Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey all. Recently got back into gaming and have decided to pick up (another) new force to have a play with. I had my third game of 8th ed and first ever with Orks and got my ass handed to me on a silver platter. It was a 750pt beginners game to help me get back into the new system. Albeit, it was 2vMe at one point as the other opponent decided to bring his full Genestealer horde against my army leaving my partner to act as simply an observer.

Anyway, after the Nid player left it because 1v1 and I was playing Custodes. The forces were below and as a beginners list, we ignored Clan/Chapter tactics etc, as well as warlord traits and strategem. Other rules like 'Ere We Go and Dakka Dakka Dakka were in full effect.

My Orks



Custodes Force






So, as I say I got mullered even before the Genestealers had a go, and my biggest issue was A) survivability and B) damage output. Bear in mind these models were built long ago and so are likely out of use, and with a lot of factors such as lack of Klans and strategems, and TERRIBLE dice god influence, going into it as well. However, I'm wondering what could be my next purchases in order to strengthen my army and make iit a little more playable. I will be adding the following units once I pick them up from my brother

Warboss with Kustom Shoota and Power Klaw
18 Boyz with Choppa and Slugga - I will add my 2 Rokkit Launchas and 1 Power Klaw Nob to this unit for a 21man squad
2 Big Shoota boyz - to be added to my 18 Shootas and Kombi-Rokkit Nob
5 Nobs with Choppas and Sluggas
3x Deffkoptas with Rokkit Launchas


So as I say, my main issue seems to be survivability and damage output. When my Nobs and Kans got into kombat (the second time, after I generously allowed to revive after being tabled within 30 mins) they minced a Custodes squad and the dread respectively. But getting them there was a major issue, as was keeping my units alive long enough to do damage. I was outranged at all points and outshot. I was considering perhaps a Battlewagon to get my Choppa Boys up the battlefield quickly along with my Nobs and Warboss in a following Trukk. Or perhaps focus on footslogging Kans, Dreads, etc, with my Shoota boys acting as a firebase and my Fast Attack as harriers on the flanks and distraction units?


Would love to hear thoughts!

Kans: Sorry but they are junk. Junker than junk. One of the worst units orks have. Not as bad as stompa but still just don't use it. Instant upgrade there.

You also have only little boyz. 21 are going to die fast. Rokkits? Inefficient.

Ignoring stratagems, clan traits etc...Heavily favours custodians. Orks live and breath by their stratagems. And they are cheap so getting CP isnt' hard(note also game balance goes wonky on that small point level. Game is designed with 1500-2000 pts bracket level). Custodians have some sweet stratagems as well but overall it's orks who suffer from lack of those most. Also clan traits...orks have them. Custodians don't. If you remove them of course it's going to favour custodians! You are paying for abilities you don't use...

But anyway you'll probably want another boy box or two to bring to 30. Maybe 30+10(for mob up stratagem). Also grot box or two(depending on do you go for 30 or 30+10 boyz) to give you 3 troops for that sweet battallion for 5CP. Need another HQ as well. Current sweetness is shock attack gun, preferably with souped up relic version from vigilus book.

From there mek guns(except bubblechukka) are pretty darn useful giving ranged firepower. However money wise they are expensive...Good thing is buying trukk kit you can with some kitbashing build all 4! Albeit that includes the lol bad bubblechukka(why gw nerfed that one with codex I have no idea...It was bad already before. Why nerf further?) but still KMK+smasha gun+traktor kannon for more reasonable price than buyin 3 mek gun kits!

But seriously work your way for stratagems and clan traits. Orks really need them to work. Without them your pretty much only stratagem is take as much guns and hope you'll outshoot enemy off board. Mek guns by the bucketload. Well orks are still oddly enough rather shooty force.

Everything I think is already said, so I will just add that your boyz with rockkits can get a single squad of 10 and you can go 10 tankbustas, then you put those 10 guys inside the trukk, so you can shoot 10 rockkits from inside.

You want to get more boyz to bump them to the max allowed, then a mek with force field generator within bubble. Nobz in termie armor are pretty resilient, but they are slow and would require a battlewagon; Gretchen squads to cap objectives and screen your orks; mek with big gun for some random fun; Gretchen field arty are cheap in pts and can do some serious damage, but they are expensive kits.

Another case in point for stratagems. Screen you orks regarding gretchins above can have 2 meanings. One to be at front mainly to push deep strikers away and soak up charges. Other is "grot screen" stratagem which allows you to direct shots fired at unit to grots instead. Say you have nice unit of lootas or tank bustas. Soft, easily killed. Put in some grots in front of them and only 1/6 shots will hit orks. Rest kill grot instead!

(mind you it's not bullet proof thing but helps a lot with survivability. Flip side is it only protects one unit per turn)

Agree with everything what tneva said - Orks run on masses of CP and sinking them into one of the best collections of stratagems in the game. Meanwhile, custodes run on having awesome statlines and only use them occasionally.

Some things not mentioned yet:
1) Get a weird boy. Track down a metal version of the current one, buy one of the orruk ork shamans, kitbash one from the stuff you have or get a third party model. If all fails, buy the resin one you can currently get, but I assure it's not a great model. It's rules however are awesome - Da Jump allows you to send mobs of 30 boyz in your opponent's face starting turn 1, warpath makes them even more killy and smite is a great way to get rid of annoying units with good saves.
2) Treat yourself some gretchin. 1x10 gretchin +1 weird boy + another HQ are a great way to get another 5 CP and have three units of gretchin to sit on objectives while the rest of the horde goes to krump stuff
3) Make sure to play missions from CA2018 or CA2019 instead of kill-them-all-style games. Those missions are a lot more balanced and make sure that armies don't sit in a corner and shoot all game. Missions from the BRB are ok, but immensely favor the person going first and thus armies with few units.

For more info, join us in this thread: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/767149.page

I try to keep the first post as up to date as possible as a starting point for new players.

A lot of comments, thanks a lot guys and I'm going to try and break it down into a series of smaller related topics

Stratgems bitz

Evil sun(8" charges from deep strike), death skull(1 reroll to hit, wound, damage and inv) and bad moons(shoot twice stratagem) are considered to be best klans. At smaller level like here would go with evil sun or death skull if you get some units that utilize like the relic shock attack gun. Evil sun is safe option as well.

For boyz i'm fan of 19 melee, 10 shoota and nob for unit.

For stratagems key ones would be grot screens, mob up, green tide at least depending on situations. More dakka can be useful for certain units when you suffer -1 to hit.

Killa kans kill in melee average 1 marine. Not good. They also die in droves being super soft targets.

For grots cheap option is hunt for 2nd ed monopose ones at ebay. Albeit not that pretty...alternatives harder to come up. Grot screen works only on grots and for other uses you pay more than double for same effect essentially with 10 boyz :/

Btw mek will likely get datasheet in future since points are in chapter approved and depending on how tournament influenced your meta is could get okay right away. After all tournament legal points exists already...

This sums up the basics


I personally lootas are perfect for chewing up anything in power armour. I also found that five lootas are fine, but ten of them are great. Plant them in cover and just shoot anything that stands out in the open or use a weirdboy to jump them somewhere with a good view.

Mind you 10 lootas shooting twice will average 40 shots, about 18 hits(calculating by head), 12 wounds and 4 dead primaris marine in cover. Nice but i would not go nuts with that. Also very cp heavy and sub1000 pts not that many cp. And custodians are twice as tough even in open...

With repulsors, dreadnoughts etc coming tankbustas could be good alternative.

i generally dont even use lootas anymore. With cover going to a mod and everyone having AP1-2 in droves our "special boyz" just die way too fast to even bother, Tankbustas nonwithstanding since they can usually wreck things to justify their cost and arent stationary.

On topic: i find orks to be the hardest army to recommend anyone buy stuff for. Mostly because truth be told they are so varied in what you can do and you MUST use multiples of certain units to get anywhere with them that unless you hard-lock yourself into one game type (i.e. greentide) you are gonna end up getting a ton of units you wont use very often.
Thats kind of why my ork collection is so massive and keeps getting bigger....i wanna try some units out but i cant simply "slap one in" because orks dont work that way. Nauts are the closest to a unit that we can use in any list and even they suffer if you lack other vehicle targets.

 Deadshot wrote:
So here you guys are mostly saying that I need more boyz. Thats fair, I definitely do. What is the ideal number for boyz and each loadout per 500pts? As mentioned, by end next month I will have 18 Choppa/Slugga, 18 Shoota, 2 Rokkit and 2 Big Shoota, with the Rokkits accompanying the Choppas and so on. Each has a Nob with Klaw and kombi-rokkit respectively.
My current tally with the models I have is 1300, so another 200pts would be ideal. Should invest solely in Boys to bring each squad to 30? Make another squad of 20 equipped with what?

Unlike in previous editions, it's 30 boyz or go home. You'll only get +1 attack as long as you are above 20 models, so you need some casualties you can take before losing that. In addition, large blobs have higher morale after taking high amounts of casualties (plus they provide it to surrounding units), and any stratagem used will be more effective on 20 models than on 30. Last, but not least, 30 models are harder to wipe out in one go, so if even one survives, you can use the "Endless Green Tide" stratagem to get a free 30 boyz once per game.
A single unit of 10 is sometimes viable so you can throw 40 boyz across the board with Da Jump. I wouldn't plan on multiple

The optimal lout-out would be a cheap nob with choppa or big choppa and no special weapons besides free tankbusta bombs. Some use a 20/10 split between choppas and shootas, removing the shootas first when taking casualties. But the difference to all choppa or all shoota mobs is so small I stopped bothering.
I've also had quite some success with 3 rokkits + 1 kombi rokkit on nob, but YMMV. Stay away from big shootas, just count the models as regular shootas with tank busta bombs in their backpacks

Or some heavier units? 6 squads of 10 to hit the Brigade detachment and Mob Up later? Also, are stratagems like Ardboyz and Skarboyz worth using?

Lootas, flash gits and tank bustas are your orks if you are trying to branch out into more dakka. Lootas need some gretchin to survive, flash gits work both in trukks or with gretchin, tank bustas go in trukks or can use the tellyport stratagem to tellyport right next to whatever you are planning to turn into a crater.
In general two battalions are superior to one brigade as elite and fast attack units rarely mesh well for orks. The extra 2 CP is not worth bringing some bad units.
Skarboyz require you to run Goff, which are not great unless you are already running Thrakka. 'ardboyz aren't worth the trouble, 5+ is not worth 2CP.

Regarding the Gretchin, they seem to pretty vital in the competitive scene. Albeit, they also seem to be very expensive in £££, and one of my least favourite units. Is there an alternative strategy I can use?

Not really. Boyz have the job of keeping your opponent occupied until the big hitters have done their job, but at 210+ points per unit, they can't generate enough CP to make your army work. So you basically need at least three units of those little buggers in order for your army to properly function.

On the HQ side of things I will likely be swapping my Big Mek for a Warboss as the Mek isn't legal anymore (not even in Legends!) but would it be smarter to chuck a Wierdboy in there rather than more boyz? What about Warphead?

Actually the legality of that model is contested. The intention is probably to keep it around, as "Big Mek with Kustom Force Field" appears on the list for codex models, except there is currently no datasheet that allows you to create such a big mek. This might change once they release the FAQ for CA 2019

Killa Kans - what makes them so weak? They were quite effective for me yesterday. The first time was extremely bad luck with rolls that saw them get munched by the Dreadnought, but I failed every save and he seemed to roll nothing lower than a 6 for overwatch and melee. The second time however, I pasted that Dread so hard it wasn't even funny. Obviously, T5 with a 3+ save isn't fantastic.

Basically they are a shooting unit with mediocre melee added on. But most of their weapons are terrible, and one shot rokkits doesn't compare well to units like mek guns, buggies or koptas.
In general, they are just too expensive for what they do and they receive no help from culture or stratagems due to being gretchin.

What about stuff like Deff Dreads instead?

Deff dreads with two KMB as deff skulls or all melee for evil suns have both done well for quite some ork players. Both kinds drop out of the tellyporta to solve the issue of them dying on the way to their targets.

What about transports for my units to get them closer? Battlewagon, Trukk, etc?

8th edition has not been kind to transports of any kind. Due to open topped, they see some play to ferry tank bustas or flash gits around, but that's about it. Bonebreakas (battlewagon with deff rolla) also see play, but usually as melee threat and not as transport.

Also Jidmah I tried to have a look at the big thread before making this one but couldn't make heads o

If you have any questions, just post them here or there. Orks tend to help each other out
In general, if you are unsure what clan to pick, go with deff skulls. They are an all-round faction which works for pretty much every unit in our codex.
Second advice on culture: Use whatever you like painting

Apologies for the lack of replies to various comments, its been a busy week and I haven't gotten a chance to really have a look! However, I have taken into account some thoughts for last nights game so I'm going to give a quick breakdown of how it went.

I played the same list as before, however, this time it was an objectives based game. 1 in my deployment zone, 1 centre, 1 in opponents, worth 1, 2 and 3 points respectively (and vice versa for the other player). I was playing against a Mechanised Imperial Guard force this time and it was surprisingly close!

Orks


Guard



Although we did leave off clan and regimental rules this time, we did delve into Warlords and CP/Stratagems. Once again I played as a disadvantage with only having a Partol vs a Battalion. That said, I did manage to slaughter half his army with my Nobs and if the game had ended on Turn 5, I would have won by controlling the middle objective and contesting the one in my deployment zone.

Some highlights

- Ork Nobs butchering their way through 2 chimeras, an infantry squad and the commissar
- Warbiker Nob staying alive to contest the home objective until turn 6 after losing his buddies turn 1
- Boyz managing to shoot the last Heavy Flamer Chimera to death on the final turn before being wiped out to a man on the final objective.
- Guard rolling NO on 31 dice for overwatch!
- A successful boarding action from my Nobs on Trukk to a Chimera, killing it.

Lowlights

- Killa Kans failing to do significant damage with the Ramming Speed stratagem. I needed a 10 inch charge to hit the Infantry on the Guard home obective, and I figured I may as well try to inflict a few more casualties seeing as they need have a WS of 5+. I managed to get the charge, and after a stratagem that allows his whole squad to use Grenades, was rolling 31 shots but failed to hit a single one! My ramming speed however, only granted me 1 mortal wound, and I managed to kill 4. Another stratagem allowed him to roll D3 for morale this turn instead of D6 so he lost no men, and on his turn, fell back and blasted my Kans with his Russ.
- Losing 2 Warbikers immediately to a failed charge. Rolling snake eyes for the distance of 5 inches, even with 'Ere We Go Rerolls, and losing 2 bikers to Overwatch from the Sentinel. He spent the rest of the game taking ineffective potshots while camping home base.
- My Trukk did manage to knock a wound off a Chimera in melee, however, I forgot the Wrekking Ball, and so, on its last wound, made a desperate last charge at the 2" away Sentinel in order to tie in into combat and not have it shoot my Biker or Nobs. However, as expected, Overwatch killed it and it failed to even explode.
- A final ineffective charge from my Biker to a 1 wound sentinel. A desperate move but the alternative was to watch both flamer the biker to death on my opponent's turn.




Lessons

- More. Choppas.
My most effective unit by far was my Nobs who just waded through enemy infantry, and only a combined salvo from his Russ and final Infantry managed to put them down in the end. They were dead choppy. I think once I get my brother's Black reach stuff, add 5 Choppa nobs to the unit and a squad of 20(+) Choppa Boyz, I will Trukk the Nobs forward and Tellyporta the Boyz.

- More dakka
I definitely need more ranged firepower, particularly at long range as more of the time I am outranged by Imperial weaponry. Particularly Imperial Guard who can do so much shooting even on overwatch.

- Anti-tank
While my Nobs made a name for themselves, I do not think they have reliably enough delivery system to take out protected armoured targets, and in enough quantity, to deal with mechanised lists. I'm thinking perhaps Lootas would cover the last 2 points of Long Range Dakka and Anti-tank. Tankbustas are my second thought but as a short ranged option, only have 1 shot Rokkits each, I can't see them being too effective but have seen them recommended.

- Durability
After another game of getting shot to pieces, more durability would definitely be welcome. While my Kustom Force Field helped with the Boyz at the last turn, and my Nobs and Kans survived a lot of firepower, that is purely down to the fact I was mostly facing Lasguns which hit on 4+, wound on 5+ and grant my normal armour. As soon as I faced any AP value or Strength higher than 3 I dropped like flies, including the previous week versus Custodes bolters. I feel like as soon as I face Primaris Marines or similar, I'll go down very quickly. That said, playing again without Clans I now see the true value of DeathSkulls for that 6+ invulnerable save as well rerolls.




Thoughts

The black reach stuff will add Deffkoptas for supporting my often overwhelmed Bikes and Stormboyz as well as Anti-vehicle in their rockets. More nobs to act as ablative wounds for the Klaw nobs, as well as a Warboss to support, will make that deathstar much more durable. More Choppa boyz also welcome as discussed. Beyond that I'm still unsure about getting Gretchin as I hate the models and cost factors. All in I'll be at 1300 points even, and another 20 boyz to bring each mob to 30 will give me flexibility as well as bring me to 1510. Another 10 man unit of Choppa boyz (AKA, WHFB Savage Orcs) plus nob will give me a Battalion for extra CP. A squad of Lootas or a Wierdboy would let me approach 1750.

As everyone said, boys are the primary focus. Ideally for a starting army you'd want at the very least 60 to play around with. They die very fast and da-jump scares people.

Gretchen are fairly cheap $ wise and very cheap point wise. Even better you can convert those herders into weird boys with little to no effort.

After that, entirely up to you.

Dajump scares people so much it actually made me burst out laughing once when a marine player started crying about it.

My response to that comment was "if you as an ultrasmurf seriously think dajump is broken im not going to tell you why its not, because its painfully obvious"

Dajump gets your boyz killed more than it helps if you arent smart about it. Its super easy to forget that sending a boy squad forward usually gets them killed if you dont have a plan (i like to jump them under a wazbom for that extra protection). Theyre in the open most often and in rapidfire range now.
Dajump pretty much ONLY works on boyz, since every other valid target all its ever going to do is pull them out of melee (that is, if they survived to do this in the first place)
Dajump triggers "from reserves" effects per big faq...annoyingly...so they can be auspex scanned.

Tons of ways to royally screw up and lose a ~250pt unit but its still so good when done right you should never NOT do it if you have 30man boyz to begin with.

I hate playing against Primaris with boys.

Da Jump in, get shot from scan. Get hit again from all the dakka in overwatch+rerolls. All of it of course having AP so no saves. Finally my survivors make it in and maybe kill 1-2 marines and watch these giants just punch me to death without mercy.

I absolutely hate the idea of telling newer players to buy 60-90 of any models. I remember looking at those price tags and getting discouraged myself when told this. But if you don't... you're not going to make it very far.

 Vineheart01 wrote:


Tons of ways to royally screw up and lose a ~250pt unit but its still so good when done right you should never NOT do it if you have 30man boyz to begin with.

Da Jump is an amazing power. Marines have a solid, relatively inexpensive counter to it though, so should just largely welcome the free kills.

I think it's still useable in the matchup, but not so much in the typical Ork style of "Waaaagh" and charge down their throat.

I honestly think with the plethora of new DS defensive abilities coming out, I wonder if smaller sized units will start coming into vogue for Orks. Auspex Scan / Forewarned (etc) starts to look far less appealing if they can only kill ~120 points of Orks vs 210+. Or, if you can drop multiple units at the same time, they can only affect half as many models.

It would be funny Da Jump something like deathskull boyz that string back to a painboy... all of a sudden Da Boys are shrugging off 30% of the wounds and dropping 2 CP starts to look like a bad tradeoff.

 Vineheart01 wrote:

On topic: i find orks to be the hardest army to recommend anyone buy stuff for. Mostly because truth be told they are so varied in what you can do and you MUST use multiples of certain units to get anywhere with them that unless you hard-lock yourself into one game type (i.e. greentide) you are gonna end up getting a ton of units you wont use very often.
Thats kind of why my ork collection is so massive and keeps getting bigger....i wanna try some units out but i cant simply "slap one in" because orks dont work that way. Nauts are the closest to a unit that we can use in any list and even they suffer if you lack other vehicle targets.

Very much this. To add to it, I really think the best way to begin with orkz is to pick the model you like the most and then the rest of your army sticks to similar toughness, wound, and armor values of your favorite unit. You like boyz? Well then the rest of your army should be one wound, toughness 4 models. In this example, your army is full of toughness 4 models, and on turn one and two you want to eliminate as many anti-horde weapons as you can, and hopefully you'll still have an army by turn six.

In short, to have some sort of success with orkz, you don't want Kanz, Nobz, and boyz all in the same list. Damage D6 weapons will shoot at the kanz, Damage 2 and 3 weapons will go at the Nobz, and high shot count weapons will be fired at your boyz. Your enemy will likely have all three, so what you've effectively done is made his offense more efficient. You are trying to design your list such that your enemy's Damage D6 weapons are firing at ork boyz, or their anti infantry weapons are fired at some vehicles. It is then you will find yourself having more success. To do that with orkz you'll have to go all in with one type of model you like.

 Rismonite wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:

On topic: i find orks to be the hardest army to recommend anyone buy stuff for. Mostly because truth be told they are so varied in what you can do and you MUST use multiples of certain units to get anywhere with them that unless you hard-lock yourself into one game type (i.e. greentide) you are gonna end up getting a ton of units you wont use very often.
Thats kind of why my ork collection is so massive and keeps getting bigger....i wanna try some units out but i cant simply "slap one in" because orks dont work that way. Nauts are the closest to a unit that we can use in any list and even they suffer if you lack other vehicle targets.

Very much this. To add to it, I really think the best way to begin with orkz is to pick the model you like the most and then the rest of your army sticks to similar toughness, wound, and armor values of your favorite unit. You like boyz? Well then the rest of your army should be one wound, toughness 4 models. In this example, your army is full of toughness 4 models, and on turn one and two you want to eliminate as many anti-horde weapons as you can, and hopefully you'll still have an army by turn six.

In short, to have some sort of success with orkz, you don't want Kanz, Nobz, and boyz all in the same list. Damage D6 weapons will shoot at the kanz, Damage 2 and 3 weapons will go at the Nobz, and high shot count weapons will be fired at your boyz. Your enemy will likely have all three, so what you've effectively done is made his offense more efficient. You are trying to design your list such that your enemy's Damage D6 weapons are firing at ork boyz, or their anti infantry weapons are fired at some vehicles. It is then you will find yourself having more success. To do that with orkz you'll have to go all in with one type of model you like.

I think this is a little too pessimistic. It's true that you can't just trade units in and out willy-nilly with orks to try something new. But if you have a careful plan, you don't have to go all-in on one particular type. Orks are blessed with a number of stratagems (primarily grot shields and tellyporta, but there are others too) that give you a lot of freedom to control what your enemy can shoot at, and da jump gives you infantry incredible mobility. Combine all that with clever deployment, and you can see definite success without necessarily going in hard on one particular type of units. You just have to be really thoughtful about how you are going to use mixed units, not just throw them in for the hell of it.

In other words, although the easiest way to make sure your opponent is wasting his anti-tank weapons shooting cheap 1-wound model units is to only take those types of units, it isn't the only way.