Shooty Orcs - No or go?

hi all,

according to the Orc List, the Orcs-and-Goblins-Warband can make some really good shooters: Up to BS6, all heroes have access to shooting skills (except Shaman), they can use crossbows by default - a very powerful weapon combined with quickshot.

But on the other hand there is animosity which somehow reduces the effectiveness of shooting heroes drastically:
If you create shooting heroes they tend to stay back on a high building with their (cross)bows thus not being in the thick of battle to prevent animosity there.


So here's my question: Would you go for shooty orcs at all and if yes: How to solve that "animosity-dilemma" mentioned above?

I do play a very shooty Orc warband, after the first couple of games. I don't start the warband with any ranged weapons but I buy crossbows as soon as I can afford them and hand them out to whoever gets +1BS first.

As for Animosity: I don't worry about it!
If it happens that a shooter legs it forward or shoots a mate, then so-be-it! It's in their nature and is to be expected. If you can't laugh as your Boyz pin-cushion each other then you shouldn't be playing Orcs!

I would be wary of it, as one bad animosity roll and your shooter will move out of a good position (on a tower/ building/ balcony etc) and you'd have to spend an extra turn getting him back, thus animosity could cost you 2 turns instead of one.

As long as you are ok with your shooter being part of the main battle line (to mitigate the fact that if he moves at least it'll bring him closer to the enemy for CC or close range shooting) you should be fine with ranged Orcs.

With Orcs I always like to have shooty skills and a hero or two, but I approach it as a secondary thing- they are combat guys first and foremost but they can shoot (well) if they want/ need to.

Don't forget that if you roll the 6 you have to keep moving towards the nearest enemy with your normal movement. If a shooter moves out of position don't try to move him back as you will be wasting more than one turn! Take the opportunity to move him closer to the enemy, either into another covered position or into combat.
Go with the flow, don't fight against it!

I usually work on building one of the heroes as a shooting specialist, but mainly focus the warband on melee.

Confused as usual. Like what ya'll talkin bout?

@Dahag--How can an orc hero prevent animosity?

You are worried about henchmen leaving their shooting perch right?

I give the BS 4 boyz a bow so they can support the advance.

I like to give all my Orcs bows. I usually start-off with all of my Heroes with bows and then as the games go on give everyone bows. There is nothing worse then having someone take pot-shots at you and not being able to shoot back.

I also try to have at least one hero who is good at shooting so he can lay down some cover fire. There have been a couple of games where my Boss, and Big'Uns used crossbows to knock down dwarves leaving them open for a charge while prone.

Von Kurst wrote:

@Dahag--How can an orc hero prevent animosity?

If an orc hero is nearest model to the animosity dude, the roll of 1 is treated as a 2-5, so then he won't bash his mates, but stand still instead...

Doh!

Been playing humies and gobos for the last couple of months and forgot that one. Thanks!

Shooty orcs are an awesome idea. If you do it right, and get the right advances, they can out shoot humans. Around the same BS but the orcs are SO much tougher!

As far as the way I play, I make one orc hero a shooting specialist. Double Barreled handgun and a crossbow. He is awesome.

thanks a lot for your feedback so far, guys.

In our campaign we played 2 games so far and I'm facing undead, beastmen and darkelves. So far the darkelves shoot at anyone, whereas the others are not (yet) able to respond in the same manner. So I intend to change that a little This should also bring more of a balance into the campaign when there is a second warband that is at least quite well at shooting, too...

So: Actually I want to go cc-heavy but also cultivating my shooting department to an extent to roughly match the dark elves (and pose a considerable threat to the others) from a distance also.

According to your experience/opinions:

1) About how much shooting is needed to achieve that purpose?

2) Should I rather make the Big-Uns the shooters and the promoted Orc Boys (of which I have one already) the cc-fighters or rather the other way round?

3) Is a shooting hero effective enough if he advances with the others (usually on ground floor) or should he rather stay back on a elevated position with good sight?

PS. I'm saving for a troll and if I get at least 2 shards per game -which I should - then I'm there after another 3 games. HURRAY!

Dahag wrote:

1) About how much shooting is needed to achieve that purpose?

2) Should I rather make the Big-Uns the shooters and the promoted Orc Boys (of which I have one already) the cc-fighters or rather the other way round?

3) Is a shooting hero effective enough if he advances with the others (usually on ground floor) or should he rather stay back on a elevated position with good sight?

1) You will probably not be able to match them (they will improve as the campaign progresses too!) but half a dozen Orcs with crossbows is a formidable "gunline" since they are T4 to begin with. Elves at T3 and crossbows at S4 means the advantage in a little with you!

B) That depends entirely on the advances they get - let the dice gods decide!

4) Again depends on skills - if he has Nimble and Trick Shot he can advance with the fighters. Otherwise he should get to high ground and/or cover within range of the middle of the table.

(I'm really enjoying this thread BTW! )

WarbossKurgan wrote:

(I'm really enjoying this thread BTW! )

Thanks very much, so do I

Actually, the dark elf player has openly declared that he intends to totally max out his shooting capacities and that his future strategy will be to generally sit back and let the others approach under heavy fire. So dwarven-style roughly .

Accordingly, the beastman player appeared to be quite scared at the mere thought and I'm quite concerned too

So as I fear our campaign to become unbalanced (the only shooting warband shoots 3 cc-warbands to a pulp while they smash each other's heads) -and of course because I do like crossbowfire if I'm the one doing it- I want to go for an amount of shooting that I dare to hope to make things at least a lot harder for the "dwarfy" pointy-eared. But on the other hand I don't want to give up on cc totally (troll will be "delivered" soon ) . Quite a dilemma


concerning the skills: So far none of my heroes has got a skill yet

But one of the Big Uns rolled "new skill" (which one is left to be decided yet) and I have a freshly promoted Orc Boy (at 2 xp only, yumm : )

So I wonder which roles i should assign to each of them...

PS. The dark elf player uses the "NEW" list (so Master of Poisons on High Born only, max BS6, etc...)

Dahag wrote:

2) Should I rather make the Big-Uns the shooters and the promoted Orc Boys (of which I have one already) the cc-fighters or rather the other way round?

What I meant by this: Usually, a promoted Henchman has more advances ahead than a Hero (i.e. Big Un). So until he reaches his Exp limit he will have more advance rolls.

Especially if a henchman gets promoted at the first possibility (as my Orc Boy did) he has a maximum of advances ahead yet.

I wonder in which role he will need more advances, or in which role he can exploit this potential better. As a shooter or as a cc-fighter... (his "promoting-roll" was I3 btw).

Dahag wrote:

So as I fear our campaign to become unbalanced (the only shooting warband shoots 3 cc-warbands to a pulp while they smash each other's heads) -and of course because I do like crossbowfire if I'm the one doing it- I want to go for an amount of shooting that I dare to hope to make things at least a lot harder for the "dwarfy" pointy-eared. But on the other hand I don't want to give up on cc totally (troll will be "delivered" soon ) . Quite a dilemma

Hmmm. A tricky one!

I recommend getting MANY more buildings. Lots of cover mitigates the unbalancing effect of heavy-shooting by the enemy. You can sneak up to him in safety and Krack 'is Skull wiv ya Choppas!


Also, it sounds like you are playing multi-player games? Try for some more one-on-one games as the "shoot you while you fight someone else" effect will disappear too!

Dahag wrote:

I wonder in which role he will need more advances, or in which role he can exploit this potential better. As a shooter or as a cc-fighter... (his "promoting-roll" was I3 btw).

A tricky one again, that I'm afraid I haven't been able to answer for myself yet!

At this stage in the evolution of Mordhheim a lot of background needs to be provided before an answer can be given.
Individual tables don't look the same, how the terrain is used isn't the same, how the individual rules are applied isn't the same.

For example our campaign adds the Warhammer 6th edition rules Hard Cover and 6's to hit to the Mordheim mix. So shooting is harder, but the possibility of an impossible shot is always there.

Then we got a wild hair and added Darkness and weather conditions to most of our games. Darkness favors the melee bands. Bad weather does too. Shooters generally survive.

How I play orcs. I run one of the LGT boyz as a shooter, and the other as a melee guy. But since I like to attack the ladz now have bows over crossbows and the LGT guy carries a blunderbuss. Since the ladz are pirates, Big Uns might get a blunderbuss too. The Boss took one for his first advance last campaign.

Because we play that 6's always have a chance of hitting the bow armed boyz move forward and shoot at anything they can see. Might hit it.

If you play lots of multi-player the DE's shooting should be mitigated by the fact that warbands start closer.

Thanks for the hints concerning my warband/campaign. However, I'd like to go back to Orcs and shooting in general...

Let's say your warband contains shooter heroes and shooter Orc boys:

1) where do you place them in general? henchies up on high buildings and heroes in the frontline or the other way round etc...

If you put up the orc boys you might get a (cross)bow shot in the back once in a while. If your heroes are the ones staying back, your henchmen beat each other up because of non-present heroes in their midst. tricky in both ways...

2) which ranged weapons do you give the heroes and henchmen? Heroes with crossbows (or rather throwing knives, etc...) and henchmen with bows?

3) Let's say you choose to make a shooter of a LGT orc boy: which second skill tree (beside shooting) would you give him? and which skills?

4) are shooting goblins worth it with their shortbows? If yes, how many of them would you need to become efficient?

5) am i asking too many questions at once?

I honestly don't think about it in this much detail normally! (My Orc brain hurts!) but...

5) No!

4) My Goblins are not allowed Bows, not after the time they shot all my Orcs out of the game!

2) crossbows for everyone!

i must say respect orc bosses with bows.....my Ostlander captain lost his arm to one

sorry, if I'm commiting necromancy here, but I'd like to hear some more opinions on which ranged weapons you tend to give your lads.

do you also give crossbows to heroes and bows to (orc) henchmen? or some other combination?

I guess that crossbows on henchmen might be too expensive, as they die quickly and then the money is lost.

on the other hand bows might not really cut it against beastmen I'm afraid...

so what is your opinion / experience?

You'd laugh at me. I make one orc really shooty and pack him with a double barreled handgun and a crossbow...

He does well, really well, but it's mostly for flavor and a neat modeling escuse.

With (orc) shooting I like to give them: x-bow, bow + hunting arrows.

Skills: quick shot, trick shooter evt eagle eyes. Insted of nimble I normaly use the bow.
Bow + hunting arrows (with quick shot) is GREAT vs. T3.

Personaly I prefere to use Lads as shooters, dont know why... but they get shooting + speed skills.

I had a young´un from the black orc warband going shooter, he ended the campain with somthing like: BS6, elven bow, hunting arrows, brace of D. pistols and quick shot, eagle eyes, trick shot, weapon expert...
All (3) of my apponent used T3 warbands - in the end he got 3-5 kills every game.

It really depends on what role the shooter is serving. Using the basic rules, the xbow is the king of ranged weapons. Str 4, great range, and quickshottable. If you have a hero who is going to high ground then sitting there sniping people all game, the crossbow is the way to go. I'd usually prefer it even over the 200 gold rulebook long rifle (although my group houserules a better long rifle). If you happen to come across one, the elf bow with hunting arrows is also good for this.

If your shooter is going to stay near your melee force, then you should have a weapon that allows you to move and shoot. For Orcs, that would be the bow. Better yet, give a hero duelling pistols or a xbow pistol (most overlooked weapon IMHO). Both aid in and out of combat, with the xbow pistol giving an extra attack before combat, which is a good deterrent to getting charged. Eagle eye aids these weapons greatly.

Usually, like you mentioned, you'd restrict xbows to heroes cause they're expensive to lose on a henchman. However, if you have a henchman group with BS advance and spare cash, give them xbows and keep them away from combat. With T4, it's unlikely they'll go OOA to enemy shooting. Just make sure to keep such henchmen near a hero to mitigate the severity of animosity rolls.

An early quickshotting or BS upgraded hero with an xbow can usually rack up multiple kills each game vs T3 opponents and quickly become a ranged attacking monstrosity.

FYI, should you choose to, Orcs can go toe to toe shooting against Dark Elves, at least for the first several games of a campaign. Xbows are cheaper than repeaters with greater range and str, and you have T4. Add in some cheap armor when you can (shields or toughened leathers) and you should be spanking those elves (until late in a campaign, but by then you've got some melee might, right?). However, this strat would likely be a double-edged sword as, unless you play with very little cover in your games, the beastman player with T4 and high movement would probably roll over such an Orc warband.

This is how I run my orc warband:

I have the leader as a leader/support shooter so he has Da Cunning Plan, Nimble, Trick Shot, etc. He has a Holy Relic of Mork'n'Gork, crossbow, rope and hook, etc.

The two TLGT heroes I kit out as snipers so they get the Speed, Shooting, and Orc skills. One I make a blackpowder specialist so he gets Hunter, Nimble, Trickshot, etc and is armed with a sniper rifle when I get one, but a crossbow until he does. He will get a handgun if I come across one. The other is a bow specialist so he gets Quickshot, Eagle Eye, Trick Shot, etc. He has a longbow with hunting arrows and will upgrade to an elven bow. An elven bow with hunting arrows is more likely to take out a dwarf out of action than a crossbow. These two hang out in the back because as TLGT heroes they are the hardest to replace.

My two Big'Uns I make close-support shooters. One specialises in pistols so gets pistoleer, trick shot, eagle eye, etc, but also things like strike to injure, pit fighter, etc. He starts out with crossbow pistols and will eventually upgrade to Warplock pistols if there are Skaven in the campaign or just Dueling Pistols if not. The other is a knife fighter, but has a crossbow pistol for when charged.

The shaman is mostly close combat with Strongman, Mighty Blow, etc.

Lord O, that sounds like a really solid plan! I may have to steal some or all of it!