Ork pecking order

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**agurus1**

This all reminds me of the mongol invasion of Europe, which only stopped when the big khan died and all the soldiers had to return home to figure out who was going be the new khan!

**Hankovitch**

Nerak wrote:
The following occurs in death or glory, a Ciaphas Cain novel by Sandy Mitchel:

Spoiler:

At the very end Cain fights and kills an ork warboss in a 1v1 duel. His retinue of big bad nobz had been hanging back to let the warboss have the kill. Cains aid Jurgen who's an expert on orks tells him to, whatever he does, not shoot or fight the nobz. One nob bellows for them to run in and kill Cain. This is stopped by another nob punching him and then bellowing himself. It quickly spirals out of control into a brawl where the nobz fight out who's the next one to give the orders.

I guess this implies some kind of need to establish hierarchy before continuing a fight?

"The Big Chair reckonizes Nob Jerry-Mangla. You gotz da pit."

"Tanks, Big Chair. On 'count of Majorty-Boss Bigstikk getting blown apart by da beekies, I move to sis-pend th' WAAAGH until da next Majorty-Boss can be pointied."

"So noted, Nob Jerry-Mangla. Do we gots a second?"

(SOUNDS OF SHOOTA FIRE, SCREAMING GRETCHIN. LAUGHTER)

"Oi hear da second. All in favor, signify by--"

"POINTY ORDAH, BIG CHAIR!! We ain't sure da Majorty-boss is fully krumped. Da Paindoc sez he can staple da head back on--"

"YOU AIN'T BEEN RECKINIZED BY DA BIG CHAIR YA GIT, SO SHADDUP, DAT'S A FAKE HEAD ANYWAYS, DA MANORKY-WHIPPA SEZ--"

"SHADDUP YOU SMALL-TOOFED GIT, YOU GOT NO ORDAH--"

"WAAAAAAAAGH!!!"

**Red Marine**

Darwinism. The big ones eat the little ones.

**Nazrak**

jbuck wrote:

If the battered, bloodied, and bruised victor of any of the above competitions was ambushed and killed by nob 12 in the pecking order would number 12 become the new boss or would the other orks refuse to follow him because "dirty pool"?

This falls under "kunnin' but brutal", I'd say.

But unless Nob 12 is big and tough enough to impose his will on the rest of the Warband, either he'll get offed in short order, or the Warband breaks up into a bunch of smaller factions without one indisputable boss to unite them.

**Andykp**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Andykp wrote:
jbuck wrote:
Let's say there's a group of four or five "top" nobs and their warboss gets himself killed.

Each of the four nobs thinks he should be the next boss. Are there ANY rules?

Can one of them pull out a big shoota and just blow the rest away or do they need to brawl?

If they need to fight, would they face off one at a time until one was a victor or would they all have a grand melee with the last one standing being the victor?

If the battered, bloodied, and bruised victor of any of the above competitions was ambushed and killed by nob 12 in the pecking order would number 12 become the new boss or would the other orks refuse to follow him because "dirty pool"?

Or is this all moot because the orks already know who the new warboss is?

These two snippets from the bible of ORK society (Waaargh ORKS) answer you’re questions perfectly. Anyone who says otherwise needs to be referred back to the bible and told to shut it.

Background has changed over the years though. So fantastic as the old source books are, they’re pretty far from gospel.

As has been said before, taking out the Warboss is more or less a guaranteed way to halt a Waaaagh! in its tracks as it devolves into infighting to sort out who the new boss is.

It is true that Orks don’t have ambition in the way of say, humans or Eldar. But, most decapatation strikes don’t just take out the Warboss. But his best Nobz. And that? That is why they work. Orks being Orks, the Warboss/Warlord’s cronies do tend to be the next biggest in his tribe. Yes, some will be off elsewhere keeping underling Tribes in-line. But it’s still too many eggs in one basket. Because it’s those very underling tribes that cause the biggest problem,

Consider Ghaz. He’s the supreme leader of thousands of separate tribes. And thousands may be an underestimate. If Ghaz gets himself perished? That’s an awful, awful lot of Warbosses suddenly poised to seize the reins. And of course, their ladz will instinctively support their Boss, and get stuck in too.

In modern 40k, Orks scrap it out, breaking into far less organised, relatively poorly deployed forces, which are far, far easier to tackle.

And one suspects that when say the Adeptus Astartes are involved, intelligence gathering to ensure you are in fact taking down the right Warboss will help spot the most likely candidates for the top job. Giving you very solid secondary targets to keep the collapse collapsing, breaking the Waaagh! down ever further.

Indeed, this is probably the main, exploitable Orky weakness. Sure it’s a bugger to pull off, but still a colossal weakness. Not only do you take down the head honcho, but several of the ‘ardest of his followers (Nobz and Boyz alike) will get perished during the infighting, further reducing the overall cohesion.

I guess the ideal against any Waaaagh! would be to have several hundred utterly deadly Snipers acting in concert to take out every Nob at the same time....

The quotes from the bibles of ORKness haven’t been changed but they talk about general ORK society. A Waaargh is a very specific time for ORKS, something that requires leadership and momentum, most the times ORKS aren’t in a state of waaargh. They are relatively rare. and it has ever been true that removing leadership from a waaagh robs it of momentum and the ORKS involved get bored and dissipate.

ORKS in normal society have much more in the way of tradition and rules, manners if you will. But very ORKy.