Editing Archaon (section)

==Total War: WARHAMMER==
Archaon appears as the faction leader for the Warriors of Chaos, the first DLC faction of Total War: WARHAMMER and though the campaign mechanics of said faction have been left in the dirt by newer and shinier factions to come out, Archaon still manages to be an absolute menace on the battlefield in a chaos campaign. At level 40 and with all of his quest items (of which he has 4, as many as you can have) he carries on the tabletop tradition of being an absolute tank, rocking an impressive 40% ward save combined with a 20% physical resist (which can be comboed with the Swords of Chaos' guardian ability, bringing the physical resist upto 35%), and a 15% magical resist resulting in a combined damage reduction of up to 75% for physical damage and 55% for magical damage. Couple this with the fact that you can easily get him to over 130 armor and over 100 of both melee defense AND attack, and he will stay in the fight for longer than most. Oh and he also gets access to the lore of fire and the Slayer of Kings, ensuring that he can dish out punishment as readily as he can take it.

However, as mentioned this is all in the chaos campaign. On multiplayer... well, he's a bit of a meme. Players have even given him the moniker of "Archaon the Neverchosen" due to the fact that more often than not people will elect to either bring Kholek or a generic Chaos Lord in favor of Archaon. There are a couple of reasons for this

* His tankiness in campaign is simply not as much a factor in multiplayer, though he does have 120 armor, 5000 hp, 60 melee defense, and 10% physical resist, he is still far more vurlerable to being gooned by other lords than Kholek or Sarthorael would be, largely owing to him not having nearly as high a mass as either of those two leading to him being unable to push his way out of dangerous situations. It also means that he is staggered more in combat, leading to him getting fewer hits in and is therefore less effective.
* And much like his tankiness is a non factor, his killiness is as well. He's got a single strong damage augmenting item, that being the Slayer of Kings, which albeit very killy, has a very long cooldown and more importantly only recharges if he's in melee, leading to you potentially only being able to use it once in a match if the opponent is avoiding him well.
* Speaking of avoiding him, he can be quite easy to kite despite being a mounted lord with a relatively high speed, and you might wonder why this is? Well, remember that mass problem he's got? If he does manage to get on top of someone's lord and pops his Slayer of Kings, all that lord has to do is find a handy unit of zombies, gobbos or whatever else expendable unit they have lying around and throw them at him while their lord runs away, leaving him to go fisticuffs with a unit that he will beat eventually, but a unit that he doesn't actually want to be fighting since it's a waste for him to do so.
* Speaking of wastes, let's talk about his cost. Stripping all his magic and items (though not Dorghar, what would he be without him) Archaon comes in at a premium at 2085 gold, just slightly more expensive than a Dragon Ogre shaggoth. Kholek meanwhile (being his primary contender) comes in at 2200, which albeit more expensive, gives you a lot more due to the fact that Kholek doesn't suffer from having low mass, nor does his combat buff, Starcrusher, recharge only in combat. It's admittedly a weaker buff in terms of raw damage potential, but it lasts longer and is available more reliably, therefore giving it the edge. And of course, if you don't want either Kholek nor Archaeon, you can always go for the dead cheap Chaos Lord or even Sigvald, who allow you to go for a wider build.

Maybe with game 3 being focused more on Chaos we'll see an update to the Warriors of Chaos and Archaon, that hopefully might make him a more lucrative pick, but at the moment he's just a bit lackluster compared to his competitors. However, pretty much the opposite started to happen instead, as with the reveal of your own customisable Daemon Prince Archaon once again fell out of favor, as many people regarded Daniel to be far more interesting, oh and also he has a roster composed of all Chaos Daemons with only minor restrictions. Time will tell, of course, but for now poor old Archaon is dumped on once again.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDhKpHUijtQ Or maybe not anymore]. The most recent information regarding the combined map game mode "Immortal Empires" presented by various Content Creators and Youtubers also gave the Warriors of Chaos, and thus Archaon, some time in the spotlight. Upcoming changes for him so far:

* Dorghar has received a visual overhaul and is now truly gargantuan, dwarfing even the massive chaos knights' steeds, who themselves dwarf your average horses now. No more Chaos ponies! Hopefully this mere size increase also brought better combat stats with it, otherwise he has just become an even more attractive target for any form of missile units and Anti-Large artillery.

* Archaon himself got a visual overhaul as well; the most notably thing so far is that his chin is not clipping 24/7 through his collar anymore. Along with that, he received new fighting animations both on foot as well as on Dorghar.

* In terms of actual gameplay changes, Archaon isn't a pure Lore of Fire caster anymore, but now has a mixture of the Lore of Death, Metal and aforementioned Fire. Which is somewhat of a mixed bag all things considered, literally and figuratively. He keeps Flaming Sword of Ruin and Flaming Skull, but loses access to Flamestorm (which was his primary method of dealing with armored infantry blobs) and instead received the Purple Sun of Xereus. Which, when compared to Flamestorm, is pretty much inferior in any way: Higher Winds of Magic cost, shorter duration and it deals too much damage per entity, meaning damage isn't efficiently divided between entities of a unit. Plus the new hard cap for Winds of Magic makes the higher cost of Purple sun even more bothersome. Bummer.
* Other than that, he reportedly gets Searing Doom, Transmutation of Lead and Spirit Leech (Another overpriced, underperforming spell from the god-awful and wrongly named Lore of Death. Seriously, you would think that a Lore of Magic that is called "Death" would actually excel at killing stuff. But no, can't have that apparently). Generally speaking, his spell selection got a whole lot less impressive.

All in all, Archaon is definitely going to be less devastating as a caster with this new Lore of Magic mix, but to compensate for that, he may be further improved as an actual melee combatant. If that is sufficient to make him stand out enough remains to be seen, but considering that the Chaos faction as a whole already has a plethora of powerful melee Legendary Lords (Skarbrand, N'kari and Kholek spring to mind), it is probably best to retain a healthy portion of skepticism when regarding the question if Ingame-Archaon will be able to live up to expectations.

And Immortal Empires came, and Archaon is pretty good, all things considering. It's less than getting more op on the battlefield, but more that he finally found a niche in the Warriors of Chaos roster. He's now the standart Warriors of Chaos campaign, with the Champions of Chaos taking a lot from their monogod brethren, Sigvald being halfway Slaaneshi, and Kholek doing Kholek things(SMASH), only Archaon and Be'lakor are truly Undivided, and they have different specializations. Be'lakor has no Gifted units cap, and he starts with all the Gifts slots unlocked. Archaon has to unlock them via the tech tree, but he's now the proper poster boy, in the sense that his mortal followers can follow every god. Plus Archaon gets to (violently) confederate every one of his faction buddies, like Be'lakor. In a sense he is similar to the Daemon Prince, in the sense that his campaign is whatever you make it to be. Given his start position he is well defended from external threats for a while, but he can find a proper challenge in his doorstep. He has a lot of Dark Fortresses available to him in the surrounding area, and he's not that far away from Kholek if you want to go that route.

So, all in all, Archaon is better than ever in Immortal Empires. He doesn't have the melee potential of Kholek, or the massive cheese of Vilitch's barrier, but on the other hand, he doesn't have to. His campaign is fun, and considering his long trek since being in the most boring faction in Warhammer I to this point, I think that's a solid win in my book.