Sea lettuce, a fast-growing seaweed that spawns massive "green tides," is a prolific thief, according to research that for the first time sequenced the genome of a green seaweed.

An international team including Rutgers scientists found 13 cases where the sea lettuce Ulva mutabilis stole genes from bacteria. Remarkably, this ubiquitous seaweed expanded more than half of the pilfered genes—creating so-called "gene families—and used some of them to adapt to stresses such as excessive light, high salinity and dehydration to become a dominant intertidal seaweed, according to study co-author Debashish Bhattacharya, distinguished professor at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Ulva also lives with bacteria and relies on them to gain its multicellular form. Both stolen genes and intact bacteria that live in symbiosis with Ulva play key roles in the seaweed's success.

This is going to be an overview over three horde ideas that could actually be used in 8th edition. These will not be very professional or a power-gaming list planner. This is just a bit of fun and theorising.

Orks and their new WAAAGH!!!

A real green tide is my plan for this one. Boyz are a must for this idea, which can be taken in a unit of 30. When in a unit of 20 or more they get +1 attack, making each Boy have 3 attacks instead of 2. They are Strength 4 and which a choppa can make another attack, so 4 Attacks base. This is already 120 attacks in the unit. A Nob can replace one of the Boys, granting the Nob another attack and then adding 1 to the LD value, LD 7. The Leadership values will not matter too much in the larger squads as the Mob Rule has drastically changed. They can either use their own LD, a friendly Ork characters LD within 6” or their LD can be the same as the number of models in the unit. Meaning that the Boyz unit would start at LD 30. Already this unit is scary, but now we should add in the characters to help keep them alive and do more damage.

Warboss is the standard HQ choice for many Ork armies. The new WAAAGH! Is now a 6” bubble that is always active and allows any Ork Infantry to Advance and Charge in the same turn. They can also use their Breakin’ Heads ability which states that any Ork unit that fails a Morale check within 3” can instead take D3 Mortal Wounds and count as passing the test.

A Wierdboy is defiantly on its way to winning the award for “Most Improved Unit” in the Ork army. Warpath adds an attack to a unit’s characteristic and Da Jump allows you to redeploy a unit anywhere on the board 9” away from enemy units. Both are very powerful psychic powers, but the WAAAGH! Energy ability adds 1 to the psychic test for every 10 Ork models within 10”. Only concern with this unit is the Matched play rule that restrict the use of the same power more than once per turn.

Although they are not as good in this edition, a Painboy allows any unit within 3” to ignore wounds on a 6+. Not great, but it is another save for the 6+ save Boyz. In the Elite section there is the Nob with the WAAAGH! Banner. This model is a magic flag bearer that allows friendly Orks within 6” to ADD 1 To Hit rolls in the Fight phase. Boys already have a WS of 3+, meaning near the Banner they hit on 2+.

Alright, we have the horde almost ready, but now for the Battleforged list. If we were to have one of each character for the units of Boyz I think the best way to run them is: Battalion- 3 Warboss, 6 units of Boyz, 6 Nobz with Banners. Supreme Command X3- 3 Warboss, 6 Painboyz, 6 Weird Boyz. (5 choices per Detachment.) Some quick Numbers: (using Narrative Play as my example due to the restrictions on Psychic) One unit of Boyz with a Nob will have 121 attacks (Incudes Green Tide and Choppas). The unit will be able to Advance and Charge from the Warboss. The Wierdboy can then cast Warpath to grant an additional attack to the unit. Then when charging, will be able to survive a small amount more of the Overwatch thanks to the Pain boy. In the Fight Phase the Banner will let the Boyz hit on 2+. In total 151 Attacks hitting on 2+ at Strength 4 (on average wounding on 4’s or 5’s). And that is only one unit, so the full 6 units will actually have 906 Attacks.