Background - Who Is Mad Doc Drillteef, D.D.S?

Who is Mad Doc Drillteef, D.D.S.?  I wrote an article when this Blog started about my Warlord and I felt it was time for an update.  I also wanted to introduce some of my new subscribers to this character because they'll be hearing more about him and his Boyz as time goes on. My hope is that this will be a regular feature on the Blog where I talk about the different units and warbands who've joined Mad Doc on his crusade.

About fifty years ago, a Ork named Grubbin emerged from the ranks of brainboyz in WAAGH! Grok (on the Galactic North side of the Eastern Fringe) as a truly talented individual. He wasn’t quite as unstable back then, of course. He was ingenious in his execution of bionik replacement surgery. Wealthy Nobz and even Warbosses from other clans who had joined the WAAGH! paid plenty of teef to subject themselves to Grubbin’s whims. Who in their right minds could pass up over a fifty percent success rate with only a twenty percent mortality rate?

Over time, Grubbin’s avarice began to drive him further. He jealously guarded his collection of teef. He’d spend hours admiring them and sorting them by size, shape, and color. He was so rich that he began to hire bodyguards, his own group of Nobz whom he called the Doc’s Klaws. Grubbin actually began to research (through trial and error) on how to improve the quality of his customers’ teef.  Many Gretchin gave their lives in the pursuit of these goals.  Also during Grubbin's rise through the brainboy ranks, he became increasingly paranoid of losing his status or being slain in battle which is how he began enhancing his performance with combat drugs of all varieties, both looted from Imperial enemies and home-made concoctions.

In time, Grubbin had become quite long-lived thanks to the fact that he was so useful to the bosses, and was wealthy enough to always eat well.  He became quite large and fierce. He began demanding that the Orks in his clan care for their teef in the ways he’d researched. Toof-polishers made from squiggoth hairs and flosses made from squig-guts were required equipment for all. Grubbin soon began collecting fees for his services... often with a hammer and sometimes even in the thick of battle. Fortunately, iron gobs were usually included at a nominal fee. His powerful addiction to all manner of chemical substances soon began to affect his mind and he became well-known for wild mood swings and delusional decision-making.  Grubbin had become a rather habitual abuser of Nitrous Oxide and would often take more pulls from the gas mask during surgery than his patients.  The Boyz began calling him by his new moniker... Mad Doc Drillteef.

When Grok got wind of the strange behavior coming from the camps surrounding Drillteef, he became enraged. What right did this upstart brainboy have fuddling his boyz’ brains with matters of hygene? It was downright un-orky, it was! What's more, a Grot informant had said that some of Grok's underbosses had gone missing near Drillteef's camps.

Grok himself, accompanied by his biggest Nobz, visited Drillteef’s camps where he found three minor Warbosses had been killed that very day, their teef knocked out of their heads and their bodies heaped unceremoniously in a squig pen, motes of spores lazily dancing in the bright, midday sun.

The furious Grok stomped towards Drillteef's shanty hut and found him standing outside talking jovially with one of Grok's underbosses, Wagonkrumpa.  By this time, Drillteef was a hulking Ork fitted with the most advanced teknology including a dead-killy drill fit for a Deff Dread where his left hand used to be. There was a mad look in the Drillteef's eyes. Surrounding him were almost thirty nasty-looking Nobz and three Painboy assistants, all grinning with pearly-white teef and bionik implants.  Drillteef took a long, delighted, breath from a face mask attached to a Nitrous tank he had strapped to his back.  "'Ey, boss.  Howz fings?"

The battle was decisive. The Nobz who Drillteef lost in the fight were replaced by the smart Nobz on the other side who turned against their Grok when the fighting went bad. In the end, hundreds of boyz watched on with delight as Drillteef drilled into Grok’s quickly-widening eyesocket.  The Doc cackled with glee  as Bone, blood, and meat sprayed. He earned not only the respect of Wagonkrumpa and the rest of the underbosses that day, but the allegiance of the entire WAAGH!

Early Days of WAAGH! Drillteef

Shortly after, the WAAGH! spread mainly in the sparse stars between two spiral arms near the Ultima Segmentum in the Eastern Fringe. The wide variety of opponents (and teef!) was appealing to the still-gathering WAAGH! Their momentum was being fueled by conflict mainly with the Blood Angels Beakies, Ultramarines, Chaos, and Tau forces.

Although Drillteef's original trajectory would send them directly into the heart of the Tau empire, it was suddenly halted. It is whispered that the Tau had negotiated a deal with Drillteef, promising him teef or teknology he would otherwise be unable to collect in exchange for an alter of course for the WAAGH! Judging by the Mad Doc’s previous weird behavior, this is probably likely.

WAAGH! Drillteef today

Since then, WAAGH! Drillteef has been marching to the galactic south.  Instead of allowing the WAAGH! to fan out and claim resources throughout a vast region of space, Drillteef and his commanders have focused their efforts in a pinpoint strike towards Ultramar.  The WAAGH rolls through one system at a time, conquering and enslaving it, before moving on.

Although Drillteef has found himself, recently, beating his spearhead against a figurative iron wall of resistance at the very edge of Ultramar, he is still a threat to the Imperial forces in the region.  The worlds which Drillteef conquers are not razed to the bone, but continue to process materials under great duress.  Drillteef and his brainboyz have set up a fairly sturdy supply line between all the conquered worlds and the battlefront.

Drillteef's simple, but effective, strategy is to continue grinding at the borders of Ultramar in a massive war of attrition.  Warp Roks full of Boyz are hurled at the warzone one after the other in the hopes that eventually the Imperium will run out of nearby resources to throw at the problem. There are always more Boyz, after all.