Go Green or Go Home

It's about time. Almost 10 years after their last Codex release, the Orks have emerged in a shiny new 4th edition format. Chaos is on it's third book, Tau their second, Eldar their second and a half, well, you get the point, and the Greenskins finally get their just desserts.

And it looks pretty good. A Shokk Attack Gun(!), a sexy new truck, bikes that suit the new Ork aesthetic, Weirdboyz(!) -- there's a lot here to love. Bomb Squigz even! I love all of these releases. (BTW kids, buy them in the States, because GW Canada thinks that you are STUPID and cannot use the Internet: Canadian Ork Trukk $45 vs. US Ork Trukk $30. Today, the Canadian Dollar is worth 0.9686 US Dollars, so the Trukk should cost either $30.97 CDN if the American price is the right one, or $43.59 US if the Canadian price is correct. An even smarter consumer will save 20% on the American price at the Warstore.)

I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but any Ork fan knows this is so far overdue as to verge on insulting. Orks are a fundamental part of games wORKshop's Warhammer 40,000 universe; they were the original antagonists featured in the first 40k book, Rogue Trader, and rated THREE entire hardcover books detailing their rules and background, Waagh The Orks, 'Ere We Go, and Freebooterz. This was, I admit, perhaps a tad much, bordering on overkill even. Chaos only had two books, Slaves to Darkness and The Lost and the Damned, and these coved both Fantasy and 40k. Still, even the shortest of the three Ork books, Freebooterz, was 144pp. and thus one 48pp paperback Codex for 3rd ed. 40k and the first half of 4th, without so much as a Weapons Summary to tell you what a Big Shoota does, is a slap in the face. The new book is a step in the right direction, but I do fear it may be a little late in the day, and disingenuous in the extreme, to now promote Orks the way they ought to have been five or more years ago.