Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Weirdboss-HQ, 5 PL

M..........5"
WS.......2+
BS........5+
S...........5
T...........5
W.........6
A..........4
Ld........9
Sv........5+

A Weirdboss is a single model, armed with a Weirdboy Staff, Stikkbombs, and a Slugga.

Options
-The Weirdboss may take 'Ardboy Armor, increasing Save to a 4+, or Mega Armor, increasing Save to a 2+ and Wounds to 7, but decreasing Move to 4".
-The Weirdboss may take up to one choice from the Nob Weapons list. If they replace their Weirdboy Staff, they may instead take two.
-The Weirdboss may take up to two of the following:
--Attack Squig
--Medical Squig
--Grounding Squig

Abilities
'Ere We Go!
Mob Rule
Dakka! Dakka! Dakka!
WAAAGH!
Breakin' Heads
Waaagh! Energy

Medical Squig-A model with a Medical Squig regains 1 wound at the start of your turn per Medical Squig.

Grounding Squig-A model with a Grounding Squig ignores Mortal Wounds on a roll of a 6+, adding +1 for each Grounding Squig beyond the first and adding +2 if the Mortal Wounds are from Perils Of The Warp. Finally, a model with at least one Grounding Squig may attempt to deny one additional power in the enemy psychic phase.

Psyker
This model knows Smite and two powers from the Powers Of The Waaagh! Discipline. It may attempt to cast two powers in your psychic phase and attempt to deny one power in your opponent's psychic phase.

Keywords
Character, Infantry, Psyker, Weirdboy, Weirdboss

Faction Keywords
Ork, <CLAN>
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

So, I left the Weirdboy keyword in, meaning he CAN be a Warphead, knowing and casting three powers a turn. He's pretty much just a big, beefy cross between a Weirdboy and a Warboss, representing a Warboss with psychic powers.

For points, I'm leaning towards making him 75 base. Maybe 80, to account for the Weirdboy Staff being free.
After some advice, making him 95 points base.

Medical Squigs should be cheap-not more than 5 points, since characters usually go from full to dead in a turn, rather than getting to heal.
Grounding Squigs are actually pretty good-probably should be 10 15 or so points apiece.
Maybe 5 points for Ardboy Armor? It's better, but not THAT much better.
Mega Armor might be 20-25 points.

Not sure if a beefy HQ should be as good at casting powers as the dedicated Psyker. Not that what you have is broken as I'm not too familiarized with the Ork codex, but design wise it's lame.

Is there any reason to take a warboss if this unit is available? It’s pretty much flat out better than a warboss or a weirboy. If you’re bringing the utility of both units, you should probably be paying closer to the full price for it. Before war gear, you should be looking at between 90-100 points.

The medical squig doesn’t seem bad until you start stacking other buffs on it. Add in a pain boy and the medi-squig stratagem and you can heal up to 2D3 +2 wounds. Not that it matters since the grounding squig is the automatic choice.

Two grounding squigs mean that you only take a wound from perils of the warp on a roll of 1. In other words you’ve almost completely avoided the negative side of waaagh energy with that upgrade. You could double the cost to 20 and it would still be a decent option.

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
Is there any reason to take a warboss if this unit is available? It’s pretty much flat out better than a warboss or a weirboy. If you’re bringing the utility of both units, you should probably be paying closer to the full price for it. Before war gear, you should be looking at between 90-100 points.

The medical squig doesn’t seem bad until you start stacking other buffs on it. Add in a pain boy and the medi-squig stratagem and you can heal up to 2D3 +2 wounds. Not that it matters since the grounding squig is the automatic choice.

Two grounding squigs mean that you only take a wound from perils of the warp on a roll of 1. In other words you’ve almost completely avoided the negative side of waaagh energy with that upgrade. You could double the cost to 20 and it would still be a decent option.

Fair.

So, 95 points base, and 20 points for a Grounding Squig? That feels a little high on the Grounding to me, but I do get why you say that. Perhaps drop the Perils bonus to +2, and put the Grounding Squigs at 15 points?

Biggest problem I see with the rules is the lore itself.

A weirdboy will hardly have enough interest on what's around them to become a boss of anything.

I think perhaps a greater warp'ead would be a better option.

It's fair to assume that a weirdboy, who is absorbing all that orky energy around them, will get bigger and 'arder and, in general, orkier, and I love the idea of a monstrous weirdboy who unleashes bolts of green lightning even as he tears through the enemy. But I cannot see this weirdboy also taking a moment to cuff a nob over the head because he thought about running.

What could be awesome would be a weirdboy who has had "mek speshul" implants to better focus their WAAAGH! energy into themselves, with a completely different set of abilities than either the boss or the weirdboy.

So a Greater Warp'ead (I like the term) might have weirdboy stats at the start, and in the psychic phase you add up how many orks are within 12" of him, and for every 10, the Greater Warp'ead may either:
Cast "Crackling WAAAGH! Energy", being a 6" aura of damage, or,
Cast Thundersmash, being the ability to instead make 1 CC attack with D6 mortal wounds, or,
Cast "WUUURGH!", being the old plasma-vomit, or
Gain +1 S, permanently, to a maximum of 10, or,
Gain +1 T, permanently, to a maximum of 10, or,
Gain D3 wounds, up to a maximum of 9

So rather than him starting off as this powerful boss-character who keeps the boys in line (unrealistic) he instead gets pumped by his boys, channeling his WAAAGH! energy into his own body and turning it into a living battering ram.

Realistically we can expect, what, 30-40 boys around him. Lets say 40, best case. So that's 4 items from the list, per turn. If all the boys die or walk off, yeah, he stops getting more powerful.


I just think that a weirdboss isn't a niche we need to fill. A crazed weird-monster, however?- yeah, we can do that.

Interesting idea-at work, but will Workshop that later.

I like the idea but having no invuln save unfortunately means the unit will be too easily killed. As you have correctly said - units rarely get to heal, they go from alive to dead too quickly. A 5+++ is nice but much less effective without an invuln.

Doesn't seem mechanically unreasonable, but I'm not sure I like the idea of having a bridge between weird boys and war bosses. I'm a fan of units that feel highly specialized/unique.

I kind of like some_bloke's concept.

Warplord-HQ, X PL

M..........5"
WS.......2+
BS........5+
S...........5
T...........5
W.........5
A..........4
Ld........10
Sv........6+

A Warplord is a single model armed with Coruscating Beams Of Green Light, a Mega Weirdboy Staff, and Wuuurgh.

Coruscating Beams Of Green Light
Range....24"
Type.......Assault *
S............10
AP..........-5
D............3
This weapon's type number is equal to the amount of times the "Power Up Beams" option is selected. Note that if it is not selected at least once, this weapon cannot fire.

Wuuurgh
Range....8"
Type.......Pistol 2d3
S............8
AP..........-3
D............2
This weapon hits automatically. This weapon cannot be used unless the "Allow the use of Wuuurgh" is selected.

Mega Weirdboy Staff
Range....Melee
Type.......Melee
S............+2
AP..........-2
D............2

Options
-May take 'Ardboy Armor, increasing Save to a 4+

Abilities
'Ere We Go!
Mob Rule
Dakka! Dakka! Dakka!

Focal Of Waaagh! Energy-At the start of the first battle round, and then subsequently at the start of each of your Psychic Phases, count the number of friendly ORK models within 12" of the Warplord, ignoring any models with the GRETCHIN keyword. For every ten models, rounding down, you may select one of the following options, though unless otherwise noted, no option may be selected more than twice each time.
1) Power Up Beams (see above, may be selected as many times as you wish)
2) +1 Strength to this model
3) +1 Toughness to this model
4) +1 Attack to this model
5) Gain up to d3 wounds
6) Gain +2" Movement
7) Allow the use of Thundersmash (may only be selected once)
8) Allow the use of Wuuurgh (may only be selected once)
Any upgraded stat degrades by one point at the start of your next Psychic Phase, except for Wounds, to a minimum of the Warplord's original stat value.

Waaagh! Field-This model has a 5+ Invulnerable save.

Thundersmash-This model may replace a single close combat attack with a Thundersmash. If this attack hits, roll a die for each point of Strength this model has. For each 4+, the targeted unit suffers a mortal wound. This may only be used if the "Allow the use of Thundersmash" is selected that turn.

Keywords
Character, Infantry, Psyker, Warplord

Faction Keywords
Ork, <CLAN>

I like it. I'm not 100% on the idea of a weirdboy in mega armour (I feel sorry for the poor runts who would have to try and put him in it!), feel perhaps a weirdlord would be better suited to an improved fnp or invuln.

I like that you have put "at the start of the first battle round", though I fear it may make it too powerful - a Weirdlord deployed with 40 boys around him, and who goes first, has potentially 8 slots to apply by opponent turn 1, which could be +4T (as this is done twice) and +4D3 wounds. Especially if combined with mega armour, you suddenly have a ~9 wound T9 2+ 5++ unit.
The downside, I suppose, is that if you bump him to 10 wounds or more, he can be targeted - probably because he is growing larger!

I'm feeling perhaps the unit's power should grow and shrink as the waaagh! energy ebbs and flows. What about if we scrap the choices side of it, and go for:

This unit gains +1S, +1T and +1A for each 10 ORK models in units which are in close combat on the battlefield (waaagh! energy doesn't strike me as a klan-locked or limited-distance thing!). Basically the more orky your taktiks, the more orky your weirdlord becomes.

In addition, the weirdlord has the usual weirdboy ability for every 10 ORK models within 12". It can cast 2 psychic powers.

Psychic powers are the Coruscating beams of green light, Wuuurgh!, and powering-up his staff to -4AP and D6 damage.

Coruscating beams of green light, being powerful, does one shot (or hit?) for every 10 orks within 12".



This will make it much quicker to play, and feel like something of a powerhouse in combat, but again, within a specific niche (without being klan-locked!)
So if you has weirdlord and a trukk rush, you might have 5 units of trukkas in CC with 60 orks total, for a nigh-unstoppable weirdlord with S&T 11 and 11 attacks.
However, if they choose to fight and kill the boys before fighting the weirdboss, they might bring that down somewhat.

I am now quite sure that mega-armour should be off the table.

There probably should be a cap on the total buffs available or just make them last only one turn like most buffs. Other than that though, I think the warplord is much better. He’s kind of like an orkish Ctan which honestly sounds hysterical.

Stats now degrade by 1 each turn, to a minimum of the starting value.

So you CAN buff him permanently, but it requires more investment.

I'm not sure what role this unit has, other than surpassing both Warbosses and Weirdboys? Orks don't really need another HQ choice, they have all their bases covered. Or at least they did, before GW hit them with the No Model No Rule nonsense.

If you want to give them HQ choices, just give Orks their weird bikers, their Warboss bikers, Big Mek with KFF on foot and no mega armor, and mega armored warbosses back.