Hi. I'm Steven, I'm 15, and this is my page about my Ork army for Warhammer 40,000.

I started playing 40K last fall when the third edition came out. My friend Fabian got the big box for his birthday, the one with the Space Marines and the Dark Eldar in it, and we played it on his dining room table every day for two weeks until his mom made us stop. Fabian kept the Space Marines. Chris bought the Dark Eldar off him. I didn't want either one. I wanted Orks.

So I mowed lawns. All of last spring and all of this summer, eleven lawns a week, and almost every dollar went to the game store. My army is now 1,000 points, fully painted (well, the Gretchin are mostly painted), and I play every Saturday afternoon at the back tables at the store against Fabian and Chris and whoever else shows up.

There are no pictures yet. I took a whole roll of film of my army but it's still at the drugstore. When it comes back I'm going to borrow my uncle's scanner. Until then you'll have to use your imagination. Imagine a lot of green.

Everybody I know plays Space Marines because that's what's on the box. Space Marines are fine. They're good at everything and they're very serious about it. Orks are not serious about anything except fighting, and that's why they're great.

• They're funny. Orks build their guns and trucks out of junk and they work because the Orks believe they work. They think red vehicles go faster, so they paint them red. And it works! Sort of.
• There's a LOT of them. A Space Marine army is like twenty-five guys. My army is close to a hundred models. When you put them all on the table it looks like a real invasion.
• They want to fight up close. Orks aren't great shots. What they're great at is running across the table and hitting things. If my Boyz reach your line, you're in trouble. Getting there is the hard part. (See my battle reports.)
• You can paint them however you want. Every Ork is different. Nobody can tell you your Ork is the wrong color as long as he's green.

This is what I bring every Saturday. I added it up on my calculator about six times. It's exactly 1,000.

What's next: I'm saving for a mob of Stormboyz with rokkit packs, because flying Orks are the funniest thing in the game. Then a Big Mek. At eleven lawns a week, that's about October.

Orks are rude. Ork players shouldn't be. Here's how I play, and how I want people to play against me.

1. Roll where everybody can see. No rolling behind your hand. No scooping up the dice before the other guy looks.
2. Cocked dice get rerolled. If it's leaning on a model or a hill, roll it again. Don't argue about which way it was "going" to fall.
3. Measure honestly. If it's out of range by a quarter inch, it's out of range. Even if it's your best guy.
4. Once you let go of a model, it's moved. No "wait, I meant to put him over there."
5. If you don't know a rule, look it up together. If you still can't figure it out, roll a die for it and go back to playing. Look it up properly after.
6. No gloating. I say "good game" whether I won or lost. I lose more than I win, so I've had a lot of practice.
7. Help clean up. Jim, who owns the store, lets us use the tables for free. The least we can do is put the terrain back.
8. Be nice to new kids. If somebody's watching, ask if they want to roll some dice for you. That's how Chris started.