ORK RULES

Orks are a mostly wild and unpredictable race. They are abundant in many parts of the galaxy and often raid drifting Space Hulks for some plunder. They have a warlike nature that can see them fighting against old friends and even themselves. Orks share only one common view about life as the Space Marines do – that Tyranids are an abomination to life itself. Even Orks are disgusted at how the Tyranids capture their clan brothers and strip their genetic stocks for spare parts. Many Orks have died fighting the Tyranid invasion and many more are ready to die to save their own unique Orky culture from extinction.

Gretchin are closely related to Orks and they usually follow their Ork Bosses around in packs with heroic worship. Orks encourage their Gretchin with the subtlety of a slave master and they are known to cheer the Gretchin on in the front lines of battle to absorb the first rounds of enemy fire.

Cheering On!

Orks and Gretchin are able to cheer each other on during battle. They can feed from the morale that their mob creates and perform extra actions that allow them to boast of heroic or stupid actions after the combat has ceased. If an Ork or Gretchin model has LOS at all times to another Ork or Gretchin model, then it may be able to cheer that model on. The model that is cheering on is not allowed to spend any APs at all. However, because of the extra motivation and effort that it puts in to supporting its battle brother, the Ork or Gretchin model that is being cheered on gains an extra 2 APs. An Ork or Gretchin model can be cheered on by many other Ork or Gretchin, provided that they are always in LOS at all times. It is not possible to cheer on a Gretchin Bomber’s suicidal run, as the Gretchin is sufficiently pumped up for its final few seconds of life.

Introducing Ork Nobz

Some Orks aspire to be leaders amongst the mob. They come to power by any and all means necessary to take command over a small crew of Boyz. These Nobz are usually somewhat smarter and a lot tougher than their rivals. Nobz often get first choice of the loot and are usually armed with Kombi Weapons that incorporate Orkish ingenuity and cunning. They are more capable in close assault and can never be struck with terror. They are the Sergeants of Orkish armies, though they do value self preservation in high regard as opposed to self sacrifice.

Image: An Ork Nob armed with a Kombi Bolter - Grenade Launcher and Close Assault Sword.

Range: 8
Target: Any model in LOS.
Cost: 1 AP and all remaining psychic attack cards.
Effect: The Weirdboy releases massive amounts of raw Warp energy focused straight at the target model. The target is automatically destroyed, unless it can play an aura card. Force cards and Aegis Hoods are not enough to stop a Brain Bursta attack. Once the attack is resolved, the Ork player must roll a dice. If the result is a 1, then his Weirdboyz’ head explodes as a side effect of the raw Warp material that was concentrated through him. Brain Bursta is unstoppable.

Range: The entire map, except for any sections that may be isolated by a Miasma.
Target: All Orks and Gretchin, except for the casting Weirdboy.
Cost: 7 APs and all remaining psychic attack cards.
Effect: The Weirdboy is an accumulator of all of the latent psychic energy of the Boyz. As they are whipped into battle frenzy, their psychic energy grows stronger and the Weirdboy froths with pent up Orky power. If a Weirdboy is cheered on, he can cast the Waaaaaaaagh across the entire Hulk releasing his power to touch all of his battle brothers. Until the start of their next turn all Orks and Gretchin gain +1 on all rolls to hit with targetted ranged weapons fire, +1 on all close assault rolls, -1 to be hit by targetted ranged weapons fire, -1 to be hit by targetted psychic attacks, +1 AP each and finally, they are immune to all effects of terror. The Waaaaaaaagh can only be cast ONCE per game regardless of how many Weirboyz are in the Ork Force. The Waaaaaaaagh is a gross display of Orky power and can prove to be a deciding factor in cut-throat missions.

Minderz have no special powers as such, but they have the responsibility of taking care of the Weirdboy. Many Weirdboyz grow up with the same pair of Minderz and form a special relationship with them. Minderz are considered as normal Boyz on the Close Assault Table, armed with their respective weapons.

A Weirdboy must ALWAYS have LOS to a Minder, or be in the LOS of a Minder for the Weirdboy to function as normal. If the Weirdboy is not able to see, or be seen by a Minder at the end of the Ork turn, he will panic. The Weirdboy may complete his current turn as normal, however, at the start of the next turn the Ork player must roll a dice and consult the following table.

Dice Roll	Out of Control Effect for the Weirdboy
1	The Weirdboy stands still and does nothing. He only defends himself from attacks.
2	The Weirdboy will only spend his APs on moving to the nearest Ork, then he defends.
3	The Weirdboy will try and kill the nearest enemy model with any means at his disposal. Once achieved, he stands still and does nothing, except defend himself from attacks.
4	The Weirdboy will only use psychic powers this turn. No other actions are possible.
5	The Weirdboy refuses to use any psychic powers this turn (including aura and force cards), otherwise he is normal.
6	The Ork player has normal control over the Weirdboy this turn.

If there are any disputes about what the Weirdboy will do, then the benefit will go to the Ork player. Weirdboyz will not do obviously suicidal things, but they will walk into overwatch if it means getting closer to another model. They will not directly kill another Ork or Gretchin to reach an enemy, but they can kill another Ork or Gretchin that gets caught in an effect cast by the Weirdboy. If during an out of control turn the Weirdboy is seen by, or sees a Minder, then immediate control is regained over the Weirdboy.

The Ork player needs to take very good care of the Weirdboy and his Minderz. If both Minderz are killed, then the Weirdboy will be out of control for the rest of the mission. There is no time during a mission for a Weirdboy to form a close bond with another new pair of Minderz. It is possible to purchase more than two Minderz for the Weirdboy from the Ork force list, but they do not come cheap.

Occasionaly some Gretchin are very eager to prove themselves as superior warriors. They agree to wear a powerful bomb strapped to their chest and are able to detonate it in a destructive blast. The fact that they do not survive the blast is secondary to the hero status they earn as a result of their bravery. A Gretchin Bomber can detonate the bomb on his chest for 1 AP. He can also detonate the bomb for 0 AP before rolling for close assault if he is attacked, provided that he has LOS to the model attacking him. A Gretchin Bomber is otherwise the same as a normal Gretchin.

A Gretchin Bomber is able to perform a suicidal run. Before the Gretchin Bomber has been activated, the Ork player can declare that the Gretchin Bomber is going to perform a suicidal run. The Gretchin has 10 APs with which it can ONLY move. No shooting or other specialised actions are allowed, but it can open doors to continue moving. At some stage during his suicidal run the Gretchin Bomber must detonate the bomb that he is carrying. He does not need to use all 10 APs, but if he has not already done so, the last AP must be used to detonate the bomb.

Looting The Dead

Gretchin are masters at looting dead bodies on the battlefield in the hope that they will find good gear to use. In fact if it wasn't for their looting ability, they would barely be armed with any weapons as their Ork masters rarely ever supply them with any good wargear at all. Gretchin are numerous creatures that are easily killed, but their reckless sense of scavenging allows them to take advantage of their numbers to swarm over dead bodies and claim items of wargear, including better weapons.

It costs a Gretchin 2 APs to loot a dead body when it is standing in the square of the body. A Gretchin can not loot a body if there is an enemy model adjacent to the dead body square. Otherwise the Gretchin may loot a body even if it is in LOS of an enemy model and being fired at from overwatch. The body must have been killed in the Ork player's current turn, otherwise the chance to loot is lost.

To successfully loot a body the Ork player needs to roll a dice and score a 6. Most dead bodies are often smashed to bits in the intense heat of battle, so Gretchin need good fortune to help them find useful items. Vortices do not leave dead bodies, so naturally it is impossible to loot anything after a Vortex has dissipated. If the loot is successful, the Gretchin may select and take only one item of wargear, or weapon that the dead body carried. He may then immediately use it by spending further APs. Gretchin can not carry two ranged weapons at once, so they must decide what they will choose to carry and leave behind.

Gretchin can only loot bodies that carried wargear or weapons that they can use. They will not waste time trying to loot Tyranid or Necron bodies, as they know that they will not find anything that is useful to them. In addition, they can only loot the following weapons: Bolter, Bolt Pistol, Lasgun, Laspistol, Plasma Gun, Plasma Pistol (not the Harlequin version), any type of thrown Grenades, Proximity Plasma Grenades, Power Field Generators, Kombi Bolter-Grenade Launcher, any type of Gretchin specific weapon or wargear that is listed below on this page.

Looting the dead requires players to make some type of note as to where dead bodies fell during each Ork turn. Spare coins or counters can be used as place markers if it is likely that there will be many dead bodies, otherwise players can agree to remember from round to round. A dead body can only ever be looted once, regardless of whether the loot was successful or not. The looting rules are not meant to be too cumbersome, so if you find they are slowing down your games, then don't use them.

Introducing The Goffik Rokkers

The Goffik Rokkers are unique amongst the Orks as they travel around and 'tour' the 'battle gigs' that they wish to perform at. They are a three-piece band of Orkish heavy musicians who are able to inspire all of their kin and whip them into a frenzy of mosh-pit fury during battle. Many Orks have heard the legend surrounding the Goffik Rokkers, with most of them disbelieving that the group exists. Yet, some who have seen them perform, rave at how they leave the battle stage in victorious salute stepping over the bones and bodies of their enemies. It is rumoured that the Goffik Rokkers embody a miniscule amount of both Gork and Mork giving them the power to boost the morale and battle hardyness of their audience.

Image: The Goffik Rokkers armed with Power Guitars. The Lead Singer also has a Power Mike.

The Goffik Rokkers are able to inspire all other Orks and Gretchin that have LOS to them during combat. Each Ork or Gretchin that has LOS to a Goffik Rokker gains a +1 bonus on all close assault rolls. They also gain a +1 bonus to all targetted ranged weapons that they shoot. Note that if an Ork or Gretchin has LOS to two or three Goffik Rokkers, then the bonuses accumulate to +2 or +3. There are strong and mystical forces that operate through the Galaxy, the Goffik Rokkers are an example of such an inspiring leadership force. When the Goffik Rokkers play as a tight-knit unit in battle, they only need a few of their cousins surrounding them to provide tough resistance to onrushing enemies. Goffik Rokkers are immune to all forms of terror, they have seen their fair share of horror at many Goffik Koncertpaloozas that last for months on end.

The rites and ceremony that the Goffik Rokkers value are kept sacred to only them. Inevitably, when a band member perishes, they audition many hundreds of Orks and only select the finest musician to complete the group of three. So contiunues the lineage of the band who perform well beyond the maximal levels of audio safety.

In games where an Ork force battles against Genestealers, the Orks can be represented using their appropriate models. After the Genestealer force has been decided, both players can bid for the number of points they have to construct the Ork force. The lowest bid gets to be the Orks and the player can then go about choosing his force from the list with the number of points that he bid.

When an Ork or Gretchin blip is converted, the Ork player rolls a dice and consults the appropriate list. The models are then placed as their identity has been confirmed. It is possible that the next blip to be converted will be exactly the same as the first blip if the dice roll is the same. If there are not enough models to represent the new blip, then the Ork player has to re-roll until the new blip can be placed as the models it represents. In the rare case that there are no appropriate models, the blip is lost and can be considered as a false alarm similar to Genestealer ambush blips.

All blips are treated in a similar way to Genestealer blips in regards to LOS, movement and conversion. All blips have 5 APs and are as tough as an Ork to hit with weapons, even if the blip represents Gretchin models.

Favoured by Orks, these monomolecular edged weapons are used during close assault. There are many variants to the basic theme, some look like axes, others resemble knives and even meat cleavers. Ork Nobz usually wield swords as a show of status and rank. These are not power swords or force swords so there are no fancy parrying manoeuvres allowed.

Used only by Weirdboyz, the Force Spear is a close assault weapon that can channel psychic energy. The Weirdboy may enhance his close assault bonus by laying down as many cards as he likes and adding them to his close assault dice roll. While it is similar in all other respects to normal force weapons, it can not be used by any other psyker other than a Weirdboy. It takes a sepcial kind of Orky understanding to swing a Force Spear.

A Gretchin Bomb is a huge explosive device that is strapped to the chest of a Gretchin volunteer. It explodes violently with a mix of chemical, poison, fragmentation, plasma, melta and anything else that was available at the time of construction. Place a Frag marker on the section that the Gretchin Bomb exploded in, to be removed at the start of the Ork player’s next turn. LOS is blocked while the Frag marker is on the board. The Gretchin may detonate the bomb at a cost of 1 AP, or he may detonate the bomb for 0 AP instead of defending in close assault. He must have LOS to his attacker to do this.

This Kombi Weapon combines both features of the standard Bolter and also the Grenade Launcher that is built into a Power Glove. The Kombi Weapon can not fire both barrels at the same time. The Ork player must state which of the barrels is going to fire when he chooses to shoot the Kombi Weapon. It can shoot each barrel in the same turn, provided that each shot is a separate action. All the normal statistics for each weapon apply as per the Weapons Table. The Grenade Launcher is typically armed with ten Plasma Grenades, though it can be reloaded to take most other types of Grenades.

Power Guitars are often over-tuned by their owners to breach the maximal safety levels of the machine. The Goffik Rokkers are able to exploit the full sonic range that the Guitar provides so that they can create ground trembling riffs and screaming solos with heavy overtones. Some prefer to splice extra power from the compact generators to amplify the bass at the expense of the treble, making their music rumble like a tank.

It was the Orks who first used Power Guitars as weapons when they smashed them on stage, spilling the green blood of their fans who were too slow to avoid the swings. An ingenious Mek decided to harness the power generator of the guitar so that it could project a power field, like other power weapons do. To this day it has only been the success of the Goffik Rokkers that has seen the Power Guitar kept in use as a viable weapon on the stage and battlefield alike.

The Power Mike is used by the Lead Singer of the Goffik Rokkers. As well as being a compact power weapon gripped in the fist, it is also a sonic-psychic weapon that propogates through the Warp. The Lead Singer generates enough local distortion around him to make the Warp ripple in abnormal disharmony. The section that the Lead Singer stands in becomes psychically unstable to all other enemy Psykers. Force weapons and Aegis Hoods do not work as they suffer from interference caused by the Power Mike. Enemy Psykers standing in the same section as the Lead Singer can not use any type of psychic ability, including aura cards, psychic attack cards, force cards or other psychic powers. Naturally psychic creatures can't use any psychic powers while they are standing in a section with the Power Mike.

The Power Mike does not protect the Lead Singer against any existing psychic effects, nor does it offer the Lead Singer any protection against any type of psychic effect that is cast at him from outside his section. The Power Mike does not stop a psyker teleporting into the Lead Singer's section, but once the psyker is there it may not use any further psychic abilities. The Power Mike can not dispel or disperse a Zoanthrope's Psychic Scream or Warp Field if the Goffik Rokker manages to walk into the Zoanthrope's section. Similarly, the Power Mike does not have the ability to dispel or disperse any other effect that the Lead Singer may walk into. It can only be used to rattle the concentration of Psykers in the same section as the Lead Singer to prevent them from harnessing the power of the Warp. Orkish Folklore has documented a Hive Tyrant being distracted by a Lead Singer who ran towards it. The beast broke into a heavy, pulsating head bobbing motion that resembled an ancient ritualistic 'head-banging' dance. The Power Mike cut off the creature's Synapse link long enough for it to become isolated from the Hive Mind as the Lead Singer belted out verse after verse of Orkish song. The Hive Tyrant danced and moshed as it fell to rounds of Crack Grenades that were hurled at it by the Goffik Rokkers' adoring crowd of green-skinned Orkish thugs.

Being unlike most other weapons in the galaxy, the Shokk Attack Gun empitomises the unique savagery that Orks possess. It is a huge gun with three gyro-wheels that spin around the barrel to create a rift into the Warp. This projection field is then aimed at the target, where the Shokk Attack Gun's ammunition - a Gretchin - is discharged. The Gretchin is propelled through the Warp and materialises inside the target, killing both the Gretchin and the target. Large targets are easier to hit, so the Shokk Attack Gun is an excellent weapon to take down Dreadnoughts and Terminators. Even if the Gretchin misses its target, it may still materialise from the Warp in an adjacent square where it discharges its psychotic energy from travelling through the Warp.

To fire the Shokk Attack Gun, there must be a Gretchin in an adjacent, unblocked square to the Ork with the gun. It does not matter if the Gretchin has already been activated during the turn or not. The Gretchin is automatically sucked into the gun and is shot towards the target through the Warp. If the Shokk Attack Gun hits, both the Gretchin and the target are killed. Enemy models may immediately fire from overwatch at the Ork after it has shot the Gretchin. This Overwatch fire is taken BEFORE the Gretchin materialises from the Warp, so it is possible that the Ork with the Shokk Attack Gun is killed after shooting the Gretchin, before his shot has been resolved.

If the Gretchin materialises in a vacant square, then it MUST immediately attack the original target with all of the rage that it can muster. The Gretchin is beyond sane from its moments spent in the Warp and it explodes in beastial fury, attacking the target in close assault. Regardless of whether or not the Gretchin has been previously activated and before ANY other action can take place (even enemy overwatch fire) the Gretchin makes one free close assault against the target. But, because the Gretchin is beyond hyper-enraged it gains + 6 on its close assault roll making it a formidable foe still dripping with raw Warp power! If the Gretchin survives the close assault round, it can not take any further actions until the next Ork turn as it has expended more than its fair share of energy in a burst.

Enemy models may only shoot at the Gretchin from overwatch if (and after) it survives its round of enraged close assault. It is possible that some enemy models may be able to shoot from overwatch at both the firing Ork and the Gretchin from a single use of the Shokk Attack Gun.

The standard Shotgun is usually an overbored, single barrel weapon that is capable of shooting different types of shells. It is a common weapon that is readily available throughout the galaxy and is mostly used for hunting purposes. Shotguns are not a relatively powerful weapon for Space Marines or other armed forces to use, however, they are often used by Gretchin who do not have access to better weapons. Most Gretchin have ready access to the basic armour piercing shells that consist of hardened slugs or dum-dum rounds. Although a Shotgun is capable of firing Hellfire Shells, it is rare for a Gretchin to obtain any. Their Ork bosses usually confiscate such finds for their own Heavy Bolters instead.