We find that we rarely take Ork Warband upgrades.

The lack of discount in pricing don't make them very attractive.

Here are the ones we use:

- Warband: Extra boyz/grot, Battlewagons, Mekboy, Battlefortress/Gunfortress, Flakwagonz

- Stormboyz: Deth Koptas

- Big Gunz: Mekboyz

- Stompas: Supa-stompa

- Blitz brigade: Mekboyz

Which leaves a lot of them unused: Kommandoes, Dreadnoughts, Killa Kanz, and of course all of the above when not in their own mob.

What upgrades do you use?

Considering discounts have been suggested for unused uogrades in various armies, is there an open case here in orks?

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I believe the Ork army list is considered one of the most balanced lists available.
I really don't see a need to change something that ain't broken.

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I also use nobs and mekboys on the warband.

I've seen plenty of models for dreads and kans, so I guess someone is using them. Snappa Mobs are a big part of the gargant bigmob list.
Kommandos - eh. they're not exactly competitive, but I've always felt they'd shine in a bloodaxe list.

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Dreads and kanz are commonly taken with stompamobs to take macro hits/take suppression for the stompas as required

Also I agree with Onyx, the list ain't broken and don't need fixin'

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i'd really like to use dreds and kans more, but at least in ghazghkull's warband there isn't much of a place for them. they condemn you to footslogging which doesn't work against half the armies in the game, and landas aren't big enough to carry more than 2 kanz of 1 dred (not exactly using them) they also allow AT only formations to shoot at you which is rarely a good idea. kommandos can be OK for landa assault mobs because they allow you to penetrate and attack the interior of formations. i've never used a kopta in my life, (how are they even useful?) the battlekrooza with it's slow and steady is nigh-useless. it's barrage isn't even very good, i don't know why i have to pay 200~ points for something that gets to shoot once and not very effectively. who even knows if it's going to hit anything?

if i could change anything about thraka's list, i'd make a formation of dreds and kans, or at least allow swapping a limited number of boyz in the warband for them. i'd change the battlekrooza somehow (slow and steady turn 2 instead)? to make planetfalling a thing that can even work. besides that, i think everything is remarkably well balanced.

parts of the list work well. are you saying the battlekrooza works well? the krooza? there are parts of it that i would tweak.

it works well enough to be good, but some parts of it aren't very useful. if you make those parts stronger, you don't make the list unbalanced, you just make it more versatile.

meh they could benefit from a points drop, but they're fine as they are, orks aren't really a 'combined arms' type army supported by orbital drops and firepower, plus making them a better option would actually have other effects in that being SR3, orks could take a ship simply to stop IG, or other SR1-2 players using their own spaceships on turn 1, giving them time to flee the barrage area and reducing the chance of a successful hit, that's the intrinsic value of ork spacecraft I reckon

plus as they are, they capture the ork schtick of 'very potent when they work.... *if* they work' quite well IMO

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orks aren't a combined arms army because the stuff that could make them a combined arms army aren't any good

i'd really like to be able to planetfall. most of the other lists can, and they aren't broken at all.

at least bigmob and both blood axe lists can. they can even do it much better because they aren't stuck with 10 space landas. drop kans and roks are both blatantly superior and at least by my estimation there's nothing wrong with those lists. tweaking the battlekrooza slightly wouldn't make the list overly strong. agree/disagree?

as far as I understand it, the 'ork' list is meant to represent Ghazgkull's forces on armageddon, well after the initial invasion had been carried out and ground forces were well established, I feel the battle krooza (or whatever it's called) well represents one of the relatively few ships still orbiting the planet swinging by and firing a few ill-aimed potshots at a battle

As you say, other lists have drop options and effective space craft as they represent armies that fight in that way.... it would be like a steel legion player complaining that he can't have drop troops because Elysians can, or a black templars player wanting to take titan allies..... it's not always about game balance, sometimes changes are implemented in a list to preserve a theme

while the ork list is flexible, it should still have some limitations..... it's probably one of the most flexible lists in the game right now, you can build war-engine heavy forces, aircraft hordes, loads of cheap troops swarming around, super fast lists fiull of buggies and skorchas, potent air-assault and even a bit of shooting, it doesn't need any more options, this helps it avoid stepping on the toes of other variant lists

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if it's in there it should be useful imo. i can understand 'because fluff' because i like the fluff al ot, but if X thing is in the list (IE, fluff says it should be) and it's not useful because of a non-fluff reason (points cost or other balance-related abstractions) then it should be tweaked until it's a viable option. AFAIK (and please take with a grain of salt because i haven't actually read armageddon's fluff in a very long time) ghazghkull had a fairly threatening navy. if the list said "this list represents ghazghkull's entrenched forces, and so no spacecraft are available to help the army" then i would be ok with it (at least if the fluff actually said that) but if the option for planetfall is there (and supported by fluff, at least partially) then it should be a usable option (even if it's overpriced slightly to represent how sketchy thraka's orbital control was, or some such) having it there and not being viable scratches at me.

i value your input btw, i sincerely hope i don't come off as confrontational. perhaps this is an 'agree to disagree' thing. at least, i can always use the other lists for planetfalling, which they excel at (bigmob loota warband with added kanz on a barging planetfall... something to behold. very rip and tear. i like it.)



also, for that guy upthread who said kommandos were bad. can you explain why? i'm not seeing it. are they overpriced because the statline seems pretty good. i'm genuinely confused.

I think they're still useful, but not useful enough to build a list around

From what I've read of the conflict and setting for E:A, by the time the E:A games are taking place, it's escalated into all-out war, the IN have arrived so Ghazgkull has less naval superiority than when he first attacked

At the time the list was written, it was probably not sure of the future of the game and therefore it was written with as many options as possible.... maybe the ships could do with a points drop to make them a more attractive choice (after all, slow and steady on an int3+ ship is terrible) but I don't think the list needs to improve their standing...a crazy guy may take an all-drop list and get lucky and win with a totally unexpected list, that's why things like that are in the list

also for narrative games, while many of us play the tournament scenario, there is huge scope for narrative games with house rules 'in this game, the ork spaceship automatically arrives on T2' for example, which make the list useful with relatively little modification

If you want to play an ork drop list in a tournament, I think taking a drop-specific army is a better option than trying to half-ass it with Ghazgkull's list, however for friendly or themed games it's useful to have the options

a similar problem exists with the guard, they have access to spaceships, but due to low SR and int2+ they're just not a very attractive option....

if it came to the choice of cut them out of the list or keep them in, I'd keep them in for the surprise element....you'd be surprised how something like an ork spaceship turning up with a bit of luck can change the local meta as players scramble to try it for themselves, or build lists to counter it.....

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i just think it's basically suicide to use them

cost of planetfalling [ghazghkull's list]

battlekrooza 250 points
landa 200 points
warband ~200 points

so that's like a stompamob that can for SURE apply all of it's firepower on turn 2 if not turn 1

except it's way more finicky to use, requires extreme good luck (first you have to have targets under the templates. sometimes doesn't happen, THEN you need to roll well on the battery strength, THEN you need to roll well on the to-hits, THEN you need to roll well on the scatter, THEN you need to roll well on the assault, and then MAYBE you might be able to secure an objective at the end of the game.)

to be honest, if you take that many points out of your list to MAYBE get blitz on turn 3, you've probably already lost the game by then. having an extra 500 points on the table to soak hits and shoot back or help out in assaults is a HUGE deal. without it you're boxing one handed. not a good plan.

the other thing is i generally play against guard, and without planetfall their artillery is just invincible. even if you guess extremely well and set up your planetfall directly on top of the bloody things, you arrive turn 3 after it's already done it's job. if it's surrounded by hydras (always is, because why not surround it in hydras) running in your rokkits or landas just doesn't work.

cost reduction for the battlecruiser itself or alteration of slow+steady is necessary if it's going to be a viable option IMO

Hasn't the cost of the BattleKrooza already dropped to 200 points.

If the Imperial Guard artillery is such a problem that you're thinking of spending 600 points or so no it why not just use a large fighter bomber formation on it and fly through the flak to get at them. They can be used every turn too.

no idea if those tags will work whatevs


>why not use a fighter bomba formation

because i'll lose more than i gain because of CAP and hydras, that's why. or well, it's likely that i will.

besides, in a thread about "what don't you use" it's kind of silly to say "use something else" isn't it? doesn't that sort of erase the point of the OP anyway

like if commandos are bad, and someone says "why don't people use commandos" and everyone says "i use boyz instead, cus they're better" doesn't that just kind of make the point anyway

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i do use fighta sqwadrons btw, they're pretty good. though i have the most abominable luck with rokkits in general, no idea why


edit: also you're totally right about the battlekroozer price change, it's now 50 points cheaper. was looking at the old book, my mistake

Oooohh terribly sorry for trying to give some advise for a game situation which you posted about and I've seen other Ork players deal with very easily, my really bad. I won't try to explain or go into any further detail on what I've seen work for other Ork players in the same situation then because I don't want to take the thread off topic.

Back on Topic then.

On to the Battlekrooza, at 3000 points it is hard to make it a valid unit to include but when 4000, 5000 or even bigger games are played they are actually a very decent unit to include in lists.
As with most armies there are some units that feel out of sync with 3000 point armies but those units usually work much better in bigger games , where they aren't such a big percentage of the total points and usually more or better viable enemy targets.
Allowing the Battlekrooza to arrive earlier in the game, for me wouldn't work,it would change the dynamics of the Ork list too much.
On top of the OB (which can already be used turn 1 and 2 with the small SC) it allows planetfall and this, for me, would give the opportunity to get rid of 1 of the weaknesses of the list.
As I see it the Space Craft's are the only things rarely seen at 3000 point level games but I've seen them work really well in larger games. Do we make them better at 3000 points and thus possibly make them a no brainer in bigger games and in doing so possibly upset the overall balance of the lists strengths and weaknesses.