Ork tactics???

[Mossa]

I have an hard time to figure out what units to build as an ork. And this waaagh system. Seems my slugga boyz or what they are called always get spanked. All my SP’s points go to reinforce my squads as they always dies. Also I always forget to upgrade my weapons.

Anyone have any tactics playing orks or you just build and have fun like I have?

“1 less ork player”

[Eye:of:Gehenna]

Basicly, when it comes to the orks there are only two real ways to use them.

1. Rush early and often. Units are cheap and quick to make, so don't feel bad about losing a bunch early on.
2. Stay on the defensive early on, until you've built yourself a mighty greenskin horde.

Personally, I prefer #2 because Orks were just made to be used in huge groups. It's a bit more risky when playing against Space Marines, bit assuming you get all your troops together without any major setbacks, not much'll stop 100 or so Boyz if properly used.

Now as for the Boyz themselves, most people say that it's best to see what your apponant is producing the most of(vehicles/heavy armor/infantry), and make your army accordingly.
I prefer to have my boyz prepared for any situation with an army that's pretty well rounded:

- 4 squads of Sluggas each w/ a Nob and Mad Dok. All Upgraded with Burnas.
- 4 Squads of Shootas each w/ a Nob and upgraded with Big Shootaz.
- 4 Squads of Tank Bustas each upgraded with rocket launchers. [Set to ranged stance]
- 2 Nob Squads each with a Nob leader, power klaws, and the Big Mek & Warboss attached.

This arrangment actually works out perfectly to 99 infantry, so you can still keep a group of Gretchin around.

For Vehicles, the Squiggoth is always a must [Due to the Ork tech tree being smaller than the other races, it's fairly easy to get the Squiggoth in even a short game], along with as many Kans/Wartrakks as possible. I usually go with either all Kans or all Wartraks, depending on the game.

Once it's time to attack, it's pretty much just point and click. Send in the army; make sure the Tank Bustas are shooting at the vehicles, Shootas are shooting at infantry, and the Nobz/Sluggas/Squiggoth are taking the brunt of the abuse.

The most important thing to remember before going for a major assault is to set an overwatch on ALL the squads' reinforcments. It's a hell of a lot easier than constantly switching between squads doing it manually [Though, you'll probably have to do this with heavy weapons anyways] or having to send in new squads from the Boyz Hut.

Hope this helps.

[Mossa]

There is an auto set thingy so the troops reinforce automatically? “think I have mist a great command >.<”

[Eye:of:Gehenna]

Select a Squad; right-click the button that adds an individual unit to the squad. This will automaticly add a unit whenever you have the rescources for it/another ork dies (if you had the 100 Population cap filled).

[Deadeye]

One thing Ive found about Orks is that their requisition gathering is key to their success. You want to mass up plenty of boys early on and get some Nobz in each unit. Consequently LPs go up almost always right after point capping. Considering they pay for themselves almost as soon as they go up, this is a no brainer. Another important thing is where you put your banners, they are pretty expensive considering all it really is is a crappy tower with a stupid grethin and a shoota. Not to mention you HAVE to have them. Your two choices are to mass them all at your base or spread them around to key SP's you are using as choke points or lines of defense. A smart enemy will know that taking down banners is a great way to screw an orc from getting dangerous. So wherever you put them, make sure you can defend them.

As far as army composition more is always better with Orcs. Early game I look to put together at least two slugga squads, a shoota squad, and my big mek. Ill feel ok about using this force once I can get 3 big shootas, a flamer for each of the sluggas. The big mek tele upgrade is important, as is the force field. Ill use this force to forage in enemy territory for weak points. It's unlikely Ill go for a full engagement real early though. Unless I have a Nob in each squad and the forcefield researched. Keep in mind this force goes on the offensive as soon as my shoota squad comes out so its a nice force for the early game. In battle you have to decide if you want to stay and wear him down while you are reinforcing or run. Generally its only smart to fight if you feel you already have the advantage in the game. Otherwise look for small fights you know you can win or SP harrassment.

As the game progresses, these three units make the core of my army. I try to add in a unit of stormboyz, a tank busta, a second shoota squad, and a war trak or two with missles. As the game goes on I reinforce my squads as allowed, upgraded weapons being the priority. Big shootas for the shoota squads, flamers for the sluggas, missles for the tank bustas and war traks. Mad doks are a must and are cheap. Later on, throw in a couple cans, a Nob squad or two, the warboss, a Leman Russ or two and you got a large army that can overwhelm your enemy as you have up to six infantry squads to continually reinforce. You got three to six vehicles they have to deal with, and two bosses. I know most people talk about Squigg blah blah...but honestly, if Im in a game where I have enough spare resources to actually get one...Id have already won it anyways.

As far as tactics, they key to orcs is using many squads that are small. Theres a number of reasons for it. First off, it means you can add more Nobz to your force, and they are actually pretty tough. Secondly, it means you can reinforce several units simultaneously allowing you to essentially replace losses faster than they can happen. Third it alows you to tie up several enemy ranged squads and their CC squads leaving your vehicles and ranged squads free to tear up the enemy. What this all means though is that being good at orcs is pretty micro intensive.

I dunno, thats not everything important, but its a place to start.

*EDIT* Oh yeah, Tab R is your friend. =)

[Dyrvom]

When it comes to the Overwatch reinforce command, I've found that it ceases every time th squad hit cap, meaning you'll have to re-overwatch if a squad is only occassionally losing a member, which is quite annoying. Any way around this?

[Eye:of:Gehenna]

Use small squads and constantly monitor them in battle. That's about it.

[Souless]

What Gehnna said use lots of small squads , sluggas tie up units in HtH and the shoota boyz blast em to bits with their big shootas always keep squads to about 5 for shootaz and 5-6 with Nobz for sluggas.

example one guy has 25 sluggas in two squads of say 15 and 10 and 20 shootas in two squads say 10 each, thats onlu six big shootas and 6 flamers were as you could get 15 burnas and 15 big shootas, I garantee that you'll win with the latter force

Also get Trakks they are cheap first 'tier' for orks ( not requireing HQ upgrade ) and are very shooty 4 Trakks can kill like 30 marines with bolters and flamers, but when they get thier rockets and plasma use meat to shield your Trakks.

oh and big mek with custom teleporta and a group of about 9 sluggas is a good unit to teleport behind the bulk of a force, whilst the rest of your army is engaging from the front.

Oh and another thing, for further information search the beta threads for the ork symposium posted by Th15 it really handy it got alot more peep playing Orks.

[n0z3k1ll3r]

The whole "small units of Orks" thing annoys me. Orks in TT were meant to be in huge units, tiny groups just died. Is there a morale effect based on squad size? I know they've kept the 'all alone' effect, so it makes sense a smaller squad should panic easier. Can anyone confirm/deny this?

[Someguy]

instruction manual says that huge squads of ork have a higher morale than small squads.

[n0z3k1ll3r]

Good, cos I'd rather that than the extra heavy weapons, its not like they ever hit much anyway. Orks are for Klobberin, not shootin! :fight:

[Radeonis]

THe boys are made for smashin da others, you want a shootie army go for anyone BUT orks.

[morpheus133]

In beta the general strategy was tons of 4 orc plus nob shoota squads with 3 big shootas each. good thing about big shootas is no cool down for orcs and they can fire them while running. on top of that the nobs make great CC units and you want as many nobs as you can get which means lots of squads. Nob squad leaders come with power claws once you research it, while nob squads require you to buy the claw. Unless things changed significantly from beta to retail I expect this to remain one of if not the dominant orc strategy.

[MagiTek]

In beta the general strategy was tons of 4 orc plus nob shoota squads with 3 big shootas each. [...] Unless things changed significantly from beta to retail I expect this to remain one of if not the dominant orc strategy.

In the demo, Big Shootas had their power cost drastically increased. 30r/5p in the beta, 40r/30p in the demo (Can anyone confirm if this is still the price in retail?). The morale damage they inflict was also reduced by 66%. I've found myself using Burnas much more often than Shootas now.

Double Post


Good, cos I'd rather that than the extra heavy weapons, its not like they ever hit much anyway. Orks are for Klobberin, not shootin! :fight:

You'll want lots of small squads for the nobs, the fast reinforcement, and the ability to force your enemy's entire army into melee. Making maxed out Ork squads against a decent opponent is suicide.

In the TT, Orks are the race that drowns the opposition in huge swarms of infantry. In DoW, Orks are the race that quickly and cheaply replaces lost infantry. So instead of having a large numerical advantage, you instead have a seemingly unending stream of troops. If you try to play by the TT rules, you will lose.

[Sps]

Select a Squad; right-click the button that adds an individual unit to the squad. This will automaticly add a unit whenever you have the rescources for it/another ork dies (if you had the 100 Population cap filled).

I agree with soulless

there are benefits to NOT reinforcing ork squads as each squad can get a NOB leader an have morale of its own.

I would rather have 5-6 ork get broken via sinper/flamer/artilery than a full 15

Same goes for upgrades 3 big shootas per 15 ork?
or 3 big shootas per 3 suqads?

almost the same ork pop but a LOT more firepower in mini squads

A lot more effective and beneficial with a lot of small squads as opposed to few huge ones

[FoolsFolly]

I think the confusion over orks is the idea of large squads.
In the TT fluff yoy had large squds of orks - in DOW you don't have large Orks squads! Maxing out 1 squad to full numbers means that when the squad breaks thats 15 orks working at reducded capacity!
Also Ork pop works differently to other races - it doesn't work on number of squads but actual pop number. So its better to have loads small squads max'ed out with shoota,burna, rokkits etc because they have more fire power, plus if a squad breaks then it only effects a small number of orks!

One thing I would like to see is max overwatch button - so once you set the size of the ork squad ie to 6 for tank buster - then it will reinforce to 6 but no more !
Its kinda annoying to tab through loads of small squads adding one squad member at a time !

[trazer985]

just a thought on mob sizes, how do orks fare in varying densities of scenery. i.e. do large mobs find it hard to move through dense terrain, going single file and getting wasted. was a problem i had with them in tt, could never get them behind the cover and obey squad coherency.

[morpheus133]

One thing I would like to see is max overwatch button - so once you set the size of the ork squad ie to 6 for tank buster - then it will reinforce to 6 but no more !
Its kinda annoying to tab through loads of small squads adding one squad member at a time !

I agree! There are several interface tweaks I would like to see including this one. The other big one for orcs being the ability to apply fightin juice from a mad doc to squads profiles when you have a ctrl group selected. Right now when you pick fightin juice the ctrl groups profile closes making it very difficult to see who exactly needs the fightin juice the most in mid combat in a big battle.

[f0nx]

morp i was thinking the same exact thing last nite, i think this game is great (my first real brush with the wh40k universe) but it could use just a few tweaks to push it over into blizzard status.

[Psylynt]

One thing I would like to see is max overwatch button - so once you set the size of the ork squad ie to 6 for tank buster - then it will reinforce to 6 but no more !
Its kinda annoying to tab through loads of small squads adding one squad member at a time !

:werd: That's my deal with the orks. If your trying to keep your squads small... & you use overwatch, you're overwatch isn't that effective as an "overwatch" if you have to go back through each squad your overwatch is on, & turn it off. Kinda defeats the purpose for ork squad size. I'd think it would be beneficial to make ork squads max out at 6 units/squad to get rid of this problem. It's pretty evident that 'most' everyone agrees that small squad sizes are better. Can anyone think of a reason that we would need really large squad #'s in orks?

[Santini]

However, I have found that the large squads are usefull early game, for when you are trying to get your pop up... as in two units of sluggas.

[Vertigo]

However, I have found that the large squads are usefull early game, for when you are trying to get your pop up... as in two units of sluggas.

You can get troops faster by building more squads instead and reinforcing them all at the same time.

Double Post

Oh, another thing.

CONSTANT overwatch will likely not happen. Relic tried it early on, and it didn't work, it reduced the quality of the game. So forget about that feature. I'll try and dig up that post in a sec.

Edit: Here it is, check out Deggy's comments in post #18:

http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=34280

[f0nx]

Do you guys have some sort of organized way to attack the enemy or do you use this huge army by cliking all the squads on the same map location and letting them overwhelm the enemy, i tired this twice today and got my ass handed to me.

[Reicher]

Do you guys have some sort of organized way to attack the enemy or do you use this huge army by cliking all the squads on the same map location and letting them overwhelm the enemy, i tired this twice today and got my ass handed to me.
I usually have one big squad and attack em all together then micro them by double clicking the unit types, traks, nobs, cans ect and attacking units they hit best, or even on the squad level sometimes if a squad is pounding my units with ranged i'll melee them with a nearby unit.

[Vertigo]

Do you guys have some sort of organized way to attack the enemy or do you use this huge army by cliking all the squads on the same map location and letting them overwhelm the enemy, i tired this twice today and got my ass handed to me.

Bad idea. Here's the thing, Orks thrive in CC, and get whomped in ranged combat. An example:

5 squads of Orks vs 4 squads of SM with HBs.

If you just attack move, your 5 squads are going to more or less just jump on 1 (maybe 2) squads of SM. While you are meleeing those 2-3 squads of free SM are SLAUGHTERING you with HBs.

So, do this. Start by attack-moving your squads, sure. But then begin reassigning each squad to one enemy squad. If you can lock up each enemy squad in CC, you will win easily.

Obviously, also reinforce early and often during battle. "TAB-R-TAB-R-TAB-R" is your friend.

Oh, and make Kustom FF your FIRST upgrade, and get it early. Shaving 50% off ranged damage is unbeatable.

[Souless]

if you have trakks the SM normally don't have rocket launchers by that time so send in three or four trakks at first to start the killing, then move in the boyz and Big shootas have long range so just focus on a single unit and it dies very quickly. also bolter turrets get owned by trakks because the trakks have a longer range than the turrets.

[morpheus133]

CONSTANT overwatch will likely not happen. Relic tried it early on, and it didn't work, it reduced the quality of the game. So forget about that feature.


That isnt what we (or at least I) are asking for. Rather the ability to set a cap on how high a unit will overwatch too. so with orcs you set on overwatch but set a cap of 6 and it will overwatch the orcs until you reach 6, but then stop for example.

[Santini]

morp i was thinking the same exact thing last nite, i think this game is great (my first real brush with the wh40k universe) but it could use just a few tweaks to push it over into blizzard status.
I would take this game over any current blizzard game any day of the week.

[morpheus133]

lets not get into a pro bliz vs anti bliz arguement please :) It really doesnt add anything to the discussion.

[MagiTek]

Oh, and make Kustom FF your FIRST upgrade, and get it early. Shaving 50% off ranged damage is unbeatable.

It was 33% last I checked, but I agree that it's still extremely useful. I'd rank it just below Heavy Armor as far as early game upgrades go.

[Vertigo]

That isnt what we (or at least I) are asking for. Rather the ability to set a cap on how high a unit will overwatch too. so with orcs you set on overwatch but set a cap of 6 and it will overwatch the orcs until you reach 6, but then stop for example.

I'd be all for that, but I'm not sure how you'd set up the UI to handle it in an elegant way. I've never really had a problem here, as I never overwatch when playing Orks. I rely on hotkeys and the miracle of "TAB & R".

Double Post


It was 33% last I checked, but I agree that it's still extremely useful. I'd rank it just below Heavy Armor as far as early game upgrades go.

Yeah, I misspoke. It's 33% reduction, which comes out to a +50% effective gain in HP for your troops. Gotta love math.

Personally, my preferred upgrade order would be: Kustom FF, Choppas, Heavy Armor, Kustom TP... etc. (offensive Choppas over defensive armor, due to the morale boost)

Due to tech limitations, I usually end up getting Kustom TP second, as the other upgrades unlock later.

[morpheus133]

yeah not sure how you would do it either UI wise... maybe a drop down box or something near the overwatch button. I doubt it will happen but would be nice.

[Stymie_Jackson]

Ork morale is not improved by SIZE of mobs but NUMBER of mobs in close proximity.

However, this is one good point for bigger than minimum CC squads (sluggas and stormboys)...they are Close Combat. You want them to survive the charge and then be able to outnumber the enemy in close combat. I'll often get slugga squads up to 8 total, then 10 and finally 12 in mid-late game. Yes, more nobs is cool, but bigger mobs last longer, fight in CC better and since weapons cost so damn much for orks I sometimes don't even both with them mid-late game in slugga squads (other units get them of course) to save cash, puting it to more orks.

[Svensta]

Ork morale is not improved by SIZE of mobs but NUMBER of mobs in close proximity.

Is that accurate? Seemed to behave the OTHER way in the beta. A percentage of your mob goes up in gore, and they rest want to leg it, with a double whammy if the one that goes was your Nob in charge.

From early play, it feels to me like the presnce of the Big Mek near mobz makes them a little less routable as well (not attached, just NEAR)

[Vertigo]

I concur with Svensta. Unless morale was radically revamped between Beta and Release (and I'd be stunned if it was), that description is incorrect.

Until proven otherwise, I'll continue to assume that big squads have LESS effective morale than small squads; something we conclusively proved true during Beta. I'll also retest with the Release version when I have time, just to be sure.

Stymie_Jackson, you are incorrect. Small mobs last LONGER, hands-down. They have more total morale, reinforce faster, recover morale faster, have more Nobs, can have more heavy weapons, can cycle in and out of a battle better, can use more grenades, resist dancing better, tie up ranged troops better, and pathfind better. They are also more resistant to AOE effects such as Prisms and Arty.

Big squads have only TWO advantages, AKAIK.

First is "whole squad abilities." That means Fighting Juice and Kustom Teleport, which operate on a whole squad at a time.

Second is micro requirements. If you are a slow player, big squads can compensate for lack of micro speed. There is no doubt that large squads are easier to manage, but they are far less potent.

For instance, I'm a fast hotkey user, but don't have super-high APM. So, rather than go with a stock 6 Ork squad (4 Boyz + Nob + Dok) I use 8 Ork squads instead (6 Boyz). I've noticed any less than that and I can lose squads due to focused fire before I can react. This lessens the amount I have to micro to where I can handle a battle. Hopefully, with more practice, I can eventually drop all the way down to 4 Boyz per squad.

[NapalmEnema]

More grenades too.

Makin' stuff go BOOM be haf the fun fer da boyz. Da udda haf is da choppin!

[Devon]

I agree with n0z the whole small squad stuuf is crap. if you do send in alot of small squads they are bound to break. thats why orks are so cheap, so you can have lots of them. so i recommend that souless playes with the space marines not the orks