Nathan Fluger on Why Orks Don't Suck

This is a rebuttal by Nathan Fluger regarding the post by Stelek. To keep things tidy everything by TastyTaste will be in italics, everything by Stelek will be in red italics and everything by Fluger will be normal...

As is customary in the 40k blogosphere people message me with certain little tidbits that are sure to rile me up in the hopes of feeding their sick need to start flame wars. This time they have failed! I have taken their hopes and passed them on to someone else. Here is our good friend Nathan Fluger and his take on Stelek’s recent Ork hate speech! Since there is really no point in arguing directly with Stelek because once a Flat Earther always a Flat Earther. Our hope is to make sure that those that might be turned to Stelek’s side know the truth– and no it does not hurt just teases the nipples. If you would like to make personal attacks direct them at TastyTaste not at Fluger he is just my pawn in this whole thing. –TastyTaste

Here is the link to Yes the Truth Hurts original post in all it’s nerd rage and yes men commenting glory.

If I’m nuts, great!  Let’s talk about it then.

So I’ll give my 2 cents on the issues I have with the Ork Codex, and we’ll see if I covered everything:

1)  No melta weapons to knock out tanks.

Don’t care, I have other ways of taking out tanks.

2)  No S9 weapons to knock out tanks.

S9 and meltas are only necessary for AV14, most mech isn’t AV14

3)  BS is exceedingly low, and even ‘good shots’ only hit 50% of the time.

BS is low, but volume of fire negates that almost entirely.  A shoota boy base out shoots a marine in the 12.1″-18″ range (trust me, the math is correct) and costs just over 1/3rd of the price.

4)  The Trukk.  When you build a vehicle that is worse by far than any other vehicle in the game, you’ve really hit a high note.  What’s wrong with the Trukk?  It’s open-topped, leaves no wreck when destroyed, does random ‘ha ha funny’ things when blown up, has AV10, BS2, a single non-linked weapon, and upgrades that can make the vehicle cost 2x its normal value–and it still sucks!

If you consider a 40 point vehicle that is fast, moves through cover easily, and allows the unit inside to assault out of it terrible; then I have no idea what game you play.  Do you only play against enemies that throw these at your army piecemeal or all at once with no mind towards pacing?  Mine are usually in reserve and show up later to critical points of the battlefield.

5)  Mono-build.  Let’s see now.  You bring a Big Mek with a Kustom Force Field, or two.  Maybe you bring a Warboss to give yourself a semi-reliable troop unit.

Really?  Mono build?  I can think of numerous builds off the top of my head that are effective. Battlewagon spam? Nob Bikers?

6)  With the exception of Lootas, Warbuggies, Deff Koptas, Kans, and Kannons…there is nothing remotely reliable in the Ork army for killing tanks or MC’s at range.

With the exception of 6 whole units…  !??!?!??! Those 6 units all compete heavily against other units in their respective Force Organisation slots. The newer 5th Edition codices do not have these problems. Yes even 'Nids as Kirby and Raptor1313 proved.

7)  Forced to CC.  When you can deliver a whole mess of attacks, but hit like a girl and take hits like a girl, people aren’t afraid of you.  They line themselves up out in the open, and trade you units.  Given it usually takes 2-3 Ork Trukk units to destroy one solid defender, you have serious issues.

My Orks outshoot most marine armies.  Shoota boyz are incredible, adding rokkits makes them versatile.  Orks aren’t forced into combat by anyone!  Does he only play against slugga boyz?

8)  Dependence on cover.  Hey, everyone has flamers.  And Orks don’t get move through cover.  Ass.

Hmmm, last I checked my KFF gives me cover…  And I don’t care about cover because MEQ have better armor saves than cover, so I can position myself with intervening terrain, increasing my save and adding nothing to the MEQ forces.  Also, if flamers are in range; I’m in range to either blow you up with shooting or assault you or both.  And are the Orks all bunched together for some reason? They probably got multi-tank shocked. Or they just charged a sacrificial Rhino and are now in the Please Template Me position.

9)  Fearless.  If you decide to bring a big unit of Troop Orks along, anyone that can out CC you (so, that’s EVERY dedicated CC unit in the entire game) will annihilate you in short order.  Worse, because you are so ungainly–it’s possible to pull off multi-charges and instead of crippling one Ork unit–you can easily destroy two Ork units.

Yeah, that’s rarely been my experience; only TH/SS termies and Sternguard near Pedro have been able to mess up big blobs efficiently consistently.  And usually they are then exposed to the counter attack by trukk boyz or stormboyz. Stelek isn't the only person who believes Fearless can be very bad for mobs of Orks... 6+ save is not awesome.

10)  Special characters that suck.  Yes, you have the majority of them. Even decade old Grey Knight and Dark Eldar special characters look better and perform better than yours do.

Wow, really?  What’s so bad about Mad Dok again?

11)  Troops have a stupid 10 to 1 ratio for special weapons, because obviously the way EVERYONE ran their army before…with 3 weapons, a Nob, and 6 bullet catchers…was far too powerful.

If you aren’t running big mobs, it shouldn’t matter anyway.  This is a non-issue. Actually it is an issue. If you want the Ork version of a missile launcher in your squads you need to spend MORE points sure it is only 6 points a Boy but it all adds up. Especially to negate their crappy BS of 2... 

12)  When your old Codex is FAR more competitive than your new Codex, you should seriously ask GW what the hell happened.  Besides wasting designer time on War of the Rings and Apocalypse, that is. Chaos, Eldar, and the Orks all thank you for these excellent games nobody plays.  Just how are those sales doing, GW?  Up in the UK, down dramatically everywhere else?  That’s not a good thing, fyi.

What?  In what universe is the old codex more competitive?!?!  How many GTs were won by Orks before the new dex?  How many after? Some time in the future I will do a post on how tournament wins are not reliable sources of evidence for generalisations.

13)  Lack of survivability.  Orks in Trukks can run forward and annoy people while in cover, but they can’t actually survive if people focus on getting them out of it.  Sure sure, you can go to ground and get a 3+ cover save against my Bolters, making you statistically as awesome as Marines.  Which everyone can kill.  But I digress.  So what happens when the tactical squads charge into you in support of their Thunder Shield terminators instead of shooting at you?  Oh yeah, you lose all of your Orks.

So, in your scenario, a 157 point unit is being attacked by a tactical squad and terminators??  That’s like 400 points on 157?  And we’re surprised the Orks are dying?  I guess by that logic a tactical squad is worthless because I can kill it with 10 meganobs really easily.  Brilliant logic

14) Back to the mono-build thing…virtually all Ork armies end up looking the same, because the Codex has clear ‘this is better than anything else’ units within it.  Lootas, Nobs, Warbuggies, Kans…toss in some Trukks and KFF to try and annoy the enemy to death, and there you go–the build itself isn’t terrible, but when every Ork army builds the same, plays the same, well…everyone knows how to beat it. You can be fucking awesome with them, and scrub01 will still kick your ass with a better Codex and a lower amount of skill, because Orks cannot surprise anyone.  Just like Necrons, Chaos Demons, Chaos Space Marines, Vampire Counts, Warriors of Chaos, and soon–Eldar.  The latter at least have a sharp blade, where everyone else is bringing their butter knife to the gunfight and wondering what happened.  Eldar can still shiv you, but without a Codex refresh or a complete and utter change back to 4th edition rules–their days are numbered.

Again, never had a problem winning with Orks against new dexes or old.

15)  Lack of Terminators.  Meganobs are pathetic.  Even when you waste a HQ on boosting them with Mad Dok (who costs you a Nob unit as a troop, and usually the game) they still get their asses stomped because hey guess what?  5+ invulnerable saves on go-last terminator units is seriously shitty.

Why does this matter in the slightest? Because Orks are supposedly good in close combat. Yet Assault Terminators and other rock hard units can bend them over easily. Nids don’t have terminators either! They have Swarmlord and Tyrant Guards. Neither do Eldar! They don't pretend to be uber cool in close combat like Da Boyz do. And a unit of 3 meganobs, with 3 different loadouts in a trukk with ram is only 170 points and can mess up most units on the charge while playing fun games with wound allocations. Ork Trukk meet my Autocannon. Meganobs meet the fun world of footslogging...

16)  In short, Orks suck because they can’t reliably kill mech.  They have 6+ saves, and heavy flamers kill ALL of them.  Every single unit, dead.  Meltaguns get delivered, and your vehicles, shoddy as they are, get blown to bits.  That Battlewagon kit is a nightmare–you can’t cover it, you can’t stop side shots, and it’s a big piece of shit until it RAMS you.  Hey, isn’t that clearly listed as a last-gasp tactic in the rulebook?  Ah, that’s the primary tactic.  Right, here’s the shelf you lot of green shitbags.  Have fun watching my real armies get played, because you suck ass.

Why can’t Orks kill Mech?  Rokkits and Lootas do a great job of dealing with Rhinos and Chimeras, the bulk of Mech forces; and all those vehicles are AV10 on the rear.  Case in point; last TSHFT I fought three mechanized lists and did my best against them compared to the other games against forces with more infantry in them. Future posts will explore the anti-tank capabilities of Orks...

6+ saves is irrelevant.  In a game in which cover is easy to acquire, they should be fine; and units that pay a premium for armor suffer when the dice distribution goes against them.  Let me put it this way; an Ork saves as often as a terminator fails; the difference is one makes me excited, the other makes my enemy sad.  5th ed is all about volume of wounds dealt being paramount.  Orks do this very well.

Magical heavy flamers that kill swathes of Orks are the stuff of internet legend, but I rarely see it.  I play against Sisters and IG enough to understand WHAT flamers CAN do; so I try to make sure it doesn’t happen.  It’s called spacing your troops and threat assessment.  Its not rocket science. Neither is tank shocking yet not everyone fully understands how that works... if they did then your big mobs of Orks would get to enjoy lots of multi-shocking.

Meltaguns get delivered…and…they shoot mostly infantry…or they shoot my BW which has a 5+ cover save (or 4+ if you swing that way)…  Never been impressed with meltagun delivery vs orks, because you’re now close to my army! Look at this Battle Report by Sandwyrm. 

17)  Did I mention Ork fearless rule is horrible, and is the easiest way to destroy Orks?  Followed closely by their non-fearless LD7?   When CC armies (I’m looking at you, Blood Angels) can wipe out your whole fucking army in the time it takes to get to you…well, your CC army probably sucks big cow balls.1.  Don’t care, I have other ways of taking out tanks.

Fearless is the only thing keeping Orks from being stupid broken. Yes you read that right. Fluger thinks Fearless prevents the Orks Codex from being broken.  The ability for good units to clear out a big mob in a charge is fair and fine.  No question on my part that this is a weakening factor; but I think its fine for a model that is 6 freaking points…

Thanks to Nathan Fluger for taking the time out of his Legendary Trials to write this rebuttal to Stelek’s ramblings.

- Taken from Blood of Kittens with original article here.

Okay I didn't really want to add my own thoughts. But in the end I just gave up. Fluger sounds like a competent general who plays alot of games including tournaments. Yet what I was reading kept making me think WTF over and over again.