WAAAGH!

When orruks gather, the ground shakes, violence boils over and the skies scream out in bestial rage. This is the power of the Waaagh! ready to unleash its brutal force upon the Mortal Realms. Thee stronger an orruk army is, the mightier this energy becomes, and none are as strong as the Ironjawz.^[1]

Overview

Eyes wide with battle madness, muscles bunched into quivering cords and fists clenched tight around massive choppas, the Ironjawz are brutality wrapped in green flesh. When they gather, the atmosphere becomes thick with violence as killing energy fills the greenskins, their primeval roar building into a deafening boom as more voices join their rumbling warcry. Orruks do not think about the Waaagh! as others might think of magic, or the divine hand of gods or spirits. It is a force as primal as the orruks themselves, like the thundering of a warrior’s heart in the heat of battle or the satisfying crunch of bone under a punch. Where mobs of orruks gather, there stirs a great green energy. Growing in power until it is as palpable as the scent of freshly spilt blood, it is vented upon victims with chopping blades and smashing boots. By the time it fades away, there is nothing left behind but beaten dust and the mangled remains of the greenskins’ prey. All orruks know that their power grows stronger the harder they smash stuff and the louder they yell – two things Ironjawz excel at. Armies have been undone by the mere sight of a line of Ironjaw Brutes charging toward them, mouths opened wide revealing yellowed fangs and ropy strands of spit, as they unleash a gale of noisome breath and eardrum-bursting war cries.^[1a]

Such a crusade of violence and destruction is known as a Waaagh!, a time when orruks rampage across the realms in numbers almost beyond count. During the long millennia of the Age of Myth and the Age of Chaos, there have been many of these bestial crusades, the fury of the greenskins cracking open continents, turning forest kingdoms into deserts and extinguishing whole races from existence. When this rampaging orruk energy flows strong, it can affect not only the greenskins but the very weft and weave of reality itself. Should enough orruks gather together, the land itself can rebel in violence. Beasts howl out war cries and orruk obscenities, trees rip their roots from the ground as they try to join the orruk charge, and rocks smash themselves to pebbles against each other. During the Shyish Splinterbone Wars, the power of Waaagh! Grungutz literally punched down the mile high wall of corpses surrounding the Gaunthavens, creating a cloud of bodies and debris that hung in the sky for a whole year. Similarly, the Waaagh! cry let loose by the Ironjawz during the Battle of Lone Peak boomed through every valley visible from the summit. So loud was the bellowing sound of the orruks, as they mercilessly pounded the warriors of the Gilded Legion into scrap metal, that it echoes on to this day.^[1b]

If the Waaagh! is a howling gale that screams across the land, then orruk bosses are the canyons and passes that can focus its fury. Like the eye of a raging storm, Ironjaw Megabosses stand in the centre of seething mobs of orruks, directing their warclans. The greatest Megabosses, like Gordrakk, become blazing beacons of savage energy, drawing orruks from across the realms to fight for them. Combined with the Ironjawz’ natural dominance over the other greenskin races, this canlead to vast and savage armies filled with countless howling orruk tribes, allintent on destruction. There are legends of Megabosses whose Waaagh! energy was so strongit affected not only greenskins but other bestial races such as gargants, ogors and troggoths. It is said by the Weirdnob Shamans that such events are Gorkamorka’s gift to the races of the realms, and a legacy of the first Great Waaagh! that never really ended.^[1b]

Known Waaagh!

• First Great Waaagh!^[1]
• Waaagh! Grungutz.^[1]
• Third Waaagh! of Garrados.^[2a]

Source

• 1 Destruction Battletome: Ironjawz.
  • 1a Pg. 12
  • 1b Pg. 13

• 2 The Realmgate Wars: Quest for Ghal Maraz.
  • 2a pg. 13