Fighting orcs

I haven't played against Orks from their current codex yet, but wouldn't Trueborn with blasters gun down Meganobz pretty readily?

Not if they bring a knight titan to soak the anti-tank weapons. A knight and a death star of Ghaz is brutal. I shouldn't have engaged at all and simply danced the entire game.

Lord Mal...I'm trying to schedule some games to do battlereports for and a couple people interested are ork players. I know one in particular has several MANz (can't recall exactly but it's more than a unit or two of min) and a variety of transports. Hopefully I can talk him into trying them out...as last time I talked to him he kept trying to explain why they were a horrible choice. The guy I played that actually used them had a unit of eight or so and no transport. I opened up on them with two units of blasterborn and they went to ground...but like I said, he wasn't exactly at the top of his game. He now has a couple battlewagons and a couple trucks and a couple more MANz, and knows the game a little better now.

Calyptra...in theory yes, they work rather well. Various darklight weapons, hornets, and wraithguard all work pretty good against MANz...though I haven't had to deal with them AND a knight yet (and probably won't...no one I know who plays orks has a knight and vice versa).

One of our locals found a use for his Stompa? It was the new dual-kit large model for Orks.

As an ork player myself, I appreciate that they can be a difficult army to face, with a wide range of units backed up by vast numbers. Thankfully for everyone who plays against orks, they're actually not as scary as they were. The new mob rule has neutered their staying power massively, meaning if you can get them on the back foot they'll have a really tough job staying in the game. The things I hate to see on the other side of the table are high toughness multi-wound enemies, mobile units such as bikers and a high concentration of anti-infantry firepower. You have all these things in spades - now it's just putting it all together...

Lootas are the go-to unit for every ork player, either in a large mob or in two medium sized ones, maybe three if they aren't bothered about bringing battlewagons. They can be hard to deal with if deployed correctly, because two squads cover each other and lay down overlapping fields of fire all day long, so trying to get close to them can be a nightmare. The aegis line is just plain nasty though, does this guy not want to be your friend anymore or something?! As others have said, drop behind it and slaughter them. Having looked at your list, I'd want to seriously consider upping the numbers on the Medusae if that's your preferred method of dealing with them. Two will probably get something like eight hits, of which four will wound. I know you have the Venom as well, but having four Medusae means you can drop down on your side of the aegis, toast all the Lootas and then claim a cover save from the rest of his shooting using his own defense line. Nasty You can get the points for that by dropping the blaster on the Archon, the shredder in the warrior squad (because you're paying for racks and that's two less shots to take advantage of them - also, shredders suck) and... something else. Jiggle stuff around a bit.

I can't see what those Trueborn are going to do for you. Five with two dark lances have absolutely no staying power whatsoever, are an easy first blood kill, and won't scare anything. Unless you can give the unit blasters and stick them in a Venom, I wouldn't bother with them. Just buff your existing units rather than trying to run a tiny Dark Eldar unit on foot. I appreciate that you don't have the full range of models to pick from and might be trying to make up the points, but this unit will probably be totally ineffective.

Your Razorwing probably can't deal with the Dakkajet, to be brutally honest. Don't buy into what the Razorwing should be - it is NOT a dogfighter. The Dakkajet is, and is extremely good at it versus similar armoured targets. Unless you can get your plane on second and get shots on him, you are going to lose your plane to his, not the other way round. Don't waste time trying to get skyfire shots off with the Razorwing unless you have no other targets and have already fired all the missiles. If the Razorwing goes down before it's loosed all four missiles, it has failed.

Orks have a big, BIG charge range these days. Monstrously so. On the turn the ork player calls a Waaagh, they can potentially cover 32" (6" vehicle move, 6" disembarkation, 6" run move, 2D6" charge plus 2" for having a boarding plank on the vehicle, re-rolling one charge dice). That's very difficult to stay out of the way of. Your best bet is to try and split his assaulting forces and stay mobile, as massing your firepower is going to depress you when it pours into a green tide that just keeps coming. If he splits his forces, you can then join yours back together and pour fire into one half of his army, then kite the other half and whittle them down. In theory, at least. If anything is going to get assaulted, let it be the Grotesques. They'll get plus D3 attacks each thanks to Rampage, and the orks will be wounding them on 5s. If the Grots can hold in the assault, it will only get easier for them. It might be worth investing in a couple of liquifier guns for this squad, just to thin the mob down slightly. Make sure to disembark them from the Raider if it looks like they might get charged though, it is very easy for ork players to wipe out units from them being unable to perform an emergency disembarkation.

Hope that helps!

Boarding plank adds 2 to the distance up to a max of 12...also, sure the potential for a 30 inch distance is there, but that requires open terrain and three die rolls each getting max. That said, I agree they have good distance, but realistically it's no where near 30.

I fight orks with multiple Razorwing jets fighters for mob clear, venoms for clean, lance for tank bust'n and Talos/grots to tie them up in combat

Fraust wrote:

Boarding plank adds 2 to the distance up to a max of 12

Whoops, thanks for pointing that out!