Are Orks competitive?

[Chumbalaya]

Orks are not competitive. Sorry.

I'll give you a second to lift your jaws off the floor.

Good? Great.

This has been covered before, but I'm kinda sick of going over it again and again.
Here's some good reading on the subject:
[URL="http://bnhblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/competitive-orks-paradox.html"]Orks[/URL]
[URL="http://imperiusdominatus.blogspot.com/search/label/Orks"]Aren't[/URL]
[URL="http://www.baldandscreaming.com/commentary/greenskins-versus-meta-game-are-orks-competitive/"]Competitive [/URL]


Read through all that if you dare and let's see if we can get a good discussion going.

[Yhcrana]

The last tournament I went to was won by an Ork army. A combined mech and infantry ork army.

It was the biggest 40k tourny in the country excluding the 40k masters.

I think they are competitive, but have I fallen for a controversial topic just for the sake of controversy?

[Hokiecow]

I think you have.

Orks have a lot more going for them then other armies, then say.. Tau or Dark Eldar. Orks are capable of getting in your face in the 1st turn and have tons of options. The poster sighted the issue with Orks being reliability of weapons.... THEIR ORKS! They aren't supposed to be marksmen.

Complaining about Orks current capabilities isn't going to make GW update their codex. Their are many more codex in need of an update over Orks. If you dislike playing that much, I'll gladly take them off your hands.

[40kGamer]

Orks make for an entertaining game, but I haven't lost a game to them yet.

And I think Dark Eldar are far more competitive than Orks... of course you can't use them like marines or you'll be very sorry!

[SandWyrm]

Orks are not competitive. Sorry.

Your statement falls on it's face due to the simple fact that they consistently do well in Tourneys of all types. It's true, even if you blame it on all the other players being awful, which isn't a sane position to take after more than a year of reported results.

Instead, let's be more accurate and say that Orks are less RELIABLE than other races. There's a high degree of randomness built into the Ork Codex. Sometimes they get the benefits of that and do better than you might otherwise expect. Even at the high-end when facing optimized Mech builds and the like.

[Xas]

in a world if perfect people with perfect armylists where all the ohh-so-godly tactics the armchair generals think up work, yes there the orks have no chance.


but truth is that allmost all games (yes even or especially torunament ones) are lost because people make mistakes or do not know all there is to know. If you sit in your comfortable chair and have all the time of the world to critique on tactics post most things are clear.

in theory nids can do nothing against a landraider list without insane luck and venom cannons but even though I had neither I won the game with the nids in the deciding game of my countries national tournament. in theory he can "just" move away and have a field day firing at my army with his theoretically invincible land raiders. in reality he realized that he wouldnt be able to shoot me off the table and I'd be sitting conveniently on both objectives (big bugs on his, gaunts on mine) if he didnt bring the fight. ever tried to fight an uphil battle, gaining ground against tyranids with a good half of your points spent in practically useless tanks?

same torunament I had dark eldar charge 6 whyches into 5 tyranid warriors (who were backed up with stealer aura and featuring a peltora of lashwhips) in three different places at the same time. back at home in front of your pc everyone can comment that this isnt a smart move because the whyches basically have a few more attacks but both wound and hit worse and dont have a pretty save either against volume of attacks.



currently tournament play is done at roughly a felt 10% of the possible "power" that could exist in 40k while internetdom-armchair-general-ing is done at 20-25%. your normal friendly store games count in between 2-5% in my book.

I'm shure now many people (especially those theory-ists) will be outraged that I say even the whole knowledge of the online community combined only reaches 1/4 of the possibilities. It is the (not so) sad truth. There is much to still be written and thought about which most people will never get to even grasp and those that do have that knowledge usually not waste their time writing about it. the old goatboy articels (before the crowd flamed him to death for beeing a "powergamer"... may they eternally burn in hell for that as much could have come from this discussions) or some of fritz' stuff with the eldar and necrons are the tip of the iceberg.

mathhammer is prolly the only theoretical concept the community has delved into and mastered to some degree (at least those who care) but there are still many completely unexplored avenues of strategic concept that lay bare. some examples for those who are curious: local vs global superiority, application of power, psychology, deception, tempo, logistics. yeah thats where the other 3/4 lay and there also lies the solution for everyone who thinks the world ends with each new, creeped, overpowered dex

[Katie Drake]

I approached this thread with an open mind. I didn't agree that Orks were a non-competitive army, but I was more than willing to hear out and seriously consider all opinions. I didn't agree that Orks were a non-competitive army.

I still don't.

Somewhere along the line, someone (I don't remember who) said something about Codex Marines and Tau being more competitive than Orks. It was around that time that the writer lost me and that I became pretty much closed to the idea that Orks weren't a top notch list.

Tau? Are you [expletive deleted] kidding me? What in a blue hell can the Tau do in 5th? In all of my personal experience, the Tau are only good at beating on other gimped armies, like Blood Angels, Dark Angels (Greenwing), Daemons and similar.

[DarkLink]

I'm a Grey Knight player, and I'm competitive in my local gaming group (and we have some very good gamers here). I won't say I win everything, but I do pretty well (even though half my games or more are against melta-spam style lists, 'cause everyone knows I take Land Raiders).

I dare anyone to say that Grey Knights aren't the weakest codex in the game (if you say they're tied with Necrons, that's ok).

Competitiveness isn't about the army. It isn't even really about the army list too much (so long as all the various elements required in a balanced list are there). It is about how the player plays that list. I play Grey Knights, because they match my playstyle. I'm very good at carefully manuvering all my guys and denying the charge and staying out of harms way. I can't do that with Space Marines, because Space Marines are much more static than Grey Knights. I tried starting a Space Marine army when it came out, and I fail miserably with them. Not because Space Marines aren't competitive, but because I don't know how to play them properly.

Plus, I don't think many will agree that Orks are less competitive than Tau. 5th ed hurt tau more than it helped them. I don't think Orks are the best army in the game, but I'd put them in the top half, above Tau.

[Ming]

Any army is not competitive if you use it wrong. Period. Using it wrong includes not owning the right tools.

A player who studies, understands his tools, practises, and learns, can win with any codex.

We have an ork player in our area who is pretty freakin good. He plays only orks. He studies everyone else's codex. He understands the ork codex and gets past the distractions to get at the core of "ork theory". He is so good, he stomps all the ork players he meets. It is as if he channels Adrian Wood Himself.

Not only are orks competitive, but even Dark Eldar are competitve...by those who study, own the best tools, practise, learn, and play them...

As for me, I'm hamstrung by my own economy. I know what tools I need to get. I'm just not willing to commit.

[Chumbalaya]

Yay, fun timez!

The last tournament I went to was won by an Ork army. A combined mech and infantry ork army.

It was the biggest 40k tourny in the country excluding the 40k masters.

I think they are competitive, but have I fallen for a controversial topic just for the sake of controversy?

What were the scenarios like? What was the overall skill level of other players? How good were their lists? Soft scores in play? These things tend to have a big influence on how certain armies do. In a comp-heavy environment Orks do well because their Troops are useful, while Tau get roflstomped because their Troops suck and they lose points right out of the gate.

I'm not making a controversial topic for the sake of controversy, but I would like to see how people feel about the subject. Orks are pretty well established as awesomesauce, I play 'em and I haven't had much trouble beating them so I'm curious as to why. Is it the internet's fault, like a lot of 40k's bad habits, or is it something else?

Orks have a lot more going for them then other armies, then say.. Tau or Dark Eldar. Orks are capable of getting in your face in the 1st turn and have tons of options. The poster sighted the issue with Orks being reliability of weapons.... THEIR ORKS! They aren't supposed to be marksmen.

Complaining about Orks current capabilities isn't going to make GW update their codex. Their are many more codex in need of an update over Orks. If you dislike playing that much, I'll gladly take them off your hands.

Somebody missed the point. I love my Orks, but I don't bring them out unless we're playing friendlies or Apoc. They aren't viable in a competitive setting.

Orks make for an entertaining game, but I haven't lost a game to them yet.

And I think Dark Eldar are far more competitive than Orks... of course you can't use them like marines or you'll be very sorry!

Yeah, Orks are a lot of fun to play with and against, but they come up short competitively. DE rock face.

Your statement falls on it's face due to the simple fact that they consistently do well in Tourneys of all types. It's true, even if you blame it on all the other players being awful, which isn't a sane position to take after more than a year of reported results.

Instead, let's be more accurate and say that Orks are less RELIABLE than other races. There's a high degree of randomness built into the Ork Codex. Sometimes they get the benefits of that and do better than you might otherwise expect. Even at the high-end when facing optimized Mech builds and the like.

It's not so much their lack of reliability, though it does hurt a lot of their choices. The big problems Orks have are No Retreat, lack of any real capability to knock out heavy armor or any mech list, reliance on overpriced super units, morale and problems with dedicated assault units. For a CC army, Orks get it handed to them by damn near everything. Berzerkers, GKs, Termies, Genestealers, just about any dedicated assaulters. Nob Bikers can try and fight them off, but often at twice their cost or more. And if you want to cut costs, you get tank shocked off the board with lovely low Ld. Relying on PKs to knock out armor is suicidal, and random S weapons don't cut the mustard.

Orks do well at tournies because they are great at stomping over armies that haven't converted to 5th ed. Sad to say we still have that problem, and Orks are more or less tailor made to crush them. Once people figure out how to mech up and play 5th, Orks are in for a world of hurt. They also benefit greatly from soft scoring and silly tourney missions that screw up game balance.

in a world if perfect people with perfect armylists where all the ohh-so-godly tactics the armchair generals think up work, yes there the orks have no chance.

but truth is that allmost all games (yes even or especially torunament ones) are lost because people make mistakes or do not know all there is to know. If you sit in your comfortable chair and have all the time of the world to critique on tactics post most things are clear.

in theory nids can do nothing against a landraider list without insane luck and venom cannons but even though I had neither I won the game with the nids in the deciding game of my countries national tournament. in theory he can "just" move away and have a field day firing at my army with his theoretically invincible land raiders. in reality he realized that he wouldnt be able to shoot me off the table and I'd be sitting conveniently on both objectives (big bugs on his, gaunts on mine) if he didnt bring the fight. ever tried to fight an uphil battle, gaining ground against tyranids with a good half of your points spent in practically useless tanks?

same torunament I had dark eldar charge 6 whyches into 5 tyranid warriors (who were backed up with stealer aura and featuring a peltora of lashwhips) in three different places at the same time. back at home in front of your pc everyone can comment that this isnt a smart move because the whyches basically have a few more attacks but both wound and hit worse and dont have a pretty save either against volume of attacks.

currently tournament play is done at roughly a felt 10% of the possible "power" that could exist in 40k while internetdom-armchair-general-ing is done at 20-25%. your normal friendly store games count in between 2-5% in my book.

I'm shure now many people (especially those theory-ists) will be outraged that I say even the whole knowledge of the online community combined only reaches 1/4 of the possibilities. It is the (not so) sad truth. There is much to still be written and thought about which most people will never get to even grasp and those that do have that knowledge usually not waste their time writing about it. the old goatboy articels (before the crowd flamed him to death for beeing a "powergamer"... may they eternally burn in hell for that as much could have come from this discussions) or some of fritz' stuff with the eldar and necrons are the tip of the iceberg.

mathhammer is prolly the only theoretical concept the community has delved into and mastered to some degree (at least those who care) but there are still many completely unexplored avenues of strategic concept that lay bare. some examples for those who are curious: local vs global superiority, application of power, psychology, deception, tempo, logistics. yeah thats where the other 3/4 lay and there also lies the solution for everyone who thinks the world ends with each new, creeped, overpowered dex

I would largely agree with that. It's not all about the army, it's the player that has the final word on what works and what doesn't. Where I'm coming from, all players are good, or at least competent, and Noobslayer armies like Orks and Daemons don't do so hot because they don't have the capabilities that others have. It's a glass ceiling with gimped armies like them.

It does make me sad that the current tourney environment is more about either breaking the game with messed up scenarios, soft scores artificially influencing results, RPS, or counting on poor armies and players showing up so your Noobslayer can get the job done.

I know what I'm suggesting isn't going to happen, but it's nice to dream that the competitive 40k scene can turn into something fun and challenging instead of the circus we've got currently.

I approached this thread with an open mind. I didn't agree that Orks were a non-competitive army, but I was more than willing to hear out and seriously consider all opinions. I didn't agree that Orks were a non-competitive army.

I still don't.

Somewhere along the line, someone (I don't remember who) said something about Codex Marines and Tau being more competitive than Orks. It was around that time that the writer lost me and that I became pretty much closed to the idea that Orks weren't a top notch list.

Tau? Are you [expletive deleted] kidding me? What in a blue hell can the Tau do in 5th? In all of my personal experience, the Tau are only good at beating on other gimped armies, like Blood Angels, Dark Angels (Greenwing), Daemons and similar.

It's actually the reverse. Tau are extremely good in 5th ed because while every army has to get close up to pop tanks and get the job done, Tau can sit back and make it work from afar. I'm talking railguns. Cover a problem? Markerlights say hello. Assault armies closing too quickly? Kroot, Piranhas, Missile Pods for transports. Tau are solid, but only a handful of units are worthwhile (Crisis suits, Kroot+dogs, Pathfinders, Piranhas, Hammerheads and Broadsides) so they all end up looking the same. They're trickier, so I'm not surprised you'd find them wanting. FoF and gunline Tau, the predominant type, are garbage holdovers from 4th and if that's all you see I can understand why you think that way.

Codex: SM on the other hand has a ton of viable and varied builds and two of the best things in a Codex evar: combat tactics and assault terminators. Everything in this book is solid, barring wacky stuff like LotD, LSS and Vanguard. I'm shocked you would not consider them extremely competitive.

I'm a Grey Knight player, and I'm competitive in my local gaming group (and we have some very good gamers here). I won't say I win everything, but I do pretty well (even though half my games or more are against melta-spam style lists, 'cause everyone knows I take Land Raiders).

I dare anyone to say that Grey Knights aren't the weakest codex in the game (if you say they're tied with Necrons, that's ok).

Competitiveness isn't about the army. It isn't even really about the army list too much (so long as all the various elements required in a balanced list are there). It is about how the player plays that list. I play Grey Knights, because they match my playstyle. I'm very good at carefully manuvering all my guys and denying the charge and staying out of harms way. I can't do that with Space Marines, because Space Marines are much more static than Grey Knights. I tried starting a Space Marine army when it came out, and I fail miserably with them. Not because Space Marines aren't competitive, but because I don't know how to play them properly.

Plus, I don't think many will agree that Orks are less competitive than Tau. 5th ed hurt tau more than it helped them. I don't think Orks are the best army in the game, but I'd put them in the top half, above Tau.

I can dig that. Player skill trumps lists generally, but it's difficult to quantify skill online as we really can't see each other play or think alike. It's much easier to analyze army lists and get a feel for what someone thinks is useful or how they use it. GKs are indeed nerfed as all hell (unless you add IG ), but like my Deathwing they're a fun bunch to play and a great challenge.

I'd rate Tau a lot higher, maybe your local Tau players need to actually bring a good list :P

Good stuff so far, thanks for the contributions.