Gargant
From Lexicanum
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. Because the Orks see them as embodying their Gods, they also serve as massive inspiration to the green horde as it charges into battle, and are the pride and joy of the Warbosses who caused them to be built.
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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.
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 armour of Titans, amputating legs.
A 'standard' bipedal Gargant is normally around the height of a four storey building, if that building had several large guns and kustom power 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.
Combat history
One of the more interesting instances of a Gargant was near a promethium processing plant on the ice planet Simia Orichalcae. The Valhallan 597th Ice Warriors had been sent to deal with a ork invasion force. Commissar Ciaphas Cain described that the Gargant be the end of all of them, and is even more so described by retired General Jenit Sulla in her book Like a Phoenix from the Flames: The founding of the 597th. The Gargant however veered off its course to attack a newly discovered Necron force, fresh from their tomb. Sulla describes "massive metal chunks falling from the Gargant" as "odd pyramids blasted at it". These are more than likely Necron Monoliths; the Necron threat had not really surfaced at this time so any and all descriptions of the Necron were blurry at best. Despite the efforts of the Necron forces, it attacked the Plant causing massive damage despite only one of its secondary weapons functioning. Noticing a massive gash in its left leg, Commissar Cain ordered all the Chimeras still planetside (the 597th was evacuating at this time due to the awakening of the Necron Tomb) to fire their heavy bolters into the metal wound. It slowly, then quickly toppled over crushing many orks along with it.
Other Gargant types
Like all things Orky, there are no standard configurations of Gargant, but they do fall into several approximate types based on their size.
Sources
- Epic Armageddon Rulebook
- White Dwarf 116, Ork Gargants
