"And to tell of the Juggernaut: its like has never been seen. ’Twas a mighty steed of groaning iron and brazen steel, a thing of living metal that stood taller than a man and roared with the furies of a thousand, thousand dead. Its massive head was part hound, part bull, part the incarnate soul of bloody hate. As it moved toward us we saw its countless close-rivetted plates, forged in dark fires, bound with runes of unearthly spite. As it bared its brazen fangs we lost all heart and turned, fleeing to the night."
- —Liber Malefic[2a]
A mighty Juggernaut of Khorne
A Juggernaut, also known as a "Blood Crusher," "Soul Crusher," "Foot of Khorne," "Jugger," and "Blight of Khorne," is a four-legged Daemon beast that blends the features of canine and bull but is covered in profane armour formed of a fused mass of flesh, bone and metal.[1a]
Though they may look more machine than beast, beneath this heavy Khorne-marked barding is the slaughter-hungry heart of a vicious Lesser Daemon of the Chaos God of war and murder.[1a] These beasts are often used as mounts by Khorne's most favoured Daemonic and mortal champions.[2a][3a]
Role[]
Juggernaut concept art for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.
The Juggernaut is neither beast nor machine, but a Daemonic amalgamation of both, a creature of living metal whose flesh is brass and whose body is pure fire. They are four-legged, as are many Daemonic steeds, with broad bodies, powerful legs, the heads of warped bulldogs, and heavy, wide mouths. Their skins are riveted with Khorne's skull-rune and their flesh is cut to form a saddle while their faces vary from a fierce, near-Human visage to that of a metal-plated boar, dog or other bestial creature.[4a]
Juggernauts are said to be the most brutal of all Khorne's many Daemons, and only the most favoured of his warriors are granted the boon of riding a Juggernaut into battle. They embody that moment of battle such as the breach of a siege or the crush between regiments. Wherever warriors are smashed against one another, where only the toughest and most stubborn and mindless may survive, where the rest collapse in death, that is the space where the Juggernaut thrives.[4a]
Warfare[]
With their rarity, the only Juggernauts that may be seen within a Chaos warband or horde will be the mounts of the commanding Chaos Lord, or perhaps their personal devotees. In only the greatest hordes are there enough Champions of Khorne so favoured that they may band together to form entire detachments of cavalry mounted upon these beasts of iron.[4a]
From his Daemon-steed the Chaos Champion may lead the charge or may pause until the battlelines have become locked and the fighting becomes a gruelling scrum. At that moment they will spur their mount forwards into the charge so that the Juggernaut's impact will be against groups of warriors so tightly-pressed that it will be annihilating, to friend and foe alike.[4a]
Once embroiled, the Juggernaut will crush those that stand before it with the ease of a man walking through grass, while its head will turn in each direction, goring and gouging those within its reach. Armour and shields are crushed beneath its massive jaws and feet, while weapons that stab at it in reply bounce off or shatter against its iron hide. No unit can maintain its order in the face of such a monstrosity and as the members turn to flee the rider may cut them down.[4a]
When encountered alone, it is because the Juggernaut's rider was slain. Still, a loose Juggernaut acting on its own is still capable of wiping out an entire village, to say nothing of a small force of adventurers.[1a]
Connection to Hashut[]
One little-known theory is that Juggernauts may have had their origin in the Far East, in the workshops of the Chaos Dwarfs of the Skull lands. There the beasts were supposedly a hybrid taurus altered by Daemonsmiths, who took grafts of iron as skin and a molten rock as fuel. The creatures were allegedly designed to be a living battering-ram, and constructed for the legions of Khorne as part of those renegades' unholy pact with the Ruinous Powers.[4a]
Such a theory was dismissed as patent nonsense to the relief of many as it had been most often used to persecute those Imperial Dwarfs that had settled within the Empire's borders among Men rather than to encourage a greater crusade against the darkness of Chaos and its mortal allies.[4a]
What cannot be denied is the resemblance between the Juggernaut and an image of the Chaos Dwarfs' bovine forge-god, Hashut, as a bull of flaming eyes and burning blood. This may prove the reverse, and speak towards the origins of the renegade Dwarfs, a subject on which their cousins to the west do feign ignorance.[4a]