WAAAAAAAAGH! Time to talk about one of the adversaries of the Imperium! The Great Beast. The Green Tide. The Orks!
Orks or Orcs are seen all over the place in fantasy and even in some sci-fi settings. Overall, orcs are seen in terms of Tolkien, Dragonlance and Dragonrealms as evil cave dwellers. In the context of 40k they are a little different.
Orks in 40k are a strange race of humanoids in the fact that they are actually closer to fungi than anything else. They reproduce by sporing and they have no age limit and no limit to the SIZE they can grow to.
Now, there are some SPOILER warnings from my side, though it seems as though in the newer editions this information seems to be more more clearly understood by newer players as though it is general knowledge.
Orks are a created race. They were bred for fighting a war many millennia ago and their masters, who were immortal, made the mistake of not understanding the time it takes for a whole species to mature. Thus the creators died long before the Orks became powerful. More about that in another post maybe.
Like many other races with psychic ability, the emotions and thoughts of the Orks created their Gods within the Warp. They are Gork and Mork. Gork is burtal but cunning and Mork is cunning but brutal.
Orks themselves are actually extremely psychic and each and every one of them projects this ability on reality around them. In a massive Horde, the Orks have the ability to make very improbable things happen, purely because they believe them!
Orks also have a certain number of their population that inherently understand mechanics (These become Mekboyz) and those that understand medical things (These become Painboyz).
All in all they are an hilarious army to play and while they are tough, numerous and competitive, a lot of funny things happen in their games and in their lore that is just too funny!
The most famous of all the Orks if Ghazkull Mag Uruk Thraka. He is probably bigger than any Ork out there since the Prime Orks and/or the Krork... but more about them later.
So the story with Ghazkull is that he says he was hit in the head by the Gods and thereafter he became "Da Prophet of da Waaagh". He's amassed gigantic armies and will go to war with anything he deems to be a worthy fight.
Orks generally ignore weaklings unless they are in need of some slaves to make stuff for them or mine resources. The Orks themselves spore and there are other races that spore along with them, apparently these lesser creatures come from the same spore that have developed differently. It is entirely possible that this adaptable gene-sporing may be designed to have a certain percentage of the turning into Orks, another amount turn into Gretchen(think goblins) and another amount of them turn into Squigs(a two legged animal that is more mouth than anything. Sometimes pets, sometimes as attack dogs and often as food.
In the above picture you shall see a squad of Ork Boyz.
Sluggaboyz generally have a pistol an a Choppa (something to hit with) while Shootaboyz will have a two handed rifle.
Leading this squad would be a Nob, generally armed with a Powerklaw. If the Warboss should die, all the Nobs(bigger Orks) will fight to establish dominance and the biggest, strongest and most cunning Orks will become the new Boss.
In the above picture you will see a Warboss. A great thing about Orks is that you can alter and model them in so many ways and make your warboss look very unique.
Orks are also great looters where Mechboyz and Flashgitz steal things from other races or just cobble things together out of wreckage they find on the battlefield. This also results in all sorts of random and hilarious things happening!
Hopefully I will be able to play a game against some Orks sometime with either my Space Wolves or my Votann!
Until next time...
