Welcome to Clan Fokus – a new series on Warhammer Community where we’ll be taking a closer look at all the new Clan Kulturs in the new Codex: Orks. These powerful special rules let you tailor your play style and offer huge benefits to nearly every unit in your army. We’ll be previewing a new Clan Kultur every day this week, continuing with the Snakebites…
This article was originally published on the Warhammer-community site.
Orks these days, eh? Runnin’ around, blasting each other with dakka, too fancy and high-falutin’ to use exploding squigs. “Da old ways” favoured by the Snakebite Clans date back to a simpler time, when an enterprising Ork only needed his wits, a choppa and an unbridled will to do violence unto other living creatures.
In those days, the Ork race had yet to encounter (and subsequently be inspired by) the ‘beaky’ Space Marines and the mighty Imperial Knightsand Battle Titans of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Though many of the other clans embraced the towering war engines and wazzy new technology the Meks created in answer to the Imperium’s fightiest machines, the Snakebites preferred to keep things simple as much as possible – after all, why build a Stompa when you’ve got a perfectly good Squiggoth to stomp the enemy flat?
The Snakebites are the most traditionalist of the Ork clans. In practice, their rugged lifestyle makes them better survivors, determined to show the other clans that “da old ways iz da best”. In-game, this is represented by a Clan Kultur that makes your Orks a little bit hardier than anyone else…
The Snakebites Clan Kultur represents their hard-bitten resilience and stubborn refusal to die. Working on everything from your Boyz to your Vehicles (after all, when Snakebites decide to muck about with technology, they build it to last), it’s a little like having a Painboy to hand at all times…
Being the most ‘old school’ of the Ork clans, the Snakebites have become highly accustomed at bringing down big prey without the aid of specialist gubbinz or technology to do it (though it can certainly help!). As a result, they have a Stratagem that is specific to their clan, the timely use of which can all but guarantee the destruction of a choice target:
Top Units
With their squig launchas and sturdy construction, Rukkatrukk Squigbuggies are every bit the iconic Snakebite vehicles. The Rukkatrukk’s speed, combined with the long range of its squig-launching weaponry, means that it can threaten almost anywhere on the battlefield with a salvo of bile, bitey or boom squigs. And in the case of its nasty heavy squig launcha, the Grot Gunner ensures it hits on a 4+ – deadly accuracy for an Ork weapon!
Another trick up the Rukkatrukk’s sleeve (or crammed in its squig cargo bay, to be precise) is its squig mine. By fielding two or even three of these vehicles, you’ll be able to effectively block off an area of the battlefield by laying a bunch of squig mines. Even an Imperial Knight will have to think twice about moving through an area if it has the potential to suffer 9 mortal wounds by doing so!
The 41st Millennium’s least predictable psykers are better than ever in the new Codex: Orks – and perfect for any Snakebite Warboss looking to melt their enemies without muckin’ about with any new-fangled technology. For one, your Clan Kultur gives you a 6+ save against any self-inflicted mortal wounds from Perils of the Warp (of which there will be many). For another, you’ve got some awesome new powers to play with – like Fists of Gork:
As if Warbosses weren’t scary enough! Da Krunch, on the other hand, can blend hordes with a few lucky rolls:
For an Ork army that’s as tough as old boots – and just as good at kicking people in the face – choose Snakebites for your clan. If you like the idea of speeding around lobbing a variety of squigs onto your foes, you can pre-order the Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy from this weekend. Or, if you can’t wait that long to get painting, some ‘hardy’ Snakebites Gretchin will do your clan proud (as everyone knows that the best Runtherdz are Snakebites), as will a monstrous Squiggoth from Forge World. Meanwhile, if all you want from your Orks is to unleash MAXIMUM DAKKA, then you won’t want to miss tomorrow’s preview of the Bad Moons…
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
Monster Hunters is so good!
I was going to say the same. The kulture is not great (because painboyz), but that’s a pretty good stratagem.
Yeah, but don’t forget, this kulture trait affects vehicles as well
Exactly, and it saves you the points on the Painboy and you don’t have to stay near the Painboy, either. Plus, there’s more to be seen, too =)
Little confused on why it’s 3 cp though. Seems more like a 2 cp stratagem but suppose it does effect the whole army.
Yeah, lol, it effects your ENTIRE army. That’s crazy!
Wow! I hadn’t realised it affected the entire army.
Much like Tau Sept’s Focused Fire, and that one’s money. And increases your mortal wounds from the Shokk Rifle (and maybe other Shokk weapons) as well as the updated Killchoppa, like Tau Rail weapons.
Monster hunters is garbage.
3 command points for a snakebite unit to get +1 to wound a target with 10+ wounds.
Veterans of the Long War. 1 command point for any Heretic Astartes unit gets +1 to wound any and every target.
Bro. Read it again. You’re missing a very important part of the strat =)
https://media.tenor.com/images/27ca1335ecec304d6bc5a53ce330960e/tenor.gif
Haha, nice =)
I can definitely see monster hunters being amazing. Especially in the assault phase. Or combined with lots of S5 dakka, wounding T8 on 4’s for just about every high volume support weapon (dakkagunz, mek speshul, supa shootas, etc) could potentially be a whole lot of damage.
A 6+ feel no pain is a solid Klan kultur, especially for the potential to negate mortal wounds. Ignoring every sixth mortal wound is nothing to sniff at.
That psychic power though. Fists of Gork on a warboss with a Klaw is going to make a lot of people cry.
Wouldn’t the squig mine just blow up immediately from the rukkatruck still being within 1″ during the start of the next phase?
You can place it at any point in the Model’s move, not just at the end. Probably best to drop it when you’ve still got at least 3″ of movement left 😉
Snakebites are one of those Factions where I’ve never felt any real desire to play them, but I love that they’re around, and I love seeing and/or playing against a good Snakebite Army.
For all the naysayers, This is a legit strat. Instead of this, change the wording to
“cast doom on a vehicle of your choice for 3 cp for a phase”
It’s REAL good even at 3cp.
100%. When you need a big nasty taken care of, this does the trick.
“NERF IMPERIAL KNIGHTS, NO ONE HAS A CHANCE, 200 MORE POINTS TO DOMINUS”
What a fancy imperial knight you have there, would be a shame if an Ork Warboss ONE SHOT IT.
It’s gonna get silly.
To clarify, this is not salt, I just think it’s funny.
I guess it has a pretty impressive impact when it comes to opportunity – e.g. 30 boyz magically assaulting some magic thing. 30 boys is a crazy number to get fully in. Is it really better than making that unit skarboyz?
30 boyz with 10 exploded 6’s and skarboyz (+1 CP)
7.407 dmg to a knight
30 boyz with no exploded, but +1 to wound (+3 CP)
6.667 dmg to a knight
Looks like it is not. I think the difference Reece sees is that you target an enemy unit, so you’d get it, potentially on multiple snakebite units against a knight. Which is good as it adds context to the spend, but doesn’t recover the additional cost.
It’s really awesome for things like lootas, tank bustas, burna boyz, shoota boyz, etc.