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Hey all,

I have been playing daemons for a while and am playing my friends orks tomorrow and need some help. I have glanced through the dex and it looks like just about anything I take will strike first in cc, they all have 6+ saves, and are BS 2...soo I guess my question is what is their "thing" what am I missing? Because without sounding arrogant, it just doesn't look like that big of a challenge...but I am not an arrogant person lol I just want to know what I need to look out for, because there has to be something to be my bane! Thanks everyone! Surprisingly out of hundreds of games I have never ever played orks...

Orks have lots of shots, and lots of bodies to make up for the bad shooting and slow initiative.

Also, there are units that surprisingly durable and shooty. Bikes, and flash gits for example. A 10 man squad of bikes is throwing out 30 s5 twin linked shots, effectively hitting at bs3. They are also t5 with a 4+ save and a 12" move. flash gits put out the same amount of shots at s5 and ARE bs3 if they didn't move.

Orky artillery is one of the best anti flyer/fmc counters out there, or instead excels at putting out a ton of templates to counter hordes.

The ork supplement adds a lot if neat formations that allows orks to dictate board placement, which helps get them where they want to be.



When fighting orks, use their own saying against them

"Shoot the choppy, chop the shooty"

Good luck.

I knew there had to be something! I can only make so many 5+ invulns...

Thanks!

The sheer amount of attacks makes you fail your saves a lot more than you'd expect. Don't underestimate them. They can also get across the board and in your face VERY easily.

Daemons have an answer to everything Orks can throw at them. They are in fact basically Orks+1, or Orks if Orks cross-bred with Space Marines. lol

What's your general list, if you don't mind me asking?

We are playing like 2500 pts so some of it is meh just because I don't have all the preferred models and I want to play with some of the ones I just painted (we aren't really competitive) but here is what I got so far

Belakor 350
HoK with throne, LR, and locus of fury 160
Letters x15 w/ icon and banner 170
Letters x15 w/ icon and banner 170
Daemonettes x20 w/ icon and banner 200
Pink horrors x20 180
Nurglings x3 45
Flesh hounds x10 160
Flesh hounds x10 160
Seekers x10 120
Flamers of tzeentch x4 92
Flamers of tzeentch x4 92
Beast of nurgle x3 156
Skull cannon 125
Skull cannon 125
Grinder of nurgle w/ phlegm 180

2485

I think I need to add more horrors or get rid of them all together, if so I should maybe get rid of belakor too...is invisibility worth the points? That's pretty much my thought process at this point ha ha

If he bring Battlewagons or other vehicles you might have some problems. How do you usually deal with AV?

Otherwise, I agree that Orks are really shooty, and for an army like daemons with low T, no armour, no transports, you could have some problem.

Also note that shooting flicker fire at orks most of the time give them +FNP. Dont sound so bad on paper, but Ive had a few bad dice rolls that made the orks all but invincible once they reach you.

It mostly depends on the ork's list. If he goes footslogging - you can choose targets yourself. Horde's unwieldy and not really that durable. Though, don't underestimate boyz. If they manage to pull a charge off - consider your guyz dead cause orks rock 3-4 s4 ws4 attacks on the charge and that's just regular boyz, nobz get 4 s9 ap2 attacks. The problem of being slow is partly mitigated with old new WAAAAAGH! and 'ere We Go! Orkses can run + charge for 1 turn and reroll 1 dice for charging distance. You got to soften the mob and charge wisely.

If he goes speedy, that's you who's in trouble. Daemons ain't known for excellent vehicle hunting. And that's one of the strongest ork's aspects - ability to field a helton of vehicles most of which are packed with boyz eager to wreck faces. He's gona have significantly less bodies but they're gona be VERY fast and still quite numerous.

Beware the big gunz. They're devastating for their points. And night unkillable at range. The good part for you is that they're operated by ld5 guyz with t2 s2 and no armor. Mellee is the answer. DS a squad of something and run to spread the guyz cause otherwise they're gona be pasted by numerous blasts - thus even bloodletters are gona be more durarble than plaguebearers. Or use psy-powers relying on target's LD to do things.

I play foot slogging shooting orks. My demon opponent has issues with shoota boyz. 30 shoota boyz pumps out 54 S4 shots +3 rokkits all for 240 points roughly, while still having 2 attacks for CC. Don't under estimate BS2 , a lot of people that don't know orks do.

Even over watch will mess up T3 demons. Also burna boyz in a battle wagon is rough on demons.

With painboyz and KFFS the mobs are way more resilient than they look.

Oh boy what have I gotten myself into...I made a completely different list using kairos, a ton of horrors, a lot of Flamers, a tzeentch Herald on a disc, and then a ton of khorne hate...dogs, heralds on juggernauts, letters, and a couple cannons, I also have a grinder in there with the phlegm cannon. I think I got too carried away on trying to deal with anti infantry, and after packing everything away and seeing what the good folks on dakka had to say...I realize now I didn't really take anything for AV... at least it is a psyker heavy list, maybe I can turn one of those horror squads into a thirster I will post the list, and then post the results tomorrow! Thanks everyone!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Alright here is the list I am playing tomorrow:

Kairos 300
Tzeentch Herald ML3 w/ disc 120
Horrors x15 135
Horrors x15 135
Horrors x15 135
Flamers x3 69
Flamers x3 69
Flamers x3 69
Grinder of Tzeentch w/ phlegm


Khorne Herald on throne w/ locus of fury 150
Khorne Herald on juggernaut w/ locus of fury and greater reward 140
Khorne Herald on juggernaut w/ locus of fury and greater reward 140
Bloodletters x15 150
Bloodletters x15 150
Khorne hounds x10 160
Khorne hounds x10 160


Goal w/ Tzeentch is to keep the horrors in the backfield to either summon more daemons or use flickering flames (depending on the situation...) kairos will troll about the sky and vector strike / buff everyone else / maybe toss some dakka depending on what he rolls or using psychic shriek the Flamers will all DS where needed as suicide units to thin them out, and the Herald is just gonna troll around and cast stuff suppose. As for the Khorne units I will have the letters DS near the chariot and hope to make use of his locus, I will put a Herald on juggernaut in each of the dog units and will probably outflank both of them depending on the situation. Either way I will be excited to play a strict Bi God list with daemons that don't hate each other...hopefully Khorne and Tzeentch will reward me well! I'll post results tomorrow!

In my experience horrors are terrible against orks. If you're summoning, you're not shooting, and orks are balanced around losing casualties before getting into combat. When the mobs get into combat unharmed, any unit of pink horrors will simply implode - even after losing a fear test (usually lose combat high and then get killed off by demonic instability).

Using flickering fire against orks is a high risk, since you are pretty likely to not kill the mob in one go, and you don't want to be facing 4+ or even 3+ FNP boyz.

Flamers are decent, but one-shot. With passibly both KFF and FNP protecting boyz from their flamers, make sure you aim them at the ork's elite/hs choices - you are not going to make your points back by frying boyz.

Grinders are pretty good actually, orks have trouble killing those without tankbustaz or a warboss. Make sure you stay away from those.

When I play against tzeench armies I usually end up tabling them, because between needing warp charges to shoot, failing psy tests and deny the witch they simply have to little shooting to stop an average ork army, and literally everything they have besides LoC and DP folds like wet paper in close combat, and those either get swamped and killed, or uselessly vector-strike for most of the game.

Khorne is a whole different beast though, with similar combat abilities to orks fear really makes the difference - a fear check pretty much decides combat in your favour, and buffing cursed earth will go a long way to minimizing casualties. Make sure to put the right units on the right targets though. A MA Warboss with lukky stick will pretty much beat any unit without AP2 all by itself.

Fleshhounds make good Anti-Tank - they're fast, are S5 on the charge and Battlewagons are only AV10 on the rear. They'll be glancing Killa Kans on 6's too, and with Kans only having 2 HP and only hitting back on 5+ the Dogs shouldn't have too many issues.

As for AV12, Flickering Fire of Tzeentch from a Herald with the Exalted Locus that gives +1S to Psychic Attacks can work. Again you'd be glancing on 6's, but with the amount of attacks you can throw out with it (need a lot of Warp Charge to do that though) you can cut through light armour. I disagree with Jidmah though - Flickering Fire does a real number on footslogging boyz imo. S5 (or S6 with the locus), AP4 and a potential gak-ton of attacks can cut mobs out of cover down to size. As a bonus, roll your Heralds on Divination and hope for Perfect Timing - it now Ignores Cover. It does need a heap of Warp Charge dice to do it though, as well as multiple units shooting at a single squad. Still, two Heralds and two Pink Horror squads each casting Flickering Fire at 2 WC with 4 dice each for a 75% chance to cast (completely doable given you have 13 WC from your initial Mastery Levels anyway - just Sacrifice for another TzHerald) will give you 3d6 shots from each unit. That's 8d6 (i.e. 28) S5, AP4 shots on average. I wouldn't worry too much about potentially handing out FNP +1 if you're dropping 10-15 Boyz per psychic phase, especially when you still have your Soul Grinders/Skullcannons/Flamers yet to shoot and hopefully your Charges lined up ready to go.

Screamers are nice - they can substitute all their normal CC attacks for a single S5 AP2 Armourbane attack. That will have you statistically glancing AV13 on average. They also get to make D3 S4 Slashing Attacks per Screamer if they Turbo-Boost over an enemy unit, so use that to harass da boyz while also keeping your Screamers out of combat.

Skullcannons and Soulgrinders can throw out S8 blasts that might do the trick against vehicles too. Bonus with the Skullcannon, not that it really applies against Orks, is that it Ignores Cover so Jink is not a problem. I would suggest you run Soul Grinders with Baleful Torrent rather than Phlegm though - you don't need AP3 against Orks, whereas an AP4 Torrent Flamer will be brutal.

Also your Bloodletters, on the charge, will statistically be about evenly matched against a large group of Boyz (25 Slugga Boyz cost the same as 15 Bloodletters for comparison). The Herald handing out Rage will really help give you an advantage on the charge. However do not let them get charged under any circumstance. The math swings wildly back in favour of the Boyz and you will get krumped hard. I would highly suggest looking at ways to up your Invuln save if you want to get into Close Combat against the Boyz - with either the Grimoire, Cursed Earth or even Forewarning - or carefully pick your combats against weakened/low model count units.

The "potential of gak-ton" attacks only unfolds when you dump a huge part of your psychic pool in them, which also vastly increases their rate of failure. Sure, you can gamble on that WC3 up-fire, but if it fails (which it has a pretty high chance to do), you've just tossed 1/3 of your dice pool to the wind. WC2 is doable, but still eats a lot of dice, has a good chance to fail and can even be denied if the d6 roll was high enough. Even then, you get 18 shots at best, which make wiping out a mob of 20 literally impossible. Rolling bad on your amount of shots also makes the power go poof with close to no effect. Even when it doesn't, you still have to hit and wound, and the ork has to fail cover/invul and his FNP roll.

I'd also point out that your math has a couple of errors in it.
The chance of succeding a WC2 power with 4 dice is 68.75% (chance of 2 successes plus chance of three successes plus chance of four successes), resulting in a 31.25% chance of failure.
Assuming your old math, three WC2 power would result in 9d6 shots, not 8d8. Assuming 12d6 shot averaging into 42 shots, or 28.875 on average including failures to cast, 14.437 hit, 9.525 wound, 6.42 get past cover or KFF or FNP.

Flickering fire simply has too many points of failure and on top of it all, it rewards your opponent for you failing. Also killing even 10-15 boyz with that kind of point investment isn't exactly good - it took you a relic, two HQ choices and two troop choices to kill 90 points. Being able to kill Kanz is also not a feat, considering that they are tied for one of the three worst units in the ork codex.

Tzeench players should not rely on psychic powers for shooting. Without flamers, sould grinders or skull cannons to provide reliable shooting, you will face a horde in close combat you will not be able to stop. Any tzeench player that relied on psychic powers for shooting against me ended up losing most or all of his army.

As for screamers, they are decent, but ignore that slashing attack. D3 S4 hits isn't even killing as single boy on average. They do well when they get the charge against boyz due to their high amount of attacks, but a warboss in a unit really muders them, as two PKs deal out more instant-deathes than they can handle.

Agree on the other parts though.

All very good points, I guess my thought process is the mega focus fire each unit of boyz with both flickering flames and the Flamers/cannons I suppose that will be my only chance! Being able to increase fnp twice in each turn though has me nervous.... maybe they will just be summoning after all!

When rolling on malefic anyways, you might also get the beam that wounds on 2+ or the torrent-flamer. Those do roughly the same damage as a flickering fire without any risk of giving +1 FNP to a warboss or pain boy.

But yes, if you shoot something, shoot it until its dead.

I would just roll on Telepathy once for Psychic Shriek. Makes Orks hate their lives.

You can accidentally create an unkillable mass of fnp boyz since they pass on a 3+. So, i'd warn you from shooting at full-strong mobz. Smaller ones are fine though.

 GoliothOnline wrote:
I would just roll on Telepathy once for Psychic Shriek. Makes Orks hate their lives.

He probably would as well, if he were allowed to.

 koooaei wrote:
You can accidentally create an unkillable mass of fnp boyz since they pass on a 3+. So, i'd warn you from shooting at full-strong mobz. Smaller ones are fine though.

This happened to my orks once and it was glorious. This also happened after my opponent's Nurgle prince attempted to deep strike and mishapped square onto the same 30-boy mob.

As long as your opponent doesn't bring a whole bunch of traktor kannons, it should be a pretty even fight with the odds slightly leaning towards daemons with most builds.