October is Orktober here at Board Game Today! As a long-time Warhammer 40,000 player, the teef grow strong with this one as Orks were the first army I played. 27 years later (yes I started when I was about 15) I still have the first Ork I ever purchased.

So, for Orktober I thought it’d be fun to dive into the rather large collection of Orks I have and wax a little nostalgic about my collection. I call it a collection because while there’s a lot of figures painted, more than enough for games, there’s factors more in bags, boxes, sealed boxes, started boxes… there’s a lot. There’s also books from Rogue Trader to the recent 9th edition release. We’ll go over them all and see how things have changed. You’ll see.

But to start, I thought it’d be fun to think back about how I got started with Orks. The answer was, I got suckered. My friends were into Warhammer 40,000 and I got roped in, pretty sure I was just playing Magic: The Gathering at the time. The 2nd edition box had been out for a bit and featured the classic mono-pose Space Marines and a squad of Goff Orks with a cardboard Dreadnought. As I wasn’t sure what to play, I honestly wanted to play Chaos, my friends offered me their Orks. For free. Who can pass up free?

So, here I was with my first army. It consisted of 40 Goff Orks (I was given two sets), 2 card Dreadnoughts, and I bought my own figures as well. The first was a Goff Nob and the other was a Squig Katapult. I have them both still to this day with a paint job from not long after I started.

While I was at first a little bummed I was stuck with Orks, I began to love them.

I soon got the Ork Codex for 2nd edition and that opened up the world. I began to fall in love with the utter insanity and chaotic nature of my Ork army. It was as likely I’d destroy my own army as I would the enemy I faced. Squig Katapults required guessing distances as did the Pulsa Rokkits. Then there was the amazing Battlewagon rule where you could put on as many Orks as you wanted and if they fell, you rolled to see if they were injured. It was an age of silliness and a hell of a lot of fun.

I myself loved the Blood Axe clan and their looted tanks. My interest shifted to extend to how my army looked itself with Mega armored Orks sporting looted Terminator armor and my Warbosses based off of Space Marine heroes. All of that will get to be shown but what I kept consistent was my army told a story and a lot was just different enough it’d get you to pause and take a look.

Things obviously changed and the Orks lost a bit of their personality going from goofy to more feral beings with the various editions after the second. Gorka Morka added a twist to the army and recently Speed Freeks and Beast Snaggas each shifted the army a bit more. But, that’s all for another time.

For now, with a new codex, it’s Waaagh time for me as the beat of war begins to drum and an Ork army decades old prepares to do battle once more.