Goatboy’s 40k Thoughts: Orky Road Warriors!
Hi Goatboy again, I wanted to have a quick talk about a new ork build I feel might do alright in the new landscape of tanks, templates, and massed flashlight fire. The new IG book really throws a nice grenade into the normal metagame we are used too. Nob Bikerz are no longer a groan-inducing match up for an IG player. The psyker battle squad mixed with massive high strength templates means that a small army of bikes is not as spectacular as it used to be. So what is an Ork player to do? Well change and adapt and bolt on more random metal bits.
So what I want to talk about today is a new list I am looking at building up. It has some different choices, as well as a different play style than my previous “goes 24 inches and kills you” that was the norm of Ork tourney armies. What is an ork player to do post IG?
Go mech! The ork codex is one of the most massively customizable codexes out there. I personally find it to be one of the more enjoyable of the current builds, with only a few, overpowered units that can create a bad game. In fact, I feel the IG codex mirrors this codex, with a ton of options with only a few bad units I feel are not a good addition to the game. I will go over those later when I have more time with the codex, but for right now I just want to go into the new Ork list I plan on building in the coming months (in between a huge Ork order for a customer).
The advantages of mech are massive in 5th edition. You have a more forgiving explosion table, as well as a push towards opponents using melta with its shorter range. Mix this with a large push for faster moving armies, and you have a new second coming of the tank. The dropping of the lascannon’s killing power (new damage table) also is a great help compared to the guarantee of melta’s penetration vs AV:10.
This means that my Ork army has to adapt and change, with the threat of the psyker squad breaking me right off the table, massed templates, and IG tarpits creating a environment that 2 large biker squads can’t handle anymore. So without further ado, I give you my Road Warrior Ork Army.
HQ: Warboss (Da Lord Humongous, of course), PK, Bosspole, Attack Squig, Cybork, Eavy Armor, Kombi-skorcha
HQ: Big Mek, Kustom Force Field, Burna, Cybork, Attack Squigg, Eavy Armor
Troops: Nobz (8), Painboy, PK (4), Kombi-skorcha (3), Bosspole, Waagh Banner, Cybork, Eavy Armor, BattleWagon, Big Shoota (2), Armor Plates
Troops: Shoota Boyz (20), Rokkits (2), Nob, PK, Bosspole
Troops: Trukk Shoota Boyz (12), Nob, PK, Big Shoota, Bosspole, Trukk
Troops: Trukk Shoota Boyz (12), Nob, PK, Big Shoota, Bosspole, Trukk
Elites: Burnas (15)
Elites: Burnas (15)
Heavy: BattleWagon, Big Shoota (2), Armor Plates
Heavy: BattleWagon, Big Shoota (2),Armor Plates
Heavy: BattleWagon, Big Shoota (2), Armor Plates
Now why did I pick the following units? Lets go into each choice and why it might be a good choice.
HQ: Warboss and Big Mek. Since you are running vehicles, the big mek with a KFF is mandatory since it will give all your open topped vehicles a 50% chance to survive fire and get your boyz into some action. The warboss is there, because as an HQ unit, he is one of the best options available. Hard as nails, as well as letting you get another troop squad that can put out a ton of damage. Once he gets locked in, watch him just murder squads with his pet squigg “Precious”.
Troops: The power of the ork army is that their troop choices are one of the cheapest in the game. I decided to run 2 trukk boy squads as ways to go grab board areas as the ork fist shoots forward. The 20 man squad is there to help make the BW a bit scary, as well as give another fat troop squad to help hurt the opponent. The nobz are pretty obvious as most ork armies have them in there somewhere.
The plan with the troops, is to come out and try to spread out and envelope the IG with 3 or more close combats. This is the only way to create what I like to call a massive attack, that can hopefully hurt enough of the enemy as well as demoralize the opponent. There are many times, where the opponent thinks they have lost, when in fact they are sitting pretty. The mech horde list will help give you the horde elements to overwhelm the opponent, mixed with the protection mech can give you.
Elites: 2 squads of burnas are there as a big, oh crap kill on a 2+ squads of guys. The new IG book needs to have a lot of support between all the troops, and with units not always being in a mechanized vehicle, the burna templates can kill a large amount of troops. Plus it can clear out those t-shirts hiding in the woods. If you only shoot half the burnas, you still have a large amount that can put the pain on any heavily armored opponent.
The burnas will be great versus daemons and marines, as hitting 3or more times per Ork model, is a great round of “shooting”. Having ballistic skill auto-hit is pretty sweet for an Ork. And hell, we all should have burnas laying around if we built any Lootas. This unit choice of course can change to Lootas, if your metagame is less IG mixed horde, and more IG chimera spam. The funny thing is you can still put them in the Battlewagon and have a nice armor 14 building to shoot from. At that point, it might be worth it to add in some meks to help fix stuff as needed, but that is another army build.
Heavy: To go mech, you need to get as many vehicles on the board as you can. The new Battlewagon kit is pretty awesome so running 4 just makes me happy to see on the table. Being AV14 is a big help and with so much melta these days you should get 12 inches up the board safely. That is the hope anyway…haha. Nothing shouts Mad Max more then a bunch of crazy clapped out vehicles coming at you.
Which is another great thing about the build, it is theme heavy as all get out. You really get the idea that you can create a new Warboss that matches The Lord Humongus from the movie. You could always make a cool buzz saw little grot that is your attack squigg. The modeling possibilities are endless and the real fun of the Ork codex can come shining through.
~So thats it dudes. I am planning on building and trying it out in the coming weeks. I am hoping his list will at least provide a lot of fun as well as let me say “Just Walk away” while wearing a hockey mask a whole bunch.
If you have any questions, shoot me an email. Send me lists, thoughts, or just to yell at me a bit, I try to answer everything as best as I can.
