In our Road to LVO series, we’re following several different players and hobbyists as they prepare to play in one of the largest wargaming conventions on the planet. This year’s Road to LVO series is sponsored by Frontline Gaming.
To Ork or Not to Ork?
Welcome back to the final instalment in my Road to LVO series. Today I will be covering something I’ve been battling with internally for some time ever since the slate dropped: Whether or not I will be playing my favorite army in all of 40k at the event – Orks.
What Changed?
Well, first off, there was a new dataslate, which was full of changes for Orks. Prior to the slate, Orks had one of the worst win rates across all factions and it would be difficult to place them into the upper tiers of competitive play given their game plan and what has become a very lethal meta. Orks this edition and this year have been a whack-a-mole like target. They have been VERY good twice and both times caught a flurry of nerfs immediately afterward. Admittedly, I agreed with the nerfs to More Dakka! (which was a menace), but I was less enthusiastic about the repeated nerfing of Taktikal Brigade, which has been my favorite flavor of Orks so far this edition. I’ve been thankful to have been able to pick them up twice and run them to success during both high tides, so maybe their time has come again?
So let’s take a look at the major changes to the slate. There are a few point decreases here, which is always exciting for fitting more into lists. And I have to give a huge shout-out to my boy Snikrot for becoming a very serviceable lone operative once again. But what I’m really looking at and getting excited about are the Datasheet changes. In no particular order, here are the ones I see as game changers:
- Kommando Combat Squads. Back in the day, Kommandos came as a five-man squad and they were some of the best screening and action monkeys around. Flash forward to tenth and they’ve been locked-in as a fully wargear-loaded ten-man unit that sees limited play due to their footprint and cost. They’ve seen use, sure, but suddenly having two 60-point units with infiltrate gives them new life. And if you still want the ten-man, it’s an option, giving you versatility. This creates a nice flexible dynamic and in any strategy game I greatly enjoy a toolbox mechanic. Melee-focused Ork lists – which are the currently popular flavor – can struggle into scouting + infiltrating strategies designed to jail them. Now you can spend 120 points to be able to block or screen those out in deployment, freeing up movement lanes and avoiding “auto losing” in some matchups. While this seems like a smaller change, it’s probably the most impactful one in the slate. And that will make more sense after I explain below that you may not even want to run Ghaz all the time.
- Ghazghkull Thraka Changes. Second on the list are the changes to the units Ghaz can lead, and the space he takes up in a battlewagon. He used to only be able to join a Meganob squad. Now he can also join Boyz and Nobz, and his transport capacity tax is only four slots, a far cry from when he’d take up the entire capacity. The thing that sticks the most to me here is the Boyz change. Boyz have the option to be lead by multiple leaders, meaning that you can really stack the buffs and enhancements onto the unit with Ghazghkul + another leader + Boyz and hey, why not throw an offensive stratagem on top of all of that? There are a lot of fun options now and Ghaz has a place in nearly every Ork detachment if you want him.
Ork Ingenuity
With that in mind, it’s time to cook. We have our new changes in front of us and I feel giddy as hell. So let’s look at what those changes can do for us, starting with some Ghazghkull combos that we couldn’t do before.
First up, Ghazghkull in a Green Tide build. Boyz have been kind of anemic in combat with limited strength and AP and even in the Waaagh! turn they can be more of a wet blanket outside of the unit’s power klaws. If we have one of our famed 20-man units attached to Ghaz, they’ll hit harder with +1 to wound and we gain the ability to regenerate Ghaz’s 21 ablative wounds using the Come On, Ladz! Stratagem and the Painboy’s datasheet ability. Combine this with the Raucous Warcaller Enhancement and that gives you a super squad which:
- Has a 5+ feel no pain
- Has a 5+ invulnerable save at all times
- Has +1 to hit
- Has +1 to wound
- Scores critical hits on 5+ during your Waaagh!
- has [LETHAL HITS] during your Waaagh!
- Can regenerate D3 models in your Command Phase
- Has access to full-power Green Tide Stratagems like the ability to re-roll all Wound rolls and has access to a surge move and a re-roll to the move.
This unit is great. It adds a bit of horse power to a detachment that didn’t have it before. I feel some folks could certainly build a tide list around this concept and have success.
Let’s continue down to less conventional routes, looking at what Ghaz can do, starting with Dread Mob. Dread Mob has its Try Dat Button! Rule proc off of being a Mek, Orks Walker or Grots vehicle unit. Well now Ghaz can just join a Mek unit by double-attaching to a Boyz unit that has a Big Mek attached to it. In this army concept, Ghaz serves once again as a hammer Unit but can just serve as a threat to anything that wants to make a move on your shooting centric detachment. Here again the strategy is layering buffs by having two leaders and a possible enhancement on your unit. In this case I’d take the Stealth enhancement, which gives the unit some versatility with the ability to move through models. Having Makari strategically placed adds some more power to the army’s Waaagh! turn and could be a lot of fun with walkers. It’s a neat toolbox and something to look at
But let’s talk about my favorite recipe: Ghazghkull in the War Horde Detachment. We are once again making a super squad of 20 boyz + Ghaz + leader, but in this case we’re picking a Big Mek as our second leader. Give him the Follow Me, Ladz enhancement to give the unit +2″ to its movement. Then you combine this with the ‘Ere We Go Stratagem in your Movement phase to give that unit another +2″ to its movement, as well as +2 to its charge rolls and a free re-roll on the Advance, and now you have a unit going 10″+D6+2 before you get to that 2D6+2″ Charge. The result is a lightning fast unit that is very difficult to move block thanks to the Big Mek’s Shokk-Boosta ability letting them move thorugh models. With War Horde’s general power level in combat being high already thanks to built-in [SUSTAINED HITS 1], this super unit getting those on a 5+ in your Go Turn is sick and a lot easier to deliver than any of the other super units we’ve talked about.
Test and Learn
I put this War Horde concept to the test on the table immediately (shout-out to my teammate Michael Mann on his recipes while I focused on my Chaos Knights preparation for Challengers Cup). The list focused around this bomb unit and the usual suspects you’d expect in War Horde: Beastbosses, Beastsnagga boys, Nobz, Trukks and the like. Combining this with the new kommandos made for a fun package – oh boy was it fun. I went into last weekend thinking this just might be it and maybe I’d submit a War Horde list on Monday. My first test game was a slam dunk. But I had to put those thoughts aside – I was playing at Challengers Cup.
While Michael and I were playing in teams, I tried to use some of his experiences at the event to gather info on whether or not Orks would give me the best shot at winning LVO. We talked a lot of shop about Orks in between rounds and at the AirBnB. We even talked about other Ork lists, such as Team Australia’s Bully Boyz list, which Alex Terrason piloted to tear up the competition. Perhaps the Aussies were onto something.
I found the War Horde list to be very volatile, which is something you can see often with 100% melee-focused armies. If you have enough stuff to put in front of the Waaagh! and enough guns you can just just shoot them to death. There isn’t a second push-like ability in Bully Boyz and no way to clear out those pesky screens other than jumping over them. Piloting this list to maximum effect would take more time than I had to practice. Michael’s results kind of confirmed these findings and had me really reconsidering whether they were the right choice.
On top of that, I also found myself making rookie mistakes in practice. I’d hopped back on the comfortable Orks bike but I was forgetting silly things like attacking with my ‘Urty Syringe. That’s not a great sign.
The Final Decision
I’d tested, talked, and deliberated, then tested again. Gotten feedback from peers and looked at event results, plus I went through some of the prep I talked about last time around. In the end, I decided that Orks just weren’t where I needed them, and they’d be staying home this round.
Part of this is reps – for me, more reps is better. I feel confident that I’d likely be able to secure a winning record at LVO regardless of whether I ran Orks or Chaos Knights. But when it comes to the top cut, I’m more likely to podium with Chaos Knights. And that’s what the math favors – I’m sitting on over 100+ hours of Knights play this year against maybe 9 hours of Orks, and that’s a huge factor in why I chose to play Chaos Knights going forward.Â
Adding to that, the mission pack is not exactly favoring Orks, and that was the final nail in the coffin. I looked pretty closely at the mission pack and did my practice deployments. My hardest rounds were going to be 4-5-6, which will be played exclusively on GW layout 4, with Search and Destroy deployment. There’s one big pro here: The Ghaz unit has a perfect spot on the line to hide. The Con? Not much else can hide, and so going second would have been fatal. I could pair into some scenarios that make my life much harder as a result, while comparatively if I were on Chaos Knights I could just take full advantage of these available shooting lanes. Â
I am at a point in my 40k journey where I make decisions based on what gives me the best chance at success. I do love my Orks and I am a bit sad to leave them behind, but I’ve got different goals now and with a shot at LVO and the top of the ITC I need to make this a strategic decision rather than an emotional one. And that means not stressing myself to try and get ready with an army I’ll be making mistakes with (and which I did multiple times in practice). I can choose the path of least resistance, no matter how many times Rob urges me to join the Waaagh.
Rob:Â You’re still a coward.
Ben: Well, there you have it. I will not be getting in the Stompa today.
What’s Next?
It’s time for LVO. What’s next is TBD – I’m going to play my heart out and see where I land and if I end up regretting the decision to be Princeps Ben and not Warboss Ben. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my path to LVO as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it! If you have time this weekend, check out the event streams – you can find them here. I’m sure to end up on one of them at some point if I make the top cut.
See you on the other side.
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