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First of all, sorry if this query is in the wrong place - I couldn't quite work out the right place to post it.....

I'm a painter first, gamer second, and am (very slowly) building an ork army, which has the obligatory large mobz of 20 or 30 boyz running around. I'm a very slow painter and so am painting them in batches of 5 at a time. In order to have a bit more fun with the customizability (probably not a word...) of orks, I want to model them as being from each of the six main clans.

So my rambling post finally leads to the question, is it ok to put orks from different clans in the same mob?

I know that the current codex just says that different clans mix in the tribes, but would they be in the same mob together? I remember that way back when, it was really frowned upon to have boyz from different clans even in the same army, and depsite the fact that the codex says it's ok, I just can't help but think "Is it really though?" I'm building a 1000 point army, so there's not enough room for a 20 or 30 strong mob from each clan, before you ask. I know that ultimately it's my army and I can do whatever I want, but I just wanted to get an army that 'felt' right!

Rules-wise, there isn't even such a thing as a clan any more. Mix all you like.

Fluff-wise, I imagine it would make more sense for them to stick together in clan-based mobs, but I definitely wouldn't give you any grief about it. That you even bother with clans is already a mark of fluffbunnydom, and we live in a "Khorne + Slaanesh BFF" age.

tegeus-Cromis wrote:That you even bother with clans is already a mark of fluffbunnydom, and we live in a "Khorne + Slaanesh BFF" age.

I guess, but to me it makes more sense to have an army you 'know' and care about in some way - writing a back story, naming your boss, or whatever, rather than just having the "I have 40 pieces of plastic in front of me and I will move them about like chess pieces" mentality. For me it's more fun based than about the strong desire to win. Yes, we all want to win, but my first reason for being in this hobby is to enjoy myself.

well from the orky perspective. many planets of orks seperate out into the different clans, this is more of a philosophical issue than anything else. they scrap for resources and territory (which they would be doing anyway) but when a WAAGH gets up to full speed clans traditionally set aside their differences and join together under the warboss

well.. its that or have your ead smashed in by said warboss

once the waagh has taken over a new planet, occasionally the surviving members will stay together as a new clan, become freebooters mercenaries, or if there are enough left settle back out into their old clans across the new planet and start scrapping for territory and such all over again.

so yeah if your army is in the midst of a full blown waagh, go ahead and mix da boyz up.. looks cool anyway. I tend to play clan pure but thats just me.

either way it has no bearing on gameplay. but you might want to do your lootas deathskulls since its fluffy, flash gits as yellow to represent bad moons.. etc. each of the elite mobs do come out of specific clans and you could paint them as such

NaZ

NaZ wrote:you might want to do your lootas deathskulls since its fluffy, flash gits as yellow to represent bad moons.. etc. each of the elite mobs do come out of specific clans and you could paint them as such
NaZ

That's exactly what I was going to do with the other mobs. There's just so much in the way of opportunity to model them and paint them, that most of the units automatically lend themselves to characterising.

Thanks for the info about full blown waaaghs! I'll have to have another think about how to plan the whole army out now.

Why don't you do your batches of five, each from a different clan, then put all the boyz painted as one clan together.

To me that makes the most sense, and will probably add a bit of visual coherency to your army.

Yes, makes sense, and if I had a larger army it would be a bit easier, but my plan for the army has 2 mobs of 20 boyz, so that's only 40 in total - not enough to create real visual coherency. I guess, when I'm finished, I'll have 6 or 7 boyz from each clan and I could put three clans in each mob, but somehow that seems to not quite work to me. It seems to make more visual sense with the smaller total number, to have a general mash of different clans. Of course, if I had a 2000 pointer, I'd be more able to have definite clan mobz.

if there's one thing i've learned about orks its that they don't really need to make much sense, and just about anything you do in an ork army can be fluffy.
why is there a greater demon of nurgle in your ork apocalypse army? because the orks are confused and think he's mork or is it gork?
why is there a carnifex in your ork apocalypse army? because they captured it and think it's funny to unleash it on their enemies.
why are all your mobs made up of orks from different clans? because the boss likes it that way, it keeps them from getting any funny ideas about takin over.

that's the great thing about orks, the only driving focus of all orks is that they like to fight, do they care if its with high tech guns or with clubs? no
do they care if its in space on a derelict hulk or in the mud of a feral world? no
do they care if it's with boys from different clans? no, as long as they get to fight!

so really the only way i'd let you put orks from different clans into the same mob, is if you promise that they'll get to kill something.

can you promise that?

Yes, Mr Daggermaw Sir, I promise I'll let them kill all kinds of stuff!

Thanks for the perfect answer completely justifying everything I could possibly ever think of! Now, to get that carnifex!