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I never thought Orks to be pure evil like say Nids or Necrons..

So when they conquer a human or Tau world with loads of civilians do they kill them all on sight or just enslave them? I'm sure a ton of Waaagghhh's have rampaged through human worlds before ... so were all the humans killed on those worlds or just beat up?

Also off-topic question. An Ork or Ork Nob vs. an Orgyn who wins in a bare fist fight? In the game an Bullgyrn would totally own an Ork Nob but of course he costs 3x as much points wise.

Generally some will be enslaved and others killed. Ratios will depend on the Orks in question. Bear in mind that the slaves won't be treated consistently either and unless they're important to, say, the Warboss for whatever reason are liable to be killed randomly if an Ork feels like it.

orks will take slaves instead of killing all civillians, but being an ork slave is basically a death sentence anyway. If the slave is strong enough to be a good slave for an ork they will eventually be seen as strong enough to be killed in "a bit of good sport". if they are too weak they will probably be killed because they are a "useless git" Even if they manage to stay just weak enough to be ignored but strong enough to keep up with serving an ork, you'll probably get killed by a stray explosion from the local weirdboy testing out a new boomgun or something like that. The ability for a non ork to survive in ork society is basically nil.

Orks used to be able to field Ogryn and mercenaries in their army so do they kill off all non orks not necessary


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Also DIGGANOBZ

Ork nob versus ogryn... Well the ogryn is comparable on a physical level to an ork nob. The tabletop is not a 1 to 1 ratio of lore so I wouldn't take the ogryns superior stats as law. However I would say while they are comparable physically, the Ogryn does have the edge. Funnily enough I would think the ork however has the intelligence advantage and would be able to overcome the physical advantage of the Ogryn if the ork was cunnin, but brutal.

In a straight up brawl is say ogryn. In a anything goes fight I would say the ork nob due to possessing superior combat kunnin.

Generally they enslave, an exception that proves the rule was the Black Slayer tribe from the Armageddon3 site:
"The Black Slayers have a reputation for taking no prisoners and slaughtering even non-combatants in an orgy of bloodlust, unusual for Orks as they rely heavily on slave-labour."

Better off dying while the fighting is good. It would suck to be alive during the cleanup.

If i recall correctly Orks just treat their captives on the same way they treat each other greenskin.

Aside very few exceptions it's pretty much a death sentence since they keep pushing and smacking their captives in the same way they do with weaker orks and gretchins thus making their slaves often the lowest part of the chain.

Ok well at least they have a chance unlike Necrons or Tyranids that kill on sight.

That imperial fleet coming to retake the planet... you hope anyway...

Yeah, there's been quite a few instances in the background of missions to rescue ork captives - not only would they be saving lives, but they're also depriving the orks of a good chunk of their manual labor, food supply, and general entertainment.

One wonders how many slaves have been inadvertently killed by an ork asking a question or even just offering a relatively friendly greeting. Orkspeak gets pretty physical.

Eventually they will kill everyone yes. They will kill part of a population for fun, the rest will suffer the same fate as the Gretchin and be used as slave labour to keep Ork society running. So while humans (or other aliens) may be able to survive a few years if they are lucky (or unlucky, depending on your viewpoint), they don't have a chance to survive on the long term.
Of course, that is in captivity. In the wild, humans/aliens may survive longer, hiding from the Orks or waging a guerilla war.
Or becoming Digganobz

It is not even remotely that dangerous. If you're talking about an entire world, you're not even going to be taken prisoner. The Orks will best your armed resistance, but after they take whatever stuff they want, they will probably just demand that a society just keep making them more trucks and scrap metal, like totally autonomously. It's not like the Orks are going to every single city in a planet and rounding up the population to make them "slaves."

Most necrons these days do not kill on sight either. The Codex says that the Sautekh dynasty has "four score Tomb Worlds and five times as many alien worlds paying tribute to the dynasty." The Triarch Praetorians have taught other races to follow Necrontyr codes.

In Gunheads they have some POV from slaves - its pretty horrifc - they are worked to death, children caged and used as incentive to their parents - work harder or they will be eaten - they starve to death anyway. Executions for fun, as an example etc are commonplace. Ork slaves are usually naked and branded.

Think of the worst human labour camps in history - that gives some idea.............

Their horrifying sense of humour would kick in sooner or later no matter how useful the slave is. Like a pack of delinquents abusing a puppy till it dies.

What if the slave had some useful skills, like an engineer or a vet. Would they become pets for a mek or doc? Or a war psycher? These may be more useful healthy and safe and so end up treated better than a grot. Or are they always just seen as fodder?

 JustALittleOrkish wrote:
What if the slave had some useful skills, like an engineer or a vet. Would they become pets for a mek or doc? Or a war psycher? These may be more useful healthy and safe and so end up treated better than a grot. Or are they always just seen as fodder?

Problem is even such "pets" woudl be subject to random and frequent casual brutality and as ProwlerPC mentions - a momentary joke could mean dismemberment - Orks don't really care about the future and so future usefulness is limited as a bit of a laugh in the moment with the lads will often be more important.

Its not impossible but very very diffcult .............

You would have better luck with Skaven - and thats almost as bad - although if you get the chance read the "Barbed Wire Cat" by Robert Earl which shows what you need to resort to survive - hint - Ramsey Bolten would do well.

 JustALittleOrkish wrote:
What if the slave had some useful skills, like an engineer or a vet. Would they become pets for a mek or doc? Or a war psycher? These may be more useful healthy and safe and so end up treated better than a grot. Or are they always just seen as fodder?

there is an old fluff part on human advisors If i am not mistaken.


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Found it. page 68 and 69 of Waaaargh the orks


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Page 68 also has a direct answer to op's question.

No they don't always wipe out all alien species. They might also turn them into slaves, demand tribute, integrate cultures or simply ignore them .
It further states that they prefer regular payments above slaves and Gretchen labourers above alien slaves

In The Beast Arises series there was a planet where humans were used basically as living food reservoirs for Waaagh!
As to Ogryn vs Nob I would always bet on Ogryn as they are as big as Warbosses.

 JustALittleOrkish wrote:
What if the slave had some useful skills, like an engineer or a vet. Would they become pets for a mek or doc? Or a war psycher? These may be more useful healthy and safe and so end up treated better than a grot. Or are they always just seen as fodder?

Yeah, just like some Gretchin manage to rise above the others by by becoming useful assistants to meks and such. A human slave could probably do so as well. Their lifes would still be short and brutal though, just somewhat less short and slightly less brutal. They would always be seen as fodder, an Ork sees every creature weaker than himself as nothing but fodder.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 JustALittleOrkish wrote:
What if the slave had some useful skills, like an engineer or a vet. Would they become pets for a mek or doc? Or a war psycher? These may be more useful healthy and safe and so end up treated better than a grot. Or are they always just seen as fodder?

Yeah, just like some Gretchin manage to rise above the others by by becoming useful assistants to meks and such. A human slave could probably do so as well. Their lifes would still be short and brutal though, just somewhat less short and slightly less brutal. They would always be seen as fodder, an Ork sees every creature weaker than himself as nothing but fodder.

This is completely contradicted in the case of alien / human advisors for warbosses in the Waaaaagh the orks book.
Warbosses might recognize that some of his alien slaves are indispensable becoming trusted advisors and gaining high degrees of freedom and power.


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On ogryns they are likely to be recruited by a warboss discovers a tribe before the IoM does. And they do feel superior then most orks due to their size and or human views on kulture.
Source( page 35 Waaagh the orks)

I think one of the Cain books, they enslaved the humies as labour.
In the last Beasts arises novella, theyd caged them to turn into umie gruel.

 Shadow Walker wrote:
In The Beast Arises series there was a planet where humans were used basically as living food reservoirs for Waaagh!
As to Ogryn vs Nob I would always bet on Ogryn as they are as big as Warbosses.

Ork Nob would beat an Ogryn.

Orks are smarter than Ogryns.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 Shadow Walker wrote:
In The Beast Arises series there was a planet where humans were used basically as living food reservoirs for Waaagh!
As to Ogryn vs Nob I would always bet on Ogryn as they are as big as Warbosses.

Ork Nob would beat an Ogryn.

Orks are smarter than Ogryns.

Being smarter do not always help you win a fight [it might but is not a guarantee] and besides there are fluff examples of Ogryns killing Warbosses or Chaos Marines. I had never read about Nob winning one on one vs Ogryn.

Even if they do and you survive the orks you are still doomed. If the Imperium manages to retake the world they will kill all the slaves because they were contaminated by contact with aliens.

No, they won't. They'll inquisit them and make sure they are capable of working under Imperial government, then send them right back to the pits.

There are multiple examples of indigent populations of reclaimed worlds being used to repopulate them in the fluff.

Ork Nob would beat an Ogryn.

Orks are smarter than Ogryns.

You find things scuttling around under damp rocks smarter than Ogryns, to be fair.


And yes, the average slave can be expected to be treated in much the same way as a grot. Abused, kicked about, worked to death and quite possibly eaten.

A valuable slave would be treated like a valuable grot. Mekboyz assistants (grot or human) won't exactly be ordering other boyz around, but nor will said boyz be rushing to inflict their usual brand of casual violence. Orks aren't stupid - just short tempered and far more tolerant of casual violence than any other species - and will be aware that humans are (a) breakable and (b) sometimes valuable.

And yes, at the top end, if you can show orks that you're a decent enough sort (by orky standards of course) then they've no real problems dealing with you. Diggaz in Gorkamorka are a case in point. The general orky view of them is "well, they aren't orks, but they're doing their best..." and a successful Digganob with a big mob can expect to trade with Mektown and be taken seriously.

Equally, the Ork Freeboota in Rogue Trader has the system's version of Mob Rule - a willpower boost for each friendly ork nearby to resist fear, pinning, etc - and can get a rule called "Da Next Best Fing", which means that a suitably heavily armed human whose fighting prowess the ork knows and trusts counts as 'half an ork' for the same rule.

 SQRT(-2) wrote:
If the Imperium manages to retake the world they will kill all the slaves because they were contaminated by contact with aliens.

Nah, Orks aren't the sort of alien the Imperium really worries about when corruption is considered. Eldar or their dark kin on the other hand, or Tau! That's the sort of insidious aliens you'll be thoroughly investigated over if you've been rescued from them. The orks don't really have much to offer a human that would make him turn on the IoM, and the slaves will see that orks are exactly as brutal and irrational as Imperial propaganda states.

Spetulhu wrote:

 SQRT(-2) wrote:
If the Imperium manages to retake the world they will kill all the slaves because they were contaminated by contact with aliens.

Nah, Orks aren't the sort of alien the Imperium really worries about when corruption is considered. Eldar or their dark kin on the other hand, or Tau! That's the sort of insidious aliens you'll be thoroughly investigated over if you've been rescued from them. The orks don't really have much to offer a human that would make him turn on the IoM, and the slaves will see that orks are exactly as brutal and irrational as Imperial propaganda states.

Yeah, the Imperium is surprisingly tolerant even of humans who have "gone native" while fighting Orks. Just look at the fluff on Ork Hunters, who are using choppas, painting themselves green, and adopting a lot of Orky concepts. It probably has something to do with how the Ork "kulture" doesn't have much subtlety or potential for devious long term shenanigans. To anyone who's not an expert on Ork culture (and how many of those are there? how many people in the Imperium consider Ork culture worthy of study?) there's not much difference between a human gone Orky and your average feral worlder.

My own thoughts on it - which aren't necessarily based on fluff or 'facts' in codices is that if they're no challenge to fight, then they're just treated with a general disregard.

fluff is very contradictory here. if the orks catch you and deem you unworthy of a fight then might is right means they will have you do as they wish. It seems to depend on the tribe and warboss as to what happens though on a high value resource world say making lasguns or heavy bolters life would probably be a lot like it was under imperial worlds. Once your world was concurred the roks would move on and you would keep building guns (probably now modified by he big mek's designs) and sending them to support the waaagh and so logn as you do not cause problems and keep up tribute you are good... now if you are on a worthless rock or backwater planet and it is a group of feral orks or newly risen tribes you will be enslaved and have a short awful existence.