It's comparison time!

This post was supposed to be about the End Times crunch and rules, but I've figured that since the Glottkin will be released very soonish, I just might do a bit of comparing stuff. You know, because comparisons are always fun, right?

That and the fact that I'll do the crunch post when the newest addition to the End Times will be released. That means very, very soon.

Or else...

As for this post... the title says it all! The End Times have been running for quite some time now, and with Glottkin book just around the corner I was wondering what my fellow geeks think about the whole endeavor, when compared to the infamous Storm of Chaos, the previous major campaign, set in the universe of Warhammer Fantasy Battles. Oh, and in case if you're wondering, no, I did not forgot about the Nemesis Crown incident. Altough I wish I had, just as most of the us, WFB players.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Now I'll be the first to say that I... actually liked the SoC. Yeah, you've heard it right. When the SoC began I was having a renaissance when it came to WFB. I was still collecting girly HElves, but I loved every bit of fluff about this campaign as a whole. From the fact that it was global and player-determined to the new army lists and models, everything about Storm of Chaos got me sold, hook, line and sinker. When the event came to close I was genuinely sad (and a little buffled when it came to the final battle between Valten, Archaon and the arch-headbutter Grimgor Ironhide ;) ).

Some time later I began playing, then GMing WFRP 2Ed. For those of you that don't know, second edition takes place after the SoC and the PC's usually travel through devasted Empire and it's neighbouring lands. There are mentions of Valten, Gotrek and Felix, the Middenheim book describes the wounds that the City of White Wolf suffered during the siege and so on. As an RPG player I have the best and fondest memories, when it comes to WFRP 2nd edition, which mechanic system is still the best I've ever saw in any PnP game. You can't go wrong with it.

Usually

What the SoC failed to do however was progressing the plot. At the end everything pretty much returned to "normal". Archaon fell back, Teclis and company returned to Ulthuan and Empire began the process of rebuilding itself. Everything was a-ok.
Things are quite opposite in the case of End Times campaign. Old World goes down the drain. Between Dark Gods and Nagash, the Empire and the rest of the world is in deep shit. From the Skaven-infested Tilea to the Chaos-besieged north, everywhere is grim, dark and misreable. Just like Warhammer players like it. But there's more! For the first time in many years, the official campaign made by GW will actually move the plot of the game forward!

But once again I'm starying away from the main topic of this post. What are the similarities and differences between the two campaigns? Which one is better? Altough The End Times are still in progress, the revelations that GW had already treated us with, are major and game-changing so I've decided to compare and rate both of them. I can do that, after all this is my private, completely unofficial gamer's Hyde Park. I'll begin with SoC and then move to the End Times. Bear in mind, this won't be a point by point comparsion, more like a collection of my individual thoughts.

1. The Storm of Chaos (2004)

For starters both campaigns are bringing huge changes to the world or at least attempt to. The Storm of Chaos was about the largest Chaos incursion since the time of Asavar Kul and the battle at the gates of Kislev. Two of the main characters were Archaon, and ex-Templar of Sigmar and the leader of combined hosts of the four Gods of Chaos, and Valten, the avatar of Sigmar, patron deity of the Empire. The whole story was mainly about these two fine chaps and their merry exploits. There was a huge supporting cast, which included all of the Empire's Elector Counts, the elven mage Teclis, the Archaon's lieutenants and Luthor Huss, a sigmarite warrior priest, who discovered Valten and claimed that he was Sigmar reborn.

Now here's where things start to get a little bumpy with SoC. While Archaon is portrayed very well and given a good cause for the destruction of the Old World, Valten is severly lacking. He is supposed to be the avatar of the Empire's founder, but the young lad has the charisma of a flower pot. In fact it is stated that he almost never speaks and Huss is doing all of the talking. That's kinda schizofrenic when you remember that Sigmar was able to unite the tribes of the realms of men single-handedly, using only his charisma, wits and sometimes copious amounts of asskicking. Only the Bretons (Bretonians) said "non" to his offer of unity and common purpose.

Remaining a backwater country is fun! Chivaaaalryyyyy!

The whole campaign was extremly popular, gathering players from all around the world who registered the results of their games on the Storm of Chaos website. Here we come to our second problem. Games Workshop envisioned the Archaon's hordes trashing their way to the heart of the Empire, burning, pillaging and murdering everything in their path. Truly it would be an apocalypse. Unfortunately they didn't consider one thing: the nature of a worldwide campaign. In the initial games, Archaon and his allies did not even conquered Kislev, let alone threatened the Empire. Suddendly their "world ending event" became a complete joke and the guys at Nottingham were left with no choice but to take matters in their hands by forcing the hordes of Chaos down south with all the subtelty of a Mongol raid.

In spite of all this, the event still had a plethora of awesome futures. The aformentioned army lists such as High Elves Sea patrol and Middenheim forces were really unique and brought a lot of new options into the actual game. The minis released for SoC were also top notch for their time, especially Valten with his whooping three models and Archaon, who looked absolutely stunning, riding atop Dorghar, the steed of Apocalypse.

Accompanying the SoC event was the release of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay second edition in 2005. Unlike the first edition, which took place almost 10 years before the cataclysmic invasion, the action of this new game was set firmly in the aftermath of the Archaon's failed invasion. The Black Industries, the game's publisher, made an excellent job of portraying the war-torn Empire and its surrounding lands, and they've really managed to capture the opressive, hopeless atmosphere of the setting. From the beginners campaign "The Paths of the damned" which started scant weeks after the siege of the City of White Wolf to the epic and mercilessly hard "The Thousand Thrones", the WFRP 2nd edition was truly a masterpiece of RPG gaming and I recommend it to anyone out there, who is even remotely interested in roleplaying games.

Pictured: an awesome game

Also many of Black Library's books, such as Bill King's and Nathan Long's "Gotrek and Felix" as well as "Mathias Thulmann: Witch Hunter" by C.L. Werner, were set either during, or after the cataclysmic event. For fluff monkeys such as myself it was a real treat and a tasty one at that.

Unfortunately the GW decided to take an Norseman's axe to the SoC and it has been retocnned completely out of existence. The main reason behind this decision was general outrage from the fans of the game, who wanted a truly game changing experience, one that would rock the Old World to its core. Instead they got a huge status quo and a final duel in which the main bad guy was headbutted by an Orc, who then ran away. Yeah, that part was really bad. Of course GW couldn't let the reincarnation of Sigmar run around the world, bashin the skulls of beastmen with Ghal-Maraz so they've offed him with the help of a certain Skaven assassin whose name starts with Deathmaster and ends with Snikch.

Lame. But what do expect when you let Gav Thorpe write your campaign fluff?

The face of no shame

Then came the next edition (7th to be precise) and the timeline was rested to the point where Archaon is on the brink of invading the lands of the south. And so it has been for almost ten years, until now...

2. The End Times (2014)

From the beginning The End Times were gathering both high praise and controversy from Warhammer fans everywhere. On one hand we had the prospect of fluff progression, the return of Nagash and the policy of "nobody is safe". On the other the inclusion of Hero Hammer-like rules of 50% lords and heroes and the absurdly overpriced (even for GW's standards) kits were met with mixed feelings. Also some of the fluff ideas are... strange to say the least. But first things first.

The End Times begin with the ressurection of Nagash, the first liche and master of necromantic arts. Brought back by his faithfull servant Arkhan the Black and not so faithfull Mannfred Von Carstein, Nagash decided to become the actual god and to turn the whole world into one great graveyard. At the same time Archaon, Lord of the End Times, invades the south at the head of the largest Chaos army ever encountered. Between the restless dead and the scions of the Dark Gods are kingdoms of Men, Dwarfs and Elves. It's an all out brawl with no rules beside one: win or die.

I'm slowly running out of End Times artworks. That's bad

The release of the first book was highly successfull, not only beacuse it was actually really good, but also beacuse of the gorgeous new models like Mortarchs and of course Nagash himself. GW's new technique of sculpting miniatures is truly breathtaking and it almost excuses their absurd price tag. Together with campaign supplements, Black Library began to offer novels and short stories set during this event. The first was "The Return of Nagash" by Josh Reynolds and now we have "The Fall of Altdorf" by always excellent Chris Wraight. Both of these are really worth the read as they shed a lot of light on the single, most important event in the Old World.

Since GW reseted the clock after Storm of Chaos, many of the old heroes are back. One of them is Valten, who now instead of being the Exalted of Sigmar, works more as his herold, and the other is of course Archaon, who got really fleshed out and became a genuine villian with complicated agendas, instead of just some moustache-twirling, Chaos nutjob. Vlad Von Carstein is back as well and now he's working with the Empire. Again, a very nice thing, also because of his different portrayal in the new books. No longer is he a blood obsessed monster, like he was in Steven Savile's "Vampire Wars: The Von Carstein Trilogy".

With the abundance of new fluff there also came new rules. Some of them are good, others not so much. For starters the Undead can now be played as a single force called "Undead Legions" which is made of both Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings with some cool new benefits. The Hero Hammer is back, since players can now take 50% of lords and heroes in their armies, even in lesser games. So if you're running a 2000 points Undead army you can spend half of that cost on Nagash!

I hope you've brought enough cannons

Judging from the size of new kits, GW clearly goes the way of giving every army some sort of monstrous creature/character and those that can't have them for some reason, are treated with buffed up rules for their old minis. So while the Chaos got the collossal Glottkin and the Undead got Nagash, the Empire recieved Karl Franz on steroids, who now has ascended and became... I don't really now, a God, a champion of light, a fairy? Anyway he retains his old model, but got some beefy new rules and stats, such as 10 attacks and having a combined profile with Deathclaw. Now he can easily match all the other big players out there.

Here's where I have my first problem with this. Karl Franz should remain Karl Franz. He was always portrayed as a leader and a politician, not an avatar of Sigmar. During SoC that was Valten's role. I initially have thought that the young blacksmith will play simillar part in End Times, but now he's just some schmuck who got his hands on Ghal-Maraz for some reason. Also in "The Fall of Altdorf" novel Karl Franz gets killed and then ressurected with the souls of all other Emperors inside him. Whether he just became something more than human, a champion of Sigmar or just a poor man's God-Emperor  remains to be seen, but overall I'm not really sold on that. The purpose of the Empire, their main strength if you will, was the portrayal of normal humans in a setting where everything is out to get them, and they are at the very bottom of the food chain. Sort of like the 40K's Imperial Gua... errrr, I mean the Astra Militarum.

For me it was a true betrayal

Now we have not only one of the strongest model in-game (seriously Uber Franz is beyond broken), but I'll bet that it will be the Emperor that will end The End Times. Just wait, it's going to happen.

Now we come to the second problem: the return of Hero Hammer. I began playing WFB during the early days of 5th edition. My first army were High Elves and I usually played with my friend who collected Lizardmen with some Chaos allies (don't ask, we were kids back then). Usually he deployed his Chaos Lord with them, and I've never was able to kill the bastard. Properly kited out his CL was invincible, easily able to take out my whole regiments. Needless to say I wasn't a huge fan of this guy, so when the 6th edition came and heroes got greatly nerfed, I was happy. Not because I didn't like special characters, but because the game finally was about the struggle of frontline troops, who are supported by heroes and lords, but not overshadowed by them. Now this has changed, and I'm afraid that most games of WFB nowdays will resemble an episode of Dragonball Z with the main heroes duking it out and eradicating whole swathes of troops, and said troops getting the role of cannon fodder. I don't like that, and neither do lots of other players, who just want to play games of army-on-army, not a single powerfull unit versus their entire forces.

The third problem is the pricetag. I know, I know, everyone hates GW's money-grubbing policy, but they really outdone themselves during The End Times. The campaign books alone are retardedly expensive with the price tag of 85$. Glottkin is a bit cheaper, coming at 66$ per copy, but that's still a hell of a price. Sure we get a ton of new rules and fluff, all in a beautifully printed book, but I'm not sold (no pun intended) on the whole pricetag. It is simply too high. The same applies to models. Take the Putrid Blight Knights for example. 55$ for a 5-man unit. Nuts! Sure, the quality is awesome, but I can't shake the feeling that GW used the opportunity of their new campaign to increase the prices even more.

Obvious joke is obvious

In summary:

So this is it. With the release of Glottkin, the End Times are in full swing and it dosen't seem like they will stop anytime soon. I know that this post may seem like I'm bashing at the whole endeavor while praising SoC, but I'm not. In fact I'm really happy about this event and think that GW is making the right choice (except some minor things that I've mentioned earlier). Take for example the ever popular Warhammer 40K, where nothing is happening, the models get progressively worse (Santa Grimnar for example) and the last major campaign was the Red Waaaagh!, which was so boring and uninspiring that I could not belive that anyone would actually play it. Despite certain shortcomings, the End Times are a welcome thing, one that can change a lot in the good old Warhammer Fantasy Battle. I'm just curious how will the 9th edition turn out to be...

Until next time guys.

Xathrodox86

Oh, I've nearly forgot about this little gem. Darknight, a fellow Empire player from an awesome community of Warhammer-Empire.com made it and I've thought that I'd share it with you. ;) All credit goes to him of course.

It's... it's so beautiful

Goddammit GW, why couldn't you make a model like that? Why?