Ork space travel

[Inquisitor Gray]

Do Orks have FTL capable ships? I know they hitch rides on space hulks, but I always thought that space hulks really cant be controlled, and if you jump on one, you go were it wants to go, not were you want it to go. But in the fluff, it seems Orks are able to reliably fly to planets which are fighting a WAAAAAA. So do they use space ships with Warp travel, or do they have another way to get themselves to a good WAAAA? Thanks for your ideas!

[Melissia]

The only ones with true FTL travel are the Necrontyr.

Orks certainly have space ships. (click here) (http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/armySubUnitCats.jsp?catId=cat1060039&rootCatGameStyle=)They travel the same way as humans do, using Weirdboyz as navigators through the warp.

[david5th]

Space Hulks travel through the warp, not faster than light travel. This is the same for Imperium and chaos forces. Eldar i believe make use of the remnants of their webway, possibly the same for Dark eldar but i am not sure. Tau " skim " the warp as they have vo navigator equivalent. Tyranids make use of Narvhal creatures.

the necron possses FTL technology while warp travel is like the film Event Horizon.

[Melissia]

Actually, the reason Tau "skim" the Warp is because they have no psykers period.

[david5th]

Actually, the reason Tau "skim" the Warp is because they have no psykers period.

my bad.:)

[Melissia]

Mn, was just saying-- Orks have no navigators either. They just use Weirdboyz, which are a bit less... precise than navigators. But as long as the Orks end up with someone to fight, they don't object.

[Nabterayl]

It's never stated explicitly, but it's pretty clear that space hulks can be controlled. Otherwise Ghazghkull couldn't invade Armageddon with four of the things. It would probably take a lot of engineering to strap on warp engines powerful enough to move a hulk, and you'd probably need a powerful psyker to navigate something that ungainly through the Warp, but if you get enough orks together both of those problems would be solved - and if there's one thing a space hulk can do, it's get enough orks together ;)

This is not actually incompatible with the ork codex statements that space hulks frequently are unguided. Putting the two data together, the picture we get is this: orks can navigate through the Warp, but they don't always bother to do so, as they aren't always looking for a specific fight to get to. In fact, they aren't even always looking for a specific timeframe in which to get there, because even in the Warp there's always daemons to fight. There's a short piece of fluff in the ork codex that describes fighting daemons as one of the principal entertainments during Warp travel.

[Melissia]

Orks are always having fun it seems :P

[Gotthammer]

Pure speculaion here but it could be that Ork infested hulks are drawn to inhabited places by Gork (or possibly Mork) due to their abundance of Waaagh energy they give off straight into the warp. Thus Ghaz with his massive Waaaagh (and large number of Weirdboyz) could get his fleet where he wanted it to go.

Note that in the Ork codex it says that when a Waaagh is ready to launch a hulk often appears, and that if trapped their caged up violence causes the warp to expell them.

[Melissia]

Which Ork codex?

[dvs1]

5th ed ork codex, p. 19. Although I think he slightly misinterprets the part about them being expelled because of their anger. More like they get angrier until the warp spits them out on some poor fool.

[Melissia]

THAT makes much more sense.

[Gotthammer]

My way's more fun :p

[Dellamorte]

I'm probably doing a bad thing by not reading my Codex as I write this, but I think he may be referring to the Second war for Armageddon. The Alpha Alha Sextus space hulk appeared in orbit around Ghazghkull's planet of Urk while its sun was dying. Ghazghkull loaded the Orks of the planet onto the hulk and made his way to Armageddon. Though i can't remember if he crashed it on to the planet or not.

The appearance of the much needed hulk gave weight to Ghazghkull's claim of being Prophet.

[rustbucket]

Spacehulk transportation aside, Orks are also known for utilizing any ships they can in order to move around. The book "Heroes of the Space Marines" has a short story in it of a derelict IG transport that was taken over by Orks and "Upgraded" to Orky standards but still had operational plasma drives. The bow of the ship had been retrofitted to act like a jaw, which opened up to scoop up space debris in its path, that the Mek Boyz wanted. I don't want to give away the story, but it involves Death Watch working their way around the ship, doing what they do best. Good story.

[Laodamia]

The Alpha Alha Sextus space hulk appeared in orbit around Ghazghkull's planet of Urk while its sun was dying. Ghazghkull loaded the Orks of the planet onto the hulk and made his way to Armageddon. Though i can't remember if he crashed it on to the planet or not.

In fact, it is said in one of GW's codices (possibly the EPIC rulebook, but I'm not sure) that Papa Ghazghkul threw the space hulk away once his Boyz made planetfall. He said that the Hulk was useless now as he intended to conquer this planet, and did not consider retreat as an option... You know how it ended.:D


Spacehulk transportation aside, Orks are also known for utilizing any ships they can in order to move around.

Actually, in the Batllefleet Gothic and Armada rulebooks, it appears that the majority of their most powerful warships (that is, cruiser and battleship level) are in fact captured or crippled imperial warships which are later "orkified" by some over-enthusiastic mekboy (ya know, bigger and more noisy guns, some red paint, etc...) . Therefore, I'm not quite sure if orks are capable of creating efficient warp-drives themselves, but they sure love to use any warp-capable ship they find.