how the hell does SM deal with orks early on?

[Ven]

i cant seem to do much against orks as a force commander early on, which in turn usually means i loose the game.

was just wondering how i would deal with orks early on, usually i get shotguns on my scouts to get the sluggas and other than that i go with the usual Tacs -> Gens -> ASM -> T2. usually i can shut down the sluggas with shotgun+battlecry but by the time i fore them off the shootas have chewed though EVERY UNIT i had on the sluggas, and am forced off. then im either trapped in my base on a map like calderis refinery and/or the power gets bashed to high heaven, which in turn looses me the game. how exactly do i deal with all that? once i get my ASM out i can manage a bit better but once a painboy comes on the field i loose all hopes of recovering.

EDIT: i should probably mention this only ever happens on team games and i only ever have this kind of of problem with orks, perhaps because of the large ammount of units out of the gate+high DPS+ meele AND ranged units on the field within seconds of the game starting.

[Crewfinity]

Against which commander? I suppose a general approach would be to stick your tacs in green cover. Poke a bit with your scouts, try to get some shots on the sluggas if they're in front. When shootas approach, back off with your scouts to bait them into approaching, bring your scouts in cover behind your tacs and upgrade to shotguns, force commander should be behind the tacs as well. As soon as you see the sluggas aproach, shoot them with the tacs. Shotgun blast them once they're in range, then pop battlecry and they should be forced off easily. Then you can bleed shootas with your tacs. A lot of it comes down to good micro and not being too aggressive. Pay lots of attention to your scouts, they'll help the most vs sluggas and warboss or knob. Don't charge your FC in until the tail end of the engagement, he needs to support your army and counter initiate rather than charging after shootas.

[Torpid]

The DPS of shootas and sluggas out of the gate is nowhere as scary as 2 avengers+banshees, although the warboss/KN are scary heroes compared to the eldar ones out of the gate, but I wouldn't blame the out-of-gate strength much.

Ideally you only want to drop 1 gen IIRC along with a node in team games when you're SM if you're only going 1 scout (which you should most of the time). Just keep your tacs in cover and lure out the sluggas with that, then focus fire them down with all your squads ensuring the scouts are behind the tacs at all times so the shootas don't shred them. Same applies to your FC/apo/tm, although early on the TM's dps vs shootas in cover to cover fights is handy. If you have a warboss, sluggas and 2 shootas charging at you with wagggh you can only hope to bleed the slugga models as much as you can, hop in a building or retreat. Don't buy a shotgun as your first power purchase, it's not worth it. You should be checking who your foes are by looking at the player list and working out which position the ork will spawn in relative to you. If as an SM you know you're opposite an ork and know your ally who is a CL is fighting something like a nid, then tell your allies to build gens on their side first. This means even if you lose the first engagement to the ork badly and they get to your power to bash it, it will result in a very minor loss. Then you come out with fast ASM while upgrading the scouts shotguns and sarges. You will dominate the ork until he gets a painboy or stormboys.

If they go for stormboyz I suggest you get a second scout and upgrade it with shotguns. If they get a painboy I suggest you then buy a devastator squad after your ASM. Drop extra gens after you get ASM and after you get the second scout/dev depending on your req float. If they go for a hugely 2 shoota, slugga, storms, painboy T1 then just tech to a dreadnought and a devastator + sterns. That deals with most of what orks can do in T2.

[Batpimp]

don't forget you can check indrid/fitzrupee/maestro's youtube channels and other submitted replays for examples of this.

out in the open out of cover or in the wrong position, like almost every SM match, is where you will lose. you want to prepare a position that makes it hard for him to approach you and have him make mistakes. VS orks as SM it usually comes down to positioning and who makes the most mistakes.

[34fsd]

It seems like the period when they have 3 units and commander you have your commander and scouts and tacs is troubling you.

In that time you should not try to push out much and def, and if the ork gets agressive you have to keep falling back and trying to wear down his meele squads with range dps.

[Atlas]

It seems like the period when they have 3 units and commander you have your commander and scouts and tacs is troubling you.

In that time you should not try to push out much and def, and if the ork gets agressive you have to keep falling back and trying to wear down his meele squads with range dps.

Perfect response imo. His build has more stuff than yours at the period of time you're talking about. Don't commit to that kind of engagement without some kind of advantage like a building or just teammates.

[Tex]

tacs in green cover is step one (This will force the ork to sustain losses or take damage on a hero as he simply cannot DPS tacs out of green cover. Assuming you have shotguns on your first scout squad, you have the engagement right where you want it.)

using your 2nd scout squad to punish the ork player for pushing your power is step two (getting a sargeant behind enemy lines for easy retreat grenades, OR, using them to back cap req points)

effectively using battlecry and FC low tier wargear is step three (armor of alacrity can really help your FC tie up shootas very quickly. iron halo can make the FC very hard to deal with in the early game.)

I'm not a huge fan of ASM vs orks. I would much rather focus on getting sternguards and a dreadnaught.

[[TLV]Soul_Drinkers]

this sounds rather easy solution to me good sir. buy 2 tacts get devs and stormshield free win

[ol'smithy]

It seems like the period when they have 3 units and commander you have your commander and scouts and tacs is troubling you.

In that time you should not try to push out much and def, and if the ork gets agressive you have to keep falling back and trying to wear down his meele squads with range dps.

This works fine in 1v1's, but what if you're an Apo on argus vs a warboss in the resource lane?

[Ace of Swords]

You drop gens top and stall the game by playing defensively around your req point.

[Cyris]

Much like eldar, orks needs to spend power on their starting squads to put them on par with tacs (supported by commander and at least 1 scout). So the orks early power spends are important to keep track of and counter. If they upgrade shootas, time to play passive and keep to cover. If they spend on WB/Sluggas, time for shotguns. If they haven't spent anything, they are prolly saving for Storms or Painboy (both of which shotguns help with).

My general feeling is that against orks, you want to get out a 4th squad in T1. If the ork player is investing in upgrading his 2x shoota/slugga/commander, then being up a squad will help a lot with back-capping and focusing sluggas off. If the ork gets a 4th squad, then you will be in big trouble if you are down a squad. Devs are my go to, though Stormboys can ruin your day. ASM are useful, but against WB they feel like they don't scale so well (WB T2 ups + Slugga Nob make them need to be played more cautiously then a 450/50 cost unit should be). Sarge helps, but like Tex said I want Sterns and Dread to really punish infantry asap.

[34fsd]

It seems like the period when they have 3 units and commander you have your commander and scouts and tacs is troubling you.

In that time you should not try to push out much and def, and if the ork gets agressive you have to keep falling back and trying to wear down his meele squads with range dps.

This works fine in 1v1's, but what if you're an Apo on argus vs a warboss in the resource lane?

When being in a resource lane in 3v3s I stall a bit by kiting like my previous post then get a second tactical squad and asm (not buying any gens) and when those units are all out you have a timing to overpower the ork (almost easily imo) and take his power.

[Element]

@OP

(Target Priority and Upgrade Priority)

^
I can't stress enough about these 2 things. You have to pay attention to where your opponent is trying to focus their damage output. Is it through the sluggas? with painboy support Is it through shootas with heavy upgrade investment? Is it through their commander?

Usually if you can counter the power invested unit and can take them off the field, the rest writes itself.

First 1.)
Usually you should almost always be looking to immediately upgrade your scouts with shotguns. Unless you plan on running 2x sniper scouts 1 shotgun scout absolutely trumps 1 sniper scout in this situation.

Second 2.)
Green Cover ALWAYS

Third 3.)
You have to decide immediately (I always have a build in any game ready before I start playing) as to whether you are going to invest into devastators or go with ASM.

Usually this will be decided by the ork player commander choice.
After that everything is completely conditional

It would help if you told us what commander you play that would make it a lot easier
but until then hope this helps some

[Cyris]

Nice post Anomaly. Two little notes from my experience:

Usually you should almost always be looking to immediately upgrade your scouts with shotguns. Unless you plan on running 2x sniper scouts 1 shotgun scout absolutely trumps 1 sniper scout in this situation.

While a shotgun is incredibly important, resist the urge to build it as soon as you can. Find out where the slugga is, and don't even get the upgrade till he's going deep with them. I tend to make Shotgun on the Scout closest to the sluggas as soon as the sluggas start running at ya. Then I kite till they are done, then turn and kill. I will even cancel the shotgun upgrade while it's buildin if the sluggas fall back. The reason for all this is to squeeze extra gens in, or even start building dev/asm/3rd scout before getting the shotgun. The more units you can field early, the better off you are going to be. The 75/15 for the shotguns is no small investment!

Even 1 sniper can be super good against orks (1 sniper, 1 shotgun works well), since it bleeds models so hard, and the SM player is generally going to need to play the kiting game.