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ChaosGalvatron wrote:Maybe the Orks do think of reproduction, since their main method is through these spores they are quite willing to die to create offspring.
An instinct to kill themselves (through battle) which creates new orks from the corpses must help the species. If all orks were pacifist how quickly would they expand?

They shed spores there entire live, when they die they release a massive amount. So even if, by some chance the Orks were just setting around having beers, they would still be "breeding".

Blood Raven 5th Company wrote:Now I'm gonna get the ork codex and start collecting them

You have made the right choice, my friend. Orks are the BEST army in the game. WAAAGGHHHH!!!! Soon the Ooniverse will be yours to command!

Melissia wrote:While it can be argued Marines do, being former humans, Orks aren't human or even related to humans in any way.

Orks simply don't have sexual frustrations. They don't think about or care about reproduction. It doesn't ever cross their minds, even once.

chapters may have their rivalry with one another, however to attack another marine is heresy and would not be done. that being said they do spar to train.

How is that relevant to what I said...?

Melissia wrote:How is that relevant to what I said...?

It isn't.
He thought you were talking about marines attacking other marines as opposed what you were actually talking about which was marines attacking aliens, mutants, heretic etc

ChaosGalvatron wrote:Maybe the Orks do think of reproduction, since their main method is through these spores they are quite willing to die to create offspring.
An instinct to kill themselves (through battle) which creates new orks from the corpses must help the species. If all orks were pacifist how quickly would they expand?

Orks don't think of sex as they are completely asexual, and don't wish for 'glorious death in battle', they are designed (actually designed) to want battle, not to die, but to win and as melissia said they don't fear death either. Orks are more like a weapon that a warrior, they don't fight because they think its just or they are scaried of other species, but because they are made for war

BluntmanDC wrote:

ChaosGalvatron wrote:Maybe the Orks do think of reproduction, since their main method is through these spores they are quite willing to die to create offspring.
An instinct to kill themselves (through battle) which creates new orks from the corpses must help the species. If all orks were pacifist how quickly would they expand?

Orks don't think of sex as they are completely asexual, and don't wish for 'glorious death in battle', they are designed (actually designed) to want battle, not to die, but to win and as melissia said they don't fear death either. Orks are more like a weapon that a warrior, they don't fight because they think its just or they are scaried of other species, but because they are made for war

They might not think of sex (presumably dont even understand it), but they must be aware of their own reproductive cycle.
I was trying to say that if orks were pacifist then the spores from their death thing wouldnt be so important, but because they exist to fight like you said it encourages them to find battle, and then if they win, they get bigger and stronger (better for the next fight) and if they die it means they help along the reproductive cycle. They might not go into battle expecting or wishing to die but any result is a win for them.
They do seem quite well crafted as a weapon.

ChaosGalvatron wrote:They might not think of sex (presumably dont even understand it), but they must be aware of their own reproductive cycle.

Orks will know about how they are 'born' but what difference does it make? An ork shedding spores is like a human shedding skin cells, a complete irrelevance which you're barely even aware of. Part of the problem with orks in this respect is that, with no fear of death they also lack any deep attachment to life, if an ork gets his face bitten off by a gnasher squig it isn't a horrible accident, it's funny. If an ork gets immolated razzing his trukk and then losing control of it, it isn't a horrific, tragic death, it's funny. Orks believe that when they die Gork or Mork belches them into a new body, life and death are not important because for orks it's all just a never-ending cycle. Life, Death and Rebirth are virtually meaningless to an ork.

Too often orks are presented in a very two dimensional way and one of my favourite stories has a moment in it where the ork boss thinks about all his mates who've died, all his old drinking cronies that are gone and he misses them, ever so slightly. That's about as much as you're goingto get from an ork because really they just don't care as long as they're fighting and winning and having a good scrap.

As you say, orks are weapons of war; hardy, self-replicating, aggressive, fearless [of death] with an inate love of battle with all the relevant knowledge encoded into their DNA, they even produce their own food, and use teeth as currency. In many respects orks aren't just the perfect warriors, they have the perfect society too where there is little deprivation or want and even when things get tough for an ork it's not a big deal, it's all just a bit of a laugh.

Melissia wrote:How is that relevant to what I said...?

It has rellivance to the first part of the post. just pointing out that Marines do not fight one another. (well apart from chaos)

Blood Raven 5th Company wrote:

Melissia wrote:How is that relevant to what I said...?

It has rellivance to the first part of the post. just pointing out that Marines do not fight one another. (well apart from chaos)

weeeellll....... that's not strictly true, there have been instances of minor skirmishes between chapters. Other than that, of course, you're right.

When you say minor do you mean for example when the IG and SM fought on kronus. just with SM instead of guard.

Orks are pretty cool guys. eh fights Space Marine and doesn't afraid of anything.

BR5th, you should probably invest in the Ork Codex before buying any model. Beyond the fact that most of your questions are answered in there, there is a lot of cool stuff you don't even know about, such as about the different clans. Additionally, by buying the codex before any models, you are able to avoid units that rock in Dawn of War but kinda suck on the tabletop (I'm looking at you, Flash Gits).

ChaosGalvatron wrote:They might not think of sex (presumably dont even understand it), but they must be aware of their own reproductive cycle.

Must they?

They are completely alien to us in so many other ways, why must they be similar to us in this way?

Melissia wrote:

ChaosGalvatron wrote:They might not think of sex (presumably dont even understand it), but they must be aware of their own reproductive cycle.

Must they?

They are completely alien to us in so many other ways, why must they be similar to us in this way?

an ork's reproductive cycle is as important to an ork as the generation of plasma is to a plasma gun.

pratell wrote:an ork's reproductive cycle is as important to an ork as the generation of plasma is to a plasma gun.

Cite your source.

Seriously, Orks don't ever talk or think about reproduction in any piece of fiction I've read. It doesn't occur to them, they just assume there will always be more boyz.

I could just imagine a single ork being stranded on a rock and one day there's two.

Where'd you come from?!!

Mr Nobody wrote:I could just imagine a single ork being stranded on a rock and one day there's two.

Where'd you come from?!!

As I mentioned earlier, (although I assume you aren't being serious but it's worth mentioning I suppose) that would almost certainly not happen. Since orks use everything that grows from the spores they shed, every organism that is lesser than an ork is fundamental to the creation or ork society. If a single ork was all that remained then there would not be enough psychic resonance to produce other orks only lots of fungus until eventually there was enough fungus for snotlings to develop and so on until eventually there was enough to warrant the emergence of orks.

pratell wrote:
an ork's reproductive cycle is as important to an ork as the generation of plasma is to a plasma gun.

Like I very recently said, to an ork, the shedding of spores, which is all it takes for an ork to reproduce, is as relevant to them as shedding skin cells is to a human. Also a plasma gun is a non-sentient, non-sapient lump of metal and plastic it has no mind to care about whether it is able to shoot plasma or not.

Blood Raven 5th Company wrote:Okay so basicly they move from planet to planet leaving spores (how do they move from planet to planet (another ork question i have?)

By travelling on space hulks; large amounts of trash floating through space.

Orks are pretty cool

Okay. so Orks dont care about how they reproduce but how does a new ork show up?
Does a pod grow and it comes out of the pod?
Are they underground like plants and dig their way out?
Does the new ork just join with the first group he sees or do orks grow in groups?
And is a new ork the size of an ork in a boyz mob or is that an ork that has gone through a few fights to get where he is?

ChaosGalvatron wrote:Okay. so Orks dont care about how they reproduce but how does a new ork show up?

I already covered this on page two and I've reiterated the points since then but for one last time. Ahem.

Orks produce a psychic field which isn't strong enough to make each ork a psyker but it acts like a gestalt consciousness, linking orks together on a genetic and spritual level.

Let's say an Imperial world is invaded by orks but the orks are destroyed. Let us also say that some spores have escaped into the environment and landed in just the right places to germinate. From that spoor a mushroom will grow and typically the higher forms of orkoid life will grow in a sack beneath it, under the ground.

Generally anything could grow but you have to remember the psychic presence orks generate. Now let's assume that we only have one mushroom, the psychic field will be almost nil so, even if that mushroom was in the process of growing an ork it can terminate that process and reabsorb any nutrients lost so far in the growing of that ork. The reason being that one ork on his own isn't going to do very much.

Instead orkoid mushrooms can determine what they generate, optimishing for the most useful orkoid lifeforms. In this case, more mushrooms. Once there is a signinificant amount of mushrooms then you will get snotlings who harvest and grow the mushrooms. In the distant past these snotlings would have eaten enhancing mushrooms which would have allowed them to fully mature and become Brain Boyz but since those particluar mushrooms no-longer exist snotlings just stay as snotlings. Then you will get squigly beasts, then gretchin, then orks.

Typically this new ork community will be feral and wild, with little technological sophistication but as the community grows it will become more sophisticated, usually. Typically, these sorts of feral orks will appear on worlds which already have other orks on them, spores can drift a long way you see. More sophisticated orks will then recruit, or try to recruit, these feral orks, maybe orks travelling through space are drawn to worlds with feral ork communities.


In older background these feral orks, Wild Ones, came about when old orks, overcome with the need to reproduce, toddled off into the wilderness to whelp; back when orks were marsupial type creatures with pouches. Ork yoofs would be trained by the old orks although they would not be One of the Boyz yet. Since the newer backgground from GorkaMorka made orks reproduce via spores then that's all gone out the window and what you get now are small groups of feral ork yoofs living out in the wilderness with only each other tp fight and grots to stick the boot into.

Cool thanks.

So are there thresholds for orks to develop the higher intelligence versions (the mekboys and painboyz and stuff)? So maybe when you have a 100 orks then you start getting painboyz. and then when you have 1,000 orks you start getting mekboys? This would tie into the psychic field now been strong enough for the mushrooms to choose to grow those orks.
Or is it orks that were boyz wake up one day and have the knowledge to be mekboys or painboys or whatever other categories?

I'm wondering where he got that from, as I don't recall reading that in the latest Ork codex. It could just be speculation for all I know.

While I DO recall information about how Ork colonies tend to go from Fungus -> Squigs -> Grots -> Boyz, I don't remember it being THAT specific about information.

I'm with Melissia, regarding orkish concern over their own survival and reproduction; they simply don't give a Source: Ork codex, p.8

"The Orks are the pinnacle of creation. For them, the great struggle is won. They have evolved a society which knows no stress or angst. Who are we to judge them? We Eldar who have failed, or the Humans, on the road to ruin in their turn? And why? Because we sought answers to questions that an Ork wouldn't even bother to ask! We see a culture that is strong and despise it as crude." -Uthan the Perverse, Eldar Philosopher

Melissia wrote:I remember the hilariously awesome looted monolith battlefortress.

I must see this

Melissia wrote:I'm wondering where he got that from, as I don't recall reading that in the latest Ork codex.

I got it from the best part of twenty years playing 40K and seeing how Games Workshop developed the orks over that time.

It could just be speculation for all I know.

Yeah, what you know... Pfft.


As for the timing of the emergence of Oddboys there aren't any specifics given. I would theorise that there is some link though. All orks have a basic understanding of technology although, Feral Orks will know less since no other orks are around for them to learn from. I would imagine that it could be possible for one of these yoofs, with a little more interest in to become a full on Mekboy in a group that does not have one; it fits with what we do know for certain about how ork society grows which is based around the idea that there are never roo many or one type or orkoid so it makes sense that there are as amnay Oddboyz as there needs to be and various orks will exhibit these skills when necessary et cetera.

ChaosGalvatron wrote:Okay. so Orks dont care about how they reproduce but how does a new ork show up?
Does a pod grow and it comes out of the pod?
Are they underground like plants and dig their way out?
Does the new ork just join with the first group he sees or do orks grow in groups?
And is a new ork the size of an ork in a boyz mob or is that an ork that has gone through a few fights to get where he is?

Finally someone else helping with questions. im not the only one that has them.

Blood Raven 5th Company wrote:

ChaosGalvatron wrote:Okay. so Orks dont care about how they reproduce but how does a new ork show up?
Does a pod grow and it comes out of the pod?
Are they underground like plants and dig their way out?
Does the new ork just join with the first group he sees or do orks grow in groups?
And is a new ork the size of an ork in a boyz mob or is that an ork that has gone through a few fights to get where he is?

Finally someone else helping with questions. im not the only one that has them.

I answered the first two questions earlier, but what the heck, I'll answer them anyway.
Orks grow underground in a womb-like chamber. When they reach a certain size, they crawl out to the surface, where they begin life proper. Orks generally emerge in groups, so as to better increase their chances of survival; this is down to the strange psychic link between the hatchlings. The new ork is, I think, about the size of a young teenage human, and grows to maturity in a much shorter time than humans do. So yes, they don't start off as fully grown Boyz.

But it doesnt take long for them to get to fightin size. Also I seem to remember reading somewhere, that in larger more prosperous clans, they actually purposely grow boyz to make the WAAAGH! bigger. Either way I know that the spores are tended to by grots/squigs and runtherders. So if your a lucky Ork that is born ina big clan, your pretty much pulled from the ground, inspected and them given some crude metal and a sent on your way.

Gogsnik wrote:I got it from the best part of twenty years playing 40K and seeing how Games Workshop developed the orks over that time.

That is not a citation.

I'm not trying to be antagonistic here, I'm merely asking for a direct GW source. I don't even disagree with you (actually I feel you're correct), but I want to know where, exactly, YOU got it from. If you can't figure out where you got the information from, it could very well be wrong.

Blood Raven 5th Company wrote:So let me get this strait an ork player can have any vehicle?

Just to clarify:

FLUFF:
Ork vehicles can be made from all manner of stolen/salvaged vehicles: they "loot" Imperial vehicles and then "orkify" them.

Modeling:
Ork players may convert ork vehicles using IG/SM vehicle, etc.

RULES:
Ork armies DO NOT simply take vehicles from other codexes and use the rules for them. Orks have rules in their codex for "Looted wagons" to cover this.

Just wanted to clarify.