Keep on Trukking - Orks Part 2

See, told you I'd be back Saturday. Today I'm going to talk about my Trukks, and why I prefer them to Battlewagons in this list.

First off is the points cost. I simply do not have the points left after spending all of that on Nobz to purchase Battlewagons. Glad I got that out of the way early.

Secondly, Battlewagons and Trukks have very different rolls. Battlewagons are built to cause carnage, whether you are using it as a gun boat or simply sticking a Deff Rolla on the front and using it in a Battlewagon Spam fashion, you are going to want to be killing things with it.

My Trukks are there for a completely different roll, they're only there to get my Nobz into combat as quickly as possible, sure they lack the kill-ability that Battlewagons have, but I'm not looking for that, and so why would I use it. Sure I miss the army values that Battlewagons get, but I make up for that in speed.

Due to the Red Paint Job upgrade, my Trukks can move 19” per turn, usually setting me up for a turn 2 assault, even with the Trukks darting in and out of cover, as the extra speed allows me to hide effectively, and this is why I don't like playing on boards with a lack of cover, as it makes hiding the Trukk very difficult. If you leave a Trukk out in the open, it will get punished. And so, even when I have won the roll off and decided to go first, I still take real care in hiding my Trukks. The last thing I want is my opponent seizing the initiative and blowing my Trukks away, leaving over 1,000pts of elite close-combat troops stranded in my deployment zone. This is why the Trukks are so pivotal to my list, and why I use the Extra Armour upgrade.

Extra Armour is exceptionally useful in this list. Stun locking a Trukk will generally give my opponent time to move around cover towards my Trukk (as I would be effectively missing out on a whole turn of movement) ready to beat it like a baby seal, repeatedly if necessary. If my opponent does roll a 1 on the vehicle damage chart (+1 for open topped) then at least I can still move, and to be honest, that is all I really want my Trukk to be doing, an extra turn of clubbing things with Nobz amounts to much greater than a single Ork with a big shoota, and I don't care if he can't shoot anyway, he's only likely to get a single hit at S5 with a poor AP. The only exception to this being when my paper like Trukk shot down a Paper like Dark Eldar Raider in the Yorkshire Tournament.

Now this may all sound a bit odd, as even from here I can hear your brain saying, 'why does this guy not have a Big Mek with a Kustom Force-Field?' And I can answer that, as you may expect. For me, I am usually able to hide the Trukks well enough as it is, and so a KFF does not benefit me too much. Add this to the fact that the Trukks usually like to split up means that it would only be covering a single vehicle anyway. Plus, the bonuses from the Warbosses are greater in this list in my view, as the ability to make both my hammer units scoring is invaluable. Many games have been won thanks to this.

Another reason for the choice of going to Warbosses is Ghazghkull's Waaagh! This is really helpful, as it means that even if my Trukks are popped on my deployment zone (which is rare) I still have a chance of getting to combat turn to. Some opponents underestimate the speed of my Nobz, and thus refrain from hugging the board edge. The fact that my Nobz are fearless due to the Mob Rule allows them to move in the next turn, 6”, followed by a run move 1-6”, they then take some enemy shooting, but often this is directed at the Lootas due to the fact that my enemy underestimates the Nobz, especially if the run moves are quite low, I then get the 6” move, 6” run and 6” assault from Ghazzy's Waaagh! Giving me a total of 25 – 30” in 2 turns, meaning that they are actually rather quick.

I have strayed a little off topic from the Trukks here so I shall quickly pop back for the final upgrade that I like to give them, which is the Reinforced Ram. The Trukks are there to get my Nobz into combat, I don't really care if they die after that. But if by some miracle they do survive, I like Tank Shocking things. As an Eldar player I like Tank Shocking objectives near the end of a game (this actually won me a game at the Yorkshire), and if it is annihilation, Tank Shock a unit or two. But the main reason for this is to re-roll Dangerous Terrain checks. This way, when I'm hiding the Trukk behind cover, I don't have to be afraid going through some rubble and Immobilising my Trukk, I can just take the short cut over it, with minimal chance of Immobilising the Trukk.

So in short, the main way to deal with my list is to ignore everything else at the start, and just try and take out the Trukks, although I will have done my best to position them well, or you could just immobilise them. Summing up, causing minimal damage to the Trukks is poking the bear, Immobilising or wrecking them is wounding it.