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My advice for the wartrike would be just shooting things and not charging anything unless you can guarantee both LoS! protection and that it can't be killed by whatever it is charging.

Using 1CP to deal mortal wounds to a unit that you have already pummeled with boyz, warbikers and a wartrike for two rounds of combat also doesn't seem like something worthwhile.

 Jidmah wrote:
My advice for the wartrike would be just shooting things and not charging anything unless you can guarantee both LoS! protection and that it can't be killed by whatever it is charging.

Using 1CP to deal mortal wounds to a unit that you have already pummeled with boyz, warbikers and a wartrike for two rounds of combat also doesn't seem like something worthwhile.

I suppose it's a case of being somewhat situational. If my opponent ends up with 1-2 wounds left in the combat, falling back and killing a unit whilst you're at it is quite a good option - stops it becoming a PITA later on. It's not like I'm actually paying points for access to that stratagem - and my main tactic of sandwiching is to either get the opponent to blow CP escaping, or not getting shot for a turn. Assuming I don't kill the unit I'm sandwiching...

 Jidmah wrote:
In over 50 games with the wartrike, I never had the chance to fall back from anything even once
.

Maybe you should pick different targets Has happened quite some times for me.

I think I'm gonna try this next time I play. I recently converted some old skorchas I had from 3rd edition to be Scrapjets.

I think it's a bit mean so I'm going to warn my buddy to bring an A tier list.

I dropped 1 megatrakk and some upgrades on the gunwagon to get 2 Stormboy squads.



I honestly wonder if buggies are kind of bad at secondaries, but taking 4 MSU squads of Kommandos / Stormboyz might shore up my secondary potential plus give me some Obsec.

 Grimskul wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
It dies just as quick because for whatever reason the "anti tank guns" are really easy to outnumber their intended targets with.
And despite what GW thinks, +1 save and +2 wounds doesnt mean squat.

Unfortunately its an issue i dont see them fixing without doing another 8th-style shakeup to the statlines. Big stuff doesnt feel any more powerful than the medium stuff that is also far more numerous.

Yup, its basically why Land Raiders will never be an actual thing in a competitive scene unless they overhaul it from the ground up. Thankfully the Morkanaut/Gorkanaut isn't as bad as LR but they have the same issue of not having enough wounds to actually survive reliable, consistent anti-tank salvos. I feel like Mork/Gorkanauts need to go to borderline Knight level wounds or more before they've reached a point where quality matches a quantity of vehicles.

This is partly why I worry about vehicle lists this edition... when imperials (and then eventually everyone) gets increases across the board for lost weapons to do more damage or get more shots... this is going to murder vehicles... whereas a list like green tide won’t care much about increased damage being added... I’m worried we may swing back to 7th edition where vehicles evaporated thus forcing 8th edition to massively increase vehicles wounds...

Scactha wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
In over 50 games with the wartrike, I never had the chance to fall back from anything even once
.

Maybe you should pick different targets Has happened quite some times for me.

Why would your opponents stay in combat instead of falling back and just killing it?

tneva82 wrote:
Specifically against necrons lots of smaller vehicles work better than few big ones. DDA is good vehicle buster yes. But it can only target one vehicle at a time and is rather swingy(5.5 dmg or so vs T8 W12 3+ target, 11% chance of one shotting though new overlord helps it somewhat). If you bring in multiple small guns he finds himself overkilling stuff.

Now though necrons have some options for punching vehicles to death in melee though. Watch out any skorpek destroyers or their lord who can make short work of vehicle in melee. Though whether he has them is another thing.

3 dreadnoughts>gorkanaut in terms of survivability vs necrons and not just due to wound count. DDA can whiff completely and do nothing or blow apart gorkanaut at once. Won't kill 2 deff dreads at once though...

So a list that presents a lot of trukks, BW's, deff dreads, flyers zipping all over the board could throw him off? Unfortunately I don't have any of the new buggies, otherwise I would field them.

The idea of 9 dreads stomping/teleporting across the field does sound like a blast right? Would have decent target saturation, be relatively tough. Killyness would be okay as well. May struggle against hordes though I suppose. Unless we get the flamer range buff and you take a deeptriking unit with 4 skorchas each.

 Jidmah wrote:
Why would your opponents stay in combat instead of falling back and just killing it?

This is about target saturations, flanking and consolidating. In a nutshell I tend to send 2-3 units down a flank with the Trike closest to the short edge. Both charge a light to mid level melee unit unit each on the flank to lock them down. The Trike consolidates to get out of as much los as possible while the other unit (like a Trukk of boyz or some warbikes) screen it. The point of it all is just to force the opponent into decisions. Should they back out of the melees and lose those units actions? If then they´ll need at least a 3rd unit to shoot the Trike which is the most awkward target to reach. In the meanwhile the rest of the Orks also present a number of targets. So the opponent often does a quick calculation that the Trike on the far end doesn´t matter as much as the hornets nest of Warbikes or the 2x30 boyz mobs escorted by a KFF and the Warboss coming up behind.

As I prefer Blood Axes for the tactical options, despite Deathskulls being more killy, the Trike then gets a chance for a Snagga. Sure, this doesn't translate into anything every game, but in 9th it has started to make a difference due to the new objective game imo.

I'll just repeat, in over 50 games this has never ever happened. The wartrike is a high priority target that is easily killed, people don't want it to be shooting meltas at vehicles or skorcha/shotguns at squishy infantry. Some just kill it to take away the option to charge a vehicle from one flank to another. When they have the option to kill it, they will and no amount of warbikes, boyz or trukks in their face will take priority over that.

Target saturation only applies if you have targets of similar value - the only things that might get a similar priority are a warboss, scrapjets, SJD or a SSAG. And it's not like armies struggle to kill them in addition to the wartrike. Assorted bolter weapons, krak grenades, hull weapons of tanks and the odd plasma gun are usually enough to destroy it without problems, as is a single squad armed with anti-tank weapons. Keep in mind that LoS! changed, so a tank can shoot the wartrike from across the board if there is no unit within 3". Many armies also have the option to just counter-charge it with a bunch of support characters to make sure it dies.

Even if they chose to ignore it, the only reason to stay in combat with a model that has 5 S7 AP-2 d3 attacks is if you have a good chance of both surviving that and killing it in combat afterwards. In most cases falling back and doing nothing is a way better option for your opponent than to take another round of combat from it which might wipe their unit out.

If you find yourself in combat at the beginning of your movement phase either your opponent has made a grave mistake by not falling back or you have made mistake by charging something you shouldn't have and got lucky.

Also a few things you describe aren't really doable in my experience - a 3" consolidate that has to end up closer to your opponent is not going to get the huge wartrike out of LoS.
If you charge a unit with a wartrike and trukkboyz or warbikers it's usually dead after two rounds of combat.

Falling back is just not something orks normally do. You kill your opponent, your opponent kills you, or they run away.
The only reason I can imagine why this comes up at your tables frequently is because the killing power in your meta is extremely low. Most of my opponents have no troubles going through a trukk and 12 boyz to kill the wartrike if they are close enough, and my meta is fairly tame compare to tournament circuits.

Jidmah, do you find wartrike usefull? Does it even worth to take it in buggy / mech list? I use it but think about to scrap it after almost every game....

cody.d. wrote:
The idea of 9 dreads stomping/teleporting across the field does sound like a blast right? Would have decent target saturation, be relatively tough. Killyness would be okay as well. May struggle against hordes though I suppose. Unless we get the flamer range buff and you take a deeptriking unit with 4 skorchas each.

The vehicle changes in 9th have made dreads a bit better but they are still a little lackluster. They might do better if you had the choice to either keep them as a squad of three or deploy them and have them act as single units. Keeping them as a squad of 3 would help with weight of attacks on a target, stop enemies from interrupting during the fight phase, and you would only need to make one charge to have them all in combat instead of three. Downsides would be the footprint of the unit making maneuvering difficult and it might make them more efficient to shoot at with AT since there would be dmg overspill compared to shooting at each one individually.

 Tomsug wrote:
Jidmah, do you find wartrike usefull? Does it even worth to take it in buggy / mech list? I use it but think about to scrap it after almost every game....

Personally I find the Wartrike well within its points for the advance and charge of vehicles alone. It will nearly guarantee t1 charges of any army regardless of the map layout and the enemies. Any models it kills is just a bonus.

To the point above though, the Wartrike never lives long. It'll hit something and then die at max 2 turns unless I charged at guard.

 Tomsug wrote:
Jidmah, do you find wartrike usefull? Does it even worth to take it in buggy / mech list? I use it but think about to scrap it after almost every game....

I do, but only if you use it as a shooting unit with a support aura. Throw it in melee and you will lose it.

I usually have it hanging around other buggies, a battlewagon or naut to prevent my opponents from picking it out. The melta works really well with deathskulls re-rolls while boomstikks and the skorcha mode can make screens and chaff objective holders disappear. Now that slay the warlord has gotten pretty rare, I might even try putting the deff skulls trait on it again.

 Jidmah wrote:
Target saturation only applies if you have targets of similar value - the only things that might get a similar priority are a warboss, scrapjets, SJD or a SSAG.

I wouldn't have quite this short list, but otherwise great summary of the Ork army game. Agree! I think our experiences mostly diverge due to terrain/strategy/meta. I get the feeling of a Napoleonic environment from your telling whilst my club is quite into screening and hugging terrain.

E.g. recently I abandonded flank vs Custodes who´s Custodian and Allarus went left to kill my Dread and some Boyz. I thought 'Zog it'' and just went right with the rest. It forced his foot to either take the long route through difficult terrain, around big obstacles or risk me sneaking up Kommandos on the objectives. And yes, the Trike died miserably in that game after cheering the Trukk and BW up. No Snagga there.

I would be cautious about recommending blood axes and falling back with their trait as a legitimate Ork strategy.

For all intents and purposes, Blood Axes don't have a clan trait, because neither is useful in 99% of cases.

People don't charge Orks expecting the stuff they charge to not die -- and vice versa.

Ironically, this is done better by Evil Suns with their warlord trait.

 Billagio wrote:

 some bloke wrote:

 Billagio wrote:
Anyone got good conversion ideas for deffrollas? Dont think I want to spend $45 on 3 of them

Loo rolls with extra spikey bits added - I suspect that the rolls from kitchen foil would be good as they are narrower and sturdier.
anything dangerous-looking added to the front of the vehicle, really! I imagine if you covered the front ram in various blades and such, then said it was a deffrolla, most people would be fine with it!

True! How would you mount it? I wouldnt want to stick it on permenantly

I recommend using any sprues you have laying around. and then adding a bit on the end of both to attach to the roller and to make it a snap fit onto the little circle spot on the battle wagon. you can spruce it up yourself with some jagged bits and on the sprues you can always add some extra gubbinz to make them stand out a bit.

As far as the list with 4 mobz of shoota boyz and a few units of warbikes. In a friendly game that would be fine, in a competitive game or event it will get steam rolled. Even just factoring in basic units like Intercessors, they can destroy those bikes and troops relatively quickly, if you add in things like aggressors and eradicators its GG possibly as early as turn 2.

tulun wrote:
I would be cautious about recommending blood axes and falling back with their trait as a legitimate Ork strategy.

For all intents and purposes, Blood Axes don't have a clan trait, because neither is useful in 99% of cases.

People don't charge Orks expecting the stuff they charge to not die -- and vice versa.

Ironically, this is done better by Evil Suns with their warlord trait.

Yeah, BA trait basically only kicks when something has gone horribly wrong for your opponent in some way, usually with them fluffing their dice rolls or being forced not to fall back for whatever reason. Not exactly something you plan your army around. Arguably even less relevant now that vehicles can shoot into combat, so outside of a Da Boomer Battlewagon, most stuff in CC wants to stay in there.

I really hope blood axes get something useful in this edition's codex, I'd like to go back to my original clan.
Especially the odd stratagem screams rushed last minute changes based on the playtester's feedback who claimed that orks were impossible to beat during testing.

 Jidmah wrote:
I really hope blood axes get something useful in this edition's codex, I'd like to go back to my original clan.
Especially the odd stratagem screams rushed last minute changes based on the playtester's feedback who claimed that orks were impossible to beat during testing.

I mean compare the White Scars outflank to the Blood Axe outflank.

Woof. 1 CP for ANY unit, and Blood Axes is so limited to be practically useless compared to tellyporta.

In light of the new terrain rules it would be interesting to see bloodaxes get special interactions with those rules.
Like their vehicles gaining Breachable bonuses or the distance from terrain to be considered "covered" by it increased to 6" instead of 3"
Basically, make them really annoying to face because they basically turn the terrain against you and/or flatout ignore some pretty rude terrain setups.

 Jidmah wrote:
I really hope blood axes get something useful in this edition's codex, I'd like to go back to my original clan.
Especially the odd stratagem screams rushed last minute changes based on the playtester's feedback who claimed that orks were impossible to beat during testing.

Yeah BA, were pretty hosed outside of their relic. What do you think would be a good think would be a better trait within the context of 9th? I feel like the fall back + charge /or shoot mechanic is redundant and even cover doesn't really mean much given how low our armour values are for our units (not to mention the high AP of weapons from most armies)

I feel Blood Axes trait should be rewritten to allow units with the trait to attack units they didn't declare as targets for a charge when they pile in/consolidate, to show their ability to handle complex military movements. More importantly, to represent their camouflage, Blood Axe units halve the range of weapons targetting them when a unit is wholly within terrain. This last one I'm not sure about, since it doesn't do much for vehicles, but I don't know what to add besides a Raven Guard esque type trait, but I feel like it's boring and largely useless for Orks when -1 to hit doesn't help as much and cover doesn't do anything except for Meganobz.

Change the Dead Sneaky strat to a pre-game scout move similar to what Alpha Legion has that scales from 1CP to 2CP based on PL of the chosen unit. Buff the WL trait so we recover CP's on a 5+ now that we can only ever get 1 back a turn anyways.

I don't know how much I like truck boyz. They just don't have enough hitting power or staying power.

I know boyz don't hit as hard as they used to, but so far my boyz are still doing decent work. I used a lot of truck boyz tonight, and they hit about how I expected, maybe a touch under, but they just crumpled the round after they charged.

 Grimskul wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
I really hope blood axes get something useful in this edition's codex, I'd like to go back to my original clan.
Especially the odd stratagem screams rushed last minute changes based on the playtester's feedback who claimed that orks were impossible to beat during testing.

Yeah BA, were pretty hosed outside of their relic. What do you think would be a good think would be a better trait within the context of 9th? I feel like the fall back + charge /or shoot mechanic is redundant and even cover doesn't really mean much given how low our armour values are for our units (not to mention the high AP of weapons from most armies)

I feel Blood Axes trait should be rewritten to allow units with the trait to attack units they didn't declare as targets for a charge when they pile in/consolidate, to show their ability to handle complex military movements. More importantly, to represent their camouflage, Blood Axe units halve the range of weapons targetting them when a unit is wholly within terrain. This last one I'm not sure about, since it doesn't do much for vehicles, but I don't know what to add besides a Raven Guard esque type trait, but I feel like it's boring and largely useless for Orks when -1 to hit doesn't help as much and cover doesn't do anything except for Meganobz.

Change the Dead Sneaky strat to a pre-game scout move similar to what Alpha Legion has that scales from 1CP to 2CP based on PL of the chosen unit. Buff the WL trait so we recover CP's on a 5+ now that we can only ever get 1 back a turn anyways.

I agree, basically modernizing all the parts of the trait would go a long way.
The cover bonus should really go to 12" like it is for every other army, since it's basically useless at 18". I don't think attacking targets you haven't charged would do a whole lot, but the general direction doesn't sound too bad. Maybe allow them to consolidate in any direction instead of towards the nearest? There are already some rules which allow this, and it would probably portrait the hit&run tactics they tried to give them way better.
Dead Sneaky could either be a scout move, or allow us to deploy 1/3 units with max PL 8 anywhere on the board, similar to nurglings. A cap on this would be important to not break the game in half
As for the warlord traits - unless other armies get theirs buffed, I don't see a need to change it.

With the trait going to 12" and consolidate in any direction and infiltration stratagem blood axes would already be a interesting utility vs power choice, on a similar level as evil suns.

All good ideas. Stuff that feels relevant is indeed lacking for BA. The Kultur is indeed not doing much most of the time, but I like to tinker with it. The Bonebreaka Red Rolla T1 Charge alongside a Trike and a Brutal but Kunnin' Warboss is about as much use I can get.

Tourneywise I´d bring Deathskullz like everyone else. BAs is just my fav clan since Rogue Trader and Human Advisors days. Would love some of that stuff to return.

I actually switched to deathskulls in 8th because bloodaxes were so terribad and they were the only clan which worked for every unit. I kind of stuck with them since then outside of experiments.
My army is painted as all sorts of clans, but the fluff behind them is a Bloodaxe Warboss slowly absorbing tribes and clans into his Waaagh!, utilizing each one at what they are best similar to Thrakka. So tripple clans wasn't an option because it would have confused my opponents.

Yeah i was initially Badmoonz since thats my colors but eventually switched to Deathskullz
Both because i could actually bring dedicated melee and not feel stupid and also ITS SO MUCH FASTER - dude seriously you any idea how long it takes to do reroll 1s and dakkdakkadakka for 30 shoota boyz?

IMO the basic detachment rules for any codex shouldnt feel like theyre tailored for one specific unit type. Better for that unit type sure, but they shouldnt have rules that 100% do not affect some units. If Badmoonz was flatout reroll 1s when attacking....i probably wouldnt have switched to deathskullz lol.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Yeah i was initially Badmoonz since thats my colors but eventually switched to Deathskullz
Both because i could actually bring dedicated melee and not feel stupid and also ITS SO MUCH FASTER - dude seriously you any idea how long it takes to do reroll 1s and dakkdakkadakka for 30 shoota boyz?

IMO the basic detachment rules for any codex shouldnt feel like theyre tailored for one specific unit type. Better for that unit type sure, but they shouldnt have rules that 100% do not affect some units. If Badmoonz was flatout reroll 1s when attacking....i probably wouldnt have switched to deathskullz lol.

Yeah, that's definitely a major flaw for a lot of subfaction traits that GW writes, where it's clearly geared only for some units than others. Bad Moonz are known for flashy gear, but not just for shooting. They're the ones most likely to have the equivalent of "master-crafted" weapons in Ork society given their wealth. They probably would be the one's who should have rerolls one's for everything.

Deathskullz just has an Iron Hands symptom where they have 3 great traits for the price of one sub-faction, whereas poor guys like Snakebites get one while BA basically get none lol.

 Tomsug wrote:
Jidmah, do you find wartrike usefull? Does it even worth to take it in buggy / mech list? I use it but think about to scrap it after almost every game....

I've been quite successful with mine in my wagon list.

Guarantees some first turn charges, is good at killing smaller units thanks to the snagga klaw and Gorks Roar, and with the Opportunist trait it's very good for riding forward and sniping characters.

Tbh when i heard they were doing Kultures i was expecting Badmoonz to have a bonus armor, all the "bling" they put on their armor offers some sort of extra defense.
I wasnt expecting the shooty at all.