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The Chime of Eons - The Orks
Nov 08 2014 02:36 PM |
Asklepios
in Warhammer 40k: Conquest
warhammer 40k conquest asklepios orks fluff chime of eons
– The Ork View of Warfare.
"You're rich! You're flashy! You 'ave a proppa Orky stoutness about your belly! And you've got more big, shooty, and dead 'ard gear than any 2 other Orks put together. Da uvver clans orta make way for da Bad Moons!"
- An anonymous Ork of the Bad Moon Klan.
"Da best shoota I eva made, dat iz. Loadza barrulz, so dat it’s ded shooty. ‘Sept dat wun, ‘cos dat’s da skorcha, dat’s burny insted. Yeah, good an’ propa. An’ da bullitz is ‘splosiv...dey goez boom inna fings wot you’z shootin.’ An’ dat button dere...dat’s da best bit. Wot it duz, see, iz...iz...oh, zog. Nah, its nuffin’ boss. Nah, you’z don’t need ta see wot dat button duz...‘onist. Don’t push it!"
- Last words of Nazdakka Boomsnik, Renowned Mekboy
Welcome back, dearest readers, to The Chime of Eons, a column about the grand and glorious fluff of…

Ah. It seems as if the conventions of narrative tradition require any column about Orks to have in-character intrusions, so I guess I’d better introduce…
NAZDREG! NAZDREG IZ DA BEST! DIS IS MY COLUMMN NOWZ!
Yes… Uh. The Orks have been in 40k since the very beginning, with the Rogue Trader book showing them as the main antagonists and in the “Battle at the Farm†introductory scenario established their long continuing role as war-loving thugs with simple motivations, limited brainpower, illogical technology, child-like bickering and comedy relief –
OI! WHO YOU CALLING COMEDY RELEEF?
They’re popular, because of the lighthearted nature of the slapstick casual violence that follows them about.
They’ve got their serious aspect too, in that many of the greatest wars have been against the greenskin threat, and they make great antagonists because they are innumerable, impossible to fully defeat and ubiquitous. Also, humorous as it is, orkish "kultur" has a dark side to it, being based wholly around might makes right, or in other words the oppression of the weakest.
Despite this serious aspect there’s a definite mindset to the ork fan. Ork collectors are often the sort of players who love random tables that give mad and wacky effects whenever the trigger is pulled, who like the sort of armies that are as likely to break down in infighting as attack the opponent, and who consider the core of the best strategy to be a great big charge down the centre of the table.

The orks in the LCG fill a great niche: they’re for the player who likes to get in the opponent’s face from the first planet, who likes the big hordes that are bigger, stronger and tougher than their flimsy and breakable opponents.
DAT’S RIGHT. Orks iz da BEST.


The Ork Faction Meta-Fluff Score: 4/5
Da Orky met.., meta… fing score, innit: 11/10
Orks are everywhere. The first alien encounter of mankind was with orks, and war soon followed after first contact. Every time humanity explored a new region of space, they encountered orks again. Distressingly, on analysing distant signals from other galaxies, Imperial listening posts heard orkish signals.
The history of human-ork interactions has been one of war, war and more war. While its true that trade and relatively peaceful relations have broken out at times between human and ork, these tend to be short term blips between a grander background of constant conflict.
Orks are by far the most numerous of the spacefaring species in the galaxy (though the arrival of the Tyranids may soon challenge that) and united it is likely that the Orks could destroy every other race native to the galaxy with ease. Luckily for the other races, unity is not something the Orks do well. The Orks simply love to fight and when there’s no-one else to fight they’ll just fight each other.
In a way, some might consider them easy to dismiss: all they’re good for is fighting. On the other hand, the flipside is that you have an entire race whose only purpose is war, and that makes them extremely good at it. There's no such thing as a civilian ork, so every one of their multudinous race is ready (and eager) to fight.
Everything about orks aims them towards war. They don’t reproduce as humans do, instead growing from fungal-spores. Even a few spores are enough to start an orkish infestation, so the movement of other species between planets can be enough to seed orks in a new location. They emerge from their buried fungal pods in a more or less adult/adolescent form, still capable of further growth but already with orkish language, considerable physical prowess and fighting ability. There aren't any female orks (or indeed any male orks, if you think about it, even though humanity tends to regard orks as male) and there's no real concept of orkish parenthood or childhood. Life starts with adolescence!

War is actively healthy for orks! When you make war on the orks, you serve their needs, as the conflict itself makes them stronger, as an Ork at war is physically healthier, develops into a stronger creature, is more psychologically fulfilled and is basically happiest when dodging bullets and planting their choppa in someone's bowels.
Ask an ork, or in fact, ask Nazdreg "War, what is it good for...?"
Absolootley everyfink!
Orks generally represent a background level of xenos threat in the galaxy sometimes establishing small empires (such as the realm of Charadon), but more often remain disorganised beyond the level of the tribe or warband.
Sometimes though, a powerful ork will start to draw other orks into following him. Might makes right in orkish society, so an ork warlord is inevitably the strongest and biggest ork in the vicinity. When the number of orks reaches a critical mass, they’re liable to go on rampage, gaining momentum as more and more orks join the horde to get a piece of the action. The greatest ork warlord in recent memory was…
NAZDREG! NAZDREG IZ DA BEST!
…was Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka (named by GW for a certain famously strong-minded British prime minister), self proclaimed “Prophet of the Waaagh!†whose ork horde devastated the Imperial world of Armageddon, in a series of wars the last of which continues to rage in the present day. Its been observed that Armageddon is a microcosm of the Imperium: beleaguered fortress cities facing their last days in the face of an endless tide of alien forces, but ready to sell their lives dearly to the last drop of blood and the last las-round.
Yeah, dat Ghazghkull is well’ard, giv ya dat. Nazdreg is richer, but dat Ghazghkull is not fer turnin'.
Other powerful orks have existed over time, including Snagrod the Arch-Arsonist of Charadon, latest in the line of warlords of the biggest Ork empire currently in existence...
Nevva ‘erd of ‘im.
…Grog Ironteef, Warchief of Alsanta…
Nope, nor ‘im.
…and The Beast, who once came close to conquering the Galaxy…
Naa dats not true, I wudda ‘erd ‘bout it.
Of course, Orks don’t have much sense of cultural or racial history, preferring to live in the moment. Indeed, all their technology and lore isn’t passed on through teaching or writing, but rather seems to be directly encoded in their genes, with Ork Oddboyz spontaneously showing specific aptitudes and inherent knowledge which they put to the service of the orkish cause. The parallel invention of new orkish tech might happen spontaneously in orkish populations on different sides of the galaxy, as if some long lost lore has been simultaneously unlocked from their genetics by a long pre-ordained time-based or environment-based trigger. Most orks have no clue about this, instead just using the guns that the mekboyz give them, going to the painboyz when they’re injured and leaving any complex stuff to the oddboyz.
I dunno ‘bout dat. I leave dat to da oddboyz.
Orkish culture is “klan†based, with each of the clans typifying a different aspect of orkiness. The Goffs, for example, pride themselves on being the toughest and most brutal of clans…
Dey ain’t all dat.
...and the Snakebites are primitivists who disdain technology, preferring the old ways of boar-herding and a good sharp axe...
Dey're pretty fick.
…whereas the Bad Moonz are the richest, with the flashiest gear and best guns.
WE IZ DA BEST! BAD MOONZ IZ DA BEST!
Orks are not especially pious, and they fight because they love fighting rather than for any especial religious or ideological cause. While they do have two gods, named Gork and Mork, its not entirely clear what these gods represent or even how they are distinct from each other. Broadly, Gork is described as being bellicose but clever and Mork as clever but bellicose.
Stoopid oomie. Uvva way round. Mork iz fighty and kunnin’, Gork is kunnin’ and fighty. Stoopid oomie!
Or iz it da uvver way round?

Firstly, we want big hordes of in-your-face fightiness.
We want the direct approach of charging at the enemy, but we also want a little bit of cunning in an orky sort of way. We want a faction that is great on the First Planet, and which can field large numbers without too much trouble. We don’t expect huge strength in the command struggle, as orks generally aren’t too interested in logistics, and we don’t want to see subtle tricks that don’t relate to fighting battles. Orkish cunning should be all about unexpected moments of cleverness that help the war effort, as the war effort is the raison d'etre of orkish existence.
Secondly, we want a smattering of insane fun, possibly with a humorous element to it. While GW has altered the seriousness of how they approach orks from time to time, there's always been some element of madcap humour present.
We want a playstyle that has a high degree of surprises and catastrophes, where a shokk attack gun could make a mockery of Terminator armour, or it could backfire and fill the warlord’s pants with scratching snotlings.
Yeah, I remember dat day.
We also want to see a faction that relishes conflict, and doesn’t tend to want to retreat (but if they do, comes back stronger for the next battle). We want some representation of how war only makes them stronger, and how you need to completely eliminate the orkish threat to get rid of it.
Broadly, FFG has done really well here. This is a faction with a straight forward first planet aggro approach that is good at horde tactics, good at presenting big bruisers, and which uses the Brutal rule to fluffy effect. The madcap element is there more in fluff than rules, but there's still a feeling of humour in flooding a battlefield with a Snotling Attack or firing an Ork Kannon into the midst of melee.
The Alliances make sense, more or less:
The Astra Militarum alliance makes sense on one level, as the Orks are mostly interested in a good scrap, and if working alongside humans gives them the opportunity for a good scrap, they might work alongside them for a bit... at least till the battle is won and they need someone else to fight!
Not all orks will agree to this sort of alliance, and mostly it’s the famously "adaptable" Bloodaxe Klan…
SNEAKY BAAASTADDS! I hates them Bloodaxes.
…but the precedent does exist. The Rogue Trader book had fluff about orkish slavers working with Imperials on Logan’s World, and the alliance option has been there right through the editions. While the Orks do war against the Imperium, they do so out of a weird sort of respect: they know they'll get a good fight, so its worth them sending hordes their way. This is evidenced by Ghazghkull offering his arch enemy Commissar Yarrick a place in his retinue when he finally captured him: while Yarrick refused then escaped, its clear that orks don't hate humans as humans hate orks, they just enjoy fighting them. And humans, naturally, are not driven solely by hatred but also by such complex thoughts as ambition, desire for power, fear and ego. When a human's goals are selfish rather than driven by the Imperial creed, or when they consider their need in defeating a greater enemy exceeds their need to destroy the orks, they'll often find the orks willing to work alongside anyone who can point them in the direction of a good fight, and they'll find that many orks enjoy wealth and the paid benefits of mercenary work as much as any human.
The Chaos alliance is also fine. To be clear, the Orks aren’t interested in the Chaos Gods, but for the most part the Chaos Gods mostly can’t do much about the orks either. Ork psykers have unpalatable minds for daemons, and there’s barely any solid fluff instances of orks being corrupted by chaos. A philosophical analysis might observe that Orks are at peace with themselves, as they have no doubts or existential concerns: they are beasts of war, and happy with that, so there’s no psychological weaknesses for chaos to pry open. This makes Chaos and Orks a natural alliance, as neither has any goals regarding the other, both are generally happy to team up against civilisation, and both are happy to have a huge war against each other when the job is done.
The precedents for chaos directly corrupting the orks do exist, in particular The Green Death in 473.M36 had orkish warbands infected with a Nurglish plague that eventually had their bodies splitting open into a tide of nurglings. Two things are of note about this. The first was that it was their physical forms that were transformed rather than their psyches - the orks were not so much corrupted as infested. The second was that this was part of the chaos-fallen Death Guard Primarch's goal of spreading plague across Imperial Ecclesiarchy held space: the ultimate targets were not the orks, but once again humanity. Thus while orks and chaos may fight, and chaos may use orks as a tool, orks are still (as far as we know) resistant to the mental and spiritual corruption of chaos, and are more likely to fight alongside them than against them.
Generally then, FFG has done better with alliances for the orks than any faction we’ve looked at so far.
The main letdown here is that their play seems a little too precise for orks: when you have Ork Roks (the main sort of ork spaceship) in fiction essentially taking the interstellar navigation strategy of “don’t aim, lets just see where we end up and have a scrap when we get thereâ€, its hard to represent orks having coherent deployment tactics and logistical base.
Unless dey is a geeenee… jeeniaa… uh… ded clevva, like Nazdreg.
Unless they’re a genius, for Nazdreg, who is widely recognised as the greatest strategist of the Ork race. So he’s a genius, for an ork.
Cheers mate!
SIGNATURE CARDS

Overall Fluffiness Rating: 5/5
Nazdreg Ug Urdgrub is a Warlord of the Bad Moons, and like most Warlords of his Klan he is ostentatiously wealthy, well equipped and obsessed with wealth and having the best gear. For the Bad Moonz this wealth is partially from the fact that their teeth grow faster. Orkish "teef" are the main currency, and its considered that the faster growth of Bad Moonz teeth isn't an unfair advantage, as any ork who is jealous can always knock them out and take them for themselves. For Nazdreg specifically though, wealth is also a measure of his particular obsession with its accumulation, which he follows to a far greater degree than most orks. For Nazdreg, war is the means and wealth is the goal, whereas for most Orks its the other way around.
What is most unusual about Nazdreg, is that he is intelligent (for an Ork) and exceptionally cunning, with an excellent grasp of strategy that often leaves his enemies confounded. He’s a first tier character, in that he has special rules, established fluff, and a dedicated miniature.
NAZDREG! NAZDREG IZ DA BEST!
He was based on the Space Hulk of Ognazdreg Gargdurslagulk, but following a crash landing at the battle of Medusa V he was forced to swap this for an Imperial large bulk freighter, using his considerable cunning to acquire this vehicle.
Hur hur hur… yeah, dat was a good trick.
He could potentially have been as major a threat to the Imperium as Ghazghkull, were he not more interested in wealth accumulation than in conquest.
Yeh, Nazdreg is richer tho.
The card is a good one. It has Nazdreg in the right gear with his Kustom-Blast-X and his Mega-armour. The statline is suitably aggressive, the traits are right (though I’d like to complain that he lacks a Bad Moons trait, as a Klan trait for Ork units in general would have been very fluffy, and in keeping with the Craftworld, Chapter, Sept and Regiment traits of other factions).
The ability is very orky indeed, and for Nazdreg reflects the fluff showing that he gets more resourceful and cunning when things are going badly for him. 2/7 stats make sense too, relative to the other warlords, as an Ork boss is someone who needs to be able to hit harder than those he is leading, and who is naturally tough.
Nazdreg’s Flash Gitz (Core Set)
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5
Flash Gitz are orks who love their guns more than most, and spend all their teef on upgrading their shootaz into fancy snazzguns which have "more dakka" and are "more shootier".
These units make perfect sense for Nazdreg’s command squad, as Flash Gitz are most often Bad Moonz.
The game effect feels right too, with the Flash Gitz overloading their guns for the sake of more dakka, and not worrying that they’re accidentally shooting down their buddies, or that some of their squad have exploded from overheated weapons. It’s the sort of unit that makes you want to shout DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA as you ready then exhaust them.
Nazdreg’s best trikk iz to giv dem a rokkit launcha, so dey can be more shootier before da oomies know what it em.
Hey, that’s not bad, I might use that one.
Like youse said. Ded clevva, me.
Kraktoof Hall (Core Set)
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 2/5
This is a new location, fluffwise, though a tribal-style hall for a Warlord more or less makes sense, even if it doesn't seem especially tied to Nazdreg who is famously always on the move.
The ability is odd, because it’s a combat action. If it were a deploy action limited to orkish units, it could be seen as Nazdreg cunningly reassigning troops from one warband to another. As it is, its a trick you can use in battle to move damage fairly freely, and I’m not entirely clear what its meant to represent.
Also, its another static location that somehow gives benefit across multiple planets: its not even clear if orks have the means for interplanetary communication, let alone for flexible tactics of this sort.
It does allow for some cunning strategies when you’ve got lots of orks in one place, though, and as Nazdreg is all about the cunning and the Orks are all about having lots of guys in one place, that earns back some fluffiness.
Bigga is Betta (Core Set)
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5
The name of this card refers to the orkish understanding of hierarchy: might makes right, and the biggest are the strongest. This makes sense from a physiological point of view, as Orks grow stronger and more muscular with conflict, so the biggest orks are also the ones who are most experienced with battle and the most skilled at staying alive.
This card only really works mechanically because it’s a Signature card, as without Nazdreg’s ability it'd read “Cheapa iz Slightly Crappaâ€. In the context of Nazdreg ending up at the planet where this unit ends up, it makes sense, as animosity and squabbling have thinned the ranks, but the orks there have ended up tougher for it.
Also odd is the emergent play combo, that often has the Bad Dok being sought as a natural partner. As an economy card, however, it does lend to the orkish horde rush, so deserves some fluff credit for that.
Cybork Body (Core Set)
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5
In case the art and the name didn’t make it obvious, a cybork is an ork who has had some of his fleshy parts replaced by machine parts. Ork bodies are actually extremely receptive to this sort of thing: their natural healing ability and their adaptable physiology often means that all the mekboy (technician-engineer) and painboy (doctor-surgeon) has to do is staple and stitch a prosthetic mechanism in place of an ork’s limbs, and it’ll work just fine.
Nazdreg works closely with his meks, so it makes sense for him to have access to this card, though it seems odd that its effectively unique to his decks, as other orks use cybork modifications as well. Also, while its sensible in game balance terms, its weird that Nazdreg himself can’t benefit from this card.
LOYAL CARDS
Battle Cry (Core Set)
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5
The effect makes sense for the orks, who tend to charge into battle at the warlord’s command with a deafening shout of “waaaaaaaaaaaagh!†This is not just a noise, but a big part of orky culture, so much so that an orkish horde on a conquering spree is called a “Waagh!â€
So in the case of this warlord, it’d be the “Waagh! Nazdreg†troubling the Traxis Sector. The Power trait also makes sense, as the orkish charge is driven not only by aggression, but also by their latent psychic powers with the focused will of the horde all turning in one direction making them temporarily stronger, faster and more aggressive.
My only complaint is that this card ought to have been called…
“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!â€
…Exactly!

Overall Fluffiness Rating: 5/5
This Crushface fellow certainly gets about! While he’s a new character to Warhammer 40,000 there’s an orc of the same name in FFG’s Bloodbowl Team Manager game and the Conquest LCG version certainly has a feral, primitive vibe to him.
The link here is probably nothing more than artist Jason Juta, who drew both cards.
However, I love the idea that the Warhammer Fantasy world could exist within the 40k universe (a very popular fan theory) and that Crushface is a Bloodbowl celebrity who has taken to space as the first real Star Player. And hey, doesn’t that folded over / flattened skull on the left of the picture look a bit like a Bloodbowl ball?
The stats make a lot of sense, and the ability implies he’s an ork who is skilled at pulling others to follow him. The emergent play consequence is nice too, as it creates a tendency to have a mass of orks lumped in one big horde, which is exactly how it ought to be.
Also, doesn’t it seem like just the right ability for a celebrity ork who brings his fans with him?
“Nobâ€, incidentally is orkish shorthand for “nobilityâ€, the ruling classes of the greenksins.
Tho fer Crushface, it just meanz he’z a bit of a di-
Ahem.
As there’s nothing to criticise, and as I love the mad idea of a Bloodbowl player in space (which is probably a load of snotrot, but a fun idea for my personal headcanon) we’ll give this card maximum score.
Enraged Ork (Core Set)
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5
The ability here is great, but again I have to complain that any ork singular could have the same number of hit points as a Wailing Wraithfighter or a deployment of Killa Kans. An “s†on the end of Ork would have helped.
Nazdreg iz really bored of hearin’ bout singula an’ plooral. It don’t matta, oomie!
Well, it only matters to the fluff score.
Yeh, but dint yor readers say dey weren’t really interested in da score?
Umm… Hmm. Outwitted by an imaginary Ork, again!
Right, moving swiftly on.

Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5
Yet another one man army, but we can forgive it a little, as Elite and Nob traits suggests that even without a name this is a “special character†equivalent. Even so, his stats are huge when you put him opposite something like a Land Raider or a terminator squad. Goff nobz are well'ard, but this guy is a powerhouse!
Having no particular special abilities other than hitting hard and being tough is actually very much in keeping with the Goff clan, who see themselves as “proper orksâ€, which for them means concentrating on being tough and strong!
The Goffs, to describe them a little further, are orks who believe that orkiness is tied to warfare and to physical strength. Everything else is a distraction for them. They’re concerned with properly orky ways of fighting, believing that it isn’t a proper war unless you get stuck in with blade and boot. Guns have their place, but an ork who isn’t close enough to the enemy to feel the blood splattering on his face probably isn’t doing it properly. They’re no-nonsense in their equipment and dress code, preferring plain practical black, though sometimes with black-and-white chequerboard patterns. Their designated icon is the bull’s head, reflecting that they like to charge headfirst into close combat, and respect those who are strong and tough.
As I mentioned, I would have loved to see the Klans represented as Traits, to allow for future card effects that interact with said traits, or just for the sake of having an equal level of fluffiness as sept-traited Tau, craftworld-traited Eldar or chapter-traited Marines.
However, having each klan have its own theme in game mechanics terms is a reasonable second best.
For the Goffs, this looks to be: no messing around with logistics (command icons), more hitting power than most, and keeping it simple. That works for me!

Overall Fluffiness Rating: 2/5
Orks love war machines, and many of their designs are inspired by jealousy of the tech of other races.
While they’re unmistaken in the belief that orks are the best, they don’t turn their nose up at a good idea when they see it, especially if that good idea involves big guns and lots of stompy power.
It’s said that when an ork mek first saw space marine terminators, he came up with ork Mega-Armour. When another saw dreadnoughts he came up with the Deff Dreads. The orkish version generally is more unreliable and inelegant than human dreadnoughts, belching smoke and shedding a few nuts and bolts as they lumber across the battlefield. Still, there’s a typical orkish dedication to fitting as many guns and weapons as they can onto a Dread, and thanks to the weird psychic field generated around orks, builds and technologies that a Tau technician would declare unable to function tend to work just fine.
Of course, most orks aren’t crazy enough to let an ork mek and an ork doctor (called a Painboy, for obvious reasons) wire them into a machine, even with the promise of increased firepower. The way they see it, there’s not much point in being super-fighty if you can’t smell the smoke, taste the blood, and feel the enemy’s jaw break on your fist. Also, there's the worrying precedent that almost no ork that visits a painboy comes away with the work done that he wanted (as evidenced by the flavor text on the Bad Dok card) so its probable that a lot of orks who end up in deff dreads are ones who came in (or were dragged in unconscious) for a toothache, a few minor injuries or a lump on the head that suspiciously matches the Painboyz favourite knocking-out hammer.
Gretchin (or “grotzâ€), the runt like diminutive cousins of the orks, are a different matter. After a lifetime of being pushed around, beaten up, sent on menial errands and in extremis eaten as a snack they’re generally quite keen on the idea of having a metal body that is bigger than an ork, so they can finally be the big guy. Volunteers for the gretchin-piloted killa kans are generally easier to find, so long as there is a mek who can be bothered to make them.
A newly implanted gretchin will often take advantage of his new iron body to go beat up his former bullies, but once they’re done (normally after a month or so, as they work through their lists) they can be sent into battle.
When all is said and done, however, a grot is still a grot, and cowardice is a hardwired survival instinct. Like grotz, killa kans have a tendency to run away at the first sign of full battle, which can be a slight detriment to their effectiveness.
That in mind, lets look at the card. As a 4-cost properly pluralised Army Unit, its starting off well. 2/2/5 is a really dubious set of stats though, as gretchin in steel cans aren’t really capable of performing any sort of logistics support, nor garrisoning a world, nor doing much other than being pointed (temporarily) at the front line. As between battles killa kans have to be kept in herding pens to stop them causing trouble, so the presence of any command icons at all doesn’t make much sense.
Loyal makes less sense here than in most places, as the grotz don’t really like orks, but I suppose it could be read as no other race being able to get the killa kan tech to work, as it requires the presence of orks to function. No Wargear seems to be a default thing for vehicles, but makes less sense on a unit which is eminently suited to receiving custom guns and experimental weapons. Worst of all, however is Brutal, which is the complete opposite of how the unit would actually behave. In the face of casualties or danger, they’re going to run away, not press the attack! If anything a special rule that does the opposite of Brutal would have made sense, or some sort of self-routing forced Interrupt when they take damage.
Oi, you iz spending too much time talkin’ bout grotz!
Sorry, boss, won’t do it again!
Snotlings
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5
The orkish token card, with appropriately low stats.
To give some background, the orkish fungal spore can sometimes result in a full grown ork, sometimes in a smaller gretchin (grot) and sometimes in a toddler-sized and mentally deficient snotling. Grotz and snotz are generally beneath orky notice: snotlings in particular aren’t smart enough to use guns, aren’t strong enough to trouble anyone except in large numbers and are pathologically cowardly, as one might expect of a greenskin born into a society where might is right, and where they are of a right size to be trodden on, eaten on, or easily booted out of the way.
Still, there is much to be said about snotz in the older fluff, including some amusing stories about…
OI! NO MORE TALKIN’ BOUT SNOTZ AND GROTZ! (*thwack*)
Ouch! Sorry, boss! Moving on!
Maybe we'll talk more about snotlings later!

Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5
All orks are psychic to some degree, but mostly the effects of this are subconscious with no direct or obvious manifestation of this power. Indeed, any group of orks generates a psychic field of orkiness that can subtly alter their environment. For example, the Evil Sunz clan’s belief that “red wunz go fasta†becomes true when around orks, with a warbuggy appreciably increasing in speed and performance if upgraded with nothing more than a red paintjob. This psychic field also enables orkish technology to function and allows the explosive power of the “Waagh!â€.
The orky psychic aura reflects the orky mind as well, so while orks are psykers they are wholly unpalatable to daemonic parasites and to the warping effects of the Chaos Gods. While a Daemonette of Slaanesh will greedily devour the vibrant soul of a human, and will rub her hands in glee at tasting the bright and fine soul of an eldar, she will turn away in disgust from the taste of an orkish mind.
That’s not to say orkish psykers – dubbed Weirdboyz – are without their troubles. A weirdboy is an ork who has been cursed with the passive and involuntary ability to absorb the psychic energy of orks around them. The more orks who are around, the more psychic energy they absorb, and if the orks around are fighting or excited (which is a pretty common orkish frame of mind) the psychic energy generated is even greater. If an ork psyker absorbs too much power it will literally mess his head up – a pyrotechnical explosion that leaves all nearby covered in the brain matter and skull bits of the weirdboy.

A weirdboy will often have to be dragged to the battlefront by their Minderz, who will then snatch away his copper staff (that the psyker uses to ground excess energy) and will bodily point the weirdboy at the enemy. The weirdboy has little choice but to try to dump the excess psychic energy, and this normally takes the form of a psychic vomit, spewed towards the enemy, causing untold destruction. This can go wrong, of course, and a weirdboy is as often as dangerous to his own side as the enemy (a common feature of ork battle tactics and weapons).
1/2/4 stats here are a little odd, in the command icon especially (as a weirdboy left to his own devices will scuttle away to be an orky hermit, as far away from any battles as he can be) and his minderz will be too busy pinning him down to provide command value.
2 attack and 4 defence is also pretty high for a weirdboy, even a potent psyker, and we might expect that he ought to have a higher attack than defence.
However the general theme of higher toughness is something is fluffy for the ork faction as a whole, and I respect FFG's decision to go this direction.
The special ability is pretty cool too, nicely showing how dangerous to friend and foe a weirdboy is. It’d have been nice to have the weirdboy’s attack value somehow tied to the number of orks about, but I’ll concede that you can’t have too many special rules on one card, especially in the core set.
NON-LOYAL CARDS
Zoggin’ stoopid un-loyal card bastads. Bet dese are all Bloodaxe cards.

Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5
Ork painboyz are the medic-surgeons of the orkish world. Like weirdboyz and mekboyz, they fall under the category of Oddboyz: orks who have a genetic skill and calling towards a particular direction. There’s no ork medical school, nor even apprenticeships. Rather, a painboy has a hard-coded enthusiasm for fiddling with the bits of other orks…
Hur hur.
…and he decides to don a blood-smeared apron and grab his choppa…
Hur hur hur!
…and gets to work, chopping away. Fortunately orks are physiologically a lot tougher than humans, so orkish surgery is a lot easier. A painboy can hack a limb off one patient, and stitch it onto the shoulder of another, and it will work just fine, aside from perhaps having been put on back to front. A painboy can get a spare eye from his jar, and plug it into the empty socket wound of a wounded ork, and probably have him back to normal.
Of course, orks being orks, the painboy will also probably do some extra work while he’s there (such as extracting some teef to pay for the job, and replacing a leg with a peg, just for fun). This makes it a good idea to stay conscious on a visit to a painboy, and to watch out for his “anaesthetic†(a big hammer held nonchalantly behind his back).
This is a card I really love! Its got great art and flavour text, its one of the few "non-combatant" cards ork fluff can justify (even though its entirely appropriate for even orkish support staff to be battle-capable), and I love the orkiness of having to smack the painboy round the head once or twice before he gets to work, or the emergent play result of him being more useful once you’ve been in battle.
Bigtoof Banna (Core Set)
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5
This is a discount-for-1 card that is a good fluff fit. A banner is just the sort of portable rallying point you might expect to be brought to the Traxis Sector, and given the recruitment style of orks (boyz just turn up to follow the warlord, and gather where he raises his banner) the effect makes sense too. Unique makes sense, as there’s no more recruitment value in having two banners than one.
Only downside here is the art depicts a banner that is somewhat unimposing in size. A proper rallying point for an Orkish invasion ought to be more impressive than this I think
Burna Boyz (Core Set)
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5
Pyromaniacs all, the burna boyz are able to lay down broad gouts of flame to set infantry alight, or to focus their burnas into cutting flames to act as “kan openasâ€.
The LCG simplifies this down nicely to a nice big attack value, married to a small splash damage effect. This card achieves what you expect it to.
Goff Boyz (Core Set)
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 2/5
It’s a good obvious emergent effect that you tend to send Goff Boyz to the front line, though it seems a little odd that they become non-combatants elsewhere: a limitation of only being able to be deployed to first planet would have been marginally fluffier, though less interesting thematically and more complex in rules terms. 0/1/2 with +2 attack at the first planet would have been an ideal solution.
Scalewise, 0/0/2 seems low relative to a lot of units in the game: an Eager Recruit can drop the whole mob in one go. I won’t mark down the boyz for this though, as I think they are on the right scale: its other units in the game which aren’t.
The Ally trait is the most annoying thing here: again its allocated purely of a marker of a cheap unit and has no fluff reason to be here, especially if we see any Goff warlords in the future… which we had better do, I want Ghazghkull!
Gork’s arse, oomie! Why don’t you and ‘im get a room already? Yer artik… artika… yer words n stuff are getting’ proper BORIN’!
Oh hello, Nazdreg’s back! Tell you what, my Bad Moon buddy, why don’t you take the next fluff review?
Right! NAZDREG IZ DA BEST!
Ork Kannon (Core Set)
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 5/5
BOOM! Nazdreg likes the kannonz. You gets the big gunz to shoot at da oomies and BOOM BOOM BOOM! Youse don’t wanna fire it yerself, cos proppa orkz gets stuck in. Proppa orks doesn’t hang around da back. So you gets da grotz ta fire it.
BOOM BOOM BOOM!
Dem grotz iz a bit fick, so you don’t get them to fire it up in da air, you getz dem to fire it straight forward. If da boyz get in the way of the kannon shotz, den dats funny. Hur hur hur.
BOOM BOOM BOOM!
Da goffs, like old Ghazghkull, are proppa fick, so dey don’t yoos da kannonz. Smart Bad Moonz like Nazdreg knowz better. Like wot oomie sed, boyz winz battlez, battlewagonz winz bigga battlez, kannonz winz warz.
Nazdreg bored now. You do da words now.
Rokkit Launcha (Core Set)
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5
Orks are generally more interested in melee than in ranged combat, so as long as their guns make loud noises and big explosions, they’re pretty happy. Orks like to fire their guns as they run towards their enemies at full charge, so accuracy already diminished by orkish carelessness and dubious orkish craftsmanship tends to be made even worse by a lack of attention to which way a gun is pointing. Still, everything counts in large amounts, and a typical orkish horde will be firing so many shootas and rokkit launchas as they advance that they’ll probably hit someone.
This is an odd attachment to represent this. While it more or less makes sense that a “rokkit launcha†gives ranged capabilities, some of the combinations that can be played are unthematic and its far too much of a precision enhancement for a race devoted to headbutting foes at a full run. Giving a rokkit launcha to goff boyz to make them ranged more or less makes sense, even if their inclinations will likely result in the forgetting to fire it as they charge to get stuck in. Giving a rokkit launcha to a Khorne Berzerker earns you a contemptuous look and a chain axe to the face. Giving a rokkit launcha to the Possessed so they can use their horrendous strength and close combat power at range… odd.
Also, the card doesn’t seem special enough for what it achieves: there’s any number of ranged weapons in the 40k setting that might have given this effect, like a lascannon for imperial troops, or darklances for the dark eldar, or sniping rifles for any faction. It seems too simple an effect to be specifically allocated to an orkish ranged weapon, especially when orkish ranged weapons are so inaccurate and ineffective generally. Also, as this is a faction that is defined thematically by its close combat strength, it seems odd to give this option.
These aren’t strong complaints, more just wonderings why this card exists, conceptually.

Overall Fluffiness Rating: 2/5
Till I looked at the art, I first assumed that a Rokkitboy was an ork with a rokkit launcha. That in mind I thought it somewhat weird that this wasn’t an ork unit with the abilties of a rokkit launcha built in.
Actually though, this card represents something wholly different: an ork stormboy with a rokkit pack on his back!
The fluff behind stormboyz is typically humorous. In ork society, as in human society, teenage males tend to feel rebellious and want to go against the establishment. For a human, this might mean joining a gang, getting some piercings, playing a guitar badly, or just writing some really subversive poetry!
For an ork, rebelling is a bit harder, when all the grown ups consider it proper orky behaviour to play practical jokes with explosives, to punch either for fun, to vomit loudly in each other’s faces and to generally disobey anyone who isn’t at least twice as strong as them. Grown orks are already surly, nutty, anarchic and rebellious.
For a teenage ork the only way to annoy their elders is to go the other way – to be disciplined and regimental, practicing parade marching, polishing their boots, cleaning their teeth…
Other orks find this hilarious, naturally, and sooner or later stormboyz grow up and start acting like proper orks.
Sometime ago, some observant stormboyz have spotted that amongst the space marines, the ones that are having the most fun are those that have jump packs. A space marine with a jump pack is almost orky in his eagerness to get into battle, and clearly if a young stormboy wanted to show that teknology and discipline was better than “old-fashunned orkiness†they’d do well to have a rokkitpack on their back. The idea has now been inextricably linked to Stormboy kultur and now it’s a rare orkish horde that isn’t led by stormboy soldiers careening through the sky, hoping to land in the middle of a melee.
This is a great unit to see included, with a nice orky sense of humour, and the game effect is a bit of a stretch requires a little imagination to understand (we're presuming that an out of control stormboy makes flying too dangerous).
Shoota Mob (Core Set)
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5
They’re orks, with shootas.
Ork boyz (the lowest rung of ork society proper) are broadly divided into two schools of thought.
Some believe that the proper way to fight is to charge in with a one handed pistol (slugga) firing it lots and then get stuck in with a choppa held in the other hand. They believe that shooting is a laugh, but that the proper orky work of fighting is done up close and personal.
Others believe that this is a stupid way to fight, and that the best thing to do is to charge in with a two handed gun (shoota) firing it lots AND LOTS, before getting stuck in with fists and kicks and headbutts. They believe that getting up close and personal needs to be done, but its good to have lots of noisy DAKKA DAKKA to shoot down anyone not worth fighting before you get in there.
Because orks are inherently tribal and ganglike its natural that shoota boyz and slugga boyz tend to mob with those that follow their own combat philosophy, and take any opportunity they can to prove that their own subtle form of warfare is superior.
A cynical observer might point out that an orks choice of strongly held belief is often determined by what weapon he gets his hands on first!
Sniveling Grot (Core Set)
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5
As we previously discussed, a grot is a gretchin, a smaller subspecies of ork renowned for cunning, sneakiness, cowardice and for being the runts of orkish society.
Lack of pluralisation is the only annoyance here again.
In certain editions of the wargame, the runt-like nature of grotz was demonstrated through various special rules. For example, ork units could use the grotz as cover, with a grot model being removed every time it took a hit for a more valuable ork. Orks could also move through difficult terrain more quickly by treading on grotz in the same terrain.
OI! You still talkin’ bout grotz and snotz? (*aiming snazzgun*)
Uh-oh. Time to move to the next card I think! Hope its not another snotling one.
Hmmm.

Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5
Rapidly moving past this card , just to really quickly say tha…
Hmm, looks like Nazdreg has been distracted by the shininess of his snazzgun!
Quick, time to tell of the snotlings and their SECRET HISTORY!
No, trust me, this is awesome: one of my favourite stories in 40k fiction.
Snotlings in orkish society occupy the dangerous place at the lowest part of the pecking order, and have to be quick to scuttle out of the way lest they be used as a football, as a light snack, or in the case of the famed Shokk Attack Gun, as living ammunition.
Actually though, they’re much more important to the orks survival than one might imagine!
While gretchin / grotz basically act like smaller, more cowardly orks who are more prone to nick your stuff while you’re not looking (as opposed to orks nicking your stuff when you are looking, and asking you if you want to fight about it), the snotlings are the true backbone of orkish society. Snotlings sustain the fungus farms of orkish camps that provide the foodstuffs, medicines and alcohol for the horde. They also breed the squigs (ork-fungus based creatures that are halfway between a Rottweiler and a mushroom) that serve as pets, biological tools and companions to the orks.
Its actually surprising that they can carry out these functions, given that they often appear to have the intelligence of toddlers, but they seem to have some affinity for these tasks that is inbuilt and genetic. More interesting still is that they hang around their bigger greenskin cousins, despite being generally pacifistic and ill-treated.
Snotlings are generally overseen by the Oddboyz known as Runtherds or Runtherders, who treat them as if they were mischevious children, giving them only the occasional not-always-lethal shocks with their electrified grot-prods, pulling back escapees with their grabba stikks, and gently coaxing them the right way with their whips.
Part of the reason behind the Snotlings odd skill at fungus-manipulation may relate to their secret history, unknown to most orks but recounted quietly in the oral history of the Runtherders, with some missing pieces of the story found in the lore of other races.
Its said, that once long ago the galaxy’s first sentient species were also its first spacefaring species, crossing the seas of stars and tending to it as a gardener might tend to a prized plot. These Old Ones crafted the Webway through the warp that is still used by the eldar, and indeed it is said they were responsible for uplifting both eldar and humans from primitive barbarism into civilised species. In fact, the eldar were amongst their creations, formed in order to assist in what later epochs would dimly remember as the War in Heaven, when the Old Ones battled against the C’tan Star Gods and their Necrontyr servants.
If we look at some 40k sources, its heavily implied that the Old Ones were in fact the Slann, frogman-like creatures whose mastery of warp-magic and whose astonishing technology was unparalleled, and remains unequalled to this day. In fact, the original Rogue Trader book refers to a Slann race that had fallen from past glories into a tribal primitive society, but was capable of amazing technological feats, such as building frame-craft that shifted them through warpspace to distant parts of the galaxy. Indeed, in some fluff references it is the Slann who are credited with teaching technology to the Eldar, and also in uplifting the ape-like tech genius Jokaero. The Slann are also in Warhammer Fantasy, and in that fiction, they’re noted as not being the Old Ones themselves, but rather are the Old Ones favoured servants and first creations. Thus it makes sense that the Slann taught the Eldar, but they did so at the instruction of their mutual creators: The Old Ones.
So where do the snotlings come into this?
Well, in Old One mythology its reported that they created/uplifted many races, including the Eldar. K’nib, Rashan and Jokaero, but also the warlike Kr’ork.
Ork mythology (as remembered by the Runtherders) tells that the orkish race was actually created as a warrior race by the Brainboyz, but that something went wrong with the Brainboyz back in ancient history, and they devolved into Snotlings.
The conclusion is inevitable: Snotlings are the Old Ones.
This explains a lot: it explains how the orks are so well suited to war, as they’re an engineered species, and it explains how they have a weirdly gene-encoded knowledge base, an inherent resistance to daemonic possession and why snotlings are intuitively skilled at fungus manipulation.
It also is wonderfully dark humour that the oldest and most enlightened race of the galaxy still exists all but unnoticed in a stunted and diminished form, and that the very progenitors of intelligence and civilisation are subjected to being the lowest of the low. Its classic Warhammer 40,000 fluff: grim horror with a touch of dark absurdity that you have to dig deep to find out about!
So, there’s something to think about next time you play a Snotling Attack to have four units of snotlings to get munched on and crisped as they try to bring down a Heldrake or an Ultramarines Dreadnought.
These aren’t just mini-orks, they’re a fallen race with a tragic tale that eclipses that of any other!
Squig Bombin (Core Set)
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5
Kudos must be given here for what is possibly the funniest piece of card art in the core set.
The art and the flavour text tells the story perfectly!
Tankbusta Bommaz (Core Set)
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5
Every race and faction has its dedicated anti-armour weaponry, from the elegant Fusion Gun wielding Fire Dragons of the Eldar to the bulkhead and armour shredding power of a Space Marine Terminator’s Chainfist.
The ork take on anti-armour is typically orky. Clearly, the best weapon to bust a tank is a high explosive rocket, but an ork has a good chance of missing from a few yards away with any sort of ranged weapon.
Therefore the ork approach is to strap the rocket to the end of a hammer, then hit a tank with it.
As the card says: “It’s a hamma! Wiv a rokkit!â€
Tellyporta Pad (Core Set)
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5
Many races have teleportation technology. Space Marine Terminators will use it in boarding actions or to deep strike into a battlefield from orbit. Eldar Warp Spiders use short range teleporters to make jumps across a battlefield. Necrons use teleportation gates to deploy troops from their Tombs to their mobile Monoliths. All teleportation technology is forced to use the Warp as a medium of transport, so is inherently dangerous, and certain physics-based factors make teleportation a short ranged affair: you can teleport with some risk from orbit to planet, but you can’t make a journey across the stars: you need warp engines and spacecraft for that.
The limitations of physics are scoffed at by orks, howeveve, mostly because they don’t know about them. As with much genius, its refusal to know what is impossible that allows it to be proven possible.
The brilliant ork genius Orkimedes (yes, that’s really what GW called them, they do love their pun names) recemt;y invented the ork tellyporta for Warlord Ghazghkul during the ongoing Third War for Armageddon, achieving the impossible by teleporting an orkish army directly across a vast interstellar distance, and into the thick of war. The shared knowledge pool of orkish teknology has now appropriated this advance, and now Ork Tellyportas represent a significant strategic edge for any Ork that is lucky enough to have a mek build one for them.
As far as Imperial savants and Tau scientists have been able to tell, Orkish Tellyporta technology remains utterly impossible and impossible to reproduce, just like so much of ork tech!

CONCLUSION
Writing up the fluff of the orks is joyous fun, as you might have guessed, and the orks are a welcome presence in Warhammer 40,000, both in the fiction and in the LCG. The Conquest LCG does a fine job representing the style of the orks, and the Ork cards seem to broadly do scale marginally better than the Astra Militarum ones.
Mostly though, FFG have nicely captured the mix of warlike brutality and mad humour that typifies this faction.
You really get the feel that this is a faction that is “fighty and kunnin’†rather than subtle and logical, and in playing with and against the orks, there’s an appropriate fluff-faithful vibe to the game.
So, where to next?
While Orks may be the original antagonists of the 40k game, and perhaps the most likeable ones, they’re far from the most insidious, dangerous or evocative. That award goes to the ultimate adversaries, the ones whose real world introduction to the game was slightly later, but who have undoubtedly stolen the crown of Prime Antagonist in the setting.
Other factions may threaten the civilisations of the galaxy, but only one was born of its weaknesses manifested, and only one has come close to absolute victory.
Chaos, infinite in possibility, transcendent in form, with a divine mandate to destroy and with power unbounded!
Chaos is rising! Chaos calls you to service! Chaos will destroy all!
But not till next week!

- snagga, SenhorDeTodoOMal, CobraBubbles and 6 others like this
7 Comments
Best article yet!
Never really looked into 40K before this game, but the universe is intriguing so far.
Orkimedes...*lowers head, shakes head*
You should have made Nazdreg comments in green or yellow, no?
:-P
Pretty good article, as always.
Regarding the Old Ones, tho, I thought the Umbra were actually remnants of them, and the
brainboyzGrotz/snotlings were created by the Old Ones to lead and control the Orks, but degenerated over time.The fluff is not precise, however.
http://warhammer40k.....com/wiki/Umbra
Edit: After reading moar fluff, it seems that the Brainboyz were indeed the Old Ones.
How that is represented in fluff I don't know but its a point worth making.
The Umbra are interesting, but I've always taken them to be the rendered fragments of an Eldar god, rather than of the Old Ones. Of course, the Old Ones and the Eldar Gods are presumably closely linked in some way...
As to Kraktoof Hall, yeah, I've since realised that. At time of writing hadn't played with or against orks much, To be honest, it makes it even harder to work out what the fluff means!
Really enjoyed this one, even more than usual.
I've always thought "bigga is betta" was about being able to play a bigger ork instead of a smaller one, not about making the ork you're playing bigger/better, so I don't think there's a fluff issue re: "“Cheapa iz Slightly Crappa†as you put it. And as you say yourself it's about orks having a big old fight with each other to see who ends up on top, which explains the self-damage even when Nazdreg doesn't turn up.
Excellent! Yes, best article yet. Sorry so slow catching up. Well done on this one. The fondness of Orks shines through.
Fondness sounds about right. I'm not an ork fan, like I'm an Eldar fan or Inquisition fan, but I have a soft spot for the faction that Rogue Trader dubbed "the main adversary of mankind".
I only own nine or ten ork minis (and four of those are classic Goff Rockers who were too kooky to resist) but I've always liked them as opponents. Partly, this is because horde armies really let my Eldar cut loose. It gets boring relying on Starcannon and armour piercing stuff to take down endless MEq armies, and being able to field three warwalkers with 2 scatter lasers, guided by a farseer and say "right, thats 15 kills on that mob there" is quite satisfying. And thats before the Dire Avengers have done their thing...
Its the same points value killed and same points value on units used as my Starcannon killing a terminator or 2, but its way more exciting to see enemies dying in droves.
Chaos has stolen their position as prime antagonist, but they forever remain the classic villains of the piece for me.