Hi

RoB saw the arrival of Anti-plant grenades/missiles. The rules state that there is an anti fungal element to the weapon (attacking the toughness characteristic - very nasty).

Given Orks are part fungus, is this a magic bullet weapon to kill them with? Would most GMs rule that this could not work?

Thanks in advance!

Alex E

It pretty much says you can, since it states that it damages creatures that are part-plant, and Orks are part plant.

No chance I'd let that fly.

Not got the wording on me to check, but a fungus isn't a plant, anyway. And my boot-polish is anti-fungal. It doesn't mean that it will melt a puff-ball...

MILLANDSON said:

No: They're part fungus.

It does make them sneeze and turn pink though.

Face Eater said:

Pics or it didn't happen.

Alex

As we know, Greenskins are conceived and gestate inside fungal organisms. Their physiology is symbiotic with the fungus that generates them, but they are an animal organism. They are not actually walking mushrooms as often claimed.

Having said that they might become very sick or even die without the symbiotic fungus - it may provide essential functions to the animal biology. This may or may not be quick enough for a battlefield weapon though.

Essentially the concept of an anti-ork fungus weapon is a good one beyond the battlefield. Once the military battle was won, wiping out the spores would save a huge ongoing effort to keep the greenskins from re-generating. On the other hand the creators of the Ork probably make the ork-fungus extremely resistant to such efforts.

I wonder if this has been explored in the literature?

Just to re-stress here, the RoB rules explictly state the anti plant weapons have anti-fungal abilities and mentions Xenos hybrids (plant hybrids though, IIRC).

I guess this hasn't been thought through in the fluff...would make the Ork battles short: "the Ork army stood as a great Green Tide of Death when the imperium just rained Agant Orange Mk VIII on them and killed them all..."

Alex E

(PS reminds me of RT 40k Toxin grenades for 1/2 point! LOL! Talk about overpowered)

Not nearly as bad as Virus grenades...

The idea of a specific anti-plan weapon seems a bit, silly, to me. I'd rather go with some kind of chemical or biological weapon, perhaps on a personal weapon level and with a better name, that can cause some form system failure in a specific Xenos' body. But I sure as hell wouldn't call them "anti-plant". Sounds aweful in fact.

Anti-plant weapons would be the fastest way for the AdMech to clear out a landing/building area on biologically dense planets.

One thing that has to be taken into account here is that we all think as rational humans that can make logical assumptions and innovate based on those asusmptions. This is most definitely not the case when it comes to the science and tactics of the 40K universe. Rational scientific analysis is pretty much out the window and has been replaced by religious dogma. While it makes perfect sense to us to rework the anti-plant chemicals into an effective anti-fungal to destroy Orks, the Magos won't becasue it's not what the Omnissiah created the chemical for. If the Omnissiah had wanted us to have anti-fungal weaponry, he would have developed it already and if he did, we haven't found the lost formula/STC yet.

Also, IIRC, anti-fungal chemicals are used in clean-up operations to destroy any Ork spores remaining in a battlezone. Again, it may not occur to a Magos to develop this into a weapon, or it could be that the chemicals used are a sterilizing agent rather than a true fungicide. There's plenty of reasons why this option wouldn't work in 40K canon.

Of course, it's your game. If you like it, go for it.

Wow, I've never even gotten this idea. Not bad!

That said, yeah, it would appear a bit strange - especially given what Fresnel pointed out. I dunno, I guess you can just make the Orks sneeze when this gets thrown at them, just so that it has any effect at all, but at the same time simply claiming their physiology is too robust (or too animalistic) to be affected in a stronger way.

This topic is hilarious, I keep picturing marines in a sun hat and gardening gloves

The 3rd ed Ork codex showed they have a tri-helix dna, with one of the strands being fungoid, that sounds like a pretty integral mesh, I'd let it fly.

If you read Xeneology, a fluff book about an inquisitor and an ad mech adept who disect and research (oh my god the imperium actually does research!!!???? yes it does) various aliens it mentions a lot about orks.

An ork has 3 strands in its DNA. The normal two are animal, pure animal, no plant or fungus in it. The third strand is fungal or fungal-like and has a lot of information stored in it. But this strand doesn't control what the animal DNA does. It was postualted the genetic memory and socioty growth program is stored within this strand. This strand is controled by the latent psychic field (Waaaaagh!!!). The latent field tells the DNA which of its animal DNA to gestate based on local conditions and field strength (the more orks there is the more they know, and can do). Once born the strand likely does little, as any genetic memory or ability would already be programmed into the ork's mind during gestation.

So once born, anti-plant and anti-fungal weapons would not affect them. There is even a part in the Xeneology book mentioning pesticides and the like have been attempted to attack the orks and even control their spores but fare very poorly (flame remains the prefered method). So even using these types of weapons against the fungal-type things floating in ork blood (the adept postulated they were probably antibodies) would not be very effective. Even if the weapon did kill those fungal parts of the ork it either wouldn't kill the ork or wouldn't kill it immediately (the ork would live long enough to smack the person who hit it with "da funny smellin' smoke" only to die a week later of an infection or whatnot).

All of the above aside, just think for a second. If anti-plant stuff or pesticides really worked against orks the Imperium would have easily just diverted a couple of freighters worth of the stuff from deathworlds and killed off the orks long ago.

Yeah, just like a couple of freighters of promethium wiped out the ork race instead... >.> It takes a lot less napalm to kill a plant than Roundup.

Thanks herichimo! That was a clear answer - I'll check out the book.

I wasn't going to let it fly anyway nor was the PC who asked but it got us curious as to had it been tried in the fluff and if not,why not!

Guess we'll just have to blow them away!!

Alex E

Perhaps it affects them as a narcotic; drugs are often toxic after all... Picture 100 Goffs tripping balls & affectionately petting their grots!