Orks..... I'm losing hope.

[scar face]

So, I've just started a new campaign of gothic with my friends (none of us have played gothic before) and I decided to use Orks. I've been using the revised rules and I've been reading various tacticas across the internet and I've decided to take a balenced, short ranged fleet list.

My 1500pts consists of:

Dethdeala battleship
+ upgrades

Killkroozer
+upgrades

killkroozer
+upgrades

killkroozer

terror ship

terror ship

6 Savage escorts

Basha class light cruiser.


But here's the problem- I'm not tactically retarded in any way (i think), but I can't seem to win any games. Every game I've played so far, I've ended up being massacred and I'm on 1 renoun after 5 campaign turns.

Al my friends think that the only way I stand a change is to max out on terror ships and have a gorbag's revenge etc, but I really don't want to do this because we already have a ordnance heavy 'nid player and it's always a boring game to play against his MANY ordnance.

When I played my friend's Eldar (using MMS rules), I can't even begin to predict where he will move because on the first tunr he makes sure he is out of range, then on the second turn a get volleys of about 24 torpedoes that tear through my fleet and he is then already behind me with his broadsides at my rear. This ended in a massacre. Twice.

When I played the ordnance heavy 'nids I thought I stood a chance when I flew just out of range of his ordnance and many escorts and killed all the ordnance and a few escorts, but it seems futile to try shooting the ordnance as he has so much more coming my way in the next turn (Ld 9 hive ship ). The ended horribly for me as his plethora of boarding torps and assualt boats caused horrific critical damage on my ships. My battleship alone has 13 criticals (8 of them were fires) and was destroyed the next turn.

All my other games seem to have gone sort of the same way.

The trouble is, I've now started to disengage early, but this seems really boring to do and when I don't disengage straight away, I try to in a few turns, but by then I can't because his ships are so close.

In the last game I played, all of my ships were wiped out (1200pts) and thus everything in my fleet is now Ld5

What an earth do I do? Is there any tactics or help that you guys could give me beause I'm on the verge of switching fleets I'm so sick of being tabled.

Thanks,

scar

[AndrewChristlieb]

Playing raiders or waaaah? Raiders tend to play a bit easier as the games are typically smaller and there are objectives, other than kill everything. As for tactics I like to play to the orks strengths, aaf whenever possible, board whenever possible, shoot lots and lots of gunz . If everythings a 5 leadership right now that's going to suck, you need to field your terrors to get their ld up but they're not going to be reloading much, initial cap and pray .

[horizon]

Hi,

I see three options:

i. the deadshane way: Dethdeala + terror kroozers. If your oppononts are ordnance heavy you'll need to counter it. Or ask them to go more gunnery.
(Which tactica proposes so many kill kroozers???)

ii. center the fleet around a space hulk

iii. start using the Klan rulez from the 2010 Compendium Ork rules. Large squadrons have high Ld plus you can give them goodies.

cheers!


-- yes. aaf & board

[Innocent]

It's a tough match-up you have here for a first foray in BFG. I don't know about MMS but the Nids are very strong and have tons of weird special rules.

What does the Nid player list look like?
 
In case you are interested, I wrote this thread a few weeks back:  How to beat Tyranids. It's a bit of a block of text I realise now, but if you are looking for ideas have a look.

Do your Terror Ships have torps? I strongly recommend them. Bombers + Torpedoes is a brutal combination, and torpedoes are a must to take down the hiveship and drones.

Ld5 for your entire fleet is pretty crippling though, especially if you have to rely on lots of reloads. Not much you can do there, if the others are nice they will let you re-roll Otherwise try squadroning your capital ships together so that you minimise the number of rolls you have to take. As a last resort you can always deploy, offload all ordnance, disengage all your capital ships on the second turn and try to do a quick hit and run with escorts and ordnance before disengaging. You probably won't win unless it's a special mission or raid, but all your capital ships have a good chance of getting +1Ld for surviving the battle But yeah not very fun.

[scar face]

I'm using a sort of hybrid between the clan rulez and the revised ones (freinds let me).

They really don't like playing raids, and I really want to capture worlds for more than a tunr, so I've steered away from raids.

The nids have 2 hive ships, 8 kraken, lots of pre-bought ordance and 24 spore things that have 2 lances each

The kraken bummed me over with their 6 batteries each

Boarding would be great against them, but I can't catch the eldar and the nids destroy me with ordance before i get there.... and they're better at boarding :/

scar

[horizon]

You should outnumber Eldar MMS at all cost. Even out-ordnance him in the AC department most of the time. Make use of this.
They are faster but with MMS they end up within 30cm of you if they want to shoot at you. That ain't bad for you Orks. You can at least shoot back (if he didn't blast your rear ).

[AndrewChristlieb]

Against mms if they're moving towards your rear guard with bommas, and try to burn retros if they're back there, it doesn't take much to kill most eldar with weps so even @ half strength you should pop something. Nids are another story tho, they're pretty hardy and they will usually out number you. If they're launching hugh waves take them down with direct fire. If they're launching smaller waves try to strip any escorts off with your fightas and then ram you most turreted ship down their throat, preferably with 3 others already surrounding them so you get +3 to your turrets

[Innocent]

The Nid player does not have any Vanguards, meaning that he can never choose his target when shooting, even with a command check: he can only shoot the ship closest to him. Exploit this to the max.

Also, he can never shoot at incoming ordnance waves, meaning he will have to dish out fighters if you use your ordnance agressively.

Use assault boats to take care of the Krakens. If he rushes them forward away from his fleet they will be isolated and easy kills for ABoats. They also don't have spores so you can board them more easily.

To take care of ordnance, keep your ships in base to base contact so that they all give each other +3 bonus to turret fire.  You can also squadron capital ships together, they can mass torpedoes and this will minimise the number of leadership checks you have to take, and they will also move the same distance on AAF. You have lots of gunz, they are not wasted on ordnance. Large ABoats waves are prime targets. Ignore boarding torpedoes if he has any, make sure you show them your 6+ prow and they won't do much damage.

Take your time, don't rush forward every turn. Bio-plasma (shield ignoring lances) drones are what causes the damage in a Nid fleet, stay out of their range. I would move slowly forward with a squadron of Terror ships preferrably with prow torpedoes, with some escorts in base to base to give them all +3 turrets. Use ABoats to take out Krakens. Shoot at ordnance and bio-drones that are in range. Once you get close enough, AAF, ram a hiveship and unload all ordnance left on him (AAF does not reduce ordnance strength). You will want to end up behind his line of drones. They only have 45degree turns, once you are behind them they will struggle to shoot you. Torpedoes and ramming is a good way to cripple a hiveship. They only have 10hp and 5+ armor, so if you bypass their shields they are in trouble. 

Crippling the hiveship is key, as he cannot launch ordnance at all after that. That will pretty much win you the game.

If you are going to board, gang up and do multi-ships boarding actions. The Nids have the advantage over you in boarding (they ignore the effects of blasts markers, and if they have spores and you shields they will automatically cause a blast marker upon contact, effectively giving the Nids +1 to boarding actions). Note that undamaged hiveships will have a boarding value of 28 (10hp + 4turrets *2) before modifiers, so keep that in mind if you want to board one.

If he boards you you can do an "All is Lost", depending on the situation. Your low leadership is going to be a problem though.

Unless there is an errata that I have missed somewhere or you are playing house rules, pre-bought ordnance is expended when used in a campaign, so he should run out eventually.

[Plaxor]

Unfortunately I don't think his problem has much to do with his fleet list or tactics. The Campaign system doesn't work with Tyranids, as they don't use leadership in the same way as other fleets, so they don't suffer from the 'minimum starting leadership' that is part of the campaign system.

I don't know how one would solve this... it would have to be part of the campaign rules, and probably something to do with maximal number of vessel hits.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Yes nids in a standard campaign can be a pain. On leadership you could make them start @ 6 or 7 if they paid for the +1, but that may be a bit much considering they're the only ships with leadership. An alternative might be to have them randomly pick a cruiser the "matures" into a hive ship, and bringing in a new cruiser with no evolutions.

[Innocent]

Oh one last thing I forgot.

The Nids use a different critical hits table. If you look at it, you will notice that at number 2 the result is "disable all spores until repaired", i.e. disable al shields and turrets! And it stackable i.e. if you get the result 3 times, the Tyranid player has to repair 3 times before he gets his spores back.

Now consider the special rule that says that when Nids are being targetted by Hit and Run attacks, you roll 2 dices and choose the lowest score. This means you have a much greater chance of disabling all shields and turret on the hiveship with Hit and Run attacks! (Assault Boats, Boarding Torpedoes, Teleport attacks but don't count on these).

This is a known weakness in the Tyranid list, and one of the Ork's strength is access to boarding torpedoes and Assault Boats. Go for it If you can get his shields down, your Heavy Gunz will mince him.

Yes agreed that the Tyranids have a massive advantage in campaigns due to their leadership rules and super awesome refits. That's why I consider them really hard to beat. Add to that the auto-reload on synapse and yes it can be a frustrating experience. Hopefully there will be a few useful tips for scarface in all my above rambling and he can press his advantage while exploiting the Nids' weaknesses.

[Plaxor]

The best Nid players don't use leadership, they just design their fleet and maneuver their vessels so that the hive mind imperative automatically does as they wish (which it almost always does anyways). So leadership is no where near as large a factor for them as it is in other fleets.

On a fluff basis and even for gameplay a limitation on the number of hits is more appropriate, as 'renown' for them is more like biomass, where the tyranid fleet changes from a small raiding fleet to a full-fledged hive fleet. Changing its concentration from lighter vessels to heavier more durable ones.

[Phthisis]

Boarding is crap under the current rules.  Very unreliable.  You can board a crippled ship and still lose badly.  Torpedos are the way to go, my friend.

If I had to give a reason that you're getting duffed over based on the info given, I'd say it's your fleet list.  Escorts are really a strength in the Ork fleet.  Ditch the Kill Kroozers and get some Ravagers and Brutes.  Then torpedo shotgun ASAP.  The Brutes will likely be able to ram even with Ld 5.

The only other thing I can think of is that maybe you're putting too much thought into Orky strategy.  For the most part, point the business end of the Ork ships right at the enemy and go.  Trying to go to broadside or out-manouver the enemy is generally folly. 

If I were you, in the next few games, I'd torpedo shotgun/ram a couple of enemy ships and then AAF off the opposite table edge.  You might not be able to win a straight up fight, but you may be able to take them down a few pegs.

[lastspartacus]

I've been waiting years for someone to come up with a good alternate to the boarding rules

[Phthisis]

Well, wait no longer.  I have a good alternative to the existing boarding rules.  PM me if you want to playtest them.