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Orkimedez_Atalaya wrote:
I just read the translation of PA into Spanish and couldn't help noticing that the kustom gun for the Gorkanaut overwatchs at 5+ as the rule says to add one each time the gun shoots.

Could anyone confirm that it reads the same way in English?

If it adds +1 to-hit, that does NOT affect Overwatch. Overwatch explicitly ignores modifiers for the purposes of hitting.

There are some exceptions, but they are VERY CLEAR that they work on Overwatch.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Orkimedez_Atalaya wrote:
I just read the translation of PA into Spanish and couldn't help noticing that the kustom gun for the Gorkanaut overwatchs at 5+ as the rule says to add one each time the gun shoots.

Could anyone confirm that it reads the same way in English?

If it adds +1 to-hit, that does NOT affect Overwatch. Overwatch explicitly ignores modifiers for the purposes of hitting.

There are some exceptions, but they are VERY CLEAR that they work on Overwatch.

This. Overwatch hits on 6+ irrespective of modifiers, both negative and positive.

 Jidmah wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

Orkimedez_Atalaya wrote:
I just read the translation of PA into Spanish and couldn't help noticing that the kustom gun for the Gorkanaut overwatchs at 5+ as the rule says to add one each time the gun shoots.

Could anyone confirm that it reads the same way in English?

If it adds +1 to-hit, that does NOT affect Overwatch. Overwatch explicitly ignores modifiers for the purposes of hitting.

There are some exceptions, but they are VERY CLEAR that they work on Overwatch.

This. Overwatch hits on 6+ irrespective of modifiers, both negative and positive.

Modifiers do still work, for the purposes of plasma, for instance, but the hit roll stays the same.

Though if I recall correctly, Ork plasma is a natural one, so it wouldn't even matter then.

"Abilities: When resolving an attack made with this weapon, if the target was within 12" when the bearer was chosen to shoot with, add 1 to the hit roll"

That's verbatim what it says in the book. That shouldn't apply to overwatch however since modifiers don't apply to that phase unless specifically mentioned. And most things in overwatch (/all?) aren't even modifiers but just flat out a different die roll needed. (Like iron hands hitting on 5+, they're not +1 during the phase etc)

Thank you guys. clarified


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What about the DaBoom?

2d6 or 3d6? Some of you seem to be posting a different number.

It's 2d6, I have the (e)book in front of me. No idea where 3d6 came from or why it was perpetuated for so long

I agree. In case you need to convince someone, point them to the Vigilus Defiant FAQ:
Q: Does the Hammer of Sunderance Relic count as a turret
weapon for the purposes of Grinding Advance?
A: Yes.
The interaction between the specialist detachment's relic and grinding advances is exactly the same as between kustom jobs and periscope.

Review of Saga of the Beast by Steve Pampreen, arguably the best ork player currently:

https://www.theartofwar40k.com/home/psychic-awakening-ork-review

I think he might be onto something with his grot army, but in general it feels like he is a bit too optimistic in some things.
The good thing is, if he is right and there is a way to make Thrakka work, he is the one that will do so.

Apologies for the off topic here but why did GW feel the need to put so many damn spikes on the Snazzwagon's wheels?! I thought I had nearly finished the model and have spent the afternoon fiddling with these bloody wheels. Have mercy!

So, Hi! Recently returned to 40k player here. I've been on orks for a while, and am surprised to see so much hate for the buggies, especially in reference to the new book. I've been playing 9+ for the past few months (before the pandemic, anyway), and have found success with them. Is the disslike for them simply due to math, or have people found that their issues are borne out on the table?

 Swampmist wrote:
So, Hi! Recently returned to 40k player here. I've been on orks for a while, and am surprised to see so much hate for the buggies, especially in reference to the new book. I've been playing 9+ for the past few months (before the pandemic, anyway), and have found success with them. Is the disslike for them simply due to math, or have people found that their issues are borne out on the table?

They used to be a lot worse, if I recall correctly. They got some points drops, though, making them a lot better.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Swampmist wrote:
So, Hi! Recently returned to 40k player here. I've been on orks for a while, and am surprised to see so much hate for the buggies, especially in reference to the new book. I've been playing 9+ for the past few months (before the pandemic, anyway), and have found success with them. Is the disslike for them simply due to math, or have people found that their issues are borne out on the table?

They used to be a lot worse, if I recall correctly. They got some points drops, though, making them a lot better.

Ah, yes, to be clear: I am talking about post-Chapter Approved 2019. The models are now at a reasonably cheap price without having lost any output. I've actually been specifically impressed by the Deathskullz Shokkjump Dragsta; its gun hitting on 3s makes it basically the perfect chasis for the deathskullz reroll, and its output has been pretty great in my experience.

Another question on buggies, for those with the ebook in hand: I know there is a stratagem to improve the Burna Exhausts of the Boosta Blasta; does that buff apply to a single exhaust, or all 4?

All 4.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Apologies for the off topic here but why did GW feel the need to put so many damn spikes on the Snazzwagon's wheels?! I thought I had nearly finished the model and have spent the afternoon fiddling with these bloody wheels. Have mercy!

I cut the spikes from Dragstas wheels couple of minutes ago. And do the tread patern....

Actualy, I'm finishing the 3rd Dragsta and all of them are masively modified. I hate the sleeky formula look....

PiñaColada wrote:
Do people think that footslogging ES dreads might work if we're giving them the pistons BTW? That'd give them a 10" move and statistically speaking real solid advance rolls as well. If KFFs will indeed start working in CC then they're actually somewhat tanky (if hard keep within that bubble). I'm just eager to try them out agains since one of the big issues they had (in my experience) was being bogged down by chaff, now there's a strat to help counter that.. Maybe even break out the waaagh banner nob to run alongside them?

This is exactly what I am planning on doing with my 3 ES Deff Dreads. It will save me a CP from previously using the Teleporta Stratergem and have the potential of a turn 1 charge! + a new KFF for some more survivability and I’m set!

Max: 10+7+12=29” move and charge!!
Ave: 10+5+9=24” move and charge!

STOMP STOMP STOMP WAAAGGGGGGGHHHHH!

tulun wrote:
All 4.

Alright, that's pretty slick. I've been testing boosta blastas in a freebootaz shell, and their flamers having more efficiency would help a ton

ThorNZ2020 wrote:

PiñaColada wrote:
Do people think that footslogging ES dreads might work if we're giving them the pistons BTW? That'd give them a 10" move and statistically speaking real solid advance rolls as well. If KFFs will indeed start working in CC then they're actually somewhat tanky (if hard keep within that bubble). I'm just eager to try them out agains since one of the big issues they had (in my experience) was being bogged down by chaff, now there's a strat to help counter that.. Maybe even break out the waaagh banner nob to run alongside them?

This is exactly what I am planning on doing with my 3 ES Deff Dreads. It will save me a CP from previously using the Teleporta Stratergem and have the potential of a turn 1 charge! + a new KFF for some more survivability and I’m set!

Max: 10+7+12=29” move and charge!!
Ave: 10+5+9=24” move and charge!

STOMP STOMP STOMP WAAAGGGGGGGHHHHH!

The big trouble with this (and with any close combat unit that isn't infantry and/or fly) has always been that any sort of terrain hard counters them.

Huge machine with 20 foot long arms with ripping claws? Just stand eight feet up on the second floor of a building, they can't do anything about it. Or jump from one side of a ruin to the other and back again as you lead them on a merry chase.

Yay terrain in 8th edition!

 Swampmist wrote:
So, Hi! Recently returned to 40k player here. I've been on orks for a while, and am surprised to see so much hate for the buggies, especially in reference to the new book. I've been playing 9+ for the past few months (before the pandemic, anyway), and have found success with them. Is the disslike for them simply due to math, or have people found that their issues are borne out on the table?

I'm not aware of any hate towards the buggies. They fall apart at very high competitive levels for multiple reasons, but they are pretty decent otherwise.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Swampmist wrote:
So, Hi! Recently returned to 40k player here. I've been on orks for a while, and am surprised to see so much hate for the buggies, especially in reference to the new book. I've been playing 9+ for the past few months (before the pandemic, anyway), and have found success with them. Is the disslike for them simply due to math, or have people found that their issues are borne out on the table?

I'm not aware of any hate towards the buggies. They fall apart at very high competitive levels for multiple reasons, but they are pretty decent otherwise.

Could you provide some of those reasons? I haven't found that to be the case in testing, but want to get opinions from others.

 Swampmist wrote:
Could you provide some of those reasons? I haven't found that to be the case in testing, but want to get opinions from others.

Well, their biggest problem is that they actually die quite easily to an army that is properly equipped. Going second against an army which relies heavily on long range shooting can mean that three or more of your buggies die before they move. If you have enough high threat-hard to kill targets on the board you can mitigate this, but when my opponents ignore the naut and start shooting buggies first, I'm usually in trouble. Hopefully the burna bommers can help with this now.
There also is the problem with their anti-synergy with boyz. If you run buggies, you want the entire table full of T5+ multi-wound models so stuff like bolters, tesla or lasguns have no good targets, if you run boyz you spend too many points on a profile that does not add to this target saturation. However, you need the utility effect that boyz have to restrict your opponent's movement and his ability to control the table. The only unit which can do that for buggies are warbikers, which are both CP hungry and cost way more points than they should.
They also really struggle with hard targets. T8 and 3++ units are a nightmare to take down, as none of the weapons are particularly effective against them. You are basically forced to ignore them, as you don't actually have lots of units which can tarpit them for long.
Last, you can't just spam 2000 points of buggies - while some of those LVO tables seem to be fairly empty, most boards I play on rarely, if ever, allow for more than two buggies to charge a single unit. Their bases are huge (same as naut) and they cannot move through ruins, so any sort of choke point can create massive issues for you.

When playing I've always uses the momentum of the list to rack up a good lead and keep my opponent busy. If someone manages to break out of this game and bull ahead, you have no real way of getting back into the game, since the army burns out quickly.

There is also the issue of ITC - while no longer as punishing to buggies as they have been, they still value staying power and board control highly, something buggies simply don't do well over extended time periods.

 Jidmah wrote:
Review of Saga of the Beast by Steve Pampreen, arguably the best ork player currently:

https://www.theartofwar40k.com/home/psychic-awakening-ork-review

I think he might be onto something with his grot army, but in general it feels like he is a bit too optimistic in some things.
The good thing is, if he is right and there is a way to make Thrakka work, he is the one that will do so.

I've got some thoughts on grots that I've just dumped below. Killa Kans are fluff wise one of my favourite units and I yearn for the day they become competitive.

I've run similar lists to steves grot army in the past, some in casual games and some in experiments in prep for now cancelled tournies. From my experience Killa Kans are surprisingly tanky if you can resolve their leadership woes, a Killa Kan with a big shoota that's 35 points for 5 T5 3+ wounds. Their melee is average and great when buffed. They can kill a surprising amount of things in melee with a little encouragement. Their shooting is above average but their are half a dozen other ork units that can do the more shooting for less, it's more of a bonus feature for Kans.
Their major downside was their speed. It's way too easy for them to just get kited by faster units. They want to be stuck in melee asap so they can't get shot off by your opponents AT but best case scenario is a turn 2 charge with a turn 3 charge being more realistic.
If you wanted to buff them in anyway before Saga of the Beast you had to lean into heavy character support but I found I would regularly take 3-5 characters dedicated to supporting the Killa Kans. Even with a deffkilla wartrike they're still not fast enough and the rest of the character support adds a huge flat cost to the army. At this point you can really only justify that many characters if you have 18 kans.

I think that Saga of the Beast actually addresses these weaknesses and where it doesn't, makes it less painful to take character support. A combination of either tin heads or grot klan removes the need for a banner nob, taking one is still good but if it dies your kans will still be functional.
Orkymatic pistons is the deal maker for me. You'd still be interested in supporting your kans with a wartrike for the advance and charge but the movement of 9" alone is pretty good. The re-roll advance rule is very cool and I did some maths on it.
If you keep a 3+ then you're expecting an average advance of 4.17 inches, you have a 88.89% chance of 3" or more, and a 66.67% chance of 4" or more.
If you keep a 4+ then you're expecting an average advance of 4.25 inches, you have a 83.33% chance of 3" or more, and a 75% chance of 4" or more.
Without orkymatic pistons you have a 83.33% chance of 2" or more and 66.67% chance of 3" or more, so the re-roll clause buys you an extra inch.
This means that each turn if you advance you're most likely to have at least 12" movement with an average of ~13.2", without orkymatic pistons that number drops to most likely 8" movement with an average of 9.5".

Dirty Gubbinz and Sparkly Bitz also look good, I can see using Dirty Gubbinz on Kan squad 2 for surprisingly tanky unit that screens or sits on objectives. Sparkly Bitz looks good on Kanz but I'd argue it has a better home on a Morkanaut.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Swampmist wrote:
Could you provide some of those reasons? I haven't found that to be the case in testing, but want to get opinions from others.

Well, their biggest problem is that they actually die quite easily to an army that is properly equipped. Going second against an army which relies heavily on long range shooting can mean that three or more of your buggies die before they move. If you have enough high threat-hard to kill targets on the board you can mitigate this, but when my opponents ignore the naut and start shooting buggies first, I'm usually in trouble. Hopefully the burna bommers can help with this now.
There also is the problem with their anti-synergy with boyz. If you run buggies, you want the entire table full of T5+ multi-wound models so stuff like bolters, tesla or lasguns have no good targets, if you run boyz you spend too many points on a profile that does not add to this target saturation. However, you need the utility effect that boyz have to restrict your opponent's movement and his ability to control the table. The only unit which can do that for buggies are warbikers, which are both CP hungry and cost way more points than they should.
They also really struggle with hard targets. T8 and 3++ units are a nightmare to take down, as none of the weapons are particularly effective against them. You are basically forced to ignore them, as you don't actually have lots of units which can tarpit them for long.
Last, you can't just spam 2000 points of buggies - while some of those LVO tables seem to be fairly empty, most boards I play on rarely, if ever, allow for more than two buggies to charge a single unit. Their bases are huge (same as naut) and they cannot move through ruins, so any sort of choke point can create massive issues for you.

When playing I've always uses the momentum of the list to rack up a good lead and keep my opponent busy. If someone manages to break out of this game and bull ahead, you have no real way of getting back into the game, since the army burns out quickly.

There is also the issue of ITC - while no longer as punishing to buggies as they have been, they still value staying power and board control highly, something buggies simply don't do well over extended time periods.

Alright, I appreciate the insights! I want to provide my perspective and discuss, so I'm gonna go point by point here:

1.) I absolutely agree on their fragility. as-so-far I have avoided this problem by just having more of them, but I suspect an army like the prenerf Imperial Fists Artillery Company would be a serious issue for the list.
2.) I do not know that I agree with this point. I have been running 90 gretchin (3 battallions) as the screen and board control portion of the list and have found that to be quite effective. I will agree that boyz seem a bit exspensive for that role, but I also do not believe boyz are the best troop for that role in the faction.
3.) I have actually found the buggies, particularly the Dragsta and Scrapjet, to be very effective against hard targets. While a large amount of invulns does seem to be an issue there, I have not run into many lists that have mass T8 and mass strong invulns. The only example that comes to mind is Knights, who have a 5++ unless presenting you only one knight, which I believe the list(s) can still kill. The buggy list actually has quite a lot of str8 shooting, especially with Deathskullz rerolls to help hit and wound.
4.) I think I agree with this point. The lists, when I've played them, have absolutely lacked in staying power; however, new recon and new behind enemy lines have made it relatively easy for me to rack up scenario points through speed and positioning, especially when combined with Da Jump, Shokkjump Tellyports, ect.

The terrain point I want to address separately, because it is VERY meta specific. I absolutely believe that playing upwards of 10 buggies and a wartrike (which was my first iteration of the list) would be incredibly difficult on the tables available at many gamestores, because they are majorly made up of lots of ruins of various sizes. However, having played buggies on tables built for The Golden Sprue GT (a large LVO primer event in New York that I assisted with this year), which as not just the large L ruins common at many events but also 2-3 forests\craters per table, I have actually found maneuvering the buggies to be an inconvenience, but not a major one.

To give some of my own perspective, I have found the hardest matchup for the list as-so-far has been Grey Knights, just due to how tanky Paladins are. I am going to be testing Smasha guns soon for this exact purpose, since they get around transhuman physiology, but I will fully admit that I had an incredibly hard time into GK with my original list.

IMO the terrain/board control bit is the biggest thing.

Mathhammer is all well and good and vehicles often look really strong in mathhammer but the game is actually played by moving around the board controlling objectives. The only thing that can really do this on a board with a decent amount of terrain is infantry, and, to a lesser extent, non-infantry with the fly keyword.

Gretchin are really underrated for board control...but only if they're able to run around relatively unmolested because you have enough stuff around that people aren't devoting any attention to them. The second anyone turns anything on them, they run away. And if you have an army that's all vehicles except for gretchin, a smart opponent is just going to shoot them off the board T1 and 2 with their anti-infantry guns.

I can confirm massed buggies and terrain aren't friends. Got massacred by admech at one and was seriously hampered in others at a GT last year. Especially playing over the long table edge is terrible. Even before the new PA rules hit I decided ons diversifying with a couple of flyers, dreads and another Chinork. Just to get some more freedom of movement. I also thin the Boomgun Gunwagon might be an interesting choice for this type of list.

Looking into kanz now. How do you guys handle morale for them?

yukishiro1 wrote:


The big trouble with this (and with any close combat unit that isn't infantry and/or fly) has always been that any sort of terrain hard counters them.

Huge machine with 20 foot long arms with ripping claws? Just stand eight feet up on the second floor of a building, they can't do anything about it. Or jump from one side of a ruin to the other and back again as you lead them on a merry chase.

Yay terrain in 8th edition!

Although looked down upon, maybe this is an argument for at least 1 Skorcha if you're playing that sort of list lol.

I generally like the Klaw, saw, 2x KMB Deathskull dreads for that reason, but they don't really need the extra movement like melee dreads do.

 Singleton Mosby wrote:
I can confirm massed buggies and terrain aren't friends. Got massacred by admech at one and was seriously hampered in others at a GT last year. Especially playing over the long table edge is terrible. Even before the new PA rules hit I decided ons diversifying with a couple of flyers, dreads and another Chinork. Just to get some more freedom of movement. I also thin the Boomgun Gunwagon might be an interesting choice for this type of list.

This honestly surprises me, if only because I've found you still get a fair amount of support with 9+ buggies in the list with the CA points drops. I suppose I have been playing with less terrain than the average though, which is good to know.

What about a massed T8 list? A few souped up gorkanauts, the buffed up gunwagons. Maybe with some deffdreads or deffkoptas to act as annoyances? It would likely be pretty shootey heavy with a decent bit of melee in a pinch. Possibly throw some bare bones nob units in the various vehicles to act as shock troops?

We know how well a primary buggy list does from the LVO and our hero/saviour who took ONLY buggies there.

He went 3-3, which is probably about right. There are worst lists and in the hands of a good player they will be OK, but they'll never be top table.

This PA opens up lots of options but I think most of them are cheeky rather than powerful. I'll have to see once I finally get back to playing but I don't think Buggies are going to go to top tier competitive. I do think they'll be fun to play with and potentially frustrating for your opponent, however.

Would Mega Nobs help with some board presence in a vehicle heavy list?

They don't really need the same sort of buffs that regular ork boys need, and anti infantry guns, albeit wounding them like normal, aren't really going to do much against a 2+, 3 wound model.

They don't tie up stuff like Boys / Warbikers can, of course.

I am not, to be clear, advocating for ONLY buggies . Orks still desperately want as many cp as they can get, and honestly grot battalions do a good job of getting there for cheap