Need advice on nob warbikers

Hi all,
hoping I can get a bit of advice here, played against Orks for the first time last night, 2000pts and though we didn't finish the game, I was having real difficulty with a unit of nob warbikers and warboss on bike, I barely made a dent in them over three turns despite shooting them with dissies, splinter cannons and then charging them with both my archon (venom blade), succubus (hydra gauntlets), wyches and 4 incubi. Managed a total of three wounds on them in three turns. I'm not intimately acquainted with the ork codex, and my opponent seemed to be taking three saves every time, a 4+ cover save from the dirst cloud the bikes generate, 5+ for cybork bodies and then 5+ feel no pain, does this sound right? By my maths, that means he's saving 14 out of every 18 wounds he takes?

If it is right, anyone have any suggestions for dealing with them (besides being on the other side of the table...)

On the plus side, i did manage to explode one of his battlewagons on turn 1, which upset him greatly!

I'm not sure about the Ork codex but hree saves doesn't right at all, yes he can have a 4+ cover save then a feel no pain role but I don't think the cybork bodies would give a third save. I could be wrong though but I haven't heard of three save roles on Ork units and I'm sure more people would run them if that was the case and they would be everywhere by now.

Nope - wrong. He either takes the armour 4+, the cover 4+ or the cybork 5+ then the FNP as applicable.

They essentially die just like everyone else to poison. With our speed, he should not be able to stack to much on the war boss and even if he does, he is just a nob with 1 more wound.

1 venom still nets an average elf 4 wounds on the unit... Which should end up being 1 unsaved...

Things like this really annoy me. The rulebook is absolutely crystal clear, and has been for many years now, that you only get to make one save. How people somehow "misunderstand" that is completely beyond me and I'm always deeply suspicious of such people.

that was my understanding too, but not knowing the wording of the cybork rule i didn't want to kick off an argument. From what I can gather he's mainly a fantasy player, does anyone know if those rules allow that type of thing (if that's the case, I could understand the mistake more)

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

that was my understanding too, but not knowing the wording of the cybork rule i didn't want to kick off an argument. From what I can gather he's mainly a fantasy player, does anyone know if those rules allow that type of thing (if that's the case, I could understand the mistake more)

No idea. Not played Fantasy since 2nd edition

Fantasy allows you to take a armour save and a ward save (invulnerable) one after the other, so that's probably the reason he was doing it.

I thought it was either or in fantasy? Just like 40K... hmmm... not played that in some time though

You have been able to roll both at least since 6th edition Fantasy (the earliest I played). Though in 8th edition you can no longer take regeneration rolls(FNP) and ward saves its one or the other (that was a big change).

I remember 1st edition 40K where saves stacked. You could have flak (6+), PA (4+) and a Displacer Field (3+) all combined for a single save of -1. Of course you also had save modifiers of up to -6 which kind of knocked that back down again.

40k its either your Armor, Invul, or Cover save, whichever is better, and then FNP

Fantasy it is Armor, and then either a Ward (invul) or Regeneration (FNP)

But fantasy also has armor modification (you get -1 to your armor save for every point of strength the attack is over 3)

Thanks for the help guys, so I presume cyborg body just gives them an invulnerable save?

Yes it gives them a 5+ invulnerable.

I think you got the answer on the whole saves thing. Ultimately there was 1 save too many.

Having said that truly your best option is mass splinter. Venoms are an efficient means of doing this.

If you really want to try and tarpit them (it'll take a lot to kill them off with close combat) I would recommend Wyches with Shardnets and Impalers.


If you take a couple and spread them around or even double up on the claws, a couple of those nets will slow down the number of attacks he can make back. This is something I only recommend as a speed bump of sorts.

My empire general had a rerollable 0+ armour and a 4+ ward
In early second edition, eldar could have a 4+ armour and TWO 4+ wards

My most memorable game against Orks was late 5th edition. I was running a Haemonculus with Shattershard and 8 Wyches with Hekatrix. They zoomed up in their Raider first turn, jumped out the next with the Haemonculus right in front of them.

Shattered the Warboss and 3 Nobs in one shot.

Wyches slowly killed the rest over the new few turns.

Sky Serpent wrote:

Shattered the Warboss and 3 Nobs in one shot.

Brilliant! I always wondered if anyone had any good shattershard anecdotes. Never had a juicy enough target the times i've used it.

Regarding other ways to deal with Nob bikers, an Archon tooled up with huskblade & the works with grotesques. Hit them with a liquifier if you have it, then charge in. Archon challenges and kills warboss with instant death, aberation with flesh gauntlet lays into the nobs also with instant death. Assuming a good 1st round, the following are made easier with an Archon at strength 6 waving a huskblade about the place. Still might take a while though!

Best I managed with the shard was 4 paladins in 1 go (karamazov and draigo passed)

I've used it to wipe out a jetbike Farseer and most of his retinue (atleast in 5th, toughness and strenght tests are done with the base value).