Warhammer 40K Fluff Question (Orks)

[Thunderclap]

Hello everyone,

I know this is a somewhat odd question for this forum, but I do know that there are several Warhammer 40,000 buffs here. I was idling away my days of lazy summer here in sunny California, and my mind began to wander, and came to this alarming conundrum:

How are the orks a threat to anyone? I must qualify this immediately by saying that I play Guard, and have never thrown down against orks, but hear me out.

Say a giant greenskin host makes planetfall on an Imperial world, and a great host of Orks and their slaves begin pouring forth from the space hulk or rok. How are they not immediately blasted into oblivion by orbital strikes? The primary guns on Imperial battleships have been said to 'level continents'. When they march on the Guard, I know that my army would lay out fields of razor wire and landmines to eviscerate the greenskins before they even got close. While they are hung up on the wire, I would annihilate them with massed Basilisk fire, with close air support provided by Thunderbolts and carpet bombings by fleets of Marauders. If they somehow break through, they run straight into the teeth of the Leman Russes.

I think it would be a massacre on the scale of Armageddon??, if anyone has read that. OR, would the Orks be able to set up their own artillery for counter-battery fire? Would they be able to get their own fighters up in the air? I would imagine Ork fighter-bombers would be easily outclassed by Imperial Thunderbolts and Lightnings, no?

Please, someone, perhaps an Ork player, explain why this humie is an imbecile.

 

[Gargantou]

Ork player doesn't really matter, the tabletop game is intentionally non-fluff in several aspects to maintain playability and balance, for example, the 'real' Space Marines are significantly more powerful than they are in the tabletop game.

Not to mention stuff constantly change with new codexes.

 

[Thunderclap]

I understand the backstory / tabletop seperation. Yet how are the Orks a threat in the fluff? They should, in my opinion, be pushovers to any Guard commander who has air support, armor, and artillery, and trust me, every IG player that has ever existed maxes out his Heavy Support choices.

 

[Stormy]

You could say that with any army.

Orks have all that stuff too, air support, artillery, tanks... and a compleat **** ton of numbers.

They are like rats, and have spread to pretty much corner of every planet. They live to fight, and its pretty much imposible to compleatly clense them from any world.

 

[Thunderclap]

I suppose... the general image though is of hordes of infantry.

It is emphasized in fluff that their substandard (and even in some cases, nonfunctioning) technology can stand up against that of the more-advanced Imperium due to the reality-warping abilities of the Waaagh. Among the Orks, intense willpower is just that powerful, to the point of being a borderline magical property.

As far as handwaves go, it is pretty badass, and I'll accept it.

 

[Eejit]

I think it happens because there wouldn't be as much pointless/badass/retarded (delete as appropriate) overkill if they got owned like that.

 

[Thunderclap]

Oh, dude, no, like, we know the actual reason is, "Cuz it's cool." but you have to have an in-universe justification, yeah?

 

[Eejit]

Oh then it's the Ork built in deus ex machina of course, like you said.

 

[Gargantou]

Well, in the game, the Orks reproduce extremely quickly compared to humans as far as I know, which lets them easily get quick replacements etc.

Basically the Ork way of combat is mainly that of rushing, but in fluff they are pretty weak, mostly because they are fairly disorganized and seperated into feuding groups etc.

If all the Orks were to come together as one and organize a joint assault, I'd say they could probably cause some real damage to the Imperium.

 

[Ennui]

Basically what people have been saying, determination and huge numbers (and being exceedingly tough). The Orks have crappy tech and shouldn't even be off their world but they want to invade and pillage and WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH so badly that they managed to build a bunch of spaceships and artillery and vehicles and sweep through the galaxy.

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

This thread arouses something inside my head.
I do love Warhammer 40K.

 

[Gargantou]

Worth noticing is most of Ork tech is based off salvaged tech from the Imperium.

 

[Viperidae]

Orks can reproduce ridiculously fast.

"Orks have not only survived, they have prospered and are more numerous than humanity. This at least is due in part to how they reproduce. Orks reproduce through the release of spores, which grow into a plant-like womb underground that nourishes the bodies of the various Orkoid species. This is the entire basis of the Orkoid ecosystem, producing first Squigs, then Snotlings who cultivate the Squigs and fungus, then Gretchin to build the settlements, and finally the Orks themselves. This means the Orks, where ever they go, will have an abundance of food, slaves and other resources, a moving ecosystem that supports them as they go on their Waaaghs!"

This also makes it extremely difficult to rid a planet of Orks, even if the initial invasion is defeated. Orks release spores throughout their lives, but they mass-release them at the moment of death; to prevent this you must burn the bodies shortly after killing them (within, as said in the Fifteen Hours novel, around seven hours, as the battle took around five hours, and Bulaven mentioned they would start walking around again in two hours) and then burn their bodies and heads. Without a nearby population of Orks, the fungus will eventually start the Ork life cycle anew. Decades after weathering an Ork Waaagh!, settlements on a planet can find themselves faced with an unexpected attack from feral Ork tribes coming out of the wilderness.

Imagine them as the cockroaches of 40k, while the tyranids are... the locusts? I think I'm giving bad analogies here, but you get the point.

 

[Ennui]

This thread arouses something inside my head.
I do love Warhammer 40K.

It's delicious. I absolutely love the fluff world of 40k. Although it's a bit strange how pretty much every race is made out to be super-powerful and the other races shouldn't have a chance. The Tyranids have already wiped out an entire galaxy and are here to pwn this one, the Necrons are just coming out of hibernation after destroying most of the life in the universe, the Orks are unstoppable, the Imperium has nearly infinite resources, the Tau assimilate all that is in their path, the Eldar are super-powerful with their old-school tech and knowledge of the webway, Chaos has daemons and whatnot on their side, etc etc. Love it.

 

[Thunderclap]

Something that has always bothered me with Guard is that they don't have any 'magical' abilities, and so must rely on old-fashioned firepower. It feels logical, thought-out, and you feel proud when you have a battle plan. So it is aggravating to me when I say:

"Okay, I'll hammer his infantry with artillery, and use my autocannons to keep his troop carriers from reaching my lines. Reducing his mobility is our #1 goal. Pump high-volume fire into any formations that make it through, so remember to make sure your heavy bolter teams have open fire lanes. If things get really hairy, we have the flamers. Place them at the corners of your squads so you can hit the Orks along an entire rank. And for god's sake, don't leave cover! If they reach melee you will need that first strike ability."

and the Ork player says:

"Okay, ladz... Charge!"

And it's a coin-toss who wins.

 

[Ennui]

Yeah, their abilities are basically having a wall of shitty lascannon fire supported by artillery and heavy bolters. I love my Basilisk though.

 

[Gargantou]

For those of you who'd like to talk more Warhammer 40k fluff, I recommend the IRC channel #warhammer40k irc.quakenet.org Lots of nice, helpful guys there, some quite well-known in the 40k community!

 

[Ennui]

I get my fix from the huuuuge 40k threads on Something Awful.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

the Tau assimilate all that is in their path

I would think assimilate is a strong word. They are the only known race that have made a perminent coalition with another. If the imperium weren't xenophobic and backwards; then an alliance with the tau and kroot would be one hell of a trio

 

[Acepilotf14]

There are a gabillion of them. Even if you kill all of them, more pop up. They just can't all be killed.
Their only real threat is the amount of them.

Also, I play Tau. There are more than just the Kroot, Tau and Vespid in their Empire. Those are just the major players.

 

[Ennui]

Tau assimilate or destroy, that's their MO. If a race is fine with submitting to Ethereal rule and joining forces with the Tau for the purpose of the Greater Good, the Tau are friendly and welcome them to their ranks (such as Kroot, or Gue'vesa which are human auxiliaries). If they refuse, they are annihilated. I love the Tau. In tabletop I play Tau and IG.

 

[Thunderclap]

There are a gabillion of them. Even if you kill all of them, more pop up. They just can't all be killed.
Their only real threat is the amount of them.

The crackle of fire from the Leman Russes was suddenly drowned out by the roar of human artillery slamming into his force. For a moment, Ghazghkull thought that the artillery barrage had started again but he was wrong. For off to his left, a line of eighteen great explosions had torn into one flank of his horde. They were shells all right but their size was greater by far than any he had seen to date. Even as he watched the first shells swelling and bursting, another salvo landed just in front of them, and then another line just beyond them.

Then, Ghazghkull saw something that he had never seen on Armageddon before: Ahead of the great explosions, a shimmering wall was starting to form, a faint whitish-blue cloud that strengthened with every salvo of bombs that landed and started to race across the crowded mass of his foot soldiers. The great orange and black balls of fire and smoke marched along behind the blue cloud. When both wall and bombs had passed, there was nothing left but bare ground and chewed soil.

It seemed sorcery, but it was just a matter of physics and the great bomb bays of the Marauder-class tactical bomber. The first of the 750 pound bombs that had poured from them had hit the ground more or less where they had been aimed, Armageddon's atmosphere was dust-choked and murky but the day was windless and stagnant. For a Marauder, this was an easy assignment. The bombs had exploded and created a blast wave that had spread out in a hemispherical pattern from the impact point. Sideways, each blast wave had merged with the other 17 in that particular line to form a long cylinder, fronted by the shockwave and centered by a whirlwind of fire and steel fragments.

Normally, with a few bombs, the blast wave would spread and dissipate but this was a full Marauder wing and its wrath was terrible. The next salvo of 750 pound bombs, released by the intervalometers in the Marauders at a carefully chosen time, hit the ground just behind that advancing shockwave, adding its own fury to the wave that was racing across the ground. The third salvo did the same, the shockwave building power with every series of bombs that pounded Ghazghkull's helpless boyz.

The shock wave wasn’t just the power of one bomb, it was the power of all of them added together, a cumulative effect that turned the blast into a solid, irresistible and strangely beautiful wall that nothing human or ork could withstand. By the tenth bomb, the blast wave was invincible and there were seventy more to come before the second wave of Marauders took over and added their loads to the holocaust that was consuming Ghazghkull's army.

High overhead, so high where they couldn’t be seen or heard from the ground, the Marauders wrought death and destruction on the forces gathered below, an apocalyptic catastrophe that the orks could once only imagine in their dreams. Watching from his hilltop as his army was consumed, Ghazghkull at last understood what humans could do when they decided to stop playing with their enemies.










...That's how I'd handle 'em, anyway. Gorram Orks.

 

[Bob_Marley]

Orks are incredibly tough, resourceful and adaptable. While thier technology may appear crude it is very effective (for example, orks have reliable "tellyportas" that they can use to move troops and material on a strategic scale. The Imperium can't reliably teleport a squad of space marines). They have thier own artillery, armour and airpower. It all works well and has shown its self to be able to match, in some cases outmatch, imperial technology.

Also remember than not every Ork is going to pick up his slugga and his choppa then go rushing toward your lines. There are Kommandos, storm boyz, speed freaks and more. While you might think otherwise you're likley to be outmanuvered and out thought by an Ork commander (the Imperium's history books are littered with the bodies of generals who thought the orks stupid. They might not be clever in the conventional, human sense, but they can be incredibly cunning), especially if your tactics consist entirely of sitting in a dugout surrounded by razorwire and defences. Remember, fighting actually makes orks stronger. Not just more experienced and smarter, they actually get physically larger and stronger, the only way to beat them on a strategic scale is to go on the offensive and exterminate every last one and evey other one which pops up from under your feet after you've killed the first lot. Your strategy would simply lead to you eventually being overwhelemed as supplies ran out. Your strategy is extremely munition intesive, without constant resupply you'll run out of ammo sooner or later and then you're done for. Everytime you blunt an attack you use more precious ammo, the orks get that bit stronger (don't for get that most of the orks you thought you'd just killed were probably only wounded and will recover by nightfall and make thier way back to thier own lines. Orks are incredibly tough creatures who'll recover quickly from pretty much anything that doesnt instantly kill them)

Also, did the thought ever strike you that perhaps the locals wouldn't be to pleased with the Imperial Navy blasting holes in thier planet? Lest we forget the administratum, who would no doubt be very angry at the commander who decided to plunge a world into a nuclear winter from all the dust sent into the atmosphere from his massive orbital strike? They also have thier own space assets, a Rok is unlikley to roll up in a system on its own, at the very least it'll probably be escorted by a couple of Kill-Kroozers. While the Imperial fleet is busy fighting off them they arn't turning those guns dirt side.

As for Armageddon, firstly and most importantly the plan was devised by one of the greatest military minds of the late 41st mellenium, Ghazgull. He had spent more than 50 years planning his return to Armageddon, practicing his new strategies (for example, the use of tellyportas on Piscana IV), making deals with many different warbosses and assembling one of the largest WAAAGGGHH!s ever seen. He learned of the worlds defences from the traitor Von Strabb, struck strategically vital positions in the opening hours of the campagin, executed tactics that were never expected (for example the large scale submersible attack on Hellscream hive that took the Imperial forces completely by surprise).

You also seem to believe that the Orks have absolutley nothing in the way of anti-aircraft weaponry. They didn't get to be Humanity's oldest, most widely spread and most numerous enemy by simply hoping that human bombs would miss them. They've got thier own Flackwagonz, thier Fighta-Bommaz and of course, the mighty Stompas and Gargants (as well as the Great Gargants, the Orky awnser to the Impernator Titan).

Additionally, bear in mind Imperial reaction times. Imperial guard units, on average, take between 60 and 120 days (as a general rule, discounting things like regiments getting lost in the warp, etc) to reach a planet after a request for help has been sent out by the govenor. By the time they've arrived the whole planet may well have been overrun. As well as this, not all ork attacks are full on WAAAGH!s. Often they're raiding imperial worlds for resources, slaves and a good scrap (among other things) A couple of ork ships might turn up in a system, blast away the local system ships, send some landers chock full of Orks who proceed to smash up the local PDF base, pinch everything they can and leave before anyone knows whats happened.

Orks also know the most important rule of 40K, never bring a gun to a knife fight.

As far as I can tell you're a unimaginative IG fanboy with a hard on for airstrikes. Educate yourself before making presumptions about other races in 40K.

 

[Thunderclap]

I knew that sneering Imperial propaganda would goad someone into responding.

Thanks, Bob_Marley!

 

[knut]

As far as I can tell you're a unimaginative IG fanboy with a hard on for airstrikes. Educate yourself before making presumptions about other races in 40K.

There's not really any need to get like that about the whole thing. :|

 

[Viperidae]

There's not really any need to get like that about the whole thing. :|

Nerd raaaaaaaaaaaaaaage.

 

[Acepilotf14]

FOR THE GREATER GOOD

 

[Thunderclap]

FOR THE GREATER GOOD

Shut up, ya damn space-commie!

 

[Acepilotf14]

You have not seen the light.

You see your God-Emperor as eternal, when he cannot even keep his own kind united!

 

[ktimekiller]

Ive looked through what codexs and books and wiki info I have at my disposal, and I havent seen a satisfactory answer to this question.

What imperial tech, and machinery is exactly irreplaceable? I hear that the terminator armors, dreadnought armors, certain titan models, and the imperial space fleet are irreplaceable as the methods which to make them are lost from the dark age.

 

[Eejit]

Oh god how do the names of Ork-related stuff not make you cringe? "Choppas"? "WAAAAAGH"?

 

[Gargantou]

I get my fix from the huuuuge 40k threads on Something Awful.

You're a goon? Eww!

 

[Stormy]

Didn't the orks win the war for armageddon

Gazgull pwned your asses!

I has orks and black templar

 

[DEATH eVADER]

the Tau are friendly and welcome them to their ranks (such as Kroot, or Gue'vesa which are human auxiliaries

Cool I never knew that; as a matter of fact I am looking up the tau and there is another two races that I didn't know were a part of the coalition

 

[Bob_Marley]

Didn't the orks win the war for armageddon

Gazgull pwned your asses!

I has orks and black templar

Actually he lost the first time (though he was only testing the defences and finding out how the Imperium would react to a large scale invasion. The second time he was fought to a standstill on the ground and largley defeated in space, to the point where he could only get more reinforcements from off world by tellyporta as his landas couldn't get through. Eventually Ghazghkull himself withdrew (and is now being tracked down by his old nemisis and a detachment of Black Templars), but there are plenty of orks still on the ground.

As of the "current" time in 40K (late 999 M41) the Third War for Armageddon is still raging.

 

[Gargantou]

I wish there was a truly greatly detailed W40k timeline out there, preferably one for all the different 40k settings, including the original one ^^

 

[Thunderclap]

You want to know the biggest mindscrew problem I have with 40k? The title.

Everyone identifies the year as 40,999. Thing is, what the hell are they counting from? No one explains it in universe.

It is for the convenience of the player to use the AD system, but seriously, they should have invented some Imperial calendar, dating after the Emperor's apotheosis or something similar (which would make the year 41,000 = 10,986 Anno Imperatoris.

Also, re: ork names. They're they comic-relief race. Sometimes it falls flat, sometimes it's totally badass AND hilarious at the same time. Ghazghkull's speech at Piscina IV sticks out in my mind as an example of the latter.

 

[simonjedi]

I recommend reading the 4th/5th edition ork codex, there's some really awesome bits in there, especially the shokk attack gun

From TVTropes:

# Ork Mekboy/biker/Warboss/raving lunatic Wazdakka Gutzmek once found himself up against an Imperial Warlord Titan, a Humongous Mecha protected by powerful energy shields and armed with enough firepower to level entire cities. Undaunted, Wazdakka ramped his bike off a building and rammed the Titan with it, overloading the energy shields and setting both him and his bike on fire. The bike continued on its trajectory and slammed into the Titan's head, whereupon Wazdakka, still on fire, proceeded to butcher the Titan's pilot and bridge crew.

* Say it with me: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!
* That's not the best part. He kept the skulls of the Titan crew as trophies. To this day, they are still burning.

Speaking of Orks, Warlord Grizgutz due to a freak warp storm has him and his Waaagh! travel back in time before they set off. He then attacks his past waaagh! in order to have two sets of his favorite gun.

I am frankly AMAZED that no-one's mentioned perhaps my favourite Ork story: the Great Boss Tuska fought a demon, decided that the Warp would be fun, and lead a WAAAAGH!, first to Prosan, an Imperial hostile environment training world, for practise, and then into the Eye of Terror itself. While there, they demolished every world they came across, until they met a sentient world, which spawned creatures that were more than a match for the Orks. A Blood Prince came up and slaughtered what was left of the warband. Tuska's Weirdboyz threw pure psychic force at it, and it killed them "with a gesture." With his final breath, Tuska reached between the Blood Prince's legs with his power klaw and "made a gesture of his own." Now, every dawn, the Orks are returned to life, fighting-fit, and are set against opponents they can never beat. In essence, they'd found Ork Valhalla.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/CrowningMoment/Warhammer40000 (spoiler be present)

 

[Bob_Marley]

You want to know the biggest mindscrew problem I have with 40k? The title.

Everyone identifies the year as 40,999. Thing is, what the hell are they counting from? No one explains it in universe.

It is for the convenience of the player to use the AD system, but seriously, they should have invented some Imperial calendar, dating after the Emperor's apotheosis or something similar (which would make the year 41,000 = 10,986 Anno Imperatoris.

Also, re: ork names. They're they comic-relief race. Sometimes it falls flat, sometimes it's totally badass AND hilarious at the same time. Ghazghkull's speech at Piscina IV sticks out in my mind as an example of the latter.

The imperial calender is that way because most worlds have history well before the great crusade. For example Mars was first settled in the early 2200s. The great navigator houses were founded in M22 and have thier own continuous histories streching back to at least that time. The dating system likley carried on from our system simply by convention. Thats how history had always been recorded in the colonies, so it was recorded that way. Also remember that once the Emperor "acended" (ie got his ass kicked so hard he had to spend 10,000 years on the toilet) he wasn't around to give orders like "change the dating system". Like so much of the Imperium it is simply a left over of the first great human space empire.

We also know that the Imperium has survived into the first centuries of the 42nd mellenium (the Ciaphus Cain series were written in universe well after the 13th Black Crusade (as the memoirs of the main character) then ammended and published amoung the inquisition by Inqusitor Vail no earlier than 101.M42 (probably later, as this was the year of publishing for General Sulla's Like a Pheonix on the Wing))

Also, 999.M41 is not the setting for all the action, though most of it does take place in M41. There are 10,000 years of history that are largely bare (aside from a few blibs like the Black Crusades, the Age of Apostasy in M36, etc). Hell, we've even had a world wide campagin (Medusa V) that took place in 006.M42

I wish there was a truly greatly detailed W40k timeline out there, preferably one for all the different 40k settings, including the original one ^^

Its not fantastically detailed (though it does usually link to a reasonable amount of information) or entirely complete timeline, its probably the closest to what you asked available on the internet http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Timeline

 

[Ennui]

simonjedi those Ork fluff bits are hilarious I need to pick up a bunch of newer codices, I think the last codex I bought was a few years ago and is already outdated.

[snipped out huge rant about how awesome orks are]

As far as I can tell you're a unimaginative IG fanboy with a hard on for airstrikes. Educate yourself before making presumptions about other races in 40K.

I knew that sneering Imperial propaganda would goad someone into responding.

I am heartily amused.

You're a goon? Eww!

I'm afraid so. Halflife2.net was not enough to fight my boredom at work for hours a day, so SA came into the picture a few years ago.

Cool I never knew that; as a matter of fact I am looking up the tau and there is another two races that I didn't know were a part of the coalition

Yeah, like I said theoretically any potentially non-hostile race (which rules out Chaos, Dark Eldar, Orks, Tyranids, Necrons) could be used as an auxiliary unit for the Tau but there are only rules for a couple of them so far. I never actually made a Gue'vesa squad but I have all the bitz to do so (catachan jungle fighters + fire warriors) and I probably will at some point. My aim screenname has been Gue'vesa'ui (Gue'vesa sergeant) for like six or seven years.