Orc infantry: Are Big Uns' and Black Orcs a straight replacement for Orc Boyz or do players still need the shields?

[harleyquinrazer]

Flirting with starting a Greenskins campaign for the first time. Casual reading and experience from playing against them has taught me a bit about the Greenskins army roster, but I'm not sure what the deal is with their main infantry units.

Orc Boyz: Low armour but have shields and are cheap and fast to recruit.
Big Un's: Better combat stats and armour than Boyz but no shields and are anti-Large.
Black Orcs: Most heavily armoured non-monster Greenskins unit, armour piercing but expensive to hire and maintain and have recruitment times equivalent to Terrorgheists.

Do players outright replace Orc Boyz with the higher-tier units or are they kept around to absorb arrow fire when charging the enemy?

[Emmental]

The main line is always most cost effective with orc boyz. The big uns aren't strictly anti large, rather they have a small bonus vs large, but their job is to deal damage to everything while your orc boyz take it.

Black orcs are anti-armour and immune to psycholgy so ideal for vampire counts and chaos. Their lack of a shield gets them killed too easily against armies with plentiful missiles, but not a problem against vamps and chaos. It's really a waste of money to take a bunch of black orcs against empire and wood elfs etc.

Trolls are generally a better and cheaper anti-armour option against most factions.

[harleyquinrazer]

The lack of a martial hero and the need to switch around Greenskin frontlines depending on opponent is another problem I'm still trying to find a solution for.

I've always seen trolls as having better stats than crypt horrors but with inferior leadership and without poison attacks. I'm thinking of bringing at least two early on to break armoured lines head-on, but do they actually get to the line before their poor leadership makes them run?

[Emmental]

Originally posted by harleyquinrazer:

The lack of a martial hero and the need to switch around Greenskin frontlines depending on opponent is another problem I'm still trying to find a solution for.

I've always seen trolls as having better stats than crypt horrors but with inferior leadership and without poison attacks. I'm thinking of bringing at least two early on to break armoured lines head-on, but do they actually get to the line before their poor leadership makes them run?

Goblin big boss is a pretty good melee hero. Trolls are support units, keep them in reserve and once your main line engages theirs then send them where the armoured units end up. If they're in a winning fight with the boss nearby their leadership will be fine.

[harleyquinrazer]

Goblin big bosses play the same role as the banshee for the vampire counts, they lack the stats to do more than hold up regular enemy units for help to arrive. I don't intend to waste an army slot on them especially as they're important for bolstering the weak Greenskins economy.

So lead a charge with big monster units and the Orc Boyz before sending specialist units to flank? It's a standard strategy that should work for all but the Wood Elves.

[YaMe]

It really does depend on what kind a facton your fighting and even what kind of army do they have but generally, Orc boyz don't have a unit to transition too, I would very much be in favour of a Big Uns with sword and shield but its nothing major.

Orc boyz are perfectly fine to use say vs dwarfs really all you need them to do is distract the main dwarf front line. Whilst your kiling their range thats why Orc boyz are very effective for what you need them to do which is stall, try infleunce them with some leadership from your LL or agent they hold for abit longer.

Trolls are very niche unit you really need to make sure range units are being taken care of and always keep trolls close to your lord, the building also limits you to just trolls which compared to say wolf den open up alot of different possible compositions it will also provide you with alot more counters to other factions.

This doesn't mean to say I dont use Trolls, trolls are very good in tunnel battles and underground sieges if you have tunnel boss.

[StarofTanuki]

I want more armies rather use an army chase another around the world , that why i still keep Ork boy / Swordmen / EG in my armies .