[Sepher The Reckoner]

...As my second Army. I currently have tau, and after i get them finish and whatnot i think that i would like to start an ork army. They Look really fun, being so customizable and close combat oriented. The only thing i know about orks though, is what I've seen from playing Dawn of War.

I really wouldn't know where to start....

I do realize that there are already those threads out there "Want to start an ork Army?" Or what have you, but i just wanted to see kind of an updated idea on what is going on. Any advice for starting would be welcome.... and there is one last thing to say...

Waaaahhhg!

[BrownKnight]

lol.

1) Get the codex. Note I did not say buy it, you can look at a friends copy, a store copy, etc. Look through it and get a feel for what you like.

2) There are 7-8 basic orc archetypes:
A 200 + model horde
All transports and tanks and bikes and koptas and buggies (speed freaks)
All bikes (Ravensquig and / or Wazdakka)
A shooty force
All deff dreads and killa kans
All mega armour (Deffwing)
A sneaky force (lots of kommandos)
Orkdeptus mech'us (Mad Dok Grotsink and a cybork horde) [yes, I just made that term up.]
Or some combination of the above.

Pick something you like and run with it. Most of all, have fun. Nothing in the ork codex is really weak. (OK, there are grots, but even they have uses.) So find an army you like and go with it.

But all things 40k start with the respective codex. That is where to begin your Waaagh!

[gilber987]

Get the codex, the once you have the codex the fun starts look what type of army you are looking for and build it over

I started a little ago and have about 69 minis now to glue over plus some other orkz I just ordered : and I just can´t wait to start playing with them ;D plus starting to do some convertions for super heavies for arkopolipze jar jar

[Timokrai]

I would advise you looking into buying
Lootas
Shoota Boyz
Deffkoptas
as those are the units that come to mind when looking at most ork list
I would also recommend you play a mix of Horde,speedfreaks,shooty list
as then you get a feel for all options

[major_rawne02]

A generally useful way to play orks is to do the following.This should work despite the style of the army, although it doesn't pertain to the extreme specialisations such as an all dread or ravensquig force.

Strangely a good place to start is firepower, rushing for combat is good but if you cant cover your units you aren't going to get far. There are a few ways you can do this. Let's start wit the shiny new shokk attack gun, this is a fun and powerful, if not a little unreliable, piece of wargear which can give you some cheap ordenance, which at AP2 is just as useful for killing vehicles as it is at taking out heavily armoured troops such as terminators and other such units your combat troops will have a hard time dropping in combat. Place him with a ten man unit of grots (with the required slaver) and give him 'eavy armour and he becomes fairly survivable

Bikes are a good yet expensive form of fire support at 3 S5, AP5 shots over range 18" after a 12" move. With high toughness and a 4+ cover save they are hard to put down regardless of what's shooting at them.

Tankbustas, lootas and flash gitz also do a good job of putting out a fair amount of high-strength mid-AP firepower, while many of the orky vehicles can be mounted with a vast array of shooty deff, all of which the enemy will find hard to ignore.

Bear in mind that any firepower spent firing at your shooty units isn't coming the way of your more numerous combat units. Speaking of which...

Slugga boys are always a good investment. Cheap, tough and toting a high number attacks these guys are brilliant and your main choice will be whether or not to go with a large number per squad or mount them in a trukk. The unit nob is a good way of getting some really powerful wargear into your list. The power claw is an old favourite, capable of taking out just about anything with relative ease and ignoring armour saves in the process. The big choppa is a more plausible option now that it strikes in initiative order meaning you can get a good number of high strength attacks capable of harming monstrous creatures and vehicles. While it's not a power weapon the advantage of getting to attack in initiative order balances this point.

Once you've got a good centre of boyz (one or two units will do) and a firebase (one or two shooty units should do for a whole army) then you can move onto specialising your force.

Adding a few units of bikes, trukk units and/or buggies will give you a fast force with decent firepower, while unit nobs in bike and trukk mobs kive really good combat ability.

Two or three deff dreads with killa kan support provide a survivable, elite force able o crack units open regardless of thier type.

Adding a couple more units of slugga/shoota boys will give you a fast and/or numerous force depending on taking trukk mobs or not, which can take on most units at range with it's rokkits and big shootas and is devestating up close.

...

There are a multitude of ways to play orks and while this isn't an exhaustive guide (by a longshot!) I hope it helps!

[IVEATCH]

The best way to get started is with a Warboss model and two troop choices, one group of Ork Boyz armed with Sluggas and Choppas, the other with Shootas. This will allow you to start playing smaller games to get a feel for the Orks.

As a Tau player, you probably have loads of firepower. There are some excellent Ork shooty units. You can go with Lootas or Flash Gitz. Even a full mob of 30 Ork Boyz armed with Shootas and Big Shootas can put out some impressive loads of dice.

Orks are close combat monsters on the cheap. I don't think that there is a better close combat choice at the point value of six points per model.

The only problem with loads of large mobz is the modeling and painting time required. I've been collecting Orks for a while and I still don't have six fully painted and themed "Big Mobz" (only have five). It'll take a while if you go Footslogger. Speed Freaks with Trukks is a faster way in both the modeling department and play departments.

Best,

[major_rawne02]

Doh, how could I forget the warboss! :P

Sorry dropped the ball there.