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Hey guys! New here (sort of)
Been lurking around the forum from time to time looking at lists and trying to better understand what works and what doesn't.
That being said - 8th has been going pretty abysmally for me and I'm starting to feel pretty burnt out on WH40k in general.
I have lost 7 out of 8 games with orks in 8th edition...
The one time I did actually win was in a 2v2 situation, where I teamed up with a Custodes player. So arguably no wins at all in 8th...
I considered just not playing until the codex comes out - but one of my friends really wants someone to play against...

Which is why I would really appreciate you guys helping me out with some tactical advice and listbuilding in general!
I have read some of the ork tactic discussion going on here, and I do realize that I probably don't have all the boyz, stormboyz and weirdboyz needed to make a great list, but I'm hoping someone can help me make an acceptable list, atleast, and more importantly what my strategy should be.

My budget is currently limited, to say the least, so I have to make do with what I have (we are allowed to proxy within reason.)

What I have:



We usually play 1000-1500 pts at my FLGS
I usually run these units (not neccesarily all of them at the same time): 2x5 flash gitz, 10 lootas, 40-50 boyz, 1-2 warbosses (I proxy 1 of the warbikers), 5-6 warbikers, Badrukk, 1-2 trukks and 1 Painboy/Mad Dok + filler stuff for whatever points I have left.

My local meta consists of the following:



The basically all just camp in ruins (haven't faced the custodes army yet), which makes most of my shooting pretty ineffective and with the amount of flamers and dakka they have, assaulting them usually ends badly aswell. I generally try to focus all my dakka on taking a single target down at a time, which works a lot of the time, but then my entire army just falls apart on their 2-3rd turn. Near the end of the game I usually only have some lootas left, which get picked off on the last turn.

Again, any suggestions/advice/pointers on listbuilding and tactics are most welcome! (although I'd prefer not to get new models before the codex drops.)
Thanks in advance!

(Not sure if this was supposed to go in the Tactics forum, but there seems to be other posts of a somewhat similar nature here)

Sad Ork wrote:
The basically all just camp in ruins

My motto is : "No ruins in deployment zones. Cover should be earned, not given".

If people just want to sit back and do nothing but roll dice, they can go to the pub. 40k should be about movement. No movement ? No bonus.

Aside from that : if you don't want to play the 240 Boyz / Stormboyz / Kommandos with Weirdboy list, try to bring some Tankbustas. They're one of the few "ok" units in our army currently.

I am no Ork expert but it seems your army suffers from the common issue "I just have lots of different stuff that I like the look of".

Ork lists that win tend to have

- Lots of boyz
- Some characters, including a Weirdboy for Da Jump
- Some anti tank

Maybe try proxying one of your Meks as a Weirdboy and throw 30 boyz up the table, while the others charge up with the Warboss giving them advance+charge.

I played Orks this week and one turn, a squad of 30 Boyz moved 26 inches in one turn. 5" Move + 6" Advance + 9" Charge + 3" Pile In + 3" Consolidate. Scary stuff. Meanwhile the other squad was chewing up my backfield.

Edit to add that also, Ork melee is fearsome whereas Ork shooting is not really very scary at all.

Do you have a picture of what a typical table looks like?

I haven't played a lot in 8-th but so far i'm going 5 wins, 0 losses with orks. I'm using a footslogging horde full of boyz/stormboyz/kommandoes. Unfortunately, it's the only list powerful enough to compete with other armies.

Let's see what you got here.
~30 slugga boyz + 3 boss nobz w/ PKs
~30 shoota boyz + 3 boss nobz w/ PKs
Boyz are good. Try getting your hands on more of them. Can be relatively cheap cause there are still piles of mono-pose boyz from Black Reach starter set floating around. If you don't want to invest a lot of money (or time if you want to convert) in stormboyz and kommandoes, boyz are the cheapest $-wise yet effective unit. Nob weapon is either a bigchoppa or a klaw. Big choppa is probably better cause it's cheaper but i prefer a power klaw for various reasons. Both can do.

10 flash gitz
They are still extremely overcosted and fragile. The only more or less passable way of running them is in a trukk or battlewagon. Good news is that you have 2 trukks. Bad news is that they'll still be awful. Just...drop them for now unless you really want to handicap your list.

Grukk
He's basically a regular footslogging warboss. Ok, i guess. But if your opponents won't mind and allow you to run him as Ghaz, it'd be ideal. You can even try to model a kustom-mega-armor for him in this case. Ghaz is currently great.

Badrukk
He's an ok HQ. Not amazing but not too bad. Get him a couple ammo runts and either move on a point or disembark there turn 1. 24" + 3" + 5" should be suffecient enough to threaten the frontlines later on.

1 Big Mek w/ SAG
Just skip. Awful unit. If you really want to run a big mek, the only way to do it is to get a KFF.

1 Pain Boy
Proxy him as Grotsnik. Plain better. Does the same thing but is tougher and choppier for just a couple pts more.

3 Mekz
Just use them as regular boyz. There is no place for meks atm.

12 Lootas
Quite overpriced. Can be used but you can go without them just as well or better.

6 warbikers
Run them as 2 squads of 3 with a bigchoppa nob in each. They can flank quite effectively.

3 Killa Kanz
Killa kanz, interestingly enough, are ok right now. Overpricced but ok. Run them with kustom mega blastas. The cheapest option. Also allows to bug the system and play around with wounds when you get damage from overheats. They're not really good in lists with lots of boyz (which you will probably aim for right now). So, use them only to fill leftover points. Footslogging KFF mek is good to babysit them.

1 Deff Dread
It's just bad. Can be used in walker walls but kanz are simply better right now.

2 Trukks
Overpriced. Are only really useful for nobz and Badrukk in your list. Flash gits...we're ditching them atm. So, just run one if you must.

5 Nobz
Nobz are much better in 8-th than they used to be. Ammo runts can eat damage. Bigchoppas are actually a decent weapon and they all get 4+ armor for free. The downside is that they will likely need a transport. And trukks are overpriced and not very effective. Can be used on foot with max ammo runts. Nobz are also really good for convertions. Get yourself a wierdboy from a regular nob.

~15 Gretchin (Which I mainly use as ammo runts)
Use them as ammo runts as you allready do or as grot gunners for big/mek gunz that you can easilly convert from cheap-ish ww2 artillery kits.

1 Warboss on Warbike (Zhadsnark - unassembled)
Good units - both of them. Can find a place in any list.

Now about some suggestions:
1. Play maelstorm and only maelstorm. If you say that your opponents just sit in cover all game and manage to win, i make a conclusion that you're either very unlucky or you're playing dawn of war missions. You'll notice the difference in how your orks perform from the get go. If your opponent sits in ruins and shoots you all game while acting super defensively, yes, he will eventually obliterate you without suffering much damage - nothing changes here - but you'll at least have an upper hand at scoring points because you controle more ground. Maelstorm missions are a way to actually move from ww1-style gunline trench warfare that's been so dominant until 7-th and force a more 'modern' ground controle approach. Try it out.
2. Play smaller games - your army is good enough for ~1000 pts. Your main problem is that you try to fit everything in your list and the solid stuff gets invalidated by the mediocre and bad stuff that's either too expensive and underperforming or simply doesn't synergise with the rest of the list.
Make a core of your army and make it as strong as possible. Your core is:
2x30 boyz (get at least 10 more to get 3 troops, preferably 30 more)
Biker boss
Wierdboy (converted from a nob)
(Grukk if converted to Ghazghkull)

Than add some stuff that's ok - but not all of it! Just a couple things from this list:
Grotsnik (non-orks can't tell a difference between regular painboyz and Grotsnik)
Badrukk - goes better with nobz in a trukk
Nobz in a trukk or on foot - go well with badrukk cause of trukk.
KFF mek
2*3 bikers with nob leaders
3 killa kanz (probably the least preferable option of all)
a couple loota squads
some big/mek gunz if you get them

Ignore the rest for now.

It looks like you face competitive and semi-competitive armies, which means you can't run a fluffy list and win against them.

You're short of vehicles, which means you must run lots of infantries. Alternatively you can add 1 BW or another trukk and more killa kans.

At 1000 points I can suggest something like that.


List 1:

Warboss, pk, kustom shoota (84) Use grukk's model for this.

Weirdboy (62)

Painboy, pk (65)

2x30 boyz, nob with big choppa (378)

30 shoota boyz, 3 big shootas, nob with big choppa (207)

12 lootas (204)

Weirdboyz casts da jump to teleport 1-2 mobz of boyz. Lootas stay in cover and shoot.

List 2:

Zhadsnark (122)

20 Boyz, nob with big choppa (129)

5 nobz, 5 big choppas, 5 ammo runts (150)

5 flash gitz (110)

5 flash gitz (110)

2xtrukk with big shoota (164)

BW with big shoota (167)

1 KMK, 5 grot gunners (48)

Boyz in BW, nobz in their trukk, flash gitz in the same trukk, KMK as objective camper. Alternatively you can field a list with trukks and kans, etc... these are only examples, just don't mix vehicles with footsloggers if you face competitive lists.

 Silentz wrote:
I am no Ork expert but it seems your army suffers from the common issue "I just have lots of different stuff that I like the look of".

Ork lists that win tend to have

- Lots of boyz
- Some characters, including a Weirdboy for Da Jump
- Some anti tank

Pretty much this, except for the last one - orks don't have anti-tank

If an enemy want to, he can pretty much wipe out 30 boyz in one turn. With just ~50 boyz you lose one mob of boyz per turn and then simply don't have anything left.
Currently your collection looks most fit for a footslogging horde, so you should get alt least two more mobs of boyz (get them cheap on ebay!) for a total of 120, this will make sure that you have some left to beat those cowards out of their ruins.

Buy, convert or proxy a weirdboy so you can jump one of your mobs right into those ruins he is hugging, and let it distract him from your other mobs. If you kill something valuable in the process, great. In addition, smiting is a pretty reliable way to kill stuff in ruins, especially when the weirdboy overloads for d6 mortal wounds. Make sure to keep your painboy nearby to staple his head back together.

You can use nobz, kanz, lootaz and maybe the dread (only if you need more points). All of them work well with a footslogging horde.
Deploy lootaz in ruins yourself and equip all kanz with rokkits - fixed multiple damage weapons are awesome against many things in your meta. If you need more rokkits, rokkit bits from the dread sprues also fit on kanz.
For nobz, either run them all with big choppas or only two PK and weapon upgrades otherwise, but always buy free shootas and ammo runts. They are almost as durable as boyz and don't cost that much more.

Do not use your flash gits, trukks or warbikers. Flash gits can work if they have a durable transport or are riding one of multiple transports. A trukk would stand out in your list and with those expensive flash gits inside probably be the first thing to die. Badrukk, on the other hand, is a character and thus pretty hard to kill, so he can slogg along with your boyz if you have the points.
Warbikers are currently considered too expensive for what they do, and in any case 6 will not make a difference.
You should also assemble Zhadsnark ASAP and use his FW rules. While I haven't used him myself, pretty much everyone else agrees that he is probably one of the best HQs for orks.

In general, don't spent too many points on characters. The durability of orks pretty much measured in wounds only, therefore the more wounds (read: boyz) you have on the table, the better your army will fare against those gunlines.

TL;DR: Buy more boyz and a weirdboy, drop stuff that costs a lot and dies easily.

Edit to add that also, Ork melee is fearsome whereas Ork shooting is not really very scary at all.

The issue is more that ork shooting is expensive as heck, not that it's actually bad.

I usually offer advice along the lines of "Pick a similar toughness and wound value and then take as many of that type of unit with different weapons".

From what you have, I think you should pick toughness four with one wound. I think filling out your army with 18 more Lootas would be wise, they can be deployed in ruins which seem to be a thing in your meta and can start throwing dice at things that throw dice at boyz on turn one. Another thirty man squad of Boyz is mandatory and then maybe an additional thirty might be necessary. I also think you need a Ghazzy and a Mad Dok. Toughness four one wound orkz have trouble with t8 models and vehicles with lots of wounds, there is no good way to really deal with this besides just swamping it with boyz and waiting for powerklaws to do work.

Tacticswise, with orkz, you'll want to play strictly to the objectives. You are going to remove models, lots of them. You need to use your list to eliminate just enough enemy anti horde units to make sure you aren't removing your last models on turn six and use the rest of it to score points. For the most part, get used to grim, even games you win won't really feel like a victory, it'll just so happen to be that you have more victory points and just barely survived a tabling. So play with this thought in mind.

Hey again guys! Thanks for the feedback!

Nym wrote:

Sad Ork wrote:
The basically all just camp in ruins

My motto is : "No ruins in deployment zones. Cover should be earned, not given".

If people just want to sit back and do nothing but roll dice, they can go to the pub. 40k should be about movement. No movement ? No bonus.

Aside from that : if you don't want to play the 240 Boyz / Stormboyz / Kommandos with Weirdboy list, try to bring some Tankbustas. They're one of the few "ok" units in our army currently.

That's actually a pretty good suggestion and I will definitely bring that up next time - it has been rough with basically everyone having a 2-3+ save at all times.

Silentz wrote:I am no Ork expert but it seems your army suffers from the common issue "I just have lots of different stuff that I like the look of".

Ork lists that win tend to have

- Lots of boyz
- Some characters, including a Weirdboy for Da Jump
- Some anti tank

Maybe try proxying one of your Meks as a Weirdboy and throw 30 boyz up the table, while the others charge up with the Warboss giving them advance+charge.

I played Orks this week and one turn, a squad of 30 Boyz moved 26 inches in one turn. 5" Move + 6" Advance + 9" Charge + 3" Pile In + 3" Consolidate. Scary stuff. Meanwhile the other squad was chewing up my backfield.

Edit to add that also, Ork melee is fearsome whereas Ork shooting is not really very scary at all.

Weirdboy, Warboss and tons of boyz definitely seem to be the way to go - My main issue is the moving phase takes so long, which makes my opponent lose quite a bit of interest, usually.

Scott-S6 wrote:Do you have a picture of what a typical table looks like?

I don't have a picture, but usually 2*2 meters with most terrain around the edges of the table

koooaei wrote:I haven't played a lot in 8-th but so far i'm going 5 wins, 0 losses with orks. I'm using a footslogging horde full of boyz/stormboyz/kommandoes. Unfortunately, it's the only list powerful enough to compete with other armies.

Let's see what you got here.
~30 slugga boyz + 3 boss nobz w/ PKs
~30 shoota boyz + 3 boss nobz w/ PKs
Boyz are good. Try getting your hands on more of them. Can be relatively cheap cause there are still piles of mono-pose boyz from Black Reach starter set floating around. If you don't want to invest a lot of money (or time if you want to convert) in stormboyz and kommandoes, boyz are the cheapest $-wise yet effective unit. Nob weapon is either a bigchoppa or a klaw. Big choppa is probably better cause it's cheaper but i prefer a power klaw for various reasons. Both can do.

10 flash gitz
They are still extremely overcosted and fragile. The only more or less passable way of running them is in a trukk or battlewagon. Good news is that you have 2 trukks. Bad news is that they'll still be awful. Just...drop them for now unless you really want to handicap your list.

Grukk
He's basically a regular footslogging warboss. Ok, i guess. But if your opponents won't mind and allow you to run him as Ghaz, it'd be ideal. You can even try to model a kustom-mega-armor for him in this case. Ghaz is currently great.

Badrukk
He's an ok HQ. Not amazing but not too bad. Get him a couple ammo runts and either move on a point or disembark there turn 1. 24" + 3" + 5" should be suffecient enough to threaten the frontlines later on.

1 Big Mek w/ SAG
Just skip. Awful unit. If you really want to run a big mek, the only way to do it is to get a KFF.

1 Pain Boy
Proxy him as Grotsnik. Plain better. Does the same thing but is tougher and choppier for just a couple pts more.

3 Mekz
Just use them as regular boyz. There is no place for meks atm.

12 Lootas
Quite overpriced. Can be used but you can go without them just as well or better.

6 warbikers
Run them as 2 squads of 3 with a bigchoppa nob in each. They can flank quite effectively.

3 Killa Kanz
Killa kanz, interestingly enough, are ok right now. Overpricced but ok. Run them with kustom mega blastas. The cheapest option. Also allows to bug the system and play around with wounds when you get damage from overheats. They're not really good in lists with lots of boyz (which you will probably aim for right now). So, use them only to fill leftover points. Footslogging KFF mek is good to babysit them.

1 Deff Dread
It's just bad. Can be used in walker walls but kanz are simply better right now.

2 Trukks
Overpriced. Are only really useful for nobz and Badrukk in your list. Flash gits...we're ditching them atm. So, just run one if you must.

5 Nobz
Nobz are much better in 8-th than they used to be. Ammo runts can eat damage. Bigchoppas are actually a decent weapon and they all get 4+ armor for free. The downside is that they will likely need a transport. And trukks are overpriced and not very effective. Can be used on foot with max ammo runts. Nobz are also really good for convertions. Get yourself a wierdboy from a regular nob.

~15 Gretchin (Which I mainly use as ammo runts)
Use them as ammo runts as you allready do or as grot gunners for big/mek gunz that you can easilly convert from cheap-ish ww2 artillery kits.

1 Warboss on Warbike (Zhadsnark - unassembled)
Good units - both of them. Can find a place in any list.

Now about some suggestions:
1. Play maelstorm and only maelstorm. If you say that your opponents just sit in cover all game and manage to win, i make a conclusion that you're either very unlucky or you're playing dawn of war missions. You'll notice the difference in how your orks perform from the get go. If your opponent sits in ruins and shoots you all game while acting super defensively, yes, he will eventually obliterate you without suffering much damage - nothing changes here - but you'll at least have an upper hand at scoring points because you controle more ground. Maelstorm missions are a way to actually move from ww1-style gunline trench warfare that's been so dominant until 7-th and force a more 'modern' ground controle approach. Try it out.
2. Play smaller games - your army is good enough for ~1000 pts. Your main problem is that you try to fit everything in your list and the solid stuff gets invalidated by the mediocre and bad stuff that's either too expensive and underperforming or simply doesn't synergise with the rest of the list.
Make a core of your army and make it as strong as possible. Your core is:
2x30 boyz (get at least 10 more to get 3 troops, preferably 30 more)
Biker boss
Wierdboy (converted from a nob)
(Grukk if converted to Ghazghkull)

Than add some stuff that's ok - but not all of it! Just a couple things from this list:
Grotsnik (non-orks can't tell a difference between regular painboyz and Grotsnik)
Badrukk - goes better with nobz in a trukk
Nobz in a trukk or on foot - go well with badrukk cause of trukk.
KFF mek
2*3 bikers with nob leaders
3 killa kanz (probably the least preferable option of all)
a couple loota squads
some big/mek gunz if you get them

Ignore the rest for now.

Form a core around boyz, weirdboy and a warboss, then fill out the rest with acceptable units.

As for the suggestions..
I'm a bit unsure how it will help me, though. Objective points are scored at the end of the game? So even if I manage to spread out and cap the objectives, it matters very little as they will usually just spend turn 1-4 gunning me down and turn 5 they casually walk out and score the objectives.
I appreciate the 1000 pts suggestion - I will definitely try to push that pts level in the future

Blackie wrote:It looks like you face competitive and semi-competitive armies, which means you can't run a fluffy list and win against them.

You're short of vehicles, which means you must run lots of infantries. Alternatively you can add 1 BW or another trukk and more killa kans.

At 1000 points I can suggest something like that.


List 1:

Warboss, pk, kustom shoota (84) Use grukk's model for this.

Weirdboy (62)

Painboy, pk (65)

2x30 boyz, nob with big choppa (378)

30 shoota boyz, 3 big shootas, nob with big choppa (207)

12 lootas (204)

Weirdboyz casts da jump to teleport 1-2 mobz of boyz. Lootas stay in cover and shoot.

List 2:

Zhadsnark (122)

20 Boyz, nob with big choppa (129)

5 nobz, 5 big choppas, 5 ammo runts (150)

5 flash gitz (110)

5 flash gitz (110)

2xtrukk with big shoota (164)

BW with big shoota (167)

1 KMK, 5 grot gunners (48)

Boyz in BW, nobz in their trukk, flash gitz in the same trukk, KMK as objective camper. Alternatively you can field a list with trukks and kans, etc... these are only examples, just don't mix vehicles with footsloggers if you face competitive lists.

I did always feel like their lists are a lot stronger than mine are, I'll admit... They do pretty vehemently claim that the meta is not all that competitive, though.

The first list looks promising and I will definitely try to strive for something in a similar vein as soon as I have a bit more room in the budget!

Jidmah wrote:

 Silentz wrote:
I am no Ork expert but it seems your army suffers from the common issue "I just have lots of different stuff that I like the look of".

Ork lists that win tend to have

- Lots of boyz
- Some characters, including a Weirdboy for Da Jump
- Some anti tank

Pretty much this, except for the last one - orks don't have anti-tank

If an enemy want to, he can pretty much wipe out 30 boyz in one turn. With just ~50 boyz you lose one mob of boyz per turn and then simply don't have anything left.
Currently your collection looks most fit for a footslogging horde, so you should get alt least two more mobs of boyz (get them cheap on ebay!) for a total of 120, this will make sure that you have some left to beat those cowards out of their ruins.

Buy, convert or proxy a weirdboy so you can jump one of your mobs right into those ruins he is hugging, and let it distract him from your other mobs. If you kill something valuable in the process, great. In addition, smiting is a pretty reliable way to kill stuff in ruins, especially when the weirdboy overloads for d6 mortal wounds. Make sure to keep your painboy nearby to staple his head back together.

You can use nobz, kanz, lootaz and maybe the dread (only if you need more points). All of them work well with a footslogging horde.
Deploy lootaz in ruins yourself and equip all kanz with rokkits - fixed multiple damage weapons are awesome against many things in your meta. If you need more rokkits, rokkit bits from the dread sprues also fit on kanz.
For nobz, either run them all with big choppas or only two PK and weapon upgrades otherwise, but always buy free shootas and ammo runts. They are almost as durable as boyz and don't cost that much more.

Do not use your flash gits, trukks or warbikers. Flash gits can work if they have a durable transport or are riding one of multiple transports. A trukk would stand out in your list and with those expensive flash gits inside probably be the first thing to die. Badrukk, on the other hand, is a character and thus pretty hard to kill, so he can slogg along with your boyz if you have the points.
Warbikers are currently considered too expensive for what they do, and in any case 6 will not make a difference.
You should also assemble Zhadsnark ASAP and use his FW rules. While I haven't used him myself, pretty much everyone else agrees that he is probably one of the best HQs for orks.

In general, don't spent too many points on characters. The durability of orks pretty much measured in wounds only, therefore the more wounds (read: boyz) you have on the table, the better your army will fare against those gunlines.

TL;DR: Buy more boyz and a weirdboy, drop stuff that costs a lot and dies easily.

Edit to add that also, Ork melee is fearsome whereas Ork shooting is not really very scary at all.

The issue is more that ork shooting is expensive as heck, not that it's actually bad.

More boyz and a weirdboy. Assemble Zhardsnark and use his FW rules. Alright - that definitely seems to be the trend. I'll try putting together a footslogging horde and including some nobz and killa kanz, like you suggest.

Rismonite wrote:I usually offer advice along the lines of "Pick a similar toughness and wound value and then take as many of that type of unit with different weapons".

From what you have, I think you should pick toughness four with one wound. I think filling out your army with 18 more Lootas would be wise, they can be deployed in ruins which seem to be a thing in your meta and can start throwing dice at things that throw dice at boyz on turn one. Another thirty man squad of Boyz is mandatory and then maybe an additional thirty might be necessary. I also think you need a Ghazzy and a Mad Dok. Toughness four one wound orkz have trouble with t8 models and vehicles with lots of wounds, there is no good way to really deal with this besides just swamping it with boyz and waiting for powerklaws to do work.

Tacticswise, with orkz, you'll want to play strictly to the objectives. You are going to remove models, lots of them. You need to use your list to eliminate just enough enemy anti horde units to make sure you aren't removing your last models on turn six and use the rest of it to score points. For the most part, get used to grim, even games you win won't really feel like a victory, it'll just so happen to be that you have more victory points and just barely survived a tabling. So play with this thought in mind.

So, more lootas, more boyz, Ghazzy and Mad Dok. Alright, I'll try proxying the pain boy as Mad Dok and Grukk as Ghazzy.
Well... This definitely makes me think we've been playing with objectives the wrong way for a long time. We've only scored them at the end of the game so far... Which really explains why I never stood a chance, I guess. That does make me a bit sad, as the others have generally chalked my poor results up to being poor listbuilding, bad luck or questionable plays...

In any case, I appreciate the feedback guys! I'll try striving towards more boyz and a weird boy.
And then, hopefully, suggesting to the others that we actually play by the rules...

Sad Ork wrote:

As for the suggestions..
I'm a bit unsure how it will help me, though. Objective points are scored at the end of the game? So even if I manage to spread out and cap the objectives, it matters very little as they will usually just spend turn 1-4 gunning me down and turn 5 they casually walk out and score the objectives.

Just as i thought - you guyz are using classic dawn of war missions. Use Maelstorm missions. They are WAY better. In maelstorm you can score every turn. This alone will make your games much more fun and will actually allow you to compete with orks.

Sad Ork wrote:
Hey guys! New here (sort of)
Been lurking around the forum from time to time looking at lists and trying to better understand what works and what doesn't.
That being said - 8th has been going pretty abysmally for me and I'm starting to feel pretty burnt out on WH40k in general.
I have lost 7 out of 8 games with orks in 8th edition...
The one time I did actually win was in a 2v2 situation, where I teamed up with a Custodes player. So arguably no wins at all in 8th...
I considered just not playing until the codex comes out - but one of my friends really wants someone to play against...

Which is why I would really appreciate you guys helping me out with some tactical advice and listbuilding in general!
I have read some of the ork tactic discussion going on here, and I do realize that I probably don't have all the boyz, stormboyz and weirdboyz needed to make a great list, but I'm hoping someone can help me make an acceptable list, atleast, and more importantly what my strategy should be.

My budget is currently limited, to say the least, so I have to make do with what I have (we are allowed to proxy within reason.)

What I have:

Spoiler:

~30 slugga boyz + 3 boss nobz w/ PKs
~30 shoota boyz + 3 boss nobz w/ PKs
10 flash gitz
Grukk
Badrukk
1 Big Mek w/ SAG
1 Pain Boy
3 Mekz
12 Lootas
6 warbikers
3 Killa Kanz
1 Deff Dread
2 Trukks
5 Nobz
~15 Gretchin (Which I mainly use as ammo runts)
1 Warboss on Warbike (Zhadsnark - unassembled)

We usually play 1000-1500 pts at my FLGS
I usually run these units (not neccesarily all of them at the same time): 2x5 flash gitz, 10 lootas, 40-50 boyz, 1-2 warbosses (I proxy 1 of the warbikers), 5-6 warbikers, Badrukk, 1-2 trukks and 1 Painboy/Mad Dok + filler stuff for whatever points I have left.

My local meta consists of the following:

Spoiler:

CSM army w/ 3 Dakka helbrutes, 2x5 raptors w/ flamers, Sorc w/ Jump Pack + Warp Speed and 2 squads of marines w/ heavy bolters seems to be the core. Ignores cover legion tactic

Necrons army w/ big warrior blobs and fliers. Sometimes max squads of immortals. Lots of RP buffing.

SM army w/ lots of primaris intercessors, 5 helblasters, 1 ironclad dreadnought (flamer + CCW), 1 apothecary, 1 gravis captain is usually the core. Iron Hands chapter tactics

Custodes army w/ Sisters of Silence and some Dark Angels thrown in + a Land Raider (Basically everytime).

Tau army w/ 6 suits, some pathfinders and a couple of squads of fire warriors is the core.

IG army w/ lots and lots and lots of guardsmen, commisars, the odd tank here and there, 2 sentinels + bullgryns

The basically all just camp in ruins (haven't faced the custodes army yet), which makes most of my shooting pretty ineffective and with the amount of flamers and dakka they have, assaulting them usually ends badly aswell. I generally try to focus all my dakka on taking a single target down at a time, which works a lot of the time, but then my entire army just falls apart on their 2-3rd turn. Near the end of the game I usually only have some lootas left, which get picked off on the last turn.

Again, any suggestions/advice/pointers on listbuilding and tactics are most welcome! (although I'd prefer not to get new models before the codex drops.)
Thanks in advance!

(Not sure if this was supposed to go in the Tactics forum, but there seems to be other posts of a somewhat similar nature here)

My first thought is to turn some of those into Kommandos and their famous leader. The list of things you have and the things they have leads me to think that you need more mobility than you have and the trukks are cool for the Flashgitz but definitely won't help you with the boyz. theres just too few that can fit in those trucks after all.

I don't have much else in the way of advice with the list of things you have but i definitely would consider this idea.

 koooaei wrote:

Sad Ork wrote:

As for the suggestions..
I'm a bit unsure how it will help me, though. Objective points are scored at the end of the game? So even if I manage to spread out and cap the objectives, it matters very little as they will usually just spend turn 1-4 gunning me down and turn 5 they casually walk out and score the objectives.

Just as i thought - you guyz are using classic dawn of war missions. Use Maelstorm missions. They are WAY better. In maelstorm you can score every turn. This alone will make your games much more fun and will actually allow you to compete with orks.

Wait... You can score every turn in Maelstrom!? They always just said they were the same except for Dawn of War missions being more interesting in general... Well... Now I kinda feel like they screwed me over pretty hard...

Sad Ork wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

Sad Ork wrote:

As for the suggestions..
I'm a bit unsure how it will help me, though. Objective points are scored at the end of the game? So even if I manage to spread out and cap the objectives, it matters very little as they will usually just spend turn 1-4 gunning me down and turn 5 they casually walk out and score the objectives.

Just as i thought - you guyz are using classic dawn of war missions. Use Maelstorm missions. They are WAY better. In maelstorm you can score every turn. This alone will make your games much more fun and will actually allow you to compete with orks.

Wait... You can score every turn in Maelstrom!? They always just said they were the same except for Dawn of War missions being more interesting in general... Well... Now I kinda feel like they screwed me over pretty hard...

yup. every turn.

We have been doing it this way;
-Build List
-Setup Terrain
-Roll for Dawn of War or Malestrom
-Roll for mission type

Try to play Dawn of War missions to tie and attempt to win on secondary objectives. Target stuff that kills t4 models really well, every little bit you can eliminate will increase the odds you'll have boyz left for linebreaker. I have a tendency to lose first blood, so linebreaker tends to tie up the secondary objectives for me in the classic missions.

Another thought about list construction. A ten or twenty man strong squad of Stormboyz might work for you. They do good at intercepting good shooting stuff in cover. You'll have to deploy in such a way that they don't get shot off the board first however and that can be a challenge to.

Sad Ork wrote:

I don't have a picture, but usually 2*2 meters with most terrain around the edges of the table

Okay, you REALLY need to stop doing this.

First, play on a 6x4 not a 6x6. That extra depth is allowing them to deploy further away from you than they're supposed to be able to (in most deployments).

Second, if you don't have enough terrain to fill the table it needs to go in the middle not the edges.

The setup you're currently using is grossly biased towards armies that do their killing at a distance and which don't want to move. Those armies can get cover and, if they want, get out of LoS but armies that need to close have to give up both of those things.

Combine that with playing maelstrom wrong and it's quite possible that certain people in the group that like to gunline have been passive aggressively cheating for a while... Set the table up like I've suggested and see who complains loudest.

6x6 is definitely a bad idea.

 Rismonite wrote:
We have been doing it this way;
-Build List
-Setup Terrain
-Roll for Dawn of War or Malestrom
-Roll for mission type

Try to play Dawn of War missions to tie and attempt to win on secondary objectives. Target stuff that kills t4 models really well, every little bit you can eliminate will increase the odds you'll have boyz left for linebreaker. I have a tendency to lose first blood, so linebreaker tends to tie up the secondary objectives for me in the classic missions.

Another thought about list construction. A ten or twenty man strong squad of Stormboyz might work for you. They do good at intercepting good shooting stuff in cover. You'll have to deploy in such a way that they don't get shot off the board first however and that can be a challenge to.

I'll suggest to them that we atleast roll to see if it's Dawn of War or Maelstrom. I have been trying to just get a tie in our Dawn missions, which I have succeeded in doing by turn 5 1-2 times, but the game then drags out to turn 6-8 and I get tabled anyway.
Anyways, I'll try out the storm boyz squad and see if that helps!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Scott-S6 wrote:

Sad Ork wrote:

I don't have a picture, but usually 2*2 meters with most terrain around the edges of the table

Okay, you REALLY need to stop doing this.

First, play on a 6x4 not a 6x6. That extra depth is allowing them to deploy further away from you than they're supposed to be able to (in most deployments).

Second, if you don't have enough terrain to fill the table it needs to go in the middle not the edges.

The setup you're currently using is grossly biased towards armies that do their killing at a distance and which don't want to move. Those armies can get cover and, if they want, get out of LoS but armies that need to close have to give up both of those things.

Combine that with playing maelstrom wrong and it's quite possible that certain people in the group that like to gunline have been passive aggressively cheating for a while... Set the table up like I've suggested and see who complains loudest.

Jancoran wrote:6x6 is definitely a bad idea.

I'll try setting up a 6x4 board and putting the terrain in the middle next time - it has felt quite biased towards shooty armies, so I really appreciate the suggestion.
As for the cheating bit... I really just assumed they wouldn't, but it is starting to feel a lot like that's what been going on. (Although I'll admit, I'm not a great WH40k player.)

1) Your board is almost 80 inches from back-edge to back-edge. The standard depth is 48 inches. A deep battlefield heavily favours shooty armies and deepstriking armies. A regulation table is 180x120 cm. At 1000 points it should be 120x120 cm. This makes a huge difference.

2) Terrain and ruins should be in the middle of the board, out of the deployments zones. Having ruins along the edges again favours shooty armies. Also, some of the terrain should grant a cover save, and some of the terrain should block line of sight (so you cannot shoot through it)

3) The game is a lot better if you can score objectives every turn. There are a number of ways to set this up, but again, end-game scoring favours static and shooty armies over mobile or assaulty armies.

4) To win with Orks you need: Boyz, warbosses and weirdboyz. At least dont bring the Shokk-attak-gun, Meks and flash-gitz. The rest is so-so.

pismakron wrote:
1) Your board is almost 80 inches from back-edge to back-edge. The standard depth is 48 inches. A deep battlefield heavily favours shooty armies and deepstriking armies. A regulation table is 180x120 cm. At 1000 points it should be 120x120 cm. This makes a huge difference.

2) Terrain and ruins should be in the middle of the board, out of the deployments zones. Having ruins along the edges again favours shooty armies. Also, some of the terrain should grant a cover save, and some of the terrain should block line of sight (so you cannot shoot through it)

3) The game is a lot better if you can score objectives every turn. There are a number of ways to set this up, but again, end-game scoring favours static and shooty armies over mobile or assaulty armies.

4) To win with Orks you need: Boyz, warbosses and weirdboyz. At least dont bring the Shokk-attak-gun, Meks and flash-gitz. The rest is so-so.

1) I looked at some pictures on our closed facebook group, and I realized pretty quickly that they are indeed segments of 60x60 cm with a total of 6 segments. We usually do 4 segments for smaller games and 6 segments for larger games, so everything is as it should be... I incorrectly remembered them as being roughly 100x100 cm

2) I'll make a suggestion to atleast place the terrain out of the deployment zones or have some of it in the middle, I doubt I can convince them to go with both suggestions. Currently all of our terrain are ruins that grant cover and don't block line of sight, which I doubt is going to change.

3) I'm hoping that atleast half of the games played will be with objective scoring at the end of each turn, although I'm inclined to believe some of the players will not take kindly to this suggestion.

4) I will prioritise getting some more boyz - I can always proxy the weirdboyz and warbosses!

In any case, I'm going to do what I can to optimize my lists like you guys have suggested.
I'll try to approach the others with the some of the changes to terrain distribution and mission choices you have also suggested. If everything falls on deaf ears, I'll take that as a sign that I probably need to put my orks on the shelf or move on to a different gaming group, because as it is now, I'm pretty burnt out having to spend 1-3 hours on games I have zero chance of winning.

I really appreciate all the feedback on what to buy, listbuilding and tactics!
I'm also pretty happy (and a bit sad, I suppose) to know that the odds were stacked against my poor orks in all my games so far. (Although I'll gladly admit the subpar lists are definitely my own fault)!

 Scott-S6 wrote:

Sad Ork wrote:

I don't have a picture, but usually 2*2 meters with most terrain around the edges of the table

Okay, you REALLY need to stop doing this.

First, play on a 6x4 not a 6x6. That extra depth is allowing them to deploy further away from you than they're supposed to be able to (in most deployments).

Second, if you don't have enough terrain to fill the table it needs to go in the middle not the edges.

The setup you're currently using is grossly biased towards armies that do their killing at a distance and which don't want to move. Those armies can get cover and, if they want, get out of LoS but armies that need to close have to give up both of those things.

Combine that with playing maelstrom wrong and it's quite possible that certain people in the group that like to gunline have been passive aggressively cheating for a while... Set the table up like I've suggested and see who complains loudest.

I'd say even 6x4 is far too large for anything under 1500 points. If you're going to play 1000-1500 points, go 4x4. It's what we do at my LGS (although that also has to do with the fact that we don't have the space to set up 2 6x4 tables, we're in a really small building. 2 times 4x4 does fit though) and it works great for smaller games.

Yea, to properly outfit an army over 1000 you need alot of option in your collection which you dont have yet. Mek and big guns are good if you can get em cheap on EBAY (big guns are 30 and Mek Guns are 55CAD ish brand new). I have near 20k points of orks and i rarely play over 2k point games, but you better believe i look though my whole collection when coming up with plans for games. From my Observation this edition Getting a KILLTANK would be a solid move, I use an Orkified Baneblade and everyone loves it, even if its a bit bigger than a regular killtank.

As for the tables you have been playing, the only appropriate units you have for that style are lootas and you dont have the numbers or types of models for a shooty army. If these guys you play with have been playing for a long time they should know that the table is far too big and biased, And they should be helping you figure out how to play your army and showing you the ropes and indeed all the different ways to play the game (THERES MANY).

On a side note, Nobs are pretty good this edition and since they have been shelved for the last long while im certain you can get alot for cheap online, try to get a good mix of weapons on them, CHoppas can be powerstabbas, Bigchoppas are good this edition, and a few claws wont hurt. Remember you need more nobz than just the ones for your squads of nobz, you need them for troop leaders, and you need at least 1 bannernob.

Good Luck man, Orks is a great army even if we havent really been competitive, People love to play with you and no armies wreck peoples plans like a mob of orks.

FWIW, my friend has been using the Sigmar Weirdnob model for Weirdboy, as that model seems to be hard to find.

If you magnetize the bases of your boyz, then cut out sheet metal for groups of 10 models, you can move stuff around very easily. Just take them off the sheet when you pile in.