Today we’ve got a guest article written by Boss Gobbstompa who you might have met over on The Waaagh. He also has a blog where you can find out more. Over to you, Gobbstompa:
My name is Boss Gobbstompa. Most of my experience with Orks, so far, is in the modelling department. I’m the biggest mag-freak at my LGS and am a 10 year veteran of Warhammer 40k. I’ve always had a love for Orkz, though I never collected them seriously until this year. One of my quirks is that whenever I get into something new, I research it exhaustively until I’m up to speed with many of the other veterans of the area. Part of this led me to Gorkamorka. I’ve yet to play my first game, but it didn’t take me long to put together my first warband, fully magnetized of course.
However, I think I managed to approach my warband differently from many other players. I’ve noticed an overwhelming majority of players that get a Nob, a Spanna and a bunch of boyz and load them all up in a trukk. This certainly seems effective, but it is common with Ork warbands. One of the greatest weapons Orkz have is their unpredictable nature. So with this in mind, I set out to be an unpredictable warband. I went with bikes.
Having all my boyz in one trukk reminded me too much of “All your eggs in one basket.” If something happens to that trukk, then I’m walkin’ everywhere and I hate walkin’. It also means that my opponent only has to really keep his eye on one target, which is not the kind of challenge I want to present to him. Another thing that shouted, “Bikes!” was that I chose a warband of Morkers. Morkers are inherently better drivers. All their boyz have access to the Driving skills, not just Nobz and Spannaz. So bikes it was. There is, however, a design problem with bikes. They’re small. The stock bike has absolutely zero transport capacity, though there are rules for transporting passengers on a bike (They don’t get protected by the vehicle’s armor. Sucks to be them).
This got me thinking. How could I carry a passenger adequately without having an armored compartment on the bike? I dove into my bitz box, thinking like a mek, and came up with a solution. Rhino side hatches. One of these little puppies is a perfect size to hold one model on it, and looks like something an Ork would grab and weld onto his bike for an exposed platform to carry one unlucky passenger. This allows for a couple of strategies. I can concentrate all my fire power onto one target by driving my bikes in a group. This gives three linked Shootaz, plus any weapons that the passengers are carrying. If I find myself in a situation that calls for a little divide and conquer, I can split the bikes up and drive around collecting scrap and rapidly redeploying my forces while my opponent has to decide which of the three he actually wants to go after (same reason any animal travels in packs). Having bikes with limited and exposed transport space is balanced by the fact that I can’t be boarded. I also have the advantage, when going against Muties, of having wingmen to watch each other’s back instead of having one vehicle as the target for every hostile on the board. With the driving abilities that will open up to the Bikerz when they gain experience, it will be easier to do crazy things with the bikes, and they’re generally faster than everything else since they get their first Boost for free.
But, now that I’ve settled on how I’m going to deliver my boyz into the thick of it, I need to figure out what they’re going to do once they get there. I had the choice of running a bunch of standard, rank-and-file Slugga/Choppa boyz, or make them each with their own style and focus. I went with individualism because it’s something that’s very difficult to do on a 40k level with Orkz.
Now, I needed some dedicated anti-vehicle power because of my total lack of Big Gunz. For this, I made one of my Bikerz with Krak Stikkbombz. I figure he can catch anything and get close enough to lob one of these bad boyz into something important while on a bike, so he’s my travelling anti-tank missile. Since he’s also most likely to get closest to vehicles, I put a dedicated hand-to-hand boy as his passenger. Slugga/Choppa and bad attitude, I’ll probably groom him for the nastiest fighting, either jumping off the bike onto trukkz and trakkz, or just jumping off the bike onto enemies. Either way, he’s jumping off the bike.
After that, I needed some dedicated ranged anti-infantry. For this, I went with a Biker armed with Frag Stikkbombz and a passenger with a Blunderbuss. This will make for some mean strafing runs on groups of enemies on the ground.
My nob, being the biggest and da ‘ardest, gets to ride around on his bike with my spanner. The spanner has a simple shoota, but the nob got a choppa, slugga and frag stikkbombz. He’s a bit of an all-comers kinda fighter. He also kinda acts a bit like a body guard for the Spanna since if my Spanna bites it, I’m gonna have a serious problem with my bikes.
Because GoMo is so vehicle-centric, one of the first things that young nobz should invest in is probably a second spanna. Someone that can step in and take over the duties of the primary spanna if, Mork forbid, they get iced somewhere out on the Skid. Just remember that this extra spanna is still going to need someplace to ride so you may want to save up until you have enough for at least a bike for him, if not a full-on trukk/trakk/buggy. Now, this advice is mostly for Ork mobs (including Freebootaz) and Dark Eldar mobs (If you’re playing with those rules). Diggaz have no limitation on Spannaz, Muties don’t use vehicles, while Dust Rats and Grotz are so different that the advice listed above simply doesn’t apply.
Anyway, that’s why I chose a biker mob!
Happy new year, everyone!
