Rok
Looted asteroids!!! No, really, that's it.
Even among Ork vehicles, Roks've little in the way of standardisation. They can be of any size, ranging all the way from small asteroids to small moons, depending on what celestial objects the Orks can get their mitts on. Natural craters and caves're expanded upon and new ones're excavated, opening up vast warrens of tunnels and chambers beneath the cold exposed surface, housing crew quarters, engine rooms, and gun batteries. They're incredibly easy to make, only requiring the level of expertise necessary to make terrestrial bunkers, and thus flotillas of them spring up in every system Orks come to.
Roks can't travel through the Warp by themselves, but can be towed along by other Ork vessels, similar to the Tau Orca-class Destroyer (no, not that one).
Types of Roks[edit]
Rok[edit]
Your standard Rok.
The Ork Roks, along with the Big and Mega versions that occupy the larger weight classes, aren't really typical line ships in the normal sense. They are far more akin to small versions of the defensive space stations, or larger versions of the defensive turrets, except in the Rok's case, there are engines strapped to the hull of the structure to allow it to move along with the rest of the fleet. Interestingly, and somewhat absurd when you think about it, the Roks can actually fly faster than the other Light Cruiser ships, moving at 200 units versus their 160.
These Roks are often the ones you see crash-landing on a planet, as they are small enough to evade counterfire and fast enough to do quite a number of damage to the surrounding area, at the cost of ferrying less troops of course.
It is armed with 4 Torpedo Launchers, 4 Gunz Artillery and 4 Heavy Gunz Batteries.
- Diamater: Varies but usually 1km
- Mass: 8-12 megatonnes; approx
- Crew: 21,000 crew; approx
- Acceleration: 1-2 gravities maximum acceleration
Big Rok[edit]
Bigger than the standard Rok.
The Big Rok like it's smaller and larger cousin, takes it's weaponry and splits it into 4 quarter arcs that can each fire on their own target. The Big Rok like the others cannot rotate to try to move it's quadrants around on the same target, however beyond trying to cheat reload times, the Big Rok can't lose weapons or subsystems to critical hits, so it can't end up with any "dead sides".
Big Roks are usually used as the mainline space station if they aren't used for planetary landings.
These Big Roks are only used for crash-landing on a planet when there is a sufficient WAAAGH going on. Due to their much bigger size, they are reserved once a good chunk of the planet's anti-aircraft batteries is disabled for proper crash-landing.
It is armed with 8 Torpedo Launchers, 8 Gunz Artillery, 4 Mega Zzap Kannon Artillery and 8 Heavy Gunz Batteries.
- Diamater: Varies but usually 4km
- Mass: 24-32 megatonnes; approx
- Crew: 65,000 crew; approx
- Acceleration: 1-2 gravities maximum acceleration
Mega Rok[edit]
The largest type of Rok used by the Orks.
The Mega Rok takes the cake for high on paper dps and crit numbers, costing the same as some other expensive faction's Battleships, but putting out damage numbers 4 or more times higher. The damage output is so high, that it actually ends up doing a Battleship's worth of damage out of every quadrant of it's firing arcs, meaning if you can keep it in the middle of an enemy fleet at close range for its Heavy Gunz to land properly, you will do some serious wrecking. In addition, the large array of Zzap Kannons is somewhat appealing considering the rarity of these weapons on the line ships.
Mega Roks are reserved only for crash-landing on the biggest WAAAGHs such as Armageddon for example. Due to their large size, they could actually tank fire from Defense Lasers and other anti-aircraft batteries before crash-landing and unloading its cargo.
It is armed with 12 Torpedo Launchers, 12 Gunz Artillery, 8 Mega Zzap Kannon Artillery and 12 Heavy Gunz Batteries.
- Diamater: Varies but usually 8km
- Mass: 57-70 megatonnes; approx
- Crew: 150,000 crew; approx
- Acceleration: 1-2 gravities maximum acceleration
Notable Roks[edit]
The War of The Beast[edit]
During the War of The Beast, the largest Roks on Imperial record were seen, some nearing the size of large moons. See its page for more details.
In Battlefleet Gothic[edit]
Roks had a lot of Special Rules because of their unique nature, but we'll get to those later. A Rok was Defence/8, with a single Gunz Battery, Heavy Gunz Battery, and Torpedo Launcha, all three of which had All Round Fire Arcs, and the Gunz Battery got the 45cm Range and 1d6+6 Firepower of a prow weapon. It had to move its maximum Speed of 10cm forward in a straight line, and couldn't turn at all. Yes, you heard that right, it couldn't turn! That meant it couldn't use the Burn Retros or Come To New Heading Orders either. The only way to change direction was with the All Ahead Full Order, which let it move in any direction an extra 2d6cm, and if it moved more than 10cm in a different direction to the one it was previously going in, that became the new direction of travel. Roks didn't reduce their Speed when Crippled or moving through Blast markers.
You also didn't roll on the Critical Table when Critical Hits were scored against a Rok, each Crit just inflicted an extra point of Damage. And when a Rok was finally destroyed, it automatically broke up with no need to roll for Catastrophic Damage, being replaced by 4 Blast markers.
As many Roks could be fielded in your fleet as you wanted, just like Escorts, and each only cost as much as two Ork Escorts whilst being eight times as tough, so you could quite easily swamp the enemy in your own mobile asteroid field. Their rules made them a right pain to fight, as you couldn't predict where they'd go with any degree of certainty, and each came with a lot of weapons for their price.
Tabletop[edit]
Roks'll often be deliberately crashed into a planet's surface when the Orks're invading, and they're reinforced enough to actually survive the impact, dislodging their passengers like giant Drop Pods. If your ground forces didn't come by Landa or Tellyport, they came by Rok.
See Also[edit]
- The World Engine: When the Necrons stole an idea from the Orks.
- The Rock: When the Dark Angels stole an idea from the Orks.
Gallery[edit]
| Vessels of the Orks | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spaceships | ||
| Space Station | Attack Moon | |
| Battleships | Ork Battleship - Space Hulk | |
| Cruisers | Light Kroozer - Kroozer - Battlekroozer | |
| Escorts | Escort | |
| Logistics | Ork Transporter | |
| Roks | Rok | |
| Combat Spacecraft | Ork Assault Boat | |
| Landships | ||
| Armored Trains | Locomotive Battering Ram | |
| Titans | Stompa - Supa Stompa - Gargant Great Gargant - Mega Gargant Temple Gargant | |
| Superheavy Tanks | Battlefortress - Gunfortress | |
| Airships | ||
| Flying Fortress | Heavy Bommer - Mega Bommer Bommer Fortress | |
| Aerospace Vessels | Landa | |
| Seaships | ||
| Oceanic Battleships | Nautical Kroozer | |
| Maritime Escorts | Maritime Escort | |
| Submarines | Ork Submersible | |