Author's Note: Sadly I'm running out of ideas so I guess I'll just have to USE DA GRETCHIN!
Before writing this I spent some time trying to get into the ork psyche, it was worryingly easy.
Disclaimer: I do not own Warhammer 40k.
Quote for the Day: "The enemy is well armed and well equipped; they believe they have the gods on their side. Let them believe; we have the tanks on ours."
A Waaaggh! in action is a magnificent sight, millions upon millions of orks fighting their way through countless regiments of Imperial Guard, and at times overwhelming companies of Space Marines (and more often than not a large number of orks in their haste to reach the front lines). The only real flaw in this awesome combination of genocide, street fight and bar crawl was the general lack of intelligence of it's Warboss. The following account is taken from one of the most spectacular failed Waaaggh!s led by one Spike 'eadbreaka who having gathered enough orks to form a Waaaggh! had ordered that all orks set off at once "and no ya ave'nt got time ta grab 'at power klaw ya miserball grot" needless to say this remarkable display of stupidity resulting in over fifty million orks descending on Orsa Prime unarmed and without food. Obviously steps would have to be taken and sacrifices made to address the problem.
"Boss! Boss! We'z gots a problem." A Flashgitz Nob came hurrying over to the Warboss.
"Yeah, un what id it?"
"The humiez is attacking and ma boyz got no dakka an' no choppas"
"Soz whys ya botherin' me then?" Said 'eadbreaka, backhanding the offending Nob with joy at being handed a reason, not that he needed a reason.
"Well... yous da boss so it up ta yous to see that da boyz has stuff loik 'at."
The Warboss quietly thought about this for a while before finally coming to a thought out conclusion.
"USE DA GRETCHIN!"
"Roight Boss."
Brother-Captain Rick O'Che had fought orks many times before and hadn't seen a new strategy in years which was why he was thoroughly taken aback when a green fleshy object bounced off his armour.
Round pleading eyes gazed at him, he lifted his foot.
"Help us!" the small green thing begged. The foot came down with a satisfying splat which caused a cheer from the watching orks along with shouts of "do it again!". Another gretchin bounced off his armour, and another, and another finally knocking the space marine over as around him his Battle-Brothers also fell to sheer weight of numbers. The gretchins armed with mere sticks and keeping the space marines down by weight alone beat the other members of the Ultramarines 6th company to a pulp. Slowly. Till finally all that was left was the Captain who finally pushed the small green annoyances off of him just in time for a ork Nob – thrown by the enterprising Warboss who'd got a bit carried away – to land on his head, breaking his neck despite the armour. Despite hundreds of gretchin dead through broken spines and skulls the battle was generally seen as a great success particularly by the Flashgitz who liberated guns from the bodies of the space marines and promptly welded them together for superior dakka. Also rather happy by the surprising result of the battle were the Mega-Armoured Nobz who were glad to be Mega-Armoured again, and better yet the armour wasn't likely to electrocute them every ten seconds.
Now with maybe sixty out of fifty million orks and countless gretchin supplied, the starving army turned it's mind to other matters.
Author's Note: This idea came to me when I was talking to some other 40k players, we were discussing the ork fighta-bomba and it's guided missiles, eventually we meandered to other uses for the gretchin, ranging from shovels to saws for the killa-kans. More chapters on the way