Editing Stormcast Eternals (section)

==History==

===Age of Chaos===
So the Age of Chaos left Sigmar in a really bad position. His proposed alliance between the gods against Chaos was shattered with Nagash's betrayal and the others going off to do their own thing. For his part, Sigmar collected as many people as he could and shut off the Realm of Azyr to the rest of the mortal realms. Worst of all, the loss of Ghal-Maraz meant that he couldn't really fight at his fullest.

As the forces of Chaos ran rampant across the realms, Sigmar tried to focus his energy towards making a special project with [[Grungni]], an army forged by the God-King for his own purposes rather that relying on the other gods to help him out. To this end, he plucked the souls of countless worthy heroes from the grasp of the skelepope and made them all manner of fancy golden armor using the remains of the Old World. All the while, Teclis and Malerion's magics kept his projects a secret from all outsiders, giving him precious time to prepare his armies. While he couldn't accomplish all he set out to do and he had very valid fears that the flaws in his reforging would prove to be their undoing, he had to throw them out all the same.

Indeed, Sigmar knew very well that he was in a race against time. Little by little, what few pockets of civilized and uncorrupted land remained in the other Mortal Realms was being overrun and consumed by the hordes of Chaos, and there was a fear that the Realms would be beyond the point of no return for Order if they waited any longer in Azyr. However, a window of opportunity presented itself; After centuries of steamrolling the Realms, the thousands of Chaos warlords and daemon princes had begun to run out of powerful enemies to fight. As such, as Chaos tends to do, with no external enemies to pounce upon, they began to turn on each other, splintering into their petty squabbling war bands as their patron Gods schemed and plotted against each other. With his foes distracted and beginning to lose cohesion, Sigmar decided it was now or never.

He gave the order...and the Realmgate Wars began...

===The Realmgate Wars===
When the Stormcast emerged, they did so in brute force, bursting through the many realmgates to reclaim the mortal realms from the forces of Chaos. Though their forces were limited, the victories they claimed were critical to helping reform the [[Cities of Sigmar]], who tended to establish around the realmgates.

The Hammers of Sigmar touched down in Aqshy, the Realm of Fire, and immediately began mauling the massive Khornate horde known as the Goretide, led by [[Korghos Khul]]. Meanwhile, the Hallowed Knights made their way into Ghyran to help Sigmar's ally goddess Alarielle.

Perhaps the most important of their victories during this time was in Chamon, where Lords-Celestant Vandus Hammerhand and Thostos Bladestorm managed to discover the location of Ghal-Maraz inside a massive Tzeentchian fortress. After smashing through the various fractious armies and traps, Vandus finally reclaimed it and returned it to the God-King.

Sigmar would use his legendary hammer to awaken the Celestant-Prime, a super legendary project that he had been unable to finish without the hammer. With the help of this super-Stormcast, the forces of Order would manage to save the realm of Ghyran from Nurgle's clutches and re-awaken Alarielle so she could reinvigorate the Sylvaneth to kick the pusbags out.

Archaon would eventually hear word of his old rival's forces and go on the offensive, attempting to harness the power of the God-Beasts, ancient and mighty behemoths with the powers of gods. Of note was his attempt to twist [[Sons of Behemat|the God-Beast Behemat]] to his will, only to be thwarted by the Stormcast. The Realmgate wars would soon end when Sigmar, confident in his armies, tries to siege the territory of Eightpoints, the one spot that holds realmgates to each of the mortal realms. Though the place remained in Chaos hands, the realmgates to Aqshy and Ghyran were sealed off, dealing a telling blow to the control of Chaos.

===Malign Portents/The Soul Wars===
With many territories and realmgates reclaimed, the forces of Sigmar set about to garrison themselves and figure out how to best maintain order within the free cities. Some of Sigma's finest...[[Inquisition|were far from the kindly heroes they were made out to be]] and were especially ruthless in their hunt for the disloyal and the heretic.

All the while, Asshole Necromancer Supreme Nagash bided his time in a mighty ritual, gathering as much of the death magic as he could. The only reason Sigmar figured out was thanks to a vision by Vandus Hammerhand as well as the reports of a strike force that just so happened to witness it in the middle of fighting a chaos force in Shyish. The result of this was the Necroquake, a massive explosion of magic that not only resurrected countless dead (and thus established the [[Nighthaunt]] and eventually the [[Ossiarch Bonereapers]] as major forces of Death) but also created all sorts of [[Living Spells|predatory sentient spells]] and exposed Sigmar's Stormvaults. These vaults held all manner of ancient weapons and magic that the God-King viewed far too dangerous to be left in the open and thus he locked them away in all manner of locations in the mortal realms - and the Necroquake just exposed them to all manner of potential potential defilers and plunderers. This would force the Sacrosanct Chamber, an order of warrior-mages originally responsible for guarding the Anvil of Apotheosis, to depart for the mortal realms in order to protect these ancient caches. Thanks to this addition to the stormhosts, the unsteady wins that the forces of Order had would eventually be solidified...

===Broken Realms===
The [[Broken Realms Saga]] saw some particularly grueling setbacks for the posterboys of the franchise.

The first major battle is during ''Book 1: [[Morathi]]'', where the titular villain (now elevated to full-godhood by siphoning some stuff from Slaanesh) laying siege to the free city of Anvilgard. The stormcast stationed on the city were defending the city with everything they had, even when they were also beset by a raiding party of Idoneth mercenaries. People had thought the battle was over the moment the Celestant-Prime swooped down to fight Morathi, but that hope soon turned to despair when they went to parley and the Celestant-Prime actually ''conceded'', ordering all the Sigmarite elements of Anvilgard to pack their shit up and go home. What the conversation was about, nobody knows.

Fight number 2 was during ''Book 3: [[Be'lakor]]''. In that one, the First Prince of Chaos decided to lay siege to the free city of Vindicarum in Chamon. Not only were they already battered by [[Lady Olynder]]'s forces, all part of a deal with Be'lakor, but then the forces of Chaos under his thrall began smashing into the gates. Not helping things was the fact that the skies above the realm were clotted with dark sorcerous storms and the realmgate had collapsed - all the result of some other fuckery he had ordered. The end result was a matter completely alien to the Stormcast: actual vulnerability. The skies no longer allowed the souls of the Stormcast to reach safe ground in Azyr and be reforged, but they were instead devoured by the clouds. The losses they suffered here were permanent and it wasn't until some fleets of Kharadron had arrived (with Grungni himself among them) that they were able to push back the Dark Master's legions. Even then, though, the skies remained bleak, blocking most attempts to return to their maker, and the Celestial Vindicators stormhost was practically annihilated. Worse, the entire Sigmarite Brotherhood stormhost was wiped out, with all their souls being captured and given to Lady Olynder.

The last fight was in ''Book 4: [[Kragnos]]'', where the free city of Excelsis was besieged not only by the forces of destruction, led by Gordrakk and Kragnos himself, but also the legions of Slaanesh under his newborn twins. After this, the Celestant-Prime put Morathi, now Morathi-Khaine, on trial for what she did to Anvilgard. But he was told to give her clemency by ''Grungni'' of all people saying that they had bigger problems.

===Age of Beasts/The Dawnbringer Crusades===

Hearing about what Be'lakor did obviously distressed Sigmar. If the forces of Chaos had a way to block his soldiers from being reforged, then he was going to lose his warriors faster than he could reinforce them, dooming his forces to a gradual defeat via attrition.

He contemplated on ways to do get past this handicap, but fortunately he had found Grungni again after hearing about the hidden dwarf god's actions in Excelsius. Together, they decided to make Stormcast armor that was even tougher than before and enchanted to create a massive explosion upon the wearer's death. This would become the Thunderstrike Chamber, the newest and most elite of his forces. Also reinforcing the ranks are the Draconith, dragon-children of Dracothion himself who were kept by the Slann for such a dire situation like [[Kragnos|a certain ancient god breaking free]].

The Dawnbringer Crusades were called to bring order back to the realms after such a mess following the Soul Wars and hunt down any coming threats from Ghur and beyond. The forward base of Amberstone Watch would be their first exposure to the new forces in play: The [[Kruleboyz]].

The Stormcasts played an integral part in supporting the Dawnbringer Crusades, escorting settlers to their new homes and garrisoning forts and Stormkeeps along the new frontiers. Due to the Chaos Storm, the Stormcast have become a bit more supportive and defensive in their overall strategy, not quite being the all out attack from the Heavens that they were during the Realmgate Wars. While they still very much rely on lightning strike forces from Azyr, especially with the new Thunderstrike Chamber, the now likely chance of having their souls not being Reforged has meant that regular Stormcasts have to be more conservative of where they commit their forces to avoid unnecessary losses. With the Thunderstrike chambers often being the speartip when assualting heavily chaos infested lands allowing the other Stormcast forces to enter and cleanse the surrounding areas of corruption.

In addition to the new Thunderstike armour the Stormcast have developed new countermeasures to dark skies infested areas. With stormkeeps and new dawnbringer settlements making use of Star Bridges powered by the willing sacrifice of souls from Stormcast who have been reforged too many times and wish to have a more permanent death (essentially like a form of assisted suicide). These devices act like anchors that draws in Stormcast souls from miles around and helps non-thunderstrike stormcast return to Azyr with greater safety. In addition to Stormcast mages in newly counquered lands working in tandem with dawnbringer forces to cleanse surrouding lands of corruption to diminish the chaos corrupted skies above.

These new strategies have forced Stormcast to work more closely with Cities of Sigmar forces than ever before, and Stormcast stationed in stormkeeps across the realms developing new combat tactics to fight alongside their mortal allies.