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"?

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?