Warhammer 40K: Walking WAAAGHs – The Ork Gargants
Today generals, we discus the blasphemous and world shattering Ork warmachines – the Gargants.
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.
Gargant Design
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 Orkoid military 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.”
Ork Gargants do not have sophisticated mind impulse units like Human and Eldar Titans. Instead, the Gargant’s Kaptin must rely on bellowing his orders down a speaking tube so that his officers will move the Gargant and fire its weapons as he wishes. Repair crews are composed of Gretchin, whose small build suits them to crawling through cramped spaces armed with wrenches and oily rags.
Armorcast 40k-scaled Licensed Great Gargant – circa 1990s
Gargant Armament
Gargants have a special weapon location known as a “belly gun”, which houses either a Gut Buster mega-cannon or a Snapper close assault weapon. The Smasher variant of the Gargant uses a Gut Buster while the Crusher employs a Snapper. The Snapper, like the Gut Buster, is a uniquely Ork weapon, and is actually two weapons in one, consisting of a pair of spiked metal jaws used in close combat, and a large melta-gun with a limited range. Snappers are powerful enough to bite through the armor of Titans, amputating legs.
A “standard” bipedal Gargant is normally around the height of a four-story building, if that building had several large guns and Kustom Force Fields bolted onto it. A typical Ork Gargant (if there can be such a thing) may field 2 or 3 Soopaguns – Titan-Killer equivalent ballistic weapons. It may also sport a small number of additional weapons, likely built into the chest or head sections. A massive Titan close-combat weapon may also be featured, likely a Mega-Choppa. Gargants with such choppy attachments are sometimes referred to as Slasherz or Slasher-Gargants
Gargant Sub-types
Like all things Orky, there are no standard configurations of Gargant, but they do fall into several approximate types based on their size.
Stompas
Stompas are enormous walking fortresses clad in layers of scrap-iron armor and bristling with enormous amounts of firepower. They live up to their name by stomping across the battlefield and annihilating everything in their path. Every one of these vehicles is a unique creation, the product of several Mekboyz fevered brains and countless hours of Grot slave labor. However as they approach their state of completion, all Stompas begin to share a few similarities. First of these is their fat-bellied and belligerent appearance made as effigies to the Ork Gods Gork and Mork. Secondly, they are usually powered by massive internal boilers and furnances that link to a forest of smokestacks and vents. Thirdly, one arm is a hydraulic affair the size of a docking crane and ends in a monstrous Chainsaw known as a Mega-Choppa. The other arm usually consists of a mass of artillery, the largest of which is a Deffkannon. All Stompas also sport a belly-mounted Supa-Gatler.
As they lumber towards the battlefield, Stompas carry Orks aboard their cramped transport decks. Once inside enemy lines, they disgorge these passengers to wreak havoc before stomping towards the biggest enemy they can see and annihilating it.
Sometimes, Warbosses will put aside their differences and join their Stompas into Stompa Mobs , highly effective en masse. In the case of the Third War for Armageddon, thousands of these were brought to Armageddon, making them a common sight on the battlefield.
Great Gargants
Great Gargants are heavily armoured and can sport a wide variety of weapon-systems. They often double the amount of ‘Soopaguns‘ found on smaller Gargants, sometimes by a form of crude twin-linking that seems to involve huge amounts of rope, chains and nails. Arm-mounted Gatling Cannns and head-mounted Battle Cannons are also common. As well as a battery or two of artillery pieces, Great Gargants often feature fearsome ‘belly-guns‘ and high-powered energy weapons mounted in the head section. Such a weapon emplacement is often referred to as the Gaze of Mork, Mork being one of the Ork Gods. Another notable weapon often found mounted on Great Gargants is the Lifta-Droppa, a fearsome application of Traktor Beam technology. For close combat, Great Gargants often wield Snappers and Ripper Fists.
Mega Gargants
Dwarfing even Great Gargants, Mega Gargants rival the size of an Imperial Imperator Titan, bristling with enormous guns, missiles, and other types of outlandish weapons of mass destruction. By Ork standards, Mega Gargants are extremely complicated machines that only the most brilliant Mekboy can engineer, and are among the most devastating Ork weapons, deployed only for the largest Waaagh!‘s. Though they can be equipped with advanced equipment like Krushas, Gaze of Mork, Skullkrusha Mega-Cannon, Kustom Force Fields, Gut Busters, and Lifta-Droppas. Just like most Ork technology the Mega Gargant is extremely crude and lack the scientific sophistication of human or Eldar titans.
Notable Example
During the War of the Beast, the massive Ork hordes of The Beast wielded entire armies of Gargant’s of unprecedented size and power. The largest and most powerful such machine, dubbed the Temple-Gargant, was encountered on Ullanor. This machine was the size of a Hive city and could wipe out entire armies with a single blast of its energy weapons.
Learn More of Famed Gargants
~WAAAGH!
Enjoy this ancient Ork Gargant animation from the 40K Final Liberation video game.
