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 Jidmah wrote:
rvd1, would you care to draw a picture of you tactic? I feel like either of us is missing something important here.

There's a whole blog about it:
https://thebrownmagic.com/2018/03/01/cracking-the-screen-part-2/


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 An Actual Englishman wrote:


I just don't remember you saying you purchased any and, for a while, you did tout most of what you owned on here.

If you want to put the highest damaging unit in your "S" rank or whatever then you need to go through every unit, costing it out and doing the maths for it yourself. Your spreadsheet honestly isn't as important as you seem to believe. Haven't you answered the question yourself? Wasn't it Pink Horrors? Move on.

Now if you could stop being so ignorant as to bring your spreadsheet into a discussion that is supposed to focus on Ork Tactica, it'd be appreciated. That is the actual point of the discussion.

Speaking of which, your tactic then seems bogus. If 2 units are side by side and you charge one, how are you surrounding a model without getting further away from the one you charged?

pismakron wrote:
Bloodletters are not nearly as good as boyz. The bl bomb is very powerful, but they are not exactly a versatile unit. You cannot camp an objective with bloodletters for example. The same goes for genestealers.

Boyz are simply very, very good. If Guardsmen gets upped to 5 points per model then I think boyz might well be the best troop choice in the game. They are not OP in my opinion, but if Orks get access to an infiltrate stratagem like "Strike From the Shadows" then boyz will be EXTREMELY unbalanced.

I disagree, particularly on Bloodletters. They are as good at least as Boyz, possibly better. They are far more versatile than Boyz because they have AP on their weapons so can damage armour somewhat reliably. They can make charges far easier. You can also camp an objective better with Bloodletters than Boyz against most weapons because of their invuln.

I said my initial purchase plans. Not anything I've gotten since

Boyz are a lot higher damage than pink horrors. WIth buffs boyz are 2x as good actually. However in a more realistic case warpath, banner boyz are 0.3886 where flickering, herald pinks are only 0.2049. And I want to split melee and shooting. So boyz are winning this hard without shooting a single gun and without me taking into account the boss nob.

The spreadsheet is for me and whoever else wants to use it. Be it new players or other. It does not say "x unit is better". It only says, "the damage potential of the unit is x and the durability is y. If it's great - what's preventing it from being used and if it's crap, why is it still used, are you questions you have to answer on your own by reading: range, movement speed and special rules"

And finally, bloodletters are only better against OC plasma and better and even then, just barelly. With anything lower (you know, the things that are actually made for killing most hordes) boyz are a lot more durable. They suffer from morale a lot more than boyz too.


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However I do value bloodletters the same as boyz. The 3D6 charge is gamebreaking,

I will read you blog posts. The post you linked to is quite interesting. You can keep your maths though. Not as directly interesting to me.

You can't compare boyz with genestealers, they're both assault oriented troops but they work differently. Genestealer are most expensive but to make them effective you need 20-40 of them.

To make boyz effective you need 150 of them, including kommandos and/or stormboyz. Plus buffing characters.

Compare 40 genestealers and 80 boyz. Those tyranids will be very good on average, the boyz won't, they need twice the bodies or to ride in overcosted vehicles.

 rvd1ofakind wrote:


I said my initial purchase plans. Not anything I've gotten since

Boyz are a lot higher damage than pink horrors. WIth buffs boyz are 2x as good actually. However in a more realistic case warpath, banner boyz are 0.3886 where flickering, herald pinks are only 0.2049. And I want to split melee and shooting. So boyz are winning this hard without shooting a single gun and without me taking into account the boss nob.

The spreadsheet is for me and whoever else wants to use it. Be it new players or other. It does not say "x unit is better". It only says, "the damage potential of the unit is x and the durability is y. If it's great - what's preventing it from being used and if it's crap, why is it still used, are you questions you have to answer on your own by reading: range, movement speed and special rules"

And finally, bloodletters are only better against OC plasma and better and even then, just barelly. With anything lower (you know, the things that are actually made for killing most hordes) boyz are a lot more durable. They suffer from morale a lot more than boyz too.


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However I do value bloodletters the same as boyz. The 3D6 charge is gamebreaking,

Listen rvd you rile people up here with your sweeping and kind of accusatory statements. I think you opened your return to this thread to discuss the spreadsheet with something along the lines of "To those who believe that Boyz aren't OP can you name a better unit for dealing with T3S6 units?". Kinda confrontational and argumentative.

If you want to discuss just your spreadsheet make another thread for it. It is interesting but it doesn't contribute too much to real life scenarios as you've said yourself it only contains information on damage output and durability. In some ways it's anti tactics as, in order to be fair, it assumes equality across units (all units get in to combat, for example) which is devoid of real life experience.

Finally on letters, I'm glad you concede their value. Remember that the name of the ork game is to spam a unit so much that anti vehicle weapons have to fire at them since there's no other target. If letters were spammed as much as Boyz those extra saves on high Str and AP weapons would make a difference I think. Luckily demons have many other tricks up their metaphysical sleeve so don't need to rely as much on one trick pony solutions. Unlike orks imo.

Spoilers: you can say "hey get out of this thread" and so on but guess what. It will not happen.

And again, you are comparing Orks to codex armies and saying orks are one trick ponies. Congratulations. You solved the age old riddle. The fact that orks can hang in there and beat codex armies constantly is a great proof of how strong the Ork index actually is. Index armies are not balanced against codex armies. This has been stated by the FLG guys, who test the game. Codex is supposed to be better than index. Why would people buy the books if they weren't, right?

And please. Just try to think for 1 moment. What is more valuable:
1. Look at the unit's datasheet and say if it is good or not
2. Look at the unit's durability and damage statistic AND the datasheet and say if it is good or not.

Practice, friendly games, even RTTs are anecdotal evidence. Only GT and Major results actually matter as real evidence.

You are not supposed to think: "oh, this unit does the best damage, clearly it is the best". It is supposed to make you think. Consider the damage, the durability. Are they subpar? Are they better than average? Consider the special rules and movement. Compare them to similar units. Look up tournament results and see what sees play. Hey, maybe you've uncovered something neat, maybe you can apply some tactic/stratagem and make that unit work. However you immediately know you're not wasting time with weak units, that have next to no unique rules

 rvd1ofakind wrote:
Look at the unit's durability

Well in this case then boys are garbage

Actually, it is exactly average against anti-horde weapons... Combined with their INSANE damage, leads to a great unit, no?

 rvd1ofakind wrote:
Spoilers: you can say "hey get out of this thread" and so on but guess what. It will not happen.

And again, you are comparing Orks to codex armies and saying orks are one trick ponies. Congratulations. You solved the age old riddle. The fact that orks can hang in there and beat codex armies constantly is a great proof of how strong the Ork index actually is. Index armies are not balanced against codex armies. This has been stated by the FLG guys, who test the game. Codex is supposed to be better than index. Why would people buy the books if they weren't, right?

And please. Just try to think for 1 moment. What is more valuable:
1. Look at the unit's datasheet and say if it is good or not
2. Look at the unit's durability and damage statistic AND the datasheet and say if it is good or not.

Practice, friendly games, even RTTs are anecdotal evidence. Only GT and Major results actually matter as real evidence.

You are not supposed to think: "oh, this unit does the best damage, clearly it is the best". It is supposed to make you think. Consider the damage, the durability. Are they subpar? Are they better than average? Consider the special rules and movement. Compare them to similar units. Look up tournament results and see what sees play. Hey, maybe you've uncovered something neat, maybe you can apply some tactic/stratagem and make that unit work. However you immediately know you're not wasting time with weak units, that have next to no unique rules

I'm not telling you to get out the thread rvd. I'm telling you if you want people to take you seriously you should stop being such a condescending ignoramus. I'm also saying that your spreadsheet (and discussion thereof) does not belong here. This is tactica. Not number crunching.

To new players your rating of Boyz could easily confuse them. Your statistics are also biased as all feth. You have taken their attacks against what you believe to be the most common. Perhaps in your meta that's true but it won't be for everyone. So I have a ton of meaningless numbers that are real interesting to you and nobody else. Congrats I guess. Discuss it elsewhere.

Not every index army was/is forced to one tactic to be competitive. Almost all had unique mechanics that Orks lack.

As to what constitutes "real" evidence, let's just agree to disagree on that.

So anyway what are you telling me with your spreadsheet? 'Boyz are good'. Wow! My mind is blown. Please hold me before I fall over thanks to this world-shattering announcement. You're about (E) 154 pages too late though bud, I'm afraid to say we worked that out before your spreadsheet almost immediately. Which makes me think your reason for harping on about Boyz damage output and durability against whatever unit you fancy has some other, more nefarious reasons. Perhaps you want to call out those who don't believe Boyz are OP. Perhaps you just like to argue. I'm not sure. But it's not useful to the topic at hand I'm afraid.

Spoilers: you can say "hey get out of this thread" and so on but guess what. It will not happen.

How about instead if I say "hey, why don't we discuss tactics instead of whether or not boyz are OP? How do you USE the unit in question most effectively? How do you counter the counter? What if I'm crazy and don't want to use any boyz at all?"

Coh Magnussen wrote:

Spoilers: you can say "hey get out of this thread" and so on but guess what. It will not happen.

How about instead if I say "hey, why don't we discuss tactics instead of whether or not boyz are OP? How do you USE the unit in question most effectively? How do you counter the counter? What if I'm crazy and don't want to use any boyz at all?"

Where did I say boyz are OP in the current discussion?

This is a bit snippy for a discussion of toy soldiers isn't it? I think we all came here for tactics for winning fire fights, not flame wars.

Regardless, do Orks have a good answer to battlesuits in the current edition? I keep losing vast numbers of boyz to 3-flamer crisis suits. 6 of them manta strike in, flame the heck out of my boys (fire fight, literally) and I don't really have enough of an answer to it aside from a deff dred to deal with even one.

 SonOfTzu wrote:
This is a bit snippy for a discussion of toy soldiers isn't it? I think we all came here for tactics for winning fire fights, not flame wars.

Regardless, do Orks have a good answer to battlesuits in the current edition? I keep losing vast numbers of boyz to 3-flamer crisis suits. 6 of them manta strike in, flame the heck out of my boys (fire fight, literally) and I don't really have enough of an answer to it aside from a deff dred to deal with even one.

shouldnt they be landing outside of flamer range? Or did they use that stupid stealth suit beacon thingy?

Coh Magnussen wrote:

Spoilers: you can say "hey get out of this thread" and so on but guess what. It will not happen.

How about instead if I say "hey, why don't we discuss tactics instead of whether or not boyz are OP? How do you USE the unit in question most effectively? How do you counter the counter? What if I'm crazy and don't want to use any boyz at all?"

You simply cannot discuss Ork tactics without talking about boyz in the current meta. If you don't want to use any boyz at all then you will need to spam a LOT of Kustom Mega Kannons.

 davou wrote:

 SonOfTzu wrote:
This is a bit snippy for a discussion of toy soldiers isn't it? I think we all came here for tactics for winning fire fights, not flame wars.

Regardless, do Orks have a good answer to battlesuits in the current edition? I keep losing vast numbers of boyz to 3-flamer crisis suits. 6 of them manta strike in, flame the heck out of my boys (fire fight, literally) and I don't really have enough of an answer to it aside from a deff dred to deal with even one.

shouldnt they be landing outside of flamer range? Or did they use that stupid stealth suit beacon thingy?

Stealth suits are able to get up close and deploy the beacon because of the just lovely infiltrator rule, and since they're relatively expendable (apparently), they can get away with it.

 SonOfTzu wrote:

 davou wrote:

 SonOfTzu wrote:
This is a bit snippy for a discussion of toy soldiers isn't it? I think we all came here for tactics for winning fire fights, not flame wars.

Regardless, do Orks have a good answer to battlesuits in the current edition? I keep losing vast numbers of boyz to 3-flamer crisis suits. 6 of them manta strike in, flame the heck out of my boys (fire fight, literally) and I don't really have enough of an answer to it aside from a deff dred to deal with even one.

shouldnt they be landing outside of flamer range? Or did they use that stupid stealth suit beacon thingy?

Stealth suits are able to get up close and deploy the beacon because of the just lovely infiltrator rule, and since they're relatively expendable (apparently), they can get away with it.

It may be worth investing into a grot screen for your boyz to try and prevent the flamer alpha strike, at the very least it can potentially take them out of flamer range even with the beacon. Assuming the grots don't all die straight away, whatever's left could potentially be overwatch fodder to tie them in combat so the boyz can make it intact. It's probably still best to try and kill them at range once they drop though, so KMK and rokkits should be a decent response, especially the rokkits since do a flat 3 damage, meaning each save he fails is one that instantly dies. The good thing is that they're still pretty damn expensive so each one you bring down is a considerable points loss for him.

SemperMortis wrote:
From a competitive standpoint the Battle Wagon is TRASH, don't even bring it for anything.

From a casual perspective the Battlewagon is still trash but can be fun as a delivery system from HQs and really choppy units like Nobz.

The rest of this is going to be from a competitive view point so don't get your knickers in a twist if you disagree since your casual game was awesome that one time.

Battlewagons rely on T8 to survive due to their terrible 4+ save. They are NOT worth taking only for a delivery system because after that they are just a giant 180pt waste of space on the board, and before you tell me "Well they can assault to!" they suck in assault unless you put a Deffrolla on the front and even then its mediocre at best for 180pts.

as bad as it is in CC, its even worse in the shooting phase. A Battlwagon with a Killkannon, Kannon and 4 Rokkitz costs a mind numbing 239pts. For that cost it puts out 4 S8 AP-2 D3 damage shots at range 24 hitting on 5s, 1 S8 -2 D6 dmg shot at 36inch range hitting on 5s or D6 S4 shots hitting on 5s AND D6 S7 -2 2 damage shots at range 24.

So for starters you are extremely short ranged, next against a T7 3+ Vehicle you will average 1.5ish damage a turn from the Rokkitz, .5 dmg from the Kannon and .8ish damage from the Kill Kannon. Grand total of just under 3 damage.

For the SupaKannon, you are looking at 191pts unless you add in some Big Shootas for some other plink shots for fun which will raise your cost by 24pts which gives you 4 S5 shots hitting a turn. But the actual SupaKannon? it would be good on a SM list, but for orkz? not so much. You will average 7 shots a turn and 2.33 hits a turn, against elite infantry (what else are you shooting this thing at?) you will wound 2 times on average but against that 2+ save you will only get 1 wound and 1 dead Elite Infantry.

So almost 200pt model is able to kill a Terminator a turn.

hyperbole....

A T8 transport that holds 20 models and has 6 attacks that hits on 2's at str 8 is good. However they are certainly over priced but not so much that I would call them trash. I like to take 3-4 in my lists, and I can bang around in middle tables just fine, which is about all you can hope with orks anyway.

As far as argument that goes "Well my opponent can kill them so they suck." 200 Boyz can be killed just as fast..so they must suck too.

I do agree that buying them guns doesn't make any sense.

Anyone got any good suggestions on how to effectively use boyz and gretchin for screens and breaking screens? I've realised my screening game is weak, I had a look online for some material but most of it was a bit basic and nothing was too in depth. Hoping to get some more detailed advice from people with more experience.

Relevant because actually talking about tactics instead of mathhammer/unit grading.

 Geemoney wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
From a competitive standpoint the Battle Wagon is TRASH, don't even bring it for anything.

From a casual perspective the Battlewagon is still trash but can be fun as a delivery system from HQs and really choppy units like Nobz.

The rest of this is going to be from a competitive view point so don't get your knickers in a twist if you disagree since your casual game was awesome that one time.

Battlewagons rely on T8 to survive due to their terrible 4+ save. They are NOT worth taking only for a delivery system because after that they are just a giant 180pt waste of space on the board, and before you tell me "Well they can assault to!" they suck in assault unless you put a Deffrolla on the front and even then its mediocre at best for 180pts.

as bad as it is in CC, its even worse in the shooting phase. A Battlwagon with a Killkannon, Kannon and 4 Rokkitz costs a mind numbing 239pts. For that cost it puts out 4 S8 AP-2 D3 damage shots at range 24 hitting on 5s, 1 S8 -2 D6 dmg shot at 36inch range hitting on 5s or D6 S4 shots hitting on 5s AND D6 S7 -2 2 damage shots at range 24.

So for starters you are extremely short ranged, next against a T7 3+ Vehicle you will average 1.5ish damage a turn from the Rokkitz, .5 dmg from the Kannon and .8ish damage from the Kill Kannon. Grand total of just under 3 damage.

For the SupaKannon, you are looking at 191pts unless you add in some Big Shootas for some other plink shots for fun which will raise your cost by 24pts which gives you 4 S5 shots hitting a turn. But the actual SupaKannon? it would be good on a SM list, but for orkz? not so much. You will average 7 shots a turn and 2.33 hits a turn, against elite infantry (what else are you shooting this thing at?) you will wound 2 times on average but against that 2+ save you will only get 1 wound and 1 dead Elite Infantry.

So almost 200pt model is able to kill a Terminator a turn.

hyperbole....

A T8 transport that holds 20 models and has 6 attacks that hits on 2's at str 8 is good. However they are certainly over priced but not so much that I would call them trash. I like to take 3-4 in my lists, and I can bang around in middle tables just fine, which is about all you can hope with orks anyway.

As far as argument that goes "Well my opponent can kill them so they suck." 200 Boyz can be killed just as fast..so they must suck too.

I do agree that buying them guns doesn't make any sense.

Oh man, don't bother. I blocked that dude months ago. Orks are due for their upgrade for sure soon, but unless you admit that having orks gives you aids semper will just ramp up constantly. The dude has no calibration


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 Quackzo wrote:
Anyone got any good suggestions on how to effectively use boyz and gretchin for screens and breaking screens? I've realised my screening game is weak, I had a look online for some material but most of it was a bit basic and nothing was too in depth. Hoping to get some more detailed advice from people with more experience.

Relevant because actually talking about tactics instead of mathhammer/unit grading.

Chose a spot on the board where you intend to put down important things, then measure out 15 inches from it. You want to pepper those areas with grots. If that spot is near an edge, make sure its at most 7 away from the edge so that nothing can come down behind it. Two units spaced 15 inches apart leave no room between them for drops. When you lay your units out like this TELL your opponent you did it. so that later if they try to measure it you can say;

"Na man, I told you I blocked it off. If there's space it's because I didn't want you to wait all day while I set up"

Then add grots between you and what you don't want to assault you (although those will probably be shot off relatively quickly.

Once you get moving up the board, the grots should dash for objective that look like they will see relatively little fighting.

Screening isnt that complicated, and drop denial is all about circles with a radius 8 (aim for 7 and you have margin for error). You wont find too much in detail about it.

pismakron wrote:

Coh Magnussen wrote:

Spoilers: you can say "hey get out of this thread" and so on but guess what. It will not happen.

How about instead if I say "hey, why don't we discuss tactics instead of whether or not boyz are OP? How do you USE the unit in question most effectively? How do you counter the counter? What if I'm crazy and don't want to use any boyz at all?"

You simply cannot discuss Ork tactics without talking about boyz in the current meta. If you don't want to use any boyz at all then you will need to spam a LOT of Kustom Mega Kannons.

Technically, you can make a decent boy-less army for very casual games. Or if you consider kommandoes and stormboyz to be not boyz. I guess they're not. Assault marines aren't tacticals, right?

But if you're talking about a non-horde army without spamming beq (boyz equivalent) than there is probably only forgeworld left. Garg squiggoths, supaskorcha trakks with something like tankbustas or min kommando squads inside. And probably a meka dread? Not sure about the dread but it looks ok for a kff platform in such list. Probably regular kff mek would do beter. Tactics is even more simple than your regular horde tactics. Roll on points, burn down anti-tank first. Ideally, if anti-tank is infantry based. Keep within kff range. So, you're an average 40k mobile gunline. Boring for an everyday army but could be a change over your usual lists and can be pretty effective agasint some enemies. Not an auto-win by any means ofc. And much easier and quicker to play than horde. What's great is that you can still afford a bauble wrap without much problems if you want so a bunch of shootaboyz or even gots would do fine.


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 Quackzo wrote:
I had a look online for some material but most of it was a bit basic and nothing was too in depth

Unfortunately, i feel thats the most you can get out of 8-th edition. There's just not much you can do outside listbuilding.

 Quackzo wrote:
Anyone got any good suggestions on how to effectively use boyz and gretchin for screens and breaking screens? I've realised my screening game is weak, I had a look online for some material but most of it was a bit basic and nothing was too in depth. Hoping to get some more detailed advice from people with more experience.

Relevant because actually talking about tactics instead of mathhammer/unit grading.

What units do you have that need protecting? How did you learn your screening game was weak?

If you use mek guns as davou said best screen is with grots that are part of the unit. Deny them space to deep strike and if they kill some grots (with a view to making space) take casualties in a way that leaves as little room as possible. You can always da jump Boyz back to cover should the opponent manage to make space in your backfield although typically you'll be on their doorstep or punching them in the face already by the time this happens.

Anyway, so what I said about the charging 1 and surrounding the other unit thing was correct? Didn't you guys know about it? Or did I phrase it wrong?

 Quackzo wrote:
Anyone got any good suggestions on how to effectively use boyz and gretchin for screens and breaking screens? I've realised my screening game is weak, I had a look online for some material but most of it was a bit basic and nothing was too in depth. Hoping to get some more detailed advice from people with more experience.

Relevant because actually talking about tactics instead of mathhammer/unit grading.

Beastcoast Gaming has a good three part series on screening, starting here .

 rvd1ofakind wrote:
Anyway, so what I said about the charging 1 and surrounding the other unit thing was correct? Didn't you guys know about it? Or did I phrase it wrong?

The way you are doing it, surrounding one or two models should work. It used coherency rules against the trapped unit to prevent fall back. Something I had never considered and I am not sure now I have been in a position to trap an enemy unit that way before. It's something I am definitely going to the next time I play. So far I've only trapped vehicles by mostly surrounding them and beating on them until their movement wouldn't be sufficient to leave combat. My dice are always against me so I end up stuck fighting empty vehicles for way too long. I'm interested to try it in layers boys locking up 2 or more units and storm boys locking up another 2 just beyond that combat. Would be massively good for me.

 Geemoney wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
From a competitive standpoint the Battle Wagon is TRASH, don't even bring it for anything.

From a casual perspective the Battlewagon is still trash but can be fun as a delivery system from HQs and really choppy units like Nobz.

The rest of this is going to be from a competitive view point so don't get your knickers in a twist if you disagree since your casual game was awesome that one time.

Battlewagons rely on T8 to survive due to their terrible 4+ save. They are NOT worth taking only for a delivery system because after that they are just a giant 180pt waste of space on the board, and before you tell me "Well they can assault to!" they suck in assault unless you put a Deffrolla on the front and even then its mediocre at best for 180pts.

as bad as it is in CC, its even worse in the shooting phase. A Battlwagon with a Killkannon, Kannon and 4 Rokkitz costs a mind numbing 239pts. For that cost it puts out 4 S8 AP-2 D3 damage shots at range 24 hitting on 5s, 1 S8 -2 D6 dmg shot at 36inch range hitting on 5s or D6 S4 shots hitting on 5s AND D6 S7 -2 2 damage shots at range 24.

So for starters you are extremely short ranged, next against a T7 3+ Vehicle you will average 1.5ish damage a turn from the Rokkitz, .5 dmg from the Kannon and .8ish damage from the Kill Kannon. Grand total of just under 3 damage.

For the SupaKannon, you are looking at 191pts unless you add in some Big Shootas for some other plink shots for fun which will raise your cost by 24pts which gives you 4 S5 shots hitting a turn. But the actual SupaKannon? it would be good on a SM list, but for orkz? not so much. You will average 7 shots a turn and 2.33 hits a turn, against elite infantry (what else are you shooting this thing at?) you will wound 2 times on average but against that 2+ save you will only get 1 wound and 1 dead Elite Infantry.

So almost 200pt model is able to kill a Terminator a turn.

hyperbole....

A T8 transport that holds 20 models and has 6 attacks that hits on 2's at str 8 is good. However they are certainly over priced but not so much that I would call them trash. I like to take 3-4 in my lists, and I can bang around in middle tables just fine, which is about all you can hope with orks anyway.

As far as argument that goes "Well my opponent can kill them so they suck." 200 Boyz can be killed just as fast..so they must suck too.

I do agree that buying them guns doesn't make any sense.

I like playing with BWs a lot, in fact I mostly play with 2-3 of them. My meta is currently super scared about hordes since orks, chaos, tyranids and AM hordes are a thing and I usually have more success (and way more fun since I hate moving tons of footsloggers) with armored lists than pure green tides.

What do your lists commonly look like Blackie? I'd like to use batllewagons more.

Yeah, i'd lke to run more vehicles. Pretty tired of boyz but the meta is competitive and vehicles get destroyed en masse 1-st turn.

 rvd1ofakind wrote:
Anyway, so what I said about the charging 1 and surrounding the other unit thing was correct? Didn't you guys know about it? Or did I phrase it wrong?

Your description was pretty hard to understand, especially since you kept focusing on auto-winning after deep strike and being able to do it with just three models (in theory yes but if you're off by a tenth of an inch, the model can escape).
The article did make a lot more sense than you did, but my opinion on this is unchanged. A good opponent should not be caught out by this twice, at least not during turn 1. Later, when units are spaced out to block movement, grab objectives or conga towards buff auras, I can see this being very valuable.

Not to mention that there are a number of counter-measures against it.

But it's moot point to discuss, since you are already convinced that it's a free auto-win, and from experience nothing will change your mind. You have already ignored two thirds of the arguments against it.

I see the tactics outlined above on the table all the time, and it is certainly neither an auto-win nor something you can expect to pull off unless your opponent makes a positioning mistake. On the other hand positioning mistakes are very common, and I see people spacing their models with more than 25 mm base-to-base distance all the time.

Hormagaunts are the perfect unit for shenanigans like that, and boyz are pretty good too. But are as good as either of those, and Raptors with warptime can almost always get the surround on something. 40 man cultist squads will only work with Abbadon or the Iron Warriors warlord trait that grants fearless. Without those buffs they will run away when your opponent breathes at them.

I find that the "conga-line locked in melee" scenario often happens when you are assaulting, or being assaulted by, a rhino. Then I will try to get a character to bracket the rhino so that it cannot fall back. A KFF-mek on a bike or a weirdboy are good for this, as both can do their thing while being locked in melee. As the Rhino will probably last til game-end the mob and character cannot be targeted in the shooting phase. Not even by snipers. You can even use the mob-rule to add additional bodies to the conga-line as it piles-in and consolidates all over the field. You can literally pile-in to units across the board, and they will not get to fire overwatch.

There are some pretty big disadvantages to this, though. For one thing, you cannot charge or shoot with anything but pistols. Secondly, while you can fight, you wont get the "fight first for charging" bonus, but you opponent often will. Thirdly, all you models can only move 3" + 3" which is decent for boyz, but sub-par for stormboyz. And your models must end their move closer to the nearest enemy model or not move at all. The latter restriction means that you conga-line will tend to spread out, and sometimes will be unable to move while maintaining unit coherency.

The upside is that orks can alway Da Jump out of melee. Thousands Sons tzaangors can do the same with the Dark Matter Crystal. So don't try to surround them

Regards

Blackie, that is my experience too.

My lists tend to be:

3 BW w/ ard case
2 units ~20 boyz
1 unit 5 nobz, 5 ammo runts

1 BW open topped
either Flash Gitz or Tankbustaz

8 Kustom Mega Kannons

Warboss on Warbike
Big Mek on Warbike
2 Wierd boyz
Kaptian Badrukk

I tend to deploy using the T8 Battlewagons combined with the grot gunners as a screen. I can usually control were opponent deepstrike in this way.

I have also found that I have to have a strong shooting phase in order to do well. Which is why I take so many mek guns. I have been considering taking two more. (up to 10).

I am seeing a lack of nobz in recent lists. Nobz are one of my favorite units. Are there any decent lists featuring nobz or are they just not competitive?