Adrian Wood

The new Feral Orks are a brilliant alternative army list for the Orks. Along with the insane Speed Freeks army list the Feral Orks certainly add a new dimension to the Greenskins. When Space McQuirk first mentioned to me that he was going to put together a Feral Ork list I was intrigued. Delving into the past history of the Orks and how they've developed over the years I could see that the list would cover old ground as well as new. I certainly wasn't disappointed, the Wildboyz, Huntas, Squiggoths, etc. are excellent. However, before I get stuck into the Feral Orks I'd better explain a bit more about myself and how my army got to where it is today.

TALE OF TWO ARMIES

I actually have two Ork armies, one which is made up of very old Ork models for the second edition of Warhammer 40,000 and the other developed for the third edition. My first Ork army was an Evil Sunz army, bright red and full of vehicles. The army ended up a wopping 3,000 points, according to the old points values. I enjoyed many hours of high speed action as my warbike mob sped across the battlefield, blasting Space Marines too foolhardy to duck behind cover to pieces. Those were also the days when a Virus Attack meant the destruction of an entire Ork army on Turn 1. Ahh, memories!

Adi's original Evil Suns army.

My current Ork army is a good five years old now and is made up of a mish mash of different models formed into a single army. It all started when we were developing Gorkamorka, a skirmish game with Orks fighting Orks in vehicles. Everyone went mad for converting vehicles and collecting warbands to fight against each other. For my part, I was really inspired by the new plastic Orks, they were so different from the models I'd been collecting before. Rather than being slightly funny looking and wearing a variety of un-Orky uniforms, these new Orks were wild and barbaric, wearing fur and primitive armour (see right).

NEW MODEL ARMY

I decided I wanted a complete army based on these models and I got my hands on as many frames as possible. Over the next few weeks I made and painted literally dozens of Ork models, sporting a variety of weapons. I also made loads of converted vehicles to cart them around in. It became obvious that with all the troops and vehicles I already had a sisable Ork army. All that was needed was the addition of a few extra models.

My Warboss, Grishnak Grimjaw led the new army from his kustom trukk with all his mates in the back, eight Nobs in total. You can see him here beating up some Imperial Fists from the White Dwarf 226 battle report. This HQ unit formed the mailed fist of the army, backed up with two trukk mobs packed with Orks, which delivered a powerful killing blow to the enemy (unless blown up by ordinance on the way over!) Twenty Shoota boys, two mobs of twenty Grots and my scratch-built Dreadnoughts augmented these Fast Attack mobs.

Adi's complete army at the time the Ork codex was released.

As the new addition of Warhammer 40,000 came out I was pleased to find the new Orks were powerful in hand to hand combat. Due to the large size of the units and Mob Size Check rule, they are well able to weather the storm of fire that comes at them from all directions. I was particularly pleased to be able to use my new Ork army in several battle reports. I tend to prefer to keep the same army list all the time as it means I have less to remember and not have to worry about anything unexpected. Even so as I fought more and more battles I added large mobs of the new plastic Orks (see left) by Brian Nelson to the seething horde. They towered over the older Gorkamorka Orks but as far as I was concerned this was not a problem. They just made the army look even more rag-tag, which is just what you expect from Orks, really.

Next: Adi takes his Orks to a Cityfight.