Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 JimOnMars wrote:
Dynas, the main problem about the super-buffed choppa boys is the impossibly of attacking on turn 1, and the unlikelyness of an attack on turn 2. By turn 3 they are mostly dead. No other army flat-out is disallowed 2 full turns of attacking...just non-jumped choppa boys.

Some matches deployments you could possibly get a turn 1 charge with the narrow gaps 18" gaps. Spearhead, Hammer and advil, the center circle one). The others you might get their on turn 2. Depends on where they deploy. Thats why I think the best thing for orks will be to make them faster like BA and Nids.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

I don't think BS5+ overall is a problem, I think that the shooty specialist orks being bs 5+ while wearing tissue paper into battle is the problem. ork units like lootas probably should be bs4+ as they are long range specialists, and they should probably have a 4+ so they might survive being shot that or just drop their points by 2/3 and then they would be worth taking. 17 points for what amounts to a T4 model averaging 2 shots and getting 0.66 hits per turn that still need to damage at str 7 ap-1 D2. so on the most common army space marines we wound on 3's so 0.44 wounds average, and they save on a 4+ so lootas get... an average of .22 wounds on a space marine, so to average one kill on a tac marine (13 points) lootas take 85 points (5 lootas). assuming nobody shoots at the lootas and they shoot space marines and the game ends turn 5 they remove 65 points of space marines. In reality they will not perform that well even as they will be shot at, in cover they have a 5+ save and low leadership so they run. This is not even the least points efficient unit we have, just an example of what orks deal with.

on a positive note I had fun in a game using the new mob up with 10 boyz joining a mob of 30 boyz for 2 power claws in a 40 man unit. bike warbss and biker painboy to back them up advanced on a hammer and anvil deployment. weirdboy jumped the ork boyz up, warboss and painboy were close enough to daisy chain up buffs (with 40 not a problem) and while I command pointed one dice I got off a massive multicharge ... it was orks vs guard so it was still a huge loss by turn 3 but getting the one crazy charge was fun.

Your example basically says that BS 5 is the problem. If they have a higher armor save or BS4 then you are going to pay for the chasis for that. The points reduction is probably the simplest answer and easiest fix. Plus cheaper points means you can field more models and thus increase sales. Still though, I don't see orks as a shooting army. The should be closing into melee range asap.

1) I have never ever gotten a a 1 turn charge with footslogging boyz. You can do it with Stormboyz, but not reliably.

2) It is fairly easy to get 200 attacks from a squad of boyz. Mob up for 30+10 boyz, cast warpath and then da-jump them anywhere on the map. If you make that 9" charge you unleash 200 attacks, which is hilarious. If you don't make that charge then you will probably lose 40 boyz. Point for point boyz are the best melee unit in the game. Honourable mentions goes to Genestealers and Bezerkers.

3) Ork boyz should not become faster. They are not OP precisely because they have 5" movement and a 6+ Save. Genestealers are faster, have rending claws and a 5++ save, but they are also twice as expensive as boyz.

4) The DakkaDakkaDakka stratagem is pretty bad. It gives any shooting unit precisely 16.7% more damage output, which is nothing special for 1 CP. I still use it regularly though. It is better than nothing which is often the alternative.

5) I am personally fine with BS5+. If every army had BS 3 or 4 then it would almost be a pointless stat to have in the game.

If you got a turn 1 charge with boyz, your opponent helped you. Why would they deploy within range?

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Yea useful and good report. Lol @ not to bad a performance though, he was tabled and lost heavily on VPs. It couldn't be much worse, particularly when you think about how many Eldar units were left.

Well, compared to 7th edition, this game was a walk in the park

I'm surprised that you consider the Nob Bikers to have performed well. They didn't have any impact and were wiped in a single round?

They took three stationary, linked fire prisms, four bright lances and 16 scatter laser shots to the face (all in range for Autarch re-rolls) before they died. That kind of firepower would have taken most lords of war down. So while they didn't do anything, they took surprising amounts of firepower to kill. I'm sure that two units of hellblasters in rapid fire range will casually blow them away without breaking a sweat, but anything in the ork index can easily be wiped in a single round by 800 points of shooting.

Your points would have been better spent on more Boyz, Bustas or even Warbikes I reckon.

I disagree on warbikes (they would have died just as fast, shot the same and been worse in combat), but spending points on boyz is pretty much always the best thing. However, we had no more than 3 hours to get the game in, including setting up the table and packing up, so any army with as little as three units of boyz would have been unable to finish the game. Unlike in tournaments, there is no advantage in calling the game early for friendly games.

My main rival is an Ulthwe player too and I find Fire Prisms extremely obnoxious. No saves for our mega expensive Nob Bikers (even on the weakest, spread shot type) and I'm sure the second shot type does a flat 3 damage which is perfect for them? Also the fact that they can just fly out of combat is not fun.

The second shot does d3 damage, which actually came to bite him more often than not. All of them to at least two hits to kill.

Again, nob bikers are no sleeper awesome unit at all. I would just rate them as "ok" rather than "utter trash, never use". That one would be reserved for burnas. And lobbas.

Your example basically says that BS 5 is the problem. If they have a higher armor save or BS4 then you are going to pay for the chasis for that. The points reduction is probably the simplest answer and easiest fix. Plus cheaper points means you can field more models and thus increase sales. Still though, I don't see orks as a shooting army. The should be closing into melee range asap.

Another person unfamiliar with Orkz pre 6th edition. There's a reason this website is called "dakkadakka" there's a reason that most of the Ork codex is ranged units.

Shoota boyz
Lootas
Flashgitz
Burna boyz
Kanz
Morkanaut
Dakkajet
Burna bommer
Wazbom
Blitzabommer
Battlewagon
Grot tanks
Mek gunz
Big Gunz
Deffkoptas
Warbikes
Buggy
Skorcha
wartrakk
tankbustas

I mean the list is huge. Our only truly CC units are

Boyz
Meganobz
Deff dread
Stormboyz.

Then you have units which are heavily shooty but rely on CC.

Stompa
Gorkanaut
Nobz.

So tell me again how Orkz aren't a shooting army?


Now don't get me wrong, you might be right and GW might be trying to force us into a different direction and the rules writers and model designers haven't caught up yet but going off previous editions and our current index I don't think you are right.

Merry Xmas team, hollow is back for his monthly post! I'm heading to a large tournament late Jan with the new ITC champion missions. I would love some feedback on how you would tune this list, I've not played specifically the champion missions before so anyone with experience in them and how they have impacted your game-play would be much appreciated (especially compared to normal ITC missions or even Maelstrom).

Here's the list:
My general strategy:

Units that must stay:

Other things to discuss:

SemperMortis wrote:

...
So tell me again how Orkz aren't a shooting army?

Very good point actually. So many shooty units that are ruined by horrible BS, especially painful to see how removal of templates has affected orks.

By the way, I propose a separate thread for wishlisting and balance changes. Because this thread's name is pretty misleading - it is about tactics and making use of what we have at the moment, and a lot of people here are discussing how GW should design orks and what makes different units unviable. It'd be great to make a separate thread to make a proper collection of data on various units and what makes them suck, so we can actually send it to GW. I mean a lot of very good arguments and propositions are thrown around here, we certainly could make the use of that.

Call me an idealist, but I think there is a decent chance the GW would listen to a properly compiled list of suggestions. It's not like they make ork rules bad just because, rather they clearly have no idea how orks should function. Dakka stratagem and "X is good this edition!" is a clear indication of that.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Yea useful and good report. Lol @ not to bad a performance though, he was tabled and lost heavily on VPs. It couldn't be much worse, particularly when you think about how many Eldar units were left.

Haha, yeah. Goes to show how high my expectations were from the Ork list

SemperMortis wrote:

 Weazel wrote:
Your math is off. For 18 Tankbustas you get 3 extra shots for the first batch. Then you reroll all 1-4 meaning 12 dice which will generate 2 more shots. So 5 extra shots with rerolls to hit are going to probably give you about 3 extra hits (can't really be bothered to do the exact math).

I simulated (well rolled actual dice) several batches for 10 Tankbustas and got 2-3 extra hits fairly consistently. Of course YMMV because it's a dice game. But I'm not calling it complete garbage.

True I left that out. So let's do the averages against Vehicles, because you don't get rerolls Vs anything else.

18 Bustas on average get about 6 hits and 3 6s. With the rerolls you get 4 more hits and 2 more 6. So 5 extra shots which give you about 2-3 extra hits with rerolls against vehicles.

Still not worth it, especially since you need to use mob up and somehow walk those buggers across the field or buy them a BW

You really don't want to shoot at anything but vehicles with TANKbustas if you have a choice. Obviously the viability of the stratagem plummets if no rerolls are available. And after you use the gem you still have reroll stratagem available for wounding. Now I'm not saying it's a great stratagem but I'm saying that it is a viable one. Sure you can whiff your rolls and get 0 extra hits or you may get 5 extra hits if you roll well. With the reroll stratagem you get ONE reroll and you can still whiff that so I'm saying for 1CP the Dakka stratagem is usable on Tankbustas (probably about 8 guys or more) when shooting at vehicles. You're not going to convince me otherwise which I'm sure is mutual.

hollow one wrote:
The units on my list that I think are the first to go, are the waagh banner, the painboy on bike (maybe dok grotsnik + walking painboy?), and the tankbustas, maybe even the big mek (it might just be better to bring two more KMK's for example). I actually don't think adding more boyz will improve this list substantially, but I am open to suggestions.

I would definitely get Mad Dok Grotsnik instead of the biker pain boy. He has the same offensive power as a PK warboss, brings the pain boy aura and you can use One Scapel Short of Medpack to disengage from combat and charge again on the same turn. His 4+/5+++/6+++ (you can make him your warlord for a fourth save) allows him to take on enemies that would kill a warboss in single turn. I have been very impressed with him so far and bring him every game I manage to fit him in.

1) What value is there in bringing a trukk purely to reduce your drop count? How vulnerable does that make your HQ if there is no LOS, is that worth it? I understand that with my list I could use the trukk for tankbustas as well, also worth noting. I think the average drop count is 12 for a 2k army list, do you personally care about that info? How does that modify your build?

Since it's now only a +1 to see who goes first, the only real change to my lists is splitting up big gunz and mek gunz as little as possible. I wouldn't waste 85 points on a trukk just to reduce drops.

2) Do weirdboyz and tankbustas serve the same purpose in our army (high ap, high damage, medium range)? How many weirboyz do you need before you start caring about the new beta smite rule? Do you personally care about having high ap (are KMKs enough?), or do you lean toward resiliency in bringing more bodies and forget about killing big gak?

Weird boyz also serve as our only anti-air, only way to reliably damage things with good saves and lots of wounds. Tank bustas only shine when shooting vehicles, if you need to take down monsters, battle suits, characters or other things that have profiles like vehicles, but without the vehicle keyword, they are lot less great. The KMB is better at killing targets with good saves and lots of wounds, but does worse against to hit modifiers and stuff that's deployed in a corner or out of sight since it cannot move.
IMO its pretty much a toss up between the three, with tank bustas being the odd man due to their low survivability compared to their high point cost.

3) Exactly who should wear our relic? Is it worth bringing a warboss purely for it? That would include more versatile charging and thus greater board control. Right now my only eligible character is my Big Mek, but he often stays at home with the KMKs.

If you math it out, it's slightly better against hard targets than a PK and excels at wiping out basic infantry due to him hitting on 2+ and each six to wound killing d3 enemy models. If you have a warboss, he should always take it since its superior to the PK and costs less. If you have points to spare, I would put it on the big mek, but I wouldn't bring a character just to field it.

4) How would you personally play against Magnus/horrors? What in your list works really well? What strategy do you typically employ? Do you bother to attempt to kill Magnus (you probably cant)? Does that Magnus list exist, now that smite has been nerfed? I've never played against Mortarion, is he easier to kill or a greater threat than Magnus? Feels like he would deal substantially more damage than Magnus vs green tide.

I have not faced Magnus, but horrors are already pretty much unable to smite. I doubt the nerf had a huge impact on that.
Mortarion feels impossible to kill unless pile all the rokkits, kannons, kmk and smite on him you have. If he buffs himself with -1 to hit you can do little but watch while he deletes a mob of 30 every turn, as 18 damage past 3+/4++/5+++ and T7 is hard to do. He will eventually die, but maybe just kill everything else might be easier. This experience is taken from fighting him in a pure DG lists with just warptime sorcerers added.

5) What single weapon/unit are you most afraid of? For me right now, gilly gunlines or imperial gunlines are not the most fun (have to play heavily into objectives), but what really hurts are Stormravens. I have a lot of trouble clearing them with KMK's, I can't really charge them if they are smart, and they mow down green tide. One Stormraven is managable, but two to three will almost certainly table me.

I agree and extend that to pretty much all fliers that act similar - you cannot do anything about them and they pick whatever they want to delete each turn.

6) What single unit in the Ork army best capitalises on the recent changes and subsequent meta shift? I personally think the changes in smite and conscripts will see a rise in elites across the board. On the one hand that means boyz will have greater staying power, but we will kill less points per game (our ap sucks). I think the Painboy fits this potential meta very well, constant heals on weirboyz/boyz and probably our best unit carrying a PK.

The skorcha buggy I guess? The only big change is that we are throwing out the BC and take PKs again, the net gain is marginal. I also think that orks will most likely ignore the smite nerf - you can even try to benefit from it and cast smites of weird boyz with lots of boyz around them last to make explosions less likely.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JawRippa wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

...
So tell me again how Orkz aren't a shooting army?

Very good point actually. So many shooty units that are ruined by horrible BS, especially painful to see how removal of templates has affected orks.

Ironically, many of those units have had that BS since 4th edition. In 5th you could easily outshoot the 5th necron codex with orks using kannons, lootas (elite back then), dakka jets, shoota boyz and koptas - in fact, you had to, since there was a necron list which basically killed your models if they moved.

By the way, I propose a separate thread for wishlisting and balance changes. Because this thread's name is pretty misleading - it is about tactics and making use of what we have at the moment, and a lot of people here are discussing how GW should design orks and what makes different units unviable. It'd be great to make a separate thread to make a proper collection of data on various units and what makes them suck, so we can actually send it to GW. I mean a lot of very good arguments and propositions are thrown around here, we certainly could make the use of that.

I adjusted the thread title to make it more clear

Call me an idealist, but I think there is a decent chance the GW would listen to a properly compiled list of suggestions. It's not like they make ork rules bad just because, rather they clearly have no idea how orks should function. Dakka stratagem and "X is good this edition!" is a clear indication of that.

Well, someone needs to do the work. I personally can't do that because I simply don't have the time. I'm willing to contribute though.

 Jidmah wrote:

Well, compared to 7th edition, this game was a walk in the park

Lol fair point and agreed.

They took three stationary, linked fire prisms, four bright lances and 16 scatter laser shots to the face (all in range for Autarch re-rolls) before they died. That kind of firepower would have taken most lords of war down. So while they didn't do anything, they took surprising amounts of firepower to kill. I'm sure that two units of hellblasters in rapid fire range will casually blow them away without breaking a sweat, but anything in the ork index can easily be wiped in a single round by 800 points of shooting.

I feel like you were somewhat lucky here. 3 Fire Prisms that move less than half I think would do some serious damage with average rolls using the appropriate shot type even without autarch support or linking.

2d6 shots x 3 = 21 shots average
14 hits average
9(.333) wounds
No saves = 3 dead Nob bikers.

If they have guide/autarchs support and the Nob bikers are doomed forget about it - with average rolling that should be all she wrote. They ain't cheap units even base, then the the price flies up if you add power klaws and big choppas to the mix.

Don't fall in to the trap of believing Nob bikes to be a tough unit. They just aren't without an inherent invulnerable, FNP or ammo runt ablative wound. They are also real expensive (for Orks) and let's be honest, no-one is scared of 1 or 2 Nob bikers running around the field. Power klaws or not.

I disagree on warbikes (they would have died just as fast, shot the same and been worse in combat), but spending points on boyz is pretty much always the best thing. However, we had no more than 3 hours to get the game in, including setting up the table and packing up, so any army with as little as three units of boyz would have been unable to finish the game. Unlike in tournaments, there is no advantage in calling the game early for friendly games.

The thing with warbikes is - you'd have had more of them, because they cost 27 ppm instead of 42. Since you get to throw a Nob in for that cost you actually get for 81 pts instead of 126 the following difference; 2 less wounds, 2 less attacks, 1 less strength on the 4 Boyz attacks, 6 lost shoota shots (that should always be put on Nob bikers for free). That's it. I don't understand why anyone would take Nob Bikers over more Warbikes since Warbikes are just as shooty really.

Strangely and kinda linked to the current discussion Semper's having - both biker units are primary shooting units. They are costed with 6 x str 5 (AP 0 is bogus) shots a piece and you're not gonna use those shots if you're stuck in cqc. For this reason I wouldn't recommend spending too much on Klaws and other cqc weapons on your Nob bikers if you're intent on taking them. And only take them with KFF on Bike (I've found Painboy on Bike to be a waste).

, nob bikers are no sleeper awesome unit at all. I would just rate them as "ok" rather than "utter trash, never use". That one would be reserved for burnas. And lobbas.

The reason for me why they are unfortunately in the "utter trash" category is because warbikes do everything they do better and more cost effective. I only ever take them for fluff reasons and they've always felt like a points sink.

I agree with the Englishman on the nob warbiker deal, in fact I'd be even more brutal and just say all warbikers are unplayable. Compare 6 warbikers (162 points) to one dakka jet (148 w/ 6 SupaS) if you're looking at dakka. You'll be ahead 1 wound and 3 average shots landed, but you trade a worse weapon (-18' range, -1str, -1ap), -1T, less mobility, and no -1 to hit. Plus the bikers cost 14 more points, can be charged, and are vulnerable to morale. And even then dakka jets are considered marginal, where to warbikers really sit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jidmah wrote:
Weird boyz also serve as our only anti-air, only way to reliably damage things with good saves and lots of wounds. Tank bustas only shine when shooting vehicles, if you need to take down monsters, battle suits, characters or other things that have profiles like vehicles, but without the vehicle keyword, they are lot less great. The KMB is better at killing targets with good saves and lots of wounds, but does worse against to hit modifiers and stuff that's deployed in a corner or out of sight since it cannot move.
IMO its pretty much a toss up between the three, with tank bustas being the odd man due to their low survivability compared to their high point cost.

So I agree with what you're saying here, although I think the ability to jump tankbustas is something you might be overlooking. Maybe that's where they shine compared to the others. But regardless, we agree that heavy flyers are our biggest enemy, so are painboy/weirdboy combos essential moving forward? Feels like the only way to battle Mortarion as well. We can get the bodies we need to charge up smites with KMKs, maybe green-tide is not essential. The only army that can still reliably smite spam is something worth considering.

hollow one wrote:
I agree with the Englishman on the nob warbiker deal, in fact I'd be even more brutal and just say all warbikers are unplayable. Compare 6 warbikers (162 points) to one dakka jet (148 w/ 6 SupaS) if you're looking at dakka. You'll be ahead 1 wound and 3 average shots landed, but you trade a worse weapon (-18' range, -1str, -1ap), -1T, less mobility, and no -1 to hit. Plus the bikers cost 14 more points, can be charged, and are vulnerable to morale. And even then dakka jets are considered marginal, where to warbikers really sit.

Yea I'm with you in that Warbikes aren't very good either, they have one thing over DakkaJet though - "Boots on the Ground". Although there are probably better options for grabbing objectives - I play Evil Sunz so I'll be damned if I don't use Bikes and/or Trukks, regardless of how awful they are. Just gotta make the most of them. Nob bikes are slightly worse than Warbikes IMO so I use them instead. I'm gonna use more Buggies, Trakks and Skorchas but I hate the models I have, they don't go with the rest of the army at all soooo here's hoping for new models soon.

Nob Bikers might be the only place kustom shootas make sense.

Regular warbikes get 6 shots each for 27 points - 4.5 points per shot

Nob bikers with shootas get 8 shots for 42 points - 5.25 points each

Nob bikers with kustom shootas get 10 shots for 46 points -4.6 points per shot.

At that point they are about even with regular bikers though 4 of those shots are only S4.

SO 3 biker nobz with kustom shootas are 138 points for 30 shots, 9 wounds, 12 Attacks

For the ~ same cost(135) you get 5 warbikes also 30 shots, though all S5 in this case, 11 wounds, 16 attacks

So even best case the warbikes come out a bit better. Both units shooting and charging

Nobz get 30 S 5 attacks (shots and close combat) and 12 S4 attacks

Warbikes get 34 S 5 attacks, and 12 S4 attacks.

pismakron wrote:

4) The DakkaDakkaDakka stratagem is pretty bad. It gives any shooting unit precisely 16.7% more damage output, which is nothing special for 1 CP. I still use it regularly though. It is better than nothing which is often the alternative.

The expectation for damage output is strictly lower than that, you're forgetting that you still have to roll after you generate the extra attack. For example, assuming no modifiers or special rules at BS5+ you'd expect to land 1/3 hits. If you apply dakka dakka dakka to that unit you only generate 1/18 more hits. Re-rolls improve it slightly and +/- modifiers to rolls have a more significant impact on the result.

Quackzo wrote:

pismakron wrote:

4) The DakkaDakkaDakka stratagem is pretty bad. It gives any shooting unit precisely 16.7% more damage output, which is nothing special for 1 CP. I still use it regularly though. It is better than nothing which is often the alternative.

The expectation for damage output is strictly lower than that, you're forgetting that you still have to roll after you generate the extra attack. For example, assuming no modifiers or special rules at BS5+ you'd expect to land 1/3 hits. If you apply dakka dakka dakka to that unit you only generate 1/18 more hits. Re-rolls improve it slightly and +/- modifiers to rolls have a more significant impact on the result.

A 16.7% increase in number of attacks will lead to a 16.7% increase in hits which will result in a 16.7 increase of damages. Regardless of BS.

pismakron wrote:

Quackzo wrote:

pismakron wrote:

4) The DakkaDakkaDakka stratagem is pretty bad. It gives any shooting unit precisely 16.7% more damage output, which is nothing special for 1 CP. I still use it regularly though. It is better than nothing which is often the alternative.

The expectation for damage output is strictly lower than that, you're forgetting that you still have to roll after you generate the extra attack. For example, assuming no modifiers or special rules at BS5+ you'd expect to land 1/3 hits. If you apply dakka dakka dakka to that unit you only generate 1/18 more hits. Re-rolls improve it slightly and +/- modifiers to rolls have a more significant impact on the result.

A 16.7% increase in number of attacks will lead to a 16.7% increase in hits which will result in a 16.7 increase of damages. Regardless of BS.

no. a 16.7% increase in attacks results in 5.5% increase of hits because of orks hitting on 5+. Dakkadakkadakka would work more efficiently in any other army that shoots better.

Let's take out unit that has the most shots in the index, nob bikers. 10 nob bikers all armed with shootas outputs 100 shots (60 for the bike guns and 40 from the shootas). Using dakkadakkadakka, we get around 17 extra shots as we roll around 17 6's. That gives you about 6 extra hits, not worth it at all in my opinion.

exceptions may include tankbustas because of re-rolls and possibly lootas because the extra shots also give the benefit of AP and 2 damage.

SemperMortis wrote:

Your example basically says that BS 5 is the problem. If they have a higher armor save or BS4 then you are going to pay for the chasis for that. The points reduction is probably the simplest answer and easiest fix. Plus cheaper points means you can field more models and thus increase sales. Still though, I don't see orks as a shooting army. The should be closing into melee range asap.

Another person unfamiliar with Orkz pre 6th edition. There's a reason this website is called "dakkadakka" there's a reason that most of the Ork codex is ranged units.

Shoota boyz
Lootas
Flashgitz
Burna boyz
Kanz
Morkanaut
Dakkajet
Burna bommer
Wazbom
Blitzabommer
Battlewagon
Grot tanks
Mek gunz
Big Gunz
Deffkoptas
Warbikes
Buggy
Skorcha
wartrakk
tankbustas

I mean the list is huge. Our only truly CC units are

Boyz
Meganobz
Deff dread
Stormboyz.

Then you have units which are heavily shooty but rely on CC.

Stompa
Gorkanaut
Nobz.

So tell me again how Orkz aren't a shooting army?


Now don't get me wrong, you might be right and GW might be trying to force us into a different direction and the rules writers and model designers haven't caught up yet but going off previous editions and our current index I don't think you are right.

Just because something can shoot, doesn't make it should be a shooting army. Shooting armies are guilliman gunline, guard, tau, etc... I hope GW makes any list type viable. Field a swarm list, a shooty list, an assault list, a mechanized list, a flier list, etc....
yeah they have gak BS thats so bad it hard to hit. To make them competitive what would be the fix? Increase BS ? Increase shots? Increase range? Lower points?

Nuck Fewton wrote:
no. a 16.7% increase in attacks results in 5.5% increase of hits because of orks hitting on 5+. Dakkadakkadakka would work more efficiently in any other army that shoots better.

Let's take out unit that has the most shots in the index, nob bikers. 10 nob bikers all armed with shootas outputs 100 shots (60 for the bike guns and 40 from the shootas). Using dakkadakkadakka, we get around 17 extra shots as we roll around 17 6's. That gives you about 6 extra hits, not worth it at all in my opinion.

exceptions may include tankbustas because of re-rolls and possibly lootas because the extra shots also give the benefit of AP and 2 damage.

100 shots will yield 33.3 hits at 5+ BS. With DakkaDakkaDakka you get 116.7 shots which yields 38.8 hits. That is an 16.7% increase in number of shots as well as a 16.7% increase in number of hits.

 Dynas wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Your example basically says that BS 5 is the problem. If they have a higher armor save or BS4 then you are going to pay for the chasis for that. The points reduction is probably the simplest answer and easiest fix. Plus cheaper points means you can field more models and thus increase sales. Still though, I don't see orks as a shooting army. The should be closing into melee range asap.

Another person unfamiliar with Orkz pre 6th edition. There's a reason this website is called "dakkadakka" there's a reason that most of the Ork codex is ranged units.

Shoota boyz
Lootas
Flashgitz
Burna boyz
Kanz
Morkanaut
Dakkajet
Burna bommer
Wazbom
Blitzabommer
Battlewagon
Grot tanks
Mek gunz
Big Gunz
Deffkoptas
Warbikes
Buggy
Skorcha
wartrakk
tankbustas

I mean the list is huge. Our only truly CC units are

Boyz
Meganobz
Deff dread
Stormboyz.

Then you have units which are heavily shooty but rely on CC.

Stompa
Gorkanaut
Nobz.

So tell me again how Orkz aren't a shooting army?


Now don't get me wrong, you might be right and GW might be trying to force us into a different direction and the rules writers and model designers haven't caught up yet but going off previous editions and our current index I don't think you are right.

Just because something can shoot, doesn't make it should be a shooting army. Shooting armies are guilliman gunline, guard, tau, etc... I hope GW makes any list type viable. Field a swarm list, a shooty list, an assault list, a mechanized list, a flier list, etc....
yeah they have gak BS thats so bad it hard to hit. To make them competitive what would be the fix? Increase BS ? Increase shots? Increase range? Lower points?

low BS is only part of the equation, durability is the other. GW could fix things multiple ways. give better armor saves for some units. example a ork battlewagon has a worse save than a rhino because... reasons? a land raider gets a 2+ but the ork vehicle a 4+ , hits 1/2 as much and worse weapons. this would be fine if a battlewagon were appropriately cost, a BW is 165 min vs a 365 land raider. if you gave the BW a 3+ armor save and a small reduction in points great. give the BW a 2+ and a points in crease then party on. leave armor a 4+ , points the same, and increase ballistic skill or number of shots to make it points appropriate, awesome! current issues are a lot of our shooting units are not even close to worth their points we used to be able to tie up units in assaults previous editions, but now they fall back and shoot us with other units, and then keep falling back every turn. Hell guard gets to receive orders to get back in the fight and still shoot after falling back.

Another example biker boys are way overcosted. GW could drop the points and call it a day or do something to make them more durable/offensive. give em an extra wound and they might be ok would have to play test. give them more shots and/or a longer movement might work. Bring back the old smoke rule where they get +1 to save might also be cool, fluffy and go towards fixing them. ultimately GW will be figuring out what they want to do I just hope they don't mess it up.

I don't think just dropping points or increasing our durability is going to help fix the biggest and most glaring issue with our units that have access to ranged weapons - they literally can't fire at some things.

This isn't fun and as I understand it is contrary to their design intention with 8th. From what I understood they didn't want units "unable to act" in a given phase (hence the always wound anything on a 6).

They need to make Orks' shooting either go no worse than 6+ to hit against any units or have us immune to ranged modifiers. There should never be a situation where our units can't act in a given phase. It is extremely poor design.

Once they've sorted that out they can start to cost our units appropriately. Particularly the worst offenders such as our transports, bikes and generally any units with a ranged focus. We pay a 'decent melee' tax for units that will 99 times out of 100 never use it. Take it out and price our units better. My Lootas don't need to be beefcakes in melee, they are ranged specialists.

hollow one wrote:
I tend to deploy the tankbustas in LOS and first turn jump suicide them. I find this means I don't need a trukk for them. This play nets me their points in damage on average (not including the weirdboy), and I think the bomb squig in this strategy is the best use of a command point we have in the game.

Be sure to let us know how this went! I was thinking about similar thing, but I think that that idea would be frawned upon here in this thread ^^'

That is correct...16% increase in all output measures. The reason this is bad is that orks are way, way overcosted for their output. 16% of a pittance is negligible.

Azhday wrote:

hollow one wrote:
I tend to deploy the tankbustas in LOS and first turn jump suicide them. I find this means I don't need a trukk for them. This play nets me their points in damage on average (not including the weirdboy), and I think the bomb squig in this strategy is the best use of a command point we have in the game.

Be sure to let us know how this went! I was thinking about similar thing, but I think that that idea would be frawned upon here in this thread ^^'

I've been playing this list for months, I do this strategy a lot. I think it's very effective, sometimes I come out with a tank death a pretty good distraction. I'll jump 18' away in a corner that the enemy either doesn't want to be in, or in an awkward LOS spot that only a few things can shoot at, or if I have no good opportunities i'll jump 9' away and attempt a charge. But some games they just miss and die. On average I think they pay for themselves and soften/kill a target i would never be able to kill otherwise.

pismakron wrote:

Nuck Fewton wrote:
no. a 16.7% increase in attacks results in 5.5% increase of hits because of orks hitting on 5+. Dakkadakkadakka would work more efficiently in any other army that shoots better.

Let's take out unit that has the most shots in the index, nob bikers. 10 nob bikers all armed with shootas outputs 100 shots (60 for the bike guns and 40 from the shootas). Using dakkadakkadakka, we get around 17 extra shots as we roll around 17 6's. That gives you about 6 extra hits, not worth it at all in my opinion.

exceptions may include tankbustas because of re-rolls and possibly lootas because the extra shots also give the benefit of AP and 2 damage.

100 shots will yield 33.3 hits at 5+ BS. With DakkaDakkaDakka you get 116.7 shots which yields 38.8 hits. That is an 16.7% increase in number of shots as well as a 16.7% increase in number of hits.

you're doing your math right, just reading it wrong. so 100 shots is 33 hits (makes sense, orks hit 1/3 of the time). 38 hits is a 5% increase over the initial 100 shots.

Think of it this way. However many shots you get divided by 6 (=the number of 6s you get) then divided by 3 (average ork shooting) = 5.5%

again, a 5.5% increase in hits isn't worth 1cp to me.

pismakron wrote:

Quackzo wrote:

pismakron wrote:

4) The DakkaDakkaDakka stratagem is pretty bad. It gives any shooting unit precisely 16.7% more damage output, which is nothing special for 1 CP. I still use it regularly though. It is better than nothing which is often the alternative.

The expectation for damage output is strictly lower than that, you're forgetting that you still have to roll after you generate the extra attack. For example, assuming no modifiers or special rules at BS5+ you'd expect to land 1/3 hits. If you apply dakka dakka dakka to that unit you only generate 1/18 more hits. Re-rolls improve it slightly and +/- modifiers to rolls have a more significant impact on the result.

A 16.7% increase in number of attacks will lead to a 16.7% increase in hits which will result in a 16.7 increase of damages. Regardless of BS.

Yeah that's my bad for posting half asleep, I misread your post a bit and I should of said less than or equal. 16.7% is the upper bound without modifiers to hits. In the base case of no modifiers or ability then you get equality, which the original case I posted is an example of (woops).
In the case that you add or subtract to hit rolls you scale the upper bound, I think that one is pretty clear though.
In the case that you get re-rolls you're getting less than 16.7%. Tankbustas will land 5/9 of their hits against vehicles, and dakka dakka dakka will add 5/81 more hits. If you assumed a flat increase of 1/6 then that would of been an extra 5/54 hits. In percentages the total expected hits would be 61.7%, while if you assumed a flat increase you get 64.8%. In this case its only a 3% difference but in some of the more complex cases, i.e flash gitz, the gap can widen more significantly.

 JimOnMars wrote:
That is correct...16% increase in all output measures. The reason this is bad is that orks are way, way overcosted for their output. 16% of a pittance is negligible.

16.7% extra shooting output out of a single unit is a pretty lousy use of a CP even for shooty armies. If I remember correctly, the DakkaDakkaDakka stratagem is a word-for-word copy of the space marine bolter drill stratagem, which I am not seeing used much.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nuck Fewton wrote:

pismakron wrote:

Nuck Fewton wrote:
no. a 16.7% increase in attacks results in 5.5% increase of hits because of orks hitting on 5+. Dakkadakkadakka would work more efficiently in any other army that shoots better.

Let's take out unit that has the most shots in the index, nob bikers. 10 nob bikers all armed with shootas outputs 100 shots (60 for the bike guns and 40 from the shootas). Using dakkadakkadakka, we get around 17 extra shots as we roll around 17 6's. That gives you about 6 extra hits, not worth it at all in my opinion.

exceptions may include tankbustas because of re-rolls and possibly lootas because the extra shots also give the benefit of AP and 2 damage.

100 shots will yield 33.3 hits at 5+ BS. With DakkaDakkaDakka you get 116.7 shots which yields 38.8 hits. That is an 16.7% increase in number of shots as well as a 16.7% increase in number of hits.

you're doing your math right, just reading it wrong. so 100 shots is 33 hits (makes sense, orks hit 1/3 of the time). 38 hits is a 5% increase over the initial 100 shots.

Think of it this way. However many shots you get divided by 6 (=the number of 6s you get) then divided by 3 (average ork shooting) = 5.5%

again, a 5.5% increase in hits isn't worth 1cp to me.

It is not a 5.5% increase in hits. It is a 16.7 % increase in hits.

Can we agree that double the amount of shots leads to double the amount of hits and double the amount of damage? Well, the same is true of a 16.7% increase in shots: it leads to a 16.7 % increase in hits and damage done. No more, no less.

Yes, 16.7% increase in shots is the same as 16.7% increase in hits which is the same increase for damage. The problem with the stratagem is a negligible increase on an already negligible amount of damage anyway.

Let's break down the difference of 30 Shoota Boyz vs Tacticals;

No DakkaDakkaDakka;
20 Hits
10 Wounds
3.333 Damage

With DakkaDakkaDakka;
23.333 Hits
11.665 Wounds
3.8833 Damage

So for 1 CP you might kill an extra Tactical. Woop de fething do.

Of course the less shots/lack of rerolls/lack of positive to hit modifiers the worse the stratagem functions, which makes it even less appealing.

For this stratagem to be worthwhile, our shooting needs to be worthwhile in the first place. Unfortunately with our lack of AP, lack of access to rerolls, lack of access to positive modifiers and all the negative to hit modifiers flying about this simply isn't the case.

I feel like the 'reward' for hitting with Ork weapons just isn't there. When you manage the miracle rolls it still feels "meh" and your opponent just often shrugs as they roll a load of saves.

pismakron wrote:
If I remember correctly, the DakkaDakkaDakka stratagem is a word-for-word copy of the space marine bolter drill stratagem, which I am not seeing used much.

Bolter Drill only works on bolt weapons, whereas DakkaDakkaDakka works on any ranged weapon. So it's easy to see why a developer who didn't know much about Orks would look at it and think "Well obviously it wouldn't be as good for Orks since they have lower BS, but if I make it work on any ranged weapon, and Orks can field big units all with ranged weapons, it'll be good!"

And yes, if that's as far as you thought it, it would be decent. Because the theme of Orks has for ages been "bad shots, but tons of shots". Somewhere along the way though the "tons of shots" got handed off to Imperial armies, whilst the "bad shots" remained. The twin-linked change was responsible for a lot of that, but there were others too. Orks should have been the faction who got weapons like the Punisher Gattling Cannon first. I remember when the stats for that thing first leaked back in 5th and people were losing their minds. Heavy 20?! That's gotta be a misprint right? Holy hell it's REAL?! And then Orks get a big walker with a giant multi-barrelled gattling gun on it and it has....3D6 shots. Even at it's absolute maximum output, it has 2 less shots than the Punisher. And that was because another design decision was that Orks should be random, and that's still with us today.

Then you take into account ranged units being overpriced, lacking survivability, cover being nerfed for Orks, transports being overpriced and blast weapons being nerfed into the ground for Orks and you see the rest of the picture. Again, that's only clear to someone who really understands the faction, and the fact that DakkaDakkaDakka was pushed out as one of the two stratagems to tide us over to the codex makes me quite certain that the person who wrote it is not an Ork fan. Doesn't mean they hate Orks, just that they're not a fan of the particular army, and so they don't really understand their issues. I'd be the same if someone asked me to make a Dark Eldar stratagem; they go fast right, and like inflicting pain or something?

Which is why I don't have any hope for our codex. Unless you have someone writing it who is a fan of the army, we're going to get something entirely unsatisfactory.

 Glane wrote:

pismakron wrote:
If I remember correctly, the DakkaDakkaDakka stratagem is a word-for-word copy of the space marine bolter drill stratagem, which I am not seeing used much.

Bolter Drill only works on bolt weapons, whereas DakkaDakkaDakka works on any ranged weapon. So it's easy to see why a developer who didn't know much about Orks would look at it and think "Well obviously it wouldn't be as good for Orks since they have lower BS, but if I make it work on any ranged weapon, and Orks can field big units all with ranged weapons, it'll be good!"

And yes, if that's as far as you thought it, it would be decent. Because the theme of Orks has for ages been "bad shots, but tons of shots". Somewhere along the way though the "tons of shots" got handed off to Imperial armies, whilst the "bad shots" remained. The twin-linked change was responsible for a lot of that, but there were others too. Orks should have been the faction who got weapons like the Punisher Gattling Cannon first. I remember when the stats for that thing first leaked back in 5th and people were losing their minds. Heavy 20?! That's gotta be a misprint right? Holy hell it's REAL?! And then Orks get a big walker with a giant multi-barrelled gattling gun on it and it has....3D6 shots. Even at it's absolute maximum output, it has 2 less shots than the Punisher. And that was because another design decision was that Orks should be random, and that's still with us today.

Then you take into account ranged units being overpriced, lacking survivability, cover being nerfed for Orks, transports being overpriced and blast weapons being nerfed into the ground for Orks and you see the rest of the picture. Again, that's only clear to someone who really understands the faction, and the fact that DakkaDakkaDakka was pushed out as one of the two stratagems to tide us over to the codex makes me quite certain that the person who wrote it is not an Ork fan. Doesn't mean they hate Orks, just that they're not a fan of the particular army, and so they don't really understand their issues. I'd be the same if someone asked me to make a Dark Eldar stratagem; they go fast right, and like inflicting pain or something?

Which is why I don't have any hope for our codex. Unless you have someone writing it who is a fan of the army, we're going to get something entirely unsatisfactory.

This is what i have been saying all along, orks cant be "fixed" in 8th.
The way that cover, hit mods and save mods work makes it impossible to balance orks against other armies.