Codex Orks: Review

The first codex of 7^th edition has hit the shelves and its codex orks. It’s been 2 editions since the orks had a codex so I was expecting a major change for the boyz, but interestingly it wasn’t so much the rules that got changed but the who lay out of the codex. I will explain myself more after the jump.

Every edition something changed with the codex’s, that just the way it is, back in 3^rd they hardly had any back ground, they were just rules and an army list mixed into one. It was a very simple time. When 4^th hit they separated the army list and the rules section so we could have a quick reference when building an army list. 5^th didn’t change all too much but then 6^th introduced the hard back and a return of the war gear section that we lost in 4^th. Now 7^th is here and we have lost the army list section and we now have what I can only describe as data slates for each unit, saying what rules it has, its force organisation slot and its stats. While I was originally shocked by the loss of the army list at the back it doesn’t make it impossible to write an army list, it’s still in the order of HQ, troops etc… and we now even have lords of war in the codex as well. The Imperial guard one will be interesting with the number of baneblade variants that will be included.

Other new additions to the codex are that we now have an ork specific force organisation chart and a formation included! The orks can used a detachment called an Ork Mob instead of an allied detachment or a battle forged one. It’s practically a battle forged detachment with an addition 3 troops (and an additional 1 mandatory troops) and HQ. Any orks that roll 10 or more on a charge get hammer of wrath which is a nice boost BUT they don’t have objective secured which could be a bit of a blow. The formation that you can use is called an Ork warband which consists of 6 boy mobs, a nob mob, warboss, a mek and a unit of gretchin. For this points investment you gain hammer of wrath for a charge roll over 10 and you can Waaagh! Every turn after the first. It’s an interesting difference and could be used to good effect but only time will tell.

Enough of the actual changes to the book you all want to know about the rules changes don’t you. Special rules have changed quite a bit, orks still all have furious charge, no change there, but the mob rule has changed. It used to be you can use mob size as your leadership, now its if you fail a moral test roll a D6, on a 1 you run (unless you’re in combat), 2-3 if you have a character in the unit he cracks heads (D6 strenght 4 hits) and you pass, no character and you fail. 4-6 if you have more than 10 models they squabble (same as crack heads) or less than 10 run. While this isn’t as good as the old rule things change and you have to get used to it. Another old rule that has changed is Waaagh! Now it’s a warboss’s special rule instead of an army wide one, and instead of giving fleet, it allows the warboss and all units with ‘ere we go’ (more on that in a sec) to both run AND charge in the same turn. This is a great advantage to the orks now but it’s just what the 4^th edition rule did in its original edition as well. So maybe it’s just returning to its intended rules. Now you can see why the formation is quite handy allowing them to do it every turn!

Now the new rule the orks get is ‘ere we go’ which allows a unit to re-roll 1 of the D6 when charging, so its mini fleet making the orks a lot better at getting into combat. It’s a slight boost to a potential combat army in an edition focusing on shooting, so if it will be good enough is yet to be seen.

For the actual model rules nothing much changed. Boys stayed the same points but got their extra special rule. Tank burstas have a change to their glory hog rules, it no longer forces them to target tanks, instead if they kill a tank for first blood you gain an additional victory point. It just makes them much more useful now as you can pick what they target. Lootas stayed the same but dropped a point, mega nobs are the same but now have a boss nob. Killer kans have been downgraded quite a bit, no longer are they strength 10, but 7, and if they lose a model they roll a D6, on 3+ all is fine but if not the unit gets shaken as they panic. The fliers have changed as well, waaagh plane no longer doubles the number of shots they fire, just adds another shot to each gun, a slight reduction in power but as you have to potential to waaagh several times maybe it’s for the best. Thrakka has now moved from HQ to a lord of War, why, I have no idea why this happened, the only thing it does is stop you from taking him as an ally.

 I would go into the rules of the new models but they have been released in white dwarf before the codex some out so it seems a little pointless. But I will comment on the ‘Naught models, while they are big and impressive they are just armour 13 walkers, they can get exploded like everyone else so it just seems like a big point sink for not all that much power. Plus they are heavy support so they are really competing against some stiff competition so I’m not sure they are the wisest investment.

Reading over the codex it did make me want to get out my orks, and hopefully I will soon. But my models are really old an unpainted and now I have been able to play with a painted force its hard to go back to an unpainted mass. We will see how long that lasts though.

With this codex I can see a lot of people complaining that it’s not as powerful as the Tau or Eldar dex, that there is no super unit and the ‘Naught models should have been super heavy walkers, but people complain about everything. Over all I think while it’s not a massive change it gives orks a chance to one again be a combat force thanks to the speed in which they can close in with the enemy. It’s an odd though, fast horde orks, but it’s now possible.

I hope you enjoyed my little review of the Ork codex for now.