Control: Orruks!

I, Dalton Lewis, am building a new army of wargaming miniatures: the Orruk Warclans for Warhammer: Age of Sigmar. Why? Because I want to believe in myself and believe that someone disgusting and ugly can do some amazing things in today’s America.

It’s been a while since I started a new army. Armies are expensive and time-consuming. I had to buy the starter box and two of the intro beginner sets to get enough units for a good 1,000 point list. Kruleboyz are the orruks that I settled upon — partially because they’re the new hotness and partially because they’re clever and devious and I appreciate someone ugly and smart.

The guttripaz are the battleline unit for the army. They do mortal wounds on a 6 to hit — which is their primary means of dealing damage to an enemy. They can have that buffed to 5’s and they can give opponents a -1 to hit them with a scare check against their opponent’s leadership. They have two wounds apiece. They are good for taking objectives and occupying the middle of the board and fighting mid-level melee battles.

The leader — who hasn’t been released yet — is an orruk on a giant vulture. Yes, that’s right, an orruk who casts spells and denies them and who rides a giant vulture into combat. Who doesn’t love a giant vulture? That guy is going to be awesome. In game terms he has two denies and does mortal wounds to spellcasters when he denies their abilities and casts two spells himself. The secondary leader, the leader from the starter box, is an orruk on a horse-like creature called a gnashtoof. He’s a big, nasty orruk who rides around doing damage to enemy forces. He seems like a decent beatstick.

I’m considering adding Kragnos, the End of Empires, to the army. Why? Because empires need to be ended. That’s just a fact. He’s a 720 point god that would be one-third of the army and would just rip people into pieces. He has a 2+ save. With the standard defense buff and mystic shield he has a 0+ save — pretty good for an 18 wound model. He does damage equal to the dice multiplied by each other unless it adds up to seven to an opposing monster when charging them. That’s ridiculous. He ends empires. I want to end empires with him.

I played a game with these orruks. I won but winning an intro game doesn’t tell me much about how effective the models will be. I haven’t done much to see how good they actually are on the tabletop. I won the game because attacking in the middle and taking objectives are stupid effective in both Sigmar and 40k right now.

I need this right now — I’m at a tense point in my life. I’m trying to write better fiction. People have given some stories average to poor grades, and it bothers me. I published a book that got a thousand downloads. People then gave it terrible reviews. I needed to work hard, fast. My writing must improve. People need to understand that I’m trying to express myself through my writing. I wrote a fan fiction that expressed everything that had been running through my head over and over for a year — twelve reads, no comments. Jesus.

I’m three hundred pounds, and that has to change. I like orruks because they are fat and scary and ugly and smelly and everything that society perceives me to be. I want to fight past all that and write something beautiful — something magnificent. Let’s see if that can happen with my next book — I’ve started a science fiction epic set in 2080 that will be at least 300 pages. Let’s see what I can make of it — if ugly, fat me can write something beautiful.

Thanks, and take care, friends.