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Should a glass army just stand in optimal range of a gunline army loaded with rapid fire/Dakka weapons and say come shoot me bro?

The drukari list was built around first turn assault got first turn and failed to assault and left themselves vulnerable in the open with no protection. Then rolled poorly on saves from str 5/6 range weapons with bs4+ shooting and ap1/2 weapons. And then got folllowed up with a bunch of easy charge rolls….I mean this list has been around for 3 months and it’s not exactly tearing up the tournament scene.

My point is similar drukari lists are literally winning most tournaments, besting similar ork lists along the way and achieving absurd 70% winrates. There are going to be blowouts when someone plays poor, rolls poorly even if they are playing the current fotm net list especially When they face a bad matchup. Sounds to me like someone simply got outplayed because even with this 1 fringe case I can list about a dozen other tournaments where drukari are winning vs similar freebooter lists. It’s not even close drukari are literally tearing up the meta right now with 70%…, not orks… and this type of freebooter ork list has been out for 3 months and played in nearly every major tournament since and you know what faction has been winning most of those tournaments? Drukari….

You were in a no win situation. I mean the biggest issue I can see is the flyer wall… that just shouldn’t be a way to block out the units behind them like that. I’m sorry bro and skew lists like that aren’t fun.

I mean we are still talking about a list of mainly bs4+ str 5/6 ap1/2 dam 1 with mostly 18-24in range rapid fire/Dakka weapons… this type of “bolter spam” isn’t exactly a problem for a lot of armies. Not to mention these types of freebooter lists have been around for 3 months already without much of a problem until today.

The reason Sean couldn’t engage was deployment and setup and bad flyer rules…
He took an assault list that couldn’t assault.
He was faced with
Row 1- flyers (can’t assault)
Row 2- buggies with flyers in front and a buggy row behind
Row 3- more buggies
All of which sandwiched between terrain and the board edges or out of movement range

His only real path was trying to squeeze around 3 Mek guns blocking the path to the left…

4 flyers with big bases you can’t normally assault is alot. This is part of the problem… the other being flyer bases blocking assault range. If I had to nerf something it would be to limit flyers to 1 per patrol, brigade, battalion detachment and remove the flyer detachment… and allow units to ignore flyer bases for movement and assault range. I mean the bases really shouldn’t prevent you from moving onto them.

He couldn’t fall back and shoot with the buggies as freebooter and this list only had 9 buggies. If you killed 3 and piled into 3 more you would have removed most of the buggies from combat. (Which they are fairly poor in melee anyway).

Fortunately a lot of weapons with dam 2 or higher is str 8 or higher to ignore ramshackle… but I agree it’s a nice ability on a bunch of low toughness 6 vehicles.

The whole balancing/nerf ork codex freak out is annoying. Even goon hammer is screaming nerf orks… https://www.goonhammer.com/competitive-innovations-in-9th-many-magnificent-majors/

the nonsense about the obvious bias is he lists all the top 10 finishes over the last week tournaments. In just the majors tournaments they are primarily won by drukari or ad mech. With ad mech and drukari also filling up most of the top 10 rankings (7x grey knights and 6x adeptus soritas placing too). There is 1 ork win, 1x 3rd place finish and like 2 other freebooter lists on the bottom 10 of those 5 major tournaments and the dude is posting nonsense like
"Beyond that, it floods the board with vehicles and takes the opponent off the table in double time. You know this stuff. I am starting the feel the angry spirit of JONK overtaking me, so let’s congratulate on the podium finish and move on."

47 players listed in 5 majors tournaments 1 ork win, 1x 3rd place finish and 2 other in bottom 10 and the dude is crying about Orks. There are 22 admech/drukari lists out of 47 players who placed... and he's crying about orks!!! It's a freak out about 1 ork list winning 1 tournament and that ork list even went 8-1 losing a game during that same tournament on a codex that’s been out for 3+ months… but ya know nerf orks!!

I think the issue is Sean is a nice guy and a well respected player who got absolutely man handled in this game by taking a win at all cost tactic that backfired because he felt he had no
Other Choice. He claims even if he fell back and counter charged later he would have still been tabled (maybe turn 3) and he’s probably right.

But that’s not necessarily the ork codex fault… Sean took an army with low antitank but extreme assault and fragile. It was hard countered by a shooty vehicle spam list that Sean had no answer for… is this the ork codex fault? Or Sean list building fault? Does drukari not have anti tank in thier codex? They do btw…

So we are back to the jist of the complaints people don’t like rock, paper, scissors play that even one of the best players can’t overcome because they lose during list building when they make a skew army to combat 2 wound elite squads instead of anti tank. They don’t like the fact even when someone places themselves in the absolute worst position possible they can lose 75% of thier army from making a bad decision that backfired. And I’m not saying Sean had a lot of choice here. I’m saying he could not have made a worst list and placed it in a worst position if he tried vs this ork build.

The bottom line is this.. orks have a balanced 50% win rate, orks have a high to mid high range in placing in major tournaments.. orks are still less then 10% of all placings. And most importantly outside of drukari orks are not wiping out most armies off the table… the vast majority of other competitive codexs ad mech, greyknights, space marines, adeptus soritas, deathguard, t-sons, etc are all tough fights for orks. Heck admech hard counters buggy spam, in fact this list lost vs admech this same tournament.

However currently drukari make up ~25% of all tournament placings.. currently drukari have a ~60%+ win rate… and when an ork list gets to the top tables as it did in this 1 tournament where the player faced 3x drukari armies in a row the ork codex and it’s 1 competitive build seems a lot more powerful Becuase they hard counter drukari… that is the issue…and people lost thier freakin minds afterwards.

And I’m not saying squigbuggies and dakkajets can’t go up 10-15pts. But that’s not going to solve any of the above issues. Personally I’d like to see aircraft base rules change so they don’t screen out assault to you it’s immediately behind them… but that’s unlikely to happen.

Slipspace wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Don't even bother gungo, you'll be dismissed as not knowing anything or being a GW simp

The reason that opinion would be dismissed is because it fails to address the core problem that it's even possible to remove 90% of an army in one turn.

Do you think a well balanced game should allow that sort of lethality?

Do you honestly think Sean list was well balanced when he himself said he had nothing in his list to handle vehicle spam like the buggy list?
Here is the thing speedwaagh lists do not regularly remove 90% of an opponents army.. in fact it has a hard time with ad mech, certain space marines (iron hands, grey knights, deathwatch all do well vs them), and deathguard (which is another counter to speedwaagh no one talks about)… (or you know any list that remotely tries to bring a decent amount of anti tank)…

What you fail to address is the core problem is that ork speedwaagh only hard counters drukari assault infantry spam which just happens to be a major meta army list. Do you think a well balanced game should be built to appease a single skew list?

The funny thing about this mass freak out of players is that a week ago nearly everyone had the ork codex listed as a high mid tier codex that was ranked behind admech drukari greyknights somewhere between sisters, deathguard, t-sons, aldaeri, iron hands… and all of a sudden the mass freak out about them winning 1 tournament has begun with multiple threads of nerfing orks…massive change in both people’s assessment of the codex and reaction to the dex because of 1 tournament where a guy spammed planes to block assault.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
The problem with all this is ... is it even considered fun? Because a game is supposed to be about having fun right?

Is it fun to arrive, spend the time setting up the terrain, placing the models. And then removing 80% of your army in one turn, after which you might as well concede.

Even for the person playing the list. Is it fun? Your shooting is so devastating it has the ability to remove 80% of your opponent's army in one turn. What kind of genius tactical gameplay was required? Shooting priority? Does secondaries, objectives, VP even matter anymore at that point?

Even if we removed the list building factor and made it a mirror match. Would it be a fun one? Because its about who gets that first turn and wipes out so much of the other side that it just snow balls from there. So the whole game is literally decided on who goes first.

First off mirror matches with speedwaagh happens all the time and it’s NEVER a turn 1 wipe out… you are theorizing about stuff that doesn’t exist. Furthermore This list has a 50% win rate regardless of who goes first or second. In fact the game everyone is crying about the speedwaagh went second and took almost no casualties since the drukari couldn’t make it into combat.
you act as if speedwaagh just annihilates everyone turn 1. They don’t.. this kind of brutal first turn only happens if the opposing playing allows it. If you took a tau gunline and purposefully ran it into assault turn 1 without any protection and lost 75% of your army whose fault is it? Now if you take an assault list without any protection and park it in full rapid fire range of a gun line and lose 75% of an army whose fault is it? You are saying it shouldn’t have happened I agree… and once Sean failed his advance rolls and failed to get his army locked in combat he knew he lost… had he made that roll he probably wouldnt have… had the aircraft not blocked the buggies from assault he should not have lost either, but that was a weakness of his list… (and bad flyer base rules)
But go for it raise squigbuggies and dakkajets up ~15 points. It will not change anything that happens during this game. Sean would have still lost the way that game was played.

I mean this list wasn’t spam or squadroned he took 3 single unit detachments of 2 buggies and 2 of a buggy that was essentially nerfed this codex from last and 1 of another buggy that’s rarely taken since it’s a weak anti-infantry buggy (which just happens to do well vs drukari). 9 buggies and 4 unique models.

Also the nonsense of this happens regularly is pretty much bull crap… up until a week ago everyone was listing orks as a high second tier tier codex. Even goonhammer whose calling for a nerf as well had orks listed below admech, drukari, greyknights, sisters and then orks. A week before this tournament…. And now all of a sudden you are trying to claim orks have been doing this regularly? You guys are so freakin full of it… https://www.goonhammer.com/competitive-innovations-in-9th-silver-surge/ the only difference is ork only placed as a 5th and 2x 8th places in the 3 major last week so you guys were fine with it then.

The irony is even this past week just like goonhammer said, ad mech, drukari, grey knights and sisters all had better win records in the majors..(death guard and t-sons are also a problem for these buggy spam lists but you wouldn’t know that listening to the peanut gallery) orks won 1, grabbed a 3rd place and 2x 10th places in 5 majors, 4 placings out of 47 listed players and ork buggy spam is now a problem? Just man up to what it is you all freaked out due to 1 lopsided tournament win because 2 players played Rock Paper Scissors and one lost.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
It'd be nice if the Ork players in this thread didn't leap to the defense of their faction out of some kind of knee-jerk response to a misunderstanding.

"40k is too lethal" has nothing to do with winrates or faction balance. A faction can both be too lethal and be 100% balanced.

Arguing that Orks don't need a nerf should be reserved for the threads where people are saying Orks need a nerf.

If the entire premise to your “40K is too lethal” didn’t revolve around a single ork win at a single tournament and then go into multiple rounds on how orks need a nerf and are first turn wiping out most armies (which isn’t even remotely true) ork players wouldn’t need to keep throwing stats and tournament results up over and over showing that’s just not true.

I mean this argument about speedwaagh lethality (which I currently don’t think is as common or bad as the people freaking out claim) is soon to be moot. Gw is literally upgrading the speedwaagh next week. With both a boost to speedfreaks which may just be an evil Sun army of renown and blood axe codex which is already one of the best buggy klans and kommandos are already awesome. Either way I think the freebooter current iteration of speedwaagh is soon to change.
This might mean soeeedwaagh is no longer as shooty or freebooter is no longer preferred klan. It also may mean speedwaagh would actually need a bigger nerf. Either way I still think flyer rules need to change to stop the gakky assault blocking bull crap that happened at socal and the real reason Sean had novchoice and was left out on the open to get shot at.

Tyel wrote:
Go to any major tournament with a decent number of games, and you'll see Ad Mech/Speedwaaagh lists obliterating people in a single turn of shooting. See what DE lists can do on turn 2 if every unit gets out the boats and charges something.

Haggling over the exact 1800 points is just being internet contrarian. If you kill 1000 points in a turn, the game is frankly over. It really doesn't matter beyond absurdity whether its 1000 or 1200, 1400, 1600, 1800.

The game can be balanced if every faction has a list that can do that - but its not very fun. Its just glorified rock paper scissors and who can go first.

I mean this literally wasn’t even happening this past 2 weeks. Orks weren’t blowing up the majors. 5 majors and all we had were 1x first place, 1x 3rd place and 2x 10th place sure doesn’t look like speedwaaagh obliterating the tables. Heck it’s only 8% of the top 10 placings. Your idea of obliterating sure is extremely encompassing.

Tyel wrote:

gungo wrote:
I mean this literally wasn’t even happening this past 2 weeks. Orks weren’t blowing up the majors. 5 majors and all we had were 1x first place, 1x 3rd place and 2x 10th place sure doesn’t look like speedwaaagh obliterating the tables. Heck it’s only 8% of the top 10 placings. Your idea of obliterating sure is extremely encompassing.

You are myopically obsessed with Speedwaaagh. The thread is about the game's lethality being too high.

"Uh my Speedwaaagh list got one-shoot by Ad Mech so its fine" isn't actually you know, fine.

I mean I literally replied to a post of you mentioning “admech/speedwaagh lethality” not the games lethality.
Stay focused you are all over the place and don’t even know what you are posting half the time. Is this already the third time you been called out for your inability to remember what you posted.

Sean made a risky play because he couldn’t get his assault only army into assault not because of the ork codex. Because the ork player set up terrain and then abused flyer bases so that Sean could never get into assault turn 1.

The ork player used terrain, flyer bases and the board edge to funnel the majority of his army into an unassailable Congo line. So Sean first turn was always going to be him sitting there with a finger in his bum because of ganky flyer base rules and the fact Sean couldn’t even take out a single flyer first turn to make a hole big enough to get his army into assault.

Had flyer base rules not been utter gak sean could have charged and killed 3 buggies, piled into 3 more and effectively removed at least 6 of 9 buggies.

Spoletta wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
There are games which open with a crippling alpha strike taking out a good chunk of the opponent's list, which get answered in tone and then the killy factors quickly runs out and the game drags to a turn 5 of stragglers battling over points. These games are also fine.

If the game gets to turn 5 I'd be surprised, since the reply from the defender is going to be anemic if they're down >25% of their most exquisite capability.

Oh, it actually happens more than people think.

Being badly alpha striken isn't the end of the game. An alpha strike usually leaves your opponent very badly positioned and prone to a sound beating.

Obviously we are not talking about extreme alpha strikes like the one in the OP.

Here, this is a good example: https://www.reddit.com/r/Tyranids/comments/qkkbxp/tyranids_octarius_vs_orcs_2000pt_written_battle/

Those are 2 battle reports between 2 extremely alpha strikey lists, designed to cripple your opponent from turn 1. Speedwaagh vs NewNids (which are going to be a big issue).
In the first report, the Nids go first and the alpha strike is just too hard and the ork concedes.
In the second report, the nids take the full brunt of a 11 buggy 4 plane speedwaagh list and definitely don't look pretty after it, yet try to play the game and in the end they win. At turn 5, no one is yet tabled.

By the way, on the topic of flyers efficency, the issue is actually the freebooter trait, which is very badly designed. It scales horribly.
+1 to hit after killing a unit? Yeah, cause that is really going to be just as good at 500 and 3000 points, right?
It's a trait which becomes better the more points you have on the field, which is a terrible design. If you have a small force it will probably not doing anything, but if you have a big one then the majority of them will enjoy a +50% output. How can you ever balance something like that?
The reason that the ork conceded after being alpha striken, is because he had de facto lost his chapter trait.

It's a terrible trait which plays right into this "Kill me before I kill you". It snowballs very fast in both directions.
It badly needs a redesign.

This is a well written and appropriately timed battle report. It does show the lethality of certain alpha strike lists and the fact certain alpha strikes lists aren’t as strong as people claim. Regardless it’s well written and the tyranid player won twice in a row.

 Bosskelot wrote:
AoW tier list video, specifically it talks about why Orks are one of the S-tier factions in the game currently and why the Buggy/Plane spam list is so strong and problematic (timestamped at the start of that discussion):

I mean I agree with them orks are the 4th best codex and S tier…
They actually may go to 2nd best after campaign book releases. And that basically removes freebooter out of the reason.
Ultimately squigbuggies should go up in points. Maybe a smidge on scrapjets and dakkajets but a lot of the other units are only good in specific klans and/or burning Strats to make them useful that turn.

Overall I like thier reasoning. Admech crushes everyone, drukari manhandles all the A and below codexs has hard counter w orks, grey knights does well against all, orks can win against all but can lose against all and manhandles drukari.

I mean like half the survey questions is if you like and want to change strategems

I mean orks and admech are pretty much out of the top rankings and those poor manhandled drukari with the best win rates in only had a better weekend with 60%+ win rates again But everyone is cool with it so whatever.

Regarding fixing Strats since we are wishlisting for 10th Ed stuff.

Just put 5 strats in the rulebook
Extra warlord trait
Extra relic
Auto pass morale
Overwatch
Reroll

Wash out all 9th edition stuff except datasheets and klan/regiment/doctrine/canticle/whatever.

When an army gets a new codex they get a deck of 10 strategems. You can use them each only 1 a game and only 1 per unit.

After every army gets a codex.. start pushing out supplements with 3 new Strats that can replace 1 in the deck and put these cards in white dwarf or something.

Do something similar for warlord traits, relics, psychic powers.

5 in rule book
3 in codex
1 in supplement