Orcs

An orc is any monster represented lowercase by letter o. Actually, the goblin and the hobgoblin are nominally not orcs, though they are related.

These monsters exist in NetHack:
 * orc
 * hill orc, yellow
 * Mordor orc, blue
 * Uruk-Hai

Facts
Some common tactics of orcs include the use of orcish daggers, the the armour marked with a white hand, the bows and arrows, and poisoned weapons.

Though you can find a goblin wandering alone, orcs tend to appear in groups. This is because when the random number generator creates an orc, it will place nearby several more orcs of the same type.

If you wield Sting, you will know the locations of all orcs at the current level, and you will notice how the RNG generates them in groups.

Commentary
...o. .oh.. o "We captured a hobbit." ..oo. }....

You might know goblins and orcs from the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. You might also know them from the Gnomish Mines. Actually, gnomes and dwarves are more common in the mines, but orcs also like to appear. Do you have memories of fighting orcs in the narrow alleys of Minetown? Or are you chasing the orcs because they captured Merry and Pippin?

In The Lord of the Rings,

On screen, orcs appear pathetic. It looks as if a pile of donuts is attacking you.

Orcs seem to benefit from Slash'EM, which features more kinds of orcish equipment. As it is, Slash'EM has so many types of monsters that the orcs are not memorable.

Strategy
Generally, it is easy to kill one orc or goblin. It is often easy to kill groups of them. The problem is when the orcs are so numerous that your one @ (and your pet, if any) is not enough to fight them. Another problem is becoming trapped between a group of orcs and some lone monster.

Some generic NetHack strategy can help:
 * Lure the orcs into a corridor, so never simultaneously fight more than one (or two, if they surround you).
 * Climb the staircase, wait until you heal, then return to the level to kill the remaining orcs.
 * Run away!

The more difficult orcs, such as Mordor orcs and Uruk-Hai, can also cause problems for players. Still, a lone soldier ant should be more scary than any orc. You can flee orcs (if they did not land between you and the staircase up), or you can avoid walking to them (if they have no ranged weapons).

At worst, when you kill most of the orcs, the RNG will decide to send another group, perhaps of a different kind. However, if you could handle one group of orcs, you should be able to handle the next.

At some point, orcs will wield poisoned weapons against you. Or if not, some other monster in NetHack will try to poison you. So obtain poison resistance!