Hey everyone! Adam, from TFG Radio, here to talk about everyone’s favorite green army. Not Salamanders, ORKS!
As I have mentioned before, I have played just about every army in the game, whether as an army that I actually collected or as a borrowed army just to try it out. One of my favorite armies was my 2nd edition, that morphed into my 3rd edition, Ork army. It had just the right amount of silliness and deadliness mixed together to make the army really fun to play. Today’s Orks are really good on the deadly side but lack some of the character that the early Orks had in the Rogue Trader, 2nd/3rd edition days. So this week here are a few rules or units that I wouldn’t mind seeing back in the game if anything than just for a few laughs.
Battlewagon Capacity
You don’t see much of the battle wagon these days. Around 3rd edition, and thanks to Gorkamorka, it was replaced as the standard transport vehicle with the Trukk. When the battlewagon first came out it had a rule that I loved. The battlewagon’s carrying capacity was essentially unlimited. you can pile as many boys as you could physically fit onto the actual model. I believe the most models I had seen on a battlewagon, without falling off, was 30. The best part of it was that if any of the models did happen to fall off, that model was considered dead. Stacking models onto a battlewagon because it’s own game itself.
Shokk Attack Gun
I know. The current Shokk Attack Gun is probably the deadliest weapon in the Ork codex, if not the game. What I miss about it is the old rules when it was first released. It was still deadly but how the enemy would be attacked was what made the unit fun. Sure it could just land near a model and attack it normally but what is the fun in that? My favorite result, because you had to roll to see what happens after you send the snotlings through the warp, was that the crazed snotlings actually appeared INSIDE the target’s armor. I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t want a pack of crazed snotlings showing up inside my clothes.
Looted Vehicles
The original rule is why Ork players keep asking “Can I loot it?” today. In the 3rd edition codex Orks could loot literally any Imperium vehicle in their respective codex. So you you would see Ork whirlwinds, rhinos, hellhounds, etc. The most popular ones were the Leman Russ tank and the Basilisk artillery piece. Your ballistic skill was reduced but that didn’t matter as this was the days of templates so you just put the large blast template down and fire away. No to hit roll needed. They also had a rule called “The Big Red Button” that would launch your vehicle forward, whether you wanted it to or not, if you failed the roll to make sure no orks pushed that button. It was a fun and very in character rules for the army, as much as I hated the model moving out of position at the worst times.
That’s all for this week. Hope you enjoyed the article. Let me know what you think, and what Ork rules or fluff you miss, in the comments section below. Don’t forget to visit our Facebook, Twitch, and Patreon pages to stay up to date on what we’re up to and when episodes drop!
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I’d love to see a return to Ork wackiness!
Best thing with the Battlewagon was that you could get the Orks from the Armaggedon MkII starter box and wedge the bottom of their axes on the top of the side armour to keep them in place. You could carry 20 Orks like that reliably.
Lol, yeah, that old rule was so funny!
My favourite game for Ork wackiness was GorkaMorka. Such characterful rules and a fun game. The transport capacity of each vehicle was literally how many models you could fit in it.
Yeah, that was indeed a great game.