Giant

"He snores and eats all our gobbos, but dat big lug is handy in a fight"

- Orc Warlord Grizgutz Badax

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. Descendants of the long-forgotten Skytitan civilization, Giants are extremely few in numbers but they make up for this disadvantage with bone-crushing strength. 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, Giants 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.

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.

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 armor, 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.

War of the Heavens
"The War in the Sky began, They were strong and tall, But Ogre's were many. We ground their bones in their halls. The giant-feast lasted many moons. But it was not good above the cloud sea. We toppled their castles. We threw them down the skies."

- The Saga of the Ogres

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 worshipping 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.

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. With the fall of the Skytitan civilization, the Mountains of Mourn was eventually renamed the Ogre Kingdoms, in homage of their conquest.

The few surviving Sky Titans fled. Forced into small tribes, they became inbred, their intellect dwindling until they eventual becoming the Giant that they are known as of today.

Source

 * Warhammer Armies: Orcs and Goblins (8th Edition) --p. 60