For once, I would like to put my ideas down on how a book maybe improved. Turns out a lot of the ideas that the Primarch and I had may actually be a reality in 7th edition. Mainly, changing the damage chart to 7 is a destroyed results in stead of 6. Well, to late to say how I would improve 7th, so I wanted to talk about how my beloved Orks could be improved.
The simplest process to go about this is to identify their weakness. To name a few: strength 3 boyz, non-fearless warbosses, lack of anti-air, boyz low durability, and poor heavy support options. Lets start off with the boyz.
Strength 3 boyz hurts. If you don’t get the charge you hit with the same strength as a guardsmen. Really? It really hurts any of your dedicated combat units. You can really notice the difference with nobz being base strength 4. My solution, make the choppa +1 strength. It would give another reason to run slugga choppa boyz, now being base strength 4 with 3 attacks each. You can keep furious charge on everything, so strength 5 with 4 attacks on the charge. Suddenly the beloved shoota boy is not so amazing. Keep their armor light (aka 6+) so they can be killed out of combat really easily. Makes a great risk reward choice for the ork player.
Non-fearless warbosses. Seriously, this drives me insane. My nob squad with warboss numbers 11 models. Lose two and now I am ld 9. I have been run down so many times it’s not even funny. Even a boss pole can’t save me. Make warbosses fearless. If not fearless, then at least stubborn. Seriously. If I have to watch kaptain klaw and his nobz get run down again due to some horrible rolls, I may cry orky tears. I wouldn’t even care if you increased the points of the warboss to reflect his new usefulness. I would gladly pay more to make a warboss fearless.
Lack of anti-air. Now, I hear you airboyz shouting, “What about the Dakka Jet”. It’s good, I often run 2 in my list. It’s BS 2 base with 6 strength 6 shots, twin linked. The best I can do is glance out a helldrake or stormraven. If I am lucky. Yes you can upgrade him to BS3 and 9 shots. Just give me more options, like a flakk track or something. Or let stromboyz attack flyers. Who wouldn’t love to see that?
Low boyz durability. Boyz die in droves. Generally I am okay with this. My complaint is there seems to be no way to protect them without making them stupidly expensive (cyborg bodies or ‘eavy armor). So, if I want to make my boyz survivable, I need to make them 10 or 11 points a piece? I know there are ways around this (kustom force field, transports, hugging cover) but none of those play styles feel very orky to me. Solutions: decrease points cost (eh) or give me new options for durability. Being able to take a pain boy instead of a nob or more than one squad having access to ‘eavy armor (at maybe 3 points a model) are both options.
Lastly, poor heavy support options. The only heavy support option I take regularly is the battlewagon. Which is great, I love it. I have taken every other option (even flash gitz) with little success. Walkers (deff dreads and killa kans) are a whole other issue that needs to be addressed in the main rule book. Looted wagons are far too expensive for a tank that might work and dies in a fire way to easily. Flash Gitz are fun, but unreliable. They are also crazy expensive if you give them all the upgrades to make them more reliable. I understand that unreliable wargear is an ork thing. Just make them do more, like 2 shots base instead of 1 (which can be improved to 2 for 5 points a piece!) Generally, I just want more options than deff rolla armed battle wagons.
Time will tell if I get my wishes. I am excited to see some new life breathed into my orks. I pretty much have 2 of everything in the ork collection, so I am well set when the new book drops. Now I need to go practice my WAAAAGH, got to get it propa orky.