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 greatbigtree wrote:
@ Gargantuan:

You’re asking for fictional proof of a fictional idea, but specifically writing off the expertise of the fictional Imperium’s only fictional source of technological knowledge...

For the purpose of “proving” that people that enjoy this concept are overblowing the importance. On the internet. You’re trying to apply real world science to a fictional universe where you can travel through literal unreality.

And when GW leaves a little taste of mystery about it, you are rationalizing the effect through mundane means! It is utterly un-Orky.

So you attempt to scrutinize Orks through the wrong lens. You attempt to dissipate the mystery, rather than embrace it. Ork psychology and psychic power are linked. It is not the rational, trained, disciplined approach of the Eldar or Imperium. It is the pure effect of raw desire that the Orks produce.

Harsh words are in reaction to the absurdity of your demands for “proof.” If you can’t wrap yer noggin ‘round the idear that it woiks because I wannit ter, yous aint green enuff!

And now you attack my character. Apparently if you disagree with greatbigtree you're not orky enough?

One unreliable source says one thing and then suddenly the entire race is based on that thing according to some. When people say stuff like Yarrick is only alive because orks believe he can't be killed it cheapens everything Yarrick's done, and it's just lame.

It's just a silly theory with multiple contradictions.

 warhead01 wrote:
How else could a crude iron cleaver rip through power armor like in the lore? The Neck. You chop the neck. There's lots of unprotected bitz on those beakies.

Except ork choppas have been consistently shown in the lore to be capable of penetrating even the thickest parts of power armor.

Skaorn wrote:
... but you will also get writers who will run with it because there are probably just as many people who love that aspect of Orks as those who hate it.

I absolutely adore the idea and think it makes orks a unique race that stands out in the lore. So I agree with you here. I cannot believe there are ork players that are against the idea of the psychic gestalt, it's so.... unorky.

I dunno about the rest, but I do remember that the given reason why Orks are able to cleave through power armor is just simple raw muscle power.

Orks may or may not have a psychic field, but they most certainly don't need such aid to chop up some uppity humie gitz!

w1zard wrote:

 warhead01 wrote:
How else could a crude iron cleaver rip through power armor like in the lore? The Neck. You chop the neck. There's lots of unprotected bitz on those beakies.

Except ork choppas have been consistently shown in the lore to be capable of penetrating even the thickest parts of power armor.

Skaorn wrote:
... but you will also get writers who will run with it because there are probably just as many people who love that aspect of Orks as those who hate it.

I absolutely adore the idea and think it makes orks a unique race that stands out in the lore. So I agree with you here. I cannot believe there are ork players that are against the idea of the psychic gestalt, it's so.... unorky.

Well, Orks have to be a credible threat so that those silly beakies can look like heroes. Really I think it's more a 3 to 1 mechanic where one of the three Orks gets lucky.
If I were to think of the psychic gestalt in any way being something to make them more lucky and likely to succeed would be my view.
That's how it works for me, I will an opponent to roll a 1 and some time they do. I know it sounds outrageous but it happens a lot. I also say "just roll me that 6". and it happens a lot.
There was an interesting article about lucky dice in the white dwarf several years ago. If people focus on good rolls and talk about good rolls they are more likely to see a them self as lucky with rolls. If they see bad rolls and focus on that they tend to feel unlucky with their dice. The more it comes up during games or conversation them more the belief is spread. My own luck seems to be related to comedic value more than anything else.

In the end the psychic gestalt isn't exactly one thing. We, not being Orks, don't have the innate capacity to understand just what it is and Orks don't actually care either way.

w1zard wrote:

 warhead01 wrote:
How else could a crude iron cleaver rip through power armor like in the lore? The Neck. You chop the neck. There's lots of unprotected bitz on those beakies.

Except ork choppas have been consistently shown in the lore to be capable of penetrating even the thickest parts of power armor.

Skaorn wrote:
... but you will also get writers who will run with it because there are probably just as many people who love that aspect of Orks as those who hate it.

I absolutely adore the idea and think it makes orks a unique race that stands out in the lore. So I agree with you here. I cannot believe there are ork players that are against the idea of the psychic gestalt, it's so.... unorky.

Plague zombies kill Grey Knight terminators in the fluff. Marines are far from invulnerable. Orks have the strength to rip off marine arms so you don't need any psychic mumbo jumbo to be able to damage them with choppas.

First up, this might be taken a little too seriously. Hard to tell with the nature of posting and being unable to hear inflection or see body language.

Secondly, it's not a disagreeance with GreatBigTree, it's a disagreeance with the entirety of Ork culture. Does it matter what other people believe about fiction? Is your enjoyment of the hobby diminished for other people having different beliefs about the fluff?

I mean, it bugs me that my wife loves Orks, but insists on painting them with metallic paint. Not just the metal parts. But like... green metallic skin. Because she likes metallic paints. I get that everyone has their breaking point.

I believe that in this fictional universe, Orks manifest a mild psychic ability that enables their crude technology to function at a higher level of ability than it otherwise should. I think this may have been designed by the Brain Boyz to ensure that Orkish weapons that fall into enemy hands wont work. Particularly related to the Necrons, the Orks confound them (The Necron Uber Lord can't use his steal the initiative ability on them) as they're all logical and whatnot. So what better bio weapon than chaotic menaces that have technology you can't understand because it doesn't actually work without their psychic presence? It's genius!

And if you don't buy it, that's you. You not believing doesn't hurt me, and my believing doesn't hurt you, so WAAAAAAGH!

Soon there will be a Doberman added to the game. Consider for a moment how well a Doberman would deal with a fully enclosed exoskeleton that adds say 100 pounds to the wearer and gives them some strength augmentation. Now remember that in 8th, that Doberman could not only conceivably wound someone in power or terminator armor, but also a tank, carnifex, or titan. It could even deliver the final wound on any of these, thus killing it. 40K and realism don't mix very well.

 Gargantuan wrote:
Plague zombies kill Grey Knight terminators in the fluff. Marines are far from invulnerable. Orks have the strength to rip off marine arms so you don't need any psychic mumbo jumbo to be able to damage them with choppas.

Except the fact that choppas are made of crude iron that should shatter into pieces when put up against adamatium. It isn't about how hard you swing, it's about the material of the weapon vs the material of the armor. I guarantee you that you could never chop a tree down with a feather no matter how hard you swung it. The fact that crude iron cleavers that are low tech even by modern standards somehow being an effective weapon against 41st milennium power armor made of unobtanium is purely a result of the ork psychic gestalt.

w1zard wrote:

 Gargantuan wrote:
Plague zombies kill Grey Knight terminators in the fluff. Marines are far from invulnerable. Orks have the strength to rip off marine arms so you don't need any psychic mumbo jumbo to be able to damage them with choppas.

Except the fact that choppas are made of crude iron that should shatter into pieces when put up against adamatium. It isn't about how hard you swing, it's about the material of the weapon vs the material of the armor. I guarantee you that you could never chop a tree down with a feather no matter how hard you swung it. The fact that crude iron cleavers that are low tech even by modern standards somehow being an effective weapon against 41st milennium power armor made of unobtanium is purely a result of the ork psychic gestalt.

I'm not entirely sure if its clear that choppas are made of iron, and I believe you're underestimating the sheer strength of an Ork to be honest. You have to understand its not a pansy thing sword that a human can wield, it is a brutally uncompromising thick slab of sharpened metal that can and will smash through armour after enough strikes get through, especially through vulnerable spots like joints. Also, note that choppa is a catch all word, and they have what are effectively chainswords as well, which space marines use to good effect against each other so I don't think you can just wave off choppas killing marines as "spehss magic", because by that logic autoguns/lasguns can't ever kill a space marine, which they have. Does that mean guardsmen have a gestalt field as well?

 Grimskul wrote:
I'm not entirely sure if its clear that choppas are made of iron, and I believe you're underestimating the sheer strength of an Ork to be honest. You have to understand its not a pansy thing sword that a human can wield, it is a brutally uncompromising thick slab of sharpened metal that can and will smash through armour after enough strikes get through, especially through vulnerable spots like joints. Also, note that choppa is a catch all word, and they have what are effectively chainswords as well, which space marines use to good effect against each other so I don't think you can just wave off choppas killing marines as "spehss magic", because by that logic autoguns/lasguns can't ever kill a space marine, which they have. Does that mean guardsmen have a gestalt field as well?

Again, we aren't talking about the big choppas or the fancier ork melee weapons like power klaws. Nor are we talking about cutting through joints and weak spots. We are talking about the basic ork choppa, a glorified butcher knife made out of crude materials, going straight through the chest of a space marine's power armor (the thickest part). It doesn't matter how strong an ork is, the materials are incomparable. You cannot cut adamantium (a material stated in the lore to be many times stronger and lighter than hardened steel) with pig iron any more than you could cut down a tree with a feather or cut through a side of beef with the edge of a piece of paper. Strength is irrelevant. There is a reason why most melee weapons in the 41st millennium need power fields or engines (chainswords) to be effective.

The ork psycic gestalt confers properties onto the ork choppas that makes them behave more like power weapons than glorified butcher knives.

 greatbigtree wrote:
I believe that in this fictional universe, Orks manifest a mild psychic ability that enables their crude technology to function at a higher level of ability than it otherwise should. I think this may have been designed by the Brain Boyz to ensure that Orkish weapons that fall into enemy hands wont work. Particularly related to the Necrons, the Orks confound them (The Necron Uber Lord can't use his steal the initiative ability on them) as they're all logical and whatnot. So what better bio weapon than chaotic menaces that have technology you can't understand because it doesn't actually work without their psychic presence? It's genius!

And if you don't buy it, that's you. You not believing doesn't hurt me, and my believing doesn't hurt you, so WAAAAAAGH!

Exactly. I personally believe it extends a bit further than that into the territory of making things that shouldn't work, work. Like a mek fixing a broken warp engine... he bangs on it a couple of times with a wrench and says it's fixed. The boss and the boyz believe him, so it's fixed. Even though we know that slamming a broken warp engine with a wrench isn't going to fix anything.

w1zard wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
I'm not entirely sure if its clear that choppas are made of iron, and I believe you're underestimating the sheer strength of an Ork to be honest. You have to understand its not a pansy thing sword that a human can wield, it is a brutally uncompromising thick slab of sharpened metal that can and will smash through armour after enough strikes get through, especially through vulnerable spots like joints. Also, note that choppa is a catch all word, and they have what are effectively chainswords as well, which space marines use to good effect against each other so I don't think you can just wave off choppas killing marines as "spehss magic", because by that logic autoguns/lasguns can't ever kill a space marine, which they have. Does that mean guardsmen have a gestalt field as well?

Again, we aren't talking about the big choppas or the fancier ork melee weapons like power klaws. Nor are we talking about cutting through joints and weak spots. We are talking about the basic ork choppa, a glorified butcher knife made out of crude materials, going straight through the chest of a space marine's power armor (the thickest part). It doesn't matter how strong an ork is, the materials are incomparable. You cannot cut adamantium (a material stated in the lore to be many times stronger and lighter than hardened steel) with pig iron any more than you could cut down a tree with a feather or cut through a side of beef with the edge of a piece of paper. Strength is irrelevant. There is a reason why most melee weapons in the 41st millennium need power fields or engines (chainswords) to be effective.

The ork psycic gestalt confers properties onto the ork choppas that makes them behave more like power weapons than glorified butcher knives.

 greatbigtree wrote:
I believe that in this fictional universe, Orks manifest a mild psychic ability that enables their crude technology to function at a higher level of ability than it otherwise should. I think this may have been designed by the Brain Boyz to ensure that Orkish weapons that fall into enemy hands wont work. Particularly related to the Necrons, the Orks confound them (The Necron Uber Lord can't use his steal the initiative ability on them) as they're all logical and whatnot. So what better bio weapon than chaotic menaces that have technology you can't understand because it doesn't actually work without their psychic presence? It's genius!

And if you don't buy it, that's you. You not believing doesn't hurt me, and my believing doesn't hurt you, so WAAAAAAGH!

Exactly. I personally believe it extends a bit further than that into the territory of making things that shouldn't work, work. Like a mek fixing a broken warp engine... he bangs on it a couple of times with a wrench and says it's fixed. The boss and the boyz believe him, so it's fixed. Even though we know that slamming a broken warp engine with a wrench isn't going to fix anything.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with choppas, but choppas INCLUDES the chainsword-esque weapon, which rules-wise is the same as a regular choppa, its used by a boy so it's not a big choppa.



Even artwork has it as a regular choppa:



THIS is a big choppa:




Semantics aside, I don't understand why it's so hard for you to believe choppas can hack through power armour eventually on its own (I'm not saying they're on the same level as power swords, nor have I read that regular choppas instantly cut through a breastplate) when things like low calibre weaponry like autoguns can potentially take down marines. What about a wooden spear? A marine managed to die this way in The First Heretic:

"Slain by a human, of all things. An unlucky thrust with a wooden spear." Argel Tal tapped two fingertips against his neck. "Tore out most of his throat, laid it bare to the bone. I’ve never seen anything like it. Blood of the gods, I’d have laughed if it hadn’t been so pathetically tragic. He bled out before the Apothecaries could reach him, still trying to shout the whole time." (pg 363-364)

I mean if a wooden spear can lay a marine low, then I don't think a choppa wielded by an Ork is that unbelievable.

How did a wood spear take out a Marine... That's some incredible luck right there.

pm713 wrote:
How did a wood spear take out a Marine... That's some incredible luck right there.

That's the thing about 40K, it's all about plot armour and being more a space-fantasy than a hard-sci-fi setting means a lot of stuff that would apply to the real world doesn't to theirs. (i.e. the emphasis on CC for so many factions). One battle the marines survive multiple injuries, with their armour dented and spitted but still holding. Another battle and their armour is inconsequential, and get wiped as if it wasn't present.

pm713 wrote:
How did a wood spear take out a Marine... That's some incredible luck right there.

The same way a lasgun took out a dreadnaught before 8th edition, because the writer wanted it to happen. That's kinda the whole crux of this whole argument about whether or not Orks technology is at all aided by an innate psychic ability. The answer is it depends on who's writing.

 Grimskul wrote:
Semantics aside, I don't understand why it's so hard for you to believe choppas can hack through power armour eventually on its own (I'm not saying they're on the same level as power swords, nor have I read that regular choppas instantly cut through a breastplate)...

One of the many examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtAH7kGEqic

As you can plainly see in the video, basically orks with big butcher knives making marine power armor look like paper. There have been numerous other examples in the written and video game lore of ork weapons making short work of power armor. I totally believe that Ork weapons are capable of it. What I don't believe is that they are capable of that intrinsically. That is to say that I don't think a human wielding an ork weapon could do something like that, even if he was as strong as an ork.

 Grimskul wrote:
What about a wooden spear? A marine managed to die this way in The First Heretic...

You mean the lucky blow to the neck that hit a relatively unarmored area? All armors have their weak points... and that is not what we are talking about. We are talking about pig iron ork cleavers cutting through adamantium like a hot knife through butter.

Ya keep mentioning crude, primitive pig-iron. Sure some choppas will be. Others will be ceramite pulled from the door of a wrecked Rhino. Others will be full on chainswords. That's what happens when you loot stuff.
Ya loot some bad, ya loot some good.
When you just say "Space magic makes it work" you're removing one of (in my opinion) the coolest things about Orks. Built in, genetic level engineering ability. The old ones built them to be the ultimate war machine, able to be a threat anywhere to anything. No support needed, fire and forget.
The warp engine doesn't work because a Mek banged it with a wrench and they believe it'll work. It works because banging on it realigned the unobtanium flux core.
I'm fully in the psychic grease camp. The gestalt helps it work better, not makes it work.
That said, that's MY headcannon. Works from belief is YOUR headcannon. Neither is more or less correct than the other.

PourSpelur wrote:
When you just say "Space magic makes it work" you're removing one of (in my opinion) the coolest things about Orks. Built in, genetic level engineering ability. The old ones built them to be the ultimate war machine, able to be a threat anywhere to anything. No support needed, fire and forget.

... And in my mind one of the coolest things about orks is the ability to create and maintain space-faring level technology through the power of positive thinking and being too stupid (or smart) to question themselves.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't think it extends as far as turning a boulder into a warp drive or something, but I personally believe it extends a bit further than simple psychic grease if you know what I mean.

This discussion is starting to become a bit ridiculous.

It's your hobby, if you want to think that with just the power of the gestalt field Orks can do anything that's cool, the same applies if you want to think the opposite.

Personally I'm a gestalt field kind of guy. I'd even go so far as to say the real reason the Emperor has godlike powers is because Orks believe him to be a god (because Imperials are always venerating him) and the reason Girlyman was the first primarch back is because he wears the luckiest colour. But then I like to think that a lot of the fluff revolves around my faction, for obvious reasons.

There's no point arguing one way or another on this though, it all comes down to opinion and is akin to an argument over who's imaginary friend is tallest.

Surprised that no one has brought up the beast series yet, yes Orks All generate a gestalt psychic field, this also makes thier weapons work, to what extent the magos in the book does not know, they even experiment and demonstrate this effect on a dead ork.

The magos Biologis even goes on to theorise that the stronger this field the more dangerous and intelligent Orks become, this is directly backed up in the books.

 greatbigtree wrote:

I believe that in this fictional universe, Orks manifest a mild psychic ability that enables their crude technology to function at a higher level of ability than it otherwise should. I think this may have been designed by the Brain Boyz to ensure that Orkish weapons that fall into enemy hands wont work. Particularly related to the Necrons, the Orks confound them (The Necron Uber Lord can't use his steal the initiative ability on them) as they're all logical and whatnot. So what better bio weapon than chaotic menaces that have technology you can't understand because it doesn't actually work without their psychic presence? It's genius!

Fine except ork tech WORKS on non-ork users...That's fluff fact. Much more solid than the "psychic field makes things work" ASSUMPTION by imperial scientist. Here we have scientists claiming orks work this way. On here we have actual imperial soldiers using ork tech and it...works! Contradictory. Scientis can't be right if imperial soldiers can use and since they most definitely can...

Not at home, so I can't give titles and page numbers, but there are many references to humans using ork tech.i recall a short story about human slaves on a hulk requesting rescue from some space marines [who turn out to be thousand sons], and are told they need to help. So, the stage a resistance using ork weapons. One or more of the Ragnar books has him and Sven driving a captured ork trukk. And another one where humans are defending a city, and use captured ork weapons to continue fighting.

As for meks just hitting stuff to fix it, according to the book Evil Sun, that happens in moments of extreme stress when the oddboy is too worked up to access its orky know what's. Bozgat [I think that's its name] has to calm down and splice wires together to repair their stompa.

My apologies, I should have said, "Doesn't work as well". Though some items won't work at all. Particularly, one instance where the feed mechanism for the cartridges is incomplete, and would jam / fail constantly, but will still fire and reload if an ork fires it.

So a human could chamber a round, fire it, and manually rechamber another round, and fire it... but an Ork could go full auto and it would work. That's why I agree with the psychic grease idea, that it works (sometimes at all) better in the hands of an Ork.

I am not going out to say an ork can just smack an engine to fix it... always... but sometimes yes. Maybe it's instinct to hit the right spot. Maybe it's a mild psychic ability that smooths out a sticking burr in a piston. Maybe it's luck... which tends to be latent psychic ability in 40k.

But Orks that believe in something, particularly when a lot of them believe something, create change in reality. Which is perfectly "normal" in 40k. Belief shapes the universe of 40k more than it does in our own world.

Or does it? Dun-dun-duuuuhn!

malcontent999 wrote:
Not at home, so I can't give titles and page numbers, but there are many references to humans using ork tech.i recall a short story about human slaves on a hulk requesting rescue from some space marines [who turn out to be thousand sons], and are told they need to help. So, the stage a resistance using ork weapons. One or more of the Ragnar books has him and Sven driving a captured ork trukk. And another one where humans are defending a city, and use captured ork weapons to continue fighting.

As for meks just hitting stuff to fix it, according to the book Evil Sun, that happens in moments of extreme stress when the oddboy is too worked up to access its orky know what's. Bozgat [I think that's its name] has to calm down and splice wires together to repair their stompa.

Can't forget the Armageddon Ork hunters either which I recall all being armed with Ork weapons, looted. I recall a lot of them modeled with Ork shootas for some reason.
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Armageddon_Ork_Hunters

Here's a fun quote as well.

Armageddon Ork Hunters commonly use captured Ork weaponry. Some of the strongest Ork Hunters have even been known to wield the crude axes of the Orks in close combat. Various Imperial reports have postulated that the Armageddon Ork Hunters actually prefer Ork weapons for the sheer noise and chaos they can cause when an ambush is sprung.

That's pretty smart considering Orks design stuff to be loud and flashy.

I remember a WD article about regiments not in the IG 3.5 codex that mentioned the Ork hunters (including a short about a confrontation with one and a Mordian in a mess tent, I believe). It put for the possibility that they liked using and could use Ork tech effectively because they were corrupted by the Xenos. It was left open, for the individual player to decide if they could use it like any tool or if they could use it because they had become like Orks.

Why did GW leave two legions blank even after going to 30K?

Skaorn wrote:
I remember a WD article about regiments not in the IG 3.5 codex that mentioned the Ork hunters (including a short about a confrontation with one and a Mordian in a mess tent, I believe). It put for the possibility that they liked using and could use Ork tech effectively because they were corrupted by the Xenos. It was left open, for the individual player to decide if they could use it like any tool or if they could use it because they had become like Orks.

Why did GW leave two legions blank even after going to 30K?

Create your own legions. Plus there's no point in making them in a setting made for Heresy when they'd be dead already.

Yeah, they're there so players can do what they want. No matter which side of this argument you believe in, GW is not going to side with you.

I'm also in the psychic grease camp. It makes more sense to me that it works better for orks because they instinctively understand it more than other races (even if they don't realise it). So they know to just hit the engine when it starts sputtering and it knocks something back into place, or the mek putting parts together not entirely knowing what he's doing but he's got a rough idea and a gut feeling. It also ties in with how pragmatic and strict the imperials are with a "I don't understand it so it must be either magic or non-functional".

Also, I believe in one of the Ciaphas Cain novels they capture a load of Ork vehicles on a desert world to get rescued humans back to Imperial lines and they're all functional, if extremely temperamental. I can't recall the name of the novel.

My main problem with the Orks are psychic theory isn't that it exists, but other players who say they should be able to roll deny the witch to stop my vehicles and weapons from working. And read it as gospel!

I like the idea of Orks as the ultimate scavengers. They can drop into any warzone without supply lines and kitbash whatever they need. Its more fun for me personally to believe that Orks have progressed differently than other races.

Eldar have advanced with Psychic technology. Humans with mechanical. Tau digital. etc...

But Ork tech is so different by comparison. It looks mechanical, but it defies every other race's universal laws as to how they function.

 Afrodactyl wrote:
Also, I believe in one of the Ciaphas Cain novels they capture a load of Ork vehicles on a desert world to get rescued humans back to Imperial lines and they're all functional, if extremely temperamental. I can't recall the name of the novel.

I forget the name of the novel, but it is on Perlia.

The tech priest with them was able to repair some non-functional ones, but she said she had no idea how the other ones were even functioning. You can take that as "shes too inexperienced to understand" but I think her ability to repair the broken ones disproves that, and I think it is an excellent example of the "Orks making things work that just shouldn't" theory.

The same tech priest becomes an expert in xeno tech later on on the novels and is the head of an inquisition research facility for necron artifacts.