Orc Marauders Tactics

Orc Marauders
Setting:	Grimdark Future
Games:	Grimdark Future, Grimdark Future: Firefight
Species:	Greenskin
Version:	v2.50

Note: as v2.50 is in constant development the following might not be accurate.

Why play Orc Marauders

The orcs are an inorexable tide of axes and muscle. When you attack, you attack in force and with charges as your chief means of attack. However, this comes with some critical drawbacks: Your army sucks at shooting and isn't very durable.

Pros

• Lots of Activations
• High model count
• Sprawling variety of unit choices and upgrades
• Your melee game is incredibly strong with near-universal Furious

Cons

• Choice paralysis is very real
• Your troops are flimsy as hell
• You need to lean into the advantages for the various units - Orcs can't shoot and Goblins can't stand up to a good fight.

Special Rules

• Assault Bombs: Whenever this model moves over enemy units, pick one of them and roll one die, the enemy takes a hit on a 2+.
• Bad Shot: Your entire army (outside of Goblins) have a 5+ quality when shooting. This means that you absolutely should not be relying on shooting without using either lots of shots or some very powerful weapons that make the few shots worth it.
  • Good Shot: The said exception, given to Goblins. Your model now has 4+ to hit with guns.
• Energy Field: The attached unit has Stealth.
• Mad Doctor: The attached unit has Regeneration.
• Red Paint Job: This model can add +2" to Advance moves and +4" to Charge/Rush.
• Repair: Once per activation, if within 2” of a unit with Tough, roll one die. On a 2+ you may repair D3 wounds from the target.
• Shooting Frenzy: The hero and its unit get the Relentless special rule
• Teleport: When this model is activated, they can immediately move anywhere within 6" ignoring all terrain.
• War Cry: The attached unit can move +2” on Advance, and +4” on Rush/Charge actions
• Warning Cry: Enemy units can’t be set up within 18” of this model when using Ambush.

Psychic Spells

• Crackling Bolt (4+): One enemy unit within 6" must roll a number of dice equal to the number of models in the unit; each 4+ deals a hit.
• Warpath (4+): Two friendly units within 6" gains Stealth the next time they are shot at. This is vital because of how limited your protection is.
• Death Bolt (5+): One enemy model within 6" takes a single AP(4) Deadly(3) hit. Pretty much all you can ask for when sniping a hero or heavy weapon.
• Headbang (5+): Two friendly units within 12" gains Rending on their next set of attacks, which can be pretty neat.
• Psychic Vomit (6+): Enemy unit within 6" takes five AP(2) hits. This allows you to flatten elite units pretty quickly.
• Teleport (6+): Two friendly unit within 12" get Flying on their next activation, allowing them to cross over cover and into the fight.

Unit Analysis

Heroes

• Big Boss: This is your genuine beatstick of a hero boasting Tough (6) for tankiness. Your shooting is rather meager between the base Pistol, a Carbine (with optional Heavy Flamethrower or Rocket Launcher add-ons) or Twin Carbine, but your shooting sucks anyways. Instead, you can focus more on the choppy and support. If you really need a boost in durability, you can pick between a Cyborg Body for Regeneration and Ultra Armor for additional Tough, while a Pet Attack Beast gives you Warning Cry to block out any ambushers.
  • Melee: The Big Boss comes with a pair of CCWs that can be built to be whatever you want. Instead, you could grab the Ultra Club for crowd control, the Ultra Axe for general utility, the Ultra Claw for anti-armor or the Ultra Drill if you really want to kill an enemy boss fast.
  • Upgrades: While not built for mobility, the Big Boss makes up for it in support potential. Gun Master provides Shooting Frenzy for any potential gunlines that you need to support. Shaman provides access to psychic powers. Mechanic provides Repair to supplement vehicles. Customizer provides Enemy Field to keep a squad safe from gunfire. Battle Chief is the most up-front upgrade that emphasizes the Orcs' strength in melee by giving Battle Cry.
• Boss Leader: A toned-down version of the Big Boss. While just as mighty, they now only get Tough (3) and a single CCW to change out for the list of Ultra weapons given to the Big Boss alongside the special rules. However, the Boss Leader also has the option for more personal upgrades to support more squads.**Personal Upgrades: The Boss Leader has many options for special wargear, the most of any hero. Alongside the Ultra Armor and Cyborg Body also available to the Big Boss, they can also take a Jetpack for mobility and Commando Gear for Scout, Stealth and Strider. The Beast Mount is better for melee, providing not only Tough (3) and Fast but also some AP(1) bite attacks while the Combat Bike gives a Twin Mini-MG for shooting. The Mini-Copter gives not only a flying cavalry mount but also Rocket Launchers. The Combat Trike essentially takes the bike up a notch, not only improving the boss' Tough by 6 but also giving a rapid-fire Triple Boss Shotty.

• Orc Leader: Now we get into the lesser heroes, as the Orc Leader is a visible step down from the Boss Leader in quality and defense while keeping access to all the upgrades. Notably, this leader is the only one with an expanded access to guns, all while sadly remaining with Bad Shot. Aside from the basic but reliable Plasma Pistol and Plasma Rifle, they can also get a rapid-fire Rending Portal Gun, a cover-busting Lightning Pistol with Rending, a tank-busting Rocket Launcher or a crowd-demolishing Shock Gun.

• Goblin Champ: The cheapest and puniest of your heroes, being a mere goblin. While they can't take better melee weapons, they can use the buff upgrades for their herds and can swap their pistol out for a nicer pistol between the close-quarters tank-busting Rocket-Pistol, the rapid-fire Flamethrower Pistol, the potent Plasma Pistol and the cover-popping Lightning Pistol.

Infantry

• Goblin Herd: A literal mob of tissue paper. These guys are practically useless, but they are the gifted with Good Shot. If you're intent on throwing to their death with zeal, then you can buy a Goblin Herder and confer Fearless and Relentless - pretty much a flat upgrade. You can also buy two special pistols like the champ.

• Orc Mob: Your workaday unit of orcs, and your most populous of them, since you get mobs of ten of them. While Bad Shot does dissuade you from shooting and they come stock with CCWs and Pistols (of which two can replace their CCWS for Ultra weapons like the Orc Leader) and Furious, you can replace their loadouts for a gunline of Carbines to make use of something like Relentless. As for non-weapon upgrades, you can buy either a Mad Doctor for Regeneration or a War Banner for Fear.
  • Shooting: These guys can buy two extra guns, while the unit - one being a Carbine+attachment or Twin Carbine like the bosses, the other being more specialized between the anti-armor Plasma Gun, a crowd-controlling Flamethrower, a tank-busting Rocket Launcher, a cover-popping Lightning Gun or a long-range Heavy Machinegun. Of course, this is all separate from the option for Carbines on the whole squad.

• Jetpack Orcs: A smaller herd of orcs with Flying and Ambush. While they can still grab melee weapons like normal orcs and the option for a Carbine or Twin Carbine like the bosses, but their guns can only be limited to the same ones that Goblins can pick up.

• Commandos: Sneaky orcs with Scout, Stealth and Strider for impressive mobility. They can grab the special guns available to the base orcs, though they have the option to also replace their pistols for either Shotguns or Carbines depending on how short-range they want to be. One commando can also buy a sniper carbine - a bit of a modest help since you can try to snipe out heroes and heavy weapons.
• Boss Mob: A bundle of genuinely ded 'ard orcs with 3+ quality and Tough(3). Each of them can not only buy special melee weapons, but also replace their guns with Carbines (either lone Carbines with addons or Twin Carbines) or specialized guns given to the Orc Leader without any restrictions. This pretty much compensates for the otherwise glaring lack of any squads dedicated to special weapons since the Specialist Orcs are dedicated to two different weapons.
• Specialist Orcs: A bunch of orcs toting flamethrowers with Relentless. Unlike most specialist units, these guys have a very limited choice in guns, being either this, the Rocket Launchers or the long-range Railguns. If you take the Rocket Launchers, you can make one model bizarrely drop their gun for a Rocket Hammer in case they need to kill a tank up close. You can also buy a Bomb Beast, giving a small AP(4) rocket as an additional gun.

• Orc Pirates: The beefy pirates surprisingly have improved Boarding Guns, each firing three AP(1) Rending shots as well as Tough(3) and Relentless. These guns are all you can rely on, as they while they have options for other guns, they replace seemingly nonexistent pistols.

• Ultra Bosses: The equivalent of destroyers in the Battle Brothers. The Ultra Bosses may have the epic 2+ defense, but are stuck with foot-slogging and do so with Slow. While you can keep their carbines so you can slap on a Rocket Launcher or Heavy Flamethrower, you can also replace it with a Dual Carbine. If you intend on going full melee, you can instead replace their weapons with Ultra Sawblades for Deadly(3), making them able to chop tanks into scrap.

• Orc Bikers: Your troops are now Fast and have Impact(1) in order to give some better charges, a welcome idea considering how Orcs are. Alongside the Twin Mini-MGs and CCWs, they can swap two of them for other Ultra Weapons. If you're focusing more on melee, you can turn the bikes into beast mounts for some extra attacks in melee instead of shooting.

• Orc Mini-Copters: The copters got 4+ quality but also has Fast, Tough(3) and Strider. Surprisingly, on top of the pistols and CCWs they also come out with Rocket Launchers. Those launchers can be swapped out for more generalized Twin Mini-MGs or Rapid Plasma Rifles. On top of this, they can also buy Assault Bombs for fly-over assaults as well as either Rotor Blades for improved Impact or Copter-Saws for something better-kitted to slay tanks.
• Boss Bikers: Your bikers now have the Tough 3 of bosses. Their loadout options are about the same as the base bikers with the exception of their free reign over the special melee weapons.

Vehicles

• Truck: Your cheapest transport. It's base means of combat is a Heavy Machinegun (or a Rocket Launcher). You can also grab it Relentless, Strider, a Red Paint Job, a Wrecking Ball to add +3 to Impact and a boarding plank, which adds +5 to truck's carrying capacity. This all can make it a literal monkey barrel with spikes all around, though it won't last long as such with Tough 6. If you plan on making the most of shooting, then grab Relentless.

• Looted Tank: This tank has Tough(12) and four Rocket Launchers in place of a default Transport capacity. In addition to the upgrades available to the truck, you can also buy back either a transport capacity of 10, a Harpoon Cannon or two more Rocket Launcher to destroy more tanks or a Lobber Mortar or Heavy Cannon for Blast. You can then buy an additional gun between a Heavy Machinegun, Rocket Launcher or Heavy Flamethrower.

• Battle Rig: This truck has Tough(18) as well as the same options for more guns (with a loadout identical to the Looted Tank), but their secondary gun is a choice between a Harpoon Canon or Buster Cannon for tank-bustig, the Basic Cannon or Lobber Mortar for crowd-blasting or the Lightning Gun for rapid-fire Rending that can threaten flyers. That long-ranged role can also be supplemented by grabbing Psychic, turning this into a murder rig that casts spells. If you're fine with it being a bruiser, you need to grab the Draught Beast so it can actually fight back in combat.
• Orc Buggy: Even cheaper than the truck, but you're essentially making it a mobile gun platform. You can buy from the list of personal upgrades given to the truck. If you feel the Twin Rocket Launcher is not what you need, you can instead buy a Twin Heavy Flamethrower or Twin Heavy Machinegun.

• Combat Kart: This thing is easier to describe as having multiple modes than a particularly customizable vehicle. This is especially true since the base kart has only a Shock Rifle and Rocket Launcher to cover all your shooting. Aside from that, you can also pick up Teleport so you can be unfairly fast beyond the need of any red paint.
  • The Beast-Gun/Beast GL makes the kart into artillery, as both of its guns have good range and the GL has Blast 3 to manage mobs. However, this is at the end an Orc vehicle and thus will more likely than not fail to hit, which is an issue for the Deadly Beast-Gun.
  • The Boost-Gun/Blast Grenades is a loadout meant to manage crowds. The issue is that it's got one really short-range and one long-range weapon now instead of two decent-range ones. The lack of AP on this means that anything with decent armor can shrug this off.
  • The Boom-Snazz-Gun/Heavy Machinegun gives costly but excessive firepower. Strider allows this one to ride wherever it wishes while the turret combi-gun and heavy machinegun guarantee that the enemy will swim in bullets.
  • The Mega-Scrap MG/Chain-RPG is the costliest to buy, but for good reason. This one carries a gun with a flurry of AP(1) shots to guarantee some hits. It also has super-rockets for something with more bite, though that's only two shots.

• Orc Walker: This walker's better suited for melee, having Furious and Fear as well as Tough(12). It comes stock with four sets of AP(4) claws, two of which can be exchanged for some powerful guns and supplemented by getting Relentless. If you feel more inclined to rely on Deadly, these claws can be swapped out for Walker Saws.
• Goblin Artillery: Super-cheap and numerous with Good Shot, though it is Slow. Though only one weapon has Indirect, you won't see much movement with these anyway as all of the gun options have some impressive ranges, each with a distinct role for whatever you want dead.

• Goblin Walker: While not as nimble or as mighty as its Orc counterpart - both on account of being only Tough (3) and having weaker guns as options - but it has the edge of having Good Shot, meaning those guns can hit more often than the Orc Walker's.

• Goblin Tanks: Being crewed by goblins, these things possesses Good Shot, which you want for the main guns. Bought stock, they come with Bazookas to pop crowds but you can also get the Rocket Launcher to bust tanks, the Heavy Flamethrower to handle close-quarters mobs, the Heavy Machinegun for long-ranged firepower and the Plasma Cannon do destroy mobs from afar.

Flyers

• Bomber Plane: A loaded plane, complete with Twin Super-MGs to blow out anything on land or air as well as the pair of Flame Missiles and Flame Bombs to destroy any crowds. If you're more intent on taking on tanks with this bomber, then it's wiser to consider grabbing Heavy Bombs. You also have the option to buy Relentless for the MGs and a Dorsal Gunner to help add some extra firepower.

• Attack Plane: Costlier than the Bomber, but it's loaded with two Twin Super-MGs to fill anything it sees with holes. Relentless works a lot more here with those shots, one of which can be replaced with either a Twin Plasma Cannon or Twin Portal Gun depending on what you're inclined on breaking while the other can be turned into a Smasher Cannon to smash more tanks. Because of this threat factor, you might consider the option for Regeneration to protect it.

Titans

• Brutal & Cunning Titan: This is a genuine behemoth and you will know it just by looking at it. Tough(24), a Transport capacity of 6, Fear, Furious, and a mountain of guns to work alongside its devastating Mega Claw make this titan one made entirely to fight. You can then upgrade it with either Relentless or Regeneration depending on how much you plan on shooting. It can then strap on two more guns (one being either a Plasma Rifle or Heavy Flamethrower, the other being a Deathstorm Plasma Cannon to demolish anything in a crowd or Deathstorm Minigun to mow through hordes) just in case you didn't feel like overkill enough.

List Building & Tactics

General Advice

• It is likely you will have more activation than your opponent. Make use of this by playing defensively for the first activations of the turn, forcing your opponent to play their most valuable units. Then with the last activations concentrate your firepower on dangerous units that were forced to placed themselves in a bad position, or use the opportunity to quickly move to a better position.
• Make heavy use of cover! Most of your units have low defense, meaning they will quickly die if attacked in the open. Don't give the enemy a chance to target your units in the first place by hiding behind terrain.
• Use every trick you can to get into melee quickly and safely. Use Trucks with the Battle Ram and Red Paint Job upgrades to get across the table quickly (add Wrecking Ball and Boarding Plank for heavy Impact damage), upgrade your units with Mad Doctors and Heavy Armor for survivability, and use hero special rules to buff your assaulting force (WAR! and Energy Field).
• Against units with 2+ defense make sure to take Ultra Axes and Ultra Claws, or go for Shred Rifles and Plasma Rifles if you want to be more shooty. Don't forget to take a Warlord with SHOOT! for full effect. Weight of fire can also help, like a full Flamethrower unit of specialists (double-up for 60 attacks, ouch!), or doubled-up Orc Pirates with Boarding Guns (30 attacks with AP(1) and Relentless).

Tactics

Note: This section needs more content. You can help the wiki by expanding it.

• The bumping trucks list: Take several trucks and stuff them with melee units, like Orc mobs or Boss mobs. The key upgrade for your trucks is Strider, then Red Paint Job is useful, and impact(+3) and impact(+6) are nice extras. In addition to those core units you will need units to cover the flanks of your trucks, Orc bikers do the job decently, and make sure to have anti-tank units if you play 1500+ pts. The game plan is to hide the trucks behind terrain during turn 1, and wait for the opponent to get close to the objectives. Then send all of your trucks in a single wave, to offer as many targets as possible at once to the opponent to maximize your chances of survival. The trucks will use Strider to ignore difficult terrain, and Red Paint Job to increase the charge distance. You'll find that you can charge insanely far away with those. The truck will bump into an enemy with its impact ability, then the opponent will activate, then the embarking unit will disembark and charge at max 6". So try to attack units that have already activated so they won't have time to destroy the truck in 1 activation before the embarked unit can get out. Also be careful when using impact, as the enemy unit can destroy the truck in the subsequent melee, thus pinning the embarked unit and ruining your plan.

See Also

• Orc Marauders
• Orc Marauders Quickplay Armies
• Grimdark Future Tactics
• Grimdark Future List Building
• Grimdark Future Strategy
• Grimdark Future

Orc Marauders
Overview - Tactics - Firefight Tactics - Miniatures - Quickplay Armies - Firefight Quickplay Armies

Grimdark Future tactics
List Building - Strategy - Special Rules
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