So last time, I showed you the unit choices I want to go with because of their efficiency & perhaps more importantly, general Orky awesomeness. While knowing that a good portion of my plans will invariably change with the hopefully upcoming Ork codex (ooooh all the Clan traits and - hopefully - point cost reductions are going to be so damn tasty) but I think this will give me a solid base for further army expansion no matter what.
Before you check my list, please note the following: - I´m not a competitive player. I want my build to be fairly strong but not spammy and certainly not boring (hello, Stormraven / Brimstone Horror / Conscript spam). - Vehicles have been deliberately left out. Ork vehicles in general seem quite lackluster and there are too many infantry-based goodies I need to field. Plus! Having all those lascannon / autocannon shots wasted on Boyz is going to be hilarious. - Orkz should be, at least in my opinion, a melee army. Granted, a solid firebase can't hurt as we need to chew through the METAL BOXEZ first before we get to the squishies inside, but the main killing instrument in my army should certainly be a choppa. - I utterly love the idea of command points and stratagems and want to field a batallion to get those sweet 3 CPs on top of the starting amount. With that said, take a look at what I have in mind for exactly 1,000 points. HQ Zhadsnark da Rippa (in the future, likely his Warboss-on-bike equivalent) Weirdboy with Da Jump psychic power Troops 28 Slugga Boyz + Boss Nob w/ Big Choppa 26 Slugga Boyz + Boss Nob w/ Big Choppa 10 Gretchin Elites 4 Kommandoz w/ 2 Burnaz + Boss Nob w/ Choppa + Slugga Fast Attack 27 Stormboyz + Boss Nob w/ Big Choppa Heavy Support 5 Lootaz 3 Big Gunz (3 Kannonz) ...I guess my intentions with this are quite simple. Lootaz and Kannonz will do their best to open some tin cans and / or spray other targets of opportunity while the Gretchin will form a very cheap deep strike deterrent around them. Stormboyz will draw the enemy fire, jump over battlelines and attack whatever seems vulnerable, potentiall in a 1st turn charge. Kommandoz will try to either draw some fire or tie up backfield units, worst case scenario is deep striking on a remote objective. The main strikeforce of this army will, of course, be the boyz propelled forward by Weirdboy´s Da Jump and charging after advancing thanks to their Warbosses ability. The Warboss himself will zoom around on his cool metal bike and hunt down low-count elite units, draw overwatch and crush unprotected tanks with his power klaw. So what do you think? Should I perhaps switch Lootaz for more Big Gunz to minimize the drop count? Should I include some walkers, maybe? Any wargear choices you would make differently? Let me know & feel free to comment!
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Great, so I've got the army choice figured out. Hooligan fungus in space. Check. Now, there is the significantly more difficult matter of drawing up my first, say, 1,000 pts roster so I have a goal and can start bashing some 'eads in. Let me take you on the charming journey through the rainbow valley of my mind where I'll explain what I want to play and why. For my Warlord, I certainly want to go with a Warboss on a bike. A mean green heap of violence with a mighty Power Klaw (because hey, strength 12!), low points-cost and a surprising amount of durability in the form of 7 wounds - or 8 if I go with Zhadsnark da Rippa, essentially a Warboss on a very small amount of steroids. A Warboss is essential to improve your infantry´s charge ability, to bolster morale wherever your Boyz get whittled down and, when on a bike, to deliver a high-strength weapon to suitable targets, e.g. vehicles and small elite units, in a highly mobile manner. Secondary HQ? A Weirdboy. These Ork Shamans / Psykers who draw their power from having other Orkz around (in game terms, they add to their psychic rolls for every 10 friendly Orkz within 10") are currently enjoying a massive comeback. I had just rarely seen them before the 8th edition but now, they have some really cool powers such as an improved Smite, Warpath (+1 attack for the target unit) or my personal favourite, Da Jump (select a nearby Ork unit and just teleport it anywhere on the battlefield that is more than 9" far from enemy models - utterly amazing now that you can charge after that, with Orkz having a re-roll). Da Jumping a full mob of Boyz is going to be fucking glorious. My only entry from Elites are probably going to be Kommandoz. Sneaky Orkz with immense room for creativity and own input - I'm certainly going to have a lot of fun modelling these, at least until I realize I'm still shit at that and cut off at least one of my fingers. These guys are dirt cheap, just under 50 points for 5 of them with 2 Burnaz, and are a great distant objective-grabbing unit & nuisance as the opponent HAS to deal with them somehow when they appear behind his lines. My Troops composition will probably not surprise anyone. Boyz. Boyz, boyz, boyz with some more boyz on top. Which sounds quite inappropriate, now that I think of it. Luckily, Orkz are above all sexuality and gender-correctness and are very liberal, judging everyone solely by their resistance to being hit repeatedly in the head with heavy objects. Anyway, Ork Boyz are one of the best units in the game now, perfectly suitable for deployment in vast mobs. They have a TON of melee attacks, they are dirt cheap, resistant to battle shock and can probably be considered the only slightly OP unit the Orkz have when spammed extensively. Their armour save is pretty much non-existent, they are going to be a pain to paint and I will probably need to get some movement trays so my games don´t last 5 hours / turn but roughly 2x30 boyz will still fit in my 1,000 pts list quite nicely. A unit of lowly Grots will be making appearance to fill up the 3rd Troop slot and get some stylish deep-strike deterrents in the bargain. Not that much to say about these guys - they are cheap, they are utter rubbish and they are one of the funniest units in the 41st millenium. Plus, if they ever manage to kill ANYTHING of value, I will most likely burst my spleen laughing which is always worth it. A unit of roughly 25-30 Stormboyz will be my fast-attack hammer. First off, they're AMAZINGLY stylish. Imagine all the goodness of regular Ork Boyz and then stick a high-powered, unstable, extremely dangerous rocket engine on the back of each of them, just so they can get stuck-in even faster. For me, these guys are utterly iconic and they are the very unit that made me join the greenskin camp in the first place. Also, they can CHARGE AIRPLANES IN CLOSE COMBAT. You can't not take them. Not if you have a heart. Now, to support my frontline grunts, I'll need some Lootaz to pop transports and kill models with 2 wounds economically. They are fragile, they are kinda random (not too bad considering we have command point re-rolls now) but how could you not love them? Basically, they are maniacal thieves who dedicate their lives to finding bigger, noisier and flashier stuff they can fire from the hip without the slightest clue of what accuracy is. These "deffguns" not only rain "deff" on enemies but also make their owners "deff" in the process, that's how amazing they are. Also, note to self - conversion options! And last, there will be a humble unit of Kannonz. They don't look like much, that's for sure but they still count among the best long-range antitank this faction has. 36" range, BS 4+, versatile ammunition including S8 rounds with D6 damage, that's not too shabby! Also, the more grots in the army, the merrier it gets and I don't expect people to focus on them when there will be 90 howling green fungus gorrilas armed to the teeth charging their battleline.
In further posts, you will have the wondrous opportunity of following my roster-building and then, eventually, the building of the army as well. Fingers crossed that I don't create anything as hideous as my first models were. Warning - the following post contains a fair bit of retro-whining. OK so to give you some introduction - I´ve been a WH40K fan for roughly 15 years and a (semi-active) player for 10. Competitive play has never been for me, really, instead I´ve always tried to create armies that are more on the fluffy side without sacrificing all of their bite. And that bite is meant literally as the army I used to play were the mighty booze-gulping Swedish-metal axe-totting space vikings in space, aka the Space Wolves. I started back in the 5th edition which I still tend to view as the golden age of Warhammer 40K, before the dreaded 6th came and gradually drowned my beloved world in oceans of complicated & unfluffy shit. I´m looking at you, Dark Angels & Space Wolves alliances, although you were, admittedly, just the tip of the stinking brown iceberg. Then came the 7th and, despite some initial improvements, ended up spiralling totally out of control with new rulepacks, datasheets, formations and Invisible Deathstars of Satanic Death spawning all around in the hands of people with severe dick length issues. Many armies gradually faded to oblivion back then. Sisters of Battle, Orks, Tyranids (no, 6 flyrants are not what I call Tyranids), Chaos Space Marines, buried by blatant balance issues and made rather difficult to play even in friendly games. What hurt me more than anything else was the apparent anti-melee focus that the game seemed to take with close-combat oriented armies disappearing one after another. Along with some other factors (this game is fuckin´ EXPENSIVE and is such a huge timesink!), this made me sell my Wolves and take a roughly 1-1.5 year break from the rotten, abandoned, bloated carcass of a game. And then... then, the 8th edition happened. I won´t wade too deep into what I felt when the rumour train started rolling around. Let´s just say that my hopes turned out to be justified. The progress I saw in the fluff was refreshing, pretty much all armies have suddenly become viable (perhaps not on the tournament scene but I´m gonna leave that to those who give a flying fuck), some long argued-about game mechanics HAVE emerged and proved to be reasonable and, most importantly, close combat has become an integral part of the game again. With my personal enthusiasm replenished, with a better job and more time to spend by being a general of an imaginary army of poorly painted plastic monsters, there was only one way to go for me. And that way lead back to the 48x72" battlefield, glue-stained fingers and the magical world of rule-lawyering neckbeards i´ve grown so fond of. By which I mean the magical world, not necessarily the neckbeards. Since the mighty Orkz, ultraviolent humanoid fungus heaps with Cockney accents, absurdly heavy weaponry and a wicked sense of humour, suddenly became playable again, they were my clear choice. I´m going to use this blog to keep track of my army-building progress, my ramblings on the Orkz´ performance and some occasional battle reports, bringing some greenskin joy to the bleak, grim world we all love. May Gork and possibly even Mork ever be willing to stomp yer teef in da mud ye humie scum! |
AuthorA dashing, sexy beast of a man who happens to be a Warhammer 40K geek. Also a piss-poor modeller / painter, not really interested in competitive playing. Loves Orkz and Space Wolves, two undoubtedly coolest factions in the entire fictional universe. Archives
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