Greetings all,
Part three on ork tactics.
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See this guy? He's going to kick your frickin' teeth in. Then use them to go buy
a new armor upgrade. So.. you know, its for a good cause, its cool,
just go with it, ok bro? |
So having explained the units and touched on a few points with Orks for pro's and con's, its time to move into using the models themselves!
First off, is, what should you field? Well..
I suggest having at least
80 ork shoota boyz just as a baseline. It gives you the bare minimum of models to have board presence and shoot/assault properly.
Meganobz (in squads of 3 or 4), for lots of pk attacks, good saves and skorchas.
Big Mek w/ KFF.
Mega-armored warboss (regular dude or ghaz).
Battlewagons.
Dakkajets
In the current meta, there are armies fielding vast amounts of anti-infantry torrent, flamers, and nasty blast templates from units like manticores. For obvious reasons, these are very unpleasant circumstances for ork armies.
If you want to put 200 models on the table and run across, you might be able to make it. Against a good player I wouldn't count on it though. Running your boyz across the board on foot, arms flailing wildly, in general, is not a good idea.
This leaves us with needing some transportation. This helps us in two ways, one, it avoids a lot of anti-infantry firepower. Two, it allows you to catch almost any army even if they move away from you or have fast vehicles themselves. It can also practically guarantee successful turn 2 assaults.
Taking a second look at the two reasonable ork transports. We have the trukk, and the wagon.
Trukks are very cheap, and can move 24 inches a turn. They have a maximum capacity of 12 models and three hull points. In the previous edition, I would take 4 or 5 squads of 11 boyz + pk bp nob in a trukk, and rampage across the board. This worked well because a lot of people focused heavily on anti-tank, so you could make it with mimal infantry casualties, all you needed was one turn to shoot them across the board as fast as you could go.
In the current edition, 12 orks is not sustainable, even with 'eavy armor, or FNP, if you were so inclined. It just doesn't work.
If you want to use trukks, I suggest running meganobz or nobz with 'eavy armor and a painboy in them. Your choice of weapons, (hint, skorchas).
Battlewagons, in general, fill with 20 boyz, shootas, 2 big shootas, and a pk nob. Always take a deffrolla and at least one big shoota. Meganobz also work here, best with combo'd with your HQ's
So, at this point, you're going to yourself, this is just a repetition of the previous ork post!
But wait theres more!
Step 1, deployment.
You will deploy differently based on if you go first or second. This is going to presume you are going first. So the next two images are fairly obvious deployments for orks.
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You deploy along your left flank because you can reserve
squads and have them walk in along your board edge.
It means they will be closer to the rest of your army and better
able to support you |
So why deploy like this? These positions offer the optimal range of getting into your opponents grill as quickly as possible, while still presenting as much armor and coverage as possible.
These deployments aren't exactly rocket science.
The real thing you need to keep in mind is your armor faces. Maximizing the level of coverage that AV14 can front for you is very important. That means positioning is vital, you can't just slap down your battlewagons and call it a day. There is a strong potential of being seized, and that's the last thing you want to have happen. Getting blown up in your own deployment zone is a huge buzzkill.
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flat center, the worst kind of deployment ever. Your opponent
can put up anti-tank on both flanks and shoot your side armor
all day. Unfortunately, its better to do the deployment this way.
If you give into the temptation to go heavy on just one side
your opponent will just heavily stack as far away from you
as possible. The trick is to make sure your turn 1 moves manuever
in such a way that you give them AV14 fire arcs for their first turn
|of shooting |
Keeping your boyz in range of a KFF is vital to protect against manticores and like minded weapons. You can't always assume you'll be in terrain, or even want to be in terrain as this will greatly slow the boyz down. So don't forget you can congo line to get coverage. All it takes is a single boyz model to be in KFF range and they all get it.
If facing an opponent with ignore cover weapons, put the boyz out of LOS behind wagons
If you are going second. Position your army in such a way that it's as close as possible, while as much AV14 is pointed downrange at them. It's fairly straightforward. It's also perfectly alright and downright encouraged to deploy heavily on just one side when going second. It lets you use the bulk of your army against just a small portion of their army.
After moving up turn 1, you want to get as close as possible while trying to mitigate as much as possible any potential first turn charges against your vehicles. In the example to the left, we have moved 12 and turbo-boosted 6 inches. The trukk has flated out on the far left to be as far as possible from the bulk of the army, while still being in a good deliverable position next turn. This means the opponent has the choice of shooting at AV12 or AV14 with the bulk of their army and deciding if they want a follow up charge.
Note the positioning of the wagons. This formation means that your opponent will not be able to squeeze in between the front tire cracks in order to surround the vehicle. The last thing you want is your vehicle surrounded and wrecked. It means your guys most likely will not be able to get out, and consequently will die in mass. Doing this kind of W shaped formation presents as much armor as possible to the enemy, while giving you room to get out of your battlewagons following the inevitable booms.
The take-away is, you can't expect to get across the board without losing one or two vehicles. That's extremely lucky if you do, and you shouldn't count on it. The formation also lets you block LOS to any units on foot following behind them.
Battlewagons have a very small front armor arc because of how long and narrow they are. Most opponents can walk 6 inches and be out of the arc quite easily. So keep it in mind.
The other thing the W formation does for you, is to ensure that every unit is still covered by a KFF.
Turn 1 is all about positioning properly, to protect yourself as best you can and set up for for what will most likely be a turn 2 charge fest.
Assuming we survive the torrent of fire our opponent unleashes on us. The following turn involve moving the bwagons forward 6 inches, disembarking 6 inches, declaring a waaaugh, then charging. It's as simple as that.
But, nothing says you have to charge. Another perfectly viable tactic is to sit safe in your battlewagons for an extra turn and lay down some torrent of fire. This means on turn 1 you can move 12 and snap fire your army at the opponent, then turn 2, you move up to 6 inches and continue to lay down some torrent. Turn three you finally move in to charge.
Again positioning is everything for this. Maximize your AV 14 frontage, while keeping everything within KFF range. Also paying close attention to your opponents potential charge range. You generally want the BWagon with your hardest hitting squad closest to your opponents. This will usually be your Meganboz w/ skorchas. That means you can use skorchas for overwatch from the Bwagons, or simply countercharge in the following turn.
A final tactic for Bwagons is to Tank shock, then fire out of the transport. I don't think this was legal in 5th edition. I have yet to find anywhere in the rulebook where it says you can't do this. So if someone knows if it definately says you can't, let me know. Since you declare the distance of a tank shock, it is entirely legal to declare a 6 inch tank shock, and then fire as normal out the back of the wagon. This lets you use the deffrollas to maximum advantage and lay down some hefty torrent of fire. Just make sure you tank-shock in a such a way that it does not set your bwagons to be surrounded by your opponent in the following turn.
Using Dakkajets -
Every ork army should probably include two of these guys. Three might be pushing it. Dakkajets excel at shooting up infantry, and give you options to eliminate deckchair units from your opponents side. They also are pretty decent at shooting down opposing fliers. You'll score a bunch of hits on them if nothing else and force them to perpetually jink.
They also let you handle lists like daemon prince flying circus, or Tyranid flyrant spam, as they are fairly handy at nocking them down or killing them outright. You can focus firepower on big scary units like Tervigons and usually take them down fairly quickly too.
Having re-read this post, it got very rambly. I'll try and refocus for the next one.
Some basic tactics vs. common armies
Tyranids
Always stick at least two PK's into a MC combat. You don't want to risk being challenged out and forced to kill an MC with a bunch of S3 or S4 attacks. This means two squads of boyz, or a squad of boyz with meganobz. Meganobz are only acceptable to charge in solo if the creature you are fighting also strikes at I1, so you can at least trade a squad for a squad.
Tervigons will be your worst enemy. They can produce units that are almost as good as your boyz, and easily play a trading game with you. Kill them first at all costs.
Daemons
Skullcannons that ignore your cover saves are going to be brutal. Make sure you space appropriately and kill them when it comes up. If you are riding b-wagons across the board, this shouldnt be to big of a problem though. Watch out for Heralds with AP2 Etherblades ignoring your Meganobz armor, task boyz squads for going for these guys.
They don't have much in the way of anti-tank long range firepower, so you can sit in your battlewagons and dakka down units until they are more bite sized. i.e. , you would NOT want to charge a squad of 10 seekers with boyz, but 5 is managable.
Grey Knights
Watch out for Dreadknights, they will be your biggest foes. You can manage the marines how you always do as an ork, dakka the crap out of them then assault. Dreadknights are a different animal though as they can issue challenges and usually have nasty flamers. Follow the same rule of thumb for these guys as you do for Tyranids, always use two pk's in a combat, at minimum.
Dark Eldar
Venoms and beast packs will continue to be your worst enemies from this bunch. Beast packs are manageable if you dakka down with the boyz and commit multiple boyz squads to the combat. Beware of Baron, he gives the beast pack defensive grenades and will really hurt your chances. Venoms you hunt down with lootas / dakkajets as best you can.
more to follow in later posts.
