# How to gear da Boyz and my mortal enemies



## Mr. Black Orc (Feb 9, 2013)

Hello heresy-online. I'm a an OnG player and would like to hear this forums advice.

I have at the moment two rival enemies. One that plays High Elfs (dat stinks funny) and the other one is a Skaven player. The High elf doesn't have any unit that is more than 15+ right now, so he's not going horde. Yet. The skaven has lots of clanrats, rat ogres, stormvermin, artillery and an abomination. But no slaves (pwheww). I have lots of orc boyz, night goblins, boar boyz, black orcs, giant and an arach spider. Anyway to the point. I just recently bought myself two new boxes of Vanilla Orc Boyz (that makes 20), but I have no idea what weapons I should give them @@. I'm well concerned that hitting first is out of the question, so is shields the vital choice? Do any of you veterans have some good advice against these armies I'm fighting?

EDIT: Is a level 4 goblin great shaman on arach spider with spidershrine worth it? Or should I just take another warboss or great shaman on foot? Orc or goblin great shaman?


Sincerely, Mr. Black Orc


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Well I took orcs with shields to a tourny last year and they did very well... but I was only doing it to prove to myself that they are still usable. Additional Hand Weapons are far and away the better alternative: you just need to make sure your units are big enough to take the hits and still hit back.


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## Mr. Black Orc (Feb 9, 2013)

Is 20 boyz with AHW and a Savage orc big boss in the unit a good idea?


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

If you are going to take a savage orc in the unit make it a unit of savages: if you are going to have the downside of frenzy anyway you might as well have the extra attacks).

I would probably view 30 as the minimum unit size... although personally I rarely go below 35. 20 is a bit small for a combat unit of any type unless you know you'll hit hard and hit first (such as high elves), but with low initiative units (or with great weapons) its worth taking much bigger units.


As for the goblin great shaman... its really up to you. Characters on monsters are not a particularly strong combination as cannons (or other template based artillery/magic) hit both, meaning one or 2 cannon hits and both the character and monster are normally dead (often the character won't survive 1 hit without the lookout sir he would get in a unit). Secondly mages on monsters are even worse off since you can't put the monster into combat without everyone in base contact being able to attack the mage (who is unlikely to have better then 6+ armour with 4++ ward maximum).
I think a spidershrine with a couple of cheap lv1s running alongside for extra channelling could be a very fun idea but I think it might button-hole you into using the spider as a support unit to buff magic rather then a the combat monster it really is.

I think it would be much more effective to have the spider on its own with a lv4 great shaman hidden away in a unit of infantry somewhere. Personally I would go for a night goblin lv4 so long as you have a backup mage or 2 to take over if his mushrooms prove to be too much for him (my personal combo of choice is lv4 night goblin with lv3 orc and possibly 1-2 lv1 night goblins with sneaky stabbin' attached to combat blocks)


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## Mr. Black Orc (Feb 9, 2013)

Ty very much! I almost was pretty sure to glue the shaman on the arachna :X. The shaman would otherwise make too good target practise for my rivals repeater bolt throwers and warp-lightning cannon.
Your answer is really appreciated and yh I should probably make my squads bigger than 20 with a normal orc big boss, or I could perhaps get me some SO? :3
May gork and mork be with you.

Mr. Black Orc


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Savage orcs are fantastic: make them big unz and they'll rip through almost anything.
Something I've been seeing more and more is the hoard of 30-40 savage orcs with black orc BSB and lucky shrunken head savage shaman: its an incredibly nasty unit that is reliable, tough and will kill almost anything
... that said I'm not really a fan of it. Its a lot of points and you still can get played if people can through chaff at you and force you to overrun in poor directions (I beat a unit of 30 savage big unz with shrunken head shaman and savage warboss by doing exactly that: got my unit of big un orcs with shields out the way and then had a solo troll sacrifice himself at an angle to give me an easy rear charge with my orcs- although flank would have been better- I needed itchy nuisance to lower the enemy initiative below mine so I could win).

I have my own unit of 30 savage orcs and I still make them big unz but I don't bother with any characters. I keep the unit cheap and throw it straight at the enemy. It takes a lot of beating and while the opponent is doing that I have a lot of other stuff in my army to take advantage (I'm especially fond of pump wagons and squig herds, though I may fork out for an arachnarok at some point).


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## Mr. Black Orc (Feb 9, 2013)

They sound to be really useful so I probably have to make a change in my army list.

Sincerely Mr. Black Orc


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

If you do get savages its a good idea to pin their hands onto the bodies as you put them together.... for some reason that no-one I know has quite figured out yet the hands are forever falling off, despite having quite large glue areas. I can't be bothered to rip all the hands off my savages and then pin all the joints at one time so I'm waiting for them to fall off and then pinning them back on. Every time I take them out the case there's another 1-2 to pin back on...


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