are there any story connections between neverhood and armikrog?

Most likely not.
From their site: "...the game follows the adventures of a space explorer named Tommynaut and his blind alien talking dog named Beak-Beak as they crash land on a weird planet and end up locked in a mysterious fortress called Armikrog."

I'm still counting on Klaymen or Willie Trombone cameo ;-)

no spoilers please!

I take it you have never played The Neverhood, huh?

There are none, I just mentioned characters from The Neverhood.

nope oh ok

EA owns the rights to The Neverhood, and has decided not to move forward with any sort of licensing or re-release despite being contacted by the original creators of that game. As such, there will be no overt ties to The Neverhood in Armikrog.

That said, I have played the beta, and I can confirm that there are some subtle references to The Neverhood. Plus, Mike Dietz and Ed Schofield are the artistic geniuses behind both games, so you're guaranteed to have a very Neverhood-esque experience. Armikrog is a "spiritual successor," really. The way I look at it, both games likely exist in the same universe.