So I've seen a lot of conversation about the devastating nature of the Orc Rush and how it dominates the "metagame". It seem to be a generally held belief that most decks need to have some sort of anti-orc rush defense. I haven't had a lot of success with the orc rush so I'd like to start a discussion about how to best construct and play such a deck plus what sorts of strategies fair well against them.

So let's start with what I've been playing with. The most effective version so far have been the following.

UNITS

Veteran Sellswords x 3
Spider riders x 3
Squig Herders x 3
Followers of Mork x 3
Night Goblins x 3
Lobber Crew x 3
Clan Rats x 3
Poison Wind Globadiers x 2
Boar Boyz x 3
Doom Divers x 3

SUPPORT

Warpstone Excavation x 3
Choppa x 3
Contested Village x 3
Totem of Gork x 3
Grimgor's Camp x 3

TACTICS

Waaagh! x 3
We'z Bigga! x 3

This is how I've been playing this deck. First sturn tends to be a build up... a power in the kingdom a must, quest if possible, maybe spider riders for a quick early attack. After 5 power I focus on quest and quickly get to attack. Want a good four to five draw to be able to replace units as they die. Find doom divers really useful in the quest zone as are squigs if you have a wounded orc out. Once a totem of gork is in play or a waagh is in hand try to get 3+ units in to rush a single zone. Veteran sell swords are generally held in hand ready for such a rush, put them out just before.

What I've been playing against has been a Chaos/Dark Elf Sniper deck, an Empire/High Elf (jumping jacks/repeaterbolt thrower theme) and most recently a Chaos/mostly Skaven rush deck.

Against the Chaos/Dark Elf Deck the orc's have had little luck. Chaos picks the low hit point units off with a number of effects from nurgles pestilence, to nurgle sorcerers and vile sorceresses. The few high hit point units get taken out by flame of Tzeeche and call of blood while blood for the blood god can be devastating to the battle field.

Against Empire/High Elf the orcs seem to be around 50/50. If the Empire/HE get judgement of verena out in the first couple round it can really stall the orcs. Counterstrike can also make attacks against them really costly which can also stall out the orcs.

The skaven deck needs work (still new since tooth and claw) and the orcs generally trounce this.

Thoughts appreciated. How do you play the orc rush? What are you up against that gives it trouble?

Thanks,

Wraith428

My list is a little different, I will post it for comparison.

Units: 31
3 Crooked Teef Goblins
3 Squig Herders
3 Followers of Mork
3 Spider Riders
3 Clan Rats
3 Veteran Sellswords
3 Gutter Runners
3 Clan Moulder's Elite
3 Rat Ogres
2 *Greyseer Thanquol
2 *Ugrok Beardburna

Support: 11
3 Choppa
3 Contested Village
3 Warpstone Excavation
2 Totem of Gork

Tactics: 8
3 We'z Bigga!
3 Waaagh!
2 Mob Up

The main point is that you have several units that are usable on offense from the quest zone or the kingdom zone. Greyseer Thanquol and Clan Rats can both add power to the attack while drawing you cards or providing resources. Mob Up will get around some of the damage cancellation that is going to be croping up. I used to play 3 Totem of Gorks, but I found that I always would rather play a Waaagh! and the games go fast enough that you really don't need 3 of each. This deck should win by your turn 4 most often, opponent only getting 3 turns if you go first.

The sniper decks don't worry me too much as they need to save resources to deal with your guys and they usually can't keep up.

Empire can get sticky if they get out some counterstrike units, but they are typically costly to place, and you can just attack around them.

Dwarves have the best chance to stall in my opinion, but you can attack around their guys and keep pressure on. In the mid game when they have some units with toughness, just flop out a Mob Up and take them out.

It is pretty easy to get 3-4 units in the battlefield by turn 2, a Waaagh! on turn 3 will add 6-8 more damage, that is really hard for anyone to stop even with units where you attack.

Dark deal has a deadlier deck. But I am surprized the sniper decks are no problem. Grey seers last one round at best cs my sniper decks. Vile sorcs or we need your blood, or corruption if I need to buy a turn, ALWAYS neutralize him, although the threat he brings chews upa lot fo resoruces. Not saying a snipper deck should beat you most times, but it should give you a few issues.

Well I have been one for the players saying I can deal with an orc rush and its not the monster it is made out to be.
Ok the deck you got there is a very good one. I would have crooked teeth goblins in it .
Here goes. Well for one, a well tuned chaos snipping deck is the ban to the rush, Mine I have posted, rarely losses to orc rushers.
In an orc rush, its a lot less important to build up kingdom, cause if you allow the oppenent to build up there Kingdom and quest as well, it is very possible they then have the cards and barrels to acheive what I call stablization.
I use the term stablize a lot when talking about orc rush decks, and I should define that.
The situation is "stablized" when you know the orcs are still attacking, but you know they will not burn a zone and you may well kill a few of them in the process, OR your deffences are high enough that the feeble orc attackers can;t even attack safely, and have to build up for a big waagh attack. But lets talk about this from the orc deck players point of view.

First off, the orc rush wins cause it is better at one thing then its opposite decks, and that is putting out a lot of damage cheap, THIS is the advantage you must use to win, you start building up quest and kingdom and you are playing into your oppenents hands.
You need to take advantage of your cheap damage dealers, and start placing in battlefield and attacking right away. The reason for this is that your deck is cheap enough that you can put out units at this stag and the oppent struggles to.
The other thing is that you start damaging them fast, and if you burn a zone quickey, the oppent gets forced into making sup-par unit placements in order to stave off destruction, or keep incoem in hand and play tactic cards.
For example, you burn a zone fast, and its not hard to be bruning zones in the 2nd or 3 and at most 4th turn with a rush deck.

Lets play out some first turn actions. IF I had 1st turn and could not attack, I would place a support card like grimgors camp or a unit in kingdom. IF I had a mess of cheap units ready to go, I would actully a guy in quest to get my card draw going, if 3 points is enough to most of your hand in a turn or two, then getting the next wave of attacks become primary concern, in which case you want to get quest built up.
IF you are 2nd player, then I would consider dropping a units into battlefield and get the pressure one right away, in following turns I would try to get another cheapie into the battle field while at the same time creeping up kingdom and quest.
Where to attack first? This is important for an orc rush, you first attack and burn either the kingdom or the quest, one is not better then the other as it depends on what type of oppenent you are facing, most times quest is the better attack zone, but sometimes its attractive to attack kingdom, I will get into how to choose next. But the reason you want one of these zones buring fast is this. Most of your oppenents want to build up kingdom and/or quest to get going, they DO NOT want to be dropping units and developments into battlfield just to hold off death, BUT by burning a zone quickly, you place them in the difficult position of having to place units into the battlefield.

Quest or Kingdom, which first? Well you have to get to know oppenents decks and where there vunerablity is. Some decks like to rely on support cards that give bonus when in kingdom to boost them, these decks will not want to be putting units in kingdom to hold you off, worth pushing the kingdom as they are then making sub-par unit palcements, there kingdom is burned, they need to still build up there income, but they are dropping units and suppoprt cards in a already burnt zone while trying to hold you off. Other decks like chaos or skaven supported decks have 1 hit point units in kingdom like savage maruders or clan rats, grey seers etc, its still worth attacking kingdom, cause you may goad him into deffending, your cheap units die, but his income stays down, this works for you too.
Other decks may have big beefy units they like to deffend with and get income from, dwaves and chaos are often like this. (Yeah I mentioned chaos may have cheap units there, depends on the deck build, my snipping deck likes to put tough units into kingdom. These decks will often be relying on cheaper quest specific specialiets, like runesmiths, or vile sorcs, or nurgle sorcs etc. The oppent dosn;t want to deffend with these units cause he needs card draw and the special ablities, and will either let this zone burn or block you and suffer for it.
Bottom line is you want to attack the zone that vs that certain deck, will either get a burn fast, or slow them down a lot, often leading to the same result. With a fast orc deck, you SHOULD be able to achevie this.
Okay, vs good decks now comes the hard part-
A well tuned deck will ahve a zone burned, but be ready to dig in and achevie the stablize I speak of. They let you burn a zone, built up the other one, and are ready to start plopping units into battlefield to deffend there and attack back. Some will start attacking your battle field to goad you into deffending to clear out your not so tough attackers. What do you do now?
This is where you may have to build up a bit, some damage reduction decks like dwarf or empire may have enough canacellation that attacking will just lose your guys and not do enough damage, chaos may have enough hand draw and barrels to get tactic cards that till or stall your stuff or start snippong your lower hitpoint attackers. If you have troll vomit, now is the time to do one final attack and push the reset button, if not you need to build up you draw to get a mess of cheap attackers and a waagh card. Burning the 2nd zone will often require a mass assult with 4 attackers or more boosted by choppas, totems and backed by a big waaaghh.
Often though it will not come to this, just a slightly off draw from your oppenent and you can burn 2 zones with basic tatics, and not even get to the point you need to build upa horde.
This type of play feels very thematic for the warhammer world as well. A serious of sharp raids attracting more greenskins till the oppenent is facing a full blown WAAAGHHH. Its fun.

Now you can include cards that give you a bit more vesitility and the abaility to still pull off a win when the oppenent stablizes, but these cards then take the place of others and slow you down. Its not question of right or wrong builds, just to you want to be all or nothing, or have some options if things slow down? Grimgor can be a mini reset in a certain zone, pillage other destruction tatics can finish off a zone. Rock lobbers can be used to finish off a zone that has deffenders in it now that you attacked early etc etc.. but now you are improving your vesility, but giving up speed.

One other tactic ypou may consider, is lets say you got 5-6 damage into either kingdom or quest, you can attack for about 6 points, so you know you can burn the zone you started attacking, but 6 is over kill, you may consider attacking the opposite zone, it its not deffended, now the oppenent has two zones, you can attack either one and burn it, and still the pressure is one the battlefield that likey has no units in it! This is NOT a good ideal if you will lose two or more units in the 2nd attack, cause this can slow down your rush and make the next attack less threatening. This works good if you start attacking a zone, the oppenet gets a tough unit down, but the other is empty. You keep your horde big, and keep the threats strong.

Well hope that all helps. Regarding rushes dominating the meta-game. I am confinced that this is only because the experience level is not high enough yet. Also cause rush decks are easier to play and to deffend agains them you have to do everything right. But I play against orc rushes as faster and even faster then the ones posted here, and still beat them.
There are enough skaven cards, that along with chittering hordes and will of tzeech, you can make a chaos/skaven rush that DOES NOT NEED TO BUILD UP QUEST AT ALL!!!! I have built such a deck and it is scarier then the orc rush in some ways, less reslient in others. The lack of need to "waste" turns building up the quest zone at all, makes for a scary scary speed deck. You do need mulltiples of the battlepacks to make such a deck work though.

I posted twice cause something went wierd with the text int he first one.

That is what I like about Skaven in the Orc Rush. You can build up kingdom/quest without losing an attacker. Greyseer can attack from either, and the Clan rats can boost other skaven as if they were attacking. They really do make it much easier to not worry about resources or cards.

Seams everyone is make rush decks orcs. I really think a just as dangerous one can be made with skaven/chaos, and its cheaper cause of loyality to add some chaos controll elements. Then again, this is mostly possible with the new battle pack, so it may be another week till those are out

I'm not sure why there's so much love for the Sellswords, imho they're not that great and certainly not worth a tiny rush they might give you. BUT (and of course this goes without saying) it does depend on what deck you're facing, I suppose. Yeah, they're cheap and if you don't care where they go after you use them, fair enough..but it's just too punishing a trade-off, imho, to risk using them.

If you have heavy use of Totem of Mork and Waaagh, the Sellswords usually will help you a lot more than your opponent.

I think the biggest issue with them is simply that the Orc rush decks are one of the strongest archetypes (if not the strongest) and the Sellswords hurt you in a mirror matchup.

darkdeal's list is within a few cards of mine. I have Lobber Crews and Poisonwind Globadiers over Crooked Teefs and Sellswords (just a few too many "Battlefield only"-s IMO), Seduced By Darkness over We'z Bigga (not quite enough targets for me) and Rock Lobber/Greyseer #3 over Totem of Gork/Ugrock. Rock Lobber may not figure in your most impressive steamrolls, but sometimes they play something that leaves you a few short of burning a zone, and you don't want to have to take another turn to kill it when you have a dozen plus hammers in the battlefield. Plus, sometimes you don't hit your Rat Ogres and you have too many corrupted guys. Sellswords do work well with Rock Lobber, but you can't have it all.

Anyway, yeah, I don't think this deck dominates the meta. It wins it's share, and wins fast. You have to be able to realize whether you have the kind of draw that can put them on a super-fast clock, or one that requires you to develop a bit (obviously, Greyseer can do both). This deck isn't as good as mono-Orcs at setting up big Quest/Kingdom, but they can make a showing when necessary.

I think the Orc/skaven rush decks are dominating the inexperienced meta-game actully. Till players learn to slap down those developments and not panic too much in the face of a rush and just acept you will simply lose some games to good rush draws, the game kind of settles down. You learn how to play and you will beat those rush games enough to feel good about it, and at some point the rush players will, or should, get a little bit bored of there decks and move on to more interesting things.

Not to say there is anything wrong with building and playing a rush deck, its fun, I do it from time to time, but when you play as much as I do you need a bit of variety!

Dywnarc said:

Im actually building a stall/ Bolt Thrower deck.