Bestiary

Gorrum Chi

The Gorrum Chi are huge muscular beings.  They are brown-skinned with black eyes and hair and tend to wear long drooping mustaches.  They stand over seven feet tall, and they are wide and bulky of build.

Special Rules:

Panic: Gorrum Chi do not have to take a Panic test for Gorrum, Gorrul, or Gorrba units that break and flee past them.

Leadership: No character from any of the other races may lead a Gorrum Chi unit.  Characters from other races may join with and fight with Gorrum Chi units, but they may not lead them.

Gorrum Chi characters may join and lead any units in the army.

Gorrba

The Gorrbas are small of stature, and lightly built.  They are more rustic than the other races of the Empire, living in the deep forest and in mountain caves and tunnels underground.  Some are foresters, while others are miners in the mines of the Empire.   They have dark brown skin, and they tend to wear clothing of earth colours.

Special Rules:

Hate Chaos Dwarfs: Gorrba hate Chaos Dwarfs so intensely that they will often fight to the death rather than run away or let themselves be enslaved by them.  When fighting Chaos Dwarfs Gorrba are affected by the rules for hatred as described in the Warhammer rulebook.

Grollacs

The Grollac are the strangest of all the races of the Empire. They live alone or in small tribal groups deep in the mountains subsisting from hunting and foraging. They are huge four-armed beings who tower over the Gorrum Chi, and it is lucky for the ruling classes that they are so few and that they are generally peaceful until the bloodlust takes them in battle. With the scent of battle and the bloodlust in their hearts, they become raging terrors and machines of death and destruction.

Special Rules:

Fear: Grollacs are large and extremely threatening monsters, and cause fear as described in the Psychology section of the Warhammer rulebook.

War Elephants

Elephants are large creatures imported from the Indus, and use for war and for beasts of burden. War Elephants are specially trained for use in war. The Gorrum equip them with a Howdah carrying an armed crew of troops armed with missiles and long handled halberd weapons. The usual crew will be made up of six armed troops, plus the mahut, who rides astride the Elephant's neck. The mahut carries a large spike to drive into the head of the Elephant if it goes on a rampage. The howdah can also be equipped with a single ballista.

Special Rules:

The crew rides in an ornate howdah decorated in the colours of their Lord. The crew is armed with missile weapons and long handled halberds. The mahut carries only hand weapons, a big spike, and a maul.

Tough Hide. Elephants have a very thick, tough hide that gives them an armour save of 5+ that can never be modified to worse than 6+.

Elephant Rampage. Elephants may rampage if they are wounded. The mahut must immediately make a Ld roll, and then make a d6 roll if the Ld roll is failed, and on a 6 the Elephant will rampage 2d6" in a random direction. Roll the scatter dice for the direction, and 2d6 for the distance. The Elephant will trample any troops that it contacts. If the elephant makes contact with friendly troops, roll combat results for the Elephant alone, and have your opponent make the dice rolls. If the Elephant makes contact with an enemy unit, the crew may also fight. This will be worked out immediately as soon as the Elephant has taken any wound.

After an Elephant rampages, the mahut may take an additional Ld test, and if he passes this test, he will drive a spike through the Elephant's brain, and the Elephant will stop in its tracks, falling to the ground dead.

Death of an Elephant. If an Elephant is killed, the mahut and crew will form an infantry unit, and will be subject to all normal rules for unit cohesion, leadership, etc.. The mahut and crew will be subject to the rules for hatred toward the character and/or unit that caused the death of the Elephant.

Ballista. If a Ballista is mounted in the howdah, it may only fire across the front 90 degree arc, and it will use the BS of the crew. It will not have its own separate crew, it will be fired by the normal crew of the howdah. It will be a small ballista with a range of only 36", which a starting Strength of 5 deducting -1 from the Strength for each rank penetrated, just as for any bolt thrower. All wounds and damage will follow the normal rules for bolt throwers.

Charge Bonus. The crew and the Elephant will get normal charge bonuses.

Shooting at the Elephant and Crew. Any shots at the Elephant and crew will be randomised as follows:

Hand to Hand Combat. Hand to Hand combat against the Elephant and crew is also randomised, but as there is a better chance to hit the crew in hand to hand, it is randomised on the following chart:

No Crew Left. If all the crew are slain, refer to the Monster Reaction Table in the Warhammer Rulebook to see what the Elephant does.

Causes Fear. Elephants cause fear as per the rules for psychology in the Warhammer Rulebook.

They also cause terror in all horses, including those ridden by troops that are normally immune to psychology, so all mounted troops on horses are subject to the rules for terror as per the rules for psychology in the Warhammer Rulebook. This does not effect the mounts of troops in the army which contains the Elephants, as they are accustomed to them. They also only cause fear in mounted troops of opposing armies that contain Elephants.

WAR BOARS

The war boar is a ferocious animal, as big as a horse, extremely strong, vicious, bad tempered, loudly flatulent, and its behavior is in all respects dangerous and unpredictable. These are just the sort of qualities that Gorrum really admire!

Thanks to their size, toughness, and extreme ferocity war boars make excellent mounts for Gorrum warriors. They can also be harnessed to pull chariots. Thanks to these admirable qualities war boars have earned themselves a place alongside Gorrum, and most Gorrum settlements have one or more secure pens where the war boars are kept. War boars are evil minded creatures that will take every opportunity, to. maim, bite, and kick their Gorrum masters but this doesn't really bother the Gorrum who are on the whole sensible enough to keep out of the way.

COMBAT BONUS: A charging war boar is a bad-tempered mound of bloody-minded muscle and bone with pointy tusks and sharp teeth. The impact of this slavering beast on an enemy formation is just as effective as that of a Knight with a lance. A charging war boar therefore receives a strength bonus of +2. This extra bonus applies only to the war boar and not to the Gorrum rider.

GIANT WOLVES

The Giant or Great Wolf of the Warhammer World is a fearsome monster with slavering fangs and huge claws. They are a great menace to humans and have been hunted to such an extent that the huge wolf packs that terrorized whole provinces are now 2 thing of the past. Only in the vast wastes of Kislev is it still common for entire villages to be raided and destroyed by marauding wolf packs, and for children to be stolen away or herds of domestic animals to be destroyed in a single night.

Attacked and driven out by men, Giant Wolves have allied with Gorrba tribes. Ibis partnership of Gorrba and wolf has proved very successful. The Gorrba protect and feed the wolves. In turn, Gorrba are small enough to ride Giant Wolves, and also hitch them to chariots and carts in place of horses, who detest the smell of Gorrba, and won't have anything to do with them. Wolves and Gorrba seem to get along very well, and the two races have thrived together. Gorrba wolf riders raid and pillage far afield, while outriders scour the surrounding countryside for any sign of enemy armies.

Dragonnels

Dragonnels are ancient green skinned reptiles that live in the dark caves and tunnels in the mountains within the Gorrum Empire. Dragonnels are extremely cruel beasts, and not at all intelligent. Their cold flesh is almost immune to pain and their bodies exude poisonous slime. Gorrum can withstand small quantities of this slime and tiny amounts are used to make the poisons and intoxicating brews used by Assassins. Other races succumb much more readily to the poison and creatures fighting Dragonnels are as likely to be overwhelmed by this as killed by the Dragonnel's brutish claws or razor sharp teeth. Dragonnels can be broken to the saddle and ridden to war.

SPECIAL RULES

SAVE: Dragonnels are large, thick-skinned and very difficult to kill. They are Cold-blooded creatures and hardly seem to be affected at all by wounds that would cause a warm- blooded creature to writhe in agony. A Dragonnel rider therefore receives an extra bonus onto his armour saving roll, +2 rather than +1 for other mounts such as horses. So, for example, a Gorrum rider wearing light armour and a shield has an armour save of 3+ compared to 4+ for a Gorrum wearing the same armour and riding a horse, and 5+ for the same Gorrum fighting on foot.

Celestial Dragons

Celestial Dragons are long, serpentine dragons with golden scales and a bearded mouth.   They have short wings and rely more on their magic ability to fly than on the power of their wings.  Celestial Dragons are very wise and they are inherently magical beings.  Celestial Dragons may cast spells from the Celestial Magic spell deck in Warhammer Magic.  Celestial Dragons' breath weapon is pure lightning, and uses the same rules as the Blue Dragon.

Back to Warhammer Armies: Gorrum Empire.

Copyright (c) Thomas Setzer 1998.

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