Well, they are a genetically engineered bio-weapon, but they aren't Dark Age of Technology and their target ain't chaos...

At least according to the most recent fluff.

Orks are a "sister" race to the Eldar, and they predate humanity by 1000000+ years. They are bio weapons, but they were designed to fight necrons, not Chaos.

They were created by the "Old Ones" to be used in the "War in Heaven" (the old ones vs the necrons).

The Necrons (necronoyter at the time) had no psychic ability and had to rely solely on science, at least until they found the c'tan gods. The Old Ones (masters of science and the warp) created psychically potent warrior races to combat the Necrons (the orks and eldar being 2 examples). What they didn't expect was that these violent emotions would result in the creation of chaos beings.

At that point there was no 'chaos'. The warp was a fairly serene place with few, peaceful denzies. The Eldar, orks, and other engineered psychic races stirred up the warp, driving its denzies mad and creating daemons and gods. The most dominant and dangerous warp creation at this point was the 'Enslavers', who killed %90+ of sentient beings in the galaxy, dooming the Old Ones civilizations. Once they ran out of food the enslavers largely died off, and the Necrons went to sleep until the galaxy repopulated.

And the Eldar and Orks were left as the sole masters of the universe.

riplikash said:

Until the Mon-Keigh showed up.

And as a totally random and off topic aside, I'd like to ring the bell again on my theory that the Necron warrior "robot skeleton" is intended to represent a conglomerate humanoid skeleton that could represent either an Eldar or Ork skeleton.

My theory is that the original Necrontyr race themselves were insectoid and resembled either the scarabs, tomb spiders (or the new Forgeworld tomb stalker) depending upon the age and sex of the original Necrontyr.

The modern "humanoid" Necron Warrior construct is designed for psychological impact: to create a terrible fear of death in the minds of the humanoid races which opposed the Necrontyr during the war in heaven: the Krork (Orks) and Eldar. Creating a fear of death in the minds of opposing races was a big deal for the C'Tan/Necrons - look at the Deathbringer, that's very much his schtick.

Just a theory!

I've been using this stat line for Ork PCs in my game.

2d10+ WS: 35 BS: 15 S: 35 T: 30 Ag: 25 Int: 20 Per: 25 Wp: 20 Fel: 20

The original stats would be great in a Dark Heresy game, but when we used it in our game the player felt like he was useless outside of combat, and like he was a bargain basement arch-militant in combat.

Apart from our group kept the 20 Ag(we consider an ork will be slower than a human) and up the WP to 25 (in cant see an ork being any less brave or mentaly robust as a human) thats exactly what we did vand We still are wondering if we should leave the Fel at 15 as orks use Intimidate as command with other orks but maybe orks are social to?If any body can sway me either way it'll be cool.I always think of orks as Begbie from train spotting!A very scary friend but if your all begbie's and think like begbie's then maybe it all evens out?Also looking at the WS we are wondering if we should put it to 30 plus 2d10 as that keeps it inline with the kroot.As i dont play tabletop im not sure but isnt a kroot and a ork WS equal,if so our group would keep it on a same footing.We also added bulging biceps Its no use as they cant use heavy weapons but as every picture of an ork makes Arnie schwarzenegger look weedy.We thought they should at least only be penalised for firing heavy weapons one handed because they cant hit a barn door swinging from the padlock anyway.Not because the guns to heavy lol.As an aside as vand said its a perfect start for a dark heresy game,but none of us could even think how to use it in dark heresy.We have a puritan group but does anybody have any ideas how we could in a future game?Thanks in advance if anyone does

douglas9521 said:

'Social' for an ork is showing who'd biggest and da best by pushing each other around until a fight breaks out and then a winner's declared, which is why they Intimidate for Command. They are not particularly charming in any other regard. Leave Fel as it is.

Errant said:

Also from an orksih point of view, time used to talk is time that's not used to fight. And that's a bad thing, for there's nothing an ork loves more than fighting.

On a more detailed side, orks have short attention span, strong agressive tendencies, little patience and even less education. Their idea of 'playing it nice' is to beat an underling bloody rather than ripping his head off and puttig in on a pike as a reminder to the others.

An ork wot doesn't use kit dat's been made orky ain't no right proper ork at all. Itz gotta 'ave good bitz an' gubbins ta be good at krumpin'. Usin' gear wot ain't got gubbinz an' flash bitz ain't killy and don't gotz near 'nuff dakka.

MegaDandy said:

Some of the more liberal Blood Axes might tend to disagree. They see value in Imperial tactics (adjusted for Ork needs), and employ some Imperial tech too (also modded). Some of them, like the Kommandoes, go for a lot less flash.

HappyDaze said:

They can disagree all they want - other Orks still consider them to be "not proppa". At the other end of the scale, Goffs consider pretty much any non-Goff Ork to be "not proppa".

I was very sorely tempted to create a thread titled "Orks are stupidly overpowered". Has anyone else had problem with unsuppressible Orks tearing Rogue Trader entourages apart?

How exactly do Guardsmen (BS30) armed with piddling Lasguns (S/3/-, d10+3E, Pen0) expect to take down Orks (Wound 12, AP2, Agility 30) with TB8 and True Grit? Even a small band of Orks would be an absolute terror to Guards without heavy weapon support.javascript:f_valida_respuesta();

guest469 said:

They use heavy weapons. The guy with the lasgun is there to keep the Orks busy till the heavy bolters open up

guest469 said:

I have to agree. It seems each race is so uber buffed that humans would be over ran during a weekend bender for any other species. The problem is when the TT rules are extracted to the RPG system, characteristics that are generally a 4 turn into bonus talents, traits, and higher stats. So not only does the Orks T4 become a T40 or so, but it also is unnatural, they get extra wounds and bonuses such as unnatural toughness. Add in armour and the odds of a IG trooper taking out a ork are few and far between (you would need to inflict 11 wounds to just injure the ork, and 23 wounds to take the beast to 0 wounds and with True Grit probably another 12 or so wounds to take it down, so 35 wounds to one shot kill a ork). This does not match the fluff in novels where named guardsmen kill orks all the time with normal las guns.

But orks are suppose to be big, nasty and tough. And since the game ultra buffs Space Marines, orks need to be on a closer level. And the usual argument of IG are poorly trained and equipped so suck is thrown back at us who ask these questions.

Hopefully Only War will address these issues with Commanders and seasoned NCOs able to lead and put squads into formations (squad modes) that allow IG to execute special manuevers and abilities. Add in a bolt pistol, a heavy bolter and a melta gun and a IG squad, under proper leadership and training, can dent some orks quite well. As the orks will more then likely be charging, are not known for dodging and the IG will be braced, behind cover and laying down crossfire.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Havent yall ever seen an Impy Guard army take on Orks in 40k? The guys with the lasguns are decoration. I've had an entire platoon open up on a Blood Axe mob and have one Ork boy to lasguns. Add the Missile launchers and flamers in the platoon, and I usually would get another 3-4.

Then the Heavy Weapons squad opens up and half a dozen boys go down . Or the Leman Russ opens up and a dozen die in the Battle cannon blast.

Impys are about the only army in the game that can have more models on the board than the Orks. Tends to blow the Ork players mind when that happens.

So the fact that a lasgun isnt particularly useful isnt a big deal.

korjik said:

Wierd. My Imperial Guard army tends to kill about 1 ork in 4 lasgun/laspistol shots. They are normal to hit, have lousy saves and the only real problem is getting that 5+ to wound roll. So my average squad kills 2-3 a turn, with vets killing on average 1 additional and stormies killing 2 extra. Thats with stock weaponry. The point is that a guardsman should have about a 1 in 20 chance of killing a ork in one shot, not a 1 in 100.

The only issue I ever really have with orks are nobs (blasted 2 wounds), mega armour (blasted 2+ save) and hand to hand combat (blasted 2 or more attacks).

Peacekeeper_b said:

You're not seeing the other half of the problem.

The 40k tabletop statline is compressed - every human is Strength and Toughness 3 (with a few exceptions, I think - I can't remember for certain), every Space Marine is Strength and Toughness 4 (again, the occasional exception), and so on...

Which is fine, until you have to expand the scale outwards to allow for character development. At no point should a human being be as tough as an Ork or as strong as a Space Marine or as quick as an Eldar, not without augmentation through psychic/warp influence, mutation, bionics, etc. Which means that, as soon as you give those basic human characters room to expand and improve, you have to put the superhuman characters above not just the starting values, but above the advanced ones as well.

It's a problem that WFRP 1 and 2 both had - if a basic Orc is Strength 35 and Toughness 40, then it can easily be exceeded in physical prowess by the average Human, Elf or even Halfling... and if a Dragon has a Strength and Toughness in the 60s, then its supposedly immense physical might (on account of being a massive Dragon) is still within the range of possibilities for a human to achieve.

So you have a system where normal human beings can become stronger and tougher and quicker than beings who are inhumanly strong, tough and/or quick, or you have a system where characteristic advancement simply doesn't happen (you stay at your starting values, and only advance skills and talents), or you push the superhuman things further up the scale to give the human things room to grow.

And, once again, you're overlooking the time/game structure disparity. A turn in the wargame is an undefined length of time, speculated by some to be about two and a half minutes (if a turn in Epic is about 15 minutes long, and an entire 6-turn game of 40k conceptually fits into a single assault/firefight in Epic, then each turn is about 2.5 minutes). A shot from a weapon or an attack in melee is an abstracted value suitable for gameplay. A 'dead' model is simply incapable of influencing the battle further, rather than being strictly dead. A turn in 40kRP is 5 seconds long (so 30 turns of Dark Heresy combat gives you a full turn of 40k tabletop), every shot is a round from the magazine, and a dead enemy is actually dead, but it's entirely possible to incapacitate them beyond all utility without killing them. And that's before you consider the range difference (maximum lasgun range can be crossed in 2-3 turns by an Ork, if he's running, in the wargame... maximum lasgun range in 40kRP is 400m, taking an Ork running at full speed 33 turns to cross the gap).

Time, distance, rate of fire and casualties inflicted... they all differ between games, and prevent direct comparisons like "a guardsman should have about a 1 in 20 chance of killing a ork in one shot, not a 1 in 100."

N0-1_H3r3 said:

All good points NO-H3r3 (as usual), but they work in both directions. The time difference in combat rounds, speed of movementm rate of fire and so forth compounds on both space marines and orks, as well as IG and everyone else.

I like having extra effects that make things harder and tougher and more fluff like, but I would have liked to see things that give humans more of a chance other then just "grab a melta/plasma gun" and so forth. Unnatural abilities probably would have worked better if they were a +2 modifier for X2 and a extra +1 per each X or so (maybe +2 per level) instead of the insane doubling effect. It creates a very big difference. And besides, if you decide that the T4 orks in TT are actually T35 with Unnatural Toughness X2 then you are making them tougher then just about every human will ever be. But to add both Unnatural Toughness and True Grit you create overkill. Hell half of the talents in the game could be removed with the core itself staying intact just fine.

I personally never liked the huge amounts of S/T PCs could get in WFRP 2E or DH/RT. I always liked the maxim from games like Necromunda of no more then +2 could be added toa given charactertistics (meaning in RPG world, roughly +20) but I would go even a step further and max stats at 50 for unaugmented humans.

But in the end, it isnt a perfect translation (as that wouldbe impossible, unless you did the direct X points of WS = A points of WS conversion). Even TT has abnomalies that imply that true Strength is also a calculation of Toughness, Wounds, Natural Armour Saves, Weapon Skill and special traits. So while the 40K RPG system isnt 100% representative of the TT (thank god in most cases) it is a very good adaptation as it stands.

Peacekeeper_b said:

I just checked the rules and unnatural characteristic aren't doubling the bonus at each level - a level only adds 1 to the existing multplier, giving x2 for unnatural 1, x3 for unnatural 2 and so on

Manunancy said:

He's saying that instead of Unnatural Toughness being a multiplier it should be a static bonus. +2 instead of x2. This is how my friends and I have house ruled it. So a Marine with Toughness 40 gets a TB of 4 stat + 2 unnatural + 2 powered armor = 8. It also makes the difference between a 39 and a 40 a lot closer together. Let alone the difference between 49 and 50.

We prefer a slightly toned down game that is closer to table top than the existing RPG.

Manunancy said:

Yeah, I know, not my first rodeo. But thank you for clearing up my obviously poorly jumbled words. LOL

Vandroiy said:

I like this save for the WS because 35 seems a bit too much. As a result I'd add +5 to Int. Ork Freebootas are more intelligent members of their species IMHO, they spend more time agmonst other species other than their own. As a result they have to be very intelligent compared to normal Ork kin, this would account for the ship tactics, use of specialized Ork boyz, and willingness to work among other species for other reasons other than a "good stompin' an' fightin' " if that's what a Freeboota ever wanted to do then they wouldn't of became a Freeboota. It also explains why they're feared, because they know a good deal of Fightin', unpredictability, and strategy that you wouldn't normally see in a Ork.