The green tide, orcs, greenskins… they are known by many names but they all mean the same thing. The violent green skinned menace that live only for war and will search for a fight wherever they might go, whether that be the dwarf strongholds to the east of the Old World or across a thousand planets in the 41st millennium. Regardless of whether they come rampaging from the Old World or from some distant point beyond the stars, the greenskins should never be taken for granted, for these brutal savages are exceedingly simple in both mind and action and ultimately that’s why they pose a significant threat to all civilizations around them. In this exploratory video we will learn about the the orcs that inhabit the Warhammer Fantasy world and the orks that plague the galaxy in the 41st millennium. There are more similarities between the greenskins in both universes than one may initially think, but there are also many differences that set them apart. One thing is for sure though: they live for violence and war. The orcs of Warhammer fantasy are a primitive and warlike race that scourges the face of the Old World. They are the bane of all civilization and they care nothing for order, progress or keeping records of their feats and conquests. These creatures have hides of green hue and are hideous in appearance. They are taller and broader than a man but stooped like an ape of the southlands. Their red and beady eyes are set deep beneath a thick brow, they glow red in the dark and their foul fangs protrude from their gaping mouths. They converse among themselves as much by blows and cuffs as by guttural sounds and grunts. Their weapons and artefacts are of the crudest kind, yet effective enough to break havoc in every land they migrate to. In the early days after the Great Catastrophe, a cataclysmic event that shook mountains and opened the earth itself, numberless orcs emerged from the caves beneath the World’s Edge Mountains and from the East storming into the more developed and civilized lands of the Old World. The green tide of mindless destruction almost annihilated the race of man, as well as put the ancient and proud dwarfs in the brink of extinction. Attacking from above and below, the greenskins surged through the broken battlements of their once-mighty holds and killed all in their path. Dwarf holds were taken, human settlements were burned and the armies sent against the vast green hordes were hacked apart. It was seemingly the end of civilization. But after the coming of Sigmar Heldenhammer and the ensuing unification of the tribes of men, the orcs were defeated in the legendary battle of Blackfire Pass. The orcs and goblins were ultimately defeated and they entered an age of stagnation while the races of dwarfs and men would go on to recover and develop gunpowder and even great war machines of devastating power. On the other side, the orcs still rely upon their iron cleavers they usually call choppas and still throw themselves headlong at the enemy, slowly recovering year after year and growing in numbers once again. Since then the race of man, whose physical strength pales in comparison to the hulking greenskins, has suffered at the hands of these savage and violent warriors. The fine swords of men forever clashing against the heavy iron cleavers used by the greenskins. There is no counting the numbers of the orcs and goblins which infest the barren places of the world and no matter how many are slain, there are always more. One would be wrong to underestimate the threat of the orcs. For when they form a horde led by a mighty warboss who is inspired by his idols, they can become unstoppable and will cut a swathe through the realms of men and dwarfs. Even wonderful and mighty elven cities have been laid low and many fine things have been overthrown and trodden into dust by the greenskins. Similarly, the orks from Warhammer 40k charge against their enemies in a furious desire for blood and violence. The orks live only for war, they thrive on battle and mayhem. As they run screaming towards the enemy, they fire their rusty weapons with erratic aim. The ground shakes and the air fills with dark smoke and savage war cries. All accompanied by the loud snarling of rusty, yet powerful engines as the orks close in. As they quickly cover ground, the orks care little for their own safety and that of their fellows. Eager to get into the thickest of fights, they storm forward blasting and crushing everything in the way leaving a red path of destruction in their wake. But the true nature of the greenskins is unveiled when they reach the enemy lines and close combat begins. The brutality they unleash upon their foes is unparalleled; choppas swing up and down hitting the enemy infantry who oftentimes cannot do more than defend themselves against the living avalanche of green creatures coming at them. The ferocious orks scream and laugh as they hack and slash, thriving in the excitement of a proper battle. They live for this moment. The ork physiology is so resilient that in the heat of battle they ignore wounds that would kill a normal man. The orks have been known to survive fatal wounds and it is said that they grow and develop the more they fight. Gunshot wounds, broken bones or burned limbs are no reason for an ork to turn away a good scrap. In the brutal anarchy of the action, they do not slow down in their joyful fury. The wounds they suffer and the scars that form thereafter are a testament to the mightiness and resilience of an ork. The mighty warlords that lead these greenskins across thousands of battlefields are oftentimes the biggest and strongest of them all. They conquer vast numbers of lesser tribes and with time, they amass so many followers that they can even escalate into a devastating Waaagh! a gathering of orks of epic proportions that move from star system to star system drowning entire planets in wave after wave of greenskins. Waaaghs are generally named after the warboss that managed to gather all the ork warbands. It is part a military campaign and a migration of gigantic proportions at the same time. Millions upon millions of battle-hungry orks stop fighting amongst themselves, at least to a degree, in order to invade their target and stomp everything in their way. As long as there is something bigger to fight and a proper battle to be had, a Waaagh! will continue moving, leaving only cities burned, armies crushed and entire planets annihilated. Such is the potentially devastating force of a sizable ork Waagh! That there are many imperial commanders who will simply attempt to resolve their conflicts with the numberless greenkins with an orbital bombardment if not an all-out exterminatus, in the most extreme of cases. There are some however who believe that the orks do not wage eternal war so as to subjugate all other races to their will, claiming that the greenskins have no desire for such, instead the mayhem and violence of battle is its own reward and war is little more than the greatest game that was ever conceived. Fortunately for the races of men, dwarfs, elves, and more, the thing that makes the greenskins such a great threat to the civilized kingdoms and systems and their planets, is also the very thing which keeps them at bay. For the greenskins, regardless of whether they torment the lands of the Old World or the many systems of the Imperium, their endless thirst for violence means they are in a constant state of civil war, fighting amongst themselves when they have no one else to fight and sometimes even when they do. As long as there are battles to be had, the greenskins will continue to fight, spreading their reach until they are defeated or at last, they drown all in an endless tide of violence. The origins of the orcs of the Old World are shrouded in mystery; no one knows from where they truly came. Many believe their spores arrived entirely by accident when the Old Ones first landed on the planet and from there the orcs established themselves in the Far East, beyond the World’s Edge Mountains. However, after the Great Cataclysm they migrated further west, attacking the dwarf strongholds across the mountains and pushing them to the brink of extinction, spreading their spores as they went. The orks of 41st millennium though have a better-established origin dating back to the war in heaven. The Old Ones, struggling to level the playing field between themselves and their necron enemies, created the Krorks, the forebears of the modern day ork. Much larger and indeed much smarter, the Krorks were a military force of immense power but over the vast eons of time the Krorks devolved, losing their intelligence and size and becoming the simple minded barbarians they are today. There is also very little difference in the nature that fantasy orcs and the orks of the far future reproduce, as both are a fungus animal hybrid rebuilding their numbers not through standard reproduction but through the spreading of spores which grow in dark, dank places into fully fledged and violent greenskin warriors. It is considered that the best and most effective way of destroying or at least temporarily stopping a greenskin menace is to use fire to cleanse it all into ashes, so that the spores of these creatures cannot gain the necessary nutrients to develop. The orcs are known to thrive on pure force of will alone when it comes to the powers that go beyond the physical plain. Their collective might is made powerful by the sheer amount of numbers believing in this invisible power. The greenskins use their own psychic power and do not draw from the warp, as psychers from other races usually do. The orks of the 41st millennium have somehow advanced this ability to a larger scope. If enough orks believe a thing to be true, then it is invariably the case. All orks know that if you paint a speeder red it will go faster and so it does. All orks know painting a bomb in yellow makes it more powerful and so yellow bombs make for bigger explosions when detonated. Scholars and commanders across the Imperium of Man cannot explain how these things are possible, but they are. Enough orks believing something works is enough to make anything work. The ork race's collective unconsciousness registers in the inmateriun the same as all the other races do. They create an echo that ultimately forms into the forms of Gork and Mork, the two entities all greenskins worship as their own gods. All know that Gork is brutal but cunning, while Mork is cunning but brutal. Mork represents the cunning of the greenskin race, he is the patron of creators, shamans and usually the most intelligent breed of orks; Mekboyz, weirdboyz and basically the ones that do a bit more than fighting. These are the ones who keep the hordes of greenskins moving effectively from battle to battle. Gork represents the brutality of the greenskin race, he is the patron of those orks that live to smash, break, chop and kill their enemies with their ferociousness and strength. This basically includes all orks but it does not ultimately matter which god an ork acclaims since both are warrior gods and will favour the orks in the ultimately same goal: to live for the thrill of the fight. All greenskins follow the same basic societal blueprint. Both variants exist in tribal societies and even though they have wildly different cultural values, they are always ruled by the simplest hierarchy there is; the bigger the better, with the bigger greenskins invariably rising up the ranks to become imposing warbosses and leading their own warbands and tribes from one battle to the next. In the Old World, the encampments of the orcs are squalid in the extreme and, every so often, the different tribes gather together and migrate in great hordes across the land, waging war against anyone they come across, and very often amongst themselves. There is no crime in greenskin tribes, mostly because there are no laws save that the biggest and mightiest orc around them is the boss. While most other races will have some form of currency and economy, the greenskins use “teef” as currency. This means that any greenskin can produce his own means of exchange at any time by pulling the teeth of his hunted prey or even his own, with human teeth being of little value while the teeth of an elf is highly cherished. In the case of the orks that roam the far future, tyranid teeth are extremely desirable for them. Although a greenskin can always pull his own teeth, which can grow back rapidly and indefinitely if he is in desperate need for it, they are valued less by their fellow greenskins. This system often means that the biggest and strongest greenskins are often the richest and best equipped with weapons and armour since they can either pull their own teeth or knock out the teeth of a weaker greenskin and simply take his. However, there is no severe inflation in the greenskin economy for “teef” will rapidly break down, keeping the economy somehow balanced. The greenskins armies of the fantasy world come with snotlings, goblins, common orcs, Big Uns and ranking above them all is the failed experiment of the Chaos dwarfs, the Black Orcs, always the biggest and smartest of the warband they may be a part of. We have an entire episode dedicated to the Black Orcs here on the channel, you can check it out after this video to learn more about the meanest greenskins there are in existence and how they came to be. On the other hand, the Savage Orcs of the Old World are considered brutal, feral primitives even by low orcish standards. These brutes have shunned the practice of wearing armour and will rush into the heart of the battle wearing furs and pelts decorated with bones and skulls, all while swinging their basic spears and clubs with devastating force. Although none can doubt that these monstrous brutes have even fewer wits than their fellow greenskins, they more than make up for it with their sheer ferocity and strength. The orks rampaging across the galaxy are much more apt to use their shootas rather than their choppas when charging the enemy. In fact the orks have a much wider array of tools at their disposal when it comes to prosecuting a battle against which ever foe they face, thanks to the machinations of the Mekboyz who show more than the usual basic understanding of building, jury-rigging, and bodging. These orks can deploy air strikes and loose huge mechanical monsters known as Gargants upon the enemy to destroy them. These are orks who can baffle even the most knowledgeable of the Mechanicus by being able to create a massive variety of weapons, vehicles and machines seemingly out of scrap, making machines work when they simply shouldn’t, at least not by conventional means. In contrast to these orks are the Freebooterz of the 41st millennium. These warbands are often orks drawn from various klans who have either chosen to leave or have been exiled, but they hold no allegiance to anyone or anything. They lack so much in loyalty that the Freebooterz can often be found offering mercenary work, assisting any ork Klan or opposing any other if the price is right. They can be often found roaming the vast celestial oceans of the galaxy acting as little more than giant, green pirates. There are even painboyz, the greenskin equivalent to doctors or healers. They are only employed to heal the gravest of injuries. Painboyz often experiment with their ork patients, usually having arms, legs and even heads swapped between them, taking advantage of the extremely resilient form of the orks, these are able to survive terrible injuries and even come out stronger and enhanced, thanks to the crazy works of the painboyz. The painboyz learn their craft through a mixture of instinct, trial and error and they keep experimenting with joy upon their patients. The Meganobz are the richest and most battle-hardened Ork Nobz around. Clad in Mek-built mega armour with enough protective plating to turn the wearer into a walking tank, these battle hardened orks can shrug off a hail of bullets that would kill lesser greenskins. It is said that even a direct hit from a tank round is unlikely to do more than knock a Meganob over. They spearhead the brutal attacks that lay down the many armies arrayed against them. There are many types of orks, subspecies of greenskins and even other creatures that form a greenskin horde. When united to attack, they can be an unstoppable force. In both Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k, they are a serious threat to the existence of mankind and all civilizations. If it were not for their own flaws, the entire galaxy would be submerged in a green tide of violence. The Orcs would surely be the dominant military force, if not the dominant life form of their respective settings, whether they believe that war is simply a game no one else is playing or not. As long as there are battles to be had, the orks will roam the lands as an ever present menace that grows with each passing day. Failure is not a thing known to the orks, if they cannot conquer or destroy on the first try, there can be only one thing to do; try again. Wave after wave of greenkins, army after army, they will keep coming. They will come crashing into the most stubborn lines of defense and they will eventually break it, for these are the orks and they are without number.
