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Honest question here. Why are lootas so garbage all the time? Their one bright spot in the last 2 editions was in 8th when you could spend 1 CP to mob up 25 of them, Spend another 1CP a turn to shield them with 90 grots, and then spend 5CP a turn to give them an average of 100 shots a turn which worked out to like 44ish hits a turn.

This edition they are now 17ppm but have to take a Spanner with a big shoota for every 4 lootas you have. For 255pts you get 12 lootas and 3 spanners. That works out to 24 Shots at Max range and 9 shots of Big shoota at max range. Against a Marine target thats 8/3 hits, 5.33/2 wounds and 5.33/0.66dmg So 3 dead Marines for 255pts If you get them into dakkarange they are 36/15 shots, 12/5 hits, 8/3.3 wounds and 8/1.1dmg for 4 dead and 1 wounded Marines. The Deffgunz need to be within 24' the big shootas within 18.

Durability wise, they are T5 with a 6+ save and 1 wound.

They are literally as good dmg wise as a Chaos Marine Havoc which hasn't gotten its codex yet, but they are significantly less durable. Compared to an Ad Mech Chicken walker? Not even close. An Ad Mech chicken walker is 65pts so you can take 4 for 260pts, they get 24 shots, average 16 hits, 10.6 wounds and 10.6dmg vs Marines. or 5+ Dead Marines a turn. You can bump them to BS2+ because why not which gives them 20 hits, 13.3 wounds and 13.3dmg or 6.6 dead Marines

Durability wise they are T6 with a 3+ save and 6 wounds each.

Orkz just got their codex, its literally brand new, why in an era where Marines have Multi-Meltas and Eradicators are Ork Lootas so incredibly bad? You pretty much have to buy them a trukk for them to have any hope of surviving more than 1 turn, but that adds 70pts to their cost without adding any real dmg except another big shoota.

Would it have really broken the game to give them 6 shots each, or Dakka 6(4) or 5(3)? Because even with 3 shots each they wont make their points back.

It's a unit with a "heavy" weapon that can move and shoot without penalty. You can take KMBs on the spanners. They're allowed to walk through walls and have grot shields. With 6 shots they'd trade out other enemy units with lots of efficiency and be protected from reprisal by grots.

You also still have gun crazy show offs, a good chance to pick up +1 to hit, +1 to wound v vehicles, or exploding 6s.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
It's a unit with a "heavy" weapon that can move and shoot without penalty. You can take KMBs on the spanners. They're allowed to walk through walls and have grot shields. With 6 shots they'd trade out other enemy units with lots of efficiency and be protected from reprisal by grots.

You also still have gun crazy show offs, a good chance to pick up +1 to hit, +1 to wound v vehicles, or exploding 6s.

They also have a set amount of shots now. You don't have to do a coin flip to see if they get 1 shot each or 3. So there's a lot more reliability.

The main problem is, as many people have said. Lethality. The humble autocannon profile which used to chew through everything short of a landraider isn't as scary these days. A lot of what lootas do Flashgitz can do now with a handful of advantages.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
It's a unit with a "heavy" weapon that can move and shoot without penalty. You can take KMBs on the spanners. They're allowed to walk through walls and have grot shields. With 6 shots they'd trade out other enemy units with lots of efficiency and be protected from reprisal by grots.

You also still have gun crazy show offs, a good chance to pick up +1 to hit, +1 to wound v vehicles, or exploding 6s.

Okey but why would you take them instead of faster, more resilient buggies?

Karol wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
It's a unit with a "heavy" weapon that can move and shoot without penalty. You can take KMBs on the spanners. They're allowed to walk through walls and have grot shields. With 6 shots they'd trade out other enemy units with lots of efficiency and be protected from reprisal by grots.

You also still have gun crazy show offs, a good chance to pick up +1 to hit, +1 to wound v vehicles, or exploding 6s.

Okey but why would you take them instead of faster, more resilient buggies?

Walk through walls, grot shields, and the above strats are mostly CORE.

3 Rukks are 9D6 or 32 S5 AP2 D2 ( most with +1 to hit ). Lootas are 24 to 36 plus the KMBs. The vast majority of people will take buggies, because that's easier, but you can't solve the problem by overtuning Lootas.

Imagine again 6 shots with exploding 6s. That's 36 hits, 24 wounds, 24 damage against chickens without accounting for spanners on a unit you can teleport in without a move penalty. Without that ( so current rules ) Lootas will do 12 without KMBs factored in. Rukks would do 6.

They should had upgrade their profile

Loootas problem is balancing the Ork Shoota Boy profile with the substantially better than Shoota Deffgun. The problem is that Boyz at 9 points don't look great, so adding 8 points for the decent but not awesome Deffgun doesn't light the meta on fire.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
It's a unit with a "heavy" weapon that can move and shoot without penalty. You can take KMBs on the spanners. They're allowed to walk through walls and have grot shields. With 6 shots they'd trade out other enemy units with lots of efficiency and be protected from reprisal by grots.

You also still have gun crazy show offs, a good chance to pick up +1 to hit, +1 to wound v vehicles, or exploding 6s.

Its a "Heavy" unit that HAS to walk forward because if they don't they don't benefit from "dakka" weapons which are a side grade at best from the old DDD rule. You can take a KMB on your Spannerz, Which also raises their cost to 22ppm for the spanner...apparently a KMB is 5pts better than a deffgun which is priced at 8pts and now the range is reduced to 24' as opposed to 36 though the KMB is significantly better than a big shoota at that range by far. You can walk through walls! cool...why exactly am I walking through walls for a unit that CAN NOT SURVIVE IN THE OPEN. And OOOHHH BOY! Grot shields! Nothing screams amazing unit like being able to shield it from dmg by your opponent having to eat 10-30 T3 7+ save models which cost 5ppm . Also, you can't use "Gun Crazy Show Offs" on them because that Strat is for Flashgitz only. And the +1 to hit is from Freeboota Kulture and the +1 to wound is ....I actually have no idea where you are getting that from. If you want to start lumping strats and Kultures into the mix be prepared to watch lootas lose across the board to basically every similar infantry unit armed with Auto-cannons. The aforementioned Chickenwalkers get +1BS as an ability, of course that means they have to give up their +1 armor save.

Point for point, a Loota is basically the same as it used to be with the required Spanner factored in. It trades terribly and can't be left in the open so it requires a 70pt trukk at the least to survive more than 1 turn. So instead of 204pts of Lootas (10 Lootas and 2 Spanners) its 274pts of Lootas in a Trukk which reduces their points efficiency even further.

A loota is a 1 wound 6+ save model armed with a heavy weapon. If it can't inflict a lot of dmg quickly it won't earn its points back because its not surviving long. And at the moment they are literally weaker than other factions similarly armed units in terms of durability AND in terms of dmg output. Lootas suck atm.




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 alextroy wrote:
Loootas problem is balancing the Ork Shoota Boy profile with the substantially better than Shoota Deffgun. The problem is that Boyz at 9 points don't look great, so adding 8 points for the decent but not awesome Deffgun doesn't light the meta on fire.

Well that is an easy fix. A Shoota boy is HOT garbage right now. They got WORSE this edition with the loss of DDD and the price increase. There is literally no scenario where you would want to take Shoota boyz because you would be better off with a tax grot unit OR a Choppa Boyz unit. If you run the numbers, if you reduced Lootas to 12ppm they still wouldn't be as effective as a Mechanicum Chicken Walker and would be significantly less durable point for point still. So that Deffgun is at best 4pts over priced and at worst 6pts over priced.

 alextroy wrote:
Loootas problem is balancing the Ork Shoota Boy profile with the substantially better than Shoota Deffgun. The problem is that Boyz at 9 points don't look great, so adding 8 points for the decent but not awesome Deffgun doesn't light the meta on fire.

It's a squishy unit for the points for sure, but at the same time no one ran them last edition without piles of grots to shield. Basically the combo wombo got removed and people are less inclined to pay the full cost when there are other useful units.

Orks also have few tools to traverse wound brackets. So comparing to Rukks who are great at killing marines doesn't compare well as with Lootas shooting Raiders ( 36 * .333 * .666 * .666 * 2 = dead raider with no buffs and no spanners ).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SemperMortis wrote:

Its a "Heavy" unit that HAS to walk forward because if they don't they don't benefit from "dakka" weapons which are a side grade at best from the old DDD rule. You can take a KMB on your Spannerz, Which also raises their cost to 22ppm for the spanner...apparently a KMB is 5pts better than a deffgun which is priced at 8pts and now the range is reduced to 24' as opposed to 36 though the KMB is significantly better than a big shoota at that range by far. You can walk through walls! cool...why exactly am I walking through walls for a unit that CAN NOT SURVIVE IN THE OPEN. And OOOHHH BOY! Grot shields! Nothing screams amazing unit like being able to shield it from dmg by your opponent having to eat 10-30 T3 7+ save models which cost 5ppm . Also, you can't use "Gun Crazy Show Offs" on them because that Strat is for Flashgitz only. And the +1 to hit is from Freeboota Kulture and the +1 to wound is ....I actually have no idea where you are getting that from. If you want to start lumping strats and Kultures into the mix be prepared to watch lootas lose across the board to basically every similar infantry unit armed with Auto-cannons. The aforementioned Chickenwalkers get +1BS as an ability, of course that means they have to give up their +1 armor save.

Point for point, a Loota is basically the same as it used to be with the required Spanner factored in. It trades terribly and can't be left in the open so it requires a 70pt trukk at the least to survive more than 1 turn. So instead of 204pts of Lootas (10 Lootas and 2 Spanners) its 274pts of Lootas in a Trukk which reduces their points efficiency even further.

A loota is a 1 wound 6+ save model armed with a heavy weapon. If it can't inflict a lot of dmg quickly it won't earn its points back because its not surviving long. And at the moment they are literally weaker than other factions similarly armed units in terms of durability AND in terms of dmg output. Lootas suck atm.

You had to do grots before and way more of them. You also spent gakloads of CP. Why is the grot investment now any different? I guess put them on a tellyporta if you really don't want to do grots.

+1 to wound is vs vehicles from Deathskulls.

 Daedalus81 wrote:


You had to do grots before and way more of them. You also spent gakloads of CP. Why is the grot investment now any different? I guess put them on a tellyporta if you really don't want to do grots.

+1 to wound is vs vehicles from Deathskulls.

Well lets see, 30 Grots right now cost me 150pts and will run away en mass when they lose 3 models. (1 from morale and then 9ish more from attrition) And god help you if you go below 50% because than they lose models on a 1-3. . So if you Grot shield a single unit of lootas you are now losing 150pts more or less to attrition and enemy firepower just to shield a unit which at best is putting out 36 shots of S7 AP-1 2dmg shots, of which 12 will likely hit.

For 150pts LAST edition I could afford 50 Grots. And I could put them in basically fearless blobs by just having them near a character. Also, those lootas STILL SUCKED. The "Combo Wombo" as you mentioned was Taking a 15 Boy unit of Lootas, and a 10 Boy unit of lootas and combining them with a 1CP Strat called "mob up" You now had 25 lootas in a single unit. Next you spent 2 CP to give them exploding 5s and 6s and make it so they can't miss on those rolls. Next you saved 1 CP for re-roll number of shots because if you rolled a 1 or a 2 for shots you needed to re-roll it and at least average 2 shots, preferably 3. Next after all of that, you spent 3 MORE CP to let them shoot twice. This averaged 100 shots on average which worked out to around 50 hits if you were a badmoonz player. All told you were spending 500pts on lootas, 150pts on Grot shields to give you 50 ablative wounds and 8 7-8 CP turn 1 and 6 CP turn 2 and then you ran out of CP and had to hope you did enough dmg to win the game.

And now, those 150pts of Grots is 60% as much, and while the lootas got cheaper they stayed the same dmg potential wise because of the required Spanner. So at best you are shielding 12 lootas and 3 Spanners which as mentioned don't put out any real dmg worth mentioning.

Those lootas have to choose between +1 to hit from Freebootas or +1 to wound from Death Skullz strat, they can't have both. And Even if you give them +1 to hit and they get into Dakka range they are at best putting out 18 hits on average.

Those Ad mech chicken walkers for a similar points cost average 16 hits a turn without any buffs, kultures, strats etc. And are significantly more durable.

Well, what would you do to lootas to buff them? They can't really have a profile more potent than the rokkit, unless GW just shrugged and made them lascannon equivalents.

Perhaps they could make them entrenchment specalists, stay still and get defensive buffs so you have a hardy but stationary source of middle range firepower.

I especially love how Lootas went from "One in every 5 can be a Spanna" to "One in every 5 must be a Spanna".

That was fun.

cody.d. wrote:
Well, what would you do to lootas to buff them? They can't really have a profile more potent than the rokkit, unless GW just shrugged and made them lascannon equivalents.

Perhaps they could make them entrenchment specalists, stay still and get defensive buffs so you have a hardy but stationary source of middle range firepower.

Buff their dmg output to make them what they were supposed to be, Glass Cannons. A chicken walker is 65pts and puts out ON AVERAGE 6 shots and 4 hits. That is 1 hit per 16pts, its also T6, 6 wounds and 3+ save which means its 1 3+ save wound per 10.6pts. Now there is an obvious skew in regards to a vehicles durability vs infantry durability because of weapons dmg profiles. IE a Lascannon is good against the chicken walker, but kind of crap vs those lootas. So the compromise is to buff the lootas dmg potential to a HIGHER level then the chicken walker, but not addressing the obvious lack of durability. Take away Core if you want to make up for this, so they can't grot shield, I don't care.
But for a Loota to AVERAGE 1 hit per 16pts it needs 3 shots (its actually 1 hit at 17pts) Even worse, you have to factor in that stupid spanner, I would completely get rid of that requirement. So to surpass that you need a minimum of 4 shots a turn, Preferably 5.

At Heavy 5, a unit of 15 lootas averages 25 hits. For that same price those chickenwalkers as mentioned average 16 and if they choose +1BS instead of +1 save they easily get to 20 on average without any buffs. At the same time, those lootas will be targetted by enemies and with only a single T5 wound at 6+ save, they will die in droves. A compromise would be Heavy or Assault 4, but anything less and you can basically shelve them until next edition.

SemperMortis wrote:

Well lets see, 30 Grots right now cost me 150pts and will run away en mass when they lose 3 models. (1 from morale and then 9ish more from attrition) And god help you if you go below 50% because than they lose models on a 1-3. . So if you Grot shield a single unit of lootas you are now losing 150pts more or less to attrition and enemy firepower just to shield a unit which at best is putting out 36 shots of S7 AP-1 2dmg shots, of which 12 will likely hit.

That's irrelevant. Morale doesn't happen until the end of the turn. Either they gun through the whole unit or they don't get to shoot the Lootas, so, you get ( at least ) a two opportunities to trade with Lootas without casualties. With T3 it would take over 20 Intercessors to take a 20 man so you could likely easily take smaller units and build in some redundant shields for the same cost.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Well lets see, 30 Grots right now cost me 150pts and will run away en mass when they lose 3 models. (1 from morale and then 9ish more from attrition) And god help you if you go below 50% because than they lose models on a 1-3. . So if you Grot shield a single unit of lootas you are now losing 150pts more or less to attrition and enemy firepower just to shield a unit which at best is putting out 36 shots of S7 AP-1 2dmg shots, of which 12 will likely hit.

That's irrelevant. Morale doesn't happen until the end of the turn. Either they gun through the whole unit or they don't get to shoot the Lootas, so, you get ( at least ) a two opportunities to trade with Lootas without casualties. With T3 it would take over 20 Intercessors to take a 20 man so you could likely easily take smaller units and build in some redundant shields for the same cost.

No, at best you get 2 turns of shooting, its a 50/50 chance . Furthermore, 20 grots is 100pts. If you take 10 its fairly easy to wipe them out with just incidental dmg. But here is the best part about your whole argument. LOOTAS STILL SUCK! lol. You don't grot shield them because you don't take them in the first place because THEY SUCK. That chickenwalker I mentioned is 65pts and gets 4 hits without any buffs. 4! for For 85pts a unit of lootas gets...are you ready for this? 2.6 hits. So why on gods green earth would you take lootas at all? Ohh! you can spend another 100+pts to make them harder to kill! For that price the admech player can take 3 chickenwalkers LMAO.

Your arguments are irrelevant and useless. Lootas suck and your only defense so far as to why they don't suck is that you can spend more points to make them slightly more durable or you can spend CP to make them slightly less crap. Neither is worth doing and there are significantly better options in our codex.

The short version is that for a while they were pretty much an auto include in a xenos army, and anything that fits that bill must be purged.

Hence why smasha guns are now the worst Mek gun and you can only take a third of the amount you could previously.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I especially love how Lootas went from "One in every 5 can be a Spanna" to "One in every 5 must be a Spanna".

That was fun.

Ah, I wondered if that would happen. Unsurprised, but still disappointed. Since I cannibalized those for other units I guess, I couldn't field a legal unit of lootas even if I wanted to.

Jokes on GW, they've consistently not sold me orks for the past several editions due to their increasingly incoherent decisions about the army. The lost me on the massive price hike on meganobs and mek guns when they went to plastic (and the sordid loss of big gunz) and have utterly failed to bring me back to what was once one of my favorite armies.

I think Lootas should simply get a 5th edition vibe: make them 13ppm and elites, like they used to be and they could be ok. Not competitive probably but not garbage either.

17ppm is a pretty high price and the heavy support area is way too crowded to waste slots on them.

8 Lootas + spanner or 10 Lootas + 2 spanners in a trukk in theory aren't a bad unit. If they become 36-44 pts cheaper and don't eat up an heavy support choice (they don't have heavy weapons anyway) I'd certainly consider them more.

Grot shield is useless now that they need to get in half range to maximize their firepower and they can move without penalty. Take a trukk to protect them instead of the little fellas. It also adds saturation for bikers, cavalry, mek gunz and vehicles.

I think lootas aren't too bad now. Especially in freeboota lists. Not the most effecient unit - you're probably better off with a boostablasta, but a min squad marching alongside your buggy tide is feasible. They do ok-ish damage when buffed with 4+bs, can fix a buggy and do not occupy fa slot. Yo'll likely have free hs slots.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
They do feel too squishy for the points. If they were 15, they'd be fine. Or if they had 4+ armor they've looted previously.

I don't disagree with Lootas being bad but I would not compare them with AM chickens. Is like comparing any walker to double volkite contemptors. Unfair to use a busted unit as point of reference. That unit is the outlier.

 koooaei wrote:
I think lootas aren't too bad now. Especially in freeboota lists. Not the most effecient unit - you're probably better off with a boostablasta, but a min squad marching alongside your buggy tide is feasible. They do ok-ish damage when buffed with 4+bs, can fix a buggy and do not occupy fa slot. Yo'll likely have free hs slots.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
They do feel too squishy for the points. If they were 15, they'd be fine. Or if they had 4+ armor they've looted previously.

I think the issue is partly that S7 AP-1 D2 is turning into a very specialized damage profile due to all the minus 1 damage GW is throwing into the game.

I'm not really sure anyone who thinks they are trash at 17 points is going to like them at 15. As you say I think the damage is okay - moving to very good if you can activate Freebootas. Sure they'll die, but 3 minimum sized squads at 90 points (with a KMB) are not obviously sticking out versus a range of other potential threats in your list.
But I feel buggies just get more. (Although not sure anyone's jumping on Boosta-blastas though while Squigbuggies and Scrapjets are there.)

On a wider list-building scale, much like Tankbustas I feel they are meant to provide fire support in a mainly T5 infantry horde. So they'd sort of be a target priority for your opponent - but the guns you want to put into them are also the guns you want to put into the trukk boyz*/burnas/kommandos/storm boyz that are jumping all over your lines and objectives (or are about to).
But I think Buggies are the more effective skew - due to being relatively inefficient to shoot with anything below MMs/dark lances, while Lootas are efficient to shoot with everything else.

*I have some fantasy about how you'd drive your trukk boyz up turn 1, then next turn the trukk can position such that you can jump the Lootas in for protection - but that seems kind of fiddly so I'm not sure you'd ever actually bother.

Tyel wrote:

I'm not really sure anyone who thinks they are trash at 17 points is going to like them at 15. As you say I think the damage is okay - moving to very good if you can activate Freebootas. Sure they'll die, but 3 minimum sized squads at 90 points (with a KMB) are not obviously sticking out versus a range of other potential threats in your list.
But I feel buggies just get more. (Although not sure anyone's jumping on Boosta-blastas though while Squigbuggies and Scrapjets are there.)

On a wider list-building scale, much like Tankbustas I feel they are meant to provide fire support in a mainly T5 infantry horde. So they'd sort of be a target priority for your opponent - but the guns you want to put into them are also the guns you want to put into the trukk boyz*/burnas/kommandos/storm boyz that are jumping all over your lines and objectives (or are about to).
But I think Buggies are the more effective skew - due to being relatively inefficient to shoot with anything below MMs/dark lances, while Lootas are efficient to shoot with everything else.

*I have some fantasy about how you'd drive your trukk boyz up turn 1, then next turn the trukk can position such that you can jump the Lootas in for protection - but that seems kind of fiddly so I'm not sure you'd ever actually bother.

Buggies are better, but I doubt that most players will rush and get a limit of skrapjets and squig buggies. They seem to be doing too good ATM and will just get nerfed for that. While lootas are safe from getting worse.

Instead of more damage, they could have an additional utility rule to make them worthwhile.

Space Marine Suppressors got a similar offensive profile and are able to actually hit things, but for me their biggest advantage is that hits deny overwatch.

Makes them valuable even if they don't kill much.

 koooaei wrote:
Buggies are better, but I doubt that most players will rush and get a limit of skrapjets and squig buggies. They seem to be doing too good ATM and will just get nerfed for that. While lootas are safe from getting worse.

I think getting 9 of each would be unwise, but 3-4 of each seems quite reasonable.

They could be nerfed, but ultimately there's lots of stuff that could be nerfed across competitive 40k. Famous last words, but I'd expect buggy/flyer/bikers freeboota meta to be a thing for a year or two.

Trukks alone very rarely give blos by themselves causeas the enemy can shoot underneath your vehicle as it has no base and is standing on the tires, so your opponent just fires off from his model's feet or tracks...
Now this is the time you'd like to have trukks on tracks - with as few ground openings as possible. But it's rolling on traitorous tires.

Bit over the top to claim that GW now hate Lootas tbh. They're not the auto-include they once were and I'm happy with that. Was pretty boring to see a blob of 20, run as Bad Moonz with 5+ DDD and shoot twice.

They were quite prominent in 5th edition too. But that was long ago.

 Valkyrie wrote:
Bit over the top to claim that GW now hate Lootas tbh. They're not the auto-include they once were and I'm happy with that. Was pretty boring to see a blob of 20, run as Bad Moonz with 5+ DDD and shoot twice.

Honestly it's less about Lootas being 'nerfed' and more to do with the rest of the game power-creeping past them. The 9E meta revolves around units that benefit from -1 damage, ignore low AP values, or have -1 to hit. All of those hurt a BS5+ AP-1 D2 profile.

Meanwhile the codex units they're competing with are often very mobile with a built-in -1 damage, better synergy with armywide rules, and some can use melee when needed.

There's still room for some gimmicky combos to make Lootas more effective (like putting a mob in a Trukk with a Trukk Boyz Nob to benefit from both +1 to hit and clan traits), but they're never going be as points efficient as current light Ork vehicles.

Wait a sec, can you tell more about the trukkboy nobody combo and how he affects lootas?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I especially love how Lootas went from "One in every 5 can be a Spanna" to "One in every 5 must be a Spanna".

That was fun.

The Spanna who can take a big shoota which the kit also lacks a left arm for (iirc).