Intro
Orks are one of the funniest and coolest factions in Warhammer universe in my opinion. Who doesn’t love the idea of bunch of mushroom people with their enormous love for dakka (guns) tearing through the galaxy while destroying and looting everything in their patch to become richer, bigger and stronger. Imagine an Ork Kill Kroozer has sustained a malfuction again but his time it sent the vessel on a very short path of “emeregency landing” into the hive world where the players are stationed. From there the orks
Why Orks?
A great opportunity to let the voice acting shine. No more growls expected from nurgle mutants or tyranid spawns but instead funny voicelines from the ork boyz. I love the way Orks communicate, for those who don’t know what I’m talking about here’s a very fun masterclass on Ork vocabulary and speech made by Gashmangla Rexum. These guys also have a very interesting “culture” and show strange perception of colour. The Warhammer Ork headcannon is that they percept red colour to make them faster, black to make them tougher, purple to make them more sneaky and even invinsible. The thing about the Orks is that they’re a very crafty bunch of looters who make the craziest looking and diverse weapons and machinery in all of Warhammer. I’d much rather have Orks than Tyranids but that’s my personal opinion. In the best case scenario I would rather see the Greentide first and then Tyranids second.
Potential Of Hordes
Each horde could be preceded by a map-wide “Waaagh!” audible to all players. These new hordes would be quite different to the poxwalker hordes since most of them would consist of gretchins which will test your ability to quickly switch between small and big targets swarming you. Unless you’re an Ogryn Of Course. That would make them bite-sized from your perspective. This would allow for a varied but balanced mix of ranged and melee combat that doesn’t at all stray from the bread and butter combat Darktide strides to achieve.
How Would This Work
Since Darktide is intended to be a live service game and is built on it’s fundaments from the start then we can easily suspect that it will outshine Vermintide 2 in terms of content that will come to expand the game. This means that we could possibly not see just a few more units mixed into the enemy roster such as the beastmen joining the skaven but instead have entire factions replace the moebian sixth and the nurgle worshippers. Such as? Orks and Tyranids of course. Orks being more tanky and shooty than basegame enemies while Tyranids being more agile, swift and agressive than the rest. The easy idea on how would this work is that each faction would take over regions on the planet/planets in the game. Some missions on the mission table would have the enemies completely swapped from any units normally present there to units of different factions. Like Fatshark has mentioned many times. This is Warhammer 40K and the only limiting factor is the imagination/creativity. Wouldn’t it be crazy if the team that makes enemy models for darktide went straight into working on a new faction after the release? This is going to be a live service game after all so it would be a shame if these people where moved to different projects instead. Darktide 2 isn’t coming any time soon (again live service).
Unit Types
Gretchins - Poxwalkers
Gretchins would make the main bulk of the enemy horde just and act similarly to poxwalkers. The exception would be is that these guys would not just stand idle grouped up like zombies but instead would appear on slightly elevated piles of weapons, metal scraps and trash that would be on the ground. These guys would be scavenging and looting all busy looking until they spot you. They’re pretty much dwarf sized and harder to hit than poxwalkers. They would use metal scraps and makeshift single shot pistols to deal “symbolic” amounts of damage as they charge at you and engage in melee. Maybe them shooting would be just cosmetic and deal absolutely no damage at all or not even be there at all.
Slugga Boyz - Corrupted Melee Guardsmen
The default melee unit that would charge at the players while inaccurately shooting in their general direction trying to get in melee reach. Very straightforward, the only important thing is that they would use scrap/looted/custom made stub guns (pistols) of small caliber for balance purposes.
Shoota Boyz - Corrupted Ranged Guardsmen
Shoota boyz would act similarly to corrupted ranged guardsmen in this regard that they would focus on ranged combat unless forced into melee range. They fire fast and but not at all precisely.
Kommando - Scab Shotgunner
The kommando would act as a scab shotgunner getting in close and personal while using his improvised shotgun. Perhaps he could have dark purple paint on his garments for extra “sneakiness”.
Deffgun Lootas - Scab Gunners
This ork would wield a huge heavy machine gun that would mirror the behaviour of scab gunners except that he would have more health while his firing would remain rather accurate (for an ork).
Painboss - Scab Mauler
The painboss would be the alternative scab mauler. Pretty armored and specialized in dealing as much damage as possible while delivering as much pain as possible. Pretty simple.
StikkBommaz - Bomber
This special would try to hit you directly with a fast flying grenade that will stick to you and any surface it hits. It would make for funny scenarios where people would get hit and would be doomed to suffer their mistake. Maybe even share it with other players as they run into them in panic.
Flash Gitz - Tox Flamer
Flash gitz are a special type of orks. That kind of ork would have looted throughout many battles. These orks would carry specialized flamethrowers fed pure diesel and act like tox flamers.
Stormboy - Charger Mutant
An ork with a rocket strapped to it’s back that would fly at you at ramming speed after a small delay. Definitely less health than the charger mutant to accomodate for the new speed.
Big Mek Wazzmaka - Trapper
This mekboy would use a special tractor beam to catch the player and to force pull him into his reach and captivity.
Tankbustas - Sniper
I think it would work out nicely if instead of precise snipers the orks would stick to their rules and try more dakka if nothing else works. A volley of rockets would be quick to damage any unsuspecting player if the threat is not eliminated quick enough.
Squig - Pox Hound
Squigs act as a meat source for orks but they can also use them as their trained hounds in some scenarios. Basically pox hounds but more ball shaped and with two legs.
Nitro Squig - Pox Burster
A squig with a twist. Has TNT strapped on the back and some dynamite in between it’s fangs. The perfect ork pox burster.
Weirdboy - Rogue Psyker
I don’t know if there are no rogue psykers in the game or if there weren’t any in the beta but I think that it would be a pretty missed opportunity to not include them in the long run. Their weakspot would obviously be the brain sticking out.
Nob - Ogryn Crusher
The biggest and the meanest orks out there. Let’s see if these could take on an ogryn.
Nob Shielder - Ogryn Bulwark
A Nob but with a shield. Maybe the shield could be horizontal and not vertical to make things a little different but the same.
Nob Kommando - Ogryn Reaper
Nob Kommando would spawn without a sound queue behind the enemy lines and approach the players from behind. Could deal heavy damage from up close if wasn’t taken out quick enough.
Deff Dread - Plague Ogryn (Monstrocity)
For monstrocity-class enemy we could have something very special happening. Maybe a deff dread with a bunch of pipes sticking out of the back spewing trails of black smoke as it burns “space diesel”. This would be really really cool. Probably armored all around and you would have to hit each piece of armor a few times before an armor piece falls off and exposes a place where you can deal much more damage. Damage in armor also deals damage but lower.
Ork Warboss - Assassination Mission Boss
I think that ork warbosses have some obvious potential for becoming an assassination target of a mission. I love the warboss model where there is a gretching with a gun on top of him. Maybe he could target other players individually from the boss lol.
Final Words
Like I said orks could make an interesting faction to takle in Darktide’s dlc. I undestand that nurgle zombies were chosen because their simple and just work but I can’t stop myself from getting excited about seeing orks in a Warhammer 40k FPS. When the game was first teased I even made a character concept of an Ork. Maybe he would join the playable character roster by really wanting to get out of this planet or because he was exiled by his warboss and wants to take his place with the help of other characters (not that they would know any of this). I’m in no way a lore guy but I know that if there’s an universum where everything could be into the world with some sort of explanation that works it would be the warhammer universum.
Hope you enjoyed my little post about a potential faction we could see in the future if Darktide grows well. Thanks for reading. Shout out to everyone who wants orks over tyranids ;D
My other posts:
[Techpriest Character Concept]
[Ork Character Concept]
[A Generous Feedback Megapost]
