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I'm still building up my army and I know I should have some transports, but I want to make sure I get a lot of use out of each unit I get. I'm thinking about them as investments basically. Basically it costs a lot less (real money wise) to get trukks right now for when I'm just now making my army, but when I start moving into higher point brackets should I just get battlewagons to begin with, or are trukks fine there as well?

It depends partly on what you want your list or collection to look like further down the line but you'll probably want a few of both eventually. If you like using your Warboss in Mega Armour you probably want him in a Battlewagon with a retinue of Slugga Boyz but if you run him on a warbike then most of the rest of the list should probably be in Trukks and you may not need the Battlewagon at all. I find it most effective to have most of my list able to move at a similar speed, so if I'm going with big blobs of Boyz I'll cut out most of the fast moving stuff and stick to walkers if I use vehicles. If I'm using my Warboss on warbike I'll use small units of Tankbustas, Meganobz and Boyz in Trukks. This leads us to the problem of redundancy - if you're using one Trukk you should probably be using 7+ Trukks to give your opponent some target priority problems and if you're using more than one Battlewagon you should probably use the Blitz Brigade formation.

So I guess what in getting at is what list do you want to run and how quickly are you willing to build toward it?

Thanks for replying

So basically I'm planning on running some (sometimes on purpose) point inefficient stuff so I can quickly get a first army while also minimizing initial cost. I'm much more comfortable with having the bigger costs occur overtime. For instance I've got the start collecting orks painmob that I plan on running. Anything that isn't shooty or already mobile (like stormboyz) I want to put in transports. I'm hesitant about putting out full lists because there is a separate forum for that (don't want the mods getting at me) but I have one list at 1500 that has two battle wagons ($112) and one list at 1250 that has two trukks (70$) and some more lootas (25$) than the 1500 list, and I would end up wanting to get that extra set of lootas in the future anyway. I have heard that other players are willing to be flexible with point totals so 1250 is fine. There are of course more trade offs like battlewagons being able to fill in more points for the 1850 bracket relative to money, but if more trukks are better then I might as well start accumulating them. I know it is kind of counter intuitive to talk about real money costs in the tactics section, but I guess I asking about money efficient vs point efficient stuff.

I'm a big Battlewagon fan. Front/Side Armour of 14/12 with 4HP is tough to beat and, aside from combi-meltas in a drop pod and the like, they're incredibly reliable in getting your boyz up the field to where they can do some stomping (also note, in the combi-melta example above, said unit now has twenty odd angry Ork Boyz a few inches away ). After they've unloaded your Boyz, the Battlewagons are excellent at just being a pain for the rest of the game. They're fairly shooty, and can pick off a few models here and there, and are excellent late-game objective grabbers that are much harder to just blast off an objective on a whim than Trukks. Many times have a couple of empty Battlewagons won me the game through objective and/or linebreaker. I pretty much always run two units of 19 Boyz with a painboy in Battlewagons from anywhere above 1000pts. I normally run a Biker Boss and a Painboy in a unit of Warbikers too, and build on my lists from there in bigger games. I also have a third battlewagon knocking around that I often use with a killkannon to transport Meganobz, Flash Gits or Burna Boyz. This provides a tough, shooty firebase for the latter two and, for the MANz, provides a reliable delivery system that can deal some damage afterwards.

That said, Trukks have their uses, most notably in that they're cheap. One list I plan to run (I haven't had the chance yet, but am really looking forward to trying it out) features the Bullyboyz formation (3 units of 5 MANz) all in Trukks. Giving these already costly units Battlewagons really ramps up the cost to levels that go against the old mantra of "boyz before toyz", but slapping them in Trukks with just a boarding plank each keeps the formation relatively cheap for such a deadly one. Just one MANz unit making it into combat is going to cause real problems for your opponent and, with three such units hurtling towards the enemy, as well as two units of shoota boyz also in Trukks to worry about, the chances of that happening are high. And that's the key with Trukks: target saturation. They're a far cry from the durability of Battlewagons and so they will get destroyed easily, but they're cheap enough so that you can flood the board with them and rush the enemy. However, that may cause you some problems, if monetary cost is a concern: to run Trukks effectively, you need to run a lot of them.

One thing to bear in mind with Orks if you have monetary cost concerns though, is that they're very easy to kitbash and convert and doing so can often save you money. Thanks to the ramshackle nature of their constructions in the background (i.e. their vehicles are meant to be a bit higgledy piggledy) and the fact they're a "jokey" army, means that you can get away with some rough conversions. Now that doesn't mean the conversions can look bad, it's just that turning a bit of plasticard or cardboard into armour or a chassis for an ork vehicle is much easier and much more fitting with the aesthetic than it is for, say, an Eldar vehicle. I've made two trucks out of one kit by mounting the Trukk chasis on a spare flying base, making a rotor out of half a deffkopta I had lying around to make a "hover trukk" (it's orks, anything goes) and then using the rest of the kit with cardboard in place of all the bits I'd used to make a second, normal trukk. Don't be afraid to get a bit bonkers and wap out the cardboard to do some converting. If monetary cost is a real concern, the extra time spent converting will be worth it.

I have seen cheap battlewagons (without any option) performing really well, in my casual meta AV14 is still good (no grav).
However, I think you will need more trucks.

I generally go for trukks for melee units and wagons for range. Trukks are fast cheap and disposable. They get a unit somewhere and then they're mostly done so who needs the extra protection and weapons? I don't want my MANz hanging back cuz the wagon needs to line up its shots. Ranged units though, especially ork ones with only a t shirt save, make better use out of extra armour and are looking to shoot too so the wagon taking its time is a good thing.

Use a mix.

Trukks + vsg for me. Battlewagons have often been a disappointment cause of all that grav and fast dudes who can get to your enormous av12 sides easilly.

If you are going to buy the models trukks are more expensive than battlewagons because at 1500 point you'll need 3 wagons or 8 trukks. They're both transports but using trukks instead of wagons changes the style of playing. If you go with trukks you need a lot of vehicles as trukks are really fragile. I don't think trukks are better than wagon or viceversa, they are both solid choises and their efficiency really depends on how you want to play and your meta. At 1500 i also like to deploy two wagons full of boyz and three trukks, two full of tankbustas and one as the transport for meganobz. Trukks and wagons are both good or meh, the important thing to keep in mind is to overwhelm the opponent with as many targets you can field because both vehicles are fragile. Avoid playing a single wagon or just a couple of trukks, especially if you go with trukks make sure you have a lot of them or a couple of battlewagon to join the battle, avoid footslogging units.

Battlewagons only really shine with the blitz brigade formation.

Eh, av 14 stands up pretty well to the S8 shooting spam you see now. Lots of armies have to get close to pop it. I say let them.

But yeah, 5x scout, pick your units. Pretty good.

I like to run a mixture.

I typically use the Battle Wagons as a sheild for my Trukks.

The Trukks sit behind and roll forward.

The other type of Mech Orks I like to run is all trukks, bikes and Lootas. I find this style is better for Maelstrom Missions. The Trukks with the boys dump the boys and they kill as much as they can before they die then the trukks can scoot around grabbing objectives with Objsec. I also like to take a couple of Deff Koptas as well for jumping on Objectives with their Turbo Boost. (This type of list would always be played as double CAD to get extra FOC slots. Due to everything being quite cheep you can fill slots quickly.)

Didn't see it mentioned but Killkannons are actually quite useful and can really make the points investment into a Battlewagon worth it for more than just being a protective shell. Cuts the transport capacity but it's of little concern for the specialist Orks like Flash Gitz, Tankbustas, Meganobz, Nobz, and Burna Boyz who's max size is under or slightly above the 12 model count. S7 AP3 large blast is never a bad thing and can be great at blowing up MEQs and forcing 3+ armor bikes to jink which dramatically reduces their firepower.

As others have said the Blitz Brigade really makes the Battlewagon come into its own as that scout really helps get shooting units into range, sets up for reliable turn 2 assaults, and can shift to counter enemy deployment and get cover between the wagons and enemy anti vehicle weapons. The deployment flexibility of the Brigade makes the Battlewagon far less risky than a stock wagon.

Trukks are good if your going for trukk spam where their numbers make up for their lack of durability or if your trying to deliver Meganobz. Outside of that I feel like a small number of trukks just makes their anti vehicle weapons better at killing infantry as exploding trukks tends to kill half the 6+ armor orks inside. Trukks themselves have a lot of potential value zooming around the battlefield tank shocking and being a general pita for the enemy. As transports it helps to have things like KFF and/or VSG coverage to help mitigate alpha strike damage.

I'm going with both. They both look great and have their uses. Trukks with obsec and bw with kannons at least one killkannon will be definite. If they are still in one piece after dropping off their payload of orks then I want them doing more for their points. Obsec trukks with rams can tank shock itself onto an objective and claim a last minute vp and bws might even kill stuff.

Edit add: I wish their was an upgrade for grot gunners or they cam stock.

I've never been a big fan of killkannons as battlewagons have their best use at deliver boyz and meganobz, and with melee units aboard you'll always flat out the vehicle in the shooting phase. They don't synergize with shooty units either, as firing the killkannon force other weapons (included units inside) to snap shoot. I prefer hitting on 5s with tankbustas or flash gitz than on 6s and fire just a single s7 ap3 blast with bs2. Also 4 rokkits costs 10 points less than a killkannon, so they're a better option if you want your vehicle to be a bit performing in the shooting phase. Lobbas are way better for that job and five small blasts costs as much as 3 killkannons but they can take ammo runts, they're bs3, have a huge range and they can even be deployed out of line of sight. I think killkannons are better with looted wagons but only in lists full of vehicles as they're only av11 and a single penetrating hit prevents the tank to shoot the subsequent turn with 5/6 results. I took killkannons only in a speed freeks list with 8 trukks, 12 bikes, 5 warbuggies and 3 looted wagons with those killkannons and they performed quite well.

 Blackie wrote:
I've never been a big fan of killkannons as battlewagons have their best use at deliver boyz and meganobz, and with melee units aboard you'll always flat out the vehicle in the shooting phase. They don't synergize with shooty units either, as firing the killkannon force other weapons (included units inside) to snap shoot. I prefer hitting on 5s with tankbustas or flash gitz than on 6s and fire just a single s7 ap3 blast with bs2. Also 4 rokkits costs 10 points less than a killkannon, so they're a better option if you want your vehicle to be a bit performing in the shooting phase. Lobbas are way better for that job and five small blasts costs as much as 3 killkannons but they can take ammo runts, they're bs3, have a huge range and they can even be deployed out of line of sight. I think killkannons are better with looted wagons but only in lists full of vehicles as they're only av11 and a single penetrating hit prevents the tank to shoot the subsequent turn with 5/6 results. I took killkannons only in a speed freeks list with 8 trukks, 12 bikes, 5 warbuggies and 3 looted wagons with those killkannons and they performed quite well.

Firing ordnance weapons on a vehicle only affects the vehicle itself, it does not affect the unit inside from shooting normally. So the rest of a battlewagons ranged weapons would have to snapshoot but whatever unit inside can still fire at full BS so long as they didn't move beyond 6". So I disagree that killkannon battlewagons don't synergize with shooty units. They are still best taken in a blitz brigade formation to close the gap but they definitely work with units of Flash Gitz, Lootas (typically with a MA Mek to let them move and shoot at full BS), and Tankbustas. Don't forget that the units inside can target a seperate unit to that of the killkannon so you have some more versatility in terms of target priority.

If you want reliable artillery, either take Mek Gunz or IA8's Big Trakks with Supa Kannons. Supa Kannons are large blast AP3 primary weapons which means they have the benefit of ordnance but without the downside of making the rest of their guns snap fire. It's also actually long ranged (60") and has a high enough strength to threaten all vehicles and insta-kill any T4 or lower infantry (S9). It also has an AV12 front with no "Don't Press Dat" and the ability to be taken in squadrons, saving you your valuable HS slot.

I have bad luck with the Battlewagon, and it inevitably gets blown up on its rear armor, so for that reason I think Trukks are better, cheaper, and once in a green moon, Ramshackle might actually work out (really all ork vehicles should have gotten this rule)

 Grimskul wrote:


Firing ordnance weapons on a vehicle only affects the vehicle itself, it does not affect the unit inside from shooting normally. So the rest of a battlewagons ranged weapons would have to snapshoot but whatever unit inside can still fire at full BS so long as they didn't move beyond 6"

You're absolutely right my bad But I still think they don't synergize as firing the killkannon means you can only move 6'' and both tankbustas and flash gitz have a short range; in many cases you want to go closer to the enemy and in doing so you can't fire the big weapon. Not to mention that the BWs are quite fragile too being only av12 on the side and very vulnerable to melta shots so i prefer taking them with minimum upgrades, just a ram and a 5 points weapon. In a blitzbrigade killkannons can be useful as the scout move helps with the short range of the weapons, and having 5 armored vehicles means the opponent has to choose the priority targets, increasing the survivability of the BW with killkannons as the main threats are the wagons that carry close combat units. But I prefer lobbas if a want to deal with infantry models, maybe kustom mega kannons.

For a solid starter trukk list 6x min tankbustas in trukks + bullyboyz in trukks is about 1300, some hqs and a couple grots or trukk boyz round it out pretty well. Maybe zhad and some war biker spam.

But remember, going competitive we're up against gladius and scatbike spam. Those competitive gladius lists had like 12 rhinos/Razorbacks, so you have to put out comparable numbers.

Ork transports are kind of stuck in crap mode. On the one hand you have the cheap Trukk with 3 HPs (good) and AV 10 all around (Bad) and Ramshackle (hot garbage). since it is Open Topped and since the game is filled with either high rates of fire or AP1-2 Spam (Melta, plasma style) they tend to explode frequently. Literally a Heavy bolter has a 1 in 18 chance to explode a Trukk. (3 shots, 2 hits, 2/6 chance to Penetrate and 1/6 chance to explode). The Scatter laser is even worse, (4 shots, 3 hits, 1/3rd chance to pen per shot so 1 Pen on average and 1/6 chance to explode so that equals a 1/6 chance to explode)

Battlewagonz on the other hand are significantly over priced, have AV14 on the front which is good, but the front is very narrow and the sides are HUGE and only AV12. Worse yet, this vehicle has no Dakka to speak of at range so it HAS TO GET CLOSE to use it rokkitz or KillKannon (Which is over priced, weak and misses to much). So for 1 Battlewagon equipped with 4 Rokkitz and a Ram you can buy about 4 Trukkz with Ramz.

The solution is that we need something in between, AV11 or possibly AV 12/11/10 would be great, and we have something like that, its called the Gun Wagon.

For 65pts you get an AV 13/12/10 OT Tank Transport (10 capacity) that has a Ram and a TL Big Shoota. Its kind of the middle Ground, the only downsides? Its FW so ridiculously expensive to purchase, it takes up a Heavy support slot instead of being a Dedicated Transport and its a slow tank instead of a fast vehicle. (Granted with a Ram its Ramming attacks are pretty strong because its a Tank.)

I actually just checked FW's site and they don't seem to carry Gun Wagonz anymore. Your best bet would be to just make them yourself.

As others have said, wagons and trukks have different roles.

IMO wagons are better as your workhorse transport due to their armour and transport capacity. Multiple wagons can be quite intimidating for some opponents.

Trukks are better for smaller units with specific missions, such as 'ard boyz or megnobz, and zooming around the map taking objectives (particularly if they are DTs for boyz as this gives them obsec).

I like both units in their respective roles, but if I really had to choose between them I'd go with wagons.

Man, I feel like GW decided for me. I went ahead and pre-ordered three trukk boyz sets for about $42 a piece.

 GreatGranpapy wrote:
Man, I feel like GW decided for me. I went ahead and pre-ordered three trukk boyz sets for about $42 a piece.

Sad thing is they all look the same. It's fine for other races, but two ork trukks shouldn't look the same. I've made one from the old gorkamorka trukk and one from the new goliath truck

SemperMortis wrote:
Ork transports are kind of stuck in crap mode. On the one hand you have the cheap Trukk with 3 HPs (good) and AV 10 all around (Bad) and Ramshackle (hot garbage).

I fail to see how a 6+ serpent shield is hot garbage. It even work vs D-shots. And costs literally 0 points. Trukks are amazing transports for cheap assaulty stuff. And even for meganobz when they're protected with voidshields. What else do you want for a 30 pts dedicated transport?

 koooaei wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
Ork transports are kind of stuck in crap mode. On the one hand you have the cheap Trukk with 3 HPs (good) and AV 10 all around (Bad) and Ramshackle (hot garbage).

I fail to see how a 6+ serpent shield is hot garbage. It even work vs D-shots. And costs literally 0 points. Trukks are amazing transports for cheap assaulty stuff. And even for meganobz when they're protected with voidshields. What else do you want for a 30 pts dedicated transport?

4+ ramshackle would have been nice. 5+ ramshackle would have been fair. 6+ ramshackle saves 1 trukk every ~3 games...

Last ramshackle rule was so much better! I want S3 explosions again!

Ashkayel wrote:

 GreatGranpapy wrote:
Man, I feel like GW decided for me. I went ahead and pre-ordered three trukk boyz sets for about $42 a piece.

Sad thing is they all look the same. It's fine for other races, but two ork trukks shouldn't look the same. I've made one from the old gorkamorka trukk and one from the new goliath truck

Couldnt agree more.

I bought the old gorkamork trukks, back when they were the only trukk kit available (and trukk boyz, cmon, bring them back!) But didn't play the game till the start of 6th edition and the brief Ork Revival we had.
I had to take 4 of the old "rollerskate" trukks, and mash them together to get two decent sized ones. I also took two "looted rhinos" and gutted them to make open topped. Converted a 3rd edition Rhino for another trukk. I only own one Real Official ork trukk kit. Every model looks different, is painted a differenr color, has a different style, and truly represents the Ork mentality.

I agree about customizing ork vechicles, but the old trukks are too small compared to the new ones. I had two of them since 15-16 years and i recently converted into warbuggies as they have the same size. About trukks i run even 10 of them sometimes but only have 3 original ones, all other transports are scratch built from plasticard and spared bitz. Same for the blitz brigade, no one is gonna buy 5 original wagons, i made three of them by myself. I think if someone starts to collect an ork army that's not because he likes their style of playing but because he can customize his army. That's why i don't own two identical orks or ork vechicles and among various ork kits you can dispose of 40ish different heads for infantry models and 15+ for the nobz or similar.

Ashkayel wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
Ork transports are kind of stuck in crap mode. On the one hand you have the cheap Trukk with 3 HPs (good) and AV 10 all around (Bad) and Ramshackle (hot garbage).

I fail to see how a 6+ serpent shield is hot garbage. It even work vs D-shots. And costs literally 0 points. Trukks are amazing transports for cheap assaulty stuff. And even for meganobz when they're protected with voidshields. What else do you want for a 30 pts dedicated transport?

4+ ramshackle would have been nice. 5+ ramshackle would have been fair. 6+ ramshackle saves 1 trukk every ~3 games...

Last ramshackle rule was so much better! I want S3 explosions again!

S3 explosions are a relic from the previous editions where open-topped transports exploded with s3. Would you still want ramshackle with s4 explosions? Remember, there's 2/3 chance of explosion even if the truck simply gets wrecked. And it's more often wrecked than exploded nowadays.

 koooaei wrote:

Ashkayel wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
Ork transports are kind of stuck in crap mode. On the one hand you have the cheap Trukk with 3 HPs (good) and AV 10 all around (Bad) and Ramshackle (hot garbage).

I fail to see how a 6+ serpent shield is hot garbage. It even work vs D-shots. And costs literally 0 points. Trukks are amazing transports for cheap assaulty stuff. And even for meganobz when they're protected with voidshields. What else do you want for a 30 pts dedicated transport?

4+ ramshackle would have been nice. 5+ ramshackle would have been fair. 6+ ramshackle saves 1 trukk every ~3 games...

Last ramshackle rule was so much better! I want S3 explosions again!

S3 explosions are a relic from the previous editions where open-topped transports exploded with s3. Would you still want ramshackle with s4 explosions? Remember, there's 2/3 chance of explosion even if the truck simply gets wrecked. And it's more often wrecked than exploded nowadays.

Hmm good points. Different times, different rules. Still the new ramshackle rule could be our trukks explodes at S3 instead of S4. I would prefer that.

Ashkayel wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
Ork transports are kind of stuck in crap mode. On the one hand you have the cheap Trukk with 3 HPs (good) and AV 10 all around (Bad) and Ramshackle (hot garbage).

I fail to see how a 6+ serpent shield is hot garbage. It even work vs D-shots. And costs literally 0 points. Trukks are amazing transports for cheap assaulty stuff. And even for meganobz when they're protected with voidshields. What else do you want for a 30 pts dedicated transport?

4+ ramshackle would have been nice. 5+ ramshackle would have been fair. 6+ ramshackle saves 1 trukk every ~3 games...

Last ramshackle rule was so much better! I want S3 explosions again!

If you have trukks, you should have like 8 in your list and making at least one a turn and five a game which isn't bad. Beats the rhino self repair ability.

 slip wrote:

Ashkayel wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
Ork transports are kind of stuck in crap mode. On the one hand you have the cheap Trukk with 3 HPs (good) and AV 10 all around (Bad) and Ramshackle (hot garbage).

I fail to see how a 6+ serpent shield is hot garbage. It even work vs D-shots. And costs literally 0 points. Trukks are amazing transports for cheap assaulty stuff. And even for meganobz when they're protected with voidshields. What else do you want for a 30 pts dedicated transport?

4+ ramshackle would have been nice. 5+ ramshackle would have been fair. 6+ ramshackle saves 1 trukk every ~3 games...

Last ramshackle rule was so much better! I want S3 explosions again!

If you have trukks, you should have like 8 in your list and making at least one a turn and five a game which isn't bad. Beats the rhino self repair ability.

Yeah I rarely use more than 3 trukks. But that might change!