8th Edition Orc & Goblin Armybook Tactics

[bigbear bailey]

Its a personal pref thing BUT I can give you the best advice that I have noticed in my armies. If you are going double choppas, it's debatable what is best between reg orcs and savage orcs. Let me cover the pros and cons with that aspect for ya.
pros
2 points cheaper then savages and quantity is a quality all on its own.
Not being frenzied makes you a lot less susceptible to being led around, thus prevent redirection and flank charges (which I feel is pretty easy to do against said units) and you can also flee from said charges!
you only get 1 attack for supporting attacks so the extra frenzied ones are wasted

cons
savage orcs have more attacks
6++ ward stays with them no matter what compared to armor
can be broken by terror and fear can hurt you

As for spears, I think it's a okay choice if you are doing a huge unit of 60 dudes (in horde) so you have 40 str 4 attacks in the first round. I wouldn't advise shields so they stay cheap, thus doing the beastmen thing and letting that toug 4 be your armor.

Hand weapon and shield is the best/second best option you can have for them as regular boys are cheap and a 5 wide to hold units up with the whole toug 4, 5+ save, and 6++ ward.

[russellmoo]

Regular orcs (not big unz) are probably best used 5 wide with shields- this makes them a decent anvil- NG are better but if you want to use regular orcs run them this way- units of 45

[bad dice]

On the whole dealing whit flying monsters that threathen your bunker thing

My local met lacks a lot of empire/ dwarf players so flying monsters are pretty popular

So i got some xp whit it

I use a bit of the tacktics that malorian pointed out.

But i alos changed my tacktics up a bit

I changed my bunker to 20 goblins whit a champ an 3 nasty skulkers


That works out great. It takes about 3 turns for the enemy to get to my bunker (aka he can fly over me on turn 2 and charge me on turn 3)

Then i got 4 combat rounds worth of chalanges that give no vp away and keep my bunker steadfast. So even if you start only in his turn 5 does my bunker start loosing rank and file or do my characters get in danger.

Usealy by that time i have won. (considering the fact that his big bad monster is basicly dooing nothing.)

I would say worth the 40 points.

[Yowzo]

Then i got 4 combat rounds worth of chalanges that give no vp away and keep my bunker steadfast. So even if you start only in his turn 5 does my bunker start loosing rank and file or do my characters get in danger.

That wouldn't work with pegasus knights or vargheist.

Still, a nice tactic

[bad dice]

That wouldn't work with pegasus knights or vargheist.

Still, a nice tactic

True but the former can be nicely run over whit a chariot and would not like the attacks from my front rank anny way. (its still 12 st4 attacks and 7 st3 attacks)
The later is a pain in the but tough.

No other way to counter it than just shooting it whit warmachines.

[Elyrioth]

So I have decided to go with a fully Goblin Army, just for fun.
Any advantage of taking a Night Gobbo Warboss over a Gobbo Warboss?
Would rather have the Ld8 for the normal gobbo.

[Malorian]

That works out great. It takes about 3 turns for the enemy to get to my bunker (aka he can fly over me on turn 2 and charge me on turn 3)

Then i got 4 combat rounds worth of chalanges that give no vp away and keep my bunker steadfast. So even if you start only in his turn 5 does my bunker start loosing rank and file or do my characters get in danger.

Nice I didn't thing about that one.

[bigbear bailey]

Yeah, the night gobbo one is faster, mount options are diff, points cost he's cheaper.... It's really in the reading for a gobbo warboss. And I have found my gobbo army does really well surprisingly.

[Shimmergloom]

On the whole dealing whit flying monsters that threathen your bunker thing

My local met lacks a lot of empire/ dwarf players so flying monsters are pretty popular

So i got some xp whit it

I use a bit of the tacktics that malorian pointed out.

But i alos changed my tacktics up a bit

I changed my bunker to 20 goblins whit a champ an 3 nasty skulkers


That works out great. It takes about 3 turns for the enemy to get to my bunker (aka he can fly over me on turn 2 and charge me on turn 3)

Then i got 4 combat rounds worth of chalanges that give no vp away and keep my bunker steadfast. So even if you start only in his turn 5 does my bunker start loosing rank and file or do my characters get in danger.

Usealy by that time i have won. (considering the fact that his big bad monster is basicly dooing nothing.)

I would say worth the 40 points.

Can this work without the goblin champ? And do you give your goblin bunker shields, or not?

So say you are using a bunker for your goblin bsb and/or goblin general. Can it work if you have 20 goblins, standard, musician, 3 skulkers?

[Ghremdal]

Let me rephrase the question, if you are playing with a bunker in a tournament, what would you bring to defend it? Knowing that some lists won't be able to threaten it at all, how many points would you spend to additionally defend your bunker.

[bigbear bailey]

I don't really do a "bunker" in the traditional sense as I feel that I am waisting points not doing anything with it (a unit of 20 night gobbos isn't big enough for me and a good player will find a way to get to it) so I go big. With my orcs I do 50 NG archers with nets. This unit is insanly good when you get the poision spell on them (as they get it from shooting and hand to hand) and the nets help keep my gobbo alive. When they get to close around turn 4ish to my shammy, I run him out of the unit to saftey (8" away from them to whatever flank he is weakest). By that turn I USUALLY, being the key word there, kill all their units that can pick him off so no loss. If you wanted to do the cheapest best unit I honestly think 20 NG with bows and thats it as they will maybe kill something with their shots (they are great at shooting large targets as you need 6s to hurt them anyway).

[Glenn87]

Let me rephrase the question, if you are playing with a bunker in a tournament, what would you bring to defend it? Knowing that some lists won't be able to threaten it at all, how many points would you spend to additionally defend your bunker.

wouldn't even bother.
If you notice anything comming TOO close to the bunker (flyers I mean), then move the general/BSB into a Horde. Most bunker-killers won't want to charge a S5, 3 attacks each Savage Horde...
I just field 20 NG's with short bows and a Musician as Horde. I've noticed that most of the time, they rather waste their flyers by throwing them into a Mangler Squig or sending them after the Doom Divers first.

[OrcGoblinFTW]

In the last edition I ran into an opponent who had a 30 man unit of blackorcs with Gorbad and I played defensive behind some trees as far from this unit as possible on the board edge. My opponent would move, roll all of his dice to infinite force the blork block with the Big waagh to move forward in the magic phase. He survived the miscast and did it again in turn 2. So by Turn 2 he ran through trees (lost 3 blocks to terrain test) and charged me and crushed my unit of saurus and rolled into my slaan flank.

I was hoping with the new edition that would be the last time I saw that combo but with the new spell to teleport a unit 3d6" and decide the facing I see I will be dealing with the same tactic all over again.

Gwa ha ha!

[OrcGoblinFTW]

Well here's an interesting thought which struck me last night while stripping paint off some models (notably a couple of shamen).

With the extra mushroom dice, it's less important for night goblin shamen to have +4 to cast, and they're at a (slightly) greater risk than they were before. So I was thinking "how am I going to protect my great shaman if he wants to cast 2 or 3 small spells (with the help of mushrooms) per turn?".

The answer I came up with was to not take a great shaman at all. For the price of a level 4 great shaman with a sprinkle of magic items, you could get 4 level 1 night gobbo shamen. so what benefits and draw backs does this have?

Drawbacks: no +4 to cast/dispel. Lower chance of getting the spell(s) you want (no rolling doubles, so no choosing spells). No magic items (if you're staying strictly to the same points value as the great shaman).

Benefits: 4 seperate shamen in 4 seperate units = you'll (almost) certainly have something to do in the magic phase, one failed animosity test won't take your whole magic phase with it. Greater chance of channelling. It'll take a lot more effort for the opponent to get rid of your magic (dwellers etc can't just delete your magic in one turn). Miscasts hardly mean anything (oh well, there goes one shaman, only 3 left now....). There's much less risk if you want to throw out the curse of the bad moon at full power, just 6 dice it (plus mushroom!) and if you miscast, it's only a cheap shaman (and probably a few gobbos) who's gonna suffer. Cheap throwaway characters are great sacrificial guys for re-directing charges etc in a last ditch attempt to save an expensive unit.

There's probably a few more benefits and drawbacks I haven't thought of, but this is certainly how I'll be playing for a little while at least (until I realise it doesn't work for whatever reason). Obviously this doesn't work if you wanna use orcs, though I haven't looked at the price of orc shamen etc, so maybe you can do much the same thing there too (though without mushrooms)?

Obviously this could also work with a cannon magnet....sorry, I mean arachnarok with shaman and shrine, but having a big uber shaman defeats the point of the whole tactic really.

I agree for the most part I still think it's potentially worth it to bring an Orc Great Shaman, but for the spells of the little Waagh multiple small casters are the way to go. Alternatively you can even amplify the value if you do bring a Goblin Great Shaman on an Arachnarok Spider with the CatchWeb Shrine, and multiple 1st level casters. It let's you channel a ton of dice. It's a very magic heavy army, but it works. I wrote out all the details on my blog:
http://orcsgoblinsftw.blogspot.com/2...en-teclis.html

[OrcGoblinFTW]

I am with you on this.. I feel all the time i must talk myself into choosing a orc shaman in there while all the time sneaking at the goblin spells wich really would help my army.

Orc magic seems to be assigned the role of "oh me so sa crazy me sa, yeeeeeessss" to the border of stupidity but at times will kick ass.

Goblin magic is magic that helps the army perform better. Wich i think is very much needed nowadays.

I find myself going really heavy on spells of the little Waagh, and dabbling in the spells of the big waagh. You can bring a cheap gobo caster with the signature spell, and use it on a normal unit of Orcs on a flank attack. It's easier to get off, you might steal a dice, and it's more powerful than 'ere we go. The only contingency is that you have to be flanking, which is a rule for me anyway so...

[Shimmergloom]

If your idea of warhammer is to just hide your units behind woods at the table edge and just magic/shoot them all game, then yeah, I can see why you might had Grimgor/black orcs.

But there are many of us who don't want to play hide & seek hammer.

[madival]

I am about to come into a bunchg of goblins. What all do you think I should know to play goblins effectively?

[Burnt_85]

I am about to come into a bunchg of goblins. What all do you think I should know to play goblins effectively?

I would go with hordes of at least 50 strong. Now goblin characters is something I am still undecided about.
I am currently leaning towards keeping them cheap and in the front of combat units, as for the BSB thinking about keeping him very cheap and using a bunker to hide him in.
General very two minded about this cheap and hide in the bunker with BSB or tooled out (as far as a goblin gets) and in the front line.

Welcome anyone else experience in this matter.

[bad dice]

Yea if ony the range WAS MORE then 12 inch

It's so hard to flank unit and bee whitin 12 inch of that while keeping your wizard save at the same time. ;-(

I hate that about the goblin magic. All the spells are nice but the ranges are so short.

I wish they had at least the option to boost the range.

[Glenn87]

I am about to come into a bunchg of goblins. What all do you think I should know to play goblins effectively?

All Gobbo could work.
Take a normal Gobbo General, the NG BSB with the banner of +1LD. Put both in a NG bunker in the back.
That's your LD fixed (for the center point of your army at least). Put a 50-strong unit of Gobbo's in front of them, and flank that by 2 units of 100 NG's each.
Get 1 or 2 Squig Hordes for the Flank, and add Wolf Riders, Mangler squigs and stuff as chaff. Add every Warmachine there is (2 Divers, 2 Lobbers, don't really bother on the Chuka's, lest you have points left). Then take a bunch of NG Great Weapon Bosses and put them in the horde's front ranks.
Don't forget about the mandatory lvl 4, and add a lvl 2, so you've got all (most) of the spells.

It'll look AWESOME on the table, and might even have a good chance of winning some stuff!!