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Starting an Orcs & Goblins Army

by Avian

This article will deal with starting a generic mixed Orcs & Goblins army, as opposed to a themed one. It contains hints and tips on putting together an all-round army which is both robust and flexible.

 

Contents

Starting points:

Characters

Units you can hardly go wrong with:

Building up the army:

 

Starting points

When starting a greenskin army, there are several different boxes you can get which contains several regiment sets worth of models for a reduced price. This part talks about each of those in turn and tries to give some suggestions on how to use them.

As the current big boxes have a high degree of overlap and may contain units you don't want (at least not to being with), it can be better to just start off with various regiment sets and base your army on that. A box of Wolf Riders (makes two units of five), for example, is almost compulsory in a greenskin army as they have so many different uses. With the battalion box you essentially save the price of one regiment set, so if there is one unit (apart from the chariot) you don't want, then there is little reason to buy the big box over the components separately. Similarly, the plastic army effectively saves you the cost of two regiment sets, so if you don't want the Black Orcs or the Fanatics, there is little reason to get it.

 

The Battle for Skull Pass

The best thing about the 6th edition starter set is that you can trade the Dwarfs models with a Dwarf player who also bought the set and get two lots of gobbos, which should get you as many Night Goblins and Spider Riders as any reasonable player will ever need. Heartily recommended.

Contents:

Money saved: Impossible to determine as the contents are not available separately.

Points value: 600 with all mundane equipment as seen on the models, a level upgrade for the Shaman but no magic items (can add up to 100 points extra).

Suggestions: It is not overly hard to convert the spearmen to have hand weapons instead of spears if you can get your hands on some spare gobbo-sized weaponry (I used some which were mainly from the Empire Militia regiment set), which are often more useful than heaps of spearmen. If you swap the stunies for an extra dose of Night Goblins, I would suggest that you assemble the spearmen as three units of around 25 models rather than four units of 20. The command options are also not that useful for weedy gobbos and generally a musician is enough. For the Spider Riders, a unit of ten fast cavalry models with full command is both more expensive and less useful than two units of five (in most cases, a unit of ten is actually less useful than a single unit of five), so if you can convert them into two units of 5 with a musician each, I recommend that as well. Alternatively, if you have two lots, you can assemble them as three units of 6, each with a musician.

Army list: A useful 800-point army list made from two lots of Skull Pass models is given below.

Night Goblin Big Boss @ 64 pts
- Great weapon
- Warboss Umm's Best Boss 'At

Night Goblin Shaman, level 2 @ 85 pts

30 Night Goblins @ 140 pts
- Spear, shield
- Full command

20 Night Goblins @ 64 pts
- Hand weapon, shield
- Musician

20 Night Goblins @ 64 pts
- Hand weapon, shield
- Musician

20 Night Goblins @ 64 pts
- Short bow
- Musician

20 Night Goblins @ 64 pts
- Short bow
- Musician

6 Forest Goblin Spider Riders @ 84 pts
- Spear, shield
- Musician

6 Forest Goblin Spider Riders @ 84 pts
- Spear, shield
- Musician

6 Forest Goblin Spider Riders @ 84 pts
- Spear, shield
- Musician

Total: 797 pts

Note that the list does not use the Trolls as they are rather too unreliable with a general with only Leadership 7. As noted above it is technically possible to combine two sets to make a single 1200 point list (you would just have to cut out one character), but that would not be a very good list if you ask me. If you do not want to convert any spears to hand weapons, you can field three units of 25 spearmen, one of them with a full command group and the other two just with a musician and remove one unit of bowmen, and still keep it a 800-point list.

 

Orcs & Goblins Battalion box v2

The second version of the battalion box replaces a lot of the unimpressive old two part (head + everything else) models with multipart models instead. I have trouble seeing why they included a unit of Spider Riders and a unit of Night Goblins, since anyone who had bought a Skull Pass set (or two) tends to have enough of those already. If you have a double dose of Skull Pass there is very little of use in this box and I would recommend you just get some Orc Boyz boxes on their own. If you don't have the Skull Pass set, however, then I heartily recommend this box, as everything is useful.

Contents:

Money saved: £19

Points value: 450 to 650, depending on how many options you take. Personally I lean towards the lower end.

Suggestions: The most obvious thing would be to split the Spider Riders into two units of 5, each with a musician, instead of a single, unwieldy unit of 10. With the Night Goblins it is quite easy to go bananas on upgrades, while I think that in general, the cheaper the unit is, the better (my favourite unit is twenty of the little gits with hand weapons, shields and a musician, at 64 points). The Orc Boyz tend to be best with either choppas and shields, or a pair of choppas each. All the command options are nice, while the Big 'Uns upgrade is mostly a waste of points. Finally, the Boar Chariot doesn't have a lot of options, but if you find a way to cram in an extra Orc crewman, then five points is not a bad thing.

Army list: A reasonable 500-point army list made from a battalion box is given below. It assumes that characters are not required, and that you can use a Boss as the army general.

23 Orc Boyz @ 168 pts
- Choppa, shield and light armour
- Full command

20 Night Goblins @ 99 pts
- Hand weapon, shield and nets
- Musician

5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders @ 76 pts
- Spear, short bow and shield
- Musician

5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders @ 76 pts
- Spear, short bow and shield
- Musician

1 Orc Boar Chariot @ 80 pts

Total: 500 pts

Note that nets on the Night Goblins is a bit useless on such a small unit and that short bows on the Spider Riders isn't a terribly good option either. Removing these and going for 450 pts would probably make for a more effective unit. The Orcs can have additional choppas instead of shields if you wish.

 

Orcs & Goblins plastic army

This is basically an upgraded battalion box and repeats a lot of stuff you get there. You could go for both if you like, in which case you will probably get as many Spider Riders as you could ever want. Annoyingly you do get a monstrously expensive unit of Black Orcs, which aren't really overly useful, but at least it is relatively cheap.

Contents:

Money saved: £37

Points value: Anywhere from 1200 to 1500, depending on the options you take. It is probably possible to get more out of it as well if you really wanted to.

Suggestions: See the comments for the battalion box regarding the Orc Boyz, Night Goblins, Spider Riders and Boar Chariot. Getting 20 Black Orcs is a bit awkward (not that Black Orcs aren't always awkward), because if you rank them up 5 wide then it needs just a single casualty lose that point of rank bonus you paid so much for. I would rather recommend going for 18 (6 wide), with the last two being used to convert up characters or something like that. Fanatics for the Night Goblins is another of those things you can easily go overboard with, and I would personally not take more than 1 per unit of 20, unless I had very specific tactics in mind. The fighty Orc character set is also a bit awkward (and not just because the models are weedy), as you'd really like to place both your characters on boars instead of having them run around on foot. One option is of course to mount the BSB in a chariot while leaving the general on a boar to join a unit of Boyz.

Army list: A reasonable 1250-point list.

Orc Big Boss @ 135 pts
- Martog's Best Basha
- Bigged's Kickin' Boots
- Light armour, shield and boar

Orc Big Boss @ 207 pts
- Light armour
- Battle Standard Bearer
- Best Boss 'At
- Boar Chariot

18 Orc Boyz @ 138 pts
- Choppa, shield and light armour
- Full command

20 Orc Boyz @ 170 pts
- Two choppas and light armour
- Full command

20 Night Goblins @ 124 pts
- Hand weapon, shield and nets
- Musician
- 1 Night Goblin Fanatic

5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders @ 76 pts
- Spear, short bow and shield
- Musician

5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders @ 76 pts
- Spear, short bow and shield
- Musician

18 Black Orcs @ 295 pts
- Armed to da Teef, heavy armour and shield
- Standard bearer and musician
- Waaagh! Banner

Magic items are of course a matter of personal taste and can be shuffled around a bit. Again the Night Goblins end up being rather expensive, which is a bit inevitable given that there are only 20 models in the unit. It would probably be more effective to increase the size of the unit and reduce which options it takes, while keeping the cost more or less the same.

 

Characters

I must say that in this edition, the various greenskin characters are mostly all useful, in varying circumstances. In fact, the only types I would not recommend unless you wish to fight with a disadvantage are the Night Goblin fighter characters (Warboss / Big Boss) and Savage Orc spellcasters (Shaman / Great Shaman). Night Goblins can't fight well, are weedy, have horrible Leadership and are only slightly cheaper than common Goblin characters, while Savage Orc shamans may end up charging something entirely inappropriate due to their frenzy, a disadvantage not made up for by their 6+ Ward save and extra attack.

If you are anything like me, you will often feel that you are limited to one character less than you would like to have in your army. If I could, I would take a Warboss, a Battle Standard Bearer (BSB), another Big Boss to lead a unit or go around on his own and two Shamans. As that is not possible, choices must be made. Common character setups for greenskins at the 2,000 point-level are:

or

or

One balanced setup, one with an emphasis on magic and one with an emphasis on combat. It is of course possible to go even more extreme, for example by taking the second setup and swapping the BSB for another Shaman, or taking the third and dropping the Shaman (in which case you should make sure that your army includes Mork's Spirit-totem to give you some much-needed Dispel dice).

 

The General

Every army needs a general and, as greenskin armies include quite a few models with rather miserable Leadership, I tend to take the general with the highest possible Leadership in my army (not counting Gorbad, as I dislike special characters). Thus unless I am running a themed army, that will be some kind of Orc Warboss if the army is at 2,000 points or above, or some kind of Orc Big Boss if the army is smaller than that. What type of Orc Warboss (regular, Black or Savage) depends on what you intend to use him for. If you want him riding around on his own (on a chariot or Wyvern), then the regular Orc is probably the best; the Black Orc doesn't get much out of his benefits when he is not in a unit, and the Savage Orc can be a bit difficult to use as he has to charge whenever he can. Note that these other two are still workable, though I would not consider them as good as the regular Orc.

If you intend to place the Warboss in a unit of Savage Orcs, then the Savage Orc Warboss is probably best as his disadvantages don't really matter, and if you want to place him in a unit that isn't frenzied then you probably don't want to use a Savage Orc, because his disadvantages become much more noticeable (i.e. he may be forced to charge out of the unit all on his own). If you intend to place him in a unit of Orc Boar Boyz, then the regular Orc Warboss is probably the best, as the Quell Animosity ability the Black Orc has might end up doing more damage than good. Surprisingly, a regular Orc Warboss is probably also the best to lead a unit of Black Orcs (though it is somewhat out of character), as a Black Orc character adds very little to a unit of Black Orcs (it doesn't suffer from Animosity and will gain the automatic +D6" movement when the Waaagh! is called anyway).

On the other hand, a Black Orc is better than a regular Orc at leading large units of Orc Boyz. Quell Animosity is quite handy in such a unit as the damage done will not matter so much, because the unit tends to be fairly large. The best all-round general in a greenskin army is probably a Black Orc Warboss on a boar, leading a fairly large (around 25 models) unit of Orc Boyz. Equip him with, say the Akk'rit Axe, Best Boss 'At and the Kickin' Boots, plus heavy armour and a shield, and he is good to go. He won't exactly be cheap at 263 points, but with most of the army consisting of quite cheap models I find that I can splash out for an expensive general (and my other army is Ogre Kingdoms, where the general quite often costs more than 300 points). What you do get is a very good fighter, with five attacks at WS7 and Strength 6 in the first round of combat, re-rolling failed to hit rolls (plus an attack from his boar, which is Strength 5 when charging). Defensively he has Toughness 5, a 2+ armour save and a 5+ Ward save, which is quite nice. He is also Leadership 9 and protects his unit from squabbling, which can be very useful.

 

The Battle Standard Bearer (BSB)

A Battle Standard Bearer (or BSB for short) isn't absolutely necessary in a greenskin army, but I find them highly useful and include one nearly all the time. Our units are overall quite good and shouldn't lose combat by too many points, which makes a re-roll at an effective Leadership of around 7 very nice. This edition there are also two further advantages to having a BSB: firstly, the combat result (CR) bonus you get from a battle standard stacks with that you get from a unit's standard, for a total +2 CR bonus. Secondly, now that riding a boar is much safer, you can get a decently protected BSB without giving him any defensive magic items. A Black Orc BSB on a boar with heavy armour, for example, is quite resilient with Toughness 5 and a 3+ armour save. This frees up the option for a magic standard, if you want one. In previous editions I very rarely took magic standards, both because it was quite risky and because units that could take magic standards were more tempting (i.e. cheaper), but in this edition I find that I bring magic standards quite often.

Which type of BSB I bring depends a lot on what type of army I'm using. In a mixed army I think the Black Orc BSB with a boar, heavy armour and carrying Mork's Spirit-Totem to be very good. As mentioned above he is quite resilient, the Spirit-Totem is quite nice (when the carrier is placed in a decently large unit of, say, Orc Boyz) and Quell Animosity can be very handy. As an added bonus he starts off with a great weapon (as well as an additional choppa, though that isn't useable for a model on a boar), which means that he strikes at Strength 5 when mounted (or Strength 6 when on foot). In my Goblin army, I tend to take a Goblin BSB on foot with the Big Red Raggedy Banner and keep him in a unit that hangs back from the front line. He is quite cheap and letting gobbo units within 12" re-roll both Panic and break tests can keep a lot of wimps going under pressure. In my mounted list I have found a Black Orc BSB with heavy armour, a Boar Chariot and the War Banner to be quite nice. He may cost 219 points, but he has a surprisingly good staying power, hits quite hard and by taking a chariot he effectively saves me a Special choice, as a chariot ridden by a character does not take up a Special choice.

 

Shamans

If you want to toss some magic around, you are probably going to need at least two second-level Shamans as well as some items to boost your spellcasting (either of the Bound spells, Power Stones, the Staff of Baduum, etc.). This is at the 2,000-point level, at lower level you can get away with less and at higher levels you will probably need more. If you are not willing to go for this level, then it is probably going to be quite difficult to get much out of your magic. Taking a couple of level 2s without any offensive items, for example, is probably wasting points. A further problem with greenskin shamans is keeping them casting, as Animosity can really put a damper on your effectiveness. When it comes to choosing either an Orc or a Gobbo shaman, I tend to reckon that they are more or less equally good. The Orc is a bit more resilient, but the gobbos get a better selection of magic items and a common Goblin Shaman can take a Wolf Chariot as a mount. The only type I would not recommend unless you are running a themed list, is the Savage Shaman, as his frenzy can get him into combat you'd rather he stayed away from.

Happily for those who don't want to spend a lot of points on magic, you can get quite good magic defence in a greenskin army significantly cheaper and easier. Simply giving your BSB the Spirit-Totem and keeping him in a unit with a full rank bonus (giving you 5 dispel dice) will often be enough against opponents with a moderate amount of magic, and you haven't spent any character choices on shamans. In addition to - or instead of - this, a level 1 gobbo with the Staff of Sneaky Stealin' is quite nice and cheap. My mounted list tends to find it quite difficult to get a decent amount of magic and so just go with a single gobbo in a wolf chariot, carrying the Staff of Stealin'. It doesn't give me the best defence available, but I am reluctant to use more character choices on shamans and the gobbo's ability to ride around in a chariot without spending a Special choice is very nice. In other armies, I tend to take a couple of level 2 Shamans (one Orc and one Goblin in a mixed list), the gobbo carrying the Staff of Stealin and the Orc a Power Stone and possibly a Dispel Scroll. In addition, the two other characters in my army tend to get a Bound item each (if this is impractical, the Orc Shaman takes the 'Itty Ring). This gives me a decent combination of offensive and defensive items.

 

Other characters

In addition to the above, there are basically two types of characters fielded in a greenskin army: Big Bosses taken to lead units or who ride / run around on their own (most commonly in a chariot). Both of these types are useful, though they are often overlooked in favour of Warbosses, BSBs and Shamans (remember what I said about having one character choice too little). I have two of these characters that I really like, the first one being a Goblin Big Boss on a wolf with Wollopa's One Hit Wunda and the Brimstone Bauble. He tends to start the battle inside a block of Orc Boyz (often the same one that my general leads) and then when a good opportunity shows itself he charges out up to 18" to take out a war machine or similar, or to put a dent in an otherwise quite tough target. Heap of fun and quite useful as well. The second is a Savage Orc Big Boss with Porko's Pigstikka, a shield and light armour in a Boar Chariot. When charging a sufficiently large target this one model throws out D6+1 impact hits at Strength 5 and eleven(!) normal attacks that are also Strength 5 (plus two S4 attacks from the Orc crewman). Pure carnage, you just need to take care that he doesn't end up charging something inappropriate.

 

Boars for characters

Most characters than can have them (i.e. Orcs of all types) tend to benefit from riding around on boars. Unlike previous editions there is no downside to having a character on a steed join a unit of infantry as the character can no longer be singled out with missile fire. For the last three editions you could target a character on a boar in a unit of infantry and therefore next to nobody did it, but not any more. The benefits you get from a boar are as follows:

The downsides to a boar is as follows:

All in all, a boar is definitely an attractive option, especially for Big Bosses, who get boars rather cheaply and have good use for them. For Shamans it is less use as they can't get much of an armour save anyway and probably don't want to be in combat (though of course the boar can help with that).

A wolf for a gobbo character works more or less the same way, though it is a worse fighter, only gives the rider +1 armour save and the cost of the model "saved" will probably be less. Thus a wolf is more something you get for its speed.

Fun fact: Back in 4th and 5th edition, riding on a boar lowered your Leadership by 1, even more reason not to mount your general on a pig.

 

Units you can hardly go wrong with

The following list deals with half a dozen units or unit types you can safely include in your army. They have been chosen because they compliment each other very nicely and it would be possible to assemble a whole army around just these six, plus characters, and it would be a useful army. If a unit or unit type is not on this short list it does not mean that it is utterly useless and that including it in your army means that you will be massacred in every battle you play, but it would be meaningless to have a short list containing every type of unit available to the army. If you do want a description of each and every unit and suggestions for how to use it, there are separate articles for that.

 

Orc Boyz

Orc Boyz are probably the most cost-effective unit in the army. For their cost they are very resilient and with the new and improved choppas can deal out some damage in combat as well. Three unit of 25ish Orc Boyz with full command makes a very solid backbone for an army at the 2000-point level. Choppa and shield or two choppas are probably the two best combos and are more or less equally good as I reckon it. Spear and shield is not quite as good, mainly because choppas are so good these days, but you can include the odd unit if you wish. Units generally do best deployed five models wide and benefit greatly from the addition of a fighter character, for example a Black Orc Big Boss or Warboss on a boar (yes, a character on a boar can indeed join a unit of infantry).
Upgrading the Boyz to Big 'Uns is pretty useless in the average army, as you are paying something around 100 pts just to boost the attacks of three or four guys.

 

Goblin infantry

Not particularly good on their own, gobbo infantry make good support for the Orc Boyz. They can't actually fight and have rubbish Leadership, but when used to back up their larger cousins, this matters very little and the fact that you can get twenty guys on the table for sixty points is a great advantage. Generally speaking, you want to keep support infantry units as cheap as possible, which means keeping the various types of gobbos at three points per model, the unit size at around 20 and no command upgrades other than a musician. Which particular type of three-point gobbo you like is not all that important. If you choose Night Goblins for your support infantry, you can also consider adding a Night Goblin Fanatic to the unit (but not more than one).
More thoughts can be found in my article on Uses for Goblin Infantry.

 

Goblin fast cavalry

Fast cavalry have so many uses in the game and gobbo fast cavalry is actually amongst the best types, because they are cheap, core and (fittingly) fast. They are just as unreliable as other gobbos, though, which makes it important to take several units. On the whole, Wolf Riders are probably slightly more useful than Spider Riders, but the spiders can do some things the wolves cannot, which gives them a role in the army as well. Personally I like to take 2-3 units of Wolf Riders and 1-2 units of Spider Riders at the 2000-point level, or around one unit per 500 points in the army. Useful unit sizes are five or six models; if you read White Dwarf or the GW website you will see that they suggest units of 10, but that is because they would like to have you think that the contents of a box makes one useful unit. It is difficult to go wrong with spears for either type of unit; short bows are not overly great, but at five or six points to outfit an entire unit with them, they are okay. The only useful command upgrade is the musician - the standard bearer is too risky and the Boss is too expensive.
More thoughts can be found in my article on Goblin Fast Cavalry.

 

Chariots

The two normal types of greenskin chariot - Boar Chariots and Wolf Chariots - are both useful units, not least because they make very nice support units. It is a toss-up which type you prefer, though my personal preference is the Boar Chariot, because they work so well together with units of Orc Boyz. Extra crew for both types of chariot is a nice option, but not vital. The option for an extra wolf on the gobbo chariot is not useful and mainly there to please veteran players with models from previous edition when an extra wolf was a very useful addition. Nowadays it just makes the chariot a bigger target and more unwieldy. Several types of characters can also ride in chariots, which is a neat way of getting a chariot without using one of your precious Special choices.
More thoughts can be found in my article on Greenskin Chariots.

 

War machines

A couple of Spear Chukkas is almost compulsory in a normal greenskin army, they are so useful. While not outstanding in any way, their very low cost makes them a very nice addition. The other types of war machines, Rock Lobbers and Doom Divers are also good, but less all-round and prone to misfire. The biggest selling point of greenskin artillery is that they are good at dealing with very tough enemy units which the rest of the army often has trouble dealing with. They are particularly good against large monsters, knights and very expensive infantry. Bullies are an okay option, but should not be seen as compulsory.
More thoughts can be found in my article on Greenskin Artillery.

 

Squigs

One of the things the army book designers actually got right in this edition which was not working well in the previous editions are the Squig units. The combination of being very hard-hitting and Immune to Psychology is very nice and the units tend to be quite affordable (in points at least, not in money). Whether you prefer Squig Herds or Squig Hoppers is up to you; the Herd tends to do a bit better in combat and is more resilient to missile damage because you get more models for the points, while the Hoppers are more manoeuverable, faster and easier to get into combats. For Squig Herds, units of four or five hunting teams tend to be most useful, while for Squig Hoppers units of 7 or more models do well.

 

Building up the army

Below I will go through the process of building up a mixed army from 500 points to 2500, basing it on relatively cheap options available (for example it includes one of each of the big boxes mentioned above). At each step I will present an army list I consider to be useful, as well as listing some options you may want to consider. Originally I had hoped to make it so that you could start with one of the big boxes and then gradually add more, but that turned out to be impractical and instead I settled for this approach where you start with one list and then gradually add to that as you go. Doing it the other way around will probably be equally possible. It might not be as effective as a list chosen regardless of the cost of the models (I would personally not take that many Spider Riders and probably drop the Black Orcs), but it is quite cheap and hopefully still a useful list.

Stuff used in the making of this army:

Note: It should be possible to scrounge up a spare boar from somewhere. If you can't find one, leave the general model on foot and keep the boar for the BSB.

 

500 points

For smaller forces, I tend to aim for numbers, both a high number of models and a high number of units. This little 500-point "army" has 57 models, a unit strength of 69 and five units, which is very nice at that level. It will be quite resilient against missile fire and you can already start to practice combined arms (i.e. several units of various types working together), which is the basis of most successful greenskin armies.

Core units

25 Orc Boyz @ 180 pts
- Choppa, shield and light armour
- Full command

20 Night Goblins @ 89 pts
- Hand weapon and shield
- Musician
- 1 Night Goblin Fanatic

5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders @ 71 pts
- Spear and shield
- Musician

5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders @ 71 pts
- Spear and shield
- Musician

Special units

1 Orc Boar Chariot @ 80 pts

Total points: 491

Options:

 

1000 points

A thousand points is really the lowest level for a proper battle and anything below this level tends to be quite dependant on the result of a few critical dice rolls. At this level we will add our first character, a Black Orc Big Boss to lead our unit of Orc Boyz. As mentioned above, Black Orc characters are the best for this sort of task, but if you were not basing your army around blocks of Orc Boyz, you might field a different general at this level. We are also adding forty more Night Goblins to really beef up our numbers. Individually these are quite weak and we cannot expect them to beat very many opponents, which is why we are also adding more support units to work together with them. These take the form of another Boar Chariot to help out our infantry in combat, a couple of Spear Chukkas to shoot knights or other tough targets, and a single Troll who will perform more or less the same role as the chariots, but who can also function in much the same way as fast cavalry.

Characters

Black Orc Big Boss @ 152 pts
- Martog's Best Basha
- Best Boss 'At
- Heavy armour, shield, boar

Core units

23 Orc Boyz @ 168 pts
- Choppa, shield and light armour
- Full command

20 Night Goblins @ 89 pts
- Hand weapon and shield
- Musician
- 1 Night Goblin Fanatic

20 Night Goblins @ 89 pts
- Hand weapon and shield
- Musician
- 1 Night Goblin Fanatic

20 Night Goblins @ 89 pts
- Short bow
- Musician
- 1 Night Goblin Fanatic

5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders @ 71 pts
- Spear and shield
- Musician

5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders @ 71 pts
- Spear and shield
- Musician

Special units

1 Orc Boar Chariot @ 80 pts

1 Orc Boar Chariot @ 80 pts

2 Goblin Spear Chukkas @ 70 pts

Rare units

1 Troll @ 40 pts

Total points: 999

Options:

 

1500 points

At 1500 points we add a second character, a battle standard bearer. He will actually do a lot of things for us and is well worth having. Firstly, he's not bad in combat and his standard adds a further +1 to the combat result of his unit, even if the unit has a standard of its own as well. Secondly, he lets all units within 12" re-roll failed break tests, which can be incredibly useful. Thirdly, the magic standard Mork's Spirit-Totem will give us extra dispel dice (3 in a unit with a +3 rank bonus) to protect the army against enemy spellcasters. We are also adding a second unit of Orc Boyz for our BSB to lead, which makes the centre of our army much more solid. We will probably not be placing both characters in the same unit as it is generally much more difficult for an opponent to deal with to quite nasty units then one very nasty unit and one much less nasty unit. As the army has grown we are also adding a third unit of fast cavalry to support our infantry. A good rule of thumb is about one unit of fast cavalry per 500 points, and at 1500 points we have three units, which is a good number.

Characters

Black Orc Big Boss @ 152 pts
- Martog's Best Basha
- Best Boss 'At
- Heavy armour, shield, boar

Black Orc Big Boss @ 180 pts
- Armed to da teef, heavy armour, boar
- Battle Standard Bearer
- Mork's Spirit-Totem

Core units

27 Orc Boyz @ 192 pts
- Choppa, shield and light armour
- Full command

26 Orc Boyz @ 212 pts
- Two choppas and light armour
- Full command

20 Night Goblins @ 89 pts
- Hand weapon and shield
- Musician
- 1 Night Goblin Fanatic

20 Night Goblins @ 89 pts
- Hand weapon and shield
- Musician
- 1 Night Goblin Fanatic

20 Night Goblins @ 89 pts
- Short bow
- Musician
- 1 Night Goblin Fanatic

5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders @ 76 pts
- Spear, short bow and shield
- Musician

5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders @ 76 pts
- Spear, short bow and shield
- Musician

5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders @ 71 pts
- Spear and shield
- Musician

Special units

1 Orc Boar Chariot @ 80 pts

1 Orc Boar Chariot @ 80 pts

2 Goblin Spear Chukkas @ 70 pts

Rare units

1 Troll @ 40 pts

Total points: 1496

Options:

 

2000 points

At 2000 points, we will add another character and upgrade the general from a Big Boss to a Warboss and giving him some better magic items. This increases his cost by more than 100 points, but you do get a character that will do much more damage in combat, is much more difficult to kill and is better at keeping his troops in line with his Leadership of 9. We will also be adding a Night Goblin Shaman to improve our magic defence and we will also add a unit of Black Orcs, who would be rather expensive to use at lower levels.

Characters

Black Orc Warboss @ 263 pts
- Akk'rit Axe
- Bigged's Kickin' Boots
- Best Boss 'At
- Heavy armour, shield, boar

Black Orc Big Boss @ 180 pts
- Armed to da teef, heavy armour, boar
- Battle Standard Bearer
- Mork's Spirit-Totem

Night Goblin Shaman, level 1 @ 100 pts
- Staff of Sneaky Stealin'

Core units

27 Orc Boyz @ 192 pts
- Choppa, shield and light armour
- Full command

25 Orc Boyz @ 205 pts
- Two choppas and light armour
- Full command

20 Night Goblins @ 89 pts
- Hand weapon and shield
- Musician
- 1 Night Goblin Fanatic

20 Night Goblins @ 89 pts
- Hand weapon and shield
- Musician
- 1 Night Goblin Fanatic

20 Night Goblins @ 89 pts
- Short bow
- Musician
- 1 Night Goblin Fanatic

5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders @ 76 pts
- Spear, short bow and shield
- Musician

5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders @ 76 pts
- Spear, short bow and shield
- Musician

5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders @ 71 pts
- Spear and shield
- Musician

Special units

1 Orc Boar Chariot @ 80 pts

1 Orc Boar Chariot @ 80 pts

18 Black Orcs @ 295 pts
- Armed to da Teef, heavy armour and shield
- Standard bearer and musician
- Waaagh! Banner

2 Goblin Spear Chukkas @ 70 pts

Rare units

1 Troll @ 40 pts

Total points: 1995

Options:

 

2500 points

Reaching our goal of 2500 points, we add to the collection of models with some more metal models - some Squig Hoppers and a Doom Diver. Squig Hoppers have great mobility as they move 3D6" per turn and aren't slowed down by difficult terrain and are also very nasty in close combat. The Doom Diver adds to our firepower and like the Spear Chukkas it is good for taking out very tough enemy units. If you want to, you can take a Giant instead of these two units. Now, since the Squig Hoppers are a Special unit and we only have four available, we will be adding an Orc Big Boss in a Boar Chariot as our fourth character. By choosing the chariot as the mount for a character in this way it does not take up a Special choice, which is very nice. The last additions are the Night Goblin spearmen from the Skull Pass set and another unit of Spider Riders.

Characters

Black Orc Warboss @ 263 pts
- Akk'rit Axe
- Bigged's Kickin' Boots
- Best Boss 'At
- Heavy armour, shield, boar

Black Orc Big Boss @ 180 pts
- Armed to da teef, heavy armour, boar
- Battle Standard Bearer
- Mork's Spirit-Totem

Orc Big Boss @ 169 pts
- Martog's Best Basha
- Light armour & shield
- Boar Chariot

Night Goblin Shaman, level 1 @ 100 pts
- Staff of Sneaky Stealin'

Core units

28 Orc Boyz @ 198 pts
- Choppa, shield and light armour
- Full command

27 Orc Boyz @ 219 pts
- Two choppas and light armour
- Full command

30 Night Goblins @ 149 pts
- Spear and shield
- Musician
- 1 Night Goblin Fanatic

20 Night Goblins @ 89 pts
- Hand weapon and shield
- Musician
- 1 Night Goblin Fanatic

20 Night Goblins @ 89 pts
- Hand weapon and shield
- Musician
- 1 Night Goblin Fanatic

20 Night Goblins @ 64 pts
- Short bow
- Musician

5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders @ 76 pts
- Spear, short bow and shield
- Musician

5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders @ 76 pts
- Spear, short bow and shield
- Musician

5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders @ 71 pts
- Spear and shield
- Musician

5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders @ 71 pts
- Spear and shield
- Musician

Special units

1 Orc Boar Chariot @ 80 pts

18 Black Orcs @ 295 pts
- Armed to da Teef, heavy armour and shield
- Standard bearer and musician
- Waaagh! Banner

8 Night Goblin Squig Hoppers @ 120 pts

2 Goblin Spear Chukkas @ 70 pts

Rare units

1 Troll @ 40 pts

1 Goblin Doom Diver @ 80 pts

Total points: 2499

Options:

 

Other related articles

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