Might makes Right! - Codex Orks 2021 Tactics

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**G00fySmiley**

Jidmah wrote:
Afrodactyl wrote:
I agree, Orks are in dire need of something to deal with morale. You could have something like Orks within 6" of the Warlord are fearless, Nobz mitigate casualties from attrition, bosspoles doing something, etc. There's loads of ways to work it.

Mitigate is not the same as ignore. Any mechanic that allows you to ignore moral is a bad one, so there should absolutely not be a fearless aura in any army.

I disagree for one faction it would be fitting to have a fearless aura. Tyranids when in synapse range. The hive mind is telling them go here and do that and they have no free will to do anything else. outside of synapse range and when under instinctual behavior i would 100% agree they should have low leadership and have a good chance to run as that is what predators do when there is a threat.

**G00fySmiley**

Niiai wrote:
My regular opponent is an ork. And dakkajets are part if why I do not like to run long fangs. I am sure other armies also have good anti infnatery.

Last game they killed exactly 4 long fangs before I poured my whole turn two of shooting into them. (Bjørns flamers took out the last wound.)

Dakkajet are good at harrasing, or as an atemt to take out hard to reach targets. Good character hunters as well.

I love running my dakkajets, I think they are overly hyped as broken though. they generally hit whatever light armor or infantry is the greatest threat to my buggies and bikers and then they get shot down. turn 2 or 3 they usually earn thier points back or at least close to it and deal with a threat that the rest of my army is ill equipped to deal with because GW seems to think ork weapons should be very short range. you are spot on about the use. logn fangs/devistator squads, imperial guard heavy weapons teams, tau broadsides and the like are the tough nut for orks to crack that the dakke jet is probably out only real answer to. (lootas to an extent in a battlewagon also do the job assuming you can get in range but them plus a battlewagon is a pretty big poitns investment that rarely in my experience earns back its points)

**G00fySmiley**

Not Online!!! wrote:
JNAProductions wrote:
Grimskul wrote:
Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
I just want 7 point boys, 45 point trukks. Maybe a big drop on wagons as well.
And put the zoggin grotz back down to 3 for morks sake!

As much as that would be amazing, there's no way they're putting down boy points after hyping up the T5 prior to the Ork release, GW wouldn't want that loss of face. Also, grotz are unfortunately doomed to be stuck at the 5 point mark, because that's their price baseline for some bizarre reason this edition, they'll never go below that for a model's cost. I would hope battlewagons get some love considering how inferior they are to kill rigs at the moment.
Yeah. I'm okay with Grots at five... But then Cultists and Conscripts should be at least six.

Basically, GW needs to increase the points on almost everything, to give a little more granularity.

in what world is a cultist worth more than a guardsmen?

As an aside: Quadruple big shoota / Megablasta deff dread? Yay or nay in freeboters? Normally i think sticking a claw on it to increase its melee capabilities would be normal?

my counter would be in what world is a gretchin better than a guardsman, conscript or cultist? it was play tested for gretchin to be 2 for 5 points they were barely worth it because they were not able to take actions like they went with, but at least they filled slots at 2.5 points per. at 5 points they should be given a inbuilt minus 1 to hit and be able to take actions. so they would be good for scoring and holding things down but still weak offensively with a crap save.

as for dreds i would always give it at least 1 claw to them, not having a claw means people will likely not fear charging it.

**G00fySmiley**

pismakron wrote:
I think its a problem that Freebooterz are so good for shooting, that many units become hard to balance. Logan Heath just annihilated all opposition with his buggy+jets freeboterz list

https://youtu.be/5SD2OVJbcKg

The problem is that if you nerf these units so that they are balanced in a Freebooterz army, then they become useless in other kulturs. But buggies and jets are definitely going to be hit with the nerfbat.

ugg the worse part here is meta chasers in admech and dark eldar who are now online and in game stores last night going on about how overpowered orks are. meanwhile when I an ork player bring my fast orks of buggies warbikes and planes and wipe out said armies on the regular they always blame their bad dice and "what should have happened". Then when they wipe out a space marine list and i struggle against it they declare "see i should have beaten that army" ... then not understanding when i say "its rock paper sissors of 9th edition bro, your list basically can't beat me most of the time and i can't beat space marines generally"

Also the fact that people keep say "its a problem" that orks took a major when admech and dark eldar have been topping charts for close to a year is rather infuriating. The regular tournament players who i go against (my meta includes soem heavy hitters) would flat out say their best chance against orks is to not face them in a bracket since so few people run them its not hard to do. With a major win people will adapt. I think more marine lists will show up which will just put admech and dark eldar back on top as those ork lists get shredded early on and get down bracketed then thhe same armies will dominate up top.

**G00fySmiley**

there are some limitations on battlescribe. as an example nob on smasha squig. should not take up a slot when you have beastriders but there is no way i have found to do this, you always get that warning of too many fast attack slots when the nob should not be taking up one.

**G00fySmiley**

ahh did not see there, thanks! i shall have lists without that orange eclimation point again for my 9 squig hog boyz with 6 nob riders

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Vineheart01 wrote:
G00fySmiley wrote:
ahh did not see there, thanks! i shall have lists without that orange eclimation point again for my 9 squig hog boyz with 6 nob riders

Do note that the Rule of 3 still applies even if they arent taking a slot, it just means they dont fill out your slots.

my squig list is the open war/ open play list. its not even close to competitive just a bunch of pig riders

with my group we do these with more themes to army than makeup but power level is still taken into account.

**G00fySmiley**

Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
True I guess, those profiles for the looted vehicles are just going to be godawful though. Most likely just ripped straight from 8th.
Also, I feel like if you just have looted vehicles ramshackle they wouldn’t be half terrible, maybe just give the option to strap on more guns, or just discount the vehicle.
Then again, you might get Goff boyz zooming around in cheaper raiders.

i actually like them being in crusade where you don't get the min max players in the mix(well not as many). I don't trust GW to make balanced rules so inside 20 min there will be math on which version is the best for the points and all other options would get itched to the wayside. I live the idea of looted wagons and most my trukks and battlewagons are counts as battlewagons and counts as trukks as they are looted vehicles from other factions, I don't think any 2 trukks or battlewagons should look alike.

**G00fySmiley**

I am def on team I wish they had just limited it to one buggy per slot. then you can only have 3 of each buggy (i see no problem there honestly)

**G00fySmiley**

MrMoustaffa wrote:
What a time to have bought two extra scrapjets for variety, dammit. Im lucky compared to kost though. Still that limit is ridiculous. Wheres the dark eldar raider limit? The admech ironstrider limit? Couldve just done a points increase

they released whole new points for drukari and admech. i have yet to dive in and see the full work up but hoping its a good balance but not overdone (i play neither faction but do not any army to be nerfed to unusability)

**G00fySmiley**

on kommandos... unless you are playing at GW then if you have a friend with a resin printer you can have a small build plate of quality bits to convert some boyz bodies into them pretty easily. heck they can do full bodies to as single prints if you find good STLs. may need to pay for some resin in either case, but i just did the bitz for 15 kommandos for a friend and i used maybe $1.00 worth of resin it was trivial enough and took less time to print than the 2 hours we were playing a game for.

**G00fySmiley**

Custodes... a few rounds with the new codex and between being able to subtract an attack for a turn, their transhuman strat, limited distance to pile in etc. they have a lot of tools against orks this is going to take some work to adjust to in a take all comers list. Also the ignore -1Ap chapter is... rough

**G00fySmiley**

Grimskul wrote:
gungo wrote:
Grimskul wrote:
Jidmah wrote:
People are already whining about nerfing koptas

Yup, that discussion about the lack of satisfaction of us not getting MORE price bumps for guys like deffkoptas in the news and rumour thread was definitely eye-opening. Gork forbid we have semi-functional units. No, Ork units must not only be fragile and inaccurate, we must be overpriced as well! It's not like a huge part of our army identity is target saturation or anything...

Seriously, I wish these whiners would try playing Orks and see how non-functional a combined arms approach is for our army compared to other factions. You can't just pick and choose units and hope things go well.

I’m of the opinion that the vast majority of players who do well at tournaments and regularly play multiple high performing armies don’t play orks. There are a few known playtesters that have some orks…. But most don’t and even fewer play orks when they are at tournament since those lists tend to be skew and extremely expensive to build. (If I had to list a few known competitor players who play orks most of these aren’t playtesters are root, navanti, manny, Reece)…
So my point is when orks do well in tournaments these competitive players tend to have a larger voice and complain about the armies they don’t play.. and talk about how oppressive orks are. The rules team then make adjustments based on this feedback. This was blatantly on display during the socal open when Gw made an emergency nerf to orks (and ad mech) based on that 1 tournament even though orks already had its chapter approved points changes done… we didn’t get an early release of those point adjustments we got a seperate early nerf followed by the chapter approved points nerf. It didn’t matter orks had a healthy 55% win rate.. all that mattered was orks were a strong tournament army that was beating other more popular builds. It’s bs and I know I’m speaking to the choir here but it’s crazy how orks aren’t even in the top 5 codex anymore and they are still calling for nerfs.
I mean some changes are needed such as the aircraft limit. Heck even a 10pt bump to squigbuggy was warranted but the other point nerfs without any meaningful point changes to most infantry units is just knee jerk crap. And the buggy limit is kind of the dumbest design changes that completely ruins any point in taking kustom jobs. I’m usually pro competitive balance but the undue influence select people have in 40K is ruining the game.

Yeah, between what you and Jidmah have said, it really does seem to be the case unfortunately. Just like we generally don't seem to have strong advocates on the GW rules team, we seem to lack a distinctive presence in terms of dedicated players on the tournament scene, which is a pity because even if you're not hyper competitive, rules changes still impact and trickle down to other styles of play.

We'll see if GW bother reversing the buggy restriction at some point, because it's just silly with how much of an overreaction everyone has had to Orks being able to hold their own. I want to equal opportunity krumpin dangit!

on buggies i actually did think the 9 squigbuggies was absurd just the fix of one unit of each vs just limiting squad sizes to 1 was dumb. my guess is somebody jsut wrote that to "save us detachment space" not realizing our vehicle squads cannot separate like some that have specific rules allowing it. I would also be cool with them just adding that rule to buggies to save us that detachment space and allow them to act independently.

also mentioned on the last page but lost in discussion of how basic shooting phase works, but man custodes... currently playing with options, but I think they might be the rock to the ork sissors.

**G00fySmiley**

Beardedragon wrote:
Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
Artillery is only oppressive because of the drastic dumbing down and outright removal of mechanics. Back in the day a guard artillery list could field loads of pretty powerful stuff, but had to contend with scatter and cover saves, but since those were removed simple “you can’t see through this plexiglass square” has become king. Artillery doesn’t degrade the game, the game has degraded the game.

regardless, the way its implemented right now it doesnt work. Massed units that dont need line of sight degrade the game because it has no counters, and its unfun to play against. Sure if they brought back older rules or what ever but right now it sucks.

I will get very upset if they dont do something about Hive guards for the tyranid codex, now that they slashed our squig buggies.

*looks at 9 hiveguard models to my left* well I guess we will see. though of note i have them to play against friends who do tournaments for tournament prep against likely lists, I would not put them against somebody not asking for a super hard list.

also my answer on the squigbuggy and all ignore LOS weapons would be -1 to hit much like power fists/power claws. also if unit is actually out of line of site +1 armor save

**G00fySmiley**

Blackie wrote:
Forceride wrote:
On the subject of MAN'z and Killakans I am also in the fence. Point cuts are cool, but it's point cuts on a unit which has no clear role like many mentioned. The famed hybrid unit which has many trait's but is master of none.
This makes the unit unreliable and with out a clear purpose.

100% this. Kanz and meganobz were already cheap, now they're really cheap. And yet they're not exceptional, and lots of players wouldn't even consider taking them anyway. At this point they're units that people might be encouraged to field only if they become really cheap, in order to be spammed or to invest the few spared points left from an almost finished list. And units that are viable only if they are spammed are actually bad, not good.

That's why I always prefer some rule or stats updates about such units, rather than points drops. Some really overpriced units that never see the table will remain massively overpriced, starting with flash gitz and nauts but also the banner nob, painboy, SAG big mek and probably tankbustas.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

gungo wrote:
It’s really just what the court of public opinion regularly plays.. they tend to like aeldari, drukari (now for some reason), marines of all variety, and tau is a popular faction.

Many players see orks as the game's comic relief. Others want to feel some kind of supreme tactician of war and can't get along with a race of not particularly intelligent creatures.

honestly I am of the opinion points drops can fix almost anything in the game. You could make a horribly designed unit owrk for the right points. say a gretchin profilewhere the unit is a single model with the shooting profile of the new rail gun. it would basically have to stay out of line of sight and far back before it gets its one shot with a 50% chance to miss but might blow up a tank. worth more than a 5 point gretchin... yes, worth 100 points? no, worth 50 points... also no, but 20-30 points and people would probably take it as a sometimes answer to a hard nut to crack.

cheap meganobs sounds cool and with the cheaper battlewagons they might be useable to deliver where they need to go. will have to play with the new points to find out though

**G00fySmiley**

Grimskul wrote:
russellmoo wrote:
Is Ghaz still the same points?

Because he really should be quite a few points less

Ghaz has stayed at the same points unfortunately. He's really more around the 265-270 range IMO, if even. Depending on how much the new T'au codex skews the meta, he might not be terrible with his ability to cap wounds taken at 4 wounds a phase against them, but other than that he still has major issues getting across the board and getting stuck in properly.

except rumour is that tau has some weapons that ignore the max wounds per phase rule, to be fair they do actually need it as otehrwise some stuff would just run amuck for 4 turns.

**G00fySmiley**

On lootas its possible, I have a few things in mind with them but i am skeptical that they will be worth the 15 points

**G00fySmiley**

Anybody have luck running Mega-Dreads or Meka-Dreads

Grabbed a couple and am working on building/ painting. the Mega-Dreads have a mega charge ability built in for roll an extra D6 for charge and discard to lowest. Movement is 8 but degrades to 6 at 8 wounds and 4 at 4 wounds which is not great

gun seems nice heavy D6 str8 ap-2 damage 2 blast

melee hitting at str 16 ap-3 damage D3+3

Meka-Dread has same main weapons but instead of 2 str5 flamers they can repair vehicles and are 165 points vs 175 for the MegaDreads

**G00fySmiley**

Tomsug wrote:Mega dread is nice. Combine his charge ability with ramming speed to get super nasty charge range.

Appeared in competitive builds in autumn. Some goff preasure lists with ghazzy. But really not so common.

cool, have 3 mega dreads and 2 mekas. will try both, plan is currently like stompy robots take a flank of the board, will def be using ramming speed at times too for the long bomb charges

Grimskul wrote:
G00fySmiley wrote:
Anybody have luck running Mega-Dreads or Meka-Dreads

Grabbed a couple and am working on building/ painting. the Mega-Dreads have a mega charge ability built in for roll an extra D6 for charge and discard to lowest. Movement is 8 but degrades to 6 at 8 wounds and 4 at 4 wounds which is not great

gun seems nice heavy D6 str8 ap-2 damage 2 blast

melee hitting at str 16 ap-3 damage D3+3

Meka-Dread has same main weapons but instead of 2 str5 flamers they can repair vehicles and are 165 points vs 175 for the MegaDreads

Mega Dreads are nice to tellyport and have reliable charges with the mega charge, meaning you don't have to blow the 2CP on ramming speed if you have a unit like deffkoptas coming on the same turn as them and still having a high chance of them making into combat.

The Killkannon is a waste of time for both Meka and Mega Dreads, its shooting is anemic and you're better off with a second klaw for the extra attack. Right now I would say Mega Dreads are better simply because Meka Dreads have a BS4+ that is underutilized with the weapons options he has, while the repair function doesn't work on itself and is very unlikely to be in range of other vehicle units to make it worthwhile, so you may as well go all in on offense with the Mega Dread.

The plan is fielding 3 mega dreads and 2 mekas for supporting them doing with restoring 1d3 wounds to 2 of the 5 meks. I would agree though that megas are better if choosing one or the other as a solo model. its 855 points and i think the profiles make them pretty good and with buggy, dakka jet, and wartrike lists can negate most of the antiinfantry shooting in a list

on the fence on guns vs 5 extra attacks across them. its 5 attacks str 14 AP-3 D D3+3 hitting on 3's, 4's or 5's depending on wound status vs. across 5 cannons 17.5 str 8 ap-2 damage 2 shots more so if the blast applies, so we average 5.77 hits or about 1 per model at that profile (blast could be good vs eldar, harlies, tyranids with the upcoming codex, and other orks, but less useful against our boogieman of custodes). Plan is to magnatize for klaws so will try as both but I do think the klaws are likely to win out vs more matchups.

**G00fySmiley**

Tomsug wrote:
I ´ m not so sceptical. Because what the datslate do the most is ceipling the harleis and custodes and taus.

That is good for us.

Cripling the RSBs is bad but wé ll find the way go around.

Buffing the marines? Who cares. They are weaker than orks and we can beat them. Or I don ´ t know how about you, I don ´ t remember the last time I was defeated by some marines or sisters…. Like a year ago?

with power armor ignoring most of our AP i think that changes now. my honest assesment on reading all the changes orks are now a bottom 1/4 army again. down from pre faq being a mid 3/4 army.

**G00fySmiley**

Tomsug wrote:
Well, the fact is that the change on Boyz and their derivations is minor. They were crap before the dataslate and now they are just bigger crap. And crap is a crap.

What is important to say is, that almost no armies that gain The Armour of Compensation is the army regularly placed well in meta. Look at the win rates few weaks old - who got this? Deathwatch and Grey Knights? And the next nearest faction is like 7 places behind the orks?

So dont be a pussies. Some crap armies get a buff they need more than we. Deal with it.

What important is that the faction that hurts us significantly - Custodes, Harleis, Tau - get a significant nerf. This buffs our position. So I really struggle to see Orks as a big loosers of this Dataslate.

honestly one of the biggest issues issues for orks in tournaments now is they are going to have a terrible matchup to space marines. I don't think this update kills orks for casual play but I think they will be, barring some lucky matchups, kept off top tables without being able to beat the marines ignoring an ap.

**G00fySmiley**

after some small games and seeing what works it seems our new best options are now... mostly the new stuff. Was this intentional or just incompetence lining up with making people buy newest models? welcome to mortal wounds are the best we can do edition orks

mozrog (warlord) and wurrboy as HQs

3x beast snagga boyz
3x killrigs
3x squighog boyz
3x squighog nobz
2x blitza bommers

Its the stronges tlist I cna make that can actually stand a chance against power armor. 2x 2k point games in for validation (more needed obviously) feels like you are in an uphill battle but you can outplay codex space marine with it.

**G00fySmiley**

I mean, still another 8+ months before tis gone, though even with it i don't think orks will be on a level playing field and always in an uphill battle to reach upper placement at a tournament. def good for pickup games and being able to hang with the casual levels of play though

**G00fySmiley**

gungo wrote:
Speedmob is the only ork list left that’s mildly competitive…but the options are more limited.
I mean ap-2 koptas that are ap-3 for 2 turns.with drive by Dakka and crashing through are still great.. not every kopta needs to be ap-3 and ap-4 for 2 turns.
scrapjets are similar and still great…
Wazboms are still great…
Warboss on bikes are still great…
The only issue is that warbikers shooting sucks even during a speedwaaagh… (-1ap) but they always sucked at shooting.. I mean squigbuggies are dead now and Dakkajets have a more limited target pool with power armor change.

beg to differ on the speedwaagh being the only option, its probably our most commonly used one and what people are used to as it resembles what worked before. I think its outclassed by the mortal wound spam list now. I think there may be a place for a killrig getting booted for trukkboyz and some komandoes but i am still working on it.

mozrog (warlord) and wurrboy as HQs
3x beast snagga boyz
3x killrigs
3x squighog boyz
3x squighog nobz
2x blitza bommers

**G00fySmiley**

wurrboy is basically just a 70 point smite that fits the rest of the build. its not my set in stone list yet so he is not necessarily a must take. He does seem to be doing work, his eye when it hits is nice, str 6 ap-3 damage D3 only gets a couple hits a game but can whittle something down or help chip down a screening unit. coupled with those reasonably reliable smites and he earns back his points while often making it to the end of the game alive.

**G00fySmiley**

worth experimenting, though then he can't get in a killring when needing to move. doesn't always do that in current list though as he is out of a transport to start and cannot fit in one.

will experiment with it as i swap a trukkboy for a beassnagga squad and a kill rig and see what else i end up with

**G00fySmiley**

gungo wrote:
Like most playtesters or most competitive players; goonhammer has no one who actually plays orks competitively giving any analysis… they regularly get things wrong and the rest of the player base takes what they say as gospel.

If you are a competitive 40k player you are not playing orks. Marshal Peterson is doing about the best you can possibly do with orks when you play to the missions and don't make mistakes. 10th place out of 200 is one of the best placings by one of the best ork players means you can't take a GT podium with them. Any mistakes punish more than most armies and in general that is not going to appeal to a competitive player. They tried orks, realized what was there did not work as well for competitive play and moved on.

**G00fySmiley**

At the FLGS last night somebody had a "leaked" copy of points changes, not sure if it was legitimate or not, but if so keep them expectations low. boys down... 1 point, gretchin stay the same, beast boys same a few buggies down 5 points. wazboom up another 10, hqs got a 5-10 point cut across the board and nobz down a point per model. cannot validate as it was a white backed pdf so take it with a shovel of salt and hope its better.

**G00fySmiley**

Dendarien wrote:
G00fySmiley wrote:
At the FLGS last night somebody had a "leaked" copy of points changes, not sure if it was legitimate or not, but if so keep them expectations low. boys down... 1 point, gretchin stay the same, beast boys same a few buggies down 5 points. wazboom up another 10, hqs got a 5-10 point cut across the board and nobz down a point per model. cannot validate as it was a white backed pdf so take it with a shovel of salt and hope its better.

These kinds of changes are what I fear for orks. A point here or there isn’t going to help.

I am hoping its somebody having a laugh "leaking" a pdf. space marines got some significant points cuts if its real mostly in the vehicle department which to be fair is needed there. might actually see predators on the field for them again

**G00fySmiley**

glad to see the grots go down but still not even close to worth 4 points per model. boyz down 1 point but still morale will mean you lose as many boyz to morale as combat or shooting. small buff but taken into account the buffs to marines and other factions... not looking good for the greenskins overall