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As the title says, what's your favorite way to set up a mob of Boyz?

- All one type?
- A mix of Shoota and Slugga/Choppa? (What ratio?)
- Do you bring a Eavy weapon?
- What weapon do you give your Boss Nob?

-Matt

Shootas with the rokkits specials, nob with klaw

If points are tight i can skip the rokkits.

Generally (this is not competitive mind you) I bring 12 or 11 if I also want a character boyz squads with shootas and a rokkit in trukks with shoota/choppa nob, or I bring 30-man assault squads with killsaw nob and no special weapon.

Always Shootas. Getting 2 Shots each at 18" with DDD plus 2 attacks in Melee is far superior to 1 Shot at 12" with DDD and 3 attacks in melee. For one, you'll never get a big mob in melee range.

I can see the argument for a 15/15 split though. Take the casualties from shootas as you move up to keep the choppy guys happy.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Always Shootas. Getting 2 Shots each at 18" with DDD plus 2 attacks in Melee is far superior to 1 Shot at 12" with DDD and 3 attacks in melee. For one, you'll never get a big mob in melee range.

I can see the argument for a 15/15 split though. Take the casualties from shootas as you move up to keep the choppy guys happy.

...By da jumping and having the evil sunz clan trait? I have an easier time getting my ork boyz in melee than pretty much any other faction I play melee troops with.You can just kind of yeet 30 boyz in turn 1 and there's not much they can do to stop you.

I already addressed that: For one, you'll never get a big mob in melee range.

Even if you're DaJumpEvilSunzing it, you want some shootas because you're unlikely to get all 30 guys in melee range.

Too points hungry for a whole army worth of boyz, but I quite like mobbing up the following:
2 killsaw nobz
4 rokkits
4 slugga/choppa/tankbusta bombs
30 shootas

After da jumping them they can conga line shootas and rokkits to a warboss/waagh banner/painboy and still have more boyz at the front than can actually make it into combat. Shooting something behind the target they want to charge is not too terrible with freebootas clan as they can generally land a few extra hits and are big enough to generate a table wide aura if they do kill anything.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I already addressed that: For one, you'll never get a big mob in melee range.

Even if you're DaJumpEvilSunzing it, you want some shootas because you're unlikely to get all 30 guys in melee range.

I agree you wont get all 30 in melee range but Slugga's can shoot at an enemy that is within an inch of a friendly model. So while half your Boyz are in close combat the other half can still shoot at them with Slugga's in the shooting phase. I don't think a Shoota Boy can do anything once his unit is in close combat if he's not within melee range.

But I didn't make this thread for people to argue, I just wanted to see what other people did with their Boyz.

My own thoughts are:

Nob with two Choppa's (cheap and gives your unit five strength 5 melee attacks)
9 Shoota Boyz
20 Slugga/Choppa Boyz

I plan to "Da Jump" these in so the Shoota Boyz are there to provide some initial extra firepower to reduce the overwatch before the charge. If there is a long distance to travel to the next enemy models I can allow Slugga/Choppa Boyz to die or if the gap is short then I can allow Shoota Boyz to die.

-matt

Matt85 wrote:
I agree you wont get all 30 in melee range but Slugga's can shoot at an enemy that is within an inch of a friendly model. So while half your Boyz are in close combat the other half can still shoot at them with Slugga's in the shooting phase. I don't think a Shoota Boy can do anything once his unit is in close combat if he's not within melee range.

You say that as if the Slugga Boyz will be alive the next shooting phase to shoot (either the enemy kills them though two rounds of fighting, or they just consequence free fall back and have the rest of the army delete the boyz via shooting), or that the targeted unit will be alive to stop the shootas from shooting.

Also RaW Pistols don't work like that. (A humorous aside, since I am the only one who enforces that and even then only for me as I am a generous God).

In any case there is a good argument for either specialising in Sluggas or Shootas, or taking a mix. It all depends really.

After some thought, I think BaconCatBug may have a pretty good point.

With a ton of Shoota's you wouldn't have nearly the overwatch when you finally charged and DDD would have a much better chance of giving you extra shots. If the dice gods are favorable you would have more Boyz left over at the end of the turn (if only to soak up a some of the opponents shooting phase).

-Matt

I will be trialling 50/50 splits of sluggas and shootas in my mobs next time I play (though when that will be with the lurgy going around, I do not know...). I think it's a wise decision as you can tailor your list mid game, essentially.

You expect to lose about half your boys before you get to really use them, as they are squishy and we have lots, so it's a fair assumption. So if you need to shop stuff, you remove the shootas, and if you need to shoot stuff, you remove the choppas. it sounds a bit more TAC than a full unit of shootas and a full unit of choppas - the enemy will focus on what they find most threatening. 15 boys is still usually enough to make a fair dent in things, whichever way you equip them.


My usual one is trukks with 10 boys, rokkit and combi-rokkit nob. I run deffskulls so MSU works to their strengths, and having 2 rokkits with a variety of rerolls rolling around works well for me, dakkadakka regularly converts it from something people ignore to suddenly 9 damage to your tank, which is nice to watch.
In conjuntion with twin KMB dreads, it works well for a shoot-em-all-dead kinda list. you can delete most vehicles with average rolls with lots of rokkits and KMB's, backed up with a SSAG with big things hunter. But I digress. Which perhaps is a point - it depends on what role you want them to have.

Matt85 wrote:
After some thought, I think BaconCatBug may have a pretty good point.

With a ton of Shoota's you wouldn't have nearly the overwatch when you finally charged and DDD would have a much better chance of giving you extra shots. If the dice gods are favorable you would have more Boyz left over at the end of the turn (if only to soak up a some of the opponents shooting phase).

-Matt

I've never really had much of an issue getting 30 boyz into melee range, barring maybe 3 or 4 models that don't make it in. And I tend to avoid trying to shoot up the units I'm charging at that much, since my opponent can often add an inch or so to my charge by removing casualties. If I did bring shootas along for the ride, I'd probably use them to shoot units behind the initial front line.

Also, I almost never have problems tripointing with my ork blob. You'll be charging multiple units at once, just select one to put few attacks into and have your boyz kidnap their bones until the enemy turn. I'm almost never able to stop every unit from falling back, but I can usually stop one unit from falling back unless it's some kind of only-flying army.

The common consensus is that 20 sluggas and 10 shootas are the optimal mixture, when taking casualties, you remove the shootas first. The reason is that boyz aren't actually great in combat, so you need those extra attacks the choppas provide to actually have an impact. So why the 10 shootas? BCB basically already nailed it - you'll never get all of them in combat, might as well take some guns for those that don't.

Pure shoota boyz are only worth fielding as a single unit when you are playing bad moons, as you can shoot them twice to clear out chaff. Beyond that, losing the extra attack simply hurts too much, especially when you drop below 20. Sluggas are not part of the equation, since you usually don't want to shoot what you want to charge and rarely, if ever, can reach something else.

One or two rokkits are worth taking if you're deff skulls, otherwise just rely on the free tankbusta bombs and put those points elsewhere.

As for the nob, there is no clear answer. When big choppa, double choppa, klaw and killsaw all have their advantages and disadvantages. Killsaws are better the more primaris marines you face, double choppa helps with hordes. You need to see what fits your playstyle.
Most guns are a waste of points though, a kombi-rokkit is the same as a regular rokkit though.

In general, don't mistake boyz for a unit that does heavy lifting. Their first and foremost job is to restrict your opponent's movement by forcing them to consider the threat of deep strikes, tri-pointing and tagging shooting units and simply blocking movement. Ultimately, your goal is to charge and destroy a unit while arresting another, while tagging as many shooting units as you can.
Every intercessor you don't kill in combat has a realistic chance of killing two boyz in return. The faster you lose boyz, the less likely you are to keep the tri-point intact, the less units you can tag and the less area you can block.

Then again, all this is highly theoretical, I've been running my mobs as pure shootas and choppa nobs - because I hate having to figure out which boyz are equipped with what guns when pulling casualties, moving, counting attacks, and so forth. I don't believe it has ever made any difference in the long run.

(Disclaimer: My friends and I do not play super-optimal lists, so this may not hold true in a competitive setting)

I have to say, it's Shoota Boyz that scare me the most as a Tyranid and Guard player. A 30-strong unit when Da Jump'd can show up, throw out a ridiculous amount of firepower, and then immediately charge into melee. A Nob with a power klaw is a serious melee threat that can't be eliminated without wiping the entire squad.

Slugga Boyz are more specialized for sure, but it's the flexibility of the Shoota Boyz that makes them annoying to deal with. YMMV, I'm sure they'd be less scary if your opponent don't have a lot of T3 infantry.

 catbarf wrote:
(Disclaimer: My friends and I do not play super-optimal lists, so this may not hold true in a competitive setting)

I have to say, it's Shoota Boyz that scare me the most as a Tyranid and Guard player. A 30-strong unit when Da Jump'd can show up, throw out a ridiculous amount of firepower, and then immediately charge into melee. A Nob with a power klaw is a serious melee threat that can't be eliminated without wiping the entire squad.

Slugga Boyz are more specialized for sure, but it's the flexibility of the Shoota Boyz that makes them annoying to deal with. YMMV, I'm sure they'd be less scary if your opponent don't have a lot of T3 infantry.

30 Boyz are 60 shots.
60 shots are 20+3.33=23.33 hits.

For reference, that's a little less firepower than 12 Autobolter Intercessors, which are 6 points more. Or 9, if they have a Chapter Master.

As for the Nob with Klaw, he's looking at 1.5 hits at S10 AP-3 Dd3, or an average of less than 2 damage to a Rhino.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
(Disclaimer: My friends and I do not play super-optimal lists, so this may not hold true in a competitive setting)

I have to say, it's Shoota Boyz that scare me the most as a Tyranid and Guard player. A 30-strong unit when Da Jump'd can show up, throw out a ridiculous amount of firepower, and then immediately charge into melee. A Nob with a power klaw is a serious melee threat that can't be eliminated without wiping the entire squad.

Slugga Boyz are more specialized for sure, but it's the flexibility of the Shoota Boyz that makes them annoying to deal with. YMMV, I'm sure they'd be less scary if your opponent don't have a lot of T3 infantry.

30 Boyz are 60 shots.
60 shots are 20+3.33=23.33 hits.

For reference, that's a little less firepower than 12 Autobolter Intercessors, which are 6 points more. Or 9, if they have a Chapter Master.

As for the Nob with Klaw, he's looking at 1.5 hits at S10 AP-3 Dd3, or an average of less than 2 damage to a Rhino.

Sure. Now scale that hit number up a bit for being Bad Moons and carrying Big Shootas. Still, it's not the shooting that makes them a problem, it's the teleporting anywhere on the board, shooting, and then reliably charging, where they proceed to do more damage in melee than they did in shooting. When I play Guard the usual result is I lose three whole squads and have Orks in my lines, and there's not a whole lot I can do to prevent it.

The obligatory power klaws are more of a deterrent to just siccing Carnifexes on them.

Re-rolling ones adds 2-3 hits.

Big Shootas are a terrible weapons and make any unit less efficient at shooting.

Bad Moon charges are not reliable.

"Three whole squads" cost 120 points, the ork unit you are describing costs 228 and two CP.

Power klaws will not be able to kill a carnifex unless the nob gets extremely lucky.

 Jidmah wrote:
Re-rolling ones adds 2-3 hits.

Big Shootas are a terrible weapons and make any unit less efficient at shooting.

Bad Moon charges are not reliable.

"Three whole squads" cost 120 points, the ork unit you are describing costs 228 and two CP.

Power klaws will not be able to kill a carnifex unless the nob gets extremely lucky.

What makes the Bad Moon charges unreliable? Seems like they would be just as good as any Ork charge with only Evil Sunz having the advantage of +1".

Matt85 wrote:
What makes the Bad Moon charges unreliable? Seems like they would be just as good as any Ork charge with only Evil Sunz having the advantage of +1".

You go up from about 55%~ chance to a 72% chance with Evil Sunz.
Since failing charges is disastrous, arguably this is essential. Its more important than getting say 4 more hits with your shootas (even if you may sometimes get more than this).

Really think it depends on target. Agree that boys are more about control than damage - but they do need to pull their weight a bit. Against something like guardsmen you are going to massively overkill them with sluggas so it feels the extra shots are better. Against say Intercessors though it can feel you are tickling with shootas, and then tickling with punches once below 20 men in the unit. If you don't kill enough, you are just going to get punched back hard and then easily be cleared off in their turn.

Exactly this. Charging from deep strike is only slightly more reliable than rolling a 4+.

As for the overkill, I'd like to point out that overkilling a unit on average also means reliably killing them. Having one guardsmen survive might be a stroke of luck, but one pox walker, cultist, boy or otherwise reinforceable unit can quickly come to bite you.
You also want to wipe out what your charged most of the time, so you can pile into other units.

At the moment I set up my boyz on a shelf. I honestly bring just grotz now because against the armies I play against those 7pt models just die so quickly as to make them useless. My melee is taken care of by scrapjets, nauts and my warbosses.

With whatever looks best. I probably have a 70% choppa 30% shoota split. I sometimes take a rokkitboy because the model I use always seems to be lucky (6 to hit first shot into 5 or 6 second shot).

My ork army is mostly 3rd edition, so I lean heavily on Slugga/choppa.

That being said, I do have some luck running a Battlewagon (meganobs) and three trucks full of boys up the field. I have lootas soften targets with ranged firepower, have the boys pop out of the trucks and tie-up certain units (or hit the leftovers) and the Mega nobs show up a turn later for the killing stroke.

If the boys are inside a fast transport or in melee most of the game they aren't shooting anyway. Nobs get either a choopa if I plan to use them as chaff, or a power claw if I see a use for them hitting a tac marine squad.

I save rokkits for specialized units.

30 Boyz, 10 with Shootas, 19 with Sluggas and Choppas, and a Nob with a Big Choppa and a Choppa.

10 Boyz, 9 with Shootas, and a Nob with a Big Choppa and a Choppa.

The former as the bulk of the army. The latter is a pet squad of mine - a cute way to fill out a Battalion, and with Mob Up you can launch a 40-man unit (with 2 Nobz) into the enemy's lines on turn one.

I run all mone as either all shoota or slugga. I only have AOBR boyz so I have to run em as 1 type for simplicity sake. Usually slugga though because I like ES