End Times Archaon

[Clockwork]

Unbound in Fantasy?

I'm done. Will not touch this.

[Amboadine]

....edit... "everybody dies! Except one man with an orb."
... maybe im missing something

No, this pretty much sums up 'The End Times'

[Ming]

The End is not surprising.
The entire background of the warhammer world states that Chaos is going to engulf and overwhelm the world.
And after all the battles are fought, nothing stands.
The End is logical and foretold.
What is not logical and acceptable is selling 5 (badly written) books of scheming, slaughter and courage, to say: everybody dies and Chaos Wins.

One of Fantasy's clichee is that prophecies are fulfilled and heroes accomplish their destiny.
What destiny is that of the Witch King!? To rule elvenkind for a few weeks before annihilation?!
And Asuryan prepared him with 5000 yrs of suffering, just to fullfill that?!

Teclis has to fail miserably all his scheming??!! And he's unable to control a wind of magic and gets killed??!! After absorbing Lileath's might??!!!
In all GW Fluff he's always been the smartest, most powerful, farsighted Mage of the world, and he's destined to fail??!!

Tiryon is the worst failure of all. Put a little pressure on him, and he turns into a slavering beast!!!! The purest champion of elvenkind loses all hope and accomplishes nothing??!

Bah.............................................

[flatworldsedge]

At first (well from ET - Khaine) I was monitoring my reaction to the whole ET arc in terms of the DABDA framework - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model

I genuinely hovered in the "acceptance" stage for a few weeks in Khaine, having broadly rebuilt some personal fluff I was pretty happy with - not least as I'd decided to ignore utterly the whole Naggaroth situation.

Then this happens, and, well, frankly I've just a line through the whole thing. They've written a generally very good quality rulebook and I'll keep using that. The rest of didn't happen. That looks like a new phase of denial, perhaps, until you realise that unlike the various griefs dealt with by DABDA, we can genuinely ignore GW if we choose. When I first thought of ignoring them and the ET story, it was out of outraged protest, but now it's simply because I don't like or believe their story anymore.

Hope this doesn't come across as mad or sad - kind of relaxed about it, and happy with the world as I've decided it's going to be in my campaigns.

[Jolemai]

Cue speculation that the chap clutching the orb is how the Emperor in 40k originated...

Where's the facepalm smiley on here?

[T.D.]

Few more tidbits from Warseer regarding the internal designers view of the ET.

[+] SPOILER

I have been informed by a source that the studio is very divided over the direction that EoT and 9th has taken Warhammer. It was posted earlier but it's probably worth repeating, many of the writers and studio staff have grown up writing and living this background from a young age and even though they are paid to write they do become emotionally involved with characters and the setting. So it would be strange if they did not have misgivings about at least part of this. The single word used to describe it was 'marmite'

My birdies tell me that there is a significant portion of people at GW absolutely ****ed off by the ET series' results. Same for the new direction for 9th edition.

I wouldn't be surprised if many of them get the foot soon (for not praising GW enough), being replaced by monkeys or something.

Also, anyone fancy a new forum Avatar?

[+] SPOILER

Teclis RIP

[Searinox Nagharha]

Well I can imagine they are pissed. I mean... who isn't? Well... propably the top brass that came up with it but it couldn't feel right as a writer to write that rightfully wrong ending. Woukd get right in my nerves to write it myself.

[Haagrum]

The End is not surprising.
The entire background of the warhammer world states that Chaos is going to engulf and overwhelm the world.
And after all the battles are fought, nothing stands.
The End is logical and foretold.
What is not logical and acceptable is selling 5 (badly written) books of scheming, slaughter and courage, to say: everybody dies and Chaos Wins.

If you knew the end was logical and foretold, why would you complain about the ending being exactly what was logical and foretold?

One of Fantasy's clichee is that prophecies are fulfilled and heroes accomplish their destiny.

What destiny is that of the Witch King!? To rule elvenkind for a few weeks before annihilation?!
And Asuryan prepared him with 5000 yrs of suffering, just to fullfill that?!

No. Really, just no.

[+] SPOILER

Malekith reunited three races that had been at war for thousands of years. Without that reunification, everyone was definitely doomed (as opposed to almost definitely doomed).

Malekith was the last of the Incarnates to fall/be sucked into the rift.

Beneath the power of the wind of Ulgu, he still harbours the remnants of the Creator God. Ulgu was stripped from him at the end of the End Times. What purpose would there be to making him the Phoenix King and the true inheritor of Asuryan's blessing if that just vanished immediately when he became the Incarnate of Shadow?

Even in the face of absolutely-certain annihilation, Malekith still does not give up. The final page of End Times: Archaon makes it abundantly clear that there is still one light left in the darkness21 at the end of the End Times. From the information provided, my guess is that it's either Sigmar or Malekith.

Teclis has to fail miserably all his scheming??!! And he's unable to control a wind of magic and gets killed??!! After absorbing Lileath's might??!!!
In all GW Fluff he's always been the smartest, most powerful, farsighted Mage of the world, and he's destined to fail??!!

Everyone except Teclis thought victory would be impossible. Usually, when one person disagrees with absolutely everyone else, they are wrong.

[+] SPOILER

Firstly, it was three winds, not one. He had one under control, and was coping with two even though it was killing him.

Secondly, he didn't absorb Lileath's might. He sacrificed her, at her insistence, and used her divine essence to bring the Incarnates to Middenheim.

Thirdly, despite the utter failure that was Caradryan, Incarnate of Fire, that plan still would have worked, if Mannfred von Carstein wasn't an utter tool.

Tiryon is the worst failure of all. Put a little pressure on him, and he turns into a slavering beast!!!! The purest champion of elvenkind loses all hope and accomplishes nothing??!

No argument here.

[+] SPOILER

I'm sad that he didn't get the ending he deserved - in large part, his actions led to the failure of Teclis's plan. Way to go, Tyrion! Nice job breaking it, hero!

[Ming]

Hi Haagrum!
In my post I wasn't complaining about a logical and foretold ending.
I was pissed off about the decision to make 5 fluff books just to tell us Chaos Wins and everybody dies.
All the actions of heroes and villains described in detail are completely worthless.
Those books could be justified only if Chaos won and someone else survived.

GW could have Just told us: sorry, current background won't be implemented and developed in 9th edition.
We'll start a completely new background.

I insist that Malekith's fate is simply ridiculous. As his fluff has always been.

[Haagrum]

Understood, Ming - perhaps I overreacted. Reasonable minds may differ on Malekith's ultimate fate, after all.

Things I liked about the resolution of the End Times:

[+] SPOILER

GW had the guts to put the entire world to the sword. They were even jerks enough to throw in a reader punch with Mannfred von Carstein. Seriously, they had me going there (until I turned the page).

On that note, the authors managed to make Mannfred even more of a jerk.

The body count of important lore characters, even before the end of book 5. It takes guts to off that many of your important characters.

Malekith, the Eternity King. Suck it, High Elves (and High Elf players) - now and forever, our ice block is colder than yours! (PM if this need explaining)

Vlad and Isabella's story. Vlad's journey through the End Times was probably my favourite non-Malekith part. Yes, it ended sadly, but it's probably the only meaningful victory against the forces of Chaos in the book. As his final act, Vlad saves Isabella and more or less gets to give Nurgle the finger into the bargain.

Beastmen getting a boost, if only by allowing them to use cheaper monsters and Marks of Chaos.

Things I disliked about the resolution of the End Times:

[+] SPOILER

It's very elf-heavy.

Losing the Haven. All of that work in ET: Khaine, that slender thread of a hope, just thrown away.

The squatting of Bretonnia and the Lizardmen. I don't know any Bretonnian players, but I have a lot of sympathy for them concerning the End Times. At least the Lizardmen got a formation, and the ones who made the Exodus are probably the sole survivors of the world.

The shoe-horning of Grimgor, Incarnate of Beasts. It's almost as though he was an afterthought. The earlier stuff, in ET: Nagash, about Wurrzag looking for two embodiments of Gork and Mork (which was so obviously going to be Grimgor and Skarsnik), would have been a better way to bring in the greenskins. Having them march on Middenheim for the lulz would have worked better, in my opinion, than by having Teclis unwittingly summon him there. IMHO, an Ogre Hunter on a Stonehorn would be a better Incarnate of Beasts - it's just that they'd need to make one up for it. It's not as though they didn't create new characters out of whole cloth for the End Times for other armies.

The MacGuffin of Doom. IMHO, Archaon comes off like the baddies in Raiders of the Lost Ark as a result. Seriously, why not have it as a great ritual over the corpse of Ulric's city, explaining that Middenheim was critical because it was very much Ulric's home, and the death of a god (which happened in ET: Thanquol, at Archaon's hands, with an unintentional assist from Teclis) was required to desecrate the ground appropriately?

Chaos getting so many new models. Y'know, because they were so underpowered and really needed them.

[Omnichron]

So, finally the end of these End Times...

[+] SPOILER

and I can't really think that anyone could be happy about the outcome as the whole world just collapses.

The things I liked was that the war between the elves was finally resolved and Malekith finally became the King he should have been a long time ago. Of course, Dark Elves has always been too much on the extremes when it cames to worship of Khaine and Morathi with her cults being quite the obstacle for any union of elves.

I like some of the "solutions" to the conflicts, although mostly because it was resolved and less about how it was resolved... I have to say that the End of Times rules are just silly at best though.

The best part of the whole End of Times though, is Grimgor againts Archon... until Grimgor lost his head, literally.

So, I can't really wait to see how 9th edition fluff starts... It opens for new heroes and villains at least, although I hope it is less of the "Chaos is going to win in the end anyways", and that the other sides of the conflicts can have some more impact.

[Calisson]

Reading all the comments on various forum, many people look sad and upset.
Reading some rumors, it seems that 9th ed is going to cover three periods: pre-ET, ET apocalypse, and post ET (in a skirmish game).
It this comes true, then we can keep playing as before, with only a minor difference: before, we were already told that Chaos would win ultimately and the fight was a desperate one; now, we know that Chaos will win and we know how the fight developed and was lost.

Is knowing the end of a story enough to lose any interest into playing a part of it?
In GW, Empire players always knew how Marius Altdorf Elector Count of Averland was killed, did it prevent them to play Marius Altdorf rules?
In litterature, Gods of Walhalla knew beforehand that Ragnarok meant the end of them all, did it prevent them to prepare for the final, desperate fight?
In RL, you know you will die ultimately, does it prevent you to live happily?

[Daeron]

But Calisson! I absolutely refused to read books on Malus Darkblade, because they happened in the past and I know he will survive (at least, until the ET books).
I absolutely never ever wanted to read books on Tyrion and Teclis because I know they survived the trilogy and how it ended, as it was spoilered in the 8th ed book. The battle of finuvial plain in the book was pointless, as we knew the outcome. The passages of Aenarion in the Tyrion and Teclis books, and in the Sundering were of no interest to me at all because I knew how it would end. Like duh. And it ruined my models too. Like that old Morathi model on foot is entirely broken because there are no rules for her on foot. I could never bring myself to use it as "just a cool looking sorceress". I don't want to judge models by their proxyable game value.
Same for that limited edition Malus Darkblade on foot. He's too cool to be used for anything else but Malus Darkblade.
And it's absolutely offensive that G.W. tells its investors we act like collectors more than pure gamers.
Sarcasm. Ahh.

But I'm surprised, indeed, that people are upset about the loss of some chars. I don't recall our special characters being particularly loved before the ET. I think the ET books are just upsetting because fluff didn't move forward for ... a decade? And now that it does, it does so at a grand scale. And it changes a lot of the fluff
People invest in their army, to make it fit a theme or part of the fluff and now those roots are changed or destroyed. Personally I don't have an issue with my own fluff. I always used to focus on the past of my army, and how it came to be as it is today. Now, with the ET, I can move the army forward and see how the ET will affect it. And some bits and pieces will remain.

I still have to read the final book (well I started reading it) but something puzzles me about the rumours and spoilers. On one hand everyone was convinced 9th would be played post ET in bubblehammer. Now everyone is convinced it is indeed the end and there is nothing left. At least one theory must be wrong.

If Chaos indeed floods the world, then aren't we back at square 1? I remember 6th edition, where the story or background seems to "start" at the birth of sigmar who brings light to a world overrun by chaos.
Only later is it revealed that there are Elves and Dwarfs that are older than human kind. And then Lizardmen that are even older. Etc.

Perhaps this is the start of something new.

[Lord Drakon]

I will face the Dwarf throng of Metal tomorrow with my normal Dark Elf list, first game End Times, any advise ?

[toots]

Max out on cold ones

[Wrathbaby]

Is there a thread anywhere summarising/discussing these (utterly ridiculous) new rules? I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to think about it. I mean, I just about managed to come to terms with the events of the third end times book, and then I was out of warhammer for a while when the next two came out, and I come back to find (from what I can tell) the rules for army selection had been hung, drawn, quartered, burned, eaten, excreted, buried, and then consumed by chaos.

Surely the new rules depicted in the image posted by Amboadine just removed a significant portion of the game? Building a balanced list was one of the most important parts, but now it seems very much like you can read your army book, identify the best unit in there, and just take that as many times as you damn well please. Or maybe I'm overreacting and this is all totally okay and I can still write a balanced 3000 point list that won't be shredded by a single 3000 point unit of juggernaughts of khorne. Yup.

[Gidean]

I like that Tyrion and Allarielle hold hands and walk off into oblivion as Malekith does a scene form the Mummy Returns (Malekith being Imotep of course).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tLmqXEGnrc

So suck it T.D. !! Tyrion wins!

Of course ALL of us Warhammer fans lose.

[Haagrum]

So suck it T.D. !! Tyrion wins!

I'm sorry, who's the Eternity King, married to Alarielle, the last Incarnate to perish, AND rocking the most broken rules for a single model and for a formation in the game?