while building some Ork ships, I've been thinking. And it was, in fact, somewhat productive.
First of all - Orks need rebuilding. Not just tweaks, like imperial fleet, but more like Tyranid level of changes. Now they simply don't work in many cases.
So, first thing I thought about - some randomness needs to go. I'd remove all the random firepower from Gun batteries. Every single d6 should be changed to 4, to give them respectable firepower. So d6+6 becomes 10, d6+2 becomes 6, and so on. However, to ensure they're not used as reliable mid-range firepower, I'd add rule like this:
'Ork weapons, while efficient, lack sophisticated targetting devices or, in many cases, any targetting at all. When firing over 30cm range they always use Ordnance column' - So Ork has to come close to be truly effective but doesn't risk that single '1' when determining his firepower makes ship useless for a turn.
Second thing: Torpedoes. I'd do the same thing here - every d6 becomes 4.
To balance this: 'Ork torpedos tend to be short on fuel, while their targetting sensors (consisting mostly of panicked Grot crew) are prone to failure. At the end of Ordnance Phase, reduce strength of any Ork torpedo salvo on table by d3. Additionally, squadroned Orks ships can't combine their salvos.'
Reasoning? Again - to force them to work at short ranges while adding some reliability. Savage with 4 torpedos guaranteed might sound scary, but not more scary than imperial Viper with 3 not breaking down in time with ability to combine salvos.
Third thing: How to make Orks more resilient to bomber attcaks while not making them more resistant to other ordnance? I'd do it like this:
'Ramshackle: Each Ork vessel is unique. No two share the same design and their systems seem, even to a trained eye, placed at random. While this doesn't change much when blasting such vessel to pieces, it makes precise application of firepower nigh impossible - what's left is to pray that some shots will hit something important. Ork vessels count as having 2 more turrets (up to maximum of 6) while determining number of bomber attacks against them.'
Simple. Bombers still hit on 4+, Turrets still kill only a few, but they deal less attacks than they should due to simply not nowing what to destroy in their run. Same rule might make hit&run attacks against them harder, or lance fire, for the same reason, but I'm not sure they need it.
Next thing: Remember Ram Prow upgrade from 2010 Ork Klanz? Every Ork capital ship should have this automatically. Orks should ram, and players need to find that option attractive
Also, Orks should Board. +1 boarding value from Revised is weak, +1 to boarding roll would be more like it.
That's it for now, I return to testing.
