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| Orks - Green Tactics... |
Lets start with what the codex says on P64, under "Launching your Waaagh!"
The typical greenskin army is built around a horde of Orks who charge across the battlefield shouting at the top of their lungs, but there are many ways you can personalise your own army to get the most out of a certain tactic or theme.
So, to paraphrase: "start with some boys, then add toys"... I seem to have said that before somewhere....
Anyway, my take on Ork List building is based around the theory of target saturation. This is the same thought process many MSU armies are built on. "There is more of me than you can deal with". Orks can take this a step further by almost completely neutralising a portion of your firepower.
So, with no further ado: My take on Ork list building 101. Don't try to do a balanced list.
That's right, for Orks (at least in the beginning), ignore the 5th ed truths.Your codex simply isn't capable of pulling of a decent balanced army. The reason for this is simple. You are average at Close Combat, and have piss-poor BS so are worse at shooting. We will try later, but for the moment, forget all that is good in list making.
To build a list with suitable shooting I find you need to be looking down the barrel of spending 95% of your points on this, and then you can't balance that with mobility, CC, 'ardness, or anything else.
So, let's think about how to build an unbalanced ork list that can win games.
What we need to achieve with this idea is target saturation crossed with firepower mitigation.
I want to touch on both of these concepts a little.
Target Saturation
I have more targets than you can shoot at.
Simple, right?
Well actually, yes. That's nearly all there is to it.
What I have to add though, is that even if you have a 1:1 enemy to ork unit ratio, the actual model count needs to be more like 3:1 ork to enemy.
What I mean is this: if I am being shot at by a meltagun, I want it to have to kill 3 Killa Kans.
If I am being shot at by 4 devastators with Heavy Bolters (firstly, I'd laugh and point them here), I want to have 20+ boys in the squad being targeted
Make sense?
Firepower Mitigation
This is the concept that I feel is terribly important to Orks.
If you opponent brings a force designed to kill vehicles, the worse thing he can see against him is 180 boyz. Your expensive lascannon kills as many orks a turn as a free BoltPistol.
In the same vein, if your opponent brings 140 flamer templates, he/she is going to cry like a baby when you only place down 5 battlewagons full of 2+ save Nobs.
Simple concept right? You can't reliably kill me if you bring the wrong guns. You are able, in this codex, to force this on people by list building. This is why Green Tide is so powerful in lower tier play. The Internets says "Meltaguns!". Ork Boyz say "so?".
The downside to this thought process is that you build an army with an Achilles Heel, that will fold to particular builds. Anyone will tell you that 5 battlewagons will melt to Autocannon Spam. BA Flamer-back spam will toast Green Tides. The list goes on and on.
Playing Orks will lead you to play Paper-Scissors-Rock lists, where you demolish certain armies, lose to others, and have can have good games against balanced lists.
So, next article I will look at the Intarwebs favourite whipping boy... Da Green Tide. How to play, how to win, and how to defeat this army.
