The Unnamed Gorkamorka Site

Straight from Citadel Journal issue 35 we bring you some new gubbinz; ‘Eet Seekaz and Hot Squigglies!

These luverly heat-seeking missiles will (hopefully) lock onto any suitable target available – trukks, traks, bikes, or even boyz with a few too many bioniks!

Of course, with these nasty things flying about the desert it’d sensible to have something to throw them off the trail. Luckily this article also introduces Hot Squigglies; delightfully flammable little squigs which can be thrown off a vehicle as a crude countermeasure against the equally primitive rockets.

Written by Craig Thompson Wood and published in January 2000 this is one of the last Gorkamorka articles to ever be published and also has the honour of being one of the only three Gorkamorka articles published this millennium.

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(Original image by cliff1066™ licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Generic 2.0 license)

There are many tricky decisions to be made when writing rules. The most important (or at least to the tUGS team) is that of overpower. Too much power spoils the broth…or something like that. Flamekebab gives us his personal insight into what he refers to as “Doom Fortress syndrome”, so passionate about it, it’s delivered straight from his personal blog by E-Grots.

When working on new stuff for Gorkamorka I always try to avoid what I think of as “Doom Fortress Syndrome” – creating something so ridiculously overpowered that fielding it isn’t even remotely possible.

Generally we keep this sort of thing in check during our idea jams although a bit of craziness is of course welcome but most of that stuff ends up on the proverbial cutting room floor. In order to maintain the balance we try our best to follow the principles mentioned on the last page of Da Uvver Book (“Gorkamorka Designer’s Notes”). Shooting is not supposed to be particularly deadly, for example, so we try not to introduce anything that will mean that a faction can dominate the board. When we wrote the rules for the Dust Rat Long Rifle we made it expensive enough that a mob wishing to field several of them would end up forgoing much more versatile kit due to the sheer expense of the weapon, balancing its strength.

This is pretty much the reason why under normal circumstances you’ll not find us putting armour values over 10 on things – barely anything can penetrate vehicles that tough.

For this reason you won’t find us encouraging you to field battlewagons, tanks, or mega tanks for that matter. They look awesome, but the balance issues they raise risk the game turning into an arms race. Essentially it’s about trying to ensure an even playing field – no one faction should even be the obvious best choice.

It always annoys me when people say “Which side/character is best?!” for a videogame. The more sensible ones mean “Which do you think would suit someone who hasn’t played this before?” but a large number seem to be under the impression that there is one character or faction that is superior to all the others. In a well balanced game that kind of question should be gibberish!

The arms race I mentioned would mean that mobs that aren’t able to easily field powerful weapons would end up on the losing end much of the time. Sure, Orks can get hold of Rokkit launchers to try to crack the armour on a tough target, but what about Rebel Grots?

It’s a similar principle behind my opposition to Killa Kans in Gorkamorka – as a scenario component they’re fine, but as a regular mob member a Killa Kan causes problems. Gorkamorka is unique amongst the Games Workshop skirmish games (as far as I know) in that it has a mechanic known as “Da Rollin’ Road” (see page 96 of Da Uvver Book). This little set of rules means that one can have chases, races, and so on, which I think is rather awesome. Unfortunately if you cannot thrust then you are at a bit of a disadvantage – and walkers aren’t exactly known for their speed.

This is pretty much the only problem I see with the Snorta rules, but even then they can run like the Muties can which tends to help things.

To conclude I’ll say this – the ethos of a game is vitally important when crafting new rules. Just because you can add it doesn’t mean it’ll fit with how the game was intended to be played. Sometimes you’ve just got to say “well that’s pretty damn cool, but I just don’t think it’ll work in practice”. You don’t have to say it, actually, but it’s a principle I encourage you to adopt.

And there you have it! If anyone has any thoughts on the matter (and we hope you do), please leave a comment.

Aquatica has written in asking about the maximum sizes for mobs and we’re going to do our best to answer.

Officially speaking there doesn’t appear to be any limit on mob size. If anyone has found an official limit please comment with a page number as we aren’t certain. In terms of income and net profit the largest bracket is 19+ models, but to be quite honest a Rebel Grot mob could hit that number easily.

Whilst it’s possible to recruit an infinite number of warriors, realistically you’ll not have enough teef to get stupidly high. The other thing that adding warriors to your mob does is up the total cost and experience, both of which contribute to your mob rating. Mob ratings top out at 400, after which a mob should retire.

In fact, if you were to hire 40 boys with just a choppa each, a Nob, a couple of Spanners, and a pair of trukks to transport them all, even only at the starting experience level, you’d exceed a mob rating of 400.

More realistically if the mob had an average level of experience points each (mid campaign) and the same equipment choices (unlikely) then you’d max out at 23 boyz.

To sum up, in theory you can have as many warriors as you like, but in practice your mob is unlikely to go over 30 models. Hope that answers your question!

JaggedJaw has got in touch to see if there’s anyone near Branson, Missouri (or Springfield) looking to play Gorkamorka. Leave a comment if you’re interested.

If there’s any other people looking for people to play with who’d like us to post something similar for them you can either post on the aforementioned group or leave a comment on our Wall.

Going to the Doc can have its issues, but it’s not all doom and gloom (otherwise why bother going!) because you just might get something shiny, new and killy. So here is a little feature on some of the serjery that my Freebooterz have endured.

My Furst Mate (now my Kaptin) received Multiple Injuries in the very first round of combat he was in, while he suffered various injuries, going to the Doc was not as easy as I thought. At first, I thought it wouldn’t matter as he had an Old Battle Wound, a Headwound, a Legwound and got off lightly with some Impressive Scars, so receiving a serjery other than the one he went in for, would still put him in decent shape. Not much later, the Kaptin also came down with a mild case of shattered skull (Headwound) and Pink Eye (Blind in One Eye). And one of my main gunslingers now seemed to be suffering from some form of agonizing chest pains (Chestwound). While it may not be the worst conditions to cope with, I decided that I probably could do better than a bunch of seemingly arthritic greenskins and sent them off to their local Doc.

The Doc's patients ain't restin' no more!

BUILT FOR SPEED

The Furst Mate was the first to be seen to, as the mob waited patiently in the waiting room. He soon emerged with Traks for legs. To start with I thought that this wasn’t really what I wanted and shoved him to one side to deal with him later. He was wounded in both legs, so it seemed a neccessary procedure, but I was still unsure about the outcome (at first!). Similarly, the Kaptin went through a similar operation and found himself with a gyro-stabilised mono-wheel. He didn’t need it, but you know how things are in the Doc’s office.

The new Kaptin with his steel skull races some muties on his traks for legs for that scrap

It was however, a blessing in disguise as they are, from then on, treated in similar ways to vehicles…including thrusting. The ability to zip round the board with free easy I only recently discovered to be brilliant for navigating small nooks and crannies that trukks cannot, or moving around terrain that vehicles would struggle to do. Not to mention that these warriors were (obviously), smaller than vehicles and while had speed to match vehicles, they could also hide easily. This became a nice little technique when fetching scrap, as I would often run round pieces of terrain once collected.

Depiff's warrior zips to cover using his trusty kustom thrusta boosta trying to dodge enemy fire

I also soon realised that it was also ideal for rushing straight into combat, occupying the enemy instantly that would normally take turns to reach, and that extra turn might be all you need to pull out the scrap from under them (that actually happened once!). This dynamic was enhanced when one of my main gunslingers, the one suffering a Chestwound received a Kustom Thrusta Boosta, while he would seldom leave his post from firing off his six-shootas wildly from the Trukk, it would be a great relief to have him thrust over into combat or to grab some scrap if the driver took a slight ‘involuntary detour’. The Doc might as well have painted them all red!

WAAAAGH!!

The (former) Kaptin received his Steel Horns very early on, giving him a very distinct advantage as he was already equipped with a knife, a choppa and had earned a pet growler squig from the Freebooter skills. With this in mind, he became a rather worthy combatant as he could race into a charge on his mono-wheel, release his growler squig for one attack, then continue, receive his +1 dice for extra hand weapon, then plus his steel horns. I found it hard to believe that one Ork managed to down three enemy models in the same fight phase. I suppose thats why he is (err…was) The Kaptin.

The Furst Mate’s Old Battle Wound quickly healed up once the Doc fitted him with some Fungus Bref Lungs. While not as obviously ‘stabby’ as the Kaptin’s Steel Horns, I found it useful as it would reduce his opponent’s WS. This was nothing to be sniffed at as he had already acquired a WS of 5, 2 attacks basic, was wielding a slugga and choppa (two combat weapons), and with his traks could thrust into combat with ease!

The former Kaptin using all his shiny bioniks to get the best of that Dust Rat

While the Doc was stapling in various odds and sods, my Furst Mate also received a Steel Skull, which was also enough to cause a slight rumbling over leadership. While the Kaptin was constantly defending his title, he did eventually lose a pitfight to the Furst Mate. It was the third in a row between just the two of them, so it only seemed fair (as gutted as I was). While a +1 to leadership may not seem like much, it can cause some issues later on, so be wary.

LOOK AFTER THEM…

My driver was wounded later on, but I found it unnecessary to attempt to heal him, because it was merely a Legwound and he shouldn’t really be leaving the trukk anyway. It seemed pointless to even try. And even if the serjery was a success, there would be a chance that he could be armed…err.. legged with gyro-stabilised mono-wheel or wheels/traks, meaning he wouldn’t be able to drive! Call me old fashioned, but I tend to like my drivers to drive.

He soon suffered an Old Battle Wound which I was rather cautious about. In one of my first games, I lost my Badmek which meant I had to scrape together enough teef to hire another one and buy his much needed equipment. I found this bothersome, and would not risk losing any of my key mobsters ever again (mainly drivers, gunners, and meks), even if just for a game. As a result, I sent my driver in to try to fix his Old Battle Wound…it would not be very useful if the driver was unable to enter the field because it was flaring up, so this was a priority. In end, he emerged from serjery with an Iron Lung. Like his Legwound, I was not bothered about the side effects of his slow moving and was content that he was still on the payroll, rather than only sometimes showing up. And as most of you will know, the driver can win you the game!

Depiff's Bad Mek in cybork armour with steel teef being mangled by Flamkebab's Klaw Arm

In a more recent game, my (latest) Badmek was horribly mangled and he too received an Old Battle Wound*, amongst other things. This case was urgent and the Kaptin (formerly the Furst Mate) rushed him to the Doc…but it was a bit too much of a rush, and he returned with Steel Teef. In all fairness although it was not intended, it should prove useful as my mob seem rather prone to being Gobsmacked, so that ought to cut that down a bit. My Kaptin was Gobsmacked twice! I just don’t know how it keeps happening!

As the Badmek came out of serjery with his Steel Teef, he was immediately turned around to go back in. This time when he emerged, the Kaptin’s face lit up with skiny, killy joy as he saw the Badmek had been reborn in cybork form. While my Badmek was never one of the brawlers, or one of my gunslingers, or one of my distractions, or one of scrap grabbers, or one of….anything useful, he soon found a use as he took on three orks in combat at once as their weapons kept clanging off his shiny new armour. Eventually, it took a lucky swipe with a claw-arm** before he fell. But it had been so long in combat that the rest of the mob had descended upon them and avenged his fall.

(*Old Battle Wounds seem to be my signature thing. If it wasn’t for the Doc, then it’s possible that none of my mobster would be able to fight! Highly unlikely, but still possible.)

(**also a very useful bionik to have…especially as it will open up cyborks like a tin-opener)

And there you have it, an insight into my experiences with Bioniks. From strategy, to preferences, I hope you all have as much fun using them I do.