Siege of Altdorf (I): In 1707 Altdorf was laid seige to by Waaagh Gorbad. A vast army of Orcs and Goblins had swept north from out of the Black Mountains, crossing through Blackfire Pass and rampaging through Solland and Nuln, defeating all who stood before them.
Emperor Sigismund prepared for the coming battle by fortifying the walls and gathering in the harvests. After the civilian population and all their animals had been brought within Altodrf's walls, he ordered the lands about to be devastated. When the Orcs arrived they found fields already burned, wells poisoned, and inns empty.
The Orc army lost no time in the pillaging which had characterised their attacks on Averheim and Nuln, but launched straight into the attack. Gorbad's initial assault was thrown back from Altdorf's enhanced walls with heavy losses. The marshes around Altdorf made it difficult for the Orcs to employ their preferred tactic of attacking in vast mobs, and many were lost forever when they lost their way in treacherous marshes and bogs.
Gorbad halted his attack after these early failures and prepared for a long siege. At first his rock lobbers pounded the walls and dropped their stones within the city, causing considerable damage. The Empire replied in kind, training Altdorf's many cannons on the Orc stone-throwers and putting an end to them.
Gorbad, still weak from the wound he had suffered at Grunberg, was unprepared for a frontal assault. Without his lobbers, he needed a different way to bypass Altdorf's walls. He assembled an aerial force to carry the Waagh over the walls. Four wyverns from the Worlds Edge Mountains and many Goblin Doom Divers made up this assualt, causing havoc and panic within the city. At the hieght of Gorbad's aerial assault, Sigismund himself was slain, leading a regiment of archers in defence of the Imperial Palace. Hope wavered for the Empire, but the Emperor was not the sole casualty of that night as the archers claimed half of the Wyverns, severely blunting Gorbad's airborne forces.
The Siege drifted into stalemate at this point. Despite the death of the Emperor, Altdorf's walls held firm, and Gorbad's wounds from the Battle of Grunberg festered, driving him into fevered rages. These sapped his power to hold the Waagh together and it slowly disintegrated, forcing Gorbad to abandon Altdorf or face more serious defeat.
Source: Warhammer Armies: Orcs and Goblins, 4th Edition by various
Submitter: Simguinus
Hive World Terra