Ork Boy
"Da first an' best part of a WAAAGH is a good ol' mob of Boyz!"
-Kaptin Bluddflagg
The Ork Boy is the most ubiquitious type of Ork in the entire galaxy, and almost certainly the most common troopa in Warhammer 40000. A Boy is basically your average Ork, a brutish war-addict, who has no concept of "enough" - Every Ork will always strive to be better at their trade (Read: Killing) than the rest of the Boyz in the Mob by getting bigger weapons, ‘arder armour and by generally being more boisterous than the rest. The vast majority of the Ork race are Boyz in some capacity and any proper Warboss has thousands of these under him, only waiting to get into a good ol’ scrap - to most of the Boyz, it doesn't matter where or with whom, just as long as they get to fight something.
Most Boyz are just happy fighting, shooting and bludgening, but some of them stick out from the norm and feel attracted to a certain type of fighting. Examples are Burnas, Stormboyz and Tankbustas, who are called something else by other Boys because of this tendency. Some even get urges to do stuff that isn't strictly fighting, which understandably seems fishy to most Orks, and are therefore called Oddboys.
The mobs of Boys are lead by Nobs, who keep the Orks in line and krump them if they get uppity. They also serve as a means of bringing orders to the mob from the Warboss.
Somewhat notable is that the term "boy" is a fairly... loose one. On the one hand, orks are broadly masculine, but sexless due to their fungoid physiology. Also, orks spring fully-formed from the ground as more-or-less complete boyz. The average ork in a war is certainly no older than a human child (even younger than the Whiteshields!).
Armaments[edit]
Most Boyz like smashing as well as shooting stuff, so it's up to the individual Ork to get what equipment he wants. A handgun of sorts called a Slugga or sometimes a Six-Shoota is usually a good pick for the Ork dispositioned to melee, as he can get a few noisy shots off before going into krumping range, while the more shooty Orks can either pick up two-handed Shootas, which spew out a lot more shots than a Slugga and is noisier to boot, a Shoota Kannon which is a 16th century naval cannon turned into an anti-material rifle or an Ork Blunderbuss which as its name implies, a primitive Orky shotgun. Most Orks also wear a simple leather overall with some metal plates for protection called Studded Armour (which isn't very good at protecting them no matter how much that Ork believes it can)*KRUMP* STOOPID HUMIES FINK ORKZ NEED ARMA? ORKZ DUN NEED ARMA'! HUMIE'S NOT LARFIN' WHEN WE STOMPS YER, YA GIT!. A few (known by the others as 'Ardboyz) bring heavier armor though, which can stop most normal bullets. Most also bring a few Stikkboms for the occasional bang.
Types of Ork Boy[edit]
Ork Boyz come in a innumerable amount of flavors, each with their own unique characteristics and quirks. However, despite their personal differences, they seem quite consistent with a few variants that make the Ork horde.
Slugga Boyz[edit]
By far one of the most common, numerous and iconic foes of the Imperium. A Slugga Boy is an Ork Boy armed with its namesake, which is a heavy, solid-shot pistol known as sluggas (Although they can also be armed with a Six-Shoota if they are poor enough) and brutal melee weapons known as choppas (Or if they are very fortunate, a Chain Choppa). A few scraps of flak jacket and a shoulder/back plate with the Ork's insignia make up the poorly maintained armor of a Slugga Boy.
These are the most basic and typical Orks, incarnating orkish nature at its most innate and almost stereotypical level to the point of being borderline offensive. Anarchic brutes that love nothing more than a good fight and hefty crumpin, often leaving a bloody mess of whatever they attack on the battlefield. A Slugga Boy Mob consists of 10 to 30 Slugga Boyz which may include a Nob. For every ten Orks in the Mob one might be armed with either a big shoota or a rokkit launcha. In must also be noted that *all* Orks have at least 2 melee attacks and are also at least Strength 4, which is a considerable improvement over most prior editions. In 8th Edition, mobs with 20 or more boyz also gain +1 melee attacks each due to the Green Tide rule. Therefore, assuming a mob of 20+ Boyz armed with Choppas (which also grant an extra attack), each Slugga Boy will be making 4 melee attacks at Strength 4, hitting on 3+. If your opponent should somehow survive this, don't forget to use their Sluggas in following rounds, since it counts as a pistol.
Whilst they are generally quite decent to good in close combat for entry level troops, they are unfortunately quite squishy for what they are and will just fall apart at long range to heavy sustained firepower, so keep that in mind.
Shoota Boyz[edit]
The Dakka to the Slugga's Choppa. Ork Boyz with a preference for the shooty side of combat are called Shoota Boyz and, like the Slugga Boyz, are named after their armanent which is the quintessential shoota instead of the basic slugga and choppa. In 8th Edition, Shoota Boyz and Slugga Boyz both cost 7 points each.
Orks being Orks, it is of no surprise that Shoota Boyz, despite their name, have little skill or appreciation for marksmanship and are more addicted to the violent noise and heavy recoil of automatic gunfire than to any notion of accuracy. This is psychologically due to Ork belief that a firearm won't cause any real damage unless it makes a loud, terrifying noise.
Basically speaking, Shoota Boyz gain their equivalent of an erection whenever they see, hear, and especially shoot automatic weaponry. Compensating much? A Shoota Boyz Mob consists of 10 to 30 Shoota Boyz which may include a Nob. For every ten Orks in the Mob one might be armed with either a big shoota or a rokkit launcha. Because the Shoota is a S4 Assault 2 weapon with an 18" range, you don't have to worry about keeping your boyz within optimum rapid-fire range like Guardsmen or Marines might do and you can still shoot (albeit at even less accuracy) when Advancing. In other words, while an individual Shoota boy probably can't be relied on to hit anything, an entire mob of them can be a dangerous threat, especially when considering the relative advantages of the Shoota as a weapon. When firing en masse, they're bound to hit something.
Pro Tip: Shoota Boyz are particularly well-suited for Bad Moon armies. A regular Ork has a 38.89% hit rate due to the Dakka Dakka Dakka rule. The Bad Moon Kultur favors mobs and units that throw a lot of dice, and therefore pushes an Ork's effective accuracy to 44%, which is nearly Guardsman-level. (The Deathskull Kulture also provides a boost, but is probably better suited for "fixing" rolls on low-shot, high-value weapons.) Example: take a 30-strong mob of Bad Moon Shoota Boyz with 26 Shootas, 3 Big Shootas, and a Nob. 26 Shootas can generate 52 shots, which will theoretically result in 22.88 hits at Strength 4. The Big Shootas will generate 3.96 hits, while the Nob... well, the Nob is probably just loudly shouting orders. Either way, this is more than enough firepower to waste a GEQ squad in a single turn, while even Marines will probably have to take a difficult morale check.
Like Slugga Boyz, in 8th Edition Shoota mobs with 20 or more boyz also gain +1 melee attacks each due to the Green Tide rule.
Stikk Bommas[edit]
Basically Ork grenadiers. Stikk Bommas are those gifted with the knowledge of which part of a grenade is thrown once the pin is removed. For this reason they are equipped with stikkbombz but otherwise they are effectively identical to Slugga Boyz. Stikk Bommas are often considered as diet Tankbustas due to their similar role albeit with inferior overall equipment.
Sometimes though, a particularly brave stupid Stikk Bomma would think it would be a good idea to use the grenades as a makeshift club, inadvertently blowing both the Stikk Bomma and the intended target to pieces.
A Stikk Bommas Mob consists of 10 to 30 Stikk Bommas which may include a Nob. Ork Stikk Bommas are similar to Slugga Boyz in that they are combat oriented. While they are less well armed, they carry stikkbombs (grenades of Ork manufacture) which allow them to take on opponents in cover and light vehicles much more effectively than basic Slugga Boyz.
Stikk Bommas are often taken as a poor man's Tankbusta when there is simply not enough points to add more Tankbustas but you still want to cap an armored vehicle in the ass.
In 8th edition Stikk Bommas aren't a distinct unit choice, and most ork boyz have stikkbombs anyway. However, you can still simulate them by using the Extra Stikkbombs stratagem.
Huntas[edit]
Huntas are the Feral Orks' primary version to the typical Ork Slugga Boy. A Hunta is the basic type of Feral Ork warrior. Squads of Huntas consist of many Orks whose weapons include both melee and ranged equivalents like axes, primitive guns such as a Ork Blunderbuss or a Shoota Kannon and bows and arrows crafted from stone or crude iron materials and whose effectiveness is found solely in their sheer numbers.
They often have to fight predators as well as other Feral Orks on their homeworlds, but in a large enough group they will not only survive but overwhelm their enemies. Often the strongest and most able Ork will become the leader of the squad of Huntas and dominate them sufficiently to obtain more advanced forms of weapons and armor that makes him a more effective warrior than the standard.
Orks from the Snakebites clan are the most prominent of the main Ork clans to use Huntas instead of the traditional Slugga Boyz due to the heavily tradition-heavy culture of the Snakebites. Most converters just use the Orcs and Goblins model line and equip them with some Sluggas and Choppas to create a unique mix of 40k and Fantasy Greenskins.
With the 9th ed codex, these guys have been spiritually replaced by Beast Snaggas, Feral Ork Boyz that specialize in taking down big monsters. Obviously, this also means they're good at taking down Tanks and Imperial Knights. Obviously.
Wildboyz[edit]
Orks considered primitive even by the standards of Feral Orks.
A Feral Ork raiding party will often come across a small community of Orks that spored away from the larger feral tribes present on the planet. These Orks are usually armed only with the most basic, primitive weapons like stone spears and clubs or knuckle weapons since they have not been exposed to higher levels of Ork technology or culture. The Ork raiding party will bring these wild Orks back to their tribe and place them in so-called Wildboyz Squads.
Over time the other Feral Orks will teach them "da proper Orky way", which ironically, is still not equivalent to the standard technology and cultural levels attained by spacefaring Orks. Yet in a culture that respects only raw physical strength, Wildboyz must first prove their mettle and worth to their new tribe in a raid using only the primitive weapons they were first discovered using.
Converters just used Savage Orcs from either the Fantasy or Age of Sigmar range to Count as Wildboyz.
Madboyz[edit]
These chaps may look physically identical to other Orks, but Madboyz as their namesake requires, are not quite the same in the head. Mobs of Madboyz are considered to be a great sign of luck and good fortune for an Ork settlement or Waaagh! however their presence is not always appreciated due to their outlandish and idiotic behavior even by the standards of the Orks.
Since they usually come from the Ork's equivalent to Conan the Barbarian, having just a little exposure to technology is enough to drive these morons insane. When this happens, an Ork can become psychotic and lose what little rational thought processes he had in the first place (Not as if that makes much of a difference). More recently, Orks have been turning into Madboyz by looking into Gork's Grin for too long.
When they go to battle Madboyz often band together and provide an unintentional retinue for a Weirdboy, dressed in bizarre clothing and wielding anything that takes their fancy, from unconventional choppas to rusty buckets filled with pterasquirrels. The unpredictable movements and behavior of Madboyz has beaten the greatest tacticians as their anarchic unhinged nature means that they are just as likely to pull apart an enemy squad with their bare hands as they are to become engrossed in picking each others noses in the heat of battle.
Occassionally they are caused by being overwhelmed by Krork related genetic memory as the technological knowledge integrated to them comes rushing in upon seeing more advanced Orks (rather than as inspiration from other races and/or the WAAAGH field strengthening giving it gradually). The madboy in question can go from using the Queen's English when warning Meks against relying on alien tech that may be adversely effected by the psychic field of the Orks due to discordant brain-wavelength possibly compromising intricate psychic engineering structures and intervening in bad installations of reactors to saying "Muurp!" in the space of a short paragraph.
Tabletop[edit]
The standard Ork Boy is the workhorse of almost all Ork forces and are some of the best horde infantry in the entire game. Bought in units of 30 Orks at most at 6 pt per Boy, you can quickly and very inexpensivly (in terms of points, GM prices be a pain for any hoard) get huge numbers of models on the table, able to swarm your opponent and fuck over any plans he had of Deep Striking something behind your lines, simply because there won't be any space. They look cool too, having numerous options and being a well of inspiration for kitbashing, and a tide of green muscle just feels so, so... Warhammerish.
Bear in mind that in 7th Edition, Boys don't work as they have always done, simply because so much can kill your green hooligans before they get into charge range - To get that far, your Boys have either used valuable time digging through the dirt to get some Cover saves or been running through the field getting shot at, while probably suffering numerous Leadership tests, who can be circumvented by the Mob Rule, but as that will make the unit hit itself a few times in the process, it isn't always favourable to do so. When (or if) you reach the enemy line and get to bashing, your mob might be severely depleted, and then you have to get through Overwatch and pretty much anyone hit before you in melee, so you might be skewered by those lasgun-bayonets before even getting to krump things.
This is where the new (or old) WAAAGH-rules come into play. All Orks now have 'Ere We Go, which let them reroll one dice when charging, which is pretty good in itself, but it harnesses something far better - If you have a Warboss in your force (And why wouldn't you), you can call a WAAAGH, which lets all units run AND charge in the same turn. This lets Boys able to reach combat in turn 2-3, which is frankly invaluable for a force based so much around getting stuck in with a wicked amount of models as the Orks. On top of that, all Orks have 2 Attacks, and get one if they have Sluggas and Choppas, alongside that crucial extra Attack from charging. And they all have Furious Charge as well, which, while rather meager in this version, help them krump gitz even moar proppa - Just remember that they have to get there somehow, and that isn't something you can do lightly - Orks are random and fun, yeah, but you can really get somewhere by thinking a bit, as with Warhammer 40,000 in general.
Your average Boy has Stikkboms and a Slugga and Choppa, and from there you can upgrade to your hearts content. For a measly 1 pt you can get a Shoota instead of the Slugga, losing one Attack but getting an Assault 2 S4 AP 6 gun in exchange. This helps soften enemies up before mopping them up (Shoota Boys can still kick all kinds of ass, you just need to make sure the unit they charge is softened up enough before charging), but can also put enough shots downrange to be effective as a ranged squad. You can also give any Mob 'Eavy Armour, a cheap 4+ Armor Save, but think about this before upgrading the whole bloody Mob - 4 pts per Boy is a lot when you will likely have around 30 of them running around with it, and there are a good amount of weapons who can ignore 4+ saves in the game right now.
You can also give up to 1 boy per 10 a Special Weapon, which is either a Big Shoota (A nifty weapon for putting more shots downrange, but not strictly needed) or a Rokkit Launcha (A cheap S 8 AP 3 a turn), which can boost the units shooting. Most important is now the Nob, who can help the squad out in combat as well as with Mob Rule checks. He has all the standard options for a Nob - Kit him out to help the unit.
GREAT NEWS! In 8th Edition, Boyz are BACK baby! With a rule that lets you get an additional +1 attack when the force has over 20 Models! Even better, the new Mob Rule is absolutely fantastic, letting you replace your Leadership with model count. They also remain reasonably priced at 7 points per model. AWESOME!