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Why is failbaddon not using the orcs to throw against the empire. He could make a deal with a shifty warboss and help him turn into a giant green tide and throw it at terra. Then he can pick off the survivors.

Because hiring orks is incredibly risky as the only thing they want for payment is weapons they will eventually use against the guys who hired them. Plus orks being lead to a fight can back fire if they start winning.

Orks are happy to do their part and cause the Imperium grief, Abaddon don't even need to pay em!

Abadddon wants to crush the Imperium himself so I doubt he would even consider using a race he views as beasts

I can kinda see some tzeentchy schemey mcmarine making a one way deal with some blood axes, but not abbadon

No need for Abaddon to hire Orks, I guess. When any self-respecting Otk Warboss hears of some good scrappin' going on somewhere, he is as likely to steer his Kill-Kruisa in that direction anyways.

Because it would probably work

Table wrote:
Why is failbaddon not using the orcs to throw against the empire. He could make a deal with a shifty warboss and help him turn into a giant green tide and throw it at terra. Then he can pick off the survivors.

Inquisitor Kyptman set a similar thing in motion with Orks versus the Hive Fleet - it is thought that whoever wins the fight will come out stronger.

A Ork Warboss who wins at Terra is likely to be able to smash any follow up Chaos strike.

Orks are not predictable - they want a good fight yeah but they can also be "Kunnin" and they also don't really care who they fight - Imperium or Chaos - both would be good enemies.

My take would be Ork aren't worth the trouble. As with what is already mentioned, here is some reasons I would think.

They won't have the loyalty of cultists. Nor will they have the demoralize affect to the Imperium as the insidious and corrupting nature as cultists. Additionally, cultists are already in situ so very little logistics in using them and already being in place can allow cultists act as scouts and spies where Orks can't.

As for Chaos Space Marines themselves, all Space Marines were created for war so they would want to do the fighting themselves as that is what most of the enjoy doing. Plus, they can prove themselves to the Chaos Gods and be showered in power through combat. Hiring Orks deny Chaos Space Marines this opportunity.

At higher level, it could make the warband leader look weak as they have others do the fighting for them. Whether it does or doesn't, it could make alliances between other warbands weaker and might invite attacks by other warbands believing the use of Ork mercs as moment of weakness (true or not).

All that said, I am sure there are chaos lords that do indeed hire Ork mercenaries. Most of the time they don't send their own forces with them. So it is entirely possible an Ork vs. IoM game isn't the standard Eldar using each other to fight on their behalf, but in fact, some chaos lord pulling the strings.

If you'd count that as usage of Orks

A bit of fluff in the CSM codex (M36), where the Death Guard infected lots of orks with Nurgle's Rot to overwhelm some imperial world with hordes of nurglings.
Something about these orks hungrily swallowing lots of people and other stuff, becoming bloated and bursting apart with bazillions of nurglings.

CSM use ork mercenaries many renegade warlords do. Just no as battle brothers orks really do not tolerate daemons or any other chaosy stuff but they do not mind killing stuff.

In the bloodquest graphic novel an ork warlord had been possessed by a chaos lord and was attacking imperial world's as a distraction
I could see abbaddon doing the same to redirect reinforcements away from terra while he attacks

Sonic Keyboard wrote:
Because it would probably work

The truth has been spoken

Because when GW removed allies from the game in third edition they shoved the associated fluff into a cupboard at the back of the office and forgot about it.

Because they'd just kill him. Orks are THE dominant military force in the galaxy, and many Ork warbosses are legendary figures on the field of battle equal to Abbadon himself in prowess. Add to that the fact that Orks are inherently resistant to the pull of Chaos, and there's no reason any but statistically insignificant number of Orks would ultimately side with Chaos over their own goals.

I don't think he could hire Orks with any particular degree of success.

But, you can quite easily provoke them, and lead them to systems you need to attack, but don't have the time/resources to do yourself.

So, a particular world could be akin to Armageddon. They're heavily defended lynchpins for the Imperium. Abaddon would risk a grinding campaign and possibly even a pyrrhic victory were he to arrange Chaos forces to attack.

But, if you could somehow contrive to lead say, the Arch Arsonist of Charadon to that system? You could drown it in unending warfare for decades, if not longer.

Trouble there of course is that despite what many gamers seem to think, Orks aren't thick. They may not be great philosophers, but they all have an inherent knack for war, so actually successfully tricking them is damned hard work!

The other issue of course is how Orks move about the Galaxy. It's completely random for the most part - although Armageddon does seem to have some kind of Orkinomicon type beacon, given how many successfully translate in-system to join the fight.

because it might anger gork and /or mork and then they might decide to cripple whatever chaos god they champion, in the case of abbadon all of them. As fluff wise gork and mork are so powerful that the chaos gods are sort of the bees to the bears... it is a good idea for them not to poke the preverbial bear

Because Orcs don't exist in Warhammer 40K.

The CSM manipulated Orks in the first Dawn of War, and the Eldar did the same in DoW2. I cannot imagine this being rare; Orks are violent, predictable and usually pretty dumb, making them perfect tools.

During Fall of Cadia:

As per Lexicanum:
"The Blackstone assaulting Cadia, the Will of Eternity, nearly destroyed the planet but was itself crippled by the Phalanx after a Space Wolves boarding party disabled its shields. The debris of the Will of Eternity was later redirected into Cadia by Abaddon, which shattered the planet."

So somehow the Blackstone Fortress was utterly devastated beyond repair, yet still remained as single intact piece. Sounds kind of counter-intuitive. If it's in one piece, it should be still repairable. Well whatever, moving on the point:
This Strategic Genius Abaddon feels like ramming one of the most powerful starships in galaxy on a planet is good idea.

I'm convinced that Abaddon is not very smart, and as such OP's question is too clever course of action for Abaddon. Abaddon clearly takes up on after his gene-father Horus, whose Horus Heresy story is filled with not-so-clever decisions:

Ghorgul wrote:
During Fall of Cadia:

As per Lexicanum:
"The Blackstone assaulting Cadia, the Will of Eternity, nearly destroyed the planet but was itself crippled by the Phalanx after a Space Wolves boarding party disabled its shields. The debris of the Will of Eternity was later redirected into Cadia by Abaddon, which shattered the planet."

So somehow the Blackstone Fortress was utterly devastated beyond repair, yet still remained as single intact piece. Sounds kind of counter-intuitive. If it's in one piece, it should be still repairable. Well whatever, moving on the point:
This Strategic Genius Abaddon feels like ramming one of the most powerful starships in galaxy on a planet is good idea.

I'm convinced that Abaddon is not very smart, and as such OP's question is too clever course of action for Abaddon. Abaddon clearly takes up on after his gene-father Horus, whose Horus Heresy story is filled with not-so-clever decisions:

Spoiler:

Traitors commit HUGE overkill in Isstvan Dropsite Massacre, no traitor primarch or legion makes even an effort to play loyalist for a little bit longer to catch loyalists off guard.

Except the Dark Angels. Lion is smart AF.

To the point of repair... 1) It's possible it wasn't fully intact. Just enough to still move and still large enough to get the job done? But 2) Remember, these guys don't remember how their own tech works most of the time. How would you purpose they repair a Blackstone Fortress that not only made by Xenos, or made literally billions of years ago, but were created by a race that could literally forge things out of thin air. For all we know, the materials to make the blackstone fortresses don't even exist in our galaxy.

Saying that he could simply have repaired the ship is... probably far beyond any living mortals abilities in the 40k universe. Let alone something that could have been done in a timely matter =P

CSM and orks do sometimes work together - in DOW1 winter assault, for example.

Granted, they do eventually start fighting each other too, but it's orks, so what do you expect?

Supposedly, Ghaz was supposed to have some part to play in the gathering storm fluff, maybe not a direct alliance, per se, but kind of a 'we'll fight over here and you fight over there' arrangement.

I was hoping they'd keep going with the story of the gathering storm, but it's been pretty quiet of late. Could change pretty soon though.....

 Amanax wrote:


To the point of repair... 1) It's possible it wasn't fully intact. Just enough to still move and still large enough to get the job done? But 2) Remember, these guys don't remember how their own tech works most of the time. How would you purpose they repair a Blackstone Fortress that not only made by Xenos, or made literally billions of years ago, but were created by a race that could literally forge things out of thin air. For all we know, the materials to make the blackstone fortresses don't even exist in our galaxy.

Saying that he could simply have repaired the ship is... probably far beyond any living mortals abilities in the 40k universe. Let alone something that could have been done in a timely matter =P

Yup, you are right!

As the ork race description in Battle fleet Gothic goes, hiring orks as mercenaries is risky. The only thing they can be appeased with is weapons and the promise of a better fight, weapons which they will inevitably turn on whoever bribed them.

Doing this is basically a move of desperation.

 Ashiraya wrote:
The CSM manipulated Orks in the first Dawn of War, and the Eldar did the same in DoW2. I cannot imagine this being rare; Orks are violent, predictable and usually pretty dumb, making them perfect tools.

The orks in the first title were quite aware of being "manipulated", they just didn't care. As I recall a boy asked the warboss why they were helping the "kaos boyz" and the answer made perfect orky sense. The CSM are weak if they need us to fight marines, so we go for the better fight first. Then we come back and krump the CSM for laughs. All orks cheer (or Waaagh) at this incredibly simple yet elegant plan.

The CSM Sorcerer knew perfectly well this would happen and planned on being away before the orks or loyalists came out victorious. If he hadn't managed that, or evaluated the power of either force wrong, it would have been disastrous for his plan. And I guess that's why many CSM (and others for that matter) stay away from ork mercenaries unless they're already thoroughly borked.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I don't think he could hire Orks with any particular degree of success.

There are numerous mentions of ork mercenaries hired by humans in the fluff. CSM are just humans with an alternative fashion sense to most orks. There is no reason why you suddenly can't hire xenos scum if you renounce the emperor ; )

But, you can quite easily provoke them, and lead them to systems you need to attack, but don't have the time/resources to do yourself.

This also has happened quite a lot.

Very few want to risk triggering a Waaaagh! Such signals lure in Orks across massive distanced. There is two huge ork empires near the Cadian gate. If they decided the Kaos Boys were going to be a funner fight then each other Failbaddon will be back to plotting another future crusade. The fluff was clear that the two had enough numbers to save the galaxy but the Orks are currently clueless about the situation.

Chaos Astartes are not any less xenophobic than regular Astartes.

 ProwlerPC wrote:
If they decided the Kaos Boys were going to be a funner fight then each other Failbaddon will be back to plotting another future crusade.

Or better yet, he actually be forced to mount a defense of the Eye of Terror as billions of Orks pour in and make Khorne a very happy camper. It's happened before with a smaller invasion force, which was wildly successful before being ground to a halt. A full blown WAAAGH! would cripple the forces of Chaos for a long time. They just don't know HOW to fight defensively.

Well it may have been retconned since, but in Codex: Eye of Terror is says that Abaddon did hire Orks to aid him in the 13th black crusade. That is why our reported our victories helped out the 'Chaos' side on the website if I remember correctly.

In fact I think the last 4 person battle of 40k was Orks and The Lost and The Damned vs Salamanders and Crimson Fists to fit in with that exact storyline!