BFG:R Orks

[afterimagedan]

So far, I have implemented the earliest BFGR changes into the Ork document which is the combined original Ork stuff and 2010 Ork stuff.  Anyone interested in helping out with Orks? Any changes to that document we need?

[horizon]

The most important thing to the 2010 stuff is to change the wording. The rules themselves play pretty well.

[afterimagedan]

Hmm, could you help me find the working that needs to change? I should be able to change that pretty quickly. It's also bothered me that the 2010 document has it as Zukov instead of Zhukov, hehe. I feel like Zhukov is not receiving the proper credit!

[Khar]

Cruiser cap needs to be increased or removed. I'm putting Orks to some playtesting now, but this one thing is for sure. With current cap, they are forced to be escort heavy even in not very high points games.

[AndrewChristlieb]

2010 orks are obscenely powerful. I played these pretty extensivly last year and the escort rules push them so far beyond any of the core lists its crazy. Ravagers that not only can reliably re-load but they can also re-roll thier torpedoe strength and groups of savages with 20 lances is just bad, all around bad. Their cruisers need serious help, no amount of extra turrets make up for 4+ armor (well ok +5 would), They have the worst weapons load with everything being fixed forward or right and left and theyre all pretty understrength. The biggest problem tho is their inability to be able to cover their very juicy rears and their absolutly horrid leadership.

[horizon]

Weird, the rulebook orks only worked when you went for a Terror kroozer only fleet.

In the tests I had I did not found them overpowered (I played against them).

The cruiser restriction is to harsh, I agree.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Im sorry Kill kroozers are under gunned. Terrors just suffer from low leadership.

[horizon]

Terrors: Not when they are in masses and Orks have acces to lots of cheap re-rolls.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Try them in a campaign . Their poor leadership and weak armor/ shields/ turrets coupled with their relatively high cost and they very quickly show their flaws.

[horizon]

So it is a campaign problem then?

Under Deadshane' s command (see warseer) Orks won or ranked really high at Adepticon for a few years.

[AndrewChristlieb]

In on off type games it is pretty easy to offset their poor leadership through sheer numbers (take 6 terrors and your bound to get a couple with good leadership then just squadron them appropriately). You also dont have to worry about them being crippled or destroyed which is where the problem with them in a campaign comes from. Ork ships have worse armor, shields, turrets, and weapons than comparable ships which makes it all to easy to keep them from advancing in campaign games. Given that your almost always going to be playing smaller raids you dont have the numbers you really need to offset the leadership so your less likely to have decent fighter coverage. Playing with the 2010 rules I found myself relying more on the escort squadrons but like i said earlier with the clan upgrades theyre just crazy overpowered compared to non 2010 fleets. The Terror is pretty over prived compared to the standard carriers for IN/Chaos.

[Khar]

So.. what could we do with them to make them work? Reduce the prices? Get rid of 4+ rear? Remove Ld penalty?

[AndrewChristlieb]

I wouldnt change the armor since thats an Ork mainstay. Dropping the price too much will make them too strong in one off games. I do think the leadership should be tweaked to something like 1/2= ld6, 3/4/5= ld 7, 6=ld 8 maybe? At any rate they shouldnt get ld 9 but ld 5 is way too harsh. The current ability to take 2 extra turrets is good and I think they should have the option to take an extra shield, without having to take a warlord to get it, for a decent price! 25pts is too much when the standard seems to be 15.

[Khar]

I've been thinking about it as well - upgrades might be separate from characters and availible for every ship. That gives ork player a choice: He might have cheap vessels or expensive ones with tons of upgrades. Seems proper orky.
Might work sort of like old Tyranid upgrade list but in no way that broken.
Characters would still give their own bonuses and re-rolls, but upgrades would simply be an option for every ship. Capital ship, at least.

[Khar]

So, I've played BFG:R Orks today, with a bit ofadded modification [mostly taken from 2010 ork klanz list, plus that every cruiser can buy one upgrade from 2010 ork klanz. current bfg:r file seems to miss few of them.]
Against Tau. Seeing that Orks struggle against massed ordnance, throwing them against swarms of Tau bombers seemed like a good idea to test them.

Orks lost horribly, of course (in the name of science!), but I have few conclusions.

First of all: despite suffering against ordnance, ships with turret upgrade [from 2010 ork klanz list] are able to hold off bombers for a while. This is a good sign.

Ones without the upgrade just fall apart, though. Allowing every cruiser to take one upgrade was a good tep forward, but I think we should consider allowing them to take more. Otherwise, +2 turrets [or d3 turrets as an economic variant, I'm not sure if I like it, though... sometimes its 10 points doing nothing] seems like an obvious choice against any fleet able to take reasonable amounts of attack craft.

If a player decides to overload on upgrades, he gets very expensive ship, so i don't think taking multiple of those would be that broken.

With +1 ld for numbers, and +1 free escort for low Ld [from ork klanz] escorts are generally solid. They might not require further modifications.

Swapping Ld between ships, coupled with squadron rules and numerous re-rolls make their low Ld a bit less of a problem, though I agree with idea of  1/2= ld6, 3/4/5= ld 7, 6=ld 8 ld table. No amount of re-rolls can make ship with ld5 work, and even 6 tends to be problematic.

Additionally, as i mentioned before, cruiser cap needs to go. in about 1500 pts up, you start to run out of cruisers slots. Assuming you don't take any lite cruisers - if you do, you hit the cap even faster.


One more thing, a bit more.. radical. I'm starting to think orks need a bit more concentrated firepower... With their short ranges and mostly gunnery table weapons, they don't really benefit from having multiple targets from different fire arcs - amount of dice you throw at them is too low to count on any result, in most cases.

I'd consider making some of ork ships' port/starboard weapons l/f + r/f. Needs further testing, though.