In the World-That-Was, Clan Moulder's Rat Ogres were typically stitched together from the hulking frames of Ogors, a limitation of the primitive technology of that era.
However, in this dark future of the 41st Millennium, the hive cities of Zavka teemed with bio-alchemical black-sites far more ruthless and esoteric than any ancient corporation. These became the primary "harvesting grounds" for Moulder's twisted ambitions.
Initially, Clan Moulder relied on their age-old methods, capturing muscular beasts and humans for horrific graft-surgeries. But they soon realized they were falling behind in the Great Ascendancy. Clan Skryre's magi-tech was advancing at a breakneck pace; Clan Pestilens saw their contagions virulent enough to choke entire Hive Spires; and the ninja-rats of Clan Eshin had not only pilfered techniques from local Death Cults but had retrofitted themselves with the lethal wargear of Death Cult Assassins.
For a time, Clan Moulder faced a crisis of irrelevance, threatened by the overwhelming progress of the other three Great Clans.
Yet, the greatest strength of the Skaven is their utter lack of restraint. To gain power, they will pay any price; to field a weapon of devastating magnitude, they would gleefully see the entire Under-Empire detonated just to hear the bang. In the Skaven Empire, no life is precious. For every rat-kin that perishes, a billion more scramble over the corpse, desperate to seize their place.
Under the direction of Verminkin, the Lord of Moulder, and the Master Mutator Throt, they successfully engineered a generation of "Super-Broodmothers" capable of gestating monstrous abominations at an impossible rate. Fueled by nutrient-slurries and warp-mutagens, the swarms of young rat-kin became as ubiquitous as the very soil of the Under-Empire. By selling these beasts and breeder-queens, Moulder maintained the prestige of a Great Clan.
Still, Throt felt it was not enough. As Skryre's weaponry grew more terrifying, even the largest monsters seemed insufficient.
But now, Throt saw hope.
"Aha-ha! Good-good thing! Bug-thing!" Throt screeched, his Things-Catcher snaring a Tyranid Warrior by the cranium with practiced ease. With his other two limbs, he began to deconstruct the creature with the surgical precision of a master butcher.
In an instant, the bio-mechanical architecture of the Tyranid stood revealed before his squinting, rat-like eyes. Flushed with a manic, avaricious greed, Throt turned his gaze toward the approaching chitinous tide, a sight that would freeze the blood of any other commander, and let out a distorted, chittering roar:
"They! They! All mine-mine! YES-YES! Every one belongs to Moulder!! Catch-grab them! GRAB THEM ALL!!!"
At the command of Moulder's second-in-command, the Packmasters cracked their neural-whips, driving a terrifying carpet of fur and fangs toward the Xenos swarm.
"ROOOAAAR-SCREE!"
Tens of thousands of Rat Ogres, driven by mindless frenzy, charged on all fours toward the Hive Fleet's vanguard. Their paws had been severed and replaced with piston-hammers, monomolecular claws, or whirring Warp-Grinders. They crashed into the Tyranid lines with the force of a landslide, dwarfing even the most massive Ogryns.
Countless Hormagaunts tore into the Rat Ogres' hide, but the monsters felt nothing. Pain only served to fuel their lobotomized rage. They butchered their way through the swarm, the sound of crushing chitin echoing like a rapid succession of firecrackers. As one fell, a dozen more surged forward to fill the gap.
Led by this monstrous vanguard, Hell-Pit Abominations, mutated behemoths, and even the Rat Ogres began to grind the Tyranid front into paste, charging straight for the bio-artillery positions. Packs of Wolf-Rats tore through Tyranid carapaces with warpstone-tipped claws, shredding Spore-mines and Barbed Stranglers before the heavy hitters arrived to pulp the living cannons.
Behind them, the Packmasters followed, their man-catchers snapping shut around the necks of Tyranid specimens to secure live subjects for the pits.
The carnage lasted for days. A relentless cycle of rat and bug dying in the muck.
The Hive Mind soon perceived a disturbing anomaly: these rodents were also competing for biomass. The emaciated Skavenslaves and even the larger war-beasts would ravenously devour the fallen, whether rat or Tyranid. Even the hyper-toxic ichor of the Xenos failed to deter the Skaven's bottomless hunger.
Worse, the rat-kin showed no signs of attrition. No matter how many millions were slaughtered, a fresh tide appeared from the depths to replenish the ranks. Though it had no voice, the Hive Mind's strategic calculus was forced to reckon with a horrifying reality: What are these things? Their birth rate rivals even a Hive Fleet!
Under this mounting pressure, the Hive Fleet began diverting biomass to produce specialized Vanguard organisms for a decapitation strike. In the shadow of the broader conflict, dozens of Lictors, their chameleon-scales shifting to match the gore-stained rubble, slipped into the Skaven rear.
The Lictors flickered through the density of the Skaven host. Occasionally, they would execute a luckless Warlord, sparking localized civil wars as the Skaven's treacherous nature took over. However, the momentum of the invasion remained unchecked. Throt the Unclean was the supreme commander; the lesser clans dared not ignore his edicts while his enforcers were watching.
Finally, by consuming the brain of a minor Chieftain, a Lictor confirmed Throt's position. The Hive Mind issued the directive: Terminate the prime node.
As the Lictors neared Throt, the environment became increasingly hostile. Unlike humans, the Skaven relied heavily on olfactory senses. The Lictors were forced to take long, circuitous routes to mask their scent.
One Lictor, hidden by its cloaking membrane, observed the Skaven host from the ruins of a city, first razed by Tyranids, then pulverized by Skaven orbital drop-pods. At the entrances of massive, cracked tunnels, rat-kin and biomechanical horrors poured out without end. The earth groaned under the weight of their excavations; within a week, these creatures had honeycombed the sub-surface of the entire sector.
The Lictor, guided by the cold intellect of the Hive Mind, slipped into a tunnel.
The Skaven Under-Empire was a realm as lethal as any Death World. Had a Drukhari Archon witnessed the horrors within Clan Moulder's warrens, they might have wondered if they had ever truly left Commorragh. Eventually, after a harrowing gauntlet through scent-sensitive guard beasts, only one Lictor remained. It crept into the heart of the Moulder breeding labs, the sanctum of Throt the Unclean.
Throt was immersed in a state of manic ecstasy.
New Tyranid strains were being delivered to his lab by the hour, providing him with endless inspiration. Before the master flesh-crafter, several "Brood-Horrors"—massive, distended rat-queens—shrieked in agony, their skin stretched tight over pulsating sacs.
From their birth canals emerged twisted hybrids: creatures with the frame of a Rat Ogre but encased in Tyranid chitin, their limbs replaced by bone-blades and organic scythes. These "Tyranid-Rats" were inherently unstable, their Xenos DNA attempting to link back to the Hive Mind.
Throt discarded the failures with a casual wave, continuing his experiments on the embryos. He was systematically severing the genetic tether between the creatures and the Hive Mind. To a Skaven, "risk" was a meaningless concept in the face of progress.
The hidden Lictor watched. It realized the Warp-spawned rodent was successfully harvesting the Tyranid genetic sequence. This was an intolerable violation.
The Lictor coiled its muscles, preparing to spring from three hundred meters away. Its feeder-tendrils twitched with a silent hiss. It raised its scythe-limbs, a predator certain of its kill, and leapt!
"SCREE-CHIII!"
The sudden appearance of the Lictor sent the nearby Skavenslaves into a panic. Stormvermin raised their shields to protect their master, but the Lictor ignored them. It had eyes only for the three-armed Master Mutator.
Suddenly, several viridian-glowing, three-bladed stars buried themselves in the Lictor's cranium and thorax!
Thwip-thwip-thwip!
The Warpstone Stars punched through the reinforced chitin, instantly dissolving the Xenos' internal tissues with corrosive energy.
The Lictor screeched in agony. It had ensured it was undetected, how had it been ambushed?
Its yellow eyes darted toward the source of the attack. Several Skaven, clad in dark rags and wielding weeping-green Weeping Blades, stared back with a cold, un-ratlike focus. These were Eshin Assassins.
Throt turned, letting out a contemptuous, rasping laugh. As a member of a race that had perfected the art of betrayal over millennia, his paranoia was an impregnable fortress.
He grinned, showing his yellowed tusks. "I want it alive-living! A specimen for the pits!"
The Eshin Assassins nodded silently. With supernatural agility, they blurred toward the Lictor. The Xenos raised its bone-swords to parry, but the Weeping Blades, shimmering with molecular-disruption fields, sheared through the chitin. Within minutes, the apex predator of the Hive Mind had been reduced to a limbless torso.
Watching the efficiency of the kill, even Throt felt a shiver of cold sweat. The "Blades of the Great Horned Rat" were truly terrifying.