1v1 Orks are weaker than Space Marines. It wouldn't make sense for da Golden Git (God Emprah) to have made them otherwise.

The game will be balanced, at least as far as combat survival is concerned. If you get shot, you die, quickly, whether you're a SM or not. This has been my experience so far with every WH40k video game I've ever played. All that fluff about Space Marine feats of god-like prowess is just that: fluff. Imperial propaganda.

I for one will be maining an Ork char whatever happens. It's simply a matter of learning the game. I will die many, many, many times. Maybe more than if I played as a Space Marine, but I'm not going to let that ruin my enjoyment. This game feels like a lot of energy and love is going into it, like the Lord of the Rings movies (and books!).

Orks don't get much of their own fiction simply because (I feel) 1. stories need quality antagonists (and who better than Orks?) and 2. we already understand what the Orks are all about: "We'z made for fighin'!" Our only objective is the battle itself. By fighting us, we've won.

It's not that simple, orks are actually equal to sm at melee in TT (same attk, orks 4+ with heavy armor vs sm 3+ saves) but quite worse at range (half the range attk of marines). If you could go melee directly in TT, orks would destroy marines for being low cost thus way more numerous.

I think EC should render the same balance of force : orks should be a little weaker than sm (no shield) but strike with the same damage amount, meaning an ork could totally 1v1 a marine by using wisely the melee system. Also, orks weapons usually having way highly rate of fire, they could use it at close range to down marines pretty fast.

Nevertheless, marines should really have the upperhand at range with more precise weapons, which would lead to marines preferring to keep orks at bay with range weapons, rather than engaging them at close or melee range and quite risking to be stomped.

In general I'm on the opinion that everything dies a little too fast in the Eternal Crusade, and that the range, accuracy, and recoil of a few weapons needs a little tuning to balance things out. I'm not however, of the opinion that 1v1 a Space Marine should stomp an Ork.

I've read through a lot of forums and I've often seen Space Marine palyers believing that they should be able to cut through hordes of Ork players, which strikes me as ridiculous, why would anyone play a faction if it takes ten of you to rival one of your enemy? Besides, the ONLY faction with those sort of numbers right now, are the Space Marines. If someone can come up with an arguement as to why, from a gameplay standpoint, Orkz should be inferior to Space Marines I'll definitely listen, but so far all that I've seen is "I believe I should be more powerful then the Orkz because reasons:" or they cite Captain Titus from Space Marine the game wrecking thousands of Orkz. My arguement for that is Captain Titus is an elite Captain of the Ultramarines and not your average every day warrior. One guy being able to saw through thousands of Xeno's, Daemon Lord and Warboss included is not the standard fighting force of the Imperium, or no one would ever be able to challenge the Space Marines on any field if they were all on Titus's level.

But they do, and in fluff, I'd like to point to the Ullanor Crusade, where several MASSIVE Space Marine Legions as well as their Primarchs were having trouble with the Orkz! We've all seen in multiple medias that depending on the Ork, he can 1v1 certain Space Marines depending on skill, especially in melee (as evidence by the Dawn of War 1 Trailer) but they can also deal so damage with their awesomely inaccurate guns, not by sharp shooting which I believe is Marine and Eldar territory, but by projecting walls of lead! Numbers sure make them a deadlier foe, but there isn't enough Ork playerbase for a "horde" so in my opinion, any "horde" mechanics will come from the fact that Ork players are encouraged to move around in groups, not solo or in pairs like Marines are able too and still be very effective. Summary! Orkz greatest in short range, Space Marines and CSM the Mid, Eldar in the long, all my humble opinion!

Aaaaaall of this.

I just don't get why so many people don't want to give each faction its own "area of expertise" like this. Space Marines are generally "jacks of all trades" in the sense that they can get good at a lot of different ways of fighting. Orks are shorter ranged, but dangerous when getting up close, and Emperor save you if an Ork with a Choppa charges you. Eldar are fast and accurate, which means that they generally don't want to be close to anyone, since they can throw hurt at their enemies from afar.

1 v 1, a standard marine is far superior warrior to a standard Ork. However, strip away the tech that the marine has, and through them both a blade, and things are a bit more even. The best thing about Ork is that he doesn't care how tough the opponent is, or perhaps more accurately, the tougher the opponent is, the more he likes it!

Ok, now I get where you're coming from, and you've convinced me. (But shouldn't it be "Mork save you"?) It finally clicked for me when I remembered that (on TT) Orks and SM both have WS and T 4. What this translates to is that an Ork Boy is as tough and skilled at melee as an augmented and trained Astartes! They're more equal than people realize.

In-game, stuff does seem to die pretty quick. If you're caught out in the open for just a few seconds, you can get most of your health ripped away. Admittedly, war is actually like this because there's bullets and bombs flying everywhere and cover is vital. I don't have as a big a problem with that as I do about the respawn timer. It should be a flat 10 seconds, barring betrayals. I racked up a 20 second timer once for no reason I could discern. Does it go up if you speed up your bleed out to avoid executions?

Well i'v been contemplating how Chaos is going to work for a time now, and i'm not entirely sure how our army is going to work. Chaos can be the 'jack of all trades' yes, but we also can specialize REALLY heavily, i'm not sure how that will pan out in overall balance. Like a Khorne Bezerker is not at all a mid range troop, so does that infringe on the Orks balance?

Also as a side note: I would use neither Space Marine or Dawn of War for lore arguments. The former was put into an alternate universe by GW due to it's fluff inconsistency and the latter hasn't had any follow up to it's story and the books were all but decanonized due to the horrifically bad lore within.

I imagine a Khornate Berserker would be implemented as a Ground Assault with the Mark of Khorne added to it. I'm sure the game designers are not nicheing the factions that much where Orkz can ONLY be good at short range or Eldar ONLY good at long range (examples: maybe a Kommando has a long ranged gun and the Howling Banshees are melee troops).

Faction's don't need to have all classes adhere to their specific "niche's" in order to be balanced, they can branch out a little. As some people may in fact enjoy playing those long ranged Orkz, or melee combat Eldar. So long as people aren't wanting one of their classes from their faction to rofl stomp all other classes of a similiar type and have an unfair advantage, I believe balance will be achieved and most people will quite enjoy the range and variety each faction will offer while adhering to their per-described "strengths"

Well the thing is, yes there will be Ground Assaults with the Mark of Khorne, but we're also getting actual cult troops too, butchers nails and everything.

And THAT might be difficult to balance, as that would make fielding heavy melee Chaos unit viable if not encouraged.

It is about getting the short end of the stick though, and my point remains that not everyone would be disappointed about a custom character as the faction leader. Some would even prefer it.