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.

The allies chart says Black Templars, Blood Angels, and Sisters of Battle. The codex mentions mainly IG and Tau conflicts. What about the Crimson Fists? Who are the Orks arch enemies?

I think they closest you'd get to an answer is anybody who can put up a real fight. In the fluff they typically savour fights against Space Marines. But then Orks aren't really a coherent whole so much as a bunch of individual empires, tribes and warbands. They don't have racial enemies or carry any real enmity towards any faction, nor do they even care what happens to their fellow Orks on the next planet over. They mostly just live to fight, after all.
Ghazghkull's favorite enemy is Commisar Yarrick. Ogbok's favorite enemy might be his best mate Zog.

I'm not sure you can really say they have an arch-enemy, unless you were to say that it was the entire rest of the Universe. Orks will fight anyone at the drop of a hat. If you have a hat, don't drop it, because you'll be in the middle of a sea of fighting orks.

Thematically, you could perhaps say the Eldar are arch-enemies in that the orks probably respect them least of all. Or alternately, you could say the Tyranids in that they give the orks what one warlord called "this is proper fightin'" and so the orks and Tyranids will go at each other like few other factions.

I suppose finally you could say the Necrons are their arch-enemies in that the Necons are probably the only ones that would have a hope of ever actually finishing off the orks.

But really, I'd have to say they don't really have one as my first answer. Not as a race, anyway. tgjensen has nailed a couple of personal rivalries.

Orks don't have any enemy they hate enough to have arch-enemies.

They don't even actually really hate anyone except someone who doesn't put up a good fight. Actually, they love anyone who can put up a good fight.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Orks don't have any enemy they hate enough to have arch-enemies.

They don't even actually really hate anyone except someone who doesn't put up a good fight. Actually, they love anyone who can put up a good fight.

I think the lesson here is don't think too hard about what orks think. Actually, don't think about orks at all. Just enjoy playing them and if you feel the need, a bit of their silly lore, but don't try to organize it.

Orks don't hate, they just love. Love to fight everyone.

You'd think they hate IG and their artillery.

Id only imagine there are select groups of orks or individual orks that have arch enemies (Gaz and Yarrik come to mind, and possibly by extention the Steel Legion and Gaz's Orks whose clan I can't remember if they had a name)
but overall as a whole orks don't have a single arch enemy.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
You'd think they hate IG and their artillery.

Are you kidding? Do you know how much NOISE that artillery makes?

An enemy to ork is like a friend to human.

I would think the orks biggest enemy is another ork. Who do orks fight the most its other orks.

The Orks don't really care who they're fighting, just as long as they can give a good fight. That being said, they were created to fight the Old One's war against the Necrons so the tin heads probably had the honor of being the Ork's first enemies.

With the dying down of the Armageddon war, I'd say that the Octarius sector conflict is currently the home of the single biggest conflict involving the Orks. And they certainly do seem to love fighting an opponent that is as numberless, heedless of fear, and choppy as they are.

If you put up a good fight you're their arch-enemy.

And they love you for it.

And they're also going to kill you for it.

Necrons.

Why, you ask? ''There hasn't been many major conflicts between these two factions'' you say? The Orks are decedents of the Krork race created by the 'Brainboyz' (old ones) to battle the Necron's and C'Tan. That is why they have traits such engineering and medical training in their DNA, the Old Ones put it there to create good solders. So, even if they aren't Arch Enemies right now, ancestrally the Necrons are the Orks worst enemy.

I do agree that the archenemy of an Ork is their best friend, in a way. They tend to love their enemies, and while not kill them, just keep having good fights with them. So with that in mind, I nominate the Tyranids because we threw the greatest party in the galaxy out at Octavius, and only invited the Orks.

I'd have to say Necrons, if they can be said to have an "arch enemy" - I agree that Orks have no reason to hold any race as an arch enemy. That being said, Necron weaponry is generally pretty puny in size, quiet in operation, and when they get damaged enough, it phases out* - leaving no loot to salvage - how un-fun is that?

Necrons fight, but win, lose, whatever, they don't get into it the way Orks do. So, a scrap, but not an especially fun one - I say Necrons.


*I know the special rule is gone but presumably they still do this in the lore, yes?

 Unyielding Hunger wrote:
I do agree that the archenemy of an Ork is their best friend, in a way. They tend to love their enemies, and while not kill them, just keep having good fights with them. So with that in mind, I nominate the Tyranids because we threw the greatest party in the galaxy out at Octavius, and only invited the Orks.

Ain't no party like a party where the noise makers can be seen from space.

Orks love nids. See my sig.

 PrehistoricUFO wrote:
Orks love nids. See my sig.

Except where the nids would gain an advantage from doing that. See the war for Octarius

 B0B MaRlEy wrote:

 PrehistoricUFO wrote:
Orks love nids. See my sig.

Except where the nids would gain an advantage from doing that. See the war for Octarius

I know it well. Both sides benefit greatly.

Unfortunately many of the factions have tangled with orks. Orks just love a good fight and will fight anybody.

Black Templars hate them. According to fluff, the Salamanders, Nids, Tau, Ultramarines, Crimson Fists, IG, BA have all fought orks.
Goes to show they don't have an arch enemy. They're hated equally I guess.

wasn't there some old fluff about how the Ork Nobz on Octarius were the size of automobiles?

The biggest enemy to the Orks is the Orks

This questions depends on what you are asking. They will fight everyone. They do however seem most content when the battle is big and gritty.

The bigger the Waaaagh the more funn it is. The more the enemy does not hide behind a big wall the better it is.

I supose the favoret enemies would be tyranids. They fight you in a meatgrinder. I supose Khorn daemons would also be great funn, or chaos marines dedicated to korn.

Minor booring opponents would be humans who baricade themselves behind city walls.

Booring oponents would be stealthy eldars, or fast dark eldars as it would be a while lot of chasing and not enough killing.

Edit: I would nominate the inquisetion as the ultimate party planers, followed second by farseers.

Well orks actually fear Farsight. That's right, orks are scared of something.

Actually, Orks love fighting humans.

Knocking over human forts is quite fun!

Arch enemies? Orks and Tyranids!

The Ork's arch-enemy is probably the Tau- they're pretty much the only race that the Orks genuinely hate. The Tau have crushed the orks so utterly and totally on a number of occasions with their superior dakka and ability to avoid melee combat that it's actually made the orks semi-butthurt at how unfun it is to get crushed by Tau.

That's... pretty amazing.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
The Ork's arch-enemy is probably the Tau- they're pretty much the only race that the Orks genuinely hate. The Tau have crushed the orks so utterly and totally on a number of occasions with their superior dakka and ability to avoid melee combat that it's actually made the orks semi-butthurt at how unfun it is to get crushed by Tau.

That's... pretty amazing.

I think you play the game more than you read lore.

True.

And yet, my mastery of the lore still supersedes yours. The War of Dakka is the only fight the Orks have ever (on record) managed to hold their own against Tau.

EDIT- The War of Dakka doesn't even seem to be going on anymore. The Warboss who led that Waaagh was killed and his army routed by Farsight in a different war years later (Farsight Enclaves book).

 BlaxicanX wrote:
The Ork's arch-enemy is probably the Tau- they're pretty much the only race that the Orks genuinely hate.

On the contrary, that just makes Dakka-loving Orks happy to find an opponent that might equal their ferocity.

They even call it "The War of Dakka" and come from across the sector to participate!

Really, the only thing that an Ork would explicitly *hate* is peace.

This, of course, is why Orks are the only race in 40k that's explicitly happy.