In the previous episode in our series on the rise of Sigmar and the Human empire, we learned
how the leader of the Unberogen people managed to unite the human tribes into the said empire.
However, almost immediately, it was attacked by the Greenskins.
Welcome to our episode on the battle of Black Fire Pass – one of the most famous battles
of the Warhammer Fantasy Battles Universe!
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Dwarven allies, who had been fighting a titanic host of Greenskins for 2 years, reported that
they were forced to pull back to defend their mountain holds and no longer able to prevent
the Orcish march east of the Worlds’ Edge Mountains, ready to bring the world of men
to a bloody end.
Time was short, and so Sigmar summoned all of the rulers and warriors he had won to his
side during the previous decade - Marbad, Aloysis, Krugar, Freya, Siggurd, and all the
rest.
Before spring came in -1 IC, the greatest army that the lands of men had ever seen gathered
at Reikdorf, where the kings of the various tribes pledged allegiance to Sigmar, ready
to confront the existential Greenskin threat under his banner.
The only tribes to refuse this call to arms were the marsh-dwelling Jutones and the Bretonii2
- who migrated across the Grey Mountains.
The army of eleven realms marched east at a measured pace, reasoning that the snows
had not yet thawed.
Scouts were dispatched to discern precisely what the Greenskins were up to.
But when panicked outriders returned with news that the Orcs, united under the warlord
Urgluk Bloodfang and uncountable in number, were already en route to the Blackfire Pass
- a crossing cut west to east through the Worlds’ Edge Mountains, the pace quickened.
The army of humanity managed to climb and block the narrowest, two-mile-wide section
of the pass before the Greenskins got there and were joined by the Dwarves of king Kurgan.
The ground before Sigmar’s unified army was a rocky plain that gradually sloped on
a downward incline, becoming ever more uneven with each eastward step.
That was the ground the Greenskins would have to climb to reach the army of men.
To either flank were the progressively sloping valley sides, leading to the massive peaks
of the Worlds’ Edge Mountains.
They formed a barrier that would force the Orcs into a frontal assault and render their
overwhelming numbers far less relevant.
There were also a number of boulders and outcrops scattered across the pass, between which Sigmar
anchored the rock-solid lynchpin of his army.
These were the assorted line infantry of the many tribal monarchs who had accompanied him,
together with the Unberogen ruler’s greatest foreign ally.
There were Endal slingers, Ostagoth blademaster units and Cherusen wildmen on the left, elite
Unberogen spearmen, stalwart heavily armed Dwarves and kilted Udose warriors in the center,
and the battle-tested warriors of the southeast - Brigundians, Merogens, and Menogoths on
the right.
Deployed immediately in front of the primary battle line were the crack Unberogen plate-clad
cavalry, almost all armed with heavy lances.
Only the infamous White Wolves unit led by the king’s personal bodyguard Alfgeir refused
to take up the lance, instead electing to wield heavy warhammers.
To the flanks of this shock cavalry force were the famous skirmishing riders of the
Taleuten tribe, lightly armoured and armed with bows and spears.
Behind the ranks of infantry were several archer blocks of Cherusens and Unberogens,
ready to rain death on the Greenskins from afar.
Sigmar also had two unconventional weapons at his disposal.
Having pushed their way to the forefront of the army, beyond even the cavalry, were King
Otwin and his drug-fuelled Thuringian berserkers, arrayed in a loose line.
Some wielded twin swords, others brutal axes, and other weapons of evisceration.
Sigmar knew that he could not truly control these maddened warriors when the battle started
and made contingencies to use them in the best way possible.
The second of Sigmar’s ‘wonder weapon’ contingents were several hundred magnificent
Asoborn scythed chariots under the command of the king’s flame-haired one-time lover
Queen Freya.
Fully trained in the use of their vehicles and armed with both bows and spears, they
were initially deployed in front of the right flank.
Behind the line in its entirety were a series of siege catapults - artillery designed to
crush entire units of Greenskin flesh into mulch.
After a short time of waiting a truly putrid stench struck the forces of mankind, blown
in by easterly winds.
It was the all-too-familiar reek of sweat, dung, and rotten corpses.
In other words, the Greenskins were near.
Just an hour following the army’s deployment, the invading menace appeared, advancing up
the valley in their hundreds of thousands and in relatively organised formations.
For Greenskins at least.
The mass of this annihilating horde was made up of Orc warriors wielding rusted, bloodsoaked
choppaz of all kinds and devious goblins flitting back and forth between the ranks.
On the slopes to either flank were more goblins mounted either on blood-maddened wolves or
colossal spiders.
Interspersed among the army were massive trolls and above it rode its gargantuan warboss - Urgluk
Bloodfang, atop his ferocious wyvern.
The warboss swooped low above his innumerable army and raised his axe, wreathed in malign
green flame, to signal the attack.
It was followed by an ear-splitting cacophony of blood-mad Orcish bellows, as the front
ranks of the Greenskin horde jogged in the direction of Sigmar and his defenders.
Seeing their hated enemies on the move, Otwin and his Thuringian berserker host returned
a shout of rage and then wantonly launched themselves at the Orcs.
Although numerically inferior to their savage foe, Otwin’s unhesitating assault was ferocious
without peer.
His frothing berserkers, drunk on their herbal infusions, carved a deep wound into the Greenskin
vanguard, inflicting many times more casualties than they suffered.
But they were suffering.
Uncaring of the strategic situation, the Thuringians punched ever deeper into the Greenskin vanguard
and were therefore swiftly surrounded.
Beset on all sides, Otwin’s assault force started taking massive losses.
Observing the Thuringian king’s struggle, Freya and her 200 Asoborn chariots barrelled
directly toward the enemy in a staggered line, unleashing volley after volley of lethally
accurate arrows as they went.
The warrior-queen’s orders from Sigmar were clear - help relieve Otwin by any means necessary,
and she would do just that.
After inflicting a great deal of damage with bow and arrow, the Asoborn scythed chariots
wheeled around in perfect order and sped along the Greenskin line, ripping the enemy apart
with their blades while their riders thrust and threw spears.
At the same time, Sigmar and his trusted companions Wolfgart and Pendrag led the elite Unberogen
heavy cavalry in a full-scale charge, crashing into the mass of Greenskins that had encircled
the Thuringians with lances couched.
Sandwiched between the cutting blade of Freya’s scythed chariots and the crushing hammer that
was Sigmar’s cavalry charge, and bombarded by arrow volleys from behind the human line,
the Greenskin vanguard broke.
Its wounded and scattered survivors retreated in disorder back to their main line.
The second Orcish advance was now beginning.
Unlike the previous probing attack, this time the warboss’ horde pushed forward en masse
across the entire width of the pass.
On the flanks and the slopes, goblin wolf and spider-riders moved towards the lighter
Taleuten cavalry and assorted skirmishers manning Sigmar’s wings.
A force of heavy Greenskin chariots - crude imitations of their elegant Asoborn counterparts
and pulled by massive boars, shot out of the main horde straight at the Brigundians.
Some were sent careening into rocks by archery fire and destroyed, but most of the ramshackle
vehicles smashed into King Siggurd’s ranks.
The Greenskin vehicles struck deep into the Brigundians, slashing through rank after rank
of their ordered warriors.
The line convulsed, wrapped around the Orcs, and slew them in short order, but the beleaguered
warriors were unable to reorder their formation before another dreadful weapon was unleashed
against them.
Greenskin artillery let loose - launching titanic boulders at Sigmar’s right-center
in a concentrated barrage and crushing dozens of men with each strike.
Provoked to panic by the terrifying rain of missiles, a great many Brigundians routed,
opening ragged holes in the army of mankind before contact was even made.
Adroitly reacting to the potential danger, King Kurgan Ironbeard shifted a portion of
his stout Dwarven warriors over to cover the gap.
Signaled to do so by Sigmar, Wolfila of the Udose strode to Kurgan’s side with his own
kilted fighters, driving his standard into the ground as a statement of intent.
There would be no retreat from that spot, Wolfila would either triumph or die.
Sigmar’s formation stabilised in the knick of time.
As the gulf slammed shut between the Dwarves and Udose, the two armies clashed.
As though scenting weakness in the recently patched wound in Sigmar’s line, the Greenskin
menace assaulted it with especially savage ferocity.
The defenders were more than up to the task.
The Dwarven soldiers of Kurgan, whose race had been blood enemies of the Orcs for uncounted
centuries, fought with cool efficiency, methodically culling each foe without quarter.
To their side, Wolfila’s warriors fought just as effectively, cutting the Greenskin
push to pieces with massive broadswords.
All along the width of Blackfire Pass, the races of Orc and Human fought a desperate
struggle for the fate of tomorrow.
In just the first minutes of combat, virtually all of the first ranks of both sides were
chewed up by the merciless melee before the central clash ground to a bloody stalemate.
It was on the flanks where the first true breakthrough came.
On Sigmar’s extreme right, King Markus came under sustained assault by ravening packs
of goblin wolfriders.
These grim warriors of the invaded southeastern realm of the Menogoths had suffered much at
Greenskin hands during the previous years’ war, and so simply lowered their spears in
good order and met the oncoming wolves with glacial calm.
Here and there a wolf would get through, brutally killing its unfortunate victim, but the vast
majority were impaled on iron speartips, mauled by the king’s hunting hounds, or otherwise
destroyed.
As though revenging the annihilated wolfriders, colossal Greenskin war engines began bombarding
the Menogoths with a deadly and concentrated hailstorm of massive iron javelins, every
one cleaving through a tightly-packed spear formation and reaping a terrible toll of warriors.
Although courageous in the face of a terrible enemy, this airborne death was more than the
Menogoths could take and they began running for their lives.
All of a sudden, the character of the battle changed.
Sniffing blood in the water, the Greenskin advance instinctively drove towards this newly
opened weak point, angling the line like a hinge on a gate which was the solid left flank
and center of Sigmar’s army.
The situation on Sigmar’s right was getting worse by the second.
Without the Menogoths on their extreme flank, their Merogen allies received a fresh assault
from both the front and the sides.
It was clear that their resistance would falter sooner or later, and it was up to Sigmar to
act before it did.
Unberogen and Endal reinforcements led by Sigmar counterattacked, reversing the course
of the battle there and stabilising the right flank at the cost of King Marbad’s life.
Despite yet another small triumph, it was becoming increasingly clear to Sigmar that
there was absolutely no hope of victory.
All of mankind’s bravery and skill, considerable as it had been, would be swamped beneath the
inexorable Greenskin tide.
There was only one path to victory now.
It is said in legend that Sigmar leapt without hesitation into the central mass of Orcs.
Ghal Maraz, thrumming with ancient magical energies, crushed and bludgeoned Greenskins
by the dozen.
Even the famously belligerent Orcs scrambled to be away from this titan of war, opening
a great empty circle around Sigmar.
At the same time, the army of mankind, inspired by the prowess of its leader, launched a final,
desperate charge.
It would never be enough, but Sigmar’s rampage had its intended effect.
Drawn to the greatest warrior on the battlefield like a moth to a flame, Urgluk Bloodfang descended
on his wyvern, which he ordered to devour Sigmar outright.
Despite suffering wound after wound at the hands of the Greenskin warlord and its baleful
mount, Sigmar’s hammer slew the great beast, bringing Urgluk to personal combat in the
sight of both armies.
The vile colossus managed to seize Sigmar and almost crushed his skull, but the king
found an opening, seized Ghal Maraz, and, as he had done at Astofen Bridge 15 years
before, crushed his adversary’s skull to dust.
Like a formidable but fragile archway whole keystone had been removed, the Greenskin horde,
deprived of its all-powerful warboss and faced by what appeared to be a human god of war,
fell apart and routed.
Even as the bruised army of mankind continued its renewed charge, individual Orc captains
turned on one another like the beasts they undoubtedly were, jostling for command or
to be first out of danger.
Asoborn chariots and the army’s cavalry ran down thousands more Greenskins until sunset,
while the remainder scattered into the badlands of the east.
The Battle of Blackfire Pass was won.
Celebration and relief fused with sorrow and grief.
The enormity of such a victory was hard to take in, but so much had been sacrificed to
achieve it.
As the pyres of a great funeral ceremony burned to send King Marbad and all the fallen warriors
to Ulric’s hall, the surviving monarchs of men knelt at Sigmar’s feet as one, proclaiming
him the rightful emperor of the newly founded Empire of Man, the people, and lands of which
owed their survival to him.
Although Sigmar’s project had been a success, that was just the beginning of the wars he
would have to fight, and the next episode in this series is imminent, so make sure you
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