Giant

A Giant

Giants are a large, lumbering and highly unintelligent race of brutish nomads that roam the Warhammer World seeking battles and food both large and small.

Overview

Descendants of the long-forgotten Skytitan civilization, Giants are extremely few in numbers but they make up for this disadvantage with bone-crushing strength. To most Greenskins, a Giant is a bellowing, cursing display of raw might, ruthless aggression and mindless savagery -- traits that are highly respected and sought after within Greenskin society.

As such, many tribes would often fight each other over the possession of a Giant. In their part, Giants are quite happy to join an army of Greenskins, as it would significantly increase their chances of eating regularly and getting their hands on plunder and strong liquor. To keep a Giant within a tribe, the Greenskins would often have to regularly feed him considerable amounts of food, as should the Giant become too hungry, he would usually wander off into the wilderness and never return.

Giants are solitary creatures that tend to wander the lands, settling for short periods of time when they find a rich food source. A Giant can consume an entire herd of livestock in a sitting, and will devastate any village he comes across, pulling out and eating anything he can find amidst the stomped and splintered structures. Breweries are especially favoured targets, as Giants are notorious drunkards. On occasion, a Giant will be persuaded to join a passing army, often Chaos-worshiping men from the north or marauding Greenskin tribes, who lure the lummoxes with promises of fighting and food.^[3a]

Living a solitary and nomadic lifestyle, Giants can be found in many locations within the Old World, terrorizing the countryside of Human kingdoms and eating up many of its peaceful inhabitants. Once a Giant has cleaned up all the available food within a region, he would move on to find more fertile and unspoiled lands, often leaving behind the bones and husk of many ruined villages in his wake. On occasion, Giants can be compelled or persuaded to joined rampaging warbands of Greenskins, Beastmen or Warriors of Chaos. ^[4]

History

In ages past, the Giants were the direct descendants of the Sky Titan civilization, who ruled benevolently within the highest peaks of the Mountains of Mourn. They were far larger than any Giants of today, and were also considerably more intelligent. Unlike the Giants, the Skytitans didn't interfere with the lands below; instead, they kept to themselves, secure in their ancient fortresses surrounded by a sea of clouds. For the most part, they only ventured from their fastnesses to tend to their flocks of Mammoths, aloof from the conflict of the world below. As with all things, however, this peace was destined to end, and the Skytitans were eventually destroyed by the destructive migration of the Ogre race.

The Ogres came to the mountains after their homeland was destroyed by the Great Maw, a malevolent entity that supposedly obliterated much of the Eastern Steppes and killed a large portion of the Ogre population. Both fearing and worshiping the Great Maw, the Ogre race sought a new homeland to call their own. Eventually, the Ogres reached the Mountains and it was there where the great war known as the "War of the Heavens" began between the Ogres and the Skytitans. ^[7]

The Skytitans fought this monstrous race with tremendous ferocity and massive strength. However, they could not match the numbers of the Ogres, and like a pack of wolves taking down a bear, the Ogres crushed the Titan race, breaking down the great masonry of their fortresses and hurling them down to the lands below. One by one, the Titans fell, and soon their great civilization was nothing more then mere ruins.

The Skytitan's children were taken and beaten into submission, becoming the slaves of many Ogre tribes. The once flourishing great flocks of Mammoths which once roamed the lands were mercilessly hunted by their new Ogre overlords. The few surviving Sky Titans fled. Forced into small tribes, they became inbred, their intellect dwindling until they eventually became the Giants that they are known as of today. ^[7]

Some giants were taken prisoner by the armies of Nehekhara and along with Orcs, Ogres and Trolls they were set to work as slaves. Giants were often highly favoured however due to their great strength which gave them the ability to lift stones that no other could do. They were given a life of luxury including the best food and when they died their remains were interred with great ceremony. ^[9]

Notable Giants

• Crogg the Blind ^[1][7]
• Drough Glutthog ^[2]
• Little Gork ^[1][7]
• The Gourmet of Tilea ^[1]
• Thunderball ^[1]
• The Whisprensk Giant Gymnastic Team and their Pyramid of Death

Variants

Greenskins and Giants: Perhaps the happiest of their kind, Orc and goblin warlords welcome the presence of such a mighty individual as many of their followers consider them living embodiment of Mork or possibly Gork. Some giants become to regard themselves as huge orcs, strapping enormous jaws to their own and marking themselves with tribal markings. ^[7]

• Bonegrinder Giant - Bonegrinder Giants are very old and an incredibly rare variant of the Giant Race. These days they're thought to have been almost completely vanished from the Old World, though there are a few, persistent rumors of a handful of Bretonnian mountain villages where Bonegrinders have eaten all the local knights and claimed the villages (and peasants) as their own. Bonegrinder Giants are at least twice the size of their lesser cousins, who themselves stand many times the height of a Man.^[3a]
• Chaos Giant: Those that dwell in the far north are often warped and mutated by the Chaos Wastes to have vast quivering masses of body parts. ^[4a][7] They will sometimes descend from the lairs in the Middle and World's Edge Mountains, joining bands of Greenskins or Beastmen to ravage the surrounding area. ^[10]
  • Chaos Siege Giant; Improved half insane armored Giants used by Chaos Dwarfs ^[11]
• Dogs of War Giant: Small roaming bands of Giants can sometimes be persuaded with huge amounts of food and booze to join armies. ^[8]
• Slavegiant - Slavegiants are Giants indentured into servitude for Ogre tribes. Unlike the Giants that accompany the other races of the world into battle, those who look down on their smaller comrades and pick fights as and when they choose, the Slavegiants of the Ogre Kingdoms live a life of forced servitude.^[5a][7]

Tyrants seek them out taking their Ironguts and heaviest chains to beat them into submission - although this can result in death for the Tyrant and his boys. The brutal enslavement fills Ogre tribes with pride, reminding them of the ancient days when they devoured the Skygiants. ^[5a][7]

They are heavily chained, branded and on occassion forced into battle with pikestaves - allowing the tormented creature to take out its humiliation on their enemies. ^[5a][7]

Weapons and Equipment

In battle, Giants wade in with their tremendous bulk, crushing the foe beneath their slab-like feet, or sweeping any before them into the air with clubs fashioned out of uprooted trees. Sometimes a Giant will select a particular target and reach down to pluck the unfortunate up. These victims are sometimes bitten in two, hurled far, far away, squished into paste or simply stuffed into a secure Of smelly) place to be retrieved later for a snack.

In combat, Giants would often charge mindlessly into the enemy front-lines, using a massive club or a tree as his weapon. Wearing little to no armour, Giants are highly susceptible to either a concentrated volley of missile troops, or a well-placed shot from a Great Cannon. Should the enemy lack missile capability, it is extremely hard to take down a Giant in close-quarters combat.^[3a]

• 6th Ediiton: Ogre Slavegiant: Chains, Manacles.^[5b]
• 6th Edition: Orc Giant: Big Club.^[6]
• 8th Edition: Hand Weapon. ^[3a]
• W:TOW: Chaos Giant: Calloused Hide (Light Armour), Giant's Club. May have Scaly Skin (Heavy Armour), Regeneration. ^[10]

Gallery

• 

  Bilious Thunderguff

• 

  Giants

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  Giant

• 

  Giant

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  Bonegrinder Giant

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  Slavegiant

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  Giant

• 

  Giant

• 

  Mercenary Giant

• 

  Giants of Albion

• 

  Chaos Giant

Miniatures

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  Citadel Giant

• 

  Citadel Giant

• 

  A Giant

• 

  Giant

• 

  Chaos Giant

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  Chaos Giant

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  Chaos Giant

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  Chaos Giant

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  Chaos Siege Giant

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  Giant

• 

  Giant

• 

  Two-headed Giant

• 

  Giant for Warmaster

Quotes

They're big. Really big. But there's lots of us and few of them. I seen the boss take one down by himself. Giants were never a match for us Ogres - too thick in the 'ead. ~[5a]

Notes

In the old background books Giants uses in battles the so named Giant pitching balls - a huge spheres of lead used by them also to play Giant Skittles (a game which required a dozen captive travelers (preferably Dwarfs). ^[2]

Sources

• 1: Warhammer Armies: Orcs & Goblins (8th Edition)
• 2: Warhammer 1st Edition - Volume 1: Tabletop Battles, pg. 23
• 3: Storm of Magic
  • 3a: Giant, pg. 104
  • 3b: Bonegrinder Giant, pg. 105
• 4: Warhammer Armies: Beasts of Chaos (6th Edition): Chaos Giants, pg. 29
• 5: Warhammer Armies: Ogre Kingdoms (6th Edition)
  • 5a: Slavegiants, pg. 40-41
  • 5b: Rare Units, pg. 74
• 6:Warhammer Armies: Orcs & Goblins (6th Edition): Rare, pg. 48
• 7:White Dwarf 316 (UK): Giants, pg. 21-25
• 8: Warhammer Armies (3rd Edition): Giant Mercenarys, pg. 151
• 9: White Dwarf 279 (UK): Cities of the Kings, pg. 73
• 10: Ravening Hordes (TOW): Beastmen Brayherds, Chaos Giant, pg. 108-109
• 11: Tamurkhan: The Throne of Chaos: Chaos Siege Giant, pg. 200-201