1850 point Orks

I've always enjoyed playing Orks, and I like the idea of an all-infantry army as a metagame choice. Most armies are geared to kill vehicles, not hordes. However the cost (of getting all those shoota boyz) and the amount of figures to paint makes the list impractical to me. So I came up with this list as a sort of compromise in terms of cost (it's mostly AoBR sets plus scratch building) and effort. It has good mobility and a reasonable amount of firepower. It also has 4 solid troop choices for objective grabbing. The units are mostly large so it is not easy kill points either.

Warboss w. Klaw, Shoota/Skorcha, Cybork Body 100

Big Mek w. Kustom Forcefield, Eavy Armour 90

15 Tankbustas w. 1 Tankhammer 225

10 Nobz (Counts as troops because of warboss) w. Painboy, 3X Shoota/Skorcha, 3X Eavy Armour, Klaw, 2X Big Choppa, Bosspole, Waagh Banner 315
These guys are all uniquely equipped to make them more resilient to stuff that doesn't ignore saves. The warboss will be with them as well to eat str 8 hits.

4X Battlewagons Each has: 4X Big Shootas, Kannon, Boarding Plank, Reinforced Ram 520
One is a dedicated transport for the above Nobz, the other three are heavy support choices.

20 Boyz w. 2X Rokkit, Nob w. Klaw, Eavy Armour 180

20 Boyz w. 2X Rokkit, Nob w. Klaw, Eavy Armour 180

30 Boyz w. 3X Big Shoota, Nob w. Klaw, Eavy Armour, Bosspole 240

Total 1850

The two 20-man boyz squads and the tankbustas go in battlewagons. The 30-man squad can hold objectives on my side of the table. The wagons can be static pillboxes vs. assault armies, or roll forward against shooty armies. The forcefield will be in the middle wagon of course. The rams will let the wagons move through terrain as they please and maintain formation. Boyz will likely be slugga in the 20-man squads and shoota for the 30 man squad. For a 2000 point list I would likely add a deathkopta who can be a suicide guy, or turbo-boost to contest objectives, and probably a deff dread (as a troops choice) to hang out with the 30-man squad.

Cool list.

You don't like Boss Poles for 5pts? Saved my boyz from running a couple times, nice to have as it gives you a turn to get more orks in combat, or hold up some dudes in combat. I'm a big fan of the 20-man shoota boy w\ 2 big shootas, Nob with Klaw & Pole for 170pts.

No Trukk for the Nobs? It's cheap and you can disembark and assault on the same turn.

Lastly, no love for Loota's? <3 Loota's :-) I see the theme with having a tonne of tank busta boys in a wagon though, and that's *AWESOME*

Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate it because I know you have a fair bit of experience with Orks. The Nobz have their very own battlewagon, so they don't need a truck. The only foot unit is the 30-man mob. I love shoota boyz, and I know they are generally superior to slugga boyz in almost all cases. I gave my slugga boyz rokkits so they would concentrate on vehicles with their shooting and I wouldn't miss the extra str 4 shots. If I find a good way to convert slugga boyz to shoota boyz I might eventually have all of the boyz with shootas, but until then with shoota boyz being $30 for 11 I'll just have the one mob. I did put a bosspole in the Nobz mob, but I may have to scrounge the points to put them in the other mobz too. I remember Trevor really liking them also, so there must be something to them! I was just kind of supposing my mobz would be fearless all of the time, but I guess that goes away pretty quick when the Orks start dying in droves?

I thought about Lootas, but wanted to keep the army more mobile. If they are in a wagon and it gets shaken, it prevents the whole unit from shooting . The tankbustas at least have the option to disembark to fire another volley. I think Lootas are great for the points, but suit a foot horde list a bit better.

Can the Kustom Force Field guy have a big choppa? I didn't think he could have anything besides the KFF (he doesn't even get a gun).

Kinda like the Shokk Attack Gun guy.

He can indeed. The Force Field replaces the shoota/slugga. He can replace his choppa with a big choppa or a klaw.

Timbo wrote:He can indeed. The Force Field replaces the shoota/slugga. He can replace his choppa with a big choppa or a klaw.

*Furiously works on conversion*

My KFF Big Mek has a Burna.

I dont have da book with me....but I believe that is all legal too.

Flamer shot or PW strikes is rather nice.

My copy doesn't list the big choppa as an option, but the klaw and burna are both legal.

You are absolutely correct, I was looking at the Warboss' options by mistake. Hmmm. I don't know if it's worth giving the Mek a klaw since as an IC he's pretty easy to kill in HtH. I'll just drop it for now and he can go nekkid. Thanks for pointing that out guys! There's 5 points I can use for a bosspole!

Tim, tank busta's are horrible, absolutely horrible. Just play test them using proxies because you'll be upset if you spend money on these guys. I don't want to argue about it, play 3 games with them and 3 with ANY other tank hunting unit and tell me without crying that tank busta's are good and I won't make fun of you forever about them.

For a tank hunting solution that's highly mobile Deffkopta's with twin-linked rokkits, I haven't played a game without these guys in 2 years, they're amazing, they're cheap (they're in black reach) and points wise a little pricey but hey twin-linked BS2 is as good as BS4 (better i think). 5 Copta's is 225pts, swap these in for those tank busta's. I can only assume you put those tank busta's on this list as flamebait for ork players.

Another unit to load up in a wagon that's scary as hell, burna's... they're awesome.

Also, I dislike your wagons, reinforced rams, really... Deffrolla's are ridiculously cheap, ridiculously awesome, take them. Strip down your wagons to what you're going to use them for, you're not going to rely on 4x big shoota's actually doing something other then looking cool are you? give them 1 big shoota, it fails just as good at 1/4 the cost, it's just there so that a weapon destroyed doesn't immobolize you. With large mobz of boyz and a scary CC nobz squad you want to be in the action, roughing people up by beating them mercilessly in the face, that means you want to move 12" with your wagons, which doesn't allow you to fire. So you move up 12" dump off your cargo of humee krumpa's, now you don't want a totally useless vehicle with no tank hunting ability in an army a little light on the vehicle killing ability, so turn those wagons into land based ballistic missiles by giving them deffrolla's.

Transport Wagon: 1x bigshoota, Deffrolla, Grot Riggers, red paint job = 125pts shaves 5 points off your wagons AND makes them more effective.

The rokkits on the close combat boyz are something I think about almost everygame then I slap myself and say "Don't be a moron" and opt not take them. I won't rant about these, play testing will prove my case.

Friendly tips in an unfriendly mannered post, your welcome.

Thanks Tom! Again I appreciate your input and your not pulling any punches. I do intend to playtest the tankbustas. I admit the burnas do not look good on paper, initiative 2 or 3 power weapons with no armour save themselves seem kinda crappy. I know multiple flamer templates are awesome against horde lists, so I put 4 skorchas in the Nobz mob. I'll definitely try the burnas out though. I was under the impression that deffrollas do not affect vehicles. Ramming and tank shocking are two different rules. Is that correct? 20 points is not really that cheap...

There are certain lists that cannot kill AV 14 vehicles at range very well. These lists are where I can use the wagons as pillboxes and force the enemy to come to me. Other shooty lists I will try to bum rush. The wagons will not always be moving up 12". Point taken on keeping the wagons cheap though. I like the ram for 5 points. Battlewagons are huge, and avoiding terrain features with 4 of them will be very difficult. I really don't like losing one on the roll of a 1.

Yeah Tim it was split between people who said you could and couldn't for a long time with both sides quoting different tournament FAQ's and rules and GW staying silent until February 2010 when GW FAQ'd the main rule book and clarified that ramming was a form of tank shock done against vehicles and FAQ'd the ork codex to say that ramming a vehicle with your deffrolla does indeed do d6 Str 10 hits. Also the reroll your terrain roll with the deffrolla is awesome because there's alot of terrain and wagons are big.

So for some people that FAQ was huge because now they could get their shiny landraider pummeled by a rickety wagon but for us true believers the FAQ justified what we already knew.

The burna's look terrible on paper, but because the figs for them look so amazing I took them anyway and they generally do so well that I have a hard time leaving out of my lists, although admittedly I don't bring them in any list under 2000pts. They have to pick their assaults wisely because they're only I3 and S4 on the charge but they haul down powerfist terminators extremely hard and using overlapping flamer templates out the side of a battlewagon is devastating even against power armor.

Oh wow, that's great news about the deffrollas. Okay, time for some more converting! I'm currently scratchbuilding 4 battlewagons and I'll post some WIP pics tomorrow. I always thought 5 points for a big shoota was kind of a good deal. Sure they don't hit a lot, but they have a huge range and can potentially kill all sorts of annoying light vehicles. But now that deffrollas rock it's prolly time to drop the big shootas and just go for the bum rush. That does mean I'll need to spring for red paint jobs which in turn means I'm going to have to do an Evil Sunz list. How's this:

Warboss w. Klaw, Shoota/Skorcha, Cybork Body 100

Big Mek w. Kustom Forcefield, Eavy Armour, Klaw 115

15 Burnas 225

10 Nobz (Counts as troops because of warboss) w. Painboy, 3X Shoota/Skorcha, 3X Eavy Armour, Klaw, 2X Big Choppa, Bosspole, Waagh Banner 315
These guys are all uniquely equipped to make them more resilient to stuff that doesn't ignore saves. The warboss will be with them as well to eat str 8 hits.

4X Battlewagons Each has: Big Shoota, Boarding Plank, Deff Rolla, Red Paint Job, Grot Riggers 520
One is a dedicated transport for the above Nobz, the other three are heavy support choices.

20 Slugga Boyz w. 2X Big Shoota, Nob w. Klaw, Bosspole 170

20 Slugga Boyz w. 2X Big Shoota, Nob w. Klaw, Bosspole 170

30 Shoota Boyz w. 3X Big Shoota, Nob w. Klaw, Bosspole 235

Total 1850

Better? I'll put the Mek with the Burnas so their battlewagon's boarding plank will be effective. The list is way less shooty this way. Like wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy less.

I like it Tim, I think I would probably play test it with the burna's and play test it with kopta's, because 5 dudes flying around with twin linked rokkits could bring back some shooty power to this list, but the power of orks has always been in the meaty grip of that nob krumping things with his power klaw.

I know it doesn't fit with your theme....

but for my 9 kan army, I take a small unit of burna's with 3 meks to walk behind the Kans / Dreads and fix weapon destroyed results (Immobilized on the Dreads...) They can also pop-out and assault with the Kanz, or flame some swarms. In an assault, the first three wounds go to the meks so the burna's can get their 6 power weapon attacks in (should you not flame).

The biggest issue I have with Burna's is they no longer get the extra D6 on vehicles, and they can't get a dedicated transport.

I would much prefer having a battlewagon filled with shoota boyz. That's 17x2 S4 + 6 S5 + 1 S4 (NOB) shots coming out of that thing (open-topped goodness). Even with craptastic ork shooting you're going to take down 3 MEQ's, and get to assault the next turn. Shoota boyz are another scoring unit too.

Lastly, a unit of 10 lootas is 150 points, a unit of 15 lootas is 225 points, both of those are practically guaranteed to hose a Rhino every turn and have a 48" range *and* are easy to get a cover save for. D3 S7 shots at 48" per dude is amazing. (I even have some spare bits so you don't have to make a mek if you don't want to (same goes with the burna's) )

I, unlike Tom however, am a bad player. :-)

I could easily swap out a couple burnas for meks if my vehicles were suffering too many damage results on the way in. They shouldn't though, and the gun on the meks sucks so bad that I'm kinda reluctant to. I like lootas, I really do. I just don't think they fit in this list. Their wagon would have to stay stationary the entire game for them to be effective. I think a list with 3 squads of lootas in battlewagons might be cool, where you just park and outshoot your opponent. I'll probably do that list some day. I agree with you 100% on the shoota/slugga debate. For me it's just availability of models and cost issues. I'd love to have all shootas if I could