Noob vs. The Green Tide

[Lo0mis]

Hi everyone. So I have a friend who is very confidently starting a “green tide” army. He’s focusing on the 29 boys, 1 nob w/ PK idea, with basically the idea that he has a PK unit that has 31 wounds that he’s going to charge up to whatever I have and chop me up with like 100 hit rolls and his PK. He’s also got a Shokk Attack Gun, some Lootas, a Pain Boy, a Warboss, and a Mek w/ a custom shield. What I have is the AoBR setup, a 5 man assault squad and another 10 man tactical squad. I also bought a couple heavy bolters and a couple flamers from ebay (thinking that I’d use a flamer in the assault squad). I’m kinda thinking that I’m screwed.

 

We’re both staring out, so I imagine that we’ll be running low-point games to start off with (probably ~500), so he won’t be fielding everything, but he’ll definitely be pushing his green tide. I’ve done some searching on this, and it sounds like template weapons are the way to go, but it doesn’t seem like a good idea to get into flamer range when that’s basically what he wants. And I only have 2 ML’s…

 

What I’d like is to get some strategies that people use to deal with the green tide, and some suggestions as to how I should be attacking him with what I have.

[Koremu]

"If the enemy comes on in a great horde, as Orks are wont to do, then try to direct them into a narrow defile or enclosed space, such that their numbers work against them. Crowded together those at the front will impede those behind, whilst the push from the rear will prevent those at the front from retreating or finding a better path." - Tactica Imperium

 

Use narrow or enclosed terrain to force the big mob to bunch up, making it easy pickings for template and blast weapons. It is also possible to use a Rhino to tank shock and achieve the same purpose (it being unlikely that your opponen will risk his 41pt+ PK Nob on a 35pt Rhino).

 

An Assault Squad can kill a 30 man Ork mob on its own, usually taking 1 round of shooting and 2 assault phases, for the loss of roughly 3 Assault Marines. Of course, this requires you to make the initial assault.

 

Frag Missiles, Whirlwind pie-plates, Flamer Templates and the everso handy Thunderfire Cannon all come into their own against the hordes of Orks.

[Frosty the Pyro]

I would like to introduce to you the heavy suport choices.

 

Sir Thunderfire Cannon the First

Senior Whirlwind

and of course Mr. Demolisher Tank.

 

Alternatively you could try to get Telion to shoot the nob out of the squad. Or roll with some terminators. Normaly folk would suggest assult terminators here, but with the sheir number of attacks coming in (most of which not power weapons) i think the extra shooting will be more valuable than the 3++, especialy with the super cheap heavy flammer option.

[Koremu]

I would like to introduce to you the heavy suport choices.

 

Sir Thunderfire Cannon the First

Senior Whirlwind

and of course Mr. Demolisher Tank.

 

You forgot His Royal Majesty Land Raider Redeemer the Third.

[greatcrusade08]

Try Land speeders with heavy flamers, more importantly flame them from the flanks and from behind.. that way if he charges the speeder hes not making any forward progress to the rest of your army..

Plus they are cheap.

 

Otherwise id suggest a dreadnought, the only thing that can worry you is 3 PK attacks!

If you can use Telions EOV to remove the nob, then dreads can tarpit the large unit without fear of damage, even T5 bikers can hold thier own against basic orks who need 6's to wound if you charged them.

 

I agree with the assault squad idea, a couple of flamers and power fist in a ten man unit makes them good against orkies, another good unit is honour guard who love tearing up basic mobs.

 

GC08

[Koremu]

Oh one tip for using a Dreadnought vs. the hidden PK in a big mob is to 'lock' the PK Nob in base-to-base with a Tactical Marine or some other sacrifice. As long as the Nob doesn't leave base-to-base contact with the Tactical Squad, he will never be able to make a defenders reaction move or pile in move, and hence the Dreadnought will remain invulnerable while chewing through the Ork mob.

[Lo0mis]

Alternatively you could try to get Telion to shoot the nob out of the squad.

Ahhh! I like this idea. Really takes the bite out of his squad (so to speak), as well as it being very demoralizing and giving me a prime opportunity to gloat! I may need to make a purchase...

 

An Assault Squad can kill a 30 man Ork mob on its own, usually taking 1 round of shooting and 2 assault phases, for the loss of roughly 3 Assault Marines. Of course, this requires you to make the initial assault.

This also sounds like a good time. :P Especially since it seems like Orks live for melee combat. He most likely would not expect me to bring it to him, and would definitely not expect any kind of positive outcome for me when doing so. Could be fun...

 

So it sounds like I'm going to have to make some purchases regardless, since I have no heavy artillery or scouts and only 5 assault marines. I guess the first few battles are going to be really rough...

 

Oh one tip for using a Dreadnought vs. the hidden PK in a big mob is to 'lock' the PK Nob in base-to-base with a Tactical Marine or some other sacrifice. As long as the Nob doesn't leave base-to-base contact with the Tactical Squad, he will never be able to make a defenders reaction move or pile in move, and hence the Dreadnought will remain invulnerable while chewing through the Ork mob.

Very cool tip. Thanks!

[Silent Shadow]

Especially since it seems like Orks live for melee combat. He most likely would not expect me to bring it to him, and would definitely not expect any kind of positive outcome for me when doing so. Could be fun...

 

The idea carries on throughout the army, if you're in danger of being charged next turn, it's better to charge them instead. Not only do you rob them of the extra attack each (30 attacks :whistling: ), you also hit first and then they need 5's to wound you when it comes to them attacking. 10 tactical marines have a better chance surviving by charging than being charged.

 

Another thing to note is that it's a good idea to upgrade your tactical squads to 10 men, not only do you have more bolters, men and attacks, but you also get a free flamer and missile launcher for all that templatey goodness B) .

[Jamumools]

Dakka Preds!!! At 85 points a pop they knock out 2 strength 7 and 6 strength 5 shots, all going through the Orks' armour. I've just added 3 to my army and they are nasty! Only trouble is the real money cost of £25 each, whic hkinda hurt!

[Scott-S6]

Stay focused on your objectives. It's very easy to get side-tracked with killing orks but you're highly unlikely to get all of them (they're supposed to die in droves)

[Hellios]

As has been said with telion if you take out the nob you can then lock up huge units of boys (pretty cheap even when 30 strong) with dreads if you wish, which then allows you to essentially ignore them for the rest of the game unless the dread is killed (by something else joining combat) or if you engage the orks while they are on an objective.

 

 

I also find splitting into combat squads is good (maybe putting the heavy weapons units at the back and/or sitting on objectives in or near your deployments) while the sarg and special weapon (flamer) can advance if you need them to or act as a support unit for the other combat squad while staying far enough away from them so that they can't both be charged by one unit (so you can only lose 5 in a round max) then allowing the other unit to rapidfire or charge into them in the next turn.

 

Also assault marines have been mentioned. Lots of people get the urge to charge forward and get in CC as soon as possible (sometimes this is the right thing to do) however if you let them get way ahead of your army you risk them being swarmed and overwhelmed. I find that a good way of using them is to support and advancing tactical squad (who can shoot squads reducing them in size) keeping the assault marines back to engage when the orks get close enough to threaten your tactical marine :huh:, which is weakened alread should easily be destroyed and if its a strong unit (maybe the one the tacticals were shooting has been destroyed or reduced) you should still be able to damage(and even win huzzah) and the tactical should be able to survive the charge of any weakened ork unit if their are two present.

 

I also personally prefer Iron clads over standard dreadnoughts just because they are better protected from numerous if fairly rubbish ork anti-tank weapons and also are much more likely to survive being charged/engaged in combat with a unit of nobs with uge choppas (should he take any)

[Lo0mis]

As has been said with telion if you take out the nob you can then lock up huge units of boys (pretty cheap even when 30 strong) with dreads if you wish, which then allows you to essentially ignore them for the rest of the game unless the dread is killed (by something else joining combat) or if you engage the orks while they are on an objective.

 

 

I also find splitting into combat squads is good (maybe putting the heavy weapons units at the back and/or sitting on objectives in or near your deployments) while the sarg and special weapon (flamer) can advance if you need them to or act as a support unit for the other combat squad while staying far enough away from them so that they can't both be charged by one unit (so you can only lose 5 in a round max) then allowing the other unit to rapidfire or charge into them in the next turn.

 

Also assault marines have been mentioned. Lots of people get the urge to charge forward and get in CC as soon as possible (sometimes this is the right thing to do) however if you let them get way ahead of your army you risk them being swarmed and overwhelmed. I find that a good way of using them is to support and advancing tactical squad (who can shoot squads reducing them in size) keeping the assault marines back to engage when the orks get close enough to threaten your tactical marine :P, which is weakened alread should easily be destroyed and if its a strong unit (maybe the one the tacticals were shooting has been destroyed or reduced) you should still be able to damage(and even win huzzah) and the tactical should be able to survive the charge of any weakened ork unit if their are two present.

 

I also personally prefer Iron clads over standard dreadnoughts just because they are better protected from numerous if fairly rubbish ork anti-tank weapons and also are much more likely to survive being charged/engaged in combat with a unit of nobs with uge choppas (should he take any)

Fantastic info. Thanks very much!

 

Looks like there's a new Ork tactica thread Here, I'll need to keep a close eye on it. My main objective with this thread was to determine what to do with what I had and to find out what I should invest in if I HAD to buy some new stuff. Which unfortunately sounds like I'll need to do sooner than I was hoping if I want to stand chance.

[waaanial00]

Hi there,

 

Some links to interesting Ork tactic discussions

 

here

and here

 

Wan

[Frosty the Pyro]

An Assault Squad can kill a 30 man Ork mob on its own, usually taking 1 round of shooting and 2 assault phases, for the loss of roughly 3 Assault Marines. Of course, this requires you to make the initial assault.

This also sounds like a good time. ;) Especially since it seems like Orks live for melee combat. He most likely would not expect me to bring it to him, and would definitely not expect any kind of positive outcome for me when doing so. Could be fun...

 

So it sounds like I'm going to have to make some purchases regardless, since I have no heavy artillery or scouts and only 5 assault marines. I guess the first few battles are going to be really rough...

 

 

Dont believe that 10 assult marines will take on 30 boys with any consitancy, because its a lie. By math-hamer 10 assult marines charge 30 shoota boys, with niether side doing any shooting, and no Nob, the boys win in 8 rounds of combat, with 6 boys remaining. In this scenario you have 3 chances to make the boys break and sweaping advance on them, these chances will test at ld 7 after penalties.

 

If you fight slugga boys in the same scenario you will be wiped out in 4 rounds, and 17 boys remaining.

 

If your sergent has a powerfist, and you include a nob with powerclaw with the shoota boys, and the assult marines make a single shooting attack and the orks make none, then the orks win in 4 rounds of combat with 7.4 boys and the nob remaining. You will have one chance to make them break at ld9 (after modifiers). If you charge 30 sluga boys with a powerklaw nob, with you shooting, the boys win with 12.7 boys and the nob remaining in 3 rounds of combat.

 

 

That said he is correct that it is always better to charge orks than be charged by orks

[Koremu]

An Assault Squad can kill a 30 man Ork mob on its own, usually taking 1 round of shooting and 2 assault phases, for the loss of roughly 3 Assault Marines. Of course, this requires you to make the initial assault.

This also sounds like a good time. ;) Especially since it seems like Orks live for melee combat. He most likely would not expect me to bring it to him, and would definitely not expect any kind of positive outcome for me when doing so. Could be fun...

 

So it sounds like I'm going to have to make some purchases regardless, since I have no heavy artillery or scouts and only 5 assault marines. I guess the first few battles are going to be really rough...

 

 

Dont believe that 10 assult marines will take on 30 boys with any consitancy, because its a lie. By math-hamer 10 assault marines charge 30 shoota boys, with niether side doing any shooting, and no Nob, the boys win in 8 rounds of combat, with 6 boys remaining. In this scenario you have 3 chances to make the boys break and sweaping advance on them, these chances will test at ld 7 after penalties.

 

Why would you ever charge a unit of 30 boyz without covering them in Promethium first? Shooting, as anyone can Math-Hammer, is actually the better part of the damage that an Assault Squad can deal. Large Boyz mobs are Fearless, so you don't have to worry about them running off.

 

As I explained in this thread;

 

Fun with numbers: Assault Squads are actually better at shooting than they are at close combat.

 

Assault Squad shooting vs. T4;

8 Bolt Pistols (8 shots, 5.33 hits, 2.66 wounds)

2 Flamers (assume 12 hits total, 6 wounds)

 

8.66 pre-armour wounds. All at AP5.

 

 

Assault Squad CC vs. WS4 T4 (assuming the assault squad get to charge)

25 normal attacks (12.5 hits, 6.25 wounds)

3 Power Fist attacks (1.5 hits, 1.25 wounds)

 

7.5 pre-armour wounds, only 1.25 with armour bypass

 

 

 

No matter what happens, and what armour the target may have, the shooting will always do more damage than the assault....

 

As you see from the above numbers, the Orks will only have (average) 14 Boyz and the Nob available to fight back in the first round of combat, and because they will lose he combat by a huge margin (the Orks first round of fighting will cause 4.75 wounds on average, meaning they lose by 3 on average, reducing their numbers further by No Retreat wounds).

 

The concept of not firing on the assault is a complete nonsense. Either you are assaulting, in which case you practically must also shoot, or you got assaulted, in which case you are dead.

 

It's also worth noting that on average, an Assault squad can take out about 15 Boyz-Equivalent without suffering a loss. Which gives you a threshold number for "sweeper" operations - the role at which Assault Squads really excel.

[Moonsword]

Don't forget the Devastator squads. While they can get pricey, access to large quantities of missile launchers and plasma cannons can make Orks have a Real Bad Day from a good distance out, and then your other Marines can chop them up.

[Frosty the Pyro]

I only didnt include shooting in the first set, the set without the Nob. In the second set I did include shooting, though it was 10 bolt pistols.

 

 

If I substitue that for 8 boltpistols and 2 flamers (with 6 hits each) the sluga boys still win, though you get 1 chance to sweep them at ld 8 or 7 (after mods). This is of course asuming the orks do no shooting on the assult squad and get charged. The orks will have 5.5 boys and the nob left.

 

If they are shoota boys, and you shoot them (with 12 hits between your flamers and 8 shots of boltpistol), and they do not shoot you at all your marines will still lose. There will only be 1.4 boys and the Nob left though. You will also get 3 chances to sweep at ld 6 (after mods), so you do stand of a good chance of winning that way.

 

 

I would also like to apoligize in my original math-hammerings I gave the sergant 3 attacks (4 on the charge) skewing the statistics toward the Marines by a bit. (I had originaly made the spreadsheat for a powerweapon serg, and when I changed the two wound to a fist I forgot to take away the extra atack for two ccw). And yes I had been including the "NO Retreat" wounds the entire time.

[Koremu]

If I substitue that for 8 boltpistols and 2 flamers (with 6 hits each) the sluga boys still win, though you get 1 chance to sweep them at ld 8 or 7 (after mods). This is of course asuming the orks do no shooting on the assult squad and get charged. The orks will have 5.5 boys and the nob left.

As I have already said, my analysis of Assault Squad vs. Ork Boyz mob is entirely based around you charging them. If they charge you, this is all utterly irrelevant as they will win by a vast margin.

 

Assault Squads have a massive movement advantage and should never be charged by a Boyz mob without a very good reason.

 

And 6 hits with a Flamer on a Boyz mob is very conservative. 8 to 12 is not unusual.

 

And please remember that Math-Hammer does have its limitations. The only reason we Math-Hammer Full unit vs. Full unit is because anything else is too full of possibilities to make sense out of. Math-Hammering 6 rounds of combat makes no sense at all - did you attempt to include the effect of Combat Tactics/ATSKNF?

 

And once again, far better to Charge than to stand off and get charged.

[Frosty the Pyro]

If I substitue that for 8 boltpistols and 2 flamers (with 6 hits each) the sluga boys still win, though you get 1 chance to sweep them at ld 8 or 7 (after mods). This is of course asuming the orks do no shooting on the assult squad and get charged. The orks will have 5.5 boys and the nob left.

As I have already said, my analysis of Assault Squad vs. Ork Boyz mob is entirely based around you charging them. If they charge you, this is all utterly irrelevant as they will win by a vast margin.

 

Assault Squads have a massive movement advantage and should never be charged by a Boyz mob without a very good reason.

 

And 6 hits with a Flamer on a Boyz mob is very conservative. 8 to 12 is not unusual.

 

And please remember that Math-Hammer does have its limitations. The only reason we Math-Hammer Full unit vs. Full unit is because anything else is too full of possibilities to make sense out of. Math-Hammering 6 rounds of combat makes no sense at all - did you attempt to include the effect of Combat Tactics/ATSKNF?

 

And once again, far better to Charge than to stand off and get charged.

You missunderstand, the ork boys get charged, they do not do the charging. I did no mathings with the orks charging. I did not include the effact of combat tactics, though it would have only come into play once IIRC, most of the time the marines where winning combat (and except for the first round, only doing so by .6 or less). Later i will pull out my spreadsheet and see if the marine loses where at a point in they cycle to warrent an extra charge. I will also be able to calculate the math-hammer threshhold of flamer hits for the marines to win.

 

Also remember the orks have their waaagh, and one of their hq makes it always be a 6" waaagh. On the turn they Waaagh the orks are just as mobile (in pure distance they still have to contend with terain) as the assult marines. Also I completely ignored the orks shooting, which is fine on the sluga boys but shoota boys have an 18" range. 58 shots is nothing to snear at. Just quick in my head that would kill ~3-4 marines.

 

I'm not saying assult marines are bad here, as you said they make excelent sweapers of mobs at half or less, but to say a full assult squad will beet a full boyz squad with any consitancey, is just plain wrong.

[greatcrusade08]

Ive seen a good number of threads on this forum, descend into chaos over numbers and math-hammering... whihc is why i dont use it.

 

Nothing is better than first hand experience and in my experience 10 assault marines will do well against an ork mob, even better if Telion shoots the pants off the Nob with pk... ive even used scouit ccw squad to take on an ork mob... i got a mauling too but they did the job!

 

Gc08

[waaanial00]

GC is right of course (his head is sometimes so level you can use it to calibrate spirit levels).

 

If you have an assault squad and the Orks are almost at your lines it is always better to charge them with your assault squad (after some shooting) regardless of what mathammer says. Why? Beacuase Orks are much better on the charge than when being charged so you gain the upper hand, at this point it matters not who wins combat by how much because if that is all you have at your disposal it is the most sane tactic.

 

Mathammer can only take us so far, after figuring out the likely outcome of a specific set of circumstances you sometimes have to just look at the alternatives and go with your best shot. Even if on paper that shot tells you its not going to work, because if that is your best option statistically and sense wise then you will quite literally have no better option.

 

Wan