Why did he do it bros? The madman actually went and did it.

He just didn't say.

>>50926354
Not in my playthrough, he didn't. The victory condition required that he not be in play, regardless of whether I personally defeated him or not, so I just united the empire before turn 50 and he stayed at home. I like to imagine he was really pissy about it.

>>50926414
In my game I immediately went north as the Big Bad Vladdy Daddy, took over Kislev, and then just sat at the entrance to the Chaos wastes waiting for him to show up. Ass blasted him upon spawning in.

>>50926414
>>50926443

Why are you guys picking on archaon so much?

>>50926461
He blew me the fuck out in my first playthough so forever after I don't like him.

>>50926473
That makes sense. I'd do the same thing.

>>50926461
One time I was Archaon and picking on someone. One of his quest battles involves getting attacked by a prick on a two headed dragon. Won the battle, routed the army, prick takes off and starts flying away. THIS WILL NOT STAND. I had Archaon gallop across the map to intercept him before he got out of range and threw an overcast Fireball at him. Archaon's VO for the spell casting was a very satisfying "DIE!", the fireball takes an age to streak over to him, it nails him in the back and kills the unit. He fell off his dragon and did, indeed, die.

Most of the spells in that game are arse in the name of keeping all the unit tactics from the other Total War games mostly intact, and that one was no exception since I'd already won the battle, but I still felt like a fucking badass.

>>50926354
>achaon hates the gods and wants to destroy them
>he knowingly follows their prophecies anyway

i dont get his motivation

>>50926575
How about you actually read what he said about the gods and why he wants to see the world destroyed?

There are two versions of Archaon running around. The GW one and the BL one. Pick one.

>>50926599
whats the difference between the two?

>>50926619
second this question

>>50926354
Archaon thought he was the hot jizz because he blasted his way through kislev and those shitty northernmost provinces, but you know what he didn't expected?

Dwarven Artillery.

A line of stubborn frontlines with the slayer king besides them held all of chaos at bay even as my cannons dealt terrible friendly fire casualities. but the more of my guys died, the higher the chance my canon hit chaos guys instead. Turns out dwarves with high enough level and good leadership just don't rout. When his infantry and giants were cut to pieces, mostly, i turned all my guys to Archaon. He wasnt happy.

Good end.

>>50926704
There's something refreshing about the chaos overlord being defeated by dwarven stubbornness and artillery.

>>50926619
>>50926690
see >>50923329

>>50926854

Thanks

But why did the BL version of Archaon want to blow up the world?

>>50926540
You should install Cataph's magic mod. It's honestly just an all around game-enhancer, even for the AI because they like to bring 5 wizards in one army.

>>50926878
modern chaos standard: daddy issues

>>50926878
>The templar rocked slightly on his armoured knees. It was just him and the God-King, in the holiest place in all the Empire.

>‘You have forsaken me,’ Kastner hissed to himself, his dry lips pronouncing each word slowly within the confines of the hood. The templar looked up at the statue’s proud features. The statue gleamed its goldenness and from the low angle, Sigmar looked like a haughty and disdainful god. ‘I have lived a devout existence. Bettered myself with study, for your good grace. Trained to my limits and served you through the sword. I have honoured you. I have loved you. I have given you everything I have. Yet you have left me lost on a path to I know not where.’

>The templar was bathed in shafts of coloured light from the stained-glass window and felt his harsh whispers rise on the heat of the morning sun.

>‘I am no longer an instrument of your design,’ Kastner said. ‘A yardstick to measure the purity of others, a weapon for you to wield in punishment and a shield to protect your Empire from foes near and far. I am changing. I am changed. I know it. Circumstance has turned me from my purpose, in service of others unknown. Like the warped arrow, I fly untrue, yet hit the mark. I will not be a nothing in your eyes. A dog to be put down in the street. I am not an error. An aberration. I am not history to be re-written. I am not a mistake to be corrected. Speak to me, my lord. My Emperor-of-all. My God-King. Show my heart the way. Lead me back to your light and love. I did all in service of you. Like the arrow shaft, I can be softened and straightened. Like the imperfect blade, I can be re-forged. I beg of you, my lord. Find use for me again.’

File: Archaon traitor.png (14KB, 612x228px) Image search: [Google]

14KB, 612x228px

>>50927017
>Kastner rose to his feet. He felt sick to his stomach. His knees felt weak.

>‘Don’t leave me,’ Kastner pleaded with his lord, ‘the plaything of fate. Show me a sign – in this place of all places. Anything, curse you.’ But nothing came. Kastner’s lifetime of devotion and service was rewarded with the kind of monumental silence only a towering statue could deliver.

>‘You speak not,’ Kastner mouthed within the darkness of his helmet, ‘but I hear everything. Silence will be met with silence, God-King. Nothing so singularly personifies the prayer unanswered as a god powerless to save his people. So be it. You will watch your worshippers suffer and die – as I drag down your Empire into the embers of Armageddon. You will hear me then, God-King. You will hear me in the pleading prayers of your people, held under my blade. You will hear me in the ravenous fires – that will eat all you have lived to build. You will hear me in the deafening silence of the End Times, where I will leave your petty Empire no world left to conquer. Though half-blind, I see you for the fraud you have always been. The appealing ramblings of a mad friar. I renounce your false majesty – and will forge a path of my own making. I will champion my undoing and accept allegiance of those that already answer the hatred in my heart. I do this out of hatred for you, my lord. Out of hatred for all the fickle Powers of this world, who play at destiny with men’s souls. With darkness lies a new beginning, as with me lies the end of man and all godkind.’

>‘Your God-King does this to you,’ the dark templar said. ‘You feel the hopelessness of his failure. Abandon him as he has abandoned you.’

>‘And pray to your dread gods?’ Giselle said, glassy-eyed.

>‘No,’ Archaon said. ‘For I have none. Let the powers of darkness favour me if they will. Let them lend me their strength and draw strength from my victories, if that is their want. You will not see me kneel to them even as I kneel before you now. All gods are fickle. Don’t trust in them. I don’t. Believe as much as you need to or not at all. Ultimately, the only thing you can really believe in is yourself.’

>‘You serve the Chaos gods…’

>‘They serve themselves,’ Archaon said. ‘As do I. This world is not fit for man or god. The Empire and nations of old, the exotic lands beyond and even here – the cruel Wastes. All will fall and all will burn for me. I will be the Lord of the End Times. The harbinger of doom for all – man and god – for in a world of the slain, with no men, no savages, no ancients of the elder races to pray to them and erect their temples, what will become of these gods, their heroes and their daemons?’

>>50927017
>>50927028
>>50927068

interesting. thanks.

so basically archaon correctly surmised that gods need mortals to exist, and thought that by destroying the world he would make them cease to exist as well. except he didnt count on them existing in other dimensions ect

was the fact that the gods wanted to destroy the world as well not a little suspicious to him?

>>50927119
He became aware of the existence of other worlds when he became Everchosen read below.

>‘You never answered my question,’ Archaon said softly, after a moment of silence. ‘Would it be so bad, to lose yourself?’

>Canto hesitated, and then said, ‘Yes. Who I am, who I was, is the only thing I have left. To surrender it is to lose everything I fought for in the first place.’

>‘You value the life you had, then?’ Archaon said. ‘You cling to the past, afraid to face the future.’ He swept out a hand towards the shimmering black globe. ‘See, Unsworn, the beautiful thing which awaits all of us. It is not terrifying. It is life, and change, and growth. It is the life which springs from death. This world is dead, but a new one is growing here.’

>‘Mushrooms from a corpse,’ Canto said.

>Archaon lowered his hand. ‘If you like. Maybe the world to come will be simpler, at that. Less burdened by the weight of history and failure. What I do know is that it will be stronger than this husk of a world we reside in now. There will be no weakness, no false morality or burdensome piety to chain men. The gods will sweep aside the old, and unmake the false foundations upon which the lie of this world stands.’

>‘And that will be better, will it?’ Canto asked, without thinking.

>‘Yes.’

>‘For whom?’ he asked. Archaon looked at him. Canto waited, then, when no punishing strike came, he continued. ‘I never wanted this burden. It just came on me. I’m only a man,’ he said softly. He looked at his hand, encased in black iron for gods alone knew how many centuries. ‘I’ve only ever been a man. A wicked, evil man, who has done wicked, evil things. But I was never a monster. Never that.’

>Archaon chuckled. ‘And what would you be now, Unsworn? Man or monster?’

>‘I would be true to myself,’ Canto said, though not without hesitation.

>>50927326
>‘There was one other who spoke like that,’ Archaon said. ‘His name was Mortkin. They called him the Black-Iron Reaver, and he carved his saga on the hearts of the gods themselves.’ He glanced at Canto. ‘He could have been the one standing here, once upon a time.’

>‘And why isn’t he?’

>‘In the end, he remained true to himself. He was a man, Unsworn, not a monster.’ Archaon turned back to the coruscating darkness of the globe. ‘But I shed my humanity long ago. I cannot escape what is inside me, nor would I wish to. I have been in darkness for so long, that I fear I would find the light blinding.’ He stared up at the globe, as if seeking something within its glistening depths.

>‘I am a monster and I have set the world aflame, so that I might watch it burn.’

File: IMG_2033.png (80KB, 780x780px) Image search: [Google]

80KB, 780x780px

>>50926354
Because he's an edgy, fedora-core atheist, faggot.

>>50927337
>>50927326
>>50927068
>>50927028
>>50927017

This book is a good study in the problems of narrative in the warhammer world. A lot of the scenarios, settings and plots were fantastic but they get dragged down by having to be rushed through with little plot development. Despite this little segment we get relatively little time inside Archaon's head. Also there seems to be a lack of weight to things what with the frequency with which he seems to lose his entire forces. Idk the author puts together one of the most epic journeys possible but without nearly enough room to expand on it

That said the whole part where Mal'akor constantly rewrites Archaon's fate was a nice/funny touch. Like when Archaon almost ended life as a stable boy that took a hoof to the dome

>>50927393

Wasn't it Be'lakor?

And I couldn't help but feel that cheapened everything. It was like GW rubbing it in that nothing matters, only what THEY want to happen will happen, and there's nothing you can do about it.