Choppa, Big Choppa & Slugga

Lore & history

To an Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-Priest or an Aeldari Bonesinger, the weapons carried by a mob of charging Ork Boyz look like an insult to the very laws of metallurgy and ballistics. A Choppa is often little more than a jagged, three-foot slab of salvaged tank hull riveted to an iron pipe, sometimes upgraded with a sputtering, unshielded chainsaw motor that spews oily black smoke. Its companion in the Ork's other fist, the Slugga, is a blocky, oversized revolver or magazine-fed pistol hammered together from scrap steel that fires thumb-thick, flat-nosed bullets with a deafening roar.

Yet when thirty roaring Greenskins crash into an Imperial trench line, those crude weapons cleave through flak armour, carapace plate and even Space Marine ceramite with terrifying ease. Backed by the monstrous bone-crushing strength of an Ork's dense musculature—and subtly greased by the collective psychic field of the Waaagh!, which ensures that a Slugga fires as long as its owner firmly believes it ought to—the pairing of Choppa and Slugga has drowned whole sectors in blood.

Design, mechanism & battlefield effect

A standard Choppa relies on raw mass, a wickedly heavy forward balance, and the tremendous upper-body power of an Ork Boy. Chain-Choppas add a loop of jagged iron teeth driven by a two-stroke promethium engine or squig-oil motor. A Big Choppa—carried by Ork Nobz and Warbosses—scales this formula up into a two-handed battleaxe or greatsword heavy enough to shear the tracks off a Chimera.

A Slugga operates on the simplest possible blowback or revolving cylinder mechanism, firing heavy-calibre, crudely jacketed solid slugs propelled by volatile propellant mixes that produce a foot-long muzzle flash and a thunderous report—for to an Ork, a gun that isn't deafeningly loud simply isn't working properly.

Patterns, variants & doctrine

Every Ork clan and sub-cult customizes its blades and pistols: Blood Axe Kommandos carry serrated throat-slitting twin combat knives ( like Boss Snikrot's pair, Mork's Teeth), Beast Snagga Boyz wield bone-and-chain Beastchoppas designed to carve into monstrous squiggoths and enemy tanks, and Nobz heft roaring, engine-driven Big Choppas and Uge Choppas.

Notable patterns & relic examples

• Mork's Teeth: The twin serrated Kommando combat-choppas wielded by Boss Snikrot of the Red Skull Kommandos.
• Big Choppa & 'Uge Choppa: Massive two-handed cleavers and chain-axes carried by Ork Nobz and Warbosses to hack apart Dreadnoughts and light tanks.
• Chain-Choppa: Motorized, smoke-belching chainsaw axes hammered together by Mekboyz from looted Imperial chainswords.
• Kustom Slugga: Over-bored, brass-plated pistols adorned with iron sights (purely for decoration), skull-bosses and extra barrels.

Wielded & Fielded By

Characters (5)

• 
  Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka · Prophet of Gork and Mork
• 
  Boss Snikrot · Kommando Boss of the Red Skull Kommandoz
• 
  Makari · Banner-waver of Ghazghkull
• 
  Mad Dok Grotsnik · Painboy of Ghazghkull's Waaagh!
• 
  Kaptin Badrukk · Freebooter Kaptin

Units (6)

KommandosStormboyzBurna BoyzFlash GitzKroot ShapersWeirdboyz

Related weapons & vehicles

Guardian SpearChainswordPower FistPower SwordThunder HammerChainaxePlague Knife & BaleswordAgoniser & Huskblade

Primary Faction

Orks