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Honestly I think he'd be alright if they;
- Shave his points down to 250,
- Make his advance and charge aura work on himself
- Remove the restriction from "da biggest boss"

Then he'd at least be a quality roadblock for a decent price without making your warboss worse. He might still not be competitive with these changes but I'd wager a lot more people would be willing to try and find out..

Maybe he could be able to make some serious damage.
Now he' s not.
INFANTRY keyword is the key to swing twice, etc. And this is the way, how to make him do some serious damage.

PiñaColada wrote:
Honestly I think he'd be alright if they;
- Shave his points down to 250,
- Make his advance and charge aura work on himself
- Remove the restriction from "da biggest boss"

Then he'd at least be a quality roadblock for a decent price without making your warboss worse. He might still not be competitive with these changes but I'd wager a lot more people would be willing to try and find out..

I'd even drop him to 235 or lower. Old Thrakka already was overpriced and can do most things new Thrakka can.

Just allowing him to Waaagh! is what change him from an inherently flawed unit into an overpriced unit - moving 14"+2d6 instead of 14"+1d6 in two turns is huge, as it makes the difference between being able to charge and not being able to do so. It also makes kiting him near impossible.
Points will eventually be fixed, but GW is unlikely to fix a datasheet outside of codex releases.

That said, did you know that the stompa will start being viable around CA2025?

CA2025 you say? I think you are being too optimistic my friend

Well, if the keep going with dropping it by 50 points each year, I should be about right

At any rate. I am surprised we still don't have Saga's FAQ. Depending of the outcome the discussion may vary a lot.

Wasn't the day it was on stores 4.4(well those 3rd party stores that got it anyway...). If so 2 weeks would be filled by now so regular time for FAQ would be around next week. And corona causing slight delay would not be that surprising.

Worst case they do what they did with sisters. They don't consider this the launch date as not all could get it yet and will do it 2 weeks after the "proper" launch when everybody can get "to get more questions". Then it's up tp anybody's guess when the faq comes.

Orkimedez_Atalaya wrote:
At any rate. I am surprised we still don't have Saga's FAQ. Depending of the outcome the discussion may vary a lot.

Unfortunately, with their stores still closed thanks to COVID, and their book releases being technically behind at this point, I feel like we won't be getting it anytime soon. We're not the priority either since as far as I can tell, there's no big rules issues for the SW side of it, which is what they actually care about.

Not that grim. Wolves have old style doctrines and stratagems which needs errata to match rest unless GW intends wolves to be able to stay in same doctrine forever and have same named stratagem that works differently to marines.

I don’t think GW cares that much about SW either TBH. Other SM’chapters got way more love

SW's are the exception to the Marine favor GW is known to shower.
They dont get jack. And when they do its usually not in SW flavor, its copypasted over.

I'd love to take the word processor to the Space Wolves sometime, bring back more Viking and less Snarly McWolfWolf on his Thunderwolf mounted in a Skywolf with Wolfmissiles and wolfwolfwolfwolfwolf.

But, this is the Ork forum, so I wanna talk Orks.

And right now, I'm still looking for anyone who's got some experience with Blood Axes in the current set. The only advice anyone had was "Don't play them, play this instead" but, I wanna do Blood Axes, heck with the tournament scene and meta and whatnot.

But if tehre are any Blood Axes Bosses out there that have stuck to the clan and given it a spin, I'd really love to hear what they have to say. "Just be Deathskulls/Bad moons" does me no good, you know?

Wakshaani wrote:
I'd love to take the word processor to the Space Wolves sometime, bring back more Viking and less Snarly McWolfWolf on his Thunderwolf mounted in a Skywolf with Wolfmissiles and wolfwolfwolfwolfwolf.

But, this is the Ork forum, so I wanna talk Orks.

And right now, I'm still looking for anyone who's got some experience with Blood Axes in the current set. The only advice anyone had was "Don't play them, play this instead" but, I wanna do Blood Axes, heck with the tournament scene and meta and whatnot.

But if tehre are any Blood Axes Bosses out there that have stuck to the clan and given it a spin, I'd really love to hear what they have to say. "Just be Deathskulls/Bad moons" does me no good, you know?

Hmm, my instinct says melee tank brigade. You benefit nicely from the cover, you can continue to fallback and shoot or charge over and over making a trio of bonebreakers possibly quite fun. Spam some boosta blastas or the corkscrewed scrapjets to proc the mortal wounds repeatedly. And it is in the fluff, whole armies of looted tanks the orks are trying to be clever with.

Wakshaani wrote:
I'd love to take the word processor to the Space Wolves sometime, bring back more Viking and less Snarly McWolfWolf on his Thunderwolf mounted in a Skywolf with Wolfmissiles and wolfwolfwolfwolfwolf.

But, this is the Ork forum, so I wanna talk Orks.

And right now, I'm still looking for anyone who's got some experience with Blood Axes in the current set. The only advice anyone had was "Don't play them, play this instead" but, I wanna do Blood Axes, heck with the tournament scene and meta and whatnot.

But if tehre are any Blood Axes Bosses out there that have stuck to the clan and given it a spin, I'd really love to hear what they have to say. "Just be Deathskulls/Bad moons" does me no good, you know?

There actually was some of this in the Saga of the Beast Psychic Awakening book.

They actually have little blurbs on the Wolfertons called "Sagas" to commemorate the glorious death of a mighty Yiff at the hands of the unending hordes of greenskin filth.

It was thankfully absent of much of the Wulfen or too much playup on them being wolfy. I can't speak to the book itself because I'm not really partial to fanfic and I'm already salty about the cover to the Psychic Awakening book. Plus I already know how it ends.

The actual Warhammer Community article on Space Yiffs was also based around them having a banquet in their great hall and sharing stories about slaying the puny greenskin filth and splattering their green gak all over the megaverse.

When is the damn FAQ coming

 Vineheart01 wrote:
SW's are the exception to the Marine favor GW is known to shower.
They dont get jack. And when they do its usually not in SW flavor, its copypasted over.

Heh. I'm still scarred by 2nd Ed days when it was the other way around to the point of borkenness, and sometimes I have to remined myself they aren't "just better marines" anymore. SWs got all the vanilla toys plus nifty rules, bling and characters on top, like extra heavy weapons in squads "because they don't follow the Codex Astartes". All it takes is a game designer to love or not an army to swing the army from OP/flavourful to meh/bland... seems they lack a furry friend in the team these days.

Though TBH I find that currently GW writes a better-balanced range of codices and regular point/rules update do much to correct the most glaring balance issues. Not perfect but at least gone are the days of 8 years without a codex update for Orks, that some veterans here may (not so) fondly remember

 Jidmah wrote:
Well, if the keep going with dropping it by 50 points each year, I should be about right

There is a small hope you can get a usable stompa from the kustom stompa in the new forgeworld index. I don’t think the points costs will be much lower however it might get a kff and the belly gun can be useful. Gaze of mork and lifts droppa arm may still suck.

Oh yeah, the re-written forgeworld rules. We heard any more about that? I'd love an excuse to do some converting work on my stompa, especially if it's viable in game.

cody.d. wrote:

Wakshaani wrote:
I'd love to take the word processor to the Space Wolves sometime, bring back more Viking and less Snarly McWolfWolf on his Thunderwolf mounted in a Skywolf with Wolfmissiles and wolfwolfwolfwolfwolf.

But, this is the Ork forum, so I wanna talk Orks.

And right now, I'm still looking for anyone who's got some experience with Blood Axes in the current set. The only advice anyone had was "Don't play them, play this instead" but, I wanna do Blood Axes, heck with the tournament scene and meta and whatnot.

But if tehre are any Blood Axes Bosses out there that have stuck to the clan and given it a spin, I'd really love to hear what they have to say. "Just be Deathskulls/Bad moons" does me no good, you know?

Hmm, my instinct says melee tank brigade. You benefit nicely from the cover, you can continue to fallback and shoot or charge over and over making a trio of bonebreakers possibly quite fun. Spam some boosta blastas or the corkscrewed scrapjets to proc the mortal wounds repeatedly. And it is in the fluff, whole armies of looted tanks the orks are trying to be clever with.

Yeah, I've been eyeballing vehicles for a bit to see if anything clicks. The Gunwagon is universally reviled, but, I'm looking at it as a 3-4 Big Shoota platform, plus doubletapping the Killkannon, for 175... T 8, 16 wounds, 3+ save if the enemy's more than 18" away (that's the hard part), but able to just scoot out of melee and blast away happily instead of being tanklocked by some disposable infantry. I get antsy with that many points sunk into any single thing tho, so I was trying to find some good reviews of the new buggies, but those get a general "Meh" form most people without many details.

There are also standard buggies and wartrakks in Legends, but they're about as good as Deathkoptas, but don't fly, and cost more, so the Koptas seem a better choice (plus I have a bunch already, huzzah).

If Trukks could get a bit more boom on them, moving to a mechanized infantry could be possible. Units of just 10 boyz are super-squishy, but being able to charge, fall back, then charge again helps, and having a trukk there to charge first and suck up overwatch is a big help. I haven't really dove in to the assorted vehicle upgrades, like wrecking balls and whatnot, to see if they might plug a gap that the Trukks lack by not having a Razorback-like option. The Orks have several bike-alikes and Speeder-ish units, plus some smei-heavy tanks, but the medium level, where Razorbacks or Predators would go, is sorely lacking.

So, for now, I'm busy building boys (boys before toys!) and trying to find my old models to see what I might need to pick up in the future. Unlike the Evil Sunz, who are all about getting into melee fast, my guys would be more about hanging back and playing scoot-n-shoot, which is more Eldar than Ork but, well, Mork approves so it's all good.

The Blood Axe strat of 1 CP to infiltrate someone is also *really* good. I mean, yeah, you can use a Teleporta for big stuff, but for small units, half price is darn handy.

But, again, still in theoryhammer mode. Assembling a warboss tho. *really* wish there was a proper head with a cap tho. Blood Axes always look better when wearing hats.

Nostro wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
SW's are the exception to the Marine favor GW is known to shower.
They dont get jack. And when they do its usually not in SW flavor, its copypasted over.

Heh. I'm still scarred by 2nd Ed days when it was the other way around to the point of borkenness, and sometimes I have to remined myself they aren't "just better marines" anymore. SWs got all the vanilla toys plus nifty rules, bling and characters on top, like extra heavy weapons in squads "because they don't follow the Codex Astartes". All it takes is a game designer to love or not an army to swing the army from OP/flavourful to meh/bland... seems they lack a furry friend in the team these days.

Though TBH I find that currently GW writes a better-balanced range of codices and regular point/rules update do much to correct the most glaring balance issues. Not perfect but at least gone are the days of 8 years without a codex update for Orks, that some veterans here may (not so) fondly remember

GW has been putting a lot more effort into the competitive side of 40k. For a long, long time, GW was more about the hobby than the game, and more about the fluffy part of the game than the competitive part. They have made a concerted effort to change that, with very mixed results. But things like how quickly they nerfed their massive IH mistake shows they are trying, even if they aren't always succeeding. 5 years ago IH would have remained totally broken until the next edition (or until the next release broke things even more), because balance just wasn't a big priority.

That said, there's no doubt other considerations still sometimes trump competitive play - for example, I have not the slightest doubt in my mind that part of the reason they were willing to err on the side of overpowering space marines as much as they did was a desire to push sales of the primaris range, given how whelming they were originally. Not that they deliberately tried to create the IH monster - but that they weren't too concerned if they did if the side effect was to entrench primaris and get people to open their wallets for them. But to GW's credit, they don't routinely do this - look at Sisters, for example, a great book to go with a large new line of models, but not overpowered in obvious ways to sell the range.

Honestly I feel the buggies are the razorback/predator equivalent. A bit on the squishier side but will more special rules and nonsense going on. As for the gunwagons, well if they get to use periscope with the new kustom job upgrades they'll have some life, otherwise you're losing out attacks you'd get from a bone breaker or carrying space and opened topped you'd get from a regular battle wagon.

Death Koptas with big shootas are a decent unit. Like Nob bikers with the fly special rule. With Blood axe you can fallback, shoot and charge I believe, making them a pretty versatile unit to have lurking in any cover you can get to with their large movement.

Remember the blood axe strat is infantry only, and under a certain power value.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
SW's are the exception to the Marine favor GW is known to shower.
They dont get jack. And when they do its usually not in SW flavor, its copypasted over.

Right. Nevermind 5th ed wolves were one of the most powerful chapters. Ditto for 2nd edition. Wolves tend to get new kits, have more SW specific kits on store than say DA have DA specific...

lol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

gungo wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Well, if the keep going with dropping it by 50 points each year, I should be about right

There is a small hope you can get a usable stompa from the kustom stompa in the new forgeworld index. I don’t think the points costs will be much lower however it might get a kff and the belly gun can be useful. Gaze of mork and lifts droppa arm may still suck.

Those are resin kits. GW has vested interest in making sure gamers don't buy those. Expect nerfs.

cody.d. wrote:
Honestly I feel the buggies are the razorback/predator equivalent. A bit on the squishier side but will more special rules and nonsense going on. As for the gunwagons, well if they get to use periscope with the new kustom job upgrades they'll have some life, otherwise you're losing out attacks you'd get from a bone breaker or carrying space and opened topped you'd get from a regular battle wagon.

Death Koptas with big shootas are a decent unit. Like Nob bikers with the fly special rule. With Blood axe you can fallback, shoot and charge I believe, making them a pretty versatile unit to have lurking in any cover you can get to with their large movement.

Remember the blood axe strat is infantry only, and under a certain power value.

Blood Axe s fall back and shoot *or* charge, not both, sadly. Whish is why I was looking more at shootyvehicles than melee vehicles. That said? I need to do some serious eyeballing of the Trukk upgrades.

And yeah, the Blood Axe is infantry only, but, that's fine. I was putting together a list of what it works with. 20 Boys, for instance, is sortakinda Da Jump once per game with no chance of failure, or dropping ten Tankbusters into range, having never been shot at, to alphastrike a tank or three, OR bringing in four Meganobz to wreck face and take space.

Using on Burnaboyz, who have an 8" range? Yeah no.

But a unit of regular Nobz suddenly showing up to say hello? Potential.

The Bonebreaka via Telaporta also has potential. Getting the 3D6" charge is expensive, CP wise (but Blood Axes can get those back!), but 9-10 attacks, on a 2+, with, what, Strength 8? 2 damage each, -3 save? That's erasing an entire unit of Primaris (the natural enemy of Da Orks) or rolling up a maxed-out unit of Shining Spears who suddenly find out that, oh yeah, that invulnerable save is only from shooting aie. That thing is a MONSTER, but you gotta use it just right.

And I don't think I'm trained enough to pull that off yet.

Kromlech do ‘Orc officer heads with hats’, but they tend to be Nob sized.

Wakshaani wrote:

cody.d. wrote:
Honestly I feel the buggies are the razorback/predator equivalent. A bit on the squishier side but will more special rules and nonsense going on. As for the gunwagons, well if they get to use periscope with the new kustom job upgrades they'll have some life, otherwise you're losing out attacks you'd get from a bone breaker or carrying space and opened topped you'd get from a regular battle wagon.

Death Koptas with big shootas are a decent unit. Like Nob bikers with the fly special rule. With Blood axe you can fallback, shoot and charge I believe, making them a pretty versatile unit to have lurking in any cover you can get to with their large movement.

Remember the blood axe strat is infantry only, and under a certain power value.

Blood Axe s fall back and shoot *or* charge, not both, sadly. Whish is why I was looking more at shootyvehicles than melee vehicles. That said? I need to do some serious eyeballing of the Trukk upgrades.

That's true for most Blood Axe units but deffkoptas have fly so already have the ability to fallback and shoot, so they get to stack it with the Blood Axe kultur to to fall back, shoot, and charge.
From the FAQ:

Q: Are Blood Axe units with the Fly keyword allowed to both shoot and charge in a turn in which they Fell Back?
A: Yes.

Wakshaani wrote:


And right now, I'm still looking for anyone who's got some experience with Blood Axes in the current set. The only advice anyone had was "Don't play them, play this instead" but, I wanna do Blood Axes, heck with the tournament scene and meta and whatnot.

But if there are any Blood Axes Bosses out there that have stuck to the clan and given it a spin, I'd really love to hear what they have to say. "Just be Deathskulls/Bad moons" does me no good, you know?

**
EDIT1: so that came out as way bigger than intended.

TL;DR:
To make the most of BAs, try and use the facets with different units - means the list will likely be split into a kinda Hammer & Anvil, with the hammer subdivided in two.

ANVIL: shooty not-too mobile units that benefit from staying at range: Gunwagons, SAGs, Trukks/Waggons with shooting content (Flash Gitz, Lootas), Deffdreadz depending on loadout, Naughts depending on loadout

BIG HAMMER: tough (as in resilient or numerous) stuff that wants to charge stuff tougher than they are used to: Bonebreakas/BWs on some things that usually have scary AT, or Boys on some things that usually have scary AI
SMALL HAMMER:
- mobile units who still want to stay at range: Buggies, meched/deepstruck Tankbustas, Deffkoptas
- upfield units: Snikrot, Dead Sneakied characters or small infantry squads (5-man Nobz, 3/4-man MANz, 20-man Boyz), Kommandos, TP'd Dreadz or Naughts, Da Jumped Boyz

For your Anvil to benefit from BA Kultur, you want enough pressure with your Hammers to try and choke the opponent in his DZ as much as possible, keep him from closing in on your backline and force him to use longer range guns on them so you get the trait save bonus.


EDIT2: I don't recall seeing it discussed (because no one uses it ) but while writing the below wall of text, I was wondering about Clever Talk interaction with support overwatch, mostly T'au and some cases here and there (some Guard regiment with Chimera, etc).

RAW is pretty straightforward methinks, you shut down overwatch *from* the opponent unit and no *to* your own unit, so for example if charging a firewarrior squad next to a riptide:
I can clever-talk the FWs, who won't OW but the RIptide is going to FtGG at my unit
or I can also clever-talk the Riptide even if not charging it, the FWs wil OW my incoming charge but the RIptide can tag in.

Not sure if it is RAI (maybe they intended the friends to not be able to support as well) but in the meantime it's to keep in mind for T'au, it's not necessarily better or worse, just different. You'll need to clever-talk the nastiest unit in the vicinity, not necessarily the charge target. It allows you to charge several neighbours i

**


I don't know about a whole BA army but I've been theorycrafting a "Nobmandoz/Shokknobz" concept for a while (because Nobz and Gitz minis are beautiful) and tried to fit in some Blood Axes if only for Snikrot (because the mini is stupendous) so I got thinking about them quite a bit.

I feel the key to making them kinda work is to select units that benefit well from the klan and capitalize on them:

- cover at range => backline shooty units, and a good chunk of your army T1 if going second (saves you potential Prepared Postions cost)
- fallback and charge (or shoot) => frontline units that benefit from charging
- stratagem => characters or small infantry squads
- relic => for a nasty character or two
- PA Power => support frontline units

Sample dets:



So who are the candidates? (Disclaimer: Index-free meta, adapt to your local uses)


*HQ*

For characters, the most useful of Blood Axes aspect is imho Dead Sneaky.
At 1CP it's not too costly to build an annoying character that can second Snikrot in being a pain in the backfield, hiding from LOS and looking to bully objective defenders or tag/destroy fire support, and that you won't care too much to lose.

Fallback and charge may come in occasionally to switch the unit you were tagging but the opponent should have fallen back in its turn already; or to re-trigger the +1D of Brutal But Kunning on a hard target if you need that to win the fight - and can appropriately shut down overwatch if required. Other than that, not very useful.

Cover save as well might come in play if targeted from afar (eg snipers), but edge cases as well.

Warbosses & Megameks

Pre-PA, Morgog's Finkin' Kap would have been used mostly to get Follow Me Ladz for free, or I've Got a Plan Ladz on not-your-warlord.
Post-PA, while those uses are not obsolete, I think the Kap gives more opportunities elsewhere:

Between the Kap, the Killa Klaw and the strats (Biggest & Kleverest Boss) you can build 2 nasty characters instead of one. Granted, they won't individually match the classic KK build, but it means one is more expandable for not being your WL. And both have invuls to shooting. Eg:

- Warboss, Killaklaw, Da Biggest Boss, Warlord (BigKilla Boss)
- Megamek, KFF, PK, Da Kleverest Boss, Finkin Kap (Brutal But Kunning)

You can also stack them on one meanie:

- Warboss, PK, Da Biggest Boss, Finkin Kap (Brutal But Kunning), Warlord (Might is Right) => On the charge 6A with rerolls at S14 AP-3 Dd3+1 (before Fists of Gork), and has 7W at 4++.
- Killaklaw on another Warboss or on a Kleverest Megamek

There are quite some combinations to toy around with BKB, BBK and MiR as offensive traits, even 'Ard As Nails could be useful as a second trait if you're after improved survivability.

SAG Mek

Trait may come in marginally if for some reason you need/want your SAG out of actual cover... not much benefit here.

As for the previous paragraph, there are some shuffling possibilities with the traits, strats and relics, eg:

- SAG Mek, Da Kleverest Boss, SSAG, Warlorld (Bigkilla Boss)
- Warboss, PK, Da Biggest Boss, Finkin Kap (Brutal But Kunning)

or

- SAG Mek, Da Kleverest Boss, Finkin Kap (BigKilla Boss or Ard as Nails)
- Warboss, Da Biggest Boss, KillaKlaw, Warlord (BBK/BKB)

Also, I suspect Dead Sneakying a SAG (or even SSAG) in a backline hole to More Dakka & Double Shoot on an unsuspecting character (or other) may be gloriously fun if nothing else.
More reasonably, DSing somewhere far on a flank to get firing lines on stuff that is hiding from your main firebase can have some uses, even if having moved require More Dakka or landing somewhere he can survive for the next turn (will need bullet sponges like kommandos or Da Jumped grotz/boys)

Weirdboys

Not much benefit to them per se apart from the usual edge case free cover, but if building your list around chargers and infiltrators you'll probably want a lot Fists of Gork, Clever Talk, Da Jump and Warpath, with some levels of redundancy, so I expect you'd want more Weirdboys/Warpheads rather than less.

Deffkilla Wartrike

Here as well not many benefits per se, but if you're loading on Bonebreakas you may want him around.

There's probably also a combo to be found between the KoS relic Trike, the PA relic weapon, PA strat and the Finkin Kap that you may find satisfactory, though each time I try to kit him out I end up feeling I get more value on doing that with warbosses or megameks.


*Troops*

Boyz

Not much to see here: cover and fallback & charge are very unlikely to come up.

You can Dead Sneaky a 20 boys squad for 1CP though, so may be worth considering to coordinate with a Da Jumped squad to saturate an area; or if you were planning on Tellyporting 30 boys for 2CP, considering that as a cheaper alternative.

Da Jumped boyz can be a welcome support / meat shiled to your Dead Sneakied forces.

Grots

Good candidates to hide/ride in wagons of all sorts if you went that route; other thant that use as usual.


*Elites*

Tankbustaz

If you're used to tellyporting 10 TBs, you'll be happy to do that for 1CP instead of 2, or to split them in 2x5 and DS them in different locations for the same 2CP
If you're used to embarking your TBs, you may manage to eke out the +1 save with keeping the transport in the 18-24" range band, preferably at the 24" edge
If you're used to walking your TBs, they'll die just as easily as in other klans. (Ok, infinitesimally less easily if stars align).

Nobz

You can Dead Sneaky a 5-man squad for 1CP (hereby nicknamed Nobmmandos).

Only 5-man because the codex wording makes the squad jump to PL14 with the 6th Nob already which means 2CP to DS, same as Tellyporta.

If you're playing the backfield disruption game thay may come in handy, small footprint to DS and hide on arrival. Unsupported they can go after squishy units; with more commitment you can DS with them a KFF mek to hopefully weather some shooting, and/or a Weirdboy to Clever Talk to tag a shooty unit (Devs, TFC and whatnot) and/or Warpath them to improve damage.

Go easy on weapons, they're unlikely to live very long so keep them cheap and cheerful.

Meganobz

Codex PL wording is better for them so you can actually DS up to 4 MANz for 1CP. Do what they do best, plonk them somewhere they will be annoying to remove. They're easier to use unsupported than Nobmmandos, though support can also make them quite offensive.

Free cover may come in more often as they'll likely be away from the thick of the fight, so in later turns they could wobble out of cover and not worry too much about autocanon potshots or the like. Or in a pinch they could land in the open if you mange your ranges right.

Kommandoz

They look with envy at their Deathskullz brethren, but they can still be used to DS for free alongside your Snikrots and various character infiltrators to provide character protection.


*Fast Attack*

Buggies

For sure they can't match Deathskullz (who does?) but the usual suspects also fare decently, you're trading damage for durability.

Shokkjump Dragstas

They will want to hover in the 18-24" range band (preferably at the 24" edge) to get their save bonus, and it's usually where you want them so all good.
Kustom Job is almost mandatory to be there where you need them.

If you've invested in the Dead Sneaky part of you're army they're a great complement to pull Aeldari-like refused flank shenanigans: you can feign pushing for a flank with them then suddenly deplete it and whizz to the other side of the board where your MANz, KFF, Kommandos and whatnot start landing.

Megatrakk Scrapjet

Same thing as SJD with the 18-24" range.

Thing is, fallback & charge and Spiked ram + PA strats/KJ will tempt you into CC. As debated in the last pages of this thread, this is questionable as a general tactic to build around but can be useful in favourable circumstances / army.

Kustom Boosta-Blasta

A notch below the other two in general, and BA doesn't change that. It's still a choice between keeping it at range for the main gun and closing in for the exhaust, and said choice is harder in BA.

Still, it remains a decent (if not great) unit for its cost so why not; you may find them uses (chaff clearing and rivet potshots) that work with your list even if they themselves never use the BA trait.

Deffkoptas

May occasionally use its save if roaming around the edges of the battlefield, may at times be the best eligible unit to tag a Clever Talked shooty unit (eg: Devs, Leman Russes etc.), may reinforce your forward elements.

Equipped with big shootas it's a cheap low-threat unit than can easily get ignored by the opponent; fast, fly and fall back & shoot & charge, quite decent in CC. He can buzz around and be annoying like a wasp on a summer day.


*Heavy Support*

Bonebreakas

Occasional T1 save boost, occasional fallback & charge because the target will either be dead or have fallen back in their turn.
Main benefit is charging a Clever Talked unit that would normally be too threatening with it's AT loadaout.

Managing to pull off a glorious double BB charge (one with Red Rolla) on a clever-talked Knight or similar must be pretty satisfying.

Battlewagons

Anvil part if you really want to transport some stuff to join the fray; else BBs should work better.
Hammer part if loaded with shooty content to complement your backline: a BW with Forktress loaded with Flash Gitz can be 2+/5++, alongside a 3+ Boomerwagon and a 3+ Zagzapwagon this could force target priority errors for the opponent's longrange AT.

Gunwagons

See above, and as usual with mech the more the better. If the opponent has a couple Bonebreakas and other armour rushing to him, he'll probably concentrate his melta there and shoot long-range at your backline thus granting you the save bonus.
Usual caveat about enemy deepstriking short-range AT of all descriptions.

Lootas

The only way they realistcally benefit from BA - if you really want to use them - is embarked. Their ride may get it's 3+ save and they may get a 4+ save once they loot the wreck of their ride and stay at distance.

Deffdreadz

Not much experience with them but I assume you'd either want them assaulty with Pistons KJ to go join the no-overwatch anvil party, or shooty doing the edge-of-24"-range buggy dance but more clumsily because of your speed. If shooty, you'll probably want Sparkly Bitz for accuracy, or Dirty Gubbinz for resilience (-1 to hit and 2+ Sv in best conditions), or even Pistons to facilitate the buggy dance.

Nauts

Not much experience either but I assume similar ideas than Dreadz, though the opponent will probably close in on them with short-range AT with more urgency than Dreadz so I wouldn't count on the save too much after T1. Situational to benefit from a clever-talked target as they won't often be the more in need of avoiding overwatch (unless they're in danger of eating the fatal last wounds or one that brings you down a bracket in a fight where you'd need them not to)


*Transports*

Trukk

May get its bonus as a platform for shooty units in your Anvil and if you ave enough target saturation. Else they're going to see as much play as in the other klans: not much.


*Planes*

BA is not going to save you from rapid firing bolters, but may come handy here and there against dedicated AA guns, which are mostly longer-range and in the enemy backfield.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wakshaani wrote:

cody.d. wrote:
Honestly I feel the buggies are the razorback/predator equivalent. A bit on the squishier side but will more special rules and nonsense going on. As for the gunwagons, well if they get to use periscope with the new kustom job upgrades they'll have some life, otherwise you're losing out attacks you'd get from a bone breaker or carrying space and opened topped you'd get from a regular battle wagon.

Death Koptas with big shootas are a decent unit. Like Nob bikers with the fly special rule. With Blood axe you can fallback, shoot and charge I believe, making them a pretty versatile unit to have lurking in any cover you can get to with their large movement.

Remember the blood axe strat is infantry only, and under a certain power value.

Blood Axe s fall back and shoot *or* charge, not both, sadly. Whish is why I was looking more at shootyvehicles than melee vehicles. That said? I need to do some serious eyeballing of the Trukk upgrades.

And yeah, the Blood Axe is infantry only, but, that's fine. I was putting together a list of what it works with. 20 Boys, for instance, is sortakinda Da Jump once per game with no chance of failure, or dropping ten Tankbusters into range, having never been shot at, to alphastrike a tank or three, OR bringing in four Meganobz to wreck face and take space.

Using on Burnaboyz, who have an 8" range? Yeah no.

But a unit of regular Nobz suddenly showing up to say hello? Potential.

The Bonebreaka via Telaporta also has potential. Getting the 3D6" charge is expensive, CP wise (but Blood Axes can get those back!), but 9-10 attacks, on a 2+, with, what, Strength 8? 2 damage each, -3 save? That's erasing an entire unit of Primaris (the natural enemy of Da Orks) or rolling up a maxed-out unit of Shining Spears who suddenly find out that, oh yeah, that invulnerable save is only from shooting aie. That thing is a MONSTER, but you gotta use it just right.

And I don't think I'm trained enough to pull that off yet.

You posted that when I was typing so it seems the same units and ideas caught our eye

Just to reply about TPing the Bonebreaka; as I started piling up 1CPs to sneak characters and squad I figured I could spare some CP by pooling them into a BB into the TP (and beyond). I think if you're going for a single monster unit, it could work as you're shielding it from a turn of incoming fire and are willing to invest in Ramming Speed.
Though usual caveats apply: it's a big model so it may be hard to find a favourable spot to TP in, even more if the opponent is careful about spreading out small units to have 9" bubbles zoning out deepstrikers, or any no-DS-in-12" equipement/abilities that are starting to pop up (OTOH at least Marines and T'au have one).
And if you fail the charge you may be surrounded and cargo lost if the BB is destroyed.

If you have other wagons in your list, I'd argue they should all start on the board to add to the T7/8 saturation and force choices from the opponent (more choices = more opportunities for mistakes). Between Kustom Jobs (Forktress, Squig-Hide Tires and RedRolla) and support (Wartrike, embarked KFF Mek, or KFF Wazbom above) you have options to make your charge easier, survive on the way there and do more damage when you arrive. More wagons, less expensive cargo, let the rams & rollas do the job... "Boys before Toys" but Blitz Brigade style

Wakshaani wrote:
And right now, I'm still looking for anyone who's got some experience with Blood Axes in the current set. The only advice anyone had was "Don't play them, play this instead" but, I wanna do Blood Axes, heck with the tournament scene and meta and whatnot.

But if tehre are any Blood Axes Bosses out there that have stuck to the clan and given it a spin, I'd really love to hear what they have to say. "Just be Deathskulls/Bad moons" does me no good, you know?

I was a bloodaxe player until some time after the codex, the sad truth is that playing blood axes basically means not having a culture. I tried hard to make them work, but they just don't.
This isn't even about tournament meta - my "must be this strong to be viable" milestone is player of average skill who started collecting primaris marines with the DI set or one of the magazines and build up his collection with mostly primaris choices. So intercessors, helblasters, eliminators, captain in gravis, sergeant, librarian, one or two redemptors, hover tanks or planes. Some also have chapter-specific units and/or characters and some terminators or devastators. Not a super-powerful army, but one that can definitely win games if played well.
In my experience, you will have a really hard time beating even such an entry-level army with blood axes, no matter what units you bring.

If you have painted your army blood-axe style or you just like the look, there is the option to use one of the subcultures from psychic awakening - there are couple of decent ones in there that you can build around.

Still not convinced? Let's have a look at what bloodaxes can do:
1) Fall back and shoot OR assault
This sounds good if you are used to one of the standard armies like marines or eldar, but it's almost useless for orks. It only ever matters if you find yourself locked in combat during your movement phase, which means you either got charged or you charged something both of you somehow survived two rounds of combat and the opponent didn't fall back. This doesn't happend that often, orks tend to either kill something in combat or get wiped out.
There are very few units that can actually make use of them regularly:
- Megatrakk scrapjet. A unit caught between being decent in combat and not actually wanting to be in combat. As bloodaxes charging is much less of a risk since you can just fallback and shoot if you find yourself stuck in combat. The new kustom job even allows you to use the fight twice to tag and lock down as much as possible. Keep in mind that you cannot shoot *and* charge after falling back.
- Kustom Boosta-Blasta. Similar as above, you can make use of the spiked ram and tie down enemy units without losing your shooting.
- Koptas. These are the one unit which really gets better as bloodaxes, as you can shoot and tie down units every turn with them. With all the these units, make sure you don't charge things which can actually fight back.
- Warbikers. With Kult of Speed, you can have them in combat turn one and at least some of them tend to stick around until your next turn. Fall back and pick a more valuable target to lock down that the screen you hit turn 1.
- Bonebreaka with forktress. While the bonebreaka usually has no trouble kill things while in the first bracket, it might whiff on attack rolls when it degrades and it becomes stuck. Being able to back out of a fight and charge again keeps it more deadly.

2) +1 cover outside of 18"
Honestly, this might as well not exist. The vast majority of ork units have to be within at least 24" to do anything, so you rarely, if ever benefit from it. It helps units like SAGs against snipers, but you tend to be relying on KFF saves anyways.
In a dozen games or so, I had maybe five or six save rolls where it mattered.

3) Snikrot
He is a truely amazing character that can murder entire units by himself. If he bloodaxes weren't so bad, we would see a lot more play.

4) Discount for deep striking INFANTRY of PL8 or less.
The thing is, there aren't actually any good PL8 INFANTRY options. So 10 Burnas, 10 tank bustas, 20 boyz, 5 nobz or 4 MANz. All other units can either deep strike without help or can't use the stratagem. The only one worth considering would be the MANz, and maybe tank bustas. Other units are both to weak at less than full strength and are likely to fail their charges.
One thing you can do is deep strike characters to provide their aura where you need it. I've done this mostly with the Waaagh! banner, but you could also do it with a pain boy and/or KFF.
The big problem I've had here is that you the traits benefits vehicles, while this stratagem want infantry. In a vehicle list you could use MANz for objective grabbing and a banner nob to buff scrapjets or MANz where needed.

5) I’ve Got a Plan, Ladz! (Warlord trait)
On a 6+ you gain back a CP when using them. Sounds good in theory, but you can get back only one per battle round and usually burn through your CP in the first two battle rounds, and you cannot get back CP used for tellyport, kustom jobs, da biggest boss or dead sneaky. So you are looking at 0 or 1 CP, rarely 2.
Not worth sacrificing a warlord trait, especially since you can get +1CP from "Follow me, ladz!" on top of the warboss auras.

6) Finkin' cap
Buy a relic, get a warlord trait instead. Not as good as the killa klaw or the SSAG, but you can do some nice tricks with it, like have a second killy warboss on with Brutal but Kunnin', giving banner nob the warboss aura to create super-.buff bot, or a super-wartrike by piling on Brutal but Kunnin' and might is right on it. The only question is if its worth 3 CP, as the other two relics are already set.

7) Clever Talk
PA brought a pretty nice psychic power, allowing you to shut off overwatch an effectively forcing a unit to fight last on both your and their turn, which serves to reduce casualties. It's good enough to bring a weirdboy just for this, since you have plenty of units looking to stay in combat for longer.

What are they lacking?
- Means to improve their shooting. Ork shooting is pretty mediocre unless you multiply it. Bad Moons re-roll ones and shoot twice, deff skulls get tripple re-rolls, seizure and wreckers, evil suns have visions and can advance and shoot without penalty. Bloodaxes have nothing, which means you are probably locked into mek guns for fire support. You'd do well to put them into a dedicated grot mob battalion. If you do, some kanz with kustom jobs would also be an option. Otherwise, I guess flash gits are an option, but they don't mesh well with vehicles.
- Reliable deep strike assaults. Boyz, nobz, kommandoz or storm boyz won't survive the ~45% chance to fail a charge, so you should avoid deep striking them. A single naut, bonebreaka or deff dread could use ramming speed to get into combat anyways, so that would be an option.

So you're probably looking at a list with some buggies, a bonebreaka or two, some MANz, koptas, warbikers, mek guns and at least snikrot, weirdboyz, SSAG and killa klaw boss as HQ and gretchin for troops.
Sadly, no matter what you build, that very same army would be strictly better if run as deff skulls or evil suns, plus you are running a bunch of less-than-optimal units. In my gaming group, which is pretty laid back in terms of listbuilding, it was not enough to compete.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wakshaani wrote:
Yeah, I've been eyeballing vehicles for a bit to see if anything clicks. The Gunwagon is universally reviled, but, I'm looking at it as a 3-4 Big Shoota platform, plus doubletapping the Killkannon, for 175... T 8, 16 wounds, 3+ save if the enemy's more than 18" away (that's the hard part), but able to just scoot out of melee and blast away happily instead of being tanklocked by some disposable infantry. I get antsy with that many points sunk into any single thing tho, so I was trying to find some good reviews of the new buggies, but those get a general "Meh" form most people without many details.

I assure you that the gunwagon is more meh than most of the buggies Especially scrapjets and shokkjump dragstas have become pretty powerful.
In general, you should avoid buying any big shootas that aren't mandatory, it's a terrible weapon. Look a few pages back for the discussion on this.

If Trukks could get a bit more boom on them, moving to a mechanized infantry could be possible. Units of just 10 boyz are super-squishy, but being able to charge, fall back, then charge again helps, and having a trukk there to charge first and suck up overwatch is a big help.

The issue here is that a unit of 12 boyz charges and is either dead next turn, killed their target or the enemy fell back themselves. You will never be in the situation where a unit of trukk boyz will fall back from an enemy.

I haven't really dove in to the assorted vehicle upgrades, like wrecking balls and whatnot, to see if they might plug a gap that the Trukks lack by not having a Razorback-like option. The Orks have several bike-alikes and Speeder-ish units, plus some smei-heavy tanks, but the medium level, where Razorbacks or Predators would go, is sorely lacking.

Almost all of the vehicle equipment is a waste of time. The only good upgrade is the deff rolla.

So, for now, I'm busy building boys (boys before toys!) and trying to find my old models to see what I might need to pick up in the future. Unlike the Evil Sunz, who are all about getting into melee fast, my guys would be more about hanging back and playing scoot-n-shoot, which is more Eldar than Ork but, well, Mork approves so it's all good.

These days, the only way to use boyz is having units of 30 and deep striking them into your opponent's face. They don't have the durability or the range to sit back and shoot, you can safely assume that the "new player"-marine army I described above will easily wipe out 30-60 boyz within 24". A competitive army or one tailored towards killing orks can tackle 60-90 per turn.
Their job is to keep your enemy busy and drag shooting units into combat so you can focus down high priority targets.

I wouldn't use marines as base level though seeing how brokenly good they are atm...Even with nerfs they still are pulling punches above their point costs.

The brokenly good part is all but irrelevant unless you play the right units. The pile-of-primaris painted in blood angels, dark angels, ultramarines, space wolves or salamanders isn't any stronger or weaker than your average eldar, ork or sisters army.

And I actually made that experience before Space Marines 2.0 - it probably has become worse.

Blood Axe rules are good on paper. Like, being able to universally fall back and charge / shoot is great.

+1 sv is outside of 18" is great (albeit worse than the much better marine version).

But then:
1) Ork units are fragile and don't typically survive multiple combats TO fallback.
2) Most of our guns are short ranged at 24". So, the enemy can just step up and get close if they even care our 6+ save boys are now 5+. Woof.

And if you had to choose that or Grot Mobs, Bad Moons, Evil Suns, Deathskulls, or a Pyro air swing, it seems clear you're just hamstringing yourself.

Not to mention most of ork units have less than stellar saves and armour bonus helps most the more save you have. As it is not that insignificant amount of guns ignore boyz save cover bonus or not!