Are horde armies really all that bad?

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**stratigo**

Jidmah wrote:
stratigo wrote:
I mean, it worked well enough on Tabletop titans. The trick isn't not dying, it's dying slow enough to max your primaries while always having a threat to an objective.

I watched their battle report because I play both DG and orks, and the ork player should not have won that game if both had known what they were doing. The DG player made lots of big mistakes and had an odd army to begin with, and the ork player got tons of rules wrong and was quite lucky. Clearly neither had a lot of experienced in operating their corresponding armies, the were both just running one of the armies that they happen to own. They are great guys and I really enjoyed watching them play, but I'd take the opinion from someone who knows orks inside out and has years of experience playing them like blackie or other posters on this forum over their any day. Someone who has played orks for a decade simply has a different insight on what works and what doesn't than someone who played the top tier build of 8th edition a couple of times.

Not to mention that one of the main weaknesses of DG is killing hordes, their best shot at doing so is a unit of terminators with storm bolters.

Honestly, I don't think warbosses are worth much any longer. two KFF and two wierdboyz. teleport boyz squads onto objectives, in front of advancing enemies. Don't look to kill with them. Use your shooting to kill.

Considering how you suggest wasting most of your CP and over half your points on boyz squads, what shooting do you suggest is doing the killing?
A klaw warboss is mandatory to kill certain things, and it does so at a great value. Heck, with death skulls I could even see the foot warboss making a return because he has objective secured.

Now, I admit, this kinda sucks for orks to not be great at melee any more, and more about shooting/trying to die slowly. And they aren't the best faction in the game. But they're mid tier. Better than GSC and demons for sure. And maybe dark eldar at this point too, poor dark eldar. I think they'll be a good counter against armies set up to kill marines.

Orks haven't been great at melee since 5th.

You also don't need to convince me that orks aren't having it bad. I said as much in the very first post, precisely because of all the great shooting units we have. Sparkly morkanaut, mek guns, wazbomm, burna bommers, SJD, scrapjet, KBB, da boomer and tank bustas all got below average price hikes and many of them will be better than before due 9th edition rules. The only thing that's deader than dead are lootas.
If orks will be struggling in 9th - of which I'm not sure of yet - it will be because of overcosted troops.

I dunno how you're gonna grab objectives without boyz. You don't need 90 of them, but a block of 30 is still gonna be useful. Unless MANz are suddenly good enough to delete the enemy's shock troops, but they strike me as way too fragile against the kind of shooting and melee everyone is going to tech in to to try and kill primaris marines. I think boyz are a sticky unit that's going to dodge what most people are teching into.

**Blackie**

stratigo wrote:

I dunno how you're gonna grab objectives without boyz. You don't need 90 of them, but a block of 30 is still gonna be useful. Unless MANz are suddenly good enough to delete the enemy's shock troops, but they strike me as way too fragile against the kind of shooting and melee everyone is going to tech in to to try and kill primaris marines. I think boyz are a sticky unit that's going to dodge what most people are teching into.

How do armies with no units bigger than 5 man squads (or even 10 actually) grab objectives? Elite oriented and or vehicles heavy ork lists will do the same.

**Not Online!!!**

Blackie wrote:
stratigo wrote:

I dunno how you're gonna grab objectives without boyz. You don't need 90 of them, but a block of 30 is still gonna be useful. Unless MANz are suddenly good enough to delete the enemy's shock troops, but they strike me as way too fragile against the kind of shooting and melee everyone is going to tech in to to try and kill primaris marines. I think boyz are a sticky unit that's going to dodge what most people are teching into.

How do armies with no units bigger than 5 man squads (or even 10 actually) grab objectives? Elite oriented and or vehicles heavy ork lists will do the same.

Rhino castles might make a comback?
75pts a bit steep imo for one, but 3 x are only 225 pts, for some decent hiding, whilest more aggresive tools tie up the enemy more prominently, in a way it forces people to keep the momentum and play more offensive to allow their smaller troops to score.

**grouchoben**

I've just watched the latest Tabletop Tactics batrep (which was really good) and Lawrence, who is a pretty great player and was been involved heavily in the playtesting, had a lot to say about 9e, and it was very encouraging stuff.

If you're a premium member I recommend watching it asap (Eldar vs Iron Warriors) to hear what he says.

The basic gist is chill the feth out, this is a first rough pass, 9e played with 8e armies and rules will hopefully be shortlived, don't overreact with limited information. I'll take it to heart and avoid this kind of discussion for a month or so and see what transpires. In particular he mentioned CSM getting fixed, but couldn't reveal the when of it.

**Unit1126PLL**

grouchoben wrote:
I've just watched the latest Tabletop Tactics batrep (which was really good) and Lawrence, who is a pretty great player and was been involved heavily in the playtesting, had a lot to say about 9e, and it was very encouraging stuff.

If you're a premium member I recommend watching it asap (Eldar vs Iron Warriors) to hear what he says.

The basic gist is chill the feth out, this is a first rough pass, 9e played with 8e armies and rules will hopefully be shortlived, don't overreact with limited information. I'll take it to heart and avoid this kind of discussion for a month or so and see what transpires. In particular he mentioned CSM getting fixed, but couldn't reveal the when of it.

Ah so he pulled the old goalpost move.

"You can't freak out about the leaks, we need the whole rulebook."
"You can't freak out about the whole rulebook, we still need points."
"You can't freak out about the points, we still need FAQs."
"You can't freak out about the FAQs, we still need to play some games."
"You can't freak out about the played games, we need to wait for [Insert Next Thing Here]."

**Blackie**

Not Online!!! wrote:

Rhino castles might make a comback?
75pts a bit steep imo for one, but 3 x are only 225 pts, for some decent hiding, whilest more aggresive tools tie up the enemy more prominently, in a way it forces people to keep the momentum and play more offensive to allow their smaller troops to score.

IMHO rhinos were solid even in 8th, so yeah I expect longtime SM players who have classic vehicles like rhinos to use them and do fine. Sisters will definitely use them, like always.

**Not Online!!!**

Blackie wrote:
Not Online!!! wrote:

Rhino castles might make a comback?
75pts a bit steep imo for one, but 3 x are only 225 pts, for some decent hiding, whilest more aggresive tools tie up the enemy more prominently, in a way it forces people to keep the momentum and play more offensive to allow their smaller troops to score.

IMHO rhinos were solid even in 8th, so yeah I expect longtime SM players who have classic vehicles like rhinos to use them and do fine. Sisters will definitely use them, like always.

i guess CSM more then SM, because the lack of primaris.
Also havoc launchers...

**catbarf**

Blackie wrote:
stratigo wrote:

I dunno how you're gonna grab objectives without boyz. You don't need 90 of them, but a block of 30 is still gonna be useful. Unless MANz are suddenly good enough to delete the enemy's shock troops, but they strike me as way too fragile against the kind of shooting and melee everyone is going to tech in to to try and kill primaris marines. I think boyz are a sticky unit that's going to dodge what most people are teching into.

How do armies with no units bigger than 5 man squads (or even 10 actually) grab objectives? Elite oriented and or vehicles heavy ork lists will do the same.

From what I've seen, the best way for an elite army to grab objectives is to:
-Park a very tough unit on it, preferably in a forward position that prevents the enemy from getting within range to contest it (eg don't put your squad on the objective, put them 2" in front of it), or
-Put some cheap obsec troops on it if you can keep them out of LOS.

Big units of Boyz are a reliable way to hold objectives, but that's a lot of points tied up just in one objective, where MSU has an easier time grabbing multiple. A 5-man squad of Intercessors isn't too tough to clear out, but if you've got a 5-man squad on each of four objectives you will probably start your next turn still holding at least a couple.

One thing that I think is more important than ever is board footprint, and it's a bit of a double-edged sword. A mob of 30 Boyz takes up a lot of space, which is useful for screening the enemy out away from the objective, but also prevents friendlies from getting in. With the smaller boards and emphasis on movement, those big hordes can really block movement for both players. I did a test game with multiple big blobs of Termagants, and found that while being able to wall off part of the board was handy, they also got in the way of my actual combatants. Losing an objective because I could only fit the Termagants on it, only to have them get mulched by massed bolter fire, was quite frustrating.

That said, all of this goes out the window if you play on planet bowling ball. Terrain is really critical to the game now.

**Martel732**

Planet Bowling ball was largely a myth. It's just that a lot of boards had a ton of cover and nothing else because of how GW wrote terrain in 8th.

**Jidmah**

stratigo wrote:
I dunno how you're gonna grab objectives without boyz. You don't need 90 of them, but a block of 30 is still gonna be useful. Unless MANz are suddenly good enough to delete the enemy's shock troops, but they strike me as way too fragile against the kind of shooting and melee everyone is going to tech in to to try and kill primaris marines. I think boyz are a sticky unit that's going to dodge what most people are teching into.

That goalpost moved quickly from "5++/6+++ boyz have staying power" to "you only need one unit". You need at least two squads to make them work, as well as a weird boy and multiple stratagems, including, but not limited to, endless green tide (2CP), get stuck in (3CP) and tellyport(2CP). Your original strategy also requires a KFF mek and a doc on top of that. And let's not forget that the 1/2" rule means you usually get about 10 orks in combat instead of the ~20 that could fight in 8th.
And no, people do not need to gear towards removing 30 boyz, the random guns on vehicles, characters and troops tend to be plenty to kill them.

Every ork infantry model, including MANz, can have objective secured if you run them as deff skulls, which is currently one of the top contenders for mono-clan builds. Most weapons geared towards killing primaris actually aren't that hot against MANz because they are 2+/W3, while the dual killsaw MANz shred primaris easily, and have a new +1 damage stratagem for bigger targets and can fight twice just like boyz. You can even try to get them +1 to their armor roll by having a vehicle die near them.

It is possible that brigade armies with 4-6 units of boyz will just drown the table in models and keep winning games by bringing more models than they have bullets like orks have done for a long time now. But that does not make a single unit of boyz a good unit in any way, their offensive power sucked in 8th and it has gotten worse. Not to mention that these armies are boring as heck to play, so pretty much any meta other than that would be preferable.

**Thousand-Son-Sorcerer**

Unit1126PLL wrote:
grouchoben wrote:
I've just watched the latest Tabletop Tactics batrep (which was really good) and Lawrence, who is a pretty great player and was been involved heavily in the playtesting, had a lot to say about 9e, and it was very encouraging stuff.

If you're a premium member I recommend watching it asap (Eldar vs Iron Warriors) to hear what he says.

The basic gist is chill the feth out, this is a first rough pass, 9e played with 8e armies and rules will hopefully be shortlived, don't overreact with limited information. I'll take it to heart and avoid this kind of discussion for a month or so and see what transpires. In particular he mentioned CSM getting fixed, but couldn't reveal the when of it.

Ah so he pulled the old goalpost move.

"You can't freak out about the leaks, we need the whole rulebook."
"You can't freak out about the whole rulebook, we still need points."
"You can't freak out about the points, we still need FAQs."
"You can't freak out about the FAQs, we still need to play some games."
"You can't freak out about the played games, we need to wait for [Insert Next Thing Here]."

Codexs, then supplements, the. "Up dates?"

**bullyboy**

I have to agree here. I'm a big fan of Lawrence and the Tabletop Tactics team, but if we have to wait for codex updates to balance out the edition, that is horrible news. What if your codex is 2 years away? Fun times.

**techsoldaten**

Blackie wrote:
Not Online!!! wrote:
Rhino castles might make a comback?
75pts a bit steep imo for one, but 3 x are only 225 pts, for some decent hiding, whilest more aggresive tools tie up the enemy more prominently, in a way it forces people to keep the momentum and play more offensive to allow their smaller troops to score.

IMHO rhinos were solid even in 8th, so yeah I expect longtime SM players who have classic vehicles like rhinos to use them and do fine. Sisters will definitely use them, like always.

I've been saying this in the Chaos Tactica thread, Rhinos are decent mobile walls in 9th.

It's a shame you can't disembark after movement or advance during the shooting phase. But a flamer and a havoc launcher that can shoot in combat is a good option.

More than that, anything to extend charge distance for your opponent is good. If they have to go an extra inch to get around the Rhino's back corner, that's going to make a difference.

stratigo wrote:I dunno how you're gonna grab objectives without boyz. You don't need 90 of them, but a block of 30 is still gonna be useful. Unless MANz are suddenly good enough to delete the enemy's shock troops, but they strike me as way too fragile against the kind of shooting and melee everyone is going to tech in to to try and kill primaris marines. I think boyz are a sticky unit that's going to dodge what most people are teching into.

Blast weapons are overrated. They are going to do a few more wounds, but they're not like they were with templates.

Honestly, my biggest fear in 9th is 3x 30 boys with ObSec objective camping. That's going to be hard to beat.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
Ah so he pulled the old goalpost move.

"You can't freak out about the leaks, we need the whole rulebook."
"You can't freak out about the whole rulebook, we still need points."
"You can't freak out about the points, we still need FAQs."
"You can't freak out about the FAQs, we still need to play some games."
"You can't freak out about the played games, we need to wait for [Insert Next Thing Here]."

You forgot to add: return to final statement 32 times, then return to first statement.

It's the cyclical nature of the aspirational statements that makes them so charming.

**Slayer-Fan123**

If you think that's hard to beat you've clearly never shot at 30 Orks before.

**p5freak**

techsoldaten wrote:

Honestly, my biggest fear in 9th is 3x 30 boys with ObSec objective camping. That's going to be hard to beat.

Bring lots of blast weapons.

**Jidmah**

Yes please, lots of blast weapons, bring all the blast weapons! Those expensive 6 shot weapons mostly mounted on expensive tanks definitely scare me a lot more than agressors or punishers or noise marines.
Replace all of them with blast weapons!

**Not Online!!!**

Jidmah wrote:
Yes please, lots of blast weapons, bring all the blast weapons! Those expensive 6 shot weapons mostly mounted on expensive tanks definitely scare me a lot more than agressors or punishers or noise marines.
Replace all of them with blast weapons!

Havocs launcher at 5 pts is neither expensive nor on plattforms you'd not bring.

Also there are other incidents where blast hasn't increased pricing seemingly, Like defielers.

**Spoletta**

Doesn't matter, the defiler is still a battlecannon. It's shots are welcome on my hormagants!

The blasts are a nerf to MEQ and PEQ units mostly, while being only a gentle nudge to real horde units. Especially after the giga nerf of the TFC.

**Slipspace**

grouchoben wrote:
I've just watched the latest Tabletop Tactics batrep (which was really good) and Lawrence, who is a pretty great player and was been involved heavily in the playtesting, had a lot to say about 9e, and it was very encouraging stuff.

If you're a premium member I recommend watching it asap (Eldar vs Iron Warriors) to hear what he says.

The basic gist is chill the feth out, this is a first rough pass, 9e played with 8e armies and rules will hopefully be shortlived, don't overreact with limited information. I'll take it to heart and avoid this kind of discussion for a month or so and see what transpires. In particular he mentioned CSM getting fixed, but couldn't reveal the when of it.

The problem I have with that is this is the 9th edition of game. GW should be able to produce something more balanced at the outset than they've done here. Admittedly part of the problem is this is effectively only the second edition of this iteration of 40k, but that's also a problem of how GW design their games. My biggest issue though is that GW continue to stick to their archaic approach of publishing points in books rather than updating online. I get it from a business POV, but I think they'd generate a lot more good will by releasing the points as PDFs initially and adjusting fairly soon after 9th officially releases. If they still insist on putting points updates in paid books they can then do that from the next CA. At the moment we face a year-long wait for points updates.

I respect the TTT guys a lot and their video about the points for 9th was a very honest appraisal of the situation. However, I'm not sure "wait and see" is much comfort to people who have no prospect of getting a Codex update before Christmas.

**Tyel**

I don't think turning every thread into a Marine whinge is sensible, but the problem is less blast weapons, and more lots of accurate, rerolling 1 to wound S4/S5 shots with a dash of AP.

Invuls and FNPs undoubtedly help - but its still relatively easy to clear boyz or gaunts off the table in droves if you build that way.

And I think the rules will encourage a lot of basic infantry to hold objectives who do precisely that.

The loss of morale may make things more bitty (and facilitate respawning etc) - but eh. You should be easily able to clear 50+ boyz a turn unless you have gone all in on heavy weapons. A couple of turns of that, and there won't be much of a horde left.

New points/codexes/changes may however alter these 8th edition adopted tier systems though.

**Not Online!!!**

Slipspace wrote:
grouchoben wrote:
I've just watched the latest Tabletop Tactics batrep (which was really good) and Lawrence, who is a pretty great player and was been involved heavily in the playtesting, had a lot to say about 9e, and it was very encouraging stuff.

If you're a premium member I recommend watching it asap (Eldar vs Iron Warriors) to hear what he says.

The basic gist is chill the feth out, this is a first rough pass, 9e played with 8e armies and rules will hopefully be shortlived, don't overreact with limited information. I'll take it to heart and avoid this kind of discussion for a month or so and see what transpires. In particular he mentioned CSM getting fixed, but couldn't reveal the when of it.

The problem I have with that is this is the 9th edition of game. GW should be able to produce something more balanced at the outset than they've done here. Admittedly part of the problem is this is effectively only the second edition of this iteration of 40k, but that's also a problem of how GW design their games. My biggest issue though is that GW continue to stick to their archaic approach of publishing points in books rather than updating online. I get it from a business POV, but I think they'd generate a lot more good will by releasing the points as PDFs initially and adjusting fairly soon after 9th officially releases. If they still insist on putting points updates in paid books they can then do that from the next CA. At the moment we face a year-long wait for points updates.

I respect the TTT guys a lot and their video about the points for 9th was a very honest appraisal of the situation. However, I'm not sure "wait and see" is much comfort to people who have no prospect of getting a Codex update before Christmas.

Aye, this, if the first rough pass would've been free, then we'd have a lot less complaints and ground for these.
However with GW still insisting on forcing people to pay for what feels like a shoddy afternoons work, (YMMV) not to mention, that further we know that all books technically are ready, the only issue is, that GW instead spreads them out again, which then again will lead to , atleast from the players perspective , armsrace again.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spoletta wrote:
Doesn't matter, the defiler is still a battlecannon. It's shots are welcome on my hormagants!

The blasts are a nerf to MEQ and PEQ units mostly, while being only a gentle nudge to real horde units. Especially after the giga nerf of the TFC.

Well, yes, but a defiler can easily carry a Havoc launcher, and leaves you with decent other options for other targets aswell, so does the Rhino, which i will rekon makes a rennaissance soonish.

**Spoletta**

There are a few granade launchers weapons around which could be used, but how many points are we talking here? 20 points of those per list? 25?

So the difference is that instead of being hit by 25 points of weapons, I'm hit with the equivalent of 40 points of those weapons because they maximize hits? Wow, that's a 15 point advantage, such a nerf!

If there were 200 or 300 points of good anti horde weapons in a list, now THAT would hurt, but so far the only real issue in that sense are the Wiverns.

Also, the point increases were not really kind to aggressors (and marines in general), so hordes are probably in a better position now than in 8th.

**Blackie**

Spoletta wrote:

The blasts are a nerf to MEQ and PEQ units mostly, while being only a gentle nudge to real horde units. Especially after the giga nerf of the TFC.

I agree. I fear blasts for Meganobz, Killa Kanz, Flash Gitz and Nobz, and I'm bringing 5 man units of those at most, except for Nobz which I'm considering 9+1 (Ammo Runt) squads instead of 10+2. Maybe even Tankbustas would fear blasts at the point that I'm considering 2x5 instead of 1x10 in a Trukk. But Boyz? What really deletes hordes of cheap bodies aren't blast weapons.

**Pyroalchi**

What about the IG Wyvern? As far as I know it did not really increase in points, so that's 24 S4 shots rerolling wounds towards large blobs. Not to shabby I guess?

**a_typical_hero**

Without cover or any buffs on either side, that averages out to 3-4 more dead Boyz (4,375 -> 7,5) or Gaunts (5,19 -> 8,89) per turn per Wyvern.

Not nothing, not horde obliterating either.

How much of an opportunity cost is it currently for Guard to shift 20-30 bodies off of a target? How common are Wyvern?

**Spoletta**

Pyroalchi wrote:
What about the IG Wyvern? As far as I know it did not really increase in points, so that's 24 S4 shots rerolling wounds towards large blobs. Not to shabby I guess?

It is indeed a problem. In fact if you read my post I identified the wyvern as the only real blast problem for hordes.

It's not an encounter frequent enough to be considered a major nerf.

**Trickstick**

Spoletta wrote:
It's not an encounter frequent enough to be considered a major nerf.

Unless it becomes meta, and every list has "loyal 32 + wyverns". The 2-3 cp tax is only a discouragement until the point it isn't.

**the_scotsman**

Yeah, a lot of blast weapons are not going to be issues since they got demolished so hard with the points changes that even if they were to get their max shots every turn, the % they increased in cost means they'll basically be breaking even at best compared to the number of them you'd ordinarily have.

I think certain horde-y units like Ork Boyz, Guardsmen and Lesser Daemons will be OK since they received points changes in line with the general average of like 15% cost increase. It's a rare army I own that didn't go up to at least about 2250 points. They won't be able to punch at their weight class but they will be able to score at their weight class, and new morale really is quite handy, that's been evident in all my games so far.

The super-crazy points hike'd squads like guardians, fire warriors, kabalites, cultists, etc, I definitely do not think you'll see those in any kind of lists. but the gigantic points hikes on most blast stuff means you won't see tons of actual dedicated antiinfantry blast weapons on the field until the next round of points.

**stratigo**

the_scotsman wrote:
Yeah, a lot of blast weapons are not going to be issues since they got demolished so hard with the points changes that even if they were to get their max shots every turn, the % they increased in cost means they'll basically be breaking even at best compared to the number of them you'd ordinarily have.

I think certain horde-y units like Ork Boyz, Guardsmen and Lesser Daemons will be OK since they received points changes in line with the general average of like 15% cost increase. It's a rare army I own that didn't go up to at least about 2250 points. They won't be able to punch at their weight class but they will be able to score at their weight class, and new morale really is quite handy, that's been evident in all my games so far.

The super-crazy points hike'd squads like guardians, fire warriors, kabalites, cultists, etc, I definitely do not think you'll see those in any kind of lists. but the gigantic points hikes on most blast stuff means you won't see tons of actual dedicated antiinfantry blast weapons on the field until the next round of points.

I think demons are going to rely 100 percent of monster mash of greater demons to try and win.

**Jidmah**

Pyroalchi wrote:
What about the IG Wyvern? As far as I know it did not really increase in points, so that's 24 S4 shots rerolling wounds towards large blobs. Not to shabby I guess?

That would have me worried if it weren't for a LRBT with punisher pumping out 40 S5 shots already on a much harder to kill platform that can receive orders or even be a tank commander itself. And it gets those 40 shots against units of any size and even while stuck in combat.