Yet, amid the endless cycle of fighting, dying, respawning, and looting, the Orks' loose, chaotic society, built on individual martial glory, had started drifting toward something more coordinated, almost against its own will.
It made a certain kind of sense. When the enemies they faced were no longer scattered humans or weaker kin, but a well-organized, technologically advanced army of metal skeletons that matched them in numbers, mindless mob charges were delivering fewer and fewer of those satisfying Waaagh!!! results they lived for.
Just as the battle lines ground into a strange, chaotic stalemate, a massive announcement detonated across every Ork player's screen, rendered in crude graffiti lettering and accompanied by thunderous Waaagh!!! sound effects:
---
[Waaagh!!! Announcement!]
[Lissen up, all da ladz, da runty Grots, an' da sneaky Meks hidin' in da back!]
[From da North, a REAL Warboss has been born!]
[Da Warlord, 'Steeltusk,' just krumped every tribe up north! His boyz are massive, bigger dan any fight we've seen! Scrap piled higher than a mountain! Teef enough ta fill da ocean!]
[He's da one now. Da real Warboss!]
[Listen up! We ain't messin' about no more! No more fightin' 'mongst ourselves! Da Warboss sez, first, KRUMP dem shiny, lazy, metal skeletons inta da ground! Loot all da shiny bits! Den we can figure out who's da biggest Waaagh!!! of 'em all!]
[So stop fightin' each uvver! Follow Steeltusk an' his Big Waaagh!!! Plan! Smash da metal gits inta scrap metal!]
[Special Note: If ya got any smarts, follow Steeltusk or his Nobz. Fight 'arder, loot more, get bigger. Don't ask why, dat's just da rules of Waaagh!!!]
---
The notice was pure Orkish, grammar a mess, meaning crystal-clear.
At the same time, a massive, constantly flashing green icon, a skull crossed with cleavers, lit up the northern region of every Ork player's map, marking the approximate location of Warboss Steeltusk and his main force.
Ork units within Steeltusk's sphere of influence were already shifting. Internal fighting dropped off, and more Orks started moving north or answering the Waaagh!!! summons rolling down from that direction.
In the ruins somewhere in the planet's middle region, Eric (What the Hell), who had scraped together a few dozen followers and was happily trading fire with a Necron patrol, caught the announcement mid-firefight.
He was crouched behind a half-collapsed concrete slab, leaning out to take shots at a Necron warrior across the rubble with a Big Shoota whose barrel was visibly bent and which coughed black smoke and sparks with every pull of the trigger.
The backblast hit harder than the round did. His arm went numb, a dense cloud of smoke belched from the muzzle, and the Necron across the way barely got a few sparks scratched across its chassis from the ricochets.
"What a piece of junk." Eric spat, ducking back behind cover. He tossed the still-smoking wreck to a nearby Ork Boy who had been staring at it with wide eyes. The kid grabbed the smoldering barrel like it was a holy relic and grinned from ear to ear.
Then the announcement popped up. Eric skimmed it.
"A Warboss? Steeltusk?" He raised an eyebrow. "Calling off the infighting and pointing everyone at the Necrons first. That's actually not a bad call."
He glanced at the flashing green icon up north, then looked around at the mob behind him: loud, eager, badly armed, and tactically nonexistent. Linking up with a Warboss did seem like the smarter play. More structure, a clear direction, and the announcement even hinted at experience bonuses for followers.
He thought about it for maybe three seconds, then shook his head.
"Not worth it," he muttered. "I'd have to march all the way up there, fight through god knows how many Necron patrols on the way, and then what? I have no idea what this Steeltusk is actually like. What if we don't click, or he just throws my crew at the front line as cannon fodder?"
At the end of the day, Eric was a pretty low-key guy. His cousin had dragged him into the game to just give it a try, and that was still basically his whole relationship with it.
Sure, stumbling into Ork leadership and hearing hundreds of greenskins howling his name had been a genuine rush, but he had zero interest in conquering a planet or fighting his way to the top of some Ork hierarchy.
He was happy where he was. Small crew, ruined city, skirmishes with the Necrons, the occasional pile of scrap to loot, and a nice Waaagh!!! charge when the mood struck. No obligations.
"Besides, it's all the same fight no matter where you are," he said, clapping a hand on the shoulder of the Ork Boy beside him, who had gone back to trying to strap a salvaged Gauss Flayer component onto a stick. "Hey. Put that down before it takes your hand off.
Get ready to move, those metal gits look like they're trying to come around our flank. We're hitting them from behind."
"On it, Boss!" The boy dropped his project instantly, grabbed a rust-spotted axe, and grinned like he had just been handed a gift.
Eric checked his friends list. His cousin Liora (I Will Carry You) showed as In Combat, somewhere in the planet's southern region, well clear of his position.
"Probably neck-deep in her own mess," Eric said to himself, with a short laugh. "Knowing her, she's already got her own crew." She had way more hours in games like this than he did. She could handle herself.
He dropped into a crouch and led his little warband on a quiet loop around the back of their cover, lining up a surprise for the Necron patrol trying to box them in.
Up north, Warboss Steeltusk was pulling his forces together and gearing up for a real, coordinated Big Waaagh!!!
In the middle of the planet, Eric kept running his own version: small, scrappy, and completely on his own terms.
And the Necrons kept purging, cold and methodical as ever.
With the first Warboss now on the board, the chaos was shifting into a new shape. Some Orks were starting to move with something resembling purpose. Others were just as wild and leaderless as the day they spawned. But either way, the war was only going to get bigger.