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I'm very close to quitting 40k. I've been playing since '89 and the past couple of editions have made me not want to play at all. Its not the core rules, its the codexes and the army composition rules primarily. Anyone who plays an imperial army can pick and choose anything they want from 14 different codexes/suppliments with no negatives. The "mandatory" units for allying are a joke. Meanwhile everyone else is left to fend for themselves. Tau and Eldar are fine with their OP codexes, but that leaves Orks, with their weakened codex, only 5 codexes they can even compete against, including their own. I've tried shooty armies, Lootas, shoota boyz, and Blitza Bommers, which die to any army that has fast melee. I've tried hordes, which fails to elite armies with high armour with tons of rerolls and templates, or ignore cover. I've tried "elite" armies, nobs and meganobz, which dies to better elite armies or horde armies, since we DON'T get rerolls or melee invulnerable saves. Pretty much every army has special rules that ignore most restrictions against it, except orks. My problem currently is playing against any Grey Knights list, Dark Angels biker or terminator lists, Blood Angels fast attack/mephiston lists, Space Marines bikers allied with DA, and pure Imperial Knights lists. I need to know what I can do about their: high armour saves, 15+ psychic dice, excess rerolls, overwhelming accurate firepower, superior melee abilities, all superheavies. I have all HQs, over 100 boyz, 40 gretchins, 20 nobz, 15 meganobz, 21 burnas, 10 Tankbustas, 10 Kammandos, 12 stormboyz, 3 bommers/dakkajets, 5 warbikes, 3 deffkoptas, 3 skorchas, 4 buggies, 7 trukks, 1 battlewagon, 3 mekguns, 1 deffdread, 2 Killa Kanz, 45 lootas and Ghazghkull Thraka.

Sorry if this was too much of a rant, but I'm tired of GWs favoritism bs. Any help would be helpful.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/615040.page
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/610324.page
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/613447.page
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/614961.page
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/605939.page
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/610375.page

Watch any battlereport with orkses. Some are wins, some are loses but you'll get the feeling. We're quite fine! There are many viable ork builds. But you got to stick to the theme and stay focused. You either go fast and furious with everything on wheels and a turn 2 assault or overmassed and footsloggy. But a mix almost never works. Even a greentide army (100 boyz in 1 squad) managed to pull 3/5 wins at Nova. And Nova's famous for it's cheesy competitive armies.

In my experience, Megaboss with lucky stick can do the trick - I realized that he's dead killy.
Zagstruk formation is great, a nice shock unit besides Zagstruk being an ultimate IC challenge slayer.
You have plenty of trukks, so simple Trukk rush with 1 or 2 KFF should be ok.
All in all, I heard some of my friends lamenting about non-power orks, but weird enough is that they constantly winning a certain amount of games. So cheers, orks may be not the most mighty army, but it definitely still rock. I believe you'll find a list that will be both winning and loved by you fluffwise.

You have to take a step back from your old way of building ork-armies and rethink everything a bit. Sticking painboyz to units makes them unexpectedly tough, not using a KFF no longer means that all my battlewagons turn into wrecks turn one and the aforementioned MA+Stikk warboss is a total monster which I wouldn't want to miss from any of my armies ever again.

You also seem to be trying to fight everyone on even ground. Orks try to do that in fluff, that's why they always lose in fluff. Orks aren't every better at anything than others. They are more efficient though, that's what turns us into bullies. If they are good at combat, send boyz after them to drown them in cheap bodies. If they are tough but not exceptional in combat (vehicle, bikers, centurions), sent your elites after them, it they are weak to shooting, gun them down. Your goal should always be to send every unit at whatever they can kill best while losing the least points.

You need Moar Battlewagons! The new Blitz Brigade really gives Orks teef!

Waveserpent? Charge them with 20 boyz! Terminators? Charge them with boyz, with a powerclaw nob!

Monstrous Creatures? Your gonna need a Warboss or two...and a big squad of boyz to protect them!

(Emphasis Mine)

 Jidmah wrote:
You have to take a step back from your old way of building ork-armies and rethink everything a bit. Sticking painboyz to units makes them unexpectedly tough, not using a KFF no longer means that all my battlewagons turn into wrecks turn one and the aforementioned MA+Stikk warboss is a total monster which I wouldn't want to miss from any of my armies ever again.

You also seem to be trying to fight everyone on even ground. Orks try to do that in fluff, that's why they always lose in fluff. Orks aren't every better at anything than others. They are more efficient though, that's what turns us into bullies. If they are good at combat, send boyz after them to drown them in cheap bodies. If they are tough but not exceptional in combat (vehicle, bikers, centurions), sent your elites after them, it they are weak to shooting, gun them down. Your goal should always be to send every unit at whatever they can kill best while losing the least points.

This is very true. The new book changed a number of core elements from the past book and thus requires a different mentality on how to play orks. They are not bad by any means and some are even saying it's a better book because of the options it provides. It is a very unique army though so trying to compare it apples to apples to an imperial army is missing the point I think.

Also, Tankbustas are a must! Tankhunters and meltabombs!

I've only managed to get in a few battles with my Orks since the new codex dropped (real life... sigh) but I feel your pain.

Last week I got shot off the table in 3 turns by a Tyranid army running two flying Hive Tyrants and two Crones. The entire game I only managed to kill both Crones and a handful of Gaunts. I had Tracktor Cannons and a Dakkajet, you'd have thought I could deal with fliers at least semi-decently. The problem as I see it is that LOTS of other armies have the Rock to the Ork's Scissor. However, I don't see the Orks having the Rock to hardly ANY other army or strategy's Scissor. We have lots of other codexes that can quite easily hard-counter most of what we can put on the table. But the opposite just isn't true, at least from what I've seen.

Anyways, my recent games are swinging me back towards the Battlewagon as the mainstay of the Ork army. I'm going to try out a variation of my Battlewagon list this coming weekend and we'll see how it goes. I think with the new codex Orks are still incredibly handicapped by removing casualties from the front, and the changes to cover saves. Having Boyz footslog is just not the way to go. The more I see, the more I think that this is the edition of either Trukks or Battlewagons for the Boyz. You need to go hard one way or the other.

The problem with going Battlewagons is that now they suck up all your Heavy Support slots. Which is why I think any Ork list is going to have to do multiple detachments to be useful. Take a detachment with all your Troops, and all your Battlewagons. Then bring a second detachment to bring extra Painboyz for your Boy squads, and add in some Lootas and Mek Guns for support. That's my thinking anyways. I need to get more games under my belt.

@Murrdox: That's pretty much how my armies work. I'm doing pretty well with them.

Orks don't have a scissor? Dropping three units of meganob bully boyz 24" on turn one in trukks and forcing the enemy to deal with that isn't good enough? Through nobz on bikes and war bikers in there to help out. Five rush units backed by lootas, artillary, and a couple back field objective holders can give lots of armies a tough time. That much in your face fighting power in super tough packages will sweep lots of the shot heavy armies out there.

Which makes me think about how orks would play rock-paper-scissors.

Ork1: "Oi, let's play rokk, paper, scissors!"
Ork2: "A'right."
Ork1: "Rokk, paper, scrissors."
*Ork2 shoots Ork1 in the head*
Ork2: "Hurr, hurr, I win."

Ork strategy pretty much works like that. If they bring scissors, shoot them in the head.

All that is good advice, but nothing I didn't already know. My problem is that none of it works. I've tried footslogging a Ghazghkull list. I ran big mobs of boyz with painboyz against terminators and failed to do a single wound, even getting the charge, and after several turns in combat my mobs were wiped out, again with no casualties from his units. The argument that I tied him up in combat is false since my units cost more than his. So HE was tying ME up in combat. Dreadnights killed all my fire support on turn one by teleporting 36" across the board and shooting them to death, in cover. And his Cleansing flames did the rest. Game over turn 2.

Speed freaks: Space Marine Bike list has better hammer of wrath hits, better saves, more shooting, and hit and run so no tying units up with mobs. Against terminator armies Trukk rush is worthless since you can't do near enough attacks with 12 boyz. Minimal vehicles means worthless buggies/koptas.

Space marines (any kind) shoot the melee and melee the shooters better than orks will ever be able to.

Then there is the T9 Mephiston walking around with smash and his best friend Brother Corbulo.

Because of challenges warbosses and nobz with power klaws can't kill monstrous creatures or terminators. Me: "I charge your terminators." opponent: I challenge with my thunder hammer/stormshield sergeant or special character with an ap 2 sword." Me: removing nob or warboss from table without him attacking. Monstrous creatures have initiative higher than one and smash = dead nob or warboss.

I guess my problem is I make my lists before I know who I'm playing against. I need to start waiting to make my list when I see what my opponent is bringing and tailor it to kill his army specifically.

A lot of that doesn't sound like how the rules actually work.

that's not really very friendly.

maybe you're just not good with orks, and should try another army? space marine bikes with imperial knights might be better for you!?

 Jidmah wrote:
A lot of that doesn't sound like how the rules actually work.

Yeah... I am not following a lot of what I read there either.

Can you clarify the scenarios in question? Sounds like blessings are going off. Challenge stuff sounds weird as well.

 zachwho wrote:
that's not really very friendly.

maybe you're just not good with orks, and should try another army? space marine bikes with imperial knights might be better for you!?

Uh, what? My guess was that he's being cheated, what did you read out of it?

Boyz are actually a hard counter to termies, not the opposite. You must have had really bad luck - that happes, but the odds are really really low for such things to happen. Use 15 pt meks to eat challenges. We don't have problems with that anymore.

Ork bikes are on par to sm bikes and are cheaper with way better default shooting and painboss for fnp.

Dreadknights are tough, yep, but that's what your boyz + meks are for. Or tankbustas with melta bombz. Or plain weight of fire + charge cleanup.

Dreadknights get gobbled up by most ork units. He smashes away at the boyz and the nob shears his head off over a turn or two.

 Jidmah wrote:
A lot of that doesn't sound like how the rules actually work.

I'm wondering about that too. Something smells fishy with his opponents.

That or new dice should be purchased.


Seriously - walk us through 1 game as best as you can remember as there seems to be something else going on that we may be missing.

Well, sometimes things happen...once in 5-th edition a gk pally abuse player rolled 54 2+ saves in a row. Separately!
Never again SUCH rediculous things have happened yet, both due to wound allocation nonscence was removed and such luck is just gallactically epic and happens once in a billion years. It might be this lucky billion when it's been 2 times.

I've had some bad luck but holy Gork! Buy you some new dice and pray to Mork for better luck.

I know your pain, mate. I've a buddy that plays the way you describe your opponents. Instead of playing him the way you want to play him, try to figure out how he plays and counter it, even if it means that you need to do something a little strange with a unit or two. I typically bring bikers/nob bikers, and the only game I've ever come very close to winning against my aforementioned buddy's Eldar was when I kited his WKs (he brings two) long enough with my bikes that I shot up the rest of his army with them, softened a wound or two off of the WKs, and then the Warbosses finished the job in CC. He wanted to get into CC fast to melt my nobs, but I wouldn't let him. If he got too close, I'd turbo boost across the board, and then next turn melt something else with two units of bikers shooting. I didn't charge anything because that would mean I'd be close enough for him to hit me with his knights. He won that game on points, but I survived, which is more than most can say about him and his Eldar. He's very good.
So try something a little different to throw your opponent off a bit. Outflank 5 battlewagons with shoota boys, or use a bike squad as fire support. Bring 6 units of 15+ boyz and their trukks, and then use the trukks to grab objectives while slamming 100 or more boys down his throat. I hate to say it, but we can't think like Gork. Running in and bashing stuff will not work. Gotta be Morky with these rules.

Tau are not OP, in fact they got hit pretty hard with the new edition as a lot of their top armies became useless due to rule changes, they are Upper Mid Tier at most on par with Imperial Guard, Space Marines and Necrons. In regards to you struggling I can understand and do feel for you, as the Orks got kind of hosed especially with the insanely bad new Mob Rule. You guys, along with Tyranids need exceptional play for them to truly be effective (or get some cool FW stuff like the Nids Recently got). My buddy who plays Orks has a lot of success using Unbound Armies and taking ALOT of those new Artillery Pieces, they put out a lot of pain against a large variety of targets.

In my year experience with Orks, and with the release of our new Dex, we have only gotten better as a whole army. You've also got to understand other Codecies will be getting a change in due time to cohere with the changes made in 7th. Already people are seeing drastic toning down of their armies (For better, or for worse). I play in an area that is DOMINATED by MEQ players (about 7 of them), a few IGs, a single Necron player, a few Tyranid players, and Eldar/Dark Eldar player and really no other Ork players. I've never gotten to sit down and 1v1 the Eldar player, but against every other army, my Orks can stand up to them, and often are pulling wins they couldn't get with the previous dex. Which means either I've gotten better, my opponents have gotten worse, or the army as a whole is better. I'll take all three explanations.

The reason Orks are not considered 'top tier OP craziness' is Orks currently lack any real form of 'Death Star' or spammable units that are difficult to deal with. We lost our 'Nob Biker Star' due to loses in how much freedom we have to mess with our Force Organization. A feature that every other army is losing as their new book comes around. Once these options phase out, since everything is scoring and you no longer have a true need for Troop slotted Bikes/big battle suits/walkers/tanks, and whatever else have you - then the balance in armies will come into line. Right now, older books still get to abuse Objective Secured non 'Troop' options due to Force Org tomfoolery.

Currently, Orks biggest weapon is, in all honesty, the Green Tide formation, along with Kustom Force Fields, and Painboys. These are our new Auto Includes. Green Tide makes for an incredibly difficult to remove unit that can handle just about anything your opponent tries to throw at it. When you combined a KFF and Painboy into the mix, you have over 100 models as a single unit that has a 5+ Invul to shooting attacks, and a 5+ FNP on top of that. With a potential max of 10 Nobs with PKs, and your mandatory Warboss, you have 11 base PK that will rip ANYTHING the blob touches to shreds. Anyone foolish enough to try to get into CC with it, WILL die. My Green Tide has mowed down Riptides and even Imperial Knights. There's just TOO many bodies and too many axes and klaws swinging about to kill them. Your opponent has to shoot them, blast them, and pray they are getting ID to at least try to get past 1 of the saves. And if you take the Mega Force Field, your massive mob gets a 4+ Invul and the 5+ FNP afterwards with the obligatory Painboy.

With Painboys now able to be put into any infantry unit, Orks only got more durable. Suddenly, your 30 Boy blobs are insanely more durable, with only ID attacks ensuring they don't keep approaching. Toss them in the trusty Battle Wagon, and you have a decently armored transport to get the 18 Boyz, Nob/Klaw and Painboy across the field with relative saftey, onto to leap up and wreck some face.

Mek Gunz are outclassing Lootas by a long shot. They are just a tad more expensive points wise than Lootas, but do the job 80% better. With Grot shooting, they toss better fire power around the battlefield, granted at shorter distances. With the Grots getting the toughness of the Gun they are using, they SURVIVE better than Lootas. Lobbas can indirectly pummel enemy infantry, and do it WELL. Kannons can cripple vehicles with better odds overall than Lootas and not be as vulnerable. Kustom-Mega Kannons will wreck face better than Zaap Gunz ever hoped to.

The bottom line with Orks is, they can't really work as just 'shooty' or just 'choppy'. They rely on a little of everything. With all of our tweaks and buffs, we can do this well. Tankbustas got cheaper and BETTER, and they can really lay the hurt on vehicles now, while you not longer have to dedicate a Boy blob and his Nob to tank hunt. Your Mek Gunz can provide serious covering fire while you approach. Our cheaper Biker units can keep up pressure with their larger mob size, and still just as good weaponry and improved Jink. Orks have the tools to be great, they still are the one army that requires a LOT of thought when it comes to list building.


Also, Orks are to have FUN first and foremost. I'm enjoying them more than ever now that I'm winning far more often, but if you are looking for an army that will win almost EVERY game you play, Orks have never really been that kind of army. Keep trying new things bub, and watch what other people do with Orks. They ARE good. You just have to think a little more. They won't ever have the re-roll everything, super armor other races do. But we don't need em! WE DA ORKS! WE ONLY NEED OUR CHOPPA!



Edit: I did a little reading back, and i think a lot of this is far out of the ordinary, even for Ork odds. Especially with your examples on challenges. With 15 point Meks being easy to throw around, put one in any mob you plan on going into combat with to each a challenge. Also, how are these MC challenging you? They are by themselves, so even if they do get the challenge, your Boy's should be swinging back and potentially dealing wounds. Plus, I thought a lone model could not challenge? Either way, the moral is: Bring the slotless Mek in your mobs. Let their big guys chew that while your Nob and Warboss slice the gak out of them.

And with a Thunder Hammer Sarg, he should be swinging at the same time as your Boss or your Nob. If anything, they BOTH should be dead. And a Warboss should be able to somewhat take an AP2 sword since armor doesn't matter for Orks, and with his 3 wounds.

Also, Ork rule of thumb: Orks are bullies. There is no 'overkill'. You send the BIG stuff at the things you KNOW they can handle, and send the small fry after their BIG stuff to tie it up. I learned that a while ago. I send my Warboss where he can't be singled out too easily, and can do enough points in damage to earn his keep. After all, he is still one of the cheapest, yet most brutal HQ's in the entire game.

Melevolence summed it up pretty well. Green tide seems to be the optimal formation. The only knock I have against it is it's vulnerability to psychic maledictions and fear tests, which basically means you have to make them fearless through either mad dok who would significantly slow down the horde, or big bp on the warboss, who will likely die since he has to challenge everything. Maybe putting big bp on big mek with kff could work.

As far as normal list building is concerned I like to run 2-3 MANz missiles, 3x30 boyz with pk nob and mek in each, and 2 squads of traktor kannons as a base. Traktor kannons blow up flyers and down fmc's, who are then assaulted by a boyz blob, and the MANz do what they do best. Covers the bases pretty well.

Don't give up on da boyz yet!!

I'd argue that the green tide is 'da best'. It's decent but it has as many counters and vulnerabilities as a wagon rush or truck rush or basically any ork list. It's a good option to run but not auto-win. That only means good ballance of our codex which is great!

And big gunz vs lootas have some difficulties. Yep, big gunz are way more durable. But lootas provide s7 shots from a 48' distance. Big gunz with 48' range are just lobbas and trakktors. The ones that can take loota's place all have 36' range and that might be an issue for artillery since you're playing orkses and that's usually you who's coming for the opponent, and not the opposite. Yep, there are lots of rokkits avaliable to your army here and there but there are some cases where lootas are a better option. For example, compare them to tankbustas. Bustas are way more killy than lootas. They're also a tiny bit cheaper and pack meltabommz. But they just have 24' range. If you're in for a mechanised army, put a squad of 15 in a wagon, if you're running a truck rush, put 5-7 in a truck. In this cases they're superior than lootas. But when you're running something like a bunch of footslogging guyz, a single wagon or truck won't really work well. So, it's not right to discard lootas in favor of big gunz. They're situationally good.

 koooaei wrote:
I'd argue that the green tide is 'da best'. It's decent but it has as many counters and vulnerabilities as a wagon rush or truck rush or basically any ork list. It's a good option to run but not auto-win. That only means good ballance of our codex which is great!

Oh absolutely! I wasn't trying to say Green Tide is the strongest or the best option, but it is by far one of the most viable tactics our codex grants us. I was skeptical at first until I began to realize just how silly you can make it. When you run it bare bones, you still have PLENTY of points to run proper support for it. It's simply a great and powerful option. Our Wagons are great with the formation as well. I wish I owned 5 of them, so I could have outflanking Wagons x_x SO damn scarey and good!

Melevolence wrote:
When you combined a KFF and Painboy into the mix, you have over 100 models as a single unit that has a 5+ Invul to shooting attacks, and a 5+ FNP on top of that.

You should read KFF v7 rules again mate. It covers any MODELS within 6'', and not UNITS anymore

If taking a green tide, remember that it's six independent squads "blobbed up" - there is some argument for giving the front two or three ranks eavy armour - pair that up with a painboy and you've got marine toughness for the first few hits.

Ultimately, you're right. There is an army out there that will take apart every 'theme' of ork army, but they will - or at least should - fall apart against the next one in the list. Scissors-paper-stone works both ways.

That said, a big mob bouncing off terminators is unexpected. Even if they're down to half numbers by the time they get to swing at the tinboyz, you should get 60 attacks/30 hits/fifteen wounds/2-3 kills.

Yes, challenges are a bugger. But even then, any "sergeant" equivalent of any race tends to die horribly before a hive tyrant or chapter master. As noted, a cheap mek gives you a challenge bunny who can keep abbadraigo busy and let the ork with the power klaw do his stuff.

Also, look at the formations book (Waaaggh! Ghazgkhull) if you don't have it. A lot of the formations in there make codex units much, much better (especially since they make 'mob rule' for big units better too!). The Red Waaaggh! and Hour Of The Wolf books are good too.

are you referring to the traditional green tide, which is max troops walking on their own side by side? the formation is 10 units, not 6, plus a boss. Minimal cost of this formation is like 1105pts (warboss has nothing but pk and fearless pole), which seems to be a running trend in the ork formations.

I want to run pretty much every one of these formations, but Snikrot's is the only feasible one without basically fielding nothing BUT the formation lol. Even that one costs ~900pts if you field max kommandos and pk's.