Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Orks(7E)/Kill Team

Why Play as the Orks

You realize that mob armies can easily dominate the battlefield when the points are low. Sure, your opponent is going to generally have quality, but your sheer quantity of models, shots, and attacks will make it more often than not that you'll see your opponent fail a crucial roll. Orks may have lost Mob Rule (which is of questionable worth) but being able to easily field over 20 models means that Break Tests will take a lot of dedication and work to reach. A lot of the orks' typical weaknesses are downplayed in the Kill Teams format.

Orky Know-Whats and Gubbinz

Due to the format of Kill Teams, you really need to only look at the Ranged, Melee, and Mek Weapon Tables alongside the Ork Vehicle Equipment if you want to run some Trukks.

Ranged Weapons

• Shoota: Is your Nob using a Power Klaw or Big Choppa? Take the shoota because it's free and you're not getting +1 attacks from the slugga anyway. Possibly consider this even with the choppa. 3 Attacks base is pretty decent and having an extra 2 almost bolter shots is useful in the kill-or-be-killed environment of Kill Teams
• Twin-linked Shoota: Consider the above. Now add the increased reliability of twin-linked. If you have a spare 3 points, nab this.
• Kombi-weapon with Rokkit Launcha: Possibly useful in an all-comers list. Even better if you place it on a specialist that increases the reliability of hitting and/or damaging.
• Kombi Weapon with Skorcha: A boon if you are playing against opponents that are trying to out-swarm you or if you want to flush out some cover-camping enemies.

Melee Weapons

• Power Klaw: All told, not as much as an auto-take as it is in larger games. You're spending 25 points to go last against at worst MEQ.
• Big Choppa: Surprisingly more effective in Kill Teams. It's relatively cheap and will allow you to Instant Death GEQs at their initiative. Combo this with a (twin-linked) shoota in order to get the most out of your Nob. Add melee-oriented specialization to greatly increase the mileage of this blade on a stick.

Mek Weapons

• Kombi-weapon with Rokkit Launcha: Having a spare chance to gib a Space Marine and the ability to shoot at other things is not too bad.
• Kustom Mega Blasta: Unless you are trying to make the vehicles your opponent might have brought explode, leave this at home and take a rokkit launcha instead. They cost the same, but Gets Hot! is not worth the AP2 in a game without a 2+ armour save.
• Rokkit Launcha: Same pittance as the other three guns, but you are exchanging the versatility of the kombi-rokkit for the killiness of the KMB without the Gets Hot!
• Kombi-Weapon with Skorcha: Costs twice as much as the others and is more circumstantial. Given that the only way you can access this on a Mek is if you take Burnas, consider whether or not the extra strength and AP is worth the points and whether or not you need more flames.
• Kustom Mega-Slugga: Possibly worth it due to synergizing with the close combat weapon a mek is carting around, but do you really want the mek in a scrap?

Ork Vehicles Equipment

• Red paint Job: This is more useful on larger tables than what Kill Teams prescribes. Your mileage may figuratively and literally may vary from what use you will get from this. Take this if you have an early-game blitz planned, otherwise save on paint and points and look elsewhere.
• Reinforced Ram: Kill Teams means a hell of a lot of terrain. Get this if you are taking a trukk. Not to mention, your rams will be even more potent if the enemy has a surprise vehicle and your trukk looks like he might just as well save the day.
• Stikkbomb Chukka: Some change for an extra weapon that tosses a grenade. Most if not all of your units already have stikkbombs, so the redundancy is nigh worthless. Skip out on this and grab something shinier or with more dakka.
• Extra Armour: You need your trukk moving, so you might want to take this. Or acknowledge the inevitable death of the trukk and spend those points elsewhere.
• Grot Riggers: As always, this is wasted on a Trukk.
• Wreckin' Ball: Circumstantial but possibly effective.
• Boarding Plank: You have to weigh the points on this one. It's worth half the Trukk but will give you a sweet bonus to your charge. Works well with an alpha strike, but considering all of your properly green models already have 'Ere We Go and the table size is relatively small, you can probably do without.

Unit Analysis

A kill team detachment allows for:

• Troops: 0-2
• Elite: 0-1
• Fast Attack: 0-1

Troops

• Ork Boyz: There are two distinct flavours of Boyz: shooty and choppy. What you do with them definitely changes your approach to the game
  • Sluggas: Vanilla choppy boyz. Use them to put bodies on the field and make whatever you charge that isn't as equally choppy fall under the weight of your attacks. 'Eavy armour can be considered, but sluggas tend to work better by volume so maybe skip out on the armour.
  • Shootas: Trade whirlwind melee mayhem for general usefulness. Decent shooting coupled with decent melee (especially on the charge) can give you an edge over your opponent's more specialized forces. That said, shootas are better candidates for 'eavy armour. Be forewarned, however, that you are now looking at 11 points a boy with a save that a depressingly large amount of weapons can still ignore.
  • Special Weapons: For every ten boyz you have, you get to take either a Big Shoota or a Rokkit Launcha. Both are quite useful, but unless you desperately need that MEQ gibbing potential of the rokkit launcha, the Big Shoota is an effective choice. It has the range, relative stopping power and volume of shots as well (to offset the lovable ork BS).
  • Nob: The Nob is no longer as mandatory as he is in vanila 40k. That said, he does make for an excellent Leader or Specialist. Nobz are amazingly versatile and can be kitted out to rumble with any kind of foe. Use this to your advantage and use your Nobz to fill in weaknesses in your Kill Team loadout.
• Gretchin: For as much as a Beakie pays for a Rhino transport, you can get 10 little Grotz and a Runtherd. For the points, you will be getting surprisingly average shooting, a 5-6 model boost to your Break Test, mobile cover, and guilt-free objective camping.
  • • If you are particularly daft, you can field 56 grotz and 4 runtherdz as your complete Kill Team. Be forewarned, that this is a theoretically but not actually amusing move.

Elite

The Elites section of the Ork army offers an amazing variety of Kill Team options. It's a real shame you cannot take more than one Elite. So consider first your grand strategy and then pick your Elite. You can only get one, so choose wisely.

• Burna Boyz: Consider this: there's a lot of Power Armour armies in 40k. There's a lot of cover and close quarters in Kill Teams. Burnas are effective against both power armour and cover. The downside is that you are paying a premium for a relatively fragile platform. They can be an effective force-multiplier in a minimum unit with a mek kitted up with a ranged weapon selected for taste.
• Tank Bustas: Being able to spam insta-gibbing anti-MEQ shots can be hilarious. You also will have little to worry about when it comes to enemy vehicles. They are relatively cheap for what they do and making one or two specialists can offset the typical weaknesses Tankbustas carry.
• Nobz: This unit is your Swiss Waaagh! Choppa: It can be built to order and seasoned to taste. Perhaps your best source of a leader by adding a Nob's resilience to the best (for Orks) armour you can afford. Nobz have access to all the melee and ranged weapons listed above (but not, of course, the Mek Weapons.) So look at those tables for some pointers. Since Nobz are armed per model, feel free (actually feel encouraged) to mix shooty and choppy nobz. Since this is Kill Teams, each will be operating as a separate unit anyway.
  • For the love of Mork, leave the Bikes at home. The price per-Nob is already expensive.
• Kommandos: An average unit has become even more useful. For the price of an 'eavy armoured slugga boy, you are trading that superior armour save for infiltrate, move through cover, and stealth. That, and you can take up to two special weapons per unit with no minimal model count required for maxing out the special weapons allotment. Keep in mind that infiltration means you have the potential to position those speacial weapons somewhere prime in order to hit the enemy where it hurts the hardest.
  • Rokkit Launcha: All-around OK weapon against MEQs and the light vehicles that you can expect to encounter. Set him up somewhere we he can do maximum damage with minimum chance of death
  • Big Shoota: Decent range and firepower begs for this gun to be placed somewhere high so that you can force your opponent to consider where they send their troops.
  • Burna: The only other place to get a flamer weapon that is not one-shot only or included in a unit of only burnas. You are paying a high price for it though, so carefully weigh the cost-to-effectiveness ratio. A carefully infiltrated burna can wreak havoc on a GEQ defensive line.
  • Boss Snikrot: Due to RAW, you can take the Green Ghost if you take a unit of Kommandos. You are paying a Warboss fee for what is effectively the halfway point between a Nob and a Warboss. You will not benefit from his Ambush special rule, but you are getting a Super Kommando Nob that causes fear and has 6 strength 6 attacks with shred on the charge. You will not be obliterating units, but his natural amount of attacks, strength, and shred will make him effective at multi-charging and the subsequent devestation of gunlines and strongpoints. Use him wisely, because he is still an ork with stealth.

Fast Attack

• Stormboyz: Essentially slugga boyz plus. You are trading away special ranged weapons and the option to buy better armour for the ability to go fast. Use them as they are meant to be used: to tie up and/or distract key enemy units as you move the rest of your boyz into position.
• Deffkoptas: As strong as a boy, harder than a Nob, faster than a Stormboy: it's the Deffkopta. Given the ludicrous speed of jetbikes and the versatile loadout of Deffkoptas, these are not too shabby but a tad expensive. You start with a twin-linked big shoota but you can take a twin-linked rokkit launcha if the desire takes you. You can also replace the big shoota with a non-twin-linked kustom mega-blasta but that option is ill-advised. See the Mek Weapons Table to see why. A buzzsaw can be nice, especially on this relatively tough platform. Keep in mind, with its speed and ability to be anti-infantry or anti-vehicle/MEQ, Deffkoptas can fill in any holes that develop in your lines and/or plans
• Warbikers: Known and loved/feared by all. You are paying a nob's price per bike. Potentially useful but do not over-dedicate to the unit. The costs will soak up valuable points and the heavy cover will ensure that superior mobility will be stumped by walls aplenty.
• Warbuggies: Pretty cheap for a vehicle with outflank and twin-linked weaponry. Having a Twin-linked Big Shoota at base, it can replace it with a twin-linked rokkit launcha for free. For some points you can give it what amounts to be a reinforced ram: trakked. For a few points more, you can get a skorcha alongside trakked. A unit of Warbuggies can be mixed and matched and hold up to five. Potentially useful and game-changing if they arrived from reserves, if they arrive on the side you want, and if they hit what you want them to hit.

Dedicated Transports

• Trukk: Technically considered Fast Attack, but whatever. Cheap and has a boosted chance of survival (but not by much) by being a vehicle in Kill Teams. Since it is a fast vehicle, it can quickly deliver its payload across the table. Definitely grab it a reinforced ram and maybe extra armour in order to increase the odds of it getting to where you absolutely need it. Comes stock with a big shoota but that can be replaced with a rokkit launcha. So also consider what that little extra firepower can do for you and your boyz.

Building Your Army

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Tactics

Here Be Tactics...eventually...maybe...