Feral Ork armies make great use of excellent troops with solid Elite mobs, mad Fast Attack choices and suitably gargantuan Heavy Support. For me, the troops are what make an army, but at one time they were very low on my agenda. Fast Attack units such as Trukks and Scorchas ruled. However, over time, I noticed that for the longer battle, I needed something more solid.

MORE BOYZ!

Recently I decided I wanted to adapt my army, making it more troops based for greater resilience in a long battle. I wanted my army to be less reliant on the Warboss and Trukks dashing across the board and duffing up the enemy on the second turn of the game. This tactic is called the Gorkamorka and anyone who has read past battle reports in White Dwarf will have seen it in action, with varying results. I knew that changing my army like this would stretch my 'tactics' quite a bit (OK I admit it, my tactics consist of shouting "Charge!" most of the time). I worked out a new army, which was Troops heavy and looked for a suitable opponent to smash.

Adi took out the Nobz mob and the second Trukk mob and added a huge mob of Skarboyz and Scorchers to his Cityfight army.

One Wednesday afternoon I took on Pete Haines with my new style army. I've wanted to test his mettle for a while now and know him by reputation: he's good at wargaming! I surveyed my new army with a warm glow inside. Loads of Orks!

CITYFIGHT!

Pete was suitably impressed by my huge horde of Boyz but he had already taken my measure and picked an equally large troop based Chaos Space Marine army. No tanks or Terminators, as I had expected, just loads of Chaos Space Marines. I might have made life a bit easier for myself if I hadn't let Pete talk me into a Cityfight. I believe his softly spoken words were ''I need to try out a few ideas''. Hmmm, I've heard that one before, it usually means I get severely mauled.

And indeed I was! Well, maybe it was a bit more closely fought than I give myself credit for. I soon got the hang of Cityfighting, learning the rules as I went along. As you'd expect, cover is at a premium, troops in buildings can't just pick your troops off through the ruins. It's as if a building is a wood, you can only see 6" in. Movement is also a little limited. The few vehicles I had did well but were soon rendered useless, ie, blown up! Against a regular army (or General for that matter) I don't think I would have had too much trouble, but of course I was fighting my bitterest foe (or skumgrod, if you understand the reference, I know Ork players will!). Chaos Space Marines are close combat monsters of the highest order, matching the Orks blow for blow. No matter, I was sold on the idea of choosing a more troops based army. Even though the Chaos Space Marines had control of more buildings than me at the end of the game Pete simply couldn't kill my troops fast enough! Just you wait, Haines, I'll get you next time, Chaos scum!

FERAL ORKS ARMY

After this exhilarating encounter Space McQuirke waved his new Feral Ork army list in my face and, after nudging me a couple of times to get my attention he left the list in my paws to read through for some feedback. Always eager to look at anything Orky I began to read through the list, trying to spot its strengths and weaknesses, not that I ever succeed of course!

'ERE WE GO!

This primitive Ork army was based on the original Ork armies from 'Ere We Go! and Freebooterz (any of you oldsters remember those?), in particular the Snakebites army list which was full of Boarboys and Warhammer style Orcs without guns called Wildboys. I felt a tinge of nostalgia as I thought back ten years to my original games of Warhammer 40,000 and remembered the Wierdboys, bright red painted guns and BS 3! However I also remembered the fragile troops who were useless in hand to hand combat, who broke and ran at the first opportunity and how Warboss Grishnak (left) spent the entire battle stood behind a wall! His death at the hand of some teleporting Librarian usually started a general rout of the entire Ork army from the battlefield. It was at this point that my memories became less nostalgic and more bitter and twisted!

Next: Starting the Feral Orks.
Previous: Introduction.