Detachment Focus: Kult of Speed

In this series of articles we take a deep dive into a specific detachment for a faction, covering the faction’s rules and upgrades and talking about how to build around that faction for competitive play. In this article, we’re covering the Speed Freeks Detachment from Codex: Orks.

The Tenth Edition release of Codex: Orks gave the faction six Detachments to work with and while most of them focus on the more classic versions of Orks, from Boyz to Meganobz to Vehicles, The Speed Freeks Detachment focuses entirely on the Ork panoply of vehicles -from wagons to trukks and scrapjets. It’s a Detachment all about the need for speed and built to capture the feel of the Evil Sunz.

Detachment Overview

Kult of Speed has historically been about going fast, shooting hard, and making a mess. You may remember the Ork Buggy times of yesteryear, or the rise of massed Deffkoptas after that… shudders. This detachment is all about juicing up the mobile terrors of the Ork army to apply unreasonable pressure whilst drowning the weakling foe in high volume shooting.

Detachment Rule: Adrenaline Junkies

SPEED FREEKS units from your army are eligible to shoot in a turn in which they Advanced or Fell Back.

Simple, effective, and flavourful. Plenty of potential here for a nasty alpha strike and actually locking up and shutting down your mobile shooting becomes that much harder for the opponent. It isn’t quite as new or intriguing as some of the other detachment rules the Orks have access to, but movement is massively important in Pariah Nexus, where speed is the key to getting around the table and scoring secondary missions. This rule also helps the teleporting antics of the Shokkjump Dragsta to function in a more threatening fashion.

Enhancements

This Detachment has a hadnful of flavorful enhancements, but several serious restrictions on where they can be applied make it a bit more of a challenge to actually use them well.

• Wazblasta (10 Points) – DEFKILLA WARTRIKE only. In your Shooting phase, the bearer’s unit can make a Normal move of up to 6″ after shooting, as long as it’s not within Engagement Range of enemy units. You can’t charge afterward. This is a great ability to have but in practice it’s going to be difficult to make work given the big footprint the Wartrike has (even bigger if leading Bikers), and the space on the board that Ork armies typically occupy. Wartrikes traditionally did more of their work as solo action monkey units, and if they’re doing that they aren’t shooting anyways.
• Fasta Than Yooz (35 Points) – ORK INFANTRY CHARACTER model only. Each time the bearer’s unit disembarks from a TRANSPORT after that TRANSPORT makes a Normal Move, they’re still eligible to declare a charge. This is the stand-out Stratagem for the Detachment and one of the reasons you’re going to consider it. It’s delicious on a big brick of Nobz or Meganobz, but you could also use this to catapult an unreasonable number of Boyz into the fray via a Battlewagon or Hunta Rig.
• Squig-hide Tyres (15 Points) – WARTRIKE model only. The bearer’s unit can move up to 6″ instead of 3″ when making a Consolidation move. As with Wazblasta, the primary problem is the size of the Wartrike’s footprint – your Wartrike needs to be in the middle of things and causing a ruckus to use this, and then actually moving it 6″ may just not be feasible. That said, you can see a situation where a bikers unit blitzes right through a screen and uses the longer consolidate to tie things up and make havoc behind the line, and additional consolidate also helps get that additional OC where it is needed in a pinch.
• Speed Makes Right (25 Points) – This one can go on any ORKS model. In your Command phase, if the bearer (or a transport they’re embarked in) is within 9″ of one or more enemy units roll a D6; on a 3+, you gain one CP. This is fine, but the requirement to be near an enemy units means it’s going to be inert on the first turn, and possibly the second, and that makes it substantially overpriced at 25 points.

Of these, Fasta Than Yooz is the only auto-include, while the rest are at best terrain- and build-dependent. If you could take Wazblasta and Squig-hide Tyres on more than just Wartrikes that’d be a big help, but as-is if all you take is Fasta Than Yooz, that’s fine.

Stratagems

The stratagems here are primarily about juicing up some mobile shooting units (Deffkoptas and Bikers, with the former offering nasty damage 3 rocket shooting and the latter volume fire at close range), but there are also some nice defensive and reactive tricks. Much like the enhancements, actually utilizing all of these depends a bit on the space your massive bricks of vehicles and bikes can find on the board, but there are combos here to really push through damage when you need it, which will couple well with all the pressure you can apply to opponents.

• Speediest Freekz (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in your opponent’s Shooting or the Fight phase after one of your SPEED FREEKS or TRUKK units is picked as the target of an attack.  Until the end of the phase, models in that unit get a 5+ invulnerable save, and if your unit is a VEHICLE with T8 or less, they gain a 4+ invulnerable save instead. Very solid on Deffkoptas or Trukks for absorbing enemy under commitment. This is a clutch play that will require astute use at the right times, but is extremely handy for creating a sudden bounce in your enemies efforts to push back the tide.
• Squig Flingin’ (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in your Movement phase, after a TRUKK or SPEED FREEKS unit moves, falls back or Advances. Pick an enemy unit within 9″ of your moving unit and they have to take a Battle-shock test at -1 to their leadership. This one requires some unpacking. At surface level 1 CP to MAYBE impact an enemy unit feels a bit meh, but Orks have so much AP 1 and 2 and are themselves relatively fragile, so there are going to be times when being able to shut off an enemy Armour of Contempt, interrupt, Orders, or -1 damage is quite appealing. It can also do away with tedious enemy ‘run-away’ tools that might stand between you and hitting them repeatedly in the head with a bit of metal. This alone makes it a nice sneaky play to have in the locker, but whether you are willing to roll the dice on a Battle-shock test will be a question of taste and urgency. At 7+ for most units is at best a 50/50 shot, so your ideal targets on this will be testing at an 8+. Either way, this is something you’ll throw out when you have extra CP to blow and really need to roll the dice on the result.
• Dakkastorm (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in your Shooting phase to give a SPEED FREEKZ unit [SUSTAINED HITS 1] in shooting, or [SUSTAINED HITS 2] if they are within 9″ of an enemy unit. You can’t use this and Blitza-Fire on the same unit at the same time. This is no joke with the number of shots Koptas and Bikes can be throwing out, and being able to close in and deliver a withering hail of fire is pretty solid.
• Blitza Fire (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in your Shooting phase to give a Speed Freekz unit [LETHAL HITS], and when you do this Critical Hits will proc on 5s if you are within 9″ of your target. This is a very nice option for punching up into tougher targets that would normally be difficult for S9 or S5 shooting to manage. This can’t be combined with Dakkastrom, so you’ll have to choose between leaning into volume or punching up. Note that your Aircraft options all come with Sustained Hits 1 guns, and those are pretty much the only place you can use this to double up and get sustained hits on 5s with lethals on top.
• Full Throttle (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in your Charge phase when your SPEED FREEKZ unit ends a charge move. They get +1 to wound until the end of the phase. Very tasty for running things over or helping your smaller units punch up into a wounded vehicle or monster, and it feels like the tool for finishing the job if your bullets or rockets haven’t quite managed it yet.
• More Gitz Over Ere! (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in your opponent’s Movement phase after they end a Normal, Advance or Fall Back move within 9″ of one of your SPEED FREEKZ units. You can make a 6″ Normal move with that unit. This is a bit like the enhancements for the Wartrike, in that how useful this is is going to be shaped heavily by terrain, but being able to stash some Deffkoptas back behind cover, or push Bikers aggressively to block the space as the opponent comes towards you is definitely going to have application, and it is one of those tools you can always count on the opponent tripping over at some stage.

This is a pretty solid suite of tools for turning the army’s Speed Freeks Datasheets (Koptas especially, with stretch potential on some of the Ork planes), into much more deadly prospects. That’s important, because many of the shooting profiles on Speed Freeks units leave a lot to be desired normally.

Playing This Detachment

If you’re building a Kult of Speed army, Deffkoptas are going to be your go-to unit; they’re right at the center of most of this army’s Stratagems and rules, and readily available to make the most of that ability to advance and shoot or get stuck in and fall back and shoot. You’re going to want at least one big unit in a transport to use the Disembark-and-charge stratagem that really lets you make the most out of this Detachment. In that regard, you’re probably going to want at least one unit of Meganobz as the go-to unit for that, and although they won’t get two turns of WAAAGH! here like they do for Bully Boyz, you can keep them in your Battlewagon for an additional turn when staging them.

When it comes to ranging around the table the work which was previously done by Stormboyz will be done by Deffkoptas, but for the rest of your army you’re stuck looking at the faction’s five buggy/trakk options. And that’s where things get hairy for the faction: The datasheets for those units just aren’t very good – they’re just too inconsistent when it comes to their attacks and abilities to really be useful. The Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy’s ability to slow enemy units with an indirect attack is potentially solid… but only works 50% of the time. Likewise, none of the shooting on your vehicles is all that great and they’re all hitting on 4’s in melee, making it hard for them to close the gap, and that’s made even harder by the challenge getting all of their bases to fit in a combat. Warbikers end up being a more solid option by comparison, though they still lack the melee output you’d want them to have (and which Squighog boyz provide), without really making up for it on the shooting side of things.

Ultimately a competitive Kult of Speed strategy is going to feel a lot like a less successful Big Hunt list, focusing on lots of fast, solid melee hitters who can tie down an opponent early while other fast units range around the table and score secondary objectives.

A Sample List

There haven’t yet been any successful Kult of Speed lists at the competitive level; this is largely because there are easily 2-3 better ways to run the faction, but I think it’s still possible to make a decent Kult of Speed list using the faction’s better tools. 

”The

The core of this list are the 18 Deffkoptas and the Fasta Than Yooz Warboss, who rides in the Battlewagon with a unit of Meganobz, ready to hop out and cause problems all in the same turn the Wagon moves up. The Deffkoptas give you fast, strong ranged support, and you have to units in Trukks with more melee units to support the Meganobz while the Warbikes can range around the table and score secondary objectives. 

Final Thoughts

The Kult of Speed may not be the strongest way to run Orks, but there’s a lot to like about the Detachment’s flavor, and if you’re a fan of running Ork vehicles it’s worth giving this one a look. There are some fun and reasonably powerful abilities here and while the Detachment does make us pine for the days we had Warbosses on bikes, the prospect of jamming 18 Deffkoptas into a list and terrorizing an opponent is pretty solid.

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.