Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

After the collapse of our tale of four gamers, I've decided to look for a new army that is fun and not uncompetitive.

I've always wanted to collect Orks, but I can't stand painting that much infantry.

So I thought about Deffwing.

As a competent Deathwing player, I have a lot of experience using elite armies, but I would like some advice from you Dakkaites as to how Deffwing work and what makes them different to Deathwing in the way they play?

MANZ Missles- Issue 3 MegaArmouredNobz at a time their very own trukk and then take all those and shoot them across the board. Take reinforced rams to hurdle terrain and the enemy will be freaking out. People will say "Oh no, trukks are wimpy and not worthy to dine upon Odin's table" But whatever, they are killy and dead fun. If the trukk does not make it all the way across the board then the nobz have a little bit to go. If you find this a constant problem, get some buggies to screen and decoy. (Gasp, imagine a warboss here as extra power)

Nob Bikers -Both sides of the spectrum. Shooty/Ard & Choppy/Fast. They are brilliant and if they have FnP they will ruin days. (Imagine a warboss accompanying them aswell.)

Normal Nobz- Not as popular of a choice, but really classy. Load them in a battlewagon with pks and bigchoppas so they can wreck some face. Grant them FnP and some invuls, you got a stout mob of combat monsters. (Imagine a warboss here too)

How would a Deffwing army look in a list?

Well, the base list is two Warboss in Mega Armour, two maximum squads of MANZ (2 mobs of 10) for troops, up to a further three elites choices of MANZ squads and then add to taste whatever you like...

I think I'd be partial to Kans, Looted Wagons and Battle Wagons and maybe some fighters.

Well you could do five units of 5 MANz and shove them all in their own trukks. Highly mobile and you got 10 wounds a squad at least. That or you could go for four units of 10 MANz and 1 warboss. Use the other HQ slot for the Mad Dok and cybork all the MANz. Course that is way more expensive but you end up with very durable but slow. I think if you did take MANz en mass its either Battlewagons or trukks - being slow aint handy.

Oh yeah, I definitely would take transports for them.

I didn't think about trukks though.

I have a bit of an issue now.

My friend is selling the old Cadian battleforce with the tank, 2 squads of cadians and a command squad for £50.

I don't know whether to accept his offer or go Orks.

Puny Oomans! Krump dem! Orkz is green an' green is best!

First off, ork MANz are deceptively similair to terminators, while really being nothing alike. They both have 2+ saves and big power weapons. That is about it. Your MANz have no invulnerable at all to protect them, but they have an additional wound to fall back on. Unfortunately, if it can bust your mega armor, it'll probably already insta-gimp you, so the wound doesn't matter. However, a good invulnerable save doesn't matter until the weapon can pen your armor, and then the additional wound wins out. A termie dies to one lucky guardsman with a trench knife; your nob shall not perish from such unworthy assaults. Also, MANz get one more attack than termies do, and their hits are str. 9 with furious charge. However, you are also slower.

So, as you can see, they are very different units. Against anything that can't bust a 2+ save, MANz are the proverbial bee's knees, damn near invulnerable and super killy. But, if they lose their ride, or run into something with ap 2 then they will go nowhere fast, but not without taking down some chumps with them in the case of the second scenario. In case of the first, they actually do go nowhere.

Well ap2 that is not a poweraxe or imperial guard powerfist equivalents will probably autokill the MANZ. If they are poweraxes or wimpyfists, the MANZ win out again.

So far then, we are looking at the following stuff for a good list:

2 Warboss in Mega Armour.

2 Large mobs of MANZ in Battlewagons (Warboss in each mob)

Several smaller mobs of MANZ in trukks.

So that's the bare bones list and then there should be just stuff thrown in to combat hordes, tanks and flyers.

Also thinking about converting MANZ out of Black Orcs. Has anyone got any suggestions on this?

As pure deffwing your going to be seriously hampered by only having 2 troop choices.
I would look at something like this...

HQ
Warboss in MegaArmor w/attack squig + cybork body
Warboss in MegaArmor w/attack squig + cybork body

Troops
9 MegaNobs w/4 combi-scorchas
9 MegaNobs w/4 combi-scorchas
19 Grots + Runtherder

Fast Attack
DakkaJet
DakkaJet
DakkaJet

Heavy Support
Battlewagon w/Deffrolla + Big Shoota
Battlewagon w/Deffrolla + Big Shoota
Battlewagon w/Deffrolla + Big Shoota

The idea here is that you want to have support for your two deathstars. Its also better to bring the heavy support instead of dedicated transports, for when you get "Big Guns Never Tire"

You could play around with the concepts here, but your goal is to give support to your two deathstars. Going with more mega-nobs is more in theme, but really starts to peeter out in competitive nature due to the lack of troops.

I've played with the idea of Deffwing for a few years now, but every time I look at the money numbers I just end buying something else, ~25$ USD each MAZ, means at least 500 Dlls on your 2 troops, + the megabosses which will probably be Ghaz model moded those are 80$ USD more and the list goes on with the wagons and the extra MAZ on the elite slots, you are looking at a easily 1k $USD army for 1500-2000 pts.

Also as mentioned above they are very different from their marines, marines got the easy way for elite armies due to their ATSKNF and tonz of useful cheap upgrades. A mob of MAZ being only 10 means they aren't fearless and some unlucky dice roll can see them being swept or running back one turn if their transport goes kaboom

 Lord Yayula wrote:
I've played with the idea of Deffwing for a few years now, but every time I look at the money numbers I just end buying something else, ~25$ USD each MAZ, means at least 500 Dlls on your 2 troops, + the megabosses which will probably be Ghaz model moded those are 80$ USD more and the list goes on with the wagons and the extra MAZ on the elite slots, you are looking at a easily 1k $USD army for 1500-2000 pts.

If your building a Deffwing army, you don't need to fork out 500 bucks! Just get some deathwing terminators and convert them with ork heads. You might also want to make the guns a bit more orky and convert the fists to klaws.

The ork heads don't fit perfectly, but their pretty close. This conversion took me less than 3 minutes.
Just paint it up with deathwing colors then color it in blue as its been looted.

I prefer the look of plasti-card slapped over AoBR nobz to Orkheads on Terminators, but that's just me.

One thing with Deffwing style lists is that lack of FNP and 5++ is going to be a major issue. Also getting shot out of your BW's can basically put you out of the game since they can't run due to S&P

For that reason I suggest playing it a 2K points and going double FOC to get Grotsnik and a KFF Big Mek in there. Look at it this way, you're already at about 1200 points for 2x Mega Bosses and 20 Manz, so you may as well go all in with the army.

They key takeway is that there are cheaper methods to build your meganobs than forking out hundreds of dollars in pewter figs.

Well, I just had a proxy game against Chaos.

It did not go well.

The chaos force had a Black mace wielding DP which killed two MANZ in cc, then I lost a Warboss and 6 other MANZ to just tge cursed mace.

A pair of those Dinobot looking things with Ectoplasma cannons made short work of my other mob, leaving only the other Warboss on the table, which was quickly despatched the following turn.

Got tabled on t3 as none of my fighters arrived when I needed them. So game over

What did I learn? That MANZ are not like Deathwing. They are missing the 5++ and good support. They also play very differently and I hated the s&p and the lack of invulnerable save.

Try out 2 squads of 4 MANZ + warboss/Ghaz. Put em in truuks with rams (the ones that let them reroll getting stuck on terrain)

My buddy plays that with his Orks and does extremely well.
Its not a true Deffwing, but it lets you bring some Deffwing to your army.

Puscifer wrote:


What did I learn? That MANZ are not like Deathwing. They are missing the 5++ and good support. They also play very differently and I hated the s&p and the lack of invulnerable save.

Hehehe, yeah, told ya the loyalist have it the easy way, still the deffwing is a cool looking army and has a low number of models (compared to other orks lists)

For the conversion yeah I've seen the termies with ork heads around... but they don't look orky enough imho, plasticard seems to be the best/cheaper solution, I personally suck with it so... spending big moneys is my only option. I also saw some nice Black Orks conversions which would make it cheaper.

Yeah, if you want them to play like imperial termies, you're better off playing the other type of 'Deffwing', where you use orky models but they actually count-as imperial termies of some type (especially Deathwing of course, the fluff justification being that some crazed mek has worked out how to make the equivalent of termy armour, and some DW-admiring orks have trained themselves to fight like DW and 'borrowed' the name).

Back on topic, the above posts confirm my impression too - Meganobz aren't really a viable army by themselves, but fun and useful as part of a bigger ork army. Of course, if GW is (as rumoured) going to give us plastic Meganobz soon, then the next ork codex may well change the rules so that Meganobz become a useful build. here's hoping...

Yeah I agree.

I'm going to wait for the rumoured ork codex and see if it has a viable MANZ list.

In the meantime...

I've taken my friends offer of really cheap IG.

Sell out!! Lol jk

Manz are hard to do right now, but i don't know if it's going to get any better...

Good luck with the ig