WAAAGH!
Shootas, Blood & Teef is a 2022 Run-and-Gun game made by Rogueside Games as a Creator-Driven Successor of their earlier game Guns, Gore & Cannoli, set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe of Games Workshop.
The game follows the exploits of an Ork named Gargaz Teefgrabba in WAAAGH! Gutrekka as it invades the Imperium world of Luteus (Though the Orks spell it as 'Looteus') for its Promethium wells to fuel their own war machines. Gargaz was a loyal Ork and comrade of the WAAAGH!'s leader, Warboss Gutrekka - until Gutrekka, believing Gargaz was becoming more 'snazzy' than he is thanks to Gargaz's Hair-Squig (since only the Warboss can have the "snazziest" things in his eyes), turns on Gargaz by stealing said Hair-Squig and punting him off his plane.
Surviving the fall, Gargaz sets off on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge after his former warboss for betraying him (and getting that Hair-Squig back), an adventure that will take him across and even beyond the world of Luteus, along the way collecting Teef, increasing his arsenal of wacky yet dangerous Ork Guns, and killing everything and anyone who gets in his way.
The game has a co-op mode and can allow for up to four players.
Shootas, Blood & Teef includes examples of:
- Absolute Xenophobe: Like their canon portrayals, the Humans of the Imperium utterly hate "Xenos" of all kinds and express it in all their lines on top of trying to kill the Orks invading Luteus. Granted, this is a rational response to Orks and Tyranids/Genestealer cultists, but their ways of vocalising it are pretty melodramatic nevertheless.
- Advancing Boss of Doom: Lord Horrik's Imperial Knight takes the entire height of the screen and continuously advances towards you, stopping periodically to attack or when his Ion Shield is depleted, forcing you to keep moving back to avoid getting killed. It's also an essential part of the fight, since the crates that enter the screen are key to surviving some of his extremely painful attacks.
- Alien Invasion: The plot of the game starts and takes place over the course of one as the Orks of WAAAGH!Gutrekka invaded Luteus for a scrap and its Promethium reserves for their war machines. There's also the Genestealer Cult which got there earlier and infiltrated their way into the planet, but that's another story which Gargaz happened to walk into and derailed.
- Autobots, Rock Out!: The first fight has Gargaz crashing an Ork rock concert
, with the band still playing while the fight rages on. - Batman Can Breathe in Space: Gutrekka's Kill Kroozer have entire sections and decks opened to space and very large hull breaches, yet the Orks carry on as if nothing's wrong even though none of them are in spacesuits. note
- Blood Knight: All Orks are this by default. Gargaz got a warband of Goff Klan Orks on his side early in the game partly by promising that they would get a proper 'scrap' out following him from killing their way through the 'Humies' and other Orks as he kills his way to Warboss Gutrekka for revenge.
- Book Ends: While you face a wide range of enemies, the single-player mode ultimately starts and ends with fighting other Orks.
- Character Class System: Gargaz and the three other boyz he can bring along can spec into one of four classes; His default but reliable Flash Git, the high-jumping Stormboy, the squig-taming Beast Snagga, and the shockingly cunning Weirdboy
- Collapsing Ceiling Boss: The "Bastion of Valour" Baneblade tank can fire its Demolisher Cannon at the ceiling, causing chunks of rubble to rain on you. In the second half of the fight, it loses its weaponry but can now ram the walls of the area to cause the same.
- Colony Drop: Downplayed, but to get back to Luteus' surface, Gargaz after storming the bridge of Gutrekka's Kill Kroozer set it on a collision course with Luteus, crash-landing the hundreds-metres-sized Ork spacecraft right into the invading Orks' main base and straight at Gutrekka's doorstep.
- Corridor Cubbyhole Run: The fight against Lord Horrik's Imperial Knight (Knight Valiant) is one of these. As the boss advances towards you, the boxes on the platforms are the only things that can block his incredibly painful Conflagration Cannon and Meltagun sweep attacks. Making things dicier is that he also has two attacks that can destroy the boxes in the Thundercoil Harpoon and the Shieldbreaker Missile swarm.
- Create Your Own Hero: For a nominal value of 'hero', but Warboss Gutrekka wouldn't have had Gargaz coming after him if he wasn't so obsessed with being the 'snazziest' Ork of the WAAAGH! and kicking him off his plane over being outshined by him.
- Cult: Gargaz ends up crossing paths and fighting a Genestealer Cult during the game.
- Damage-Sponge Boss: The Patriarch has three health bars to chew through, not helped by it continually putting up psionic shields that must be completely depleted before you can do any further damage - and on occasion it can put up a new shield the second you finish emptying the old one! Making the fight feel even longer is that between life bars you have to deal with waves of mooks.
- Denser and Wackier: The more cartoony art style and the general lack of care Orks have for the melodramatic flair of other factions pull the game far more towards blood-spilling slapstick comedy than most 40K games.
- The Determinator: Gargaz, full stop. He will stop at absolutely nothing to get back at Gutrekka for betraying him (and stealing his Hair-Squig), even if he had to kill his way across Luteus and even into outer space to do it.Gargaz: [to Gutrekka] I've fought a whole world to get dat back. I'm gonna rip it right off your stupid, pointy head!
- Dumb Muscle: Like most Orks, Gargaz is not very bright. For example, he's only smart enough to realise something's not right with the anatomy of the enemies he was fighting in the sewers and the foundry, but not smart enough to put two-and-two together that he was dealing with Genestealers in those levels, merely thinking that they are 'Funny-lookin' Humies'. It could be that he never MET one before, but in the end, he doesn't particularly care to find out.
- Elite Mooks: On the 'Humies' side, we have the Space Marines of the White Scars chapter, who are just as fast and durable as Gargaz and have Bolters which hit like a brick. On the non-Human side, we have Ork Nobz and Tyranid Genestealers, some of whom serve as mini-bosses.
- Evil Is Petty: The entire plot was set off by Warboss Gutrekka turning on his loyal underling and former comrade Gargaz just to steal his Hair-Squig, seeing it as snazzy and reasoning that only the Warboss should have the snazziest things in a WAAAGH!.
- Evil Versus Evil: Keeping with the grimdarkness of the 40K setting, the Orks whom we're following and playing are an entire race of brutish warmongering maniacs who fight amongst themselves as often as they rampage across the stars as unified hordes. Meanwhile, the Imperium of Man who owns the world of Luteus is a militaristic totalitarian theocratic dictatorship who are horrible oppressors to their own soldiers and subjects and genocidal adversaries to everyone else. And the Genestealers who had been infiltrating this world are part of the Tyranids, a voracious extragalactic alien swarm out to consume the galaxy of all life. In the end, none of them come out looking good, but since someone has to be playable, the Orks are our protagonists.
- Failed Attempt at Drama: Multiple times, an Imperial or Genestealer will attempt to make a dramatic and intimidating pronunciation to Gargaz, but the Ork just doesn't give a damn and tells them to shut up or shoots at them. It's all very comedic.
- Fictional Currency: Teef, the eponymous 'Teef' of the game's title, is the main currency of the Orks, consisting of the sharp fang-like teeth of the Orks who regularly shed and regrow them. Gargaz throughout his adventure would collect large chests full of them, and use them to buy weapons and gear from Ork Mek-Boyz.
- Final Boss: Confronting his thieving, treacherous warboss after a whole game killing his way through Luteus, Gargaz would face Gutrekka piloting a freaking Stompa in the Orks' camp.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Similar to Kais, Gargaz is a fairly bog-standard Ork by himself who nonetheless manages to single-handedly devastate the Imperial Guard, a squad of White Scars Primaris, A genestealer cult and an Ork WAAAGH!
- Foreshadowing:
- Gargaz's takeover of a warband of Ork Goffs foreshadows his eventual takeover of Gutrekka's WAAAGH! after he defeated him in the Final Battle, showcasing how Ork social upward mobility works by Might Makes Right and Klingon Promotion.
- Propaganda and warning posters covered throughout the Imperial-controlled Hive foreshadows the presence of both Space Marines and Tyranid Genestealers which Gargaz ends up fighting.
- Gatling Good: The Snazzgun has both the highest rate of fire and mag size of all shootas. It's balanced out by its need to spool up to full DPS and a fierce recoil that makes it hard to aim and move while firing.
- Humongous Mecha: Gargaz had to battle several mechas throughout the game, from an Imperial Knight (Knight Valiant variant) to Gutrekka in a Stompa in the Final Battle.
- Lighter and Softer: By having you play the boorish comic-relief of a Grimdark universe, yes; and even with it's deliberately-goofy cartoonish art-style, Shootas Blood n' Teef is a cynical and pitch-black comedy that is all too self-aware of how absurdly cruel and hammy the Warhammer 40,000 setting is in comparison to other mainstream science-fantasy settings.
- Lightning Bruiser: The Stormboy class turns the player's Ork into this, using their 'Rokkit Pack' to jump and dash faster across the battlefield. Their rocket exhaust can also set enemies alight as a bonus.
- Live Item: Health pickups take the form of squigs that are sentient and move around the area, touching them immediately restores your health if you're missing any. You can also shoot them to stop their movement if you're having trouble catching one.
- Meaningful Name: Luteus in Latin means Dirty, Corrupt, Muddy or Clay-like, which befits a civilized/industrial world which extracts and exports promethium and is now a battleground between alien warmongering maniacs with no concept of hygiene and a Human oppressive regime filled with corruption and decay.
- The first half of its name also sounds like "loot", which is exactly what the Orks are trying to do to it.
- Mini-Mecha: At certain points Gargaz ends up fighting these from the Humies' side as bosses, such as an Imperial Guard Sentinel walker and a White Scars Primaris Invictor Tactical Warsuit.
- More Dakka: Part of the fun of the game is the chance to use the Orks' and the Imperium's arsenals of the shootiest weapons, with some standing out like the Ork Snazzgun as well as the dismountable turrets of Imperial Heavy Bolters and Autocannons. More weapons and variants with even greater firepower are unlockable or acquirable either using Teef or found on different levels over the course of the game. The Flash Git class for the player's Orks allows them to be this even among Orks, with a chance that their weapons will have one or more extra ammo in them and allow them to fire more and longer.
- Monumental Damage: Gargaz ends up blowing up a huge chunk off the side of Luteus' main Hive spire escaping the Genestealer-infiltrated Foundry.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Gargaz unwittingly uncovers and destroys a Genestealer Cult while fighting his way across Luteus, though he didn't even figure out that he was fighting them beyond confusion/suspicion over them having the wrong number of arms, merely thinking they were 'funny-lookin' Humies'.
- Nominal Hero: Gargaz is an Ork and thus is a battle-hungry psychopath by default, and is only sympathetic in so far as he was betrayed by his own warboss for the pettiest of reasons and felt entirely justified in getting back at him for it. Otherwise, he's a Villain Protagonist since he's part of the Ork invasion of Luteus.
- One-Man Army: Gargaz singlehandedly fought his way through armies of Orks, Imperial Guard soldiers, Space Marines, Genestealers, mutant monsters and who knows what else in his Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
- Overheating: Certain weapons, such as the Looted Plasma Pistol or the Deffbeam will overheat and set Gargaz on fire if fired too long.
- Pocket Rocket Launcher:
- A bolter is available as a Shoota (read: assault rifle)-slot option. According to the flavour text, the orks are highly impressed by the innovation of bullets that explode.
- Heavy bolter turrets are useable as heavy weapon pickups.
- Psychic Powers: Available if the player chose Weirdboy class during pre-game set-up. Gargaz also fights many opponents possessing them over the course of the game, such as those wielded by Genestealers.
- Recoil Boost: The Snazzgun puts out so much recoil that it can be used as an ersatz maneuvering thruster during the low gravity sections.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The entire plot of the game consists of Gargaz launching one against his former superior and buddy Warboss Gutrekka after he was betrayed by him. That he has to kill his way through Orks, Humies and Tyranid Genestealers across an entire war-torn planet to do that is merely a bonus.
- Shielded Core Boss:
- The Patriarch is one of these, periodically putting up a psionic shield that needs to be taken down before you can do proper damage to it.
- Lord Horrik pilots an Imperial Knight whose Ion Shield protects him from damage. You need to shoot it enough to deplete it and render him vulnerable, but every time he loses a third of his HP he will put it back up and start the process again.
- Warboss Gutrekka's Stompa requires you to shoot Gutrekka until he retreats into the machine, then shoot the exposed internal furnace to deal proper damage to it.
- Shout-Out: A couple of Gargaz's lines: "I'm gonna wreck it!" and "War. War never changes."
- Shut Up, Kirk!: When the pilot of the Imperial Knight tries to give a big speech about how Gargaz can't hope to best the Imperium's finest, Gargaz interrupts him and tells him to shut up and just start the fight already.
- Silly Reason for War: Orks in general are prone to fighting over the silliest reasons, but this one is especially ridiculous — Gargaz gets an army of Goff Klan Orks on his side to rampage through Imperium, Genestealer and Ork forces... all because his Warboss stole his Hair-Squig.
- Slow Laser: Likely as a result of gameplay mechanics, the Lasguns of the Imperial Guard and other laser weapons of the Imperium are portrayed as Star Wars Blaster like weapons which shoot fairly dodgable bolts of light.
- Spanner in the Works: Several levels in the sewers and a foundry of Luteus have Gargaz fighting Genestealers. He didn't know that Genestealers were on Luteus likely trying to subvert the world and pave the way for a Tyranid invasion, and in the end he probably don't really care beyond the fact he got to fight through them. On the flipside, Gargaz decimating their numbers and killing their Patriarch implies the Cult's plans were completely thrown into disarray by Gargaz.
- Super Mode: Gargaz can channel the Waaagh! through his guns to make them fire without thought to ammo or heat for 15 seconds.
- Tank Goodness: Gargaz ran into a number of Imperial Guard tanks over the course of the game which are often fought as bosses, such as a Leman Russ Punisher (A Leman Russ variant which replaces its main Battle Cannon with an anti-infantry Punisher Gatling Cannon and its sponson heavy bolters with multi-meltas) and a Baneblade superheavy tank.
- Try to Fit That on a Business Card: Lord Horrik introduces himself with a long list of titles. Gargaz then begins to doze off partway through, then asks for clarification upon waking up, to which Horrik starts again right before Gargaz shuts him up by shooting at him. The best part is, Lord Horrik's Boss Subtitles feature all of those titles, and indeed, it's a bit of a squish to get them all onscreen.Lord Horrik: Attention, ork! You face Lord Horrik Canorem, Son of High King Valorik Canorem, High Prince of House Canorem, Master of the Blade of Gaia, Keeper of the Gates of Loralo, Wielder of the Kaloric Flame, Bringer of Hope, Herald of the Holy Order of the Adamantine Lance, The Paladin of Koto, Slayer of the Lion of Essa, The Triumphant! The Light of Stars! The... Eradicator!
- Villain of Another Story: Gargaz's rampage through the planet to get back his Hair-Squig ends up wreaking havoc on a Genestealer invasion as collateral damage. Gargaz truly does not cares about this detail, thinking he just killed a lot of "humies with extra limbs".
- Wake-Up Call Boss: The first true boss, the Baneblade Bastion of Valor, is the first truly dangerous boss; its first phase sees it attacking from multiple angles, requiring you to be good at dodging, while the second phase summons waves of Imperial soldiers out of melee range while continually dashing back and forth, forcing you to split your attention between two battlefields at once.
- We Used to Be Friends: It is implied Gargaz and Gutrekka were close comrades (or as close to it as Orks can be) even after Gutrekka became a Warboss. Then Gutrekka terminated the friendship and betrayed Gargaz out of envy of Gargaz's snazzy Head-Squig decoration. The whole plot concerns Gargaz's Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Gutrekka over it.Gargaz: [falling from Ork flyer] Ya thievin' git!!!
- You Kill It, You Bought It: Ork society works by Might Makes Right, and the Klingon Promotion system this ensures meant that Orks advance up the pecking order by challenging and defeating/killing their superiors. Gargaz got a whole warband of Goff Klan Orks on his side early on partly by killing the Nob leading them as much as he did by promising them all a good 'scrap' fighting their way through Humans and other Orks to Warboss Gutrekka in service of his Roaring Rampage of Revenge. Upon beating Gutrekka in the Final Battle and getting his Hair-Squig back, Gargaz realises this means the other Orks look up to him now and promptly takes over the WAAAGH! as the new Warboss.
