Grimdark Future/Tactics/Orc Marauders

Why play Orc Marauders?

The orcs are an inorexable tide of axes and muscle. When you attack, you attack in force and with charges as your chief means of attack. However, this comes with some critical drawbacks: Your army sucks at shooting and isn't very durable.

Pros

• Lots of Activations
• High model count
• Sprawling variety of unit choices and upgrades
• Your melee game is incredibly strong with universal Furious
• Your heroes are all rather cheap

Cons

• Choice paralysis is very real
• Your troops are flimsy as hell
• Your army almost universally sucks with their guns

Special Rules

• Bad Shot: Your entire army (outside of some specific exceptions) have a 5+ quality when shooting. This means that you absolutely should not be relying on shooting without using either lots of shots or some very powerful weapons that make the few shots worth it.

• Good Shot: The opposite. Your model now has 3+ to hit.

• Red Paint Job: This model can add +3" to movement and +6" to charge/rush.

Psychic Spells

• Warpath (4+): Friendly unit within 12" gains Stealth the next time they are shot at. This is vital because of how limited your protection is.
• Crackling Bolt (4+): One enemy unit within 12" must test for dangerous terrain.
• Headbang (5+): A friendly unit within 12" gains Rending on their next set of attacks, which can be pretty neat.
• Death Bolt (5+): One enemy model within 12" takes a single AP 4 Deadly 3 hit. Pretty much all you can ask for when sniping a hero or heavy weapon.
• Teleport (6+): One friendly unit within 12" can immediately move 6". This gives you a desperate escape button or possibly an easier charge.
• Psychic Vomit (6+): Enemy unit within 12" takes 4 AP 2 hits. This allows you to flatten elites pretty quickly.

Unit Analysis

Heroes

• Warlord: This is your genuine beatstick of a hero. Your shooting is rather meager between the base pistol, a carbine (with heavy flamethrower or rocket launcher add-ons) or twin carbine, but your shooting sucks anyways. Instead, you can focus more on the choppy, including buying up to two attack pets. The unique rule for the warlord is WAR!, which grants their unit a +3" for movement and a +6" for rush/charge.
  • Upgrades: The Warlord has four options for special wargear. Heavy Armor gives a 3+ defense, a pretty cheap benefit. Cyborg Body gives Regeneration. Ultra Armor gives a beastly 2+ defense but also Slow. The attack bike gives Fast and a twin mini-machineguns, giving a good bundle of shots.

• Mechanic: While not quite as good in melee as the warlord, the mechanic has the power to repair nearby Tough units while also being able to use most of the same upgrades. The mechanic can buy a Precision Monocle for Good Shot, making use of their expanded array of guns. However, if you dislike shooting, you can instead replace their gun with a Energy Field for unit-wide Stealth.

• Shaman: Generally the same as a mechanic, but replace the repair power for Psychic. Aside from that, they share the same upgrades as the warlord or mechanic, but instead of better guns, you can buy an additional level of Psychic. You're better served with a unit to take your blows, especially if you're not on the front lines.

Infantry

• Goblin Herd: A literal mob of tissue paper. These guys are practically useless, but they are the only unit with Good Shot. If you're intent on throwing to their death with zeal, then you can buy a Goblin Herder and confer Fearless, Furious and Relentless - pretty much a flat upgrade. You can also buy a special gun, but it's mostly pistols.

• Orc Mob: Your workaday unit of orcs, and your most populous of them, since you get mobs of ten of them. These guys can buy two extra guns, while the unit (one being a carbine+attachment or twin carbine, the other being more specialized) can buy carbines for longer-range mass shooting. For non-weapon upgrades, you can buy either a Mad Doctor for Regeneration and Heavy Armor for a 4+ defense.

• Jetpack Orcs: A smaller herd of orcs with Flying and Ambush. These guys can carry more special melee weapons than other units, but are trapped with only pistols for special weapons. This is quite powerful since you now have a pack of flying bruisers.

• Commandos: While cheaper than the jetpack orcs, they get Scout, Stealth and Strider out of the exchange. They can grab the special guns available to the base orcs, though they have the option to also replace their base guns for either shotguns or carbines depending on how short-range they want to be. One commando can also buy a sniper carbine - a bit of a modest help since you can try to snipe out heroes and heavy weapons here.

• Specialist Orcs: A bunch of orcs toting flamethrowers. Unlike most specialist units, these guys only take one weapon, being either this or the rocket launchers or the long-range railguns. While the mob can replace their CCWs for blowtorches with AP 2, if you buy rocket launchers you can replace two launchers with bomb hammers for a single devastating swinging. You can also buy a bomb beast, giving a small blast as an additional gun.

• Orc Pirates: The beefy pirates surprisingly have better pistols, each firing three AP 1 shots as well as Tough 3. You can replace their pistols with double-ranged boarding guns and buy AP 1 cutlasses. This alongside their 3+ quality makes them a step ahead of other orcs, letting them drown infantry with lots of dice.

• Boss Mob: A bundle of genuinely ded 'ard orcs with 3+ quality and Tough 3. Each of them can not only buy special melee weapons, but also replace their guns with carbines (either lone carbines with addons or twin carbines). You can also buy them a 4+ defense, but it's more expensive for them than it is for the base orcs.

• Ultra Bosses: The equivalent of destroyers in the battle-brothers. The ultra bosses may have the epic 2+ defense, but are stuck with foot-slogging and do so with Slow. While you can keep their carbine so you can slap on a rocket launcher or heavy flamethrower, you can also replace it with a dual carbine. If you intend on going full melee, you can instead replace their weapons with ultra sawblades for Deadly 3, making them able to chop tanks into scrap.

• Orc Bikers: Your troops are now Fast and have Impact 1 in order to give some better charges, a welcome idea considering how orcs are. Alongside the carbine and melee weapon, they can also buy twin carbines or twin mini-machineguns, giving a bunch of shots from mid-range.

• Boss Bikers: Your bikers now have the Tough 3 of bosses. Their loadout options are about the same as the base bikers with the exception of their free reign over the special melee weapons.

• Boss Trike: A much beefier bike with Tough 6 and Relentless. Be default, it's equipped with a double shotgun for modest short-range fire and an energy claw usually seen on an ultra boss. You can then buy another gun from a twin carbine, twin double shotgun (wouldn't it be a QUAD DAMAGE shotgun then?) or a twin mini-machinegun. These guns are all short-ranged as well.

• Orc Helicopter: The copter's got 4+ quality but also has Fast, Impact 3, Tough 6 and Strider. Its base weapons are pretty weak, being a mere pistol and CCW. For guns, you can buy a twin plasma rifle (shockingly the cheapest option), twin rocket launcher or twin heavy machinegun. You can add a secondary melee weapon with either an ultra sawblade for three Deadly 3 swipes or an assault bomb with a single blast 6 attack.

Army Building

Tactics

Grimdark Future Tactics Articles
General:	General Tactics
Alien Hives:	Alien Hives - Soul-Snatcher Cults
Aliens:	Dwarf Guilds - Eternal Dynasty - Jackals - Orc Marauders Robot Legions - Saurian Starhost - TAO Coalition
Battle Brothers:	Battle Brothers - Custodian Brothers - Prime Brothers
Elves:	Dark Elf Raiders - Elven Jesters - High Elf Fleets
Havoc:	Havoc Brothers - Machine Cult Defilers - Wormhole Daemons
Humans:	Battle Sisters - Feudal Guard - Gangs of Hive City Human Defense Force - Human Inquisition - Infected Colonies Machine Cult - Titan Lords - Rebel Guerillas
Ratmen:	Ratmen Clans - Vile Rattus Cult