just have general quesions about ork vs imp guard. everytime i go against my friend who alternates btwn imp guard and minervan lists i get creamed. i've read all the threads as far as strategy and army building. so if it has been written i've proably tried it.
just got done getting beat (pretty much over on 1st turn). tried using big mobs garrisonned on overwatch. his whole army shoots further then the ork's 30 cm so that was not very effective. the first turn kills me every time. he always can shoot pretty much across the board w/ all his units then add in artillery and i get chewed up. so now my big units are withered away or broken so i have no more mass
i hope this does not sound like i'm whining but this is not just one or 2 times this is every week for the last few months.
one thing that i know i we were doing wrong is the terrain. i would try and move units up but behind woods to get in position for turn 2. but we were shooting through the woods if it was less then 10 cm

How many points were you playing and can you post your army list as well?

_________________
"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

continued
so i hope that we were wrong on that, which would help me out.
i don't know what else to say, i don't mind getting beat. but were talking extremly lopsided games. i've played his space marines and squats and i can hold my own against them. but 4+ reinforced armor and those huge mechanized infantry formations (thought ork were supposed to be the army w/ the masses)
anyway any thoughts would be helpful. i know its kind of dumb asking for help against one specific army, since you wouldn't know who your playing in a tourney but i'll ask anyway. thanks in advance

thanks, that was a quick reply
can't remmeber everything i used but has 2 big inf formations w/ 2 extra orks and i think one has an oddboy that was garrisoned, the other was mobile in battlewagons. also had stompas (that got shot w/ deathstrikes on 1st turn - no war engines)
i think i had 3 formations of gunwagons w/ a flakwagon and an extra gw to bring them up to 6 for that extra bonus in rallying.... which didn't help since they kept getting vaporized. had bikes/scorthas and stormboys w/ dethkopters also garrisoned. and one more formation of dethkopters w/ 2 extra units, again for the 6 unit formation
off the top of my head i think that was about it, but again if it was written in another threa as far as different formations/tactics i have probably tried it

i guess i should of noted that i had 11 activations, he had 10
i also took an extra nob in the inf formations
and it was a 3000 pt game

Yeah, you can't shoot *through* terrain that blocks line of sight, you can only shoot "into" it 10cm... that would make a big difference!

_________________
"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

thanks, i was rereading the rules and when i saw that i couldn't beleive we were doing that wrong. of course i don't know if that alone would of helped. i think in this last game i only had one formation get hit due to this.... then again i would of moved stuff differently.

mnb:  Just a few points on force selection.

1)  Don't take Gunwagons without Oddboyz under normal circumstances.  The increase in firepower is dramatic and easily worth the points.  With Oddboyz, Blitz Brigades have a clearly defined role as a shooty formation.  Without the Oddboyz they don't have a clear direction, being mediocre at everything but good at nothing.

2)  Don't buy units out of the "extras" if you can help it.  the discounts for Big/Uge are always worth it and, in fact, some of the "normal" warbands even have a small premium on what you would pay for the units individually.  For example, your Blitz Brigades + 2 units cost 220 for 6 units, but you can take that to a Big Blitz with 8 units for just 250.  For the price of 4 BBs (4*220 = 880), you could take two Big Blitz at 250, two regular ones at 150, add 2 units if you really wanted to, and still come out 10 points cheaper (870) with 4 more units on the board and the same number of formations.

3)  You need some "deepstrike" capability where you can hit them fairly well.  Air is the most obvious for orks.  A decent sized flight of fightabommas can put a quick end to arty and can put a dent in a mech infantry formation.

Another air option is an air assault.  Just be careful not to bite off more than you can chew.  10 units in a Landa won't crack a large mech infantry formation.  They can, however, shred artillery and smaller IG infantry formations, and take on Leman Russ if they Russ are prepped properly with sufficient BMs.  In general, though, I think it's better to pick a target that the Warband can crush and that leaves them sufficient units in a position that they can continue to threaten the opponent's backfield.

==

Leman Russ are just really hard to crack with orks.  There are a few options.  First is a clipping assault - engage at the very edge of the assault range.  At 20cm move, Russ can only countercharge 5cm, so if you set up with all your units barely in range only 2-3 Russ will get to return fire after they countercharge.  That's not enough firepower to get through a Warband's Grots.  With outnumbering, more BMs on the Russ and Grots to soak up FF hits, you can likely get ahead on the resolution roll.

Another option is a full-on CC assault.  Air assault works well.  Land in the middle of the formation, barge with the Landa to get several in base contact and throw the rest of the Orks into CC.  You should usually be able to get all of them in CC.  An Ork Warband + 2 boyz/Grots + Landa in CC will average 8-9 hits, which should be enough to kill 2 Russ.  The Russ will only get ~2 hits, and you can take them on Grots.  Assuming the Orks don't have more BMs it should be something like this:

Outnumber:  +1 Orks
BMs: +1 Orks
Kills: +2 Orks
Commissar: +1 IG
Net: +3 Orks

That's not guaranteed, but it's about an 80% chance to win, and a tie is in the Orks' favor because there are still grots to burn, while the IG have fewer tanks to fight with and will likely lose yet more.

The trick in assaulting them is catching the Russ on a move where they are slightly out of position so they don't have too much support fire.

The final option, of course, is Oddboyz - my favorite.  Point-for-point, Oddboy Wagons can pack as much firepower as Leman Russ.  For 650 points of Leman Russ, you can almost take 2 Big Blitz Brigades with 2 Oddboyz each (700 points).  Between the speed of the Wagons and their range, you should get the first shot off in a tank duel before they are exposed.

A couple of Zzap Guns will likely kill one Russ even on a double move.  That cuts the Russ firepower by 30% (9 units + 2 BMs = only 7 can fire) in one shot.  Or, Soopagunz can cover a lot of them on (usually) 6+MW to hit.  That can often take out 1-2 Russ as well.  If the Russ spread out to avoid the MW barrage, then they are more susceptible to clipping assaults.

If you work it right and get a late turn move/shoot followed by early next turn Sustain Fire, a single Blitz Brigade with 2 Zzaps can put a hurt on a Russ company.  The Russ will take ~3 kills and have 3-4 BMs on them, reducing them dramatically.

In all cases, once you've gotten a bite on the Russ, do not let them go.  If they have a chance to recover from BMs, they will hurt you again.  Hound them.  If you break them it's worth sending every within reason after them just to place BMs to get the auto-kill.  Those 3 Wagons left from a beaten up Blitz Brigade probably won't do anything better than killing a single Russ in the rest of the game.

==

You may have heard most of that before if you've pored over the tactics threads, but I hope that helps.

_________________
Neal

thanks again fo all the help
would love to try the landas, but i dont have one yet (the only unnit i'm missing)
i was really looking forewrd to the clipping assaults. that was why i was tring to get the big mobs but they just got cut to pieces by arty. i'll admit it would of been different had i taken aircraft (i usually do but was trying something different)
as far as the oddboy suggestion, yes i always try and max them out, unless i just don't have the points for one formation
is it normal to not take any additional units (extra boyz for the grots or nobz for the leader ability)? you are probably correct in that, after all what good is leader if no one is alive to rally. but it's so hard to rally any ork formations in the first place. it stinks when those big gun formations w/ oddboys can't fire. but i'll give that a shot. would probably equal out to another activation (2 extra nobz and 2 extra boyz equals 120 pts) so i guess tht is a good idea.

how about in the first few activations of the first turn, this is where i seem to get creamed.
what is generally done for the orks? as mentioned earlier against other armies i don't seem to get punished too badly. but agains ig w/ artillery and long range tanks, i seem to move units up into cover and rarely ge any decent shots. should i be charging a cheap unit right up on him? this could possibly contain him for an activation or 2. granted ork stuff is cheap but just throwing a unit away like that kind of stinks.
also is it ok to maybe retain int if i go first just to spread out a little more to prevent arty from causing too much damage. i never seem to have enough room and those barrage template end up covering several formations.
and again thanks for all the input

I would actually not worry so much about presenting less of a target cand concentrate on taking out the artillery doing the hurting.

Heed nealhunt´s advice, get Fighta-Bommers and/or Landas and use them before the IG arty has fired, the Arty Company is easy meat for 6+ F-B formations or a Landa. Actually, the Arty Coy is rarely seen in tournament list precisely because it can be dealt with (significiantly reduced or even broken/destroyed) in a single strike by many armies and players favour the redundancy several Arty Batteries give.

Also put BMs on those Tank Coys ASAP, they have a nice tendency to fail activations eventually, in addition to losing significiant firepower with each BM placed.

Good opening moves for Orks IMO would be sending 6+ F-B´s on a Ground Attack vs. arty, take any Flak fire on the chin, then retaining by Doubling a Zzap Brigade (Big Blitz Brigade with 2x Oddboy -> Super Zzaps) to shoot up the Tank Coy, hopefully killing 2 and placing 3 BM.

This should usually work, geld the artillery and reduce the Tank Coy to 5 unsuppressed Leman Russes, halving their firepower and making them more difficult to activate.

_________________
Visit www.epic-battles.de the ultimate german epic site&forum!

for the record, just played another game. granted it was against space marine but the terrain screw mentioned earlier was huge. i can't believe i even won a game the way we were playing. my first win in quite a while. this will probably be short lived though because i'm using necrons tomorrow for the first time.