Hybrid Tau + Boyz

So with the changes to Tau vehicles making them...well really good again, I thought I'd throw up a post of what a Hybrid Tau + Boyz army might look like. I'll do a metatransition post later, this is just for you to sink your teeth into and get discussing.

Losing firepower without the Big Guns and 10 Crisis (down to 7) but gaining some extra firepower through Hammerhead and some added durability to army with AV13 with a 3+ cover and two mobile AV12s with 2+ cover when going Flat-Out to block LoS to your army.

Potentially a different army for Allies with more firepower since there is an added defense layer here could work... Anyway, list below.

Ally Template: Ork Green Tide

CSM, Necrons, Imperial Guard & Tau can all take Orks as Allies of Convenience and with Fearless not being a liability for hordes in close combat now, Orks aren't a bad choice as your Ally at all. In this post we're going to look at the 'Green Tide' for Ork allies where those large Boyz units are going to come to play. This is a great option for shooting armies and with three of the strongest shooting armies in the game available as Allies (Necrons, IG & Tau), this should be a good plug-in to protect those shooting elements with more aggressive units.

Gundam Boyz - Tau & Orks

Dakka

So I've been playing around with the basis of Gundam Tau and trying to find an Allies fit which I think works best at 1750 points (the commonly played points level in Australia currently at tournaments). The problem was, even cutting back a bit on the suits there weren't that many points to play with for getting 2x10x MEQs + goodies to support the Tau in midfield and provide mobile scoring options. You could do it but it always felt stretched at 1750 and worked much better at 2000. Orks didn't have this issue however and thanks to Fearless changes, are a lot scarier in combat now since they don't fold like a wet paper bag.

Metatransition - Ork Kan Wall in 6th Edition

The other kind of Kan Wall.
Image from televation.com.

I had a question in a previous post - how can you bring the 5th ed Kan Wall into 6th edition, when all your vehicles have a measley 2 HP each, and die to a stiff breeze?

I claimed this was quite easy, and I stand by my previous statement.

So before I rattle out the concept, let me outline one thing.

I will not be providing you a list here. I will be providing you ideas to work from. Why? I honestly don't know the end codex well enough to list write it properly, so I don't want to mess up the upgrades for you all.

Orks in 6th - Initial Analysis

Toycutter

Another analysis being clamored for - I will have it noted I have not played with Orks as a parent army yet, just as opponents and allies. You're own fault for demanding so loudly ^^. Let's hop in.

3++ Nerdcast: Episode 3 - 6th edition knowledge expansion...

Next Nerdcast! This is unfortunately... well a rather unstructured one. And that's saying something for us! SirBiscuit and AbusePuppy don't join us and I'm busy packing Tyranids for the weekend's tournament so we left the two.... what should I call them :P? Who knows but they ran amok! lol

There's some good information in here, we just jump around a lot unfortunately! I've compiled a sort of table of contents below of what we go through below so you can skip to the more relevant parts or listen to the entire conversation and enjoy it all!

Our main focus is what's good/better in 6th (Orks discussed briefly 1:30-2:30 mins) with some focus on a couple armies specifically. This includes:

Vinsanity's Choice of 40K and Fantasy Tournament Lists Lists!

Hey guys. So around here we have a 40k and a fantasy tourney coming up quite soon and I'm planning to go to both. I just wanted some list thoughts on these. For the 40k one, it will either be Necrons or Orks at 1850 and for the fantasy one it will either be Beastmen or Orcs & Goblins at 2500... So onto the lists. I will have comments after each one...

Review of the New WD Flyer Rules

With the rules for the new flyers (fliers? flyers? damn ambiguous spellings) circulating around, I figured it was time to take a look at their numbers in a bit more detail and give an assessment of them. I don't think any of them (save the Necrons) are gonna be winning any prizes anytime soon, but especially considering most of them are Orks that isn't exactly surprising. So let's dig in and see what we can figure out about them.

(And remember, kids, this isn't the place to complain about how little you like them visually, etc. We already have a thread for that- this one is just for rules.)

Army Comparison: Orks vs. Tyranids

Continuing the request for Army Comparisons (yes, I'll be getting to some of the other popular ones as well) we have Orks vs Tyranids. Both of them are nominally horde armies (but don't really play that way because hordes are kinda awful in 5E) with a good combination of shooting and assault potential. Orks can bring Battlewagons and other armor to the table, while Tyranids will usually be leaning heavily on their T6 critters to even the field for them. Neither side has a clear advantage over the other's primary strategy, so in most cases it ends up being a pretty brutal slugfest no matter who ends up winning- which, from a fluff view, is hardly inappropriate.

Email in: Dealing with monstrous creatures

"Kirby:

Hey, been reading your blog through and through for a week or so, due
to boredom at work, and now I figured I'd pose a question. (also,
nice blog by the way. It's a fun read through and through)

So my gaming group isn't what you'd call competitive, but i'd still
like to win on occasion. We generally end up playing four player
1000-point-each games, with SM focusing on landspeeders and shooty,
Eldar focusing on losing every game worse than i do, me playing orks
(I know) footslogging tons of boys (I KNOW) and thus not really doing
that well, and the tyranid player with a half dozen MCs in a thousand
point army.

Paint an army in 2 weeks - this is madness... THIS IS ORK HORDE!

Hey folks, a long time since my last army painting series I bring you what is the biggest challenge yet and one that will be hard for me to match in the future!

Mayhem Mayfest is six days away and I am 7 days into painting the army I will be taking. For some reason I got it into my head that I should take orks, now a typical ork army has a lot of models, probably in the 100ish ballpark. In a moment of madness I made error number two, horde orks!

All told the army has 194 models (if my math is correct), that is a lot of models and right now I am realising what a bad mistake I made!

Email in: 2000 point orks

Gluedmyfingers

"Hey Kirby!

I was anticipating on taking...

105 HQ Warboss w/ powerklaw, armor, cybork & boss pole
410 T Nobz x 6 [Painboy, Cybork'd, 3pk,2bc, armor]; Battlewagon w/ deffrolla, big shoota, grots

Email in: 1500 Mek-themed Orks

miniboomboom

"Hello!

I've finally got bored of playing Imperial armies, so I've decided to try my hand at a Mek-themed Ork army.

Keeping it small at 1500, but I'd like to know I could expand it too.

Anyway, the current list is thus:

Conversion: Scratch Built Ork Stompa

Har, Har, Har! Check out this amazing Scratch built Ork Stompa.

I just recently found all my Games Day pictures (YEAH!) and this guy was one of the last things I snapped! 

First off, pardon the sneeze guard with scratchy glass Games Workshop uses to keep your models protected.

The best conversions in my option are always the ones you can't figure out how they made it.

Besides a few bits here and there, I really have no idea what this thing is made out of- it could be insulation foam in there for all I know, lol.

Email in: mega nubz?

Dakka

"so heres an oldie army list thats been dismissed so very quickly, but i just wanted to get your current opinion on it in the current meta, seeing as we have deathwing terminators marching over battlefields with success, how about a copy cat list from some orks?

a few notes you mite want to remember: mega nobz have , stikkbombz (frag-nades) furious charge rule, as well as mob and waagh,
theyre stats are ws:4 bs:2 s:4 t:4 w:2 i:3 a:3 ld:7
and of course, they are elites (unless a warboss is present, on a one boss = one troops basis), only have a regular 2+ save, and are slow and purposeful

Summer Horizon Battle Report: Game 1 - Grey Knights versus Mech Orks

Vince and I decided to play each other first round - call it the epic showdown to finish out the year. Will Kirby go through 2011 undefeated by Vince? Or can the Russian salvage some respect...

The mission was straight Kill Points/Dawn of War from the 5th edition rulebook (we both had 21 kill points) and David Teoh made sure to help Vince's general strategy out to make the game a bit more enjoyable :). Hopefully Vince learned something!

Deployment & Turn 1

I won roll-off and decided to go first and deployed (via Turn 1 move on) in a split flank formation. Most of my Razorbacks were spread pretty evenly but I loaded one side with two Dreadnoughts away from my Razorbacks with the Terminators + Coteaz + Inquisitor on the other side. This encouraged Vince to deploy on my right side as he came on to keep the Terminators away from the game as much as possible whilst also pushing the Dreadnoughts into a corner where they could be PK'd to death. His Kanz ran up what was essentially the centre of the board (or my left-ish flank) and would be looking for good run rolls to put them into a position where if I engage the Orks in midfield, they will counter-charge and smack me around. The board was set and it only took like 30 minutes!

Email in: Ork lotza dreads

Modelsnottoys

"Hey Kirby,

Been trying to nail down a decent Ork list for my next army. I like the idea of running alot of deff dreads and killa kans. so heres what ive worked up

ATC Game 4 versus Orks

Day 2! After an enjoyable dinner where Jeff embarrassed himself, everyone (else) stared at the waitresses, some wine and some of the best garlic pizza known to man, it was time for some more 40k! Our Round 4 match-up was one of the auto-draw missions (pitched battle, capture and control) against South Australia and our team plan unfortunately let us down here. As a group we wanted to win our games and this ultimately let us down as we got 1 win, 1 loss and the rest draws. Unfortunately our draws were losing draws for the most part and this lost us the game. The price of being aggressive!

Anywho, I came up against Andy who was aghast to play against my army. His was Orks with three battlewagons with KFF Mek + Nobz, Grotsnik + Árd Boyz, Burna Boyz, 2x Trukk Boyz and 3x Kanz. Once again I have to apologise for the blurry photos, I do believe macro was on :(. Andy won the roll-off and choose to go first and be very aggressive. He plunked his objective right in the middle of his deployment zone and I put mine in the bottom right corner where it was protected by a big building. He then deployed his whole army straight across from me in an effort to simply push me off the table. I deployed with my Tyrant + Prime around the objective with Termagants screening them and another unit holding the objective. One T-Fex also deployed on this side to keep Andy's Battlewagons honest. Everything else went on the 'left' flank behind the building where the Tervigons could support the army and the Hive Guard could hide and shoot.

The plans for both sides were pretty basic - Andy needed to move forward hope his KFF held and slam 2-3 battlewagons into me Turn 2. I needed to stop that from happening and throw up Termagants as protection. The only really scary units in combat were the Kanz, Nobz and Burna Boyz against my MCs and two of those three units died to Termagants. Parxoysm would also be a huge help. Let's see what happens.

Deployment

ATC Game 3 versus Orks

Some of the pictures are pretty bad for this report and some are missing so I apologise in advance. We all recall Archnomad's win with his Orks over my Tyranids at Centurion. Time to re-pay the favor and whilst it wasn't the same army, vengeance was in the air! First off, this wasn't an objective game so I wasn't going to be forced off objectives last minute. Phew. Secondly...I made two catastrophic errors... made a few of those lately.

My opponent was Jonathan, a player people may know from forums (his screen name is still Jonathan) who usually plays Dark Eldar. His list was three Battlewagons filled with Boyz, a KFF Big Mek, 2x11x Lootas, a Gretchin squad, Ghazkull, Snikrot and some Kommandos. Nothing too scary as I should be able to handle those  Battlewagons easily enough but I'm bound to take some Boyz to the face. The mission was Kill Points (we both had 12 in our starting force) and Spearhead.

He won the roll-off and gave me first turn which was nice of him and I had my plan fully mapped out. Avoid the side table edge so Snikrot can't come in, use the central building as cover to force him to focus on one flank or go around it and give me easy side armor shots (either way by Turn 2 I'll have side armor shots) and outflank a Tervigon to force him to deploy Lootas outside of cover, in cover closer to my army or in cover where my Tervigon can get to them. You should see the first problem (Snikrot comes on from the rear table edge) and I forgot to outflank my Tervigon. This means his firebase will stay unmolested for most of the game. Oddly Jonathan then chooses to deploy his Lootas and reserve everything else - potentially trying to get assaults off from the board edge or minimise my shooting both of which were unlikely to happen.

Collect and paint an army in 3 weeks (Part 4). Finally got pics taken!

So boys and girls, once again, it has been a while!

What to tell you? Well, I finished painting the army on time and then took it to the Mayhem Mayfest Tournament in Tolworth! Once I'd been to the tournament I had one of my MSc case studies to do (in only four days, which was not good), I got that done and since have had my feet up!

The photo to the left is the "Team" I am a part of and we are familiar faces on the tournament circuit, particularly in the South of the country, Team: Not Arrogant, Just Better (for this tourney we renamed ourselves Not Arrogant, Just Morphed).