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Hey community, fresh from the pains of defeat I ask for help.

I was running a very bad Ork list against space wolves - so I knew I would lose... just not as badly as I did.

My list is:
20 slugga boys with heavy armour (when my collection gets bigger they will lose the armour)
+1 Nob with duo claws

3 Mega Nobz with duo buzz saws
+1 gruk face rippa
+1 weirdboy
+1 mek
+1 Looted wagon

9 Nobz: (two with duo power claws) (1 with a power claw and combi-schorcha) (6 with big choppas)

3 Killa Kanz (1 grotzooka) (1 Rocket Launch a) (1 Kustom-mega)

3 Deft Kopta's with rockets

10 Gretchen plus runtherd

3 bikes with (1 Nob with duo claws)

Warboss irk with da finkin cap and lucky stick

My friend went 6 thunder Calvary, 2 fortress cannons of some sort, a bunch of wolves, and a rune priest. He pretty much finished the game on his second turn, my army crumpling like wet paper. I only killed one of his thunder Calvary models and a few wolves. Maybe its because I am used to tau and killing a few things before I get crushed... but it felt like Orks just suck. Which is sad because I was looking forward to a fun game - but it was hardly that.

Any suggestions on what I can add next? I was thinking of getting lootas, a plane, or some trucks.

Or the dice gods were well and truly fickle. Might be worth getting some more Gretchin mobs to draw his firepower away from the high value targets.

Hmm....

What actually happened?

Given the description of his list, 2 Fortress Cannons - especially given the lack of other stuff - sounds like Aquilla gun emplacements (huge things that are about half a board tile across). These things are apocalyse-level massive blast templates which can flatten footslogging infantry with explosive rounds or swap to D-strength antitank shells.

If that's the case, you need to close, FAST. Trukks would be good, or alternatively, either grotz or kustom force fields for mobile cover.

Certainly you can't afford to footslog the unarmoured nobz - they're easy to kill with concentrated firepower and extremely lethal in a melee - no-one will let them get into combat if they have a choice.

Shaso_Keo wrote:
Hey community, fresh from the pains of defeat I ask for help.

I was running a very bad Ork list against space wolves - so I knew I would lose... just not as badly as I did.

My list is:
20 slugga boys with heavy armour (when my collection gets bigger they will lose the armour)
+1 Nob with duo claws

3 Mega Nobz with duo buzz saws
+1 gruk face rippa
+1 weirdboy
+1 mek
+1 Looted wagon

9 Nobz: (two with duo power claws) (1 with a power claw and combi-schorcha) (6 with big choppas)

3 Killa Kanz (1 grotzooka) (1 Rocket Launch a) (1 Kustom-mega)

3 Deft Kopta's with rockets

10 Gretchen plus runtherd

3 bikes with (1 Nob with duo claws)

Warboss irk with da finkin cap and lucky stick

My friend went 6 thunder Calvary, 2 fortress cannons of some sort, a bunch of wolves, and a rune priest. He pretty much finished the game on his second turn, my army crumpling like wet paper. I only killed one of his thunder Calvary models and a few wolves. Maybe its because I am used to tau and killing a few things before I get crushed... but it felt like Orks just suck. Which is sad because I was looking forward to a fun game - but it was hardly that.

Any suggestions on what I can add next? I was thinking of getting lootas, a plane, or some trucks.

I do have questions:
1. Can Nobz get two PK on a model...? I haven't looked at the new 'dex in a little while.
2. How does your Warboss get two relics? Check your Codex again and you'll see it's 1 relic per model.

Though I agree with locarno, Trukks. It'll stop most of your stuff getting blown up turn 1. They're really cheap.

25 points is a lot to pay for an extra attack on your nobz. Thats 100pts for those 4 nobs having an extra attack each. Thats the equivalent of getting 5 kannons and still having 10pts spare. Also your warboss can only have 1 relic.
Your kanz are not focussed having a mixed loadout like that. With BS3 they are some of your more reliable shooting platforms - don't waste that by mixing the weapons.
I would also drop the nobz squad (not MANz), you could get much better stuff for their points. They're not bad - theres just stuff a lot better.
The MANz would be better in a trukk - they don't care if it explodes, and looted wagons aren't great. Beef up the bikes and deff kopter numbers - they are ineffectual in low numbers.
Hope it helps.

Orks just have a really bad matchup against SW (and most other armies). SW are better at movement, psychic and shooting. They're almost as good in close combat overall. With CCW GH and TWC they're basically equal to you in Assault phase and destroy you everywhere else. I played orks 3 times in the recent league using my SW list. Once I won close. The second game I tabled the guy and the third game he called it in bottom of turn 3 because I was annihilating him. I would say use trukks for as many units as possible. Also large bike squads and a gorkanaut. Those are about the only things that threaten a good SW army.

Nobz can't take "duo claws". You can trade your choppa for a PK, but not your slugga. You also can't have two relics on the same model.

Besides that, yes, your list was very bad. It's not surprising that you got tabled early.
Getting tabled as orks is always a result of spending too many points on expensive things (especially the second klaw everywhere) and thus having a low model count. Just plucking off all the illegal wargear would have resulted in a full second mob of 20 boyz and leader. In addition to that, nobz aren't point-efficient at all. 9 are are huge point sink which each have only a little more survivability than regular boyz, while costing three times as much.

If you drop your foot nobz and the metric ton of PKs you weren't allowed to have in the first place, you could easily field three additional blocks of 20 boyz each (or one block of boyz and some elite/FA choice). Increase your model count and distribute your HQs more equally across your mobs(MANz don't need Grukk to help them) and you will do a lot better next time, no matter your opponent's list.

If you are willing to invest more money, you should probably work on getting that warbiker mob up to size. Three are basically a fly an opponent needs to swat away, fifteen are a powerful force which are very dangerous to many things.
You could also get a couple of battlewagons for your boyz, MANz and nobz (or whatever is going to replace them).

Whatever you chose to do, make sure of one thing: Orks work best when they are all the same speed. Trukks, bikes, koptaz, buggies and battlewagons don't mix well with footslogging units, kanz, deff dreads and morkanauts. Pick one path and follow it to the end. You can later also built an army of the path you didn't chose, but mixing them at the start will only lead to frustration.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Toofast wrote:
Orks just have a really bad matchup against SW (and most other armies). SW are better at movement, psychic and shooting. They're almost as good in close combat overall. With CCW GH and TWC they're basically equal to you in Assault phase and destroy you everywhere else. I played orks 3 times in the recent league using my SW list. Once I won close. The second game I tabled the guy and the third game he called it in bottom of turn 3 because I was annihilating him. I would say use trukks for as many units as possible. Also large bike squads and a gorkanaut. Those are about the only things that threaten a good SW army.

I suggest against using masses of trukks. While the theory of having your entire army flat-out into your enemies face turn 1 is nice, you have to realize that you don't have first turn half your games. Trukks are very easy to destroy for anyone, so it's not unreasonable to expect half of them gone before you move. If that happens, you basically have what I warned about earlier: mixed speeds. One half of your army is slogging it (possibly having taken casualties from explosions and/or mob rule), while the other half is already getting stuck in. Half an ork army is not hard to handle with a full army of anything, even if you have to do it twice. Especially someone who is decent in close combat like SW, half an army of trukks is going to simply bounce off. And the worst part? You payed additional points in order to have that happen.

Trukks are great for supporting fast lists based on bikes or battlewagons. They are not something you want to build your army around.

If those “fortress cannons” were the vengeance weapon batteries, they need to shoot at the closest target with automated fire. Careful placement of your units can get them to shoot at things they’d rather not, or a fire close situation where they might scatter on his own troops.

 Nevelon wrote:
If those “fortress cannons” were the vengeance weapon batteries, they need to shoot at the closest target with automated fire. Careful placement of your units can get them to shoot at things they’d rather not, or a fire close situation where they might scatter on his own troops.

He put are... iron wolf... or something in it so that it fired at BS 4. I think it was the vengeance fortress.
And wow I did not notice that I had such an illegal army. In the nobz it saying "may take weapons from the weapon list" thought it meant. Could take two of what ever - since I can take a two-handed choppy which replaces a shoots. Guess I'll have to change that. Same goes for my warboss - did not realize it was just one relic.

I just started collecting Orks and as a result I do not have much. This game was mostly just me wanting to try out my new units and throw every possible point into the army to make it up to 1,500 points. So I was not surprise I lost - just that I lost so badly.

For the Kanz I want to go all grotzooka's I'm just needing to get the bits for them - they are magnetized.

I do have a unit of Gretchen - they where actually my most effective unit.

So what happened was he deployed first and went first. We were playing at home - so no official board, what we played on was a tad bit smaller. He had one manned vengeance cannon on either deployment corner giving them the range of the entire map.

In the center of the map was a river that mostly went down the middle - this was dangerous terrain with a bridge in the middle to get across. On one side - with a slightly larger landmass, he deployed a unit of Frisian wolves, with a rune priest on a bike, and his Lord from the new SW supplement. I can't remember what he had, but I feel as though it was a 2+/3++ unit. This unit was mostly n the middle of the map - partially in the river. Also in the center of the map was a vendicar sniper (sp?) he didn't hit anything at all so he doesn't really matter. On that side was also a 4 man squad of Wolf Calvary - storm or wolves or something. They also were 2+/3++ since they all had storm shields. On the other side of the map was another 4 man (might of been three manned) squad of storm wolves wit the 2+/3++ , this unit was between his vengeance cannon and the bridge.

The river cut off was in such a way that I could not place units on the right side of the board without taking a dangerous terrain test. Knowing that those cannons would rip me apart I tried to get into CC as soon as possible. So on the table edge I placed a 20 man squad of boys with my Nob and Warboss each spread out as much as possible to mitigate blast templates. 1/4 of my boys were in a forest. Beside them at tip of my deployment zone I place my Gretchen which were to act as a screen for my advancing Nobz. Behind them were my nobz and beside my nobz were my bikes. In the back of my army on the left hand side (aligned with one vengeance cannon) were my kana, on my right flank was my looted wagon - carrying my MANz, mek, weirdboy, and Gruk. My weird boy rolled for da crunch and power vomit.

My deft koptas were held in reserve for their infiltrate - my plan was to use their outflank to get into base contact with those cannons and destroy them.

Turn one he fired at my Nob squad - killing two, with one cannon. With the other he picked off one of my kanz. He did not move any of his units and ended his turn.

Knowing that if I waited until the next turn for my waag I would only lose potentially lose more units, ( I only lost so little because he scattered off target both times) So I started moving forward. My boys rolled a whopping 3" on difficult terrain so they did not even clear the forest - barely moving at all. I advanced my Gretchen and Nob a full 6" and my Rolla towards the center of my army so that my killa cannon was in range of his commander. I got on target but since my range covered the head of the warlord he said that's where the marker went - so it hit nothing else and with a 3++ save he laughed it off, (I feel like it was 2++ but not sure). My dakkaguns on my bikes hit 4/12 times on his lord - only thing in range, and he shrugged those too. I was out of charge range so that was the end of turn one. Oh I did run my army... 1s and 2s e...there was not much rejoicing.

Turn two...

On target hits from both cannons killed another no the rest of my squad got lucky with a 5+ cover save, and penned my wagon. He moved a little closer to my models and then he proceeded to impolitely take me as if though it was after the third date. First he moved his lord to his storm wolf squad which charged my boys. Which landed 8 shots in over watch - but with those saves he laughed them off. He killed 19 Boys - they did not even get to attack, and the Nob of the squad. My war boss preceded to do...1 wound on a wolf? Though I suspect it was none at all. Then he did a disorder charge with his feresian wolves + rune priest on my Gretchen/bikers. My Gretchen. Successfully survived the attack - losing 6 modeles but taking two wolves with them (the was some rejoicing). My bikers killed 2 or 3 wolves but lost 1 model. His other unit of space wolves just managed to get into combat with my nobz but only managed to kill one of my models. My nobz managed to kill 1 wolf and wound another. At the end of combat he got sweeping advances killing my Gretchen and Nob squads.

My deft kops came in - and stupidly, I went with my old plan of taking out the cannons. I placed my models in base contact with the tower - since in theory he would have to hit his tower if he wanted to hit me. ( h still amended to hit me without hitting his tower though)

My psychic powers all got fizzled
With my warboss in danger and thinking - hey man MANz can save the day with gruk right? Wrong. Anyways. I exited my wagon and my squad of grukk/MANz/weirdboy/mek charged into the squad of storm wolves and lord. My looted shot and wounded 1 of the non engaged space wolves with my kill kannon. My two schorchas and rocket launch a was all saved.

Side bare question. My blast template was over the previously wounded storm wolf - but he said that since another un wounded Calvary was closer to the wagon that model would take the wound and as a result none of his wolves died. Is that right? Or should it have been the model under the template?

Anyways my kana also charged into the lord combat trying to save my war boss.... His lord single headedly killed my Mek and my 3 nobz in the challenge fight... because the wounds carry over and just auto explode everything I have apparently. My war boss inflicted 4 wounds, he made 4 saves, gruk inflicted 5 wounds, he made 5 saves. My weird boy tried and failed. My kanz inflicted 3 wounds he saved them.

Turn 3.
At this point all I had left was gruk, my weird boy, 2 bikes, 4 deffkoptas, 2 kanz, and my wagon. By the end of my turn My bikes got crushed, since power claws make my warbosses initiative 1 they didn't even get to attack in the next combat - dying uselessly. His cannons managed to snipe 3/4 koptas.(though that kopta did manage to kill the cannon it was in contact with and its occupant)

At the end of his turn with just my kopta I said "good game" while thinking in my mind " how much can I sell my ork army for?" as I looked at the board and saw his army pretty much fully intact.

That is what happened to the best of my recollection.

OK, it would depend on whicjh fortress guns he was using.

Vengeance weapon batteries are small. About the size of a Dreadnought, with a cannon on the top. They fire at the nearest target, can't be occupied and always fire at BS 2.

Aquila strongpoints are massive forts. They have a gun on the top like a grumpy looking eagle with a hard-on and are about a foot across. If he's running two of these he's being a jerk

The Fortress of Redemption is a big castle-looking thing with a missile silo on one end and a lascannon turret on the other. Doesn't sound like this was the one he had.

Your list needs work, to be sure, but if he was using 2 Aquila Strongpoints in a regular game against orks there is only so much work will do.

Shaso_Keo wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
If those “fortress cannons” were the vengeance weapon batteries, they need to shoot at the closest target with automated fire. Careful placement of your units can get them to shoot at things they’d rather not, or a fire close situation where they might scatter on his own troops.

He put are... iron wolf... or something in it so that it fired at BS 4. I think it was the vengeance fortress.

Side bar question. My blast template was over the previously wounded storm wolf - but he said that since another un wounded Calvary was closer to the wagon that model would take the wound and as a result none of his wolves died. Is that right? Or should it have been the model under the template?

Just to be sure, if he was using these last I checked you could not stick someone inside, so are stuck with automated fire. There are a number of different fortifications with guns on them, so he may have been using one of the ones you can man. One of the reasons the vengeance batteries have a low point cost is the fact that they can’t be manned.

As for the side question: Barrage blasts remove models from the center point of the blast, but other blasts still work like normal, and take casualties closest to the guy shooting.

I’m not that familiar with the new Wolf codex, but it sounds like that guy has a very mean list. The table sounds like it was working against you as well. I’d not get too disheartened. Were you playing with objectives? Or just a straight kill fest? A lot of armies that focus everything into one hard to kill deathstar can have trouble with objectives. If you play the mission, you have a much better chance. Not always possible, but something to keep in mind.

Shaso_Keo wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
If those “fortress cannons” were the vengeance weapon batteries, they need to shoot at the closest target with automated fire. Careful placement of your units can get them to shoot at things they’d rather not, or a fire close situation where they might scatter on his own troops.

He put are... iron wolf... or something in it so that it fired at BS 4. I think it was the vengeance fortress.
And wow I did not notice that I had such an illegal army. In the nobz it saying "may take weapons from the weapon list" thought it meant. Could take two of what ever - since I can take a two-handed choppy which replaces a shoots. Guess I'll have to change that. Same goes for my warboss - did not realize it was just one relic.

If you check the wargear lists, they say "A model may replace its melee weapon with one of the following:" at the top.

I just started collecting Orks and as a result I do not have much. This game was mostly just me wanting to try out my new units and throw every possible point into the army to make it up to 1,500 points. So I was not surprise I lost - just that I lost so badly.

A piece of advice - don't try to spread your collection thin by flooding it with upgrades. If you don't have enough models to make a decent 1500 point list, ask your opponent for 1000 point game.

For the Kanz I want to go all grotzooka's I'm just needing to get the bits for them - they are magnetized.

Depending on what route your army is going to take, I wouldn't bother. Kanz are one of the big losers of our new codex.

Knowing that if I waited until the next turn for my waag I would only lose potentially lose more units, ( I only lost so little because he scattered off target both times) So I started moving forward. My boys rolled a whopping 3" on difficult terrain so they did not even clear the forest - barely moving at all. I advanced my Gretchen and Nob a full 6" and my Rolla towards the center of my army so that my killa cannon was in range of his commander. I got on target but since my range covered the head of the warlord he said that's where the marker went - so it hit nothing else and with a 3++ save he laughed it off, (I feel like it was 2++ but not sure).

You might have played this wrong. Even if just the warlord is in range, you still get the number of hits equal to the models under the template. If your blast hit four marines, the warlord would have to take four saves. You just cannot allocate wounds to models out of range, you can still hit them.

Side bare question. My blast template was over the previously wounded storm wolf - but he said that since another un wounded Calvary was closer to the wagon that model would take the wound and as a result none of his wolves died. Is that right? Or should it have been the model under the template?

He is correct here. Unless you have a barrage weapon (for example, Da Krunch), you wound the closest models first.

Anyways my kana also charged into the lord combat trying to save my war boss.... His lord single headedly killed my Mek and my 3 nobz in the challenge fight... because the wounds carry over and just auto explode everything I have apparently. My war boss inflicted 4 wounds, he made 4 saves, gruk inflicted 5 wounds, he made 5 saves. My weird boy tried and failed. My kanz inflicted 3 wounds he saved them.

Ouch. He got hot dice for sure, making that many 3++ saves.

Basically you got bad dice and a bad army, while he had a pretty good army and awesome dice. If you change your army a little, there should be hope for your orks.

I don't play Orks, but I could recommend playing another army.

lliu wrote:
I don't play Orks, but I could recommend playing another army.

Hey OP, don't follow this guys advice. Continue playing orks, and continue building on what you have. I think was a case of you stretching your models to a point level where the SW player was very comfortable.

Something else I would recommend for you is to get some transports. When I first started playing orks I tried to footslog units....man that never worked for me. I think it only works if you have an absurd number. I got myself 3 battlewagons from Da Swap Shop and haven't looked back. I also have two trukks and a looted wagon.

But seriously the best way to build an army is with minimal upgrades to units themselves. Pick one or two upgrades per unit and go that route. The only exception is a deathstar, and then you can pour a bunch of points in to it to make it very tough. But with the nerf to nob bikers it is a little tougher these days.

With your nobs squad, I think you only need a a couple PKs in there, maybe a couple big choppas and a painboy HQ. Maybe take a couple kombi-skorchas and stick them in a battlewagon. Lead the meganobs in a trukk ahead of that unit and maybe have a couple more trukks loaded with shoota boys coming up the sides.

 Icculus wrote:

lliu wrote:
I don't play Orks, but I could recommend playing another army.

Hey OP, don't follow this guys advice. Continue playing orks, and continue building on what you have. I think was a case of you stretching your models to a point level where the SW player was very comfortable.

Something else I would recommend for you is to get some transports. When I first started playing orks I tried to footslog units....man that never worked for me. I think it only works if you have an absurd number. I got myself 3 battlewagons from Da Swap Shop and haven't looked back. I also have two trukks and a looted wagon.

But seriously the best way to build an army is with minimal upgrades to units themselves. Pick one or two upgrades per unit and go that route. The only exception is a deathstar, and then you can pour a bunch of points in to it to make it very tough. But with the nerf to nob bikers it is a little tougher these days.

With your nobs squad, I think you only need a a couple PKs in there, maybe a couple big choppas and a painboy HQ. Maybe take a couple kombi-skorchas and stick them in a battlewagon. Lead the meganobs in a trukk ahead of that unit and maybe have a couple more trukks loaded with shoota boys coming up the sides.

Thanks for the advice. I'll try that - getting transports.

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