Which Games Workshop game most screams “fun” to you, and why is it Gorkamorka?

On May 12^th, six of us descended on Mighty Lancer Games in Bridlington to have a gloriously Orky day of Gorkamorka.

TL;DR: I had a fantastic time with all four one-on-one games of Gorkamorka and a big race finale to finish it all off. Head to Thoughts if you’re interested in how I felt the campaign day ran and whether it’s a viable way of getting Gorkamorka games in (it totally is).

The Gorkamorka Primer

Gorkamorka is a classic GW skirmish game based quite heavily on the original Necromunda, where players take control of a small mob of Orks (or diggas, grots, or muties) who drive around the desert in a way that’s totally not Mad Max. But is.

Your mob has to be mounted in vehicles, whose movement mechanics involve gambling. You can theoretically travel an infinite distance if you keep rolling a 4+ for your thruster test, but fail it and your vehicle spins out of control. There are damage tables for the vehicles which involve all kinds of whacky hijinks, like boyz getting catapulted out, your driver getting sniped and the vehicle spinning, or your thrusters getting locked up and you having to immediately keep thrusting until you fail a test.

In-between games, your mob earns extra teef, your warriors can suffer debilitating injuries (including, occasionally, death) but also gain experience and improve their stats. Your vehicles and weapons can be upgraded at the meks (presuming nothing goes wrong), and you can even dare try to take an injured Ork to the Dok’s Sergery. Whether your injury will be fixed or whether the Dok will replace his brain with a squig, or both, is completely up to the dice.

Quite frankly, Gorkamorka is an almost dead game today. There are many reasons behind that, but it’s still an unfortunate fact because it is incredible fun. The ridiculous situations that happen from vehicles spinning out of control, gambling just to move your vehicles, the inherent zaniness of anything Orky, and how, inevitably, your Big Shoota gunner will forget to bring more than one round of ammo with them to the fight.

The option to play a full day of GoMo, let alone get a campaign in, was too good to pass up. 4 games and a big race. Brilliant.

Starting Mob

I had a pretty bog standard starting mob.

• Nob with Kannon (shotgun) and ‘Uge Choppa
• Spanna with Shoota
• Spanna with Shoota
• Yoof (driver)
• Yoof (driver)
• Boy (gunner)
• Boy with Slugga and Choppa
• Boy with Shoota
• Yoof with Blunderbuss
• Trakk with Harpoon Gun
• Trakk

This gave me two vehicles, one with a big gun, and 6 guys on foot. This is a really good balance, and the two vehicles means that the mob is generally pretty resilient to their vehicles getting smashed up. If a mob only has a single vehicle, they can find themselves completely crippled if it’s destroyed after a game (spoiler for game 3).

The harpoon gun is the cheapest big gun you can get, and it is the worst big gun of the lot. It is good enough however, and with a strength anywhere between 3 and 8, it can do some pretty serious damage with a lucky dice roll.

The ladz on foot were the weakest part of the mob. I only had 2 close combat based models, and the rest were shooting based. Ammo runs out fast in Gorkamorka, isn’t very effective anyway, and models without alternative combat weapons can find themselves in serious trouble after running out of ammo. Getting additional close combat guys and weapons was definitely the priority.

Sadly, I was derelict in my duties and only took a small number of photos throughout the day.

Game one vs Al

Scenario 4: Da Fight

Da Fight is a fairly straightforward “fight each other” scenario, with the simple rule that an Ork can’t shoot until it’s been involved in a ram or attempts to board an enemy vehicle.

Al was running a close combat heavy mob, mounted in a single trukk with a big shoota.

We both set our sights on ramming speed, naturally. He was first to try and ram me, and then tried to jump on board my vehicles. Sadly (for him), he failed and his boarders bounced off my vehicles.

I was able to get a couple of lads onto his trukk and smash the guys who’d fallen off trying to get on mine.

In the end Al had just one boy, a trukk and an empty big shoota left (having only brought a single round for it) so decided to voluntarily leg it.

Post-game, my teef went on a new slugga/choppa boy. My nob got a decent level up with an extra point of weapon skill.

Game two vs Courtney

Scenario 2: We Woz ‘Ere First

We Wuz Ere First is the basic scenario for Gorkamorka. D3+3 scrap counters on the battlefield, then fight over them.

Courtney had a single trukk with quite a lot of shootas and sluggas on board. I was able to use my separate vehicles to go after scrap all over the board, quickly grabbing 2 of the 4 while she was only able to grab one initially.

When it came to shooting, Courtney unleashed on one of my trakks. She rolled well, getting lots of hits. When it came to rolling to see where she hit on the trakk, she kept rolling 6’s. Which is the engine. Which is the only location with an armour value of 10. Which her Strength 3 shooting can’t penetrate.

Over the course of two turns, I think the only shots that landed (and there was a lot which did) were on the engine and gubbinz. If you don’t have gubbinz (and I didn’t), it hits the engine instead.

My nob and a boy managed to board her trukk and started absolutely wrecking face. She soon bottled out with the one scrap counter she had on board, and I scooped up the other three.

Post-game, one of my boyz got a level up and got an extra point of Ballistic Skill – making him better at shooting than my harpoon gunner. I wanted to swap them over, but of course this is Gorkamorka so you have to have a pit fight between the two. My levelled up boy challenged the gunner to a duel, and promptly lost. By dying.

My gunner got a level up from the pit fight, gaining valuable experience killing his challenger. And got an upgrade in Weapon Skill. Making him even better in melee. Not shooting.

The teef I got from the scrap had to be spent replacing the boy who got kurbstomped by the gunner.

My Nob also got another combat level up, with an extra attack.

Game three vs Jim

Scenario 3: Da Lootas

I’m not keen on this scenario, doubly so because of the situation we found ourselves in for this game.

In Da Lootas, the defending mob starts with D3+3 warriors, a vehicle and a pile of scrap in the middle of the table. The attacking mob has to stop them taking it off the table. The attacking mob must all be mounted in vehicles – only warriors who are mounted in vehicles may take part. For the defenders, any additional warriors must be mounted in another vehicle and may come on as reinforcements later in the game.

Jim’s mob had one trukk and one bike (which he hadn’t modelled to carry any passengers, only the driver). His trukk had been damaged in the previous game and had to miss this one. Which meant that by the rules of the scenario, he could only have a single bike in play. Versus my whole mob (once my reinforcements arrived). That’s not much of a game.

We talked about it and agreed that his mob could take part on foot with the scenario otherwise as-written.

In turn 1, I loaded all the scrap on my trakk. Turn 2, I thrust towards the nearest board edge as fast as I could, putting a ton of distance between me and his footsloggers, nearly making it off with all the loot.

In his turn, Jim’s biker screamed across the field and fired a single slugga shot at my trakk, managing to spin and immobilise it. He had a break, and his foot sloggers were starting to catch-up…

… and my reinforcements arrived from the board edge where my original trakk was immobilised. I loaded the scrap onto my other trakk and carried it over the board edge in my next turn, with his footsloggas still half the board away. He managed to take out one of my spannas in the process, but no other damage.

It wasn’t much of a game. Even letting him use footsloggers against the original scenario rules, he still didn’t stand a chance. While I get that GoMo and Necromunda are narrative campaign games where unbalanced games can occur, I feel that this scenario just doesn’t work, even without the complication of a lack of vehicles. If we’d been playing Da Chase, there would be similar problems.

I’d like to give writing a new scenario pack a go, with rules for what to do if one side can’t use enough vehicles or warriors (say 50% of the warriors can’t fit in any vehicles for the game). An alternative scenario is played instead – one where the damaged mob is still at a disadvantage, but one where it is a game at least.

Post-game, the spanna he managed to krump died. Despite making off with a bunch of scrap, my teef income was quite low and I only just managed to replace the dead spanna and buy a couple of weapons for my warriors.

My nob also levelled up again, gaining another point of weapon skill. At WS6, 2 attacks and a Big Choppa for +2 strength, he was now a combat monster.

Game four vs Barney

Scenario 2: We Wuz Ere First

I played Barney the last time I went over to Bridlington for Gorkamorka. Good lad. He had his heavily converted double-decker trukk with a built in speaker, through which he was pumping the Mad Max: Fury Road soundtrack all day.

Barney’s mob was the only one I saw throughout the day which had grots in it. While grots can be useful (just having extra bodies is good, and they still work in the mines for extra income post-game), they cost as much as a full Ork in maintenance post-game so I don’t personally feel they’re worth it. In this game however…

As before, We Wuz Ere First is the basic scenario for Gorkamorka. Scrap on the field, fight over it.

This game was relatively static. There was scrap scattered around the middle of the board. My harpoon trakk and his trukk settled into a shoot-off in the middle, neither of us making a lot of effort to board the other (low initiative at all that). I used my other trakk to grab two of the outlying scrap tokens, away from the central fight.

Nearer the central fight, my spanna jumped out from my harpoon trakk to try and grab one of the tokens in the middle. Barney had a grot with Frenzy, which means it HAD to try and charge my spanna. Which he did. And proceeded to win combat. Unfortunately, Barney only rolled two flesh wounds, which reduce weapon skill by 1 but doesn’t take the Ork out of action. So I jumped a close combat Ork out to join in the combat and put this stupid grot down for good…

… only for the grot to stomp that boy too.

In the meantime, my Nob had jumped on board his trukk and started wrecking face too. It wasn’t long before Barney had to start taking bottle tests, which he failed, leaving me as the winner of the game. That damn grot was going to take out half my mob if it went on much longer…

While this was the end of the campaign, we had a big multiplayer race after this. I wasn’t going to risk my vehicles by taking them to the Mek’s (a bad roll could see them miss the next game) for speed upgrades, but decided on a boarding plank for each instead. This would allow me to board an enemy vehicle without taking an initiative test if they were in the right position.

Da Big Race

Five of us piled our vehicles full of ladz and grotz behind the starting line (Al had to leave early), aiming to be the first ones to get a vehicle completely over the finish line (spoilers).

If there was one work to describe this game, it is clusterfuck, but clusterfuck in the most gloriously gorkamorka fashion. Vehicles going all out, spinning, ramming, colliding. Chain reactions of crashes causing the vehicles they hit to go out of control, hitting other vehicles and causing them to go out of control.

It was absolute mayhem, absolute carnage, and great fun.

Some players positioned themselves to try and shoot the other vehicles to immobilise them. Courtney’s trukk/battlewagon went on a grabba claw spree, tearing chunks out of every vehicle unfortunate to find itself next to her. Bikes tried to scream ahead of the pack, only to fail a thrust test and smash into a rock.

A couple of players had to leave early, leaving just me, Courtney and Lewis racing it out. Courtney and I pulled ahead, one of my trakks racing against her battlewagon towards the finish line.

I lined up my trakk and went FULL SPEED AHEAD. Maximum thrust, for as long as I kept passing that thrust test. 2+, followed by 3+, followed by a 4+ and another 4+ and another 4+ and…

I failed a thrust test and ended up on top of the finish line, just one inch shy of getting over.

Courtney also lined up for the finish and went full speed ahead…

… to do the exact same as me and end up on top of the finish line, not over it.

Lewis was too far back to realistically have a chance of catching us up.

On my turn I calmly drove over that finish line for the win.

Thoughts

I won it all. 4 out of 4 games and the big race.

Game Results

There was a lot of luck involved, as there always is in Gorkamorka, and quite a few times that things could have swung against me. I was generally really lucky with the post-game rolls, particularly for serious injuries with just one permanent death causes by my opponents and one from a pit fight.

Was the starting mob too powerful? Probably. I think it was clear when I turned up that I’d put the most thought into my mob – several people were still drafting their mobs at 9am.

The mob was far from the most optimised I’ve seen for Gorkamorka (just going for sheer bodies without equipment and minimal vehicles seems to pay off, massively). Things like using Yoofs for drivers and actually using Yoofs at all seemed to make my mob more powerful than the others.

This advantage can flip, fast, with a poor post-game sequence. It doesn’t take much bad luck for your mob to be nearly completely cripped, as shown with Jim’s rules-as-written starting roster of one lonely bike in game 3.

In future I definitely want to try a less optimal mob with fewer models on foot.

The Day

The day was great fun and definitely worth the drive over. It’s so rare to find games of GoMo at all that travelling for a couple of hours doesn’t dissuade me at all, especially when I can guarantee that I’ll be able to get several games in.

Mighty Lancer Games is a proper Aladdin’s cave of amazing hobby supplies. I’m truly shocked how many niche items they manage to cram into such a relatively small retail space. I wish my hobby schedule wasn’t booked out and fully stocked for the foreseeable future so I could go nuts in the shop.

The gaming space is great and having a tuck shop on site is always a plus. The location next to all kinds of food places is nice, and on this day in particular there was a foodie market on the street outside. My jerk chicken at lunch was lovely, and I stocked up on gin from a local brewery.

Thumbs up.

Campaign in a day format

Thumbs up.

I’ve mulled about this for a while, but I really think organising specific days like this for otherwise dead games is the way to go. Getting an ongoing campaign moving requires significant critical mass that can be difficult to gather. Putting on a specific day like this allows people to make plans to travel from out-of-town, like I did.

I think Mighty Lancer Games could have done a better job of advertising this. I was the only one to post about it in the Gorkamorka group, and even a week before the event there were people who hadn’t heard about it but would have made an effort if they’d known about it earlier.

4 games is a short campaign, no way about it, but it’s still good fun and getting a campaign in at all is better than not. I think a two day event would be another really good option.

The format isn’t perfect. Gorkamorka games vary wildly in length (both time and turns). You can have a game end in a couple of turns with an early failed bottle test, or they can drag on for 10+ turns (I use the word drag, but those games are rarely unfun). The post-game sequence has quite a lot to get through, from permanent injuries to experience to income to visiting Mektown.

An experienced player can rattle through the post game sequence pretty quickly, but if you’re new to the game or if you just have a lot of level-ups to work out the time can add up quickly. I know what I’m doing, so I was one of the quicker players. With some games ending quickly, there was a lot of time waiting around for ongoing games and their post-game sequence to be wrapped up. It wasn’t enough to overshadow the day altogether, but as a faster player it was very noticeable.

I’m currently gearing up to launch the 2024 Leodis Games Gorkamorka campaign and one of the things I intend to do is schedule a monthly campaign day. People can play just on the campaign day and get all 4 of their monthly games in. This enables people to travel from out of town and join in with the campaign, without having to travel several hours two or three times per month.

To combat the game down-time, I’m planning on running the big multiplayer game halfway through the day, and then being much more flexible in matching up players once their games have finished. As soon as two tables have finished, they swap their opponents and go for another game. There may be some mobs which end up having played more games than others but that happens in any campaign (and is expected).

I’m looking forward to running a campaign at Leodis from August to Orktober. A clear start and end will work great, and the campaign days will encourage setting time specifically aside and draw in people from further afield.

Outside of that, I’m convinced that a single campaign day is a viable format for Gorkamorka. I whole-heartedly encourage people to give it a try. If you organise one in the north of England, I’m there.