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I wasn't quite sure where to post this, but in here seemed most appropriate.

Anyway... I'm curious to know what all you Ork players do to differentiate one unit from the next. I was thinking of using the Ork glyphs as shown in the Codex as tattoos.

Red/yellow/blue teef tats on the right bicep. Easy to paint and after a wash of devlan mud still looks nice. I only run 3 units of 20 boyz but, meh.

I paint their shirts a different color. I make sure to use browns on the pants to tie the army together. With all of the green skin and same color pants, the different colored shirts don't even stand out. No one even knows thats how i tell my units apart. I have units with red shirts, bleached bone, blue, brown, black, and gray. All of my nobs do have a bosspole but I wouldn't know which unit belongs where without the shirts. My two coppers...


Orkimedes


I'm not sayin....I'm just sayin....

I use a mix of colours, knowing that orks are not big on uniforms. Different trousers, shirts, etc. But keeping with a scheme for each mob.
e.g. my trukk boyz are mainly yellow, shootas are goth/black/check, sluggas are red/yellow
I also use a different style of model for each mob, which helps.

I do the same- paint the shirts different colors with the pants the same to tie the army together. You could also paint the skin differently or use different basing materials.
I have a friend who paint the edge of the bases by squad too.

Warpeint, shertz, rimz ov da bazez...der's loadz ov stuvv! IMO rimz ov bazez and shertz ar da best.

~~Warbozz Gorok Bonekrusha

I've got 5 units of 20 boys, and they're designated as follows:

One Eye'd Gork's Feral Lads - Slugga boyz with a yellow eye painted on their forehead to show allegiance to their cyclopean nob. Also have a high ratio of primitive weapons like spears and clubs.

Brother Kaptin Galzar's Damninators - Slugga boyz led by their space marine obsessed nob. All have helmets, shoulder pads, and chainswords (and only they have chainswords)

Maggork's Boyz - Slugga Boyz. All my boyz have one arm and half their head painted red, so the red arm (usually holding the choppy thing) can go faster. Maggork's boyz have foolishly taken this to the extreme, by painting both arms and the whole of their head red. Clearly, this is a bad idea, as now the green bits go slower, rather than the red bits going faster. Also, these boyz only have knives as weapons.

Gitz's Yellow Axes - All armed with axes, all with yellow designs painted on them. They say the paint is to look flash, but all the other orks will tell you it's to hide the fact that their axes aren't covered in their enemies blood, because the yellow axes are weak. Just don't say that to their face.

Kurtz's and Snagga's Shoota Boys - The clue's in the name, these guys are the only mob with shootas.

I think GCMandrake has the right of it!

Make them look like various Mods affiliating themselves with the Warboss of the hour, and you can't go far wrong.

Though I would suggest something on the upper half of the torso, easier to spot during play!

i only ran two huge units of them, one had hats and helmet while the other didnt =P

theHandofGork wrote:paint the edge of the bases by squad

This annoys me to no end actually. That and when a name is painted on the base edge.

You could just paint the bases a different colour or use a different flock...

One suggestion from the Demons codex (where they all look very similar too) is to slightly alter how they are based. So one unit might be all static grass, second is a few small rocks and grass, third is small slate slabs and grass, etc.

small triangle painted on the front of the base. Used to use this to determine exactly where the front of the base is. When a character is facing one way and looking another it makes it easy to see the facing and determine the 180 for shooting.

i paint the choppa in different metal color, i.e. one mob in boltgun metal, another in tin bitz, and i make mobs with the same or similar head.
one mob with hair ( painted in blue ) one with hair ( painted in green) , another made of thinning orks or orks wearng an helm.
it's an hard life...

not sure how ill do it for my orks. but in my renegades...... part of the fluff is any sgt or higher rank carries a massive hammer. i simply mod the sgts. with different hammers and poses. more fluff is they have to craft there own hammer (jedi style) so none of the hammers in my Hammerites army is the same. works rather well

I use a method similar to Mandrake's. - All my mobs come from a different clan so the weapons and colours are all different. It looks a bit 2nd ed (with so many colours) but not too bad. They don't look like a unified horde though - more of a ragtag bunch of space pirates (which suits me fine). Plus when I want a quick game they can split in half and fight each other!

The 'traditional' method is to paint different glyphs onto the glyph plates on their backs... although not all of the newer models have them.

I like the tattoo idea, though.

I use lots of indentifying marks, clothing color schemes, accents on weapons, tattoos. Also, I have a small unit of Orks that are trukk-mounted that all have chainswords and another that is all axes. I know, much too orderly for Orks, but then again, I'm a shameless heretic.

I paint each squads shirts a different color. Works great for me, but not so much for my opponent, since orks tend to hunch over a bit.

I change the color of thier suspenders and arm bands. Also those tasels on thier heads match thier suspenders. The rest of thier clothes are black. Its works perfect. I have Red, White/Checkered, blue, and brown mobs. I have enough room for yellow, orange or purple. I would stay away from green cause it may not look all that great with the green already on thier skin.