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All you've said and proven Shane is that a player who played orks for years with a codex made for 2 full editions (and at the beginning of that at that) got way better when his codex was brought in line. I also played Orks for 8 years before the new dex and managed to win about 75% of my games. Now I have beaten every Ork player i've come up against since I shelved mine to avoid the whiners who will cripple your soft scores for running them.

I generally make it to 2-3 GT's a year and play in RTT's all up and down the California coast and in nevada when i get enough warning. I like how your answer to my experience is to state i haven't played anyone "good" with orks and so don't realize how great they are.

You do realize there are a lot people out there that are genuinely amazing at this game don't;

a) have the money to travel across the country to play in little toy soldier tournements

b) don't have the availability to take off 3 weekends in the fall (that's what hurt my attendance at GT's this year since all 3 were within 3 months of each other)

c) couldn't play in vegas since they sold out ridiculously fast for 40k

I realize to you guys orks are the end of 40k but you still haven't rebutted the lack of transition in 40k by most players to more shots and templates. You ignore that the guy that won all the tournement last year has played orks for years! An out of date and seriously underpowered list for almost a decade (it sucked when it came out) and that his familiarity and ability to play orks is entirely the codex. You suggest the idea that people, instead of creating new tactics, should just shake hands when they go up against an ork player with the same record as them and say good game and go for a beer instead of playing.

You did see that Orks didn't even place in first Indy GT this year right? I'm just curious as to your reason for that since there were ork players there and therefore they should have won, hands down. What last year showed me is Orks are devestating in capable hands. Outside of those players (the 2-3 guys that rocked the non-indy circuit) how high did orks really finish?

Hulksmash wrote:All you've said and proven Shane is that a player who played orks for years with a codex made for 2 full editions (and at the beginning of that at that) got way better when his codex was brought in line. I also played Orks for 8 years before the new dex and managed to win about 75% of my games. Now I have beaten every Ork player i've come up against since I shelved mine to avoid the whiners who will cripple your soft scores for running them.

Umm, the guy that won the Invitational, baltimore, and the circuit never EVER picked up orks before last year. Thanx for bringing up that point though, I didnt even think about that little tidbit before you said anything. Kind of makes orks look easy to win with huh?

I generally make it to 2-3 GT's a year and play in RTT's all up and down the California coast and in nevada when i get enough warning. I like how your answer to my experience is to state i haven't played anyone "good" with orks and so don't realize how great they are.

Fine, what is your usual placement at GT's? Top 10%? Top 10 guys? Top 5? If its not up there then no, you dont realise how great these guys are behind their armies. (This isnt a slight as everyone plays at different skill levels and levels of competetiveness. Please dont take it the wrong way.)

You do realize there are a lot people out there that are genuinely amazing at this game don't;

a) have the money to travel across the country to play in little toy soldier tournements

b) don't have the availability to take off 3 weekends in the fall (that's what hurt my attendance at GT's this year since all 3 were within 3 months of each other)

c) couldn't play in vegas since they sold out ridiculously fast for 40k

This arguement doenst mean a thing. We cannot compare the few people that dont show up. (and its not that hard to make it to a GT if you really want to) What we CAN come to a conclusion with are the 100's of players that DO show up and compare those results. THOSE results show that Orks are dominating....with ease.

You did see that Orks didn't even place in first Indy GT this year right? I'm just curious as to your reason for that since there were ork players there and therefore they should have won, hands down. What last year showed me is Orks are devestating in capable hands. Outside of those players (the 2-3 guys that rocked the non-indy circuit) how high did orks really finish?

So they didnt win at some Indy Tournement. What the ork Codex DID do was dominate all the BIG GT events this past year. Thats enough to back up what blackmoor and I are saying. "They didnt win at Necro." isnt an arguement to the contrary...anything couldve happened, but whatever, the point being is that the larger tournements were taken by the orks....easily.

I think some people are over (and under) estimating the effectiveness of heavy bolters and flamers. It has been said repeatedly in this thread that heavy bolters and flamers are the answer to Orks, but they are not too effective against MEQ. I play Sisters. My list involves heavy bolters, flamers and the odd meltagun. Despite the apparent ineffectiveness of those weapons, my army chews up MEQ and spits them out after four turns, but gets tabled by Orks just as quickly. A Retrubutor Squad with four heavy bolters can expect to kill three Orks a turn, assuming a 4+ cover save (which is almost a given now). If I have 100 Orks in front of me, even if I get five turns of shooting from that squad, I still need to take care of the other 85 Orks with the remaining 4/5 of my list. Flamers, sure, cause a lot of damage, but you have to get close to use them. Real close, and Orks have not invented showers! If you are playing the likes of Sisters or Tau, and you are close enough to use a flamer, you are either killing the last scraps after using everything else in your list, or have already lost. Sure, you can charge them to deny the Furious Charge... and still lose the combat horridly! This small fact does not mean that Orks are automatically over-powered, but it takes more than the simple `heavy bolters and flamers' ``tactic'' being bandied around in this thread. Some of the ``evidence'' that Orks are not powerful is questionable too. Orks struggle to kill a Monolith, therefore they are not over-powered. Did you even read your own words before you posted them? Every army in the game struggles to kill a Monolith. With a S10 PK Warboss, they have as good a chance as most other armies. Sure, a Broadside or three could potentially make short work of a Monolith, but last I checked Orks were not the only army lacking in 72'' S10 Twin-Linked firepower.

I am no Blackmoor. I cannot claim to be half the general he is, but I have both halves of a brain and can see the Nob-sized holes in most of the arguments people are presenting here. The release of the New Orks forces a very definite change to the metagame, as does fifth edition. Gone are the days where las/plas and Nidzilla can hope to dominate the table. I seriously doubt anyone would argue otherwise. I also, however, seriously doubt that the vast majority of players are too stupid to realise that and only the handful of people here claiming that Orks are just as easy to beat as Tau or Necron (given their desperately weak Monolith) have seen the light. Orks have been around long enough for every player to have had their backsides handed back to them once or twice. Even a moron would realise that lascannon was less than optimal against that squad of Shootaboyz. The other options are not that much better. Sure, you could tool up with heavy bolters and maybe a couple of whirlwinds --- after all, everyone not playing Orks plays Space Marines! --- and lay down a lot of hurt on the Orks. Unfortunately, your opponent decided to play an all Battlewagon list and your lack of anti-vehicle screwed you over. This is assuming they were not also playing Space Marines with all heavy bolters and whirlwinds. Or Mech-Eldar. Or one of the other multitude of lists that this would be ineffective against. What are the chances, when you are clearly only going to face hoard Orks!

Sarcasm aside, it is extremely difficult to put together a list that can work against MEQ, mech, hoard and every other list out there. Actually, scratch that. Hoards of Guardsmen or Nids are not so difficult to handle in a balanced list. Hoards of Orks are completely different to these guys. Crunch the numbers on Guardsmen vs Termagaunts vs Shootaboyz and you can see that very clearly! Orks change the metagame, but can the metagame adapt to them? Some armies will really struggle to handle Orks without crippling themselves against every other list around; most armies would have a lot of difficulty, even in the hands of an excellent general.

It's more the army list than the general a lot of times in the big events. Last year Moocher was the undisputed king with Chaos.

G

Another post requesting a little perspective.

These players who are allegedly only winning because they play Orks....where did they place in the oh-so-important GT results before they went Green?

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Another post requesting a little perspective.

These players who are allegedly only winning because they play Orks....where did they place in the oh-so-important GT results before they went Green?

Neal has been a serious competitor for some time. His specialty used to be dark eldar and he's won 1 overall GT and a couple of close passes at best general with them in the past. He was the big winner this year at adepticon and Baltimore. He's specifically said he picked the Ork codex because its easy to win with (his words). He's having a hard time putting it down because of its strength.

Marc Parker won with orks in Vegas. He is no stranger to winning tournements. However, he himself admits to Bikernobs being effectively broken and he's also pretty much touting the Ork Codex as the strongest codex out right now. So while he can win tournement without Orks, he's recognised them for what they are. A higher power level than other codeii right now.

Two good players, one who's always in the top bracket, and another who's struggled for several years to place. Both admit to ork power levels being far and above other codexes, but as competetive players, they choose the strongest codex and make the best list they can in order to maximise their battle points. That is BOTH of their philosophy toward winning in tournement. Hopefully, this gives them the edge they need in order to get top marks....and it has.

double post

Mookie Blaylock wrote:

I've being playing Speed freeks for over two years now and have learned the hard way how to win with them. (especially when the were crap).

My present 1500pt list has no special characters, no lootas and no killkannon battlewagons. It does however have nob bikers (4 Of them!), hardly overkill, 5 meganobs in a trukk (ok they are a bit sick), a battlewagon with a zzap gun, kff, megaboss, 4 buggies and a massive 30 boys (in trukks mind you). Hardly a broken list, yet I still managed to dominate every game i played at a local tourny (we usually have pretty tough competition).

Deadshane wrote:

Once again, local tourneys are not representative of the state of 40k nation/worldwide.

However, your point does serve the overpowered side...you once had to learn the hard way of how to win, but now you dominate....hmmmmm.

What I'm saying is that I win not because I use cheesey units but because I've actually learned how to by playing with the same army for 2 years. For the majority of these games I played with the old extremely out-dated codex and still won!

I will admit that it's easier to win with orks now because we have a codex that doesn't suck. But it is far from the only reason that orks are kicking ass now. Its mainly due to the fact that people still expect orks to suck like they did for the last 2 editions and are then shocked when they get beaten.

I wrote:

Even though playing horde orks isn't too difficult a smart general can defeat it without going totally anti-horde.

Deadshane wrote:

and what evidence to you have to support this conclusion? I'm of the opinion that.....

....not against an equally smart general they wont.

In the last tourny I played in the top two spots were held by an ork battlewagon army of death, and a sisters army similer to blackmoors. Both were very capable generals and had crushed all opposition before they faced each other. When they eventually faced off the sisters absolutly massacered the orks, not a single thing left by the end. So if you're a competant general you can beat orks even without tooling up just to face them.

Still haven't figured out quotes yet so I apologise.

Mookie.

Orks are pretty good.

Its probibly because people have been sucking the green egg for so long, that "The New 5th Edition" line of codex's begged for an upgrade.

As for prospective, people played alot during the second edition, with the wacky platoon sized games, then they moved up to Third edition with overacheving nonshooting orks, but evil hand to hand, to now, with a balence of BOTH hand to hand and shooting. The weapons are good, not excellent, but good enough to do some damage finally.

Remember, too. Its the "New toy in the sandbox." all the kool kidz will play it to death, until the new codex comes out. Then it will be tossed aside and forgotten like all the other ones.

Orks required a different approach to the oldschool throw mobs after mobs and overload an opponent. Now you can halfway manuver your army around the board, don't have alot of distraction with equipment that has odd results, and your army actually works together, istead of killing itself with stupid results or bad rolls.
The 5th Edition streamlined alot of the metagame. The codex's are actually starting to come on line and not so much as be a hinderance, or some sort of trump card, and are being complimentary to the game.

The Ork codex is probibly one of the best ones so far in the new line of Codex's. It's not perfect, but it is a really fun army to play with lots of different options and fun things to try.

They arn't the best, but that doesn't matter. They have options and the army is fun.

Other horde armies are not like ork hordes. Others have said it, I say it again. I've always tried to make a Tyranid horde army work, but competitively, there wasn't a way around nidzillas in 4th and I don't think it has changed in 5th if it hasn't become worse. I normally don't compare units crosscodexial, but what's better than the basic shootaboy point for point? Or a Loota for ranged firepower?
Another problem is that everything will die if you throw enoguh dice at it. And the good ork units use this principle (or why are flash gits not used?).

I guess my uncompetitive eldar army had a chance against an uncompetitive ork army in my area, but that is not the point of the discussion here.

Greets
Schepp himself

Orkeosaurus wrote:
People expect to be able to build lists that emphasize killing tanks and MEQs, and still beat hordes, because up until the ork codex all the horde armies were low tier.

Now people go up against a horde army that's as powerful as the big mech and MEQ armies, and they don't understand why they have so much trouble beating them.

I never, ever had trouble with a MEQ army, even with a balanced list. I never expected to be able to be able to build one way and still beat up hordes. That's why I switched my list around.

In fact I know why people have trouble beating them: because Orks are undercosted. Yeah I'll be okay with Orks when Guardsmen are 4 points and Leman Russes fire turbolasers and Ogryns are as strong as Wraithlords.

But this is only because I'll be fighting fire with fire.

I do agree that hordes sucked, but the solution was like taking a machine gun to a paintball gun match. The solution was over the top.

Yes, because 6 point models with Str 4, WS4, and T4 with 4 attacks, and that are practically fearless are REALLY balanced.

I should at least be able to squeak out a win if a use a balanced list. In all honesty, I'm actually kind of afraid of what will happen when I go against my friend's Dark Angels with my current Eldar army.

I don't care that hordes are good now. It's perfectly fine as it makes sense. Orks and hordes are like peanut butter and jelly. I don't care about that.

But they're underpriced, and that's my problem.

First of all, yeah you're really giving this an unbiased viewpoint by quoting the ork statline on the charge without mentioning it.

Second, I don't see why you think that you should be able to "squeek out a win" every time you play; are you just that great of a tactician or something? Maybe feeling entiled to a win is part of your problem?

Third, the problem is that "balanced" lists are not balanced correctly. "Balanced" has meant anti-MEQ, ant-armor, and anti-monstrous creature with some anti-horde occasionally thrown in as an afterthought for quite a while now. It's not like that anymore. Change your perception of what constitutes a "balanced list," so that it includes more anti-horde than it did before.

And yes, 180 boys are going to be hard for a balanced list to kill, but it's no different from 8 monstrous creatures, or 5 land raiders, or any other army that spams something to the breaking point. And it's not the cause of the problem any more than the other spamming lists are.

Hahaha, this is yet another reason why one should not be debating if they've only had 3 hours' sleep. My bad, I totally forgot FC.

No I don't believe that I have some pre-ordained right to win every single battle that I ever play in. I understand that losing is all part of figuring everything out.

But even when I've switched around my lists and my tactics, and I still lose? What the heck is that?

As for your third point, my army is balanced pretty well, with anti-Horde, and anti-MEQ. I don't play against Monstrous Creatures at all (in fact I'm the only one with them.) Same with Vehicles, they're pretty rare. Luckily there's no Land Raiders.

Okay, so my IG army is pretty balanced. (My Eldar is not, they are very, very anti-horde.) My friend says that I chose all of the right targets in both games where I lost to Orks. I made the right tactical decisions, all he did was move his guys forward and he won.

It's the first horde army to have a codex for this edition. Of course it changed the meta game. I'm not saying it's not a strong codex. I just don't think it's the ball buster you guys do.

Oh and as for my record at GT's when i play 40k (took a break to play fantasy for a year) i generally finish in the top 10%. I generally go 4-1 or at worst 3-1-1. I haven't lost more than one game in any GT i've ever attended for 40k (even back when there were 6 games). And i didn't take offense at that. It's an excellent question.

My question is why do you discount the first indy GT of the year? they are on the circuit. They count toward the results for the year. What you were saying is orks is an easier win and I pointed out that at the first GT this year they didn't dominate. We'll see how the second indy GT goes this weekend and i'll post the results (even if it slaps egg in my face ).

I thought i had read that neil had played orks before this codex i apologize for having my information incorrect and yes that does lend credence to your arguement except that he primairely plays the other most outdated codex that needs excellent strategy just to compete.

And I agree w/Elric that it's not as simple as using flamers and heavy bolters. Flamers, mobility, other template weapons (ie rocket launchers, plasma cannons), ordinance of all flavors, lots of shots, and assault units are all ways to deal with orks. Now you'll need more than just one or two of these to beat orks but these are things that are useful against all othe opponents too so your list should be build around them anyway. Just some thoughts.

I'll just weigh in on Blackmoor/Deadshane's side on this. I'm a fairly competative player (#12 on circuit last year) and they more or less said what I think. Orks are the strongest codex, full stop.

Blackmoor played the eldar back in their heyday with much glee. He had Eldrad, the Avatar, Harlequins and tooled Falcons. I am a bit surprised to see my buddy vex the luck of the green tide. Maybe IG will be the answer to the horde.

Already orks did not take the first GT for this year. I doubt they will win more than half of this year's events to be honest.

G

It's all how you play them and how you setup.


A split firebase is incredibly effective against orks. Especially considering how much damage it can do to them.

Outflanking and Deepstriking units are perfect to get and deal with Shootas.

Bikes Tear ork boy squads to pieces.

You don't have to play a marine army geared specifically to defeat orks. You just have to play smart.


I've never been beaten by a ork player period. Even with the nasty 20 nob biker squad.

It's not that their bad generals its that I know what to sacrifice.

edit:

Thats not to say its not a incredibly powerful army just out of the gate.

If orks are so overly powerful, why doesn't every single competitive person take them to the tournaments?

Tazok wrote:If orks are so overly powerful, why doesn't every single competitive person take them to the tournaments?

I hate orks. From the gates of hell I spit at them!

I try not to play the most powerful army. I could hit the "Easy Button" and play Iron Warriors in 3rd and 4th edition, Chaos with 2 lashes and 9 Oblits, or Orks. I choose not to.

I will also say that there are different kinds of ork players. There are those players that take everything in the codex and throw them together in a haphazard manner that playing whatever units they like or have access to, and those that build a list with units that work well together and compliment each other. The second type is hard to beat.

Also there are armies that work better against orks then others. Blood Angels, Chaos, Demons and Witchhunters have a better chance to beat the orks then other armies.

I play BA so that is probably why I am non-plussed by them.

G

Wow, this is a hell of a thread.

I have to say I almost wish I didn't basically give up 40k when 5th ed Hit, since my favorite army is now "top tier"; but for now WHFB is my game.

Seriously though, I find it laughable that somehow Ork's aren't universally seen as one of the Top Tier armies in 5th.

Lootas & Shoota spam in 4th ed was fantastic and everything I played against with that list died; 5th ed only ended up making it much worse since you can bring your own cover saves with you.

Granted, I would think that the list should have some predators in 5th Ed, I theory-hammer that a Tau force with Railheads Submunition + Markerlights to remove cover saves would seriously put the Kabosh on an Ork Horde like that; but Tau suck so bad against all the other armies in 5th that it seems like they're a non-factor now.

Against most other lists Horde Orks are ridiculously good and have answer to just about anything, although I can see some armies giving them some problems (Lash Chaos), but still anything that has a chance at shooting them down can be adapted to via Snikrot since those armies tend to be very squishy against Orks in H2H.

And then finally there's the combination of wonderfully inept GW Rules Writing in 5th that gave birth to Nob Bikers, who used that stupidity to gain slow Strength and be the Mech Eldar of 5th ed.

Now we have a unit that has very few weaknesses that GW will have to release some kind of unit/ability that will negate them in a future army book, or they will be the stupid "push forward, charge, win" army.

Still, I kind of laugh at all the complaints against Orks in 40k v5. If you guys think that 40k is imbalanced you should take a look at WHFB right now.

Maybe this is a better question. How do lists tailored with a greater emphasis on fighting orks do against other armies? If the IG codex is similarly powerful the dreaded metagame may begin to shift to a non-MEQ standard.

Maybe they have it all planned out as a complex game of rock paper scissors. Orks beat marines, guard beat orks, and marines beat guard. Making it all fair again, heres dreaming.

Frazzled wrote: If the IG codex is similarly powerful the dreaded metagame may begin to shift to a non-MEQ standard.

Let's only hope. Then we'll have properly fluffy games of 40K.

Blackmoor wrote:
I try not to play the most powerful army. I could hit the "Easy Button" and play Iron Warriors in 3rd and 4th edition, Chaos with 2 lashes and 9 Oblits, or Orks. I choose not to.

Looking at your old posts I see you were going to take 1 Lash and 9 Obliterators to Adepticon 08. But then you decided to just go with Eldard, Avatar, Harlies and only 2 super-Falcons. Good job holding back and not hitting the Easy Button. I assume you used to play IW with only 3 pie-plates and 6 Oblits?

Threads like this and questions like that from the 'Frazz make me want to play 40k again, you're bad people.

But I have to ask the same question as The 'Frazz as a former 40k player looking in on the current state of 5th, with only a few play test games of 5th under my belt.

I would think the answer is very obvious: Tooling to fight the Horde should have little impact on fighting against MEQ's in 5th.

Here are my assertions*:

#1) Cover saves all over the stupid place means that AP2/AP3 weapons aren't going to be nearly as effective against MEQ's.

#2) Single Shot/long range anti-tank also went out of style in 5th Ed thanks to Cover and the new Vehicle rules, with Melta's & CC being the best way to Slag any kind of Armor skimmer or not.

#3) Given the previous points, why isn't it best to go the Godzilla route and just kill stuff in the game just by making them roll as many saves as possible? 3+ Saves sure as hell don't hold up all that well to lots of dice rolls. If they did then Godzilla wouldn't ever have worked nearly as well as it did back in the day.

#4) Assaults can clear out MEQ's quickly, especially from HQ units. The only hard part is ensuring you get the assaults or that you don't die from the counter attack since 5th has made it such that you can't guarantee safety from shooting in assault anymore, or use terrain as effectively to "pounce" and get charges without taking any fire.

This is obviously the direction GW has pushed 40k in 5th edition with the introduction of Cover, and the whole "use lots of shots" mantra has been pushed by GW Developers since the Nid Codex, but in a more obvious way since the Eldar codex came out and removed the old AP2 style with tons of shots. The Orks again prove they just want players to roll tons of dice and kill those Marines, so they don't have to hear complaints about "this army has too much AP2/AP3, NERF THEM!".

* I am going to out and out say that I have very little 40k 5th Experience compared to other players here like Blackmoore, Shane, GBF, etc. I'm more than willing to admit being wrong on these assumptions, but from my experience I see them as true in the current environment.

Orks rule all, accept it and eat it!

lord_blackfang wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:
I try not to play the most powerful army. I could hit the "Easy Button" and play Iron Warriors in 3rd and 4th edition, Chaos with 2 lashes and 9 Oblits, or Orks. I choose not to.

Looking at your old posts I see you were going to take 1 Lash and 9 Obliterators to Adepticon 08. But then you decided to just go with Eldard, Avatar, Harlies and only 2 super-Falcons. Good job holding back and not hitting the Easy Button. I assume you used to play IW with only 3 pie-plates and 6 Oblits?

Sour grapes said the red fox.

G

lord_blackfang wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:
I try not to play the most powerful army. I could hit the "Easy Button" and play Iron Warriors in 3rd and 4th edition, Chaos with 2 lashes and 9 Oblits, or Orks. I choose not to.

Looking at your old posts I see you were going to take 1 Lash and 9 Obliterators to Adepticon 08. But then you decided to just go with Eldard, Avatar, Harlies and only 2 super-Falcons. Good job holding back and not hitting the Easy Button. I assume you used to play IW with only 3 pie-plates and 6 Oblits?

So he took a tournament army to one of the hardest events in the year. That's a given for any good tourney player.

Of course, he's also the guy who took Sisters w/ Inquisitors, & Storm Troopers to the LVGT. That proves his point about actually taking non established power builds to a large event.

SoMe people were proclaiMing WH as top tier when 5e first rolled out.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:SoMe people were proclaiMing WH as top tier when 5e first rolled out.

G

I don't think they were thinking about a list with Storm Troopers, Chimeras, and Inquisitors when they were saying that.

Most of that talk was about the fact that Sisters with Flamers already killed MEQ's with divine guidance, and the fact that they have a hugely undercosted troop choice that was pretty good at sticking around for a long while.

I'm in the camp that thinks orks got too easy to win with, which is unfortunate as they're my favourite army to model, paint and collect. I really haven't played with my boyz since the adepticon gladiator last year.