(Wherein the author discovers that the Horus Heresy ruleset is more to his liking, even if Orks aren't officially supported)

So, earlier this year, around January, I came to the realization that I was burnt out on keeping up with the Space Marine releases. The more that came out, the less I wanted to have anything to do with them; I was just buying them to have. I also admitted to myself that I didn't really like the lore changes that GW's team were applying to the game - this isn't the space to rehash the endless debate about Primaris Marines, but they're not to my taste. The evolving ruleset, as it changed from 8th to 9th, then to 10th, has also pushed me away; the more legalistic emphasis is surprisingly hard to keep straight in my head. So I sold off the new Marines, still in their boxes, and put away the old ones, and poked around other games in the meantime. Helpfully, GW just released a new edition of Age of Sigmar, as well as The Old World (good thing I kept my Tomb Kings!) so I had some background hobby stuff still happening.

But where do I go with my far-future aspirations? I'm still fond of the setting, even with *everything* going on.

A few friends had been talking up the Horus Heresy 2.0 rules, and it sounded like they were having fun with it! I had a small trial game with the Imperialis Militia, and that was fun, though I'd be rebuilding from scratch. (Mind you, Victoria Miniatures has some gorgeous not-Tallarn Desert Scorpions that I've started collecting). I still wasn't feeling like working on Space Marines, plus my Blood Ravens don't exist in the Heresy era (and I'm pretty tired of jokes about the Thousand Sons...). So that left my Orks.

Those of you who've explored the Xenos sections of the site will likely have seen my occasional forays into Ork-dom and I've added to my ladz as the new stuff has been added. I thought that I might be able to pull together something out of the old rulebooks from 5th and 7th Edition, even if it required a bit of work. Then one day, I stumbled across a fan-made work that covered effectively everything I already had: https://xenos-orks.tumblr.com. It was like I felt the touch of Gork (or possibly Mork)! I've played a few games with this army list against my friends, and oh my, it felt like I had come home. Even better, my friends have enjoyed the experience, too! I'm really excited to dig into my Orks again, and a few old ideas for converted wagons have been dusted off - the future is looking bright!