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Gamble wrote:The old 1st/ 2nd edition books (Ere We Go, Freebooter, etc.) had alot of stories from the Ork perspective. I'm pretty sure one of those books was entirely fluff with out rules. Very slap stick "dumb ork" stuff, but was definitely interesting to read and really fleshed out the greenskins to be more than Waaagh... not much more mind you.

Same with the GorkaMorka stuff. If you get the old codices, and whatnot there is alot of fluff and fun stories. I STILL love the original story of how the first gargant was built. Im talking the one thats like 6 pages long. Great stuff. The only problem with the old stuff is the main fluff is a bit off from how it is now. Still worth a read though

Ive said this before in previous threads, there is a realy cool Ork comic called Blood and Thunder, by BOOM comics, its written by dan abnett.

Melissia wrote:

Seaward wrote:I don't doubt that you can write an interesting ork book, my point was more that, as characters, they're unlikely to ever surprise you, because there's really nowhere for them to go in terms of development.

The thought that Orks will never surprise you means that you are underestimating Orks.

Try reading it again.

They're never going to surprise anyone as characters. Orks are orks. They are, like it or not, one-dimensional. They're not going to be introspective, they're not going to be particularly thoughtful, they're not going to be ironic. They're going to hit stuff. If you have examples of great ork character arcs that I'm unaware of, by all means, share away.

The point wasn't that orks can't ever launch a surprise attack. The point was that there's no orkish Falstaff.

Seaward wrote:They're never going to surprise anyone as characters.

It's fun when I can copy/paste a previous post and respond to this one with the exact same phrase.

Melissia wrote:The thought that Orks will never surprise you means that you are underestimating Orks.

Seaward - Deff Skwadron. Look past the explosions and you have complexities that are profound.

Seaward wrote:
They're never going to surprise anyone as characters. Orks are orks. They are, like it or not, one-dimensional. They're not going to be introspective, they're not going to be particularly thoughtful, they're not going to be ironic. They're going to hit stuff. If you have examples of great ork character arcs that I'm unaware of, by all means, share away.

And yet you've got three or four posters right above you saying orks stories can be imaginative and surprising, and giving excellent examples of stories to back it up. I second Blood and Thunder btw.

Also, because a character is one-dimensional does not immediately mean the story will be boring. You make it sound like if the hero is not reflective or a deep thinker, then the story = boooooring. First, you can tell an interesting story about a 1-dimensional character through secondary characters, or the anti-hero, or even the setting. Again the examples referenced by others above are proof of this. 90% of current 40K novels do not feature lead characters who are introspective / thoughtful / ironic ANYWAY and in fact are supremely 1-dimensional. But we enjoy them because they usually feature marines or guard in some OTT, greatly entertaining nonsense of an adventure, that have alot of references and explanations about 40k background that we as 40 nuts enjoy whole-heartedly. So why can't orks have something similar?

Second, for the 10% of the time that the characters are deep, I'd argue that orks can be just as interesting and complex as humans. Again I refer you to the examples given previously.

Rab - how did you get Blood n Thunder? I can't find it on their site.

rabidaskal wrote:

Seaward wrote:
They're never going to surprise anyone as characters. Orks are orks. They are, like it or not, one-dimensional. They're not going to be introspective, they're not going to be particularly thoughtful, they're not going to be ironic. They're going to hit stuff. If you have examples of great ork character arcs that I'm unaware of, by all means, share away.

And yet you've got three or four posters right above you saying orks stories can be imaginative and surprising, and giving excellent examples of stories to back it up. I second Blood and Thunder btw.

Also, because a character is one-dimensional does not immediately mean the story will be boring. You make it sound like if the hero is not reflective or a deep thinker, then the story = boooooring. First, you can tell an interesting story about a 1-dimensional character through secondary characters, or the anti-hero, or even the setting. Again the examples referenced by others above are proof of this. 90% of current 40K novels do not feature lead characters who are introspective / thoughtful / ironic ANYWAY and in fact are supremely 1-dimensional. But we enjoy them because they usually feature marines or guard in some OTT, greatly entertaining nonsense of an adventure, that have alot of references and explanations about 40k background that we as 40 nuts enjoy whole-heartedly. So why can't orks have something similar?

Second, for the 10% of the time that the characters are deep, I'd argue that orks can be just as interesting and complex as humans. Again I refer you to the examples given previously.

Isn't Deff Skwadron a graphic novel or something? I fully believe a story about orks could be sustained in that medium and probably kept fairly interesting for folks who like graphic novels.

I may make it sound like if the hero is not reflective or a deep thinker, then the story is boring, but those aren't the only counters to being one-dimensional. I actually agree with you that 90% of 40K novels do not feature lead characters who aren't one-dimensional, but that doesn't change my point in any way, given that 40K novels aren't exactly exemplars of profoundly good literature. If battle porn is all that's being requested, orks are just as good for it as anybody else.

Wut? Stop wit that writ'n and get crumping you gitz!

Though I believe any ork book would be really, really funny to read. Nothing like reading about some unfortunate git doing tha burny dance or something.

Id love to read/see more about both Orks and Necrons, they are my 2 favorite races in 40K. Id check out a book from the Orky prospective. Sure the SM look awesome, and I really love termies, but in general they are somewhat overdone and some novels centering on the other races would be great.

Im going to be picking up an Ork codex soon, likely to make them my secondary army. I cant wait for the new Necron dex.

DE also have some potential as far as reading/fluff goes, dont think Id be interested in them as an army though.


Also, the entire book wouldnt have to be written in the Ork accent, just the dialogue. Inner thoughts, observations, etc could be done in normal english.

Deer Die'ary

Ta'day I tuk all my teef to da mech boyz shack an got dat big ol shoota da waz made off dem bitz we got from dem humies dat we stomped last week. He tried ta cheat me, can ou belive dat? E said I needed more teef. I busted 'is face wit me clobba right fast and picked up 'is teef what ad fallen out.

"DERE!" I says to em I says "I's GOTZ YAS SOM'MORE TEEF, YA GIT!"

Den I getz my shoota, and I gotz to admit, she is a buet. I blasted a snotling all ov'er Gut Smasha's bike, got guts an tings all over da chrome. Boy was he mad, I had ta waste him to and me shoota did just fine dere too. Da best part is dat now I gotz me a bike!

I tink I am fallin for dis here shoota die'ary, I tink I loves it.

OT, I think there is plenty of potential for drama here.
I shall call this epic, “A boy and his Shoota”

Mad4Minis wrote:Id love to read/see more about both Orks and Necrons

Orkz it could work very easily. They may be simple, but even the simplest idea can be profound.

Necrons would have to be from the prespective of a Necron Lord or an Immortal for a novel.

I want to see more Tau novels. Or atleast I want Fire Warrior to be printed again so I can read the only Tau novel (fighting/ diseccing them doesn't count or everyone would be sick of Ork Novels) without paying $100+.

Ah the good old decay which states that every word must be written in joke speak. Aka a novel of trash.

Either way, I'm all for more novels featuring whatever race. I just think it'd be tough to do for orks without it featuring them running around hitting stuff for no other reason than that they love to hit stuff. Didn't the Second and Third Wars for Armageddon occur just because Ghazghkull thought it'd be fun?

The second and third wars happened because Ghaz considered Armageddon to be of strategic importance and that a war there would unite orks in sizes never seen before. He was right. About the only thing he got wrong was that the imperium managed to quagmire his plans.

the_ferrett wrote:Rab - how did you get Blood n Thunder? I can't find it on their site.

Its an absolute nightmare trying to find it on that site, I doubt its even on there. Try amazon, they usually have everything.

greenbay924 wrote:Never said it had to be a Pulitzer Prize winner, it could even be short, just something to a different flavor than SPEHZ MAHREENZ

Oh well, what are some of the better black library books in general? Even a book about space marines should be decent.

Guant's ghosts. epic.
Chapter's due is good too.

Gamble wrote: I'm pretty sure one of those books was entirely fluff with out rules.

This is correct. One of the books - actually, more of a loose leaf folio - dating back to RT, iirc, was nothing but Ork fluff. Bit of a shock to me at the time as there wasn't much in the way of Ork rules at the time except for what they'd been releasing in White Dwarf shortly before then.

Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of it although I do remember quite a few of the stories. My favorite was probably the one in which an Ork warboss has his weirdboy tap into the communications between a group of Space Wolves and a nearby titan, only to get the eavesdropping detected by a Space Wolf librarian (this was back before Space Wolves were "different").