102 replies to this topic

[Shabbadoo]

Going back to 2E Ork personailty would only be an improvement, as "buckets of mostly useless dice" is a pretty crappy "personality" feature for an army. I'e never been too fond of it, and the problem with it and BS 5+ has surely come home to roost in 8E. GW must know they have a massive problem to deal with in writing Codex: Orks*. I hope we at least have some trouble in tearing it apart; assuming we are all open to "new and creative solutions to core issues" for some things.

 

*No Orks were harmed in the writing of this codex; only Ork players. Some Grots may have "inadvertently" been harmed...allegedly.

 

Shoota boyz are still quite good.   Da Jump to the front, shoota the guys in the back ranks and charge the ones in the front.  That way when the scumgrods in the front line withdraw, you don't get your butt handed to you as badly from shooting.

 

Thats how you kill humies and one of the work arounds for screens.

So the fix is as simple as just including one Weirdboy for each shooty unit? Yaaay!!!

[Badfang Brassaxe]

 

 

3rd edition did change orks quite significantly, and with that, the nature of how orks work on the tabletop. Orks were basically guardsmen with +1 T & -1 I back then. 3rd edition upped their WS, lowered the BS, and increased their number of attacks. In general orks became a lot more focused on "volume of attacks" with this change. Increasing their BS would fix a gameplay issue, but it would at the same time remove some of their current personality

If you don't want to mess with the current boyz stats then just modify the way that the guns perform - <LoadsaDakka> - shootaz, big shootaz, dakkagunz, snazzgunz and deffgunz all kick out such a volume of fire that they get a +1 'to hit' modifier.

That way not all orks are affected, only the ones that need to be, and the other factions can still use all their stacking -1 to hit modifiers.

 

They still need to sort out blast weapons too - easiest way is to roll 'n'D6 for hits (not shots) and let the targets rely on luck, toughness or armour to survive (this should have been in the core rules).

 

Maybe GW have already sorted all this out and their problem is that they can't get the <Klan> traits to work

[warhead01]

I like that a lot. 
I was thinking that if shoota boys got better there would need to be a counter balance to slugga boys something like dropping the green tide rule. 
I don't want that to happen. I think though that in general Boys need all the attacks they can muster so I would like to leave the Green Tide rule in place for all boys. I had briefly forgotten it was for all Boys mobs, not just slugga boys. I think just finding a small way to add a +1 to hit special rule for shooting is the right direction. 
My only other thought is should that make the cost of those models go up? 

[Lexington]

Given how cheap a Guardsman is, combined with their ability to receive force-multiplying Orders, makes me think Boyz would still deserve a drop or two in points.

[Nefairius]

It ever seem a bit weird to anyone else how guard can (or at least used to) be able to totally outnumber us or Nids? The Green Tide & The Endless Swarm, overwhelmed by by wave after wave of guardsmen.

[warhead01]

On top of the other idea of special rules to make +1 BS easier. What about allowing the Battle Wagon to buy a Grot Gunner Krew as an option. this would be in gunner for each shooting weapon and 3 or 4 ammo runts. maybe it reduced the transport capacity by 4 or 5 models. Then all it needs is more bug guns.

[Badfang Brassaxe]

For fluff reasons I wouldn't be too keen on grot gunners behind assault weapons - orks enjoy giving it loud wiv da dakka way too much to let da grots 'av a go. If big shootaz were given a +1 to hit then grot gunners'd be hitting on 3+ which seems a bit

 Then all it needs is more bug guns.

Tyranids giving ya problems

[killercroc]

 

Tyranids giving ya problems

Nasty problem of getting stuck in the wheels after you run them over 

[Garr]

Easiest would be a 6 always hits (massive oversight that this isn't a core rule imo) and give all ork units firing 10 shots or more the +1 to hit dakkajet rule when firing at a single target (buffing the dakkajet to 2+ to hit or giving it a new rule).

[Blakkreaper]

Still not really addressing blast weapons though - can't think of any in an ork army that are even likely to make their own points back in game even if they do survive to the end of it. The fact that it doesn't matter how packed the opposing units are, it won't affect the number of potential casualties is also somewhat counter-intuitive.

Core rules being weird everywhere is a different kettle of squigs. I figure step one is to make Orks work in the current system, and then step 2 can be to fix the system in a way that's consistent because everyone worked with the old system the same way. 
 

 

I actually dislike Burnas because their low number of shots. Yes it's 10-30 auto hits and yes they're AP -2 weapons but it's 14 points still on a 6+ sv model they're not difficult to kill. So if they get the shot then charge they're powerful but if they get shot or charged they're going to crumble and I don't think their points reflect this well. If they were 10 points it'd be worth it but not as it stands, too many points for not enough damage output.

Try Skorchanobz. Burnas are 14 each. A skorchanob is 36. 28 points vs 36 points for 2d3 S4 - vs d6 S5 -1 (plus two shoota shots at bs 6+). One is 2x 1W 6+ saves, One is 1x 2W 4+ save. The Nobs are tougher and got mroe dakka. Less good at opening armour in melee, unless you take a few power-stabbas - then you're back ahead. Take some ammo runts to catch multiwound attacks incoming and it seems like a better pick IMHO. 

[PhillyT]

In my opinion the easiest way to fix ork shooting is to address the basic shooting rules. They need to increase the number of shots blast weapons get against infantry and rerun to 6s always hitting regardless of modifiers.

[jhneoh]

Perhaps the simplest fix would be to give shooty boyz a different statline from choppy boyz.

 

Hence, Shoota Boyz, Tankbustas and Lootas would get BS4+ WS4+, as opposed to Slugga Boyz with BS5+ WS3+.

 

Specialist units like Kommandos and Flash Gitz could have BS4+ WS3+ to reflect their higher combat ability.

[Shagga]

When Orks first went to BS2, it was a really notable event in 40K that caused a lot of comment. Before that they were humans with T4, but WS4/BS2 made them genuinely different. Since it happened at the same time as the enormous rules changes in 3rd Ed, while it made them more threatening in melee, it didn't actually stop them being able to play as a shooty army - with no hit modifiers, having only 33% of your shots hitting the target is fine, because volume of fire is a viable strategy.  Available evidence suggests this was no coincidence, this was all quite intentional on the part of the game designers, who had enough insight to know how they wanted the game and its factions to play (whether you or I might think the 40K rules were great is a separate question).

 

Now hit modifiers are back, but Orks are still stuck with BS2. They don't work as a shooty army any more, it's that simple. Volume of fire is of no help if each shot has a 0% chance of hitting (an edge case, but not uncommon), and neither are rerolls. So the question is, do GW's current crop of games designers have the insight to recognise and understand the problem, and the confidence to make fundamental changes to long-established tropes of the setting, like the past generation did when they decided Orks wouldn't just be tough humans any more?

 

Doubt it. Orks are BS2. It's basically carved in stone, carved in iron, and signed in blood at this point, as far as GW are concerned, and I don't see much sign that they really understand the problem it causes, or have much inclination to do anything about it.

 

GW appear to see Orks as an almost-exclusively fighty army. I'll be pleasantly surprised if they find a way to make them shooty too, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Wortsnagga]

The rumour floating around is orks will get the dakka dakka strategy as a faction wide rule, but I can't see how it will fix the shooting issue if you cant hit anything because of to hit modifiers.

[PhillyT]

Is that really a thing though? How many armies consistently make BS5 become a 7+?

[bad buddha]

One way to go could be to give orks a rule that say they dont aim anyways so they dont get any modifyers at all, so allways hit on 5+.

[greggles]

How many armies consistently make BS5 become a 7+?

 

Almost every army has access to -1's.  (Pretty rare tthat they don't).  Just having a -1 cuts our shooting rate in half (33% to 16%) and makes advancing and shooting an impossibility.  (unless you're running double skorcha deff dreads for 40% more points then we should be paying). Or moving a heavy weapon without a special rule.  

 

Basically our army can already create it's own -1's.

 

Some can buff that up to a -3.  If someone gives me -1's, I just advance every turn instead of shooting.  

 

Keep in mind that -1's are doubly dangerous for us, as we don't have access to rerolls...yet.  So a -1 means mega blasta's MW us on a 1 or a 2.  

 

I'm really hoping that the DAKKA DAKKA rule (as bad buddah pointed out), means we always hit on 5's no matter what.  That would resolve the hit modifers, and make orks a wildcard vs armies that require the -'s to stay alive.

[PhillyT]

Well yes, many armies can use psychic powers to make ONE unit get a -1.  Its normally fairly close range though.  Its not normally something that can effect the entire army is it?

[greggles]

Stratagems, army traits, relics, and psychic powers can all create -'s to hit.  

[PhillyT]

Yeah but they arent as common as people make them out to be are they? I run Beakies, chaos Beakies, death guard, knights, and Orks. Other than Raven guard, none of those armies offer a blanket -1. A couple give a psychic power threat can cause it, but thats really the only consistent one. Which armies other than dark panzee are able to consistently spam the -2?