[Orks] Waaaagh! Nobrot!: Killa Kans

Hey all.

It's been a while now since I've done a breakdown for Waaaagh! Nobrot! so I thought I'd make a move in getting back into gear with it. Especially when it's been a bit of a slow week in terms of hobby things to take pictures of.

I'm currently working towards a 1,500pt 1 day competition and my aim with the army is to avoid having to move tons of models on the table - I'm very lazy. So I'm looking at taking a lot of armour - specifically Killa Kans.

So first off, I refused to buy metal Killa Kans and ended up with a way of making them that cost me 50p to make each one.

The body of the Kan is made from a plastic Kinder Egg toy container. The feet are the bottom of the Battle for Macragge Pylons - the top pieces went towards making Kustom Forcefields for my Big Meks.

The shooting weapons were made from leftover Chaos Predator bits. Big shootas made from Heavy Bolters and the Rokkit Launchas / Grotzookas were made from the Havoc Launcher vehicle upgrades.

I made the "Visor" and Mouthpiece out of plasticard and the top hatch was made from an upturned shield from Warhammer Fantasy.

So yeah - these cost me 50p each to make and I've now got 6 of them, with another 3 ready to be made to make a Heavy Metal Thunder army. Personally, I'm pretty proud of them and the only issue I have is that the paint chips quite easily off the Kinder Egg plastic and the superglue doesn't hold onto them very well. But for saving £11.50 per Kan (at the time), I'll deal with a bit of repainting or glue work.

Killa Kans to me are awesome. Anything that can be more reliable than Ork shooting in the army is always a good thing. Combined with the fact they're dirt cheap pointswise and come with a Dreadnaught Close Combat Weapon means they can pack a punch in close combat.

The best way for me to run them is in a Squadron of 3, although this means an immobilised result will destroy them, they save 30pts a Squadron on Extra Armour and also saved you buying Grot Riggers. Keeping them close by the Big Mek means they will benefit from a Kustom Forcefield making them even more survivable.

Now, how do they actually get used on the tabletop? First thing is what weapon load outs you would choose to use.

Big Shoota
The Big Shoota for me is the staple of the Killa Kans. Targetting tough infantry to thin them before the Ork assault wall hits. Also, the higher ballistic skill from these means they are far more reliable than ordinary Ork shooting. They're also quite cheap and add valuable long range fire for Ork army.

Grotzooka
Grotzookas are a unique weapon for the Killa Kans, which allow you to field some high strength, blast weapons, which helps against untis like Tyranid Warriors and other heavy infantry. They're also a 2 shot Blast weapon, which is excellent in my eyes.

Whilst they're more expensive than the Big Shootas, they're still very cheap and the good thing is that they can happily be put in a unit of Big Shootas, or other weapons and add some long range anti-horde firepower.

Rokkit Launcha
Rokkit Launchas are a very popular option on Killa Kans, providing a bit more choice, survivability and more reliable vehicle hunter than a Tankbusta unit. They can also be used to target Monstrous Creatures, should there be vehicles on the battlefield.

However, they're 15pts per Rokkit Launcha and only 1 shot per Kan per turn, which with a 50% chance to miss, I'd prefer weight of numbers than single shot.

Kans with Rokkits have their place, especially when tag-teamed with a Deff Dred or Assault Unit - the Kans smash a light vehicle, the Dred / Assault unit sweep in and mop up what spills out of the transport.

Skorcha
Skorchas for me, are a waste of points on a Kan, unless you really, really want a squad of Assault Kans - which is for me, a bad idea!

Skorchas are good for 5pts and can happily thin out horde units, flush people from cover or massacre light units, but again the issue is, you need to be up close to deal with that. And that is where the Kans begin to get crumped by Power Fists or Plasma / Melta guns.

Kustom Mega Blasta
Kustom Mega Blastas are cool on paper, but way too expensive to pay for a full lot of Kans and at that point, a Rokkit Launcha would have done it's job for cheaper. I'd leave these somewhere else and stick with either high rate of fire, or point for point effectivity.

Upgrades
I wouldn't bother using any of the upgrades on this unit really, since you're normally running them in Squadrons - Grot Riggers is useless as there'll be no immobilised results, and Armour plates is effectively already there with the squadron rule.

Forming the Unit
Now - how do we group all these together into a decent unit?

Unit size is the first thing. I always go for a unit of 3 - why?

1 Killa Kan can easily be dispatched by a stray lascannon or Melta gun, and then needs to be upgrades to have Armour plates.

2 Killa Kans are a nuisance, but a bad round of shooting means your wound allocation slowly piles up on you.

3 means there is enough spread out across the unit for allocating hits, it also means there's a lot of firepower that can make it through if there's Shaken results and that they can maximise their power in assault.

Personally I go for the Rate of Fire unit - 2 Big Shootas and a Grotzooka, which weighs in at under 130pts for a unit of 3. This gives me 6 S5 shots, plus 2 S6 blasts which is enough to cripple some units. If they make it to the middle of the battlefield then they can bog down units like Gaunts, Guardians or Guardsmen who will struggle to bring them down, if they can even bring them down at all.

Conclusion
I think Killa Kans are awesome in an Ork force, and once I've made my remaining 3, I'll have a bash at giving a Walker heavy army a go, lead by a Big Mek and his pet Deff Dred, and a Warboss with Meganobz.

What do you guys think about Kanz then? And in particular weapon loadouts and unit size?

SB