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A few of you may have seen me talking about how I have a main army and now looking for a fun side army and asking about a dreadnought army. However, I also secretly want to expand into an ork army... What would you guys suggest I look for, for a fun army, and if getting an Ork army is cheap? (I see a lot of models on Ebay cheap sometimes).

Tou can have both. A fun orky walker army.

 koooaei wrote:
Tou can have both. A fun orky walker army.

I also like the idea of a swarm of orks. so it would be fun to play with both ideas.

It's too early to say if hordes are going to be viable in 8-th.

 koooaei wrote:
It's too early to say if hordes are going to be viable in 8-th.

My club agreed their going to be doing 7th for a while now until 8th has been fully ironed out. So you got any suggestions for 7th?

Ork hordes are not viable in 7-th unless you're playing VERY casual games or you've met an odd list with only meltas or lazcannons or something like this. The only exception is probably a greentide formation. It's 10 squads of boyz + warboss combined in one massive squad. It can waaagh every turn after the 1-st. And benefits from painboyz and fearless from the big bosspole relic. But it's not that easy to play correctly cause it's still a bunch of footslogging boyz and nobz and it has too many counters now. Any hardy or magically buffed unit will tie them up for quite some time. Another thing is magic and artifacts affecting whole squads that are quite easy to come across now - especially magic. Also, mid-str shooting spam kills it dead - you just loose all the advance you've made after facing a bunch of scatbikes or broadsides/double-shooting riptides.

 koooaei wrote:
Ork hordes are not viable in 7-th unless you're playing VERY casual games or you've met an odd list with only meltas or lazcannons or something like this. The only exception is probably a greentide formation but it has too many counters now.

so what ork list would you suggest for 7th ed? Does it still involve like 60+ ork models (not including vehicles or mech) because that would still work for me.

7th is a bit of a disaster for ork swarms rulewise. Even the greentide which is fun (but long to play with/against) struggles against an experienced player because it becomes a series of long combats with pile in constantly limiting combat effectiveness.

That being said, all my mates love to play against orks. If you don't mind the uphill struggle of playing them they are a rewarding army to hobby and play but definitely not strong in 7th. You need to find a big bucket of dice though!

The best game you'll ever have in 40k is orks vs orks

What is still viable in 7-th is either a biker horde with a forgeworld biker character and a broken forgeworld stompa or a formation of bully boyz (meganobz).

However, if you have a relaxed casual meta, all will do and you can even be successful running bog standard 30-strong boy squads. It's just not that easy even vs toned down lists from stronger codexes.

I already own 60 Boyz I think btw. I'm not sure what they are but I think their Boyz. I got them for like £15 in a charity shop and have them in storage, was going to sell them on ebay for like £15 per 30 but never got around to it.

Two part question:

Questions:
1) "What would you guys suggest I look for, for a fun army."
2) "Getting an Ork army is cheap?"

Answers:

1) Depends on your idea of "fun".

To be "competitive" it is still too soon to see what the new meta will do to all the armies so we are a wee bit out of luck... for now.

For an army as straight-up fun, the Orks are the poster-boyz for the fun in the 40k millennium.
Cheerfully caving-face for as long as we can remember.
Good for conversions and angry, ugly tech that just plain works, not sure why, it is believed as long as they think the equipment works, it does.
Just looking at the factions within the Orks you have a theme (or more correctly a stereotype) for whatever hits your funny-bone.

Doing a quick review, all the other factions and races take themselves far too seriously other than the Squats, but that is not a viable option.

2) Depends on what you like, if you really like your walkers / vehicles / aircraft, it can get really pricy, for tons of boyz: costs much less per man than the other armies.

I suspect you already made up your mind and just wanted others to agree.

 Talizvar wrote:
Two part question:

Questions:
1) "What would you guys suggest I look for, for a fun army."
2) "Getting an Ork army is cheap?"

Answers:

1) Depends on your idea of "fun".

To be "competitive" it is still too soon to see what the new meta will do to all the armies so we are a wee bit out of luck... for now.

For an army as straight-up fun, the Orks are the poster-boyz for the fun in the 40k millennium.
Cheerfully caving-face for as long as we can remember.
Good for conversions and angry, ugly tech that just plain works, not sure why, it is believed as long as they think the equipment works, it does.
Just looking at the factions within the Orks you have a theme (or more correctly a stereotype) for whatever hits your funny-bone.

Doing a quick review, all the other factions and races take themselves far too seriously other than the Squats, but that is not a viable option.

2) Depends on what you like, if you really like your walkers / vehicles / aircraft, it can get really pricy, for tons of boyz: costs much less per man than the other armies.

I suspect you already made up your mind and just wanted others to agree.

No, I have genuinely never even played orks! I just happened to own a few and figured it might cost me less for the fun army I am building (rather than looking for 10 forge world marine dreadnoughts like my other idea). I like the idea of being more a dungeon master in 40K and buying armies that give people a good time or make them go "this is an epic battle!". While my DA army is my main army for when i fight someone elses cool unique army.

 koooaei wrote:
Ork hordes are not viable in 7-th unless you're playing VERY casual games or you've met an odd list with only meltas or lazcannons or something like this. .

I'd respectfully disagree with this, but like a lot of things with 7th ed. you need to spam units. I've played ork foot slogging hordes consistent throughout the entirety of 7th Ed but I don't enjoy an overly competitive environment and I think its exactly there that ork hordes will falter. Where ork hordes cant deal with cheese well I'd say ork hordes can do moderately (i.e. 50:50) win against some good armies. Good placement of models grabbing cover saves where you can, redundancy (more than 1 unti to do a given task) and having a clear idea of a strategy helps. The ork horde is a blunt instrument that once pointed in a direction can be difficult react to opponents but can put a lot of pressure on you opponent. However the best thing about playing an ork horde is you opponent always seems to have a great game as win or loss he gets to kill bucket loads of your models.



I PM'd this following wall of text to someone who asked me about my experience playing ork hordes, I hope it might be useful



In an 1850 pt list I'd go with 2 CADs or 1 ork horde and 1 CAD.

the horde will be will be 3 x30 boyz with nob, bosspole and PK + pain boy in each (this is 810 pts) that move and run turn 1 (with the run part of the move get into a piece of cover with around 5 boyz who are nearest to the enemy even at the expense of a few inches extra movement) and waaagh move run and assault turn 2 (or turn 3 if your opponent is hiding in a corner).
It puts 3 large, hard to remove threats moving towards your enemy right from the start and will give you control over the centre table (often 3/4 table by turn 3).

in the CAD I would often put another group of 30 with painboy (you can drop this if you want more toys but I think tis stronger with 4 boyz squads) and a warboss on bike with da finkin kap and a powerklaw or big choppa depending on your preference. even with 4 groups of boyz you have spent 1080. In reality, unless they back into a corner they will have 1 or 2 (depending on who goes first) turns to deal with 120 T4 models with FnP models and the first x amount also with a decent cover save, very few armies will be able to lay down that amount of anti-infantry firepower whilst still having some flexibility with antitank and CC units...

2 things to pick up on in what I've just written:
1. a decent cover save: with your with the warboss you have 2 traits (da finkin kap) with 1 reroll as you are battleforged. Fish in the strategic warlord traits for city fighter (I think 1 on the table) and get those first boyz into some ruins so they are rolling a 3+ cover and 5+ FnP, also fish for the night fighter trait too, this will give an extra +1 cover save for a potential 2+ 5++. I've seen a squad of boyz tank 10 scatter bikes with only 2 losses before... its fun see =) also try and offer a nice target for blasts (unless they are Tau with cover removing marker lights in which case the whole list will likely struggle a bit). Against an imperial night with that double battle cannon I bunched up 10 boyz tightly into a ruin once... making a perfect target for a blast marker.. it was too tempting for my opponent, but I was getting 2+ cover save on it, I think I only lost about 3 boyz..... you need to be mindful your opponent has to shoot something, so try and lure him into shooting what you want him to shoot and try and give some sort of cover save to it. Another good warlord trait on that table is the infiltrator one and this can be a game changer. Practically speaking you get at least a free 6" move at the price not being able to charge first turn.. Trust me few opponents are going to give you a target for a first turn charge anyway. =)

2. force the opponents to bring anti tank + CC units. I like to pack a meganob missiles and lone deffkoptas in my elite and fast attack slots. Koptas These scout up 12" turn 1 and move, to be hitting side armour in your first shooting phase. The combination of 6 lone deffkoptas with 2 trukks full of meganobz will give your opponent a heart attack. Meganob missiles move 12" and turbo boost another 12". Turn 1 and there is 8 units on his deployment line. He has to include antitank to deal with meganobz+trukk and CC to deal with the deffkoptas efficiently and each point spent to do that, will be taken away from his ability to mow down 120 boyz. Try and ensure your meganobs, if forced to disembark, disembark somewhere into cover (and away from any unit with a bunch of flamers) and your deffkoptas are in a position to potentially assault turn 2. Deffkoptas are ok-ish at shooting. They shine at soaking overwatch for your 120 boyz (just charge with the kopta fbefore the boyz) and engaging shooty units in melee (i've had 1 defffkopta tank 8 swooping hawks for 2 full turns... 4 combats), with a little luck I've actually had them engage dark reapers in CC and kill them all over a few rounds... heh. they can also glance rear armour, 2 or 3 combined often take off a final hull point..

Everything I've mentioned up to now should cost you about 1550 (double check this)


And this is your strategy coming to fruition. turn 1 8 targets on his deployment line and another 120 boyz who will be bearing down turn 2... for a 1-2 punch.

He has 12 immediate threats and most lists have no-where enough firepower to deal with them all immediately, and this is where he will be forced to make decisions, tough decisions which he may get wrong. Usually opponents back into a corner and split his focus damaging several units. A good player will spend his first turn focusing on getting rid of the meganobs mobility and taking down boyz with bad cover saves whilst trying to offer his shooty units defence from your deffkoptas turn 2 assault. not easy. Those meganobs need to be positioned so that you are pushing him into a nice pile that your boyz will converge on. Another option that often synergizes at this point is 5 lobbas (usually with 3 ammo runts - 99pts) chances are they will go the full game shooting without being molested as your opponent has other concerns. As he is moving to get away from your forward units, he will bunch troops up and that's where your lobbas can wipe entire squads out in 1 shooting phase (my best is taking out 5 sternguard who had just drop-podded in and were trying to keep their distance and another time they killed 6 harlequins + troup leader (I think they scored a lucky 17 hits on them). Any fliers you can just ignore... fliers usually cant win a game so just let it take its shots.
this should be ~1650pts (I think)

200pts for other toys. I like my kustom mega-kannons a squad of 2 with a shokk attack mek and some ammo runts can be fun. I usually grab 1 squad of gretchin who can sit on objectives or I use to deny areas of the battle field from DS or fast moving units trying to get behind your horde of boyz (these are need to make up the rest of your CAD) at which point you have 45 points left... maybe another meganob missile, or 3 meks to eat challenges in your squads of boyz. Or maybe another squad of gretchin (useful if you are playing maelstrom.. a grot can easily get out of line of sight in ruins and going to ground with your city fighter gets a 2+ save...). Lootas can often do ok as with so many threats they will give you a few turns of shooting them before they inevitably get removed from the board... but again.. city fighter warlord trait ruins and going to ground can infuriate you opponent as you get 2+ cover saves.

It has worked quite well for me as it forces your opponent to bring a balanced-ish list but if your opponent avoids the meganobz, focuses one flank of your boyz and gives themselves room to get away from your turn 2 charges then its not necessarily a done deal. They need to use mobile firepower against you... something scatterbikes excel at... try to tie them up in CC with a couple of deffkoptas per small group of scat bikes and you should be ok until some boyz or meganobz get there. I find this list falls apart against deathstars or really tough units... but you can easily throw 2 squads of boyz into a tarpit and then remove the rest of his army with your remainder.





A couple of other tips that I found can help:
Footprint: one of the great things about having so many models on the table is footprint. your boyz don't just threaten the 6" move+ ~8" charge (approx.) + d6" on a waagh from one spot but can cover that 14+" in front and behind. i.e. leave a trail of boyz back to your line.. just a few (and not so much it seems exploitative). this will mean anything landing behind your lines will be basically moving into charge range of 30 angry boyz who are also threatening the other side of the board. By using your potential for spreading out and covering large areas you can seal off 75% of the board from your opponent in turn 1 (with you meganobz + deffkoptas too). Their only effective counter is to view the game from this stand point and reclaim areas of the board to move to (or have a T5 deathstar with 2+ reollables and 4+ FnP but we have no answer to that). I've often forced opponents to deepstrike into their own deployment zone or preferably sandwich between my boyz and my forward units.


Warboss Positioning: Your bike boss should be embedded in the middle near the front of a group of boyz usually the 1 that is most likely to make it to CC earliest. When you want to assault move your boyz then move your bike so that he is out front of the boyz but in 2" coherency. He will effectively give your boyz another 2" + biker base (3"??) = 5" on to your charge, this was worked so many times for me its a staple move now. Your warboss is useful as a choppy character and will do pretty well against any non CC orientated character but will die on his arse to most. So I use him to sling shot my boyz forwards, and give me a waagh and in that I think he is worth the points, his ability to kill stuff then comes as a bonus. don't forget to look out sir hits onto boyz behind him (for the sake of instant death he is T6 but only majority T4 for wounding).

In all honesty, for the sake of fun, I often drop 1 pain boy, exchange 1 squad of boyz for gretchin and perhaps lose a deffkopta or two (you want no less than 4 though!) and have more pts to buy some toys, lootas, tank bustas some kustom megacannons dreads, kans etc. After all you've painted them up so you want to play them. Also your will excel if you get turn 1, turn 2 will be a harder fight but you will have to be more clever with getting cover saves and block LoS (deffkoptas moving in front of things and being an 'intervening model' are great for this)

I built my orks around two themes. First an effigy cult from Cork the warboss in megaarmor to kans to dredd to Morkanaut all supported by witless followers - gobbos - and second blood axes with commandos and shoota boys with battlewagon and looted medusa led by a supermek ... With a dakkajet too. Together they capture the essence of ork that I always loved...
So my advice is build what you love.

Okay! I went into the shed and cleaned off the stuff I bought from a charity shop like a year ago before I got into Warhammer.

I curently have:
HQ
WarBoss
• mega armour, twin-linked shoota and power klaw

Elite
Nobz 8
• 1 Waaagh! Banner
• 2 boss poles
• 1 powerclaw (the rest have big choppas)

Fast Attack
6 Stormboyz (nothing unusual added to them)

Heavy Support
3 Killa Kans (all with flame wepaons)

Troops
31 Boyz Shootas (2 rockets and 1 big shoota)
58 Boyz Choppa and sluggas


and 2 classic Burna Boyz that i can't do anything with.

Gretchin spam. It may not seem competitive but I know from experience that they're really good at holding objectives.

And that's about it. They're crap at everything else.

(This tactic is particularly fun in 500 point games)

Orks are expensive, even if you scratch built every vehicle or piece of artillery and found cheap boyz on ebay.

If you seek playing only casual games in a non competitive meta they can be quite cheap but competitive orks are certainly not, even with a lot of conversions.

And they are never enough, too many cool units that work in high numbers

Generally speaking speed is the key for orks, so go with units in trukks, koptas, bikes and some long range shooty units like lootas or mek gunz. Footslogging orks are not rewarding and extremely boring to play with and against


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lolman1c wrote:
Okay! I went into the shed and cleaned off the stuff I bought from a charity shop like a year ago before I got into Warhammer.

I curently have:
HQ
WarBoss
• mega armour, twin-linked shoota and power klaw

Elite
Nobz 8
• 1 Waaagh! Banner
• 2 boss poles
• 1 powerclaw (the rest have big choppas)

Fast Attack
6 Stormboyz (nothing unusual added to them)

Heavy Support
3 Killa Kans (all with flame wepaons)

Troops
31 Boyz Shootas (2 rockets and 1 big shoota)
58 Boyz Choppa and sluggas


and 2 classic Burna Boyz that i can't do anything with.

If you add 4-5 trukks you can already play decently at 1500 points

 Moolet wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
Ork hordes are not viable in 7-th unless you're playing VERY casual games or you've met an odd list with only meltas or lazcannons or something like this. .

I'd respectfully disagree with this, but like a lot of things with 7th ed. you need to spam units. I've played ork foot slogging hordes consistent throughout the entirety of 7th Ed but I don't enjoy an overly competitive environment and I think its exactly there that ork hordes will falter. Where ork hordes cant deal with cheese well I'd say ork hordes can do moderately (i.e. 50:50) win against some good armies.

That's true. I've played hordes myself but than every game i won seemed like another work day. Sure, you can win matches but you're at a disadvantage from the get go and there are just too many things countering the ork horde. Close to 100% of my wins vs shooty armies were with orks rushing to the midboard and than...going to ground on objectives and praying to Gork and Mork to roll maelstorm missions for capping this objectives and that the game finishes earlier before they get wiped out entirely. Only lootas and lobbas are killing anything and boyz can't get to the enemy while shootas are a bit too expensive to eat fire and still don't do much with their poor range. Yep and your succsess REALLY depends on what your opponent is bringing cause hordes are too unwieldy and can't pick the fights.

And than the age of magic deathstars has arrived with even lobbas and lootas not killing much and it just ends up being a never-ending game of roadblocking and tarpitting with only orks dying.

Than i got really tired of 120+ bodies on the board as pre-game+1-st turn seemed to take >50% of the whole game and in the end everything was decided with how lucky i am at rolling maelstorm and game length. So, i took a bunch of trukks, 15 meganobz and finally started having some fun as the games were faster and mobile lists are WAY more flexible than footslogging hordes. If you don't roll the objective you're sitting on and you've got a trukk, well, you just roll towards the one you need or get stuck in with the enemy. If you're footslogging, all you can do is...nothing really. You just stay there cause if you go in the open, you no longer have your cover save you're depending on so much and shooty armies will just blow your guyz off the board.

Target saturation can go only this far. 2 squads of 30 boyz are ok when you're facing bolter marines. But when you're playing vs broadsides or scatbikes of equivalent value...not so much.

Oh yeah, and i've tried a couple 'fun' games to teach 40k. I remember one of the games quite well. I brought 2*20 shootaboyz, 30 choppaboyz, grots, baublechukkas, footslogging boss in 'eavy armor, a couple koptas and a shokk attakk gun mek. And faced a guy with a couple ig platoons and 2 wiverns. He used to play a bit in 5-th (actually, i bought some of the shootaboyz from him like 4-5 years ago ) but than he left 40k. It was his 1-st time in 7-th. He heard wiverns were good and decided to play a couple chimeras count-as wiverns. Long story short, only mek and a couple bubble-chukkas were left on the ork side by the turn 3. There was nothing that orks could do vs 2 wiverns (150 pts total). The only viable way of getting to his lines was to castle up the indeps in bauble-chukkas and than...they'd get stuck in fearless ig platoons.

And than there are a ton of lists you can really do nothing against like ravenwing+libconclave, riptide wing, scatbike + wraithknight spam, wuffstars and so on.

I gave up on the footsloggers and turned to trukks. And with trukks i won a competitive tourney and had fun in general. Current rules are really against the hordes of slow dudes without magic buffs.

Fury Road conversion?
http://www.miniwargaming.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=116309

I've been doing quite well with mobile lists. Trukks and bikes. I like to take Meks too as they can repair stuff.

I don't really want ork bikers (doesn't feel like me). But heavy mek ork army might work. Will wait for 8th though but it actually sounds valid for once.

 lolman1c wrote:
Okay! I went into the shed and cleaned off the stuff I bought from a charity shop like a year ago before I got into Warhammer.

I curently have:
HQ
WarBoss
• mega armour, twin-linked shoota and power klaw

Elite
Nobz 8
• 1 Waaagh! Banner
• 2 boss poles
• 1 powerclaw (the rest have big choppas)

Fast Attack
6 Stormboyz (nothing unusual added to them)

Heavy Support
3 Killa Kans (all with flame wepaons)

Troops
31 Boyz Shootas (2 rockets and 1 big shoota)
58 Boyz Choppa and sluggas


and 2 classic Burna Boyz that i can't do anything with.

Gorkanaut. Dredz. Mekboys. Mek guns. Battle wagon.
Not necessarily in that order.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lolman1c wrote:
I don't really want ork bikers (doesn't feel like me). But heavy mek ork army might work. Will wait for 8th though but it actually sounds valid for once.

My army collection has one biker, a converted big mek running so!o. Figured on converting a kff for him someday... But he is ready to roll as is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lolman1c wrote:
A few of you may have seen me talking about how I have a main army and now looking for a fun side army and asking about a dreadnought army. However, I also secretly want to expand into an ork army... What would you guys suggest I look for, for a fun army, and if getting an Ork army is cheap? (I see a lot of models on Ebay cheap sometimes).

Loot some wagons. Always able to find somebody's poorly assembled basilisk on eBay missing a piece or two maybe. Cut it up add orky bits and reprime it. Repaint and wallah !

Well I have 2 or 3 def dreads (I think two) and 7 killa kans but i own no meks or weird boyz. I like the fun idea of having a weird and big mek as a hq. They are symbolic of the orks (weird pyskic and mek) rather than just a tough warbos ork.

 lolman1c wrote:
Well I have 2 or 3 def dreads (I think two) and 7 killa kans but i own no meks or weird boyz. I like the fun idea of having a weird and big mek as a hq. They are symbolic of the orks (weird pyskic and mek) rather than just a tough warbos ork.

You can convert meks from boys and big meks from nobs or buy them special. I have done both. Look for some orks los on online auction sites first off. I like your HQ ideas but frankly a warboss is also iconic orkishness.
Plus they do a lot of chopping and that is good.
But if you don't want one then you can use your current warboss in mega armor as your big mek.
My weirdboy is an old metal orc shaman model from Warhammer Fantasy.
Probably you can find cool fantasy characters on the cheap. Use those if you like the models just add guns and other bits.

 jeff white wrote:

 lolman1c wrote:
Well I have 2 or 3 def dreads (I think two) and 7 killa kans but i own no meks or weird boyz. I like the fun idea of having a weird and big mek as a hq. They are symbolic of the orks (weird pyskic and mek) rather than just a tough warbos ork.

You can convert meks from boys and big meks from nobs or buy them special. I have done both. Look for some orks los on online auction sites first off. I like your HQ ideas but frankly a warboss is also iconic orkishness.
Plus they do a lot of chopping and that is good.
But if you don't want one then you can use your current warboss in mega armor as your big mek.
My weirdboy is an old metal orc shaman model from Warhammer Fantasy.
Probably you can find cool fantasy characters on the cheap. Use those if you like the models just add guns and other bits.

I think I miss copy and pasted from my list. My Warboss is just a normal Warboss with a power claw. But I understand what you mean. For now I'm just going to use my Warboss and try and find a cheapish Big Mek with Kustom Force Field so the Invulves on my Walkers. I am now up to 7 killa kans and 2 deff dreads so I think that will be fine for now. Maybe buy some Gretch to fill in cheap slots and hunker down objectives while I charge my kans forward (4 have Skorchas, 2 have rokkets and 1 has a Grotzooka so I am actually thinking of splitting them up into two squads if I don't want to take both dreads). I've spent enough money now. XD But ended up with a great looking and huge army for under £100