40K: Anti-Ork Units You Need To Be Running

With Orks taking over the tabletop, it’s up to the rest of us to figure out how to stop the Green Tide.

Orks are here, and they are poised to shake up the meta. They’ve got a powerful list and have a lot of people running scared. However, hope is not lost for us non-green hued players. It’s time to adapt and start figuring out how to stop the Orks (so that the Eldar/Imperial soup lists can stay dominate of course). Today lets take a look at some units, many that are normally ignored, that is going to be a big help in dealing with Orks.

Dark Reapers

Dark Reapers are already one of the best units in the game and pretty much good against anything. So it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that they will be good against Orks. The reason I’ve out them on this list is because of how good I think they are going to be. Dark Reapers are death to light vehicles, which the Ork Codex is packed full of. With all the new buggy/track kits coming out they are sure to be widely popular among players. However these units aren’t all that hard to kill, and many rely on a -1 to hit helping them out. With high damage output and ignoring hit modifiers, a signal unit of Reapers can kill 2-3 buggies a turn, twice that with some Ynnari shenanigans. I honestly won’t be surprised if Dark Reapers alone keep buggy heavy Speed Freaks armies from being super competitive.

Commissar Yarrick

Every problem has an answer. For instance, if you have ghost problems, you call the Ghost Busters, and if you have Ork Problems, you call Commissar Yarrick (I ain’t ‘fraid of no Orks). Yarrick has been a decent but underused Astra Militarium hero in 8th. He’s pricey and just hasn’t been showing up in lists much, but that might all change.  His “Hero of Hades Hive” is already a strong rule, allowing Astra Militarium units within 6″ to reroll hit rolls of 1. However, it gets really good against Orks as versus the Greenskins he allows AM units to reroll all failed hit rolls. That’s shooting and combat. IG doesn’t have a ton of ways getting rerolls; they are mostly limited to re-rolling 1s from orders. In fact, the only other aura re-roll of all misses they get is from the Relic of Cadia lost, which works against Chaos, but it only for one turn and only for Cadians.

While he may only work against Orks Yarrick is the best aura re-roll in the AM book. The fact that he works both on your super-heavies and your CC units is pretty amazing. Moreover, because he affects Astra Militarum units and not <regiment> units, even outsiders like Ogryns and Crusaders benefit form him. If you find yourself fighting Orks and lot and hard pressed, I would say that Yarrick is a must have.

Relic Leviathan Dreadnought

The Leviathan is a pricey but solid Space Marine unit. It’s been a popular unit for a while now, but never really made a splash in the tournament scene. However, I think Leviathans can be pretty deadly when used against Orks. In particular, that is due to one weapon they can take.

The Grave-flux bombard (they can take up to two of them) is hands down one of the best weapons in the game. It’s good against any kind of target and dishes out the pain. For us however the key part of this weapon is the rule “for every five models in the target unit, add D3 to the number of attacks made by this weapon. Now Orks are an army that looooooves large units, 20-30 man units of boys are common and going to stay common. For these large units, the Grav-flux is absolute death. A single Leviathan with two of them could look at getting something like 14 d3 shots (hitting and wounding on 2s). That can remove a full boy squad a turn. They could also be looking at taking down a pair of buggies each turn. I think the Leviathan is going to be a Space Marines best friend against the Green Tide.

Custodes

While Orks can put out a ton of attacks or shots, they don’t have a considerable number of high AP weapons. This lets ultra tough units like Custodes shine. Touted as an anti-horde unit/army, the Custodes deliver on that. Recent 8th meta has seen a lot of MSU armies being run, and less large mobs, so Custodes haven’t had good matchups. Orks again could change that. Custodes are one of the few units that can wade into a 30 boyz mob, and come out unscathed leaving only dead behind.

Let us know what units you plan to use to fight Orks, down in the comments! 

Also, Sing it! – I aint ‘fraid of no Orks

Author: Abe Apfel

Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers 40K tactics and lore, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe remains in mourning over the loss of WFB to this day.