Orks - are non-BW Speed Freeks viable

[mikethefish]

Hi there folks, got a general question of the viability of Orks in the current edition

Lets say you wanted to make an Ork army that was essentially a Kult of Speed. Focused lots on Trukk boyz, bikes, Nob Bikes, Biker Warboss, warbuggies or copters, stuff like that. Perhaps some Dreadz and Kanz as well (yeah I know not speedy or anything, but I just love the models - perhaps they tow the things between battles on makeshift trailers or something). Furthermore, lets say that the aformentioned Speed Kult army didn't use any Battlewagons at all, or any mobz greater than 12 (since that's all that will fit in a Trukk). What do you think of the viability of an army like this? Will the Trukk boyz and everything else be enough to carry the day? Or will the small mob numbers bounce off the bad guys?

[Mr.Pickelz]

depends on who your fighting, pure trukks won't win the day. Your transports will get stoped by even bolter fire and 12 orks won't be enough to stand against a dedicated assault unit. I'd always take at least one battlewagon (for da boss) and give it a deff-rolla. bikers will be your main front line unit with the trukks for support. Just remember not to throw all your eggs in one basket(transport).;)

[Da Gargoyle]

With a bit of judicious plannin you could do alright. Tool your trukks up with a mek with force field, I played a guy that had three trukks rolling rail to rail with a mech and force field in the middle. He demounted his trukk boys and swapped popped burner boys in. In a kult of speed maybe you get to mount the burner boys in their own right.

Also the big block of trukks moving over the field help block line of sight to other units so more trukks could follow in behind maybe.

While you may not field wagons you might think on Deff Kopters, with those twin linked rokkits they get quite nasty.

And a flank marching unit of commandos again helps with the whole crossing the field idea quick like.

I actually dropped Orks with the entry of the new codex, but the lad who used these seems to do OK so long as he doesn't get into a fire fight or have his troops caught in the open. It changed my mind a little on the new codex, but I think a number of changes have weakened the orks because of what they took away.

For example, they wanted ork bikers to get into the thick of it so they gave them psyho blasters with a reduced range. Now they drop the strength of the weapon, remove psycho blasters from the assault rules but you are still stuck with an 18" range........... Sorry went on a rant. I lack the necessary luck with the dice to field Orks so now I'm a space elf. I still can't role the number I need, but I have some firepower and a little more accuracy to scar an opponent. I am doing a cult of speed though, Wave serpents and jet bikes, may be a viper or two. And for those bigger battles Prisms and Falcons.

[Billyjoeray]

I think that this list could totally be viable. You just have to have a KFF Mek to make sure it works. If you don't run a kff mekk, everything you have will get shot and die within the first couple of turns. Bike Nobz will draw a lot of fire and protect your Trukks from anything serious. Also consider putting a unit of 3 Mega Nobz in a trukk along with your Trukks filled with Boyz so that they can draw some fire away from your boyz trukks. Between the nob bikers and the meganobz trukks, you should be able to get a couple of them across the field fast enough to do some serious damage. Also don't listen to naysayers tell you that bolters can kill your trukks. It's probably not going to happen and if it does, you're probably so close to them that it's too late anyway. That's like saying that Heavy Bolters can wreck rhinos. They can but how often does that actually happen?
A couple of things I would suggest if you are thinking about running a list like this:
1) Give your Trukks boarding planks. It's only 5 points and it lets you stay inside the (relative) safety of your transport and still assault vehicles with your PK nob (or whatever) as long as neither you or you opponent moved flat out. Breaking transports will probably be your number 1 concern since you didn't seem too keen on bringing Lootas and you can't do the "Deffroll the transport and then assault the guys inside maneuver" without Battlewagons.While koptas can theoretically pop vehicles with rokkits but I haven't seen it put to use very successfully or consistently, so boarding planks will probably be your best option.

2) Maybe take a squad of Grotz to walk on from reserve to take your home field objective because you might not be able to, or want to, leave your trukks to take care of any objective on your side of the table.

3) Finally, Koptas with buzzsaws and big shootas are really underrated. Most opponents will overlook them especially if you have them outflank. They are exceptionally good a busting vehicles that moved 6" or less in the assault phase and are excellent at wrecking units like longfangs and devestators. I've even had my unit of 2 deffkoptas kill a scout squad and an entire tactical squad that was trying to camp his objective.

Just some food for thought. Good luck! Mech Orks is a great deal of fun and a lot of people really underestimate how good they are and how fast they can actually move across the board.

[Skragger]

As someone who plays a Kult of Speed (with walkers too, we have a generally same idea) I find that battlewagons are invaluable. Skwads of 12 boyz wont stand up to much for long, they charge, and then they die. You can't get any of those big meaty squads Orks really need to survive those moral checks.

Also, battlewagons are great for protecting your tankbustas and burnas, as they're very large fire pulls and left standing in the open they will die, very fast. Remember that Rokkit Launchas are Assault Weapons, so the Battlewagon can move and the tank bustas inside can still shoot.

Don't rely on walkers for anti-tank duties unless you're going to equip them with lots of rokkit launchas (i.e a Deff Dredd with 4 rokkits.) Use your Kanz to hit infantry with the grotzookaz (die guard!) and have them provide cover fire. They tend not to last long enough to get into combat with vehicles. :(