Why Orcs have goblins?

[Pak0tac]

So when im playing as Orcs, there is no real reason for me to ever recruit goblins, even though i can if i want to. On the other hand there are other "orc" factions (well one such faction) that cant recruit orcs, only goblins (until the Dawi capital is captured).
While other Orc faction (Grom) can recruit both goblins and orcs, but designed towards goblins with special buffs.

Its like the game gives me options to recruit units, that i will never recruit...
(because why Grom would ever use OrcBoyz or BigUns?)
and why Squick can only recruit goblins, but all other orcs can recruit everything
and while other orcs can recruit all units, no real point in recruiting goblins

[Crowkeeper]

Cheap units that can be used as meat shields to soak up enemy ammunition.....

Cheap units that can be thrown into battle first to tire enemy units, or at the same time to take some of the damage away from your important units......

Cheap armor piercing......Nasty Skulkers......

Pretty fundamental and simple concepts.

[Kurnauskis uwu]

Grom with goblin archers on legendary is easy mode

[Netherpongo]

I'm surprised at the number of people being totally dismissive about goblins. Which units are better tends to be a matter of what you specced the lord for. Basic goblins with full lord upgrades have high melee attack/melee defense and are actually pretty scary. Something like:

Goblin Shaman Lord (specced for goblins)
2 Hero
6 Goblins
6 Goblin archers (or 4 Goblin archers & 2 Night Goblin archers if you want to be fancy)
2 Trolls
3 Doom Divers

makes for an effective & lower cost stack. Better if fighting a faction that doesn't have heavy armor consistently.

Big waagh armies (specced for orcs) have a higher top-end power but are also substantially more expensive. Both have their place in a well-run greenskin campaign.

[Sn3z]

This is striclty to do with CA design of sub factions which they are terrible at.

[Green Raven]

Gobbo spider ladz make good light cavalry

[Kaaz]

Gobbos are best boys

[yoruichixX]

i mean every greenskin melee unit are not your greatest killers anyway, except black orcs and big uns
so most of the damage comes either from spells, monsters, artillery, or lords
so the reason why you recriut gobbos instead of orc bois is to engage the enemy (preferably) elite units and use your damage dealers to kill them

you cant tell me your orc bois are actually killing stuff like how much more impact does the orc boi have compared to a goblin spear unit

of course if your lords buffs them into oblivion thats a different story but from my experience melee units in the greenskin army are not that amazing to spam them

lizardmen for example have wayyy better melee units in general

[Imposter]

I dislike being goblin-heavy in late game, because of artillery-heavy factions and other AOE attacks, like magic, just melt goblins. But they can make for some interesting tactics, I just sprinkle 1-2 Fanatics, or maybe some NGSquigHoppers, while my OrcBoar bigguns stop up the enemy cav.

[Atomic_chair]

Someone on reddit did a ton of maths when Grom dropped and worked out that base goblins and orcs with all possible campaign buffs (ignoring faction specific ones like Groms) because people were calling all the goblin buffs OP and they are apparently about even-ish in a fight. At least the basic orcs and goblins are, id imagine Black orcs are still stronger than fanatics.

They do have their uses with the bonus of being expendable which means that when expendable units route only other units with expendable get the "allies routing" leadership debuff making them great at "tanking" for damage dealers. shielded to help keep them alive and are easy to get early on, with the nasty skulkers being surprisingly decent damage dealers and having an active ability that massively slows. Fanatics are particularly useful late game as they deal decent damage mid-game and are the only source of poison for infantry, their bound ability can also disrupt enemies quite well, creating opportunities for your other units and not to mention their stalk. Orcs are about brute strength, Goblins are about cunning strength, they are used for tricking and tipping the odds in your favour where orcs just smash.

Grom doesn't have to buff goblins, he does have Orc only buffs too (if i'm remembering right) i am pretty sure he can give orcs the norscan rage mechanic with the right food (gonna need to check that). I also know for a fact he has several buffs for Trolls too, rogue idols and i vaguely remember some spider buffs. Grom's goblins are just cheap, nasty and cost-effective for late game and waaaaay to easy to set up so they are a no-brainer for most and specing into the other food buffs makes goblins fairly less effective.

[lPaladinl]

It's better to have cheap units than it is to have less stacks of better units for a while, at least until you have a lot of buffs unlocked and can support an economy that afford multiple stacks even with better armies.

Plus there's always Grom, where it's the inverse. Why would you ever hire orcs if Goblins are cheaper AND better under all circumstances.

[Retsuo]

Greenskins frequently have issues with leadership, especially if you're bringing trolls along, so having expendable units in the frontline or as charge soakers is always a plus. Atop that night goblins and some of the goblin cav apply poison, which is a great debuff. Overall they're nowhere close to higher tier orc infantry, but they definitely have a place in the army.

[Barrawa]

Goblin cavalry is viable against empire and elves endgame elite stacks. Forest spider riders have shields and lots of armour and defence stats and are very effective anti-archer unit.

Wolf chariot has amasing speed and scrap upgrade. They are a Lot better than super-slow snotling pump wagons.

Of course you don't use gobbo infantry during endgame. Nobody's using tier1 infantry in the endgame, you weren't recruiting peasant mob when you had the pretorian opton in Rome I.

[lPaladinl]

Originally posted by Jeremiah Gottwald:

Someone on reddit did a ton of maths when Grom dropped and worked out that base goblins and orcs with all possible campaign buffs (ignoring faction specific ones like Groms) because people were calling all the goblin buffs OP and they are apparently about even-ish in a fight. At least the basic orcs and goblins are, id imagine Black orcs are still stronger than fanatics.

You mention Fanatics, but I thought Grom's Goblin Buffs didn't actually affect Night Goblins or Skulkers.

[Barrawa]

Originally posted by lPaladinl:

You mention Fanatics, but I thought Grom's Goblin Buffs didn't actually affect Night Goblins or Skulkers.

they do as long as the description says that they do.
It is the Goblintide talent in the Grom and Goblin Great Shaman that does not affect night goblin units. However, for some reasons, it also does not affect the stats of Doom Diver Catapults crew.

[Doomier Guy]

What you save using gobbos in the frontline you can spend on trolls to dish out the damage. Since gobbos have the expendable trait trolls wont rout as soon as a butterfly lands on them.