Newb to 2nd edition Space Orks

Today I was in a hobby shop grabbing some paint and impulse bought a box of Orks.

The last time I played Space Orks were with the thin card cutouts from the Rogue Trader book. It was also the first time I played 40K. It was a disaster. Not only is the Battle at the Farm a bit lopsided at the best of times, the buddy showing me how to played pulled some bull where he ran out from cover, hit me in close combat, then reserve moved back into cover and hiding before I could hit back. When I said "hang on, you never told me we could do that", he responded with "you never asked".
It later transpired that this isn't, in fact, how any of this worked. In his defence, we were about 12, he'd only given the book a quick read and I went on to pull crap like power board mounted troops with slings and melta bombs. But it wasn't a great first impression.

So, I have a handful of Orks, a 2nd edition Codex, but it strikes me that I don't really have a clue how to approach building a 2nd edition force. It's been a long time since that 12 year old cheese-hound, so I'm not looking for the "best" Ork army, just a representative one. Given the table size, I'm looking at building about 1200 points.

Are the any 2nd ed Ork players that could share their list, or a couple of pointers to get me started?

I just paint what I like, and choose from among that.

But I know people do well with a largely boar boyz force.

I like including ogryns for flavor, but they are not worth their points cost. Except I think a mighty hero with a cybork body is great fun.

I would tend to avoid the random effects other than the classic shokk attack gun.




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This is an interesting question.
I myself played 2nd edition back in the day at about the same age.
It was so complicated especially since neither of us spoke proper English at the time!

I always played tyranids and never really got in the other versions.

At this point I have bought 2 old lots of plastic orks including a Gorka Morka box.
So far all I have done is reading fluff because since I don’t see the day I will play 2nd ed competitive, I will build my army around what I want to paint and what make sense with the clan I picked… So expect to see some Blood Axe( the old colorful ones) pop somewhere around in a near future.

For your question... I say read the fluff and pick a clan, that will help you get started and develop your color scheme.

I hope we will soon get to see your project!

My friends and I just play 2nd edition with whatever minis we have instead of being competitive.

I don't really know what is best with Orks, but usually we have a lot of boys and then some bikes and buggies.

My best suggestion is also to just buy and paint the models you like and then go from there. If your opponent do the same, then power creep should be avoidable and then just slowly introduce new units as you get them painted. Try different things for different scenarios.

Have fun

I played space orks back in the day, and for what I loved about the 2nd edition space orks were all the differnt clans that each added a differnt flavour to the army. You could build an army from just one clan, and for the most part a goff has the same stats as a bloodaxe, or a bad moon so it doesn't matter much but at the same time each clan brings something differnt to the table, so I would aim to bring at least 1 unit from each clan.

Goffs were Always the main grunt, since everybody had a metric ton of plastic goffs from starter box, armed with a boltpistol and axe they are your main close combat grunts.
Deathskulls bring your heavy weapon troops, and their kustom kombi weapons are some of the best heavy weapons in the game, although my own army had a ton of haevy plasmas because the plastic sprue could be ordered cheap, it was the easiest and cheapest way to get heavy weapons.
For bloodaxes you can't go wrong with brining a squad of kommandos, they're great scouts and can infiltrate
Bad moons can either bring a squad of boys with extra special weapons or even better a squad of nobz in mega armour
snakebites are good as a fast attack choice mounted on cyboars
and for Evil Sunz I usually mounted the squad on warbikes, their bikes autokannons make them great moblie heavy weapon platforms. add a few wartraks and buggies foreven more mobile firepower
Don't forget to bring a shitload of gretchins, they might suck but they're cheap and in great numbers they can even hold their own against greater demons in close combat (although their pitifull strenght might mean they won't be able to do any damage)
As for artilery some of it is hit or miss, I've had great success with the shokk attack gun, and a depending on the terrain a pulsa rokkit can finish of an entire army in the first turn (that will teach them to set up their entire army in a single building in hard cover ;P), i also love the splattakannon (at least I think it was called a splattakannon) but some of the others depending on how well you throw your dice can be troublesome, but that's the beauty of Space Orks.
I personally very quickly stopped brining a weirdboy after mine got his his head exploded in the first turn for 3 consequtive battles, the large sqaud of mad boys probably didn't help ;P.

For the most part would say just bring what you like, if you do favour a certain clan you could build around that, but for me a 2nd edition ork army is all about the gathering of all the differnt clans, and they're relatively cheap so you can bring a lot

I myself have a 1200 point Space Orks list.

Currently in overhaul, but it runs in at roughly 2 units of 10 orks, one with a bazooka...off the black book of course, a mech, a pain boy, a mechaniak, the general, a hero level ork, 2 wartrakks, a trukk, and a battle wagon, capped by around 40 or so gretchin. Off my recollection.

I never played second edition, really. That crazy newhammer stuff . . . But the "have fun" advice probably applies across all editions. I don't know that orks are supposed to "win" or that it's even really necessary. They're just there to have fun blowing stuff up and running about shouting. So . . . charge. Shoot everything with the biggest gun you've got. Throw things about. Laugh. And pick your buddies up out of the craters when it's over and sew them back together. They'll be fine. Theyre ORKS after all!

. . . And if worse comes to worst, just make sure you take lots and lots and lots of orks. Quantity has a quality all its own, as they say.

Points? Oh my! I have no idea how many points of orks I have. A lot, I guess. Not really sure.

Thanks for the advice people. I'm going to park this project for a bit in favour of Space Crusade, but I have a test piece for the Grots I'm happy with (Just blue tacked for now).
I think I'm going to go with a Dreadnought, 3 Bikes, an artillery piece, lots of Boyz and Grotz and their character support.