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How do!

Breaking with my traditional approach of asking a question, and instead making a statement. And it’s based on the relatively humble Ork Choppa.

By all accounts, background and models? These are lumpen and, at least for us, ill-balanced weapons. Brutal by simplistic intent.

Now. I am not arguing that a human couldn’t lift one, or even swing one with malice aforethought. That would be a ridiculous and silly claim. But being able to do that, and do so effectively are quite different propositions.

My main observation here is the Ork physiology. Putting aside the muscles described in the models? Your Ork has longer arms than a human, and a squat posture. Which unless I’m mistaken gives it a very different centre of gravity, and potentially a quite different reach.

To wield a melee weapon you kinda need to treat it as an extension of your arm. Being a wuss I don’t exactly know what that means, but I do kinda get it. Essentially your swing doesn’t end at your hand, but the business part of said weapon. And in terms of a weapon and a fighter’s balance? It’s a matter of relevant weight, leverage and other physics things I’m ill equipped to properly describe.

But. Given the Orky instinctual knowledge and again their physiology? Whilst I don’t doubt a regular human could learn how to wield a Choppa? It’s going to be an uphill struggle due to their sheer weight (mass? Seriously, I’m not sure) and the balance point being different for Orks than Humans? If a standard Guardsman or Ganger was to try to wield one, they’d struggle to do so in any meaningful way.

Diggas? As an example of a Human society that kinda ish more of less mostly lives with Orks in some kind of harmony? I’m not going to count them as standard. Because as soon as they’re grown enough to start combat training? It’s probably Orky or Orky-Approximate weapons they’re practicing on. And as per my caveat above? I don’t doubt a human can learn to effectively wield a Choppa. Just that it’s gonna take quite specific training compared to your own arsenal.

Most weapons require training to use effectively. History shows quite a few weapons in widespread use they are both heavy and front-heavy. Most pole arms, two handers, big maces, etc.

I think you are right that a human using a choppa most effectively may well use it in a different way to Orks, but I’m sure some kind of “effective” combat form could be developed.

The weight and balance would definitely be off, probably mostly due to the size problem. An Ork Choppa has an absurdly large axe head compared to its handle. You'd probably need to two hand it.

What about the Armageddon Ork Hunters?

A particularly beefy human might be able to one hand it I guess. Thinking about it more generalizing is kinda silly since its not like orks are adhering to any sort of standardization in their choppas. Some are giant meat cleavers, some are hatchets/axes, others are swords, etc...

When Armageddon Ork Hunters had their own rules, they could take choppas.

But they’re not regular humans. They’re combat veterans that have presumably been trained or self-trained.

Good points above that I hadn’t considered, ref using them in different ways.

Pretty much any close combat weapon (or any weapon at all really) is going to require training to use effectively, a "regular human" is going to have as much trouble using a chainsword as a choppa, if not more.

I mean it's a motorized death-chainsaw with almost no safety features. It's arguably going to be harder to wield effectively untrained than a big crude topheavy axe

Look, it’s got an off button! What more do you want!

So basically your point is that it takes training to use choppa effectively. Which no doubt is true, but also the case with most weapons, so I don't understand why it was worth starting a thread about.

I feel like a human trying to wield a choppa - at least a proper good one that's big and full of good choppy - would be like wielding Gotrek's Axe

Jump to around 42:13 cause for some reason the time jump isn't working on auto play

 Crimson wrote:
So basically your point is that it takes training to use choppa effectively. Which no doubt is true, but also the case with most weapons, so I don't understand why it was worth starting a thread about.

Yeah...

Even the three most basic and intuitive human weapons- club, rock, and pointy stick- have enormous skill ceilings where even a modicum of training makes big differences to how effective someone is at fighting with them.

A chopper is fundamentally a sharp club in most forms, although having a blade does open up extra options (push and draw cuts), and some can hook.

Yeah, I also don't think this is that much of a debate.

It's an awkward weapon, but so is an Eviscerator, and unaugmented humans are capable of using those.

Arguably a bigger issue is that Ork craftsmanship is very crude and unreliable, and a Choppa isn't necessarily that good or useful a weapon without the benefit of the subtle Ork collective psychic field (the same one that makes red-painted vehicles move -slightly- faster, makes their engines blow up 10% of the time instead of 50% of the time as they logically should, etc).

The field isn't remotely the reality bender that memes portray it as, but it takes the very crude and crappy Choppas and makes them actually as dangerous as a weapon of more reliable make.

Without that benefit, what use would a choppa be to a human? It's just a big lump of badly balanced and smithed metal at that point. Many choppas have no motor component and if you have one of those you are dealing with sub-medieval tech -and- crappy craftsmanship...

A human could not wield a choppa with any efficacy, at least based on model proportions.

The standard 'axe' choppa is almost as long as a guardsmen is tall, and the haft is about as thick (if not thicker) than their leg. That's going to be around 6 feet tall and with a circumference approaching a small tree, and the thing's made of solid, heavy metal. It's going to weigh over 100lbs at least.

It'd be like trying to wield a gigantic standing lamp with an axe glued to the top, and it weights as much as a small adult man. Assuming you could lift the damn thing you could absolutely do damage when you hit something, but only the most basic - and relatively slow - swings are at all possible.

And that's just the axe. There are choppa chain swords which are *wider* than a guardsmen's torso. That'd be like going into combat swinging a water heater with a chainsaw taped to one end.

 morganfreeman wrote:
A human could not wield a choppa with any efficacy, at least based on model proportions.

The standard 'axe' choppa is almost as long as a guardsmen is tall, and the haft is about as thick (if not thicker) than their leg. That's going to be around 6 feet tall and with a circumference approaching a small tree, and the thing's made of solid, heavy metal. It's going to weigh over 100lbs at least.

It'd be like trying to wield a gigantic standing lamp with an axe glued to the top, and it weights as much as a small adult man. Assuming you could lift the damn thing you could absolutely do damage when you hit something, but only the most basic - and relatively slow - swings are at all possible.

And that's just the axe. There are choppa chain swords which are *wider* than a guardsmen's torso. That'd be like going into combat swinging a water heater with a chainsaw taped to one end.

I'm not sure if the models are a particularly helpful yardstick here. You also have standard humans wielding things like Eviscerators, or apparently carrying massive heavy weapons without significant impediment.

I once converted a Cadian lascannon team (the 3rd edition plastic kit) to be carrying the lasannon dismantled. It looks stupid, because the lascannon alone is far bigger than the Guardsman, and then the other crewman is expected to carry a huge tripod as tall as he is, and two powerpacks each the size of his torso!? Yet they can move just as quickly as a Guard trooper carrying a lasgun, and now can even move and shoot...

Weapon depictions have to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Even an Ork boy is going to struggle to swing a 50kg+ lump of metal with most of the weight at the end- just from a simple physics perspective that much weight starts to move the wielder too through its momentum and inertia. A basic boy isn't _that_ much heavier than a burly human, they are going to be unbalanced and swung round by a 50kg lump of metal. I doubt choppers are actually that substantial compared to the heroically-proportioned models.

Now, Ork boyz are fairly slow, I can imagine they do use oversized weapons from a human perspective. But even a 10kg single-handed weapon would be absolutely monstrous and slow as hell to wield. If you have ever swung a sledgehammer, you'll know what I mean. Historical two-handed greatswords rarely top 3kg in actual combat examples, to give a comparison. 50kg would have a mind of its own and would probably require a creature of at least a ton in weight to manage with any usefulness.

Eviscerators are designed to be wielded by humans though. So have human sized handles, and presumably are suitably balanced for swinging in large, but controlled, arcs.

Orks? Much bigger hands than humans, that much is evident. So the hafts of their Choppas are more likely than not to be uncomfortably thick for human hands.

And going back to an initial observation I made? Orks have a lower centre of gravity due to their posture and bandy legs. They also have longer arms to humans. Which means a full swing, even with comparable muscle strength? An Ork wielded Choppa is going to hit harder. Because the arc is wider, and so the business end is moving faster than if a human had swung it. And their lower centre of gravity helps with their balance for such a swing.

Firearms? Well we’ve many examples in the background of humans wielding Orky firearms. They might be uncomfortable and unwieldy, but entirely usable if you’ve nothing better to hand.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Eviscerators are designed to be wielded by humans though. So have human sized handles, and presumably are suitably balanced for swinging in large, but controlled, arcs.

The "real" examples probably are to some degree, but the models are long bricks on a stick. I mentioned them in relation to using models and art as a guide to calculating weights etc.

Re. balance: the pommels would have to be incredibly dense to counter the heft of such weapons to truly balance them, bearing in mind the teeth are typically adamantium- a material described as dense. Given they typically had "strikes last" type rules, I reckon they are fairly unbalanced at the best of times.

Orks? Much bigger hands than humans, that much is evident. So the hafts of their Choppas are more likely than not to be uncomfortably thick for human hands.

And going back to an initial observation I made? Orks have a lower centre of gravity due to their posture and bandy legs. They also have longer arms to humans. Which means a full swing, even with comparable muscle strength? An Ork wielded Choppa is going to hit harder. Because the arc is wider, and so the business end is moving faster than if a human had swung it. And their lower centre of gravity helps with their balance for such a swing.

Firearms? Well we’ve many examples in the background of humans wielding Orky firearms. They might be uncomfortable and unwieldy, but entirely usable if you’ve nothing better to hand.

The differences in grip would make a difference, most choppas are undoubtedly going to be uncomfortable for most humans.

I'm not convinced the lower centre of gravity is that significant if actually present, orks are hunched in posture but not much shorter than a human despite that, and the long arms and large heads moves weight upwards. Orks seem to favour overhead strikes and the like too. Plus no minor posture shifts would make a 50+kg weapon manageable for even a 500kg creature, and I doubt the average boy reaches 500kg given Guard troopers can move the corpses without too much trouble. So I doubt typical Ork weapons are that far beyond human ones.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Dug up the actual reference to Armageddon Ork hunters using Ork weapons:

So choppers can be used by "the strongest hunters", but even they do suffer a bit for doing so, dropping to initiative 2. So choppers are wieldable, but not great.

Likewise, using shooters drops accuracy to BS 2, presumably due to the recoil and crude design.

Incidentally, flavour was the only real reason to do this. Feral Orks, the chief enemy of the Ork hunters, couldn't even get better than a 4+ sv, so in a typical lore match-up you got no benefit for taking choppers, but dropped to I2 in penalty... for 2pts a model. Even if your Ork hunters mostly hunted Space Marines... taking them on in melee probably wasn't a winning proposition.

 Haighus wrote:
Now, Ork boyz are fairly slow, I can imagine they do use oversized weapons from a human perspective. But even a 10kg single-handed weapon would be absolutely monstrous and slow as hell to wield. If you have ever swung a sledgehammer, you'll know what I mean. Historical two-handed greatswords rarely top 3kg in actual combat examples, to give a comparison. 50kg would have a mind of its own and would probably require a creature of at least a ton in weight to manage with any usefulness.

It depends on how "fantasy" 40k wants to be with this, I suppose.

I remember a historian's blog examining the maths of the Lord of the Rings movies for fun. They calculated that, as depicted on-screen, a Mordor Troll's iron sledgehammer would probably weigh ~334 kilograms just based on its size (and just the iron part, not counting the wooden haft). On the other hand, if the Mordor Troll had been a real creature and existed in real physics, then based on its size and muscle mass relative to a human, a Troll's sledgehammer would weigh ~81kg, and a Troll warhammer (since sledgehammers are too unwieldy to use as weapons of war) would weigh somewhere between 6 and 14 kg.

Where do 40k Orks fall on this scale? Beats me. We already know 40k flagrantly and cheerfully violates the square-cube law (as is pretty much expected of any even remotely fantasy-based setting) so I'd not expect weapons to be any different.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
Now, Ork boyz are fairly slow, I can imagine they do use oversized weapons from a human perspective. But even a 10kg single-handed weapon would be absolutely monstrous and slow as hell to wield. If you have ever swung a sledgehammer, you'll know what I mean. Historical two-handed greatswords rarely top 3kg in actual combat examples, to give a comparison. 50kg would have a mind of its own and would probably require a creature of at least a ton in weight to manage with any usefulness.

It depends on how "fantasy" 40k wants to be with this, I suppose.

I remember a historian's blog examining the maths of the Lord of the Rings movies for fun. They calculated that, as depicted on-screen, a Mordor Troll's iron sledgehammer would probably weigh ~334 kilograms just based on its size (and just the iron part, not counting the wooden haft). On the other hand, if the Mordor Troll had been a real creature and existed in real physics, then based on its size and muscle mass relative to a human, a Troll's sledgehammer would weigh ~81kg, and a Troll warhammer (since sledgehammers are too unwieldy to use as weapons of war) would weigh somewhere between 6 and 14 kg.

Where do 40k Orks fall on this scale? Beats me. We already know 40k flagrantly and cheerfully violates the square-cube law (as is pretty much expected of any even remotely fantasy-based setting) so I'd not expect weapons to be any different.

Yeah, that's fair.

Pop culture thinks weapons are larger and heavier than they are nearly universally, so people come to expect it, so we get more big weapons in pop culture.

LotR is actually one of the more grounded depictions, on the whole. Probably because most of the weapons in the films were actually built and wielded by real human actors.

 Haighus wrote:

Spoiler:

 morganfreeman wrote:
A human could not wield a choppa with any efficacy, at least based on model proportions.

The standard 'axe' choppa is almost as long as a guardsmen is tall, and the haft is about as thick (if not thicker) than their leg. That's going to be around 6 feet tall and with a circumference approaching a small tree, and the thing's made of solid, heavy metal. It's going to weigh over 100lbs at least.

It'd be like trying to wield a gigantic standing lamp with an axe glued to the top, and it weights as much as a small adult man. Assuming you could lift the damn thing you could absolutely do damage when you hit something, but only the most basic - and relatively slow - swings are at all possible.

And that's just the axe. There are choppa chain swords which are *wider* than a guardsmen's torso. That'd be like going into combat swinging a water heater with a chainsaw taped to one end.

I'm not sure if the models are a particularly helpful yardstick here. You also have standard humans wielding things like Eviscerators, or apparently carrying massive heavy weapons without significant impediment.

I once converted a Cadian lascannon team (the 3rd edition plastic kit) to be carrying the lasannon dismantled. It looks stupid, because the lascannon alone is far bigger than the Guardsman, and then the other crewman is expected to carry a huge tripod as tall as he is, and two powerpacks each the size of his torso!? Yet they can move just as quickly as a Guard trooper carrying a lasgun, and now can even move and shoot...

Weapon depictions have to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Even an Ork boy is going to struggle to swing a 50kg+ lump of metal with most of the weight at the end- just from a simple physics perspective that much weight starts to move the wielder too through its momentum and inertia. A basic boy isn't _that_ much heavier than a burly human, they are going to be unbalanced and swung round by a 50kg lump of metal. I doubt choppers are actually that substantial compared to the heroically-proportioned models.

Snip

Now, Ork boyz are fairly slow, I can imagine they do use oversized weapons from a human perspective. But even a 10kg single-handed weapon would be absolutely monstrous and slow as hell to wield. If you have ever swung a sledgehammer, you'll know what I mean. Historical two-handed greatswords rarely top 3kg in actual combat examples, to give a comparison. 50kg would have a mind of its own and would probably require a creature of at least a ton in weight to manage with any usefulness.

IIRC it's mentioned that nobz can approach a ton, or maybe that's warbosses, when fully armored. The average ork also possessive *significantly* more mass than a human, with arms nearly as thick, if not thicker, than most human torsos. At least according to model scale.

Now I will concede that models have a degree of artistic license; they have to be distinct at a distance and also not so fiddly that they break. So I acknowledge that. Even still, if you were to cut the 'axe' choppa's size by about 50%, it'd still probably be easily over 100lbs; as it'd be significantly thicker than the bar used in a bench press, approaching the length, and definitely no consideration given to keeping it 'light'. Not something which a Catachan couldn't lift or even swing, but something which wouldn't let them move fast.

Which works well with the bit about initiative.

Keep in mind that initiative 5, what Eldar have, is so fast that their movements basically blur to the naked human eye. SM, at I4, don't blur but move faster than people can basically comprehend. I3 is regular humans, and I2 is pretty damn slow.

So at the end of the day I think it all basically boils down to 'fantasy' math and logistics. Bigger weapons because bigger and models, but still inhumanly heavy and ungainly. Usable by the absolute madlads who have 6 packs so strong they count as flak armor, at a cost, but well beyond what an 'ordinary' human could wield with any sort of efficacy.

Ork boy strength has crept up over the editions.

They used to be within the ballpark of human strength (S3), although probably at the upper end of that along with the like of Catachans.

Then they went up to S3.5 (S3 with S4 on the charge).

Eventually all Orks became skarboy S4- on a par with the Marine strength bracket (my headcanon is that the modern lists focus on warbands from major Waaaghs like Ghazghkulls, which are full of skarboyz only).

Obviously game stats represent broad categories, as you mentioned with the initiative stat, but Orks used to be closer to human than Marine.

I think you are making assumptions about the weapons- such as having solid hafts. Most of the newer models appear to be metal tubes rather than solid, which would make sense. The choppas on the Kommando kit for example. As pointed out upthread, they are definitely oversized (and heroically scaled), but 50kg seems like it is probably too much, even if an Ork boy weighs 250kg-500kg.

I do recall encountering the "over a ton" metric, but not where it was. A quick search has yielded no results. That said, even a nob is typically noticeably chunkier than a boy, and I would not be surprised if they commonly weigh double the boyz they lead.

 Haighus wrote:
Eventually all Orks became skarboy S4- on a par with the Marine strength bracket (my headcanon is that the modern lists focus on warbands from major Waaaghs like Ghazghkulls, which are full of skarboyz only).

I think it's just stat creep tbh. Compared to 4e, Ork Boyz have gained a point of strength, a point of toughness, a point of save, a point of AP on their weapons, and have greatly benefitted from the removal of initiative (considering their awful i2 they had prior).

Compare to their in-lore most common opponent, the guardsman, who has gained... nothing at all.

I think it's more that Orks originally were not so muscular, and when Nelson sculpted his muscular gorilla orks (which I love) it started to look silly that they were only S3, so you had different ways to make them stronger creeping in.

I believe Orks also used to be WS/BS 3 (4+ in new money), and it was changed specifically to WS4/BS2 (3+/2+ in new money) for the Rork's Drift scenario they did (to encourage the Orks to actually charge in rather than sit back and firefight) and has just stuck ever since.

Certainly the RT era Space Orks look far more like green Guardsmen than they do Orks of today.
I prefer the current Ork characterisation tbh, it strikes as a more distinctive identity. But certain things from old lore don't really make much sense anymore (like Armageddon Ork Hunters) as the size difference makes it a bit obscene for a Guardsman to ever pick up an Ork weapon now

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
Eventually all Orks became skarboy S4- on a par with the Marine strength bracket (my headcanon is that the modern lists focus on warbands from major Waaaghs like Ghazghkulls, which are full of skarboyz only).

I think it's just stat creep tbh. Compared to 4e, Ork Boyz have gained a point of strength, a point of toughness, a point of save, a point of AP on their weapons, and have greatly benefitted from the removal of initiative (considering their awful i2 they had prior).

Compare to their in-lore most common opponent, the guardsman, who has gained... nothing at all.

The problem is their most common opponent on the table is the SM which has become the standard against which all armies have to function against.

The same issue happened with Eldar Guardians. When the human guardsman was the standard, Eldar Guardians were +1 Initiative and +1 Ld and in better armor, meant to show the Eldar as Elves in Space were as good as trained human soldiers despite Guardians being basically like IG Conscripts (which were BS2/WS2). However that began to look strange when matched up against SM and the dying race Eldar Guardians started looking more like cannon fodder, which wasn't very thematic so eventually GW upped their WS and BS.

Iracundus wrote:
The problem is their most common opponent on the table is the SM which has become the standard against which all armies have to function against.

Sure, but that doesn't make it any better for the guardsman who also has that as the most common tabletop opponent, does it?

I really don't think it's more complicated than stat creep. It's like how Primaris got 2W because they're big guys with reinforced armour and improved implants (ok, sure), then extended to all Space Marines because +1W was probably too drastic a difference just for Primaris (also fine, sure), then we got Bladeguard Veterans who have an iron halo for 4++ and a storm shield which normally also gives 4++ but gives +1W instead if you already have 4++ (that's consistent with how hammernators work with 3++ removed from the game, so checks out), and then Marine elites like Chosen and Sword Brethren started getting 3W in general since GW seemed to forget why Bladeguard had it to begin with and just assumed it's because they're elite (huh??), and then the newest Marine elites like Company Heroes and Victrix started getting 4W just for the speshulz (huh????????????).

+1 Wound elites has been applied to Heresy as well, with Terminator and Veteran units all getting 2W base.

"Space Marines need to feel more like the super special elite boys on the tabletop" has been a constant complaint since like the 2000s.
Guardsmen are allowed to still be gak because "cannon fodder" is what the community meme lore and latterly GW has decided their role is.

Orks they're supposed to be tough bruisers so their stats had to inflate to keep pace with marines.

Necrons have really been left behind as well. They used to be tougher than Marines, now they're little better than fodder themselves.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
+1 Wound elites has been applied to Heresy as well, with Terminator and Veteran units all getting 2W base.

I could forgive Terminators moving to 2W since especially heavy suits of armour giving bonus wounds has been a thing for a long time now in various places, but Veterans going to 2W definitely was unexpected and probably uncalled for.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
+1 Wound elites has been applied to Heresy as well, with Terminator and Veteran units all getting 2W base.

I could forgive Terminators moving to 2W since especially heavy suits of armour giving bonus wounds has been a thing for a long time now in various places, but Veterans going to 2W definitely was unexpected and probably uncalled for.

Terminators I could agree with, kinda
But yeah it really skewed the game and has made any weapons short of like a thunderhammer just really weak into anything tougher than a Tactical marine

Power swords do still kill veterans, albeit less effectively than more expensive/slower weapons.

I'd say a bigger offender is the command squad, who are preposterously spammable and basically elite Terminators without having to actually be saddled with any of the problems of being Terminators.

...But I digress. I do still think 30k isn't as bad into stat creep. A tactical is still a tactical, a statline essentially untouched. They have done weird things with weapon statlines, but the main thing they have done is raise the ceiling rather than move the centre, since tactical squads remain with their original profile and are consistently taken in large numbers due to their scoring power.