40k in general had been lacking a way to make armies play to reflect different backgrounds, apart from marines with their plethora of options, but happily 8th is bringing some variety back and finally it's the turn of the Orks.
Bad Moons
My second Ork Clan and still probably my favourite colour scheme/paintjob thus far, what do they get?
Reroll 1s in the shooting phase.
Really? That's it? Seems a bit pants really. Bad moons are known for wealth and ostentation and while I don't know exactly how to represent that, the bog standard reroll 1s is a bit generic, overplayed, and not especially in keeping with the clan. I mean, the trigger happy deffskulls, that might make more sense. I guess they were stuck on ideas here.
Blood Axes
Still yet to do this tribe, though have done Boss Snikrot twice now, so will probably do his own clan at some point.
Units can fall back and still shoot and charge. Units always count as being in cover.
Ah now this is much more promising. Given Blood Axes are the weird ork tribe that use tictacs or so I've heard, this makes sense. They have been known to feint retreat and then strike again. They also make heavy use of kommandos so this suits the clan fluff very well. Things are looking up.
Deffskulls
My third clan and a bit of a "tidy up the bitzbox" exercise, it has a lot of shooting units so hopefully there is something like reroll 1's... oh... never mind. What did we get?
Units get a 6+ invulnerable save. Units also have the chance to reroll one hit/wound/damage roll per turn.
I don't recall if blue facepaint had an in-game effect in 40k before although I do recall it from fantasy, and it's nice to see it here. The reroll could prove useful and at least gives something shooty a boost.
Evil Sunz
Ah, my first ork tribe. I've had some good times with these guys till 7th Ed took away Wazzdakka, took away my bikes as Troops, and the crazy mob rules of the time basically meant running small squads in trucks was tantamount to suicide.. Have they got something to get them back in the saddle?
Units have +1 move when they move/advance/charge. Units can ignore the penalty for firing assault weapons after advancing.
Ooh now that is in fact very nice. This allows units to blitz around all over the place guns blazing as well as making them quicker than all the other orks. This suits them to a tee.
Goffs
My next ork project, so let's hope for something encouraging here that represents their nature as the meanest and toughest orks around.
Units generate an extra attack die on all to hit results of a 6 in the fight phase.
Seen it before, but it does suit the fightiest of the fighty nature of these guys, so while quite generic, I like it... especially when combined with the bucketloads of dice Orks usually put out.
Snakebites
My stalled Catch project, basically sat in limbo waiting to see what the ork codex does to the original planned army. Once the Goffs are done I'll revisit this and see what the rumoured new codex has done to my original planned army. But, in the meantime, what are the rumours?
Units ignore inflicted wounds on a 6+
A bit generic, quite similar to deffskulls, but also pretty sure it's been in the history of the army, so while underwhelming I'll take it.
Freebooters
I only have a small force of these, my Top Gun navy... I may well add some more deffkoptas at some point but generally the army is done. Only about 1000 points or so, unless I come up with rules for the impracticable large carrier and use that in games...
Units become +1 to hit after an allied unit has destroyed an enemy unit.
Quite an odd one, but could prove quite useful, if I use a volley from my battleships to take out a cheap target before my flashgitz open fire.
So all in all a mixed bag. Obviously these are just rumours, but if true i'd say they've done a superb job with deffskulls, blood Axes and speed freaks, a generic but suitable job for goffs and snakebites, an interesting albeit situational one for Freebooters, and a bland generic and as far as I can see no tangible link to the fluff for the Bad Moons. Which is a real shame as, like I said, my favourite paintjob so far. But more good news than bad so far and we'll see how much truth there is to this, and whether stratagem and warlord traits alter things at all, in the weeks ahead.