The Space Orks
The Power of the Waaagh!
Ork armies are created when a powerful War Boss
rallies the local free range Boyz into a large roving war band called
a Waaagh! (pronounced "Waarrr!!!")
It is to Orks what "Praise the Lord!" is to God botherers. Waaagh!'s
have the same sort of philosophical cohesion and long term ambitions of
a football riot. Mob rule drives the Orks.
The Waaagh! represents the current size and
power of your Ork army in the game at any point in the game. Its measured
in Ork's very own unique resource: Ork Resource.
To build up Waaagh!, you attract Orks to the cause by building Waaagh!
Banners. This is an armed wooden tripod that is a combination of
resource generator, unit cap booster and armed defensive turret. The more
Banners you build, the more Waaagh! you generate;
the more Waaagh! you generate, the more Orks
and juicy toys you can crash around with.
There's a very close relationship between your current tech level and
the number of Orks you have (or can have) on the field. Ork uses a Population
Cap that counts individuals instead of squads. While the other
armies unlock techs with buildings and upgrades, most Ork techs and units
are unlocked by how much Ork Resource you have.
Ork Resource appears as a third resource in your
game GUI (pictured right). However, you never see a grand total of how much
you actually have. The interface only shows you how much you have available
to spend, just like Requisition or Power,
You can see how much Ork Resource you have stored,
plus its income (pictured right as 15/+16). In
the example pic (right), we have 30 pop's worth
of Orks on the field, with 15 Ork Rez available
for us to spend. Add the two together and you have your Waaagh!'s actual
worth: 45.
Its this number that unlocks your techs and units - NOT your pop cap.
Many players confuse the two. Again, Ork Resource
measures the size of your Waaagh, which is how big and powerful your Mob
can become. Ork Resource is capped
to the current Pop Cap. To have a big mob with
lots of end level weapons, you need to grow the Mob's pop cap via the
Banners. You can store more than your current
pop cap, but you won't earn any more past it.
Here's a small - but vital - little tidbit you really should memorize:
Ork Resource = available Ork Resource
+ the number of Orks you have on field.
Back to our example: since Orks are counted as part of your Waaagh!,
if somehow all those 30 pop's worth of Orks should
suddenly die, then you lose 30 Ork Rez. Your
Waaagh! is now dramatically smaller - worth 15 Ork Rez
+ no living Orks (0/45
pop's worth). All the techs and units that need more than 15
Ork Rez suddenly become unavailable. You have to wait
until you've earnt enough Ork Resource before you can buy more Orks or
see those techs reappear. In our example, it would take about 20 seconds
for that +16 income to fully replenish your Waaagh!
This is how Ork can seem so gimped for so many people; how techs and unit
buttons can mysteriously switch off, even though your pop cap may not
have changed.
Ork Resource is still a resource, however. It
only disappears from the bank when you spend it or the Orks get killed
on the field. If, instead of Orks, you lost all your Banners,
then your available Ork Resource remains unchanged. Only your Ork Rez
income might drop (and probably not by much), showing at worst, 15/+13
instead of 15/+16. Your Pop
cap, though, would drop from 30/45 to
30/15. Since you still have some 30
Ork Resource saved up, you can still add an extra 15 Orks to
your forces in spite of the reduced pop cap! You can have potentially
45/15 worth of Orks on the field without rebuilding
a single Banner! As you use that excess resource, it won't be replaced
since your pop cap is gone, unless you shell
out the 165 Req per Banner to built it up again.
So you might still be a force to be reckoned with - provided you don't
start taking losses, ha ha!
So, as your Waaagh! expands, more techs,
upgrades and units start to unlock. As your Waaagh!
contracts from heavy losses and/or the destruction of Banners,
then the more techs and upgrades that will lock. Be warned: no
other race in the game can be catastrophically "de-teched" into
the Stone Age like Orks can. Its also what makes them so much fun to play:
playing an Ork mirror game is not an inevitable, one way slide towards
an end game spam fest. Unfortunately, in Dark Crusade,
Orks can sometimes lag behind the other races when it comes to rapid teching.
While most races can opt for either an Amoury or a Barracks for their
fast track to Tier 2, Orks still have to invest heavily in lots of Banners,
even though they may skip the Boyz Hut or the Pile'O'Gunz.
Income can seem a bit weird for people too, although most of the time you
won't need to worry about it. Ork Resource income
starts off at a basic +12 (it never gets lower
than this, regardless of what state your army or base is in) and maxes out
at +21. Each Waaagh!
Banner you initially build increases your Ork Resource income by
+1. But its important to note that your
actual Ork income its based on how big your current store of Ork Resource
is. You can delete all your Banners, and not see your income drop
until you use up your Ork Resource and lose a lot
of Orks. The Waaagh! icon (I think) displays your
current Waaagh income and size. It generally lights up a new letter when
you build your Banners, but I think it really only tracks the relative size
of your Waaagh!, not the actual number of Banners you've built.
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Waaagh! Banner
Ork Resource Generator and defensive
tower |
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Waaagh! Banners are both the strong points
and the Achilles Heels of your base and economy. When it provides
covering fire for your Boyz, it'll easily help turn the tide, especially
if you cluster them defensively with other Banners or buildings. The
twin Big Shoota version has particularly good range and killing power,
and works quite nicely both on those nasty old Marines and any troublesome
Bosses that happen to be demolishing your Boyz. Make good use for
the Banner's Attack button for best results.
On its own, however, its like any turret - easily overpowered (except
at the very early stages of the game) and destroyed, especially
by AV or vehicles. You should think of a Banner
as another type of resource building and protect it accordingly.
Like a Listening Post, it can be upgraded
twice to provide improved anti-infantry weapons and anti-vehicle
weaponry respectively (a job it does rather well). The Rokkit version
can be wildly inaccurate, but several Rokkit Banners working in
tandem can take a serious bite out of most attacking walkers and
vehicles.
Each Banner increases your Population
Cap by 10 and your Vehicle
Cap by 2. Chances are, if you've
lost all your Banners, you probably lost all your Boyz trying to
defend them... being de-popped and de-teched is a common
occupational hazard of playing Orks. |
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Big Gunz Add-On: right from the start, you
can upgrade your Waaagh! Banners (assuming
you have sufficient power, which you almost
certainly don't early on) right up to maximum. The first of two upgrades,
the Big Gunz Add-On turns the Banner's single
Big Shoota into a twin-linked double Big Shoota,
increasing firepower and range substantially. Banner health is also
upgraded from 1250 to 1925. |
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Bigger Gunz Add-On: the second Waaagh!
Banner add-on changes its role from an anti-infantry tower
to an anti-vehicle tower. The twin Big Shoota is substituted by a
wobbly Rokkit turret. While not entirely
accurate, it still dents tanks and in numbers, even cripple God units
with some finesse. An Ork base surrounded by these things can almost
defend itself against deep struck vehicles and even God units. Its
Rokkits still disrupt infantry quite nicely, and I believe (reading
from the fora) that does similar DPS to infantry as the twin Big Shoota
version. Banner health is upgraded from 1925
to 2600. |
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Prerequisites |
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Pros |
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Cons |
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Perks |
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none |
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Excellent
defence against infantry, Bosses and later on, vehicles
Increases Pop Cap by 10
Increases Vehicle Cap by 2.
Regenerates 5hp a sec when
left alone.
You won't lose any stored Ork Resource
earned with the loss of a Banner. |
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Expensive,
especially when you're forced to replace them.
Losing one takes down your Pop Cap
by 10, and your Vehicle
Cap by 2.
Tends to completely fall apart to any AV units.
Regeneration ceases in battle or under fire. |
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Big
Gunz Add-On: 50% health bonus, double
the firepower and longer range
Bigger Gunz Add-On: additional
+33% health bonus; Big Shootas replaced by Rokkit for anti-Vehicle
and anti-God defence
Blastier Research: 15%
ranged bonus for Big Shootas. |
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Waaagh! Banner Weaponry |
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Single Big Shoota
Fab Ranged anti-infantry turret |
A great early defensive structure. It does a fair whack of damage,
halved against infantry armour, reduced to a third by Terminators
and Heroes, a smidge left over for low buildings, and nothing else. |
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DAMAGE
per burst |
62-78/4
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| Min Damage |
3.5 |
| Range |
25 |
| Rate |
1 burst every
0.7 sec |
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Accuracy |
base DPS |
| stationary |
50% |
50/2.8
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| Armour piercing
(approx) against... |
42%
builders
55% inf_med
46% inf_high |
48%
marines
35% terminators
30%
commanders |
46%
daemon
0% God monsters |
7%
light vehicles
0% vehicles
0% God vehicles |
36%
building_low
10% buildings
0% HQ's
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Double Big Shoota
Better Ranged anti-infantry turret |
The Big Gunz Add-On increases the damage,
range and morale hit of your basic Banner, mowing down Marines and
light infantry in equal measure, and taking on Heroes quite well. |
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DAMAGE
per burst |
43-53/12
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| Min Damage |
1.5 |
| Range |
30 |
| Rate |
1 burst every
0.3 sec |
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Accuracy |
base DPS |
| stationary |
50% |
80/20 |
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| Armour piercing
(approx) against... |
47%
builders
62% inf_med
52% inf_high |
53%
marines
52% terminators
26%
commanders |
52%
daemon
2% God monsters |
10%
light vehicles
5% vehicles
2% God vehicles |
25%
building_low
20% buildings
10% HQ's |
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Rokkit Launcha
Not half bad anti-vehicle turret |
A solid mid to end game anti-vehicle and anti-God defence. Fires
slowly, and misses a bit, but its good against vehicles and buildings,
and does about the same damage as the twin Big Shoota version against
troops. An Ork base surrounded by over half a dozen Rokkit Banners
will bring down a God unit on its own. |
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DAMAGE
per burst |
550-925/45
disruptive |
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| Min Damage |
12.5 |
| Range |
40 |
| Rate |
1 rokkit
every 2.5 sec
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Accuracy |
base DPS |
| stationary |
65% |
192/11.7 |
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| Armour piercing
(approx) against... |
10%
builders
0% inf_med
0% inf_high |
0%
marines
0% terminators
0%
commanders |
0%
daemon
30% God monsters |
36%
light vehicles
36% vehicles
30% God vehicles |
36%
building_low
0% buildings
0% HQ's
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