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I just thought of a cool mechanic for killa kans.

Grotz iz weedy N untrustable:

At the start of the game, after each player has deployed their entire force, KIlla-kanz may change their weapons for any other legal option available provided the change does not exceed the games points limit for matched play.

Since you cant trust a grot to bring the weapon you asked them too

 davou wrote:
I just thought of a cool mechanic for killa kans.

Grotz iz weedy N untrustable:

At the start of the game, after each player has deployed their entire force, KIlla-kanz may change their weapons for any other legal option available provided the change does not exceed the games points limit for matched play.

Since you cant trust a grot to bring the weapon you asked them too

Interesting idea, but ultimately I feel like this would fit more as a stratagem rather than an in built ability. It also doesn't really address the Kanz main issue of having sub par shooting options that are too expensive. There's also the issue with WYSIWYG assuming your stuff isn't magnetized.

Fixing ork shooting problem by raising ballistic skill is akin to printing more money to fight inflation. Im no economist so that analogy might be off.. but its artifical. Ork shooting is effective because the orks shoot an immense amount of shots...sometimes even towards the enemy.

Why would they be bothered by sneaky gits or some mytikal powerz that cloud their vision. They simply fire more. Thats why ork shooting shouldnt be affected by negative to hit modifiers at all. Always hit on 5+. Vehicles and other units can be brought TO a 5+ but thats it.

Ignoring the first -1 to hit modifier is a much more elegant solution though. -2 is much more of an investment for anyone that has it, and always limited to a few models per turn. When someone burns CP, picks a relic, casts a psychic power or jumps through similar hoops they should at least get something out of it.

 Jidmah wrote:
Ignoring the first -1 to hit modifier is a much more elegant solution though. -2 is much more of an investment for anyone that has it, and always limited to a few models per turn. When someone burns CP, picks a relic, casts a psychic power or jumps through similar hoops they should at least get something out of it.

Altalotic (or however you spell it) flyers, Rangers, or Shadow Spectres.

You would still be hitting them on sixes (unless they get another buff).

The only really difficult unit to kill in this case would be the fliers, assuming tractor cannons still suck. Both rangers and shadow spectres can easily be eliminated by a warboss or other fast melee units.

 Sal4m4nd3r wrote:
Fixing ork shooting problem by raising ballistic skill is akin to printing more money to fight inflation. Im no economist so that analogy might be off.. but its artifical. Ork shooting is effective because the orks shoot an immense amount of shots...sometimes even towards the enemy.

Why would they be bothered by sneaky gits or some mytikal powerz that cloud their vision. They simply fire more. Thats why ork shooting shouldnt be affected by negative to hit modifiers at all. Always hit on 5+. Vehicles and other units can be brought TO a 5+ but thats it.

Ballistic skill is an abstraction. A shoota boy isn't only shooting twice, he is shooting a lot. Giving him a BS 4+ simply makes him less susceptible to modifiers, and it makes the weapon easier to balance. It also reduces the number of dice rolled to get the same effect. For example, a shoota boy with 2 BS 4+ shots has the same hit rate as a boy with 3 BS 5+ shots.
I'm not necessarily saying that this is THE way to do it, but it certainly has merits. And I would much prefer shooty Orks to be viable if only to provide a more interesting game.

Also, for your analogy, printing more money makes inflation worse. Giving Orks BS 4+ makes their shooting better. Better luck next time.

You could link an increase in Ballistic Skill to your Warlord choice.

Warboss: All units gain +1WS

Big Mek: All units gain +1BS

Just a thought.

+1 WS on your warlord would make the Waaagh! Banner obsolete.

+1 BS within 6" would be a good warlord trait, as orks can't castle up due to low ranges and a lot of units can't remain near the warlord and still be effective or don't benefit from it in the first place.
Last, but not least, it would be a great trait for a SAG mek.

I wouldn't limit it to just big meks, it leaves more freedom for people who want their dread mob or bad moons army lead by a warboss. Heck, you could even make it the bad moons klan warlord trait to prevent it from being combined with other powerful klan tactics or characters.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dandelion wrote:

 Sal4m4nd3r wrote:
Fixing ork shooting problem by raising ballistic skill is akin to printing more money to fight inflation. Im no economist so that analogy might be off.. but its artifical. Ork shooting is effective because the orks shoot an immense amount of shots...sometimes even towards the enemy.

Why would they be bothered by sneaky gits or some mytikal powerz that cloud their vision. They simply fire more. Thats why ork shooting shouldnt be affected by negative to hit modifiers at all. Always hit on 5+. Vehicles and other units can be brought TO a 5+ but thats it.

Ballistic skill is an abstraction. A shoota boy isn't only shooting twice, he is shooting a lot. Giving him a BS 4+ simply makes him less susceptible to modifiers, and it makes the weapon easier to balance. It also reduces the number of dice rolled to get the same effect. For example, a shoota boy with 2 BS 4+ shots has the same hit rate as a boy with 3 BS 5+ shots.
I'm not necessarily saying that this is THE way to do it, but it certainly has merits. And I would much prefer shooty Orks to be viable if only to provide a more interesting game.

Also, for your analogy, printing more money makes inflation worse. Giving Orks BS 4+ makes their shooting better. Better luck next time.

Thank you, I couldn't have explained it better myself. People really need to get "rules are an abstraction" into their heads. Cool and fluffy stuff needs to happen on the table, not in the rulebook.

Problem with orks gaining access to flat +1 BS aura would swing very hard if applied to multiple units of shootas. Also it means that unless you have access to that trait -2 still invalidates almost all of your shooting phase. So I’d stick to ignore up to -1 BS.

I like ignore -1bs as well, Helps mitigate the fact that those traits disproportionateely hurt orks AND alows us to do things like advance with rokkits and shoot out the butt

 JawRippa wrote:
Problem with orks gaining access to flat +1 BS aura would swing very hard if applied to multiple units of shootas.

Actually, it doesn't.

For 60 shots
against T7/3+ you would do 3.33 damage instead of 2.22, gain is 1.11
against T4/3+ you would kill 5 models instead of 3, gain is 2 dead marines
against T3/5+ you would kill 13 models instead of 8, gain is 5 dead guardsmen (assuming no overkill)

Even if you multiply the gain by four, it's not really something broken, just good. There are traits like DG's Arch Contaminator or daemon's Daemonspark traits, not to mention SM re-roll to hit auras that are better than +1 BS.

Heres a fun rule that is competitive and makes me laugh thinking about angry eldar players.

De'z gettun away, MORR DAKKA!

If an Ork unit shoots at an enemy unit with any negative to hit modifiers it does not affect the ork unit and each model adds +1 to their shots for every negative hit modifier the enemy unit has.

Whats that? you brought -2 to hit flyers? My BS5+ Lootas are now shooting them with D3+2 shots hitting on 5s still

SemperMortis wrote:
Heres a fun rule that is competitive and makes me laugh thinking about angry eldar players.

De'z gettun away, MORR DAKKA!

If an Ork unit shoots at an enemy unit with any negative to hit modifiers it does not affect the ork unit and each model adds +1 to their shots for every negative hit modifier the enemy unit has.

Whats that? you brought -2 to hit flyers? My BS5+ Lootas are now shooting them with D3+2 shots hitting on 5s still

I've made it clear I'm in favor of ignoring hit penalties, for Orks, but not THAT. That doesn't make much sense either-why wouldn't they fire at Full Dakka all the time?

Lootas should have D6 shots and AP-2 or they should be much cheaper, like 11-12 ppm. Maybe a stratagem that allows them to fire twice.

With the current stats they have no sense outside a fluffy list.

Lootaz were a top competitive choice in 5th. What had back then were three things:
- Moved from elite to heavy (largely irrelevant in 8th)
- The ability to reliably damage or even destroy a rhino
- Cost less points (despite everything in the game getting cheaper!)

Keep in mind that lootas have never been good at killing MEQ, their targets were either vehicles or light infantry. Infantry works is kind of ok as a unit kills 7 GEQ on average, but could use a point drop.

However, currently you need 12 loota shots or six lootas per 2 damage done to a T7 vehicle, to kill a dreadnought you need 30 lootas which add up to 510 points.

To kill the same dread, you need 5 KMK, which add up to 210 points, less than half of what a loota costs.

Therefore, in order to make a loota as good as a KMK at killing vehicles, 30 lootas must cost the same as 5 KMK, which means it needs to go down as far as 7 points per model. Don't freak out just yet

Even if you throw in two more points per model for range, better movement and the ability to clobber backfield disruption with green fists, a unit of 15 would be as cheap as 135. Next major tournament is then won by loota tide bringing 200 lootas who turn the entire enemy army into a bullet sponge. EVERY TURN.
So, simply dropping their points to an efficient level is not a solution.

Dropping AP makes them too much of an all-round weapon dipping into the plasma/dark reaper problem. Why bring anything else if lootas excel at killing light infantry, heavy infantry and vehicles? Low AP needs to stay so they can be countered by elite infantry. It's not like those a running rampant now and orks have plenty of ways to deal with them anyways.

Increasing damage yields a similar problem. To get to KMK levels of efficiency they would have to deal 4 or 5 damage per shot, at which point even rolling slightly above average means you accidentally killed an enemy lord of war. Increasing damage to 3 means you need 20 lootas to kill a dread, bringing them to ~12 ppm to compete with KMK. This is a possible solution, but make them very swingy - a volley could to absolutely nothing or one-shot Magnus.

How about giving them more shots? If we double their shots to 2d3, a single unit would be able to kill two units of GEQ each turn, and heavily decimate a units of boyz, pox walkers, horrors or cultists. They would kill 4 MEQ, which is nice, but not game breaking, plus the unit at 255 would finally be able to kill a vehicle again. So doubling shots seems like a really good option for them

So basically either you drop points and up damage, or you double their shots. Another option would be adding utility to make them worth their points, for example in the most recent DOW game lootas could provide suppressing fire and slow enemy units that way so you could catch them with your boyz.
Of course, they could completely rework the deff gun, but considering that it has been a competitive choice in the past, I think it can be one again.

Now that Jidmah crunched the numbers on +1 BS for shootaboy mob, I'm not that sure that it is as OP as I was thinking initially. Still, I'd restrict such a thing as an HQ buff (Big Mek, Badrukk) and limit how many mobs you can affect by requiring an entire unit be within bubble, similar to KFF.

 Jidmah wrote:

Even if you throw in two more points per model for range, better movement and the ability to clobber backfield disruption with green fists, a unit of 15 would be as cheap as 135. Next major tournament is then won by loota tide bringing 200 lootas who turn the entire enemy army into a bullet sponge. EVERY TURN.
So, simply dropping their points to an efficient level is not a solution.
...
How about giving them more shots? If we double their shots to 2d3, a single unit would be able to kill two units of GEQ each turn, and heavily decimate a units of boyz, pox walkers, horrors or cultists. They would kill 4 MEQ, which is nice, but not game breaking, plus the unit at 255 would finally be able to kill a vehicle again. So doubling shots seems like a really good option for them

And this is why simply cutting prices all over the codex is a bad idea. A lot of units need a quality improvement rather than the ability to spam them, otherwise they could simply turn out to be just another flavor of a green tide. (Granted, I'd play a game or two using Loota tide just for lulz). Going with more shots is probably a good idea - 2D3 is a good kind of random, usually it leaves you satisfied with results. I wonder if it'd be too crazy with spanner upgrade suggested earlier (one that makes it so that lootas shoot using maximum amount of shots once per game)

 Jidmah wrote:
Another option would be adding utility to make them worth their points, for example in the most recent DOW game lootas could provide suppressing fire and slow enemy units that way so you could catch them with your boyz.

Let us not mention the unholy abomination that DoWIII was. As much as I love the idea of suppression mechanic (let's say , target infantry unit cuts it's movement in half, rounding up), I doubt that it'd get implemented. A lot of units sport a lot of dakka too, why they are not causing suppression upon squads then? Still , a really cool idea.

couldn't agree more jidmah, we need more then points decreases, we need our units to get stronger to justify those points.

 JawRippa wrote:
Now that Jidmah crunched the numbers on +1 BS for shootaboy mob, I'm not that sure that it is as OP as I was thinking initially. Still, I'd restrict such a thing as an HQ buff (Big Mek, Badrukk) and limit how many mobs you can affect by requiring an entire unit be within bubble, similar to KFF.

I agree. Therefore I would make it a warlord trait, preferably one of the Bad Moons klan. That way you would have a powerful and fluffy warlord trait with the opportunity cost of making other special characters harder to include in your army and no access to the stratagems and relics of other klans.
For example, you could have a Deff Skullz stratagem that allows their signature unit, lootaz, to shoot twice without doubling down on being able to shoot twice with +1 BS.

 JawRippa wrote:
Let us not mention the unholy abomination that DoWIII was. As much as I love the idea of suppression mechanic (let's say , target infantry unit cuts it's movement in half, rounding up), I doubt that it'd get implemented. A lot of units sport a lot of dakka too, why they are not causing suppression upon squads then? Still , a really cool idea.

Oh, by all means do not buy DOW3 if it is discounted any less than 75%. The unit AI alone is reason enough to punch your monitor mid game. Without the 40k visuals the game would lack any reason to exist.

Still, the ork army in that game had more innovation than everything published since 6th edition combined: Morkanaut shooting it's KFF at an area, grappling klaw on the warboss, Waaagh! towers riling up boyz, trukks catapulting their passengers, nobz throwing their big choppas, deff dreads drilling tunnels and more, not even counting the things that cannot be transported to the tabletop game.

Problem with loota and similar is not the stats of the weapons they carry, shots etc, nor is it the BS they have either.

the problem is they have one wound and near as makes no odds no save.

they are too expensive for how easy they are to kill, but they are priced assuming the gun they carry lasts all game based on what it can do.

Would suggest a lot of the smaller ork units should be cheaper, based on the way they die like flies - so the first five cost "x", the next five then cost "x+y" as they are now more robust, then then next five "x+y+z".

In effect price for how long they are likely to be about, if the enemy decides to ignore them so they last all game thats the enemies problem, same as if they focus on them and take them down faster.

But price stuff (game wide) to take account of how long its likely to last - but then limit the numbers

leopard wrote:
Problem with loota and similar is not the stats of the weapons they carry, shots etc, nor is it the BS they have either.

the problem is they have one wound and near as makes no odds no save.

they are too expensive for how easy they are to kill, but they are priced assuming the gun they carry lasts all game based on what it can do.

Would suggest a lot of the smaller ork units should be cheaper, based on the way they die like flies - so the first five cost "x", the next five then cost "x+y" as they are now more robust, then then next five "x+y+z".

In effect price for how long they are likely to be about, if the enemy decides to ignore them so they last all game thats the enemies problem, same as if they focus on them and take them down faster.

But price stuff (game wide) to take account of how long its likely to last - but then limit the numbers

This is a problem of any ork specialist.

Lootas can be fielded in smaller squad than our usual boy mobs, so they actually can make use of cover, especially given their range. If they were given a 5+ save, I think it'd be enough. 5+ makes sense, since part of their body is covered by `uge gun they are carrying. Also if suggestion about grots being able to shield other units from incomming gunfire was implemented it'd help a lot.

would it be worth allowing the specialists to merge with a boyz unit pre-game?

leopard wrote:
would it be worth allowing the specialists to merge with a boyz unit pre-game?

That would be interesting, since our specialists lack the ablative wounds that other weapon specialists of other armies have. It would give a purpose to 10 man boyz squads which pre-game are merged into these units to give them oomph and protection from first turn dakka. It would fit as a stratagem, and since its pre-game you can use it as many times as you want.

It would be great. Tankbustas and meganobz would love that.

ManTube wrote:
Hey all, what's the etiquette for posting links to pdfs and such? I wrote up a sort of summary of suggested changes for the whole ork codex (minus stratagems), taking ideas I've heard here and in the ork tactics thread, hoping to make something of a "living document" that we as ork players can revise and compile and come to a sort of consensus so that we have something to send to GW as a suggestion that might be noticed/paid heed too.

This hasn't been play-tested and is pretty much a first draft document- please let me know if you feel changes are too much, not enough or just bad, in your opinion. I'd love to hear your thoughts and will try to edit this as people make suggestions and critiques (making sure to credit individual users of course).

Here is a pdf of the document, if this shouldn't be posted or there is a better way to share this please let me know and I'll remove it or a mod can.

Thanks ladz

Most of what you've suggested seems great but the Evil Suns klan tactic is awful and ironically encourages a player to take units on foot which I don't think is your intention. Personally I'd like to see something like a mix of the white scars and saim hann tactics - "Evil Sunz vehicles can advance and fire assault weapons without penalty. In addition units with this tactic may fall back and still shoot or charge during their turn."

After I checked all our dataslates, I'm convinced that, with some minor rewriting of "This unit can <do awesome stuff>" rules to "<Models> can <do awesome stuff>" you could merge any non-character infantry units in the codex with any other if you exclude storm boyz and gretchin.
Heck, you could even merge warbikers with nob bikers, buggies, trakks and skorchas. I'm not sure it would actually be useful, but sounds very orky to me.
All of them have the same toughness, so the basic rules for getting shot or punched wouldn't be affected at all. Those merged units would work very much the same as nobz with ammo runts do now.

 Jidmah wrote:
After I checked all our dataslates, I'm convinced that, with some minor rewriting of "This unit can <do awesome stuff>" rules to "<Models> can <do awesome stuff>" you could merge any non-character infantry units in the codex with any other if you exclude storm boyz and gretchin.
Heck, you could even merge warbikers with nob bikers, buggies, trakks and skorchas. I'm not sure it would actually be useful, but sounds very orky to me.
All of them have the same toughness, so the basic rules for getting shot or punched wouldn't be affected at all. Those merged units would work very much the same as nobz with ammo runts do now.

Wouldn’t it be too good for Meganobz though? Imagine insane flexibility of wound allocation with mixed boyz and meganobz. All lasgun shots are allocated to 2+ save while boys keep eating lascannon shots. Feels like there’d be very little an opposing player could do against that.

That is, having boys serve as meatshields for lootas/burnaboys would’ve amazing.

Well, he could just wipe out the boyz in one turn like most armies do now. Mob up would still require CP to use and you can still only do one merge per turn.

Had a thought for the specialist small units.

Given ork equipment is pretty ramshackle and hand built it would be hard to work out what anything is from a distance

So allow a small unit of orks, say up to a quarter the size of a larger one, when within 6" and further from the unit firing to either get what amounts to the old "look out sir" roll from WHFB, or simply be unable to target them until they open fire and draw attention to themselves

makes it harder to nuke loota, burna etc on T1 before they do anything if they are near a unit of 20+ orks without first reducing the larger unit somewhat

Idea for Meganobs: Meganobs can deepstrike 9" away from enemy, or they can have a riskier teleportation and deepstrike 9-D3" away from enemy. On a roll of 3, they take D3 mortal wounds.

So instead of awkardly slogging through board, MN can just drop on heads on some unlucky gits and can risk losing a member but have a greater chance of making that charge/fry something up with skorchas. Outcome where you lose 1 meganob is still tolerable, since making a 6" charge with reroll is a piece of cake.