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I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.

I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.

But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?

GW needs to read this.

Welcome to the shitshow modern 40k is...and it's only gonna get worse.

Unplayable?
No, {I} don't think so. But obviously your exact results & impressions might vary depending upon what you use/what you face/how you play....

On my end? I had a tough but fairly enjoyable game with my grots vs Deathguard today.
The grots lost the game on VPs - but the forces of Nurgle suffered casualties & (at the cost of another 3 squads of grot tanks) several of my Crusade objectives were achieved.

I don't have the Ork dex, but I hear it isn't in a good place right now.

Any game played against eldar prior to feb 26, 2022 is irrelevant- that's the day they got their new dex, so if you played them before then, you were quite literally playing a different army.

Bar a little too much recent codex power creep, I'm actually finding 9th to be the best edition so far. My only grumble that makes the game a little stale is that all the matched play missions are the same old objective holding ad infinitum. Where are the old kill point and capture table quarter missions? I'm taking to playing the more fun Crusade missions when opponents are cool with it as they are more flavourful.

I certainly think the game is far from unplayable, my group is having a blast with the game as it is. But, everyone's experience is different.

Yeah, not unplayable, but it's never been easier to get a really crappy match-up.

Unless you're playing the most brand-new codex (which at this point is Tyranids), everything else has do and do not take units. From there, the whole AP vs Armor system is just borked, and so many weapons that are made to kill tanks kill tanks way too well. Even weapons that aren't supposed to kill tanks can still put a lot of damage on tanks.

I'd say to look at the Eldar and Ork codexes, see what it was that caused your side to be so underwhelming and why the Eldar seemed so good, and see if you can find a work-around. Either by shifting up your army strategy and using a different Klan Kulture, or using Stratagems or other things that might give your orks some more punch against Eldar.

 JEREMSTER wrote:
I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.

I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.

But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?

If you thought the game was worse than scattbike era eldar, an era where an Eldar player should have beaten any ork list without losing more than 2-3 models, the problem was probably in the way you guys were playing. Double check your rules.

ERJAK wrote:

 JEREMSTER wrote:
I've been playing off and on since 2000 I even played the Vegas tournament back in 2017.
I've always been decent, I don't always play min/maxed lists but play I play the objectives well and usually keep things competitive.

I just played my first game in 2022 playing my mechanized Ork list against my brothers new eldar list. I've played his army a hundred times before with space wolves/death guard/tau and orks, so I thought I had a pretty good feel for it.

But NO.
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.
I felt absolutely helpless with no chance of even keeping up on objective scoring.
I remember the old days of busted eldar with wave serpent spam and mass scatter lasers, that was broken, and this was 10x worse.
What gives?

If you thought the game was worse than scattbike era eldar, an era where an Eldar player should have beaten any ork list without losing more than 2-3 models, the problem was probably in the way you guys were playing. Double check your rules.

I literally reset my password here just to remind you not *any* eldar list. Not even most of them. Was there, got a gakky tshirt that said "No scatpacks or knights means no wins."

 JEREMSTER wrote:
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.

Something sounds a little off here - all his stuff hit on a 2+, and all yours only on 6+?

What lists were you two fielding, and how was the board set up?

Just to be clear - I'm not shocked that the game was slanted in the favour of the Eldar, but the above points sound dodgy.

Not unplayable, just... in a particular state that requires a lot of conscious effort to avoid the worst aspects from running away with the fun.

ERJAK wrote:
... the problem was probably in the way you guys were playing. Double check your rules.

ERJAK's new book - "It's All Your Fault: How to Make Friends on the Internet" - is coming out this June on Amazon and all good book retailers.

Is 40k currently unplayable?

Definitely not.

Are orks currently unplayable against top tier armies unless fielding a competitive lists?

Most likely.

Mechanized orks can be very powerful but also extremely weak. I play mostly mechanized orks and among the opponents I also have to face solid crafworlds builds but don't have the idea that the sky is falling, although currently there is a gap between the two armies.

As always, and especially when orks are involved, it's all down to what lists you and your opponenent field other than some experience in mastering the new rules: craftworld are also much easier to play than orks. Giving more attention to objectives and secondaries might be crucial as well.

It's not unplayable. It's not well written or balanced either (but then, 40k never was). The best you can hope for that it's fun, which is subjective.

That said you'll get members trying to tell you that you set up the terrain wrong, or you should discuss your lists beforehand and all other kinds of GW apologetics. The only one that might help is when certain posters suggest playing Crusade, but that again is something that Orks really drew the short straw on so it probably won't help.

OP- Bail out now, before you get into some misguided spiral of sunk costs etc. and look into Grimdark Future or Oldhammer. You'll have to put in some effort for both, but both are far more tolerable than the utter fustercluck 9th is.

drbored wrote:
Yeah, not unplayable, but it's never been easier to get a really crappy match-up.

.

This. The trap options, bad builds or building and playing an army the wrong way is very much a problemem. But maybe it is for the better, the whole play what you want was always an illusion, unless someone go really lucky. The way the game is right now, you either follow the meta or you have stop playing a faction or a build, and start playing the game with 4-5 armies with multiple thousands of points owned.

40k is in a great state if you're playing mainly to have fun and aren't overly competitive. I have fun playing my (gakky) IG against my two regular Nid-opponents.

40k is probably horrible if both players are very competitive and one brings a list that's not up to speed against list that is.

The thing is you can do compatative in w40k without trying. One player likes big tyranid monsters, because they like monsters. The other guy likes WWI and XIXth century esthetics. One guy brings 2 of each big nid monster, the other brings waves of IG infantry. First few games will make the IG player not want to play much. Worse the same tyranid player may hate big monsters, want to play swarms of guants , like stormship trooper warrior bugs and they run in to a DA player who likes DW, and suddenly the person with the supposed OP and superior codex is losing a game, after a game.

One thing I'm learning fast (as an Ork player who basically skipped 8th and the start of 9th, then came back to this) is that you need to build your army around the objectives, not killing the enemy.

Focus on:

- taking the objectives
- screening the objectives to keep the enemy away
- survving whilst on the objectives
- getting multiple units into the enemy deployment zone early for linebreaker points
- having units which can perform actions to score more points
- use the objective secured rules to your advantage

For example, I wouldn't be concerned with kiling too many waveserpents (I'd try, but not focus my gameplan on it), and instead focus on getting the most bodies onto objectives. he'll need to get out to contest them, and then he's squishy.

put some big guns on the backfield to sit on objectives, and focus on volume of fire over high damage (damage reduction is becoming the new big thing it seems), so relying on D1 weapons en-masse is less likely to get shut down than relying on D2 weapons which suddenly drop to D1 and therefore suck.

Damage D6 weapons are still ok and the few D3+3 weapons we have are good too, though the wazbomm blastajet has let me down in 3 for 3 games so far.


As older ork players, we need to move our mindset from the old-fashioned "kill them and then take objectives", because that doesn't work any more. You need to use board control and focus on racking up the points, think on the opponents objectives and use them to prioritise your targets (EG if they have linebreaker then you need to prioritise anything which is about to hit your deployment zone. If they have 2 objectives and you have 2 objectives, get them off one so that they don't score as many points in their command phase.


Consider the way scoring in the command phase works. Your opponent sets their army up in their turn, and then hands you control - you determine their points, by what you destroy, swamp, or deny. If they are on 3 objectives, you control their score next turn by how many objectives they are still controlling by the end of your turn.

So, if you have the choice of charging a CC unit, or just standing 1" away and contesting/claiming the objective, go for the objective instead of the charge, so you're there in their command phase. Boom, scores denied.

Meanwhile, you need to be focussing on claiming objectives for your command phase, and giving him enough problems with stuff to clear off his own to worry about, so you can hopefully out-score them on your turn.

No idea for eldar and hitting on 6's, I'm afraid, but good luck!

It’s not unplayable. Sounds like a poor first experience but our group has a lot of fun with 9th.

 Dysartes wrote:

 JEREMSTER wrote:
It wasn't even fun. My orks needed 6's to hit anything. His Eldar all hit me on 2+ and his Wasps(I think) toasted my battle wagon with only 3 hits.

Something sounds a little off here - all his stuff hit on a 2+, and all yours only on 6+?

What lists were you two fielding, and how was the board set up?

Just to be clear - I'm not shocked that the game was slanted in the favour of the Eldar, but the above points sound dodgy.

Hitting on 6's...maybe alaitoc? He's in terrain -1 to hit so 5+ to 6. And one unit out of terrain can get by stratagem.

Well it's not unplayable, but a lot of matches end up being completely one-sided.

Part of the problem lays with the compete mess GW made of 9th edition. There's so many rules that it's hard for ordinary people to keep track of. The mess with strategems, special rules, doctrines, tides and whatnot make for power-combos that are completely unfair and unfun.

The second part of the problem is that (thanks to the internet) these combo's quickly become widely known and therefore 'meta'.
If you've got your backside handed to you a couple of times you automatically adjust to this new meta.

For example, I play an Imperial Guard army. I manage to win regularly, but in order to do so I need to build a list that isn't much fun for my opponents to play against. Basically, lots of re-rolling demolisher shots at max range and a couple of planes.
Last night I took a different list, with a lot of infantry models. Turn one saw my six squads of infantry completely demolished, so I probably won't be using those again any time soon.

One thing that would instantly balance this game is alternating activation. Turn one advantage is waaaay to big in the current game.

I think this edition is pretty bad for returning players, especially for someone who never played 8th. The game is so different than it was during 3rd-7th, and getting used to things like strategems, auras, faction abilities, etc. that buff units up way beyond what their datasheet says is probably the most annoying thing; at least that's how I feel as someone who stopped playing in 6th and came back recently. Also the lethality level in the game is just off the charts; even an 'ard case battlewagon, with T8 16 wounds 3+ armor, will have a hard time surviving a turn of anti-tank fire. Basically anything without an invuln or a way to ignore damage will get killed if you leave out in the open.

The fact that you're playing Orks is also not helping; they're probably the weakest of the 9th ed codexes right now, against eldar which is one of the best.

It's definitely not unplayable.

It still can have bad match-ups, and Orks vs. Eldar are some of the factions at the extreme ends of the bell curve. Most 9th ed codex factions feel pretty close to each other in terms of power. Certainly, there's still a tiered uneven power to the factions. Just most can still beat any other with more optimized list, better play and/or some luck.

Orks, Eldar, Tyranids and possibly Necrons are a couple standard deviations from the middle. With Eldar and Tyranids being on the too good end, and the Orks and Necrons being on the too bad end. In fact, after having a really good look at the Ork 9th ed codex, I'd say it's actually weaker than the 8th CSM codex with all the changes GW has made to CSM in 9th. To be perfectly honest, I don't know what sort of brain-fart GW had when they wrote the Ork codex.

The datasheets are largely middling, with some okay HQ units (which push players to take more detachments). Dakka weapons appear to be a failed idea that is a weak side grade at best. Orks didn't really get a faction wide 'Doctrine' army ability. Ork use in-game stratagems range from mediocre to bad. And that's from a non-Ork player skimming through. The whole thing screams rush job, erring on the side of less power because it was considered less. Honestly, Space Marines aren't the ones that need a new codex. Orks are.

Which is sad because 9th is pretty close to being in a wonderful spot. Eldar and Tyranids could probably toned down with rules tweaks we've already seen done in 9th. Necrons on the other end are the same. But Orks, I think, need a total re-write. It's possible to fix their codex with tweaks, but I don't think those tweaks can fix the fact that Orks don't play very close to how one would think they would. Even in a game sense where a player has to do more than throw everything across the table at their opponent. To me Orks in 9th currently, are like the opposite of Tyranids: pretty much weak at everything and over costed at that.

 Sim-Life wrote:


That said you'll get members trying to tell you that you set up the terrain wrong... and all other kinds of GW apologetics.

It's not GW apologetics to tell people that playing on planet bowling ball will result in unfun games. I will be the first one to bash GW, but personally witnessed a lot of people complaining in 7th about shooting armies while playing with very little terrain and zero terrain that blocked LOS to decent sized models. I played both SW and Eldar competitively at that time. My SW won games and were 1-2 dice rolls from winning some other games against the best TauDar lists because we used terrain layouts from Nova/Adepticon/LVO etc

Toofast wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:


That said you'll get members trying to tell you that you set up the terrain wrong... and all other kinds of GW apologetics.

It's not GW apologetics to tell people that playing on planet bowling ball will result in unfun games. I will be the first one to bash GW, but personally witnessed a lot of people complaining in 7th about shooting armies while playing with very little terrain and zero terrain that blocked LOS to decent sized models. I played both SW and Eldar competitively at that time. My SW won games and were 1-2 dice rolls from winning some other games against the best TauDar lists because we used terrain layouts from Nova/Adepticon/LVO etc

That's arguable. Not that I want a debate on the subject but if GW designed the game well it SHOULD be playable on Planet Bowling Ball and terrain should be present to offer tactical options and player choices rather than being a necessity to make the game not absolute dogshit.

I know I'm in a minority for this, but I played 2nd-5th and 8th, and I think 9th is the best version of 40k I've ever played. I've had actual come-from-behind victories in 9th and that's not something I've seen happen very often.

The Newman wrote:
I know I'm in a minority for this, but I played 2nd-5th and 8th, and I think 9th is the best version of 40k I've ever played. I've had actual come-from-behind victories in 9th and that's not something I've seen happen very often.

I think it depends on your perspective. I agree the scoring system allows technical victories from behind, but I don't think they are narrative victories.

If my army is reduced to 5 troops minis and your army has a tank and two squads left, the fact that I "win" on VPs doesn't mean anything narratively.* In fact, it I feel like it is a BAD thing that I won the game, because now I have to narratively justify how the hell that happened when the troops would have been obliterated 5 seconds later.

*I realize many forced ex post facto justifications can be offered. That isn't the point.

“My plucky battalion held out long enough for the Guard’s main spearhead to ambush the opponent’s reserve forces, destroy them then wipe out the survivors of this battle. It turned the tide in this sector through one heroic company’s sacrifice.”

There. Took me about six heartbeats to think that up. Not hard!

You can also set the stakes up front if you’re so inclined. Doesn’t all have to be post-rationalisation.

I realise this is a level of *gasp* narrative that may shock and appall some of the wannabe tourney folk. Just look away if that’s you.

Last Crusade game I played I won 50-45 while losing every single model I had (I was required to do lot of Actions, thus being somewhat limited in my ability to dish out pain in return). My Death Guard terminator strike force was sending a message to the Tau by setting one of their important towns on fire deep in their own territory.

Despite total losses, the mission had succeeded. Didn't require much narrative gymnastics to make sense of that.

As for the topic itself: 9th is very much a playable, even enjoyable game, if both players are on the same wavelength on how cut-throat or thematic they want the game to be.