A mighty Chaos Siege Giant charging into the fray.
A Chaos Siege Giant is amongst the most powerful living weapons within the Chaos Dwarf arsenal, hulking behemoths that combine the strength of the race of Giants with the nigh-impenetrable plate armour forged by the Chaos Dwarfs. Giants are some of the mightiest creatures to stride across the Known World. They are simple-minded brutes whose huge strength and callousness alone is enough to wreak havoc simply by their passing.[1a]
Their appetite for meat and drink is legendary, as is the destruction their rampages can cause. A single Giant is more than enough to devastate a village without much effort, and if bribed or goaded into battle, a Giant can smash through ranks of troops and crush heavily armoured cavalry with contemptuous ease.[1a]
Role
A Chaos Siege Giant in service to the Chaos Dwarfs' Legion of Azgorh preparing to gorge himself on powerful spirits.
The Chaos Dwarfs have not been slow to take note of the power and military potential of Giants, as they have often encountered them as foes within the ranks of the Orc and Goblin hordes that infest the Dark Lands, and the southern Mountains of Mourn that border their empire have long been inhabited by a unusually high number of the creatures. It is said this is because it once was the home of a great kingdom of Giant-kind in elder days, now shattered into ruin and desolation. As a result Chaos Dwarf Sorcerers have long had the idea of bringing Giants that they were able to capture or enslave through trickery or trade with the Ogres under their will, and in doing so have been unable to resist "improving" upon them in order to make them living weapons.[1a]
The most common result of these modifications is the Chaos Siege Giant, a mutilated, half-insane creature whose body has been armoured against attack by layer upon layer of heavy iron and bronze plates. These are firmly secured to the unwilling Giant by heat-fusing, riveting and nailing them deep into the Giant's flesh, and in some cases in bolting them directly into its massive skeleton. The end result is a towering, iron-clad monster, even more clumsy and unwieldy than before, but now all but impervious to arrows and firearms shot thanks to its armoured shroud.[1a]
Likewise suitable weapons such as immense hooked blades, steel pick-axes the size of carts and even massive weighted chain-flails are lashed or implanted directly to the Giant's arms to enable it to scale or tear down fortifications and slaughter the largest monsters. Some are even further fitted with scaling hooks and chains, enabling the creature's dead carcass to be used as a scaling platform should it fall, while the most unfortunate have the burning runes of the Chaos Dwarfs' foul deity Hashut branded into their armour and flesh, driving them to ever greater heights of savagery at their masters' command.[1a]
Not all such "improvements" prove survivable for the creature forced to undergo them, and so Chaos Siege Giants are scarce and highly prized commodities, both within the Chaos Dwarf empire and as weapons bartered in trade with the Chaos-worshipping Northmen tribes of the Eastern Steppe and the Chaos Wastes, who often lack the means or patience to build conventional siege weapons. A living siege engine that merely requires a steady diet of carcasses and spirits is therefore for them ideal.[1a]
Wargear
- Runes of Hate - Some Chaos Dwarf Daemonsmiths go further when encasing Giants in their siege armour, binding the metal with hellish and twisted runes of Hashut which serve to push the weak and primitive mind of the Giant further into malignant insanity.[1b]
- Scaling Spikes - A Chaos Siege Giant's armour can be fitted with scaling spikes, hooks and chains to aid the Chaos Dwarf army's assault against fortifications. These may prove useful even if the Giant perishes in the attack.[1b]
- Siege Armour - Chaos Siege Giants are encased in massive plates of iron and bronze armour inches thick, alternately strapped, nailed and fused into their flesh and bone. This, coupled with the Giant's bulk, makes them all but impervious to arrow fire, though it proves less effective against a foe brave (or foolish) enough to get close enough to attack the Giant's less-protected thews and vitals.[1b]
Miniatures
