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Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut





So I have 1 box of Boyz in hand, 2 boxes of Gretchin's on order, and a stash of farm/construction toys that I'm planning to bash into orkish vehicles (in particular I've got plans for a trukk and a battle-waggon for my Boyz and Gretchins respectively). I'm seriously contemplating one of the Revell sets next (either the blastabike or the one with 8 orkz and a deffcopta).

My boy and I are just getting into 40k, so I was thinking starting with two 500pt armies would be a good way to go, probably space marines for him and Orks for me (he's got 2 tac-squads plus the primaris marines from the First Strike set). I'm not looking to be super-competitive, but it'd be nice to be able to take our little 500pt armies to the local gaming store to play on open 40k night. I'm also not looking to break the bank, though, and GW prices are a little intimidating.

What acquisitions would you guys suggest next? I've considered bashing some boyz into kommandos (make little ghillie cloaks for them and maybe some binos or monocles) or maybe "scratch-building" (toy bashing) some gunz and getting an extra box of grots to crew them. I love the grots, planning to do the battle-wagon up as a gretchin gun platform, paint "Grotz Rool" or "No Orks allowed" on the side. I'm not a whiz-bang modeller, but I figure everyone starts somewhere, and hopefully people will appreciate the effort if not the final product . (love love LOVE that ork zeppelin in the modelling forum, might have to build one of those if I don't get the revell deffcopta)

thanks!
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




Wait a month for Chapter Approved to release - it’ll rebalance the points costs of the game, and the orks dearly need it.

The only viable list is 120-210 Boyz, backed up by KFD and support units. Everything else is not viable within reason.

Fortunately though, in any case - you can conver for everything you need! A boy+gear bits will get you any infantry model for your army; and for vehicles and the like, you can get really creative - a lot of people find cheap toys as a base, and add bitz+grubbing and some plasticard bits, and there you go.
   
Made in au
Screamin' Stormboy




Australia

Sadly, orks aren't in a great spot right now. They should get fixed up in the next Chapter Approved, though.
Making ork vehicles out of toys and and the like is a very good way to expand your army when starting out. I have quite a few and it's easy to get the hang of making ork stuff. If you have plasticard, that is a really good material to use.
If you don't mind using forge world models, mega dreads are quite good in my experience. They're easy enough to build with a robot toy.
Good luck!

Never challenge an Armenian to a game of chess. 
   
Made in nl
Longtime Dakkanaut




Get more boyz. Buy them second hand on eBay, and strip off the paint with sodium-hydroxide or similar. You will also need a Warboss.

As for making your own stuff, use styrene sheets, styrene rods, a scalpel, pincers, plastic solvent cement, and toy parts (like wheels).

There are also many unofficial sellers of ork-like miniatures. Google for Kromlech.
   
Made in se
Growlin' Guntrukk Driver with Killacannon





Sweden

I love tankbustas and would recommend them. You can convert them from regular boyz and spare bitz. Gives you some ranged anti-tank and sometimes anti marine fire power.
They work best wheeling around in trukks for added mobility and protection.

Brutal, but kunning!  
   
Made in it
Waaagh! Ork Warboss




Italy

The only advise that makes sense at the moment is: buy the models you like. Orks don't have a codex yet so it's impossible to give tips about how building your army, gamewise speaking. Since you're a beginner, even with the codex, it's more important to learn the mechanics of the game and to get familiar with the hobby part.

Since you're looking at a 500 points army and already have something I think you should add 1-2 characters and 10-20 boyz. Those units will be useful forever.

Converting boyz into tankbustas, lootas, kommandos but also nobz into flash gitz, big meks, weirdboyz, painboyz is very easy and a customized ork army always looks fantastic. You can also scratch build all your vehicles and artillery, even walkers once you make some experience with the styrene sheets and rods.

 
   
Made in us
Mekboy Hammerin' Somethin'




Alaska

 Blackie wrote:
The only advise that makes sense at the moment is: buy the models you like. Orks don't have a codex yet so it's impossible to give tips about how building your army, gamewise speaking. Since you're a beginner, even with the codex, it's more important to learn the mechanics of the game and to get familiar with the hobby part.

Since you're looking at a 500 points army and already have something I think you should add 1-2 characters and 10-20 boyz. Those units will be useful forever.

Converting boyz into tankbustas, lootas, kommandos but also nobz into flash gitz, big meks, weirdboyz, painboyz is very easy and a customized ork army always looks fantastic. You can also scratch build all your vehicles and artillery, even walkers once you make some experience with the styrene sheets and rods.

I think this is good advice.

Also, you don't necessarily have to worry about which units are competitive and which aren't if you're primarily going to be playing with your son. As long as each of you is building a list that isn't particularly good or weak against the other it should be fine. If one of builds an army, even by accident, that is a hard-counter to the other then it will get old quick. (If you want to get into the competitive tournament scene then this advice doesn't apply, but that's not the vibe I get from your post.)

YELL REAL LOUD AN' CARRY A BIG CHOPPA! 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut





My plan for kitchen-table play is to set up a system where our relative point values adjust every time one of us wins. (if you win your points for next game go down, unless your at the minimum and then the other guy's points go up for the next game) I suspect that eventually we will get tired of playing the same 2 armies against each other constantly and will want to widen the opponent field.

I love the look of the Kromlech offerings, both ork and goblin. When I've got some cash to spend on my army I'll probably buy some stuff from them to widen the variety (that's part of what I like about the Orks... it's not legions of guys wearing exactly the same thing, shooting exactly the same thing).

I'll keep scouring e-bay too -- so far most of the boyz I've seen either go for close to what I can buy them for locally (20% off list) or are the older style with 20 identical one-piece boyz.

Thanks for the advice guys!
   
Made in us
Mekboy Hammerin' Somethin'




Alaska

At the end of 7th edition it was easy to find big lots of Boyz for ~75% off. Once 8th edition hit those deals are harder to find.

If you keep a lookout though you can still find ~50% off deals. A lot of them are the older AOBR boyz and nobz. Those are the ones that have limited options that you mentioned (although they generally aren't truly one-piece). They look bad if they're you entire force, but they can be a cheap way to bulk-out your army and don't look bad if they're about 1/3 of the unit or less IMO.

My other advice for trying to buy Orks on the cheap would be to keep an eye on forums and Facebook groups as you often find people looking to unload an army ASAP in those places. On eBay, it helps to look closely at poor photographs of heaps of 40k models with little or no information in the description. Oftentimes you can get good deals or really cool bits by doing this as to someone that just takes it quick glance it looks like a heap of junk. This takes time though.

GW is releasing an Ork Battleforce box for pre-order next week. If I remember correctly it has a Big Mek with a Shokk Attack Gun, a Battle Wagon, three Warbikes, a Trukk, a box of Boyz and a box of Lootas/Burnas. If rumored pricing is to be believed this is going to be a really good deal, although it still would be an expensive one-time purchase.

YELL REAL LOUD AN' CARRY A BIG CHOPPA! 
   
Made in us
Gargantuan Gargant





New Bedford, MA USA

Buy boyz. Kitbash everything else.

   
Made in fr
Regular Dakkanaut



France

We bought index and we have to buy something else to wait for the codex? nice one gw!

40: 10 000 Orks, 3000 Tau, 2000 Deathwatch
AOS: 2000 Kharadrons Overlords 
   
Made in au
Battle-tested Knight Castellan Pilot





Perth

210 boys with 5++/6+++ just won a 50 person tournament here recently. No-body could deal with that many bodies.

12,000
 
   
Made in us
Gargantuan Gargant





New Bedford, MA USA

It's just not fun, or possible to play in a reasonable amount of time, with 210 Boyz.


   
Made in us
Krazed Killa Kan






Nobz box and Boyz box are great as they can be converted into a good majority of the Ork infantry roster. Loota/Burna box is also good for both parts and converting boyz into more specialist Orks. That being said the current Ork rule set is fairly garbage with blobs of boyz being really good while most of the specialist Orks are too expensive, too fragile, too points heavy, or all of the above to really do their job well. Ork shooting in particular is in a bad place because GW priced Ork ranged options like they where going on space marines but Ork accuracy is notoriously bad so they don't get the same bang for their points with their dakka. Not trying to scare you off from playing Orks but its hard to know what to use for a balanced army when the best option is basically just to spam as many boyz as you can muster.

"Hold my shoota, I'm goin in"
Armies (7th edition points)
7000+ Points Death Skullz
4000 Points
+ + 3000 Points "The Fiery Heart of the Emperor"
3500 Points "Void Kraken" Space Marines
3000 Points "Bard's Booze Cruise" 
   
Made in fi
Locked in the Tower of Amareo





 Vallhund wrote:
Sadly, orks aren't in a great spot right now. They should get fixed up in the next Chapter Approved, though.


Hopefully that works out better than 8th edition predictions pre-release. These forums were all "this is going to be good 40k for competition! No more spam! Balance! Assault viable! External playtesters said so!".

Well look where we ended up with...

2024 painted/bought: 109/109 
   
Made in ca
Regular Dakkanaut





Tip 1. Wait for the codex
Tip 2. See tip one

In war there is poetry; in death, release. 
   
 
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