'Ere Comes Da Waaagh!!!

I like orks. I like the models, the fluff, and a lot of their rules. They are a very assaulty army that favors the horde (because the basic troop unit costs 6 points per model). I tend to like assaulty armies, so to combine that with my love of things orkish, it makes sense that at some point I would field an ork army. That point is now. I was looking at my Lamenters yesterday as I began to paint them, and I cannot muster any interest in the models, paint scheme, or fluff anymore. This happened with my Khorne guys, which is why I use Iron Warriors now. I was all into my Khorne guys for a while but I was just starting out the hobby and I was into a lot of things. One of which was the Iron Warriors. When I got bored with my Khorne guys I thought about it and realized I was still into Iron Warriors, so if after all that time and painting I still dug the scheme and the fluff, it seemed more prudent to field them as my chaos army. Same thing with orks, I liked them, bought some, painted one, set them aside, I'm still into them so now might be a good time to work on them and set my Lamenters aside due to lack of interest. The problem with the Lamenters is that I can't seem to get the precise yellow I'm going for, and at this point my freehanding skills (which are about nil) are not up to making decent looking checks and the checks are a big part of what I like about the Lamenters. I only have 8.37 of them painted up, so now might be a good time to put them on pause and see where my loyalist interests truly lie before putting more effort into them.

Somewhat on this topic, Space Wolves are getting a new codex and there are rumors of Black Templar and Blood Angels codices coming out in the sometime nearish future, and I have a slight interest in all three of those chapters. I'm not terribly keen on the Space Wolves paint scheme, but I do like the pre-Heresy dark gray that their lost 13th company still uses. Also, the Space Wolves are Norse werewolves in space and that is the kind of B-movie inspired background fluff that cannot be overlooked because of sheer awesomeness. Blood Angels, I am not so keen on, but they have a successor chapter called the Flesh Tearers that have a black and red paint scheme and heap of fluff that I dig. They are also vampires in space, some of whom have gone bat-shit crazy with bloodlust, I like this for the same reasons I like Norse werewolves in space. The Black Templars have a killer black, red, and white color scheme and an upgrade sprue that is amazing. One thing I like about chaos is the diversity of their bitz and the details on their armor, I would almost have to say that the Black Templars upgrade sprue bitz are superior to those possessed by chaos. There is a lot of neat shit on them, and I do enjoy the painting of the detail work on the models. So the upgrade sprue coupled with the nice paint scheme are definitely selling points for the Templars.

As I was saying, orks might be the way to go right now. I think I really do better work if I alternate between what type of models I paint. It slows both armies down, but its more fun for me to have some variation in what I'm painting, and right now I'm not exactly in need of a 100% put together and painted 1500 point army.

I've been playing with list building for a bit and I've settled on a Death Skulls army. My first gut instinct was to try an Evil Sunz speed freekz army. I do love the warbike models, and the whole very mobile, very fast moving theme of a speed freekz army. There is a problem with this, trukks only hold like 12 guys in them. Eleven boyz plus a nob is decent in assault, as long as they have the charge, but they lack survivability under heavy shooting. Ork boyz come standard with a 5+ save, and that is not remotely good. The trukk adds to their survivability with its speed and ramshackle rule (trukks are so rickity that if they get hit hard enough they can just go careening around the battlefield out of control and actually deliver the orks faster to their desired location), but I'm not convinced twelve orks in a lightly armored trukk can survive all the pulse rifle shots Shawn's Tau will be able to hit them with. I think twenty or thirty boys, a nob with a bosspole, a lot of running, and a well timed Waaagh!!! have a better chance of getting my boys where they're going than a trukk with its armor of 10.

Death Skulls allow me to take a more varied army. I can't really justify a place for lootas or burna boyz, or kommandos in a speed freekz army. There just aren't enough transport options. A Death Skulls themed army allows me to throw whatever I feel like throwing in, as long as their gear looks looted and they have blue facepaint on. That is the Death Skulls fluff, they steal shit and wear blue because it is the orkish lucky color, just like red is the fast color. Orks even have a vehicle upgrade called Red Wunz Go Fasta that adds an inch to a vehicles movement range, obviously you have to paint the trukk or wagon red to get this. That's what I like about orks, they have a bunch of neat rules and mechanics like that. Fun stuff.

I'm picturing this list in my head and I kind of see three big squads of boys, maybe one is 'Ard Boys with 'Eavy Armour. Probably some Lootas because they are pretty fluffy for Death Skulls, probably some Burnas as well because I love the idea of cigar smoking orks with flamethrowers that double as power weapons (they use them as cutting torches to burn through enemy armor), and some Kommandos as well. Unfortunately that makes my list very top heavy and fills up al three elite spots and three of the six troop spots. I'll probably throw a nobz squad in as a troops choice, normally they are elites but having a warboss as an HQ allows you to take one squad of nobz as troops. Then I'll probably have two fast attack slots as warbikers. I may toss the lootas if I need to. I haven't got a handle on unit costs like I do for chaos space marines so I've no idea what the total for this army is. But yeah, Lootas, the fluffiest unit of the bunch would be the first I toss. If I have any room left I'll likely throw in some stormboyz because they are both hilarious and awesome.

Obviously I have no idea how any of this stuff will play out because I've never played a single game with orks and have only played one with chaos. I may actually go back a few months on 40k radio and download the ork codex podcasts again and give them a listen to bone up on orks.

Music: Naked Burn - Mastodon