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Wakshaani wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Bigshootas will never be preferred until they become 2pts or get an AP.
They are probably close to the worst weapon we have in the codex for their cost. And unfortunately they are also the most abundant, as almost every vehicle is covered in them.

I've clearly missed a memo. Why is a Big Shoota bad? I see some people saying "The math is clear" but they don't actually SHOW the math … it's just taken as conventional wisdom.

Can anyone lay out the argument against them and show the work in the process? I'd be ever so thankful.

The math is pretty easy, but I'll give you some examples of common targets for a Big Shoota and how many points each big shoota can expect to kill each round against each type. I'll even be nice and show them with BS 4+ and BS 5+ to show that they're bad even with a relatively good BS.

GEQ, no cover, BS 4+: 3 shots, 1.5 hits, 1 wound, 0.67 unsaved wounds, 2.68 expected points round
GEQ, no cover, BS 5+: 3 shots, 1 hit, 0.67 wounds, 0.44 unsaved wounds, 1.78 expected points round

MEQ, no cover, BS 4+: 3 shots, 1.5 hits, 1 wound, 0.33 unsaved wounds, 3.96 expected points round
MEQ, no cover, BS 5+: 3 shots, 1 hit, 0.67 wounds, 0.22 unsaved wounds, 2.64 expected points round

TEQ, no cover, BS 4+: 3 shots, 1.5 hits, 1 wound, 0.17 unsaved wounds, 2.89 expected points round
TEQ, no cover, BS 5+: 3 shots, 1 hit, 0.67 wounds, 0.11 unsaved wounds, 1.87 expected points round

Don't let the raw points fool you either, it takes an average of 18 BS 5+ Big Shootas to kill a single terminator, ~5 to kill a marine, ~2 to kill a guardsman. They just don't do damage in an edition where the aim is to kill multiple entire units per turn.

 Niiai wrote:
I played against orks today. Man that was a mixed feeling. Fun though! That Sparkly Bits upgread is really something.

Anyway, my friend is a really slow player. Turn 1 with nids, I did some psykick powers and shot a bit. I had casteled up against his turn 1 charges so I saw no reason to move. Now his turn. I took some pictures and notised that we had spent 59 minuts on the first game turn of the game! Considering how little of the time I spent I know he must have speend an enourmus amount of time. The game goes on for ever to the point of being unbearable and we never finish.

Is there some way to make him play faster? Please do not say movement trays, because he has movement trays. If anything they make it slower because they keep not having the formations he wants and models keep falling down. He was playing 90 buys in 3 groups and was running da green tide stratagem on top of that. I have no idea how he takes this long!

I've met ork players that play green tide and can outpace marine players. I'm not quite as fast but here's a few things I've learnt from them that have helped me pick up speed:

Be decisive and have a plan for how you want to move your units.

Know your codex inside out, you save a lot of time if you don't have to reference it.

Practice with the same list over and over. (This one i'm guilty of not doing)

Depending on context, a dice app like XD6 can help save time. Not everyone is keen on or allows for dice apps, so I've done some deliberate practice on dice rolling.

Depending on your list, consider re configuring units to make them faster to use. EG I tend to not bother with bad moonz shoota boyz because it can take so long to roll their hit rolls, and I tend to prefer killsaws over powerklaws so I don't have to roll damage. Smasha gunz are also guilty for their weird wound rolls but if you have pairs of coloured dice you can fast roll the wounds.

Playing with a chess clock can help you be aware of how much time you spend. It's good for players of horde armies to practice with a chess clock if they plan to play in a tournament. Many players assume that horde players will be slow and will try to force them into using the clock.

On the point about movement trays, they help with two things (in my opinion): scooting models forward and deploying. Terrain and combat will rapidly force you to ditch them but it at least makes deployment and the first turn faster.

Wakshaani wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Bigshootas will never be preferred until they become 2pts or get an AP.
They are probably close to the worst weapon we have in the codex for their cost. And unfortunately they are also the most abundant, as almost every vehicle is covered in them.

I've clearly missed a memo. Why is a Big Shoota bad? I see some people saying "The math is clear" but they don't actually SHOW the math … it's just taken as conventional wisdom.

Can anyone lay out the argument against them and show the work in the process? I'd be ever so thankful.

Uhm, I showed the math is right on this page?

It's also not that hard to do yourself, if you're interested, or use mathhammer8thed.com

The general idea is that between hitting on BS5+ and having no armor penetration a big shoota has an extremely high chance of doing nothing against the vast majority of potential targets on the table.
The few targets you actually can expect to die from getting shot by a big shoota are cheap chaff units which tend to be cheaper than the big shoota+what ever it's holding. When you upgrade a shoota boy with a big shoota, it actually deals less damage per points spent than it did before the upgrade.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Niiai wrote:
Is there some way to make him play faster? Please do not say movement trays, because he has movement trays. If anything they make it slower because they keep not having the formations he wants and models keep falling down. He was playing 90 buys in 3 groups and was running da green tide stratagem on top of that. I have no idea how he takes this long!

- Make him glue washers/magnets underneath the bases to prevent them from falling down. If you use magnets, you even speed up packing and unpacking if you transport them on a metal sheet. Unless you charge, there is no need to take them out of the tray.
- Use a dice tray to cut down times on chasing/looking for dice.
- Using a dice app whenever you roll more than 20 dice at once has significantly sped up my games.
- Help him move units.
- Some players also tend to get side-tracked when they are supposed to move models and instead chat or do other things, make sure he stays focused.
- If he keeps getting lost in the BattleScribe Pile Of Paper (TM) he is using instead of a codex, have him run his lists through this tool before the game: http://40ktools.com/ so he can find his stuff quicker.
- If he is using a codex, bring sticky notes to bookmark units for him.
- If he suffers from analysis paralysis, ask him what he wants to do and try giving him non-biased advice

If you have trouble with your opponent taking too long playing horder armies there is one easy option. Take a few units of bolt aggressors. XP Losing a few units quickly will dissuade him.

 Niiai wrote:
I played against orks today. Man that was a mixed feeling. Fun though! That Sparkly Bits upgread is really something.

Anyway, my friend is a really slow player. Turn 1 with nids, I did some psykick powers and shot a bit. I had casteled up against his turn 1 charges so I saw no reason to move. Now his turn. I took some pictures and notised that we had spent 59 minuts on the first game turn of the game! Considering how little of the time I spent I know he must have speend an enourmus amount of time. The game goes on for ever to the point of being unbearable and we never finish.

Is there some way to make him play faster? Please do not say movement trays, because he has movement trays. If anything they make it slower because they keep not having the formations he wants and models keep falling down. He was playing 90 buys in 3 groups and was running da green tide stratagem on top of that. I have no idea how he takes this long!

Use chess clock. The ITC has rules for this.

Did the orks get custom clans in the Saga of the Beast book? I tryed to have a look on 1d4chan, but found little.

Btw, thank you all for the tips on playing faster.

 Niiai wrote:
Did the orks get custom clans in the Saga of the Beast book? I tryed to have a look on 1d4chan, but found little.

Btw, thank you all for the tips on playing faster.

They got "sub-cultures" which replace the regular clans, but only provide buffs to a small set of units.

So I lost the bits to the battle wagon for the 'ard case and the mount for the turret, which is driving me nuts (because I still have the turret lol).

I was strongly considering kit bashing a supa kannon to quell this. Anyone use it? The lifta dropa seems like one of the worst guns every made stats wise, but the kannon didn't seem too bad.

Keramory wrote:
So I lost the bits to the battle wagon for the 'ard case and the mount for the turret, which is driving me nuts (because I still have the turret lol).

I was strongly considering kit bashing a supa kannon to quell this. Anyone use it? The lifta dropa seems like one of the worst guns every made stats wise, but the kannon didn't seem too bad.

you could just say it has da boomer, Forktress, or the Zagzap but otherwise be a plain old battlewagon

Keramory wrote:
So I lost the bits to the battle wagon for the 'ard case and the mount for the turret, which is driving me nuts (because I still have the turret lol).

I was strongly considering kit bashing a supa kannon to quell this. Anyone use it? The lifta dropa seems like one of the worst guns every made stats wise, but the kannon didn't seem too bad.

I mean you can kitbash the supa kannon and use it as a counts as kill-kannon, given that 8th ed doesn't actually use the weapon mounts individually anymore for LoS or shooting purposes. Now that the relic killkannon exists and presuming it works with the shoot twice with periscope rule from gunwagons, the supakannon is is kinda obsolete, since they were priced during Index times and lack the ability to shoot twice (the only thing it has over a killkannon is a flat 3 damage, which isn't worth the premium price tag IMO). So I would just say its a killkannon.

Drats thanks! I know barebones is about best for the Battlewagon, just model wise itself it feels like I'm missing something.

I plan to buy a upgrade pack from GW when they open (gave up trying to find a good 3d print of one). Might ask them if they have spare pieces of what I'm missing and I'll pay full price for just any spare rollas and those 2 pieces if they have it.

Not hopeful at all they'd bother with it. But still...

Jidmah - http://40ktools.com/ is super cool. But in fact, you can fit your army on 1xA4 in excel. I do it, incl. The cp a vp counter and hints for play - like “use your big mek to repair the mek gunz!” +


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Perfect are metal moving trays - flat sheet of steel with about 50mm metal rod in the midle. Boyz holds on magnets. I have my army ready like this and put the causalities back on trays. Fast to play and fast to start / end the game.

 Tomsug wrote:
Jidmah - http://40ktools.com/ is super cool. But in fact, you can fit your army on 1xA4 in excel. I do it, incl. The cp a vp counter and hints for play - like “use your big mek to repair the mek gunz!” +

That doesn't really help though, because you can't write excel sheets for everyone else. I don't use the tool a lot myself, since I prefer using bookmarked codices. I have introduced it to the rest of my group though, and it has almost eliminated the problem of my opponents getting confused by their own battlescribe print-outs. The regular format is just in no way fit to find anything quickly.

Perfect are metal moving trays - flat sheet of steel with about 50mm metal rod in the midle. Boyz holds on magnets. I have my army ready like this and put the causalities back on trays. Fast to play and fast to start / end the game.

I use GW's apoc movement trays. They look good and because of the way they are shaped, it is easy to spread out, clump up and get around obstacles without sacrificing much, so you can usually keep horde units in there until they charge.

Jidmah - yeah, you can' t write it for others. That' s the point I like your tip!

apoc trays - I don' t like them. I don't like how they looks like, i don' t like how they spread the boyz. I don' t like I need different trays for 25 and for 32mm units.

I like my thin steel rod - just pick and move. It' s like play a chess. The metal plate coverd in black is almost or total invisible.

Alright ladz, here's what I'm rocking:



That aside, has anyone found a way to make ghaz work? I know he's not priced competitively, but the mechanic of only being able to lose 4 wounds a phase looks really fun.

Also, I would love to make Makari my warlord (unless there's a rule against that?)

weaver9 wrote:
Alright ladz, here's what I'm rocking:

Spoiler:

Got Mobz
Big Mek KFF
Weird boy (da jump)
Gretch x30
Smasha guns x17

Deathskullz
Big Mek (da souped up shokka)
Big Mek KFF
Boyz x50 (+2 boss nobz w/ big choppa)
Gretchen x10
Shokkjunp Dragstas x3 (Kustom Job)

Pyromaniacs
Burna-bommers x3

Leaves me with 12 cp after purchases (dread waagh, kustom job).

I am happy with the amount of maneuverability via dragstas and da jump, the mortal wounds via bommers and the anti everything with the smasha guns. Only real weak point is melee but hopefully the boyz can help out there.

The only consideration I have is possibly swapping out some boyz to replace the Deathskullz KFF with a weirdboy... for the Deathskullz psychic power.

Or I could swap him and the KFF Mek, and pay 1 cp for warphead.

I just want to cover my dragstas and mek guns with invulns where possible. Open to suggestions on that.

That aside, has anyone found a way to make ghaz work? I know he's not priced competitively, but the mechanic of only being able to lose 4 wounds a phase looks really fun.

Also, I would love to make Makari my warlord (unless there's a rule against that?)

My only criticism is that (and I think it's more personal taste than anything) it feels like you lack mid and back field presence. The boyz and dragstas will be moving up I assume, but besides that everything will be sitting in your backlines. (mind you I'm assuming the burna bommas will be flying over the enemy and probably exploding whenever you can make them do so.) Will capturing objectives or controlling the board give you a bit of trouble?

cody.d. wrote:

weaver9 wrote:
Alright ladz, here's what I'm rocking:

Spoiler:

Got Mobz
Big Mek KFF
Weird boy (da jump)
Gretch x30
Smasha guns x17

Deathskullz
Big Mek (da souped up shokka)
Big Mek KFF
Boyz x50 (+2 boss nobz w/ big choppa)
Gretchen x10
Shokkjunp Dragstas x3 (Kustom Job)

Pyromaniacs
Burna-bommers x3

Leaves me with 12 cp after purchases (dread waagh, kustom job).

I am happy with the amount of maneuverability via dragstas and da jump, the mortal wounds via bommers and the anti everything with the smasha guns. Only real weak point is melee but hopefully the boyz can help out there.

The only consideration I have is possibly swapping out some boyz to replace the Deathskullz KFF with a weirdboy... for the Deathskullz psychic power.

Or I could swap him and the KFF Mek, and pay 1 cp for warphead.

I just want to cover my dragstas and mek guns with invulns where possible. Open to suggestions on that.

That aside, has anyone found a way to make ghaz work? I know he's not priced competitively, but the mechanic of only being able to lose 4 wounds a phase looks really fun.

Also, I would love to make Makari my warlord (unless there's a rule against that?)

My only criticism is that (and I think it's more personal taste than anything) it feels like you lack mid and back field presence. The boyz and dragstas will be moving up I assume, but besides that everything will be sitting in your backlines. (mind you I'm assuming the burna bommas will be flying over the enemy and probably exploding whenever you can make them do so.) Will capturing objectives or controlling the board give you a bit of trouble?

That's a fair point. I think a lot of it comes down to how I play it, and who I'm up against.

Generic tactics:
One boy squad will move forward to pressure and contest midfield, with a second da jumping tactically to capture an objective or deny points in another fashion.

I'm hoping that between the pressure of the bommers, 1 boy horde, dragster sniping, and artillery, enemies won't put much thought into taking out a small gretch squad holding a point. And if they do that's kind of a win for me.

I want to turn midfield into a shooting gallery, and break anything that can't be shot with my boys, and hunt down elites with bommas and dragstas. It's very much a reactionary list in some ways.... shoot what I can till you hide it, then charge it with boys and dragstas.

That's how I envision it playing at least. I bet certain armies will counter it hard.

Secondaries I would almost always take recon, marked for death and then a wildcard depending on the match up.

Edit: when you as an ork player think about holding the midfield, what units or strategies jump to mind?

Again this is to personal preference, my list building style. I usually plan to flood the midfield, either large numbers of boyz units marching up the field or with naughts backed up by the various buggies.

Though I've always been of the mindset that due to our very nature we're an all in faction, requiring saturation to achieve what we want.

weaver9 wrote:
Leaves me with 12 cp after purchases (dread waagh, kustom job).

I am happy with the amount of maneuverability via dragstas and da jump, the mortal wounds via bommers and the anti everything with the smasha guns. Only real weak point is melee but hopefully the boyz can help out there.

The only consideration I have is possibly swapping out some boyz to replace the Deathskullz KFF with a weirdboy... for the Deathskullz psychic power.

Or I could swap him and the KFF Mek, and pay 1 cp for warphead.

I just want to cover my dragstas and mek guns with invulns where possible. Open to suggestions on that.

I have toyed with vehicle lists a lot, and I have found that boyz have no place in them. I'd drop all the boyz and replace them with gretchin and three scrapjets.

Also, I would love to make Makari my warlord (unless there's a rule against that?)

No, but he has to have the goff warlord trait which is kind of a waste. Forcing your opponent to get through that 2++ save is hilarious though.

Makari is unfortunatelly easy target for vindicare assasin. Only adventage is, that you can hide him more easily than let say Big mek. He ignores the invu saves with his 70” riffle.

You can't really hide, his banner is huge. I played around a bit with him and Thrakka taking on two 200 point killteams at once, it's almost impossible to hide him from view.

Either way, I think a SSAG warlord ist just more valuable.

SSAG is just a Dr Strangelove kind of weapon that is insane not using him. People will do all kind of crazy gak in order to avoid him. His mere presence will dictate how your adversary move thru the whole game. Even if he whiff, he still an incredible presence.

SSAG have a great influence on regular SAG. In my experience - SAG hits nothing alone. Put a SSAG next to him, SSAG hits nothing and SAG makes absolute carnage.

man ghaz is so overpriced and unusually limited i cant even create a semi-competitive list with him lol.
Every list i come up with i feel like im basically handing the game to my opponent unless dice luck are absolutely amazing for me. He at least replaces a Naut and i dont see him doing as much damage, not even close, and at most forces a hefty amount of Goff units which even with makari's FNP around struggle to survive long enough.

Never had this issue before where i legitimately felt mad i couldnt use a unit lol. Mind you i have basically everything except stormboyz/mekgun spam available to me so its not lack of specific units im missing either.

I suspect they were conservative with Ghaz' ruleset due to A, being a Xenos and B, realizing how hard they fethed up the big smurf. Mofo shaped several armies for quite some time.

Hell even Abbadon felt more like Calgar than the Warmaster he's meant to be.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
man ghaz is so overpriced and unusually limited i cant even create a semi-competitive list with him lol.
Every list i come up with i feel like im basically handing the game to my opponent unless dice luck are absolutely amazing for me. He at least replaces a Naut and i dont see him doing as much damage, not even close, and at most forces a hefty amount of Goff units which even with makari's FNP around struggle to survive long enough.

Never had this issue before where i legitimately felt mad i couldnt use a unit lol. Mind you i have basically everything except stormboyz/mekgun spam available to me so its not lack of specific units im missing either.

I think you skip Makari. The problem is, how do you list build to not awkwardly include the seemingly mandatory Goff painboy :\

Problem with Guaz is you can more or less get his meaningful damage output from a warboss with the relic claw, and a warlord trait.

On top of it, that warboss can be any clan for added synergy, and a bikerboss even.

Ghaz's only real appeal to me is the 4 wounds per phase (which means he doesn't auto lose when when he charges or is charged by a knight, wulfen, bezerkers etc).

But I doubt that is worth 180+ extra points. Could instead just take more units.

Which really is a shame considering how dang cool that model is.

I think there's an argument for Ghaz to be a really unpleasant roadblock. It's a lot of work to chip wounds off of him and I think there's value in his presence on the board either as a distraction carnifex, for zoning, or for holding objectives.
The biggest counterargument to this is his mobility. From my play experience if you foot slog him you just have to accept the lack of mobility and aim for positioning mid field at best during the first few turns. If you want him on the other side of the board you just have to accept the 2cp cost of tellyporta.

I'm still experimenting with him, as is probably everyone else.

Ghaz has a few issues that need to be fixed. Mobility (adv and charge is needed), utility (his auras are either clan locked or short ranged melee centric), and he doesn’t offer anything you can’t get elsewhere cheaper.. (he needs a way to generate CP or Provide something different).. he also fails to blend well with other units (lack of painboys or other similar issues)
They need to fix the stuff they can errata and he will be usable if they change his rules to fix his problems he would be great

What is the better roadblock? 1 ghazz or 10x10 grots? It' s the same price....