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Hello there...

I joined this forum since it's got a badass name, and seemed the best choice for questions and the like now that i'm back into 40K and actively making an Ork army. Dakka indeed! I had in mind an army based around surviving a Tyranid Hive Fleet encounter, but I wasn't sure how accurately this would work on the fluff side of things, or what long-term effects / changes it would give my Orks, so i'll go ahead and ask a few questions;

Sorry. it's a bit "tl;dr", but once I started... aiieeee!


The basic story of my Waaaagh! is the usual; leader Ork gets massive, starts Waagh!, becomes Warboss, leads an entire planet of Boyz off-world with stolen ships found when an Imperial scouting fleet lands on their planet. They had been feral for a long time and would have remained that way for many more aeons had they not got their hands on the scout fleet escort's entire armoury. Initially, only a handful of curious Orks stumbled upon the landing site; preliminary night-time raids and sneaking up on the odd Guardsman caught alone was enough to put them on edge; their looted weapons were initially held as trophies and paraded around the feral Ork camps, but before long a few unfortunates realised the potential of the blasty end - it didn't just make noise, it also made mess. Lotz of mess. All it took was a wide-eyed big boss clobbering his way into possession of these artifacts and handing "da krap wunz" over to his prized Nobz; two of said Nobz were actually Mekboyz, though they didn't have any idea until a solid, frenzied night of irresistable tinkering later they had not only modified the weapons to fire 5 times faster and 10 times louder, but also began constructing crude copies and distributing them to the Boyz that couldn't afford their own, steeply-priced ramshackle copy of "dat stick fing with da whirry teef on it".

And so the green machine whirred into action - in two days, the landing site was reduced to an orgy of death and violence, on the third it had become a green utopia - in this frenzied, excitable green mass something glorious happened. The Boyz suddenly felt a strange tugging, a calling in their minds, a "reason"; more Mekboyz surfaced, able to "mod yer looted Blasta 'fer da 'andsome price of all yer teef!"; a small Speed Freakz cult formed and grew exponentially after the large double doors to the speeder bay were smashed open and various bikes, speeders and "floaty choppa fings" were taken for (mostly ill-fated) jaunts around the local area. The big boss himself took the noisiest, heaviest bitz - he could often be found cackling, perched on top of one of the ships taking wild bursts at the wildlife, catching the odd beast in the jaw and tearing it clean off, or exploding the smaller flying whelps into a shower of claret, much to the amusement of the Boyz who were in attendance. For the next week, more feral colonies came to see what all the noise was about. Whenever a rival big boss started throwing his weight around, he'd meet a vaguely surprised, messy end at the hands of a chainsword - our big boss loved the thing so much he had another made and grafted the two together, testing it by sneaking out of camp one night with some Boyz to track down the terror that had taken his eye as one of the younger Boyz, and which he'd never forgiven or forgotten about since. Returning a week later with it's entire carcass dragged by the jaw, a few missing fingers, no Boyz; all in attendance found themselves drawn to this heaving, green monstrosity., and silently urged him to win when confronted by a rival boss upstart who came, guns blazing and modified power klaw-snapping, from the main gate. One gutted, headless Ork later and our big boss hoisted his quarry the rest of the journey.

Now, things remained as they were for months - as the Boyz cut deeper into the ships and found ever more amazing trinkets and toys, eventually the control room was found. And with the tinkering of a few Mekz, the landsite (which was now a sprawling Ork city, devouring the surrounding jungle as it grew) was thrown into turmultuous chaos - not terror, but marvel as the vine-covered, Orkishly-daubed monstrous form of the Imperial vessel whirred into life and rose a clear 100 meters into the sky, tearing up buildings and coming to a serene, floating rest. The following night, in the humming glow of the chorus of floating ships, the big boss looked to the stars and a twinkle formed in his eye. "If we'z on dis rok.... and them lightz are rokz.... then dere's more beasties 'fer killin', n'.... n'..." Then it hit him, like a solid steel boot to the face - for the first time in every Boyz' life, to the roaring background of vast, interstellar engines, every ship erupted into a ferocious, united roar; "WAAAAAAAARRRRGH!"



Many things happened on this vast cosmic exodus - things that would change the Boyz, things that would turn a simpering Gretchin into a battle-hardened killing machine (if they hadn't been killed or eaten in the process). They had found themselves floating through abandoned shipyards, full of desolate hulks and the deep grey husks of long-dead starships, perhaps lost in some battle. Having only flown in a straight line, and at full speed, it took one smaller vessel smashing into the side of one of these wrecks, incinerating the Orcs onboard and hurling a cascade of metal scraps into space to realise that if they wanted to actually investigate these ships closer, they would have to somehow stop. And investigate they would, as the Warboss who sat brooding on the central command throne had commanded. Having never seen a genestealer before, the Ork boyz were taken by surprise when what was planned as the simple addition of a looted ship to their relatively small fleet (with the possibility of some new, flashy bitz) turned into frantic, vicious bursts of death and mayhem on all decks of the dead hulk. The attacks came thick and fast, as did fleeing Orks from out the breach and back into the main docking bay, diving for the closest strut or overturned chunk of cover. Only when the Warboss lowered himself from his Orkish dais and thundered a way through to the open blast doors did Boyz sheepishly emerge from cover; guns poised, blades raised, yet silent, wild-eyed and wary of the toothy horrors that lurked within the black corridors ahead. Orks don't feel fear, at least not like a human - they run not through cowardice, but through the promise of a bigger, better fight the next day, with more boyz and more shootin' and choppin'. And also from very big guns aimed their direction. The Warboss had a Kombi Blasta of his own, and casually hugged it into his hip, well aware of the amount of noise and messy bits it produced when he squeezed the trigger. Advancing under the white-blue glow of his outstretched, grasping Power Klaw, he could smell death - he could also smell battle, which excited him as a single, twisted flurrying form rushed him from the end of the corridor. A gnashing grunt and a single clawing motion and the thing fell with a half-choked scream, sheared into three distinct chunks at the Warboss' feet. The Boyz' ranks swelled at this small victory and with a renewed, feral ferocity stormed behind their Warboss into the depths of this ancient lair.

Then there was the time the now-established Big Mek of the main fleet (now composed of several botched-together, half-operating hulks, ringed by smaller vessels and accented by random flashes of asteroids or tiny, Ork-manned fighters flying too close to the shield batteries), undisputed in technical wizardry after long ago successfully firing the main cannon at their home planet in an amusing afterthought and successfully smashing it into thousands of floating rocks, happened upon the warp drive controls. They had been tinkered with before, but with no psychic power or astromantic guidance system, it did nothing. Yet, a small, now-blinking red light caught his eye; the Orks had unknowingly drifted near a tendril of the warp which had sensed their presence, curiously observed these creatures, whose presence was like a void, yet reeking of a natural aggression which excited the bubbling mouths and eyes of all manner of warp creatures. They might have had the opportunity to taste the succulent, green flesh of the Ork horde had the Big Mek not firmly pressed all of the buttons beneath the flashing red light and shot the entire fleet (save a few unfortunate lone pilots who had wandered a little too far in their tiny craft) straight into the warp on an unknown course, for an unknown period of time. They were hurled into a psychotic technicolour spectacle, with many of the more reckless Boyz whooping excitedly at the cataclysm of colours outside. Problems arose shortly before the Warboss ordered all viewports but his sealed shut, as where colours became shapes, Orks, despite having no psychic signature in the warp, would find that staring too long caused their eyes to burst into clusters of worm-like tendrils, their jaws widened and gaped at impossible angles, and their bodies melted into huddled, shuddering lumps of twisted muscle. Only as they chewed down their fellow Boyz and felt the bizarre, sense-rending numb sharpness of frenzied choppas hacking away at their warp-shaped forms did they recoil in bloodied death spasms. It was only when reports of a few wierd Orkz helping the Boyz out were the horde's Wierdboyz born - partly through necessity, partly through exposure to the insane powers locked inside their heads. It wasn't long before the Warboss fully grasped the situation; "We'z gotta get outta dis confusin' mess 'fer we all dead, so do wun' ya mekanikal git an' zog us back to dat black starry place!"

Many good, strong Boyz were lost in the course of that bizarre warp-quest. Boyz who had become Nobz; Nobz who had become Battlemasters; Battlemasters who had been content to kill, to crush, to shed blood in the shadow of the mighty Warboss, shredded to ribbons by warp beasts and twisted into screaming abominations by chaotic powers. But for every strong Ork than fell, ten more were born from the slaughter. Orks who were previously simple Boyz, being hunted by demonic entities in the bowels of a ship only to give one last " 'AVE IT", unleashing square in the face of certain death and emerging bigger, harder, badder than before. Every time the warp shields would fail, a Mekboy would frantically set about fixing it, ignoring the shrieks and howls about him with single-minded concentration, distracted only to deliver a firm punch or wild shot into a warp-faced creature. Every abomination that found it's way to the bridge was cleft in two, battered by the snarling, whirling ferocity of the Warboss. Time dissolved into nothing as the Orks sailed through the warp oceans, stuck in a deathly trance of killing, running, and killing more, on and on, until random fate led them on a path directly into the wake of an Imperial fleet, currently en-route to another star system. Their astropaths had picked up the bizarre readings, but it was only when the battered, speeding hulks entered their viewports; purple-yellow tendrils of warp power flailing about them under the furious assault of the warp, were the cannons to open fire. And open fire they would, had the warp auras not decided the green hordes were simply too much effort, that the more colourful souls of mortal men were an ever tastier morsel, an easier catch. As the last convulsing, wailing astropath's face bubbled outwards into a horrible mush under the sudden burst of warp energy, the Geller fields shattered and all about the Imperial ships descended into carnage. This provided fate another opportunity to rear it's head; as the Ork vessels rushed past, battle-weary Orkz cheered victory as the warp forces retreated at once, and at the exact same moment our Big Mek lost his all self control (if Orks ever possessed it) and began pounding the warp drive controls, a nearby Imperial cruiser's own warp drive erupted into an impossible array of colours; the combined backlash of energy and frustrated button pressing shot the entire Orkish fleet from the grasp of the warp, shuddering back into realspace in a quantum explosion of energy.

Blah blah blah, Orks are shot straight into the side of a remnant of the Tyranid Hive Fleet Kraken, glorious battle ensues. I'll leave the "landing on an Imperial world and looting a Stormlord conversion from IG for a Battlewagon" part for another time.








Hello again TL;DR 'ers;

Basically, my Warboss is currently huge, bigger than Ghazghkull - he's about 70% green stuff, 30% random plastic bits, and I wanted his size to reflect surviving these Tyranid battles and stuff. Most of the garbage above was actually against Chaos, but I realised how much i'd gone from "brief story" into full-blown poorly written bum bum so I gave up on it.

Here's the meat; I plan on painting the 'Boss with purple "warpaint", meant to be Tyranid blood, same with all my Boyz squads - something like three purple "tears" down their face. Tears as in rips, not crying. Orks don't cry! But would Orks actually prevail against Tyranids in a fluff setting? They're both pretty melee-heavy, and the chances of getting both on a planet to have a scrap are probably slim - but would a Tyranid-themed army be frowned upon or would it be perfectly reasonable? More importantly, how easily could I twist the rules to get preferred enemy against Tyranids (or possibly Chaos Daemon) armies?

Or... are there no rule changes allowed and I simply have to play a dumbed-down generic Ghazghkull-led Ork force which sucks baws and emotionally detaches me from the game while Gay Knights smash everything with their stupid OP rules and cheap hero tactics and Dreadknights warping about yadda yadda...

well the model and paint schemes are of course up to you, if you want nid hunters then make them no body will cry (except the 6 people that actually play nids) however out side of frindly games rule changes are a no no really, tourneies will never accept them, and remember ghaz is a big bloke as it is, making him bigger could be seen as modeling for an advantage

chainsawgutsfuck wrote:

Hello again TL;DR 'ers;

Basically, my Warboss is currently huge, bigger than Ghazghkull - he's about 70% green stuff, 30% random plastic bits, and I wanted his size to reflect surviving these Tyranid battles and stuff. Most of the garbage above was actually against Chaos, but I realised how much i'd gone from "brief story" into full-blown poorly written bum bum so I gave up on it.

Here's the meat; I plan on painting the 'Boss with purple "warpaint", meant to be Tyranid blood, same with all my Boyz squads - something like three purple "tears" down their face. Tears as in rips, not crying. Orks don't cry! But would Orks actually prevail against Tyranids in a fluff setting? They're both pretty melee-heavy, and the chances of getting both on a planet to have a scrap are probably slim - but would a Tyranid-themed army be frowned upon or would it be perfectly reasonable? More importantly, how easily could I twist the rules to get preferred enemy against Tyranids (or possibly Chaos Daemon) armies?

Or... are there no rule changes allowed and I simply have to play a dumbed-down generic Ghazghkull-led Ork force which sucks baws and emotionally detaches me from the game while Gay Knights smash everything with their stupid OP rules and cheap hero tactics and Dreadknights warping about yadda yadda...

Orks are the Tyranids' favorite enemies in this galaxy. You should read up on the Octarius war.

The Octarius war is one of my favorite bits of 40K background, and Ork vs Tyranid conversions are very easy to do. I doubt anyone would object to you trading out your choppas for scything talons; most people don't even paint their models, so they've no room to complain. I would not worry so much about the model's size so long as he's on the same base GW approves. Making him too big might actually work against you, since added height is only really useful for getting a better LOS for shooting, and we all know about Ork's shooting. It will just make you a larger target.

As for your fluff; it'll do. If I were you, I would focus more on your Ork's current fight against the Tyranids than how they got where they are. Skimming through what you've written, you've got a good grip on 40K background, save for a few mistakes such as Orks not having a psychic presence.

What luck you have for getting preferred enemy depends on your local players, but I wouldn't count on it. Orks are good enough in close combat as they are. Playing a re-named and "re-fluffed" Ghazkull is certainly a viable route if you want special abilities over the generic Warboss. If playing your character as a certain block of stats is distasteful to you, then that's an issue you'll have to contend with on your own. Most other people don't think twice about it.

Also, Grey Knights are balanced. You probably just need more practice.