Foot slogging Orks + Speedy Nids = Lots of dead Orks

[cailus]

I played a 750 point Recon battle last night featuring my foot slogging Orks and my bro's Nids. First game ever against new nid codex and first time ever playing Orks against Nids.

I had about 73 models all up including:

1 Warboss in Mega-armour with lots of gear including a kombi-skorcha.
37 slugga boyz in 2 units (1 with 20 Orks, 1 with 17 Orks)with 3 rokkits, 2 burnas and 1 big shoota, there's also a Nob with a Power Claw
12 shoota boyz with 4 Big Shootas
22 Grots + Slaver

The Nids had:
1 Hive Tyrant
3 Shooty warriors
11 Genestealers (non-upgraded)
16 Termagaunts with strength and save upgrades
16 Hormaguants
3 Rippers

TURN 1
NIDS:
The Nids had first turn and moved forward. The shooty warriors killed 2 grots.

ORKS:
I moved forward and tried to use my Grots as bait. Plan was for Nids to attack Grots and Orks to counter attack Nids. Shooting killed a whole 5 Termagaunts.

TURN 2
NIDS:
Nids are bloody fast! Warriors kill 4 shootas with firepower. Genestealers ignore Grots due to good Fleet roll and smack into my 17 strong Slugga Boy unit and kill 3 Orks. The 2 Gaunt units slam into the Grots and wipe them out. Hormaguants get good massacre result and consolidate into 20 man strong Slugga boy unit.

ORKS:
Warboss uses combi-skorcha to flame Termagaunts - kills lots. He charges in and kills remaining 2. Genestealers wipe out Slugga boy unit. Hormagauants and othe Slugga Boy unit pound each other but no-one wins.

TURN 3
NIDS:
Warrior Nids continue to provide firesupport - a couple of shoota boyz die. Hive Tyrant charges into combat with Hormagaunts and Ork Slugga Boyz. Still no winner in this combat despite massive casaulties on both sides. Stealers wipe out remains of other Slugga Unit and consolidate into trees.

ORKS:
Shoota boyz attempt to shoot Genestealers and kill 1 (my brother made at least 4 5+ saves). Warboss charges Rippers and wipes them out. The Hive Tyrant loses two wounds and the remainder of the Hormagaunts die.

TURN 4
NIDS:
Warrior shooting kills more shootas and they break and run. Stealers charge and kill Warboss with mass rending kills. They consolidate close to Ork Warboss. Hive Tyrant loses 1 more wound and has one left.

ORKS:
Hive Tyrant goes down but the Ork Slugga unit is now down to 5 Orks out of 15.

TURN 5
NIDS:
Stealers move forward into my deployment zone. Warriors redeploy to get into better position to kill remaining Slugga boys.

ORKS:
Slugga Boyz charge forward in a bid to reach the Warrriors.

TURN 6
NIDS:
Stealers are in my deployment zone. Warriors shoot remaining sluggas - kill a couple and charge in to kill the remaining couple.

RESULT:
Nids: 930 points
Ork: 450 points.

LESSONS:
With their new Fleet of Claw, Genestealers are fast. And as a whole Nids are fast. I had been charged on the 2nd turn and most of my units were still very close or in my own deployment zone. Other than my Warboss charging Rippers and Termagaunts, none of my other units managed a charge.

In fact I was totally outclassed by the Nids in everything - the Nids were more maneouvrable, had better shooting and were better in close combat.

It might be more worthwhile to field smaller units of Orks - instead of 2 large Slugga Boy units, it might have been more worthwhile to field 3 smaller units.

I also have to figure out a way of stopping Stealers. Ork shooting is too unreliable while in combat the stealers have a total advantage (Better WS, I, S, Save). Any ideas?

[whiteshields1830]

dont use shootas for the boyz, just turn them to slugga boyz...youve got so many shooting units for the worst shooting race in the game. if you want to use shooting, max out your burnas as: a) you can kill mass nids (or any race for that matter). b) it counts as a powerweapon in cc - byebye hive tyrant. And remember, burnas dont need ork BS...which is very good.

Personally i dont think nids are bad at shooting as they can have upgrades to boost their cc ability or shooting ability. but for orks, you cant have any BS upgrades, only strength and more attacks upgrades. Hence, orks, i reckon, only excell in cc. Unless you have an army of mass shooting...now thats different

[cailus]

dont use shootas for the boyz, just turn them to slugga boyz...youve got so many shooting units for the worst shooting race in the game. if you want to use shooting, max out your burnas as: a) you can kill mass nids (or any race for that matter). b) it counts as a powerweapon in cc - byebye hive tyrant. And remember, burnas dont need ork BS...which is very good.

Personally i dont think nids are bad at shooting as they can have upgrades to boost their cc ability or shooting ability. but for orks, you cant have any BS upgrades, only strength and more attacks upgrades. Hence, orks, i reckon, only excell in cc. Unless you have an army of mass shooting...now thats different

Other than the Warbosses Kombi-skorcha I never got a chance to use my burnas' flamer ability as that unit got charged by turn 2. As for killing hive tyrants, you need 6's to wound. I had more faith in my slugga boyz due to the sheer number of them and my Power Claw equipped Nob.

And I only had 1 shoota unit. Surely that's not a lot. Their purpose is to hang closer to the back and absorb remanants of broken mobs.

[whiteshields1830]

As for killing hive tyrants, you need 6's to wound. I had more faith in my slugga boyz due to the sheer number of them and my Power Claw equipped Nob..

You orks (other than your warboss) going to need 6s to wound anyway, and the tyrants still gets a save by your slugga boyz, so why not make a couple of attacks as powerweapons - its bound to put 2-3 wounds a turn.

And I only had 1 shoota unit. Surely that's not a lot. Their purpose is to hang closer to the back and absorb remanants of broken mobs.

You had 3 rokkit launchers, 5 big shootas and 12 shootas. with a BS of 2 - its not worth the risk of useing long range fire (especially one shot weapons like rokkits). Now what if they were ALL Burnas instead of shootas.

And yes, nids get to you in turn 2, you might be able use the burna at least 4 times, AT LEAST!. spread the burnas out in individual small squads,allowing you to maximise the number of burners on teh field, then when they get into combat they are also useful as a power weapon. you mentioned your oppnent rolled many 5+ saves for the stealers, but what if those attacks didnt grant those attacks (ie, rolling powerweapon attacks from a ork), about 3 or 4 more stealers would be dead.

[Wolf Lord Duregar]

You orks (other than your warboss) going to need 6s to wound anyway, and the tyrants still gets a save by your slugga boyz, so why not make a couple of attacks as powerweapons - its bound to put 2-3 wounds a turn.

You´re lucky to get one wound with 3 Burnas in a Mob...

´nidz are tricky, they can outclass orks in many ways but we have some stuff stuff that´s good against them. My favourite is Scorcha Buggies/Traks... Get three if you have no other fast Attacks and the weedy Bug-eyez will be very worried. They kill ´stealers pretty easy as well.

Lobbas can be a good idea as well. Take a max battery and a few extra krew and fire away.

[cailus]

You´re lucky to get one wound with 3 Burnas in a Mob...

Good point. 3 burnas = 6 attacks a turn. Let's face it you're most likely not going to get the charge. 3 burnas = 6 attacks a turn. 3 hit, 0.5 wound.

´nidz are tricky, they can outclass orks in many ways but we have some stuff stuff that´s good against them. My favourite is Scorcha Buggies/Traks... Get three if you have no other fast Attacks and the weedy Bug-eyez will be very worried. They kill ´stealers pretty easy as well.

Lobbas can be a good idea as well. Take a max battery and a few extra krew and fire away.

Good idea but these purchases might have to wait, until I have completed the first 1500 points (this is my first planned army - i.e. no spontaneous purchases)).

[Mike Johnson]

Or you could just take a ton of bikes. They are a tyranids worst enemy. *cries at the punishment he once faced*

[Xiannic]

Indeed, i remember once facing an Orky Speed Freaks army, Think I killed about 2 Orks in the whole game, worst defeat i've ever faced.

[GloomyGrim]

You had 3 rokkit launchers, 5 big shootas and 12 shootas. with a BS of 2 - its not worth the risk of useing long range fire (especially one shot weapons like rokkits). Now what if they were ALL Burnas instead of shootas.

And yes, nids get to you in turn 2, you might be able use the burna at least 4 times, AT LEAST!.

are you serious? Best way to face nids is alot of big shootas to thin out the speedy gaunts. you won't use burnas even once!!!
Ork movemenet distance + burna range is less than gaunt charge range, so if you aren't in charge range of a gaunt mob you're not into shooting range either...
Plus after the initial assault, there's only melee from that point on.. that's alot of unused burnas.
i prefer to stand back and shoot the little ones in the first few turns to thin them out. when tehy charge, orks will beat them and they'll be free to PK tyrants and fexes to death.
burnas only work well in trukkboyz squads because tehy have the range provided by trukk speed.
my 2 cents.

[Mike Johnson]

Choppas should make short work of monstrous creatures. Big Shootas can take out the gaunts.

Your real troubles come from genestealers, biovores and tyranid warriors.

Think about a 5 man bike squad. Move, shoot big shootas into gaunts (or genestealers), assault (using their special shoot instead of combat in assault rule). Statistically the entire squad would die.

[Kahadras]

Footslogging Orks will always have a probelm against Tyranids IMO. Tyranids usualy get the charge and get a stupid number of attacks that strike before Orks. Their monsterous creatures are also hard to take down as well (when they are correctly set up that is). All in all a nasty match up IMO.

Kahadras

[Da Reddaneks]

i am the king of footsloggin' orks. they are my bread and butter. in my army i have one truck (with no one in it) and everything else is on foot.

your list is not a bad ork list. burnas are not very affective against nids because you wont get a chance to use them. Far more often than not the nids will get the charge on you and you wont get a chance to use the things anyway.

In making your army dont make an anti nid army. you should make an army which can stand up against any race and use your tactics to adapt to your enemy.

I would use the list you have there as follows.

(1) make sure that everythign is behind a long streched out line of gretchen. This will very much improve your chances of him having to waste his charge on a bunch of stupid grots. Basically in set up think of this as setting up your army to hit hit really hard on their first round of assaulting. your trying to set your army up to take the hit and then be in a position to counter attack. a long line of grots is great because as long as one grot in the squad is still alive then he has to "pile in" towards the existing grots and cannot consolidate into a new unit. Think of your formatioin for grots as a "T". he can slam a million gaunts into your squad of grots and if your have set up with a "T" formation so that at least one grot or slaver is outside the 2" kill zone then his million gaunts will have to pile in on the remaining grots leaving them wide open for your charge. Very important ... remember assume he will get to charge you. make him waste his charge on crap.

(2) your slugga boyz should be blocked behid the grot line so after the grots get charged you are prepared for a counter charge. getting the charge is major for the orks as you know.

(3) units which you think might get charged spread the models in the front of the unit out as much as possible so that the "kill zone" has a few models in it as possible. This will leave you a viable force to pile into when the time comes.

(4) i generally hang back and let the nids come to me. nids are one of the very few armies i dont rush towards. hang back take what ever shots you can. dont move towards them until the turn you know your going to be in hand to hand. Usually there is not much use in moving up on nids as they will have to advance on you. a round or two of rocket launcher or big shoota fire can thin down some enemies.

(5) know your enemy. generally speaking with the lists above i would try to shoot the gaunts first to thin them out. gaunts are quite effective against orks as they can throw out a lot of attacks and we have no armor. shooting is absolutely gravy against nids. you will probably just get one or two rounds at most of shooting.

(6) just ignore the monstrous stuff with shooting. these will be absoulutely wasted shots. your goal before combat ensues is to take out as much of the tiny crappy stuff as you can.

(7) set up so that you cant be charged on round one by the gaunts. remember the gaunts can move 6 fleet up to 6 and then charge 12. if you set up 24" away then you can be charged on round one. i try to set up 25" away so i will get a round or two of shooting.

(8) your grots and shoota boyz are your throwaway troops. set them up forward. when someone has to get charged make sure its these guys and not slugga boyz.

(9) threat matrix. classify your threats as to what is most important to kill first. monstrous stuff is low on my nid threat matrix.

(10) and this one i am sure you know. once combat starts ... pile in, pile in, pile in. carnifex and hive tyrants will eventually go down when faced with a sea of green. hive tyrants and carnifex's really cant "crater" you. Gaunts and genestealers can crater the heck out of you. being "cratered" from a charge officially fits into the "bad things" catagory.

these are just some thoughts and are not scripture from mork or gork. But i assure you that you can whip the crap out of nids with footsloggers.

[squigsnok]

Well most of the tactics side o things has been covered above. So i'll delve into what you might want to add into the army in future engagements.

My personal army isn't strictly footslogging. It's in no way a speedfreak army, but i rarely leave the space hulk without a few vehicles in tow, it adds much needed flexibility and speed to the army. One of the ork army's major strengths is the speed of it's vehicles. Your game is a good example of how an unsupported footslogging army gets massacred. In my experience pure footslogging ork armies don't work because of their inability to manouver effectively and efficiently. Especially against speedy nid armies we don't carry the weight of fire a marine army can unload, and the nids can pick the weakest part of the battle line and attack there. In combat their sheer weight of high strength attacks overwwhelms us and we lose.

A few ideas you may want to try against nids:

-Bikers: Possibly the best anti infantry unit if you use them right. the ability to shoot twinlinked bigshootas both in the shooting phase and then the assault phase is never to be sneered at. My 6-strong squad has taken out 20 uber gaunts in one turn. Not a bad return for 180 pts.

-Cyborks in a trukk: The best unit in the entire game IMO. Cheap, high toughness, high strength, choppa and an invunerable save. In a trukk they're deadly. An effective charge range of 20" means you can hide behind terrain and jump out on unsuspecting units on the flanks. Coupled with a dok with a power klaw they have the ability to take on any enemy and come out roaring.

-Skarboyz: the step from S3 to S4 may not seem like that much, but it makes a MASSIVE difference in terms of wounding. Most (all?) gaunts are T3 meaning if you get the charge you can wipe out most of them easily.

Admittedly I don't play 750 pt games, mine are usually 1500 pointers, but these are things you might want to think about adding to your army now you have the "core" of it sussed.

A brief look at the rest of your army raises the following points:

-Don't give your warboss mega armour unless he can hitch a ride in a trukk. He's just gonna hold up the unit he's with due to his ability to fluff the dice roll and move 1" in a turn. I guarantee when that "important charge" needs to be made the gods of luck will abandon you. Take 'eavy armour and a bionik bonce. 3+ armour, and you can move around better. Add in a cybork body if you have the points.


-I'd be tempted to make the shootas into sluggas. I do use shootas myself, but they're very much a support unit and they're Flash Gits, which are a luxury in such a small game. You want units that can get stuck in, not ones that hold back for mob up purposes. The Gits are good if you need that extra level of fire (the assault 2 gun is the most effective, I find, under the new shooting rules)

-Can't really say anything on the grotz. I've never bin able to use them right, and spend the points on rokkkit trakks instead. They're just not good enough to make the grade in my army. In my warband it's grots, not squigs, at the bottom of the food chain...

Anyhooo, hope my ramblings have helped. Best o luck in yor games. Remember to go with what YOU want in your army and not what others tell you you have to take. Some of my best combos have evolved from taking stuff that looks cool.


Squig.

[Da Reddaneks]

oh yeah, and take your advice on how to play orks and what units to choose from people who use an ork as an icon.

[Wolf Lord Duregar]

(7) set up so that you cant be charged on round one by the gaunts. remember the gaunts can move 6 fleet up to 6 and then charge 12. if you set up 24" away then you can be charged on round one. i try to set up 25" away so i will get a round or two of shooting.

Totally incorrect. You may not set up within 24"... Meaning there can´t be a first turn charge by those Hormagaunts. Well, unless you first moved forward...

oh yeah, and take your advice on how to play orks and what units to choose from people who use an ork as an icon

I think getting the rules right might also help you to look smart...

[squigsnok]

oh yeah, and take your advice on how to play orks and what units to choose from people who use an ork as an icon.

Sage wisdom there from my fellow icon-eer...

[Easy E]

I don't use Orks as an Icon, but I've been in a Waaagh! or two. Burnas are not a great idea, unless you are in a truk. The might Big Shoota is your friend. Use the Shoota Boyz and Gretchin as your screen units. Once they are charged you can counter charge with the Ladz. A shoota boy fights almost as well as a Slugga Boy against normal gaunts. I never leave home without one squad of Shoota Boyz.

In addition, try playing a scenario, instead of cleanse. It can make a huge difference.

[big squig]

A burna boy mob does go through stealers like, well, burnas. Problem is your outmanuvered. I put my burna boyz in a looted rhino. I hide the rhino, and when the time is right, I drive up to the stealers, drop out, and flame away.

[squigsnok]

A shoota boy fights almost as well as a Slugga Boy against normal gaunts. I never leave home without one squad of Shoota Boyz.

The problem i find is that they don't. Slugga boyz have the extra combat weapon attack that can make all the difference. Even in a minimum squad it's an extra 10 attacks, which can turn the tide in a crucial combat. With synapse creatures breathing down their necks gaunts will usually be fearless, meaning they're not bailing from the combat. You need as many attacks as possible.

[Mikhaila]

I played a great game against nids last night. The friend playing the nids has been to every US GT, so is no pushover in the least. I've just finished painting a SpeedFreak army that I've been modeling and customizing for 6 years. Warboss on bike with 5 nobz. 2 Squads of bikes, nob with PF. 2 buggies with skorchers, 2 buggies with BigShootas, 3 trucks filled with Skarboyz, each with a nob with PF, and 3 burners.

The best thing I've found with the Speed Freaks against nids, is the the ability to move rapidly away from them to counter their incredible speed, and the large number of Str5 hits you get from the bikes and buggies. Skorcha buggies make nid players quiver in fear. Bikes are especially good, having the ability to to get in a lot of shots, then move into assault and get in another round before the genestealers tear into them.

End result was a total wipe of the nids, and about 60% of the Orks dead.