Vroomfang’s Scorchas

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'S'not about being da biggest or da baddest of da Nobz – It's about being da fastest. Da first one krumps da hardest ‘n' gets da most loot. Dat's why we'z gonna be da fastest of them all!'

– Attr. Warboss Vroomfang

'Ere we go! – roving ork warbuggies were a continual threat to the Steel Legion, and were a constant threat to Imperial supply lines (as well as, on occasion, their own).
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*** 

Razkwik’s grin nearly split his face in half. “Wot a krumpin' day – oh, wot a krumpin' day!” he chortled.

The time in the jungle had been hard on him, hard on all of Boss Vroomfang's Scorchaz. The  dense, cloying trees had made for slow going.

Going slow gave Razkwik a proppa headache and, as a result, gave Makrot, the buggy's gunner, terrible earache. The two had bickered and squabbled and grumbled at each other for what felt like a lifetime as they alternately drove, pushed or carried their buggy through the dense and cloying jungle.

Once they had emerged from the steaming jungle and crossed that river, however, they found themselves more than compensated for their troubles.

'Humies, Makrot! Zoggin' loads of them!'

And most of them wuz willing to fight back and get krumped, he thought, his grin making his face ache. The open plains from the river right to the Hive – just visible on the horizon – made perfect terrain for the speed freeks. They had been racing as hard as possible through the arid landscape for days, taking pot shots at the occasional straggling humie.

Makrot kicked him in the back of the head and pointed at some shapes on the horizon. Too elated to retaliate, Razkwik had twisted the steering yoke to speed towards them at breakneck velocity. Behind him on the gunner's platform he could hear his mate loading his ‘eavy shoota, while whistling tunelessly. 

Razkwik gripped the yoke between his scabby knees for a few seconds so he could reload his slugga, then held the butt of the pistol hovering over 'da button'. His hand shook with anticipation for a moment... and another....

With a roar like masonry nails being poured down a gutter, Makrot opened fire on the retreating soldiers in the dust ahead. Razkwik could feel the dakka rattling his bones and teeth. His grin grew even wider and, with a last murmur of “Oh, wat a krumpin day!” Razkwik pushed the button.

***

[Tactical assessment] 

Imperial stratego-ikon

• Offensive capabilities considerable
• Defensive capabilities appreciable
• Mobility appreciable
• Numbers estimated at ca. 120,000 primary combatants; 60,000 secondary/support.
• Fully mechanised force with armour support
• Limited integrated air support (cross-ref: 'Marghost's Vultures')
• Threat level designation: Secondary

Despite lacking anything their Steel Legion opposition might consider uniformity, the Scorchas were considerably faster than their mechanised opposite numbers. Familiarity with the peculiarities of their vehicles – and good old orky know-wotz – kept their forces on the move near constantly.
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[Strategic Designation] – The First Evil Suns Ork Horde

[Theatre] – Armageddon Secundus

[Disposition] – Emerging on the western bank of the Minos river, the Scorchas were amongst the last of Clanboss Shazfrag’s forces to extricate themselves from the equatorial jungles. The deployed alongside Blacktoof’s Speed Freeks and da Shreddaz of Zag.

Initial disposition

The river Minos proved a substantial obstacle for the army, and their runts and slaves had already suffered deleteriously in their efforts to keep the horde’s wagons ‘shiny and snazzy’ during the journey from Armageddon Prime to Secundus. 

Fortunately for the warband (not least Vroomfang's subordinates, given his already fraying temper), much of the way ahead had been trailblazed by Clanboss Shazfrag's armoured divisions. As a result, the pontoon bridges and crude fords created under fire by the initial wave had been somewhat stabilised by the tribe's runts by the time the Skorchas came to use them.

The horde thus emerged as part of a fast and hard-hitting army poised to follow up the Evil Suns' attack the defenders of the Styx.

Twelve weeks post-invasion – The Scorchas are posied to assault across the Helsreach River.

Being unusually fast for an ork horde – indeed, uniquely so amongst the attackers of Waa-Ghazghkull – Vroomfang's Scorchas were able not only to keep up with the elite forces that had broken the Palidus line at Styx, but to leapfrog them and reach the Stygies just behind the fleeing Thunderbolts, the Imperial 6th Army Group.

Ordered by Ghazghkull himself to hold position, Grand Speedboss Shazfrag managed to hold the reins of his subordinates long enough to surround and cut off the Helsreach peninsula by land – the Scorchas west of the Stygies and north of the Helsreach River, poised to provide numbers and muscle in an assault on Helsreach itself.

***

[Notes]

Given the regional importance of the system the Battle for Armageddon was well-documented, and thousands of screeds, documents and manuscripts were published prior to its conclusion. These covered almost every aspect of the war, and ranged from military analysis and religious tomes to poetry.

Nevertheless, war is by nature messy and confusing, and much was lost, never to be recorded. The origins of the nomadic warband known as Vroomfang’s Scorchas are amongst these lacunae. The earliest records merely note the warband as: 

'Part of Shazfrag's army in the south, the beast Vroomfang was to prove himself and his  followers – the Scorchas – as a valuable and hard-hitting addition to the Evil Suns, so long as they were kept on a tight leash.'

Warboss Vroomfang, pictured on the banks of the Helsreach.
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While much of the following account is thus supposition and reconstruction, it is known that a multitude of small pirate warbands had long plagued the area around Ghazghkull’s homeworld of Urk. It seems likely that Vroomfang’s Scorchas were formed from amongst this morass, though it is unknown at what point, and under what circumstances they joined Ghazghkull and his army. 

Based on evidence collected during and in the aftermath of the invasion of Armageddon, especially the pict feeds of the orbital battle, a craft broadcasting its ident as Da Zooma – classified by Battlefleet Armageddon as a Brute Ramship – was associated with this particular warband. The craft was known to have engaged the Ultramarines vessel Rath's Honour when the Chapter arrived in system, but its current whereabouts are unknown, and it is unclear whether the craft is linked to ongoing pirate actions in and around the Armageddon system.

What we know is that the Scorchas were a welcome and effective addition to Waa-Ghazghkull. Their high mobility made them a valuable attack force that was able to redeploy and react to the ever-changing battlefield of Armageddon. They did, however, demonstrate one particular drawback – in that they were undisciplined, even by ork standards, in their relentless pursuit of speed and danger.

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Their ability to attack suddenly, with little or no warning, resulted in high casualties on the Imperial side – but at the same time the Scorchas repeatedly shirked orders to attack static positions or simply circumvented heavy resistance. Unlike some of the more stoic Goff or Bad Moon formations, the Scorchas showed a preference to retreat under heavy fire. While their high level of mobility and armour made them an ever-present threat and potent force on the attack, their lack of focus resulted in a notable inability to exploit the openings they made. All-in-all, their performance during the war was rather mixed – though the sheer anarchic confusion they caused for the Armageddon military command doubtless contributed to the ork's successes. 

Their heavy reliance on vehicles and flame weapons made them dependent on a constant fuel supply. Many of their engagements and raids were linked to fuel depots and refineries, and the warband showed a marked preference for attacking supply lines and fuel caravans. 

The Scorchas move at speed across the Plains of Armageddon.
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Independent to the point of unreliability, the Skorchaz lack of accountability led to a number of incidents where their actions led to deleterious casualties for their allies – even by ork standards. The most well-known was the battle for the Helsreach River where they were sent to support Da Rokkit Rampage Racers in a combined charge to secure the bridges before the Imperial engineers could destroy them.

Having agreed to the assault some hours earlier, Vroomfang apparently later concluded that an attack on such static defences was not a task that suited him and thus, without alerting his allies, simply performed an about-face and instead set off to harry a column of Guardsmen attempting to ford the river further west. 

This resulted in the destruction of the Racers at the hands of the vengeful Thunderbolts, which ceased to exist as a meaningful force. In typical ork fashion the few survivors were absorbed by the Skorchaz and the Shreddaz of Zag.

Later in the war, the Scorchas' tactics changed; likely as a result of the deployment of Astartes. Seemingly keen to test their strength against the Imperium's elite, Air Corps reconnaissance showed the Scorchas to have altered their predicted angle of attack to favour engaging Astartes in place of the Steel Legion – or in ork-speech: 'krumpin da beakies'. This urgency to engage initially proved successful, with both a Salamander and Ultramarines strikeforce being ambushed and requiring evacuation in the weeks immediately following their deployment.

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While the Scorchas were classified as a mechanised force, this should not be taken to draw equivalence with the highly structured and regulated organisation of the Steel Legion's own mechanised Regiments. Ork warbands are very diverse, each an amalgamation of different sub-species and factions of Greenskins. Each Warband is unique, and their size and composition varies over time depending on the success of the Warboss and the supply situation. 

The exact structure of Vroomfang's Scorchas cannot easily be defined. Based on reports and reconnaissance, Imperial monitoring suggested the size of the Horde gradually increased over several months to around 200,000 combatants before breaking apart into several smaller forces that operated independently. The reason for this is unclear and will probably never be known.

As is common for Evil Suns warbands, the Scorchas had a high rate of so-called Spanna Boys and Mekboyz. This allowed them to keep their vehicles in service and manufacture new vehicles out of spoils of war and scrap. This was one of the reasons why the Horde proved to be very dangerous to the defenders of Armageddon. The orkish ability to turn anything into a weapon made it possible for them to grow stronger after each battle, through the expedient of turning the wrecks on the battlefield into dangerous weapons of war in a matter of hours.

Some units such as Marghost's Vultures, Da Red Burnaz, Vroomfang's Enforcarz and the Blaze Runners have never been observed outside of Scorchas so it is assumed that they formed the core of the warband.

[Insignia and appearance]

Overall the horde exhibited a very diverse look and lack of uniformity. Hyper-focussed on their vehicles, the Scorchas lacked any uniform beyond the most cursory – a red-dyed rag or cloth, or piece of red-painted armour was the extent to which most of the orks went to identify themselves as part of the Scorchas. Ork glyphs and signs were common, especially on vehicles, but not to an unusual extent. Likewise the clan symbol – the grinning Evil Sun – was used extensively, together with flames denoting their close adherence to the Kult of Speed and tendency to favour flame-based weapons. 

Typical member of the Scorchas
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Chequer-patterning and red on white lightning were occasionally – but intermittently – used to denote the elite formations of the Horde, in particular 'Shagraz's Enforcaz'. This was presumably done in emulation of their favoured enemies, but was unfortunately not sufficiently regular to become diagnostic for the Imperial defenders.

In short, the Scorchas were not markedly distinct from other Evil Suns forces, and it would be easy to misidentify them in isolation, were it not for one obvious feature: they could readily be picked out from other forces by their markedly brighter and more vivid skintone. This was a result of hyper-oxygenation caused by their habitual inhalation of unfiltered promethium-distillate, and their pre-battle ritual of imbibing high-octane squigfuel 'fer zoomies'.

***

[Commanders] 

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Shagraz Vroomfang  As one of da ladz, Vroomfang took part in a skirmish with a White Scars Strikeforce. Left with a shattered eye socket, a missing arm and a wide-eyed awe of the Astartes 'krumpiness', the Chapter's way of fighting clearly made a lasting impression on the young ork, and he spent the rest of his life attempting to emulate it – while adding his own idiosyncratic touches to make it 'proppa'.

Drawing inspiration from the Chapter's preference for mechanised warfare and drop pod assaults on weak points while circumventing clusters of heavy resistance, an incept-spy was able to record the following vocalisation during a pre-battle briefing to his forces ahead of the assault over the Helsreach river:

We'z gonna hit 'em wiv tons of wagons, and tons of ladz, and... uh... well, we ain't got any drop pods, but burning stuff while crashing into da gits is close enuff, so we'll get tons of skorchas, too. And if we run into sumfing too 'ard to smash on da charge, we're just drive around it and hit it from behind; just like Mork would want.'

– Shagraz Vroomfang

Shagraz was a hulking beast, covered in armour that was a seeming attempt to replicate Astartes power armour. He was even willing to use a helmet – supposedly claiming ‘Dozy gits get krumped when shot in the 'ead. But not me – I'z ded kunnin, an' this lid'll make me 'ard az nailz'. 

In an example of the sympathetic magic employed by the superstitious orks, Vroomfang embellished his armour with crude red-on-white markings – presumably to emulate the iconography of the White Scar that had formed such a strong impression upon him.

Armed with a kustom shoota and a power claw (due to having lost his right arm during his first fight with a beakie armed with a power fist) he was a dangerous and powerful opponent. His personal ride was 'Da Fast Crusha', built from what has been identified as a Mastodon hull with several modifications. While not noted for its speed, the siege crawler was brought 'up to spec' through the expedient of removing some armour ('Can't hurt what you can't hit') and strapping on several additional engines. Looting such a venerated relic made the Vroomfang a primary target for the Sons of Sangunius in the later stages of the war – a grudge that came to a The Battle of a Hundred Tears).

Of special interest were the crude Red on White markings emulating the White Scar iconography. It seems the Orks did believe that this would help them to hit as hard and fast as the Space Marines.

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The need to engage the Adeptus Astartes was clearly one of Vroomfang's personal motivations to join Ghazghkull –  and it appears that Vroomfang intended to use Armageddon to demonstrate his capabilities, which in turn would make it possible to get more resources to increase his ability to hit hard and fast.

During the war, Vroomfang had several interactions with the Blood Angels, and his behaviour during the war indicates that he became increasingly fixated on the Chapter; becoming willing to take ever-greater risks as long as he would be able to fight the Blood Angels – a behaviour that was eventually to prove disastrous.

Nozbog Fireguzla  Shagraz' second in command, Nozbog gained infamy amongst the ranks of Armageddon's defenders due to the atrocities visited on civilians and combatants alike during the fight for Hive Helsreach. In stark contrast to Shazrag's spontaneity and impulse, Nozbog was unusual amongst the Evil Suns for his control and seeming insight. With a predilection for fire, his career in the Scorchas began as a lowly burna boy, but over the years he worked his way up the chain through the ruthless application of violence and fire – on friend and foe alike.

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As the invasion of Armageddon began, Nozbog had become the leader of Shazrag’s Enforcaz, the warboss' drinking buddies – and the strongest and hardest Orks in the Scorchas. While Shagraz repeatedly demonstrated his right to lead by beating any pretenders to a pulp, a number of potential rivals were known to have suffered tragic – and usually fire-related – accidents which left them in no state to try to take on the Warboss himself. As with so many things, the reason for Nozbog's peculiar loyalty to Shagraz was never made clear – and now that the Vroomfang’s have been destroyed, will most likely remain a mystery.

While it seems likely that Nozbog was killed during the Great Rout, in the aftermath of the war, stories  began to emerge of a fiery shadow stalking the equatorial jungles and lost patrols being found as heaps of ashes and burnt bones. Such stories were officially dismissed as exaggeration.

Gorky Morkborn

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Gorky Morkborn  Prior to the Siege of Helsreach, Morkborn was little more than a talented Spanner – but something on Armageddon evidently changed him. At some point prior to the fall of Helsreach, he built himself a customised Battle Rig that weaponized sound. 

He was thereafter seen riding atop a platform, playing an idiosyncratic instrument/gun device while screaming at the top of his lungs. Not only was this demoralising and dismaying for the defenders, this device seemingly awakened a latent psychic potential in the ork, which increased over time – and by the Battle of a Hundred Tears, it was reported that his 'performances' were able to physically hurt the Imperial defenders while simultaneously whipping the surrounding ork forces into a frenzy.

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***