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Tell ya what, I would love to play you then, because I have not had a positive record against orks for about 3 editions now... granted... I play against Mega Nobs, bikes, multiple war bosses, boys spam, almost always Mad Doc...

I am actually really surprised the one you won was against a very strong nid list (2 flyrants is pretty beast)...

I sent you a PM as well

I still stand that the current Ork codex is very strong, and if I have to rank it on the above poll scale, it would very easily in the Upper Mid Tier, or even in Top honestly.

I'd be more than happy to share any tactics/advice that I can to help anyone out that is having trouble winning games, but Orks stand a chance against any codex out there very easily IMHO.

Btothefnrock wrote:
I still stand that the current Ork codex is very strong, and if I have to rank it on the above poll scale, it would very easily in the Upper Mid Tier, or even in Top honestly.

I'd be more than happy to share any tactics/advice that I can to help anyone out that is having trouble winning games, but Orks stand a chance against any codex out there very easily IMHO.

Which units do you use? Do you use one of the formations from Waaagh! Ghazghkull?

He goes back and forth between green tide and bully boys... and uses mega nobs and large shoota boy squads as well as doc and bikes and warboss on bike and war boss in mega armor with lucky stick

I typically play straight from the Codex, but I've also like using the Bully Boys and Green Tide from W!G from time to time.

My builds straight from the codex at the 1500-1850 range that work very well are based from something like this-

Start by knowing you NEED two CAD's. Orks do not function well above 1000pts without more HQ slots. I'm just posting the basis, so I would need to fill in the 2 other troop choices and fill out the rest of the list from here.

My 3 main units.

Warboss- Bike, PK, Finkin' Kap.
Painboy- Bike
3 Warbikers- Nob PK BP


Warboss- MA, DLS
20 Shoota Boys- Nob PK BP


Mad Doc
20 Shoota Boys- Nob PK



Like I said, obviously this is just the beginning of a list, but if you start from here and build outward, you have an INCREDIBLY strong base to build from. I tend to add a Mek to both Boys squads, and maybe an Ork or a few to Grotsniks squad, but the key here is to put enough of a threat on the table while keeping points costs down. 5+ FNP paired with any cover you can muster works exceedingly well against many opponents.

Plenty of people are going to look at this and think "But hey, none of those squads are that great". But what you have to look at is the board control, the difficulty factor of removing these guys, and the power they do have. Every unit is capable of taking on Light infantry. Every unit can fight a MC if needed. Every unit can fend off walkers, and destroy AV14 vehicles. Its redundancy which wins Orks games, and these three units are capable of winning you games by themselves.


Sheer small arms fire will remove most "elite" units from the table, as well as the benefit that most of your opponents expensive weapons upgrades are all but worthless against these guys.

The Warboss's are capable of breaking off and destroying other threats if needed. The Staying power of the two blobs are incredible honestly- Many people say you should upgrade the boys to ArdBoys, but at 2/3 the cost of another boy, I'd rather have more bodies. You also have (effectively) 3 Warboss's. No, they aren't going to be taking on SM Chapter masters 1v1 and winning often, but they will nearly always cause your side to win any combat, which is how I play it. Don't drive headlong into their deathstar units unless its the only option, and if it is, hit it with more than one of these squads and you will often be surprised how long you tarpit them, or end up winning. Overwatch can go very well with ~40 shots (not often, but hey, its fun when you kill half of a TAS)



As for other units, I typically field 2+ MANz missiles (distractions/deadly. DONT FIELD JUST ONE, or it will never make combat), some lootas, one or two SINGLE deffkoptas (objective grabbers), one or two SINGLE Lobba's (also for camping objectives), sometimes min units of gretchin, sometimes 12 shoota boys (NO Nob) in trukks (objective guys), units of KMK or other Mek Guns.

Most of the other units in the codex are just not very good in a competitive manor. (Tankbustas can be great if spammed, but tricky to play well). Kans, Dreads, Flashgits, Nobs, Wagons, etc... they just aren't very good for their points, and tend to be easily destroyed before doing anything. Think about it like this- your opponent has a devistator squad w 4 LC... would you rather lose a 35pt Trukk or a 100+ Wagon, because both are likely to die from that one squad shooting at it. Yes, Trukks are AV10, and can be killed by basically looking at them... but the fact is you start just over 24" away from the enemy, so if you can block LOS or be out of range of most of their AT guns, you will get to move at least ONE time (which is all the MANz will ever need, hehehe)

I also strongly recommend against taking any upgrades on trukks other than the Ram, or any upgrades on ANYTHING that isn't necessary for the function of the unit for that matter- take more bodies instead.

I normally have the two large blobs middle/offset middle, and the biker squad on one flank, MAN's on the opposite (depending on opponent/terrain). I send the bikers to deal with easy to kill targets first normally, aka artillery, tanks, small squads, basically anything that I should be able to take few causalities from, and will help my blobs stay alive as well as. Warboss on bike is pretty resilient against most anything other than massed small arms fire.

Sorry for veering off topic thru that a bit, let me know if I left something vague or if you have any other questions about it.

 Crablezworth wrote:
There was sadly no hot garbage option so I put bottom tier.

This codex made me sell 4000+ points worth of lovingly converted and fully painted orks, I'll leave it at that.

Made you? It held a shoot a to your head? Why on earth would you do that? Its so irrational.

The rate they are redoing codexes you had maybe a 2 year wait on the outside, and they are still reasonably crunchy in 3 or 4 builds. What a rash decision.

 Silverthorne wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
There was sadly no hot garbage option so I put bottom tier.

This codex made me sell 4000+ points worth of lovingly converted and fully painted orks, I'll leave it at that.

Made you? It held a shoot a to your head? Why on earth would you do that? Its so irrational.

The rate they are redoing codexes you had maybe a 2 year wait on the outside, and they are still reasonably crunchy in 3 or 4 builds. What a rash decision.

The codex is so bad it even inappropriately groped my house plant and generally made a mess of things.

 Silverthorne wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
There was sadly no hot garbage option so I put bottom tier.

This codex made me sell 4000+ points worth of lovingly converted and fully painted orks, I'll leave it at that.

Made you? It held a shoot a to your head? Why on earth would you do that? Its so irrational.

The rate they are redoing codexes you had maybe a 2 year wait on the outside, and they are still reasonably crunchy in 3 or 4 builds. What a rash decision.

maybe he got fed up with the lack of Feths given to the Orks since he started playing. We had a codex in 4th edition and finally got a new one in 7th edition. And instead of fixing a lot of hte problems with the older codex they nerfed the good units and increased the usefulness of some of the weaker units. They also gave us 1 new unit that is great (Mek Gunz) and then 2 that sucked (Naughts and flash gitz)

 Ghazkuul wrote:

 Silverthorne wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
There was sadly no hot garbage option so I put bottom tier.

This codex made me sell 4000+ points worth of lovingly converted and fully painted orks, I'll leave it at that.

Made you? It held a shoot a to your head? Why on earth would you do that? Its so irrational.

The rate they are redoing codexes you had maybe a 2 year wait on the outside, and they are still reasonably crunchy in 3 or 4 builds. What a rash decision.

maybe he got fed up with the lack of Feths given to the Orks since he started playing. We had a codex in 4th edition and finally got a new one in 7th edition. And instead of fixing a lot of hte problems with the older codex they nerfed the good units and increased the usefulness of some of the weaker units. They also gave us 1 new unit that is great (Mek Gunz) and then 2 that sucked (Naughts and flash gitz)

Stop making excellent points and bringing facts into this ghaz. clearly it's my personal failure for expecting to enjoy playing with the army I've sunk hundreds of hours into birthing into this world. I'm just a bad person and should feel bad

Flashgits can be pretty dang good if played right, but still pretty meh overall.

Btothefnrock wrote:
Flashgits can be pretty dang good if played right, but still pretty meh overall.

The models are great, I'll say that much

There are some very capable Ork builds, but they also have some rather very powerful hardcounters. Overall, I'd rate them "solidly mid tier", with some potential to be stronger, but an average that's often lower.

But definitely far below the top tier armies in the game by far when considering a rather typical Ork army.

I don't find it fair to say they are lowered "considering a rather typical army"

In that logic, SM are terrible too, because if you don't play Gladius, white scars, Steel Rhein, etc, they are terrible.

Btothefnrock wrote:
I don't find it fair to say they are lowered "considering a rather typical army"

In that logic, SM are terrible too, because if you don't play Gladius, white scars, Steel Rhein, etc, they are terrible.

except that your average SM army will typically bring centurions with Grav weapons or failing that they will bring Biker grav weapons which makes the army as a whole pretty good.

Compared to the ork equivalent, Mek Gunz...yeah we get to pay a very good price for a S8 AP2 small blast that can Get Hot and scatter a feth ton.

Biker grav only gets you so far. BA can do it and are still really bad.

Martel732 wrote:
Biker grav only gets you so far. BA can do it and are still really bad.

thats because you didn't get half the stuff that Codex SM got. You dont get better dreads or cheaper terminators (why you would use them i dont know) nor do you benefit from all the other upgrades that SM's got.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The point I was making was in regards to Bto who said that SM essentially suck unless you take them in one of 3 formations.

 Ghazkuul wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Biker grav only gets you so far. BA can do it and are still really bad.

thats because you didn't get half the stuff that Codex SM got. You dont get better dreads or cheaper terminators (why you would use them i dont know) nor do you benefit from all the other upgrades that SM's got.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The point I was making was in regards to Bto who said that SM essentially suck unless you take them in one of 3 formations.

They don't suck per se, but they certainly are much weaker.

I consider the Orks to be a mid tier codex. I still stubbornly hold that the extra layer of randomness they Orks bring to the table makes them just as unreliable at being a bottom tier army as it does with being a top tier army.
The randomness aside. I'm actually happy we can count a few units and formations as competitive in of themselves because in general I don't see the Ork army as the type of army that has an assortment of good and bad to cherry pick out of. They are all boyz with different toyz for different jobs and none are really spectacular. The strength I see, is as someone else has put it, is the Orks ability to really mess with target priorities of the opponant. We can afford to field redundancy, and redundancy we should field. Lost a trukk? Got 4 more. Lost 30 boyz? Got 90 More. Lost a tankbusta unit? Got another tankbusta unit of 15 etc... Orks have the ability to field units large enough and with so much wounds that it takes multiple units from the enemy to dish out that many wounds and in some case like the Green Tide with 101-301 models or Vulcha Skwad with 16-91 model. But even then the amount of 30 model blob we can field can leave the opponant wishing he/she brought more heavy bolters.

 ProwlerPC wrote:
I consider the Orks to be a mid tier codex. I still stubbornly hold that the extra layer of randomness they Orks bring to the table makes them just as unreliable at being a bottom tier army as it does with being a top tier army.
The randomness aside. I'm actually happy we can count a few units and formations as competitive in of themselves because in general I don't see the Ork army as the type of army that has an assortment of good and bad to cherry pick out of. They are all boyz with different toyz for different jobs and none are really spectacular. The strength I see, is as someone else has put it, is the Orks ability to really mess with target priorities of the opponant. We can afford to field redundancy, and redundancy we should field. Lost a trukk? Got 4 more. Lost 30 boyz? Got 90 More. Lost a tankbusta unit? Got another tankbusta unit of 15 etc... Orks have the ability to field units large enough and with so much wounds that it takes multiple units from the enemy to dish out that many wounds and in some case like the Green Tide with 101-301 models or Vulcha Skwad with 16-91 model. But even then the amount of 30 model blob we can field can leave the opponant wishing he/she brought more heavy bolters.

So you think that Killa Kanz, Dreads, Stompas, Morkanauts, Gorkanauts, Nobz, Nob bikers, Burna boyz, Flash gitz, Ghazghkuul thraka and Storm boyz (thats about 2/3rds the codex) are upper mid or even just plain middle tier? I personally dont think Mega nobz are good because they are expensive and have no way of dealing with AP2 besides taking the wound, unless god forbid it was S8 or higher. But i didn't throw them in because people like them. SO please explain to me why they are mid tier.

Orks aren't exactly 'top tier', but they aren't nearly as bad as a lot of people seem to think. I've had to reevaluate my look on the army recently, and realized as far as armies go, our book is pretty well rounded.

What makes Orks feel so 'bottom tier' is two primary things. Our ballistic skill, and how congested some of our slots are. In an edition that favors heavy shooting, Orks still struggle to hit their mark, despite volume of shots. This hurts a lot when we rely on our rather solid weapon options to cripple things for the melee-centric units to finish them off.

I think if we had a form of Mek Gun that had more shots to take advantage of the rare BS 3 in our book, we'd be a lot better off. As it is, our Lootas are just a bit too unreliable with random shot output and a BS2 on top of the random...

Which goes into our congested slots. The choice between heavy transports, heavy artillery, or heavy sniping units in addition to our various walkers or the still confusing Flash Gitz, it makes it rough sometimes to find proper balance in our ranged support. Our HQ slots are also competing for room because our generic HQs are all really solid all around. Especially the fantastic Painboy.

Our army on a COMPETITIVE level suffers because of comp systems. If we're allowed multi detachments, that is where Orks begin to shine. We are an army of redundancy. If we are denied having extras of what we need...well...it's just an uphill struggle.

I rarely get squished without a massive fight in my games. Then again, I never ever play just one detachment. I'll fill out two if I have too. I know I need those extra painboyz. I know i'll need a boss/b. mek or two to get the job done. I know if I'm running a walker army, I'll need lots of Kanz to support the Dreads, while also needing to pack artillery to hammer things while my tin cans waddle up the field.

DA best

 Ghazkuul wrote:


So you think that Killa Kanz, Dreads, Stompas, Morkanauts, Gorkanauts, Nobz, Nob bikers, Burna boyz, Flash gitz, Ghazghkuul thraka and Storm boyz (thats about 2/3rds the codex) are upper mid or even just plain middle tier? I personally dont think Mega nobz are good because they are expensive and have no way of dealing with AP2 besides taking the wound, unless god forbid it was S8 or higher. But i didn't throw them in because people like them. SO please explain to me why they are mid tier.

You are right on (other than the Manz, they are great) about all of these guys being the suck. I would also add Kommandos and Big Mek to that list. And Storm Boys might be ok, but I've never had great luck with them.


Lots of codices have multiple low tier units though- For exmple SM have Honor Guard, Vanguard Veterans, Centurion Assault Squads, Assault Squads, Land Speeder Storm (I actually love these things), Hunter, Stalker, Whirlwind, Predator, Land Raider, Land Raider Redeemer, and a majority of their characters (though some are very good). Not to mention that most SM players complain about scouts and Tactical Squads being terrible compared to other armies troops.

It still comes down to list building and play style no matter which army someone is playing.


Consider this guys:

You are playing a game against your friend who owns Space Marines. He loves the way the Honor Guard models look, and uses a bunch of them. He also likes the idea of 6 Land Speeder Storms swooping across the field, with scouts repelling down and taking objectives/etc. The rest of his list is Hunters and a Chaplain. How powerful is this guys army going to be vs someone playing a proper Gladius list?


This is what I see happening with ork players- "Oh I want to field a KFF Mek on bike to protect my two units of 15 Burnas in the 2 battle wagons kitted out" because they like the idea of it working.



Point is, there are "bad" units in every codex, and bad builds that are easily made. Therefore, its unfair to compare anything but the "cream of the crop" lists from each Codex, else you are comparing Apples to Oranges.

 Ghazkuul wrote:






Point is, there are "bad" units in every codex, and bad builds that are easily made. Therefore, its unfair to compare anything but the "cream of the crop" lists from each Codex, else you are comparing Apples to Oranges.

Ther problem for me is there are far more lists/direction/themes with marines that can still work for the most part to varying degrees effectiveness, I simply don't think that's true for the latest iteration of orks. The old codex, I could comfortable do about 3 builds that I liked, the latest dex offers me none of the prior 3 and anything that works to some baseline degree of effectiveness isn;t fun to play with (oh look, tankbustas in battlewagons).

You know, these recent Ork threads have literally been Bizarro World threads about Eldar. They go almost EXACTLY the same.

Eldar threads go -

Non Eldar Player: X is broken

Eldar Player: Nah, they aren't cuz X

and the cycle goes on and on with the 'that guy' Eldar player never really conceding that his book is good. He instead proceeds to counter every single valid point with a 'yeah but' statement and no one can convince him the book is near busted.

These Ork threads have been the EXACT opposite.

Ork Player: Our book sucks!

Non Ork; Nah dude, seriously, you got x, x, x, x going for you! It's not that bad.

Ork player then proceeds to counter every point with anecdotals like the Eldar player or over blows the weaknesses of x, x, x and x. No matter how many valid points the Non Ork players (or even Ork players) make in favor of the book, the complaining Ork player will never concede that his book isn't as bad as he says it is and can always find new ways that their book sucks.

Edited to fix spelling

Edited to add on

While on the topic:

I personally am glad we aren't a power house army. I'm glad we are quite easily middle of the pack right now. Wanna know why? Because aspiring to be the newest Eldar/Cron/Marine dex isn't fun. Being the army that everyone groans/rolls their eyes at...isn't fun. You see how badly these players get treated, no matter how fluffy/casual/waac these particular individuals play. I am not eager to be on that end of the hate train simply for having an army I love, yet suddenly everyone turns their back on because we got a few busted things.

Do I wish our book had a FEW extra little touches, or wished a few changes HADN'T happened. Durr. Of course I do. But as it stands, my book is still super fun to play. Everyone state wide has no qualms about playing my Orks, and people ENJOY the games we play. It's never an eye roll fest to the point where your eyes actually HURT. The book still has some great tools in it, some new good tools, and can typically put up a solid fight outside of cheese fests (Which ANY army is going to struggle against.

The just compared Eldar to Orks.....

Anyway, im glad your local meta lets you be relatively competitive. The area im in is filled with FW shenanigans and Eldar shenanigans, Green Tide doesn't work because of the Bike spam which eats swathes of my models every turn, Gun line doesn't work because....were orks. And the most success I have had is being sneaky with Bikes, trukkz and BW's filled with boyz.

I don't want our dex to be the next Eldar dex, what i want is GW to make a balanced game that allows me to play with more of the units in my fething codex and not have to start at a distinct disadvantage.

 Ghazkuul wrote:

Spoiler:

Melevolence wrote:
You know, these recent Ork threads have literally been Bizarro World threads about Eldar. They go almost EXACTLY the same.

Eldar threads go -

Non Eldar Player: X is broken

Eldar Player: Nah, they aren't cuz X

and the cycle goes on and on with the 'that guy' Eldar player never really conceding that his book is good. He instead proceeds to counter every single valid point with a 'yeah but' statement and no one can convince him the book is near busted.

These Ork threads have been the EXACT opposite.

Ork Player: Our book sucks!

Non Ork; Nah dude, seriously, you got x, x, x, x going for you! It's not that bad.

Ork player then proceeds to counter every point with anecdotals like the Eldar player or over blows the weaknesses of x, x, x and x. No matter how many valid points the Non Ork players (or even Ork players) make in favor of the book, the complaining Ork player will never concede that his book isn't as bad as he says it is and can always find new ways that their book sucks.

Edited to fix spelling

Edited to add on

While on the topic:

I personally am glad we aren't a power house army. I'm glad we are quite easily middle of the pack right now. Wanna know why? Because aspiring to be the newest Eldar/Cron/Marine dex isn't fun. Being the army that everyone groans/rolls their eyes at...isn't fun. You see how badly these players get treated, no matter hoaw fluffy/casual/waac these particular individuals play. I am not eager to be on that end of the hate train simply for having an army I love, yet suddenly everyone turns their back on because we got a few busted things.

Do I wish our book had a FEW extra little touches, or wished a few changes HADN'T happened. Durr. Of course I do. But as it stands, my book is still super fun to play. Everyone state wide has no qualms about playing my Orks, and people ENJOY the games we play. It's never an eye roll fest to the point where your eyes actually HURT. The book still has some great tools in it, some new good tools, and can typically put up a solid fight outside of cheese fests (Which ANY army is going to struggle against.

The just compared Eldar to Orks.....

Anyway, im glad your local meta lets you be relatively competitive. The area im in is filled with FW shenanigans and Eldar shenanigans, Green Tide doesn't work because of the Bike spam which eats swathes of my models every turn, Gun line doesn't work because....were orks. And the most success I have had is being sneaky with Bikes, trukkz and BW's filled with boyz.

I don't want our dex to be the next Eldar dex, what i want is GW to make a balanced game that allows me to play with more of the units in my fething codex and not have to start at a distinct disadvantage.

Correction, I compared threads. Not factions.

Melevolence wrote:
You know, these recent Ork threads have literally been Bizarro World threads about Eldar. They go almost EXACTLY the same.

Eldar threads go -

Non Eldar Player: X is broken

Eldar Player: Nah, they aren't cuz X

and the cycle goes on and on with the 'that guy' Eldar player never really conceding that his book is good. He instead proceeds to counter every single valid point with a 'yeah but' statement and no one can convince him the book is near busted.

These Ork threads have been the EXACT opposite.

Ork Player: Our book sucks!

Non Ork; Nah dude, seriously, you got x, x, x, x going for you! It's not that bad.

Ork player then proceeds to counter every point with anecdotals like the Eldar player or over blows the weaknesses of x, x, x and x. No matter how many valid points the Non Ork players (or even Ork players) make in favor of the book, the complaining Ork player will never concede that his book isn't as bad as he says it is and can always find new ways that their book sucks.

Edited to fix spelling

Edited to add on

While on the topic:

I personally am glad we aren't a power house army. I'm glad we are quite easily middle of the pack right now. Wanna know why? Because aspiring to be the newest Eldar/Cron/Marine dex isn't fun. Being the army that everyone groans/rolls their eyes at...isn't fun. You see how badly these players get treated, no matter how fluffy/casual/waac these particular individuals play. I am not eager to be on that end of the hate train simply for having an army I love, yet suddenly everyone turns their back on because we got a few busted things.

Do I wish our book had a FEW extra little touches, or wished a few changes HADN'T happened. Durr. Of course I do. But as it stands, my book is still super fun to play. Everyone state wide has no qualms about playing my Orks, and people ENJOY the games we play. It's never an eye roll fest to the point where your eyes actually HURT. The book still has some great tools in it, some new good tools, and can typically put up a solid fight outside of cheese fests (Which ANY army is going to struggle against.

I read an article once that hits on what you're getting at. I'll link it, as it's some interesting stuff...

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/

I am not an Ork player, but I thought I would piggyback a question here to those who are.

My first thought about Orks and seventh edition was: "damn, overwatch must suck!". Everybody in the game outshoots Orks, so they presumably want to get into combat instead, but overwatch would brutalise them (lots of shots, enough wounds, no saves). I wish I could have used my Sisters' Flamers to kill of charging Orks back in fifth edition!

The only game I have played against them in seventh was running a melee-heavy Nids list, so overwatch was less of a concern than 'who gets the bonus attacks for charging'

Well Overwatch is a great idea, but flawed when it comes to the tabletop because there is literally no downside to firing it.

Anyhoo, my only quarrel with the Ork Codex is that every other 7th Codex released in 2014 seemed to be balanced against each other, right up until the new CEO came in and gave us the Decurion and the power creep ramped up ten-fold.

I'd rather the perceived OP Codexes/formations be toned down to the level of the 2014 Codexes. I agree with Ghazkuul that I'd like to see Codexes released all at the same time with the new edition (just don't want to see an Age of the Emporer approach to it).

With the supplement you can get some good builds, but the codex on its own? Definitely Lower mid tier.

Honestly I'd rather use the 4th ed codex, it's actually better in some ways. Still I wish we got a 7.5 codex, though knowing GW it'll be another 7 years before we get a new one.