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As the title says. I'm wondering is Orks have or have used orbital bombardment within the 40 universe. I don't need any detail, just a straight yes or no would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Yes. Though that doesn't stop the Orks on other ships, as well as their own, from dropping down to the planet being bombarded anyway.

Awesome, just what I needed to hear. Thanks mate!

Yes.

Dakka requires more to post so, Waaagh! Skullkrak had orbital defences, subsequently destroyed by Shrike. Plus Roks kinda count too I suppose.

Yeah, I was just thinking that. Roks upon roks flying into a planet carrying countless orks is a pretty decent way of bombarding a planet and it also serves as a massive drop ship, everything an ork wants.

Orks ROKS are both a munition and a landing craft.

Also did not good old gazzy drop astaroids on a Armageddon hive he was beaten at the previous war by yarrick, well far as I recall.

Orks like fighting, so the idea of eliminating all the big stuff from orbit strikes me as anti-orky.

Armageddon is the ultimate ork planet - a constant, unending battle. Kinda like Ork heaven.

stripeydave wrote:
Orks like fighting, so the idea of eliminating all the big stuff from orbit strikes me as anti-orky.

Orks like fighting and shooting. Orbital bombardment involves firing lots and lots of really, really big gunz at the planet. That sounds Fun. Still, I agree that pure bombardment is anti-orky. None the less, there have been cases that have come close. The main ork fleet that hit Armageddon passed by St Jowen's Dock without stopping to board it, instead simply blazing away at it. The only ships and assault boats that did try to board the docks were those filled with orks too impatient to wait to arrive at Armageddon.

I think orbital bombardment would be something done on approach by the first wave, prior to the main landing. And during the main landing. And again by the orks left aboard the ships. And by the later waves. And by any bored ork with access to a big gun. There have even been times when the bombardment actually did more damage to the defenders than to the attacking orks. Dregrak's bombardment of Armegeddon was not one of those cases - his Dethdeala aimed at Ghazghkull's warband.

Also Orks have a simple view on targeting:

If it hits well its an Enemy, or maybe a rival, or maybe just a stupid Ork - whichever - it doesn't matter which, its a win.

If it misses - well they must be an ally, or one the Orks mates is nearby, or maybe its a decent enemy who the Ork Gods want the Orks to best in -To-H - so a win.

Yes. EPIC: Armageddon allows both Kill Kroozers and Battlekroozers to fire orbital bombardments.

Yes. They have a rather crude (but effective) method of launching all their soldiers and equipment at the surface in the form of massive Roks. This doubles as a pre-emptive bombardment and a troop landing.

They use Traktor Beams to pull in asteroids, and them slam them into the face of a planet. As you may know, asteroids can be very destructive. Ork Bombardments are very devastating, but also very inaccurate.

The Roks are built ahead of time and are towed to where the battle is. It's not just random asteroids. Each Rok is also a fortress filled with Orks and vehicles and some very interesting tech such as reverse traktors and huge tellyportas. They are accurate (well as far as Ork aim goes but these things are aimable) as they get released from the Ork fleet in orbit. They do slam down hard on the surface but not with the full impact power of a asteroid otherwise it would wipe out all the Orks inside. The reverse Traktors slow it enough so that only a few 10's of thousands of Orks die inside it but still enough force to make a crater and take out whatever the Rok landed on. They then disgorge out a million or so Orks and vehicles and inside the Tellyporta just keep zapping in more Orks from the fleet above. Bloody ingenious deployment methods if you ask me, Ghazzy put lots of those on Armegeddon.

 ProwlerPC wrote:
The Roks are built ahead of time and are towed to where the battle is. It's not just random asteroids. Each Rok is also a fortress filled with Orks and vehicles and some very interesting tech such as reverse traktors and huge tellyportas. They are accurate (well as far as Ork aim goes but these things are aimable) as they get released from the Ork fleet in orbit. They do slam down hard on the surface but not with the full impact power of a asteroid otherwise it would wipe out all the Orks inside. The reverse Traktors slow it enough so that only a few 10's of thousands of Orks die inside it but still enough force to make a crater and take out whatever the Rok landed on. They then disgorge out a million or so Orks and vehicles and inside the Tellyporta just keep zapping in more Orks from the fleet above. Bloody ingenious deployment methods if you ask me, Ghazzy put lots of those on Armegeddon.

But don't Orks have proper landers for their vehicles?

Probably do. I'm looking over the fluff atm again and the whole thing about turning asteroids into fortresses with tellyportas was an idea cooked up by Ghazzy and Orkimedes after observing the Space Marines in his first invasion of Armegeddon. He noted the rapid deployment of drop pods and decided he can expand upon that, go big or go home eh. I'm pretty sure they have landing craft as they have junk of all sizes and Ghazzy with an army was already on the surface when he called in for his surprise Rok attack that wasn't witnessed before. To say the least, the event of the Rok attack was spectacular enough that mentioning the simple landing craft was easily overshadowed and made redundant by the spectacle.

Orks practice Orbital Ramming! They'll ram their ships into the planet. Orbital Bombardment is just another flashy way of making destructive noise, so they'll do that too!

Have to say this is the first time I've heard the Roks being so large, but with Orks, anything is possible. I'l have a read over the fluff my self to see if there isn't anything on the different sizes of them.

They are hollowed out asteroids that have been turned into ships. Most are tiny, but many are huge.

In our solar system alone there are well over a million asteroids that are over a kilometer in diameter.

There is even one that is large enough to barely be seen by the naked eye and qualifies as a planetoid.

Third War for Armageddon
Roks were used extensively by the forces of the Ork Warboss Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka at the onset of the Third War for Armageddon in 998.M41 when the Orks slammed their Roks into that battered Hive World to begin their next attempt at its conquest. On Armageddon, the Roks made landings in the verdant equatorial jungles and across all of Armageddon's continents, not just upon the populated landmasses of the continents of Primus and Secundus. Some Roks were lost to ground fire or smashed apart by their own impact, but many more survived. Not only did they slam into the planet to crush anything below, but the shockwaves of those landings were devastating. Even as the Space Marines began their attack runs to stall the Orks' advance, they found the Roks crashing amongst them. Each landed Rok became a bastion for the Orks, a rallying point and a ready-made fortress. But there was more: as well as gunz, the Roks contained Tellyporta arrays like those first used by Ghazghkull in his Piscina Campaign. These were swiftly used to bring Ork reinforcements to the planet, countering the Space Marines' attacks. They included special Marine-killa mobs, Stompas, artillery and even Gargants.


I just thought they were sort of like drop pods but this puts a whole new spin on the matter for me.

On his first invasion it was an accidental slamming into the planet with a Space Hulk that was bigger then any of the Roks as it contained billions of Orks including Ghazzy. That thing seemed to be guided by the hand of Mork (or possibly Gork) first for appearing to the Orks and then making the delivery. Somehow that thing crashed into the planet in a trajectory that didn't end in a extinction level event (not counting the Ork invasion itself which can be akin to an extinction level event.) Later on as the fluff goes further, one starts to realize there is such a thing as Gork and Mork and they really are guiding Ghazzy. He and Orkimedes are already geniuses by human standards as it is. Rok fortresses are the tip of the iceberg to what they are working on. Tellyportation from anywhere in the galaxy to anywhere else in the galaxy in an instant. This makes a mockery of warp travel and would put Orks ahead of the game big time. It's no wonder Orkimedes is the #1 target of the Assasinorom...Assasinotori.....Da Gits dat hide and krump ya.

In Battlefleet Gothic Roks are actually a ship type. They have their own unique rules for how they move and operate, and they have as much health as a small capital ship.

Seperate from the Rok ships, the Orks have used asteroid bombardment. As I recall the Orks can get a Rok 'em Boyz stratagem in Apocalypse games that drops 1d3 Really Massive Asteroids on the battlefield. In 1st Edition Apocalypse the asteroids would scatter 1d6... feet. We actually had two Apoc games going in our FLGS once and determined that one of the asteroids landed on the other game table.

They went with it. Good times.

My two cents.

Didn't they actually use that tactic against Valhalla? Asteroid-hit.

I might be in error.

Warboss Gorhack wrote:
As I recall the Orks can get a Rok 'em Boyz stratagem in Apocalypse games that drops 1d3 Really Massive Asteroids on the battlefield. In 1st Edition Apocalypse the asteroids would scatter 1d6... feet. We actually had two Apoc games going in our FLGS once and determined that one of the asteroids landed on the other game table.

They went with it. Good times.

That actually made me laugh out loud. Good times indeed!

Warboss Gorhack wrote:
Seperate from the Rok ships, the Orks have used asteroid bombardment. As I recall the Orks can get a Rok 'em Boyz stratagem in Apocalypse games that drops 1d3 Really Massive Asteroids on the battlefield. In 1st Edition Apocalypse the asteroids would scatter 1d6... feet. We actually had two Apoc games going in our FLGS once and determined that one of the asteroids landed on the other game table.

They went with it. Good times.

My two cents.

This is brilliant.

Orbital bombardment and landing craft in one. Ork Teknologii!

Orks will use whatever they get their hands on so an orbital bombardment by means of a Kroza or Rokks full of orks would be fairly common

Lol at the grabba klaws on those things. I'm picturing one getting lucky and grabbing an atmospheric vehicle on it's way down for a crash landing.

Orestes orbital bombardment means tossing Grots at the downstairs neighbors.

Ember