The End Times cometh...

...and they are glorious.

For a couple of months now Warhammer Fantasy has been subjected to massive changes, all of which are caused due to the new End Times campaign. For the first time, a universe know for its stagnation (altough not as drastic as the 40K one) is truly moving forward and it's a ride without breakes.

There are no breakes on the fluff train!

With the re-introduction of everyone's favourite Liche and his gang of goth-obsessed henchmen, the End Times are truly in full swing, So let's analyse whats is going on in the Old World and then how this is represented on the tabletop.

A couple months ago GW introduced a campaign, backed by a spiffy Black Library novel called "The Sigmar's Blood". It ended (spoliers ahoy!) with huge hints that most of Warhammer world's big names, like Volkmar The Grim, The Fay Enchantress and Alarielle's daughter Aliathra, will be receiving the short end of the stick i.e. get killed. Painfully. The perpetriator of this douchebaggery on a massive scale was none other than Mannfred Von Carstein.

Basiacally the Erebus of Warhammer Fantasy

The bald bastard orchestrated the whole thing with the help of Arkhan the Black (or as he's more commonly known among the fandom, Arkhan the Based), who decided that leaving the whole world on th emercy of four, dickish daemon Gods is not a grand idea. What a cool guy!

I'm on a Dread Abyssal!

Long story short. Despite the armies of Elves and Dwarfs uniting and racing to stop the ritual, it went off and brought back the First Necromancer. Nagash rose again and set out on his quest to turn the whole world into one great cemetary.

This however did not went unnoticed by the eyes of the Four. Since Storm of Chaos got retconned out of existence (meh) Archaons has been restored to his status of unchalenged badass. No more sucker punching from Grimgor. The greatest of the Everchosen went on the warpath once again and set out to bring about the end of the world. Interestingly he dosen't do this for the Chaos Gods, but simply beacuse he believes that all life should end.

Pictured: a true nihilist

In fact Archaon's march towards south is simultaneous with the defeat of Settra at the hands of Nagash. Interestingly enough it seems that the Everchosen dosne't have as firm a grip on his men as he'd like. Case in point: Glottkin and his Nurgle forces. Apparently they've detached themselves from the main horde and went to ransack Altdorf! That's a huge blow for the Empire. Not only that but the Emperor went MIA after a rather close encounter with Walach Harkons blade. Don't worry tough. He's scheduled to return as an immortal. No, really. Also Balthasar Gelt is a necromancer now. It's...not what I expected to be honest.

So where does this leave us? Here's the recap of all, major changes to the Warhammer world during the End Times campaing.

• Mannfred and Arkhan ressurect Nagash by killing off Volkmar the Grim, Aliathra, Fay Enchantress and a couple of other important peeps.
• Nagash is back and he starts kicking ass and taking names by destorying Settra and taking command of all Tomb King armies. He devoures Usirian, nehekharan god of the underworld with the help of Dieter Helsnicht, who apparently was chilling there. This made him the embodiment of Shyish, the magic wind of death. All Death Magisters became shades, albeit still loyal to the Empire.

The return of Nagash

• Next Nagash rises his Black Pyramid into the sky which now works as his mobile base, Necron Monolith style. Nagash needs to use it beacuse Aliathra's blood was "tainted" i.e. it contained the curse of Aenarion. That was the only thing that stopped Nagash from ataining true godhood. Apprently Teclis was involved in this scheme.

Pictured: a real asshole

• Settra, who had to watch helplessly as his empire of sand got destoryed suddnedly get restored and starts hearing voices in his head. Four, laughing voices who tell him to take his revenge on Nagash...
• Nagash gathers his lieutenants, or Mortarchs as they are called. There are nine of them all, and so far we know of: Arkhan the Black, Neferata, Vlad von Carstein, Walach Harkon, Mannfred von Carstein, Dieter Helsnicht, Luthor Harkon, A nameless necromancer of great power (hinted to be Drachenfels himself) and Krell.
• With Drachenfels back it can be assumed that Genevieve Sandrine du Pointe du Lac Dieudonné and Detlef Sierck are back!

• Khalida decides to stick with Nagash in hopes that this will help her get her revenge on Neferata, who sets out to thrash some Dwarves.

• Menawhile Archaon makes his move. He invades Kislev and trashes it utterly. Tzarina is belived to be fighting a gruelling guerilla war with the remnants of her forces. Meanwhile Balthasar Gelt, with some help from one of Nagash's minion, creates a mystical wall which is protecting the north portion of the Empire from encroaching Chaos Hordes. At the same time Nagash sends Vlad von Carstein, whom he ressurected (to much of Mannfred's displeasure) to help the forces of the Empire in holding back the line. Apparently only the highest echelons of the Empire's command know this. Vlad turns out to be rather calm and calculated, unlike in the Von Carstein trilogy by Steven Saville (which was awesome by the way, read it if you can). He sticks with Nagash in the hope of gaining back his beloved Isabella.

He's the leader the Empire needs, not the one it deserves

• During the huge battle for the wall a force of Blood Dragons, send to help Vlad and humans by Abirash himself, turns to Khorne and massacres the defenders. Karl Frnaz is heavily wounded by Walach Harkon himself, but thanks to the timely intervention of Vlad, manages to avoid death. Walach is dusted but the wall falls and Chaos forces pour in.
• This is where things start to get really interesting. Apparently all those zombies in Nagash's Undead Legion greatly strenghted Father Nurgle, who became the strongest Chaos God, and whose legions broke off the Archaon's horde and marched towards Altdorf, sacking the almost defensless city. More on this will be said in the second installement of End Times: Glottkin.

Awwwwwww...

• Back at the wall, Balthasar Gelt turned to necromancy (lol wut?) to help stem the tide of Chaos. This didn't sat well with some of the Empire's generals, more specififcally the Elector Count Aldebrand Ludenhof of Hochland who tried to kill Gelt, but got himself om nom nomed by some skeletons. Gelt fled and became the Vlad's apprentice (srsly). In reaction to this the Witch Hunters performed pogroms on Gold College and its mages. This is the second wizard order that got wiped out, leaving the Empire dangerously weakend.
• The Skaven are united when the Horned Rat manifests himself before the Council of Thirteen, zaps the leading Grey Seer and orders all the rats to go out and conquer the world, Pinky and the Brain style. They do this by conquering Tilea and Estalia and hard pressing Araby. They also take large portions of Lustria.

If Pinky and the Brain had genocidal tendencies

• The Ogre Kingdoms are destroyed by a huge volcano eurption. Ogres migrate west to join the free-for-all brawl and sell their services to the highest bidder. Greasus Goldtooth takes the advantage and declares himself the king of all Ogres.
• Lustria is burning. A massive Daemon army is attacking the home of the Lizardmen. This combined with the Skaven assault and having most of their Temple cities destroyed, forces the Slann to declare the Great Exodus, but so far it is not known where.

Screw it, we quit!

• Ulthuan is attacked by Daemons and Finubar is dead. Teclis conspires with Malekith, tries to aid the Empire, while Tyrion travels to the Blighted Isle, the resting place of the Sword of Khaine. Meanwhile Anarielle travels to Athel Loren to help the Asrai in their hour of need. Also GW hints that there will be another High Elf civil war with Caledor seceding from the rest of the their kingdom. Apparently HElves ceased to be the good guys.
• Naggaroth is besieged by a huge army of Chaos Warriors led by Valkia the Bloody. Malekith conspires with Teclis. Malus Darkblade makes a small appearance. He's still shady as hell.
• Athel Loren is dying. Ariel is sick and Orion went mad. Alarielle is willing to hel the Wood Elves in exchange for their aid in finding her daughter. The Asrai agree but then Lileath, the elven goddess of the moon, teleports Araloth and his forces to unkown place (another dimention?). Once again the Wood Elves prove that they aren't willing to work with anyone living outside of their forest.

Unless by "working with" one means "running them through with spears"

• Dwarfs retreated to their holds and barricade themselves there. They've barely managed to avoid another war with the Elves, thanks to the clear heads of Finubar and Thorgrim. Unfortunately Thorek Ironbrow, the greatest Runesmith of his time, commits an explosive suicide involving overloading his Anvil of Doom to take out Neferata. It dosen't work, and worse, by opening the Vaults of Valaya, he'd allowed Nagash to consume her power, and possibly the goddess herself. This would be the second deity devoured by the Great Necromancer. There's just no stopping this guy!
• Cathay is under constant attacks by the Chaos Warriors (Hung?) and possibly Hongoblins. Ind and Cathay are in simmilar perils. Of course GW won't flesh out those lands, and that's a real shame.
• Orcs and Goblins are mustering for war. Grimgor is still da best! and Skarsnik still values brains above brawn. Wurzzag declares them the champions of Gork and Mork. Hopefully there will be no head-butting Archaon this time around.

Hopefully this time there won't be any full-on goblin purges in the ranks of  O&G's.

And to think that we're only one book (and some rumors) in the whole deal! According to certain gossip originating on the net, the whole End Times campaign will consist of five to six books. This is truly an epic endeavor on GW's part and one that I wholly support.

THIS JUST CAME IN: So I was ready to wrap up the post, but then found some interesting rumours concering the upcoming Glottkin book. Apparently Kurt Helborg dies during the assault on Altdorf, but he manages to take out Festus. Karl Franz friggin' reincarnates and now his body houses all the souls of Empire's greatest heroes, including Magnus The Pious, Helborg's and more. His "ascension" cleanses the Altdorf of all chaos and undead creatures. The capital of the Empire is still in the nahds of its defenders but is completely destroyed, and things remain to look grim for the sons and daughters of Sigmar.

Basically GW just went full God-Emperor on ol' Karly. I wonder where exactly this leaves Valten now?

Hey guys, what's going on here?

For my next post I'll write about changes to the crunch of the 8th edition. There are quite a lot of them and yes, they are game changing.

Until next time guys!

Xathrodox86