In our Detachment Focus series we look at the Detachments available to players in Warhammer 40k, talking about their rules and how to play them. In this article we’re looking at the Ramship Raiders Boarding Actions Detachment for Orks.
Ork Ramships were introduced in Battlefleet Gothic at the end of the last century, and quickly became a fan favourite given there’s nothing orkier than just ramming things (and maybe boarding them if they survive the ramming). The Ramship Raiders represent the boarding parties that jump out onto enemy (or if they’re bored enough, friendly) ships and have a good fight. It’s also more or less the “default” Detachment for Orks in the Boarding Actions game mode.
Detachment Overview
In Boarding Action terms Ramship Raiders is the generalist force (Kaptin Killas is the specialist, which can take Mega Armour Nobz). It’s the one that’s easiest to create if you have an Ork army of any reasonable size. It’s also significantly better. The biggest strength in this detachment, and why it easily wins over Kaptin Killers, is its Detachment rule. While both have the Void Waaagh! rule, the added durability you get form the Belligerent Boarders rule puts this one over the top.
Why would you want to collect them? Because Ork pirates and freebooterz are cool, and painting 500 points of them won’t drive you insane like painting 2000 points will.
Army Rule: Void Waaagh!
Playing as Orks, you not only get normal Waaagh!, but you get a cut-down boutique Waaagh for your Boarding Action as well. This means that in a five-turn game you’ll have three turns where you have +1 Strength and Attack, turning your Ork Boy with choppa into a 4 attack, strength 5 murder machine for most of the game. Void Waaagh also gives you a 5+ invulnerable, which is nice to have, but the important thing is that you Waaagh for two turns and then Void Waaagh, with the first turn of Waaagh when you can advance and charge getting you into the enemy, and then two more turns of +1 strength and attack after to murder them.
3 turns of Waaagh is incredibly strong. But then so is….
Detachment Rule: Belligerent Boarders
If your Ork (not Grot) takes a hit from a weapon with a strength characteristic higher than their toughness characteristic, subtract 1 from the wound roll.
The natural predator of things like Orks are things like assault cannons, weapons at strength 6-7, Ap 0 or -1 and multiple shots, or high strength melee attacks. This means any strength 6 and above weapons does 16.67% less wounds.
Combined with invulnerable saves from Waaagh or Void Waaagh, it means that your standard Ork unit is significantly tougher, and harder to clear in melee when they get hit with decent strength melee (Terminators, Ogryns, Bullgryns, etc suddenly only wound on 4+). They get a save when hit with weapons that would wipe out their T-shirt saves as well.
Rules Adaptations
These are largely about removing some character abilities that would lead to edge cases in Boarding Actions or remove Deep Strike/similar abilities.
Nobody really gets screwed over, but if you want to take a special character it’s worth giving it a read to see how the change affects them.
Boyz lose Get Da Good Bitz, which stickies objectives, but they are still Battleline and get Secure Site, so they can sticky by performing a tactical maneuver.
Picking the Ladz
There are a lot of options you can take for the force. You have 500 points to spend, so you can’t have everything, and you fall into the eternal army list dilemma, the boyz vs the toyz.
The Boyz
I would start every Ramship Raiders list with an Infantry Warboss, a squad of 5 Nobz and two squads of 10 boyz. You will be using boarding patrol squads for Boyz, so this gives you five deployments and a character with 26 toughness 5 or higher models, and at least 7 power klaws. With the December 2024 points update, this comes to 340 points.
The army/detachment rules are very good, and they scale up with the number of models you have. This means every boy with a choppa on the table gets 3 turns of strength 5 and 4 attacks, and the Ork boy, costing 8 points a model, is a phenomenal rank and file trooper with this and -1 to wound on the medium to high strength attacks that normally tear through Boyz.
I’d recommend Nobz tooled up with Power Klaws and Sluggas, and Boyz mobs with a Nob with Klaw and Slugga, a Rokkit Launcha and everyone else with Sluggas and Choppas. You could experiment with a half squad or two with shootas, but if you are facing anything tougher than guard equivalents then you’re likely to just chip the paint off their armour. Kombi weapons on Nobz in Boarding Action would be a waste, you’ll get far more out of Power Klaws.
In terms of numbers you’ll likely end up with over 30 models and could go as high as 41 or 47 depending on your choices for the rest of the force.
The Toyz
If you have 160 points to spend then this gives you one or two units or characters to spice up your force. What could you buy with this?
- 10 Flash Gitz
- 10 Boyz and 5 Flash Gitz
- 10 Burna Boyz and 11 Runtherd/Grots
As examples.
I would seriously consider spending 80 points on a third Boyz squad. This puts you at 36 models minimum, and gives you a lot of expendable bodies that are battleline and can clear and hold objectives.
Flash Gitz are interesting and thematic, and while they’re good for nailing MEQs, Ork shooting is incredibly swingy. Even getting 20 dice for shooting at the closest unit there’s the horrible possibility of getting about 3 hits.
Grots are something of a trap. They don’t have battleline, and while 11 additional models on the table is nice, they don’t benefit from Belligerent Boarders or Waaagh, and are armed with potato guns and wet spaghetti. They can hold an objective, but only by sitting on it, and if someone comes to try to take it away from them they are fairly likely to succeed. However they are 40 points and if you have 40 points left over there is literally nothing else that fits in that hole and Thievin’ Scavengers let’s you try to generate CP from the objective that they control on a 4+.
Burna Boyz are interesting. Flamers do well in Boarding Action, and Burna Boyz also have Cuttin’ Flames with -2 AP in melee. Combined with Waaagh these are also strength 5, and thus great for cutting up marines. Burna Boyz are solid objective clearers, and at 60 points for 5 not super expensive. The Mek leading them has a hazardous Kustom Mega Blasta, and may do something or may barbecue itself trying, but that’s Orks for you.
You could add a Beastboss or a Painboy for additional characters, though the Beastboss would simply be a big fighty character and lose some of the benefit of it’s weapons as there’ll be no vehicles or monsters for it to use it’s anti rules against. Similarly a Painboy costs the same as another 10 boyz, and the maximum squad size you can give a Feel No Pain to is five models and costs you a CP to do it means buying another ten boyz is the obvious choice.
Kommandos are a bit pricey, and lose the Bomb Squig and Sneaky Surprise, and you could create an assault fire team and a shooty fire team (Breacha, Burna and Nob in one, Rokkit and the two Speshul Shootas in the other). They’re more interesting Ork Boyz in terms of stats, but you’re paying 40 points extra for a Breacha, a Burna and two Speshul Shootas vs just taking Boyz.
Stormboyz are 65 points for 5, and while they get a 12″ move, they lose Deep Strike and Full Throttle, basically just making them faster Slugga/Choppa Boyz that don’t get a heavy weapon.
Beastsnagga Boyz are an interesting option, but really only make a difference if you are fighting against toughness 5 enemies where Waaagh boosting their strength to 6 makes a difference. They’re shooting is worse than Boyz and they don’t have Power Klaws. They also cost 15 points more per unit and their Monster Hunter rule is useless in Boarding Actions.
Note that two of the stratagems specifically target Boyz, so if you go with Beastsnaggas instead you are cutting your stratagems in half. It’s really your choice. There are good and bad points to any choice, but I feel a third boyz unit is a fairly safe one, even if you then have seven or eight units to put down.
Enhancements
Orks have a choice of two enhancements.
- Living Battering Ram – Each time the bearer attempts to operate a closed Hatchway, the opponent cannot try to prevent it. When the bearer opens a Hatchway, each enemy unit within 6″ and entirely on the opposite side of the Hatchway must take a Battleshock test. This is very situational.
- Scarred Brute – The bearer has the Feel No Pain 5+ ability. This is always great value on a Warboss model that you’ll be throwing into combat.
Stratagems
- Pile Through (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) –Â Target an Ork unit that has just opened a Hatchway in the Movement Phase. They gain the Fight First ability until the end of the turn. If you’ve got an Ork unit on one side of the Hatchway and an enemy unit on the other you can use this to get your hits in first.
- Ramboyz Rampage (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) –Â In the movement phase pick a Boyz unit that hasn’t moved yet, and it can declare a charge after advancing, and the advance roll is automatically a 6. So this gets you 12″ and then your charge distance, and is great for a turn where you need to definitely get across the board. If you’ve got CP to burn a guaranteed 6″ advance might be worth it to you.
- Eager to Fight (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) –Â In your movement phase, in the Reinforcements step just after a unit has been set up in an Entry Zone, you can target that unit with this strategem and they can make an Advance move. It’s D6″ of movement, so it’s highly situational and you’re as likely to roll a 1 as a 6.
- Enraged Rush (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – In the enemy shooting phase, when a Boyz unit from your army is targeted by an enemy unit, they can make an Enraged Rush move. Roll a D6, and move that many inches closer to the enemy unit, and you can move into engagement range. Useful to get closer or even get into combat.
Playing This Army
This is not a super complicated force to play. You will have a lot of Boyz. You will want them krumpin’ things. You’ll have a lot of battleline to hold objectives. You’ll be able to play control and aggressively at the same time, as you might have as many as six battleline units. Nobz and the Warboss fight the tough things, the Boyz fight everything else. You might shoot something if you are lucky, but it’ll be a bonus if you do. Turns 2-4 will likely involve Waaagh and Void Waaagh, and there may not be many enemy models left by turn five.
This is the strength of the force. You’ll have the sort of numbers a guard player has, but they’re able to usefully do things instead of slightly warming their opponents with a flashlight.
Play aggressively, get into melee, always be charging.
Final Thoughts
On smaller maps where it’s easier to get into melee, melee based armies do better. The army and detachment rules help get your boyz into combat, and help keep them alive on their way in and once they get there. The army is based around battleline units, making it easy to score objectives. All wrapped up with a bow makes this one of the best forces in Boarding Action.
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