Names like Grom, Ahzag, Morglum, and Skarsnik are often accompanied by curses and fearful trembles when spoken in the Empire, however, one name is never mentioned. The name of Scartacus may be unknown and unrecorded in human history, but if the men of the Empire only knew his remarkable story, they might recognize the debt they owe to this plucky goblin warlord.

Scartacus started his military career as most goblins do: on the front lines of a greenskin army charge, absorbing the missile fire meant for their larger Ork masters. This goblin survived many intertribal battles, depite the inept command of the ork warlord Brutuz, and eventually (mostly through attrition) ended up in command of the goblin contingent of the tribe. Things came to a head one day, after a series of unsuccessful battles left the tribe homeless and with few supplies. Starving, the orks in Brutuz's warband decided to eat the goblins, starting with their leader, Scartacus! Expecting Scartacus and his goblin friends to quietly accept their place in the food chain, they were suprised when the goblin hero picked up a squig prodder and a net in each hand and fought back! Soon, the goblins were in a full-scale revolt, and after a vicious battle, had killed Brutuz and his kin, and won their freedom. From that day forward, Scartacus led his goblin army against the orks.

It was a most fortunate turn of events for humanity, for at that moment, Magnus the Pious was leading the armies of the Empire to rescue Kislev from the Great Chaos Incursion. A great Waaagh was brewing, and Orks were gathering for an invasion. What forces there were to oppose them had already marched north, and the green tide of Orkdom was ready to gain their revenge against the Empire of Sigmar Heldenhammer.

Scartacus didn't care about humans. He didn't care for any blood-debt owed to a man-god who pushed the greenskins out of the Empire so long ago. He only cared about setting his brethren free of ork oppression. He began to raid ork villages, then strongholds, and eventually, with the liberated slaves from those raids under his command, met and defeated two vast armies of orks in open battle. Warlord Krasnikus was enraged. He could not proceed with the Waagh until he gathered all the greenskin tribes together, and nothing could bind greenskins to a warlord but respect. With this renegade goblin warlord putting hardened ork armies to flight, orks would never gather enough self-respect to organize a proper invasion of the Empire.

Krasnikus mobilized a massive army consisting of the toughest orks he could find. Interrogating what few goblins he could get his hands on (most had defected to Scartacus' army), he found out the location of Scartacus' troops, and marched to war. The two armies met on the open field. What then ensued was one of the largest intraracial battles ever to take place in the Old World. Soon the ground was soaked in green blood, as ork hacked at goblin, and goblin stabbed at ork. All day long, the two armies grinded away at each other, held in place by the will of their generals, and the causes they fought for.

Eventually, only the two respective warlords and a small force of greenskins of either side were left, carefully picking their way through the maze of dead bodies to get at each other. Scarticus, having lost his squig-drawn chariot to a rock-lobba earlier in the battle, charged at Krasnikus. His trident-like prodda slammed the ork to the ground, striking sparks against the breastplate of his larger foe. Krasnikus swung his axe at Scarticus' head, narrowly missing as the nimble goblin stepped aside. Regaining his feet, the ork followed up the attack with another wild swing of his axe, which was caught up in Scarticus' net.

Scarticus saw his chance. Exhausted by the long battle, and the long campaign that preceeded it, he gathered all of his remaining strength for one last desperate thrust, catching Krasnikus in the side, tearing apart his rusty scale armour, and inflicting equally horrid damage to the flesh beneathit. Krasnikus roared in pain, and grabbed Scarticus by the throat. His mighty arms flexed, drawing strength from his indignant rage, and he refused to be bested by his smaller greenskin cousin. Scarticus could hardly even struggle. His energy was spent, his cause lost, and with a deafening snap as his head was separated from his shoulders, so was his life.

Krasnikus' Phyrric victory was not enough to save the Waagh. Grievously wounded, his army devastated, it was all he could do just to resubjugate the scattered remnants of Scarticus' army. The greenskins of the Old World would not recover until after Magnus the Pious returned victorious from Kislev, and was crowned Emperor.

Mankind never learned of the name Scarticus, and orks do not write histories the way men do, but none of that changes the fact that one time, the Empire was saved by a small goblin, and his dream of freedom.