Right, I think is Xenos (alien) time again. I think that “Green is Best!”
We have been discussing a lot about the Aeldari recently and while I have one more major faction to cover, I think it is time to bring the Orks back into the picture! Orks, in a nutshell are a FUN army. Do not get me wrong. Nothing stops an Ork player from being highly successful in Warhammer 40,000. However, they do bring a lot of fun and flair to the gaming table by being fearless and having a careless glee for getting stuck in to combat
Today I think we shall discuss the Ork Psyche… and I will try do this without speaking about their Gods. We have been dealing with a lot of Gods recently and that is all just background story.
Orks are a Created Race
I have not touched on this too much yet, but Orks were created by an ancient race of aliens in order to fight a war for them. There is actually also evidence referencing to “Krorks” who were far bigger and more advanced than the Orks today.
However, without getting into it, Orks have a lot of abilities that are just built into them. Let us consider:
Orks do not mate to reproduce – they Spore
That’s right, these guys just eat and make spores. These spores fall onto the ground and then burrow into the ground. By absorbing moisture and nutrients from the ground, the spore turns into a sack that incubates an Ork. But that is not all: Gretchen – like goblins and Squigs – a race of two legged creature are spored along with the Orks. This is possibly to create a little ecosystem of things for Orks to bully and eat. They are essentially a kind of Fungus that turns into a killing machine.
Genetic Culture and Army
Even if you wipe out all the Orks on a planet, if they stayed there for some time, they would likely leave behind spores. If you do not see these pop out of the ground in some dark sewer or in a dense jungle, then bands of Orks will appear. The biggest ones will fight for supremacy until there is an established BOSS, the more Orks under his command, the higher his station as an Ork.
A Warboss has many Bosses and Nobs under his command.
Furthermore, in their number there will be some who inherently and genetically understand mechanics. These become Mekboyz and eventually BigMeks. So they will start making weapons and vehicles even though they were cut off from ever seeing other Orks in their life, they will start building an army.
Growth
On top of this, Orks never stop growing. They just keep growing. That is why a bigger Boss is a bigger commander over more armies. There is an legendary Ork named Ghaszkull Mag Uruk Thraka that is as big as a Dreadnought! He is the Boss over many Warbosses and a massive Waaaaagh.
It may even be possible to conceive that if someone does not kill Ghazkull that he will develop the attributes of a Prime Ork and then a Krork. Then everyone is gonna get Krumped!
Psychic Ability
Although you do get Weirdboys, who actively behave as most psykers in the setting, ALL Orks are psykers. They just do not understand this. Their ability revolves around their beliefs. Orks believe that Green is Best, they believe that by painting something Red that it goes “Fasta” and so on. There are a bunch of beliefs centred on colours, and they believe this only applies to Orks.
Orks also believe that noisy guns are good guns and will throw away a gun with a silencer on it.
Their psychic ability warps reality around them and if you can get Orks to believe something, it will work! One extreme version on this was when Imperial Guardsmen were fighting Orks and ran out of ammunition. One of the leaders picked up a gun, pointed it at an Ork and yelled BANG! at the top of his lungs. To the surprise of the demoralized guard squad, this Ork fell down dead.
Soon the other Guard were also yelling BANG as they shot at the Orks. Orks died in their droves, until a pile of Orks marched forward towards the Guard wielding their ammo-less guns chanting: “I’m a tank, I’m a tank, I’m a tank.” And this tank was imperious to BANG small arms fire.
The Waaagh
A Waaagh means an army or a while campaign.
To Waaagh means to go to war.
To go Waaagh might hike up all the Orks into a frenzy and by the power of their combind psychic and physical might the Green Tide becomes unstoppable.
Not only this, but when a Waaagh does battle, it sends out a psychic pulse that is felt by other Orks and they want to go there too. So in the above situation of Orks not having other Orks teach them anything, they start forming a society led by big, strong Orks named Bosses. Then the Mekboys become led by a Big Mek, usually similar in size to a Nob. These Meks build guns, vehicles and even space ships. They feel the pulses of the Waaagh and there is nothing to fight here, they will do everything they can to go in that direction.
Soon enough the Waaagh of some big Warboss is joined by other warbands who have their won Bosses. If they aren’t fighting others, the new Bosses might take a measure of the Boss in the other group. If the size difference is obvious, the smaller stranger generally falls in line. If the difference in size is negligible they will fight to establish whose Boss!
Conclusion
The Waaagh is most difficult to stop. There are some Imperial Hive worlds that have given up hope of eradicating the Orks from their world and just bathe their lower sewers with cleansing flames on a regular basis to kill whatever little Orks that have begun hatching out of the ground.
This gives us something to measure against when we consider that the Votann actually managed to destroy an entire Waaagh… permanently…
But we will highlight that tomorrow! Thank you for reading!
Cheers!
@zakludick
19/365
