# Kustom Force Field, worth it?



## Culler (Dec 27, 2007)

The Orks can take a Big Mek as an HQ choice that has a Kustom Force Field which will give all friendly units with a model within 6" a 5+ invulnerable save vs. shooting. If you get clever with your deployment you can have 3 boyz mobs getting this benefit at once, at the cost of having pretty much all your troops in one area of the board and probably making more difficult terrain rolls than you'd like. On the plus side, you'll lose about 1/3 fewer boyz from shooting. The big cost though, is that you've got an 85-point character that can neither take hits nor dish them out. The best configuration would be to give him either a shoota/skorcha kombi-weapon or a burna and then you've got a little more shooting power. However, once the boyz get to assault, this big mek's not got a lot of use. With his T4, 2 wounds, and at best a 4+/5++ save, there's a good chance he won't live long enough to use a powerklaw and even if he uses the burna for a power weapon he's still likely to get stomped flat even by non-assault troops. Against some dedicated assaulters he's definitely a goner. In assault, you'd only be giving your opponent a bunch of VPs.

In order to for the KFF to buy itself back, it needs to prevent 15 or so boyz from dying. That's 45 wounds directed at the boyz. Is that likely to happen in a 1500 point game? If you invested his points in more boyz, you'd be getting about another 10 boyz with a big shoota and nob who has a powerklaw/bosspole. 4 warbikers is another option. If you can find 50 points somewhere, you could even use his HQ slot to take a biker warboss, which are crazy good.

Anyhoo, it's something I'm debating on taking to protect my 2 footslogging shoota boy squads, but it's a lot of points to spend on what amounts to a defensive upgrade for 2 mobs. (cybork bodies would cost 300 points for pretty much the same effect)


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

dont forget that the mek gives you the option of taking an extra dread and the force field can be used to protect vehicles (count as hull down) as well as troops which would take the cost of taking it easier to get back giving the ork vehicles the same effect as the eldar shields has got to be a good thing


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## Mad King George (Jan 15, 2008)

ditto for guy above if i had read the codex


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## Culler (Dec 27, 2007)

neilbatte said:


> dont forget that the mek gives you the option of taking an extra dread and the force field can be used to protect vehicles (count as hull down) as well as troops which would take the cost of taking it easier to get back giving the ork vehicles the same effect as the eldar shields has got to be a good thing


Hmm, that's a good point. Well, if I ever start including ork vehicles I'll give it a try. For 2 mobs of shoota boys it's not really worth it. For 2 mobs of shoota boys and a deff dread or some kans? That's probably worthwhile.


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## DRVERRET (Jan 10, 2008)

couldn't you use the big mec with the shock attack gun and field force, and then leave him in a good spot with some loota.


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## Culler (Dec 27, 2007)

DRVERRET said:


> couldn't you use the big mec with the shock attack gun and field force, and then leave him in a good spot with some loota.


Nah, you have to trade your slugga for each of them. Otherwise I'd be all over that.


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## Andrew Luke (Jan 28, 2008)

Just play against me. I am not a rules-lawyer and wouldn't catch that, and I think it would be fun and fluffy at the same time!


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## morfangdakka (Dec 31, 2006)

I would rather have the shokk attack gun than the KFF. I have tried 3 times to use the big mek KFF with my footsloogers and I swear the big mek forgets to turn that thing on. I never seem to make back the points that I invest in getting the Mek with the KFF. 

Terrain is also a problem as trying to keep 50+ boyz around the mek and get them into shooting range. This many orks group together will draw a lot fire power so you could lose a big chunk of your army if several rolls are failed. The big mek will also draw sniper or assassin fire because if he dies the save is gone and you now have 3 mobs close to each other that can be pie plated to death. 

I don't use KFF's for this reason I have just gone with swamping them with boyz. I would say try out the KFF in a game or two. I know several players that won't leave home with the KFF and swear by them. For me it was 3 complete wipe outs by turn 4 with the mek and KFF that it wasn't for me.


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

ive seen the kff used to protect looters and flash gits to good effect as they can throw enough firepower that even one round of shooting what im trying to say is if you use it to protect smaller more elite units it can make its points but not to protect big mobs as it leaves them vunerable to templates


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## Sheshonk (Jan 8, 2008)

As a fledgling Ork player I would love to know why you decided not to use vehicles.


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## Culler (Dec 27, 2007)

Sheshonk said:


> As a fledgling Ork player I would love to know why you decided not to use vehicles.


Ork vehicles are highly vulnerable to shooting. Even with the ramshackle rules for trukks they just aren't worth it IMO, because if they get a penetrating hit (very easy to do) that doesn't destroy them, all your boys pile out and on average 5 out of the 12 that were riding in it die. Even some of the ramshackle table will result in enough deaths to make your squad useless as well. 12 Boyz is also really too small a number to really hit your opponent. Against basic CSMs they will probably lose the cc terribly. SM/CSM rhinos can transport 150 points worth of basic troops for similar cost as a trukk that can transport 72 points of basic troops.

So I dislike trukks. For my quick element I like kommandos (especially with snikrot), stormboyz, and warbikers (recently got rid of the warbikers in favor of the stormboyz. We'll see how that plays out. Warbikers are tougher after factoring in cost but when they assault into cover 1 in 6 die due to dt tests.)

The orks do have access to some armor 14 transports, the battlewagon. If you like meganobz those are a must. However, taking 1 of those as your only vehicle is bad as it will get shot to hell because it's the only armor target your opponent has. Taking 3 is a viable option especially with deff rollas and things of that nature. They can also transport 20 boyz, which is enough to be an effective mob. If they're all shoota boyz (except the nob), you can move the transport 13" with red paint and then have them all fire - 34 shoota shots, 6 big shoota shots, and 1 slugga shot. You can also disembark after moving that far, shoot all that stuff, and then charge. Sexy. It is expensive, however, and vulnerable to good anti-tank weaponry.

If you wanted to do a mechanized ork force, go all the way because you need to have more vehicles than your opponent has shots. You've gotta figure on them being able to take out 3 or 4 trukks in one round of shooting at the 1500 pt. level. They're probably only going to get one round, but that's a lot of dead trukks. Some opponents may not be able to kill that many but you have to plan for the worst. So you'd need at least 8 trukks full of boyz (so enough survive that you can throw 2 boyz mobs into each MEQ squad or 1 into each IG/tau squad), and some battlewagons probably with meganobz, nobz, or lots of shootas. Hopefully some of the battlewagons will make it to enemy lines and then start tank shocking for 1d6 str 10 hits on squads that teh boyz haven't gotten to yet. Kans are really better in a footslogging ork force, but since footslogging ork forces don't have vehicles or many vehicles, they just die on turn 1. The only problem with a mechanized ork force compared to a footslogging horde is that you face problems when you get to an enemy that wants to assault you or that is mobile like eldar. The speed advantage gained by the trukks goes to waste and you're left with small mobs of boyz that are more easily taken apart than a giant mob of 30. Not to say you couldn't win that game as well, it would just be harder.

EDIT - Forgot to add that escalation will rape you sideways in a mechanized ork force.


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## shortgoth (Feb 5, 2008)

The usefulness of the KFF really depends on your army make-up and what sort of tables you're playing in.

If you're planning on running a 120+ model horde then yes, giving that 5+ save even when out in the open is attractive.

Or if you're planning on taking 3 squads of Lootas then the KFF is the ideal way to get them a reasonably-viable save without having to put them into cover (thereby potentially limiting their LoS).

However.

It's only a cover save. So flamers/heavy flamers/all CC attacks completely ignore it.

It's only 5+, so it won't be anywhere near as effective as sticking them into some ruined buildings/similar terrain.

The Big Mek himself is easily killed. He's an IC so can be (and will be) singled out in combat, and with the number of infiltrators/jump infantry/mind-warring Eldar/etc around it's not hard to get into combat with him or kill him through other means.

Finally, the KFF goes completely to waste if the board is densely terrained since you'll be getting 5+ or better cover saves anyway .

As long as you keep the above in mind, the KFF is a useable choice. But I wouldn't recommend you base your entire army around it since it's too easily negated.

As for the other topic this thread branched out into, Cullen is right - you only usually run a mechanised force if you're putting 8+ vehicles on the table when it comes to Orks. Minimum of 4 trukks (preferably more), a battlewagon, a pair of dreads, and a few Kans will give you sufficient targets that something will survive the first few turns of shooting, but if you only include 2 or 3 trukks/dreads, they'll get blown off the table in turn 1 or 2.

The only other way around the fragility of Trukks is to take a pair of biker Warbosses and a unit of 6 Biker Nobz (with cybork bodies). Although they aren't vehicle units, they absorb a massive amount of enemy firepower because they're so incredibly deadly. Just today this combination soaked up most of the firepower of an IG army (2 LRs, 1 Hellhound, multiple las/plas squads, 2 chimmies, 3 Sentinels) for 2 turns, made it into combat, killed 400+pts worth of Guard (including an Eversor Assassin), and most importantly allowed 2 trukk units and a stormboy unit to make it into combat since my opponent just ignored them to concentrate on the bigger threat.

Specifically regarding Trukkboys, you absolutely must have 2 units now rather than 1. Furious charge does not in any way make up for the lack of I4 and Choppas when it comes to trukk boys. The fact that your boys are now only I3 on the charge means they will always take casualties before they even get to swing vs MEqs, and every dead boy is 4 less attacks. And that's before you even go into the 33% less casualties caused by no longer having choppas.


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## Culler (Dec 27, 2007)

Could you park a big mek in a battlewagon to give his KFF benefit to nearby vehicles etc? That could be damn cool for a mechanized army.


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## shortgoth (Feb 5, 2008)

That was a standard tactic with the old KoS, still legal in this one - although obviously as it's not his dedicated transport it doesn't work too well in Escalation.


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## Hespithe (Dec 26, 2006)

I saw twin KFFs in action a few weeks ago, and I was impressed. The guy was rolling fairly average with his dice, but still I had to expend the firepower of my army for a full turn longer than would have been needed if the KFFs had not been there. Lots of Kans and Dreads benefited from the KFF radius as well. A very cool piece of kit.


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## angrath (Feb 11, 2008)

The KFF is amazing I would be one of those people that doesn't leave home with out it, because I have had quite a different experience. I have always been able to make my points back and had some great experiences with it. Especially when you roll with 120 orks. In the old rules I use to be able to cover all 6 full sqauds with multiple force fields it was great. plus they use to be a lot cheaper. by the way the KFF is a cover save only availabe with shots farther then 6". cyborg body is an invo save so it is much better.


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## purepolarpanzer (Jan 8, 2008)

KFF is boss. 5+ save, while not great, means 1/3 of your orks don't die. Put him in a squad, in the middle, and all you worry about is Assassins and Mind War. If the Assassin shoots, you lose him, but who plays assassins? If you get mind warred, then that is one dead Eldar (either way. It's a total 50/50, as you use LD 10 for the test, just like the far seer. Half the time you'll shrug it off and laugh.) If your KFF goes down, you just pull back if your shootin and charge if your not.

My favorite tactic and really the best I've found so far is shoota boyz +lootaz+ KFF. The lootahs poind enemy lines, while the shoota boyz can sit back. If the enemy wants to do serious damage, they need to get around your cover save. Flamers? You charge them before they get range, or blow them to pieces. CC? Against ork? Are they insane? YOU get the charge, YOU have the power klaw, YOU have 60 boyz. They lose. IF they don't come at you, laugh as your lootahs wipe the board of big units while they snipe 18-30 pts of ork a round.

On a side note, ork vehicles kinda suck. Low armor, even on the battle wagon, and all open topped if it's worth anything. Warpheads make better transports, and they can do 30 boyz (or a bunch of meg nobz!) in one 5, along with a bunch of other sweet crap. They actually bust tanks better than most ork tanks with the Zzap. Ork armor is really just sub par, especially with so many friggin infantry options from hell floating around.


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## Culler (Dec 27, 2007)

The thing is, the KFF is only good for protective infantry if you were going to lose 45 orks to shooting (it saves 1/3 of them, 15x6 = 90 which is roughly the big mek's cost w/KFF). Otherwise it fails to pay for itself. When I run my footslogging orks, I've never lost that many to shooting from the mobs that the KFF could protect. The stormboyz take a beating and I may lose one of my big mobs, but for the KFF to be really worthwhile I have to take enough wounds to lose both mobs. It's basically a choice of KFF or SAG for me and the SAG is more effective, occupies a niche for killing MEQs and TEQs, and adds an often hilarious element to the games. So I'm sticking with the SAG for the lulz (and I'd never drop my beloved biking warboss)


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## shortgoth (Feb 5, 2008)

purepolarpanzer said:


> KFF is boss. 5+ save, while not great, means 1/3 of your orks don't die. Put him in a squad, in the middle, and all you worry about is Assassins and Mind War.


culler already did the math about how many boys need to be saved for just 1 KFF. With 2, obviously you need to save twice that many boyz. You generally won't take that many cover saves before you hit the enemy lines .

Apart from that: Mind War and Assassins are not the only things that can take out the Big Mek. Any ordnance whatsoever, infiltrators, anything with jump-packs/fast transports/deep strike capability. In short, roughly 1/4 the stuff you see fielded against you can take out the KFF-wielding Mek .



purepolarpanzer said:


> If the Assassin shoots, you lose him, but who plays assassins?


Anyone playing Inquisition will usually have an assassin (unles they're playing pure GK/pure SoB), and many IG and Marine commanders have taken to using them too.



purepolarpanzer said:


> If you get mind warred, then that is one dead Eldar (either way. It's a total 50/50, as you use LD 10 for the test, just like the far seer. Half the time you'll shrug it off and laugh.) If your KFF goes down, you just pull back if your shootin and charge if your not.


A dead Eldar from what exactly? You probably will be able to charge a seer council if they've mind warred you, but actually killing them is something else entirely. They all strike before you do, they wound your Orks on 2s, and they have 4+ re-rollable inv saves to deflect whatever attacks you manage to get in.

As for shooting them, forget about it - I've seen Seer councils stand up to *vastly* more firepower than an Ork horde can put out .

Not to mention that if your Mek gets mindwarred, the units you were hoping to shoot/assault with are likely to be shot up by the rest of the Eldar army .



purepolarpanzer said:


> Flamers? You charge them before they get range, or blow them to pieces.


Anything with a transport + flamers. Anything with jump-packs+flamers. Ever heard of a Hellhound? Very nasty tank vs Orks.

And none of those units will be shot or charged as they're easily hidden until the time is right. Not to mention they could easily take out the Mek as well as stripping away the cover save.



purepolarpanzer said:


> CC? Against ork? Are they insane? YOU get the charge, YOU have the power klaw, YOU have 60 boyz.


You don't get the charge vs anything with jump-packs. You don't get the charge vs anything with fast transports. You don't, in short, ever get a charge with infantry apart from vs other infantry. And you certainly don't have 60 Boyz when your opponent comes into flamer/assault range, ignores your cover save, and assault you.

BTW, Boyz are not that good in assault. Shitload of attacks yes, but a *good* CC unit will wipe out the entire killzone if you have your models spread out, or most of the boyz in the killzone if you have them tightly packed. At the end of the day, they're still I2 models with paper maché armour.



purepolarpanzer said:


> They lose. IF they don't come at you, laugh as your lootahs wipe the board of big units while they snipe 18-30 pts of ork a round.


Except that Lootas don't have the range to cover the entire board, can't guarantee hitting a damn thing (rolling 1 shot each at BS2 is nothing to shout about), have crap AP, and of course enemy units are often hidden or at the very least in cover.



purepolarpanzer said:


> Warpheads make better transports, and they can do 30 boyz


'Ere we go? 

Now I'm *certain* you're just talking theory rather than actually having tried this.

Deepstriking *31* models? Even with a "hit" on the scatter that unit has a massive footprint to try to squeeze in without losing any models. If they scatter at all, you lose a *lot* of boyz due to the deep striking rules.

Simply Put - A BM w/KFF *can* be a nice addition to the army.

But they have a lot of limitations, a few counters, and to get the *maximum* use out of Orks you do *not* want to go for the pure horde approach. You need Stormboyz/Kommandos/Bikes to take out/tie up key enemy units, otherwise your entire horde will just get picked apart piecemeal.

Big units=big footprints. Big footprints means that small, elite armies can concentrate their force vs small parts of your force and the boys are in the way of each other and cannot fully support each other. Stormboyz, Kommandos, Nob Bikers, Warbosses on Bike, can mitigate this. but it will take away some of those massive numbers.

In all honesty, I can only assume that all the people reporting "big wins" from shooty horde ork armies purely based on shoota mobs/lootas are playing on planet bowling ball vs static armies. 

LoS resitrictions, range restrictions, having to move through difficult terrain, and the fact that you simply cannot bring that number of guns to bear on any 1 unit due to Horde unit footprints makes it incredibyl difficult to actually get mass numbers of shots vs mobile armies on well-terrained boards.

Now if people claimed lots of wins by using a few shoota mobs and fast support from stormboyz/kommandos/bike Bosses, I'd believe it. But 150+ Boys with shootas, a KFF, a Warphead, and a loota squad or two is simply not an effective army on a properly terrained board against a good army/good player. As I may have mentioned, I've been having fun using the new Ork codex, but the "shooty horde" just isn't all that good IMO.
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In 5th Ed (according the the leaked PDF and rumours), the CC horde becomes much more viable. 

No need for the KFF since screening will buy your boys a 4+ cover save anyway for the cost of a Grot unit.

The "run" rule will allow you to close the gap faster. 

Killzones are removed, making the Ork's I2 a bit of a non-issue. 

At that point, a mass of footsloggers (supported by Stormboys) will start making a *large* impact on games rather than just shuffling 6" per turn and getting shot to pieces.

Right now, however, as much as I love the idea of 150+ Orks marching towards the enemy, it just doesn't work too well. The Horde is too vulnerable to fast, hard hitting armies that can take you apart piecemeal.


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## Culler (Dec 27, 2007)

Yeah, I'd never leave home without my stormboyz and kommandos. The slow shooty mob just isn't a good idea without fast movers to crash a flank and put your enemy between a rock and a hard place. However, the slow shooty mob makes a fantastic anvil for my stormboy/warbiker + warboss hammer (with kommandos coming in as needed in crisis spots.)

I'd also agree that a seer council is pretty easily toasted by shoota boyz. A full shoota boy mob is throwing almost 20 wounds at the seer council. Even rerolling the 4+ invuln with fortune that results in about 4 dead warlocks.

Also, the KFF mek is usually joined to one of the boyz squads, making blasts and templates used against it only affect the squad as a whole.


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## purepolarpanzer (Jan 8, 2008)

Culler said:


> Yeah, I'd never leave home without my stormboyz and kommandos. The slow shooty mob just isn't a good idea without fast movers to crash a flank and put your enemy between a rock and a hard place. However, the slow shooty mob makes a fantastic anvil for my stormboy/warbiker + warboss hammer (with kommandos coming in as needed in crisis spots.)
> 
> I'd also agree that a seer council is pretty easily toasted by shoota boyz. A full shoota boy mob is throwing almost 20 wounds at the seer council. Even rerolling the 4+ invuln with fortune that results in about 4 dead warlocks.
> 
> Also, the KFF mek is usually joined to one of the boyz squads, making blasts and templates used against it only affect the squad as a whole.


Everything he said, plus you being kinda silly. I didn't say to NOT use stormboyz, which, hmmm, give you the charge, power claw, and maybe not 60, but alot more boyz than any other unit out there except gaunts, and they suck.

I have yet to see any close combat unit beat even my shoota boyz. Your talking about a 30 person unit, ws 4 t 4. You need to kill 19 just to give the possibility of them running, and meanwhile your catching between 50 and 80 attacks per round. The sheer number of wounds you make makes any unit short of genesealer HOARDS useless. and at 20 pts a model, you still lose out while you kill 6 pts orks.

Lootahs can't see the whole board, but anything that doesn't want to get shot by them has to hide all game or die. They DO see most of the board, and most particularly they see any tank not hiding. Put them on a hill and you can snipe anything on about 1/3 the board. 1 shot each at bs 2 is not good, but 3 is awesome, and the average of 2 is still great. That's like having 15 predators firing at one time. I hear that kills alot, and it's the best anti- Eldar skimmer weapon I've seen.

As far as the jump infantry/tranport idead, it's laughable What transport makes it across the board to actually get to the orks? Falcon Gravs. What is effective against orks when it piles out? Dire Avengers. Bladestorm kills alot of orks... but not enough when 1/3 of them are in 5+ cover. :mrgreen: Short of ten man space marine jump assault units or deepstriking units, no flamer is going to make it across the board to hit your guys. And better yet, I havn't seen a flamer heavy army in a long time. We definately will be seeing them, but this is BECAUSE orks are so good and defy all the accepted anti-MEQ tactics of the game.

I always use a KFF Mek and a Shok Mek. Shoks are high priority targets, and they have just as much potential to be a waste of points as they do a game winner. True, on average they kick ass, but that's why I use one. KFF may not earn it's points back from protecting boyz, but the question to ask is do the boyz earn its points back and their own when, because only 1/3 of shooting wounds were kills and so many cross the board, they smash through a marine squad or two.


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## Culler (Dec 27, 2007)

Don't worry pure, I was never under the assumption that you were running without quick troops. I've seen your army list and seen you play it. I've also seen one of your 30-man shoota boy mobs go down in 1 turn to dire avengers bladestorming w/doom out of a wave serpent despite a KFF.

Personally I prefer one Mek or the other, though that really more comes down to personal preference. I feel that my warboss is needed to supplement my quick element and I also am loathe to part with him for the fact that I'll have nothing that can stop armor 14 vehicles except my footslogging nobs (who aren't likely to have the privilege of meleeing an armored foe unless the tank comes to them) and my 3 kannons (who glance on a 6 and have a 4+ to hit...netting a total 24% chance to get a glancing hit with all 3 of them firing)


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## shortgoth (Feb 5, 2008)

purepolarpanzer said:


> I have yet to see any close combat unit beat even my shoota boyz. Your talking about a 30 person unit, ws 4 t 4. You need to kill 19 just to give the possibility of them running, and meanwhile your catching between 50 and 80 attacks per round.


I'll make this my final post on the topic since I don't want to belabour a point, but how on earth are you getting 50-80 attacks per round from shoota boys?

They have 2 attacks each. With a shoota they don't get a bonus for 2CCWs. So that's a *maximum* of 60 attacks (+2 for the nob if you bought one). 

And that's at a full squad. If you get 2 flamer templates on the boys, that's at least 10 Boys down - not including any other shooting.

So 20 boys, 40 attacks - *if* they're all engaged. However, at I2 anything that charges them is going to clear out *at least* 6 boys on the charge (serious CC units often kill more than that).

So that's 14 Boys - at the most - left in the unit. 

How many of those will still be engaged after you've removed the casualties? Even if the mob started all in b-t-b (bad idea with template weapons on the board), they'll have been thinned out by flamer+CC casualty removal

Say you've still got 5 boys engaged? 8 even maybe? That's a far, far cry from 50-80 attacks "per round". And S3, I2 attacks at that.

Granted, the counter-charge can be nasty. But if you're running multiple units of 30xboys, at least 2 of those squads are going to be hit in such a fashion - and given the amount of space massive mobs take up, you'll be quite lucky to get other mobs of 30 across the board to enter the CC (esp with difficult terrain in play etc).

It's all pure theoryhammer of course, in the real world everything depends on the battle itself, unit positioning, terrain, and so on - but proper CC units have nothing to fear from shooter mobs in CC since they can clear 1/2 the boys out of the killzone due to I2.

Some ork squads are very deadly on the charge (Stormboys can get all their numbers in along with their Nob or special character, Kommados are vicious given they get numbers+Nob+can still have a pair of power weapons, Nobs are insanely good on the charge). Shoota boys are far from deadly when recieving one .

As for transports making it across the board to orks, so far I've had Rhinos, Chimera, Raiders (coming out of WWP), and of course Grav tanks all make it safely across the board so far - so that's pretty much every transport in use in the game . Playing both with and against Orks I see a lot of things hapenning that made me give up on 30-strong shoota mobs as anything other than ground-pounder objective holders and close-range fire support .

As for flamers getting delivered by squads - Marine assault squads (pretty sure Raptors can still carry flamers too), SoB Seraphim (nastiest flamer squad in the game since they carry 2 and they can re-roll wounds), Kommandos, anything in a transport (some squads can deliver flamer+Heavy Flamer), anything that drops/deepstrikes in (although I wouldn't risk DS anywhere near Orks personally), then vehicles such as Hellhounds (24" range on that flamer and you can place the template anywhere within that range), Skorchas, plenty of units can deliver flamers in all honesty mate .


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## psychomidget99 (Feb 10, 2008)

I dunno. I've got enough boyz to worry about losing them all, and I reckon its just too expensive.


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## Culler (Dec 27, 2007)

I've never lost a cc with a shoota mob. The 50-80 number comes from 60 attacks from the full mob or 90 on a charge. They can generally kill 5 or so marines from shooting, so talking about them getting taken apart by another unit after taking huge casualties from shooting without that other cc unit having to weather their impressive fire is not realistic.

Here's how it generally goes for me: I space my shootas about 1.5"-2" from each other, leading to a huge spread out mob. I lose incidental numbers from shooting as they're typically more worried about taking out my fast units that are going to be in CC on turn 2. Any squad with the balls to square up with my shootas generally gets torn apart by shooting. Anyone that actually makes it to melee takes apart the few boys they can reach on the charge and then get piled into (fearless, so it doesn't matter that I lost the cc). Then they've got 20 or so boyz in cc with them. I've never had a cc happen with fewer boyz than that in the 5 or so games that I've played with orks so far. That's enough boys to give quite a good krumping to their depleted foe even after losing a few more from cc. Flamers typically aren't a huge threat since they're usually fired from 4 or 5 inches away, and wound the boyz on a 4+, generally killing 2 or 3. A hellhound might be another story, but even it's not going to kill its points in boyz and it will certainly be the target of my considerable anti-light tank fire.

tl;dr: Shoota boys (unsurprisingly) can shoot their cc foe before they get into melee and so usually only fight depleted units. Those cc units that do charge annihilate only the few boyz they can reach due to spacing and then get overwhelmed once they've lost their momentum. If they hit and run, it's shoota death all over again.


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