How to Play Orks in Warhammer 40,000 11th Edition

The structural change is Detachment Points. In 10th edition you chose one detachment; in 11th you get a DP budget — roughly 2 DP at 1,000 points and 3 DP at 2,000 points — and spend it on detachments that each cost 1 to 3 DP, so you can now combine detachments.

Orks' DP costs sit in the Munitorum Field Manual and the app: two detachments at 3 DP (War Horde and Green Tide), seven at 2 DP, and four at 1 DP — Equatorial Hordes, More Dakka!, Taktikal Brigade and the newer Rollin' Deff. The Faction Pack prints seven detachments in full, including the Equatorial Hordes jungle detachment that appears in v1.2 but not in the June v1.0 pack, and issues errata to all six of the codex detachments. Thirteen are legal.

The big thing on the horizon is Codex: Orks, the first 11th-edition codex, on pre-order from 22 August 2026 and previewed with 15 detachments. It will supersede this lineup and its points once it releases, so treat everything below as the live-but-short-lived Faction Pack state.

The Waaagh! is the beating green heart of an Ork army. Once per battle, at the start of your Command phase, you call it; it then stays active for your whole turn. While it's up, your Ork units can Advance and still charge in the same turn — an enormous, army-wide threat range — and they hit harder in melee and shrug off more damage. It's the alpha-strike button: build your list so that the turn you call the Waaagh! is the turn your whole horde crashes into the enemy at once.

The timing is the skill. Call it too early and you strike before you're in range; too late and you've been shot off the board. The 11th-edition pack made the 'once per battle' wording explicit, which is why detachments that grant a second Waaagh! (like Bully Boyz) are such a big deal.

Your DP budget scales with game size: about 2 DP at 1,000 points and 3 DP at 2,000 points. Costs:

• 3-DP detachments (War Horde, Green Tide) fill your whole 2,000-point budget on their own, so they run solo.
• 2-DP detachments (Bully Boyz, Kult of Speed, Dread Mob, Da Big Hunt, Speedwaaagh!, Blitz Brigade, Freebooter Krew) leave 1 DP spare for a support.
• 1-DP detachments (More Dakka!, Taktikal Brigade, Rollin' Deff, Equatorial Hordes) are the glue — bolt one onto a 2-DP core to add shooting, kunnin' redeploys, war wagons or jungle-style Scouts.

The new list-building question is "a self-contained 3-DP detachment, or a themed 2 + 1 split?" A 2-DP core plus a 1-DP support gives you two detachment rules and two stratagem/enhancement lists to draw from — and some Ork combos stack beautifully (More Dakka!'s Sustained Hits with Freebooter Krew's loot-objective Sustained Hits, for instance).

One trap to watch: Rollin' Deff carries the WAGONS unique tag, so it cannot sit beside another WAGONS detachment. The Munitorum Field Manual also lists Blitz Brigade with that tag while Faction Pack v1.2 prints it only on Rollin' Deff, so the two official sources disagree. Until that settles, don't plan a list that fields both.

Thirteen detachments are legal. By role, with DP costs:

• War Horde (3 DP) — the flexible all-comers generalist. Start here.
• Green Tide (3 DP) — a massed Boyz horde with an invulnerable save.
• Bully Boyz (2 DP) — elite Warboss, Nobz and Meganobz, with a second Waaagh!.
• Kult of Speed (2 DP) — fast Speed Freeks that shoot and charge after moving.
• Speedwaaagh! (2 DP) — Trukk-and-buggy speed with a huge straight-line Advance.
• Blitz Brigade (2 DP) — mounted assault; disembarking units re-roll Advance and Charge.
• Dread Mob (2 DP) — kans, dreads and Mek war machines.
• Da Big Hunt (2 DP) — Beast Snaggas that hunt a nominated Prey.
• Freebooter Krew (2 DP) — loot-objective pirates with Sustained Hits.
• More Dakka! (1 DP) — Assault and Sustained Hits for Ork Infantry shooting.
• Taktikal Brigade (1 DP) — Blood Axes redeploys and hit-and-run.
• Rollin' Deff (1 DP) — Battlewagons, Hunta Rigs and Kill Rigs.
• Equatorial Hordes (1 DP) — the Armageddon jungle detachment, absent from the June v1.0 pack and printed in full in v1.2.

Equatorial Hordes is the newest of the thirteen. Its single detachment rule hands up to three Mob or Kommandos units Scouts 6" from the Declare Battle Formations step; it adds two Beastboss or Infantry Warboss enhancements and three 1CP stratagems built around hidden mobs, healing stragglers back into a unit, and extending detection range. Mob is a narrow keyword (only Boyz and Beast Snagga Boyz have it), so it is a cheap pre-game move for a mob-heavy list rather than a general-purpose support.

Pick a core from your collection and playstyle:

• All-comers / unsure → War Horde. Massed Boyz → Green Tide. Both cost 3 DP, so they run alone.
• Nobz and Meganobz → Bully Boyz. Bikes and buggies → Kult of Speed or Speedwaaagh!. Trukks and transports → Blitz Brigade. Walkers → Dread Mob. Beast Snaggas → Da Big Hunt. All of these cost 2 DP and leave a point spare.

If your core is a 2-DP detachment, spend the leftover DP on a 1-DP support:

• More Dakka! to bolt a shooting element onto a melee list.
• Rollin' Deff to add a war-wagon spearhead (not alongside another WAGONS detachment).
• Taktikal Brigade for kunnin' redeploys and objective play.
• Equatorial Hordes for Scouts 6" on a few Mob or Kommandos units.

A concrete example at 2,000 points: a Bully Boyz 2-DP elite core + 1-DP More Dakka! gives your Nobz bricks real ranged pressure on the way in. Note that a Green Tide horde can no longer take a support at all: at 3 DP it is the whole budget.

Two habits win Ork games. First, plan the Waaagh! turn. It's once per battle, so build your list and your first two turns around the turn everything reaches the enemy at once — usually turn two or three. Advance-and-charge under the Waaagh! is what makes Orks terrifying; wasting it on a turn you can't reach anything throws the game. Second, don't fizzle your CP. Orks lean on a few big stratagems (extra attacks, a save-boost, a re-roll) at the decisive combat — hold command points for the Waaagh! turn rather than dribbling them away.

And since 11th edition lets you run two detachments, remember you can use both detachments' stratagems — a 2 + 1 split quietly widens your toolbox for that alpha turn.

If you're new or returning, build a War Horde list first. It's the most forgiving detachment, it teaches Waaagh! timing without extra sub-systems, and almost any Ork collection fits inside it. Once you're comfortable, try a 2 + 1 DP split to find the themed core and support that suit your boyz.

One honest caveat about timing. Codex: Orks went up for pre-order on 22 August 2026 as the first 11th-edition codex, previewed with 15 detachments, and it will re-tune this lineup and its points when it lands. If you're buying models, buy what you like the look of rather than what a Faction Pack detachment currently rewards. Everything here reflects the live Faction Pack v1.2 rules as of 27 August 2026.