Beakie boyz? Bugs? Stunties? Pah! We know what you really wanna hear about – Orks! The meanest, greenest faction in the galaxy is spoiling for a scrap in the new edition of Warhammer Lotz.* Let's see how you and your boyz are gonna be picking fights – and winning them.
Overview
If there's a fight brewing, the Orks are going to be there – and they're still one of the most flexible armies around. Want to run a big old horde of Boyz and Gretchin? That’s a Waaagh! Want to zoom into a fight with a road fleet of Boomdakka Snazzwagons, Shokkjump Dragstas, and Megatrakk Scrapjets? That’s a Waaagh!! Want to stomp across the battlefield in massive war machines like Gorkanauts and Morkanauts? That’s a Waaagh!!!
Faction Rules
When you hear “Orks”, what’s the one word you think of? Green? Well, yeah. Brutal? Kunnin’? Too right. Best? Obviously, but that isn’t the point. We’re talkin about the warcry heard across worlds, bellowed from an endless tide of tusked mouths. All together now – Waaagh!
Being able to charge and Advance in the same turn makes it easier to get right into a fight – which is where most of your ladz belong. Extra Strength and more Attacks in melee mean you can krump even harder – and an invulnerable save keeps your army alive and kicking, no matter how hard your enemy swings back.
Experienced Warbosses already know how to Waaagh!, but there are two changes you don’t want to miss. For one, this ability boosts EVERY model in your army. No fiddling about with different keywords. For two, you kick off a Waaagh! at the start of a battle round, not in your Command phase – so if you’re going second, you’ll get to use that invulnerable save to shrug off enemy dakka before you start declaring charges in your turn.
Orks are at their best when they Get Stuck In, and the Waaagh! Tribe Detachment rule gives you Sustained Hits on your melee weapons, from choppas to squighog jaws. That means you’ll land an extra hit for every Hit roll of 6 – one hit plus one hit equals two hits, which is twice as choppy as one hit!
This is fun on a big mob that'll roll lots of dice, like a squad of 20 Boyz or a Hunta Rig bristling with sawblades and Butcha Boyz. More dice means more 6s, which means more killy. That's how you really get stuck in.
Unit Spotlight
Orks are loaded with great units, but if you’re looking for something big, brutal, and belligerent – and BATTLELINE, to boot – look no further than the Beast Snagga Boyz.
These trophy-hungry ladz are great for claiming anclaiming an objective or hurting your foes, and dead good at bringing down big targets – MONSTERS and VEHICLES better beware, even with how tough they've got lately.
Still, your Boyz are only as good as da Boss – any Boss knows that. And there's no Boss as big as the biggest, baddest Boss of them all… Looking for a leader who’ll hack his way through anything dumb enough to get in the way? It’s Makari! Oh, and his big buddy, Ghazghkull Thraka.
Big new Tyranid beastie? Brutalis Dreadnought? Something even bigger? Ghazghkull will tear them all to shreds with Gork’s Klaw – and as the Prophet of Da Great Waaagh!, his bodyguard of Meganobz gets even choppier. Er, klaw-ier?
Weapon Spotlight
Orks have plenty of teknical export-ease – which means it’s easy to export a bullet into someone’s noggin. The Meks cook up loads of different weapons, from shootas and sluggas to skorchas and snazzguns. The high point of Ork engineering has got to be the Stompa – a walking effigy of the Great Green Gods with enough guns to wipe out entire squads, like the hefty deffkannon.
Like all Orks, this giant walker is even better at killing stuff up close and personal, with its advanced mega-choppa technology.** Those Imperial Knights will soon be nothing but chivalrous scrap.
If you’re looking for something a little more low-tech, how about tossing a fungal ball of teeth and attitude at the enemy? The squig launchas on the Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy don’t have an explosive payload, but squigs are much worse.
The Indirect Fire ability means even more flexibility to shoot at stuff as you skid around the battlefield – your enemies won’t know where those squigs are raining down from. And nor will the squigs, which is important in case they come back for revenge.
Stratagem Spotlight
Some say Orks don’t know much about tactics, but they’ve not heard of Mork, the Ork god who’s as cunning as he is brutal. Or that might be Gork? Anyway, there are bunch of Stratagems to reflect how Orks fight. We all know that Orks Is Never Beaten – even if they lose, they can always come back and have another go.
This is a great trick for valuable fighters like Killa Kans when they get jumped – now they can pinch back before going boom. If you want to make sure you’re the one getting the jump, ‘Ere We Go makes your infantry even faster.
It’s even better than painting your armour red! It’ll help slower units like Ghazghkull get stuck in sooner, while improving the threat range of your speediest infantry like Stormboyz. Use it after you call a Waaagh! so you can add a bonus to your Advance AND Charge rolls in one turn. That’s two plus two, which is… lotz!
The Word From the Studio
“Orks are often viewed as a crude, blunt instrument of destruction, and although this remains true, they are still a faction requiring a kunnin' mind to bring about that infamous brutality!” sez Scott from da Studio. “This is well represented in their army rule, which offers Ork players the chance to get stuck in, all proppa like, while also being a considerable defensive tool that players can use to keep their forces alive long enough to wreak havoc.
“Backed up by their Detachment rule, an army-wide Sustained Hits 1 in melee, you'll rapidly find your Ork Boyz (who have -1 AP on their choppas!) will really bring the pain. Characters, some of which might not have been given a look in in the past – such as the reinvigorated Painboy – have really given Ork players plenty to think about when assembling their Green Tide! As for Da Great Green Prophet himself, Makari remains a lucky runt with his retinue guard, Ghazghkull, keeping him safe with an attack profile that's sure to make Ork players Waaagh! with joy, especially when being backed up by a block of Meganobz!”
Black Library
If you want to know more about Orks, check out these books from honorary greenskins Nate Crowley and Mike Brooks. Brutal Kunnin was the first novel written from an Ork point of view, and it follows a bunch of Boyz as they invade a forge world. Warboss is a tale of the fight to become the top boss of a Waaagh! and Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh! is the story of the greatest Ork, told from the perspective of the Grot who knows him best – Makari.
Complete your Orky learning with the short stories Road Rage, Mad Dok, and the novella Da Gobbo’s Revenge about the legendary Red Gobbo.
Don’t forget to check out the Warhammer Adventures book War of the Orks, which is perfect for younger readers. If your Grots are even younger, grab this babysuit.
* Dat’s Warhammer 40,000 fer ya umies.
** It’z like a choppa but even more mega.