40K Lore: Stompas
This week, Loremasters, we look at that most improbable of vehicles. The Stompa.
We’ve heard word of a massive battle between Imperial Forces, Orks, Eldar, and Chaos–a massive conflagration that threatened to consume the very world they fought over. Though word from the battlefront is sketchy at best, we do have confirmed an appearance of the titanic Ork “vehicles” if they can truly be called such, known as the Stompa. These seem to defy both the laws of the Mechanicum AND the Will of the Emperor, so let us attempt to see if these are the product of foul magic AND heresy, or merely just the twisted workings of the Xenos. That way we may better know how to deal with them.
Of course some methods are tried and true.
A Stompa is a small type of Gargant, usually mounted with various anti-infantry, anti-vehicle or sometimes anti-titan weaponry. It also serves as a transport. Usually they are deployed when a Warboss can’t find the available resources to build a proper Gargant. They are still very effective in use but are smaller and weaker than a Gargant. When a Stompa reaches a certain size, it becomes a Super-Stompa, or occasionally, Mekboy Gargants.
And as we all know, Gargants are said to be effigies of the Orks foul mockery of what they call “gods.” They can’t even decide if there’s one or two, or if there are two, which two are which.
Ork Gargants are the largest land-based Ork fighting machines. Effigies of the Ork Gods Gork and Mork, these towering War Engines compare in size and power to Imperial Titans, dominating the battlefield with fearsome firepower. They are constructed by a prospecting Warboss, who is visited by dreams of massive mayhem and carnage, or by orks he has bullied into doing it. This drives the Orks into a frenzy and effectively begins the Warboss’ prospective Waaagh!
Not as technologically advanced as their Imperial and Eldar counterparts, Gargants are still fully capable of destroying the Titans of other races. Like many products of Orkoidmilitary engineering, the Gargant relies on a combination of comparatively simple technology and devastating heavy firepower, an attitude summed up by Boss-Mek Badlug One-Leg in his oft-quoted dictum “S’gorra be dead shooty, wiv loadza gunz all over.”
There’s a “hidden” requirement that all Stompas have at least three faces on them. How many can YOU spot, reader?
Sometimes a Big Mek gets so influential and powerful, they decide building themselves a walking battle fortress bristling with large and unreliable weapons is the best thing to do. Unlike a regular Stompa the Big Mek’s Stompa have large traktor beam units called Lifta-Droppas instead of either its CC weapon or the Deth Kannon. It is usually a weapon that makes way for Lifta-Droppa, as the Big Mek replaces co-axial Supa-gatler with the more advanced Gigashoota. Finally, the Gaze of Gork/Mork gives this Stompa the incredibly powerful (and unreliable) energy weapon.
Goff Klawstompas are very similar to regular Stompa’s apart from they have a pair of large piston driven “Big Klaw’s” instead of a Deth Kannon and a regular Titan close combat weapon.They are also armed with the Flamebelcha, the extremely powerful flamethrower. These are rarer Stompa variations, unless a huge Goff Waaagh! ensues, because they are built by Goff Meks, who normally build infantry-centric engines of war.
Goff Rokk n’ Rollas are gargants that, like their Klawstompa counterparts, forgo ranged weaponry for Titan-sized close combat weapons. This time, however, the weapon of choice is a huge, spiked roller. Similar to a Deffrolla, this massive roller is attached to the ends of the Gargant’s arms, and is used in devastating charges against infantry, fortifications, and vehicles. These usually end in the targets flattened or bloodily pasted against the roller. This type of Stompa is even rarer than the Klawstompa due to their building facilitated by Meks in Goff employ.
Well, it seems as though these walking examples of improbability are the Orks method of enforcing their will, even over their fellows. For if there’s one thing a Stompa is capable of, more than anything else, it’s putting its foot down.
I’ve just been informed that last joke was heresy and I’m to be executed summarily.
