The do's and Don't s? Fighting Orks

[Major Downer]

Hello Everyone,

I have a game on Friday against some Orkies ;D

I would like to know from your experience, what are the do's and dont's against Orks?

Sit back?
Take a lot of shooty?
Flamers and G/L?

If you could help a brother out, that would be fantastic.

Many Thanks


Major Downer

[zeke]

Template and lots of shots are your friends. Especially flamers. Infablob with FRFSRF I imagine would be devastating. And don't let them charge you, that's the best way to lose a squad.

[Major Downer]

Ok so atm I am actually doing the right thing hahah That god for that

I have M/L and Mortar teams, all my flamers and G/L's are in my list. I have put a Power fist on my command in case it all goes down the pan. Oh I added a Hell hound for a speed bump and some snipers to slow them down.

Heavy wise, I have 3 Bassies to mess them up.

Thanks for the input Zeke, I was crapping my self with the list I had wrote out, thanks for the piece of mind


Major Downer

[magot]

don't charge them, don't let them charge you.

shoot with everything you have. templates are fun because orks do have a lot of models on the tabel making it difficult not to hit something with it.

be sure to make good usage of your orders like zeke says frfsrf and bring it down are blessings for you.

but most of all....................... Do have a lot of F U N !!

[Major Downer]

Hey Magot,

FUN is the aim of the game, My friend and I are going to a local gaming club for the first time, so we are having some practice game (IG vs Orks) than a large 4 hour Apoc

AH I forgot about the orders! *Going to read up now*

Cheers Magot

Major Downer

[macknight]

snipers will be quite worthless as the orks have the mob rule, take manticore and valkyries with rockets, protect your flanks from choppers and infiltraters, watchout for nob bikers, they hurt; counter them with plasma melta vets in chimeras.

[scotti88]

I agree with MACKNIGHT. Ditch the snipers and take something that can do over flyers! Sit back and enjoy the carnage from a distance! Try and keep it as even as you can between GL Motar and AC. hope I'm not being or sounding like douche!

[Sgt. Rock]

As an ork player...

ACs are your friends for anything short of Battlewagons. They'll make trukks, buggies, Killa Kanz and looted wagons disappear in *very* short order, and they will do quite a bit to ruin a nob's day.

Templates are good, massed ranks of fire are good. Against boyz, a Punisher would be quite useful. Their armor save sucks, so having a nil AP isn't a big setback, and that bucketload of dice will cut them down in scores. Heavy bolters are nice for big mobs of boyz and light armor. Lascannons are hopelessly overkill for anything shy of a battlewagon. Mortars are handy for the templates and, despite the mob rule, pinning checks are still useful once the mob has been whittle down to less than 12 models. Plasma weapons are good for nobz and most armor. Multilasers tear orks to shreds. MLs are great; krak missiles will tear up even battlewagons with enough shots, and a HWS firing frag into a mob of boyz will result in a lot of dead orks. GLs are wonderful for the same reasons. Flamers are useful, but really only for Overwatch. Hellhounds, however, are a nightmare for orks. Even chimeras with heavy flamers are terrifying.

Orders. First rank, second rank is your friend. Bring it down is great for battlewagons and dreads. Fire on my target is quite useful against bikes, as they carry their own cover saves with them.

Bring a couple LRBTs and/or Exterminators. Orks are hopelessly incapable of dealing with anything over AV12 at range, but protect your armor at close range, because power klaws will rip through just about anything short of Land Raiders or Monoliths.

HOWEVER...

I disagree with the whole "don't let them charge you" bit. With the exception of tooled up nobz, nob bikers, and the occasional 'ard boyz or stormboyz mob, orks aren't nearly as scary in CC as they used to be. Yes, they're T4 and S4 on the charge. Yes, they get 2 attacks base. But with Furious Charge losing its initiative bonus, *everyone* swings before they do, and Overwatch works in your favor. Whittle them down at range before they get to you. Blob up in at least 20 man units. And park your happy little self in cover. Even with the stikkbombz negating the penalty to assaulting into terrain, your guardsmen still strike first, and with that weedy little 6+ wet T-shirt save, they may as well not be wearing anything at all. Obviously it's better to avoid the situation entirely, but if it does happen, it's not the end of the world.

As I said, the exception is anything nob-related. Nobz, Meganobz and bikers of any sort are top priority targets at range, but speaking from personal experience, a 30 man blob with first rank, second rank will shave off those wounds in a real damn hurry.

All that said, big mobs of shoota boyz are dangerous at range. I run two 20-man mobs with a pair of big shootas, and spitting out 34 shoota and 6 big shoota shots once they get within 18", even at orks pathetic marksmanship, will *hurt.*

A word about lootas. Most ork players think these guys are Gork's gift to the orks. They are not nearly as scary as they seem. Yes, take them out, because they can do a lot of damage, but they're unreliable, and unless he parks a big mek with a bosspole in there, all you have to do is force a couple rout checks. They have pretty average leadership (as with all orks) and no re-roll means they tend to run off the table pretty easily. Target them with artillery and you'll be fine.

Battlewagons are scary. They can upgun them to act as a poor man's Leman Russ, or they can give them Deffrollas and drive all over everything you have after dropping off a mob of nobz right in front of your line. They are, however, open topped, and their side armor is fairly soft, so a Vendetta or outflanking scout sentinel with AC or LC can help with that.

Trukks and buggies are potentially dangerous, depending on what they're carrying. A trukk full of nobz or 'ard boyz should be detonated before it crosses midfield. Buggies with TL Rokkit launchas are a threat to your armor due to their speed. However, they're made of rice paper and balsa wood; I can't tell you how many times I've had my buggies and trukks wiped out by bolter fire.

Dreads are icky in CC, but until they get there, they're pretty useless. Pop them with anti-armor weapons before they get to your line, but otherwise, I wouldn't worry too much. Killa Kanz, however, are dangerous. Grotzookas will make a godawful mess of your infantry if they get close enough, and rokkit launchas at BS 3 are a genuine threat to your armor. Fortunately, they're squishy, so anything S6 or 7 and up will make them disappear very quickly.

Not a lot of experience with the aircraft, sadly, but I'd give them a high target priority, especially blitza bommas and burna bommaz. Big templates hurt. An Aegis line with Quad gun should solve that problem.

Bikers are yucky and tough, shoot them a lot. Deffkoptas can be a pain if they have TL Rokkit launchas and they outflank, but despite high toughness, an extra wound, and a 4+ armor save, their small unit size, lame leadership and no reroll makes them kind of a one-hit wonder. Don't ignore them, but don't freak out if they appear on your flanks.

Kommandos are largely useless now, but if they come in beside or behind you, don't waste much time in blowing them to bits. Left unattended they can still cause some damage.

Looted wagons are only dangerous if they have boomguns, and again, very soft armor.

Oh, and watch out for Lobbas. I have two of them, and my buddy who plays DKOK *always* targets them first, because they blow great gouges out of his infantry and force pinning checks. It sucks having a 30 man blob put out of the fight by a 50 point unit of artillery. Ammo runts are stupidly cheap; they provide rerolls of the scatter dice and the battery can take up to three of them. However, unless your opponent buys them extra crew and/or a runtherd, they only have two grots per gun, and they're abject cowards, so they flee at the merest hint of danger. Again, artillery is a good bet.

I think that's about the extent of my knowledge as an ork player. Pretty much everything else in the 'dex is average to useless. Sit back and shoot the crap out of him for three or four turns, then move forward to take any objectives, if there are any. Orks are pretty simple beasts, and their battle plans are usually pretty unsophisticated. Take into account his strengths and weaknesses, as well as your own, and you should be fine. Best of luck!

[Gerner]

CHARGE AND WIIIN!
To glory my brother!

[magot]

Trock,
that is one of the nicest and most sportive support I have seen.
thanks mate for keeping it a warm and positive atmosphere here on this board

[Sgt. Rock]

Happy to help, though I feel like a traitorous git for divulging all our secrets. :-P

As I said, orks are simple creatures. 6th ed did a number on their melee ability, and their shooting game is still suspect, as well. Ork armies have to pick an approach and specialize in it. Dread mobz, speed freeks, footsloggers, armored krumpany... each is powerful, but each is a rock for which there are several scissors. I'm building a Guard army mostly because I want a change after years of playing orks, but I'm also pretty unhappy with the way my army build got neutered in 6th.

[WestRider]

If you've got one, the Leman Russ Eradicator was pretty much designed with Orks in mind. Girffons are generally pretty awesome against them, too.

I'd avoid Flamers as a major tactic. HellHounds, sure. Suicide Flamer PCS dropping out of a Valkyrie or something? Doable. But in general, if you're close enough to use Flamers on Orks, you're too close. The Grenade Launcher is my Special Weapon of choice here.

Actually, Orks are the best reason to use a bunch of things that don't normally see much table time. On top of the aforementioned examples, Valkyries with Rocket Pods are better against many Builds than Vendettas, and Ogryn can really come into their own here.

The Manticore is as good as always, and is one of the best things going for taking out Nob Bikers, since the S10 can instakill them and deny FNP.

Don't forget to keep some Anti-Tank around, tho. Battlewagons are AV14 in the front, with 4 Hull Points, and generally have Cover, one way or another. Gonna need an answer to those, and it needs to work at range. Fortunately, they have big AV12 Side Arcs, so you can usually spread out and get shots at one of those. Masses of Kanz, again with Cover, can present a problem as well.

DakkaJets are pretty nasty, but also fairly fragile. If you've got any Anti-Air capability at all, you can deal with them.

[vegna]

wouldn't a PCS with 4 flamers in a chimera with hull and turret heavy flamers work well as a counter assault unit? 105 points for 2 heavy flamer templates, 4 normal flamers and a las-pistol shot or for 120 points get 3 heavy flamers and 3 normal flamers. that'd cripple any ork blob!

[WestRider]

Only take one Heavy Flamer on the Chimera. You can't move and fire both. Not nearly as good for Drive-bys as it used to be, but otherwise still a decent Unit.

Not as great as it might seem, tho. Against a decent Ork Player, you're unlikely to get more than 3-5 Hits per Flamer, which only ends up killing maybe a dozen Orks or so. That's why I referred to it as a suicide squad above.

[vegna]

cant u? huh sad, guess the hull one wouldnt be much use any way. but still 25 hits per fire attack...try to get the template over any with threats to your chimera and they can't do much.

[treadiculous]

Against the Ork I find it useful to plan ahead;

Think where they will have to go through on route to you, deploy to threaten where they will be because you know they won't sit at the back and let you shoot them.

Also set up threatening counter assaults when they get close to assault range, make it obvious that they might kill the first squad but they'll get wiped out by the counter attack - it might make them re-think.

Beware low cost / low priority units hassling you and getting in a lucky hit on side / rear armour (buggies, Koptas, Bikers, Kommandos all do this quite well)... a good defense is some infantry on the flanks.

Beware also the Lobba - these are really tough to take out, use weapons that deny cover and / or hit them from behind the gun shield.

[Soap]

You can't spell fun without 'death strike missile launcher'

[Deleted]

I have to admit in all the games of 40k I've played, Orks are definately my most feared opponent. Theres hundreds of them, they break yyou in CC and have all the elements required to be considered one of GWs most notorious armies.

Honestly with IG I'd recommend a solid shooting line and let them come. Leman Russ Punishers, Stormlords and Valkyries with LOTS of Heavy Bolter Teams and missile launchers for anti tank. Think about it, MLs can fire frag or krak so both trukks and infantry will be mashed.

Theres gonna be alot oof infantry and they are gonna be charging straight at you. Only a fool or SMs take on Orks in THE CC so field PLATOONS and make sure 85 - 100% of your army is always in line of sight.

Snipers can pin oncoming squads and give you that extra turn to focus fire on either the pinned unit or a second incoming unit.

I'd definately recommend Valkyries though, Ork armour sucks apart from when they take our tanks so a squadron of Valks moving Sniper Rifle and Heavy Bolter Vets around the table could work too.

Artillery is also a must. A Medusa is ideal because there's no minimum range. Often Orks can handle one or two Basilisk blasts and then enjoy relative safety hacking up your infantry while you frantically try to reposition your Basilisk.

[Sgt. Rock]

Ivory,

Orks can't take Imperial tanks. Not since 3rd edition. Looted Wagons are crap; open topped, armor values of a Rhino, largely unarmed, and they have a 1 in 6 chance every turn of not doing anything but driving forward at full speed. The ones you have to worry about are Battlewagons; AV14 in the front, 20 man transport cap, and they can load up with all sorts of nasty guns or deffrollas.

As for only a fool... SM/CSM, Tyranids, Kroot, Dark Eldar, Eldar, hell, even Ogryns all are capable of kicking an ork's teeth in close combat. Initiative 2, remember? Anybody's dedicated assault troops will kick the snot out of anything shy of nobz in close combat. And even then, I won't pitch my nobz in against a SM assault squad. That's suicide.

Sniper rifles aren't worth crap against orks. Sure, you pop a few, but unless the mob is under 12 models they don't take pinning checks.

I'd hardly call anything orks have "notorious," with the exception of nobz, bikers, lootas and battlewagons. Everything else is solidly mediocre or downright crap, with the only method for success being to pick a build and specialize in it exclusively. Even then, a well balanced Guard army can handle it; Kult of Speed just needs to have all those vehicles and bikes neutralized, and suddenly the table is filled with undersized mobs of boyz. Dreadbash? Pop the big meks, pop the dreads, mop up the rest. Footslogging horde? Templates, templates, templates. Shooty orks? Oh, hell yeah, as a Guard player, I'd take that bet any day. Take it from a disgruntled greenskin, orks aren't scary anymore.

[treadiculous]

Orks are still very scary.

There a bunch of decent units and a varied number of tactics. While it is easy to come up with an answer to any Ork list, you won't know what that list is until it is set up before you... and mixed lists do still have a place... yes Guard have some good all rounders which work such as the standard LRBT, and the Manticore is always going to be good.

Overwatch rules hurt Orks, and the old kan wall isn't so good any more, but Fast vehicles got really really fast - meaning they can cross the table and be in your face before you blink. Lootas aren't the be-all and end-all but the Aegis Defense Line and small unit size works well for them, since you can snap fire after going to ground.

Nobs will eat space marine assault units in my opinion.. but thats based on my experience, so might just be lucky / unlucky

Looted Wagons are surprisingly good, as are many of the sub-par units - they take a bit of thinking about how to use them best but can cause major problems if not dealt with early on.

I'm still loving my Orks,

If you want a good summary, check the first entry of this post.. if you want more details read the other 82 pages..

www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/456724.page

[Sgt. Rock]

I suppose it may be that I've had really bad luck in 6th. I haven't won a game yet with my boyz... based on the models I have, my rabid refusal to use anything that isn't WYSIWYG, and my weak budget, I've had to work with a force that isn't as effective as it once was. It may also be that I'm just not very good at this game, though my DKOK friend claims I don't make any tactical blunders. But with my beloved Kommandos taking it in the shorts, hull points making it much easier for my trukks to get bolter'd to death, and the severe weakening of melee combat in general (and especially for anyone with low initiative), the game dynamic has changed in a way I just can't seem to figure out.

As for the nobz, I've had mine torn to pieces by anything CC-dedicated that wears power armor. I've had them cut down like dogs by one round of FRFSRF from a 30 man blob. Hell, last game I played, they charged 5 Khorne Berzerkers, lost two nobz, didn't get to swing, and ran away like grots. This being 10 tricked out nobz with painboy, a weirdboy, and my warboss. I admit, I've been having colossally bad luck on my rout checks with them, but the amount of points they suck up and the amount of attention they get (read: big hork-off gunz) means they're largely neutralized before they do anything.

Fast vehicles are really really fast... but they can't disembark unless they move 6" or less. Which means the trukk sits there in front of you patiently waiting to absorb stupid amounts of firepower.

BUT... this is an Imperial Guard forum. If I want to continue griping about my poor misbegotten greenskins, I can go back over to The Waaagh! and have people tell me to quit being a wanker and buy another battlewagon and some bikes. Bottom line, from my experience, orks don't need to be scary. I admit to having never played a game with Guard (I'm still building my army) but I've been playing orks off and on since 3rd ed (I skipped 4th.) I have played quite a number of Guard players, and I have a distressing tendency to get my teeth handed to me by skilled application of lasguns and artillery. It probably just means I'm lousy at orks.

[treadiculous]

- sgtrock:

can you put your full ork army in the Hordes section and we can have a look at what can be done to help you,

as for wysiwyg, orks have the best fluff for justifying stuff, and budget-wise orks are the best army for building wargear out of broken toys and cardboard..

I'm sure we'll be able to tweak you in the right direction...

[macknight]

from my fellow ork players, burnas and nobs in terminator armor are the way to go in 6th, a mob of burnas in a battlewagon is devestating, that with another mob of nobz in termie armor is a good 1-2 punch.

[emptyhat]

Dec 5, 2012 4:56:19 GMT -5 Sgt. Rock said:

Fast vehicles are really really fast... but they can't disembark unless they move 6" or less. Which means the trukk sits there in front of you patiently waiting to absorb stupid amounts of firepower.

You can move the trukk 6" disembark 6" and then roll 2d6 to charge (it is an assault vehicle) so you can get 14" to 24" from the trukk in one turn. So you could move at full speed on your first turn and get behind some terrain that hides the trukk then move forwards slowly in the next and send in the boyz. I think this could be an advantage over before, if your trukk forms one point of a triangle and two of your opponent's units are the other two then your charge could be more difficult to anticipate.

Since you can pre-measure anything in 40k now you can get a sense for this.

[Major Downer]

Wow wee , thanks for information boys And girls!

Why should I take the snipers out? Because if I get a single wound, they will need to take a pinning check which if they fail, is a good thing right? Then I can shoot at them more.