Played 40k for the first time and ....

[Gottaa]

... I'm hooked, loving many aspects, got the Ork codex (which I hope is the latest one, can't see an obvious publish date or version number), got a battleforce box, more dice, tape measure, and gonna be planning the army next to see just what I can get up to with 1,000 points

I do have a gripe though, as an introduction to the world of 40k it's a pretty shocking attempt, compared to GorkaMorka (keep going back to this as it's the only other one I've got a starter kit for), there are no missions explained in AoBR, army forces are amazingly uneven, even with the marines not having the dreadnought in the field the points are skewed to the marines. The one mission AoBR has is "have 10 marines fight 20 orks", and I can't for the life of me see how the ork force will win against a marine force that just stands it's ground, 2 rounds to close the distance, no saving throws, it's just painful. It was fine because I used the first two games just to try and understand the rules more but the thought of two people "playing" this sends shivers down my spine, and would only continue to keep it's "nerd" status amazingly high.

Maybe I'm missing something, maybe I did it wrong first time with two units of 10, and wrong the second time with one unit of 20, but for a force that is so reliant on mellee out the box why not include even just a trukk on the orc side (marines would still have the points advantage at that point).

Anyway, need to finish off this rice pudding. Had alot of fun, will be playing again all being well on Friday with a 500 point ork army.

 

[Brutus]

I dont know the points for the orks but a marines tactical squad is only 190pts off the top of my head?

Also were you using the old cover saves?

 

[Zed]

The AoBR set is based on 5th Ed rules with 5th ed codex based troops. Its skewed definately in favour of the Space marines so you have to think tactics. The Def koptas can infiltrate so keep them in reserve and bring them on behind the marines lines.

Also use terrain to your advantage.

Orks are a horde army, lots of mechanised vehicles will not help you a great deal. That said Killa Kans, Deff Dreads, Bikes and buggys would give you a nice set of mechanised vehicles with a couple of maxxed out Ork Boy troop units.

when your building your troops though its important to consider what you might be fighting. For instance would you have something that can glance or penetrate against AV 10, 12 or 14? If not then a land raider or Monolith will simply mess up your day every time.

 

[Gottaa]

Don't know what AV is yet, but I'll get there To answer all the questions:

First fight,10 Marines: 170pt vs. 20 boyz: 130 pt
Second fight, 10 Marines, 5 Terminators, 1 Space Marine Captain: 470pt vs. 20 boyz, 3 dektkoptas, 5 nobz, 1 orc warboss: 450pt

cover saves, don't remember either of us using any, but only had 2 little hills and a bush on the field

we didn't use any rules not in the codex as Cad didn't have the space marine codex, so I couldn't use the Waaarrgghhh which mean to charge I had to first get to 12" or closer, which meant I was in range of the marines boltguns firing twice. I'm after any suggestions on how 20 boyz would ever beat a marine squad which sit on the edge of the table and shred the boyz army. The idea of the trukk though is hoping to zoom it across the board faster than the orks could run, then have the orks jump out and assault, even in assault if it goes badly for the orks and you lose the leadership roll which is gonna be pretty likely if you've lost 4 or 5 boyz you don't get a chance to rally again.

I am planning some more beefy weapons in there, but also want my boyz into the fight nice and quick, and as a trukk is I think only 35pt it's a pretty cheap way of getting some boyz, or a hq with some nobz into the battle quick smart.

And I am now thinking that a 500pt army is plenty to be starting off due to the amount of time it takes with the larger armies, and even with a 500 pt army I need to buy some extra models so they have the right weapons and armour

 

[Zed]

AV is armour value. A Land raider is AV 14 all around.

to hit it you roll D6+ Weapon str and equal gives a glance, greater gives a penetration. Land raider though is worse case scenario. You need to look for weapons that can hurt AV 10 - 12 to start with. The dread for instance is AV 12 front. So firing at it from in front means you need to beat 12 on a roll to penetrate (therefore standing a chance of blowing it up)

Right Tactics. Orks are horde armies. Its been said before. For every 10 man tac squad you should be able to hit them with double or more Boyz. Ie 170 points could get you 25 Boys with 2 rokkit launchers.

If your playing Objectives games then set one of your objects in your half of the board. The player then has to come to you to contest it. Drop a force on the objective and if he sits on his own and does the same the game is a draw

On a 4ft board you deploy 12inches in, leaves you with approx 2 - 3 ft to cover. Turn 1 - move, Run. Turn 2, Move, Run probably assault. Get 1 boy in combat and that tactical squad cannot fire. Screen 1 unit with another unit (for a 4+ cover save) and get both into combat. Orks are not a strong shooty army so you have to close and close quick.

Get everything within 18inch then declare Waaaagh!!! Everyone moves 6, gets fleet (2d6 drop lowest) then charges. Sure you will loose troops to ranged fire but it will take the marines a couple of round sto whittle down your 30 boys.

Once you charge you get +1 Str, Ini on first turn and each boy gets 4 attacks. If you assume that you loose 15 boys on the advance. You charge in. the Marines attack first due to initiative. Lets say you loose 2 more boys. (5 hits, 3 wound, 1 save) You fight back with 13 boys @ 4 attacks (52 dice) needing 4s to hit (26 successes) and wound on 4+ (13 successes) the marines then have 13 saves 3+ (7 save) you've won combat.

Next round the marines still go first and it gets a little harder for you but your still fighting with 13 vs 7. Which equates to 39 attacks vs 7. If you cannot beat the marines in combat through sheer numbers something has gone wrong

You effectively play Tyranid horde in the same way. Get into CC and you should win all the time through numbers rather than anything else.

 

[Gottaa]

A normal ork boy wouldn't get to save against a marine though would he ?

Oh and anyone have a link to the 40k army builder, incase there are any useless copies out there, planning on loading at work and start to plan my army at lunch

 

[Zed]

Doh yeah i missed the save, see we still get rules wrong . Even so your probably still going to make it to the Marine tac squad with double or triple the numbers of the marines. then once in CC just overwhelm them with the dice thrown.

 

[Zeus]

well, you'd still get the 6+ in combat, just not from shooting.

the problem with orks... and what makes them seem nastier than they should be on average... is how many chances they get to be lucky.
see, an average 10man marine squad will kill say (10 shots -> 6 hits -> 3 kills) 3 orks a turn with shooting. and an average 25man ork squad will kill (25 shots -> 8 hits -> 4 wounds (shootas are str 4 right?) -> 1 kill) 1 marine with shooting - at less range. which seems about right - each side takes out roughly the same number of points each turn.

but a *lucky* marine squad (rolling lots of 6's) can still only take out 10 orks. a lucky ork squad could potentially take out the entire squad of marines. whilst if the orks are unlucky for a turn, who cares? its only 1 less marine killed than you had a right to expect.

 

[Gottaa]

Unless you have the ork codex though the boxset doesn't say about the waaaargggh, or fleetfoot so you'd always need to have really two turns, first turn is marines, they kill 3, ork's close in to within 12" which means they could charge next turn, marines turn, they can then use rapid fire so 6 more die which is a leadership test, assume the orks pass, orks charge, marines have initiative so they then take out another 4, orks take out 3 with the remaining orks, orks have another leadership test, this time with -4 to the roll, they run away.

This is specifically the AoBR I am talking about, how GW choose to show people things first off, with the codex, the extra rules and a balanced number of points I imagine it would be much more interesting

 

[Zed]

Actually id say AoBR has served its purpose - that is you have been hooked (back) into playing.

Sure its not perfect and looking at it its a very simplified and dumbed down version of the rules that misses out space marine specials as well (and they shall know no fear - for example)

Best to get the codex, get the troops you fancy trying out and give it a go with full codex rules against a similar matched army. See how it plays out ...

Ill bring 1,000 points of Necrons over one evening, or the 1,000 point death wing and we can see what happens

 

[Zed]

Sssume the orks pass, orks charge, marines have initiative so they then take out another 4, orks take out 3 with the remaining orks, orks have another leadership test, this time with -4 to the roll, they run away.

check the Mob rule in the codex. Assume you have a squad of 30 and the marines drop you down as you approach as long as you are 11+ Ork boys you are fearless so no leadership tests needed.

Then as long as your still 11+ troops in hand to hand you are fearless. Sure in your example above you lost 1 more troop than the marines. So fearless means you're taking another savable wound. Assume you fail it, you should still be throwing more dice at the marines in hand to hand the next turn.

I really cannot see how, once in Close Combat, with a 30 unit of ork boys you can fail to loose the combat.

Hmmmmm crunch time i think

 

[Gottaa]

True, but I think I was pretty sold even before I played

I'm gonna start on a 500pt army to begin with for simplicity and finances, with a 1,000 pointer I'd be needing to get some more models. And where do I get my hands on extra bits, if I wanted to mod an existing model, for example adding power-klaws ?

Also I can plan a 500pt army on the free version of army builder

 

[Zed]

Warning Geeky maths head coming

Try this out for size:

Marines tactical squad: 10 Boltguns (for simplicity) � Captain has a pistol (for simplicity)
Orks: 30 boyz with choppa and slugga (for simplicity)
Turn 2. Orks are going second and are 26� from the Tactical squad.
Marines: Movement: Hold ground. Shooting: None. Out of range. Assault : None
Orks: Move 6� (distance 20�). Shooting: None so run (1d6�) - http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2423965/ 2inches. (distance 18�) Assault: None
Turn 3.
Marines: Movement : none. Shooting X 9 at 3+ = http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2423967/ 5 hits
Wound: 4+ =5d6.hits(4)=2
Ork losses: 2. (28 Orks)

Orks: Movement 6� (distance 12�). Shooting: DECLARE WAAAGH Run 1d6 = 1d6=4 (distance 8�)
Assault: None. You are out of range still. (Bugger)

Turn 4.
Marines: Movement � none. Shooting. X81 boltguns + 1 pistol at 3+
Boltguns: 18d6.hits(3)=14 (14 hits. Ouch)
Bolt Pistol: Miss
Wounds: 4+ 14d6.hits(4)=6
Ork losses: 6 (22 Orks)

Orks: Movement 6� (distance 2�).
Shooting: Yes please. 22 X Slugga�s 5+ (22d6.hits(5)=7)
Wounds 4+ (7d6.hits(4)=5) 5 hits
Marines: 5 saves @ 3+ (5d6.hits(3)=3)
Marine Losses : 2 (8 Marines left)
Pistols are assault 1 weapons so�
Assault: Yes please. 22 Orks barrel into 8 Marines.
Marines strike first through initiative: 4+ to hit (8d6.hits(4)=2) 2 hits
To wound: 4+ (2d6.hits(4)=2)
Ork Saves: 6+ 2d6.hits(6)=0
Ork Losses: 2 (20 Orks)

Orks strike back: 2 attacks +1 Charge = 60 attacks @ 4+
60d6.hits(4)=32
To Wound 4+ (+1 str from Furious charge) 32d6.hits(4)=13
Marine saves: 3+ (13d6.hits(3)=8)
Marine Losses: 5

Marines loose combat by 3 and need to make a leadership test. If they run they may be caught by a sweeping advance (unlikely) and loose more units. But its unlikely.

End of combat: Orks 20 units. Marines: 3 units.

If the Orks cannot finish the Marines off next round then your doing something wrong 
So yes lucky dice rolls are going to reduce you more than above its unlikely you will fall below 11 units when you get into combat so fearless kicks in.

 

[Gottaa]

Can you have a unit made up of 1HQ, 29 boyz and 1 boyz nob ? Just pondering something akin to the 30 point army with some extra teeth to deal with the larger stuff as well

 

[Zeus]

a unit, yes. the HQ is an independant character, so would join the boyz mob.
you'd need a second troops choice to make it a valid army though.

 

[Gottaa]

I'm assuming as an Ork you'd generally join a mob with your HQ to avoid it getting torn to shreds stood on it's own ?

 

[Zeus]

well, the orks i normally play against, have ghazkull thraka leading a mob of nobz in mega armour and riding a truck (i think its a truck. might be something bigger. been about 6 months since i played against orks.). preferably they also have feel no pain. truck blasts its way as far forward as it can in the first turn. we either shoot it or dont. it makes little odds either way - the odds are good that you have ghazkul and his nobz slamming into your front line the turn after (ghazkul gives a waagh on command, and this makes your orks fleet, so even if you blew up/immobilised the truck they can reach you. oh, and if you blew it up, because of the frankly ridiculous ork vehicle explosion rules, theres a fair chance they can use the explosion to get closer to your lines as well too.)
if your opponents very lucky, they can take out the meganobz on their turn 2 - assuming the meganobz slaughtered the unit they charged so they're shootable. ghazkull at this stage has a 2+ invulnerable save though (from his waugh), so even if they take out the rest of the mob, he'll survive. and it makes little odds - as the entire army has had to concentrate fire on the meganobz, the rest of your army (typically 90 boyz or so and assorted others) have got close enough to charge on turn 3.

 

[Zed]

I miscalculated on the example above .. the slugga and shoota counts as an extra attack in close combat so 40 boyz on the charge gives you 120ish attacks.

Can you say Boooya!

 

[Gottaa]

you only get 20 orks in the box But that's still 78 attacks if they all get there alive isn't it ? (two they give big shoota's so don't get the extra attack)

 

[Zed]

Well. Orks get 1 attack as standard. +1 for Pistol / Choppa. +1 on the charge

18 boys charging is therefore 3 X 18 or 74 + 4 for the two with shootas.

Yup 78 attacks on the charge for 20 boys. Aint no way the Marines can cope with that many dice saves (17-18 saves) means your loosing 5-6 marines.

But remember thats not exactly how it goes as it could be reduced to around 60 attacks after the marines attack first.