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One of the most noteworthy changes in 40k lore over the past 10 years or so has been the transition of the Orks imo. In the Ere We Go! and Rogue Trader days, they were a lot more goofy, wacky, "innocent", and tongue-in-cheek. Much more "LOL, ORKS IN SPAAAACE!". They also seemed much more a functioning civilization capable of interactions with others beyond mayhem.

However starting with 3rd-4th Edition or so, the Orks have undergone a dramatic change I think. Though they still certainly retain a comedic edge to them, they come off as much darker then they used to be. They are savage, brutal, and destructive race that spreads misery and woe to all before them. They brutally enslave entire worlds for religiously-inspired crusades whose only purpose is to kill as much as possible. In the book 15 Hours especially, you see how terrifying Orks can be.

I think comparing artwork is a good example of the change:





Yes, all artwork in 40k has changed significantly over the years. However the Rogue Trader Space Marines Cover is not much different in tone from the 5th Edition Codex Cover. With the Ork books there, I think the tone is abundantly clear.

So I ask you dakka, which do you prefer, The old "fun" Orks or the new "Savage" Orks?

I love both Orks and their jokes

I think a mixture of both is fine.
A comedy relief race that's also 'ard as nails and respectable in it's own right as a serious and credible threat? Damn straight.

I liked the old fun orks much more, but they were too random for today's competitive game, plus the amount of charts you had roll on doesn't fit with the streamlining of the modern game. It would be nice if you could get a compromise, but you could never get the tournament players to like the randomness.

Even though I don't pay Orks I do have fond memorys of them in the 2nd edition, they were much more mental. Weird Boys that could puck pure warp energys and call down a large green foot to stomp on your enemys. The madness that was the Mad boyz, roll a one and for the rest of that turn they decided to look for that lost shoe lace. And the insanity that was the shock attack gun!
Not to mention the Orks basic gun back then was a fracking bolter! They used to rip my IG to bits...ah the good old days

I think that the hard-line, inflexible xenophobia of 40k is the biggest flaw in the fluff. Sure, make it a grim, dark future in which there is largely war, but let there be a little more complexity! Let the Eldar and the Imperium be willing to deal with each other, at least on an extremely tentative basis. Let the Orks be capable of comprehending negotiation, and sometimes even keeping their bargains. I think this would make for more interesting interactions, in general.

Thus, I vote for old Orks.

ElectricPaladin wrote:I think that the hard-line, inflexible xenophobia of 40k is the biggest flaw in the fluff. Sure, make it a grim, dark future in which there is largely war, but let there be a little more complexity! Let the Eldar and the Imperium be willing to deal with each other, at least on an extremely tentative basis. Let the Orks be capable of comprehending negotiation, and sometimes even keeping their bargains. I think this would make for more interesting interactions, in general.

Thus, I vote for old Orks.

To be fair, it's not as hardline as all that.
The Imperium and Eldar have been known to agree with each other on certain principles, and orks are actually fairly willing to deal with humans (under certain circumstances, and if it benefits them to) so I'd say that it's not as clear-cut as the "us v. them" that it sometimes appears to be.

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

ElectricPaladin wrote:I think that the hard-line, inflexible xenophobia of 40k is the biggest flaw in the fluff. Sure, make it a grim, dark future in which there is largely war, but let there be a little more complexity! Let the Eldar and the Imperium be willing to deal with each other, at least on an extremely tentative basis. Let the Orks be capable of comprehending negotiation, and sometimes even keeping their bargains. I think this would make for more interesting interactions, in general.

Thus, I vote for old Orks.

To be fair, it's not as hardline as all that.
The Imperium and Eldar have been known to agree with each other on certain principles, and orks are actually fairly willing to deal with humans (under certain circumstances, and if it benefits them to) so I'd say that it's not as clear-cut as the "us v. them" that it sometimes appears to be.

Maybe it's because I'm new. It seems to me that a lot of those "temporary or tense accords" are things that happened in the setting's past - and in the game's past - and not the present. I don't see a lot of it written about in the books coming out now, as I'm coming into the hobby. Little things, like the Blood Angels temporarily allying with the Necrons, seem to get mocked as odd, fannish, and out-of-character. Honestly, I'd rather play in a setting where things like that made sense and happened pretty frequently.

Though, you are right and these things do happen sometimes. I'm reminded of the "Jaws of the Kraken" campaign in which Eldar help the Blood Angels and Imperial Guard kick Tyranid thorax. Maybe there's something about how they're written, or how often, that makes it seem like they don't happen?

ElectricPaladin wrote:

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

ElectricPaladin wrote:I think that the hard-line, inflexible xenophobia of 40k is the biggest flaw in the fluff. Sure, make it a grim, dark future in which there is largely war, but let there be a little more complexity! Let the Eldar and the Imperium be willing to deal with each other, at least on an extremely tentative basis. Let the Orks be capable of comprehending negotiation, and sometimes even keeping their bargains. I think this would make for more interesting interactions, in general.

Thus, I vote for old Orks.

To be fair, it's not as hardline as all that.
The Imperium and Eldar have been known to agree with each other on certain principles, and orks are actually fairly willing to deal with humans (under certain circumstances, and if it benefits them to) so I'd say that it's not as clear-cut as the "us v. them" that it sometimes appears to be.

Maybe it's because I'm new. It seems to me that a lot of those "temporary or tense accords" are things that happened in the setting's past - and in the game's past - and not the present. I don't see a lot of it written about in the books coming out now, as I'm coming into the hobby. Little things, like the Blood Angels temporarily allying with the Necrons, seem to get mocked as odd, fannish, and out-of-character. Honestly, I'd rather play in a setting where things like that made sense and happened pretty frequently.

Though, you are right and these things do happen sometimes. I'm reminded of the "Jaws of the Kraken" campaign in which Eldar help the Blood Angels and Imperial Guard kick Tyranid thorax. Maybe there's something about how they're written, or how often, that makes it seem like they don't happen?

Well, in the ol' normal Marine dex, we have an instance of Eldar helping out the Crimson Fists, and it's given that this happens regularly enough for it not to be considered the worst kind of heresy. Don't worry, I know what you mean; it's hard to find, but it's there. :]

I think your issue is using the Necron-Blood Angel Alliance as your base of reference. That alliance is complete garbage as the old Necrons had no reason to ally with anyone.

From a Fluff perspective, i prefer the old orks. It is impossible to go through the old books and not laugh on every page. the new books however, are less funny, although they do still contain snippets of humor. (what happened to Grotsnik for one)

Rules wise, the reduction in randomness makes them much easier to play tactically. rather than going "who is looking for shoe laces, who's beating up his mate, and who remembers what they came here for?" its more along the line of "who can hit the broad side of the barn this turn?"

I prefer the new Orks. They're funny because of their honest differences in philosophy to ours, not merely just to be funny. They're far more fleshed out and whole than the old Orks, whom were pretty shallow at times.

I really think the current ork fluff hits a good note of balance. From the orks' perspective, they's a bunch of der ladz, out havin' a right good time an' given de ovver races a right proper kickin'. From the human perspective, it's an endless horde of savage monsters.

From the ork perspective, it's comedy. From a human perspective, it's drama. Works for whatever angle you're looking for on the setting.

Also, as mentioned, the reason the Necron/BA thing got so much heat was that the old Necron fluff really did not work with any sort of alliance. They were soulless automatons dedicated to the eradication of all life; they weren't going to make buddy-buddies with humans. Also, it was badly written in general.

I like both of them. I love the dark comedy side of the Orks and no one can deny that they are loads of fun, especially when the person playing them gets into the whole Ork mentality thing!

I like orks that are as funny as a mad dog off its leash.

I enjoy aspects of both "versions" of the Orks. I think if GW has to stick with one, I'd prefer a balance between savage/scary and dark humor

ElectricPaladin wrote:I think that the hard-line, inflexible xenophobia of 40k is the biggest flaw in the fluff. Sure, make it a grim, dark future in which there is largely war, but let there be a little more complexity! Let the Eldar and the Imperium be willing to deal with each other, at least on an extremely tentative basis. Let the Orks be capable of comprehending negotiation, and sometimes even keeping their bargains. I think this would make for more interesting interactions, in general.

Thus, I vote for old Orks.

Calgar faught with the tau side by side and said he respected them.
I dont think its as bad as you think.
I bet if you look in the right places you will find some of the more reasonalbe races fighting side by side.

hotsauceman1 wrote:

ElectricPaladin wrote:I think that the hard-line, inflexible xenophobia of 40k is the biggest flaw in the fluff. Sure, make it a grim, dark future in which there is largely war, but let there be a little more complexity! Let the Eldar and the Imperium be willing to deal with each other, at least on an extremely tentative basis. Let the Orks be capable of comprehending negotiation, and sometimes even keeping their bargains. I think this would make for more interesting interactions, in general.

Thus, I vote for old Orks.

Calgar faught with the tau side by side and said he respected them.
I dont think its as bad as you think.
I bet if you look in the right places you will find some of the more reasonalbe races fighting side by side.

This.

Theres been alot more of this in recent years and I suspect we will continue to see alot more of it. Because the timeline is stagnant there is only so much they can do with the whole xenophobia thing, creating loose alliances expands the fluff and its an easy way to fill in gaps in the time line in an interesting way.

ElectricPaladin wrote:I think that the hard-line, inflexible xenophobia of 40k is the biggest flaw in the fluff. Sure, make it a grim, dark future in which there is largely war, but let there be a little more complexity! Let the Eldar and the Imperium be willing to deal with each other, at least on an extremely tentative basis. Let the Orks be capable of comprehending negotiation, and sometimes even keeping their bargains. I think this would make for more interesting interactions, in general.

Thus, I vote for old Orks.

I don't think you understand this universe very well yet. It's about the extremes.

You may be looking for this: http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Reasonable_Marines

Reasonable Marines remind me a lot of the Tau...

Harriticus wrote:Reasonable Marines remind me a lot of the Tau...

And, bringing us full circle, the Tau were my first army, and one I'll enjoy getting back to once we get a codex that gives us some options.

It wasn't all that long ago that you could get allies. Space marines could ally with just about anyone except chaos, tyranids, and any guard that had mutants. They allied with eldar all the time. Way back in the day the Ultra marines had a Librarian that was half Eldar.

I'm leaning more to the newer ones because I like the contrast sometimes when you have these savage looking orks that kick arse but can still be called upon for some comic relief

Andrew1975 wrote:It wasn't all that long ago that you could get allies. Space marines could ally with just about anyone except chaos, tyranids, and any guard that had mutants. They allied with eldar all the time. Way back in the day the Ultra marines had a Librarian that was half Eldar.

Still can in Apoc.

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:I think a mixture of both is fine.
A comedy relief race that's also 'ard as nails and respectable in it's own right as a serious and credible threat? Damn straight.

+1 to that.

With Orks, it's entirely doable to have them switch back and forth these mindsets without it appearing any more weird than they already are. Like a completely drunken guy who tells a joke and then breaks your nose because you didn't laugh heartily enough or looked at him queer, changing between these "modes" within an eyeblink.

The way Orks are now is, I think, a good mixture of comic and serious. It's just a matter of perspective. Think of a mob of Orks charging into a squad of Guardsmen: from the Ork perspective, it's a great laugh, but from the human perspective, it's terrifying.

It took me a long time to come around to the new savage ork style. I liked Gorkamorka but wasn't keen on the way they took the whole range this way.

Also they axed all the ork clans and other goofy things when grimdarking it up for 3rd edition, and not offering much of an alternative to the new savage ork style was another thing that put me off the changing game.

I didn't mind the savage orks, but not getting a choice about them was annoying. But they've grown on me since.

I like them both. To be honest, it all seems very similar to me. Most of the 40k stuff from 'back in the day' seems outright wacky to me, the orks no less so than everyone else. I think everything got more grimdark as time went on, and the orks changed along with all the other armies. I think they were always the army with a bit more humor in the mix, and that too hasn't changed. So long as the player isn't a d-bag, ork games usually tend to be the most fun.

That's, of course, just my opinion.

I think what you're seeing in the OP is simply a maturation of the artwork....they're hiring people that can get very, very gritty details and, well, they do it.

In any case, I think the new codex paints them in a pretty reasonable way that isn't too off-base. They are portrayed as maniacal, crude, aggressive to the point of absurdity, but their stupidity and carefree nature results in sort of incidental comedy. I think this fits the 40k mold wonderfully. It's still grimdark but it provides a convenient comedic relief component to the universe.

A good example: Ghazghkull captures his Imperial archnemesis who has vowed to kill him, Commissar Yarrick. His response is to release Yarrick because he is "too much fun." "Humies is all pink and soft. Except for Yarrick. He know how to fight." It's incidental comedy. Ghazghkull is so lighthearted and incompetent that it results in silliness.

Another thing, I laughed out loud when I read the Painboyz blurb in the Codex. "Right, first I'll take those teef out for yer. dat should ease da pain in yer leg."

"New" orks are still full of wackiness....such as "Don't press dat," and the glorious Shokk Attack Gun (speaking of Fun Orks) and Weirdboyz. In fact, no other Codex has as much fluff that translates to on the board zaniness as 4th e Orks.

Savage Orks for me. I think they still have a humorous edge to them without being outright goofy.