Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi all,

So I've always been into 40k lore but never had an excuse to invest the vast amounts of money into army building until recently, when some friends of mine started collecting them out of the blue. They're very into it and I started to think about what kind of army I wanted to start collecting. I settled on Orks because I LOVE their vehicles and mechs and some of the rules regarding their machines and weapons sometimes backfiring.

Anyway, I've been watching a lot of Auspex Tactics on YouTube as he's recently been covering a lot of Ork rules and army lists. In his Ork army beginner guide he recommends the start collecting Orks box so I decided I'd start with that and he goes on to talk about Ork Clans which he covers in detail in another video and I'm not 100% sure how they work and how I should paint my army, since I haven't even bought the Ork codex yet.

I wanted to know whether I should plan my army around one clan or paint each squad or unit according to the clan I think suits it best. I know that for casual games I could just paint them whatever colour and claim they're from a certain clan but I'd like to keep their paint schemes consistent with their clans purely for aesthetic purposes. Again, I'm not quite sure how the rules work with regards to clans and was wondering if anyone could give me advice with regards to building and painting my first Ork army with the clans in mind.

TLDR; Do I build an entire ay around one clan or just individual units/squads? Are there any benefits to having an army built around one clan etc?
Basically, I'm asking for help building my first Ork army and want to know how I should paint them.

Thanks!

Clans are the Ork equivalent of Chapters - everything in the same Detachment has to be the same Clan for it to take effect.

There's 7 options in the Codex (Goff, Bad Moon, Evil Sunz, Deathskulls, Snakebites, Blood Axes & Freebooterz), and 8 more in Psychic Awakening: Saga Of The Beast.

Atm orks are benefitting a lot from using multiple klans. Deathskulls and freebootas are about only clans that work as mono and even then you are ruling out some units. So prepare for 2-3 detachments. Aka get plenty of grots.

Are you playing in tournaments?

Amongst your friends, you could probably paint stuff in a partcular scheme you most commonly use (IE: You might go mono deathskulls, but sometimes build lists to play around with new Blood Axes, etc) and just indicate in some fashion which squad is which, say by different coloured trim on the bases.

It's easy to mix clans, though, unlike SM. You don't really lose much if you separate them by detachment. The top competitive lists typically will mix 3 clans

BaneofBalor wrote:
Hi all,

So I've always been into 40k lore but never had an excuse to invest the vast amounts of money into army building until recently, when some friends of mine started collecting them out of the blue. They're very into it and I started to think about what kind of army I wanted to start collecting. I settled on Orks because I LOVE their vehicles and mechs and some of the rules regarding their machines and weapons sometimes backfiring.

Anyway, I've been watching a lot of Auspex Tactics on YouTube as he's recently been covering a lot of Ork rules and army lists. In his Ork army beginner guide he recommends the start collecting Orks box so I decided I'd start with that and he goes on to talk about Ork Clans which he covers in detail in another video and I'm not 100% sure how they work and how I should paint my army, since I haven't even bought the Ork codex yet.

I wanted to know whether I should plan my army around one clan or paint each squad or unit according to the clan I think suits it best. I know that for casual games I could just paint them whatever colour and claim they're from a certain clan but I'd like to keep their paint schemes consistent with their clans purely for aesthetic purposes. Again, I'm not quite sure how the rules work with regards to clans and was wondering if anyone could give me advice with regards to building and painting my first Ork army with the clans in mind.

TLDR; Do I build an entire ay around one clan or just individual units/squads? Are there any benefits to having an army built around one clan etc?
Basically, I'm asking for help building my first Ork army and want to know how I should paint them.

Thanks!

Wow, chill out guys. This one is an absolute beginner and it sounds like he has yet to get a game in. Why would he Play in tournaments?

To OP:

You build your army around a maximum of three clans since you will not play with more detachments. You know what detachments are right? I strongly suggest you pick ONE for the start. Just go with the clan you like the most or which you think will suit your vision of playing orks best.
Evil Sunz and Deathskullz are probably the strongest choices for most basic armies.

Did you buy any models yet? Because you should be ABSOLUTELY sure you want Orks. They are not easy to play and collecting an army of Orks comes with a pretty big effort to get it playable.

Orks USUALLY want to be lots. I bring AT LEAST 60 Boyz at 1.5k points. More likely 90. Thats without Grots that is. Grots are really useful and you'll always want to bring some. Are you prepared to buy, build and paint that many models?

If your friends are not powergamers you can always bring less bodies but if you want to properly play orks the rule of thumb is: Boyz before Toyz. They are not exactly good at the "low model count elite army" - thing you can pull off with other armies.

Hrm.

OP: don't trust the advice you are getting here.

Orks are a fun army to paint, the lore is rich and deep. It's rumored there's a new edition coming out this summer, so the advice you get may not be useful by the time you have your army painted.

Plan around units, not detachments. Like, buy the units you think you need for your army and stick with a limited color scheme until you are confident in what you are doing.

All Klans have black in their color scheme. You could easily paint everyone in that color and use it to represent any Klan.

Hi, welcome to Dakka :-)

Ork Clans are themed, and have different backgrounds, and Rules effects. In an Ork army you can have several Detachments, all of the same Clan, or of different Clans, depending on your wants. You are not obliged to use Detachments, but this means you have fewer Command Points for your games, which means your army can be less effective on the table. Detachments from different Clans can be useful, but they do not benefit from each others’ rules.

So, you can paint your army any way you want, but different colour schemes indicate different Clans. Red - Evil Sunz; blue - Deff Skulls; black - Goff; yellow - Bad Moon; brown - Snakebite; camouflage - Blood Axe; pirates - Freebooterz. So, opponents might expect Goff rules if a unit is black, and get confused if your Goff unit is yellow?

It might be best to do some research on ‘Ork background’ and ‘Ork tactics 8th’, then decide whether you want an army of multiple Clans, or just one. The Web is full of these, and it is easy to Google them.

As far as painting your Orks, first find a Clan you empathise with, then paint a Detachment in that Clan colours - at least then you will have a start, and if your opinions change, it’s not too hard to change the Clan colours. If you want different units in different colour schemes, consider the Freebooterz Clan, as the are a mix of outcasts.

Cheers,

M

Moriarty wrote:
Hi, welcome to Dakka :-)
So, you can paint your army any way you want, but different colour schemes indicate different Clans. Red - Evil Sunz; blue - Deff Skulls; black - Goff; yellow - Bad Moon; brown - Snakebite; camouflage - Blood Axe; pirates - Freebooterz. So, opponents might expect Goff rules if a unit is black, and get confused if your Goff unit is yellow?

There's a very easy & cheap way to solve that. You make Poker chip sized tokens with the clans icon/colors on one side & the clans name on the other. You have a Goff unit? You put a Goff token with the unit. Repeat through out the army.