The 40k Lorecast - Episode 13 - Orks - Our favorite weapons, units, & Technology, and of course why we both love playing Orks and why you should too.

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

In our 3rd episode on Orks we dive into some the weapons (big and small) and "technology" of the Orks. If you believe it will do something it will do it, but with happens when the thing you believe in also is bigger? We also talk about why we enjoy playing Orks and even playing against Orks. What do Bubblechukka's do? How much smash can you get our of a Smashagun? What happens when you cover a big-shoota in sparkly bits? All this and more.PatreonMerchandiseDiscord Link:Our WebsiteRetro RecallOur Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out Pebl: https://hellopebl.com* Check out Pebl: https://hipebl.ai* Check out Shopify: https://shopify.com/loreAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to the 40K lore cast. Welcome to the 40K lore cast with me, John Barsati and Brad Chester. This guy. All right, Brad. We've covered who the orcs are, what the orcs are, and some of the greatest leaders and achievements. So we want to close this out with for this section of the orc coverage is, and don't worry, there will be more in the future. Let's say there's so much more. There's so much orcs up.

This is the 40K lorecast, not the 40K orc cast. Who knows, maybe we'll make a lot of the 40K work cast. Who knows, maybe we'll make a subcast based around that. But what we wanted to kind of go over here today with all of you is a lot of actually some of their weapons that they use, just some elements of the, we had to make some triage decisions on what we're going to cover with orcs and what we're going to cover with orcs. And we wanted to focus really on the funny bits. And with orcs, what's funnier than their guns and their tools, Brad? Definitely. I mean, just the names of themselves.

So. It took me a while to. get on board with orcs themselves playing 40K because they're awesome. They do awesome stuff, but it's real annoying to remember what the name of any orc weapon is. Yeah, it's just take what you think it might be misspell it four times and then still get it wrong. I mean, me explaining what's on one of my orc lists right now and I have to tell them, well, this guy has the headwampa kill champa on top of the orc on smash a squig. Sorry, knob on smash a squig.

And knob on smash a squig. It's really good right now, too. It's like a ton of bricks. With a headwapa kill chop on it. Yeah, especially we have a knife. That's adorable. But anyway, so what we're going to start off with today, I think we're going to jump right into orc weapons.

And as we've said before, everything orcs have only work because the orcs wanted to. They believe things into existence. And one of my favorite ones about that is, the choppa. Which is literally a poorly made slab of metal. Yeah. That an orc in his hands can cut the arm off a space marine. Well, they believe that it's stronger and sharper and it can go through anything. Again, it hits. They've taken out Titans with enough of these hitting it. And I think for me, when I first started playing orcs, I didn't fully understand this. I was thinking of the more

the D&D orc. He's just, he's incredibly strong. and uses this thing and hits hard. But then it occurred to me, there's no piece of metal I could pick up that would cut through a Titan's leg. Yeah. But an orc holding it makes it the sharpest thing in the universe. Well, think about rules for these for the longest times.

You had, for the 40, the old 40K players, the Chapa used to make it so you could, at best, take a four-up save on a D-6, even if you had a two-up on a same. forgot about that. Because orcs believe that it cuts through even the hardest, the thickest, Saramine Armour, things that are literally taking missiles and just going, yeah, thanks for playing.

The Orchapa, which again, looks like you went to a local junkyard and took a door off a car and cut it into a sword shape is now the perfect weapon. This is our thing. Also, we should point out that orcs named things really well. So we have the choppa, but if you really need to cut through something big, you bring a big choppa. It's just no different than a chopper. It's just larger. Yeah, it's a big chopper.

Not to be confused with a huge, not huge, but take off the age. Huge choppa, which is even bigger. Which is even bigger. Because only because every time an orc gets. bigger. He needs to hold a choppa. And by the way, choppa also can just be a pole. There are, there are. Whoa, whoa, whoa, John. With sticks in it. I'll say, because if it's a specific stick, it becomes a stick up. Well, what I'm talking about is if anyone builds orc boys knows, some of your boys are actually just holding what looks like a club with spikes coming out of it. Yeah.

That's still a choppa because they will chop with it. Yeah. And it cuts through things because they believe it It cuts three things. You're like, why it's not sharp. It's a club with a spike. You're like, yeah, and it's clearly going to cut through. Slicing with my piercing thing. With my piercing. There's a pointy bit, and if there isn't, I'll make it pointy.

Piercing bludgeoning, obviously going to slash. I also just love that a lot of their weapons just keep getting bigger because an orc seems to have a certain ratio of size to weapon, the size of their hand. And so, you know, choppa, big choppa, huge choppa. I'm sure at some point we'll get a new model. that's a, you know, Gaskell size, maybe we'll get morke or gork, and they will have a huge chopper.

I do want to talk about the fact that a lot of the bigger they are, because we got into things like, oh, the knob on smash a squig and those guys, a lot of them have extra attacks when you look at in the game. Where are these attacks coming from? Oh, yeah, I'm so big. I have a guy on my shoulder that also throws something. It also hits you. who, by the way, almost always has a tiny version of whatever I'm doing.

Always. It's always like, I have a big, big chopper, and he's got a little tiny chopper that has surprisingly good rules. So it just cracks me up that you're like, I also have this guy on my back. Yeah, and he's going to hit you too. From there, we'll go from the big chopper to Brad's point it out. If I need a, if I need a long chopper, I'll call it a sticker. Yeah, because it sticks. Duh. But the cool thing about the sticker, and this is. But again, more of a, I think ninth edition was the first time we saw stickers, right? I think so.

Yeah, where it's not, because the idea of a sticker is it's a spear, but I don't just throw the spear. I put a rocket on the spear so that when I throw it, the rocket makes even faster. So when you charge with a sticker, you wound people easier. And remember, there's also two forms of the sticker, the guys in your back that are throwing out. Oh, you have a little sticker, yeah.

There's lots of stickers. But again, it's a sticker. However, I think the most iconic orc, weapon, melee style, is the power claw. Oh, for sure. And this is, power claws actually are one of the few weapons orcs have that actually do make sense, where it's a giant hydraulic claw that just grabs things and crushes them.

It should actually make sense. Yeah. This is actually, this is not the other weapons where it's still power of belief because like I said, it will crush through anything. I mean, we've discussed in the prior episode that there was a Big Mac who grabbed the emperor and crushed and began crushing his armor with his power claw akin to Horace doing it to the emperor. So, yeah, let's say orc power claws are strong.

They're currently quite good. They're hitting missed throughout the additions. They've always been pretty decent, though, because of the fact that it's their go-to. Yeah, they've just been... For a while, they've been... And yes, they've been back and forth. But it is the thing where if you're listening to this

and you're modeling your orks, especially your knobs, cough-cough, just giving power claws. It's probably fine. Always do power claws. There's always the thought of maybe I want to kill saw. They always screw them on rules at some point. So just model your things with power claws or big choppers.

From there, we'll move into shooting guns. And so if you're going to name a gun, and it's an orc naming a gun, and what would they call it, right? A shooter. It's a shooter. One of my favorite, I said this in the last, is still the fact that the Imperium has literally painstakingly looked at Zeno's technology. And one of the ones that they don't get at all is the orcs because it doesn't work.

None of their stuff should work. The orcs should have all died because they effectively came in a cullender when they were flying. It was not airtight. It wasn't watertight. It wasn't anything tight. And the shooter is a great example of that in the fact that it doesn't have a mechanism to shoot. It just does. It's just a piece of metal mildly.

resembling a gun that actually, again, can shoot through a space marine. Yep. And if you want to shoot better through a space marine, you grab a bigger shooter, which is called, ironically, not ironically, a big shooter. A big shooter. But then we move into actually my favorite of them, which is the SNAS gun. Why is it called a SNAS gun? Because they bedazzled it. It literally has shiny bits all over it. By the way, the SNAS gun is just a big shooter, but it shoots better with better stats because it's bedazzled. Because it's bedazzled. I'm a big fallout player.

This reminds me of the line from Fallout 1. Ooh, that is snazzy-like. Well, it's also done by FlashGats who are all about collecting booty bounty. And they're just... Because it's a pirate arc, and that's the best or. That's the best orc. And it does. But Brad's the point, it's the same...

It's just a piece of metal with extra gold and dangly bits on it. And now it is the more than most. Plus one strength. Plus one strength plus extra AP, extra damage. I mean, yeah, they're, uh, yeah. I'm not bedazzling this thing for nothing. From there, I think we should move on. Actually, you know, one of my favorite weapons, which is the squig launcher because

orcs are almost very, in some ways, they're resourceful. because we've got these things, which are our pet tyrantids running around, and tyrantids are pretty bitey. Well, when you're not strapping bombs to them, why not just load them into guns? Well, some of the ones really don't behave very well. Those ones that are ill-tempered squicks. So they like to bite everything that tries to pet them, like a rescued chihuahua, you know? Sometimes you're going to load them into the squiglodge. Why don't we just take this thing and put it in a bazooka and fire it at people?

And one of my favorite stories about the squig launcher is that the way the squig launcher is designed to work is you shoot it into a vehicle. And then the squig actually goes through the outer armor and ends up in the inside of the vehicle and then begins biting everything on the inside of the vehicle. Just ripping and tearing its way back out of the vehicle. Unfortunately, the rules for it aren't as good as it could be. But this is, I still think there should be some way where I could make a vehicle explode from a single squig shot. But we both know that that will break. happening. Yeah, they'll break the game hard. But Squiglaunchers are great. We have touched on this next one before, but we're going to keep doing it because it's fantastic because the shock attack gun. Shock attack gun is possibly the orc's most volatile and most powerful weapon at the same time.

It is, it's the best, it's the best weapon, I think, in the game. I mean, it's the only time you can shoot yourself at someone. True. That's true. They've also put it, built vehicles around it, which will cover over, cover it later. it just shoots snotlings at warp speed at things. And legitimately shoots them through the warp. Yeah, through the warp. And again, much like the squiggle launcher, they do the same thing. Sometimes when they do survive coming through the other side,

they will just start biting at whatever is in there. So you get hit with this thing and then realize there's now a creature inside your vehicle with you that just wants to bite you. I love the fact that you put my one of my favorite. one of the main reasons I brought, they brought these to a tournament just to say bubble chucker on street. And it made me delightfully happy to say it. A bubble chucker is effectively,

you're shooting a random thing. Yeah. And when I say a random thing, it is a random thing. I mean, every addition, you've had to roll for what it is, what the, how many shots it is. It's just what shoots out. Yeah, you don't know. No one knows. And the reason I like the bubble chukas,

those of us who play competitively, it is the bane of existence for people competitively to play against you. And the reason why is that there is a one in three chance, I should probably more like a one in 20 chance of the bubble chuck of working. But when it works, it just ruins a game for an opponent.

Because your role, 10th is better, but it used to be random shots, random strength, and random damage. Now it's just, it's so you get a... It's one of those three.

Yeah, one of those three. But back when it was random, random, random, if somehow you rolled, even not going to do 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, but 6, 5, 6, something in that realm, you could all of a sudden have this 70-point gun take out a night. Oh, ridiculous. And it's fantastic at the same time, because again, it shoots random ammo. Yeah, so what it is, is, we haven't touched on the, what the bubble truck is, is it's a, it's a, it's a artillery gun that creates a bubble.

And depending on the size of the bubble or how many bubbles created, they are, more or less powerful. And the bubbles come out of the front of the gun, float up, and then float down and hit something. I'm trying to, I'm thinking this was in Mario Brothers, is what I'm thinking. This was from, there's definitely games I've played where I hit bubbles,

or was it Sonic the Hedgehog? It does rain down death. Yeah, but it's one of those games. Mega Man, uh, Mega Man definitely had this gun. It's my turn to date us. I'm going with, yeah, Nintendo. Yes. N-ES, not S-N-E-S-N-S games, but there is a,

if you played a lot of NES, I think some developer at some point realize an 8-bit you could make a bubble. And so now we all had to play with them for a while. So the bubbles come out, they float down, and they explode depending on their size. Amazing gun, pure random, almost impossible to play effectively, worth it every time you tried. Smash a gun. Smash a gun. If you're going to go with coolness of one of the types, is the tractor cannon. Yes.

there is nothing better than I'm going to take this gun, grab that thing, and slam it into the ground. Well, the best part is it doesn't even pull it back to you. It's not like a tractor beam. Yeah. It pulls to you. It chooses a point on the ground. Yeah. It effectively just picks whatever's underneath you.

You know what I was doing the research. I was reading about this? It's like a wizard staff. Yeah. We saw that in Lord of the Rings where Gandalf grabs, I forget, oh, Gandalf and Saram on our fighting. and they point the thing and just grabbed them and spin them around and slam into a ceiling, that's what the orcs mastered. Yeah.

And it's also fired for get. Yeah. It also used to, this is so much better, when you used to have the bane of my existence, which is flyers, it would smash a flyer into the ground. And make it explode.

Yes. Yeah. Because it would make the flyer and then take damage from hitting the ground. Yep. So it took damage from getting hit, and then it took damage from getting pummeled into the ground, which was fantastic. Screw you, Demon Flying Circus.

We're talking to you. That's our Flying Circus, too. Well, we both both of us are Eldar players. We're pretending that that part wasn't as bad. I mean, minus four to hits, not even a big deal. Yeah, what are you talking about? It's totally should be fair that you can literally not shoot my target after you've declared. Also, for those of you that don't play competitively all the time, when you're hitting,

we're only a D6 to try to get a result and you minus four on that, it's going to be tough. Yeah. Yeah. When you need a seven on a D6. things get difficult. And for some reason, they took that out of the game. Yeah. Who knew?

Who knew? But I also would have put out, smash your guns are great, too, especially from the war standpoint, if you'd like to read stories, you read codexes, you read books about orcs, these things come up a lot,

and they were also the bane of the Imperium, because the orcs would just grab the things that the Imperium had and slam them into the ground, oftentimes into other troops. Well, they also used to shoot, this is the best thing about a tractor gun, because orcs would shoot them into low old red.

Yeah. And pull space onto the planet. Right. Yeah. On their opponents. Look, good. Nice invasion you got there. You know that ship you just disembarked from?

How about I landed on you? Right, right now. By the way, quickly. Quickly. That's coming real fast, Ted. The other piece that we stuck with Orcs is orc technologies really follows pretty closely in what you'd expect them to do.

So Orks want to go fast. Well, some of the orcs do. Actually, all orcs want to go fast, some of them want to go real fast. Sometimes you get to paint everything red. Exactly. But if you want to go fast, but orcs also like to hit things.

So what do you need if you want to go real fast, but you still want to punch something? Well, a bike, of course. Yeah. So it's the number one transport orcs use. But also, somehow, in 40K, you can always steer a bike with your knees. Yes.

Because everyone has two weapons. Well, you would be. I have to shoot at them before I hit them. Exactly. Before I hit them with my club. Everyone has a pistol and a hand-to-hand weapon, melee weapon, in the other hand. But then you're also driving the bike and shooting the bike. Fred, the bike has guns.

Because Orricks also always put guns on everything. So you're going to have, if there's a bike, the bike has guns, you're carrying a gun that you're shooting over top of those guns. And you're holding some level of choppa, be it regular. Doesn't matter. Big or claw. And you're driving. And you're driving.

The best is the tech that goes with the bikes. Orcs have always had special rules for their bikes because their bikes kick up such a ridiculous dust cloud that you can't see them. They don't, everything in the Ork Army functions while not functioning. That's kind of how I like to look at it. It's just, it's like, go ahead. There's stuff. The things that are going terribly wrong somehow help them.

all the time. Because that was one of the best rules. I think bikers have had different rules, obviously, the additions. I like when the bikers were just minus one to hit because they gave out so much smoke. You couldn't see them. Yeah. Just these billowing clouds of black smoke. And they made them specifically to want more black smoke. But that being said, a war boss doesn't ride a biker.

What a war boss wants to get into combat? What's he ride, Brad? Well, he's got a couple options. But if he's a smooth criminal or, he's in a battle wagon with hopefully a deaf roller on the top. Honestly, I don't understand the point of running a battle wagon without a defroler. Even when it costs points, I'm not, it doesn't look good without it. Yeah, because everyone smashes people.

Because they went, hey, we're going to put a battering gram. They're like, that doesn't seem like enough. No, yeah. The battering gram was adorable. How about we have, if those don't know what death roll is, it's like the front end of a steam. A steam roller. The steamroller covered in spikes. And it spins really fast.

It does really fast and usually does the exact amount of damage you need to kill space marines. Also true. And are the things that they're riding. Yeah. It's very critical. Battle wagons are great, though. And if you go through the lore a lot, you'll see battle, every major war boss has it customized. And the note here is like a late 90s civic, but for killing.

They've all got different colors. No neon lights underneath that? Yeah. Well, they would totally put neon lights on. Oh, that's true. That's true. I probably at some point should do a kit bash and make a free boot of battle wagon. It's showing up again.

But a free boot of battle wagon might take weeks to build because you just have to put so much shiny shit on it. Let's talk about the fact that in the rules they used to embrace being an orc. Oh, yeah. We used to build your own battle wagon. You could build your own battle wagon. You could build your own truck. And you know how many people fit in a battle wagon or a truck? however many fit, physically fit.

If you're playing the game, you could put as many people as you wanted inside a truck or a battle wagon. What addition to that go away? Was that? It was like third or fourth. Yeah, they took it away. And I get why they did it.

But it was so funny. Let's go over the rule, though, because a lot of people don't have no ideas. Yes, exists. So you could put as many people as you wanted. They had to physically fit. So you could stack them up to the ceiling. But anybody that fell off died.

Yeah. Like you just do it. didn't put it back on. They legitimately just died. We'll probably do some casts on the nightmare that this game has been in prior editions. All the rules are horrible. This one rule, actually, orcs had quite a few rules that were great over the years. And they were, they were kind of like the, the shining light and the darkness of horrid, horrid rules.

Thumb guns, any of those things. The orcs were hilarious. But yeah, that's a piece of anything falls off, it dies. Yep. Okay. And you could customize these things. It got a little out of control when people started buying Tonka trucks. Well, you'd make the top of your truck to be a bowl, basically.

Yeah, exactly. You could put as many. But it was funny, at least. But you were having some impressive levels of transports. But that's battle wagons. Battle wagons are fantastic. Not as cool as a shock job tracks, too. Well, yeah, as we discussed earlier, if you're going to, what's cooler than a shock attack gun?

a shock attack gun you can drive. That also teleports. Yeah. Where does it teleport? Well, sometimes where you wanted to go, and sometimes it's just gone. Sometimes it just disappeared from the game. They really, again, another rule they took out, which... Yes, it used to just go away.

Yeah. It just, for those who we don't understand, like, what we're complaining about, orcs are used to always get really, really cool rules when a model comes out for a bit. And then they realize they can't balance it correct. so then they just remove the rule later. Yeah, it used to be just randomly. Yeah, the Shockdard Dramster would roll, it would, it would jump,

but then sometimes it would never come back. Yeah, because it goes through the warp. It would go through the warp and disappear forever, so you lost your model, but how do you point that? Whatever. Still pretty cool. But it is amazing. So, yeah, to review,

Shocktop Dramster goes real fast, you get up over 88 miles an hour, and it jumps into the future or the past, or the present. Who knows? Who knows? Some cool stories on shock-trop drags. There's always there were times when the Imperium is trying to do all-Imperium

stories, obviously, but probably happened to Tao. Who cares? But they'd have a wall and the defenders and they'd see a bunch of shock-jump drags is coming right at them and just like in back to the future, it would just disappear. And then it would reappear behind the wall with all, with guns blazing. Well, duh. Yeah.

They're awesome. All part of the plan. Yeah. They're like, well, I'll drive straight out that wall. What happens? Eh, we'll see. Scrap Jets. I love this because, one, they look like the Batmobile.

Yeah. But what are they? But I love them because of what they really are. They're, they strapped a jet engine to the back of it. And it kind of has wings because it has the, the wings out. the back, but they decided that it was too hard to fly them. So they just basically went, how about we make a plane and then just put wheels on it? Well, my theory is that, you know, grots tend to fly most of the objects.

They didn't want the grots getting all the glory. So we're going to let the orcs go. Yeah, orcs are going to fly, but we're going to fly on the ground. The truth. But the orcs actually couldn't figure out how to make, like, airplane flying is hard. Like, there's a lot of levers and gadgets and gizmos. There's an up and a down. I'm going to fly on the ground.

Yeah, what if I just going to find? What if I, my theory that met in the scrapchat was orcs were obsessed with going fast and they just kept one-uping each other. And the one guy did figure out, what if I, if I slap a warp engine to my, to my vehicle, but somebody disappeared. And the other guy went, fine. What if I take one of the biggest rockets you've ever seen and put four wheels on it and just drive it at people? But I'm also, because I'm work, I'm going to make sure it shoots rockets. Yep. Off the wings.

off the wings. And on the front, instead of putting a, you know, wedge, I put some spiky bits, but I put a drill. So I can lie at you and then turn my drill on and drill through you. I forgot that it was a drill. It's a drill. Yeah. I was writing show notes and I looked over and I could see my orcs are in one of my closets here.

And I could see my own of my closet. I saw it. Oh, yeah, that's a drill. God, that weapon's cool. And one of the best parts about this is this is all Orc Logic Trees. Yeah. We're going to go fast. But what if there's a wall on the way? We'll put a drill on it.

Okay. Yeah, that's what you do when this is a big idea. You drill through it. Just in my mind, I assume the Gratz told them they were flying, which is why they put wings on a car. It doesn't fly, but there are wings on the back of it. And those of you have the model, the guys actually dressed. Like a pilot. He's got, he's got like the World War II.

Yes, he's also harnessed. He's harnessed. He's actually got a, like, a scarf that's blowing behind him. It's a really good model. Yes, they convinced an org that he was flying. Yeah. And he believes it. Totally am flying.

And also, he came prepared to fly. Yeah, exactly. He has goggles. It's the whole model's fantastic. Again, this is another reason to play arcs. Yeah, we're going to, the end of this episode, we don't talk enough about that. Like, people just put a scrapjack on the, on the board. And they don't acknowledge the fact that it's a faux plane.

It is literally a guy in 1930s, 1920s, like old school red baron, I'm flying. Yeah, we're going to close this episode off with why we play orcs. But this stuff we're talking about here, these are why we play orcs. You look down at your orc models and they're funny. I like they're just funny it's I was playing last night I had squid hog boys it's two orcs one big one one one grot riding the back of a squig yeah and just with a saddle sort of and what can it do well the squid he hits you with a big stick the little guy hits you with a smaller stick and the and the squig bites you oh you forgot to mention that they also have a squig bomb yeah was also

They carry swig bombs with it. The entirety of the line is fantastic. Oh, speaking of squigs, Rucker Truck Squigbuggies. God, which effectively launch, it's an indirect artillery piece, which launches Squiggs again, sometimes just strapped with bombs.

But it's an indirect artillery piece. Every other indirect artillery piece in the game does the same thing all artillery does. It stays still and shoots. No. Rucket trucks do not. They actually, they have a movement 12. They move very, very fast and fire artillery out of the back of them very inaccurately.

Yes. They're perfect. And also they have, like, actual real attacks. Yeah, they have real attacks. And they actually have, they have combat too. They will still punch you to death. Oh, yeah. But just the really funny things that, orc artillery also goes fast because not going fast is stupid.

Which also, they have no downside of not moving around too. Yeah. But they also get no upside to staying still. They just drive around aimlessly. They just, well, yeah, I'm going to. fire now. I think actually I think they might have. Oh, they had to me. Yeah. And whatever. It still should.

We'll be right back after a quick break. As we've discussed before in the last episode, when the orcs were invading it with the Imperium, they kept seeing these, like, big vehicles, these walking monstrosities, and they went. Well, they saw the Titans, the Dreadnots, the Knights. But they also saw the Dreadnots weren't the mess with a massive. They saw all those, and decided what, Brad?

Let's make our own. So they started out with it. It's true. They started off with Little Walkers. Just, well, kill a cans, which shouldn't work at all. Because it is literally a garbage can. It is a circle of metal. It's a garbage can.

It is a literal garbage can. And two arms. That they welded on, which shouldn't move. But they don't, they don't have a way to move. They're just bolted on. But, you know, who's inside of them is actually a great, Gretchen. It's actually a grot inside. Gretchen inside, who is permanently put inside.

And one of my favorite stories about it is that this Gretchen is living, is living and entombed in this vehicle and couldn't be happier. Oh, no. Because now he gets to go get revenge. Yeah. Well, they also used to lose their shit, kind of like Dreds did, and hit people next. Hit people next to them. Accidentally, of course.

So one of my, and I can't remember which code X this came out of, so I apologize. but one of the stories I remember from years ago was, like, they would, every now and then, they didn't tomb a Gretchen into the Killican, and as soon as it came fully aware, it would then go kill some of the orcs

that had been mean to it recently, and the all other orcs would watch that laughing hysterically. Yeah. Just watching their buddy get beat up by the Killican. And then after the Gretchen finished, they're like, all right, cool, let's go, and then Gretchen would walk off the war with them. Because Gretchen rule.

Now, that'd be, said, though, they do get the orcs got a little jealous watching these Gretchen to kill a can, so they decided to make their own kill a can call a death dread. Which also, here's the deal. I'm going to tell everybody right now, if you play the game and you model your deaf dread with anything but only extra arms to punch people, you're doing it wrong. Yeah, no, it's never, just all the extra attacks. You can put guns on them, but like, why?

Like, come on, man. You could put three other arms on them. this thing. I actually will admit this. Whenever in the addition orcs have very good shooting, I don't think there is fun. I think I just, it's like, it's happened a few times, a freeboot a list and nine through the few of them where you're like, and I ran

it a few times, it just wasn't as fun as punchy orcs. Sorry, if bad moons are good, their freebooters are good. It's just not as fun as like when goffs are good. We talked about this last episode, which was the stompah, which is effectively

orcs saw Titan and went, we should do that, but also that Titan didn't have enough guns on it. Well, actually, my thought on this was you said this last time, now I was thinking about it, mostly when I was editing it, but I was thinking, I'm not sure if it was like we should do that,

the Stomp Battle of the Guns. I think they went, I don't like them having something bigger than what I have. And with more guns. So I think that's what I look at the build. At first I thought maybe the Stompah was where they couldn't build it. But I was like, no, I think they just wanted to build a bigger Titan. Which, of course, meant those legs,

seem, those legs seem like a real downgrade. Yeah. We'll fall over. Let's just make it shuffle like a penguin. And also, you know what the Titans don't have inside? A bunch of boys. No, we're going to have a bunch inside? A ton of boys. A ton of boys. A ton of boys. A metric ton of boys. Also, more guns. Don't be jealous, Imperium. But the orcs, you don't notice they have more guns because they don't hit very often. But they do have more guns. And we've talked about some fun work rules.

The Stampa had a gun whose name is escaping me right now in 8th edition that could effectively fire for infinity. I saw it. I'm going to tell this story. I won't even tell the people that are in it if they listen, which they probably won't, even though they're my friends, you bums. But two of my buddies were playing forever ago in the Adepticon gladiator where you could bring stuff like Stompas because you could bring this in the past.

And he won the game on turn one because the Stampa used to have a rule that said as long as you didn't roll, I think it was triples. Yeah, it was triples. And then in eighth edition, it became it was a six, a five, a four, a three, or two. Yeah, but like you could just, in the past, you could just roll infinite number of shots. As long as you didn't effectively jam it, second edition, sustained ice rolls. but you could just keep rolling, and it was Dark Eldar versus Orks,

and the Ork Stampa shot every raider off the board on Turn 1. All of that. Now, some people are exaggerating. No, he killed every single one of them on turn 1. The Stampa had, this is, again, the Ork rules that the lore is great, and then they have these incredible glimpse. I don't think any other species or race in the game has had the joy of rules the orcs have had

throughout all the additions. There's always been this, well, this rule is objectively hilarious. And the Stampa is one of those where, yeah, you could effectively shoot the gun forever. Like legitimately forever. With that, I think, I'll actually want to touch on with that rule

is I'm just, this is more of a plea to bring back flying headbutt. That was... Animanium skull? No, no, the flying head, but that was the one where my... I know, but I'm saying, Burn Obama.

Most will fix. I could, I could crash it myself into my opponent and do, I understand why everyone hated this. Yeah, because you couldn't do anything to stop it. There was no way to stop it. But I still wish orcs should have a rule to blow up their own stuff.

That's all I'm saying. We should have, we should be allowed to have a rule that our vehicle, we can spend one CP to make it explode. I mean, or two. But we only have it to fill in one. I mean, better vehicle.

I know, but I'm not talking Burma. I'm thinking every vehicle. I think every vehicle, if it blows up, I can spend a certain number of CP, and it will explode. I know I'm saying this, and every orc player is going, yes, and everyone who plays against orc says,

shut up, John. Yeah, shut up, John. It's a terrible idea. It will get abused. Yes, it will. But I want to pivot over it. We talked about these guys a few times and some of the different orc units

that we think are funny, and we've talked about free buddhas a few times, but let's spend some time on the great... Well, the thing is, is freebootas went from a unit to an actual clan. Yeah. Because the freebootas are just people that loot vehicles. They were lootas, and then you had freeboot al-Ludas,

but then they became an entire clan centered around. You're not selling that, though. When say they loot vehicles, this isn't like, you know, people breaking into cars and taking us up. This is comic level. Oh, also, they take things that people are currently in and shooting them against you. And then all of a sudden, you're like,

is there somebody working on the vehicle? They're not actually stopping it from working. They're adding more things to it. There are numerous stories in Codex is talking about how people, like, not free Buddha clan would lose a battle wagon. And then it would peer the next day, like with a little bit of spray paint on it,

being driven by a freeboater. And they'd say, yeah, we just found this. I don't know what you guys are talking. It's always been ours. Yeah, we've had this whole time. Like, this is like... Yeah, but they would take Lehman Russes. They would take artillery pieces.

They, basically, anything they could get their hands on, they would strap orc stuff. When did the orc tank go? What addition did we lose tanks? Oh, like, I don't know. Seventh? We used to be able to take effectively almost anything. Yeah.

They didn't leave a hover. Yeah. Any hover. I want to see of seven. I'm trying to think of it. The reason why I'm thinking about... of seventh is that the game Dawn of War was seventh edition, and you

had orc tanks in that. So I think that's when we had tanks. They were, we did not have tanks in eighth. Yeah, no. So we lost tanks. Anyway, that was a freebooter thing. Freeboos would find a Lehman and Ross and say, oh, this is ours. It's mine now. Also, it's a real bummer when they would literally remote control it effectively when a guy

outside is driving the Lehman Russ away, and you're like, so this is not going to go super well for us inside the tank. which is something that would happen with the orcs. Because they just believed it. Like, I don't know. The tanks should go that way.

They also love to raid in space. They are space pirates. Yeah. Going, going, and we talked about in the last, the last, and they would only take, I mean, we won't even get into the fact that they trade things by teeth. Teeth. Yeah. Teeth.

But also, they would take the most random things. There's multiple orc raids that took. that took nothing of value, nothing, because they only took anything that was shiny and cool. Yeah. So they would leave you with all the really good infrastructure and weapons because that was boring them. That was painted black.

It was all gray. But they took the fresh windows you just put on because they were kind of shiny. Satellite dish was glowing. Yeah, it's like, oh, it reflects the sun real. They were kind of stupid, but they're amazing. But that being said, that satellite dish, they turn into a weapon. They also were like, it shoots a death ray now, and it now does shoot death rate. You're like, why?

Obviously, it always did. Another group we've talked to them before, who I've always loved their Storm Boys. And I don't know why I love them so much, but I've just loved the idea of someone strapping a makeshift rocket to their back. And they don't have the correct models anymore. The old orc store by models had a fuse off the back. Yes, that's right. They would light the fuse and then they would take off the rockets you buy at a hobby store. Yes.

And it would shoot up into the sky and sometimes it would explode. They have brought back at least this edition where you could actually technically lose your entire squad when advancing with them. Because they would just explode. Yeah, because you can go 18 inches, which is six more than they normally can. Yeah. And you can charge after. But you might explode. Sometimes the rocket blows up.

Yeah, blows up. And well, these things happen. There's nothing more orky to me than. Storm Boys where we've talked just before, they looked at people with jet packs, primarily Imperium with Jet Packs, and that's amazing. And the Imperium have turbines and all these systems and Power Generous. And the Orcs went, well, we already have rockets and they go up into the sky and come back down.

Just clearly what? So I'll just, I'll hold on to that. This is how they're doing it. I mean, clearly. One of the darker ones, though, in the game, and there's still funny, our pain boys. I mean, they're funny, but they're not because they're literally Dr. Frankensteining things up. Yeah, badly. Yeah, they're not doing a great job of it.

Yeah. Because the thing, what they... Well, they met Dark Eldar. Yeah, and they looked at homunculi and went like, yeah, we could do that. Because one of my favorite... And we talk about, so what the pain boys do number of tasks. First one is they do repair orcs. So if an orc loses a limb, if an orc loses something, the pain boy will stitch a new limb on.

Yeah, but it could be any limb. Yeah, a lot of times it'll be... whatever they have lying around. But one of the ones I like is they do experimenting, and I don't remember which this came out of, but you always want to avoid the big fear of a pain boy is them doing one of their brain implants, where they take the brain of an orc out

and put in the brain of a squig. The orcs all refer to, they don't like that one. The orcs, when the pain boy does that one to them, they don't enjoy it. It's not great. Yeah, that one kind of sucks. But outside of that,

pain boys are useful, and Mad Doc Grotsnick is the reason we have got gas, So, good job, pain, boys. Well done. Now, let's talk about the bread. Well, they're not right now, but that makes me sad, but whatever. We've traditionally been the bread and the butter. The bread and butter of an orc army is at least one unit of Megadobbs who showed up with your war boss, who was also in mega armor.

Because the bigger you get, the best of the armor and everything else you get. and Megynob's orcs are the biggest orcs with the best armor, and they run into combat, well, slowly run into combat. They mosey into combat. They mosey into combat. Usually they're going to be in a battle wagon because, well, someone's going to pick their big asses in the way. Yeah, they will get very tired.

And so, or they just won't get there. Because they also have a comical amount of armor on. Yes. Yeah, Meghanobs are the orcs answer to Terminators, to Space Marine Terminators. And they just decided those guys have a ton of armor on, and they're super hard to kill. We'll make our own version of it,

which basically look like you tried to build Robocop in your basement with garbage you had around. Sorry, as we're discussed, I actually need to look this up real quick of, it used to be mega, megnobs were always tougher than Terminators. And I don't, for some reason, I think they may have changed that.

They are T6. They are T6. Okay, good. I had that. The T6 and Terminators are T5. And the thing is, is that Megynobbs, well, sadly, they don't have enough attacks, but they're still very, very tough, and they're comical in the fact that, again, they just effectively drilled kind of into the orc's body.

Yeah. And they just went, we need more metal on you because it'll look cooler and you'll be tougher because of it. Well, Megynobbs used to, and you're going to hear Brad Knight complain about 10th edition. And if you're listening to this podcast in the future, and we're in 11th edition, it's better. Ignore these comments. but Megynobs used to be incredible killing vehicles. They would get out and they would just rip a vehicle to shreds. Oh, ridiculous.

Now that's just not the case. Well, the weapon isn't good anymore. But, I mean, one of the biggest things is, is orcs have the weirdest economy ever. Yeah. In the fact that what you're trying to do is bribe the lowest case in the entire orc system, the smallest, the guys that are insignificant to you, but also have access to. to all of the tech, all of the upgrades, all of the ammunition, and everything else. The Bratz never realized that they have any say in this, but at least they hold out. Well, some of the books I've read, the Grots are talking about, they actually like the

relationship because they're naturally squishy, so the entire universe would kill them. So their viewpoint is, we're happy to be kind of subservient to the orcs, because truthfully, we do run this place, so who really cares? I mean, true story. And then the, and we don't really have to die very much in combat because the orcs don't want to share any of the glory. So we kind of just hang in the back, run the economy. But to get extra stuff, to get bigger guns, to get this shiny armor, you have to actually pay the grots to make it for you. And you pay them in teeth. Teeth with an F, by the way. And more

importantly, orc teeth. You can't just go kill a human and bring a bunch of their teeth. Those are worthless. It's orc teeth, which is why different orcs actually have faster growing teeth than others. And they're considered the lucky ones. They are blue and they are called death skulls. And death skulls are one of the reasons they're considered lucky is because their teeth actually grow

faster. And they have better stuff? Yeah. So they were able to have bigger teeth with an F there to buy weapons in the grots. Meganobs, that's how you become a megadob. You have to go to the grots and take all the teeth you've got and have them attach a bunch of plates.

Between super glue and drill, it's not great, but... It's not fantastic. The last little bit of technology I want to jump into, though, are teleporters and force fields. And the reason I put them both together, and we'll dive into this,

is we'll do the teleporter. So first off, the teleporter was invented by someone named Supermech Orchamides. Yes. I usually hate when GW does this, but this one I loved. I mean, Orgamides, that's not based on anything else.

Also because Archimedes made a pulley. But anyway, so I'm glad we're doing with teleported. That's fine. So we did teleport. Well, I mean, it kind of does the same thing. Yeah, it is. It is a pulley, very literal. It's just, the way that teleporters were explained to me were by someone once is,

it's like the homing beacon that terminators use, except it's less accurate and explodes. Yeah, because the orcs just believe that they're going to get teleported, but also they're not real sure where they're going. and also orcs are supremely powerful, but not super smart. So you can tell them where they're supposed to go, but they probably forgot. So you have five to ten people teleporting, and all of them have a different thing that they think they're teleporting to. And they're making it happen because of joint belief, but we have ten different answers to where they're getting set. I don't think anyone misses scatterdice, with the exception of,

or can teleportes. They made sense there. Oh, 100%. Because again, you went, where are you going? And they all went 10 different answers. Yeah. Somewhere in that general vicinity, maybe. Okay, cool.

My theory on teleport is, on the forest fields, too, is, I just think it's a piece of metal. I don't think it actually does anything, but the orcs believe so much. Oh, it's like a lucky coin or something. That the orcs just, they can teleport. This is the thing we've, I'm going to harp on it again.

We said before, orcs are the most powerful species in the galaxy. They just have no idea that they are. I mean, we'll talk about Eldar who actually use, again, another one of the old ones. Yep. Not, well, creation and uplifted, but whatever. Guided by the old ones. And weirdly enough, orcs and Eldar have a lot of the same tech people are going to throw

tomatoes on me for this. Of course. But they do. They have a lot of the same things. It's just that Eldars are way more sophisticated. Well, Eldar know how to use theirs. The orcs just, it's just there and they don't think of any other. Because Eldar did.

We'll get into it on the very next. Spoiler alert, next episode, we'll talk about the fact that they also wield things into existence, but they didn't do it half-hazardly. The teleporter and the force field are just possibly pieces of metal that orcs view as being something,

and because of belief, the orcs can jump across the galaxy or from spaceship to the ground or can stop the blast of like a thermonuclear weapon because they think this thing is a force field. Yeah, therefore it's a force field. Everybody knows that. We've been talking about this for a while,

and we want to kind of close out this section of our coverage of orcs of the main reason why we play works and why you should play orcs if you don't play orcs. Because honestly, I was told originally everyone should have a space marine army and I got rid of my space marine army

and I haven't missed it once. I will say, of all the armies I own, and I'm currently at nine, orcs are the one I know I will never get rid of. They're the most fun. They're the best one to me. One of the reasons that I play orcs, and I've played them, I go back to them. To be honest with you, the orcs are always fun.

And I want to go to this because I, what happens is anytime in an addition, when I'm not having a great time, I go play orcs and I'm always having a great time. It doesn't matter what the addition is. Someone said it really well to me that the thing about orcs is when you're playing orcs, your opponent always gets to play the game. and that's what makes orcs really fun. Even when orcs have been overpowered. There have been times they have been overpowered. Yeah, but they still, they're overpowered in melee. Anytime that you get to, your opponent still gets to kill stuff.

Exactly. And he never. And he kills a kill a ton of shit. Oh my God. I've won games where I lost 90% of my army. And both of us finished the game. I played someone last year, it was an Adepticon. And it was just about beating.

It was a game where, I mean, I think I won by 50 points. But he wanted had a great time because he killed three quarters of my army in two terms. always feels fun back and forth, and they also do. I actually like the orcs being random. I'm not a huge fan of a lot of random in my games because I'm competitive, but for whatever reason, I'm okay with it because it's the identity of the orcs. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing.

They're meant to be random. They're meant to be this. And there's times where that random's annoying because you lose. And there's times for your opponents where that random's annoying because you win. But they're great. Another one I will mention is Brad doesn't collect the way I collect. But those of us who play arcs, one cool thing about the orc line is,

it is a very large line of models, but it's not overbearing. I think I own, not including Forge World, I own every single orc model that exists. Well, the coolest thing about the orcs with that line, though, is they have a big line,

but if you collect the whole line over time, they don't get rid of anything, like they do in a lot of the other lines. They just change the rules for them. Yeah. So if you're actually playing orcs, you always get to play with your entire line But you can, in theory, own the entire line.

And also, with the exception of maybe the Gorkanot and Mork, I'm going corrected by some work players here, most, if I'm going back 10 years, in the last 10 years, I would argue most of the things in the orc line have been good at one time or another. It may have been a quick flash in the pan. But as only, I can't think of a lot of stuff I own. I've never put on the board. At one point in time, I think everything's been good in orcs, to be honest with him.

Except maybe the Gorgonaut, Markanaut. Those ones, and that's always a problem of Titans. That's not Ork's fault. That's always a lot of Titans. Yeah, big models. But they've always been good. Even Ork Flyers have been good. The one of a few ones that have actually had good flyer rules that have been somewhat hilarious.

And all their buggies at some point in time, I think of all of them, actually. And their leaders are also great, too. The other cool thing about Orks is, you know, Brad and I were discussing at lunch some tournaments that are coming up. And I'm actually happy that in an upcoming tournament, I'm only running five characters. Whereas in much of Ninth, I'd be running seven or more. And it's funny because of the fact that in most other armies, I run very few games. Maybe one. I mean, because you have to run one.

That is what makes Ork so great is the line makes sense. You actually say, this is my war boss. Where would you run a war boss? Absolutely, I'm running a war boss. I'm also going to run named characters because they're very, very good. Their name characters might be consistently some of the best named characters, or at least most playable. I'm thinking ninth edition, Gaz. He was playable almost the entire edition.

Yeah, but you've had no one else. You've got... When I bring up Gazz in ninth edition, and again, please people correct me wrong, I don't know another named character throughout ninth edition who was constantly on lists. Maybe Bellacore? Eldrad, maybe.

But you had to play Oothway. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. But whereas people, Gaz really was that good. Yeah. And then, yeah, but Maserog is good now. Zagstruck's always good. Bad Rock. Bad Rock is now quite good.

And these models are also great. And there's, the only one, too, is, you know, we're not paid by GW. I'll say it. There's a lot of non-GW models for orcs that are exceptional that don't exist. No one else has this. The Artel, those of you who aren't aware of Artel W, Rtel W has two lines they do really well, Eldar and Orks. And their Eldar are good because they have very, very good models that are in GW from like resin.

But they're fun, though. Let's go back to the things like. But the Ork ones are awesome. thing is that you have a lot of things that have flavor and they keep doing that in both those lines. We talked about the scrapchat where the guy literally looks like the Red Baron. It's the Red Baron. Yeah. He's World War I, you know, early 1900s on that. People are going to throw stuff at me and they're like, Brad, didn't you say 1920s before? Yes, I did. I ex tell you. That's my. That's my, that's my, that's my, by three and a half years. It's okay.

The other thing I want to put out about Orcs is they have squigs. Primarily, they have squigoths. You could make, I can run 2,000 points, Squig Army, where everyone is on a squick. Oh, you don't even, don't get me started. You have to know the game a little bit on this, but like I desperately want to run just snake bites. Snake bites are the orcs that go,

you guys, you damn kids, with your newfangled technology. Yep. We should just be punching people and riding squigs like dad and grandfather did. You could run kill rigs with squigoths and squigog boys. You just, you run Maz, you run giant squigoths and regular squigoths. And then you have squig riders.

I would do a whole squig army. Yeah. You could do squigs? No, that's insane. You could do squigs. No, no, I'm making the face. I'm actually thinking of a Deptogon. That's why I'm making that face.

Giant squigoths, regular squigoths, squigriders, only characters that are on squigs or B squigs and stuff like that. You can have an onto, again, these are dinosaurs. They literally domesticated Ternids and then bred them. And they didn't bring poodles. They didn't do a Labrador. Labradoodle. They didn't domesticate them down.

Yeah, they domesticated them up. They went, this thing was kind of small when it attacked us. But now that we've had generations to make it, I don't know, a house, now we can write it. And who else can write it? Everybody I know. Everybody I know. Yeah.

If you guys don't own it, if you have never seen it. gargantuan square-goth model or don't own one. You should get one. They're fantastic and they're very, very fun to build because you can put a ton of crap on them. But that being said, probably the biggest piece about playing orcs is the community. Orc players like orc players. We all like each other. Orc players, talk to other orc players. This is something that it's a really great community and we're all looking for fun ways to do it. It is a... That is one thing you can love and hate because there's a lot of hate for the log.

Oh, shut up. Like, people can be loud, whatever. But I'm saying, come on, I still walk. Yeah, yeah. Everyone still yells. It is kind of weird when your opponents randomly, I know, are screams if you don't know what's coming. But that being said, the orc players are a great group of people, mostly because I think they're the only army,

and I'm going to get shit for this, but it's true, that follow the rule of cool in a ride or die fashion. You know, I'm going to do this for every faction because I'm a big conversions guy. Come on, everyone. If you're playing the game and something looks awesome and you want to nitpick them on that it's not the correct exact size, you should be flicked in the nose until you pass out. I mean, it is a, the orcs are some of the best kit bashesers you're going to see out there.

As Brad discussed, part is because the orc rules used to allow for it. But also for people who don't play orcs, it's an extremely engaging and supportive community. Ork players want to see other orc players. No one is, no one's upset that we share. And everyone has this. Don't even worry, every community has this, but I just think within orcs,

there seems to be a much tighter group where we all want to share with each other. It's not even just rule stuff. It's more, hey, check out how I did this. Check out this build. Hey, look at this kit bash I did. And it's just something really great. And it kind of leads me to this other piece

of like everyone likes org players. And some people don't, but they're wrong. But for the most far... And the thing is, like, next week, from the time of this casting, I'm going on one of the orc podcasts. And I'm excited to talk orcs. And I'm not excited to talk orcs because of orcs.

I'm excited to talk orcs because orc players are excited to talk orcs. And that's one of the reasons. The main reason I play the goddamn game is a community. It's just it's other people's excitement. You want to be caught up. I mean, that's what a Wog is. It's a collective. collective of other orcs getting together to do more orc.

To do more art, to be excited about things. And that's the thing is it's a good time. And I think orcs are a good place. Orcs have always been in a good place. Orcs represent the community and the hobby very well. I think that's the best way to conclude this. So with that, we will for now conclude our coverage of orcs. We're going to come back later.

Our next topic's actually going to be a little bit of Eldar. We're going to give you guys a little taste of Eldar. on our next episode. So please log in for that talking about where Eldar came from, how they got to where they got to, and kind of a big oopsie that they performed. That may. Raise your hand if you broke the sky. Yeah. And actually saved mankind, sort of, but not really. Yeah, they're getting a little complicated. Please like and subscribe to our cast. We're actually a good amount of traction now from all of you. I really can't thank you enough. Join our discord and our Facebook groups where we're trying to get some more activity there from us. It's

just one of those challenges. But with that, I'm John Barcii. This is Brad Chester. This guy. See you next week.