Waugh Counter

So, of all the units I have faced, orks are the only ones that beat me to something I couldn't counter.

At my game store we have a 6 week tournament going on, I won my match, but a quick battle was done after just for fun, against orks, at 500 pts, my list, was an archon with a blaster and Husk, 5 Trueborn, 2 with Dark Lances, two sets of 5 warriors, each squad has a Kabalite with a Blaster, and 3 Venoms, archon in one, and each set of 5 warriors in their own venoms too, .

The opponents list contained a big squad of gretchin, and 3 big squads of orks, 2 nobs, and a Warboss, Starting out, I got one reserve each turn after 2 started, I was able to lay down great fire and destroy large numbers, but the table was small for a low point game, so they covered lots of distance, then at the end he calls a Waugh, and of course, move 6, Run, and charge all in one go, all of the sudden my Trueborn die, and two venoms with the regular Kabalite get locked by two seperate squads, the archon and his Venom were there at the end, but also we cut the match short because of some people transportation, but in the end it looked as though I would lose, anyone have some nice ways to deal with something like this? I was thinking Wyches, but would rather have a far more brutal melee unit dealing with them head on, considering 20 of them are going to generate 80 hits, but still.

Take as many Venoms as possible, including empty Fast Attack ones. Position yourself in a corner and pick one enemy unit at a time. Concentrate everything on that unit until it's dead. Then re-position and pick another unit. Don't forget that you can move 30" in a turn if you go flat out so lure them into one corner then flat out to the other corner and start shooting again the following turn. You should be able to drag them all over the table, never letting them get within charge range.

I faced a similar problem, just with shooting Orks. His looters were hiding behind am aegis defence line and got a 2+ cover save when he went to ground. Only hitting on 6 next turn but who cares? That's only half as bad as usual. And it's still a ton of dice. The only thing I can think of is wipe them with grotesques or use Phantasm launcher and archangel bomb

Don't ever reserve, and do as Count Adhemar said. If they get too close, stay with your back against the edge of the wall if needed before turboboosting in the last moment.

BUT, they can charge you up to 6+1D6+2D6, and an additional +6 from trukks or battlewagons, so I advice using a sacrificial unit as a screen in order to stop lucky charges. An alternative is using gunboat raiders with splinter-racks, which can stop those charges by killing the first line of orks.

Any transports or bikes are your first targets, blow them on sight.

As a bonus... if you can tailor your list, use soulfright weaponry. Orks don't like that sh... stuff.

I agree with the general sentiment.
Your best friend here is massed firepower. I would make good friends wqith as many Venoms as you can for all those Splinter Cannon shots, but would also highly recommend a good sized units of Medusae. A nice round of template weapons ripping through an Ork mob will quickly cut it down to size.
Do not let them come into combat until you have wittled the mobs down to manageable sizes. I;d be tempted to say take a decent combat unit, and use it to finish off anything small enough to not be a priority shooting target, or to hold off any larger brutes while you deal with the Boyz.

Great advice so far. Just fyi though it's spelled Waaagh.. minimum 3 'a's to be considered a respectable one too.

Back in track though dont reserve anything. In fact it's generally a bad strategy for us against anyone and more so against armies like orks. I just lost a game to them yesterday btw.

You may want to consider going second, IF he hasn't rolled d3 infiltrate off the finkin kap and you win the roll. The reason is simply to counter his deployment and castle yours. If your opponent isn't skilled and sometimes if they are you can really throw a wrench by forcing him to deploy first with an assault list like what he has. Then do as stated, wreck the fast stuff and close stuff then redeploy if possible leaving a speed bump if necessary. I prefer skimmers for this since they don't get a consolidate after assaulting. I put 34 wounds on a full mob with a razorwing following up basically that same tactic.. but they were 'ard with fnp and shrugged 26 of them lol. Wasn't expecting that.

Anyway I'd also try to control his movement with objectives. Place them high if ruins are present and spread out. Make him choose between scoring and killing.

That's all assuming your list from above. You can do ok against a softened target in assault with the right tools but don't bank on it. Taking armour if misery + gruesome spectacle can be great too btw due to fear. Honestly though I find orks to be challenging when they're dice are on point. They are unorthodox but have great volume and combat combined.

Well in this situation, I was a little too late, they closed half the field in almost a single movement to run to charge, my guys were caught. I just wonder, like I have a Voidraven, I can think that a Void Mine would devestate them if it landed in there, but that'd only help after.

I wonder though, if I were to have a squad of 3 Grotesques, I have never used them so I don't know what to think, and was to be slammed by a mob of 30 orks, how would the grotesque fair? The way orks are from what I see is powerclaws and such, thats how they devastate high initiative units, is because they have twice the toughness and after their step, twice the strength, I know the grotesque have weak armor, but high enough toughness that they can shrug most attacks before they get through, but apart from that, I would hate to have units meant for a meatshield. :s

Grotesques work wonder against the normal boyz- just stay away from S10. They slaughter Boyz , numbers though...what I did not try out but probably would work is a razorwing/voidraven with missiles...

A bomber with missiles is great for one unit of Lootas. Our local Ork player usually takes three squads though... I've found them to be the highest priority regardless of what other models are on the table. Grotesques have been great on paper, but they're usually my opponents highest priority and a second squad is probably needed.

A lot depends on how the mob is built. Pk nob and bare boyz gets sorted pretty easily. A fully tooled mob with nob, pain boy, mek and maybe even a warboss is solid. Add eavy for 4+/fnp and it becomes near deathstar status against us.

Grots are very solid against horde, great on the assault and much, much worse if they get assaulted. Be careful with raider placement our you'll find a waaagh puts them in range to surround your rides and auto kill the contents.

Razorwings are also excellent against hordes in general. But again if he starts running eavy armour then both these units have a much harder time dealing with them.

Hmm. well thats why I was wondering, if the Grotesques could hold the line well enough, before I could throw some Incubi into the assault and back them up, I'd figure Heavy and strong with a mix of high ap and speed, would be great, but thats good to know with the vehicles, I forgot they can assault with them.

They can. A charge from a fully tooled grot squad + SF archon will sort you're typical mob out once they've been softened up and they are very durable to return attacks too not to mention fear will cause a few casualties. Incubi can work but their damage output isn't as high as you'd think and is unreliable with fnp so outside of combo charging I wouldn't commit them. Even then they need to ensure crippling damage or your just giving the mob something to hurt.

Incubi don't seem to deal well with orks. Even MegaNobz :-(

Hmmm alright, well i suppose I'll need to get my hands on some grotesques then.

There are many different ways to substitute grotesques.

I'm sure, I just hate the thought of having a unit there entirely just to die, I try and go under the thought of a brutal army that has a bite back for anything, what else is able to suit some grotesques in terms of survivability and strength?

The next closest in terms of durability and strength would be sslyth court which can be decent but thats before you consider rampage, poison/ID, agonizer/rending, PFP and possibly even latest experiments and gruesome spectacle..

Beast packs would be next in line with superior movement but no FNP or other bennies and then theres the movement disparity with joined ICs.

Of course if your not looking for something to join an IC to theres always taloi but they are so slow. Maybe consider artisan or corpsethief.

Shoot the melee units, charge the shooting ones.

Unless you use the coven formations, of course.

Apart from coven units (or you are the one fool still using beasts), the dark eldar army is not well suited against the greenskin hordes in combat, or at least is not what they do best. Against nobs and meganobs? Hell yeah, Incubi and even wyches can do their stuff... but mingling with the boyz means attrition: with T4 they are not choppy enough, and with their numbers and combat prowess they'll wreck through your T3. Just shoot them and repeat.

If you like combat, then why not...
Grotesques: 2 units of 4 in raider joined by your IC of choice. Add armour of misery and Freakish spectacle rule. Charge each one into a mob, use challenges to cancel the mob rule and use the -Ld bonus to effectively erase them.

Court of the archon: sslyth are shooty and defensive if they are the majority type in the unit, also they'll do the job once in combat thanks to S5 and their attacks. Lhameans (yes, lhameans) are cheap and wound better than sslyth. Problem is to fit them in. And: 6s to wound ignore FnP and insta-kill those nobs (no AP, sadly). Urghuls (maybe) No, because at turns 2+, Lhamean are even better and cheaper as cannon fodder against ork mobs (and lots o' boyz overwatch like unicorns with diarrhea: disgustingly good). Medusae: overwatch, no cover, period.

Screening Court unit: 5xSslyth, 4xMedusae, Archon (Shadow Field, Huskblade, Soul Trap), Raider with NSs and splinter racks. Let them charge you...

Charging Court unit: 5xSslyth, 4xLhamean, Archon (same), Raider (NSs?)

That is another good point.. I have been wanting a court of the Archon, although its just iffy considering that finding those units on ebay unpainted for a decent price is quite rare. But that is something else to look into.. Sslyth and Grotesques.

Count-as sslyth: tyranid raveners (old minis also), converted lizardmen.
Count-as lhameans: wyches
Count-as medusae: kabalites with little conversion, old metal grotesques

just some ideas...