From RPGs and RTS games to pretty much everything else, I rarely manage to find the fun in straightforward solutions. I want resources to manage and decisions to make; extra layers of consideration that make me feel crafty for having one. It’s this preference for finesse over brute force that’s kept me away from factions like the Orks in most strategy games, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 3 looks to be the sole exception: though they certainly aren’t performing rokkit science, Relic’s rendition of da boyz have just enough brains to make their substantial brawn a lot of fun to run amok with.
The main reason for this is scrap - yes as is in scrap metal. Scrap is generated any time Orks destroy a mechanized enemy unit, or when one of their own bites the proverbial dust. It sounds unassuming, yes, but it’s cleverly woven into nearly every part of the Ork gameplan, giving them a overall style that really is their own. You don’t have to take my word for it either, just check out this video of a full Ork mission playthrough for a better sense.
The most basic, and wide-reaching use for scrap is to upgrade your units. Every squad in the Ork army has a scrap upgrade to unlock. So for instance, if you take a plain old squad of Shoota Boyz, and have them grab a scrap pile, they’ll permanently gain the ability to toss a frag grenade - a great way to damage and knockdown troublesome enemy squads in a hurry.
This is a simple example, but even these basic upgrades have a big impact. Armor-wrecking Tankbustas gain the ability to call in an obedient little Squig with an explosive strapped to its back - terrific for damaging armored units in a wide radius. Deffgun Lootas passively slow their targets after nabbing some rusty bits, allowing them to fulfill their role as a suppressive heavy infantry squad. None of these units are by any means useless without their scrap upgrades, but the difference is more than significant enough to warrant stopping to grab scrap whenever you can.
Even these basic upgrades have a big impact.
Scrap piles get put to even more creative use when you start messing with the Ork elite units, like the Gorgutz ‘Ead’Unter who makes his return from the original Dawn of War and its expansions. After rummaging through a scrap pile, he gets a one-time enhancement on his Whirling Klaw ability, which by default sees him swing his giant Power Klaw in a large radius around him, damaging foes and deflecting all incoming projectiles. Ordinarily, you’d activate the ability a second time to slam it down, damaging and stunning enemies in an area, but with the scrap upgrade, you might want to hold off. Letting it spin for its maximum duration (around 10 or so seconds) results in a signature Ork war-scream of “WAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH,” which both heals and greatly buffs allied squads around Gorgutz.
It gets even crazier though: Zapnoggin can store up to five stacks of scrap, and the more he has, the more damage he can sustain, and the more powerful his other abilities become. Wazmakka probably has the most interesting relationship with scrap, being able to call down up to three scrap piles from orbit from extremely long range to provide material for distant allies, or even transform up to five nearby scrap heaps into sentry turrets for a limited time.
There’s actually still a whole different side to scrap usage that’s even more key to the overall strategy of the Orks, and that’s building units and even other structures out of it. You need a squad of Gretchins to do it, since they serve as your builders, but they can build pretty much any mechanized unit you have access to on the tech tree, provided you have a scrap pile of adequate size. In this way, the Orks can bolster their army on the move, without the need to wait for armored support to arrive from a distant base. Sure, these field-improvised vehicles are missing a few hitpoints, but they cost a fraction of their factory-built counterparts, and if it’s really bugging you, you can have your Gretchins repair them to full HP anyway.
My horde pretty much deleted any enemy forces unlucky enough to be around.
Certain structures can be raised this way too, the most important of which being a WAAAGH Tower, which serves quadruple duty for the Orks. They act as defensive turrets and tech structures primarily; the number of towers you have built during a match/mission determines your tech level, up to the maximum of five. They also generate progressively larger piles of scrap though, so they become vital to upgrading your line units, and stocking up your elites to use their most potent abilities. Finally they can, after a long build-up, let out a WAAAAGH scream like Gorgutz can, but across a wider radius. Timing them together is tricky, but you can stack the bonuses, which not only looks and sounds awesome, with fireworks going off to crescendoing guitar riffs, but it made my horde so powerful we pretty much deleted any enemy forces unlucky enough to be around.
With the ability to snag upgrades, raise units, and build support structures in the field, Orks feel more independent from their base than the other two factions do, which makes sense given that Ork WAAAGHs are mostly nomadic tribes that wander around looking for a good fight. Along with thir unique upgrades, and surprising variety of powerful abilities on their Elites, this makes the Orks surprisingly dynamic; a far cry from how linear and simplistic they can feel in other games.
And yet, they feel true to their brutish nature: maybe it’s their larger than average squad sizes that allow them to feel the screen with green, or the fact that their animations and voice lines capture the unique mix of menacing buffoonery da boyz are known for, but their more thoughtful playstlye hasn’t betrayed the unique charm of the greenskins. I never thought I’d say it, but this is the faction I really want to play, and I can only guess at the wackiness of the elite units that have yet to be revealed.
Vincent Ingenito is IGN's foremost fighting game nerd. Follow him on Twitter and help him sort out his Street Fighter 5 character crisis.
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