There’s been a Gorkamorka group on Facebook for quite a while but after the old admin retired the community there was left floundering. At least at the time Facebook didn’t have a proper admin succession system in place and so the only option was to create a new community. Skarnir took it upon himself to do just that and roped some of the other usual suspects in to ensure there’d be a full admin team (Dim_Reapa, Kiblams, and Flamekebab).

With four people approving member requests it recently surpassed a thousand members. Turns out there’s quite a lot of people interested in this daft little game!

You can find the group here:

Gorkamorka Facebook Group

Who doesn’t love a good war rig scenario?

Kiblams has written one but needs some help with playtesting it. It uses “NotMobz” rules to create an AI faction (the crew of the tanker) but getting the balance right is a little trickier than you might think!

Here’s a video of him trying the scenario out on his own:

Currently the scenario exists as a Google Doc that anyone can add comments and suggestions to (but not edit). No sign-in required.

It’s here and the bit that needs playtesting most is the crew section. What are good values to provide a challenging but fun game?

Happy Halloween everyone!

Bit of short notice on this one but it’s news to us – MaxMini have released their own limited run “Frankenstein’s Monster” Ork model. Looks like it’d be ideal for our Frankenork scenario!

Orkenstein’s Monster!

It’s only available for the next two weeks so you’d best get your skates on if you want a copy.

http://maxmini.eu/orkensteins-monster-halloween-special-miniature

Some of you on Facebook might have seen me posting a short to-do list for the Gorkamorka Heritage Project – an ongoing effort to make old fan material available in a modern format. One of the things on the list was a collection of weapons from Eren Kauptland’s old site. I spent some time today editing it and laying it out. When it came to upload it I discovered a PDF with a similar name to the one I had been using earlier.

It turns out I already processed this document back in 2014 but forgot to list it on the site. Yes, really.

Sigh.

Anyway, this “new” document contains a few new weapons and some, well, let’s call them “gas grenades”. For more details you’ll just have to look for yourselves!

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This document was written by Eren Kauptland and with permission was edited by Benjamin Fox. It’s licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share-Alike license. The layout was made by Benjamin Fox using images created by Jenny Mathiasson and is also licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

Are you a fan of tiny greenskins? Do you long to deploy swarms of angry little critters?

Good news in that case – we’ve laid out Grimtooth’s rules for Snotling herds! That’s another one from the Gorkamorka Heritage Project‘s to-do list!

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This document was written by Tristån Erickson and with permission was edited by Benjamin Fox and Ross Graham. It’s licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share-Alike license. The layout was made by Benjamin Fox using images created by Jenny Mathiasson and is also licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

If you’ve got your finger on the pulse you’re bound to have already heard this but we figured it’s probably worth a mention regardless. A new plastic buggy kit is coming in October this year.

Us doddering oldsters who remember Gorkamorka might remember the rather glorious metal conversion kit that was introduced featuring a rather excellent Brian Nelson sculpt and a rokkit launcher.

Oddly enough the mid ’90s plastic kit stayed in production until, well at the time of writing it’s still available! However the metal parts that made it fit in with modern stuff is long gone. Odd.

Especially odd given that they still sell the metal Dregmek Blitzkart special character from Gorkamorka!

Anyway, someone snapped a blurry photo of the sprues for you to salivate over:

People love rebel grots. There’s something about their stylish stars, hopeless cause, and ramshackle contraptions that really strikes a chord with people. Nathanael is one of those people and he created these awesome sculpts for that very reason:The sniper is probably better saved for a special character (unless you fancy risking a trip to Da Mek!) but the rest of them would fit in well in any Rebel Grot mob. Then again maybe you’d like to have a go at writing some special rules for the infamous GRC?

There’s also a video that shows them off on a turntable both as a group and individually:

Fancy a set? Our friends over at Fox Box have ’em.

It’s been a long time coming and it’s not complete yet but the team working on Gorkamorka “Community Edition” have released the first version of their core rules.

The entire rulebook has been reimplemented from scratch to ensure this document belongs to the community. Part of this has involved heavy restructuring to try to get things into a more logical order – the original game is a bit of a mess in that respect with bits and pieces scattered all over the place. Another part has involved creating diagrams to make things easier to understand!

Importantly this is not the campaign book and doesn’t contain rules for any factions. In fact for most of you that already know the game it won’t matter much at all at this stage. The reason for that is that (except for a few minor things) the game mechanics themselves are identical – for now. There’s some changes though – the keen eyed amongst you might notice that there’s no artillery dice in the diagram; yep, that’s gone.

Effectively there’s now a base to start fiddling with, correcting, adding to, and so on. More diagrams would probably help for a start as well as more art to break things up a bit but that’s something for the next release!

There’s a bug tracking thread over on YakTribe but the Facebook group is also available for chatting about all things Gorkamorka. Suggestions and similar can go there or in a fresh thread on YakTribe.

Download PDF (v.1.0)

This document was written by Benjamin Fox and Michael Haslam with editing by Matthew Bester. It is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence.
Diagrams created by Benjamin Fox, also under the CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0 licence.
The photos for some of the diagram components were provided by Andrew Akiyama, Morgan Ellis, and Simon Barnard.
Additional art was provided by Clayton Tait under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. The layout was made by Benjamin Fox using images created by Jenny Mathiasson and is also licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

MiniWarGaming are at it again!

At the tail end of October they’re running a campaign experience at their HQ – that is to say if you want to be part of it, you could! Here’s MWG’s Dave with some details:

There’s only a few tickets left so if you’re up for it you’d best get stuck in!
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/gorkamorka-narrative-campaign-tickets-70556531485

Our friends over at MiniWarGaming have started their third season of Gorkamorka!

Got a drunken score to settle? Let’s race!

The board moves with you and it’s a long run but the first over the finish line gets the loot. Health and safety is giving it the thumbs up…

This was written by James Reichelt from Cheltenham and sent in as a letter to Citadel Journal #28 (1998). For years that was all we had to go on and then suddenly he popped up on YakTribe!

The Gorkamorka Heritage Project continues to bear fruit. If you wrote something for Gorkamorka and published it anywhere it might have been seen get in touch so we can share your work with the rest of the GoMo community.

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This document was written by James Reichelt and with permission was edited by Benjamin Fox. It’s licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share-Alike license. The layout was made by Benjamin Fox using images created by Jenny Mathiasson and is also licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

The Gorkamorka Facebook group is remarkably active. Whilst it’s hardly the ideal medium the GoMo community online has never been as active as that group is. It’s amazing. It also means that sometimes something emerges that really stands out. Today we’ve got something like that for you – something from a GW staffer from back in the day.

Fungus Brew Rescue is a demo game scenario – complete with the notes for staff and the rosters that were used (including a photo of one of the vehicles from the game). It was posted by William Greenwald last month and you can check it out here:

Download PDF

Something that everyone remembers when Gorkamorka gets mentioned is the awesome fort that came with the game. Cardboard and Necromunda plastic bulkheads were how GW did terrain back in the day. These days if you want the fort your options were either to find a second hand one or to print out its enormous pieces in colour (on card!) and then source some bulkheads.

However there’s at long last a third option – you could 3D print one:

Some time ago a user called Ziddan on Thingiverse recreated the minehead that came with the fort however they’ve now gone further and recreated the entire fort!

It’s free so if you’ve got access to a printer and fancy a fort that’s even nicer than the original… well… fill yer boots!

Midwinter Minis managed to get a sealed copy of GoMo which would be fun in and of itself but better than that the man himself, Andy Chambers, gets interviewed in it too!

In 2018 we published the initial release of GCE’s Core Rules. The Kommittee has been convening over the last few months and we now present the GCE Core Rules version 1.21!

There’s more diagrams, artwork, and various bits of rewriting. Eventually there’ll probably be another revision but the hope is that the heavy lifting is now done.

Wondering what GCE is?

What if there was a version of the Gorkamorka rules that could be legally distributed, modified, and updated. A community edition, if you will. It’s an attempt at that.

The underlying rules are the same but the rulebook has been completely rewritten. There’s no copying and pasting or anything like that – this is all written from scratch. Things have been shuffled around, examples and diagrams added, and with any luck they’re easier to follow than the original rules.

Much like with the initial release it’s important to note that this is the in-game rules, not the campaign rules. This document is designed as a drop-in replacement for the original rulebook (Da Roolz) and existing campaign rules should remain compatible.

A campaign book is coming (it’s very close to its 1.0 release) and the first faction pack (Gorkers and Morkers) is also well underway. There’s lots of other stuff planned but it could be a while – we usually get there in the end though!

The changelog is in the PDF but in case you’re interested:

• Setting up the board section with table edge diagrams
• Scrap counter rules
• Tidied up Warriors on Fire
• Moved the “Ending the Game” section
• Corrected the Gas engines rules
• Minor changes to wording here and there
• Tweaked the chasing rules slightly to be closer to the originals
• Added a vague description of Gubbinz
• Added variable save Modifiers
• Dealt with a duplicate section on Pinning
• Tweaked some wording in Hatred
• Nomenclature tidied up
• Lots of proofreading and fixes

Download PDF

This document was written by Morgan Fox, Michael Haslam, Matthew Bester, Tom Inglis, Ben Middleton, Ben Saunders, and Ben Kerby.
It is licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Diagrams created by Morgan Fox, also under the CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0 licence.
The photos for some of the diagram components were provided by Andrew Trevorrow-Seymour, Ben Middleton, Morgan Ellis, and Simon Barnard.
Additional art was provided by:

• Clayton Tait (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license)
• Andrew Trevorrow-Seymour (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported license)
• Louis DePrix (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported license)

The layout was made by Morgan Fox using images created by Jenny Mathiasson and is also licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

Regulars to the site will be well aware of the custom template we use for document releases. It’s been through a few iterations over the years but has never been widely available outside the tUGS team.

That hasn’t been because we’re unwilling to share it, mind you, just that we only had it setup for Scribus (and more recently Apple Pages). Scribus is great in many ways – it’s powerful and provides masses of control over things. However it’s also a bit of a pig to use if you’re not used to it.

There’s long been a plan to provide a version for more consumer-friendly word processing software (How ’90s is that sentence?). By “long” we mean something like twelve years as of the time of writing…

Well, it’s finally happened. It’s currently only for LibreOffice but with any luck there can eventually be a version for MS Office too. No promises on when, of course. However with GCE in active development it’s handy to have these templates to hand.

There’s a PDF of the contents here (~4.5 MB) and the OTT file that is the template itself can be found here:

Download Template (~35MB)

This document was created by Morgan Fox. It’s licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share-Alike license. The layout was made by Morgan Fox using images created by Jenny Mathiasson and is also licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

Da Kommittee has been hard at work on the next GCE release – the campaign rules!

Quoting the last release:

What if there was a version of the Gorkamorka rules that could be legally distributed, modified, and updated. A community edition, if you will. It’s an attempt at that.

This book is the campaign book.

What’s in it:

It provides the generic framework for between battles – income, levelling up, generic skill tables, serious injuries, and so on. The default mechanics that can be replaced or modified by faction rules.

What’s not:

Faction-specific rules. If it doesn’t apply to all factions, it’s not in there. You won’t find rules for creating an Ork mob, for example. Those are in the faction packs.

At the time of writing there aren’t any released faction packs but worry ye not – these rules are backwards compatible with the original rules. Just use your original faction rules (there’s a table in this book showing you where to find them!).

What’s new?

• Skills overhaul
• Modified the Serious Injury table
• Modified the Permanent Damage table

Over time we plan to add further content to the campaign book to better help players run interesting campaigns. For the 1.0 release though we decided to keep it simple.

As always if you have feedback you can head over to the development document and add comments.

Download PDF

This document was written by Morgan Fox, Michael Haslam, Matthew Bester, Tom Inglis, Ben Middleton, Ben Saunders, and Ben Kerby.
It is licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Additional art and images provided by:

• Andrew Trevorrow-Seymour (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported license)
• Clayton Tait (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license)
• Darren Sampson (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license)
• Matthew Bester (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported license)
• Morgan Fox (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported license)
• Nicola Juno (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported license)
• Steve Byrne (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported license)

The layout was made by Morgan Fox using images created by Jenny Mathiasson and is also licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

Ork Nob photo above provided by Matthew Bester (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported license).

It’s twenty five years ago and you’re back home from Gamesday ’97 – time to open something that’s not available in shops just yet – your brand new boxed copy of Gorkamorka!

Yep, we’ve tracked down the exact release of the game as about fiveish on Sunday 28th September, 1997. Of course you had to be at Gamesday to get it then – and some of our awesome community were! I wonder if any of them still have their cardboard hats?

To celebrate the anniversary we’re releasing the next component in GCE – the Gorker and Morker Faction Pack. It’s our interpretation of the Gorker and Morker rules. They’re not identical (after all, if you want the original rules just use those, they’re compatible with GCE) but hopefully you’ll like the tweaks we’ve made.

Over the coming months and years the intention is to create new revisions of the faction pack incorporating various things that the community has written over the years. If you’ve got something you’re particularly fond of that you’d like prioritised, leave a comment and tell us what it is!

Download PDF

If you’re not sure what GCE is – head over to the GCE page for answers.

This document was written by Morgan Fox, Matthew Bester, Tom Inglis, Ben Middleton, and Ben Saunders.
It is licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Additional art and images provided by:

• Andrew Trevorrow-Seymour (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported license)
• Clayton Tait (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license)
• Darren Sampson (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license)
• Matthew Bester (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported license)
• Morgan Fox (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported license)
• Nicola Juno (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported license)

The layout was made by Morgan Fox using images created by Jenny Mathiasson and is also licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

Progress on GCE continues! This is the 1.3 update to the rules for battles and adds things in preparation for the release of the 1.0 GCE Scenario Book. Da Kommittee has added Forts, Da Rollin’ Road, and a load of diagrams to help players understand ramming and swerving more easily.

If you’re not sure what GCE is – head over to the GCE page for answers.

Version 1.3 – January 2023

Changelog for 1.21 -> 1.3:

• Added generic Initiative Tests and Leadership Tests to the statline section
• Added rules for forts
• Added rules for moving boards
• Made bikes a type of small Vehicle rather than their own type
• Added diagrams explaining ramming
• Added diagrams explaining swerving
• Standardised on “difficult ground” rather than a mish-mash of “difficult terrain” and “difficult ground”

Download PDF

This document was written by Morgan Fox, Michael Haslam, Matthew Bester, Tom Inglis, Ben Middleton, Ben Saunders, Andrew Meijers, and Ben Kerby.
It is licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Diagrams created by Morgan Fox, also under the CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0 licence.
The photos for some of the diagram components were provided by Andrew Trevorrow-Seymour, Ben Middleton, Morgan Ellis, and Simon Barnard.
Additional art and images provided by:

• Andrew Trevorrow-Seymour (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported license)
• Clayton Tait (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license)
• Darren Sampson (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license)
• Louis DePrix (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported license)
• Matthew Bester (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported license)
• Morgan Fox (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported license)
• Nicola Juno (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported license)

The layout was made by Morgan Fox using images created by Jenny Mathiasson and is also licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

GCE is in no way affiliated with Games Workshop. Furthermore, Gorkamorka is a trade mark of Games Workshop Ltd. and is used without permission. No challenge to its status is intended.

Interested in the sordid history of how Gorkamorka came to exist?

Maybe “sordid” is a bit much but it’s quite the story. Aaron “Lenoon” Bowen and Liam “Corrode” Royle have put together this exhaustively researched mammoth pair of articles (About 19,000 words between ’em!).

It covers both how Gorkamorka came to exist, where it fit into the grand strategy GW were attempting, and the ultimate fallout, interspersed with quotes from many of the important figures in the story. We might get a mention in there too…

• Part 1 – Gorkers and Morkers
• Part 2 – The Hulk