The 41st Millennium is filled with terrible dangers, as xenos empires vie for supremacy and Mankind buckles under the weight of Chaos. But there’s another threat to civilisation – a galaxy-spanning infestation of violent, hollering brutes that live for nothing but bloodshed, and who are held back from complete, unchallenged conquest only by their irrepressible desire to fight each other.
They are the Orks – the toughest, meanest fighters in a universe of unending war. Their rampages set entire sectors aflame and crush aeons of history under the pounding of a million charging boots. Here’s everything you need to know if you’re thinking of starting an army of these bloodthirsty brawlers.
New to the world of Warhammer 40,000? This quick-fire primer will get you up to speed on the endless hordes of warlike Orks – what they are, how they look, and the way they play on the tabletop.
To most of the sentients who inhabit the galaxy, Orks are an ever-present plague of green-skinned barbarians who bury the light of civilisation under raucous throngs of bloodthirsty warriors. Their great campaigns of conquest known as Waaaghs!* – named for their bestial war cry – propel billions of fighters across the stars in migratory waves of carnage that only the strongest defenders can withstand as endless waves of infantry and ramshackle vehicles grind their bastions to dust.
Exactly why the Orks launch such assaults on the galaxy is explained by their core and singular philosophy – Orks exist to fight, and when there are no enemies to fight on the outside, they turn upon themselves with no less enthusiasm. As war hordes attract more fighters and grow to cataclysmic sizes, they are forced to find ever-greater opponents to occupy their attention lest the restless mobs gleefully tear each other apart to sate their craving for violence.
While this state of unending carnage might seem horrifying to more sophisticated cultures, it is nothing short of perfection for the Orks. Their lives are governed by the simple rule of might makes right, where the towering leaders known as Warbosses earn their positions by butchering their predecessors, and any problem can be solved in a burst of bloody combat.
Despite their crude behaviour, the Orks possess a powerful arsenal of weapons and vehicles thanks to the madcap genius of their Mekboyz – aberrant individuals possessed of an innate knack for engineering and an unfiltered enthusiasm for experimentation. It is from their crazed minds that the finest excesses of Ork technology spring, from guns that teleport live subjects into other bodies, to tractor cannons that hurl war machines kilometres into the sky, and their frequent, explosive malfunctions are a source of great amusement for the unlucky owner’s mates.
For all their simple-minded brutality, Orks approach the universe with gleeful eagerness – burning to reach the next fight, whether it’s against regiments of Astra Militarum soldiers, gibbering monstrosities from beyond the boundaries of realspace, or their own downtrodden masses of subservient Grots. They have reached the pinnacle of their existence, and the more their enemies try to stamp them out, the bigger and stronger they get.
Their desire to engage the enemy in close combat translates right onto the tabletop, where Ork armies love to overwhelm their opponents with massive mobs of warriors known as Boyz. A typical Ork Boy is armed with a heavy blade called a choppa or a crude automatic rifle known as a shoota, but thanks to their incredibly thick hides and natural resistance to injury they can soak up many times more damage than equivalent troops from other factions.
Many Orks learn to embrace a particular style of warfare and tool up with rickety approximations of more advanced weapons, be they Tankbustas equipped with rokkit launchers or Flash Gitz and their incredibly dangerous – to all involved – snazzguns. Some Boyz even embrace the rush of high-speed vehicular combat and become Speed Freaks, hopping behind the wheel of teleporting dragsters, roaring motorcycles, and aircraft fuselages retrofitted with grinding tracks.
Ork vehicles are just as terrifying as the rest of their gear, and range from the smallest Killa Kan combat walkers and simple transport Trukks to looming, earth-shaking Stompas and soaring Dakkajets. Meks show no restraint when loading up their creations with every gun and blade they can reach, and it’s not uncommon for entire enemy units to disappear in a hail of reckless gunfire.
However you choose to equip your army, you’ll need a boss to keep the Boyz in line, and Orks have some of the strongest frontline leaders available to any faction. Warbosses use brute strength and deafening bellows to press their mob into the thick of the fight and hack apart the strongest targets they can find, while Big Meks save their greatest creations for themselves and shoot blazing bolts of unexplainable energy into enemy ranks while pottering around repairing (frequently) damaged vehicles.
Whichever way you choose to assemble your own Waaagh! – whether it’s with an unstoppable tide of Boyz, an ear-splitting squadron of buggies, a mob of clanking Deff Dreads and other walkers, or all of the above – the Orks have an option for you… so long as you don’t expect quality marksmanship on display. Just remember to stock up on the green paint.
Combat Patrol is a game mode perfect for beginners and veterans alike, in which smaller forces clash in fast-paced and balanced games. The Orks stick to what they do best – filling the game board with strong and durable infantry – but take a different approach from usual by enlisting the monster-hunting specialists known as Beast Snaggas, who eschew the wonders of Orky science to bring down large prey with brawn, grit, and sheer bloody minded determination.
Morgrim’s Butchas are strong even by Ork standards and use two mobs of Beast Snagga Boyz to overwhelm their opponents, be they regular infantry, roaring monsters, or even rumbling vehicles. One of these units can be joined by their leader, Beastboss Morgrim – an absolute monster in close combat whose Beast Snagga klaw can carve through the thickest armour with ease, and who inspires the Orks around him to fight even harder than usual.
The really big hitters are your Squighog Boyz, whose angry red mounts can flatten entire enemy squads before they know what’s hit them. They can even hurl volleys of their explosive-tipped stikkas, and the natural speed of their ornery mounts makes them perfect for catching wayward enemies out in the open.
All you need to deploy Morgrim’s Butchers is a few dice, a ruler, and the downloadable rules below – the Core Rules show you how to play the game, the Combat Patrol Datasheets provide a balanced army that’s ready to play, and the Combat Patrol Missions give you some thrilling objectives to fight over!
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It should come as no surprise that Orks have little respect for uniforms, and typically wear a wide assortment of ragged clothes and makeshift armour. This gives aspiring Warbosses immense freedom to paint however you like, but there are a few constants that will help you get the most out of your mob – such as a healthy stock of green for their skin, and darker metallic colours for their crude weapons.
Many Orks also daub themselves in colourful warpaint, with the Beast Snaggas found in the Combat Patrol box having a particular preference for reds and whites. To give you a solid starting point for your own force, the Warhammer 40,000 Painting Team have collected a recommended list of paints that will get your green tide looking their best in no time.
Ork armies are an incredible way to experiment with new colours and techniques, as their forces are anarchic by design and riotous, mismatched colour schemes are exactly what you’d expect to see. Many colours have particular significance in Ork society – red makes things go faster and blue is considered lucky – and these can tie an otherwise disparate force together alongside their ever-present green hides.
For those who want to get their miniatures onto the tabletop as quickly as possible, the Painting Team have also concocted a quick how-to guide using a minimum of paints and simple techniques to get your Boyz Battle Ready.
Once you have a few Combat Patrol games under your belt and you’re ready to go from a simmering war horde to a full-on Waaagh!, you might be wondering where you want to go next.
Your first stop is Codex: Orks – the essential companion to the faction, containing plenty of background lore and gorgeously painted miniatures, as well as rules for 50 different units and plenty of different ways to play them. Together with a copy of the Warhammer 40,000 Core Book, you’ll have all of the rules you need to start playing full-size games of Warhammer 40,000.
Combat Patrol: Orks is a great way to start a new army with plenty of useful models, and as the lifeblood of every Waaagh! is its endless legions of Ork Boyz, you can never go wrong by adding more of these brutish warriors to your army. In fact, Codex: Orks includes some army rules that encourage you to field as many as physically possible, and even the lowliest of Boyz is a mountain of muscle that Space Marines struggle to stop.
Deff Dreads are immense combat walkers piloted by crazed Orks wired directly into their cockpits, but don’t be fooled by their ramshackle appearance – their claws and saws can rip entire tanks in two. Elite Ork warriors known as Nobz strap themselves into incredibly heavy suits of mega armour, allowing them to rumble with powerful enemy elites and emerge victorious.
Kill Rigs are another Beast Snagga innovation that mounts rudimentary weapons – and a powerful Ork psyker known as a Wurrboy – onto a massive wheeled platform, pulled by a hulking tramplasquig. It’s the perfect expression of Orky ingenuity and a potent weapon to ram headlong into enemy lines, where the Boyz on board can leap out to cause even more carnage.
In fact, Orks rarely miss a chance to fill their vehicles with warriors hoping to reach the fighting as quickly as possible, and the strongest, most respected of Nobz often ride a heavily armoured and highly customisable Battlewagon into the fray. Even the mighty Gorkanaut contains a transport hold for ferrying Boyz around, and its awe-inspiring firepower is as much of a draw as its colossal crushing claw.
For all of their fighting prowess, Orks are not natural storytellers, but legends of truly exceptional characters endure through campfire tales and word-of-mouth. Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh! by Nate Crowley charts the story of the eponymous Grand Warlord’s rise to power from a lowly Nob to the most infamous and exceptional Ork champion in millennia, told through the eyes of his prized banner-bearing grot Makari.
Get a ground-level view as a giant Ork armada invades a forge world of the Adeptus Mechanicus in Brutal Kunnin’ by Mike Brooks, following the relatively inexperienced Warboss Ufthak Blackhawk – now in charge of a new and powerful body after some slapdash battlefield surgery reattached his severed head – as his Boyz are pitched into a race for loot against the infamous Freebooter pirate Kaptin Badrukk.
Blackhawk’s legend continues in Da Big Dakka, and this time his own boss Da Meklord has called him for a ‘special meeting’ that can only result in Ufthak getting his teeth kicked in. With nowhere else to turn, he plunges his mob into a network of transdimensional tunnels known as the webway, and ends up in possibly the single most dangerous place in the galaxy – the dread city of pain and darkness, Commorragh.
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* The exclamation mark is very important. Waaagh!
