fit mono pose models you will get exactly what is on the box nothing more. You might want to check out the old black reach models since. Battle of v is mostly repackaged and split up black reach

War bikers, tankbustas, and MANz are the big three for orks for me. I have a tactica in my sig that could be of help, but I still have to finish fast attack and heavy support.

If you're going mechanized you need at least 10 transports of some kind. Fewer if you mix in high av vehicles like battle wagons.

Why don't you read up on each of the ork clans and take a look at their color schemes and decide what you like best, and we'll go from there.

 MrVulcanator wrote:
Would the Battle for Vedros starter set be a good idea? It's got a Warboss
Deffkopta
5 Nobz
12 Boyz.

No idea whether or not it has all the weapon or armor options of buying the sets separately.

It isn't a bad set. The Nobz are pretty much the least useful thing in the box as you can't change their gear without conversions. Most of my boyz are from AoBR. The last codex made Shoota boyz 1 point more expensive... and they often aren't worth the upgrade so Slugga/Choppa boyz are where it is at (at least for me!)

3-5 Deffkoptas are really good, and the Vedros/AoBR ones come modeled as TL Rokkits... which is the way to go.

 MrVulcanator wrote:

How should I get started? Should I buy the "Start Collecting! Orks" box? What would I get next?

Orks are one of the most expensive armies in 40k beacuse you'll need a huge amount of models and there are many way to field them efficiently, so you don't want a single list but many options so you can play at 1500 but with different lists. In my opinion there are some mandatory boxes you should buy, some situational and some other ones to be avoided. So assuming that you will scratch build trukks, battle wagons and mek gunz here's what i recommend:

Mandatory:

- from ebay you can get 60 boyz, 2-3 deffkoptas and a warboss from AOBR (they're cheap and you'll save a lot of money, the warboss should be mounted on a warbike)
- 1 box of meganobz
- 3 boxes of warbikes (6 bikers, 1 nob, a painboy that you get by converting a nob, and the warboss)
- 2 boxes of gretchins (10 of these grots as the artillery crew)
- 3 boxes of lootas (built those 3 meks with slugga and choppa, the kmb is useless and stock meks are very useful)
- 2 boxes of nobz (6 pks, 2 big choppas and two of them to be converted into painboys)
- 2 boxes of boyz (convert ALL ot them into tankbustas, you'll get 2 rokkits from these boxes, 9 from the lootas, 6 from the nobz, 3 from the meganobz...)
- Ghazgkull or the megaboss from kromlech (to be used as a warboss in megarmor)

To be added in a second moment:

- another box of meganobz
- another box of gretchins
- another box of warbikes
- another box of boyz (yes, other tankbustas)

With these things you can run many lists at 1500-1850 with the most competitive units. I'm not saying to buy everything i listed immediately but to give them priority than other boxes like planes, walkers or flash gitz. About the nobz i know you can save money and built them from boyz boxes but those nobz are ugly compared to the real ones. Also you need one of them for every mob of boyz you take, so having 6 pks and 2 big choppas (sometimes i run them instead of pks and can be useful) seems to me a natural choice. About the start collecting: i'd suggest to get nobz and boyz boxes so if you don't want to convert a nob into a painboy and like the gw one then you should buy the start collecting as it costs as much as the single boxes of boyz, nobz and painboy together BUT you'd also get a deff dread for free. Not a big deal as the dread is useless in the game but is a nice model and quite expensive so if you want the three other components of the box then go for the start collecting.

Also, how many vehicles are enough? Unless you have 10 trukk and 5 battle wagons you can keep going scratch building orks vehicles as the most competitive lists are based on a spam of those transports.

You mention scratch building vehicles.

In the long, long ago (probably during the first edition of Warhammer 40k) there was an article released in white dwarf (issue 130something) called something like 'Modelling Workshop ork battle wagons'.

It included templates for you to photocopy and use to create scratch built battlewagons. Variants included 'Gobmasha', 'Spleen ripper', 'Lung Bursta', 'Bone Cruncha' and 'Brain Crusha' (if I remember correctly). It also gave tips on detailing and painting these models.

Perhaps with the right google-fu you can find the exact issue it was and get a copy through ebay or whatever other means present themselves.

Good luck!

*Cough* papercraft 40k templates *cough*

First of all I gotta say great choice of profile avatar

For HQ I would only run a warboss if you give him a bike or mega armor + lucky stick.

Me personally I prefer meks with Kustom force field spamming and lots of painboys. If you run meganobz consider Grotsnik, the only good special character in the ork codex. Painboys also keep your hq choice cheap so you can spam more boyz.

Look up the rules for looted wagons as well. Those are great transports that allow you to convert any tank you find desirable.

 Blackie wrote:

Mandatory:

- from ebay you can get 60 boyz, 2-3 deffkoptas and a warboss from AOBR (they're cheap and you'll save a lot of money, the warboss should be mounted on a warbike)
- 1 box of meganobz
- 3 boxes of warbikes (6 bikers, 1 nob, a painboy that you get by converting a nob, and the warboss)
- 2 boxes of gretchins (10 of these grots as the artillery crew)
- 3 boxes of lootas (built those 3 meks with slugga and choppa, the kmb is useless and stock meks are very useful)
- 2 boxes of nobz (6 pks, 2 big choppas and two of them to be converted into painboys)
- 2 boxes of boyz (convert ALL ot them into tankbustas, you'll get 2 rokkits from these boxes, 9 from the lootas, 6 from the nobz, 3 from the meganobz...)
- Ghazgkull or the megaboss from kromlech (to be used as a warboss in megarmor)

To be added in a second moment:

- another box of meganobz
- another box of gretchins
- another box of warbikes
- another box of boyz (yes, other tankbustas)

Na this is highly subjective and entirely dependent on your list, and how you convert things.
Many of my favorite lists can't be build with this "mandatory" stuff and there is lots of stuff in there that I would never use.
For example, I would say that boxes of nobz are completely useless outside their cool bits options. Since no one ever fields footslogging nob units and boy units boxes come with 1 nob + power claw in them. The same goes for Ghazkull or kromleg mega bozz, you don't need those you can build one yourself. And why would you go for GW's mega nobz set they are way too expensive for 3 models. Also buying this much at once will guarantee that you do not finish it in the next few years.

What you really need is plasticard ; )

 oldzoggy wrote:

Na this is highly subjective and entirely dependent on your list, and how you convert things.
Many of my favorite lists can't be build with this "mandatory" stuff and there is lots of stuff in there that I would never use.
For example, I would say that boxes of nobz are completely useless outside their cool bits options. Since no one ever fields footslogging nob units and boy units boxes come with 1 nob + power claw in them. The same goes for Ghazkull or kromleg mega bozz, you don't need those you can build one yourself. And why would you go for GW's mega nobz set they are way too expensive for 3 models. Also buying this much at once will guarantee that you do not finish it in the next few years.

What you really need is plasticard ; )

Of course my advise was subjective, just my opinion. But i disagree about a few points: scratch building megarmors isn't that easy especially for someone that is new in the game and if you have to scratch build a lot of vehicles and mek gunz too you'll have the army ready to fight in the year 2050. Also the gw kit is expensive sure but extremely detailed and full of options like the rokkits (for the tankbustas or vehicles), kombi skorchas, killsaws and 7 different heads, the original meganobz are my favourite ork models. And when i recommended to buy nobz i didn't suggest to field them as a unit but you need them to lead boyz squads. At 1500 or higher if you go with trukks you'll need 6 units of boyz that's why i suggested 6pks and the 2 big choppas are also useful because sometimes you want to equip a nob leading boyz squads with a big choppa. For example if i stick a warboss with them i typically equip the nobz in the boyz unit with a big choppa, not another pk as the warboss' one is enough. The nob that comes from the boyz box is awful and mono pose, it's basically a boy with a pk and many orks players, including me, want an army that is highly customized and good looking, of course you can build nobz out of that box but i suggested to get jut a couple of boyz boxes so you may want more nobz if you spam many units of boyz. And i also said in the previous post that i didn't suggest to buy all these things at once, but to give them priority instead of getting some other boxes like walkers, planes.... i suggested boyz, tankbustas, meganobz and a megarmored warboss, gretchins, bikes, lootas and nobz (to not be taken as a unit!!), what are the units among these ones you don't play? probably the lootas are not really mandatory but a lot of players use them and in small games they're very effective, mek gunz are surely better but they can be effective too. And what do you field in your favourite lists? i'm just curious. If i have to start an ork army i'd suggest the units i listed before as with them you can field the most competitive lists without spamming expensive units (like a warbiker list or the bullyboyz formation), but as i said, that's just my opinion.

I've just started with Orks too, I'll bullet point what I have found through collecting and playing (one game so far)...

1. You can easily run a competitive ork force without going horde (my first list has no ork boyz and won its only game against a necron force)

2. Bikers are fantastic, twin linked and with Zhadsnark they become troops with skilled rider (no dangerous terrain problems for you!)

3. Meganobz blob is a very hard hitting unit (models are fantastic too)

4. Models are some of the best in my opinion: meganobz, bikers, flashgitz, Grukk Face Rippa, Gorkanoughts, stompa etc...

5, Really fun to play with, expect to have many laughs with your opponent as once again something Orky happens and you end up killing your own troops! They are hilarious.

6. Great idea to get a couple of lootas/burners boxes and a box of boyz and go to town on with all the parts.

Thats just my very very inexperienced opinion but may be of help as am in a similar position to you. No doubt my list very much is going against what works are all about but what the hell... Can't get away from eliteish armies even when I go Horde, lol!

See if you can get some Assault on Black Reach sets there are some floating around ebay usually. good start to getting some boys a warboss some nobs and a couple deffkoptas

Meganobz are quite expensive, but you could get two boxes of them and buy rest of the models as bits. From two boxes you get extra 6 sets of weapons and 2 sets of weapons for meks in mega armor. You only need to get arms and bodies in bits