Relic Army Showcase: Jay’s Orks
Relic’s venture in Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 universe, Dawn of War, is the game 40K and RTS fans have been waiting for: bringing the universe to visceral life, armoured giants do battle with green-skinned monstrosities across ruined cityscapes, bodies are hurled through the air, while advanced weaponry shreds flesh and bone. Relicnews is proud to present an arcticle that will shed light on just why Dawn of War looks to be so good: the dedicated design team and their love of the 40K universe.
Passionate fans of Warhammer 40,000, many Relic staffers have one or more 40K armies. As an example, here’s Jay Wilson’s Ork army. Click on the thumbnails to the right to see full-size versions of the images.
Jay Wilson’s Ork Army
Hi!
Jay Wilson here, Lead Designer on Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and happy Relic employee. As many reading this might know or guess, we’ve got a lot of serious Warhammer 40,000 players at Relic. So, we thought it would be fun to showcase some of our armies, and Relicnews has been kind enough to offer to host this feature. Provided we don’t get too busy we’ll try and make this a regular thing. So, to kick it off, I present to you, ORKS!
Orks are the little green buggers that started it all for me. I’ve got 7 armies for Warhammer 40,000, all in various states of preparedness, but none are as near or dear to me (or as large) as my Orks.
The thing that attracted me to them in the first place was their attitude. Win or lose, you know the Orks have a good time, and that seems like a great view of life to me! I always scoff when I hear someone describe Orks as an ‘evil’ or ‘bad’ race. Far from it! Like a group of drunken guys at a pub on a Saturday night, they’re just looking for a little fun, and a lot of fighting. Leave the morality play at home, we’re too busy driving our fast trukks and shooting our big guns to worry about right or wrong. That’s a philosophy I can get behind!
Because I have such a fondness for the Boyz I tend to field very large foot-slogging armies. For those who don’t know the term, that refers to an army almost completely on foot, with very few vehicles or transports. At 1500 points I put about 120 models on the table in most games, and take it as a personal affront if my enemy ever outnumbers me.
The core of my army is, of course, lots of slugga boyz. I use grots and kans as a screen for the boyz, with burna boyz and a force field to give this screen resilience. My cyborks squad is a no-brainer, as they rarely let me down, and a Looted Leman Russ or Basilisk is usually on display as well. I don’t use many elites other than skarboyz, although I occasionally play around with stormboyz and flash gitz. I also cycle tankbustas, trukk boyz, and wartraks in and out of the army as I need them. And every squad that can gets a nob, and every nob gets a power klaw, because, well, why wouldn’t they? :)
This army has been through thick and thin, and tons of games. I’ve been using them for so long that I’ve started to experiment with more unconventional Ork lists. I created a shooting Ork list packed with big shootas, shoota boyz, and flash gitz that proved quite effective the few times I’ve used it.
I find the most important skill towards playing Orks well is the ability to enjoy the death of your own troops. You have to be able to remove a dozen guys from the table almost gleefully, look to your opponent, smile, and say that there’s more where that came from. :)
