Massive thanks to Goonhammer for a lot of the inspiration to this video, read their massive expose on the project as well: www.goonhammer.com/what-happened-to-gorkamorka-part-one-gorkers-and-morkers/
I played Gorkamorka so much as a kid and I still have strong happy memories of it and some of the characters I had. Wurrfing, the strongest Ork in my band who ended up getting a squig-brain transplant and becoming scarier. Puke the Grot, who somehow became strong enough to take down Orks. The one time Puke got an injury he ended up with a grappling hook arm and I have a fond memory of that grot grappling onto a trukk, beating up all the Orks, and then jumping out like some badass action hero. I imagine he went on to start his own Rebel Grotz band. Then there was poor Oi, the grot that wouldn't die. He would be taken down often and early. In one game he was riding in a Trukk then got shot out by a Mutie before he could even see anything. He would collect more and more injuries. He ended up with a peg leg, iron lungs, and more. Such great times!
IIRC did grotz 'top out' on the experience table? Sorry been a LONG time. Never fielded any but our group had a couple players that took them to get scrap counters.
@@cjanquart Its been a long time but I believe they had max stats that were less than what Orks could attain. Rebel Grots changed this. I believe the leader started with the max stats a grot could attain normally and could build up from there.
I have so many fond memories of having Gorkamorka races with my friends around my bedroom. We only had a basic understanding of the rules (we didn't have the rulebook just the rules we could find in White Dwarf) but races were so fun. You could choose between racing and fighting, and sometimes a bit of both. It was Mariokart with Orks!
As someone who was there for the launch... the Gorka Morka Orks were miles ahead of the then-current plastic orks. It was also, the source of better Wartrack and Truck minis. These were amazing plastics for the time.
Getting a good plastic kit for something other than marines was the exception rather than the rule in those days, so getting infantry with options and vehicles was awesome for anyone wanting to try orks.
@@l0stndamned Hell, those Trukk and Trak kits predate the 'Marines get all the plastics' era. Gorkamorka was 2nd edition, where most Marine minis outside the starter set were metal with plastic backpacks and arms. The classic Jes Goodwin multipart plastics didn't come in until 3rd. So the Gorkamorka stuff was genuinely about as good as plastic models got at the time...
@@efffvss I see second ed as a sort of proto-"marines get plastic" era :) . They still got a few more vehicles than most and a proper tactical squad. Guards had metal for their core unit.
Yeah, those Orks might not look great now, but they were streets ahead of 2nd ed plastics, & Brian Nelson's metal sculpts completely changed the direction of Ork minis for 3rd ed & ever since.
Pretty sure if James Warhammer announced that they're relaunching G-M, people would go ork-shit over it the same way people did when Necromunda came out. Especially if it uses current Orkz and has unique models for the game itself. Its a win-win for everyone, they get to sell more new models and we get even MORE new Orkz.
@@djludowici536 Some friends of mine and I have been using a more, well, twisted thing using the GorkaMorka rules...we shifted from Orks to using gnolls/hyena men rocking around the savannahs. Mainly using the Frostgrave Gnoll kit mixed with reaper and wizkids ones for some variety
It would be awesome but it wouldn't be the same style of game. GW no longer recommends kitbashing and would *hate* something that encourages people to make their own models or *gasp* encourages 3rd party minis.
I was 12 when Gorkamorka came out, and it was perfect for kids on a budget. My friends and I played it for many years after it was abandoned by GW. Great times and memories I wish I could relive from this game.
I remember my local GW putting on a game that was basicly the Gorkamorka trucks driving around playing blood bowl; with a squig as the ball. It is one of the best memories of my childhood.
One of my dad's friends loved GorkaMorka so much he: Rewrote the rules to make them clearer. Came up with I wanna say five new ork factions including beast tamers and templars that all had the same "uniform" aka the really old plastic models with a tri-horned helmets, choppas and a poseable shoota. Translated everything into Swedish.
I picked up one of the boxes on clearance and fell in love with Gorkamorka, eventually ended up getting together a group of tenish local people playing back in the day. We cleared out the last of the Gorkamorka boxes from the that local store. A year or so later when the newly opened GW store had a grab bag clearance sale of old stock, they were selling closed/blind bags full of Gorkamorka blisters/boxes for almost nothing we picked up a bunch of those, outside of the store we were trading with other nerds for blisters to complete our different mobs, i got both the rebel grot vehicles, three red gobbos, a good selection of grots, almost the full range of Diggas and a bunch of the metal orks. A friend of mine traded to get all of the muties and couple of the trukk/trak variants. Many blasts were had playing the game. Ive recreated and released (for free) 3d printable versions of the Rebel Grot Cutta and Big Lugga, the Turny Gubbin as well as the fort and tower thing that came in GM box to help others get access to (the ever more rare) resources to keep playing the game, easy to find of anyone wants em :)
I always saw LOTR on their web store but always just passed it over. I had never seen it in person. I went last year to Pennsylvania and passed a game store and saw it was cranking busy so I had to stop. Everyone there was playing Lord of the Rings and I have been trying to get people locally to try it out ever since but no one wants to.
@@Grastiars1 Thankfully the US is not the only country in the world. In parts of Europe, UK, and Australia/New Zealand , it`s massive. Big tournament scene, and a hunger for new product.
My local GW manager gave me the giant promotional cutout for Gorkamorka which I had in my room, cut up into pieces, for years, but the instant I left home for uni my bedroom was 'decorated' and that was the end of that.
I'm from Australia, and while our friend group was trying to get into 40K or fantasy, Gorkamorka actually piqued all our interest and had us kitbashing, painting, and hunting da dread (sometimes we just wanted to have a chill game and not be responsible for killing someone's character). Suffice to say, it kept us in the hobby for a lot longer than we would've been, but eventually it all died off due to N64/PS1.
I got Gorkamorka for Xmas when I was 14 and remember taking it back to boarding school. I was the only person into miniature wargames but convinced friends to play it with me and we had an absolute blast.
One of my favorite GW game ever. We launch a recent campagne with sole friends. The rules never gets old and are perfect for a kibash project. And the games are so fun, don't need strategy, you just need to believe. Thank you for this awesome video.
I remember going to the managers meeting for this back in the 90’s. The hype was intense, a lot of push to get this playing in stores. Lots of noise, lots of manic intro games. GW needed a buzz back in the hobby! Loads of black shirts shouting WAAARRGGH and ramming everyone and everything in sight!
as someone who grew up playing the middle earth strategy game, and where warhammer is so important to me now, this video somehow made me emotional. Thank you for compiling this history and interviewing Andy
I remember getting gorkamorka as a bonus for getting a year long white dwarf subscription back in 1998. I think they were just trying to get rid if all the stock they had laying around
I love these history videos for old and maybe forgotten GW titles. My favourite from the time (which I played a lot) was Dark Future. I even wrote a bunch of campaign rules for it as I only had half of the official ones (they were released in two parts in White Dwarf). I'd love to see a video about it.
I remember when Gorkamorka came out I thought it was gonna be like Dark Future, which I hardly see anyone mention these days. My bro and I used to customise matchbox cars to use to play it, good memories.
man, I still have my copy of GorkaMorka, had a great time with it. I really do miss that era of games. my friends and I are currently playing Battle Fleet Gothic again, and it is such a blast.
I remember the additional factions for GorkaMorka...other than the 3 or 4 from Digganob (Diggas, Muties, and Rebel Grots...with the Necrons as a potential one, but not playable). The second human faction that used the minis for the Imperial Guard as a force that had been in stasis since the rok struck was one that I remember people playing. The feral orks which had various animals and lacked a lot of the tech while hating on the mechboys running the city were one that seemed interesting. The Freebootas were interesting in their giant vehicles rather than having a base since they were constantly on the move. Can't remember if they were fan made or from White Dwarf, but were awesome back then...but one guy had a giant pirate ship trakk for his freebootas that ended up in slugging match with someone else who had some that was a land train, which led to a hectic 4 player game with me and someone else scrambling for loot while they unloaded on each other. Been playing a new campaign using the GorkaMorka rules now, but with gnolls/hyena men on a savannah rather than orks in the desert.
Great rundown of events! What a fun game. It was Necromunda, but easier to set up, and faster because of the truks. It also was a much more fun and whimsical game, with the slapstick setting instead of more grimdark.
During the last GW sale, there were tons of GorkaMorka boxes and blisters at clearance prices (yes... IIRC it has been about 24 years since GW had a sale).... I think it was about £15 a box. Indeed, I ended up using the 30-odd Digga Yoofs I got for a tenner for years, with various weapon swaps and paintjobs... They were chaos cultists, Scavvys, all sorts of things. Last year I finally stripped and painted some of them up as Diggas.
I bloody loved Gorkamorka, and spent an absolute fortune on it and various vehicle kits to try and kitbash some of the more insane creations my local GW had in their displays for it! If they did an updated version I would be all over it like a rash!
Gorkamorka, Necromunda, Inquisitor, Battlefleet Gothic… these were the games I collected and played with my friends because I (as a 12-15 year old) had no money, space or time for huge armies. BFG in fact was my favourite game and GW was never the same to me after it was scrapped. I still randomly pop into GW stores now and again, mostly just to see if it’s been rereleased or not 😅
I loved Gorkamorka as I has a full Warhammer Ork army and didn't have much interest in buying and painting a 40K Ork army. I kitbashed an Airfix NJ-1 plane piloted by 5 Grotz and had to transpose the rules for flying craft from 40K to be able to use it - and even then other player didn't like it being used so we agreed to further nerf the rules for it. I didn't care though as just seeing it on the board was enough for me given how much time and love I had put into it. The problem was that none of my friend group at the time was interested in Orks, they had Eldar and Space Marine armies and being teenagers at the time buying anything Ork related felt to them like suddenly supporting an opposing football team.
At that time i worked in a Games Workshop store and we sold a lot of Gorkamorkas. It was a huge succes for us but not in the rest of Spain. We promoted this game as we did with Space Hulk to introduce many people to 40k.
Talking about the redesign of Orks that came along with Gorkamorka, you forgot to mention one crucial factor: miniature designer Brian Nelson. Not only did he coin the modern GW Ork-look, he also introduced a clear cut, sharp edged and slightly exaggerated sculpting style that became trademark GW throughout all of their catalog. He achieved a level of excellence other designers were only able to reach through digital 3D sculpting, while he himself still did it analogue, with putty and tools in 1:1 scale. He‘s an unsung, ofter forgotten hero imho.
I loved gorkamorka but a major problem I had with it was you would spend all of your teeth on buying a part for your trukk, buy the metal part from GW, paint it and then super glue it to your trukk. And then in your first outing, the enemy would destroy your lovingly created addition and you would left wondering whether you should rip it off your miniature or start again.
I just used magnets, they have been around a while 😂, I first magnetised all the weapons on my Titans from adaptus titanicus back in 88, and my dark future cars.
I got 4 boxes of Gorkamorka because it was half price and it was a cheap way to get trucks and wartrakks. Played the game and absolutely loved it. I gave 2 of the boxes to my nephew as a Christmas present and it got him into WH40K. Last played it just before Covid lockdown. If they re-vamped it like they have with Necromunda (which I also play), then I would buy it.
This game is fantastic. Me and my friends even came up with home brew rules to make a narrative campaign with rules for space marine scouts and eldar jetbikes and other horrors. The games that we played were some of the most fun gaming experiences ive ever had.
I still have a deep love of almost every specialist game. And being unable to collect armies this kind of warband games were my favourite like mordheim. Would live to have revised rules for all of them
I always like seeing some of the behind the scenes to these hobby companies from the late 90's/early 00's. My folks had a hobby store and eventually it just stopped being profitable and it never made sense. My dad's always done well with business but he couldn't save that one. The lull in GW products after 2000, WoTC being bought up by Hasbro and the loss of interest in Pokemon took everything from feast to famine.
Something Games Workshop never mentions when it comes to Gorkamorka is the fact that this game is actually base of game created by two Games Workshop employee from Nancy, France, They created a game name, Formula Waaagh! It was basically Mario Kart meets Mad Max with Orks and custom Karts. Those two person talk about their creation and how successful it was in Nancy, to the French GW headquarter and it quickly made it's way to GW Mothership in the UK, the rest is history. 😉
From recent history, this is the video from you guys I like the most. It is interesting, contains some good facts and nice footage, and overall I can see a lot more value in it, than in the "I order garbage from China and make a Video of it". Thanks a lot for putting the effort in this video ❤
Gorkamorka was the perfect entry to tabletop games because it was so simple and yet so fun. I played it with a friend, back in the day, who just now when 10th edition and 21's Kill Team came out joined the hobby completely, after all. Together with me rekindling my forsaken hobby.
Have I lived in a hole different universe? I remember Gorkamorka being a success in germany. Also everyone played 40k in the stores and LOTR was just a weird small thing a few really played. This was a big thing? Really? My store in Berlin was 90% 40k I would say.
The Gorkamorka box I picked up had both english and spanish versions of all the printed materials - so the rulebooks naturally but also the cardboard fort so I got to modify it and create a massive double fort for my games. I think i bought it on a clearance sale or something.
you missed out the opening of the Lenton HQ - that had a massive drain on available finance .. and the simple fact that stores had many more than just one resident manager. The specialist/Fanactic were still supporting minor games like BFG into 2003.
I love the models from Gorkamorka and have quite a few even though I've never had the game. Also, if it wasn't for Gorkamorka, we wouldn't have the Red Gobbo!
Interesting video. I remember my bro and I getting the box to play together when it was fairly new. Some bits felt a little lacking compared to Necromunda but it still was a lot of fun and the vehicles were great to play with. I feel with a few more factions (I'd have rather had the different ork clans from main 40k than just the Gorkers and Morkers) and updates it might have made more of an impact. I didn't realise Epic 40k and Warmaster had done so badly. Both had plenty of things that put me off them, but I assumed they had solid fan-bases.
I loved GorkaMorka when I was a child. I'd always been Warhammer Fantasy fan who just couldn't get into 40K - but its spin-offs: Space Hulk, Necromunda, GorkaMorka. I was actually really hoping the Ash Wastes Necromunda expansion would be GorkaMorka 2.0 but with humans - alas, we got insect mounts rather than buggies your gang could jump on and off of.
I still secretly pray that Gorkamorka will be turned into a PC game, getting that game all those years ago I still see it as the moment I truly realised how much I love lore, utterly loved what was in it. Sadly I never actually played the game as none of my friends wanted to play, but I still got to pour over how they fleshed out the Ork background in it, fantastic
I got the game for christmas back then. It were beautyful times 😊 Thank you for reminding me. Could you do a vide like this about epic 40k would also be very interresting.
I always felt like these smaller games (Necromunda and Blood Bowl also come to mind) were superior to the mainline Games Workshop titles, but the problem was that from a business standpoint they required hardly any investment. Releasing so many of them also tended to create market exhaustion: I already had 2 Fantasy Battle armies, a Blood Bowl team, and a Necromunda gang when this came out. Most people have money and time limits, and they were really stretching them with this type of regular sidebar release.
I had a large Dark Elf Army and had would not start playing 40K until 3rd edition with the Dark Eldar, the main reason I ignored Gorkamorka I did not care about Orks, a friend of mine bought more than a few boxes not to play the game but to boost his Ork army.
I still have the legendary two issues of WHITE ORK that showcased Gorkamorka. I played the shit out of the barroom brawl game in the second issue. I still have the bar-mat game board. I use 8t for role playing games every now and then. The most memorable/hilarious ability was "poke in da eye".
As someone who was in high school during this era, it's always interesting to hear about the larger picture and directions. I figured Lord of the Rings did well because it's still around, but at the time it felt like no one in my area bothered with it. It was heavily 40k and fantasy. I never would have known it played such a role for GW.
Jumping on another mobz truk, failing, getting run over by another vehicle, getting thrown under another vehicle and standing up and dusting yourself off, classic. My boss on a bike with a sidecar (custom job of course!) along with a meat shield yoof (because the damage table!) equipped with spiky bitz (a metal blade mounted on the fender about knee high on an ork, hence nicknamed 'da knee cappa' and helped get my driver skilled up). Fun stuff. Muties were fun but didn't care for the diggas or grotz. Also no real difference between truks and buggies but we had limited models at the time. Bionics were a laugh ('which one wuz it?') as well as customizing weapons and vehicles (six shottas with more dakka, especially in skilled hands, were crazy). Rushed job, but really a fun game and it just worked.
I remember going to a Games Workshop on release day with my friends and getting a free t-shirt for spending over £100. I really wish I still had all my models but all I've got left is a single bike 😢
After buying Gorkamorka we quickly realized the game wasnt very good and instead we made our own game where the objective was to race around a track and also fight each other. Was probably one of the best GW experiences i ever had.
I was already on my way out of playing GW games by the time Gorkamorka came out. I think it might have been about the last thing I bought from them. Through the 90s, they'd messed with armies and lore so much that half of us sat around with figures and units that "didn't exist" anymore. So a lot of us were packing up and either giving up miniatures or playing other games (I'd switched to Warzone & Chronopia, which I still think were better games from a play & design standpoint, though their miniatures were a very, very mixed bag). My memory of Gorkamorka was that it simply wasn't what I wanted it to be. I wanted a Car Wars like game of modding out vehicles and kit-bashing. But if memory serves, there was almost no actual mechanical reason to use anything but the standard battle wagon. It's been a long, long time, so my memory is foggy. But that's how I remember it. I remember some friends making some great kit-bashed stuff with all the Gorkamorka bits. And I remember using the scenery in our Necromunda games. But that's about it.
I used to work for GW right around when the collapse happened (In a store). I always thought it was caused by the expansion into the rest of the world having been to rapid and interest in their product not as financial rewarding as they might have thought. They shut down 2/3rd of all their stores world wide, some not having been open for more than 6 months. Never though how this game tied into all that. Great video.
I loved Gorkamorka, unfortunately it came out just after I had another big hobby purchase, so early-teens me couldn't afford to buy it before it disappeared. But I did buy a mob and a vehicle to play games down at the local stores, borrowing other peoples' rulebooks.
I've seen it mentioned in white dwarf articles that originally gorkamorka was going to be a expansion to necromunda, which kinda makes sense. The extra context in the video shows at least partially why that changed. Worth noting that there is a video game in development again that is rather similar in concept to gorkamorka.
This game is phenomenal. I split it with a friend and we had amazing fun with our gangs! Gorka Morka is an amazing specialist game and it’s number my wish list of re-releasing from GW!
Man, I wish I bought a few boxes of Gorka Morka. But I'm an Ork Player. I could understand why the other army players were not a fan of Gorka Morka. I myself think the old vehicles are very Orky. And unlimited conversion possibilities. I still keep an eye out for the old buggies and trucks.
Just stopping by to say that the rebel grotz expansion is my single favorite thing both lore and ruleswise that GW has ever put out. Bring back the rebel grotz! Equal rides for everyone!
Fun fact. Warmaster wasn't scrapped, just delayed. I played Warmaster for a few yeara. Had a Tomb Kings army and an Empire army. It was a great system.
The Gorka Morka trukks are the best trukks. Nothing beats a field of those, in 3rd edition with Grot Shields and Red Wunz Go Fasta, carrying some righteous Ork Boys fer da krumpin....mmmmm, great times.
@8:35 Didn't Hero quest have a big following outside the UK? Pretty sure that there were even unique expansions for different regions that weren't released in other locations?
Massive thanks to Goonhammer for a lot of the inspiration to this video, read their massive expose on the project as well: www.goonhammer.com/what-happened-to-gorkamorka-part-one-gorkers-and-morkers/
Clearly really liked it!
GW use to have some great games
Any chance of seeing you paint up some of the minis coming out for Trench Crusade? Would love to see your style for painting something so grimdark.
I played Gorkamorka so much as a kid and I still have strong happy memories of it and some of the characters I had. Wurrfing, the strongest Ork in my band who ended up getting a squig-brain transplant and becoming scarier. Puke the Grot, who somehow became strong enough to take down Orks. The one time Puke got an injury he ended up with a grappling hook arm and I have a fond memory of that grot grappling onto a trukk, beating up all the Orks, and then jumping out like some badass action hero. I imagine he went on to start his own Rebel Grotz band.
Then there was poor Oi, the grot that wouldn't die. He would be taken down often and early. In one game he was riding in a Trukk then got shot out by a Mutie before he could even see anything. He would collect more and more injuries. He ended up with a peg leg, iron lungs, and more.
Such great times!
@@Astral_Phoenix gobo the red irl !
IIRC did grotz 'top out' on the experience table? Sorry been a LONG time. Never fielded any but our group had a couple players that took them to get scrap counters.
@@cjanquart Its been a long time but I believe they had max stats that were less than what Orks could attain. Rebel Grots changed this. I believe the leader started with the max stats a grot could attain normally and could build up from there.
I have so many fond memories of having Gorkamorka races with my friends around my bedroom. We only had a basic understanding of the rules (we didn't have the rulebook just the rules we could find in White Dwarf) but races were so fun. You could choose between racing and fighting, and sometimes a bit of both. It was Mariokart with Orks!
So you think you’d still enjoy it as an adult?
As someone who was there for the launch... the Gorka Morka Orks were miles ahead of the then-current plastic orks. It was also, the source of better Wartrack and Truck minis. These were amazing plastics for the time.
Getting a good plastic kit for something other than marines was the exception rather than the rule in those days, so getting infantry with options and vehicles was awesome for anyone wanting to try orks.
@@l0stndamned Hell, those Trukk and Trak kits predate the 'Marines get all the plastics' era. Gorkamorka was 2nd edition, where most Marine minis outside the starter set were metal with plastic backpacks and arms. The classic Jes Goodwin multipart plastics didn't come in until 3rd. So the Gorkamorka stuff was genuinely about as good as plastic models got at the time...
@@efffvss I see second ed as a sort of proto-"marines get plastic" era :) . They still got a few more vehicles than most and a proper tactical squad. Guards had metal for their core unit.
Yeah, those Orks might not look great now, but they were streets ahead of 2nd ed plastics, & Brian Nelson's metal sculpts completely changed the direction of Ork minis for 3rd ed & ever since.
Absolutely. His model assessment is completely off
Pretty sure if James Warhammer announced that they're relaunching G-M, people would go ork-shit over it the same way people did when Necromunda came out. Especially if it uses current Orkz and has unique models for the game itself. Its a win-win for everyone, they get to sell more new models and we get even MORE new Orkz.
This is why I’ve been buying ork kill teams and vehicles
@@djludowici536 Some friends of mine and I have been using a more, well, twisted thing using the GorkaMorka rules...we shifted from Orks to using gnolls/hyena men rocking around the savannahs. Mainly using the Frostgrave Gnoll kit mixed with reaper and wizkids ones for some variety
Feels like the perfect home for a lot of the current 40k vehicles that have garbage rules.
I would definitely buy.
It would be awesome but it wouldn't be the same style of game. GW no longer recommends kitbashing and would *hate* something that encourages people to make their own models or *gasp* encourages 3rd party minis.
Andy Chambers has a spectacularly deep voice. And obviously is an absolute legend. But still, that voice!
I was 12 when Gorkamorka came out, and it was perfect for kids on a budget. My friends and I played it for many years after it was abandoned by GW. Great times and memories I wish I could relive from this game.
I remember my local GW putting on a game that was basicly the Gorkamorka trucks driving around playing blood bowl; with a squig as the ball. It is one of the best memories of my childhood.
One of my dad's friends loved GorkaMorka so much he:
Rewrote the rules to make them clearer.
Came up with I wanna say five new ork factions including beast tamers and templars that all had the same "uniform" aka the really old plastic models with a tri-horned helmets, choppas and a poseable shoota.
Translated everything into Swedish.
Did he ever post any of this anywhere?
@JakeCWolf As far as I know he never did.
A beast tamer ork faction sounds pretty badass.
Your dad's friend should send his stuff in english to the unnamed GorkaMorka site for colaboration so that the whole community can have fun.
@@rickcharlespersonalSnakebitez
gorkamorka, necromunda, mordheim, these were all great games where you felt invested in your squad far more than in any other gw game.
Not forgetting Bloodbowl
Dungeon Bowl is superior
I picked up one of the boxes on clearance and fell in love with Gorkamorka, eventually ended up getting together a group of tenish local people playing back in the day.
We cleared out the last of the Gorkamorka boxes from the that local store. A year or so later when the newly opened GW store had a grab bag clearance sale of old stock, they were selling closed/blind bags full of Gorkamorka blisters/boxes for almost nothing we picked up a bunch of those, outside of the store we were trading with other nerds for blisters to complete our different mobs, i got both the rebel grot vehicles, three red gobbos, a good selection of grots, almost the full range of Diggas and a bunch of the metal orks. A friend of mine traded to get all of the muties and couple of the trukk/trak variants.
Many blasts were had playing the game.
Ive recreated and released (for free) 3d printable versions of the Rebel Grot Cutta and Big Lugga, the Turny Gubbin as well as the fort and tower thing that came in GM box to help others get access to (the ever more rare) resources to keep playing the game, easy to find of anyone wants em :)
Thanks! painting your fort at the moment. Looking forward to when you've released the mine shaft 😜
And the digganob terrain 🎉
I wish the store in my town would have done these grab bag thing
its crazy given how much the LOTR game saved GW, yet today it's almost the forgotten child, with shelf space being much smaller for it than ever.
I always saw LOTR on their web store but always just passed it over. I had never seen it in person. I went last year to Pennsylvania and passed a game store and saw it was cranking busy so I had to stop. Everyone there was playing Lord of the Rings and I have been trying to get people locally to try it out ever since but no one wants to.
@@Grastiars1 Thankfully the US is not the only country in the world. In parts of Europe, UK, and Australia/New Zealand , it`s massive. Big tournament scene, and a hunger for new product.
@@davidmartyn5044 I’d be so down for that. I really wanted to get people into LOTR but no one wanted to play it
@@davidmartyn5044 Pennsylvania is in fact in the US
Just not true. It's getting loads of support, we have the best community and the best game.
My local GW manager gave me the giant promotional cutout for Gorkamorka which I had in my room, cut up into pieces, for years, but the instant I left home for uni my bedroom was 'decorated' and that was the end of that.
I'm from Australia, and while our friend group was trying to get into 40K or fantasy, Gorkamorka actually piqued all our interest and had us kitbashing, painting, and hunting da dread (sometimes we just wanted to have a chill game and not be responsible for killing someone's character). Suffice to say, it kept us in the hobby for a lot longer than we would've been, but eventually it all died off due to N64/PS1.
I got Gorkamorka for Xmas when I was 14 and remember taking it back to boarding school. I was the only person into miniature wargames but convinced friends to play it with me and we had an absolute blast.
Good video. Glad you liked my article.
One of my favorite GW game ever. We launch a recent campagne with sole friends. The rules never gets old and are perfect for a kibash project. And the games are so fun, don't need strategy, you just need to believe. Thank you for this awesome video.
I remember going to the managers meeting for this back in the 90’s. The hype was intense, a lot of push to get this playing in stores. Lots of noise, lots of manic intro games. GW needed a buzz back in the hobby!
Loads of black shirts shouting WAAARRGGH and ramming everyone and everything in sight!
as someone who grew up playing the middle earth strategy game, and where warhammer is so important to me now, this video somehow made me emotional. Thank you for compiling this history and interviewing Andy
Mordheim is one game i wish GW kept on suporting. The story, the setting, the snall warband skirmish gameplay etc, it was amazing.
Disagree. Modern GW would ruin it.
I remember getting gorkamorka as a bonus for getting a year long white dwarf subscription back in 1998. I think they were just trying to get rid if all the stock they had laying around
I love these history videos for old and maybe forgotten GW titles. My favourite from the time (which I played a lot) was Dark Future. I even wrote a bunch of campaign rules for it as I only had half of the official ones (they were released in two parts in White Dwarf). I'd love to see a video about it.
I remember when Gorkamorka came out I thought it was gonna be like Dark Future, which I hardly see anyone mention these days. My bro and I used to customise matchbox cars to use to play it, good memories.
Man, Andy! I love your work, and wish you the very best in the new miniature venture! Thanks for making this, Squid!
man, I still have my copy of GorkaMorka, had a great time with it. I really do miss that era of games. my friends and I are currently playing Battle Fleet Gothic again, and it is such a blast.
I loved gorkamorka even though i was clumsy moving the models around. Remember buying that white ork magazine too and reading it constantly.
Would love to see you guys do some more MESBG content. Not necessarily about the new edition but dioramas and seeing you glow up some of the old minis
👍Andy Chambers is my favorite Game Designer from the past.
Got this game for Christmas in 1997. My friends and I played this so much over the following years. I still look back on this game with fond memories.
I remember the additional factions for GorkaMorka...other than the 3 or 4 from Digganob (Diggas, Muties, and Rebel Grots...with the Necrons as a potential one, but not playable).
The second human faction that used the minis for the Imperial Guard as a force that had been in stasis since the rok struck was one that I remember people playing.
The feral orks which had various animals and lacked a lot of the tech while hating on the mechboys running the city were one that seemed interesting.
The Freebootas were interesting in their giant vehicles rather than having a base since they were constantly on the move.
Can't remember if they were fan made or from White Dwarf, but were awesome back then...but one guy had a giant pirate ship trakk for his freebootas that ended up in slugging match with someone else who had some that was a land train, which led to a hectic 4 player game with me and someone else scrambling for loot while they unloaded on each other.
Been playing a new campaign using the GorkaMorka rules now, but with gnolls/hyena men on a savannah rather than orks in the desert.
Hell yeah, Gnolls!
Great rundown of events! What a fun game. It was Necromunda, but easier to set up, and faster because of the truks. It also was a much more fun and whimsical game, with the slapstick setting instead of more grimdark.
During the last GW sale, there were tons of GorkaMorka boxes and blisters at clearance prices (yes... IIRC it has been about 24 years since GW had a sale).... I think it was about £15 a box. Indeed, I ended up using the 30-odd Digga Yoofs I got for a tenner for years, with various weapon swaps and paintjobs... They were chaos cultists, Scavvys, all sorts of things. Last year I finally stripped and painted some of them up as Diggas.
I bloody loved Gorkamorka, and spent an absolute fortune on it and various vehicle kits to try and kitbash some of the more insane creations my local GW had in their displays for it! If they did an updated version I would be all over it like a rash!
Gorkamorka, Necromunda, Inquisitor, Battlefleet Gothic… these were the games I collected and played with my friends because I (as a 12-15 year old) had no money, space or time for huge armies.
BFG in fact was my favourite game and GW was never the same to me after it was scrapped. I still randomly pop into GW stores now and again, mostly just to see if it’s been rereleased or not 😅
I loved Gorkamorka as I has a full Warhammer Ork army and didn't have much interest in buying and painting a 40K Ork army. I kitbashed an Airfix NJ-1 plane piloted by 5 Grotz and had to transpose the rules for flying craft from 40K to be able to use it - and even then other player didn't like it being used so we agreed to further nerf the rules for it. I didn't care though as just seeing it on the board was enough for me given how much time and love I had put into it. The problem was that none of my friend group at the time was interested in Orks, they had Eldar and Space Marine armies and being teenagers at the time buying anything Ork related felt to them like suddenly supporting an opposing football team.
At that time i worked in a Games Workshop store and we sold a lot of Gorkamorkas. It was a huge succes for us but not in the rest of Spain. We promoted this game as we did with Space Hulk to introduce many people to 40k.
Yeah, there is a ton of incorrect info in this video.
Talking about the redesign of Orks that came along with Gorkamorka, you forgot to mention one crucial factor: miniature designer Brian Nelson. Not only did he coin the modern GW Ork-look, he also introduced a clear cut, sharp edged and slightly exaggerated sculpting style that became trademark GW throughout all of their catalog. He achieved a level of excellence other designers were only able to reach through digital 3D sculpting, while he himself still did it analogue, with putty and tools in 1:1 scale. He‘s an unsung, ofter forgotten hero imho.
I loved gorkamorka but a major problem I had with it was you would spend all of your teeth on buying a part for your trukk, buy the metal part from GW, paint it and then super glue it to your trukk. And then in your first outing, the enemy would destroy your lovingly created addition and you would left wondering whether you should rip it off your miniature or start again.
Yep, back before neodymium magnets were a thing. One of our guys would make armor sections that would pin on but he was a really experienced modeler.
I just used magnets, they have been around a while 😂, I first magnetised all the weapons on my Titans from adaptus titanicus back in 88, and my dark future cars.
I got 4 boxes of Gorkamorka because it was half price and it was a cheap way to get trucks and wartrakks. Played the game and absolutely loved it. I gave 2 of the boxes to my nephew as a Christmas present and it got him into WH40K. Last played it just before Covid lockdown.
If they re-vamped it like they have with Necromunda (which I also play), then I would buy it.
This game is fantastic. Me and my friends even came up with home brew rules to make a narrative campaign with rules for space marine scouts and eldar jetbikes and other horrors. The games that we played were some of the most fun gaming experiences ive ever had.
This reminds me, I must get round to painting my Gorkamorka figures. It's only been twenty odd years but I can't get too far behind.
Good vid, always great to hear from Andy.
Oh that was such a great game to play.
Bastard, former friend of mine never gave it back.
I still have a deep love of almost every specialist game. And being unable to collect armies this kind of warband games were my favourite like mordheim. Would live to have revised rules for all of them
I always like seeing some of the behind the scenes to these hobby companies from the late 90's/early 00's.
My folks had a hobby store and eventually it just stopped being profitable and it never made sense. My dad's always done well with business but he couldn't save that one. The lull in GW products after 2000, WoTC being bought up by Hasbro and the loss of interest in Pokemon took everything from feast to famine.
Something Games Workshop never mentions when it comes to Gorkamorka is the fact that this game is actually base of game created by two Games Workshop employee from Nancy, France, They created a game name, Formula Waaagh! It was basically Mario Kart meets Mad Max with Orks and custom Karts. Those two person talk about their creation and how successful it was in Nancy, to the French GW headquarter and it quickly made it's way to GW Mothership in the UK, the rest is history. 😉
Would love a similar deep dive into my 90s GOAT, Man'o'war. Still not been bettered in a number of game systems imo.
I love the ultra corporate building edit for GW, especially considering their actual HQ is a factory in a crappy suburb of Nottingham 😂
Actually Lenton is one of the nicer areas and even has the grave of the Sheriff of Nottingham in a nearby church 😊
From recent history, this is the video from you guys I like the most. It is interesting, contains some good facts and nice footage, and overall I can see a lot more value in it, than in the "I order garbage from China and make a Video of it".
Thanks a lot for putting the effort in this video ❤
Gorkamorka was the perfect entry to tabletop games because it was so simple and yet so fun. I played it with a friend, back in the day, who just now when 10th edition and 21's Kill Team came out joined the hobby completely, after all. Together with me rekindling my forsaken hobby.
Have I lived in a hole different universe? I remember Gorkamorka being a success in germany. Also everyone played 40k in the stores and LOTR was just a weird small thing a few really played. This was a big thing? Really? My store in Berlin was 90% 40k I would say.
This makes me want to dig out some of my old models from this set. It's the first one I remember getting when I would have been 14.
The Gorkamorka box I picked up had both english and spanish versions of all the printed materials - so the rulebooks naturally but also the cardboard fort so I got to modify it and create a massive double fort for my games. I think i bought it on a clearance sale or something.
you missed out the opening of the Lenton HQ - that had a massive drain on available finance .. and the simple fact that stores had many more than just one resident manager.
The specialist/Fanactic were still supporting minor games like BFG into 2003.
Yeah, there is tons of incorrect info in this video. LOTR didn't save GW, that's for sure.
I have such fond memories of gorkamorka
These days i play large games (start at 200 cans) of gaslands
I love the models from Gorkamorka and have quite a few even though I've never had the game. Also, if it wasn't for Gorkamorka, we wouldn't have the Red Gobbo!
Interesting video.
I remember my bro and I getting the box to play together when it was fairly new. Some bits felt a little lacking compared to Necromunda but it still was a lot of fun and the vehicles were great to play with. I feel with a few more factions (I'd have rather had the different ork clans from main 40k than just the Gorkers and Morkers) and updates it might have made more of an impact.
I didn't realise Epic 40k and Warmaster had done so badly. Both had plenty of things that put me off them, but I assumed they had solid fan-bases.
Fingers crossed you’ll do some Trench Crusade figs! Keep up the good work!
I loved GorkaMorka when I was a child. I'd always been Warhammer Fantasy fan who just couldn't get into 40K - but its spin-offs: Space Hulk, Necromunda, GorkaMorka. I was actually really hoping the Ash Wastes Necromunda expansion would be GorkaMorka 2.0 but with humans - alas, we got insect mounts rather than buggies your gang could jump on and off of.
I still secretly pray that Gorkamorka will be turned into a PC game, getting that game all those years ago I still see it as the moment I truly realised how much I love lore, utterly loved what was in it.
Sadly I never actually played the game as none of my friends wanted to play, but I still got to pour over how they fleshed out the Ork background in it, fantastic
I got the game for christmas back then. It were beautyful times 😊
Thank you for reminding me. Could you do a vide like this about epic 40k would also be very interresting.
I always felt like these smaller games (Necromunda and Blood Bowl also come to mind) were superior to the mainline Games Workshop titles, but the problem was that from a business standpoint they required hardly any investment. Releasing so many of them also tended to create market exhaustion: I already had 2 Fantasy Battle armies, a Blood Bowl team, and a Necromunda gang when this came out. Most people have money and time limits, and they were really stretching them with this type of regular sidebar release.
I had a large Dark Elf Army and had would not start playing 40K until 3rd edition with the Dark Eldar, the main reason I ignored Gorkamorka I did not care about Orks, a friend of mine bought more than a few boxes not to play the game but to boost his Ork army.
I still have the legendary two issues of WHITE ORK that showcased Gorkamorka. I played the shit out of the barroom brawl game in the second issue. I still have the bar-mat game board. I use 8t for role playing games every now and then. The most memorable/hilarious ability was "poke in da eye".
It was the LOTR model magazine that introduced me to the hoppy, will always a
Have a soft spot for those models. 😅
Would be interesting to see how a rerelease of Gorkamorka, as well as other old Warhammer side-games would do today.
I want to play Gorkamorka with the new minis we have now. That would be epic
Rick Priestly saved Games Workshop. Without Rick Priestly there would be no Games Workshop.
There is a ton of stuff in this video that is straight up incorrect.
I got a copy of the rules and a bunch of minis about ten years ago.
Hopefully I can talk my friends into playing a game with me some day soon.
hello Squidmar
As someone who was in high school during this era, it's always interesting to hear about the larger picture and directions. I figured Lord of the Rings did well because it's still around, but at the time it felt like no one in my area bothered with it. It was heavily 40k and fantasy. I never would have known it played such a role for GW.
Jumping on another mobz truk, failing, getting run over by another vehicle, getting thrown under another vehicle and standing up and dusting yourself off, classic.
My boss on a bike with a sidecar (custom job of course!) along with a meat shield yoof (because the damage table!) equipped with spiky bitz (a metal blade mounted on the fender about knee high on an ork, hence nicknamed 'da knee cappa' and helped get my driver skilled up). Fun stuff.
Muties were fun but didn't care for the diggas or grotz. Also no real difference between truks and buggies but we had limited models at the time. Bionics were a laugh ('which one wuz it?') as well as customizing weapons and vehicles (six shottas with more dakka, especially in skilled hands, were crazy).
Rushed job, but really a fun game and it just worked.
you should make a video about Modulorka. its a fan made version where you can print your own orks how you like them
I had the original Gorkamorka, and I still have most of my Orks, Trukks, and wartrakks
You should examine Mutant Chronicles like this, not many people are familiar with it
I remember going to a Games Workshop on release day with my friends and getting a free t-shirt for spending over £100. I really wish I still had all my models but all I've got left is a single bike 😢
Do you remember the window stickers of bullet impacts?
White Dwarf #214 was the first issue I ever bought and has a special place in my heart
Remember this game use to get toy car transporter and ork it up and stuff like a hq rig for my gang
After buying Gorkamorka we quickly realized the game wasnt very good and instead we made our own game where the objective was to race around a track and also fight each other. Was probably one of the best GW experiences i ever had.
I was already on my way out of playing GW games by the time Gorkamorka came out. I think it might have been about the last thing I bought from them. Through the 90s, they'd messed with armies and lore so much that half of us sat around with figures and units that "didn't exist" anymore. So a lot of us were packing up and either giving up miniatures or playing other games (I'd switched to Warzone & Chronopia, which I still think were better games from a play & design standpoint, though their miniatures were a very, very mixed bag). My memory of Gorkamorka was that it simply wasn't what I wanted it to be. I wanted a Car Wars like game of modding out vehicles and kit-bashing. But if memory serves, there was almost no actual mechanical reason to use anything but the standard battle wagon. It's been a long, long time, so my memory is foggy. But that's how I remember it.
I remember some friends making some great kit-bashed stuff with all the Gorkamorka bits. And I remember using the scenery in our Necromunda games. But that's about it.
I used to work for GW right around when the collapse happened (In a store). I always thought it was caused by the expansion into the rest of the world having been to rapid and interest in their product not as financial rewarding as they might have thought. They shut down 2/3rd of all their stores world wide, some not having been open for more than 6 months. Never though how this game tied into all that. Great video.
I loved Gorkamorka, unfortunately it came out just after I had another big hobby purchase, so early-teens me couldn't afford to buy it before it disappeared. But I did buy a mob and a vehicle to play games down at the local stores, borrowing other peoples' rulebooks.
I've seen it mentioned in white dwarf articles that originally gorkamorka was going to be a expansion to necromunda, which kinda makes sense. The extra context in the video shows at least partially why that changed.
Worth noting that there is a video game in development again that is rather similar in concept to gorkamorka.
I remember assembling and playing it on the 1st of january the year it was released, what a sweet memory ! Though where's Andy Chambers mullet ?
I loved GorkaMorka! Watching the new Mad Max movies immediately made me think of GorkaMorka: WITNESS!!!! ;P
This game is phenomenal. I split it with a friend and we had amazing fun with our gangs! Gorka Morka is an amazing specialist game and it’s number my wish list of re-releasing from GW!
i loved gorkamorka! i wish i could find my minis but i think they were lost in a move.
Man, I wish I bought a few boxes of Gorka Morka. But I'm an Ork Player. I could understand why the other army players were not a fan of Gorka Morka.
I myself think the old vehicles are very Orky. And unlimited conversion possibilities.
I still keep an eye out for the old buggies and trucks.
As an ork player back then, this was perfect for me to get some additional mobs for my army, as well as being stupidly fun as a game on it's own.
My all time fav
Teef, Scrap and Dakka!
I remember getting a free copy with a one- or two-year White Dwarf subscription.
Nice to see Andy Chambers
Gorkamorka was the best GW game ever produced. It's a shame they won't reissue it. Perfect balance between tabletop, RPG, and orkiness.
Great vid!!!!
Just stopping by to say that the rebel grotz expansion is my single favorite thing both lore and ruleswise that GW has ever put out. Bring back the rebel grotz! Equal rides for everyone!
gorkamorka was my favourite game when it came out.
Take a leman russ dozer blade and turn it into a spoiler for the gorkamorka Ork truck 😊
Fun fact. Warmaster wasn't scrapped, just delayed. I played Warmaster for a few yeara. Had a Tomb Kings army and an Empire army. It was a great system.
Still have 3K of elves, 2K of dwarves, tomb kings, and orks, and 1K of Kislev and Chaos.
The Gorka Morka trukks are the best trukks. Nothing beats a field of those, in 3rd edition with Grot Shields and Red Wunz Go Fasta, carrying some righteous Ork Boys fer da krumpin....mmmmm, great times.
It was selling so badly that when it was released GW offered my company 144 for the price of 72. We were selling the original stock for years.
6 months? Crazy. It was one of my favourite games.
@8:35 Didn't Hero quest have a big following outside the UK? Pretty sure that there were even unique expansions for different regions that weren't released in other locations?
Yeah it was big everywhere, but was just GW minis licensed to eb games
I still have my ork, mutie and digga models for this game. It was great (even if the rules were confusing)