"Best" Ork list and Alliance Open: Dutch GT 2019

Two weeks ago I had the honor to have my army list for the Dutch GT 2019 analysed by goonhammer.com. You can read about the pre-tournament analysis here. Now being after the tournament, I thought it might be interesting to go through the key aspects from the player point of view. In the end at the Dutch GT, I managed to win 5 games and loose 1. With this result I come to the 9th place only 3 points away from the 6th. In the past, before this tournament I had second place in a team and in a doubles tournaments, but as a single player, considering also the play level of the players at the Dutch GT, this is so far my best result in competitive Wh40k. Within these 6 games I lost a game due to bad luck, I won a game, that I couldn’t have won without having luck in some key situations, I seized, I got seized, so altogether I would say I had about average luck. Adding to this my limited knowledge and experience with the game, and my moderate level of play, I have to say that my list was the strongest point behind this result. For me, list building was always one of the most exciting parts of the games. I can spend hours with calculating expected, distributions and probabilities of damage output of different units against various targets. Simply copying somebody else’s list, what is supposed to be the strongest according to the current meta, would just take away a huge chunk of the fun. And in the end it is not really the list what matters most, but rather how much your list matches with your playing style and level of play. If you know your army, if you love your units, you can take your army further than you would expect, and many times when you put yourself in trouble because of some bad decisions it will just help you out and pay back the love you invested in it. So let’s go through a few of the key aspect of the list and how it performed. Damage Output The potential damage output of the list on prime targets is insane. Statistically, based on expected value calculation with all the Deathskull reroll, this army can kill more than 2 and a half knights (one with rotated ion shield), more than 3 Baneblades or 5 hemlocks (assuming -3 to hit) in one shooting phase. Obviously it is very rare when you can move all your models within shooting range without any visibility issues, but it still gives an idea about the fire power this army has. And actually with having 6 Shokk Attack Guns with 60” range, 2 Traktor Kannons with 48” range, 3 potentially teleporting Shokjump Dragstas and 3 Wazbom Blastajets that can reach almost every inch on the battlefield, most of this fire power can actually be realized in the first turn. If the opponent manages to hide her/his prime targets from your Souped Up Shokka, with clever deployment and good terrain (what is usually not that easy), you can still decide to use the Kunnin’ but brutal warlord trait to redeploy or rely on Da Jump ensure all the visibility it needs (note: Da Jump will make your warlord hit on 6s only, but you want to use the More Drakka stratagem anyway, so it does not really matter in the end) What I found also very useful during the tournament and helped a lot with target priority, was the variety of weapons. The list has a bunch of weapons with flat 3 damage, many with d6, and several others with 1 damage. Having them spread between separate units, I could choose the firing order depending on the remaining damage of the target. When I had to shoot models with flat 3 wounds, the flat 3 damage weapons worked perfectly. When I was shooting at Centurions I started my d6 damage weapons and when I had a model with 1 or 2 wounds left, I switched to the damage 1 shootas, then when that model died I switched back to d6 again. When there was a flyer vehicle within the enemy lines I always tried to keep it alive with a few wounds to have it finished with the traktor kannons winning some extra damages with the auto crash and burns. Obviously this high damage output has a price. The Deathskull rerolls synergies extremely well with low Rate of Fire, but high damage outputs weapons, while they give very low benefits for high ROF, D1 weapons. So while the list can kill 3 Baneblades, it can only kill about 19 plaguebearers (assuming -2 to hit), in one shooting phase. Fortunately at the GT I did not meet with any plaguebearers, but I still faced other horde like armies, like Tyrannids, GSC and Shield Drones. Despite that dealing with these targets is not a strength of the list, I found a few other tools very useful to mitigate this weakness. Even though most of the unites has high damage, low ROF weapons, there are still 5 Scrapjets inside with altogether 60 36” range 5-0-1 shots, out of 30 get an extra 1 to hit. Because of the -2 to hit and 5++/5+++, these weapons still wouldn’t do much against plaguebearers, but I found them extremely useful to remove smaller units, like scouts and firewarriros from objectives. Shock attack guns produce extra d3 mortal wound outputs on every hit if the strength is 11+. Obviously it is not something you can rely on and if it happens you will be considered as extremely lucky, on the other hand having 3 SAGs, one that can even shoot twice for 2 CP, you can expect it to happen about twice in every game (especially if you CP re-roll the 1s on strength rolls). I did not have 2 str 11+ shots per game, I only had 2 during the whole tournament, so that was way below average, but one of the times when it happened I managed to remove half of a Genestealer unit with one shot, which turned out to be extremely useful. Being best in shooting, the list has some potential in other phases too. The Scrapjets for example with their 4 8/-2/d3 attacks (Deathskulls re-rolls applies here too) and after charge mortal wounds outputs could easily finish off the remaining of a Plaguebearer unit after the shooting. The 2 units of 10 Ork boyz is a really low amount of Boyz compared to other Ork armies, but they can still produce 64-84-104 attacks depending on how do you manoever with them and if you want to sacrifice 1 Cp for the warpath and/or Mob Up. Despite they low number, with the Da Jump they were perfect to finish off units and steal objectives. Mobility and Screening Having 3 flyers and 8 buggies with 10-14” movement from out of 3 can potentially teleport and the Da Jump on top of that the army is extremely mobile. Achieving Recon as a secondary mission most ot the time was very easy (There was only one game when I could not max it out, because I did not have enough units left, but even in that game I scored 3 out of the potential 4). The flyers and buggies with big bases spreading out on the battlefield also works very well as screening as you can easily make sure there are not much space left for deep striking unit even during rushing forward. In the back the 2 Traktor Kannons with their free 3” moves and the 27 Gretchins helps out to cover your lines and protect your Shokk Attack Guns. (Note: As Gretchins can be quite vulnerable, aside Da Big Killa Boss, and the Kunnin’ but Bruta warlord traits the Follow me Ladz turned out to be a good choice too in some cases as a Warlord trait. The extra CP can be very handy and it also makes your Gretchin shield sticking around longer) Aside of protecting against Deep Strike units, the big base vehicles turned out to be useful for keeping away enemy units from objectives. Placing them with touching bases could even help avoid having them trapped. So even if they could not shoot in the next turn after being charged they still could fall back and make sure the charging units can be killed by other units. Resilience and Secondaries This ork army, is not a horde army. It has relatively few model counts and prime targets. This setup is unfortunately can be a mismatch against armies with high damage outputs (and there are quite a few army like this out there). This means, it was very important to try to mitigate the risk. The 5++ save bubles against shooting from the Blastajets was very useful, especially when I did not go first. When the army got more spread up later the 6++ universal Deathskull save also saved me in some rare, but very important occasions. But aside of the invulnerable save simply having vehicles with T6 and 4+ and 9/8 wounds still caused some issues to deal with for several of my opponents. Knowing the vehicles in the army are vulnerable against some weapons while they are quite resillient against others also gives an opportunity to target those units of the opponent first that give the biggest threat and leave those for latter that have some difficulties with dealing with vehicles. The mobility of the units in the list also gave the chance to deploy deffensively when it was needed and try to keep as many units out of the opponents shooting range as possible without sacrificing too much fire power for the second turn or in case of seize. There was one thing that caused me issues several times, but it is more an issue of experience and play intelligence, than the list itself, keeping the buggies relatively far from each other. Rushing them forward in order to gain board control and get everything in range makes them a perfect target against some high damage close combat unit. If you can keep them far away from each other that could mitigate the risk of losing two or more at once, but having the terrain and the big bases, it was very challenging sometimes and that caused me more casulties sometimes, than it probably should have. Playing ITC missions, you should not only care about how and what secondaries you can achieve, but also how you can make it difficult for your opponents to do the same. Many armies at ITC give away one secondary very easily. For my list that was obviously the Big Game Hunter (having 11 vehicels with 7+ wounds). I couldn’t do anything about that, so I had to concentrate to make other secondaries difficult to achieve. Head Hunter, Mark for Death and Butcher’s Bill were some optional choice against the list, but having my 4 characters mostly hidden in the back, having only 3 units with 7+PL (the Scrapjets after deployment counts as single units, so the original units could not be killed to achieve M4D) and having the Butcher’s Bill not stack with BGH, many times I could play the way that my opponent could not max out these. For me on the other hand Recon and Old School was most of the time a very easy 7 points out of 8 (Slay the warlord was usually difficult to achieve, but few times I could have the 8th point too) while another 4 points came from an opponent specific secondaries (GB, M4D, BB were my most common choices. Dice roll distribution One very different but still important thing you have to prepare if you play a list like that are the stereotypes. One good thing was that, despite its obvious effectiveness this list is still not a common Ork list and often it got underestimated even by an experienced player. There was a game for example when I could kill my opponents warlord just because he did not expect I can clear all the units in front of him in one shooting phase. . The disadvantage, on the other hand comes on a social level. Almost regardless how you roll you will be often considered as being lucky if you win. Spending so much time on the mathematical calculation beforehand I am quite aware of what output I can expect from my units, this is however not always clear for your opponent. When you shoot with an army that most of the times hits only on 5s (or even 6s because of the many possible modifiers), when you start hitting in a row with different units you will be considered as lucky no matter what. But the actual fact is that with so many shots, and so many re-rolls (one hit, one wound and one damage for each units), plus with Dakka Dakka, statistically you will hit again and again. It happened many times during the games, when my opponent told I was very lucky with my shots, while I actually was still damaging below average. But at the end in these situations usually I just say sorry, as it helps with the mood, but in myself I just acknowledge the actual mathematical result. It is also a common belief that Orks are just totally random. They either roll hot and win hard or roll terrible and loose hard. Well, while there is obvious truth behind it, the randomness is usually overestimated. Having so many potentially deadly unit in the list, if you get very unlucky with one of them, there are still plenty of others to make it up for it. In one of the practice games for example before the tournament I was shooting with my Souped Up Shokka on a repulsor, twice, with More Dakka but despite of the odds, I could not cause a single damage. Than in the same shooting phase I killed the same repulsor with one advancing Shokkjump Dragsta. Obviously after this you will be considered as lucky for the rest of the game however the actual outcome was just about averege. On the other hand there is still truth behind the randomness and with playing and army that many times hits only on 5+ with damaging 1 to 6, and having random strength and number of shots for the weapon with the highest damage output, you will indeed encounter more ups and downs than some other player with a more reliable army. If with your Souped Up Shokka, in one shooting phase you kill a knight (very lucky, but not impossible) or you kill 2 Hemlocks (about avarage) or you do not do any damage at all (bad luck, but happens quite some times), well.. that really can make a difference :) Summary As I mentioned earlier, I am not an experienced player in Wh40k. Before this tournament I played around 30-40 games in my whole life (that includes a few 2nd edition games many-many years ago). So I can obviously see many things wrong, but with my limited knowledge about the game, aside its few weaknesses, mainly against resillient hordes (what was a consciously chosen trade off in order to have it more effective against other armies), I did not really find any flaws in the list. What is a strange feeling as after tournaments like this, you usually have several ideas how would you improve your list further. There are of course still stronger lists out there nowadays, but this Ork list seems to be just behind them. Considering its strength and weakness seem to be matching quite well with the current meta it might even have the potential of winning a big tournament like the Dutch GT. Assuming of course it is used by an experienced player of course, who still loves to play with Orks :) Quick Summary of the games and opponents this list faced at he Ducth GT: Game 1 Opponent: Necrons Score 12 - 36 (Loss) Note: Opponent seized Game 2 Opponent: GSC Score 38 - 11 (Win) Note: Went first Game 3 Opponent: Tau Score 28 - 25 (Win) Note: Went second Game 4 Opponent: Tyrannids Score 31 - 18 (Win) Note: Seized Game 5 Opponent: Eldars Score 29 - 24 (Win) Note: Went first Game 6 Opponent: Space Marines Score 27 - 26 (Win) Note: Went second

What is this blog all about?

To be honest this is not supposed to be a real blog, but rather a platform where I can easier share my experience about Wh40k Competitive Gaming with a few friend of mine, who asked me to do so.

I am not an experienced player, which means there is a significant chance that any statement or argument I might make in these posts might be incorrect or at least arguable.

By the time I write this post, I have played altogether about 30-40 wh40k games in my life. This number includes all friendly games and tournaments I have ever played. This number is significant if you think about it as 120+ hours of pure gaming time, but on competitive level it is rather a low amount.

If despite of these you still find in these posts something interesting or useful, I am happy.
You are more than welcome to comment, or give feedback, but please take it into consideration that none of the posts were written for the wide public.

You have been warned ;)

(Oh... and if you were a native English speaker please forgive me for (ab)using your native language in such a grammatically incorrect way. Unfortunately as of now this is the best I can do.)