Tactical Command
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2015 - Ork Playtest Proposals
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=29136		 Page 1 of 6
Author:  Tiny-Tim [ Fri Feb 27, 2015 1:57 pm ]
Post subject:  2015 - Ork Playtest Proposals
To follow the example of my fellow AC’s here are the proposed changes for the Ork lists in 2015

Ghazgkhull Warhorde
Oddboy – Additional Option in notes - Alternatively an Ork Oddboyz character may be added to a Gunfortress or Battlefortress and add D3+1 powerfields
Stormboyz Warhorde – Core units changed to Any 6 of the following Stormboyz units, Kommando units
Kill Kroozer – dropped in points to 150pts

Speed Freaks
Trukk – Remove – Units other than Big Gunz may shoot while being transported) Units being transported may fire with any ranged weapons
Fortress Mob – Remove ‘Uge option
Ork Aircraft – Change restriction to ¼ from 1/3.
Kill Kroozer – to match main list

Ferals
Orkeosaurus – Add to critical notes “and takes an additional point of damage”
Author:  Dave [ Fri Feb 27, 2015 2:48 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: 2015 - Ork Playtest Proposals
The Kill Kroozer is already 150 in the NetEA lists. Typo?

On the Trukk, any unit can shoot a ranged weapon while being transported now?

Glad the Kommando formation has made it over.
Author:  mordoten [ Fri Feb 27, 2015 3:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: 2015 - Ork Playtest Proposals
Didn't understand the Trukk proposal either?

Otherwise it looks good.

I would add that stompas should be costed at 200/350/500 and that battlefortresses should get another price adjustment making them cheaper (maybe -10 points?)
Author:  kadeton [ Sun Mar 01, 2015 11:22 am ]
Post subject:  Re: 2015 - Ork Playtest Proposals
If it's not too much effort to go to, would you mind expanding on the reasoning behind the changes? Just a sentence or two, like "'Uge Fortress Mobs made Gunfortresses cheap enough that they were nearly cost-effective - this change will put them back on the shelf where they properly belong." (Or whatever the actual reason is.)

I assume the Trukk change, based on your previous comments, is that Trukks will simply lose the rule that lets embarked units shoot - I'm guessing that's mostly to clean up their rules, since I doubt anyone has been dominating the scene with the blistering firepower of mounted Boyz. I think that distinguishing Trukks from all other similar-open-topped Ork vehicles is weird, but I haven't used the existing Trukks so I can't get a good handle on how much it will affect Speed Freek gameplay.

Is there a problem with people running lots of aircraft in the Speed Freeks? (I don't mean "Is it a problem that it's possible?", rather "Are there so many people doing it that it's clearly an issue?") It's not a strategy I've heard much about - is it Landas full of Warbikes, swarms of Fighta-Bommas, some mixture of both?

A rename of the Stormboyz Warhorde may be appropriate if it can be run without any Stormboyz (which is a good change).

No price/rules adjustments on things that don't get taken often? I'm not counting the Kill-Krooza because it's already 150 points - I'd be looking toward Stompas (as mentioned above) and the Fortresses. Dethkoptas are also pretty wonky, IMO.

Also (and I know I'm just wishlisting now) is there no interest in any updates to bring Orks closer to their modern 40K counterparts? Quite a lot has changed in the last 20 years. Other races seem to be getting "modernising" updates, at least in their variant lists.
Author:  Ulrik [ Sun Mar 01, 2015 2:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: 2015 - Ork Playtest Proposals
These orks were based on 3rd ed 40k orks, which were totally redone compared to older epic/2nd orks. Have they changed significantly recently?

I like the oddboy and kommando changes. Tested them in the eUK list, going to test them more now.
Author:  kyussinchains [ Sun Mar 01, 2015 4:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: 2015 - Ork Playtest Proposals
kadeton wrote:
If it's not too much effort to go to, would you mind expanding on the reasoning behind the changes? Just a sentence or two, like "'Uge Fortress Mobs made Gunfortresses cheap enough that they were nearly cost-effective - this change will put them back on the shelf where they properly belong." (Or whatever the actual reason is.)


I think its because the 'uge option makes fortress spam possible, which has been very effective in recent tournaments

Quote:
Is there a problem with people running lots of aircraft in the Speed Freeks? (I don't mean "Is it a problem that it's possible?", rather "Are there so many people doing it that it's clearly an issue?") It's not a strategy I've heard much about - is it Landas full of Warbikes, swarms of Fighta-Bommas, some mixture of both?


Primarily fighter spam, but having a landa full of outriders at the same time as 16 planes has proven very very potent

Quote:
Also (and I know I'm just wishlisting now) is there no interest in any updates to bring Orks closer to their modern 40K counterparts? Quite a lot has changed in the last 20 years. Other races seem to be getting "modernising" updates, at least in their variant lists.


Personally I'm not a fan of the new style of ork stuff and really prefer the old ones, also I think having the ork list more or less as it is is a good litmus test for balancing other newer ljsts against, finally with the power of 'counts as' the orks are one of the best armies to proxy new models with, megadreads and morkanauts make fine stompas for example, grot tanks make great buggies or skorchas etc.... in all honestly I'm not sure what else has come out for the orks since 2nd edition 40k, but whole swathes of specific and divergent vehicle were subsumed into 'gunwagons' in EA, so the orks above all are pretty abstract
Author:  kadeton [ Sun Mar 01, 2015 6:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: 2015 - Ork Playtest Proposals
Ulrik wrote:
These orks were based on 3rd ed 40k orks, which were totally redone compared to older epic/2nd orks. Have they changed significantly recently?

Off the top of my head, Battlewagons (and all their chassis-variants) and Stompas would have vastly different profiles if they were reflections of their current 40K incarnations. Dethkoptas as well - since when has a Dethkopta (a Toughness 5 jetbike) been tougher than an AV14 HP4 Battlewagon?

The most striking thing for me is that there's so much absent from the Ork list. I realise that's partly down to optimising/streamlining the list so that unit roles aren't duplicated and balance is maintained. Nevertheless, there's no representation of Meganobz, Flash Gitz, Lootaz, Burnaz, Tankbustaz, Mega/Meka Dreads, Grot Tanks, any of the aircraft variants, any of the artillery (Big Gun) variants, or most recently, Gorkanauts/Morkanauts (ugh). Again, I'm going off memory, this is probably not exhaustive.

kyussinchains wrote:
I think its because the 'uge option makes fortress spam possible, which has been very effective in recent tournaments

"Very effective" as in "clearly unbalanced", or as in "competitive"? :P

The 'Uge formation drops the cost for six Gunfortresses from 725 points (a Big formation with +2 fortresses) to 675 points. When you're already spending so many points on the unit I'm a bit surprised that 50 points will make much difference, but I guess every little bit helps.

kyussinchains wrote:
Primarily fighter spam, but having a landa full of outriders at the same time as 16 planes has proven very very potent

Good to know. I'm not at all opposed to the change, since I'd never field that many planes anyway, but I do wonder: if the limit on aircraft in the Speed Freeks was reduced, and those players switched to running an army based around a Landa and 16 Fighta-Bommas in the Ghazghkull list instead... isn't that basically the exact same problem? Is there a specific Speed Freek advantage I'm not seeing? (Is it Fortress spam?)

kyussinchains wrote:
Personally I'm not a fan of the new style of ork stuff and really prefer the old ones, also I think having the ork list more or less as it is is a good litmus test for balancing other newer ljsts against, finally with the power of 'counts as' the orks are one of the best armies to proxy new models with, megadreads and morkanauts make fine stompas for example, grot tanks make great buggies or skorchas etc.... in all honestly I'm not sure what else has come out for the orks since 2nd edition 40k, but whole swathes of specific and divergent vehicle were subsumed into 'gunwagons' in EA, so the orks above all are pretty abstract

Yep, that's fair enough - everyone's got a preference, and I'd guess yours is far more common in the Epic community at large.

I do like how abstract and proxy-friendly the Ork list is, and I appreciate that not every unit needs a distinction at this scale. My internal proxy list goes: 40K Trukks are Battlewagons, 40K Stompas are Supa-Stompas, plus some of the ones you mentioned. Some things map better than others - I use Loota models for Big Gunz, but that means they don't count as Orks even though they clearly are. There's nothing that models what I think of as a Battlewagon, or Meganobz, Tankbustaz, Burnaz etc etc.

I agree that the Ghazghkull list would be a pretty solid baseline for testing purposes, I'm just not convinced that it's often used as such from how little discussion the Orks seem to generate compared to other armies. Given your tournament experience, do you think it holds up well against the lists that commonly do well in tournaments?
Author:  Steve54 [ Sun Mar 01, 2015 6:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: 2015 - Ork Playtest Proposals
Speed freeks with 8 ground formations, a landa and 16 FB had an 11W-2L-1D record in tournaments
Author:  Reedar [ Sun Mar 01, 2015 6:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: 2015 - Ork Playtest Proposals
Steve54 wrote:
Speed freeks with 8 ground formations, a landa and 16 FB had an 11W-2L-1D record in tournaments



IIRC Jon's list only had 7 ground activations...!
Author:  kyussinchains [ Sun Mar 01, 2015 7:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: 2015 - Ork Playtest Proposals
And while beatable, it isnt much fun to face.... waves of auto-activating aircraft knocking out flak then grinding you down is just not a fun experience and games often become quite binary affairs, either the list dominates or it loses badly.... very little middle ground, same story with the fortress mobs.... its a win-big/lose-big affair

On the wider list, I havent faced orks much outside of tournaments, but I have a pretty terrible record against them.... especially with marines... the combo of large numbers of effective ground formations, zzap guns, formiddable BTS (gargant/supa-stompamob) and for my money the best cost/effectiveness ratio air assault in the game, is always hard to handle

I think they arent talked about much because they just get the job done, there are tweaks here and there, but the list is solid and fun and works well, I'm looking forward to busting the orks out when my marines are finished!
Author:  kadeton [ Mon Mar 02, 2015 2:52 am ]
Post subject:  Re: 2015 - Ork Playtest Proposals
kyussinchains wrote:
On the wider list, I havent faced orks much outside of tournaments, but I have a pretty terrible record against them.... especially with marines... the combo of large numbers of effective ground formations, zzap guns, formiddable BTS (gargant/supa-stompamob) and for my money the best cost/effectiveness ratio air assault in the game, is always hard to handle

Absolutely. I think all of those things are staples of the Ghazghkull list, and for very good reason - I'd mostly like to see some of the less-used options (Fortresses, Stompamobs, Warbikes, Gunzmobs, Stormboyz, etc) brought up to par with the rest of the list.

The 'Uge options for Ork formations sometimes seem to lead to odd situations where the normal formation is a bit weak but the 'Uge version is strong, like Ghazghkull Stompas or Speed Freek Warbands and Fortress mobs. I assume that's mostly down to the discounted cost per unit (there are other tradeoffs like activation count versus unit resiliency, morale, weakness to clipping assaults and so on, but they're harder to quantify) - perhaps some cost normalisation of those units could help.

For example, the only difference between "removing the 'Uge option from the SF Fortress Mob" and "increasing the cost of the 'Uge formation to 725 points" is that the latter lets the formation take an additional unit of Nobz/Nob Bikes. If the intent of the change is to limit the number of Nobz available to large formations of Fortresses to two, then removing the 'Uge option makes perfect sense, but if it's simply to normalise the cost per unit, raising the 'Uge cost is a nice half-measure that doesn't affect the morale situation.
Author:  GlynG [ Mon Mar 02, 2015 1:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: 2015 - Ork Playtest Proposals
Tiny-Tim wrote:
Ork Aircraft – Change restriction to ¼ from 1/3.

I'm cautious about this one but the others all sound good (or are already that way anyway).

kadeton wrote:
I'd mostly like to see some of the less-used options... brought up to par with the rest of the list.

I agree with this too.

Rug wrote:
I would love to see all the 35pt upgrades go to 30pts, I think that'd help a lot of the rarer upgrades and the formations which need upgrading to work (Stompas!)

Could be worth trying, many of those options are never taken now.

Skorchas are currently too good compared to the other two options and more commonly taken. They've long been complained about as being too powerful. I would like to suggest their FF stay the same 4+ but their ranged attack drop to AP5+ (put it down to poor ork aiming while zooming about at high speeds). They'd still be the best of the 3, but not by the same extent.

My biggest dislike of the epic orks are that Oddboyz shooting is too powerful compared to other ork shooting and it really distorts the list and the relative effectiveness the units should have. Loads of Oddboyz get taken and ork vehicle shooting becomes mainly about the Oddboyz. Gunzwagonz shooting in particular is not very effective, which is a shame as many of us older players have tonnes of the things. The evidence is obvious - how often do people field Blitz Brigades without an Oddboy? (excluding pure Deth Kopta formations)

If we were hypothetically back in the initial design stage of the list I would have argued for the Oddboyz Super-Zzap to only have a single TK attack not D3 (the former is roughly the effectiveness such weapons have in 40k for what it's worth), but that's too big a change at this stage.

I would love to see the cost of Oddboyz rise to +75 to make them less of an auto-include though (others have suggested this in the past too). The Blitz Brigade and Gunz Mob could get some kind of boost to compensate - possible options could be drop 25 points (neatest and best option as it leaves most existing lists unchanged), Gunzwagonz get an extra free Big Shoota attack or possibly get 5 Gunwagonz for a Blitz Brigade or 4 of the other options.
Author:  kyussinchains [ Mon Mar 02, 2015 1:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: 2015 - Ork Playtest Proposals
Actually the all-conquering 11-2-1 speed freek list of Jon M is mostly made up of buggies with a smattering of skorchas...
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