Blood and Thunder is a comic set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, following Colonel Izraell Honor Castillian of the 96th Tallarn Desert Raiders as he is captured and held prisoner by Waaaaagh! Gorgutz (not that one), along with the fate of his captor, a none-too-bright Ork nob named Skyva.
This comic features examples of:
- Acoustic License: The newly-proclaimed Warboss Skyva gives a speech from the top of a Gargant to the thousands of orks at its base.
- Ambition Is Evil: Warboss Gorgutz keeps his nobs fighting for position, ensuring they're not a threat to him.
- Badass Driver: Gorm who is seen driving both a trukk and a gargant.
- Bodyguard Betrayal: Skyva's nob decapitates him when it turns out he'd been keeping a human as a pet instead of a grot and attacked.
- Book Ends: The story begins and ends with an Imperial hive under attack by an ork Waaaagh!.
- Brains and Brawn: Gorm is the brains (relatively speaking), Skyva is the brawn.
- Colonel Badass: Castillian survives several months in the middle of an ork Waaaagh, and stabs a warboss through the eye.
- Commissar Sebastian Yarrick makes an appearance.
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- Commissar Sebastian Yarrick makes an appearance.
- Comically Missing the Point: Skyva gets a few of these.Grimbadd: 'E wants my 'ead, 'ow about I sends 'im yours on a big stick, eh!? Show 'im e's nuffin' no more! Dere's a new warboss around 'ere now!
Skyva: Oo's dat den?
Grimbadd: ME, Y'STOOPID GIT! ME!!- And then there's the orks in the Irongutz seeing Castillian dropping grenades at ammo dumps yelling "IN THE EMPEROR'S NAME!":
'Ere, dat lanky grot sounds like a 'uman, dunnit?
Wossit doin' 'ere?
Blowin' us up, apparently! - Commissar Cap: Like most Warbosses, Gorgutz wears one.
- Chekhov's Gun: Castillian finds an old Imperial distress beacon with no battery. He manages to find one and get it to broadcast so the Imperials can track the Gargant's, and his, position.
- Defiant to the End: When Skyva finally figures out his lucky grot is in fact a human, Castillian doesn't back down, poking out one of Skyva's eyes.
- Dropped A Gargant 'ead On 'Im: How Gorgutz is killed, due to a lucky explosion.
- Equippable Ally: One Gretchin is seen manning a machine gun mounted on the back of a nob's armor.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The orks are renowned for not even possessing rudimentary hygiene and stinking accordingly, but even they think someone who's taken a dive through a cesspit smells horrible.
- Funetik Aksent: These are orks, after all.
- The Goggles Do Nothing: Skyva has a pair of goggles on his head, but rarely wears them.
- Gunship Rescue: Castillian is saved from being gutted by Skyva's murderer and replacement warboss by a Valkyrie that drops troopers to rescue him.
- Heavily Armored Mook: Skyva gets a bunch of 'Ardboys when he goes to get Gorgutz' Gargant back. As it turns out, big chunks of metal aren't much use against guns that can comfortably fit you and fifteen other ladz.
- Hope Spot:
- Castillian gets one when he sees the face of the reinforcements' commander through his amplivisors. Then he realizes that head is the only part of his body he can see...
- Later, a squad of Imperials infiltrates the Gargant and are about to rescue him when Skyva shows up looking for his lucky grot, killing them all.
- Humongous Mecha: Irongutz Goregrinder, Gorgutz' personal Gargant.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Averted, as Castillian at first refuses to touch the spoiled meat Gorm is shoving through the bars, but when the orks consider feeding human meat he quickly snatches it up.
- Klingon Promotion: Gorgutz thinks Skyva killed the two nobs who'd beaten him, and promotes him. Then sends him on suicide missions because ambition is a dangerous thing in an underling.
- Nausea Fuel / Squick: In-Universe, Izraell is mistaken for a "lanky, stinky grot" due to passing through a sewage tank before being captured by the orks.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Subverted, as Castillian's first escape attempt ends up costing the orks a gargant and replacing Gorgutz with the much less competent Skyva at the head of the Waaagh!, eventually letting him escape.
- Off with His Head!: Gorgutz keeps his nobz in line with mentions of "trimmin' yer 'ead at da neck", and Skyva's final fate.
- Oh, Crap!: Castillian goes through two of them, first when he sees that the reinforcing Imperial officer's head is not attached to his body, and when he sees the orks have also captured the reinforcement's artillery.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: The only thing that keeps Castillian from being recognized as human is the layer of green refuse stuck to his body. And even then Gorm manages to see through it.
- Phlegmings: Whenever orks get excited or angry.
- Planet of Hats: The Tallarns are an entire army of Lawrence of Arabia expies, substituting some of their horsemen with Sentinel squadrons.
- Real Men Love The God-Emperor: Castillian repeatedly makes mentions that his faith lets him survive.
- The Siege: Starts (and ends) with Imperial hive cities besieged by orks, though only the first is lost.
- Slipping into Stink: Colonel Castillian's escape from an ork attack through a sewage line fails when he's captured at the other end. But due to the layer of green refuse covering him, he's mistaken for a particularly tall and smelly gretchin and kept in a cage as a good-luck charm by the warboss as his "lanky stinky grot".
- The Starscream:
- Grimbadd, a former nob of Gorgutz' who stole his Gargant to start his own Waaaaagh!, and Grippa to Skyva.
- Curiously, Skyva isn't one to Gorgutz, being too stupid to recognize an Uriah Gambit.
- Stuff Blowing Up: The Irongutz's demise, thanks to a well-placed demo charge.
- Tank Goodness: One panel is basically a sampling of everything motorized the Imperial Guard can field: Basilisks, Hellhounds, Leman Russes, motorbikes, and in case the defenders still had some hope left, a Baneblade.
- Uriah Gambit: Gorgutz sends Skyva on a suicide mission to get his gargant back from a rebellious nob in hopes of killing him. When that fails, he gives Skyva command of the gargant and sends it to the frontlines. And that fails when the gargant explodes, the head flying off and landing on Gorgutz.
