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I started playing 40k during 6th edition and chose Orks as my army, so I've used the old codex a fair amount but probably played more games using the 7th edition codex. I play fairly casual games with close friends, I don't enter tournaments but I do play to win and so do my opponents.

In general I would say that the new codex was an improvement; various units were buffed, we got some new units and models as well as receiving some relics to play around with. There are a few common complaints I agree with but my main gripe is that excluding the Kustom Force Field (only useful in the shooting phase) and Ghazghkull during his Waaagh! (once per game) we have no access to invulnerable saves. For an army that almost always wants to do most of its damage in combat this is a real pain, particularly for our HQ's that now essentially rely on disposable characters and cheap meat to protect them from challenges/scary things in melee. Apart from this our codex is very fitting with the fluff but it pains me to have to hide Warbosses, Nobz and the like from enemy characters.

So I was wondering what do you think was the reason they took invulnerable saves away from our codex? Was it simply an accidental oversight? Were Nob Bikers so indestructible the whole codex had to pay the price in the new edition? Is it a conspiracy of an Imperium-centric game to prevent the inevitable never-ending Great Waaagh! from crushing all opposition? And will we see the return of invulnerable saves in M41 when we get our next codex update? I would love to hear your thoughts!

Orks, Darkeldar, Bloodangels, Imperial Guard, Spacewolves and Grey Knights are all from the beginning of 7th end of 6th where GW design philosophy was to tone down codexes. This changed abruptly with Necrons were mega formations and power boosts became the main game.

I personally think this is driven by the above codexes not selling models well.

Tyranids are in the same boat. Filthy Xenos just don't deserve to live.

I thought Tyranids are ok if they use the half a dozen or so books that all there units/formations are spread across

I have a few hair brain theories about the Ork codex but it basically comes down to the following.
1. GW doesn't have any fans of the Orks working in the codex department so we get treated like the chaff for the "good guys" to mow down.
2. Somebody at GW got the bad touch from some Killa Kanz and Nob Bikers in 5th edition. They cleaned the nid guts off it and proceeded to swing away at the Kanz, got tired of beating up the Kanz, and ended up gave a minor beating to the Nob Bikers.
3. Somebody got mad about how long it took to kill a blob of boyz so they wanted a better way to speed up the process and clear the table. The new Mob Rule was born.
4. Somebody wrote "Random" on the design board (or scratch paper, whatever they do their brain storming on) and just went with it, never questioning why they wanted random or if they should have. Orks continue to have silly rolls for dumb things that other armies just have as standard.
5. This was design by committee but most of the ideas where developed independently from each other and in the last minute they threw a lot of the ideas together, typed it up, and didn't really put much thought into interactions. Stikkbomb Chukka and all Orks having Stikkbombs being a major oversight. Cybork not stacking with a Painboy being another.
6. GW's modeling department put out new Mek Guns, Painboyz, Meganobz and said to make some good rules to push those sales. In the final days of throwing pages into the codex binder before the deadline GW walked in with the Gorka/Morka/Thisistoocleantobemadebyanorkanaut and said to make up rules for it. The first draft was typed up in 15 minutes, thrown into the binder, and off to the presses it went.
7. The inclusion of the Ork Horde Detachment was later in the design cycle so somebody boring came up with the Hammer of Wrath idea and everyone just shrugged and threw it into the binder. Marketing added the 3rd HQ and troop requirement to fit more Painboyz into the army.
8. Same person made the rules for the Lucky Stikk, Tankbustas, Warbikers, Bully Boyz, and Blitz Brigade rules. Mork bless him for he is the real MVP of this codex.
9. 1-3 and 5-8 might be completely incorrect and they just made a list of the follow. 6= Buff, 5= Quality of life improvement, 4 = Side grade, 3 = No change, 2 = Simplify, 1 = Nerf. Took each entry and rolled the die 3 times and took the actions that where rolled. Tankbustas rolled , Killa Kanz rolled .

 Vankraken wrote:
I have a few hair brain theories about the Ork codex but it basically comes down to the following.
1. GW doesn't have any fans of the Orks working in the codex department so we get treated like the chaff for the "good guys" to mow down.
2. Somebody at GW got the bad touch from some Killa Kanz and Nob Bikers in 5th edition. They cleaned the nid guts off it and proceeded to swing away at the Kanz, got tired of beating up the Kanz, and ended up gave a minor beating to the Nob Bikers.
3. Somebody got mad about how long it took to kill a blob of boyz so they wanted a better way to speed up the process and clear the table. The new Mob Rule was born.
4. Somebody wrote "Random" on the design board (or scratch paper, whatever they do their brain storming on) and just went with it, never questioning why they wanted random or if they should have. Orks continue to have silly rolls for dumb things that other armies just have as standard.
5. This was design by committee but most of the ideas where developed independently from each other and in the last minute they threw a lot of the ideas together, typed it up, and didn't really put much thought into interactions. Stikkbomb Chukka and all Orks having Stikkbombs being a major oversight. Cybork not stacking with a Painboy being another.
6. GW's modeling department put out new Mek Guns, Painboyz, Meganobz and said to make some good rules to push those sales. In the final days of throwing pages into the codex binder before the deadline GW walked in with the Gorka/Morka/Thisistoocleantobemadebyanorkanaut and said to make up rules for it. The first draft was typed up in 15 minutes, thrown into the binder, and off to the presses it went.
7. The inclusion of the Ork Horde Detachment was later in the design cycle so somebody boring came up with the Hammer of Wrath idea and everyone just shrugged and threw it into the binder. Marketing added the 3rd HQ and troop requirement to fit more Painboyz into the army.
8. Same person made the rules for the Lucky Stikk, Tankbustas, Warbikers, Bully Boyz, and Blitz Brigade rules. Mork bless him for he is the real MVP of this codex.
9. 1-3 and 5-8 might be completely incorrect and they just made a list of the follow. 6= Buff, 5= Quality of life improvement, 4 = Side grade, 3 = No change, 2 = Simplify, 1 = Nerf. Took each entry and rolled the die 3 times and took the actions that where rolled. Tankbustas rolled , Killa Kanz rolled .

to be fair the orks and sisters are so far beind the times in terms of army development that no matter of changes made to their codecies would be enough to fix them with their limited unit slection (in the case of the sisters) or the really outdated army unit designs (in the case of orks and i mean in terms of their rules suites, weapons, and statlines). major overhauls likely will still need to happen when the new codex comes in

 Vankraken wrote:
I have a few hair brain theories about the Ork codex but it basically comes down to the following.
1. GW doesn't have any fans of the Orks working in the codex department so we get treated like the chaff for the "good guys" to mow down.
2. Somebody at GW got the bad touch from some Killa Kanz and Nob Bikers in 5th edition. They cleaned the nid guts off it and proceeded to swing away at the Kanz, got tired of beating up the Kanz, and ended up gave a minor beating to the Nob Bikers.
3. Somebody got mad about how long it took to kill a blob of boyz so they wanted a better way to speed up the process and clear the table. The new Mob Rule was born.
4. Somebody wrote "Random" on the design board (or scratch paper, whatever they do their brain storming on) and just went with it, never questioning why they wanted random or if they should have. Orks continue to have silly rolls for dumb things that other armies just have as standard.
5. This was design by committee but most of the ideas where developed independently from each other and in the last minute they threw a lot of the ideas together, typed it up, and didn't really put much thought into interactions. Stikkbomb Chukka and all Orks having Stikkbombs being a major oversight. Cybork not stacking with a Painboy being another.
6. GW's modeling department put out new Mek Guns, Painboyz, Meganobz and said to make some good rules to push those sales. In the final days of throwing pages into the codex binder before the deadline GW walked in with the Gorka/Morka/Thisistoocleantobemadebyanorkanaut and said to make up rules for it. The first draft was typed up in 15 minutes, thrown into the binder, and off to the presses it went.
7. The inclusion of the Ork Horde Detachment was later in the design cycle so somebody boring came up with the Hammer of Wrath idea and everyone just shrugged and threw it into the binder. Marketing added the 3rd HQ and troop requirement to fit more Painboyz into the army.
8. Same person made the rules for the Lucky Stikk, Tankbustas, Warbikers, Bully Boyz, and Blitz Brigade rules. Mork bless him for he is the real MVP of this codex.
9. 1-3 and 5-8 might be completely incorrect and they just made a list of the follow. 6= Buff, 5= Quality of life improvement, 4 = Side grade, 3 = No change, 2 = Simplify, 1 = Nerf. Took each entry and rolled the die 3 times and took the actions that where rolled. Tankbustas rolled , Killa Kanz rolled .

^ This guy right here gets it. The Ork codex looks like it had so little thought put into it, it literally feels like a rough draft made it to the publisher by accident.

The above, no army wants to be the first released for a new edition, it rarely ends well.

Haven't Orks been the first release for two different editions? Both have felt kinda bad. =(

The nice thing about playing Sisters is that no matter how down someone else feels about their army, I can always find something to follow the sentence: "You think that's bad?"

But I'm having trouble in this situation, since almost everything in the Sororitas list has an invulnerable save, including a majority of the vehicles.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I thought Tyranids are ok if they use the half a dozen or so books that all there units/formations are spread across

The only Nid units with an invuln are the Zoanthrope, which is an admittedly nice 3++, and the Swarmlord, which is a 4++ and only in melee. The Maleceptor *might* have one, I'm not sure, but it's so terrible anyway that nobody would really care.

Hierophant too, but it's a 6+ lol

From a fluff viewpoint, I can see why they got rid of invluns - ork tek isn't really good enough to provide invulnerable saves.

And if they had shifted from invulns to having good FNPs - like 6+ base for orks, cyborks give +1 to that, and painboyz stack with THAT (or maybe a max of 4+ FNP), that could have actually been pretty decent. And it kind of makes sense for orks to be the FNP army.

Technically, we have ranged invuls, Badrukk has 5++ and ghazzy can get 2++ for a turn.
Not that 5++ was all that decisive before.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
From a fluff viewpoint, I can see why they got rid of invluns - ork tek isn't really good enough to provide invulnerable saves.

And if they had shifted from invulns to having good FNPs - like 6+ base for orks, cyborks give +1 to that, and painboyz stack with THAT (or maybe a max of 4+ FNP), that could have actually been pretty decent. And it kind of makes sense for orks to be the FNP army.

Well if GW would embrace the whole "think it and it becomes reality" fluff of the Orks then blue paint or looted lucky bits like a looted rosaries or iron halo would work for a invulnerable save. Even now they could have a personal kustom force field type item to give a single model an invuln save if they wanted cybork to be associated with FNP. Heck a Warboss could have an invulnerable save just because all the other Orks thinks he's the biggest and the strongest.

Orks really should have more FNP in their army because in the fluff they are constantly described as being resilient to pain and able to survive even things like decapitation as long as somebody is kind enough to put their head back onto a body.

the 5th edition codex worked for them though, orks were a pretty strong army back in the day.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
the 5th edition codex worked for them though, orks were a pretty strong army back in the day.

It worked for 5-th. Not so great for 6-th other than nob bikers. And probably battlewagon rushes in some cases.

I wasn't really aware that Tyranids suffer from this same affliction as Orks, woe to us xenos!

It would have been fantastic if we did benefit from some FNP enhancements like cybork body actually being useful and Dok's Tools stacking with it, that would have balanced it out quite nicely and certainly flufffy to boot. As for Ork tech not really being good enough to support personal invulnerable saves I have to disagree, Ork technology is fairly advadice even if it isn't particularly robust or reliable. KFF's, Stompa's with shielding and D weapons, powerful plasma weapons etc. Certainly not as advanced as some Mechanicum or Necron tech but fully able to hold its own in an eternity of war. Personal KFF's would be a perfect way to make them fit with the codex, but perhaps FNP is more fitting.



This is brilliant and all worryingly believable may the dice gods be on our side when they randomly generate our next codex!

I actually detest the FNP mechanic. Yet another port from Fantasy that 40K never needed (challenges, look out sir, and the psychic phase, to name a few others). If you want to represent FNP, increase a model's T or W. We don't need moar!! dice rolls in a horde army. But don't worry, Orks will probably get FNP next codex because "forge that narrative."

Did that come off as bitter?

I like FNP, especially now that it's a 5 plus base. It helps shrug off some wounds but isn't an auto ignore.

 the_Armyman wrote:
I actually detest the FNP mechanic. Yet another port from Fantasy that 40K never needed (challenges, look out sir, and the psychic phase, to name a few others). If you want to represent FNP, increase a model's T or W. We don't need moar!! dice rolls in a horde army. But don't worry, Orks will probably get FNP next codex because "forge that narrative."

Did that come off as bitter?

Random makes it easier to avoid balancing options.

If your psychic powers are random, you can avoid making sure they're all desirable or deciding how many points they're worth. Just make the weak one 1, the strongest one 6, and distribute the rest inbetween. That way players can rationalize that power 6 is better than power 1, because you have to roll a 6 to get it, and rolling 6, while not any more difficult than rolling 1, is just naturally more powerful. : D

psychic powers and warlord traits being random is one the few changes i absolutely hate from 5th to 6th/7th. I view my librarian as a static character who has gone from battlefield to battlefield fighting for mankind. Yet my ML2 librarian is forced to change powers and personal traits every battle. That makes no sense is both a bad gameplay mechanic and violates the fluff.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
psychic powers and warlord traits being random is one the few changes i absolutely hate from 5th to 6th/7th. I view my librarian as a static character who has gone from battlefield to battlefield fighting for mankind. Yet my ML2 librarian is forced to change powers and personal traits every battle. That makes no sense is both a bad gameplay mechanic and violates the fluff.

I'm imagining playing an MMORPG, and every time I join a new PvP instance, my magic-user gets a totally random assortment of spells, as does any other spellcaster.

Then, the group leader gets a random leadership power that is not at all dependent on the individual scenario, possibly including granting increased movement speed through ruined buildings on maps that have no buildings, ruined or otherwise, or increasing damage dealt to a certain class when the enemy team has no members of that class.

Then the objectives are worth a fixed amount of points, which can be increased randomly at any time for no apparent reason. Also, at random, killing an enemy of a certain class is worth more points than usual, again for no apparent reason. But both of those only happen in half of the games at random, and you only find out which it'll be after getting into the game itself.

I foresee much rage and complaining, but the main MMORPG community I participate in had weeks-long arguments about whether updating the look of a single lore character was the right move, while totally ignoring the numerous other lore characters with updated looks announced at the same time.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I like FNP, especially now that it's a 5 plus base. It helps shrug off some wounds but isn't an auto ignore.

It requires even more dice rolling and it gets tedious.

*Rolls dice*
Damn, failed my save, but wait! On top of my armor/cover/invul save, I have FNP!
*Rolls more dice*
Yay! He's stil alive.
*Rolls even more dice at the end of the turn*
Hey, with IWND, I get a wound back! Try again next turn. Derp.

As opposed to:

*Rolls dice*
Damn, failed my save.
*Removes model from table*

It's very sad to see the Ork Codex itself was so rushed and poorly done, when they had spent SO MUCH time revamping a lot of our models. We had a really HUGE model release for Orks! Some of the models were REALLY questionable though and I think some were done more for business reasons than not.

Big Mek w/ Shokk Attack Gun - I can think of no reason this model was re-made other than the old version cost too much to produce so they wanted to do it in plastic. The old version was also much better, IMO.

Painboy - What was wrong with the old Painboy? Also, no Grot Orderly included? WTH? See above argument regarding the Shokk Attack Gun.

Mork/Gorkanaut - Barely deserves to be called two models. Should have been one model with different equipment choices. Decent model ruined by horrible rules.

MegaNobz - After every other army being able to buy plastic heavy infantry for almost a decade? (I'm sure someone out there can measure it specifically) Orks finally can get plastic MegaNobz on sprues instead of buying each metal one individually for $30. Awesome model, but WAY overdue.

Mek Guns - Great kit, but minus points for not replacing the aging Kannon, Lobba, and Zzap Gun.

Flash Gitz - Finally Orks get a model for a unit that GW had neglected making a model for. We had to wait longer for these models than Tyranids had to wait for the Tervigon and the Harpy.

Now we can get to the glaring omissions...

The Warboss is the #1 HQ used by the Orks. With Assault on Black Reach out of print, Orks no longer have a PowerKlaw HQ we can purchase. Even Grukk Face-Rippa is now Out of Print. It's also worth mentioning that while the MegaNob kit allows to build a Big Mek in Mega Armour, Warboss choices are quizzically absent.
The Big Mek w/ Kustom Force Field is arguably the #2 HQ unit used by the Orks. The model is out of print.
Warbuggies. This model continues to be in contention for one of the oldest model kits that GW still produces.
The Deffkopta. Another casualty of Assault on Black Reach being out of print.

A true Ork fan at Games Workshop would have advocated for a WHOLE different philosophy when it came to designing the Orks from a model perspective. For example:

1) Mega Nob kit (1 of 2 things that fans and designers both agreed on)
2) Flash Git models (2 of 2)
3) New Warbuggy kit (Warbuggy that's also new Kannons/Lobbas maybe?)
4) New Warboss kit with full gear customization. Attack Squig, Big Choppa, Cybork, etc...
5) New Deffkopta models (gear customization for Rokkits, Big Shootas, Bombs, and Buzz Saws would have been nice...)
6) A new TANK.
7) Did I mention Ork players would have liked a new Tank?
8) Okay... a new Walker is OK.... but we sort of have a lot of those already... let's make the rules not suck, OK?

Murrdox wrote:
MegaNobz - After every other army being able to buy plastic heavy infantry for almost a decade? (I'm sure someone out there can measure it specifically) Orks finally can get plastic MegaNobz on sprues instead of buying each metal one individually for $30. Awesome model, but WAY overdue.

Except those that don't have heavy infantry. Or plastic infantry...

Though I wonder what the Sororitas version of Terminator Armor would look like. Or some sort of heavy power armor at least.

The Mek and painboy were probably redone because GW is slowly but surely phasing out Finecast.

What I have always found odd is them not replacing the kopta model with the AOBR model. those looked great, were plastic, probably early to produce and were equiped with the best weapon for them. Those on there own would have sold well.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
The Mek and painboy were probably redone because GW is slowly but surely phasing out Finecast.

What I have always found odd is them not replacing the kopta model with the AOBR model. those looked great, were plastic, probably early to produce and were equiped with the best weapon for them. Those on there own would have sold well.

Due to how sprues are made and how the AoBR parts were laid out, they'd've had to design new sprues and cut new molds. I've heard that a single mold for plastic models costs somewhere around a million dollars to make, but I'm not sure how much of the process that figure includes.

But yes, the Kopta models from AoBR are awesome.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
The Mek and painboy were probably redone because GW is slowly but surely phasing out Finecast.

We already had a good source of Big Meks and Painboys with the Nobz kit . Seriously that kit is the best value product GW makes.

Been playing orks since 2nd edition, and the 7th edition book is by far the biggest let down so far.

They gave us great new models (naughts and flash gitz) with ZERO in game options.

They nerfed several units and items, and made all the random hurt rather than help.

Pretty much just tank busters got better. Everything else got worse or didn't change at all. There was a few point decreases, but the units that got them got worse it seems in 7th.