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So the new dataslate definitely hit Orks pretty hard. Mostly due to the changes to indirect fire and the AoC option for SM, CSM, SoB, etc. The units hit the hardest I feel are the Rukkatruk Squigbuggy(one of my favorite Ork buggies in the lore) and your basic Slugga/Choppa Boyz. I think the best solution to the Rukkatruk Squigbuggy is simply to just knock its points down a bit to accommodate for the indirect fire nerf. As for the Boyz I'm not too sure. Although I am curious if the AP on the Choppas being rendered useless against AoC means we'll see Shoota Boyz get more play. Does anyone have any insight into what they think could make Orks more viable in the meta and additionally what kinds of lists do you think we'll be seeing do well at tournaments?

VitaminP756 wrote:
So the new dataslate definitely hit Orks pretty hard. Mostly due to the changes to indirect fire and the AoC option for SM, CSM, SoB, etc. The units hit the hardest I feel are the Rukkatruk Squigbuggy(one of my favorite Ork buggies in the lore) and your basic Slugga/Choppa Boyz. I think the best solution to the Rukkatruk Squigbuggy is simply to just knock its points down a bit to accommodate for the indirect fire nerf. As for the Boyz I'm not too sure. Although I am curious if the AP on the Choppas being rendered useless against AoC means we'll see Shoota Boyz get more play. Does anyone have any insight into what they think could make Orks more viable in the meta and additionally what kinds of lists do you think we'll be seeing do well at tournaments?

Are you intending this to become a useless wish-listing thread? Or do you want ideas on what an Ork player can do here in the real world?

Here in the real world you can:
1) Just not play Matched Play games. These rules only apply to Matched. If you choose to apply them to open/Narrative/Crusade? That's up to you & the people you play with.

But assuming you're stuck in the matched play/tourney environment by choice or otherwise....

2) Take a look at all the units & options allowed in your environment - Codex, other books, WD, FW, Unaligned fortifications, possibly even Legends (depends upon your environment). It might be time to re-evaluate your opinions on wich pieces are overpriced/trash/etc.
3) Take another look at the rules of the game - rule book, other books, faction rules/strats, FaQs, whatever. Are you making effective use of them? If you change what units you use, should you adjust how you use any rules?
4) Consider the forces that you actually play against. Or if tourney bound, reasonably expect to face.

Tourney lists? {shrugs} That depends upon how well #s2-4 are implemented.

Buddy has been running a Fortress packed with 10 Tank bustas, 5 lootas, a big mech, and a warboss with pretty decent success in Crusade. Been a nice little mobile fortress that demands attention. There's also Deffdreads and Trukks with Meganobz running around, too... very heavy list.

We're not too tailored on winning events or anything, like I said: Crusade, but it does well enough there.

Not sure about orks on foot, though, his more "green tide" lists have been struggling. But his mech lists have been putting on some heavy pressure early, attacking the midfield with some saucy stuff and pinning me back on my third of the table for a good part of the game. Not been as much of an issue after he dropped those bikes, though, they were fast enough to be a headache very early and gave the other things a little more time to close and follow up that initial pressure. Just don't tell him that

Honestly, for like no-holds competitive play? You may have to temper your expectations... acknowledge your codex is in a dire spot... and maybe find people who are willing to seek balance as opposed to simply clobbering you senselessly. Clubbing people is normally a bad interaction on both sides... one player didn't want to get clubbed, and the other gained nothing of value for clubbing an army that was just vastly overmatched. So most people should want to level that a little bit, at least so you can push them a bit more in those games.

A max squad of boomboyz koptas in our army of renown is probably where it’s at right now, until gw senses orks having something and crushes attack out of the sun.
Kombi skorcha manz have been doin a bit of work I’ve heard, and there’s this one list I’ve heard called green summer which uses beast snagga boyz in deffskullz to varying degrees of success based on matchup.
Everyone’s going down the toilet when the nid dex comes out though, so maybe we can hope power armor dies out the most there.

VitaminP756 wrote:
So the new dataslate definitely hit Orks pretty hard. Mostly due to the changes to indirect fire and the AoC option for SM, CSM, SoB, etc. The units hit the hardest I feel are the Rukkatruk Squigbuggy(one of my favorite Ork buggies in the lore) and your basic Slugga/Choppa Boyz. I think the best solution to the Rukkatruk Squigbuggy is simply to just knock its points down a bit to accommodate for the indirect fire nerf. As for the Boyz I'm not too sure. Although I am curious if the AP on the Choppas being rendered useless against AoC means we'll see Shoota Boyz get more play. Does anyone have any insight into what they think could make Orks more viable in the meta and additionally what kinds of lists do you think we'll be seeing do well at tournaments?

Shoota boyz? The nerf to choppas simply means we see even less boyz. The only choppa guys worth taking are kommandos, stormboyz and trukk boyz, none of them for their damage potential.

The squigbuggy can easily be replaced by mek gunz, a gun/kannon wagon or another buggy.

My biggest concern about AoC is how warbikes and dakkajet perform now. The former have AP0 against marines now, making speedwaaagh completely useless, the latter are still AP-1 during speedwaaagh but no AP against marines in cover. Also rokkits, our main ranged anti tank, are worrying. AP-1 rokkits are absolute garbage. Speedwaaagh and maybe boomboyz are absolutely required now. Boomboyz are only worthy in an army of renown though, I play freebootas and +1 to hit is better than gaining a pip of AP.

What about sources of mortal wounds? Bomb Squigs, shokka hull on a vehicle, kill rig.... those were legit options even before AoC.

Ap-3, let alone AP-4 is hard to spam for orks. I wouldn't focus on that.

You might want to give this thread a read: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/3210/800443.page

Essentially, if you are trying to be competitive, it's exploiting the kopta stratagem or trying to dodge bad match-ups with goff MANz/kill rigs/kommadoz.

If your meta is a bit more laid back you can probably make some more things work for you, but speed waaagh lists are most likely going to fall flat on their face against marines of any kind. You will have to tune your list somewhat to defeat the once that were difficult to handle before like DG or DA, the days of "pick what you like" are over once again.

The correct answer to "how many boyz should I bring" is "as little as possible". Slugga boyz have dropped down to be just as bad as shoota boyz, but keep in mind that shootas can't shoot after advancing.

And choppas still have AP-1 against anyone who doesn't benefit from AoC.

 Blackie wrote:
And choppas still have AP-1 against anyone who doesn't benefit from AoC.

if they want to be competitive the problem is going to be having to beat a power armored player which currently every ork build struggles with due to very low AP. I can't think of a tournament since i started playing in 4th that didn't involve at least one matchup against marines, and rarely only one. with pickup games and suboptimal lists by space marines, chaos space marines, and sisters of battle (less of a concern, they also need some help but are above orks at the moment by a little and already had the perfect tools to fight orks)

As for the OP for what its worth I don't go to many tournaments anymore due to family life but do games with some very successful players. we have been brainstorming and playing a lot of matches to see what works and what does not, you will likely see some of the players they coach/work with play modified version of the list below in action in the next few weekends at tournaments. some may swap killrigs and beast snagga boyz for trukk boyz and meganobz as that somewhat works too but its more for fitting into existing model collections than building the most powerful build

mozrog (warlord) and wurrboy as HQs

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

note you are not going to see this list winning majors, it might take some smaller local tournaments not ready for it, but i suspect its about as good as we orks can do and will be among the top placings for orks with out new 35-40ish % winrate bottom tier codex

side note... lore on squgbuggies, did i miss an ork book? i have read almost every black library book in the last decade (bound to have missed some but i try to keep on top of things there) and do not recall more than a handful of references to any buggy outside just saying ramshackle vehicles and never seeing the rukkatruck squigbuggy outside the codex. .

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
And choppas still have AP-1 against anyone who doesn't benefit from AoC.

if they want to be competitive the problem is going to be having to beat a power armored player which currently every ork build struggles with due to very low AP.

Sure, I was just talking about choppa boyz being still superior than shoota boyz, that's it. Even if the ork players gets to face lots of armies that benefit from AoC.

Which aren't exactly biggest worry orks have so if you can't beat them you won't be anywhere near top. Aka aoc least of orks probleM

Not using the current Codex, so can’t really say. My experience of other 9th Ed armies is vs my skumgrod, who plays pointy ears of various persuasions. Currently running 1100 pts of Deff Skull Tankbustas, five figure squads, Nob with Big Choppa and Bom Squig. HQ’s are two Wierdboys, Warboss with ‘ead banger and 2iC with da jump. Best I can do is target his HQ with ‘ead banger, rokkits go for his (current) Wraiths of various sizes. And I still lose vs his 1000 pts.

If you are talking about combatting Armour of Contempt we still have a few options.

Ghaz
MANZ (Kill saws seem like an option again, Klaws still good)
Squighog Boyz
Zagstruk
Warbiker boss with Killa Klaw Relic
Beastboss on Squigosaur

All of the above have at least damage 2 & AP of -2 or better so are good against marines.

I have to assume that Orks aren't great into Tyranids as their dataslates are just better than ours across the board and we are a dataslate codex.
We do have a few tools, again Beastsnagga units can *in theory* do work into monsters.

T'au, just play the mission and wrack up as many points as you can until you get tabled. Build around secondaries.
The T'au players will probably be losing a fair amount of their indirect fire which will help but that still feels like an uphill struggle.

Aeldari of all flavours, Need mobility or they will run rings around us.

Ork codex is weak and some of the nerfs we have received have been ridiculously heavy handed. Some of them, like the buggy change were fully justified.

We are among the weaker codexes again so need to think outside the box for the time being.

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
And choppas still have AP-1 against anyone who doesn't benefit from AoC.

if they want to be competitive the problem is going to be having to beat a power armored player which currently every ork build struggles with due to very low AP.

I wouldnt go so far as to claim every build, just the ones people seem willing to play.

ccs wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
And choppas still have AP-1 against anyone who doesn't benefit from AoC.

if they want to be competitive the problem is going to be having to beat a power armored player which currently every ork build struggles with due to very low AP.

I wouldnt go so far as to claim every build, just the ones people seem willing to play.

if you have answers to what orks have that works well vs power armor for the points by all means list the units. Most answers seem to involve pointing out the speedwagh's ap-1 to one turn per game ignore AOC on some units. In practice this means 1 turn of our mediocre shooting returning to mediocre vs power armor for 1 turn. If you look at my above post after some games I have a list there that is the closest I can find to making it work. If you have another solution please share, but assuring us an ork build exists that people are unwilling to play seems... disingenuous.

ccs wrote:
I wouldnt go so far as to claim every build, just the ones people seem willing to play.

What build are people unwilling to play that is this mysterious silver bullet?

Hecaton wrote:

ccs wrote:
I wouldnt go so far as to claim every build, just the ones people seem willing to play.

What build are people unwilling to play that is this mysterious silver bullet?

Deff dread spam maybe?

Fine, you want AP? My grots have the AP you're looking for. And the damage. In quantity. And the BS4 to make it land.
My opponents have also found my grot tanks tougher to take down than expected
And if your environment allows Legends? You can get a nice hefty dose of Zapp guns/Kannon/lobbas for fairly cheap as well.

There's nothing I can't go toe to toe with shooting wise.
<My> weakness is in melee. But that's on me as I've deliberately chosen to play a (nearly) all grot list. (Crusade doesn't allow named ork characters to be the warlord so I have 1 generic megaarmor boss. And several trucks & a Wazbomb. And I don't own anything else ork wise, so when we do matched....)

I've been told my Grot stuff isn't points efficient.
{Shugs}
But as long as my foe is a smoking wreck & I'm holding the objectives I don't think that's an issue.

Like I said up thread, it might be time for some of you to reassess your opinions of what's effective/trash/etc

Do I think any of you will take a Grot list to your next tourney? No, not really. But that doesn't mean there's no mix where a dose of Grot tech couldn't help you. You need AP. You need to hit with it. And your proper orks aren't getting it done. So it's not like you've got anything to lose.
What that actual mix is though is something you'll just have to figure out on your own.

so your answer to what things will and do well in tournaments that we are not using is... legends units which are not legal in tournaments and things that work in crusade. i mean i liek the crusade rules and would totally be down to try an play that type of game more but not really what the OP was asking "what kinds of lists do you think we'll be seeing do well at tournaments?"

mek guns are still going to be the go to firepower in a lot of lists (though points inefficient compared to other armies options when you do the math) I will give grot tanks another look as honestly not thought about those models in so long I will have to find them. wazoom is still a good choice as are trukk boyz compred to other units.

To be clear though orks are not going to outshoot marines, tau, or eldar (in strongest build lists, for pickup games not running netlists you will probably be fine) imo and now marines are ignoring what ittle ap we had including the choppa -1Ap which was letting us play roughly on an even footing with them before and now has us scrambling for options.

For me grot tanks run the problem of putting all your eggs in on megatank, or paying a lot for some not too durable wounds on the normal ones.

Pickled_egg wrote:
If you are talking about combatting Armour of Contempt we still have a few options.

Ghaz
MANZ (Kill saws seem like an option again, Klaws still good)
Squighog Boyz
Zagstruk
Warbiker boss with Killa Klaw Relic
Beastboss on Squigosaur

Kustom mega kannons, melee deff dreads, kill rigs, wazboms and warbosses of any kind all have reliable AP-3 or better weapons and/or sources of mortal wounds. Dakkajet under speedwaaagh is still useful with its 42 shots S6 AP-1 for 120 points. Any source of rokkits as well. Also kanz are not that bad.

"Kans are not that bad"

They're L6 and come in squads, AND each model can explode when it dies. And they're stuck with the Gretchin keyword. I love the dirty buggers, but they're super bad.

Related (germane to AOC thread), do any other armies have strats/auras/abilities to reduce AP? Or is the concern only power armor and AOC?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Related (germane to AOC thread), do any other armies have strats/auras/abilities to reduce AP? Or is the concern only power armor and AOC?

I'd say "play a different edition", but now I'm struggling to remember when Orks were last good. 4th, maybe?

4th and 5th were decent but not better than it is now.

The frustrating part about it is that after a decade of GW giving us gakky rules, orks have been decent for a few months only to get completely nerfed back to the status of NPC faction that shouldn't be able to compete but still does so because it exploits loopholes.

Yeah, we were exactly where we are now. A couple of builds that allowed us to compete at tournaments, all pretty spammy, but "highlander style" armies were absolute trash.

Oh, and 4th was just last months of 4th actually, when we got the new codex. For the most part of it we played with 3rd edition codex which was decent in 3rd but pretty mediocre in 4th.

VitaminP756 wrote:
So the new dataslate definitely hit Orks pretty hard. Mostly due to the changes to indirect fire and the AoC option for SM, CSM, SoB, etc. The units hit the hardest I feel are the Rukkatruk Squigbuggy(one of my favorite Ork buggies in the lore) and your basic Slugga/Choppa Boyz. I think the best solution to the Rukkatruk Squigbuggy is simply to just knock its points down a bit to accommodate for the indirect fire nerf. As for the Boyz I'm not too sure. Although I am curious if the AP on the Choppas being rendered useless against AoC means we'll see Shoota Boyz get more play. Does anyone have any insight into what they think could make Orks more viable in the meta and additionally what kinds of lists do you think we'll be seeing do well at tournaments?

Sadly we are fethed until GW gives us some more tools to work with, honestly at this point you shouldn't even waste the time/points in trying to kill your enemies unless you absolutely have to. The AoC rule crushes my Alphork strike without a shadow of a doubt, I didn't do all that well already with it against the ridiculous lvls of power creep that hit us with Eldar, Harlequins, Tau, Custards and Nidz but now that AoC is a thing I think I'm going to be shelving my alphork strike list. This is a great example of why.

On a WAAAGH turn a Deffkopta got 2D3 rokkit attacks and 9 attacks at S6 (Goff) -1AP. The Rokkits worked out to 12 shots, 4 hits 3.3 wounds and 2.2 dead Marines, now its 1.65. In CC they get 27 attacks, 22.5(ish) hits 15 wounds and 7.5dmg against marines, so a 150pt unit ended up killing almost 4 Marines (80pts) not bad. Now its down to 5dmg or 2.5 Marines or 50pts...not good. So they went from killing almost 6 Marines a turn to killing 4.15 and Those Deffkoptas are absolutely one of hte best units in the codex.

9 Kommandos with a PK nob in cover (Goff) on a WAAAGH turn used to kill 8.1 Marines a turn in CC, now they kill 5.6, and god help you if they pop transhuman.

Those 2 units were absolutely the best units in my list and they have lost about 1/3rd of their effectiveness against the biggest swath of the meta.

As far as how to be competitive in today's meta at the tournament level...well, we are kind of screwed, but I think you can make do with a list based exclusively on holding objectives and scoring secondaries. So with that in mind...you are going to want to use Deathskullz as your kulture. Run MSU builds with lots of throw away units you don't care about. So 3 units of 5 stormboyz, 3 units of 5-10 Kommandos, lots of troops believe it or not...preferably beast snaggas or grots since they seem to be a bit tougher to shift for their points than regular boyz this edition.

Turn 1 just hold your objectives and score secondaries, believe it or not, the ork secondary of "Get da good bits" its actually decent for this since you don't care about units you have not doing anything.

Turn 2, rinse and repeat, try to max out Get da good bits as quickly as possible since you aren't likely to live past turn 3.

Turn 3, hold whatever you can. If you still need secondaries, keep pushing for them.

Turn 4, you are likely dead, thanks GW. Hopefully you scored enough to win, likely you didn't.

 G00fySmiley wrote:
side note... lore on squgbuggies, did i miss an ork book? i have read almost every black library book in the last decade (bound to have missed some but i try to keep on top of things there) and do not recall more than a handful of references to any buggy outside just saying ramshackle vehicles and never seeing the rukkatruck squigbuggy outside the codex. .

The hyper-specific buggies turned up in the 8th ed book, but I don't know how much lore was in there for them. Doubt the designations have made it into many BL books yet.

Ork armies have always worked largely as counter-meta and skew lists, and given that the recent updates largely buff armies against the kinds of lists that are competitive that we can take, we're going to need some sort of boost to make up for it in the future, assuming GW doesn't tweak more unforseen things that indirectly harm Ork list diversity again.

 Dysartes wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
side note... lore on squgbuggies, did i miss an ork book? i have read almost every black library book in the last decade (bound to have missed some but i try to keep on top of things there) and do not recall more than a handful of references to any buggy outside just saying ramshackle vehicles and never seeing the rukkatruck squigbuggy outside the codex. .

The hyper-specific buggies turned up in the 8th ed book, but I don't know how much lore was in there for them. Doubt the designations have made it into many BL books yet.

I think they were trying to evoke the feeling of the whimsical names of the Epic buggies and vehicles, but honestly most of them didn't land. I can't be bothered to remember which one is which, I loved my epic ork army back in the day (very much an Evil Suns mech list)
The callback to silly names and bright primary colors doesn't really fit the game or the army anymore.

In universe (ie, in the Imperium focused novel line), no one has any reason to use the ork names, nor would ork meks make them looking so... identical. 'Buggy' and weapon types would be the order of the day. Which should have been the kit(s), really. A couple chassis types and a selection of weaponry that you can choose between.

Eh, the names are fine, in my experience it's mostly the KBB and snazzwagon people can't remember because they don't have any features that stand out to non-orks. Scrapjet, shokk-jump dragsta, wartrike and squigbuggy are all at least as well known as any other xenos units, and definitely better known than yet another primaris unit starting with 'I'.

Same for the kits. In narrative games you can just play one of each, plus most of them have clearly been designed so you can mix and match bits to build your own creations. If you look outside the "we hate everything" bubble of dakka, you'll find tons of creative combinations.

Last, but not least, ork vehicle kits looking the same has been the case for all ork vehicles ever - no two trukks should look remotely similar and yet no one bats an eye when people run six trucks which look exactly the same except for some extra glyphs or vehicle upgrades which no longer serve function.