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Offline tactica

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Tactica Horde Armies. Leave Feed Back
« on: October 7, 2010, 08:04:48 PM »
Hey guys I wrote a tactica article for a series of about 10 Ork tactica articles that I'm planning can you give me some (constructive) feed back for improvements. Oh and btw I normal post under the name "i am Jesus" but I cant log in under that name for some reason so I created a new account. Hope that is cool 

Note: anyone having account difficulties should email a staff member, rather than make a new acccount.  We're here to help!  -Mr.Peanut

The Horde

The Horde

The Horde tactic is a wonder of Orkish simplicity, at its most basic level the Horde tactic consist of fielding as many boyz as possible, without wasting any points on fancy gizmos such as vehicles and super weapons etc. By focusing purely on fielding as many boyz as possible it is easily possible to have an army consisting of well over 100 green skins even in games with a relatively modest points value. Thus the orks are able to grind their opponents down though sheer weight of numbers. A typical horde style force usually consist of five or six squads of slugga and/or shoota boyz supported by squads of specialist and elite units. Most importantly horde armies do not feature vehicles in any great numbers, if at all, allowing more points to be spent on cheap and plentiful infantry.

Advantages
Force Denial – This is perhaps the most obvious advantage. Most opponents will spend a proportion of their points on expensive anti tank and anti armour units armed with weapons such as Las Cannons, and Melta Guns etc. In most games such units will prove their worth by destroying or otherwise neutralising dangerous units such as heavy tanks and monstrous creatures etc. However when faced with the daunting prospect of killing hundreds of Orks such expensive units often end up contributing little and as such are a large waist of points. Just imagine the advantage your huge purely infantry horde will have versus an opponent that has wasted many of their points on Las Cannon touting Devastators and Predators.

Durable Scoring Units – In the modern game having units that can take and the hold objectives is a distinct advantage. A horde army will very often have five or six units of boyz each consisting of 20+ models putting them at a distinct advantage against armies that have few scoring units or otherwise feature scoring units that are vulnerable due to small squad sizes or a lack or natural hardiness.

Low Kill Points – Although a horde army can consist of literally hundreds of models these will typically be organised into large squads, indeed some Ork hordes typically consist of no more than five or so huge mobs and therefore give away very few kill points. In contrast many opposing armies, perhaps even the majority, will feature transports vehicles this is due to the popularity in fifth edition of fielding fully mechanised armies. Some mechanised armies can give away more than double the number of kill points than an Ork horde of a corresponding points value, once again this can put the Orks at a distinct advantage.

Disadvantages
Vulnerable to anti infantry units – Many opponents will tailor the units they select for  their army to optimise their anti infantry potential. If an opponent knows what to expect in advance it is not uncommon for them to drop most, if not all, of their anti tank/anti armour units in favour of units with heavy bolters and flamers etc. Such tailored forces are the nemesis of horde armies and can decimate your army in just a few short turns.

Slow – One major problem faced by horde armies is that faster units such as Valkyries, Grav Tanks and many many others can easily out manoeuvre your horde whilst bombarding them from afar. On many occasions you infantry units will fail to get close enough to assault enemy units, particularly if said units are mechanised. In more extreme cases the horde can often fail to get within weapons range before the opposing units use their speed to re-deploy far away from your hapless green skins

In the below example the Dark Angels player uses his considerable anti infantry firepower to blow away one flank of the Ork horde. The Dark Angels then use their manoeuvrability to stay out of arms reach of the Orks before making a late dash for the objectives.

Deployment & Opening Turns
1 – The Dark angels deliberately deploy their slower units facing the the Ork right flank. These consist of two ten man Tactical Squads and a ten man Devastate squad packing heavy bolters. These units are further bolstered by a squad of 10 Assault Marines and a Chapter Master ready to counter attack the inevitable Ork advance.
2- The Dark Angels deploy their faster units facing the Ork left flank. Once again these units are bristling with anti infantry fire power
3 - In the opening turns the Dark Angels deliberately focus their considerable fire power on the Ork right flank, devastating it utterly   

Mid Game
1 - Eventually the Ork right flank collapses under the sheer weight of Dark Angles fire power, they break and flee.
2 – At this point the Land Speeders redeploy to the Ork Right
3 – This leaves the unit on the Ork left flank horrendously out of position and far from the fight.
4 – Meanwhile the Ork units in the centre that do get close to the Dark Angels fire base are held up by a timely counter attack from the Chapter Master and Assault Marines

End Game
1- With the horde shattered the Dark Angels move out to grab the objectives and win the game
2- Although the Orks in the centre eventually get to grips with the Dark Angels fire base they make little headway as the Boyz on the left flank are far to far away to effect the outcome of the fight.

Too Large - Deploying close to 200 models in a cramped deployment zone is asking for trouble. Many opponents will take advantage of the sheer number of boyz jammed into a confined space by mercilessly bombarding your armies with ordnance and other template weapons. In the first couple of turns it is not unusual in the slightest for a single ordnance blast to hit over a dozen boyz. Indeed in one recent game I saw a 1500 point horde take 50 casualties from ordinance weapons alone in just one round of shooting. 

In this game the Imperial Guard player pounds the Ork Horde with intense fire power, by the time the Orks even get near the Imperial Guard lines it is too late and they are finished off with a counter attack. Note the canny Imperial player also uses his faster units to pull the naïve Ork units and of position and away from the Imperial battle line

Opening turns
Note how the relentless barrage from the Manticores and Valkyries takes full advantage of the target rich environment. Even when their shots miss they still kill scores of Orks

End Game
By turn four all the Ork horde has been decimated by the Imperial fire power or dragged out of position by chasing the Valkyries. It is now simple for the Imperial Guard veterans to launch a decisive and game winning counter attack     

Limited Force Denial – Many Ork players fall into the trap of believing that simply because they are fielding an all infantry force they are some how immune to the Las Cannon type weapons. Remember units such as Nobs and, in particular, Mega Nobs will get ripped apart by weapons that are S8 or above. The lack of speed of Mega Nobs in particular compounds the disadvantage Ork hordes have due to their general lack of manoeuvrable units.

Lacks Balance – This is quite an obvious one but its still worth mentioning, by spending so much on boyz many horde style armies have far to much anti infantry weapons i.e. hundreds of choppers but not enough anti tank. As such enemy armour can be a real headache for a horde especially when said army is particularly mobile such as Hammerheads and Hell Hounds etc

Over Coming weakness and Maximising Advantages. (The Do’s and Don’t’s)

Do - Include Range Units - One way to make up for the Ork Hordes natural lack of speed is to include ranged units that can strike from distance. Lootas in particular are a great way to knock out any transport vehicles and skimmers minimising the enemies ability to out manoeuvre your horde. Another good example is to arm your boyz with shooters as opposed to sluggas enabling them to kill enemies from distance without the need to get up close and personal. As an added bonus units such as looters can quickly take down any anti horde specialist in the opposing army.

Do - Use Flanking/Deepstrikng Units – One way to reduce the congestion in your deployment zone is to include at least one, but preferably more, squads of commandoes and/or Strom Boyz. These units can be kept in reserve and then enter play in later turns. As a bonus these units can get to grips very quickly with specialised anti infantry units in the opposing army or can plug the gaps made in your lines by enemy fire power.

Don’t - Take Nobs.  I am aware this is a controversial suggestion, Nobs are a powerful unit with loads of character and have some lovely looking models so I can certainly understand the temptation to include them. However in a pure infantry army Nobs and Mega Nobs act as a lighting rod for anti tank weapons and end up as very expensive casualties thus robbing your force of its main advantage namely force denial. So I’m sorry while I love Nobs I just can’t fit them in (that’s what she said) a horde army.

Do - Include Ranged Anti Tank Weapons. Where ever possible try to include weapons like rokkit launchers as opposed to weapons like big shooters. You will never lack enough boyz to take down enemy troops and so big shootas are just not needed but tanks will be a problem. Rokkit armed boyz and looters etc let you get to grips with opposing armour before it can do much damage to your horde and/or speed off out of harms way.

Do - Protect your horde. Just because you have 180 boyz dosnt mean you are invincible. So you need to protect your boyz. Try to shield you boyz with durable units such as a unit of 30+ ard boyz protected by a Kustom Force Field. Such units can soak up massive amounts of fire power and provide units behind them with a cover save.

Facing the Nemesis
In this game an Ork horde is facing a ‘Nemesis’  Beil Tan army. The Beil Tan army as been optimised to fight an ork hordes. It includes loads of large blast templates weapons (Two Fire Prisms and a Night Spinner), loads of anti infantry specialists (Three units of Dire Avengers mounted in Scatter Laser equipped Wave Serpents), and lots of fast moving armour. Worse still the boyz are facing them in a dreaded spear head deployment and the Eldar have the first turn. Lets see how the boyz get on.

Deployment
1. - At the centre of the Ork horde were three units of 20 shoota boyz screened by a unit of 20 ard boz and a Big Mek with Kustom Force Field
2. – The Orks the deployed two units of 15 Lootas in some ruined buildings to give them some protection from the Eldar Fire Power.

Eldar Turn One
1. - In an attempt to drag the sluggish Ork units out of position two Fire Prism begin to flank the Ork formation
2. – The Lootas took the brunt of the Eldar fire power as they were targeted by the Fire Prisms and the Night Spinners however thanks to their cover saves their casualties were minimal as one unit took four casualties and the other only three.

Ork Turn One
1.- The Lootas returned fire on the Eldar Fire Prisms peppering them with high strength shots. However the Eldar Holofields ensured both Fire Prisms escaped with only crew shaken results
2- The  Orks shoota and Ard boyz enjoyed far more success as they managed to down one of the Wave Serpents killing one of its Dire Avenger passengers
Eldar Turn Two
1.- Unable to shoot due to being shaken, both the Fire Prism darted for cover eager to escape the attentions of the Ork Lootas
2- The Majority of Eldar units circled to the Ork left flank and fired on the Ork units nearest to them. Many Orks fell in the to the salvo however the Orks stubbornly refused to flee.

Ork Turn Two
1 – The Lootas on the Ork right continued to pound the Fire Prism immobilising it and shaking the crew
2- The second Squad of Lootas was similar successful and managed to destroy the weapons on one of the Wave Serpents
3- Ork reinforcements arrived in the form of Comandos, The Powerclaw Nob in the unit finishing of the Fire Prism they charged.
4- Further reinforcements arrived in the form of the Vulture Boyz who downed a Wave Serpent killing two of the Dire Avengers on board
5- Finaly the ork Ard boyz finished off a good turn for the Orks by charging and destroying a unit of Dire Avengers and Autaurch

Eldar Turn Three
1- Still reeling form a disastrous turn the Eldar reorganised and moved most of their available units out of charge range of the Orks. The Vulcha boyz on the Ork right received the brut of the Eldar wraith as they were laid low by two squads of Avengers and the Eldar Night Spiner

Ork Turn Three
1- The Lootas continued to target the deadly Eldar Firm Prism but once again only managed to shake the crew 
2- On the Left flank things wen’t much better for the boyz as two units of Dire Avengers were swarmed by Ork Boyz and destroyed

Eldar Turn Four
With the noose tightening around them, the two remaining Eldar tanks that were able to move did there best to move out of the way of the Orks and then fired on the Ard boyz killing six despite the presence of the Mek with KFF.

Ork Turn Four
1- The ork shooting finally found its mark as rokkits from the Ork boyz finally finished of the Night Spinner and remaining Wave Serpent
2- Meanwhile after four turns of continuous bombardment the Lootas finally finished off the Fire Prism which they had been pounding throughout the game.

So there we have it, although the ‘horde tactic’ is fraught weaknesses with a few simply tweaks horde armies are able to take on and beat so called Nemesis armies that are specifically designed to beat them. 

     


 


 
« Last Edit: October 8, 2010, 02:15:44 PM by Mr.Peanut »

Offline a2thak

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Re: Tactica Article Needs Feed Back
« Reply #1 on: October 7, 2010, 10:17:49 PM »
It's awesome.  Informative, diagrams are nice.  I find there is a lack of this kind of in depth article so give the boy some teef!  Keep up the good work. =]

Offline adamscurr

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Re: Tactica Article Needs Feed Back
« Reply #2 on: October 8, 2010, 05:36:32 AM »
I really enjoyed reading your article.  I thought the pictures perfectly illustrated the points you were making...  I am looking forward to future articles you write!

As for the content, I have never played the green tide before, but everything you said makes sense!  When you get on to hybrid mech forces, I'll have more imput!

Adam


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Offline WisdomLS

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Re: Tactica Article Needs Feed Back
« Reply #3 on: October 8, 2010, 09:28:14 AM »
Excellent, good points and really well presented
Am looking forward to giving more input on the speed freak article as thats what I usually play, but after reading this I'm thinking about surprising my friend in our battle on sunday, I think I've got 100 assorted boyz  :o

Offline Gutstikk

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Re: Tactica Horde Armies. Leave Feed Back
« Reply #4 on: October 8, 2010, 02:27:38 PM »
Be sure to shoot me a PM once you get the account sorted out so we can get the post credited to your old account. Once we do that, we can see about getting this added to the frontpage as one of the new submissions for Ork articles, assuming you're cool with that :). I agree with the others, the diagrams are helpful and well done, quite a nice addition to the Ork articles.

 


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