"Waaagh!", which is a guttural slang for the word "War!", is an almighty phenomenon, an almost spiritual calling to war that fills every Greenskin with frenetic energy. It is the will of Gork and Mork made manifest, a power visible to Greenskins in many ways. Shamans, as Greenskins call their wizards, are also directly connected to their gods. A Shaman can tap into that green power to blast foes or rouse Greenskins to greater heights of violence.[2c]
A Waaagh! is akin to a migrating invasion, when some successful Warboss throws everything he's got against his chosen enemy and all the other Orcs and Goblins flock to join him. It is truly a sight to freeze the blood - an unstoppable sea of green-skinned monsters swarming across the horizon, whooping, jeering, and yelling their barbarous war cries.[1a] The world quakes in fear of the resounding roar of the Waaagh![2a]
All Greenskins want to fight alongside a powerful Warboss who has built a reputation for leading his tribe to victories. This is partly because they all want to be on the winning side, but mainly because no mob wants to miss a good scrap. The biggest Warbosses lead their tribe to so many victories and cause such commotion that lesser tribes flock from far away to join the mighty commander. Thus the living tidal wave of destruction known as a Waaagh! is born.[2b]
A small Waaagh! occurs when a few tribes unite to launch an attack, while a larger Waaagh! is an epoch-changing invasion that draws Orcs and Goblins from many thousands of miles around. A Waaagh! generates untold fervour amidst the Greenskins and sweeps violently over everything in its path, irrevocably changing the landscape and laying bare swathes of territory. Some Waaaghs!s travel a short distance before dispersing, while others have crossed half the known world, charting a zigzag course as utterly unpredictable as the Greenskins themselves. The largest Waaagh!s are the stuff of legend - the earth shaking beneath the immense armies that gather to march forth and destroy. The devastation wrought by such invasions blots the sun behind palls of smoke, covering great portions of the world in a shroud of darkness.[2b]
During the intense excitement of battle the magical field unconsciously focused by all Greenskins becomes stronger until the horde is swept up in an explosion of violence so intense that it will only begin to abate when every last enemy(or Orc) is slain. The power of the Waaagh! serves not only to drive the Orcs and Goblins forward in battle, but also to fuel the magic of their crazed Shamans. The Waaagh! always discharges through the most receptive mind, that of an Orc or Goblin Shaman. In immature Orcs this takes the form of random visions and crackling green energy, but mature Shamans have learned how to control these powers and turn them to their advantage in the form of powerful blasts and awesome spells of destruction.[1b]
Origins[]
It is unknown how many Orc & Goblin tribes exist, for they seem to crop up everywhere. Greenskins proliferate quickly, a large force gathering in a fortnight, yet even a sizable horde can disperse overnight if the tribes fall out due to quarreling. As most Orcs and Goblins are nomadic, traveling where necessity(i.e. fighting and loot) takes them, it is hard to gauge their numbers. The more civilized races of the world - Men, Elves and Dwarfs, for example - know that there are Greenskins in the wild regions, but whether they are massing for a great migratory invasion or merely drifting by in disorganized packs of unruly raiders is impossible to discern. Many of the largest invasions have come without warning, building up mass and momentum too quickly to be foreseen.[2b]
Some of the largest and most destructive Waaaghs! the world has ever known have begun in the Dark Lands. Its near-permanent twilight is a dangerous breeding ground of vast size. The land is a crucible from which emerge many of the most ferocious tribes and war leaders. When these battle-hardened armies fight through the passes of the Worlds Edge Mountains and into the Old World, they start an avalanche of destruction, resulting in a mighty Waaagh![2d]
The nature of the Waaagh! means that the history of Orcs and Goblins, as passed down by word of mouth through the tribes, is rather fragmented. Greenskin history is generally an account of the rise and fall of huge Waaagh!s and their glorious leaders. Other campaigns involving the Orcs and Goblins do feature in the histories of other races, such as Sigmar's campaigns that led to the Battle of Black Fire Pass, and the travails of Gilles le Breton in the forming of the realm of Bretonnia, but the Orcs make little to no effort to remember these - chiefly because they lost to 'da squishy 'umies'.[1a]