Waaagh! Ghazghkull and the Fate of My Ork Force.

A couple of years ago I picked up 7th Edition and the Ork Codex and did a post about my thoughts.

So this Sunday I found myself in Nottingham for a gig and it seemed sensible to pop into Warhammer World to pick up the revised Waaagh! Ghazghkull book (as well as a few pieces of FW resin naturally).

As I did that previous post I thought I would do something similar for the newly revised book.

Now this is not going to be an article breaking it all down and discussing the tactical implications of each page - frankly I haven't got the time or inclination for that sort of thing, plus there are other places you can go who delight in that sort of thing (probably with a video, which I'm sure is just what you want). Instead this is just a collection of thoughts that pop into my head looking through the book and the eventual fate of the Orks I have knocking around.


1. The Story.

I have to say the story was better than I expected. After hearing from others who have bought the recent campaigns I wasn't looking at this to be a good read. I also expected it to be mainly a re-hash of the same Ghaz & Armageddon text we have had previously.

Now I know this is a re-release and as such this isn't technically a piece of original work as it was in the first release (I assume, I didn't buy it so as far as I know it might actually be different) but for someone buying the book for the first time I was relieved to find while the bones of the story may be familiar it has been expanded upon.

We also have some sidebar information about other characters involved in his story and certain warbands and forces under his command. All adding to the overall scene setting.


2. The Artwork.

Well.

What a shame.

Don't get me wrong there are some nice pieces. Not all original but nice to see. However some of it is lacking, only so many almost identical Mork/Gorkanaughts you can see before feeling someone was a bit bored while using Photoshop.

The biggest problem with the artwork is the lack of it.

Just like the Ork Codex from a couple of years ago this follows the same pattern - hardly surprising of course as it was published the first time round not that long after the Codex came out, we have lots of pictures of models. By lot I mean a chunk of 12 pages in the middle plus a few more pages later on. On top of that instead of getting artwork for the unit entries we get more pictures of models. Do we really need to see a picture of an Ork plane for one entry, then another for another entry, then a group of two for another entry...and then a group of four for another one? This is of course after seeing pictures of said planes earlier on in the book.

Each Formation has a picture taking up the majority of each page, so one page per formation. That's a lot of models with no artwork and very little writing.


3. The Rules.

We get some new rules in the form of Warlord Traits, some items of wargear and some new Missions. No problem with any of that at all. All themed to a force under Ghazghkull so perfectly fitting and giving Ork players more options. While I am not going to judge if any of these additions are worth taking their inclusion certainly get a thumbs up from me.

The bulk of the content which could be under 'rules' are formations. Just formations. 14 of them.

I have to be up front and say I'm not a big fan of formations. Never used one and never been tempted. I could see their place in Apocalypse where you paid a few points to get some benefits from fielding a set formation. However in 40k it seems to be a cynical attempt to get people to buy models solely to gain a benefit. I like the Force Organisation Chart, especially when you had options to modify it to create a themed force (e.g. taking a HQ choice to altar what units are Troops etc). Instead of giving people creativity formations just seem to bring a cookie cutter approach.

What I was hoping for (though I had very little hope it would happen) would be for the book to include actual unit options themed on the Ghaz forces, such as Meganobz unit with different options to represent his closest Goffs, or perhaps a Tellyporta upgrade to Meganobz allowing them to Deep Strike (at a big risk of course), How about letting a Goff Warboss take two Close Combat Weapons letting him be the assault monster he should be?

But no, nothing like that. Just formations.


The End Bit.

What does this mean for me? Well it means all my Orks are going. While I love the models I just find the rules for them now so limiting and lacklustre I have no enthusiasm for keeping them.

So the Zone Mortalis force I put together will go on ebay, along with the other units I have knocking around (in case I wanted to expand them into a full army) including Grot Tanks, a FW walker and a Dakkajet.

I can't see me picking up and starting any new 40k armies if this is the way things are going to continue. My Nurgle Daemons will be staying but any new forces will be taken from a Forge World list, I've already got the Militia (IA13 list), the 30k Adeptus Mechanicum for to come for Zone Mortalis (HH list) and the 30k Death Guard to build (HH list again). After that it will depend what Forge World knock out in their Imperial Armour series...