Orks don't have enough material to make a whole game out of? Come on you give them far too little credit. They got all kinds fo potential classes (Mekboys, Weirdboys, Flashgitz, Nobs, Stormboyz, etc.), all kinds of different flavors of clan (like Chapters). You could EASILY flesh out a game as large as any other core book, as Ork society is a hoot and a half on it's own.

Each core book has a "gimmick" on top of the core rules, such as the way Squads work in Deathwatch. What I envision for a rag-tag team of mismatched Orks is a heavy emphasis on vehicular-based combat. Not big ol voidships like in Rogue Trader, but the Mad Max-ian antics of something straight out of Gorka Morka.

The flavor of the fluff is that your band of gitz are pirates and bandits roving the land for teef and flashier dakka, sometimes tis means going to other worlds or smashing aboard an enemy voidship and just mucking up the place. On top of everything it would ramp up the dark humor that all the previous games have had (at least the games I've played) into fun romp. Oh, and there must be random tables GALORE for everything.

But, barring that. I really would like a "WHRP40k" Compendium that puts a final stamp on the ruleset. I wouldn't mind rebuying second editions of all the games if they were reprinted as splatbooks for the main, unified ruleset.

WittyDroog said:

Yeah I couldn't agree more with this..

My memory's a bit sketchy, but does anyone remember when Black Crusade was announced compared to its actual release date (ignoring delays). Ditto for Deathwatch?

BYE

You just had to look in the past announcements in the News section of the website!

In both cases, it was February.

Hey, I could totally go for an Ork game! It would provide a gleeful blow things up good time more humorous than grimmer than the grimmy grim grimness change of pace. I mean, it couldn't hurt to have just one game that was just a wee bit light hearted and openly fun. You could always play Orks with the grim-dark, I suppose. One of these days I'll get some players to sit down for a RT Ork Freebooter game, just for the giggles.

I could go for an Ork core rulebook for the same reasons. Orks are just fun! They've survived the various re-writes of the Warhammer 40,000 universe over the decades pretty much intact, maintaining their drunken cockney loutish personalities despite the rest of the universe becoming more serious. Even if an ork book was only a small single-release affair instead of complete game-line, I think it might be a lot of fun.

I like Orks as much as any 40k fan likes them, but I'm really not sure they warrant a full system on their own. Sure, they get their share of careers, equipment, and such, but their violent simple-mindedness doesn't really lend itself to longer campaigns. Plus, they're already playable in Rogue Trader, so I think it'd be better (and easier) for FFG to just slap some more alternate ranks on them and call it a day.

They warrent their own game as much as Eldar or any other non-human race. Orks are not single flavor, one track minded cookie cutters. The Clans are very different from each other, Bosses have very different motivations from each other (some want to be the biggest, some want to be the flashiest, some want to be the krumpiest, some want to be the weirdest, etc.), there's a lot of room to create vivid stories that would feature far more "pulp action" than any other race in 40k. Think of it as a more adventurous game of Black Crusade or Rogue Trader, the goals are relatively the same: aquire power and riches. Just with more hilarity thrown in.

An Ork game comes with an obvious title ("WAAAAGH!") and lots of antecedents in the Games Workshop games lines and magazines. There's a perfectly good place to put an "Ork Sector" setting--just off The Periphery from the Calixis which is facing regular ongoing Ork wars--perhaps spillage from an Ork dominated region. I personally love the idea of a Mad Max style vehicle heavy Pulps on Wheels flavor for campaigns. There'd be lots of Ork on Ork violence, sure, and the usual Ork vs da 'umies stuff, but you could also have straight up horror stories with Orks trying to take and hold Space Hulks from Genestealers--hell, I'd make Genestealers the primary Antagonist race which would be sufficiently different from other game lines' focus to stand out. Or, throw in the Slann and a campaign series of scenario books exploring the Orks' origins, with Azteky Slann pyramids, lost cities and Indy style artifact hunting, mixed with copious amounts of carnage, of course. Perhaps Orks vs those reptilian mercenaries from Deathwatch in jungle warfare Space 'Nam action!

The idea may not lend itself to as large and widely popular a product line as say, Dark Heresy, but already I could see easy topics for half a dozen books. The Eldar may be more commercial (I have friends who lost all interest in 40K role-play once they heard they couldn't play Eldar characters--so I know the demand is there for the Spehs Elvies.) but Orks is lovable, and fun, and I still would vote for 'em just for the lighter tone such a game could have.

Heck, throw in a campaign about da Ork Boyz besieging a fortress full of bad-tempered, bearded little stocky guys and...

...Too far?

demmit.