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Hey guys.

To give you a bit of background, I last played 40k many years ago, probably about mid way through 5th edition. Since then, a lot seems to have changed, but with the slightly more simplified rules I'm thinking of jumping back in. I've always loved the idea of an Ork army, but I've never actually managed to get one up and running. I've got a fair few Ork models that I picked up about a year or so ago but never got around to assembling and painting.

In terms of what I currently have, I have 40 Ork Boyz, 20 Gretchin, 10 Lootas/Burnas and a Big Mek with Shokk Attack Gun.

I'm also thinking of picking up the index, a Start Collecting box, another box of Boyz and Gretchin, and Warboss Grukk's Mob.

That'd leave me with a Warboss, Big Mek with SAG, 60 Boyz (I'm thinking a unit of 30 Shootas, and a unit of 30 Sluggas to start), 30 Gretchin, 10 Nobz, a Painboy, 10 Lootas and a Deff Dread.

What I'm basically wondering, is this a good start overall or is there anything else I really, really need to get going?

Also, what would you recommend as my next purchases after all this lot, in the long run?

Any further advice on playing/starting Orks, or 40k in general, would be greatly appreciated, as it's been a long time since I've been involved and as I say, an awful lot seems to have changed or been introduced since 5th!

Thanks in advance,
Warboss Nezza!

Boyz are king currently. The Green Tide rule makes blobs of 30 great, but usually only if you have 150+ of them and overwhelm the opponent.

Stormboyz and Kommandos are good variants. The Weirdboyz help out a lot and can smite nicely.

Our shooting units are way, way overpriced, as if GW did not factor in BS5+ when costing the guns.

It's hard to give advice now because we don't know if the Codex or Chapter Approved will fix the point discrepancy on shooting units or not.

I would recommend not buying anything until then (and politely emailing GW telling them as much.)

Love it.
Grukk is cool.
Need a battle wagon and maybe another dread or some heavy guns. Some kans even. Lootahs or burna boys. I like the burna boys box cuz with some normal boyz you can use the additional bits to build a second unit. IMO next purchase should be wagon and some anti armor. grots and the rest are cool, stormboyz are also super cool, the morkanaut is also super cool, can carry five nobs with your boss too. A dakka jet might be a nice addition.
Note that I am a casual friendly collector type. I like to paint and I like cool models. Not trying to build a killer deck to WAAC.

I don't believe Grukk's rules have been updated to 8th yet, which kinda sucks. His rules should be in the codex when it comes out.
You'll probably want a battlewagon. Flash gitz in an open topped battlewagon works really well, being able to drive around with a bunch of snazzguns, plus flash gitz have better BS.
There are alot of great looking ork models out there, so go for whatever you like.
The most competitive option is boyz upon boyz. weird boyz also help for teleporting units.

Warboss Nezza wrote:
Hey guys.

To give you a bit of background, I last played 40k many years ago, probably about mid way through 5th edition. Since then, a lot seems to have changed, but with the slightly more simplified rules I'm thinking of jumping back in. I've always loved the idea of an Ork army, but I've never actually managed to get one up and running. I've got a fair few Ork models that I picked up about a year or so ago but never got around to assembling and painting.

In terms of what I currently have, I have 40 Ork Boyz, 20 Gretchin, 10 Lootas/Burnas and a Big Mek with Shokk Attack Gun.

I'm also thinking of picking up the index, a Start Collecting box, another box of Boyz and Gretchin, and Warboss Grukk's Mob.

That'd leave me with a Warboss, Big Mek with SAG, 60 Boyz (I'm thinking a unit of 30 Shootas, and a unit of 30 Sluggas to start), 30 Gretchin, 10 Nobz, a Painboy, 10 Lootas and a Deff Dread.

What I'm basically wondering, is this a good start overall or is there anything else I really, really need to get going?

Also, what would you recommend as my next purchases after all this lot, in the long run?

Any further advice on playing/starting Orks, or 40k in general, would be greatly appreciated, as it's been a long time since I've been involved and as I say, an awful lot seems to have changed or been introduced since 5th!

Thanks in advance,
Warboss Nezza!

30 gretchin are certainly a lot, you don't need that many and I can suggest to avoid buying another box if you already have 20 of them. The deff dread is also not that great, so is the painboy. I wouldn't recommend the start collecting unless you really want the models because they look amazing. I'd suggest to buy on ebay packs of boyz and nobz from AOBR, they still are quite common and extremely cheap compared to the new models. The grukk box is a good one, since a footslogging warboss is a solid option, especially in small games and the nobz box is amazing. Grukk doesn't have his profile and rules in 8th but the model can be played as a standard warboss with a power klaw.

Before buying new stuff try to find out what style you want to play since orks have tons of options available and you might buy something that you're not going to use once you become familiar with how orks units work.

That's why I'd recommend the grukk box and as many boyz you can find on ebay, even 5-10 cheap AOBR nobz would be good. Those units are pretty much basic and you'll need them most of the times.

To be quite honest, I'd suggest cracking into building and l painting what you already have first. The dual benefits of this are that you don't end up with a seemingly insurmountable pile of stuff to deal with (from first-hand experience, this can be a real issue with Orks in particular), and (depending on how fast a worker you are), we might have Chapter Approved out by then, which might give a better idea of how you'd like to build your force, going forward.


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You've got a valid army's worth of stuff already; definitely enough to play some small games with and get to grips with the new rules, so maybe just grab the Index and give that a go; it may also give you a clearer idea of what sort of additional units/playstile will appeal to you.

It's hard to tell what's gona change in the codex. Most certainly, boyz will still be in a good place, so if you're not opposed to running footsloggas, start painting boyz.
Painboy is objectively worse than Mad Dok Grotsnik - who is basically a painboy with extra damage and durability for a couple points more. But things might change for regular painboyz.
Wierdboy is a safe bet. He's a must have for footsloggas. It's very easy to convert one from a nob. Just use 2-handed weapons and add a bunch of random shiny bits here and there.
Grot squads struggle to find a place right now, so you can easilly use them as grot gunners for your Big/Mek gunz or as ammo runts for your nobz.
Footslogging nobz are less useful than footslogging boyz but they start to find their place in mech lists. They still can be used as footsloggas but they need max ammo runts to be used. Luckilly, you have a lot of spare grots. A unit of footslogging nobz is not going to be amazing and will objectively be worse than an equally expensive unit of boyz/stormboyz/kommandoes but they're still ok for fun games.
Shokk attack gun is rediculously overpriced and contradicts with what a big mek wants to do right now. It might change but i'd not bet on it becoming good.
Lootas perform below average too. They're pretty overpriced for their durability. But still way better than burnas in a footslogging list.

How could you expand your collection?
- Wierdboy - he's great for footsloggas. People even run multiples of them and feel good about it.
- MOAR boyz/stormboyz. You need more bodies even for small-ish games of ~1k points. Boyz or stormboyz - your pick. They work good together. Some people like kommandoes too. They're certainly not bad. Either min squads for free burnas and nobz or max squads if you have mass simultanious 'risky' assault as a theme for your tactics.
- Big/Mek gunz - they're ok for backfield scoring and putting some shots across the table, you also have more grots than you need, so i think it's a good idea to use them as grot gunners, get some 2-d party ww2 artillery and orkify it.
- Ghazzy - can change with the codex - currenly he suits all the clans, will most certainly only be good for goffs. As for now, just proxy Grukk as Ghaz if your opponent doesn't mind. Ghaz is really good atm.

You army is definitely missing a weirdboyz, though I suggest getting either a metal version from ebay or one of the AoS plastic models instead of the current model as the quality of the finecast weird boy is especially terrible, even compared to other finecast models.

In addition you might want a nob with a Waaagh! banner. Either buy the model (again, try getting a metal version from ebay) or try to get the banner bits from the AoS Oruk Ardboyz. The fit perfectly on the models from the nobz units you'll get in the Start Collecting box.

Other than that, you're off to a good start with your planned purchases.
After those I suggest holding off on expensive models and just buy some more boyz. No matter what the Chapter Approved or codex changes will bring, up to 120 boyz split evenly between sluggas and shootas will never be a bad investment and provide you with enough boyz to field whatever you want - whether that is foot sloggers, trukks, battlewagons, walker lists or ork gunline. You'll need some for for a green tide, but who knows in what state it will be after CA and codex.