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I love that warlord trait. Albeit I use that mostly for lootas/tank bustas. Put them in position to shoot, if I go 2nd head into safety instead(rather than risk da jump failing T1 if I put them out of LOS to start with).

edit: Q is if you can use that to put them into reserve instead when you redeploy them?

There are plenty of decent ork units.
No one said stormboys aren’t decent..
They however aren’t very competitive.
Even a 20man squad of Goff stormboys aren’t that great at offense while being really weak defensively.
They are simply much faster boyz that cost more but with less options.
Take souped up index evilsun komandos
You are not playing with strong competitor players if they get trapped into combat with stormboys turn1.

tneva82 wrote:
edit: Q is if you can use that to put them into reserve instead when you redeploy them?

I don't have time to look right know, but IIRC there was a FAQ about that for a similar trait (maybe eldar?).

 Jidmah wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
edit: Q is if you can use that to put them into reserve instead when you redeploy them?

I don't have time to look right know, but IIRC there was a FAQ about that for a similar trait (maybe eldar?).

Right you were. Not trait but strategem for eldars but as working is identical pretty clear no. Too bad. That would be neat trick for stormboyz. Only ? is that there it was combining 2 strategems. Maybe "no" is because of wording of webway strategem. Would need to check that and deep strike rules wording.

edit: both are "during deployment" so as trait/the eldar strategem are not activated during deployment guess that's pretty much clear no.

gungo wrote:
There are plenty of decent ork units.
No one said stormboys aren’t decent..
They however aren’t very competitive.
Even a 20man squad of Goff stormboys aren’t that great at offense while being really weak defensively.
They are simply much faster boyz that cost more but with less options.
Take souped up index evilsun komandos
You are not playing with strong competitor players if they get trapped into combat with stormboys turn1.

I disagree entirely, I think there's easily a place for stormboyz in a competitive list.

Frame it up this way: I'm making a tournament ork list using the lootabomb strategy. For a cost of roughly 300pts with the same numbers of troops, HQs etc, I can up my Evil Sunz detachment from Battalion to Brigade with 3 min squads of stomboyz and 3 min squads of kommandos and I can bump my Bad Moonz from Battalion to Spearhead.

Heavy Support with mek gunz is basically a free slot, and I'm taking two slots of lootas anyway for the "orkstellan" so then I just need to fill one heavy slot in either bad moonz or evil sunz to get 3 extra CP at game start. Plenty of competitive options there: Evil Sunz gorkanaut, Bad Moonz Morkanaut, Evil Sunz bonebreaka, just a random index Kannon.

IMO there is no better cheap Evil Sunz fast attack unit you can take to fill a brigade than min stormboyz. Alone they're piss poor, but dropping them en masse turn 2 is nearly the punch of a second da jump squad.

non-competitive tournament play they've got tricks as well. The 25 blob having the option to shoot the table for a guaranteed turn 1 charge is pretty fun. I'd take them as Goffs personally because I think Zag is underrated and if your opponent deploys cocky on the line I don't think it matters much if you're evil sunz or not, you're getting there. Shame about Zagstruks warlord trait but just make anyone else the warlord - the only special character who should ever be warlord is snikrot anyway for I Got A Plan Ladz. Maybe Zhardsnark because he gets Speed Freek.

the_scotsman wrote:

Frame it up this way: I'm making a tournament ork list using the lootabomb strategy. For a cost of roughly 300pts with the same numbers of troops, HQs etc, I can up my Evil Sunz detachment from Battalion to Brigade with 3 min squads of stomboyz and 3 min squads of kommandos and I can bump my Bad Moonz from Battalion to Spearhead.

Umm...Battallion to spearhead? What's so good about degrading. You would go from 13 CP to 16 CP. Okay nice enough but that's lots of tax for 3CP.

non-competitive tournament play they've got tricks as well. The 25 blob having the option to shoot the table for a guaranteed turn 1 charge is pretty fun. I'd take them as Goffs personally because I think Zag is underrated and if your opponent deploys cocky on the line I don't think it matters much if you're evil sunz or not, you're getting there. Shame about Zagstruks warlord trait but just make anyone else the warlord - the only special character who should ever be warlord is snikrot anyway for I Got A Plan Ladz. Maybe Zhardsnark because he gets Speed Freek.

If you are aiming for T1 charge evil sun is way to go. Big difference between 18+2d6 vs 21+2d6 charge ranges. First one isn't charging up anywhere reliably T1 if you go first or opponent doesn't move up closer.Oh and rolling 5 or less isn't "no chance" even with rerolls and seriously expecting enemy to play like a noob is pretty optimistic.

tneva82 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

Frame it up this way: I'm making a tournament ork list using the lootabomb strategy. For a cost of roughly 300pts with the same numbers of troops, HQs etc, I can up my Evil Sunz detachment from Battalion to Brigade with 3 min squads of stomboyz and 3 min squads of kommandos and I can bump my Bad Moonz from Battalion to Spearhead.

Umm...Battallion to spearhead? What's so good about degrading. You would go from 13 CP to 16 CP. Okay nice enough but that's lots of tax for 3CP.

non-competitive tournament play they've got tricks as well. The 25 blob having the option to shoot the table for a guaranteed turn 1 charge is pretty fun. I'd take them as Goffs personally because I think Zag is underrated and if your opponent deploys cocky on the line I don't think it matters much if you're evil sunz or not, you're getting there. Shame about Zagstruks warlord trait but just make anyone else the warlord - the only special character who should ever be warlord is snikrot anyway for I Got A Plan Ladz. Maybe Zhardsnark because he gets Speed Freek.

If you are aiming for T1 charge evil sun is way to go. Big difference between 18+2d6 vs 21+2d6 charge ranges. First one isn't charging up anywhere reliably T1 if you go first or opponent doesn't move up closer.Oh and rolling 5 or less isn't "no chance" even with rerolls and seriously expecting enemy to play like a noob is pretty optimistic.

I don't think min squads that deep strike for free are particularly "tax" personally - the more costly heavy slot is something I'd most likely put in my list anyway (almost every hard-hitter you tellyport in as evil sunz is Heavy Support already) and really to me it's a simple trade of 300pts for 3CP. I am down with that for any army as CP-hungry as orks.

Watched an ork battle report vs Tallarn guard. Ork player went second but used a stratagem I think i it was called prepared positions?? everything counts as being in cover for first turn?? where is that from?

 Sal4m4nd3r wrote:
Watched an ork battle report vs Tallarn guard. Ork player went second but used a stratagem I think i it was called prepared positions?? everything counts as being in cover for first turn?? where is that from?

Latest FAQ, everyone gets it. Yet another reason why I'm unimpressed by Blood Axes.

Cool! seems very handy! Blood axes surely got a bit of a shaft. GW seems to have always favored evil suns in terms of rules. But blood axes will almost ALWAYS strike first and can be some cheeky shenanigans with retreat shoot while another unit charges in and back and forth. I think Blood axe shoota boyz are REALLY good for this reason. Also blood axe bikes are hard to kill.

 Sal4m4nd3r wrote:
Cool! seems very handy! Blood axes surely got a bit of a shaft. GW seems to have always favored evil suns in terms of rules. But blood axes will almost ALWAYS strike first and can be some cheeky shenanigans with retreat shoot while another unit charges in and back and forth. I think Blood axe shoota boyz are REALLY good for this reason. Also blood axe bikes are hard to kill.

Blood Axes are fine for casual games. Take Snikrot with a big gaggle of kommandos to deep strike and attack a flank, and I would take a bunch of the 24" range band hit-and-run type buggies, Skrapjet Dragsta and Boosta-Blasta in particular. I think warbikes will struggle to use the kultur because of their 18" shooting range.

They're fluffy, a lot like the Goffs, who encourage an army build setup that is VERY "Classic Goffs" but they're not tournament-optimal IMO.

My next casual game is definitely going to be a classic goff green tide build with a green tide with Ghazzy, Painboy, Weirdboy, KFF big mek, and Waagh Banner Nob with the Lucky Stikk just charging up the center.

It might not be competitive but it'll be awesome!

Why are lootas so mid tier in the rainbow table on page 1?

I know they require dumping a bunch of strats into them to truly shine, but seeing as they can get truly off-the-chart anti-everything firepower just sticking them in mid tier is a bit weird.

I think they should be teal or green. We'll be seeing them in a lot (if not most) competitive lists, which you can't say for units you've ranked higher like the wazbom or some of the buggies.

 DoomMouse wrote:
Why are lootas so mid tier in the rainbow table on page 1?

I know they require dumping a bunch of strats into them to truly shine, but seeing as they can get truly off-the-chart anti-everything firepower just sticking them in mid tier is a bit weird.

I think they should be teal or green. We'll be seeing them in a lot (if not most) competitive lists, which you can't say for units you've ranked higher like the wazbom or some of the buggies.

Once the results come in I am sure they will move up, but right now there are far too many Ifs-and-buts for them to be considered anything but mid teir.

 DoomMouse wrote:
Why are lootas so mid tier in the rainbow table on page 1?

I know they require dumping a bunch of strats into them to truly shine, but seeing as they can get truly off-the-chart anti-everything firepower just sticking them in mid tier is a bit weird.

I think they should be teal or green. We'll be seeing them in a lot (if not most) competitive lists, which you can't say for units you've ranked higher like the wazbom or some of the buggies.

Good question especially as so far tournament results with them has been good.

Dark eldars are bit of hard counter though. If you go second 5/6 times they just die. As eldar soup is so prelevant that does limit tournament results a bit

FYI just for the moment: I wrote up the clan-by-clan analysis that just got added to the front page over the last couple days, but I got mixed up between "Teal" and "Dark Blue" and only caught myself when I got down to Goffs.

For the moment, in the Freeboota, Bad Moonz, Snakebites, Blood Axes, and Deathskullz sections, all ratings of Teal (Tier 2) should be Blue (Tier 3) and vice versa. For example I rated the Snakebites kultur as Tier 3 but it's currently displaying as Tier 2.

My bad, guys. I also refrained from giving the clans an "overall rating" because I believe you select clans for different reasons in different parts of your lists. For example Bad Moonz would have an artificially high "overall rating" because their stratagem is so clearly amazing, but you really want to just dip into them to get your loota/Tankbusta mob up bomb.

First post updated with Klan rankings by the_scotsman, as usual with some changes by me. I hopefully cleaned up the color mess-up as well

 DoomMouse wrote:
Why are lootas so mid tier in the rainbow table on page 1?

I know they require dumping a bunch of strats into them to truly shine, but seeing as they can get truly off-the-chart anti-everything firepower just sticking them in mid tier is a bit weird.

I think they should be teal or green. We'll be seeing them in a lot (if not most) competitive lists, which you can't say for units you've ranked higher like the wazbom or some of the buggies.

The rainbow table considered all units without clan traits and/or stratagems. Outside of Bad Moons lootaz are not that great.

What Kultur(s) and HQ choices would y'all suggest for a small army (or detachment in a larger army) based around stormboyz, deffkoptas, chinorks, and possibly bikes?

Evil Suns, of course
Da red 'uns go fasta.

HQs of choice would be biker warboss, deffkilla wartrike or Zardsnark da Rippa (FW).

 Jidmah wrote:
First post updated with Klan rankings by the_scotsman, as usual with some changes by me. I hopefully cleaned up the color mess-up as well

 DoomMouse wrote:
Why are lootas so mid tier in the rainbow table on page 1?

I know they require dumping a bunch of strats into them to truly shine, but seeing as they can get truly off-the-chart anti-everything firepower just sticking them in mid tier is a bit weird.

I think they should be teal or green. We'll be seeing them in a lot (if not most) competitive lists, which you can't say for units you've ranked higher like the wazbom or some of the buggies.

The rainbow table considered all units without clan traits and/or stratagems. Outside of Bad Moons lootaz are not that great.

That is true I guess. But I can't imagine that they'll be taken as anything BUT bad moons in comp lists

Coh Magnussen wrote:
What Kultur(s) and HQ choices would y'all suggest for a small army (or detachment in a larger army) based around stormboyz, deffkoptas, chinorks, and possibly bikes?

I like Deffskullz for those units. Lots of potential KMB's in Deffcoptas/Chinorks, and you can take min size stormboy/biker squads with single power klaw nobz to make best use of the rerolls in melee.

BIkes aren't great with deffskullz though.

I'm not sure rating units without considering kultur is relevant. You can easily make 3 detachments with tailored clans, so I have a hard time seeing why you would take lootas outside of Bad Moons for example. Tho lootas are a special case, as it requires designing your entire list around them.

I would like to make a case for a few units:

- Stormboyz: They are "infantry", so eligible for grot shields to protect them turn 1, and they can very easily charge on turn 1. So 30 stormboyz on the edge of deployment screened by grots, plus 40 boyz in the backfield ready to be "da jump"'ed is a pretty scary thing.

- Big meks with KFF are pretty nice when you take an extra min batallion for CP as deathskullz . Clan doesn't matter for the aura, and they can take a KMB (index), for 9 points, Also, mini mek with the deathskull kultur and a KMB is 31 points for a pretty strong shooting option. (Better than a KMK vs T8).

And even boyz are hardly green without traits and strategems. Without evil sun, tellyporta, endless tide and(generously) skarboyz thev would be junk. Already not that usefull. Remove those and what is left?

tneva82 wrote:
And even boyz are hardly green without traits and strategems. Without evil sun, tellyporta, endless tide and(generously) skarboyz thev would be junk. Already not that usefull. Remove those and what is left?

universal stratagems that every clan has access to probably should be considered in the evaluation of units. Assuming that they won't have access to those stratagems is a bit like assuming you won't be taking battleforged detachments to get Obsec and other generic rules, or like assuming that aura generating characters won't have any friendly units around them benefitting from the aura.

"painboyz suck! They just give themselves a 6+++ and otherwise they're a purely worse warboss!"

I don't 100% agree with every decision in the tier list, but my biggest problem with it is when I was evaluating things my tier list was less "this thing is better than that thing and that's better than this other thing" and instead I went with

Auto-Include (I guess this'd be green): Stuff that's so good you have to justify not taking it in your list and you need to have a reason ready to go why you're not putting points into them. Examples: Gretchins for CP, Smashas/Trakktors, at least 1 Weirdboy.

Good (Blue): Stuff that will not make you sad in pretty much any army build. Boyz are a good example here: There are few clans that can't make use of at least one 30 blob of boyz. Other stuff I'd rate "good" would be KMKs, Tankbustas, Skrapjets, Battlewagons/Bonebreakas, Nobz.

Situational (Teal/Yellow): Stuff that can be good/autoinclude level IF you significantly structure your clan/relic/army list choices around inclusion of the unit. This is where I'd stick Lootas, because if they're NOT Bad Moonz clan in a big mobbed up unit and with like 60 gretchins in front of them, then they will not be amazing. But, if they are, there you go. Deffcoptas, specifically with KMBs in Deathskullz. Deff Dreads, specifically either with KMB in Deathskulls or deep striking with Evil Sunz.

Unviable (Red): Units that either don't work, or that always or 99% of the time have a unit in direct competition that does the thing better. Nob bikers, burnas, Grot Tanks, Bubblechukkas, etc.

I find that having a big "tier list" structure like we do in the OP makes more people happy because they can pass units more freely between level 5 and level 6, or level 8 and level 7, and argue whether warbosses should REALLY be yellow or greenish-purple tier, and my tier structure trends more towards a LOT in the middle and a couple things at the very top and very bottom...but I still tend to prefer it because that's what you see in tournaments. The units in the auto-include and usually good tier make up the vast bulk of the armies you see, and occasionally you get someone who figures out a clever trick with an oddball unit that really knocks off peoples socks.

hortsmann wrote:
I'm not sure rating units without considering kultur is relevant. You can easily make 3 detachments with tailored clans, so I have a hard time seeing why you would take lootas outside of Bad Moons for example. Tho lootas are a special case, as it requires designing your entire list around them.

I would like to make a case for a few units:

- Stormboyz: They are "infantry", so eligible for grot shields to protect them turn 1, and they can very easily charge on turn 1. So 30 stormboyz on the edge of deployment screened by grots, plus 40 boyz in the backfield ready to be "da jump"'ed is a pretty scary thing.

- Big meks with KFF are pretty nice when you take an extra min batallion for CP as deathskullz . Clan doesn't matter for the aura, and they can take a KMB (index), for 9 points, Also, mini mek with the deathskull kultur and a KMB is 31 points for a pretty strong shooting option. (Better than a KMK vs T8).

Totally agree with this - klan traits are particularly easy to pick up with weirdboyz and grots which largely don't care which klan they are.

That said though, the first page tier list is awesome - well done for making it!

the_scotsman wrote:

gungo wrote:
There are plenty of decent ork units.
No one said stormboys aren’t decent..
They however aren’t very competitive.
Even a 20man squad of Goff stormboys aren’t that great at offense while being really weak defensively.
They are simply much faster boyz that cost more but with less options.
Take souped up index evilsun komandos
You are not playing with strong competitor players if they get trapped into combat with stormboys turn1.

I disagree entirely, I think there's easily a place for stormboyz in a competitive list.

Frame it up this way: I'm making a tournament ork list using the lootabomb strategy. For a cost of roughly 300pts with the same numbers of troops, HQs etc, I can up my Evil Sunz detachment from Battalion to Brigade with 3 min squads of stomboyz and 3 min squads of kommandos and I can bump my Bad Moonz from Battalion to Spearhead.

Heavy Support with mek gunz is basically a free slot, and I'm taking two slots of lootas anyway for the "orkstellan" so then I just need to fill one heavy slot in either bad moonz or evil sunz to get 3 extra CP at game start. Plenty of competitive options there: Evil Sunz gorkanaut, Bad Moonz Morkanaut, Evil Sunz bonebreaka, just a random index Kannon.

IMO there is no better cheap Evil Sunz fast attack unit you can take to fill a brigade than min stormboyz. Alone they're piss poor, but dropping them en masse turn 2 is nearly the punch of a second da jump squad.

non-competitive tournament play they've got tricks as well. The 25 blob having the option to shoot the table for a guaranteed turn 1 charge is pretty fun. I'd take them as Goffs personally because I think Zag is underrated and if your opponent deploys cocky on the line I don't think it matters much if you're evil sunz or not, you're getting there. Shame about Zagstruks warlord trait but just make anyone else the warlord - the only special character who should ever be warlord is snikrot anyway for I Got A Plan Ladz. Maybe Zhardsnark because he gets Speed Freek.

Feel free to prove me wrong and have stormboys do well competitively. I don’t see it. I don’t even see index kommandos doing well competitively and I like them better but outside of a token slot filler to tie up backfield units they aren’t exactly amazing.
But hey talk is cheap and there will soon be lots of competitive ork lists placing well of stormboys end up being featured in several lists I’ll be pleasantly surprised. I just don’t see weak defensive units with weak offense relying on poor opponent placement doing anything competitively.
If you want to play around with friends they are decent especially as Goff’s and aren’t a bad unit.

Defensively they are better than boyz though. Offensively maybe bit less yes.

tneva82 wrote:
Defensively they are better than boyz though. Offensively maybe bit less yes.

Aren't they defensively the same, but more expensive, making them defensively worse?

Or am I crazy/stupid and they've sneakily slapped a better save on stormboyz or something?

Maybe you're talking about Kommandos with the 4+ in cover.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

gungo wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

gungo wrote:
There are plenty of decent ork units.
No one said stormboys aren’t decent..
They however aren’t very competitive.
Even a 20man squad of Goff stormboys aren’t that great at offense while being really weak defensively.
They are simply much faster boyz that cost more but with less options.
Take souped up index evilsun komandos
You are not playing with strong competitor players if they get trapped into combat with stormboys turn1.

I disagree entirely, I think there's easily a place for stormboyz in a competitive list.

Frame it up this way: I'm making a tournament ork list using the lootabomb strategy. For a cost of roughly 300pts with the same numbers of troops, HQs etc, I can up my Evil Sunz detachment from Battalion to Brigade with 3 min squads of stomboyz and 3 min squads of kommandos and I can bump my Bad Moonz from Battalion to Spearhead.

Heavy Support with mek gunz is basically a free slot, and I'm taking two slots of lootas anyway for the "orkstellan" so then I just need to fill one heavy slot in either bad moonz or evil sunz to get 3 extra CP at game start. Plenty of competitive options there: Evil Sunz gorkanaut, Bad Moonz Morkanaut, Evil Sunz bonebreaka, just a random index Kannon.

IMO there is no better cheap Evil Sunz fast attack unit you can take to fill a brigade than min stormboyz. Alone they're piss poor, but dropping them en masse turn 2 is nearly the punch of a second da jump squad.

non-competitive tournament play they've got tricks as well. The 25 blob having the option to shoot the table for a guaranteed turn 1 charge is pretty fun. I'd take them as Goffs personally because I think Zag is underrated and if your opponent deploys cocky on the line I don't think it matters much if you're evil sunz or not, you're getting there. Shame about Zagstruks warlord trait but just make anyone else the warlord - the only special character who should ever be warlord is snikrot anyway for I Got A Plan Ladz. Maybe Zhardsnark because he gets Speed Freek.

Feel free to prove me wrong and have stormboys do well competitively. I don’t see it. I don’t even see index kommandos doing well competitively and I like them better but outside of a token slot filler to tie up backfield units they aren’t exactly amazing.
But hey talk is cheap and there will soon be lots of competitive ork lists placing well of stormboys end up being featured in several lists I’ll be pleasantly surprised. I just don’t see weak defensive units with weak offense relying on poor opponent placement doing anything competitively.
If you want to play around with friends they are decent especially as Goff’s and aren’t a bad unit.

Depends on what you define as "Well." If you don't think "Supplying extra CPs for a low cost and providing a small but measurable benefit leading them to be included in a competitive list" count as "doing well" then I'm sure they won't do well. I'm not expecting stormboy-centric lists to be taking the competitive meta by storm. But then again, I'm betting that you would accept that definition of "doing well" when applied to, say, 30 guardsmen and 2 CCs.

My well is simple; If they are placing anywhere competitively outside of Min squad slot filers.

The fact is stormboys don’t provide any meaningful benefit. Min evil sun squads that die to screens aren’t feared and larger 20 man expensive evil sun squads don’t have any real bite. They don’t have a role other then hey my guys move fast! Please dont shoot at them!

Even guardsman don’t have that issue as they are regularly used and the basis for an entire detachment that fills the role of a cheap screen that has a decent offensive bite. They are effective shooters and screens. They are like Gretchin and orks rolled into one unit and likely to go up in points because of this effectiveness and strong competitive use.

Stormboyz are better defensively because they have a higher movement, and fly. Which means it is easier to get them out of los.

They are also able to deepstrike so they can be immune to damage until turn 2.

Stormboyz are the only big unit in the codex that is fast enough to accompany a da jump'ed blob of boyz turn 1, while being safe at the same time if you don't go first thanks to grot shields.