Warhammer 40K: Well It Looks like GW Changed The Stompa
With a bunch of Ork rules leaking, today we take a look at the good old Stompa.
Over the weekend a large chunk of the new Ork Codex leaked out. Goatboy has already gotten his hooves all over it and written up his thoughts. I myself was interested to see what the book held. A while back I took a look at some things I wanted out of the new Codex. My first request was fulfilled, with Mek Gunz taking a bit hit. Sadly my long-shot request of new looted things didn’t happen though. That just left the question of if the Stompa is any good now to be answered, lets take a look.
The Very Basics
Right off the bat, we can see two things have changed on the Stompa from the 8th book. The first is the already announced point drop, a not-insignificant 175 pt. drop. That however still leaves this guy sitting at 675. Sure you COULD take three, but taking even one is a chunk of your army. The second change is a drop in the Stompa’s top movement from 12″ to 10″. This isn’t insignificant, though is hopefully balanced by the smaller tables. The biggest blow is likely keeping the Stompa at BS 5+, even with the drop that’s still a LOT of points to pay out for very random model.
Stompa Weapons
So from a quick look, we can see that the overall loadout of the Stompa has only changed in that supa-rokkits are now just one weapon, instead of 3-5. On the individual weapons fronts, we have a few changes. Big Shootas get the new Dakka treatment, giving you some extra shots at close range. The Defkannon hasn’t changed at all in its stats. The Meg-Choppa on the other hand has seen a significant buff here. Its’ damage has gone up from either D3 or a flat 6 to either a flat 3 or a flat 9. NICE! With these changes, the Stompa is really deadly in combat. If it touches another vehicles, or even two, they are likely going to die, and it can easily cut through whole units of Marines, even Gravis or Terminators. However, that slower movement will make it harder to use.
Continuing down the line the Skorcha got the range extension all flamers have in 9th, but nothing else. Next we have the Supa-gatler, which saw a significant change. Rather than the old roll random, shots and then chose to see if you can roll again rules, it has gone to a flat number of shots under Dakka. This is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand it has a LOT of shots, and there isn’t a chance of running out of ammo. On the other hand the average isn’t that different. With the old rules, you’d probably fire it twice for an average of 22 shots, so this is a few less at long range and 2 more at Dakka range. The max of 24 shots is however well below the old max of 54 shots, but also the min of 16 is far above the old min of 3 and burning out. So it is overall a more reliable gun. Moving on from that Supa-rokkits lost their complex only fire one a turn, but have a limited number rule and the twin big shoota got some extra Dakka shots.
Overall Fire Comparison
So is the new Stompa more shooty (more Dakka)? Well…. it’s got more reliable shots at least. At half range its going to be getting 10 more Big Shoota shots than before and an average of 2 more Supa-gatler shots. So on the face of it +12 shots seems pretty good. However the high end of the Stompa’s shooting is significantly curtailed. Unless something is missing, the change to Dakka means that Orks no longer get the old exploding 6s on shots. Meaning you can’t get any extra shots with the really deadly weapons like the Supa-rokkits or Deffkannon. So while it’s base output has gone up, its maximum potential firepower has been roughly cut in half. Even just looking at average shots, you’ve basically gained extra big shoota shots at the cost of extra Deffkannon or Sup-rokkit shots. And this is if you are within Dakka range. At longer ranges your losing even more. So while it gets a little more reliable on its number of shots, I feel that overall it’s a downgrade.
Other Rules
As far as special rules, they seem to have stayed the same. There isn’t really anything to be said there. This is a bit of a shame, but it’s what we got.
So Is It Good?
Overall I’m left with the impression that despite the points drop the Stompa still basically sucks. It’s got plenty of shots, but they are very inaccurate. Worse for the ole Stompa, 9th has a number of ways to give a unit a -1 to hit, meaning that Stompa’s could get pushed to hitting on 6s with ease. The weapon changes overall made it more reliable, but probably less deadly overall. I think one of the reasons to take a Stompa was for the potential crazy high damage if you got lucky. It’s not all meh news, as it did get better in combat, but now is a little slower at getting there. But even that buff is kind of pointless, Orks didn’t need more combat units. At the end of the day this is still a massive points sink that doesn’t come with an invulnerable save. Sure a KFF can give it a 6++, but given the level of shooting, or even crazy combat guys out there, this is still a unit that can just go POOF… taking a third of your army with it.
I dunno, maybe there are some crazy combos to make it good. The More Dakka Kustom Jobs, assuming it can get it, seems OK, possibly giving it another 10 shots. Being Freebootza for a +1 to hit also seem pretty good. Maybe I’ll be wrong, and maybe when we can look at everything, we will realize that the Stompa is now a great model, but on first glance it seems like sadly the Stompa is still lame.
Let us know what you think of the new Stompa rules, down in the comment!
