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In the latest dex it states that Orks instinctively recognise the leader, provided he is a healthy shade of green, and that most Orks wpuld rather die than bow to a non-Ork.

I kind of disagree with this, I think Orks should be capable of following anyone. For instance, if a human proves that he can best the Orks in combat repeatedly (I'm not sure how), the Orks will accept him as their leader since his might gives him the right, regardless of whether he is green or not.

Nah the Orks wont accept them as their leader but they will respect them and purposely try and keep them alive because they are fun to fight. Orks live to fight for them it dose not matter if the win or loose only if the fight was good than it was a victory, there is a reason why Yarric is till alive because Grazskull liked fighting him.

If he were meant to lead Orks, he would be bigger than the biggest Ork in the area. That is how Orks recognize the right to rule. Their leaders really are the biggest Ork around.

That is why they don't follow anyone else, they're not big enough, they're runty, and that makes them non-Orky.

What about Ork mercenaries? While the squad leader is an Ork, they are following a non-orks commands.

They're paid to... and, in most cases, you dont hire Ork mercs to work under your own people. You give them money and guns, and point them at the target, and get the hell out of the way, because after the Orks krump your foes, you are usually the next target (because you probably have more guns and money to take, and are obviously too runty to fight your own battles).

 Psienesis wrote:
If he were meant to lead Orks, he would be bigger than the biggest Ork in the area. That is how Orks recognize the right to rule. Their leaders really are the biggest Ork around.

That is why they don't follow anyone else, they're not big enough, they're runty, and that makes them non-Orky.

What about the Primarchs? They're damn huge.

But not 15-foot-tall huge (in most cases). Waaaghboss Orks of the GC era are massive beasts.

Digganob provides a clear insight into how orks view humans. When the humans are initially encountered the orks enslave them and even years later orks will only tolerate the presence of diggas once they have a proven battle record but even then they are viewed as nuisances and an amusement, orks just can't take them seriously because the diggas are not orks, they're just weedy oomans.

Orks respect strength and power which is why they have grods, best friends or favourite enemies, and it is why they use ogryns but they will only ever follow an ork, because orks are green and orks are best.

Unfortunatly orks will always go with an ork leader due to their physiology of might is right and will never bow to a non greenskin. The only person whos come close to this is Yarrick as he has a similar look to an ork warboss to orks at least; has a power klaw and sports similar colors like red. Even then they like to fight him because hes a respectable foe but will never see him as a leader for themselves.

Orks do treat everyone equally. They'll fight anyone.

acidlemon wrote:
Unfortunatly orks will always go with an ork leader due to their physiology of might is right and will never bow to a non greenskin. The only person whos come close to this is Yarrick as he has a similar look to an ork warboss to orks at least; has a power klaw and sports similar colors like red. Even then they like to fight him because hes a respectable foe but will never see him as a leader for themselves.

What if he can lead them to glorious victory, stomping on all adversaries in a massive WAAAGH!!

I guess there are simply no umanz simultaniously powerful and mad enough to even try to 'lead' orkses. Yep, 'umiez can be exceptionally mad but not in the right direction to acomplish this.
Besides, they'd have to deal with ork food and tech...not telling about kultur and society.

The Orks on Angelis basically viewed the Diggas as somewhere between Gretchin and the Bogeyman. The former because they were basically wimpy Orks, and the latter because ohmygodwhatthehecknecrons.

Indeed. Orks will respect a non-orky opponent, but such opponents are few and far between.

Ghazgkhull respects Yarrick so much he spared his life on Golgotha as "good enemies are hard to find", and The Hour Of The Wolf makes it clear that Logan Grimnar has an extremely positive reputation* amongst orks.

As far as actually following a non-ork leader? Orks en masse are unlikely to do so because the more orks you have in a group, the more orky they get - Freebootaz you can use in a 'point and click' manner, as Psienisis said.

The Rogue Trader RPG does include the possiblity of lone orky freebootaz joining a Rogue Trader's crew, and such oddball orks can get used to dealing with humans, and even following their lead. Even they have their limits, though - there's a special talent they can pick up called 'Da Next Best Fing', where known allies count as half an ork for "mob rule" purposes....

* From an ork perspective of a positive reputation - i.e. "Da Beardy One Wiv Da Fangz an Da Big Choppa gives you a really fun scrap"

 koooaei wrote:
I guess there are simply no umanz simultaniously powerful and mad enough to even try to 'lead' orkses. Yep, 'umiez can be exceptionally mad but not in the right direction to acomplish this.
Besides, they'd have to deal with ork food and tech...not telling about kultur and society.

What about an Uber Duper Khornate Berzerker Chaos Lord? he might do the trick.

Orks tend to find chaos "a bit wierd" and dislike it instinctively.

One thing to note about orks is that they enjoy a good fight* - khorne is more obsessed with killing. The difference is subtle but they're not quite as compatible as they appear at first glance.

(Take Tuska Da Daemon-Killa as an example - Khorne 'punished' him by making him fight the same battle day after day for eternity without rest or victory or the ability to actually kill his -daemonic - opponents for good. Tuska loves the idea)

* I have a mental image of a Wych cult dispatching a strike force through the webway to try and take slaves from an orkhold world, and returning, followed by a massive tide of ork boyz.

"What in Commoragh's name happened?"
"Well, we were facing the warboss, and we told him we were going to take them to the arenas and force them to spend the rest of their lives fighting against huge beasts and lethal gladiators...."
"And?"
"...They kind of volunteered. There's a bunch of grots following on afterwards who want to talk sponsorship deals..."

locarno24 wrote:
Orks tend to find chaos "a bit wierd" and dislike it instinctively.

One thing to note about orks is that they enjoy a good fight* - khorne is more obsessed with killing. The difference is subtle but they're not quite as compatible as they appear at first glance.

(Take Tuska Da Daemon-Killa as an example - Khorne 'punished' him by making him fight the same battle day after day for eternity without rest or victory or the ability to actually kill his -daemonic - opponents for good. Tuska loves the idea)

* I have a mental image of a Wych cult dispatching a strike force through the webway to try and take slaves from an orkhold world, and returning, followed by a massive tide of ork boyz.

"What in Commoragh's name happened?"
"Well, we were facing the warboss, and we told him we were going to take them to the arenas and force them to spend the rest of their lives fighting against huge beasts and lethal gladiators...."
"And?"
"...They kind of volunteered. There's a bunch of grots following on afterwards who want to talk sponsorship deals..."

I think Orks might take to Chaos naturally and become Khorne's "chosen race". After all, they love to spill blood for the sake of it.

And Khorne "loves" Tuska, whatever "love" means to a bloodthirsty god of war.

Haha, that's awesome.

I think Orks might take to Chaos naturally and become Khorne's "chosen race". After all, they love to spill blood for the sake of it.

Why would they follow a runt like Khorne when they can follow Gork and Mork?

Edit: C&P fail...

There are more examples of Khornate Orks than other Chaos Orks for sure, but overall it's hard for me to imagine a better god (or pair of gods) than Gork and Mork. They also encourage fighting just like Khorne, but unlike Khorne also let Orks have fun doing other things like listening to the music of dakka or riding around at really fast speeds, withOUT the caveat of sicking their hounds on you if you did something "unhonorable" (I can't think of any moment where I ever saw Gork and Mork be mean to their Ork worshippers. They're more benevolent to orks than even Emps was to humans as far as I can tell. The fact that they are this while also possibly not existing says a lot about the grimdarkness of the setting)

Really, Gork and Mork combine the best aspects of Slaanesh and Khorne together, and even have just enough Tzeentch for any ork into that sort of thing (and, if Ghraz is actually not insane and telling the truth about his visions from G&M, G&M are actually pretty damn SMART). Sure, they're lacking on the Nurgle aspects of both compassion and despair but those are things that orks generally don't give a crap about (in many ways, they could be considered "compassionate enough", given that I've never observed them PUNISH any orks and they're nice enough to stuff ork souls into a new body according to ork belief).

The Orks really hit the god-lottery jackpot when it came to which gods they got.

Orks are a genetically engineered race, created to fight Necrons. They would not function in this capacity if they followed anyone who was biggest.


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Like they were ducks that just imprinted on whatever big thing happened yo be nearby.

Of course Gork and Mork are smart... one's the god of brutal kunning, the other is the god of kunning brutality.

 Psienesis wrote:
If he were meant to lead Orks, he would be bigger than the biggest Ork in the area. That is how Orks recognize the right to rule. Their leaders really are the biggest Ork around.

That is why they don't follow anyone else, they're not big enough, they're runty, and that makes them non-Orky.

Orks would not follow an Ogryn, even if the Ogryn is bigger than they are.

You have to be the biggest member of the skrappin ork kulture. Karisma iz important 2 orkz

Ogryns are big, but not Waaaghboss big.

You don't have to be a gigantic monster of an Ork to get other Orks to follow you. Boyz follow Nobz, too. It's a pecking order, and non-Orks have no place in it. You don't see Orks running around begging Hive Tyrants to give them orders, either. I guess they are just racists like that, same as everybody else in 40k.

Do you see any orks following a Digga or a Mutti in Gorkamorka? I think not

Like I said, Orks are made for fightin' and winnin', specifically against Necrons. If Orks followed anyone who was bigger, they would follow... a really big Necron, defeating the purpose.

tgjensen wrote:
You don't have to be a gigantic monster of an Ork to get other Orks to follow you. Boyz follow Nobz, too. It's a pecking order, and non-Orks have no place in it. You don't see Orks running around begging Hive Tyrants to give them orders, either. I guess they are just racists like that, same as everybody else in 40k.

I'm not sure how an Ork can talk to a Hive Tyrant. But if you were of a race that can communicate with Orks reasonably well, and were extremely big and mean, they might bow out of necessity?


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 Exergy wrote:
Do you see any orks following a Digga or a Mutti in Gorkamorka? I think not

Weren't the Diggas trying to emulate the Orks instead?

I'm not sure how an Ork can talk to a Hive Tyrant. But if you were of a race that can communicate with Orks reasonably well, and were extremely big and mean, they might bow out of necessity?

Nah, they'd just try to krump it, if it weren't Orky. Orks have fought so many things in so many places that they know Tyranids when they see them (and everything else, too).

It does make you wonder what they'd make of something like The Hulk though. So long as he remained green and mean rather than reverting weedy Bruce Banner and he learned how to speak Orkish it'd be interesting to see how he'd be received after pounding Warbosses down into submission.

If the Hulk spoke Ork (they do have their own language, after all), could display allegiance to/membership in a Clan, venerated Gork and Mork proppa-like, and otherwise behave like an Ork should, then maybe.