Giant

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

—Orc Warlord Grizgutz Badax.^[1a]

6344415 orig — A massive Albion Giant bashing through a regiment of High Elf Spearmen.

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 civilisation, 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.^[1a]

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.^[1a]

History

"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.^[3a]

Ogres Great Feast 6th Edition Black&White Illustration — The Great Feast, after the fall of the Skytitan race.

In ages past, the Giants were the direct descendants of the Sky Titan civilisation, 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.^[2a]

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.^[2a]

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 civilisation was nothing more than 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.^[2a]

Overview

Warhammer Giants Art — A lumbering Giant seeking his next meal.

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-worshipping men from the north or marauding Greenskin tribes, who lure the lummoxes with promises of fighting and food.^[4a]

Living a solitary and nomadic lifestyle, Giants can be found in many locations within the Old World, terrorising 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.^[1a]

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.^[4a] 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.^[1a]

Variants

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 rumours 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.^[4a]

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.^[3b]

Chaos Giant - Chaos Giants are twisted, monstrous humanoids that have diverged from the rest of the Giant race and become warped into a creature that possess a greater prodigious appetite for violence.^[5]
- Norscan Giant - Norscan Giants are a type of Chaos Giant native to the frozen wastes of Norsca, often following the Norse to war attracted by the promise of slaughter.^[6]
- Chaos Siege Giant - Chaos Siege Giants are the creation of the vile Chaos Dwarfs of Zharr-Naggrund. The Children of Hashut have often found themselves fighting Giants accompanying Greenskin and Ogre hordes. Soon the amoral and curious Daemonsmiths noticed the weaknesses of their enemies and sought to improve on them for their own use. Experimenting on Giants and Slavegiants they acquired through capture or trade, the Chaos Dwarfs fused heavy metal plates to the Giants' skin and implanted weapons such as hooks and pickaxes at its arms, sometimes even branding them in the daemonic runes of the Father of Darkness. The resulting mutilated, half-mad monstrosities have stronger armor than any other class of Giant and serve the Dawi-Zhaar as both beasts of war and siege engines.^[7a]