So, having been in this hobby for a good 16 years, and seeing various threads discussing changes over time, I got to thinking about changes in the background and characters, and this particular Orc somehow stood out to me. Why was he replaced with Grimgor as the Black Orc du jour? Was he too similar to Gorbad? Was it because he was a Black Orc on a warboar, and as such didn't conform to the new philosophy in character-unit-relations? Was he plain boring?

What are your thoughts on the dearly departed Morglum, or indeed any other special character that's left the game (rules or background-wise)?

For Morglum, I think it is because for the most part I think they have enough Orc Warbosses in the army book and they already have special niches for all of them; the unconventional "wizardy" warboss Azhag, the exceptionally fighty warboss Grimgor and the cunning/tactical warboss Gorbad. Therefore it could be redundant to have another that could be represented by a normal BO Warboss with various magic items.

I do think it is a shame that he didn't make it in as one of the "retro" characters like Wurrzag as he easily could have been given Killing Blow to give a reason for his moniker "Necksnapper" but I think it's not too much a loss in not having him.

If anything I miss Borgut Facebeater the most. It would have been interesting to have a character that was interconnected with another, similar to Schwarzhelm's relationship with the Emperor or like Krell is with Heinrich Kemmler, Borgut seemed to have that potential as Grimgor's champion. That plus they already had an awesome model for him anyways so I thought it was a waste as well.

Other than that I also particularly miss the loss of Ruglud and his armoured orcs as giving us premium access to crossbows as a hero like Gitilla or Snagla would have been great and really bring a mercenary flavour to an orc army.

I guess the armybook writers wanted to put in some new and original special characters. The ones that fell by the wayside to make room were the ones that had the least existing fluff.

A pity in my view as I liked Morglum much better than Grimgor. To me Grimgor is just a big baby stomping around breaking his toys. Morglum was your more typical militaristic black orc. He also stopped dead a Brettonian invasion of The Dark Lands and then made the greatest speech in OnG history. :D

Yeah I miss Morglum too, even though the model was crap. Grimgor will always just be that new guy to me.

Morgor the Mangler was a pretty wicked axe too!

Gorfang Rotgut is another old favourite of mine. He had some good fluff and a good classic model, though it hasn't aged that well.

I, too, was thinking of Gorfang Rotgut when I posted this. There's also the thought in my head that it would be rather cool to try and make an updated model for those two, using modern models as a base... Anyone dun it?

I always had a soft spot for Badruk 'Eadsplitta, i like his killing blow and being a hero not a lord. From the dim dark past I miss the original Ruglud and the Spike Can Commandos - heavy armour, shields, swords, crossbows and halberds.

The old orcs were a bit too sadistic and acted a little too goblin-y IMO, torturing folks and being spiteful. They don't reflect much on the RAWR RAWR BEST AT WAR feel that orcs have today.

Which is why they were cooler back then ;)

way cooler!!!!

:)

When the 6th edition O&G army book came out the Grimgor model was released and his rules and background in the book. What I think they should have done, was never made Grimgor. The Grimgor model should have simply been a new sculpt of Morglum Necksnapper.

Since Grimgor became the new Black Orc Warboss special character, Morglum never made a return...why have two black Orc Warboss special characters in the book when there are so many others to put in the book?

Even so, Morglum's return would be cool. And it would be neat if Morglum was included in your army, then one unit of Orc Boar Boyz could be upgraded with Oglok the 'Orrible instead of a Boss. Making Oglok a champion level character with Morglum was in the army.

I'm suprised Gorfang Rotgut is not around anymore. Especially since, there needs to be an Orc Big Boss special character...

I would really liked to have seen Ruglud return as a Big Boss that must lead a unit of Orc Archers, who could upgrade to crossbows.

I completely agree that this seems to be the reasoning behind shafting Morglum in favour of Grimgor, who to me comes off as rather bland and uninteresting...

Imo if Gorfang Rotgut comes back they should make him a proper warboss. Although I loved the old model the big-boss style rules didn't properly fit his background.

What was this Morglum speach you speak of ? ... you have me curious ... link or quote please (assuming it is not an IP issue of course... would not want GW suing your a$$.

Krys

"Let 'em tell da king. Da east belongs ot the orcs. Da east belongs to Morglum. Da east is green."

:)

...and:

"The only good stunty is a dead stunty, and the only thing better than a dead stunty is a dyin' stunty who tells yer where to find 'is mates."

I really like that one :D

:( me sad, i'd loved to have a orc special character hero level

When I was a kid my local GW used occasionally to run one-off mass-participation games aimed at kids. Basically 'good' vs 'evil'. Each player can bring along 2 units, or 1 unit and 1 character or something like that. When the evil team won they gave us all certificates signed by Morglum Necksnapper. Which imo just goes to show how important he was. ;)

yea morglum was the only special char i owned in 4th , and then when i came back to warhammer in 7th to find him gone it was a bit of a shame since i had the model.


if he were to be upated im thinking the ability to upgrade boar boy big uns to black orcs for x amount of points or somthign like that.
along with killing blow like i saw mentioned :)