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Yup you take up about 1/13th of the table, instead of those 90 boyz taking up 25% or more easily. Also once you start moving advance rolls will end up slowing you down if you want to stay together because you will need to move equal to the slowest unit if you want to stay together.

Really the best it does is give you a little extra anti-alpha strike durability, but after that I think buff characters really hamper orks from winning.

 godswildcard wrote:
Another question, this time regarding the gargantuan squiggoth.

Supa-Lobba or Kilkannon?

Supa-Lobba has a longer range, 3D6 shots, S7 AP-2 D1
Kilkannon has 6 Shots, S7 AP-2 D2

Seems like a toss up to me...guaranteed 6 shots and 2 damage vs statistically more shots and greater range.Thoughts?

My vote is actually for the Big Zzappa, which comes in 60 pts cheaper for the pair than Supa Lobbas.

Slightly less range, but higher average damage with Ap - 4 and D4.

2D6 strength is just risky I guess, but that's always been the case with Zzap Guns. The average is S7 but there's always the risk of those snake eyes.

 Shooms wrote:

 godswildcard wrote:
Another question, this time regarding the gargantuan squiggoth.

Supa-Lobba or Kilkannon?

Supa-Lobba has a longer range, 3D6 shots, S7 AP-2 D1
Kilkannon has 6 Shots, S7 AP-2 D2

Seems like a toss up to me...guaranteed 6 shots and 2 damage vs statistically more shots and greater range.Thoughts?

My vote is actually for the Big Zzappa, which comes in 60 pts cheaper for the pair than Supa Lobbas.

Slightly less range, but higher average damage with Ap - 4 and D4.

2D6 strength is just risky I guess, but that's always been the case with Zzap Guns. The average is S7 but there's always the risk of those snake eyes.

All shooting options on the Garg Squiggoth are garbage, as they hit on a 6+ whenever the Garg is moving. So pick whatever is cheapest.

How do we get the most out of vehicles? I loved using a killtank full of tankbustas before chapter approved but now I think it’s just too pricey. Are trukks even worth it? How do you kit out battlewagons. Is there anything forgeworld can offer us apart from the giggidy squiggly?

BAN wrote:
How do we get the most out of vehicles? I loved using a killtank full of tankbustas before chapter approved but now I think it’s just too pricey. Are trukks even worth it? How do you kit out battlewagons. Is there anything forgeworld can offer us apart from the giggidy squiggly?

I hate to be the Debby downer again but there aren't any transports worth taking in a competitive meta. If you are playing a casual game and neither of you is trying to hard then Trukkz and wagons can be taken but aren't worth their points in anyway.
I can't see our transports being useful unless they receive about a 40-50% price cut. And unfortunately for me, I love playing battlewagons as tanks and none of their shooting is worth a damn even in friendly competition.

pismakron wrote:

All shooting options on the Garg Squiggoth are garbage, as they hit on a 6+ whenever the Garg is moving. So pick whatever is cheapest.

This is essentially what I've done. Despite the kill kannons being slightly cheaper, they suck.

Well you are basically taking the Squiggoth as a CC monster and the shooting is literally a tax....what does that say about the state of Ork shooting?

I mean hell if I could I'd take killakanz with 2CCWs rather then a ranged handicap. Same thing for the gorkanaut, take away the rokkitz, Big Shoota and deffstorm shoota or whatever and give it a price cut and let me keep its CC abilities. A twin Rokkit and Quad BS cost 50pts and the other thing is easily another 35-50pts. I would gladly give up that shooting for a cheaper Naut

I think we all would, I don't think anyone is pretending that the majority of our shooting isnt rubbish. But at this point we're stuck with discussing the best bad choices.

 rvd1ofakind wrote:

 JimOnMars wrote:

 godswildcard wrote:
So as someone that could be called a large large Grot with dreams of grandeur I got excited when I saw that a Mek Gunz/ Grot list had placed at a grand tournament, but I’ve seen several people skeptical of this.

I’m completely new to orks, so I’m curious as to what makes Mek Gunz good or bad. Why take them or not take them?

The Kustom Mega Kannon is a plasma cannon at BS4+. Because the vast majority of ork shooting is not costed for BS5+, it is one of the few options in the index that are not vastly overcosted.

It's not great, just so-so...but compared to the rest of our shooting it's fantastic.

KMK now outshoots most artilery in the game tbh.

Wow...I hadn't realized that they are basically Basilisks with half the wounds and less than half the cost...minus the extreme range. Also...unlike the Basalisk, they never degrade.

The reason this is so good is that we are normally the ones paying for overcosted defense, often getting little in the bargain.

In this case, we can get 5 guns for price of 2 in the guard, and we actually have more wounds.

AND we have 5 to 2 offense ratio, OVER AM, for the same points.

And we can drop all 5 in 1 go during deployment.

Time to convert my lobbas.....

Thinking of ordering 2 more (for 5 total) :p

I've only got one KMK at the moment. I might pick up some more, especially since I'd like to eventually have a battery of each Mek Gun (I'm thinking one official model and then filling out the rest of the unit with kitbashed parts). I'm having a hard time deciding what to focus my hobby time and money on right now though. I hope our Codex comes out soon, but it's probably going to be at least a few months.

Right now I'm working on a list for a local tournament series. It's 1500 points and no Supreme Command detachments. I'm not fast enough to play Green Tide on the clock, so I was thinking about trying a low model count T8 army. A Gorkanaut, a Meka-Dread, a Kill Tank, a Battle Wagon and maybe a Battalion if I can fit it.

I don't think it would be particularly competitive, but it would be fast to play and I own one of each of those models (and more Battle Wagons). My thinking was that a bunch of high-toughness wounds protected by a KFF might be hard for some lists to deal with, and maybe I could spring Boyz out of the BW and Kill Tank to take objectives and/or mop up infantry once I've closed the distance. I'm having a hard time fitting it into 1500 points though and I'm not sure which element to cut.

Would our shooting become worthwhile if all our blasts instead of D6 shots would suddenly become a D3 autohits? (2D3 instead of 2D6 etc)

Grot artillery could be exception.

 rvd1ofakind wrote:
Thinking of ordering 2 more (for 5 total) :p

Dude, just don't. Grot artillery is one of the easiest thing to convert (it's a good practice for orks in general). In fact, if someone was to ask me how to start learning how to kitbash/scratchbuild, I'd probably tell him to make a kannon or 2.

Does Ghazghkull himself get an extra attack on charge from his Great Waaagh! ability?

Nora wrote:
Does Ghazghkull himself get an extra attack on charge from his Great Waaagh! ability?

Yep.

He's a clan ork within 6" of himself, so yes.

Interested to know, due to our shooting being so garbage, what would you prefer...

Double shots on EVERYTHING, or no negative modifiers on shooting?

I'm yet to dive in to 8th as waiting for the codex, but I keep an eye on the forum regularly and can see that shooting is just awful currently.

 Beatonator wrote:
Interested to know, due to our shooting being so garbage, what would you prefer...

Double shots on EVERYTHING, or no negative modifiers on shooting?

I'm yet to dive in to 8th as waiting for the codex, but I keep an eye on the forum regularly and can see that shooting is just awful currently.

Both options are examples of poor low-effort rules writing, even by GW standards.

Double shots on everything would break the game, and make every game a matter of the Ork player tabling any non-ork player.

No negative modifiers would be extremely powerful in a few matchups, but do very little for us in many others. It would buff our movement more than it would buff our shooting

 JimOnMars wrote:

 rvd1ofakind wrote:

 JimOnMars wrote:

 godswildcard wrote:
So as someone that could be called a large large Grot with dreams of grandeur I got excited when I saw that a Mek Gunz/ Grot list had placed at a grand tournament, but I’ve seen several people skeptical of this.

I’m completely new to orks, so I’m curious as to what makes Mek Gunz good or bad. Why take them or not take them?

The Kustom Mega Kannon is a plasma cannon at BS4+. Because the vast majority of ork shooting is not costed for BS5+, it is one of the few options in the index that are not vastly overcosted.

It's not great, just so-so...but compared to the rest of our shooting it's fantastic.

KMK now outshoots most artilery in the game tbh.

Wow...I hadn't realized that they are basically Basilisks with half the wounds and less than half the cost...minus the extreme range. Also...unlike the Basalisk, they never degrade.

The reason this is so good is that we are normally the ones paying for overcosted defense, often getting little in the bargain.

In this case, we can get 5 guns for price of 2 in the guard, and we actually have more wounds.

AND we have 5 to 2 offense ratio, OVER AM, for the same points.

And we can drop all 5 in 1 go during deployment.

Time to convert my lobbas.....

Not saying that they are bad, but the basilisk comparison is a poor one, they are -1S, don't have unlimited range, routinely do wounds to themselves and don't ignore LOS so are significantly less durable. Sadly in a match between the 2 the 2 basilisks will win every time.

pismakron wrote:

 Beatonator wrote:
Interested to know, due to our shooting being so garbage, what would you prefer...

Double shots on EVERYTHING, or no negative modifiers on shooting?

I'm yet to dive in to 8th as waiting for the codex, but I keep an eye on the forum regularly and can see that shooting is just awful currently.

Both options are examples of poor low-effort rules writing, even by GW standards.

Double shots on everything would break the game, and make every game a matter of the Ork player tabling any non-ork player.

No negative modifiers would be extremely powerful in a few matchups, but do very little for us in many others. It would buff our movement more than it would buff our shooting

I think you're drastically overstating the effectiveness of Ork shooting if you think making us shoot twice would lead to automatic tabling.

Plus it's not that simple. Ork shooting units lack survivability, due to low armour saves and cover being both difficult to get and of minimal benefit to Orks. So they tend to need transports, but our transport options are all overpriced and not particularly survivable. Shooting twice would turn some units into glass cannons (Lootas spring to mind straight away) and leave others still useless (Deffkoptas even shooting 4 rokkits still only statistically hit once). Nobs with Kombi-Skorchas would become insane, IF they could get close enough (and they can't shoot their Skorchas the turn they show up from Da Jump).

Basically double shooting just makes our better shooting units better and leaves our bad shooting units still bad.

BAN wrote:
How do we get the most out of vehicles? I loved using a killtank full of tankbustas before chapter approved but now I think it’s just too pricey. Are trukks even worth it? How do you kit out battlewagons. Is there anything forgeworld can offer us apart from the giggidy squiggly?

Played against DE the other day and two squads of Tankbustas in Trukks were my absolute MVP units. Take 8 or more bustas per unit to get the most out of Dakkadakka-stratagem (I don't think I'd ever use the stratagem outside of bustas). With the rerolls you'll get surprisingly many extra hits with the stratagem. I think the gem is actually a bit underrated. Obviously you'll need a KFF for the Trukks and other relevant targets for enemy antitank as well. Oh and bring a well-oiled dice rolling wrist for all those KFF saves.

In before I'm told that they're too expensive and ineffective and I cannot win any tournaments with them... Well I play this game for FUN and I definitely had FUN with the units, YMMV.

Well let's take lootas as an example. If they shot 3-4 times on average instead of 2 (I will use 4 as an example).

Let's say I take 15 lootas.

SM Tacticals:
Before. 3 dead Marines. After 7 Dead Marines. So a 255pt unit took out 91pts of Marines in a shooting phase.

Vs a predator:
Before: 4-6 dmg. After: 10 dmg so the best ranged (emphasis on ranged) anti vehicle option we have, at max size is still statistically incapable of killing a single vehicle in one turn of mshooting.

Now, on the flipside of this, if that same tactical squad hoses down a unit of Lootas with just bolters, no special weapons or rules they will statistically kill 3 lootas a turn which equals 51pts gone. so that barebones 130pt squad earned back about 2/5ths its cost while the specialist shooting squad only earned back slightly less of its points cost. SMs earned 39.2 lootas 35.7

Now of course the averages here swing wildly in favor of lootas if they roll well, but likewise they swing just as badly for them if they roll 1s.

So overall, lootas would be about where they need to be if they were 2D3 instead of 1D3 for shots.

With a doubling of shots 4 KMK (168) points would be able to kill a Leman Russ every turn or almost take half the wounds off of Magnus. That would be hilariously OP for a couple of weeks until GW came back with the nerf hammer.

Lootas are not good right now, but increasing their damage output would just make them even more of a glass-cannon. A better strategy would be to cut their shooting and cost in half. An 8.5 point Loota with a single shot would be a quite superb unit, but thats not going to happen.

In general what we need for our weapon-options like rokkits and big shootas is more damage output. But what we need from our dedicated dakka-infantry (flashgitz, burnaboyz, tankbustas, lootas) is not more damage, it is more durability and a reduction in costs.

 Beatonator wrote:
Interested to know, due to our shooting being so garbage, what would you prefer...

Double shots on EVERYTHING, or no negative modifiers on shooting?

I'm yet to dive in to 8th as waiting for the codex, but I keep an eye on the forum regularly and can see that shooting is just awful currently.

Good question. Depends, I guess?

Units with few shots per points like buggies, koptaz, battlewagons or SAG would need double shots to become better, as they aren't good even when they have no modifiers to worry about.

All others could do with simply no modifiers. You could advance and shoot assault weapons and move with heavy weapons with no downsides. Plus lootaz and tank bustaz would become absolutely lethal to fliers.

In terms of raw power? Twice the shots is always equal or better unless the opponent has -2 to hit. -2 to hit is usually limited to a few units, you could simply blow up everything else with that kind of shooting. Some units would become outright bonkers with than kind of firepower, and I doubt a point increase could fix that since they are still just as fragile as they are now.

I think the best solution to ork shooting would be giving actual shooting units BS 4+ (big meks, spannaz, meks, lootaz, bommers, morkanauts, shoota boyz), doubling the shots of koptaz and buggies and give the battlewagon a skill like LRBT or fire prisms have - twice the shots when moving at half speed. 2x 12 big shoota shots, kannon/lobba/zappa and killkannon would actually do something, even at BS 5+. Maybe add a relic for BS 3+ to hit so the SAG becomes awesome.
And of course, properly cost all shooting weapons for BS 4+/5+.

Breng77 wrote:

 JimOnMars wrote:

 rvd1ofakind wrote:

 JimOnMars wrote:

 godswildcard wrote:
So as someone that could be called a large large Grot with dreams of grandeur I got excited when I saw that a Mek Gunz/ Grot list had placed at a grand tournament, but I’ve seen several people skeptical of this.

I’m completely new to orks, so I’m curious as to what makes Mek Gunz good or bad. Why take them or not take them?

The Kustom Mega Kannon is a plasma cannon at BS4+. Because the vast majority of ork shooting is not costed for BS5+, it is one of the few options in the index that are not vastly overcosted.

It's not great, just so-so...but compared to the rest of our shooting it's fantastic.

KMK now outshoots most artilery in the game tbh.

Wow...I hadn't realized that they are basically Basilisks with half the wounds and less than half the cost...minus the extreme range. Also...unlike the Basalisk, they never degrade.

The reason this is so good is that we are normally the ones paying for overcosted defense, often getting little in the bargain.

In this case, we can get 5 guns for price of 2 in the guard, and we actually have more wounds.

AND we have 5 to 2 offense ratio, OVER AM, for the same points.

And we can drop all 5 in 1 go during deployment.

Time to convert my lobbas.....

Not saying that they are bad, but the basilisk comparison is a poor one, they are -1S, don't have unlimited range, routinely do wounds to themselves and don't ignore LOS so are significantly less durable. Sadly in a match between the 2 the 2 basilisks will win every time.

Less ST but better AP...nearly a wash. Their offense is about the same as a unit that is 250% the price. True, without ignoring LOS they may not be the backfield sniper that the Basilisk is, but in my experience, being 100% out of LOS is very hard anyway...making Bassie's big trick less important. Usually there is something good to hit within 36. Deploy well!! Once better known, they will soak up a lot of fire at 42 points...keeping the heat off of more expensive things.

Depends on your tables, I see a lot where putting a few basilisks out of LOS is really easy especially with unlimited range. Being out ranged by things like lascannons is also fairly relevant as those are the weapons that will largely take them out. I guess it depends on list composition though, in a heavy vehicle list that may be less of an issue, in a green tide list they are the obvious target for heavy weapons/.

Those 90 boyz threaten a lot more than 1/13 of the table, trust me. Especially with Ghaz in the middle. It's about as effective as Orks get right now. You obviously fill with grots to claim objectives and some more boyz. But you can't take any juicy targets for multi-wound weapons to target.

Most games that force is going to exert some decent board control, though it will struggle against dedicated gunlines in a non-objective based game.

Also, it's 8th edition - use movement trays.

Ok, since the topic is on one of my favorite units (mek gun) there are plenty of alternatives to buying realy expensive gw ones.
I Personaly convert my old killa kanz into gum toting bad orks, but I also found this site recently
https://miniaturescenery.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=19
For the price of one gw gun you get 3 wit traktor like and plasma swaps for each.
Of course since it's laser etched wood you'll have to get different glue (instructions are right there on the page). Also while your at it check out their other ork is pure vehicles. If you want sweet looking warbuggies these guys have you covered.
Edit. Sorry if auto correct made some of this unreadable.

How does the Lifta Wagon fair in the current state of the game? It got a points drop from chapter approved by the lifta-droppa itself being reduced to 0 points. I've hardly seen any discussion about it online and I am curious as to peoples thoughts on it.

I guess it's kind of like a long-range targettable super smite. A really expensive one.

 JawRippa wrote:
Would our shooting become worthwhile if all our blasts instead of D6 shots would suddenly become a D3 autohits? (2D3 instead of 2D6 etc)

Grot artillery could be exception.

 rvd1ofakind wrote:
Thinking of ordering 2 more (for 5 total) :p

Dude, just don't. Grot artillery is one of the easiest thing to convert (it's a good practice for orks in general). In fact, if someone was to ask me how to start learning how to kitbash/scratchbuild, I'd probably tell him to make a kannon or 2.

If I can just buy something, rather than convert - I will. I got a deal with my FLGS owner as he's a good friend. I just take what I want and pay 100-200 a month. Which is why I can buy 200 models in a month and not feel anything on my wallet