Editing Warhammer 40,000/9th Edition Tactics/Orks (section)

== Why Play Orks ==

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Everyone loves them and, of course, because <span style='color:green;font-size:130%'>'''''GREEN'S DA BEST!'''''</span><br> Orks are pretty strong in melee, but their shooting phase can also be surprisingly potent mostly due to sheer number of shots (prepare buckets!). Combine this with their crazy gadgets and makeshift giant war machines, and the Orks have got you covered. In 9th Edition Orks tend not to rely overly much on powerful combos and rule interactions, but even their most basic troops (excluding grots) have a very solid statline. However, this increased reliability and scariness has come at the expense of the weird fun they had in previous editions.

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==== Pros ====

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<span style='color:green;font-size:150%'>'''''"WAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH!!!!!!"'''''</span>

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*Numbers are on your side. In a 2000-point game it's quite feasible to field over 100 models, and that's just from troops. It is of course another matter if you should. But you can.

*Some Great kulturs and Warlord Traits. In 9th there is no clear winner amongst the kulturs (factoring in gubbinz, special stratagems and warlord traits), although Evil Sunz did get hit with a nerf bat compared to 8th Edition.

*At a minimum, Ork models are WS 3+, Str 4, T5 and have 2 attacks. Army wide T5 is very nice indeed. This means massed bolters and the like need 5+ to wound a Boy.

*'''Ghazghkull''' has finally evolved to something somewhat resembling a Primork, even if his armour makes him seem much larger than he would be without it. He is a beast nevertheless. Unfortunately you will never see him shoot again out of cc.

*Your Slugga Boyz, Kommandos and Stormboyz will typically have at least 3 Attacks each, with getting 4 being very easy to do and 5 being achievable with some basic combos as well. No 6A for boyz like in 8th though.

*Orks are the most customizable army in 40k.
**Many of the Ork infantry kits come with a ton of extra parts that make them great for kitbashing. 
**Warhammer Fantasy and the Age of Sigmar Orruk ranges are very easy to kitbash with minimal converting needed, especially for '''Snakebites''' armies. 

*New models have been coming steadily for Orks in the last couple of years. The new buggies and Beast Snaggas are pretty epic.

*The sheer number of options! Typically, no two Ork armies are the same.

*Most people think of Orks as a melee-oriented army that also has a bit of shooting, and that's not untrue. However it's quite viable to run Orks as a shooty army that also has strong melee capability. Or you can run them as a fast mechanized army, an army full of big stompy/zappy fings, an army that ensures board control by drowning the table in a sea of boyz, or whatever else you want. Not all of those options are competitive of course but all are playable in casual games.

*Orks are more fun to play than any other army in 40k. Full stop. Even if you get tabled, you're guaranteed to have fun while doing so.

*Everyone will like you since there aren't that many salty Ork players, and if you're a salty Ork player then shame on you.

* WAAAAAAAAAGH!!! Need declaration again since it is once per game ability (and decent one at that). So we can scream WAAAAAAAGH!!! Again with accordance to the rules :).

*The venerable Boy is choppier than ever with a tasty -1 AP on his basic choppa.
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==== Cons ====

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KONZ, WOT'Z DAT? DID YA MEAN KANZ?

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*Some playstyles require very large numbers of models to play properly and even vehicle lists require serious numbers of models. This can get extremely expensive.

*Some models have a very poor money-to-points value (Mek Gunz, I'm looking at you).

*5" Movement across the board for most infantry. Orks are slow and heavily reliant on movement tricks to avoid getting shot to death. Unfortunately some of those shenanigans got nerfed in 9th (Evil Sunz, Da Jump).

*Orks in general only have BS 5+, although this is partly mitigated by high volume.

*Most Orks only have a 6+ Armour save. Therefore, even with their high toughness some Ork army builds are prone to taking excessive casualties if exposed to enemy fire for <strike>too long</strike> ''any period of time''; this is compounded by the previously mentioned slow movement rate and morale issues mentioned below.

*Da Lads aren't nearly as safe from morale as they used to be, owing to changes to Mob Rule and removing or heavily nerfing all special rules concerning morale. Granted, it provides a little protection against the actual worry of Morale for giant ork blobs, Combat Attrition, but expect to actually have to roll these now. This creates  problems for mek gunz, killa kanz, deffkoptas, and those shiny new squighog boys where losing one model creates a chance of losing another expensive model or two. Currently our best morale mitigation is Breakin' Heads. It is a stratagem now, instead of being a built in ability, so it now can only be used once per turn, it costs 2 CP, it still requires Warboss or Nob proximity AND it still causes d3 MW. Very bad indeed but that is all we have.

*Cover means that MEQ armies now have 2+ in cover. While Orks do have access to high-AP guns, these tend to be concentrated in a few key units.

*Very few Ork weapons have a range over 36", and most have considerably less range than that. This is partially mitigated by 9th edition's smaller minimum table sizes (although there is nothing stopping you and your opponent from using the same 6x4 tables you've had for years) but it is compounded by cover rules.

*Moving large number of models is time consuming and can cause opponents to accuse you of slow playing. Some tournaments ban movement trays which help speed up play. This really limits the types of armies you can realistically play in a time-constrained setting unless you can grow an extra set of arms to help you move your 180+ troops with precise measurements...

*To compound the previous point, Ork armies tend to be more effective when they have more models.

*Some units are over-costed, most notably the iconic Stompa, which is about 30% more expensive than it should be. Recent price drop made it better tho as it was previously hilariously overcosted by close to 100%. still not really viable tho.

* Similarly to Stompa Nauts got nerfed too while being good in 8th.

*Grots are also stupidly overcosted clocking in at 5p per model, the same cost as a Guardsman while being inferior to them in literally every way. On top of that they got nerfed even more by losing obsec. They are T3 but that does not mean they will stay much longer on the board nor that they will do any damage at all (though really, how much damage were you expecting the little gits to do?).

*Generally, the buffs from characters are weak in comparison to other armies.

* VERY limited options to reroll hits and wounds.  This has always been the case but it means Orks rely on points efficiency and stratagems, which...

*Orks stratagems are kind of mediocre in 9th. We lost most of our top stratagems like flying edbutt, green tide or fighting again and new ones are nowhere as potent. They are mostly overcosted and very situational.

*[[Looted]] vehicles can't be played in Matched Play, outside of [[Counts As]]. They can be used in Narrative and Open Play via [[Chapter Approved]] 2018, but well, that was three years and an entire edition ago. Looted vehicles have effectively been squatted.

*The craziness (read FUN!) of Ork stuff is currently far less than it used to be. This increased overall reliability, but took a lot of the random '''fun''' out of playing this army (looking at you, SAG and Ramshackle).

*The new boyz set that is soon to be released is an exclusively mono-pose set. Which means that you will start to see A LOT of duplicates if you decide to field large amounts of them. Oh, and its probably going to land at around 40 dollars. Making this already expensive army even more costly

*Hordes in general were hit hard in the edition change:
**Blast weapons get a guaranteed 3 shots against units of 6+ models, or max shots against units 11+ models, so your large mobs of Boyz are really going to suffer.
**Fighting in 2 rows is only possible if you're within 0.5" with your first line - which can be a real pain if your models tend to overhang their base. 
** Nerf or removal of all morale mitigation rules hit them hard. There is no incentive to run hordes and they suffer to the point of suffering enough casualties to offset any benefits of T5.
**The new coherency rules severely punish poor positioning and conga lines in general - be mindful with your casualty removal!
***You now need to form a triangle at the tips of your line to stay in coherency.

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