TL;DR :
Orks, in my opinion, should be able to ally with Imperial Guard, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Tau and CSM.
It would be more than welcome fluff-wise, would allow creative list building, while not being broken if rules are smartly written.
It might have to be a
<clan> specific rule (for example, you can only add blood axes / freebooterz).
Same case could be made for kroots, for different but equally good reasons.
Finally, it would be good for business, the idea of recruiting mercenary orks (arguably the funniest and most wholesome race in the universe) will tempt many hobbyists.
Conversions, fun rules spicing up control freak armies... What's not to love ? (Really, I'm actually asking, hence this post).
SO.
How does the community feel about the following reasonning :
Orks where engineered for one purpouse : Fighting.
Their value system revolves around killing people and destroying things : anything that leads to these outcomes (looting, sneaking, "diplomacy"...) is "good" to them.
They are very clearly a means to an end.
- The Old Ones would have used them to Fight the C'tan.
- The Eldar sheppered them against their foes for proxy fighting. (think
dow winter assault)
- The Imperial Guard sometimes makes "treaties" with them, especially blood axes. Terms being "Let's first get those daemons out of the way, then we'll have a good fight, pinky promise !"
- The Tau's ethereals might be able to mind control weakly lead ork mobs. Freebooterz / Ork mercenaries on the other hand might pull of a Kroot "There, at the sacred Oathstone, the Kroot leader swore allegiance to the Tau Empire and pledged his warriors to fight for the Greater Good (and regular payment)"
- Chaos always finds a way. Khornate warbands will find the orks to be the perfect wingman, Tzeench sorcerers might *change* some warbosses's mind.
- Finally, a dark eldar planetary raid would only be more awesome with some kopters, chinork warkopters and maniac bikers to crank up the Mad Max meter to the ROOF. Pirates, Corsairs and Freebooterz are dying to get together and f*** s*** up.
Orkz are a means to an end. For pure ork waaaghs, the "end" graciously loops with the "means", in the never ending cycle of fighting for fighting that make orks so unique and loveable.
For other races, the end might be save the universe, protect the craftworld, tempo until the warpstorm ends and reinforcements arrive, spread communism like mushrooms
, or plain old raping murdering and burning the entire universe.
In fact, this makes so much sense to me that if this isn't masterfully included in their new codex to come, I would feel extremely disappointed.
Then again, i'm french so I might as well just go on strike for this.
Please excuse my bad english and discuss !
Also, if you have good ideas of the specific rules that would make this happen in a balanced and funny way, please let us know.