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.

I am planning a 1500 army that I want to center around Big Meks and Walkers. Is there a point of diminishing returns for how many I bring? I keep hearing mixed feelings about the usefulness of Deff Dreads but no one seems to dispute the usefulness of Killa Kans. I would love to have 2 Big Meks, 2 Deff Dreads, 6 Kans, and the rest of the points going to shoota and loota boyz.

I ask about the deff dreads beforehand because I dont want to waste $100 on units that might not be that useful.

Go get the imperial armour 8, run dreadz as troops. Laugh as you can your way to victory!

I like dreadz personally, I get them into combat as fast as I can and I usually see them make their points back. They suck up some of the fire from my boyz aswell which is always nice. They are in a competitive spot tho with a few other units that can outshine them. As for costing you the game, na. They can pull there own I feel. Just need to play em how they need to be played.

Vehicles in this edition struggle due to the hullpoint thing.

Ork vehicles, allready struggled to survive, but add that, to this, and generally, they just die before you see use from them now. You used to be able to take lots, and some would get there. Now, generally, they won't, which is a shame.

 Evileyes wrote:
Vehicles in this edition struggle due to the hullpoint thing.

Ork vehicles, allready struggled to survive, but add that, to this, and generally, they just die before you see use from them now. You used to be able to take lots, and some would get there. Now, generally, they won't, which is a shame.

can someone please explain this whoe "hullpoints thing" to me? im new to the game. also, how many hullpoints do ork vehicles even have? ill watch videos on youtube and see walkers take at least 1 hit without being destroyed but there is no HP that i can see in the codex.

Basically, in the last edition, your vehicle only died if they got a powerful, or "Penetrating hit" on the vehicle, and then got lucky enough to roll an explodes or wreak result on a damage table table. Now, you can still do that, but every time you get a hit, glancing or penetrating, it takes off one "hull point", which is basically vehicle wounds. If you lose them all, it just dies on the spot reguardless.

This means, that they don't have to use anti tank weapons to kill most ork vehicles, they can just shoot with their normal guns, and generally do enough damage to destroy them, as such, they don't last long unless you get really lucky.

Ork vehicles only have 2 hullpoints, 3 at best (Except the battlewagon, one of the few ork vehicles that are still quite good )

Kan Walls can still be effective (though not as good as last edition). IA makes them better. I personally would try to get as many dreads/kans as possible if I was headed this direction.

It depends a lot on your local meta. For example, my local meta went from a lot of vehicles to none when 6th edition came out initially. This skewed people into focusing on anit-infantry over anti-tank units. Now, people are beginning to bring more tanks and armor even with the addition of Hull Points and a nice mix is coming from such.

As for the walkers, Kans have 11 front armor and 2HPs while the Dread is 12 and 3 respectively. Looking at it this way, anything S5 can get a glancing hit on the kans while S6 can glance the Dread and penetrate the kans. If you don't feel like your opponent is running much S6 or higher guns, then the survival rate of a mechanized list can be decent. The largest concern turns into their speed at that point.

In terms of effectiveness of their weapons, they are decent. Grotzookas can be a headache for any infantry blob and getting any walker in close combat usually takes a firm strategy to address.

So overall, I would say if your local meta isn't rocking a lot of heavy firepower, then you should be all good. One of my largest opponents when I run walkers are Necrons. Necron players tend to use Annihilation Barges which provide 4 TL S7 shots. This can cause a lot of pain to my boyz as well as my kans.

Kans are fun, and I don't think it was mentioned earlier, but bringing Big Meks with the Kustom Force Field can be a boon to your kan wall (which, I assume, is how you plan to run them). Providing the 4+ cover save can help against the hull points issues you will likely face with your Kans and Dreads.

talljosh85 wrote:
Kans are fun, and I don't think it was mentioned earlier, but bringing Big Meks with the Kustom Force Field can be a boon to your kan wall (which, I assume, is how you plan to run them). Providing the 4+ cover save can help against the hull points issues you will likely face with your Kans and Dreads.

I think it;s 5+ now. But the big mek also gives you a deff dread as a troop choice.

Evileyes wrote:Basically, in the last edition, your vehicle only died if they got a powerful, or "Penetrating hit" on the vehicle, and then got lucky enough to roll an explodes or wreak result on a damage table table. Now, you can still do that, but every time you get a hit, glancing or penetrating, it takes off one "hull point", which is basically vehicle wounds. If you lose them all, it just dies on the spot reguardless.

This means, that they don't have to use anti tank weapons to kill most ork vehicles, they can just shoot with their normal guns, and generally do enough damage to destroy them, as such, they don't last long unless you get really lucky.

Ork vehicles only have 2 hullpoints, 3 at best (Except the battlewagon, one of the few ork vehicles that are still quite good )

Not true. Like every other codex, ork vehicles are 3 hull points by default, cheap squadron vehicles are 2 hull points and heavy tanks are 4 hull points.

Icculus wrote:

talljosh85 wrote:
Kans are fun, and I don't think it was mentioned earlier, but bringing Big Meks with the Kustom Force Field can be a boon to your kan wall (which, I assume, is how you plan to run them). Providing the 4+ cover save can help against the hull points issues you will likely face with your Kans and Dreads.

I think it;s 5+ now. But the big mek also gives you a deff dread as a troop choice.

Correct, the ork FAQ changed the KFF wording to provide 5+ cover to all vehicles within 6".

Kanz pretty much die like flies, have bolters and big shootaz can glance them to death, heavy firepower can easily reduce an entire squadron to scrap. The also can't provide cover to the orks behind them anymore (focus fire rule) and rokkits have little chance of outright destroying other vehicles, let alone fliers, leaving the grotzooka as the only viable weapons choice. On top of all that, they are completely destroyed in close combat by anything that packs krak grenades or melta bombs, and any MC can half its attacks to make sure those DCCW will never touch it. Kannons outshine them in prettty much every aspect, so there is little reason to field kanz.

The deff dread has neither gotten worse nor better. Hull points mean it's less likely to get immobilized by low strength hits, but it will eventually die to incomming fire. As it doesn't care too much about overwatch, you are more likely to gain from random charge ranges rather than lose. It's still just a AV12 vehicle posing a huge threat in close combat, so it will most likely be shot to death before doing anything.

If you really want a walker that relentlessly stomps across the battlefield and wrecks havoc on anything that dares coming too close to it, should look into getting mega dreads from forgeworld. Make sure that your opponents are ok with facing FW rules first though.

Ork walkers are very deadly, but the problem is we lack any way to get them close enough before they go pop since AV11 and 12 is fairly easy to deal with, what with all the S7 AP4 spamtastical lists these days. They only got anywhere before because theyre not opened topped so only go boom on a 6 and the KFF gave them a 4+ cover which is now a 5+. Harder to hit, harder to kill. Now, any random shot can make them go away unless its from bolters or something. To top it off, theyre still fairly pricy.
The stats on them are crazy for the cost, thats why theyre bullet magnets. I actually took one bare one time for the lawls to see how it would work....it soaked up 2 turns of dakka that normally would have owned my boyz (S7 spam) because my opponent refused to let that thing get close, even though it only had 2 DCCW

But they just look so damn cool....i really really hope they do something to them in the next ork dex to let them survive to see some melee fight, or give us a way to drop them in so we dont have this 2-3 turns of hoping they dont die.

Also remember that in 6th people can use grenades in CC. So ANY Kan that charges marines will be hit by a whole lot of strength 6 krak grenades *before* you can strike. That's what killed Kanz for me. Dreads can still work with av 12 being a nice av sweet spot for lances and such.

Walkers are awesome. Ork ones are more awesome as they are less pts, you always get a iniative order powerclaw and people struggle to penetrate the front armour; even units packing a melta bomb as its a single attack (and unwieldy so you may kill off the chap carrying it or if you have another unit in combat can challenge to remove the threat). It has already been said that you need to get them into combat!

WIth regards to the S6 grenades thing, most units will not be full strength when they reach your walkers. They still lose 1/3 of their grenades through not hitting with them and then need 5+ to glance (6s pen) killa kans. That's a near full unit of marines taking out a single killa kan the turn they charge. Very useful for positioning so rock hard unit have to charge the walkers rather than your troops.

 Evileyes wrote:
Basically, in the last edition, your vehicle only died if they got a powerful, or "Penetrating hit" on the vehicle, and then got lucky enough to roll an explodes or wreak result on a damage table table. Now, you can still do that, but every time you get a hit, glancing or penetrating, it takes off one "hull point", which is basically vehicle wounds. If you lose them all, it just dies on the spot reguardless.

This means, that they don't have to use anti tank weapons to kill most ork vehicles, they can just shoot with their normal guns, and generally do enough damage to destroy them, as such, they don't last long unless you get really lucky.

Ork vehicles only have 2 hullpoints, 3 at best (Except the battlewagon, one of the few ork vehicles that are still quite good )

killa kans, buggies and jets have 2 rest have 3 hullpoints.

Trukks while being pretty fragile they didn't actually worse. Getting stunned much worse compared to losing a hullpoint and you can still assault out of trukk like you used to and ramshackle has str 3 explosion.

Burna/Dakkajets have 3hp, or did they do that in the skys bullcrap book? the BRB shows them with 3. I dont have that book as i refuse to pay near-full codex price for one damn model i'll ever use when i already know the rules for it anyway.

However you rarely get to use the 3hp, as they have the same problem Trukks do. 3hp, but AV10, very easy to damage despite the Hard to Hit rule. Ive literally never had a dakkajet survive a volley of fire, atleast one of the shots always caused an explosion or i failed to jink enough glances.

As for the Grenade thing, yes it sucks but its not optimal. AV12 is unable to be wounded by normal marines while the Deffdread will just pound away, Krak grenades CAN damage but only a glance on a 6, and as many attempts as there are models and no more. Unless you charge a full 10man squad alone, i sincerely doubt a few krak grenades will do much.

Jasper wrote:Walkers are awesome. Ork ones are more awesome as they are less pts, you always get a iniative order powerclaw and people struggle to penetrate the front armour; even units packing a melta bomb as its a single attack (and unwieldy so you may kill off the chap carrying it or if you have another unit in combat can challenge to remove the threat). It has already been said that you need to get them into combat!

WIth regards to the S6 grenades thing, most units will not be full strength when they reach your walkers. They still lose 1/3 of their grenades through not hitting with them and then need 5+ to glance (6s pen) killa kans. That's a near full unit of marines taking out a single killa kan the turn they charge. Very useful for positioning so rock hard unit have to charge the walkers rather than your troops.

Due to the loss in survivability one kan is about all that actually makes into combat. Besides, that's an average, not a probability. The chance of five space marine scouts (90 points) taking down a kan is only slightly lower than the chance of taking of the average one hull poínt. Besides, kanz can take additional losses from overwatch, especially from weapons like heavy flamers, assault- or autocannons or the now omnipresent plasma guns.
In reality, rock hard units will shoot the kanz, assault them, wipe them out in a single round of combat and then consolidate towards the unit you attempted to protect. We are talking about maximum six hull points on models with six attacks at WS2 and I2. Any "rock hard unit" will at most take a single wound after getting hit on a 5+ and failing an invul save. A decent unit of biker nobz can easily multi-charge two units of kanz and wipe the floor with them, same for most other death stars. Monstrous creatures or characters with similar stats simply destroy them before they get to strike. The only thing kanz are actually dangerous to are things that can't fight back, which is mostly limited to vehicles and infantry without any kind of anti-vehicle CC. Kanz don't anything another unit couldn't do just as good or better. Since kanz do cost points, you are better off not spending them on a unit that is terrible at everything it does besides throwing small blasts.

ALEXisAWESOME wrote:Also remember that in 6th people can use grenades in CC. So ANY Kan that charges marines will be hit by a whole lot of strength 6 krak grenades *before* you can strike. That's what killed Kanz for me. Dreads can still work with av 12 being a nice av sweet spot for lances and such.

Almost all Marine codices get kraks for free, and the dread is all by itself. It might lose that last hull point to the barrage of kraks it's taking before getting to strike. The bigger problem is that the dread pretty much implodes to S7 shooting in forms of psycannons, missile pods, serpent shields, quad gun, lootaz, plasma, autocannons, etc.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Burna/Dakkajets have 3hp, or did they do that in the skys bullcrap book? the BRB shows them with 3. I dont have that book as i refuse to pay near-full codex price for one damn model i'll ever use when i already know the rules for it anyway.

However you rarely get to use the 3hp, as they have the same problem Trukks do. 3hp, but AV10, very easy to damage despite the Hard to Hit rule. Ive literally never had a dakkajet survive a volley of fire, atleast one of the shots always caused an explosion or i failed to jink enough glances.

As for the Grenade thing, yes it sucks but its not optimal. AV12 is unable to be wounded by normal marines while the Deffdread will just pound away, Krak grenades CAN damage but only a glance on a 6, and as many attempts as there are models and no more. Unless you charge a full 10man squad alone, i sincerely doubt a few krak grenades will do much.

Death from the skies says 3hp the flyers with 2hp are from FW

Stupid FAQ... thanks for the correction

Kan wall is dead.

There wasn't even a purpose to Ork walkers before aside from Kan wall.

This is a mediocre idea at best and I would say before you start spending 45 dollars on boxes of Killa Kans and 50 dollars on Deff Dred boxes (both of which translate to a measly 100 pts in game terms), maybe wait until the next Codex.

Deff Dreads are still quite good.

As mentioned before, AV12 is a sweet spot against lances.

They're cheap (I like to run them with either dual skorchas or big shootas).

They murder Terminators. In a recent game against Grey Knights, after I had pushed forward and killed most of the GK player's lines, Draigo + 10 Paladins came in behind my lines. I send 2 Deff Dreads to deal with them. The result? He wasn't expecting them to come, so poor model placement killed his hammers. The rest couldn't stop the Dreads from rampaging through them. That's 180 pts vs. over 800.

If do take Dredds, you should kit them out with all DCCW or flamers. You're not taking them for the ballistic skill. I used to like grot riggers, but now the dread is more likely to die to losing hull points then being immobilized, so they're not as good.

Kans are not very tough any more with hull points and the KFF nerf. I still love the grotzookas, though, and it's potentially useful to have kustom mega blasta without worrying about Gets Hot!

Medium armor walkers get kinda slammed all around this edition...I sort of think GW will end up undercosting them or giving them insane special rules to fix it, sort of like they've done for cavalry in fantasy.

I think they're rubbish, and it hurts me to say that because I want nothing more than to be able to run a viable dreadbash

On top of all the other (legitimate) criticisms of the deff dread, it pisses me off to no end that they can go up against almost any other dread in the game and die terribly due to poor INT. Even if you went two on one a Space Marine dread has a damn good chance of nailing one or both of them before they can even hit.

If you do run them, run them in the IA8 list (hit me up for details) and you can take like 15 of them on one force org.

Id have to agree they suffer the most out of all the dreads. People like to argue its because theyre so cheap...and i laugh in their face every time.

Its not effective at all till its around 110pts. Thats 110pts that takes up a kannon battery or battlewagon slot and will pop the instant something big looks at it since it has no natural save or way to get into combat before getting zapped.

Thats the way i feel about just about the entire ork codex now with all the new 6th codexes or the later 5th with 6th in mind codexes (necrons being one of those). Aside from Boyz or Lootas, point for punch orks kinda hurt. Only reason i think the Bikernobz are still viable for the cost is because theyre fast as hell to make up for the lack of fancy stuff or insane damage for the cost. Most things that cost that much as them are more powerful, but lack the speed so they take more points to transport them or risk a deepstrike.

I actually wouldnt be surprised if in the next ork codex all that changes is some rearrangement of upgrades (such as MANz being a nob upgrade rather than separate unit), point cost changes, and of course the flavour of the MC that seems to be the trend. Flash Gitz are the only unit in the ork dex that is 100% useless, the rest is just too expensive to be viable because you need way too many of them for it to work. Dredds/kans being one of those things.

I appreciate the feed back. I will probably run 1-2 Deff Dreads in higher point armies as bullet sponges and for the fun of fielding them. 4 DCCW or 2 Skorchas seems to be what I would run them with. Too bad Killa Kans are so weak now compared to the other heavy support choices, such as the Big Gunz.

 Dr. What wrote:
Deff Dreads are still quite good.

As mentioned before, AV12 is a sweet spot against lances.

How is AV12 a "sweet spot" against S8 AP2 weapons? Just because the "lance" part doesn't do anything, doesn't mean that it doesn't at least take off a hull point half the time, so four lances fired by eldar are pretty much a guaranteed kill. That's like saying that trukks are in a sweet spot against meltas because the extra d6 rarely does anything.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
I actually wouldnt be surprised if in the next ork codex all that changes is some rearrangement of upgrades (such as MANz being a nob upgrade rather than separate unit), point cost changes, and of course the flavour of the MC that seems to be the trend. Flash Gitz are the only unit in the ork dex that is 100% useless, the rest is just too expensive to be viable because you need way too many of them for it to work. Dredds/kans being one of those things.

I'd argue that a battery of zzap gunz is more useless

My six killa kans have almost never let me down. The grotzookas are just a blast to use, and I never run them without them. The onto other item I would consider using on a kan is a scorcha, but only if I'm really starved for points.

Unfortunately my Kans have been less than stellar in close combat. The amount of attacks they get is only really substantial when they get the charge, and they don't benefite from Waaagh!. Don't get me wrong, if you can charge them into something that can't hurt them, or if there is a juicy unit that you think you might be able to pop or at least tarpit, go ahead and charge. They DO have strength ten ap one attacks after all. But things like terminators will usually decimate them with their power fists after taking two or three casualties. I've found that their best use is as tarpits or being scary with their twelve strength six blasts. Plus throwing them into a squad that is fearless and can't hurt them is seriously hilarious as those grots go to town. Their biggest flaw is their two weapon skill. Hitting on fives is such a massive pain. Especially when you have so few attacks already.

Deff Dredds... Well. It's a mixed bag. A lot of the games I have used them they don't even get into combat. They are still really useful for soaking up fire that would otherwise go into my trukks or boyz or battlewagon, but it's still sad to see them go up in flames before they get to chop anything up. They flabbergast tanks, obliterate light infantry and space marines, and will slaughter a few terminators before likely being punched to death by power fists. But we already have oodles of of anti infantry, and usually terminators aren't hat scary if you've got some klaws on your side anyway. They are a big stomps scary thing that the enemy wants to kill, and they do things that plenty o other things we use are already good at. At first glance might think that they would be a godsend to use against monstrous creatures, but this isn't the case. The enemy will just smash attack, and that usually ends up with a dead dredd.

I use Dredds because they are fun, awesome looking, and Killy. Plus, they are super cheap. Fully decked out they are only 110 points. It's up to you if you want I use them. Just know that if you don't use two or three, they probably will never see actual close combat.

Ten again, big scary targets have their uses too.