[Thoughts of a Herb] Bigger Orks - Heavy Support Part 1

OK, I'm back again! Before you ask, it isn't me in the picture. I'm too handsome.

Anyway, let's go with the first half of the Heavy Support!

FLASH GITZ
Oh dear. Oh deary deary dear. Oh deary... well, you get the point.

These guys have the statline of a Nob (although they do come with a 4+ save), and have a Snazzgun (Yeah, sounds awesome, right?) Which is S5 (Whoo!), Assault 1 (Cool...), AP D6 (...). Now, the problem with AP D6 is you're only denying armour saves to, say, Marines half the time. It's ORKY, for certain, but unlike a lot of orky things there's not a lot to make up for it.

They also have a Gitfinda which allows them to pre-measure. It's kinda meh, most players should be able to guess 24" fairly well anyway.

Anyway, upgrades. They're only the second of two units that can take a Painboy and all assorted goodies, Cybork, Grot orderly etc. Bear in ming, the Painboy DOES NOT have a Snazzgun.

They also have three upgrades for their guns; Shootier More Dakka and Blastas. (sounds awesome!)

Shootier = S6 guns (YES)
More Dakka = Assault 2 (YES)
Blastas = AP D6-1 and Gets Hot! (YES, you have a Painboy and 2 wounds each, you can take it!)

There is also an option to take up to three Ammo Runts (re-rolls to hit). With Ork BS as it is, these are fairly essential for when you want to actually HIT something.

Only problem with all this? The cost. 40 points for a snazzed-up Snazzgun and the brute holding it, to be exact. A unit of 10? That's a quarter of your army please. And that's not talking about a certain Freebooter...

Kaptin Badrukk
Right, how badass is this dude? He has one higher WS (why?), one more Attack (again, why?), and two higher Leadership than the Gitz he leads. He has Goldtoof Armour, so named after all the gold teef he's punched out of various faces, and gives him a 3+/5++ save, which is nice.

He also has a choppa, a slugga, a bosspole, a gitfinda, some stikkbombs... and three Powder Grots (read personal Ammo Runts) and... Da Rippa!

This gun is awesome. According to the fluff, it's a looted Ogryn gun that's been modified to fire miniature stars! It's S7 (Whoo!), AP2 (Whoo!), Assault 3 (Whoo!) Gets Hot! (Awh...). Essentially it's a bigger, badder Deffgun.

The bad point about him? One hundred and thirty five point. One-Three-Five. It's a lot.

In fact, lets do a bit of adding. A squad of ten Flash Gits, with a Painboy, all with Shootier, Blasta and More Dakka and Cybork bodies, and three Ammo runts, and Kaptin Badrukk. A pretty potent shooting unit. How much? 630 points. And that's before you get onto the Battlewagon they NEED to stop them eating every anti-infantry shot they have.

I'm not saying they're bad, but the fact you ideally want a Battlewagon to shoot out of (which is an additional Heavy Support slot) plus the fact you should ideally take all available upgrades, plus the initial cost to begin with, means these dudes pale in comparison to their Loota brethren.

For a comparison, you could trade a full squad of 15 Lootas (225 points) for 5 Flash Gitz with Shootier, More Dakka and Blasta and one Painboy (230 points). The Lootas have more shots, longer range, higher strength, and potentially a better AP. Plus because they're longer range, they don't need a Battlewagon to ride in as badly as the Flash Gitz do.

Zagblitz Rating: 1/10 - "Flash Gitz, gah, dey drive me mad! All dis poncin' around an' goin' "Ooh, my gunz bigga den yurs" and dey never get roun' ta sum proppa fightin'!"
Dakkazag Rating: :D/10 - "GUNZ GUNZ GUNZ GUNZ GUNZ GUNZ GUNZ GUNZ ..." There was a good deal more of this, but we hope you get the idea

KILLA KANS
Behold the baby Dreds! These things are great. For 35+ points a piece, you can get up to 3 AV 11/11/10, BS3, walking heavy weapon platforms that can also try their hand (or dreadnought CCW) at assaults at a pinch.

Each Kan in the unit MUST take either a big shoota, rokkit launcha, kustom mega-blasta, grotzooka or skorcha.

Now, grotzookas are a weapon unique to Killa Kans. They're essentially MASSIVE shotguns that fire bits out of the Meks scrapheap. It's range 18", S6, AP5, Heavy 2, Blast. It's great for cutting down light infantry like Guardsmen, or for when the next-door Orks get "Eye-deers above dere stashiun". The other weapons I won't go over, those who read these articles A) will be as crazy as I am, and B) should know what those weapons are by now.

Anyway, as for preferred weapon loadouts, you should give the unit all the same task, either infantry or vehicles, and preferably the same weapon as well. For vehicles, the preferred weapon is obviously the trusty rokkit launcha. The kustom mega-blasta is slightly better AP, but still not enough to give a vehicle bonus, and is more expensive. For infantry, you can choose between big shootas or grotzookas, as grotzookas are more expensive but are stronger and have two blasts.

Personally, the choices for me would be either grotzookas or rokkits, they seem to offer the best value for points. You notice I don't mention Skorchas as being good anti infantry. It's not because they aren't, but because you waste the higher BS afforded by the Grot pilots.

The two other upgrades are armour plates (stunned = shaken) and grot riggers (repair immobilized). In a squadron, they're kinda pointless, as they get the same effect of armour plates anyway, and immobilized Kans are destroyed immediately. The only way you could use these is to put them on one Kan and hope to keep that one to last.

Zagblitz Rating: 7/10 - "I luv me Kans! Dey's shooty, an' can hit things mor' often as well, an' can still krump stuff."
Dakkazag Rating: 8/10 - "Dey can use gunz, an' can hit things wiv dem... Awesum!"

DEFF DREADS
The Killa Kan's Big Brother. This guy has TWO dreadnought close combat weapons, and has to pick not one but TWO weapons.

This time, he can choose from big shootas, rokkit launchas, skorchas, kustom mega-blastas and more dreadnought close-combat weapons.

Now, this time Skorchas are GOOD. You'll be up close with this dude, so you want close range weapons, and skorchas DO automatically hit, you know... Otherwise, you could choose to go with two extra DCCW's for a cool 7 attacks on the charge (base 3, +1 for the first two DCCW, +1 each of the extra DCCWs, and 1 more for charging). Big shootas are also an option if you want the Deff Dread to start killing stuff sooner. I wouldn't recommend the mega-blasta or the rokkits, they're only one shot weapons, and with a BS2 vehicle, that's not odds to rely on.

And, of course, you get the option for grot riggers and armour plates. Because these guys aren't in a squadron, these are much more worth it than on the Kans.

And what's more, when you take a Big Mek for an HQ choice, you can take a Deff Dread for a Troops choice! This is great to free up some valuable Heavy Support slots for Battlewagons, Looted Wagons etc... but that's for the next (and final) Ork post. So, we'll get the Mek's ratings of the Deff Dreads...

Zagblitz Rating: 7/10 - "Not as shooty as da Kans, but moar krumpy as well"
Dakkazag Rating: 6/10 - "Dere krumpy, and can be quite shooty"

...And now I shall bring this post to a close. Now, there's only one post left in this series (sad face... ) and I quite like writing these tactica things (and apparently you do too, since some of you e-mailed us telling me to get a move on with this series) so, I'm now appealing to you good readers. What tactica do you want me to do next? I have the Grey Knight and the Daemon codex (HERESY!) but I can get hold of IG, Necrons, Tau, and probably most of the others. Leave your suggestion in the comments!

I'm pleased how this post went. Dakkazag didn't get into trouble for once...

BOOM!

Oh, for zog's sake... Ah well, guess I spoke too soon. I'll have to go and sort that out. So, leave your comment, and I'll see ya next time!