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Hello all. I recently began playing 40k about two months ago, and have had seven games playing as the Orks. The group I play with fields 1500 point battles per player, with two teams of two. My current go-to army is as such:

Ghazghkull Thraka - 225 Points
(I have him for Nob Troop Choice and his Waaaagh! I am unimpressed so far)

20 Nobz With 'Eavy Armour - 500 points

30 'Ard Boyz - 300

6 Meganobz, 1 with Shoota Skorcha - 240
(I usually attach Ghazghkull to this squad)

1 Deff Dread with Big Shoota and Kustom Mega-Blasta - 95

3 Killa Kans with Grotzookas - 135


I used to use a Battlewagon, but it has yet to survive longer than the first turn, twice it even got penned and exploded, killing everything inside.


The people I play with have no issues with proxies, due to us all being poor as hell.

I play with an Eldar player who has access to what appears to be any and every Eldar unit, but he prefers those tank/transport things that glide around. He packs them full, to boot. The is a Dark Angels player who loves Ezekiel. and almost always deploys with that aegis cannon thing. He has a strange knack for smashing vehicles. The last is a Necron player. He loves his monolith, loves his Ghost/doomsday arks, and his immortals will NOT stay down. He also has a thing that smashes my guys up with lightning, though I am aware that that is just lucky rolling on his part.

My issue is this: regardless of who I play with, I play the Orky way and charge my enemies down. My Orks get WRECKED on the way there, usually by blast weapons, and occasionally huge blast radius psychic powers. Ghazghkull is usually shot in his back by Dark Angel bikers, usually using plasma. He also always gets Mindwormed or whatever by Zeke.


To sum up, my army usually loses about 35% of it's force by the time the second round starts. When I finally get into assault, my army is a mere fraction of what it was before, and my vehicles, if any have survived, are usually stunned and missing weapons. I am usually completely gone by turn four or five. What am I doing wrong, and how can I play better?


Edit: Typo

Welcome to 6th edition 40k where assault is dead lol.

Hey, it's not all gloom and doom. It actually sounds like your opponents aren't optimizing their codices. Bad news is, neither are you. And when you have a codex as old as Orks; you reallllly need to maximize your potential.

So, what's good in this book?

Nob bikers.- Speed, Resiliency, Hard-hitting
Lootas.- Range, high Strength
Battlewagons.- Cheap AV14, High capacity

Less so, but can be good:

Ghazzy.- Straight pimp in CC; decent waagh buff. Needs a battlewagon.
30 boy mobz.- cheap bodies. objective holders, virtually fearless. actually pretty dakka.
Meganobz- 2+ is 2+; and 2 wounds is 2 wounds. Need Battlewagons.

Notice at no time did I mention Nobs walking in eavy armor, ard boys, deff dreds or killa kans lol. Here in lies your problem.

You've become disenchanted with battlewagons because yours died. That's not because they suck. That's because you only took one! 40k is a game system that rewards spamming. Don't take one battlewagon, take 4 or 5. And don't cry to me about being poor either. You play orks. Go to the dollar store, buy some toy trukks, f*&^ them up, paint em red, MAKE IT ORKY!

This is my solution for now. Try running a battlewagon spam list with 3 from heavy support and 1 from Elites with meganobz and ghazzy in it (dedicated transport). You can use the heavy support ones as gunships for lootas, or even shoota boys.

Something like this (Given what you have, and could convert cheaply/easily):

Ghazzy

x4 Meganobz + Battlewagon (RPJ, Deffrolla, 1 Big Shoota)- 280

x19 Shoota Boyz + Nob with PK, BP- 160
x19 Shoota Boyz + Nob with PK, BP- 160
x15 Shoota Boyz- 120

Battlewagon (RPJ, Deffrolla, 1 Big Shoota)- 120
Battlewagon (RPJ, Deffrolla, 1 Big Shoota)- 120
Battlewagon (RPJ, Deffrolla, 1 Big Shoota)- 120

Lootas x15- 225

Total: 1500

Ok, the way this works is simple. You've got a wall of AV14. You flat out T1. They're open topped so cargo can fire out. Leave the 15-ork mob behind on an objective (preferably in cover) or simply reserve them to walk on later. The 2 bigger mobz and the lootas go in the HS wagons. You're in combat T2, dakka-ing on the way in. The lootas of course remain embarked as long as your opponents' shooting allows. Ghazzy and meganobz crunch crunch crunch on things. It won't win you any tournaments but it's a good enough list for bangin' on your mates. One last note, the equipment on the wagons is not accidental. RPJ nets 1 extra inch. F*&^ing vital. The big shoota keeps you from becoming immobilized on a second Weapon Destroyed result and the Deffrollas allow you to ignore dangerous terrain tests and provide some S10 in your list. Besides, after they puke out their cargo, you can do hilarious things with them...the primary motivation for playing Orks anyway haha.

I digress, Orks should get a codex next Spring at the latest. So wait for new actual GW purchases until then. For now, get convertin' on those battlewagons or I'll zog ya upside your 'ead ;P

Sytakan wrote:

20 Nobz With 'Eavy Armour - 500 points

I would bet this is a large part, if not your entire problem. Not only is this illegal(you could field 2 units of 10) but this is an outright bad idea.


For orks at 1500, you have very little on the field. Orks work by saturating the board with bodies and targets. Also, 6th has been unkind to assault, and even for orks shooting is where it is at (this means lootas). As far as a battlewagon exploding and killing every model inside, that just sounds like horrid luck. I mean, that is bad bad luck. Try your meganobs in one, if they still die, then I don't know something about you must be cursed, cause that is insanely improbable. Orks charging is not what it used to be, and your friends are all using newer, and more powerful, far more shooty dexes(eldar and crons particularly). You need the ability to deal with their armies before turn 3-4 after they can easily gun you down(and in 6th they can and will). Either mobs of boys or some long ranged dakka. Look into lootas, you could really use some.Kans and dreads are not what they used to be, but cheap enough I suppose. Necrons laugh at them, and seriously you need more boys. Orks win by attrition, not by elite forces.

Try a 1 on 1 game. Your necron friend is a nightmare with almost untouchable Av13 and gauss. Eldar is not much better with fast skimmers of death. Also, fighting against imotek is hell, and imotek is just outright evil. So overall, don't feel bad your losing cause your fighting against armies that are easily capable of owning yours.

When starting out losing a lit is very common, and you are using the oldest codex out. Now to get the most out of the current any you may need to buy some stuff. Three first rule I teach people when learning is, if you bring 1, bring 2. There's quite a lot of reasons for this, but trust me it helps.

Much of the army you are using is against meta. Not that it's bad per se but, you lack the experience to get the most out of it. If you want orks that survive, you need mad doc grotsnick. Instead if heavy armory on they boyz upg. Them to bionic, but it's nicer to have a second squad with them of 30. The kans and dreads are points sinks in this army and against necrons and Eldar serpent spam, dead meat.

While orks love the assault, they love dakka too you need shooting. Lootas are a good place to start. Even with an assault army, you need to weaken the enemy before you get there. Shoota boyz are your next unit. You still assault well, but can do a bunch of damage on the way.

But really it depend on what kind if army you want to play, you need to focus your build. What kind of army you want to play as?

Example Ideas:

Kan wall
Mega mobs
Green tide
Cult of speed
Biker rush
Truck rush
Clans of one type or another
Balanced

Wow, a lot of great advice already! The style I originally wanted to play my Orks was very shooty. Lotsa lotsa dakka. But my mates advised against that, stressing that Orks were mean and hurty up close and should play as such. My absolute favorite type of weaponry happens to be anything using blast templates, but I can't find a way to field a large amount of it yet. I really Shrike's suggestion for getting more wagons, too, as well as the whole army listing. I'll probably give that a try, although I don't think I have enough bodies to do it just yet. Perhaps I'll pick up a bucket of army men and use them as stand ins until I can snag another batch of Boyz off Ebay. The Necron Monolith scares me the most, as I have SO much trouble killing it. Eventually I managed to smack one with a Tankhammer (hilarious look on the player's face) before Ghazzy got close enough to rip it in half.

I also think I may be using the Waaagh! wrong. As it appears to be the Orks one big super power, I feel like it should be a bit more... super? I find it lacking, myself. The F.A.Q.s I hear even removed the ability to assault with Ghazzy's Waaagh!, which confuses me. Doesn't that defeat the entire purpose of it?

Another thing, not directly related, but I wanted to paint my Orks with blue skin and call them Frost Orks, like they were from a cold planet or something. For whatever reason, this caught me a fair amount of flak from my mates. Did I do something offensive there?

1) Paint your army however you want; this includes blue orks. Could be a bad batch of Fungus. THEY'RE ORKS! Literally anything you could imagine could be rationalized by "Wagsdok Zogmurd experimented with XYZ...and there yago."

2) Deffrollas are your answer for the Monolith. D6 S10 hits baby. And you're faster than he is.

The WAAAGH sucks man. Orks in general are suckier than they should be. Also your mates sound like major dicks. Also dudes who don't allow proxies in friendly games are not dudes that I would ever play with.

 Dakkamite wrote:
The WAAAGH sucks man. Orks in general are suckier than they should be. Also your mates sound like major dicks. Also dudes who don't allow proxies in friendly games are not dudes that I would ever play with.

No, no! I didn't mean they didn't allow proxies, just that there is no issue with them. Sorry I wasn't clear about that. Then again, no one has brought army men to the stage like I plan to, so we'll see their limits, I guess.

Sytakan wrote:
Wow, a lot of great advice already! The style I originally wanted to play my Orks was very shooty. Lotsa lotsa dakka. But my mates advised against that, stressing that Orks were mean and hurty up close and should play as such.

Funny thing about that, some of the strongest ork Lists in 6th edition are pure shooting and infact Ork close combat has been severely hammered.

Lootas are your goto unit for Ork shooting, lots of cheap decent strength long range shots. Snapshotting lootas against fliers going from BS2 to BS1 is no big deal at all. Grot Artillery is also not bad, now that everything shooting at them is wounding against toughness 7.

Ork overwatch is also extremelly deadly simply due to the sheer number of shots.

As already mentioned, elite units in the ork army are indeed still orks, tying up points in high cost models that aren't meganobz isn't wise. A hard lesson to learn. Another unit that is surprisingly absent from this list of useful units are deffkoptas, jetbikes generally got more survivable in 6th. They are quite nice to contest objectives or to harass the enemy. MAKE your opponent deal with them, they're relatively survivable for being orks.

Sytakan wrote:
Another thing, not directly related, but I wanted to paint my Orks with blue skin and call them Frost Orks, like they were from a cold planet or something. For whatever reason, this caught me a fair amount of flak from my mates. Did I do something offensive there?

I run blue Orks aswell. If they are going to paint the whole army green for you then fine. And they better do a great job. Otherwise paint them any color you want. I have seen blue, yellow, red, orange, green and grey orks. So it's up to you. Tell them you don't like the color they have chosen for thier armies and they should repaint them.

As for your list, get some kind of defence line with a quadgun. This will help if you take shootas too.

Try a looted vehicle or two with Boom Guns and sit them behind the line too. With a 36" range at str8 and ap3 you could do some killin'.

I agree with taking shootas. Whittle your opponent down before assaults.

Hope this helps.

BS2 quaddgun? no thanks. Downgrading from BS2 to BS1 when firing at fliers isn't that much of a down grade. Lootas take care of them just fine. Bring rokkits in your boy mobz if you want to add some insurance.

 The Shrike wrote:
BS2 quaddgun? no thanks. Downgrading from BS2 to BS1 when firing at fliers isn't that much of a down grade. Lootas take care of them just fine.

You don't have to take the quadgun but having a 4+ cover for the lootas will come in handy.

 The Shrike wrote:
You've become disenchanted with battlewagons because yours died. That's not because they suck. That's because you only took one! 40k is a game system that rewards spamming. Don't take one battlewagon, take 4 or 5. And don't cry to me about being poor either. You play orks. Go to the dollar store, buy some toy trukks, f*&^ them up, paint em red, MAKE IT ORKY!

LOL

I'd say that the biggest problem is that you ran into the oldest ork trap, and that is using more toys and less boys. You have a few elite (points-wise) units that probably get gunned down too quickly or outmanuevred from here to oblivion every game.

Baisicly I'd recomend to you either making a massive footslogging army of regular ol'Shootaboyz with lootas and kannons backup, or go fasta with either a trukk-centric army or a battlewagon oriented list (there are many of all 3 on this forum)
Any list you make, if you want it to be more competetive, bring Lootas no matter what xD
There is a fun list I saw in a BTP batrep that just crushed an eldar army, the army involving 4 Sluggaboyz trukks, 1 nobs trukk, 1 'ard slugga boyz trukk, a couple of 5man lootas squads, a couple of deffkoptas, and few more things. The Ork player rushed across the field turn one so far, that the eldar player got cornered and then stomped to the ground

 Delevarius wrote:
I'd say that the biggest problem is that you ran into the oldest ork trap, and that is using more toys and less boys. You have a few elite (points-wise) units that probably get gunned down too quickly or outmanuevred from here to oblivion every game.

Baisicly I'd recomend to you either making a massive footslogging army of regular ol'Shootaboyz with lootas and kannons backup, or go fasta with either a trukk-centric army or a battlewagon oriented list (there are many of all 3 on this forum)
Any list you make, if you want it to be more competetive, bring Lootas no matter what xD
There is a fun list I saw in a BTP batrep that just crushed an eldar army, the army involving 4 Sluggaboyz trukks, 1 nobs trukk, 1 'ard slugga boyz trukk, a couple of 5man lootas squads, a couple of deffkoptas, and few more things. The Ork player rushed across the field turn one so far, that the eldar player got cornered and then stomped to the ground

Trukk spam depends on getting first turn. I guarantee if the Eldar list was built even approaching properly, that they would destroy a Trukk army's mobility in a single shooting phase. At least Battlewagon spam has AV14.

I really appreciate all the advice so far, everyone. It's been very helpful in restoring my love for my Orks. It looks like my biggest issue so far is that I just need more meat. Or... sporocarp... since they're fungus... or something.

Since ork boyz are pricy, does anyone know of anything cheap that makes a good proxy for them until I've got the cash for proper orks?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 The Shrike wrote:

 Delevarius wrote:
I'd say that the biggest problem is that you ran into the oldest ork trap, and that is using more toys and less boys. You have a few elite (points-wise) units that probably get gunned down too quickly or outmanuevred from here to oblivion every game.

Baisicly I'd recomend to you either making a massive footslogging army of regular ol'Shootaboyz with lootas and kannons backup, or go fasta with either a trukk-centric army or a battlewagon oriented list (there are many of all 3 on this forum)
Any list you make, if you want it to be more competetive, bring Lootas no matter what xD
There is a fun list I saw in a BTP batrep that just crushed an eldar army, the army involving 4 Sluggaboyz trukks, 1 nobs trukk, 1 'ard slugga boyz trukk, a couple of 5man lootas squads, a couple of deffkoptas, and few more things. The Ork player rushed across the field turn one so far, that the eldar player got cornered and then stomped to the ground

Trukk spam depends on getting first turn. I guarantee if the Eldar list was built even approaching properly, that they would destroy a Trukk army's mobility in a single shooting phase. At least Battlewagon spam has AV14.

Oh my, yes. The Eldar player rips apart vehicles on the first turn almost always. So does the Dark Angel player, for that matter. In fact, they almost never play on eachother's team due to how well they tend to wreck EVERYTHING. The last time they teamed up, they wiped me and my necron buddy from the board, third turn.

I think aobr ork Boyz is about the cheapest thing you'll find. However three is a company that makes sci Fi orks called marauders. They are cheaper than gw, though that's all I know.

Ah, rememberd, mantic. Another option is to buy used stuff from Ebay or bartertown.

AoBR Orks are dirt cheap, I get them for about 50c each on ebay type websites.

Problem is they're all slugga boyz.

 The Shrike wrote:

Something like this (Given what you have, and could convert cheaply/easily):

This is good, but I think Ghazghull is unnecessary. You could get two Megabosses, each 90% as fighty as Ghazghull, for the same price. Or better yet, a Megaboss and a KFF, because KFF is amazing in a vehicle list.

Then again, its all down to what OP's got available to him. But its not like its hard to knock up a KFF Mek from some boyz and bits

I would suggest Dakka Jets they are amazing I run 3, two of which I converted from 1/72 scale kits and put grots in them.

Orks really need to have a direction and to stick with it. You have too much of the poor units and the good ones don't even have transport. You need your Meganobz to get into the fight, not lumber along. I can see why a Battlewagon wouldn't last long and that's because there's only one of them.

Consider something like this:

Ghazghkull Thraka
Big Mek - kustom force field

7 x Lootas
7 x Lootas
7 x Lootas

3 x Meganobz w/ Battlewagon - deffrolla, armour plates, grot riggers, boarding plank & big shoota
20 x Shoota Boyz - nob w/ power klaw & bosspole
20 x Shoota Boyz - nob w/ power klaw & bosspole
20 x Shoota Boyz - nob w/ power klaw & bosspole
10 x Grots - runtherd

Dakkajet - fighta' ace
Dakkajet - fighta' ace

Battlewagon - deffrolla, armour plates, grot riggers, boarding plank & big shoota
Battlewagon - deffrolla, armour plates, grot riggers, boarding plank & big shoota
Battlewagon - deffrolla, armour plates, grot riggers, boarding plank & big shoota

Drive up 12", angle your vehicles to make it harder for the opponent to get the side armour. Next turn bail out from your Battlewagons, Orks charge infantry before shooting or a SINGLE vehicle (you do not get furious charge if you multi charge), when charging the vehicle 'wrap it' with the Orks so nothing can bail out or if it blows up then enemy models cannot deploy. Battlewagons tank shock vehicles with the deffrolla, pref ones which have no transport as cannot have troops pouring out with anti tank weapons etc. If you do not want to get the Orks out use the boarding plank to punch vehicles

Pretty sure you can ram one vehicle and plank another if its close enough. The look on the other guys face will be well worth it.

Personally I'd run 15 Lootas instead of 21, and use those points to take a few extra MANz. Three MANz gonna run real fast. But thats just my preference for choppy I guess

I agree with dakkamite, maybe you should drop Gazzy for a Mega Armored warboss and as dakkamite said scale down the lootas to 5x per squad for more Mega Nobz?
a Megaarmored warboss does just as much damage as gazzy himself, but is a bit less survivable, but totally more worth the points since he is more twice as cheap basically

Slightly less damage, as IIRC Gazzy is +1 WS and +1 Attacks. But regardless, he's certainly nowhere near twice as powerful while being twice the cost.

An update! I just got back from a new game where I utilized what I learned here.

In a 3v3 Necrons, Chaos, Orks VS Dark Angels, Dark Angels, and Eldar, we were using 1000 points.

I fielded two battlewagons, two Big Meks, one in each, and 20 shootas in each. I also had a Deff Dread loaded with Grotzookas on the field. Stationed in ruins way in the back were my Lootas.

We lost the battle due to less victory points, but I count myself as a victor since I managed to take out six of the eleven squads on the field, and heavily wounded the others, while only losing one wagon full of Orks. The Chaos player was completely obliterated.


I had a LOT more fun this game. Thanks a ton for all the advice!

Yeah man; that's the way to run. Orks can be a real asset in big team games like that. Even if you get entirely wiped (which you didn't) the other team spends all their firepower on you while your mates swarm objectives and rack up kill points.

Good start.

Your best decision was playing 3v3 1k pts. That gak is amazing.