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Dudeface wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
But why increasing the number of shots instead of the BS to accomplish the same result, only slower?

Because I'd like my fictional game to adhere to fiction somewhat rather than being an utterly disconnected statistic game.

How many shots does a Bolter fire in a turn?
Shouldn’t it be the same dice, but discard half the hits of you aren’t in Rapid Fire range?
For that matter, how long is a turn, in-game?

The game is ALREADY quite abstracted. This seems an odd hill to die on.

Lets just have every unit hit on 3's all the time in that case? If we're not trying to ground rules interactions based on the fluff (lots of inaccurate fire in this case), then why bother having any variance at all?

Hyperbole doesn’t help make your point.

Concessions have to be made to keep the game playable-4+ BS on Ork units could be one of them. It’s not necessarily the best way to handle it, but if this is what you makes you go “Too much, doesn’t make sense,” more than anything else… like I said, odd hill to die on.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
But why increasing the number of shots instead of the BS to accomplish the same result, only slower?

Because I'd like my fictional game to adhere to fiction somewhat rather than being an utterly disconnected statistic game.

How many shots does a Bolter fire in a turn?
Shouldn’t it be the same dice, but discard half the hits of you aren’t in Rapid Fire range?
For that matter, how long is a turn, in-game?

The game is ALREADY quite abstracted. This seems an odd hill to die on.

Lets just have every unit hit on 3's all the time in that case? If we're not trying to ground rules interactions based on the fluff (lots of inaccurate fire in this case), then why bother having any variance at all?

Hyperbole doesn’t help make your point.

Concessions have to be made to keep the game playable-4+ BS on Ork units could be one of them. It’s not necessarily the best way to handle it, but if this is what you makes you go “Too much, doesn’t make sense,” more than anything else… like I said, odd hill to die on.

It's not unplayable with 5+ BS and increasing it isn't the only solution, it's just the quickest and the one that breaks character the most. To be fair I'm also someone who disagreed with daemon engines going up in BS I dislike that some nids are, I aren't a big fan of aynone crying out for their army to hit better in any phase just for the sakes of efficiency either. It might be an obscure hill to die on but I see plenty of people complaining about escalating lethality, power creep etc then immediately discrediting any unit that isn't hitting on a 3+ with buffs a lot of the time.

The d6 system isn't very granular or well defined as it is and we've spent since the dawn of 8th heading to a stat squish where we only use 50% max of the values for hitting stuff because otherwise it's not efficient enough for people.

So what’s your suggestion to help Ork shooting?

 JNAProductions wrote:
So what’s your suggestion to help Ork shooting?

As I put on the last page:

Potential fixes for more shots:
Dakka weapons get more shots/range (simple)
Dakka weapons get max shots regardless of range if the user doesn't move
Dakka weapons get max shots as long as the user moves at least half their movement and ends up closer to the target unit
Give units ability to advance and fire dakka weapons

I'd add "always hit on an unmodified 5+" as an option as well.

Remove dakka as a thing, orks aren’t impacted by hit modifiers, increase number of shots (and ap in a few cases). Shootas being 3 ap 1 shots would make them actually good.

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
Remove dakka as a thing, orks aren’t impacted by hit modifiers, increase number of shots (and ap in a few cases). Shootas being 3 ap 1 shots would make them actually good.

Assault 3 18" s4 ap-1 d1 and always hit on a 5+ seems reasonable to me

We dont need the "always hits on a 5+" because stacking modifiers no longer exist. You just need to fix the Dakka rule and increase shots.

We do because at 5+ bs anything we have is immediately halved in output by a -1 to it.

 Blackie wrote:


Boyz are one of the few ork units that don't need better shooting. Assuming your 4+/4+ means they get WS4+ and BS4+ that would be a significant nerf rather than a buff. Fighting as "well" as tau or guard? Worse than necrons? Lol. Orks fighting is already a joke due to lack of S and AP in combat.

No, leave the WS as it is. In fact I think some untis should even have better WS. But BS could easily be BS4+ minimum, armywide I mean.

They should be balanced and costed appropriately, but I think it'd be reasonable to give them those accuracy stats. The changes I suggested shouldn't be made in a vacuum.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Again

IN THE LORE orks are better at killing with melee than guns (which are used for their noise).

9th has the codexes follow the lore a lot more than 8th

the problem isnt that ork shooting isnt good enough, its that their melee isnt good enough

The War of Dakka begs to differ. You might have heard of it, it was when an ork WAAAAGH ran into the Tau and were outgunned, so the Ork Warboss said Zog those Grotfondlers and ordered all his mekz to make bigger and better guns and hired loads of Flashgitz and lootas to fight the Tau. Next time they fought the Orkz OUT GUNNED THE TAU. There is a host of more fluff related anecdotes, my favorites are always "Accuracy through Volume" related.

So in the fluff your average ork isn't very accurate, but he makes up for this by using a lot of shots to hit the target. If a Marine hits his target most of the time with a single burst of bolter fire, the ork hits his target most of the time but with 5+ Bursts of fire. The problem is that this isn't reflected in the game to the point where most ork shooting is now garbage, and this has not been the case historically in the game not just the fluff. In 8th the Loota bomb was scary, in 9th we had the freeboota shenanigans before they got nerfed into oblivion by players upset they had to play against competitive orkz. In 4th-7th we had Big Gunz and other tricks that relied on explosives for accuracy, The Killkannon was actually useful back then.

Hecaton wrote:

blaktoof wrote:
Orks just need to go back to being BS 4+ base.

This is honestly true. Boyz should be 4+/4+.

If boyz go to WS4+ they would be functionally worse across the board compared to Kroot let alone imperial guard. WS3 is a must, the difference is that WS is a lot harder to utilize than BS and therefore should be discounted somewhat heavily. You can utilize BS from turn 1 onward, WS is usually a Turn 2 at best stat to have.

Dudeface wrote:

OK, but why? As Jidmah says orks aren't very accurate when shooting, why would they mysteriously be superb yet simultaneously crap marksmen?
Why just orks? There will be other units in the game that hit on 5's.
If you give orks a 4+ are you going to up everyone else's to maintain parity or is the ork stance of more bullets over accuracy no longer part of their fluff?
Stop trying to make orks better and tackle root problem that impacts all armies.

That is why I said 5s always hit. Its to simulate the sheer volume of fire hitting targets that are evading or hiding behind holofields/trees etc. I don't think the 4+ is a requirement, but a lot of ork units, even with the 5s always hit rule, would still need their base # of shots heavily increased.

Dudeface wrote:

So the fluff and historically least accurate army becomes 4+, next up in guard & tau going up to 3+, then marines and eldar base 2+, sound good?

Again, not advocating for BS4, but going back into the past, before the memes/shenanigans started, Orkz were BS4. Again though, I think i would prefer more shots and 5s always hit.

Dudeface wrote:

Potential fixes for more shots:
Dakka weapons get more shots/range (simple)

This is honestly a must in my opinion.

Dudeface wrote:
Dakka weapons get max shots regardless of range if the user doesn't move

This is just Rapid Fire, which is already a thing. Honestly no, this would be a bad solution to the problem, especially since as it currently stands a lot of those ranged options still wouldn't be worth much. A 15pt loota getting 3 shots at 5s to hit at 48' wouldn't be bad necessarily but it wouldn't be competitive in the slightest, especially with all the -1Dmg and +1 armor floating around right now.

Dudeface wrote:
Dakka weapons get max shots as long as the user moves at least half their movement and ends up closer to the target unit

Again no, Ork basic movement is 5. So thats 2 inches. A Shoota is Ranged 18, that means you would be out of range to even use the damn thing for the first 2 turns.

Dudeface wrote:
Give units ability to advance and fire dakka weapons

This is also a weapon type already, Assault. And its what most Ork weapons USED TO BE! Before some idiot at GW tried to write orkz and is an incompetent muppet who doesn't understand the army. Assault 1 Rokkitz are AS GOOD as Heavy 3 rokkitz, especially with the blast keyword introduced.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
We dont need the "always hits on a 5+" because stacking modifiers no longer exist. You just need to fix the Dakka rule and increase shots.

As someone who plays orkz, an army which predominantly hits on 5s...Yes, yes we do need something like this. Go ahead and buff shots and not fix this issue and see what happens. Against an army without -1 to hit a rokkit which gets 5 shots is going to be broken, where as against that -1 to hit army its not nearly as bad. The easy/simplest solution is to always hit on 5s so that already anemic ork shooting isn't even worse.

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
So how do you compensate for an army that gets -1 to hit as a subfaction ability? It’s not very enjoyable to have your rules just get negated by another army. I’m not denying something needs to change for the orks but I’d rather see it in a way that doesn’t take away from other armies.

You don't compensate them Why? Because its not enjoyable at all to play a faction that loses 50% of its shooting capacity against a certain sub faction or against an army heavily using -1 to hit auras/abilities.

I'll put it to you this way, If i take a loota squad of 12 (3 spanners with KMB) if they are all within half range I get 36 shots and 3 KMB shots. Against your -1 to hit army that works out to 6 hits at S7 -1AP 2dmg and 0.5 hits with S8 -3AP D6 dmg shots. Against a T6 4+ invuln vehicle (Voidweaver) thats a 240pt unit putting out 6 hits, 4 wounds and 4 dmg while the KMB does 0.33 wounds and 0.16 failed saves for 0.58dmg on average. So a 240pt unit fails to kill a 90pt vehicle at -1 to hit. Also, those KMBs have a better chance to kill themselves than the enemy. 1s kill you instantly a 6 generates a hit which has a 66% to wound and a 33% chance to go through the invuln.

Army wide -1 to hit is just stupid to begin with, and the sheer amount on the table right now is ludicrous.

SemperMortis wrote:


You don't compensate them Why? Because its not enjoyable at all to play a faction that loses 50% of its shooting capacity against a certain sub faction or against an army heavily using -1 to hit auras/abilities.

I'll put it to you this way, If i take a loota squad of 12 (3 spanners with KMB) if they are all within half range I get 36 shots and 3 KMB shots. Against your -1 to hit army that works out to 6 hits at S7 -1AP 2dmg and 0.5 hits with S8 -3AP D6 dmg shots. Against a T6 4+ invuln vehicle (Voidweaver) thats a 240pt unit putting out 6 hits, 4 wounds and 4 dmg while the KMB does 0.33 wounds and 0.16 failed saves for 0.58dmg on average. So a 240pt unit fails to kill a 90pt vehicle at -1 to hit. Also, those KMBs have a better chance to kill themselves than the enemy. 1s kill you instantly a 6 generates a hit which has a 66% to wound and a 33% chance to go through the invuln.

Army wide -1 to hit is just stupid to begin with, and the sheer amount on the table right now is ludicrous.

It’s almost like voidweavers are a unit that are currently a massive issue in the game that everyone is struggling with. If your entire argument is a unit can’t body the most meta choices, you might want to rethink your approach to game balance. A 265 point land raider produces a whopping 3.3 damage. 4 lascannon havoks produce 2.333. Those are both dedicated AT platforms that bounce off it too.

Would you take always hitting on 5+ in exchange for your kulture bonus? It might be a bit more fair if you essentially make both sides go without their subfaction rules. Frankly trying to make a balanced game by invalidating other armies rules doesn’t seem like a good plan. Unless of course you only care about buffing your own armies.

Considering that several armies only get -1 to hit at 12” or greater in range, I don’t think you would have a problem avoiding those rules. For that matter what about the -1 to hit psychic powers? Sucks for anyone that chose those I guess?

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
It’s almost like voidweavers are a unit that are currently a massive issue in the game that everyone is struggling with. If your entire argument is a unit can’t body the most meta choices, you might want to rethink your approach to game balance. A 265 point land raider produces a whopping 3.3 damage. 4 lascannon havoks produce 2.333. Those are both dedicated AT platforms that bounce off it too.

Just because of the nature of the X-Weaver defensive profile, low-accuracy weapons of all types suffer, and low-shot, high-damage weapons suffer to a certain degree because of the invulnerable saves. What you want, point-for-point, is accurate high-volume fire.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So do y'all think that the reflexive Ork nerf was in part because of a segment of the competitive community who played Drukhari or whatever who didn't want anything else to compete with the, and then GW listened?

Dudeface wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
But why increasing the number of shots instead of the BS to accomplish the same result, only slower?

Because I'd like my fictional game to adhere to fiction somewhat rather than being an utterly disconnected statistic game.

Well in the fiction orks are great fighters, yet in the game they hit like wet noodles.

In the fiction orks poor aim is compensated by them firing tons of shots. And yet on the tables multiple armies have much higher rate of fire.

In the fiction space marines are extremely rare superhumans, on the table they're not as elite (and expensive in points) as their lore suggests, etc...

Dudeface wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
But why increasing the number of shots instead of the BS to accomplish the same result, only slower?

Because I'd like my fictional game to adhere to fiction somewhat rather than being an utterly disconnected statistic game.

Hitting 15 times with 30 shots at BS4+ matches the lore just as much as hitting 15 times with 45 shots at BS5+ does. The only real difference is that you run into less of disconnected statistics issues, like smoke grenades being vastly more effective against ork lootas who supposedly weren't aiming to begin with than against a marine eliminators who are trying to make every shot count.

 Jidmah wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
But why increasing the number of shots instead of the BS to accomplish the same result, only slower?

Because I'd like my fictional game to adhere to fiction somewhat rather than being an utterly disconnected statistic game.

Hitting 15 times with 30 shots at BS4+ matches the lore just as much as hitting 15 times with 45 shots at BS5+ does. The only real difference is that you run into less of disconnected statistics issues, like smoke grenades being vastly more effective against ork lootas who supposedly weren't aiming to begin with than against a marine eliminators who are trying to make every shot count.

Then change it so they hit 15 times with 45 shots at a 5+ that can't be modified, it even makes rokkits more useful then.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blackie wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
But why increasing the number of shots instead of the BS to accomplish the same result, only slower?

Because I'd like my fictional game to adhere to fiction somewhat rather than being an utterly disconnected statistic game.

Well in the fiction orks are great fighters, yet in the game they hit like wet noodles.

In the fiction orks poor aim is compensated by them firing tons of shots. And yet on the tables multiple armies have much higher rate of fire.

In the fiction space marines are extremely rare superhumans, on the table they're not as elite (and expensive in points) as their lore suggests, etc...

I agree, they need more punch back in melee, not that they're bad per se as it is now, the rest of the game hass just gone nuts around them. Other armies need dialling back, not orks shifting up a gear, it's the same lethality spiral people complain about constantly then beg for offensive buffs.

Regards the elite superhuman marines, careful with that one it almost sounds like you'd like them buffed and repriced accordingly which will go down like a lead balloon despite being a valid point.

Dudeface wrote:
Then change it so they hit 15 times with 45 shots at a 5+ that can't be modified, it even makes rokkits more useful then.

You have not provided a single reason to do so. Ignoring game mechanics is always bad for the game, see earlier complaints about orks invalidating defensive mechanisms of certain armies.

Codices and novels do not state that orks always hit precisely one third of their shots instead of half, neither do they state that all members of an entire race have the exact same chance at hitting stuff, nor does the fluff explicitly state that orks dedicated to shooting can't shoot as well as a disorganized unit of guardsmen.

Ballistic skill, just like the number of shots of a gun or the number of wounds a model has, is an entirely abstract and artificial property and you cannot justify any specific value by using the background.

On topic, I would love to get the old "Moar Dakka!" stratagem back, it allowed you to tackle one hard to hit unit per turn, at a price.

 Jidmah wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Then change it so they hit 15 times with 45 shots at a 5+ that can't be modified, it even makes rokkits more useful then.

You have not provided a single reason to do so. Ignoring game mechanics is always bad for the game, see earlier complaints about orks invalidating defensive mechanisms of certain armies.

Codices and novels do not state that orks always hit precisely one third of their shots instead of half, neither do they state that all members of an entire race have the exact same chance at hitting stuff, nor does the fluff explicitly state that orks dedicated to shooting can't shoot as well as a disorganized unit of guardsmen.

Ballistic skill, just like the number of shots of a gun or the number of wounds a model has, is an entirely abstract and artificial property and you cannot justify any specific value by using the background.

On topic, I would love to get the old "Moar Dakka!" stratagem back, it allowed you to tackle one hard to hit unit per turn, at a price.

They covered the lack of accuracy more in older books:

3rd ed:

The deafening clamour of a mob of Shoota Boyz opening fire is legendary. Each Ork will try to outdo his neighbour by letting fly with the most ammo and loudest gun. Hitting the target is less of an objective than terrorising the enemy!

4th ed:

Shoota Boyz form roving mobs that are continually on the lookout for something to kill, gleefully firing ear splitting fusillades of bullets whenever they see something moving up ahead. Though each shoota boy loves firing his sturdily constructed weapon, he often has more success when using his shoota to bash out the brains of his target

There are a lot of novels that repeatedly describe orks just firing for the sakes of it without hitting much, not got passages to hand but the battle for armageddon has plenty, the Cain series as well. Generally speaking all the fluff evidence points to less than 50% accuracy.

I agree just ignoring core rules isn't great, but artificially boosting stats to compensate for game/army wide mechanics is worse.

I'd also argue you can't provide me a reasonable reason for giving them BS4+ beyond "it negates -1 to hit". Provide me with evidence of Orks being at least as accurate as gaurdsmen. Conversely there are passages that orks believe that a noisier gun is more likely to hit and so it does, which would explain the ability to ignore the hit modifiers.

Bonus pass for 9th ed as they've scaled back on the "ork accuracy is bad" to simply not commenting it is the description on the Smoky Gubbinz: "but has little detriment on the Orks’ own accuracy, which often owes more to guesswork than to aiming at the best of times".

And of course the caption text for Dakka! Dakka! Dakka!: "Nothing aids accuracy like the simple expedient of firing so many shots that you just can’t miss." - sounds like they should fire less and hit more.

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:

It’s almost like voidweavers are a unit that are currently a massive issue in the game that everyone is struggling with. If your entire argument is a unit can’t body the most meta choices, you might want to rethink your approach to game balance. A 265 point land raider produces a whopping 3.3 damage. 4 lascannon havoks produce 2.333. Those are both dedicated AT platforms that bounce off it too.

Its almost like I chose a random unit to prove the point but I could just as easily have gone with a host of other units to prove the exact same point if you really want to be pedantic about it. Almost the entirety of the Harlequins codex has -1 to hit, Custodes start the game under their banner and with the exception of the bikers, usually spend most of the game underneath it for -1 to hit, they also all have 4+ invulns as well. Nidz have -1 to hit in spades and their biggest targets all have invulns, -1dmg and a FNP. I can keep going if you really want to make the -1 to hit the hill you want to die on. The point which you tried to gloss over was that -1 to hit on an army wide, detachment wide or aura wide basis is a bad design mechanic in a game which has the majority of a faction hitting on 5s. -1 to hit against a custards player is a drop off of 20% efficiency, against Orkz its 50%. That is why its a bad design mechanic and that is why orkz need to either become BS4 base or have their old rule which was given to EVERYONE (6s always hit) turned back on again, but now its 5s always hit for them. If you don't think an entire faction losing 50% efficiency against an army is a bad game design, than you don't care about balance in the slightest and just want to play an easy mode game where you always win.

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
Would you take always hitting on 5+ in exchange for your kulture bonus? It might be a bit more fair if you essentially make both sides go without their subfaction rules. Frankly trying to make a balanced game by invalidating other armies rules doesn’t seem like a good plan. Unless of course you only care about buffing your own armies.

Harlequins -1 to hit almost army wide is not a faction/kulture bonus, its just in their individual unit rules. Custards almost army wide -1 to hit is a buff from a specific unit, nidz have it from specific unit, again, I can keep going if you really want to be pedantic, the point being that armies utilizing -1 en mass aren't using it as a faction/kulture whatever bonus exclusively. For a lot of them its just an extra rule they get from taking a unit, relic, item etc.

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
Considering that several armies only get -1 to hit at 12” or greater in range, I don’t think you would have a problem avoiding those rules. For that matter what about the -1 to hit psychic powers? Sucks for anyone that chose those I guess?

Yes, my ranged units, sitting in my deployment zone would have no problem being within 12' of an enemy unit in their deployment zone....Can't tell if you are serious or just trying to troll me at this point.

But lets address the key point you are attempting to make "its unfair that armies invalidate rules!" What if i run into an army using units with "ignore first -1AP" en-mass? is it wrong because my choppas are all -1AP and therefore its unfair and the game is broken and nobody cares about fairness? Nope, its just part of the game and you learn to live with it, plus ignoring -1AP isn't that big of a deal. What about Crusher Stampede which basically turns D2 weapons into D1 weapons? I can also keep going with this because its the same mindset, yeah it sucks but its part of the game. The problem is that a -1 to hit which is used almost army wide has a 50% reduction in ranged dmg output on the ork faction and that is just too much of a loss to those units to have any impact on the game. My last GT I brought 450pts of Deffkoptas which for almost the entirety of the event, were hitting on 6s. Even before anything happened on the table my 450pts were basically reduced in efficiency to that of a 225pt unit, so before a single die was cast I had already lost 225pts just in those deffkoptas. My Warbikers also lost 50% of their shooting for the majority of the event so there went another 175pts. So in effect, i started the game at 1600pts because so many other factions reduced my shooting by 50% it was ridiculous. In the case of the deffkoptas, they at least are OK in CC, the bikers suck there as well.

So is it fair/fun for me to start the game knowing I've functionally already lost 400pts of shooting? But that is ok right, because its a faction/kulture rule...sometimes, and therefore its part of the game and you just have to accept the auto-loss that it entails.

Hecaton wrote:

So do y'all think that the reflexive Ork nerf was in part because of a segment of the competitive community who played Drukhari or whatever who didn't want anything else to compete with the, and then GW listened?

Honestly? Yes. Anytime orkz have anything that reaches the competitive level it inevitably gets nerfed hard. Sometimes, non-competitive things which the community gets scared about get nerfed as well.

8th Edition: Loota Bomb. 15 lootas combine with 10 Lootas (1CP) they are then shielded by 90-120 grots using grot shields (1CP) they then get 5s and 6s grant extra shots (2CP) and then they shoot twice (3CP) and when rolling for # of shots if its a 1 or a 2 they re-roll it (1CP) All of that combined for 100 shots on average and about 45ish hits a turn At S7-1AP 2Dmg. Was it broken? honestly no, it was horrendously expensive and it was a one trick gimmick. You are talking about 270-360pts of grots shielding 500ish points of lootas and you are burning through 7-8CP a turn so you only got to do this once maybe twice before you ran out of CP. But it scared the top meta players, so what did GW do? got rid of the "Mob Up" stratagem so it only effected Boyz. or to put it another way, made it functionally useless.

Boyz Spam: end of 8th the only competitive way to run Orkz was to flood the table with cheap bodies and hope you lived long enough to cap enough primary points to win, you could also use Endless Green Tide strat to bring back up to 29 boyz once a game. This worked thanks to the huge number of buffs boyz had access to. Warboss gave Advance/Charge, Ghaz gave +1 attack and reroll hits, Painboy gave 6+FNP to huge #s of boyz, Big Mek with KFF gave big swathes of your mob a 5+ invuln save, Weirdboy getting +3 on casts from being near the boyz, casting Da Jump, Warpath (+1 attack on 30 boyz) and Fist of Gork (+2 attacks/Strength on characters) every turn as well as smites. They also had other strats like fight twice and fight on death which made them fairly good in CC, especially since most of the mobz were buffed to be S5 with a pre-game strat.

As to what happened to boyz spam.... Yeah, since 9th dropped most lists don't even take boyz let alone a green tide. Last week the meta roundup showed that only 1 ork infantry made an appearance out of 3 ork lists that placed in the top 10 at events. Weirdboyz got nerfed, KFF got nerfed hard, Painboy is too expensive and without huge mobz doesn't do much, Boyz got a huge price increase, Mob Rule got nerfed to death so that boyz are now running away more than ever, Ere We Go got nerfed etc etc etc. Point being that so many complained that they dramatically over-corrected so that boyz went from borderline competitive when leaned into hard core to being useless.

And into 9th. Buggy spam, it lasted literally weeks before GW pushed an emergency patch out to nerf orkz specifically, which was itself hilarious since Drukhari and Ad-Mech were still running away with tournament wins while orkz were just competing with them, definitely not dominating.

Kommandos were seen as too good, so GW hit them with a 20% price increase, The Beastboss on Squig which wasn't even making regular appearances in any list let alone top performing lists was hit with a 35pt price increase, not because it was OP but because so many complained about it thinking it was OP.

Compare the above mentioned nerfs to Ad-Mech in just 9th. You had Chickenwalkers making appearances in every Ad-Mech list that placed well, they were clearly OP at 60pts or whatever they were with 2 D3+3 Lascannons hitting on 3s (2s for a turn), so what did GW do? First nerf they took away Core, when that did nothing they hit them with a 10pt price hike in the 2nd Nerf. They are still appearing regularly in lists. Or you could compare them to my favorite nerf which was Drukhari. Incubi in their transports are OP! So we are going to increase Incubi points by 10pts! also, the transport is dropping 10pts....

Dudeface wrote:
I'd also argue you can't provide me a reasonable reason for giving them BS4+ beyond "it negates -1 to hit".

You just handwaved the exact problem which has been the topic of this thread. Fixing the huge problems related to -1 to hit which has become a core mechanic of the game for the last two edition is more than enough of a reason for that change.
Note that most people here want to mitigate -1 to hit, not to negate it. You are the one who wants to completely negate it. Most ork players here are fine with simply not having their shooting completely crippled.

Provide me with evidence of Orks being at least as accurate as gaurdsmen. Conversely there are passages that orks believe that a noisier gun is more likely to hit and so it does, which would explain the ability to ignore the hit modifiers.

Do you even understand what "abstraction" is? There are sources which say that orks fire 10 rounds for every shot a marine makes, and yet shootas somehow aren't dakka 15/10.
You also should have realized that the dakka type itself is a representation of orks being worse at aiming than other races firing regular rapid fire weapons.

To summarize your highly flawed argument:
1) Ork ballistic skill absolutely has to be 5+ because every shoota shoots exactly twice and will hit exactly one third of those shots, according to the lore. Hitting 16.66% more shots is completely unacceptable and not supported by the background in any way.
2) You would rather introduce a game-breaking mechanic than change an arbitrarily chosen number, because you feel like every single number on a datasheet has to be an exact representation of the lore.
3) What matters is that the numbers in the column "ballistic skill" is the right one, not that units perform according to the lore on the tabletop.

Considering how you insist on those absolutes which I all consider to complete nonsense, there is nothing left to discuss.

Buggies got nerfed for much the reason Voidweavers are going to get nerfed. The professional scene hate it when "mathhammer lists" start winning tournaments.

Cynically I feel this is partly real concern with the game and partly ego. 40k can be (indeed is) a skillful game of trading units, keeping stuff back, using various movement abilities (that may be gimmicky but do need to be mastered) to get around the table, control objectives and your opponent etc.

That always disappears when someone can just rock up with a list - and a load of squigbuggies/scrapjets and flyers qualified - and just roll well to destroy anything. You don't need to be especially good to crush people with 9 voidweavers today - just somehow get hold of them and not roll abysmally.

The second that Ork list at the final of So Cal killed 1800 points on turn 1 they were doomed (and there were similar blowouts). Ad Mech had earned the same with similar performances a few weeks earlier. The forums, blogs and videos go crazy, and GW (eventually) is prodded into action.

Quite why they also nerfed all the beast snagga stuff is less clear.

 Jidmah wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
I'd also argue you can't provide me a reasonable reason for giving them BS4+ beyond "it negates -1 to hit".

You just handwaved the exact problem which has been the topic of this thread. Fixing the huge problems related to -1 to hit which has become a core mechanic of the game for the last two edition is more than enough of a reason for that change.
Note that most people here want to mitigate -1 to hit, not to negate it. You are the one who wants to completely negate it. Most ork players here are fine with simply not having their shooting completely crippled.

Provide me with evidence of Orks being at least as accurate as gaurdsmen. Conversely there are passages that orks believe that a noisier gun is more likely to hit and so it does, which would explain the ability to ignore the hit modifiers.

Do you even understand what "abstraction" is? There are sources which say that orks fire 10 rounds for every shot a marine makes, and yet shootas somehow aren't dakka 15/10.
You also should have realized that the dakka type itself is a representation of orks being worse at aiming than other races firing regular rapid fire weapons.

To summarize your highly flawed argument:
1) Ork ballistic skill absolutely has to be 5+ because every shoota shoots exactly twice and will hit exactly one third of those shots, according to the lore. Hitting 16.66% more shots is completely unacceptable and not supported by the background in any way.
2) You would rather introduce a game-breaking mechanic than change an arbitrarily chosen number, because you feel like every single number on a datasheet has to be an exact representation of the lore.
3) What matters is that the numbers in the column "ballistic skill" is the right one, not that units perform according to the lore on the tabletop.

Considering how you insist on those absolutes which I all consider to complete nonsense, there is nothing left to discuss.

OK, you wish to mitigate a -1 to hit, you increase bs to 4+ arbitrarily, you play against my army which have no -1 to hit. You've just gained 50% more hits to mitigate something I don't have. How is that a fair or eloquent solution?

I understand perfectly fine what an abstraction is, you know what else is an abstraction? The need to hit at all to some degree, 15 hits can be accomplished by 45 shots at 5+, 30 at 4+ or 15 at auto hitting.

The fluff does not state how many rounds if fire compared to a bolter, they do not give rates of fire or accuracy. They consistently state that Orks are bad at aiming and hit by virtue of rate of fire. BS is a direct correlation of a units ability to shoot.

BS: this shows how accurate a unit is when shooting ranged weapons

- 9th ed core rules

If you increase their chances to hit you're breaking their fluff and you're skewing against armies that don't have -1 to hit anywhere. The number in that column is the units ability to perform according to the lore on the tabletop.

SemperMortis wrote:

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:

It’s almost like voidweavers are a unit that are currently a massive issue in the game that everyone is struggling with. If your entire argument is a unit can’t body the most meta choices, you might want to rethink your approach to game balance. A 265 point land raider produces a whopping 3.3 damage. 4 lascannon havoks produce 2.333. Those are both dedicated AT platforms that bounce off it too.

Its almost like I chose a random unit to prove the point but I could just as easily have gone with a host of other units to prove the exact same point if you really want to be pedantic about it. Almost the entirety of the Harlequins codex has -1 to hit, Custodes start the game under their banner and with the exception of the bikers, usually spend most of the game underneath it for -1 to hit, they also all have 4+ invulns as well. Nidz have -1 to hit in spades and their biggest targets all have invulns, -1dmg and a FNP. I can keep going if you really want to make the -1 to hit the hill you want to die on. The point which you tried to gloss over was that -1 to hit on an army wide, detachment wide or aura wide basis is a bad design mechanic in a game which has the majority of a faction hitting on 5s. -1 to hit against a custards player is a drop off of 20% efficiency, against Orkz its 50%. That is why its a bad design mechanic and that is why orkz need to either become BS4 base or have their old rule which was given to EVERYONE (6s always hit) turned back on again, but now its 5s always hit for them. If you don't think an entire faction losing 50% efficiency against an army is a bad game design, than you don't care about balance in the slightest and just want to play an easy mode game where you always win.

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
Would you take always hitting on 5+ in exchange for your kulture bonus? It might be a bit more fair if you essentially make both sides go without their subfaction rules. Frankly trying to make a balanced game by invalidating other armies rules doesn’t seem like a good plan. Unless of course you only care about buffing your own armies.

Harlequins -1 to hit almost army wide is not a faction/kulture bonus, its just in their individual unit rules. Custards almost army wide -1 to hit is a buff from a specific unit, nidz have it from specific unit, again, I can keep going if you really want to be pedantic, the point being that armies utilizing -1 en mass aren't using it as a faction/kulture whatever bonus exclusively. For a lot of them its just an extra rule they get from taking a unit, relic, item etc.

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
Considering that several armies only get -1 to hit at 12” or greater in range, I don’t think you would have a problem avoiding those rules. For that matter what about the -1 to hit psychic powers? Sucks for anyone that chose those I guess?

Yes, my ranged units, sitting in my deployment zone would have no problem being within 12' of an enemy unit in their deployment zone....Can't tell if you are serious or just trying to troll me at this point.

But lets address the key point you are attempting to make "its unfair that armies invalidate rules!" What if i run into an army using units with "ignore first -1AP" en-mass? is it wrong because my choppas are all -1AP and therefore its unfair and the game is broken and nobody cares about fairness? Nope, its just part of the game and you learn to live with it, plus ignoring -1AP isn't that big of a deal. What about Crusher Stampede which basically turns D2 weapons into D1 weapons? I can also keep going with this because its the same mindset, yeah it sucks but its part of the game. The problem is that a -1 to hit which is used almost army wide has a 50% reduction in ranged dmg output on the ork faction and that is just too much of a loss to those units to have any impact on the game. My last GT I brought 450pts of Deffkoptas which for almost the entirety of the event, were hitting on 6s. Even before anything happened on the table my 450pts were basically reduced in efficiency to that of a 225pt unit, so before a single die was cast I had already lost 225pts just in those deffkoptas. My Warbikers also lost 50% of their shooting for the majority of the event so there went another 175pts. So in effect, i started the game at 1600pts because so many other factions reduced my shooting by 50% it was ridiculous. In the case of the deffkoptas, they at least are OK in CC, the bikers suck there as well.

So is it fair/fun for me to start the game knowing I've functionally already lost 400pts of shooting? But that is ok right, because its a faction/kulture rule...sometimes, and therefore its part of the game and you just have to accept the auto-loss that it entails.

Is it fun for you? Doesn't sound like you had fun....

Is it fair? Yes.
YOU chose to take your bs5 Orks into an environment you knew would be filled with this -1 to hit rule. You knew your odds of facing that were really high and that you'd have no option (short of dropping out) to avoid it. You knew you'd be playing with a significant handicap & you knew you wouldn't enjoy the resulting losses. And yet you chose to do this anyways.

CCS, what other options do Ork players have?

-1 to-hit isn't something only cutting-edge tourney lists have. It's all over the place. So, unless your advice is "Change factions" what should an Ork player do?

 JNAProductions wrote:
CCS, what other options do Ork players have?

-1 to-hit isn't something only cutting-edge tourney lists have. It's all over the place. So, unless your advice is "Change factions" what should an Ork player do?

Accept they'll hit on 6s into a -1 to hit and use their armies melee strengths where possible instead.

In fact you can take the previous statement and replace orks with any army. It's weird that this wasn't a complaint in 8th though given they hit with the same %.

 JNAProductions wrote:
CCS, what other options do Ork players have?

-1 to-hit isn't something only cutting-edge tourney lists have. It's all over the place. So, unless your advice is "Change factions" what should an Ork player do?

Pick those 4+ units and freebota?
Except that ain't working considering pricetag and unit design on kanz and posaz and meks. And mekgunz will have been gunz if you go over 3 due to morale sooo , basically there is not much you can do.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dudeface wrote:


Accept they'll hit on 6s into a -1 to hit and use their armies melee strengths where possible instead.

In fact you can take the previous statement and replace orks with any army. It's weird that this wasn't a complaint in 8th though given they hit with the same %.

It actually was a complaint by r&h players aswell and melee strength of orks is on a majority of units very much even more lackluster than shooting.

 Jidmah wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Then change it so they hit 15 times with 45 shots at a 5+ that can't be modified, it even makes rokkits more useful then.

You have not provided a single reason to do so. Ignoring game mechanics is always bad for the game, see earlier complaints about orks invalidating defensive mechanisms of certain armies.

Codices and novels do not state that orks always hit precisely one third of their shots instead of half, neither do they state that all members of an entire race have the exact same chance at hitting stuff, nor does the fluff explicitly state that orks dedicated to shooting can't shoot as well as a disorganized unit of guardsmen.

Ballistic skill, just like the number of shots of a gun or the number of wounds a model has, is an entirely abstract and artificial property and you cannot justify any specific value by using the background.

On topic, I would love to get the old "Moar Dakka!" stratagem back, it allowed you to tackle one hard to hit unit per turn, at a price.

I agree. The argument that Orks can't be BS4+ for fluff reasons is an odd hill to die on. We already have veteran Guardsmen with space-ironsights shooting at the same accuracy as century-old genetically-enhanced Space Marines with computerized targeting.

When we roll dice we're not measuring whether individual bullets hit, we're checking whether the fire produced effective results. Two shots at 4+ could be a Guardsman making a quick burst of aimed semi-auto fire where we want to know whether none, some, or all of it was effective; or it could just as easily be an Ork cutting full cyclic with his Shoota and we're determining whether none, some, or a lot of it hit.

And from a design perspective, the main reason you'd use more shots at lower chance to hit is if you want Orks to be disproportionately impacted by penalties to hit.

So, yeah, if the main problem is that Ork shooting is disproportionately harmed by accuracy penalties, then making them BS4+ makes sense. If that bothers someone, but not the fact that their Orks are just as likely to hit a Titan right in front of them as a Ratling at maximum range, then there's some serious picking-and-choosing about fluff accuracy going on.

It's OK, some may say I've died on this hill already, may my corpse be long forgotten in warhammer 40,000 10th edition, introducing the d4 to hit because we don't need granularity and everything dies faster again because we just start popping the numbers up in columns.

Personally as a quick and simple band-aid, I would make two changes. Bear in mind these wouldn't automatically fix everything but would be a step in the right direction IMO.

Dakka weapons become Assault weapons, with a second number of shots, effectively becoming combinations of assault and rapid fire weapons. So for example a Big Shoota would be Assault 3 (6), can be fired while advancing and you can charge afterward.

Orks then gain a universal rule (not Gretchin)
Dakka Dakka Dakka - Orks always hit on an unmodified roll of a 5+ in the shooting phase.

So our shooting is still relying on overwhelming quantity of shots over quality, but we at least know that we don't care about -1s.


We then need to go through and sort out AP values across the board, but that's a separate issue.

People raised concerns that "getting rid of an army's mechanics" is a bad thing for the game, but then you have armies going about that are fast, hit like a truck and you can't shoot them back. Armies that are absolutely decimating the concept of balance in 40k. Which is far, far worse for the game than orks being able to compete in the shooting phase.

ccs wrote:

YOU chose to take your bs5 Orks into an environment you knew would be filled with this -1 to hit rule. You knew your odds of facing that were really high and that you'd have no option (short of dropping out) to avoid it. You knew you'd be playing with a significant handicap & you knew you wouldn't enjoy the resulting losses. And yet you chose to do this anyways.

I chose about 2 decades ago to play orkz. I don't have a 2nd army and have no intention of getting a 2nd army. I like collecting orkz and as such i'll not be happy until my WAAAGH is the biggest in the world. With that said, I knew I would be running into these armies, I literally had nationally ranked players apologize in advance because GW is incompetent at writing rules for Orkz and that all my shooting would be functionally useless for most of the game. As far as Enjoying the losses...Dude I had a blast at the event, but I went in knowing full well I had no chance against the top lists, and that was even before harlequins dropped. It would just be nice to actually have a chance at winning as opposed to knowing full well i'll have to settle for middle of the pack at absolute best.

Dudeface wrote:

Accept they'll hit on 6s into a -1 to hit and use their armies melee strengths where possible instead.

In fact you can take the previous statement and replace orks with any army. It's weird that this wasn't a complaint in 8th though given they hit with the same %.

Orkz are currently .... terrible at Melee. A unit of Kommandos, arguably our best melee infantry right now, at 150pts vs 150pts of Sag custodes. Who wins? If the Sags swing first they do (without any buffs/katahs etc) 12 attacks, 10 hits, 5 wounds for 5 dead Orkz. If the Kommandos swing first, they get 33 attacks, 22 hits, 7.3 wounds and do 2.4dmg, the Nob with PK swings and gets 3 attacks, 1.5 hits 1.25 wounds and 1.25dmg so finishes off the wounded Custard. Kommandos fail morale at -5 (can only pass on a 1-2) lose 1 more, and then another 1 to Attrition. So all told the 12 Kommandos (150ish pts) are down to 5 or 41% strength, the Custards are at 66% strength.

And those Sag custards are definitely not a melee oriented unit. Their primary weapon is the Bolt Caliver which is basically an assault 3 heavy bolter with a 2nd firing mode which is Assault 1 S5 -3 3dmg and it can use both at the same time.

So when you say "use their armies melee strengths" ...we don't have much. Also, in 8th it was such a complaint that they literally gave Orkz a special rule which said they always hit on 6s, because the game was so bad for ork shooting that they literally couldn't even shoot.

Tyel wrote:
Buggies got nerfed for much the reason Voidweavers are going to get nerfed. The professional scene hate it when "mathhammer lists" start winning tournaments.
Cynically I feel this is partly real concern with the game and partly ego. 40k can be (indeed is) a skillful game of trading units, keeping stuff back, using various movement abilities (that may be gimmicky but do need to be mastered) to get around the table, control objectives and your opponent etc.
That always disappears when someone can just rock up with a list - and a load of squigbuggies/scrapjets and flyers qualified - and just roll well to destroy anything. You don't need to be especially good to crush people with 9 voidweavers today - just somehow get hold of them and not roll abysmally.
The second that Ork list at the final of So Cal killed 1800 points on turn 1 they were doomed (and there were similar blowouts). Ad Mech had earned the same with similar performances a few weeks earlier. The forums, blogs and videos go crazy, and GW (eventually) is prodded into action.
Quite why they also nerfed all the beast snagga stuff is less clear.

Again, buggies weren't even OP in the meta in which they existed, which is proven by their Win/Loss ratio, their top 4 placing ratio, the lack of top players moving to Orkz etc. What buggies were though is a competitive shooting ork army that caused more than a fair few Tournament players to lose their minds because they have played the majority of their lives with Orkz being the NPC, easy win army. So whenever orkz get a competitive build, they lose their minds and scream NERF! The irony is that when orkz are "OP" they usually aren't its just that they are being piloted by lunatics like myself who have played orkz and only orkz for decades and know the ins and outs of their tactics, strengths and weaknesses to the point where when we are given a competitive codex, we tend to over perform, but when those top tier meta chasing players try, they tend to under perform (Nick Nanavati at LVO for example).

The So Cal list was abusive to a degree with their placement of Aircraft i'll give you that, but the fact remains that the DE player bum rushed forward and proceeded to FAIL his charges, which left his entire army exposed turn 1. He admitted after the fact that he did so because he only had a few blasters in the entire list and was completely un-equipped to deal with a Buggy list due to Ramshackle.

As far as Snagga stuff getting nerfed, again, its perception is reality when it comes to Orkz. A lot of tournament meta players and podcasters PERCEIVED ork beastsnaggas to be OP, so therefore they were OP. It doesn't matter that the tournament data proved otherwise, it didn't matter nobody was taking the named beastboss on squigosaur let alone the regular one. They were PERCEIVED as being OP and therefore they had to die. I was trying to find it, but there was a youtube video review of the Beastboss on squigosaur and Mozrog skragbad by this one guy and it was hilarious because he kept losing his cool about "HOW OP" the models were...boy was he wrong.

Orks are competent at melee.

11 Kommandoz plus Grot v Sags

Kommandos kill one 50% of the time,2 @ 32%, and 3 @ 5%. ( without the grot and one extra komando it is 1 @ 55%, 2 @ 19%, and 3 @ 1% )
Sags kill 1 @ 20%, 2 @ 32%, 3 @ 27%, 4 @ 12%, and 5 @ 3%.

That means 91% of the Sag results kill less points than 87% of the Kommandoz results. Toss in Waaagh and Goffs and they would absolutely overwhelm them.

f you had 16 Goff Boyz instead...it would be 1 @ 12%, 2 @ 38%, and 3 @ 50%. Custodes melee specialists should kill half a squad and then drop 2 to morale, which still outnumbers on obsec.

It isn't a big gap, really.