Special detachments - Vigilus Defiant

[Dr_Ruminahui]

My friend plays orks and we were wondering if the special ork detachments in Vigilus Defiant make it worth picking up for him.  From looking at the index of the book, there appear to be a dreadnought and a speed freaks detachment - I was wondering if any of you have read it can give me further information.

[FlamingDeth]

I'd be hesitant to tell him to buy an absurdly expensive book for like four pages of Ork content. The dreadmob detachment is ok but not amazingly fantastic, and what it's good for has surprisingly little to do with dreads -- it's basically just for the relic shook attack gun and another fire twice strategem. No experience with the speed freeks one as I don't play speed freeks. Nothing in there is a must have though, he's not shooting himself in the foot by not having it.

[toaae]

I wouldn't buy the book just for the specialist detachments. I think the worldbuilding of Vigilus is excellent, and would recommend it overall, but if you're just looking for the specialist detachments, you can find those online with some googling, I'm sure.

As for the individual detachments, Dread WAAAGH! is the most played, but not for dreads. As FlamingDeth said, it's taken for the relic Shokk Attack Gun and a stratagem to fire twice a turn. It doesn't give any benefit to melee dreads, but the shoot twice strat could be useful on a big mob of Killa Kans (the recent FAQ allows them to use it, despite being Gretchin), or a Morkanaut. The second stratagem is useless, cause it applies to the Mek Workshop, which is worse than useless, and the warlord trait adds a wound when repairing, which isn't worth taking. Overall, Dread WAAAGH! is very good, but not for reasons you'd initially expect.

I take Kult of Speed a lot, because I'm a madman that runs Nob Bikers. The warlord trait is useless (only applies in the morale phase of YOUR turn), the relic is cute but not anything special (I have used it, though), but the stratagems make taking a large unit of bikes a mean thing. The first doubles their movement in lieu of advancing, which with Evil Sunz, results in a ridiculous 33" movement. I use that all the time, as it doesn't prevent charging, making first turn charges basically guaranteed, and allows me to basically always deploy the unit safely and just jump to wherever I want them. The second stratagem is much more situational, but very good in that situation. 2d6 consolidate can allow the unit to more easily achieve a "tri-point" to prevent an enemy from falling back and opening the unit to shooting. Overall, if you want to take a large bike unit, this is a good specialist detachment. Worthless if you don't want to invest in a big bike unit. It doesn't really provide anything useful for the new buggies.

 

The Blitz-Brigade doesn't seem very good, but I have no experience. The warlord trait and relic aren't awful, but we have really good ones, and these just don't really compete. Maybe the relic of you're taking a bunch of battlewagons. One stratagem (Opening Salvo) is bad because the unit it applies to (the Gunwagon) is bad. Well, and it is also just bad. The second is ok but not special, and the third one is... situational, I suppose. Overall, it just doesn't really add much, and even if I was taking a battlewagon heavy army, I don't think I'd take a Blitz Brigade.

The Stompa Mob is for apocalypse, because it requires the 3 Lords of War detachment. That said, in games big enough to fill it up and still take an army, it makes the super-awful Stompa better, though still bad.

I hope that helps.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks - that is helpful.