Ork klanz

[AndrewChristlieb]

So im looking at dusting off some orks and the klanz pdf cought my eye but i have run into a problem with the fleet list. According to the list you must have one warlord per 500 pts no more no less. This just doesnt make any sense to me as this seriously limits what i can take. If i want more than one reroll for the commanders i cant afford to build a fleet of anything but small squads of escorts infact if i want 2 extra rerolls on a warlord the only thing i can field is 6 squads of 3 brutes (the cheapest option) without taking points away from another warlord?!?! How does everyone else play this, am i missing something or does everyone just use the standard upto one per 500 rule for warlords???

[fracas]

not sure i understand
is the problem that you have to take a warlord per 500?

i don't have a problem with this even with a cruiser based list

[AndrewChristlieb]

Im not sure really... I think im just going about fleet selection the wrong way...

[Talos]

Andrew is right, it is rather limiting. Because Warlords with rerolls require more sqwadrons, it becomes difficult to get the amount of cheap rerolls required to play orks without having wacky squadron sizes/composition. As written and conceived, orks require large escort squadrons with lots of rerolls, along with capital ships to soak fire and provide finishing blows. At least this seems how their fleet is designed, but the RAW forces them to pick multiple small squadrons to capitalize on reroll, which neuters the benefits of squadron wide reload orders and hurts their already bad leadership (6+ vessels gives them +1 LD).

 I would suggest (not having any actual experience with them, mind you) the following rule: a Warlord must have at least 3 escorts or 1 capital ship per reroll, including his free one. Thus a stock Warlord would only need a kruiser or 3 escorts under his control, whereas a decked out on with 3 rerolls is in command of at least 9 escorts or 3 capital vessels. He must still be on the most expensive ship in his squadron. Thoughts and gunfire?

[horizon]

Dunno, I played them and it seemed to work fine as written.

[Sigoroth]

I agree, it is severely limiting. As an Ork Warlord I'd want to be able to take massive escort squadrons of varied size and composition, eleventy one squillion cruisers and a big'un or two, but with this list I'm forced to take a series of minimum size brute ramship squadrons. And really? One Warlord per 500 pts exactly? What is this, a Roman Legion or something? Talk about unOrky.

[Talos]

Being a veteran, Sig, what do you think? Do my numbers seem not limited enough, or still to limiting? Do you have an additional suggestion for klan organization? Also in complete accord with fluff of orks, super strict requirements seem to neuter both play and flavour to much.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Thats the problem sig, im trying to build a 2k campaign list using this (actually i have already) and i would like to hae one big un four kroozers and three or four lotz squadrons. What i have settled for is two kills two terrors and five middling sized squads. You can forget about getting a big un in this list starting out you end up with all of your points sunk into one warlord and the bare minimum on the others :/.

[Sigoroth]

I would suggest (not having any actual experience with them, mind you) the following rule: a Warlord must have at least 3 escorts or 1 capital ship per reroll, including his free one. Thus a stock Warlord would only need a kruiser or 3 escorts under his control, whereas a decked out on with 3 rerolls is in command of at least 9 escorts or 3 capital vessels. He must still be on the most expensive ship in his squadron. Thoughts and gunfire?

...

Being a veteran, Sig, what do you think? Do my numbers seem not limited enough, or still to limiting? Do you have an additional suggestion for klan organization? Also in complete accord with fluff of orks, super strict requirements seem to neuter both play and flavour to much.

As an off the cuff assessment, this looks to be all right. My preferred fix to the re-roll situation is to severely limit them for fleets renowned to have little to no strategic ability, coupled with an increase in chain-of-command ignoring characters. Fixing this underlying problem would help sort out some of the composition problems of an Ork fleet.

But yeah, if you're not going to do that then the first place to start would be to remove the "squadrons" limitation from the Warlord's retinue. Having to have a certain number of ships in the retinue is fine, having to have a certain number of squadrons is retarded.

[AndrewChristlieb]

So how does everyone feel about using the BBB/Armada force selection but with the updated costs and extra rules? Does this break the list what with the clan upgrades or would this balance out against the inability to take more kitted out character ships?

[Talos]

That seems reasonable...although building on what sig said, how do we minimize ork re-rolls without crippling them? Mechanically orks use special orders quite a bit (ramming and come to a new heading sometimes, but mostly reload ordnance and BFI), and because they are the only race saddled with shitty leadership (very fluffy; but balancing? IDK) they really need a lot of rerolls to keep their big torpedoes and decent AC going.

What if orks don't have to test to go on special orders? They already don't for AAF, so what if the other orders are similarly watered down but made automatic? Lock-On could reduce range, BFI reduce speed, etc... This would still work fluff wise; their low leadership would make it so that the excitable orks fired upon the nearest target and could not navigate worth squat (but not a squat engineer ) With the modifications, you could probably eliminate the extra rerolls entirely, fitting with sig's vision of low leadership with balance.

What are your thoughts?

[AndrewChristlieb]

Idk im good with their low leadership translating into eleventy billion ships.

[Talos]

Might want to check your numbers if you ended up with eleventy billion...that's like, at least twenty fifty seven zillions, right? But seriously, your right on that point...but if your running ravagers or terror ships (mostly the ravagers though) you will need those rerolls. The only ship that doesn't really need any special orders is the brute ram ship (which, incidentally, seems FREAKIN' awesome to me), and even then it will want to ram escorts from time to time.

[Sigoroth]

That seems reasonable...although building on what sig said, how do we minimize ork re-rolls without crippling them? Mechanically orks use special orders quite a bit (ramming and come to a new heading sometimes, but mostly reload ordnance and BFI), and because they are the only race saddled with shitty leadership (very fluffy; but balancing? IDK) they really need a lot of rerolls to keep their big torpedoes and decent AC going.

What if orks don't have to test to go on special orders? They already don't for AAF, so what if the other orders are similarly watered down but made automatic? Lock-On could reduce range, BFI reduce speed, etc... This would still work fluff wise; their low leadership would make it so that the excitable orks fired upon the nearest target and could not navigate worth squat (but not a squat engineer ) With the modifications, you could probably eliminate the extra rerolls entirely, fitting with sig's vision of low leadership with balance.

What are your thoughts?

It's really quite simple. It's a classic quality vs quantity argument. Orks aren't very good (ie, reliable) so make them cheap. If you only pass 50% of the RO orders that another race would pass then having double their AC would be balanced. Of course, the real spanner in the works preventing this sort of fix is the Chain of Command, whereby a single failed test prevents other ships or squadrons from testing. Hence, instead of Orks getting more re-rolls to directly compensate for their low leadership (and thereby play as if they had a higher leadership) their "free" warlords should instead allow their squadron to test for special orders even if a test was failed earlier in the turn. This combined with making them cheaper would balance them out. No need for a gazillion and 3 re-rolls.

[Talos]

Interesting...so we keep ship minimums instead of squadron minimums, and allow each warlord the chance to continue special orders in a similar vein to tyrannid hive ships? It's funny because although this seems really quite reasonable the two stem from different ideas; the orks can continue testing because they have no real central command whereas the tyrannids keep on testing because their central command is only limited by the number of hive ships . Seems really solid, Sig. I would personally use these.