Archaon

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A wallpaper version of his solo Black Library novel cover art.

"Fear me, mortals, for I am the Anointed, the Favored Son of Chaos, the Scourge of the World. The armies of the gods rally behind me, and it is by my will and by my sword that your weakling nations shall fall." Archaon the Everchosen, Lord of the End Times

The Warhammer Fantasy world's version of the antichrist goes by many titles. The Everchosen, Lord of the End Times, Chaos Incarnate, Herald of the Apocalypse, Warlord of the forces of Chaos United, Scourge of the Empire, Destroyer of Worlds. His name is Archaon (his birth name: Diederick Kastner)... and he is not a fun guy to be around.

The Legend

Archaon started out as a devout servant of Sigmar (a Witch Hunter specifically, in older lore he was an Arch Lector), just as Abaddon started out a Space Marine. That's about where the similarities end. Diederick was the bastard son of a Norscan Chaos Champion from the Varg clans, making him a half-Norscan child by rape. One day Diederick, after a long day of being a bad-ass, decided to do a little light reading. Finding a little book whose cover caught his interest, he flipped through the pages. This book being, of course, completely evil. When Diederick saw the horrible blasphemies contained in the book, he flew into a RAGE! This rage was so intense, that even in another universe, the Angry Marines felt a disturbance unlike any they had ever felt before. Their rage was NOTHING compared to Diederick. Within the texts there was repeated mention of a being named "Archaon" who would defeat a reincarnation of Sigmar and bring about the End Times.

Some time later, whilst Diederick was out hunting Beastmen with his sidekick Emil he ran into a spot of bother. After defeating an entire herd of Beastmen by himself, he accidentally knocked a piece of Warpstone into his eye. While he was trying to get it out, Emil turned into a Chaos Spawn. Whilst Emil did not survive, Diederick remained human by sheer manliness (and a little help from Be'lakor). Fate worked against him however as hordes of the different servants of Chaos pursued him everywhere he went, and he was forced to fight all the way to the Arch Lector's Palace (Empire equivalent of a Catholic church in Vatican city) to find out why he was being hunted. He also wanted to know who Archaon was. In a bit of a mindfuck, he found out that he was going to become Archaon, because only Archaon himself would come in confirmation of his true self. This made him incredibly angry and caused him to become Archaon which may have been what the Chaos Gods intended (sounds like something Tzeentch would do, if Games Workshop ever let him accomplish anything in Fantasy).

That is right children, Archaon is Archaon because he went searching to find out who Archaon was. Derp. His predecessors in the title of Everchosen came from different tribes of the Warriors of Chaos; Morkar the Uniter and Asavar Kul were a Norseman (Vikings) and a Kurgan (Turks), respectively, with Archaon as the Norscan. So far the only race that hasn't produced an Everchosen are the Hung (Mongolians). But GW seems to have forgotten that the Hung exist or are (not so) secretly racist against Asian people.

He, by sole fact of being a badass, did what no other Everchosen before him could do. He gathered all of the Treasures of Chaos. Though the quest took nearly a hundred years to complete, Archaon did many awesome things throughout. This includes defeating hundreds of monsters in pitch dark, stole the horse Dorghar (steed of the apocalypse) from the stables of the Daemon Prince Agrammon, resisting the visage and voice of Slaanesh, killed a Bloodthirster with its own whip, resisted every disease that Nurgle could throw at him, and made it through a maze designed by Tzeentch. During his quest he was followed by his wife who continuously tried to turn him back to the path of good and convince him that he could still find forgiveness. Upon discovering an altar which, in Chaos language, claimed that all gods and all mortals and all magic were a product of Chaos. Any hope that there was of turning him from his path died with the lie, and when he informed his wife she too fell to Chaos. They had passionate sex, then... well, we know she dies at some point along the road. Or becomes a Daemon, either way she's out of the story.

His journey ended when he found a helmet which sealed his armor, making him a Warhammer Fantasy Dreadnought. He then proceeded to slaughter his remaining family, renounce his name, and take off into the Chaos Wastes. Thanks to the time fuckery of the Warp, the Chaos Gods had been waiting since they discovered the material plane with the opening of the Warp Gates for him to become worthy yet they still needed to debate on what to do now that they had discovered the material plane and because every other Everchosen they had elected had failed miserably along with the fact that Everchosen is a dumb idea that will never work along with the discussion on whether mortals should be entrusted with Chaos blessings along with the side discussion about how everyone else's mortal Champions have a better chance alone than some "Chaos Undivided" experiment. So Archaon waited.

The Storm of Chaos fiasco

Eventually the Chaos Gods gave the order, and he led the most ferocious and largest army of Chaos Warriors ever assembled against the Empire during the Storm of Chaos campaign for 6th Edition. Before he reached the location where he was to end the world, he faced Valten (a reincarnation of Sigmar himself), who had managed to kill Dorghar and smash Archaon's armor before being beaten near death. Then the Orc warlord Grimgor met smashed through his army single-handed, headbutted him in the junk, laughed at his sorry ass then went back to gather another army of greenskins.

The reason this bullshit happened? GW built the narrative around their battle reports, army by army. The problem is that Chaos kept losing. In fact, the good guys were winning so badly the only reason Archaon was pushing them back was due to plot. But GW had already pre-planned the story to become the grimderpofthe41stmilleniumwherethereisonlywar and make "End Times" be in the past tense. In the end, they resorted to having fans call-in the way they wanted the story to end hoping that Warhammer Fantasy fans would pick the faction with the pointiest stuff on their armor.

They didn't.

They chose a faction that had been beaten in the last match.

Fans chose Orcs over Chaos.

GW had no backup plan.

Grimgor's entire army had been beaten by Crom while Valten and Archaon fought. Grimgor got sick of rallying his forces, went "ZOG DIS, I WANNA PIECE UH DA ACTION!" and charged in to sucker punch Archaon as he was about to deliver the final blow to Sigmar and end the world, shout for the silent and awed assembled armies of the world to hear that "GRIMGOR IZ DA BEST!", then went back home to rally his army. This resulted in the snide nickname of "Light Drizzle of Chaos."

Later on, GW retconned almost the entirety of Storm of Chaos and instead made it an alternate continuity. In the current narrative, he's still amassing his army.

Also, Archaon is Be'lakor's biological son. We wish we were making this shit up.

Retcon/The End Times

The Everchosen doing a badass pose.

GW recently realized that pushing ChaosChaosChaos in Warhammer Fantasy only turns off fans who want THEIR faction to be important (as the setting has a fair number of megalomaniacs that would put comicbook villains to shame), and as a result the End Times are finally being ushered in... by Nagash. The resident Undead BBEG, who aims to take over the world by rendering everyone into undead slaves then consume the Warp. In its entirety. Upon hearing that Naggy's stealing his thunder, Archaon prematurely led his forces to battle.

He encountered the Auric Bastion, a gigantic wall of metal, magic and holy energy and found his army in a stalemate against the forces of Vlad von Carstein, the head of the Dracula Bloodline brought back from death by big bone daddy himself. Vlad's job is to keep Archaon busy while Nagash invaded Nehekhara to eliminate one of the few forces that can challenge his rule and bolster the ranks of his armies, then go to kill every living thing in the world and reanimate them. So far, he's doing a damn good job.

With Gelt's fall from grace, the Auric Bastion loses the support of the Sigmarite priests and crumbles, giving Chaos the green light to invade the Empire. Eager to make up for lost time, Archaon leads his forces in and bulrushes his way to Middenheim. Archaon planned to defeat the god Sigmar worshipped as a symbol of his superiority. However, Ulric had enough power to resist him and Chaos had a hard fight until a meddling elf wizard, unbeknownst to everyone else, stole Ulric's flame, allowing the power of Chaos to ravage Middenheim. Archaon took on Valten, Sigmar's heir, until a Verminlord decided to be a kill-stealing prick and decapitated Valten, enraging Archaon. Eventually Archaon and his forces conquered Middenheim.

After this Archaon claimed Sigmar's hammer from Valten's body as a trophy and set up camp in Middenheim. While there he schemes to have Karl Franz killed, sending Kairos Fateweaver after him. But due to fuckery/plot armor, Kairos fails and Archaon kills the former to summon Ka'Bandha to take out Karl Franz. During this time he gets several people pledging themselves to his cause who get used as auxiliaries including a possessed vampire, a preening Chaos Lord, the entire Skaven race and a dethroned king looking to take back his kingdom (though the latter's just in it cos "the enemy of my enemy..." and ultimately says "fuck this shit" to Chaos). After Kairos failed to kill Karl Franz Archaon decided to summon Khornate daemons, but they champed at the bit to start the fight while Archaon camped in Middenheim. Eventually the Incarnates come to Middenheim and a gigantic clusterfuck of a battle occurs.

Nagash is reduced from a burgeoning god of undeath to that "lesser villain that needs to team up with the good guys to fight the true villain" guy, the Orcs throw in their lot with the Incarnates after some skillful manipulation from Malekith and even Sigmar himself makes a comeback. Despite everything arrayed against them, it eventually ends up being ChaosChaosChaos anyways. Largely because Mannfred decided to betray Nagash (along with the rest of the good guys) at the last moment.

Archaon's Posse

In first Storm of Chaos and now in The End Times, Archaon isn't alone at the top of the hordes of chaos. He has some lieutenants to help him keep everyone organised. Closest of all is his Herald, Vardek Crom, although officially Crom gets killed in a failed invasion.

In Storm of Chaos, Games Workshop decided to go with the Your dudes approach, creating four lieutenants based on simply fluffing out the new Chaos Champion models for each of the four gods (save Khorne, who got a custom model based on an old Archaon head, Orc arms and an old Bloodletter body). Thusly, in White Dwarf, we were introduced to:

• Haargroth the Blooded One, Champion of Khorne.
• Feytor the Tainted, Champion of Nurgle.
• Styrkaar, Champion of Slaanesh.
• Melekh the Changer and the sorcerous mutant-child Cyspeth, Champions of Tzeentch.

The characters weren't received too well. So, perhaps realising their mistake, GW has revealed they're bringing back some of the big Chaos characters from their first ever Chaos Special Characters list:

• Representing Khorne, it's Arbaal the Undefeated, giant Flesh Hound-riding army-butchering Chaos Lord.
• Representing Slaanesh, it's Dechala the Denied One, corrupted High Elf turned six-armed poison-oozing snake-woman.
• Representing Nurgle, it's Valnir the Reaper, undead soul-harvester.
• Representing Tzeentch, it's Egrimm van Horstmann, former Magister of the Bright College turned dragon-riding daemon-commanding arch-warlock.

However, no word on when the above will show up. Two of them were even killed off, with Valnir being killed by Wulfrik in a novel and Egrimm being killed in End Times: Archaon after trying to bind the wind of Aqshy to himself.

The End Times made a similar plan as well with champions representing each of the Gods, and again, Crom appears and gets his ass handed to him by Valten. This time, however, the posse is made of actually known characters:

• Valkia the Bloody representing her hubby Khorne during the invasion of Naggaroth.
• Vilitch the Curseling being the top champion of Tzeentch while Aekold Hellbrass is busy sacking Kislev. As of ET: Thanquol, he's being sent to drag in Karl Franz so Archie may kill him once and for all. In End Times:Archaon, he and Thomin switch places, with Thomin calling the shots and Vitlich being the mindless slave.
• Sigvald the Magnificent being the only person of note dedicated to Slaanesh.
• The Glottkin taking the position of top 3 champions of Nurgle after the guy before them gets a Runefang to the face. They get beaten in the same book they appear in by a superpowered Karl Franz and are currently sitting the rest of The End Times out in Nurgle's Mansion.

On the tabletop

In an interesting irony, though probably not intentional, Archaon is also in a lot ways the opposite of Abaddon, not in a bad way. Where as Abaddon tends to get changed fairly heavily each edition, Archaon stays the same with each book, with the only changes to him being armor save's not including bonus for him being mounted or whether or not you can field him on foot. Also, where as Abaddon is characterized by his hitting power while being respectably tough to kill, Archaon hits hard (base attack ignores armor and can double attacks for the rest of the game, though if does any 1s on to hit rolls have to be directed at him or his unit) although his most impressive trait is how freaking hard he is to kill. While his statline is only slightly better than a normal Chaos Lord, he has a 1+ armor save, a 3+ ward save, all to hit rolls against him have a -1 and he can't be wounded on better than 3+. Sadly, while an indestructible death machine, his cost keeps him from getting much use. Afterall, cannons are the solution to all problems in Warhammer Fantasy.

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  Archaon's limited edition model, on-foot.

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  Archaon's new model. He gets a horsie now.

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  Archaon, back in the early days of Warhammer Fantasy.