RTSC Space Orks Guide: The Power of the Waaagh!

The Space Orks
The Power of the Waaagh!

Waaagh?

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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.

While the other armies unlock their techs with buildings and upgrades, most Ork techs and units are unlocked by how much Ork Resource you have. 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. The big thing you have to remember is: Ork tech goes up and down at the drop of a hat. It is NOT one way slide to the finish like all the researched techs of the other races. Lose all your Orks and there's a good chance a lot of your techs will re-lock. And Orks are a cannon fodder race...

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 the 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 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.

Orky income confused a lot of players 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.