Dawn of War Codex

I became interested in ork gameplay recently and one thing that is curious for me is da painboy.
I saw quite a number of casts/replays of 1v1s and teamgames involving orks, but most of them features pretty standard build-orders with very rare usage of painboy. So please tell me in what match-ups/situations orks should add a painboy to their unit composition, what is the idea behind painboy usage, against what unit combinations it is best to purchase him. Thanks in advance.

P.S. If Painboy thread already exists, a link to it will be much appreciated). If it`s relevant for 2.4 ofc.

I'll offer some help here but I'm the kind of player that wings the game rather than have a legitimate strategy on the way to win. Hopefully there's some insight you can take from this.

It will depend what your goals are and given that you have something in mind you can decide when to get the painboy. Orks are a pretty reactionary race so there are times where you wouldn't ever get the Painboy.

The painboy isn't necessarily just for melee and can be used in conjunction with shootas as well as a trukk.

There are a vast number of builds you can use him with and I always narrow this down to stylistic choices. Heavy melee or heavy ranged armies are both complimented by the heal. Some would put you behind more than others such as 2 sluggaz + shoota + 2 lootas. Getting a painboy would be a more expensive purchase in the long run so it's better to get him later if you're wanting to get him *at some stage*.

Getting him t1 is not mandatory and he can be purchased at any time if you've got the munnies. Standard openings in T1 is to compliment sluggaz/stormz, T2 is to compliment shootas with a trukk, t3 to compliment Nobs and give them +1 speed.

Above is a really basic approach as to when to make the purchase but it all comes down to practise. Sometimes Lootas are a better choice, stormz are a better choice, more shootas is the best choice.

Hope that was helpful in any regard

Slugga boyz aren't really good in T1 due to their low melee skill and relatively low health and the absence of any ability that would allow them to perform better both at defending and attacking (doomblast, banshees' howl). The painboy compensates all their weaknesses EASILY and adds his significant DPS and being a single entity he doesn't hurt your economy at all. I would reccomend buying this guy whenever you feel like there is a MU where your slugga boyz are thrown around like pussies (when I use ASM against orks these little green fucks don't cause me problems in T1 at all unless there is a painboy to support them). And when you get to T2 then it will become ridiculously hard to ever emerge victorious against slugga boyz with their OP leader because the painboy also becomes kinda OP due to his ability that comes just for free (what a fucking shame really) and this is kind of ability that allows you to handily win melee fights (like if slugga boyz with their OP leader weren't powerful enough).

All in all if you buy a painboy in T1, a weirdboy in T2 and then nobz in T3 then they will become a nightmare to deal with if you manage everything properly. Despite people saying that nobz are kinda not good now, they are still good mostly because of the very valuable for them benefits that subcommanders can provide - healing is great on them, throwing them right to your enemies' lines and only then using Frenzy, you also perform a surgery on them as they are essentially the best infantry squad available for orks, warpath, well you see.

Thanks for your replies). Guess now I have to try it all myself.
By the way, can anyone spare a replay or 2 with good painboy play? Or provide a link for one on gamereplays?