Ever heard that phrase don’t bring a knife to a gun fight…
well when you run ferals it’s kind of like this:
Gaurdsman – “Stupid
ork, I see you’ve brought a sharp stick to this gun fight
Feral Ork – Datz right
Humie but luckily I also brought a herd of dese giant dinosaurs. How’s dat
lasgun feeling now?
General build philosophy – Something to remember with feral
orks is that flexibility is not in their vocabulary, it’s a paper/scissor/rock
sort of army except all you have is various sizes of rock. Sure you can
experiment with different options but with no real shooting or speed options,
no planes, spaceships or flying anything it will ultimately fail. Now the thing
to remember is that this isn’t a problem in my mind, rock is fun, you can get
real good at playing rock and if you’re careful can become the Chuck Norris of
rock.
Army Special Rules - Ferals are no different to standard
orks in that you can’t possibly make an effective build without due respect for
the army rules.
Power of the Waagh –
This rule can be a real hindrance for normal orks who might otherwise be
attempting a range of tactical manoeuvres. For ferals your choices are much
more binary because it’s all about engagement and your shooting isn’t worth a
damn. Double and shoot is a pretty solid
option usually because all you’ll do with your shooting is lay a blast marker
most of the time but don’t be afraid to triple move at times. Do the math on
where you need those dinosaurs to be next turn and if need be take the risk. I
tended to save my sup com especially for these sorts of risky rolls and of
course a solid build will definitely out activate most opponents giving you the
luxury of seeing where the enemy will be and planning accordingly. Also don’t
underestimate your strat rating of 3, especially against all those armies that
are only 2 it’s another factor that’s worth a gamble with a late turn
aggressive advance followed by a beginning of turn major engage. It’s the
closest ferals have to a teleport assault.
Mob Rule – Another
binary component in ferals is the size of the units. Pretty much everything
falls into the category of small and hard to rally (e.g. boar boyz) or so damn
solid they rally really easily (like Orkeosaurus units). Play to that because
your opponent will. Be conscious of things like your AA bubble because a clever
opponent will absolutely snipe your small units to reduce your activation count
if they can.
Core units
Boarboyz –
Absolutely essential to the army in every way. Not only are they cheap
spammable deployments and activations but they are also a solid engage unit
that allows you to get more value out of the bigger formations. I ran 4 units
of 5 in my build at Castle Assault this year
These awesome boarboyz are available from Microworld games
Junka Brigade –
Personally I don’t see the use of this unit, not fast enough to solve one issue
the army has, doesn’t hit any harder than boar boyz and costs much more. Not to
mention being light vehicles which is always a
problem.
Madboyz - Again not too sure what the point of
the unit is. Sure they are fearless and can have multiple wierdboyz but lots of
units can have wierdboyz and frankly their shooting and AA capabilities aren’t
that good. I prefer to spread the wierdboyz around the army rather than putting
their AA bubble into a single quite fragile unit.
Steam Gargant – An
utterly essential unit, these guys represent the only hint of flexibility and
decent shooting you can have in the list and a full 3 man 500pt version is a
solid BTS option too. I maxed out the guns on mine for a 12BP macro barrage and
never once regretted it.
Trappas – I ran a
unit of these in my Castle Assault force because I was concerned about
teleporters possibly hitting my steam gargant unit. Their scout option is handy
to prevent this and the unit is cheap enough that even it isn’t needed for this
it can be a handy objective grabber/blitz guard etc.
Warband Vs Wildboyz – Building this army I spent a bit of time deciding between these two options. The conclusion in my mind is decisively wildboyz, for a range of reasons, the most obvious being the 75pts difference in the basic unit. Consider what you are getting for 75 points. It’s the same number of boyz each time with identical stats except that the “proper” boyz get the world’s crappiest gun which will make precisely zero difference in 99/100 games. They both get the same nobz so that can’t be it. Ultimately then for 75 points the only valuable difference is the two grots. Now grots are great, their ability to soak up free hits in CC can be amazing for orks but the difference is in how they are used in Ferals vs normal. When you have a boyz mob jumping out of a landa directly into engagement they have great value, but ferals don’t work like that. Ferals have giant hit sucking dinosaurs to back their engagement potential so grots really don’t have much of any value in this equation. Sure they could suck up a macro or TK hit sometime but that is so situational. Ergo it’s the cheap spear chucking option for me every time.
Warband Vs Wildboyz – Building this army I spent a bit of time deciding between these two options. The conclusion in my mind is decisively wildboyz, for a range of reasons, the most obvious being the 75pts difference in the basic unit. Consider what you are getting for 75 points. It’s the same number of boyz each time with identical stats except that the “proper” boyz get the world’s crappiest gun which will make precisely zero difference in 99/100 games. They both get the same nobz so that can’t be it. Ultimately then for 75 points the only valuable difference is the two grots. Now grots are great, their ability to soak up free hits in CC can be amazing for orks but the difference is in how they are used in Ferals vs normal. When you have a boyz mob jumping out of a landa directly into engagement they have great value, but ferals don’t work like that. Ferals have giant hit sucking dinosaurs to back their engagement potential so grots really don’t have much of any value in this equation. Sure they could suck up a macro or TK hit sometime but that is so situational. Ergo it’s the cheap spear chucking option for me every time.
So what about upgrades, there’s a
pretty reasonable selection here. Personally the only 3 I think are worth
considering are Squig catapults, Orkeosaurus and Wyrdboyz, each for their own
reasons. At CA I ran 5 units of wildboyz with an Orkeosaurus and found them
consistently amazing. Their BC engagement potential is phenomenal and much like
the synergies that DKOK Gorgons are famous for the Orkeosaurus is fantastic for
tanking the first 6 hits of the engagement leaving your ork boyz to chop away
without much risk of their crap armour coming into play. You do have to be
super careful about positioning though, watch out for FF support etc which can
eat through your boyz fast. I found that more often than not my boyz never even
got off the dino, they tended to just sit there and watch while the dino and
nobz did all the work anyway, in combat not dying can be just as important as
the kills you actually achieve. In FF the dinos aren’t bad either, likely
contributing 2 hits and unlikely to take much back they can do big things to a
unit that has been suitably prepped with blast markers and/or is supported by
something else like a second Dino. Or even just to support an engage started by
boar boyz which are fantastic for both BC and clipping FF engages if suitably
supported. Never underestimate the resilience of a boyz mob with Orkeosaurus
for blast marker resilience and with 2 leaders their ability to shed the ones
they take is also amazing.
Wyrdboyz
are something else essential to the list. It’s the only AA you have and in my
mind you need at least 3 to cover your army suitably. There are heaps of good
opitons for them to go, on an Orkeosaurus works great but you could also chuck
them into a unit of boyz on the ground if that works for you.
Squig
Catapults are the last upgrade that I reckon are worth considering. I ran 3 of
them in boyz units as forward garrisons in my build at CA and they went ok. The
BP3 disrupt option can be fantastic and having blast templates is always a good
thing. Those units were a bit hit/miss for me though and next time I’ll
consider just replacing them with wyrdboyz who give the unit just as much reach
in terms of putting down a blast marker/prepping for a boarboyz engage and
would improve my AA coverage substantially.
Strategies
Just because they are feral doesn’t mean they are simple, in
fact feral orks are going to be a bit of a learning curve, engagement is
everything so the real trick is maximising your engagement potential. The big
advantages you should have is resilience and activation advantage, hold back
the dinos until the end of the turn and remember to always use them in
pairs/small groups so that you get lots of support fire. Base contact engage
can be tricky to pull off at times but one thing to remember is that you can
move the Orkeosaurus forward then offload the orks within 5cm giving you a fair
bit of range if you need it. Balancing that though is the fact that you will
want that dino to be in BC in order to allocate the hits to his awesome armour
where possible. Like I said before, you basically have 1 strategy but it’s a
matter of refining it. Orkeosaurus go from amazingly resilient to amazingly
soft if you let them get broken by a poorly timed engagement. Also remember
that the guns on these beasts are basically only good for one thing and that is
prepping an engagement so focus on that.
As for objectives, for this army
its all about aggressive movement, grind your way up the board every turn and
focus on the objectives in the middle of the board. In my tournament games the
most common result was 3-0, I didn’t lose my blitz but I only took it off the
enemy once, never lost my BTS but only killed theirs once. Blitz and BTS were
definitely the most challenging because the army lacks the shooting to
capitalise when you need to and lacks the speed to reliably grab the Blitz.
That said it was reasonably easy to spread myself out enough to keep the enemy
out of my half of the board and super
easy to have models in the enemy half.
Though these Orkeosaurus models aren't available commerically this awesome proxy can be obtained at a great price by emailing nicr@eurekamin.com.au
Sample Build
Castle Assault 2016
Tournament Build
If you haven’t yet discovered by tournament report from the
Castle Assault tournament you should go have a read of it to see how I got them
to move. Feral Orks at CA2016
Incompertus, 3000 POINTS
Snagga-Snagga's Feral Orks (NetEA Army Compendium v20120208)
==================================================
WILDBOYZ [350]
2 Nobz, 3 Two Wildboyz Units, Orkeosaurus, Warlord, Wyrdboy
WILDBOYZ [300]
2 Nobz, 3 Two Wildboyz Units, Orkeosaurus
WILDBOYZ [300]
2 Nobz, 3 Two Wildboyz Units, Orkeosaurus
WILDBOYZ [300]
2 Nobz, 3 Two Wildboyz Units, Orkeosaurus
WILDBOYZ [300]
2 Nobz, 3 Two Wildboyz Units, Orkeosaurus
WILDBOYZ [200]
2 Nobz, 3 Two Wildboyz Units, 3 Squig Katapult
WILDBOYZ [200]
2 Nobz, 3 Two Wildboyz Units, 3 Squig Katapult
BOARBOYZ HORDE [100]
5 Boarboyz
BOARBOYZ HORDE [100]
5 Boarboyz
BOARBOYZ HORDE [100]
5 Boarboyz
BOARBOYZ HORDE [100]
5 Boarboyz
TRAPPAS [150]
6 Wildboyz
STEAM GARGANT [500]
3 Steam Gargant
Snagga-Snagga's Feral Orks (NetEA Army Compendium v20120208)
==================================================
WILDBOYZ [350]
2 Nobz, 3 Two Wildboyz Units, Orkeosaurus, Warlord, Wyrdboy
WILDBOYZ [300]
2 Nobz, 3 Two Wildboyz Units, Orkeosaurus
WILDBOYZ [300]
2 Nobz, 3 Two Wildboyz Units, Orkeosaurus
WILDBOYZ [300]
2 Nobz, 3 Two Wildboyz Units, Orkeosaurus
WILDBOYZ [300]
2 Nobz, 3 Two Wildboyz Units, Orkeosaurus
WILDBOYZ [200]
2 Nobz, 3 Two Wildboyz Units, 3 Squig Katapult
WILDBOYZ [200]
2 Nobz, 3 Two Wildboyz Units, 3 Squig Katapult
BOARBOYZ HORDE [100]
5 Boarboyz
BOARBOYZ HORDE [100]
5 Boarboyz
BOARBOYZ HORDE [100]
5 Boarboyz
BOARBOYZ HORDE [100]
5 Boarboyz
TRAPPAS [150]
6 Wildboyz
STEAM GARGANT [500]
3 Steam Gargant
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