Ninja Marines? // The Eagle Guard

[Kihriban]

Ah yes the story by Dan Abnett, tis a good story but the story is far too inconsistant, what with the idea of being stealthy yet they laugh loudly, really tactical that eh?

 

That definitely occured to me while I read - good story despite it though.

 

And as for the idea of not being able to psyche out orks, like you I disagree. Orks love combat - they're literally bred (or engineered by the Old Ones) for it. They laugh off combat losses, coz it's all a good scrap, wot? But what would discomfit an ork - possibly even scare an ork? Dying quietly, with no chance to fight, with no spectacle, no nothing. Serial killers don't have big ol' happy-scrappy brawls with their victims, and ideally your Eagle Guard would be working in as much the same vein as possible. Dying in a war might be just fine for Gork (or Mork), but how do you think Mork (or Gork) would feel about an ork who just got his throat quietly cut in the night? - emphasis added

 

If you look at my post I didn't say it couldn't be done, i said that it was hard and that it would really flesh out his chapter if he provided examples of it. Your examples would be good, other gruesome examples:

1. nobs are found alone, staked into the ground in a spread eagle with their teeth gone and their entrails spread around them.

2. orks are gagged and attached to the underside of trukks so that they slowly die as the trukks drove.

3. trukks are boobie trapped, etc.

 

I'm not sure I agree totally with your idea of the First Company being 'out of control'. Partly that's because, as I've intimated elsewhere in this thread, that 40k has too many 'crazed zealots on a mission'. The First Company fights in its own, distinctive way, and they certainly are held in a mixture of awe, fear and disgust by the rest of the Chapter, but I think it's perhaps a desire to vindicate the name of the Chapter than to vindicate their dead Master.

 

I didn't intend for the first company to be a "crazed zealot", but more of the "cold professional killer". They aren't ... out of control in the crazy sense, but only in the sense that the other companies have no control of them. The first company is completely in control of itself, knows exactly what it's doing, and is very sadistic in the fullfillment of its objectives.... At least, that was what I was trying to suggest...

[JaM_TW]

Interesting read.

 

As for scaring Orcs (or Orks), long time ago in our AD&D-group we had a ranger. He had some weird mission where he had to take out a whole lot of Orcs (more or less self-imposed impossible mission, forgot the details).

What he did: he hid in a tree. He let the Orcs know he was out there, they would send out patrols. He then killed the one patrol that went out by noon, all with 1 single arrow (1 arrow/orc obviously), in their left eye socket (he was quite skilled with the bow, I might add).

 

Soon, the whole camp was in disarray. No one wanted to get out to patrol, at least NOT at noon. You can be a bad-ass orc boss all you want, but when your own men/orcs are NOT doing what YOU want, you've got a problem. AND a big squabble...

 

That's one way to use psychological warfare against Orks. I'm sure that there are more...

 

 

Hope this helps, I was just wandering around for a nice colourscheme + background though. I'll be on my way !! :)

 

Cheers.

[Morwrath]

I think it deserves mentioning that the necron codex specifically says that the Orks are the only race with literally no fear of death. Psychology definitely effects them, a la Yarrick, but no Ork is going to turn and run because some marine is wearing his buddy's scalp on his belt.

[JaM_TW]

Perhaps not, but dying silently, without a fight, is not something they would (IMHO) look forward to. They live to fight, and only that. Dying without a fight isnt their "style", so going out on a suicide mission (i.e. go into a forest, and never return, only to have your "buddies" find your skull and the rest of the patrol killed with a single headshot...)

[Hasoroth]

For some reason I'm reminded of Bardas Loredan, of the Fencer Trilogy, that sort of acceptance. Instead of going off the deep end and becoming a crazy fanatic, he just becomes less and less detached, more and more accepting. When he turns his nephew into a bow (guts, ribs and all) he knows its a disgusting, horrible, act but he doesn't care. Its a strange convoluted trilogy and I might be trying to hard to make a comparison, but that acceptance, that end justifies the means (and we don't really care about the means really) seems to fit.

[utilityzero]

i know it's a bit cliche, but perhaps having lost their home world to the orks completely could be part of what drives them. their newer staging areas and forward bases are hidden, perhaps right under the orks' noses. this is where the veterans spend most of their time, operating in their ancient enemy's back yard.

 

i'm not sure how the trophies and totems fit the ninja theme, but i understand if from the point of view of them adopting orkish customs. from that stand point though i'm not sure how they really would develop into ninjas. perhaps what you would end up with is more a jungle warfare/vietnam style of warfare which is more of what i got out of the ork hunters fluff. hunters in a very dense, dangerous environment (but it wouldn't have to be a jungle, tunnels, hive cities and the like would also work) hunting one another, ambushing one another, using stealth to evade and then attack enemy patrols and weaker bases.