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 Afrodactyl wrote:
I've been using three units of trukk boys in my list, on the assumption that it works as we believe was intended rather than how it is written.

So far I've found that they're pretty good, but they need to be supported otherwise they're basically a waste of points. They can't be the only threat you push into your opponents face and they can't be the only thing running around grabbing objectives and performing actions.

Mine are supported by two units of ten kommandos and two units of five stormboys, for plenty of fast moving obsec infantry, and the rest of the list is pretty much bosses, buggies and koptas to do the heavy lifting and draw fire as the bigger threats.

I would probably be better off just going for a full on buggy bonanza, but I can't justify spending even more money at the moment

I think GW REALLY wants Orkz to be an alpha strike army...which actually makes a lot of sense, since their armor is garbage and morale is a killer which means unless they get into your lines quick as can be they won't last long.

SemperMortis wrote:

 Afrodactyl wrote:
I've been using three units of trukk boys in my list, on the assumption that it works as we believe was intended rather than how it is written.

So far I've found that they're pretty good, but they need to be supported otherwise they're basically a waste of points. They can't be the only threat you push into your opponents face and they can't be the only thing running around grabbing objectives and performing actions.

Mine are supported by two units of ten kommandos and two units of five stormboys, for plenty of fast moving obsec infantry, and the rest of the list is pretty much bosses, buggies and koptas to do the heavy lifting and draw fire as the bigger threats.

I would probably be better off just going for a full on buggy bonanza, but I can't justify spending even more money at the moment

I think GW REALLY wants Orkz to be an alpha strike army...which actually makes a lot of sense, since their armor is garbage and morale is a killer which means unless they get into your lines quick as can be they won't last long.

Holy gak 9x squiggle buggies
https://www.40kstats.com/wgopen
First place out of almost 80 who would have thought?

And again, how many boyz?

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

 Afrodactyl wrote:
I've been using three units of trukk boys in my list, on the assumption that it works as we believe was intended rather than how it is written.

So far I've found that they're pretty good, but they need to be supported otherwise they're basically a waste of points. They can't be the only threat you push into your opponents face and they can't be the only thing running around grabbing objectives and performing actions.

Mine are supported by two units of ten kommandos and two units of five stormboys, for plenty of fast moving obsec infantry, and the rest of the list is pretty much bosses, buggies and koptas to do the heavy lifting and draw fire as the bigger threats.

I would probably be better off just going for a full on buggy bonanza, but I can't justify spending even more money at the moment

I think GW REALLY wants Orkz to be an alpha strike army...which actually makes a lot of sense, since their armor is garbage and morale is a killer which means unless they get into your lines quick as can be they won't last long.

Holy gak 9x squiggle buggies
https://www.40kstats.com/wgopen
First place out of almost 80 who would have thought?

Clearly Xenomancer was just ahead of his time calling squig buggies OP, vindicated at last dude.

Going to be interesting to see what the tournament scene looks like in late September.

 Blackie wrote:
And again, how many boyz?

A bit of a skew list and precisely why I'm stocking up on D3.

So, what happens if Orks take over DE as top dog? There isn't a lot of FAQ-able stuff - it'd have to be all points, I think.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
And again, how many boyz?

A bit of a skew list and precisely why I'm stocking up on D3.

So, what happens if Orks take over DE as top dog? There isn't a lot of FAQ-able stuff - it'd have to be all points, I think.

Ready for this Marine Players (not saying you daed calm down).....Buggies....are under priced. OMG! you can admit some units are over powered in a way without ruining the world!

A scrapjet was competitive at 110pts, at 90....its pushing into the bounds of OP. The only good thing is that most of the "buffs" don't impact it in a direct/meaningful way, and their kustom jobz all got nerfed into the ground. I would still hazard a guess they are 5-10pts under priced. But the Big shootas are still useless for the most part. Even in Dakka range they average 8.33 hits a turn. that works out to less than 2dmg per a turn against a Marine.

But yeah, important to note that those buggy lists contain almost no boyz at all. I mean...my competitive list has 30 boyz total in 3 detachments, but all are trukk boyz specifically for alpha strike potential.

SemperMortis wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
And again, how many boyz?

A bit of a skew list and precisely why I'm stocking up on D3.

So, what happens if Orks take over DE as top dog? There isn't a lot of FAQ-able stuff - it'd have to be all points, I think.

Ready for this Marine Players (not saying you daed calm down).....Buggies....are under priced. OMG! you can admit some units are over powered in a way without ruining the world!

A scrapjet was competitive at 110pts, at 90....its pushing into the bounds of OP. The only good thing is that most of the "buffs" don't impact it in a direct/meaningful way, and their kustom jobz all got nerfed into the ground. I would still hazard a guess they are 5-10pts under priced. But the Big shootas are still useless for the most part. Even in Dakka range they average 8.33 hits a turn. that works out to less than 2dmg per a turn against a Marine.

But yeah, important to note that those buggy lists contain almost no boyz at all. I mean...my competitive list has 30 boyz total in 3 detachments, but all are trukk boyz specifically for alpha strike potential.

Speedwaagh bigshootas on a skrapjet deal comparable amount of damage to rokkits vs -1 dmg targets with at least 5++. And there are lots of those.

If you try to shoot a dreadnaught with 5++, your rokkits will deal 2.22 damage while your bigshootas will deal 1.78.

Hard to call it "bigshootas are still useless". And if you calculate the damage output vs Mortarion, bigshootas actually deal more damage than rokkits.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
There are "it-s" Of course. You need to be within Dakka range. Also, if you trigger freeboota +1 to hit, rokkits will start dealing almost twice the damage of bigshootas. But bigshootas are still good, especially for the price you pay.

 Daedalus81 wrote:


A bit of a skew list and precisely why I'm stocking up on D3.

Competitive orks always have been skew lists. We're discussing boyz as a competitive unit, aka solid part of tournament lists. It doesn't look like they are widely considered in competitive games.

I don't like this kind of skew lists with tons of ork MSU and to me it's precisely tailored against drukhari, which are excellent in taking out large blobs of infantries but terrible in dealing with cheap MSU. I will keep playing boyz (2 min units of 10) because they fit my playstyle more, and with the trukk boyz gimmick they aren't terrible. But I understand why tournament players stay away from boyz, we have seen multiple competitive lists based on very different playstyles that all had one thing in common: they had no boyz at all or very little amount of boyz at best.

Agree with blackie, the buggy list is tailored to kill drukhari and admech right now, meta hasn't finished shaking yet.

The scrapjet doesn't strike me as particularly OP when playing it, it's just the best out of many good options because of 3 dmg weapons.
What I do see is squig buggies going up 5 or 10 points, their indirect shooting is very powerful and rather cheap for what other armies get in comparison.

To be fair I confused this buggy list with the one posted on the ork tactics thread, which was MSU oriented with lots of min squads of specialists, gretchins and no boyz, despite 80ish infantry models in total. I was referring to that one, my mistake.

But it's true, this particular buggy list is also tailored against the current 2-3 most competitive factions. Which is no surprise, orks top lists are typically tailored to counter the most effective armies, with the rock-paper-scissor attitude in mind.

 Blackie wrote:
To be fair I confused this buggy list with the one posted on the ork tactics thread, which was MSU oriented with lots of min squads of specialists, gretchins and no boyz, despite 80ish infantry models in total. I was referring to that one, my mistake.

But it's true, this particular buggy list is also tailored against the current 2-3 most competitive factions. Which is no surprise, orks top lists are typically tailored to counter the most effective armies, with the rock-paper-scissor attitude in mind.

It's not a tailor really. It is just a power curve. Then again - your odds of encountering custodians or space marines or DG (stuff the opposite of what admech and drukari profiles are) are probably higher than running into Admech or DE. It takes overtunned to beat overtunned - it really is that simple.

Not in my part of the world. 1/3 of all played armies at events, including the bigger ones are DE armies, and ad mecha are not that much smaller.

It is actually funny, because for all the model support and supposed broken rules, marines struggle to get in to upper half of big events. WS still seem be above avarge good though, for space marines. Custodes too, but maybe it is the guys playing the armies. Few players, but they always go high up. Maybe not top 8, but they skim it.

I wonder when we are going to see the 1ksons/GK impact on the meta though. Is going to be interesting to watch for me.

Karol wrote:
Not in my part of the world. 1/3 of all played armies at events, including the bigger ones are DE armies, and ad mecha are not that much smaller.

It is actually funny, because for all the model support and supposed broken rules, marines struggle to get in to upper half of big events. WS still seem be above avarge good though, for space marines. Custodes too, but maybe it is the guys playing the armies. Few players, but they always go high up. Maybe not top 8, but they skim it.

I wonder when we are going to see the 1ksons/GK impact on the meta though. Is going to be interesting to watch for me.

Since the game can be won by not fighting at all and just using maneuvering and scoring gimmicks - any army can win. The way you really figure out what armys are strong is by throwing them into octagon - which isn't very important anymore because tabling your opponent doesn't win you the game.

GK and TS are both very strong as are orks.

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:

Karol wrote:
Not in my part of the world. 1/3 of all played armies at events, including the bigger ones are DE armies, and ad mecha are not that much smaller.

It is actually funny, because for all the model support and supposed broken rules, marines struggle to get in to upper half of big events. WS still seem be above avarge good though, for space marines. Custodes too, but maybe it is the guys playing the armies. Few players, but they always go high up. Maybe not top 8, but they skim it.

I wonder when we are going to see the 1ksons/GK impact on the meta though. Is going to be interesting to watch for me.

Since the game can be won by not fighting at all and just using maneuvering and scoring gimmicks - any army can win. The way you really figure out what armys are strong is by throwing them into octagon - which isn't very important anymore because tabling your opponent doesn't win you the game.

GK and TS are both very strong as are orks.

I remember when george washington won the revolutionary war by throwing his troops into the octagon and just a'sluggin' it out.

 the_scotsman wrote:

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:

Karol wrote:
Not in my part of the world. 1/3 of all played armies at events, including the bigger ones are DE armies, and ad mecha are not that much smaller.

It is actually funny, because for all the model support and supposed broken rules, marines struggle to get in to upper half of big events. WS still seem be above avarge good though, for space marines. Custodes too, but maybe it is the guys playing the armies. Few players, but they always go high up. Maybe not top 8, but they skim it.

I wonder when we are going to see the 1ksons/GK impact on the meta though. Is going to be interesting to watch for me.

Since the game can be won by not fighting at all and just using maneuvering and scoring gimmicks - any army can win. The way you really figure out what armys are strong is by throwing them into octagon - which isn't very important anymore because tabling your opponent doesn't win you the game.

GK and TS are both very strong as are orks.

I remember when george washington won the revolutionary war by throwing his troops into the octagon and just a'sluggin' it out.

There's a TV series I'd watch.

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:
Since the game can be won by not fighting at all and just using maneuvering and scoring gimmicks - any army can win. The way you really figure out what armys are strong is by throwing them into octagon - which isn't very important anymore because tabling your opponent doesn't win you the game.

GK and TS are both very strong as are orks.

Most good armies in 9th, maybe even all, more or less play or played solitare. Not really carrying much what the opponent does, because they more or less have garenteeed secondaries, have no problems with killing stuff, if they want to kill it and have superior movment. Often combined with rules that ignore the core rules. All armies starting with the aggresor salamander lists at the start of 9th to the buggy lists we see from orks now, play in a similar way. And no I don't claim the salamander build were on the same level as orks are now. They were more like pre nerf DE.

 the_scotsman wrote:

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:

Karol wrote:
Not in my part of the world. 1/3 of all played armies at events, including the bigger ones are DE armies, and ad mecha are not that much smaller.

It is actually funny, because for all the model support and supposed broken rules, marines struggle to get in to upper half of big events. WS still seem be above avarge good though, for space marines. Custodes too, but maybe it is the guys playing the armies. Few players, but they always go high up. Maybe not top 8, but they skim it.

I wonder when we are going to see the 1ksons/GK impact on the meta though. Is going to be interesting to watch for me.

Since the game can be won by not fighting at all and just using maneuvering and scoring gimmicks - any army can win. The way you really figure out what armys are strong is by throwing them into octagon - which isn't very important anymore because tabling your opponent doesn't win you the game.

GK and TS are both very strong as are orks.

I remember when george washington won the revolutionary war by throwing his troops into the octagon and just a'sluggin' it out.

Can you name a single historical reference were A faction won a battle by losing all their forces? I'll wait. Also it is strange - I am sure if Washington had the option to chose which objectives he could achieve to win the war. He would have preferred to do it by "Raising the banners high" rather than fighting battles - because there is just no telling what can happen in a battle - that is too risky.

In any case I am not saying the rules of the game should change. Just saying that overall strength of a faction is not properly evaluated with these victory conditions. It certainly doesn't hurt to have the most powerful units. That doesn't automatically mean you are going to win.

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:

Karol wrote:
Not in my part of the world. 1/3 of all played armies at events, including the bigger ones are DE armies, and ad mecha are not that much smaller.

It is actually funny, because for all the model support and supposed broken rules, marines struggle to get in to upper half of big events. WS still seem be above avarge good though, for space marines. Custodes too, but maybe it is the guys playing the armies. Few players, but they always go high up. Maybe not top 8, but they skim it.

I wonder when we are going to see the 1ksons/GK impact on the meta though. Is going to be interesting to watch for me.

Since the game can be won by not fighting at all and just using maneuvering and scoring gimmicks - any army can win. The way you really figure out what armys are strong is by throwing them into octagon - which isn't very important anymore because tabling your opponent doesn't win you the game.

GK and TS are both very strong as are orks.

I remember when george washington won the revolutionary war by throwing his troops into the octagon and just a'sluggin' it out.

Can you name a single historical reference were A faction won a battle by losing all their forces? I'll wait. Also it is strange - I am sure if Washington had the option to chose which objectives he could achieve to win the war. He would have preferred to do it by "Raising the banners high" rather than fighting battles - because there is just no telling what can happen in a battle - that is too risky.

In any case I am not saying the rules of the game should change. Just saying that overall strength of a faction is not properly evaluated with these victory conditions. It certainly doesn't hurt to have the most powerful units. That doesn't automatically mean you are going to win.

Are you saying that faction strength isn't determined by ability/ease of winning games, but rather how well they destroy enemy models/units?

Ie:
A faction that destroys every enemy unit every single game but never wins the game is stronger than a faction that never destroys a single enemy model but wins every single game?

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:

Karol wrote:
Not in my part of the world. 1/3 of all played armies at events, including the bigger ones are DE armies, and ad mecha are not that much smaller.

It is actually funny, because for all the model support and supposed broken rules, marines struggle to get in to upper half of big events. WS still seem be above avarge good though, for space marines. Custodes too, but maybe it is the guys playing the armies. Few players, but they always go high up. Maybe not top 8, but they skim it.

I wonder when we are going to see the 1ksons/GK impact on the meta though. Is going to be interesting to watch for me.

Since the game can be won by not fighting at all and just using maneuvering and scoring gimmicks - any army can win. The way you really figure out what armys are strong is by throwing them into octagon - which isn't very important anymore because tabling your opponent doesn't win you the game.

GK and TS are both very strong as are orks.

I remember when george washington won the revolutionary war by throwing his troops into the octagon and just a'sluggin' it out.

Can you name a single historical reference were A faction won a battle by losing all their forces? I'll wait. Also it is strange - I am sure if Washington had the option to chose which objectives he could achieve to win the war. He would have preferred to do it by "Raising the banners high" rather than fighting battles - because there is just no telling what can happen in a battle - that is too risky.

In any case I am not saying the rules of the game should change. Just saying that overall strength of a faction is not properly evaluated with these victory conditions. It certainly doesn't hurt to have the most powerful units. That doesn't automatically mean you are going to win.

I think the_scotsman's point was that George Washington won the Revolutionary War by continually retreating from battles.

The "strongest" army is the one that can most reliably produce its win condition, whether that condition is killing models or waiting until the French arrive on turn 4

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:

Karol wrote:
Not in my part of the world. 1/3 of all played armies at events, including the bigger ones are DE armies, and ad mecha are not that much smaller.

It is actually funny, because for all the model support and supposed broken rules, marines struggle to get in to upper half of big events. WS still seem be above avarge good though, for space marines. Custodes too, but maybe it is the guys playing the armies. Few players, but they always go high up. Maybe not top 8, but they skim it.

I wonder when we are going to see the 1ksons/GK impact on the meta though. Is going to be interesting to watch for me.

Since the game can be won by not fighting at all and just using maneuvering and scoring gimmicks - any army can win. The way you really figure out what armys are strong is by throwing them into octagon - which isn't very important anymore because tabling your opponent doesn't win you the game.

GK and TS are both very strong as are orks.

I remember when george washington won the revolutionary war by throwing his troops into the octagon and just a'sluggin' it out.

Can you name a single historical reference were A faction won a battle by losing all their forces? I'll wait. Also it is strange - I am sure if Washington had the option to chose which objectives he could achieve to win the war. He would have preferred to do it by "Raising the banners high" rather than fighting battles - because there is just no telling what can happen in a battle - that is too risky.

In any case I am not saying the rules of the game should change. Just saying that overall strength of a faction is not properly evaluated with these victory conditions. It certainly doesn't hurt to have the most powerful units. That doesn't automatically mean you are going to win.

I mean...yes... Thermopylae springs to mind as a fairly well-known example of that.

And are you suggesting that generals don't...choose their objectives before going in and fighting a battle? That they don't go in with an objective to seize a particular critical terrain feature, rout or destroy a particular contingent of the enemy's forces, cut off a column of supply or hold an area to prevent the enemy from doing something like one of those aforementioned things?

40k is obviously hilariously unrealistic and cinematic when it comes to things like how many people are generally removed from the battle by weaponry vs because they simply ran away, but we kind of take it as a given that it's demonstrating more of an 'anachronistic movie conflict' than a real futuristic battle, but the closest conflict to the squad-based combined arms pitched battle present in 40k is probably world war 2, and world war 2 was absolutely defined by armies fighting for strategic positions and using the advantages afforded by superior technology rather than out and out destroying one another.

 the_scotsman wrote:

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:

Karol wrote:
Not in my part of the world. 1/3 of all played armies at events, including the bigger ones are DE armies, and ad mecha are not that much smaller.

It is actually funny, because for all the model support and supposed broken rules, marines struggle to get in to upper half of big events. WS still seem be above avarge good though, for space marines. Custodes too, but maybe it is the guys playing the armies. Few players, but they always go high up. Maybe not top 8, but they skim it.

I wonder when we are going to see the 1ksons/GK impact on the meta though. Is going to be interesting to watch for me.

Since the game can be won by not fighting at all and just using maneuvering and scoring gimmicks - any army can win. The way you really figure out what armys are strong is by throwing them into octagon - which isn't very important anymore because tabling your opponent doesn't win you the game.

GK and TS are both very strong as are orks.

I remember when george washington won the revolutionary war by throwing his troops into the octagon and just a'sluggin' it out.

Can you name a single historical reference were A faction won a battle by losing all their forces? I'll wait. Also it is strange - I am sure if Washington had the option to chose which objectives he could achieve to win the war. He would have preferred to do it by "Raising the banners high" rather than fighting battles - because there is just no telling what can happen in a battle - that is too risky.

In any case I am not saying the rules of the game should change. Just saying that overall strength of a faction is not properly evaluated with these victory conditions. It certainly doesn't hurt to have the most powerful units. That doesn't automatically mean you are going to win.

I mean...yes... Thermopylae springs to mind as a fairly well-known example of that.

And are you suggesting that generals don't...choose their objectives before going in and fighting a battle? That they don't go in with an objective to seize a particular critical terrain feature, rout or destroy a particular contingent of the enemy's forces, cut off a column of supply or hold an area to prevent the enemy from doing something like one of those aforementioned things?

40k is obviously hilariously unrealistic and cinematic when it comes to things like how many people are generally removed from the battle by weaponry vs because they simply ran away, but we kind of take it as a given that it's demonstrating more of an 'anachronistic movie conflict' than a real futuristic battle, but the closest conflict to the squad-based combined arms pitched battle present in 40k is probably world war 2, and world war 2 was absolutely defined by armies fighting for strategic positions and using the advantages afforded by superior technology rather than out and out destroying one another.

Generals can make a battle plan. It's not the same as arbitrary things like raising a flag or running a maneuver that does not damage the enemy. In war the ultimate objective is always to destroy the enemy.

By the way - Thermopylae accomplished nothing. The battle lasted 3 days and no significant damage was done to he Persian army. Persia conquered most of Northern Greece without much resistance. It was a full year until The greeks were able to amass enough forces to meet the persian on more equal terms. At which point - superior equipment (OP units) won the day. At no point in that war was greeces objective not to decisively win a battle against the Persians though.

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:

Generals can make a battle plan. It's not the same as arbitrary things like raising a flag or running a maneuver that does not damage the enemy. In war the ultimate objective is always to destroy the enemy.

By the way - Thermopylae accomplished nothing. The battle lasted 3 days and no significant damage was done to he Persian army. Persia conquered most of Northern Greece without much resistance. It was a full year until The greeks were able to amass enough forces to meet the persian on more equal terms. At which point - superior equipment (OP units) won the day. At no point in that war was greeces objective not to decisively win a battle against the Persians though.

"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting"

The workings of real war is far more complex in terms of supplies, political capital, fog of war, weather, morale, etc than a tabletop game could ever hope to reasonably simulate. Degrading your opponent's ability to fight by sabotage, delay, and so on can be as effective as killing, so wiping the enemy out really isn't typically the goal. It's just what you do to make sure you achieve an objective.

 koooaei wrote:


Speedwaagh bigshootas on a skrapjet deal comparable amount of damage to rokkits vs -1 dmg targets with at least 5++. And there are lots of those.

If you try to shoot a dreadnaught with 5++, your rokkits will deal 2.22 damage while your bigshootas will deal 1.78.

Hard to call it "bigshootas are still useless". And if you calculate the damage output vs Mortarion, bigshootas actually deal more damage than rokkits.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
There are "it-s" Of course. You need to be within Dakka range. Also, if you trigger freeboota +1 to hit, rokkits will start dealing almost twice the damage of bigshootas. But bigshootas are still good, especially for the price you pay.

A Scrapjets big shoota in dakka range, during a speedwaaagh are 20 shots at AP-1. not terrible, but only last the 1 full turn and partial buff the 2nd. Also, your warlord has to stay alive, something I denied twice in my last 3 games against fellow ork players (My alpha strike list is strong). But if you do all of that it maths out to 8.33 hits, 5.55 wounds and 2.77dmg to a Marine at T4 3+ save, so it averages 1 dead Marine and possibly a 2nd one wounded. A rokkit kannon and wing missile with zero buffs on average works out to 7 shots, 2.33 hits, 1.94 wounds and at -2AP that works out to 3.88dmg on average, meaning 1 definite dead Marine and if the 2nd missile goes through its 2. So yeah, with the buff purposely designed by GW to benefit the new (dumb) dakka gunz, a scrapjetz big shootas come close to matching the rokkitz. But the point I was making was that I believe that most buggies are slightly under priced. But I would gladly take a further 20pt reduction and lose the 4 big shootas on the dakkajet Or heck, just take away 2 and give me a 10pt price reduction while letting me keep my grot gunner big shootas which do most of the heavy lifting

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:


Can you name a single historical reference were A faction won a battle by losing all their forces? I'll wait. Also it is strange - I am sure if Washington had the option to chose which objectives he could achieve to win the war. He would have preferred to do it by "Raising the banners high" rather than fighting battles - because there is just no telling what can happen in a battle - that is too risky.

In any case I am not saying the rules of the game should change. Just saying that overall strength of a faction is not properly evaluated with these victory conditions. It certainly doesn't hurt to have the most powerful units. That doesn't automatically mean you are going to win.

As previously mentioned, the battle of the hot gates or Thermopylae. it was a 7 day battle with 3 actual days of fighting and the end result was a tactical loss of 300 Spartans and a few thousand other greeks and upwards of as many as 20k dead Persians and a Strategic Victory. But the real result was that the land battle gave the Athenians enough time to evacuate the city and for the Greek navy to perform a withdrawal and eventually led to the full victory at the Battle of Salamis which destroyed the Persian armies chance of taking over Greece since it utterly crippled their fleet and completely destroyed the armies logistics train. After this the Persians fled back to Asia for fear of being trapped in Greece is the Greeks cut their lines of retreat.

Beyond that there is also several historic examples of near or complete loss of units/armies which ended in strategic victory. The Last stand of the Alamo was a rallying cry for the Texans who eventually beat the numerically superior Mexican Army at the battle of San Jacinto.

During the Battle of Chosin Reservoir the better part of an entire Chinese Division attacked a single Marine company deployed on what would become known as "fox hill" to guard the 1st Marine Divisions supply lines and eventual line of Retreat. Fox Company Marched up their Hill with 246 Marines and Navy Corpmen, 6 days later 80 were able to walk down again, and 60 were left able to fight. The unit suffered 75% attrition either from KIA or WIA, had they not held though, there is a possibility that the entire 1st Marine Division would have been wiped out and that could have ended the Korean War in a Communist Victory. (The Chinese Division was estimated to have lost over 1,000 Men attacking Fox hill and was later wiped out almost entirely)

I'm a War Historian so if you want more examples of Last Stands and hopeless defenses that turned into strategic Victories let me know

And wasn’t the Soviet war strategy in early WW2 simply to bleed the Nazi army until the winter destroyed their extended supply line?

Wasn’t the defense of Stalingrad simply a matter of tossing too many bodies in front of the Germans to prevent them from taking the city?

Sometimes in war, all you want to do is delay the enemy at all cost.

 alextroy wrote:
And wasn’t the Soviet war strategy in early WW2 simply to bleed the Nazi army until the winter destroyed their extended supply line?

Wasn’t the defense of Stalingrad simply a matter of tossing too many bodies in front of the Germans to prevent them from taking the city?

Sometimes in war, all you want to do is delay the enemy at all cost.

Afghanistan 2001-2021. Talibans simply waited and won a war against a superpower. "You have the watches, we have the time" they said, and it turned out to be the truth.

I feel this is straying into modern politics but suffice to say the Soviet Strategy in 1941 certainly wasn't to delay the Germans until winter arrived - if it had been they almost certainly wouldn't have ended up losing 5 million soldiers and the war likely would have been over far sooner. That's just what ended up happening, especially in the last phase, precisely because those previous casualties meant no counter attacks were possible until forces arrived from the East.

To get back on point - generally in 40k "power" is a relevant point. Its rare I think for an army that's entirely toothless "but can hold objectives" is viable, because the damage output of "damage output" lists varies with dice. There is a sort of elegance to these infantry based Ork lists that surge into your opponent turn 1 and deny them from holding any objectives while you pocket your own. But equally I just feel you are going to end up going second, and your opponent will then roll a bit above average and murder half your list.

Which is sort of why the game at the top end turns into "can I hide behind LOS blocking stuff to ensure I don't die and then jump out to do my damage on my terms." It would therefore be interesting to see what a typical Speedwaaagh list would do to that infantry list. I feel it wouldn't be pretty.

SemperMortis wrote:

 koooaei wrote:


Speedwaagh bigshootas on a skrapjet deal comparable amount of damage to rokkits vs -1 dmg targets with at least 5++. And there are lots of those.

If you try to shoot a dreadnaught with 5++, your rokkits will deal 2.22 damage while your bigshootas will deal 1.78.

Hard to call it "bigshootas are still useless". And if you calculate the damage output vs Mortarion, bigshootas actually deal more damage than rokkits.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
There are "it-s" Of course. You need to be within Dakka range. Also, if you trigger freeboota +1 to hit, rokkits will start dealing almost twice the damage of bigshootas. But bigshootas are still good, especially for the price you pay.

A Scrapjets big shoota in dakka range, during a speedwaaagh are 20 shots at AP-1. not terrible, but only last the 1 full turn and partial buff the 2nd. Also, your warlord has to stay alive, something I denied twice in my last 3 games against fellow ork players (My alpha strike list is strong). But if you do all of that it maths out to 8.33 hits, 5.55 wounds and 2.77dmg to a Marine at T4 3+ save, so it averages 1 dead Marine and possibly a 2nd one wounded. A rokkit kannon and wing missile with zero buffs on average works out to 7 shots, 2.33 hits, 1.94 wounds and at -2AP that works out to 3.88dmg on average, meaning 1 definite dead Marine and if the 2nd missile goes through its 2. So yeah, with the buff purposely designed by GW to benefit the new (dumb) dakka gunz, a scrapjetz big shootas come close to matching the rokkitz. But the point I was making was that I believe that most buggies are slightly under priced. But I would gladly take a further 20pt reduction and lose the 4 big shootas on the dakkajet Or heck, just take away 2 and give me a 10pt price reduction while letting me keep my grot gunner big shootas which do most of the heavy lifting

22 shots, actually. Also, calculating vs meq profile is not the best thing cause first - D3 is wasted there as you can't deal more than 2. There's often option of running into transhuman, -1 to hit or 4++ that lower the effectiveness of Rockies even further.
And regular Marines without insult, transhuman and -1 to hit are not that common outside of min scoring units that are likely out of Los and more of a target for squigbuggies anyway.

My statement is "do not underestimate bigshootas" - They tend to do a lot of work. Oh and they can also shoot in mellee in case you're not running blood axes. I also do agree that some of our buggiea are underpriced. Especially the squigbuggy. As for skrapjets - at 110 they get kind of squishy. 100 is probably the right price for what they do ATM.

 Blackie wrote:


Afghanistan 2001-2021. Talibans simply waited and won a war against a superpower. "You have the watches, we have the time" they said, and it turned out to be the truth.

Watchs and a surface to air US missles, which cost a margine what a Soviet chopper or jet costs.

Can you name a single historical reference were A faction won a battle by losing all their forces?

279 BC Pyrus of Epir against the Romans at Asculum, the Punic War part II litterally ends with Hanibal fleeing on his own.
1709 Malplaquet the French vs the world. Biggest slaughter fest till Borodino. Lenino 1943, polish and soviet forces stage an attack on german positions at Lenino. Or at least the soviets tell the Poles they will attack. What follows is a 2 day battle, that ends with the german with drawl and the Poles who were made to attack across swamps and a river without artilery and air support losing 25% of troopers dead 33% of troopers injured , 11% of all troopers MIA and 6% were considered taken prisoner.

Back on topic please.