The Unnamed Gorkamorka Site

I happened to be inside an actual Games-Workshop establishment a while back, on the eve of the release of the new edition of the Fantasy rules (Is it Fifth Edition now? I’ve lost track) and my true purpose was to find some Cold Ones from the Lizardmen to see if they were anywhere near suitable for conversion into the kind of Muties that I like, that is, still vaguely similar to the previously released editions.

Alas, I found the Cold Ones not to my taste. Then the gentlemen of GW looked around furtively and pulled out their advance copy of the new rules and thumbed through it to the Chaos section. And they showed me these lovely ladies. These are of course plastic models and come in boxes of 5 for a fairly reasonable sum of £15 sterling. While the mounts are two legged instead of the four legged horses available originally, I felt they would convert very well into desert traversing beasts.

Seekers of Slaanesh

They’re due for release on the 7th August and I feel represent what could actually be the basis of an entire Mutie mob, given that the warriors cost a fair bit. My current mob, while powerful, still only has five member and I think this is the ideal box for folks who feel like getting a bit weird in their Gorkamorka mobsters.

Of course, these models lack the necessary firearms to be a true Mutie mob, though I have to say, there are some wonderful claws that fit the nice Scything Blade mutation available in the soon to be released “Da Green Pitz”. While the actual upper bodies probably won’t be used, instead being built out of Green Stuff, I’m definitely grabbing a pack of these to have my surgical team turn into some real freaks.

I wonder if we know a certain Dok who has a penchant for making tiny, wonderful firearms? Possibly coupled with a nifty annual Flamekebab came across, we’re looking into outfitting this new band of Muties with some serious new hardware.

Oh, I’m Mattz by the by. Resident Mutie player and one of the folks working on turning ‘Ere Be Stuff into reality. Pleasure to meet you all proper.

Stay Green 😉

Image is property of Games Workshop. Seekers of Slaanesh are currently found on the website under the Warhammer Advance Orders section.

Whilst there’s not much happening on the surface, a lot of work is being done behind the scenes here at tUGS. We’ve been coming up with a roadmap for Ere Be Stuff to make sure it doesn’t end up like so many other projects, fizzling out and dying. We’re not promising anything and we’re definitely not at the stage where we can say for definite when we’re going to release the finished thing, but let’s just say that we’ve got an idea.

In terms of stuff you can expect to see released on the site within the coming month or two, there’s a fair bit to report…

Matt has been refining Da Green Pitz to fix some of the issues with the first version and Clayton is working on some artwork to go with them. Hopefully within a couple of weeks that will be released.

Several brand new scenarios have been written, with quite a few more planned. Those will appear in good time, and if at all possible, with some artwork to go with them. There are also plans afoot for a couple of new settings for scenarios, still on Angelis and in/around Da Skid, but allowing players to have fun with more than just a flat desert. There’s potential in them there ‘ills! (No, not the Howling Hills.)

In between that Ben and Matt have been throwing around an idea that is probably going to be received with both groans and cheers (from themselves and the audience). It’s based on developments in video games in recent years that hadn’t been envisaged at the time of Gorkamorka’s release. That’s all we’re saying for now on the subject but feel free to speculate.

One final thing – we’re recruiting more artists for the project as we’ve got a fair volume of things that need illustrations. Reckon you could doodle some Orks for us? Maybe some humans? How about deserts?

Leave a comment if you think you might be up to the job.

All of Grimlug’s Lads are now painted and based (where appropriate) and so I present the second of two Orks using the Kromlech Orc War II heads, Skrognik.

He uses a 40K Ork biker arm and carries an old metal choppa on his back (Gorkamorka weapon sprue). It’s attached using a small section of plasticard tubing and is probably removable without damaging the model, uh, probably..

Once again I used grey_death’s rust painting technique, as seen on all of Grimlug’s mob.

His right hand was done through very careful scalpel work and a little bit of cutting and gluing. I rather like the result and feel it is entirely appropriate for an overly cocky Ork yoof!

It’s finally time for the first component of Ere Be Stuff to be released – Burnas!

Yes, yes, we’ve released Matt’s Mutie healing rules as a preview release, but they’re still being worked on, tweaked, illustrated and updated.

Given the Orks’ penchant for fire in all its incarnations it’s a little surprising that dedicated burna rules were never released but now they have been!

Previously fire and burnination was limited to scorchers and the odd splattapult payload but we here at tUGS felt that something as delightfully destructive as fire should appear more often. That and there’s been so many great models for them released!

Primarily written by Benjamin Fox (tUGS’s very own Flamekebab) but with significant contributions by the whole team, this release sees the first public appearance of Clayton’s artwork for the project. I’m sure you’ll be as impressed with his artwork as we all have been. You can see more over at his DeviantArt page.

So, we present for your consideration, Burnas in Gorkamorka:

Download PDF

Edit: A new PDF has been created using the more modern template.

This document was written by Benjamin Fox and contains artwork created by Clayton Tait. It’s licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share-Alike license.

One of our regular contributors, Flamekebab, recently wrote a little piece on why Gorkamorka is so important to him on his personal blog and asked whether we’d be interested in republishing it. Given that it’s about why Gorkamorka is important to a player, we thought it was more than relevant enough, so we hope you enjoy it.

I was asked recently why I put so much effort into Gorkamorka and our ongoing project to create an expansion pack for it, something which I thought might be worth posting on here.

To explain I have to take you on a journey through a few periods of my personal history, explaining a few things along the way. If you’re not interested, turn back now, you have been warned.

Gorkamorka was my first tabletop game, having discovered it shortly before breaking my left arm in 1998. I was faced with a Summer mostly on my own with my arm in a cast. Whilst this was a little awkward, it wasn’t too devastating. In fact I barely remember it because of the great enjoyment I got out of Gorkamorka, having been given the boxed set. One thing that did upset the young me was what I was told when I visited Games Workshop, having constructed my mob; that I was not allowed to play the game in store.

Seeing as this was my first game, I was devastated, or at least quite miffed. Why would they sell it and have a whole shelf dedicated to products one was not allowed to use in their store? I don’t remember what they might have told me then, but I think a small part of me died that day. Yes, that’s absurdly melodramatic, but back then I was only 11 and considerably more sensitive than I am now.

It was that Autumn that I started a new school, my first and only boarding school, where I was thrown into an environment where we were expected to grow up quickly. Gone was the playground of the previous school, but in its place we had sport by the afternoon full. However, as I had only just had my cast removed, I was “off games” for the first half of the term, giving me lots of time on my own, which I spent working on my miniatures, one of the only bits of escapism I had in an otherwise relatively hostile environment, at least compared to my previous schools.

Despite this and a few friends interested in the hobby, I never got to properly play Gorkamorka, something which was always a source of disappointment for me. A year later I got to play Necromunda, which was great, but I had to put my desire to play Gorkamorka on hold indefinitely. That was how things were for over ten years, during which time I got into Warhammer 40,000 (3rd Edition) and Mordheim, eventually shelving my models having been mistreated by Games Workshop for the umpteenth time and deciding that enough was enough.

Then, in 2009, now firmly established in Edinburgh, I decided to see whether there were enough people in the local area to play a tabletop skirmish game with. Initially I planned to play Mordheim and took the time to finish painting my Mordheim warbands (on my to-do list since the year 2000..) and spent a little while designing and building some portable Mordheim terrain. What I discovered doing this was that not only did I still have the skills I used to have, but that I was actually significantly better at building and painting than I was when I was younger. I also found that I had much more patience with painting, making it far more tolerable, often enjoyable (when I was younger I would paint to have them painted, although not purely for functionality, I had standards).

With this knowledge I decided to try to arrange a Gorkamorka campaign amongst friends and to try out a rebel grot mob. Back in the day there were metal grots, of which I had a few, but now there were excellent, and more importantly cheap, plastic gretchin for sale. A couple of packs from somewhere like Wayland Games and my old bitz box resulted in a Rebel Grot Mob with a Big Lugga and two Cuttas.

Whilst they didn’t do too well in the tester game or two they played in, they did rekindle the hope that I might at last get to play in a Gorkamorka campaign. Fast forward a year and I find myself in a campaign with four other players and nearly twice as many mobs. It may seem silly, but this makes me incredibly happy. It may have taken over a decade, but I’m finally getting to play a game I fell in love with as a child. Every minute I spend playing, painting, writing, planning, or talking about it with other enthusiastic players makes my heart soar.

Eventually I imagine I’ll be ready to put the game to rest for another few years, at last sated, but for now at least I’m going strong. Hopefully this can adequately explain my love of Gorkamorka and all its silliness.

Is it as good as I hoped it would be?

To be honest, I can’t say I remember how I hoped it would be, all those years ago. What I can say is that it’s far better than my current self could have hoped it would be, something which makes me incredibly grateful to the friends that make it possible for me to play it.

There you have it, guys, if you have something to say on the subject why not leave a comment?