Well, the new one gave us a bit of a break early last night, so I popped over to Vassal to get in a pickup game. I found a nice ork player who was willing to throw down with my Sanguinary Guard. I apologize in advance for any proliferation of grammatical and spelling errors as I am trying to type this up in a timely manner while trying to take care of the boy.
Dante
Libby- jump pack, sword, blood lance (Haven't been using shield that much, so wanted a more aggressive setup)
3 Priests-2x jump packs
SG- 2x infernus pistols, 3x angelus bolters, 1x chapter banner (libby here)
SG- 2x ifnernus pistols, 1 fist
SG- 2x ifnernus pistols, 1 fist
Assault squad- 2x melta, fist
Scouts- 4x sniper rifles, 1 missile, camo cloaks
Landspeeder-multi-melta, heavy flamer
Landspeeder-multi-melta, heavy flamer
Devestators- 4x missiles
Devestators- 4x missiles
My opponent took:
Warboss-klaw, kombi-skorcha, 'eavy armor, squig, bosspole
Big Mek-shock attack gun (actually paid for itself...almost)
10 Meganobz- power klaws/standard kit
15 Lootas
15 Kommandos- Snikrot
10 Nobz-Waagh! Banner, painboy, 9x 'eavy armor
Deff Dredd- 2x skorchas
30 boyz- shootas, 3x big shootas, nob w/klaw
20 Stormboyz- Zagstruk
So, this is nowhere near an optimized list. It has large easily killed squads, non-optimal equipment loadouts, little to no significant ranged attack, and no mech (except the dredd). Suffice it to say that I went into this game confident.
After getting started, my opponent let me know that he was short on time and that we might have to pre-empt the game, but we moved on.
We rolled up an annihilation with spearhead deployment. My opponent won the roll to go first and deployed. I followed up with my deployment.
My opponent opened up by moving his nobz + boss towards my scouts. He moved his megnobz moved back towards his backfield. I think he was trying to anticipate my reserves coming in. His dredd moved up to the wrecked tank for some cover and his boyz mob moved towards my two SG squads in the south. Shooting ensued with the boyz, lootas, and mek shooting at my southern SG to only remove a single model. The boss skorcha-ed my scouts killing two who then failed morale and fell back. He failed to assault my SG squads in the south with his Boyz.
Turn 2 bought all of my reserves in. All of them came in south of the ruin with the lootas ready to shoot them up if possible. My SQ squads in the south moved up in hopes of combo assaulting the boyz and the dredd. My libby's squad moved up to handle the warboss's squad while the scouts ran back into the northern ruin. In shooting, I killed the rest of his nobz and wounded his boss. The two speeders flamed the lootas fairly well, but they passed morale. My green SG squad in the south shot infernus pistols at the dredd but they missed or were covered. The devs also took some shots at him, but also failed to damage him. Both of my southern SG squads assaulted, the green into the dredd and boyz while the black went into the boyz. They lost two models going through the forest. The ensuing combat saw the dredd immobilized, 9 boyz killed and 3 SG models killed. In the north, my libby lit up his S10 sword and assaulted in with his squad. The warboss didn't stand a chance.
In my opponent's turn, he moved his remaining units/ focused them into the south sector of his deployment. the kommandos failed to come in, but the stormboyz came in and scattered into a mishap. I was able to place them and put them into terrain in the northwest. This caused 6 to die. Then 4 more died when they moved forward towards my libby's squad. In shooting, the combined might of the lootas and a direct hit from the shock gun took out everything but my assault squad's powerfist and Dante. In assault his meganobz assaulted into my left speeder managing to only stun it. In the boyz combat, I was able to wreck the dredd and take out enough boyz that even though I lost all but one model from each squad, I was able to sweep the rest. The two remaining SG consolidated back into cover.
This is where we had to call it unfortunately, but with my turn coming around next I was planning on Dante and the fist taking out his lootas with support from my functioning landspeeder. The libby's squad was going to assault in to terrain to handle Zagstruk's stormboyz and with S10, Zagstruk wouldn't get a chance to hit. I was going to depend on my other speeder to occupy his mega nobz for another turn until I could bring the full might of my army to bear on him, but I think I had this sewn up pretty well. When we ended it was 4-0 KP in my favor.
So, yes, it is my opinion that Orks really do suck. Though this wasn't an optimized list by any means they really are found lacking in many cases. Though they can bring large numbers to bear, BS2 and S3 when charged means that they won't wound much. I think orks should be able to get more access to power klaws, for instance, if you have a unit of 30 boyz, you should be able to upgrade up to 3 boyz to nobs with power klaws. This would make them significantly scarier. Nobz really suffer as well from poor armor saves. My devs were heroes in this battle taking out the whole nob squad without them ever getting into combat. It didn't help that he didn't optimize equipment and he never took any wounds on his boss to protect nobs. This could have been due to the fact that I had cursed him. Initiative is also a big problem for Orks, but it is an expected part of their fluff and army make up. I can really see how the random element really hurst orks too. Low BS, low leadership. These things put more emphasis on dice and that ultimately makes them less consistent.
So, what do you think of my opponent's list? I think it was too small and with two large units reserved, I could easily take out his army before they got into any position to cause trouble. It had no speed, no mech, and no real survivability.
Any other comments or thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks.
4 comments:
Ha! Thanks the thorough reply. I see that you are a staunch greenskin player. I totally agree that my overall statement that "Orks suck!" can possibly be too general in conjunction with just this game, but I back the statement with experience and study as well. Perhaps I should have been nicer and simply said that Orks aren't as competitive or some such, but you know, it's all about ratings!
I agree with a lot of your points and then again I don't on others. I agree that it is hard to draw conclusions based on this one experience with this particular army build. It wasn't a good army and wasn't played as tightly as it could have been. However, it does bring to light some important facts about Orks, with or without transports, they have to maintain momentum and if they can't, they tend to stall out pretty badly. I agree that statistically speaking, dice should bear out, but then sometimes they don't. Any army that relies more on probability is more often going to be disappointed by probability than other armies that don't as much. A case in point, LD7 Orks v. LD9 SM with ATSKNF. Each, if losing 25%, will take a morale test. The Orks will fail 41.667% of the time while the marines will fail 16.667% of the time. In subsequent turns, if both units are outside of 6" from an enemy unit, the Orks stand another 41.667% chance of failing while the Marine will auto-pass their morale to regroup. This is why consistency is a huge benefit.
To further explain, I come from a background in Warhammer Fantasy and the best armies out there are the ones that don't have to rely on LD and other variable outcomes due to being immune to the effects of various events. Daemons, Vampire Counts, and Immune to Psychology armies do better because they limit the amount of variability in the army. Less dice rolls means more consistent play, which means lower chances of something going wrong. Orks suffer from increased variability due to their rules and poor stats which ultimately make them harder to control and play.
On the upside, if dice can go bad due to probability, they can also go very well too. You could roll 45 shots from 15 lootas, and hit 40 times, and pen a tank 15 times. It can happen, but in any two sided game, you are rarely going to be firing at full strength for long as your opponent will take out models if they perceive a threat and as the amount of dice rolled gets lower, the instances of success go down too.
Orks really are a fine army. They aren't super competitive, but they aren't terrible. I'm not an overly competitive player, so that doesn't bother me. They need to be played as tightly as possible to succeed. And they need to limit variables as much as possible by things such as keeping numbers above 11, providing cover and mech, using Kan walls, etc. These things cost points though and in the end, they usually die just as easily as any other unit in the game, which ultiamtely leaves a hole in the army. That's my take on it.
umm, 1 game against an army does not show its potency.
If you took a look at tournament results or something, that would be a good place to start before saying any army "sucked".
Since you provided the list the Ork player took, I see this as:
It is possible to create a sucky Ork Army list that gets stomped against a top tier codex with an optimized list.
... which I could easily prove with any army.
For what it is worth, it was interesting reading the battle report.
I am new to Vassal still & am tempted to play around with it more.. would be fun to play-test vs armies I rarely see on the table.
I totally see your perspective.
I highly recommend Vassal. It gives lots of experience with interesting builds. I rarely if ever see net-lists on Vassal, so there is never a dull game. Take a look back through my battle reports to see.
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