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Pretyt simple question, but the internet is a warren of misinformation, so here I am asking you friendly Dakka..ites. Dakkians?

...Dakka blokes...

Is there any precedent in WH40k CANON for Orkish mutations or environmental causatives that might produce Orks with a different skin colour?


Cheerythanks.

Not that I'm aware of.

Then again, I'd hardly let canon dictate what colour I can or cannot paint my boyz.

Black Orks in particular shouldn't ruffle any feathers. And if they do, just give the guy a good krump and he'll come about to the right way of thinkin

 Dakkamite wrote:
Not that I'm aware of.

Then again, I'd hardly let canon dictate what colour I can or cannot paint my boyz.

Black Orks in particular shouldn't ruffle any feathers. And if they do, just give the guy a good krump and he'll come about to the right way of thinkin

I've been looking at ways to spice up the traditional Orky palette, but I really don't want to break canon where possible.
If I can't paint them up differently, I've also been toying with the idea of making an entire army of Cyborks! (Mad Dok Grotsnik not included, because I never use special characters.)

You could say that their colotlration is due to the permeation of soil pigment into their skin.... i remember this was the case in a Imperial Guard book that i read where due to the high iron shard content of the soil and strong winds the orks skin became brownish

 Somedude593 wrote:
You could say that their colotlration is due to the permeation of soil pigment into their skin.... i remember this was the case in a Imperial Guard book that i read where due to the high iron shard content of the soil and strong winds the orks skin became brownish

Plants and fungi do tend to take up minerals from the soil. Hmm.

Rustgob wrote:

If I can't paint them up differently, I've also been toying with the idea of making an entire army of Cyborks! (Mad Dok Grotsnik not included, because I never use special characters.)

There are some special characters no decent player can make a fuss about. I'd say Grotsnik is certainly one of them!

Use Grotsnik to make your Cybork whatevers 'canon', otherwise your limited to Nobz and bosses really.

Or of course, go forgeworld to take some 40k legit cybork goodness (Painboss, Cybork slashas and cybork Spanna boyz). An added bonus is that all the mouth breathers will kick up a stink and refuse to play you, thusly improving your game experience ten fold!

 Dakkamite wrote:

Rustgob wrote:

If I can't paint them up differently, I've also been toying with the idea of making an entire army of Cyborks! (Mad Dok Grotsnik not included, because I never use special characters.)

There are some special characters no decent player can make a fuss about. I'd say Grotsnik is certainly one of them!

Use Grotsnik to make your Cybork whatevers 'canon', otherwise your limited to Nobz and bosses really.

Or of course, go forgeworld to take some 40k legit cybork goodness (Painboss, Cybork slashas and cybork Spanna boyz). An added bonus is that all the mouth breathers will kick up a stink and refuse to play you, thusly improving your game experience ten fold!

Check my signature ;3

As for the Painboss, that's not a bad idea. I don't suppose you recall which IA it was in? The Spanna Boyz are Kastorel Novem I think?

Ork's are fungaloid's, green is their most common colour, but depending on atmospheres and growing enviroment's, they could take a good few shades, pale white, dark ruddy black or brown most likely.

As for fluffwise, I couldn't say, but there is a precident for ork's of many tribes to use bodypaints, so an ork of any colour would be fine with the explaination of warpaint.

IA 8. had the dread mob with da painboss!

Yep, IA 8. Also IA Apocalypse 2nd Ed. if you need to see whats "40k approved" and such.

Feh, as much as I'd love to use a Dread-Mob list, my local store doesn't allow IA lists, just select units.

No good to me. ;_;

If painting an Ork a different skin colour is an issue to you, I'd say your pretty much screwed with regards to making a cybork force without IA or Grotsnik.

I guess bosses, Nobz, and maybe Flash Gitz could do it. You could build a whole army out of nothing but that and various walkers and such. Dunno if it would be any good.

 Dakkamite wrote:
If painting an Ork a different skin colour is an issue to you, I'd say your pretty much screwed with regards to making a cybork force without IA or Grotsnik.

I guess bosses, Nobz, and maybe Flash Gitz could do it. You could build a whole army out of nothing but that and various walkers and such. Dunno if it would be any good.

Yeah, a bit of a quandary. I'm stubborn, but I have my reasons, lol.
Adding this to my list of stuff to think about.

I'm not sure about anything canon in 40k talking about Orks that werent some shade of green, but then again, 40k canon is more or less non-existent anyways. I had a friend who painted his orks a deep red colour, like the chaos orks from Warcraft and they looked really cool. I'd say just do what you want with your paint scheme and make your own canon if anyone asks. If it's done well, most people probably wont argue with it in the first place.

Not 40k, but in Fantasy there are the Black Orcs. I believe they're very, very dark green but appear pretty much black. In 40k the green is essential as it allows them to photosynthesize, but a mutation could result in another skin color, perhaps as an adaptation to a sun with a different wavelength of light. They'd probably have trouble with other orks, though, what with Green Iz Best and all.

Actually there used to be Red, and Grey orks (loong time ago, rogue to second pretty much). Back when they could go chaos and the like.

Of course you could justify it by saying the Orks Warboss has them regularly paint their skin X because he feels it does something. If vehicles go faster if red, why not da orks!

 Somedude593 wrote:
You could say that their colotlration is due to the permeation of soil pigment into their skin.... i remember this was the case in a Imperial Guard book that i read where due to the high iron shard content of the soil and strong winds the orks skin became brownish

seconded. It was an IG book called Hammer of the Emperor, one of the three (first one I think; don't have the book on me). the rust was all over the place and it embedded itself in the skin and the wind was so strong it eventually covered every inch of the skin, changing the orks color to brown. Backstory was it was some planet yarrick lost the FoA on and these ladz were here to take it back. Destroyed stompaz, gargaunts and titans were everywhere, stripped bare. Hence the high rust content in the atmosphere. And I believe the term your looking for is dakkamite

Blue, black, and green are the only ones I know of.

Blue = Orks painting themselves blue for luck.
Black = older, more powerful Orks.
Green = younger Orks

GimbleMuggernaught wrote:but then again, 40k canon is more or less non-existent anyways

This.
When it comes down to it, it's a pretty easy question. Either you want to stick with the interpretation of book X, or you want those Orks to have a specific colour. Regardless of there being no law that could dictate how you paint your minis, 40k does not exist as a single uniform setting but rather as a multitude of overlapping visions by numerous different writers and gamers, whose ideas may differ in detail, but are all equally valid. I myself like to stick to Codex fluff - however, as a gamer, you do have just as much artistic licence as the next novel author, so when you really feel too constrained by the available material and come to see it as a burden rather than a feature, then make up your own stuff.

There's numerous explanations you could give, ranging from the Orks painting themselves as a weird tradition (probably the easiest way to reconcile this idea with the default representation), over the local eco-system influencing how the spores develop, all the way to "the Warp did it" (mutation is a thing in 40k too, after all). Or you could even play it off as a genetic offshoot which has always existed but is not as numerous as proper green Orks.

Everything and nothing is cannon is the phrase if I remember correctly

Almost! It was "everything and nothing is true" - GW people and BL authors never really touched the term "canon" at all (at least not in the quotes I've seen/saved); that was just something the fans added/propagated in their wish for a more consistent portrayal of the setting and by looking at how other franchises work.

Thanks for the clarification! will always remember from now on

Oh, if you want a full explanation, check this post from BL author Aaron Dembski-Bowden, who had a quick debate about "canon" right here on dakka. That post also includes a full statement from Marc Gascoigne, who was head editor of the Black Library at that point.

A valuable bit of info, as it clears up some common misconceptions about how the official material is supposedly meant to fit together (or not)!

Interesting... Will have a looksee on my lunch hour!

 Melissia wrote:
Blue, black, and green are the only ones I know of.

Blue = Orks painting themselves blue for luck.
Black = older, more powerful Orks.
Green = younger Orks

Don't forget the purple ones, so sneaky you never see em!
My friend mentioned once a blue tundra-planet ork army either he or his brother built. A turquoise base with minty blue highlights (windburn and such) could look really nice.

If I recall correctly, I believe there was an Ork comet that passed through a gaseous moon tainted by Nurgle, only some Orks were fully infected/mutated but their skin was colored grey and black, with spots of yellow and pale green.

Well in many 40k novels, (i.e. 15 Hours, Gunheads, etc.), especially regarding Orks living on sandy planets, they supposedly may also have dark brown skin, with a greenish hue.

There was a fantastic looking ork army in whaite dwarf a long way back that had pale white/grey skin with a grubby tinge (like the locust from the gears of war games).

The author explained it from these orks always being space borne and spending most of their time in unlit space hulks. Like spiders and such that live in dark caves and gone albino these orks had lost the pigment in their skin.

His army was very striking.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Actually there used to be Red, and Grey orks (loong time ago, rogue to second pretty much). Back when they could go chaos and the like.

Of course you could justify it by saying the Orks Warboss has them regularly paint their skin X because he feels it does something. If vehicles go faster if red, why not da orks!

Back when I started 40k a decade ago, someone told me that they did have Red-skinned Orks... but he was also a 6th grade kid so for all I knew he was making it up. Good to know that there was actually some truth to that claim.

I once saw an army of ork's with the best fluff I had ever heard. The entire army was greyscale, only using the colours white, and black, and everything in between. The ork's had grey skin.

The fluff behind the army, was that they had a mutated genome, and every ork was born colourblind. However, it had not stopped their superstitious beleif's that are built into them, that colors have effects. So the trukks were grey because "Da' grey one's go fasta!", the orks were painted grey because "Da grey ones are tougha!" And so on.

The story really made me laugh out loud, and the army actually looked really epic and striking