Archaon, also known as Archaon the Everchosen, is a fictional character in the ''

Warhammer Warhammer may refer to: * War hammer, a medieval weapon ''Warhammer'' franchise *''Warhammer'', a series of games and related media: ** ''Warhammer'' (game), a table-top fantasy miniature wargame, and origin of the franchise ** ''Warhammer Fanta ...

'' franchise, leader of the forces of

Chaos Chaos or CHAOS may refer to: Science, technology, and astronomy * '' Chaos: Making a New Science'', a 1987 book by James Gleick * Chaos (company), a Bulgarian rendering and simulation software company * ''Chaos'' (genus), a genus of amoebae * ...

, and one of the primary

antagonists An antagonist is a character in a story who is presented as the main enemy or rival of the protagonist and is often depicted as a villain.Games Workshop Games Workshop Group (often abbreviated as GW) is a British manufacturer of miniature wargames, based in Nottingham, England. Its best-known products are ''Warhammer (game), Warhammer'' and ''Warhammer 40,000''. Founded in 1975 by John Peake ...

. He is considered one of the most powerful characters in the Warhammer multiverse, having brought about the fabled End Times, and is a major antagonist in ''

Warhammer Fantasy Battle ''Warhammer'' (formerly ''Warhammer Fantasy Battle'' or just ''Warhammer Fantasy'') is a tabletop miniature wargame with a medieval fantasy theme. The game was created by Bryan Ansell, Richard Halliwell, and Rick Priestley, and first publ ...

'', ''

Warhammer Age of Sigmar ''Warhammer Age of Sigmar'' is a miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop that simulates battles between armies by using miniature figurines. Games are typically played on a relatively flat surface such as a dining table, bespoke gaming ta ...

'', '' Total War: Warhammer'', and '' Total War: Warhammer II''.

Appearances

''Warhammer Fantasy Battle''

Archaon was responsible for bringing about the End Times,Nigel Edgar
The paints of mini war games

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, 24 May 2020. Accessed 12 July 2021. a cataclysmic event which led to the destruction of the Old World and essentially led to the shutting down of Games Workshop's original Warhammer Fantasy setting and the ushering in of the new Age of Sigmar setting in 2015. In order to usher in this world-ending event, Archaon had to gather magical artifacts in the name of the Chaos gods, earning the title 'Everchosen' while doing so.Adam Harrison
Age of Sigmar Lore: The Origins of Archaon
Bell of Lost Souls, 7 February 2020. Accessed 2 August 2021.Lore: Be’lakor, the First Prince of Chaos
Warhammer Community, 31 January 2020. Accessed 2 August 2021. Archaon's actions also led to the rise of the High Elf leader Teclis.

''Age of Sigmar''

In the Age of Sigmar, Archaon is one of the primary antagonists of the entire game, on the same level as the Chaos gods themselves.Adam Harrison
Tabletop Spotlight: Archaon Everchosen
Bell of Lost Souls, 16 December 2015. Accessed 12 July 2021 He is allied with - and outranked by - four out of the five gods,Darren Watson
Wind Up Archaon
. Honest Wargamer, 22 November 2018. Accessed 3 August 2021. outranking everyone else in the Grand Alliance of Chaos.Barry Ashcroft
Warhammer Age of Sigmar 101 - Introduction to Grand Alliance Chaos
The Gamer, 3 June 2020. Accessed 12 July 2021. Though Archaon once led armies of Skaven alongside his human warriors,Jody Macgregor
Major events in the Warhammer timeline
PC Gamer, 23 September 2018. Accessed 3 August 2021. he no longer does so due to his dislike of them, despite their membership in the Grand Alliance. His control of the forces of Chaos was later challenged by the archdaemon Be'lakor. Having overseen the ceremony to crown Archaon in the first place, Be'lakor found the mortal's promotion to be humiliating. In the standard ''Age of Sigmar''

miniature wargame A miniature wargame is a type of wargame in which military units are represented by Miniature model (gaming), miniature physical models on a model battlefield. Miniature wargames are played using Toy soldier, model soldiers, vehicles, and arti ...

, Archaon is a very powerful unit whose army-level abilities, when supported by his followers known as the Slaves to Darkness, focus mostly on further empowering him.Start Competing: Slaves to Darkness
Goonhammer, 8 May 2021. Accessed 3 August 2021. In the skirmish edition of the game Warcry, both the Untamed Beasts and Corvus Cabal war parties fight for the sake of gaining his favor.

''Total War: Warhammer''

In Warhammer's first installment of the ''

Total War series ''Total War'' is a series of strategy games developed by British developer Creative Assembly for personal computers. They combine turn-based strategy and resource management with real-time tactical control of battles. Rather uniquely for real ...

'', Archaon is both a major antagonist in the overall narrative as well as a playable character. Within the Chaos faction, he's one of three available leaders, functioning as a melee fighter with access to fire-based spells.Jonathan Leack
A Guide to Choosing Which Faction to Play in Total War: Warhammer

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, 23 May 2016. Accessed 2 August 2021. The Chaos army, when led by Archaon, starts the game with standard Chaos Warriors, Chaos Warriors wielding halberds, and special Chosen infantry wielding two-handed weapons. Unless the player chooses Archaon as their army leader, then the primary objective of the game regardless of faction is to defeat him.Robert Zak
Mortal Empires lets you live out your wildest Total War: Warhammer fantasies

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, 23 October 2017. Accessed 2 August 2021. Increasing invasions of all provinces by Chaos armies eventually results in a grand appearance by Archaon.Richard Scott-Jones
Does Total War: Warhammer 2’s story undermine its sandbox? On the contrary
PCGamesN, 28 September 2017. Accessed 2 August 2021. Initially,

Creative Assembly The Creative Assembly Limited (trade name: Creative Assembly) is a British video game developer based in Horsham, founded in 1987 by Tim Ansell. In its early years, the company worked on porting games to MS-DOS from Amiga and ZX Spectrum platfo ...

wouldn't confirm or deny whether Chaos would be a playable faction at all. Eventually, Chaos was revealed as playable and with Archaon as a playable leader of the faction but for a price as paid

downloadable content content (DLC) is additional content created for an already released video game, distributed through the Internet by the game's publisher. It can be added for no extra cost or as a form of video game monetization, enabling the publisher to gain ad ...

.Niall De'Ath
Chaos Faction and Release Date Announced for Total War: Warhammer
PowerUp Gaming, 23 October 2015. Accessed 2 August 2021. In another paid DLC, players of the Norsca faction have the option to either join Archaon's Chaos warband or to challenge him for supremacy. An update late in the game's patch history reduced Archaon's diplomatic relations with all factions, an act which video game journalist Andrew Newton described as "fitting."

''Total War: Warhammer 2''

Like the first installment in the series, the primary objective for players of the second is to defeat Archaon unless playing as him. Non-Chaos players are given the chance to defeat Archaon in a large final battle during the Mortal Empires DLC campaign. When equipped with a magic weapon called the Sword of Khaine, Archaon becomes particularly difficult to defeat even by another player's massed army units.Sid Natividad
Total War: Warhammer 2 - 15 Most Powerful Legendary Lords, Ranked
The Gamer, 3 July 2021. Accessed 12 July 2021. In addition, a separate army general, Ghoritch, was transformed from a leader in the Chaos faction to one in the Skaven faction after being banished to hell by Archaon.

Design

The character's fictional biography is violent and thematically marked by a

fall from grace To fall from grace is an idiom referring to a loss of status, respect, or prestige. Fall from grace may also refer to: * Fall of man, in Christianity, the transition of the very first man and woman from a state of innocent obedience to God to a s ...

. Archaon was the product of

pregnancy from rape Pregnancy is a potential result of rape. It has been studied in the context of war, particularly as a tool for genocide, as well as in other unrelated contexts, such as rape by a stranger, statutory rape, incest, and underage pregnancy. The ...

, his mother suffered

maternal death Maternal death or maternal mortality is defined in slightly different ways by several different health organizations. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines maternal death as the death of a pregnant mother due to complications related to p ...

thereafter, his father rejected and abandoned him on the steps of a church, and he

attempted suicide A suicide attempt is an act in which an individual tries to kill themselves but survives. Mental health professionals discourage describing suicide attempts as "failed" or "unsuccessful", as doing so may imply that a suicide resulting in death is ...

in order to prevent the prophecy that he'd become a world-ending villain.Tyler M.
REVIEW: Archaon: Everchosen
Mengel Miniatures, 5 August 2015. Accessed 3 August 2021. In the Warhammer franchise's narrative, Archaon is described as a former templar of the civilized Empire of Sigmar before his turn to evil. Writer-actor Clint Lienau noted Archaon's possible inspiration springing from

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...

Sauron Sauron () is the title character and the main antagonist of J. R. R. Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings'', where he rules the land of Mordor. He has the ambition of ruling the whole of Middle-earth, using the power of the One Ring, which he ...

. In 2015, Archaon's model for the Warhammer miniatures series was given an updated visual aesthetic for the Age of Sigmar, including a new mount, a mutated dragon named Dorghar, with three heads representing three of the four Chaos gods. The model is noticeably large, contains a high number of separate parts for assembly, and functions as a centerpiece model for an army.

Reception

Archaon's portrayal has attracted considerable praise within the gaming community. James Whitbrook of

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referred to Archaon as the third "most ridiculous badass" of the original Warhammer Fantasy tabletop miniature game, noting that he became the most powerful and evil character not once, but twice. Matthew Pedersen of Gamers Decide ranked Archaon as the top legendary lord playable in ''Total War: Wahammer'' and noted him as the clear antagonist of the game's narrative, and Sid Natividad of The Gamer ranked Archaon in the number one spot for playable lords in the second iteration of the game, Total War: Warhammer II, noting him as "too angry to die." Tyler M. of Mengel Miniatures regarded Archaon's backstory, as portrayed in the

Black Library The Black Library is a division of Games Workshop (formerly a part of BL Publishing) which is devoted to publishing List of Black Library novels, novels and audiobooks (and has previously produced art books, background books, and graphic novels) ...

novelizations, as tragic due to the circumstances which led the character to become evil. The character has been compared to historical figures signifying warlike behavior. Archaon's grand appearance in ''Total War: Warhammer'' was compared by Richard Scott-Jones of

to the grand arrival of

Attila the Hun Attila ( or ; ), frequently called Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in early 453. He was also the leader of an empire consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths, Alans, and Gepids, among others, in Central and East ...

in '' Total War: Attila''.

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staff member Franz Klug compared Archaon to the second of the

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, War, as well as the

Antichrist In Christian eschatology, Antichrist (or in broader eschatology, Anti-Messiah) refers to a kind of entity prophesied by the Bible to oppose Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ and falsely substitute themselves as a savior in Christ's place before ...

as described in the

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. Criticisms of both Archaon's portrayal in the novels as well as the creative direction of Black Library's handling of it have also been made. Alex Lucard, writing for

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, referred to Archaon as a " roided-up Marty Stu" in his review of the ''Archaon'' entry in Games Workshop's ''End Times'' series of novels. Lucard later referred to Archaon as the "lamest character" in Warhammer and lamented what he viewed as poor creative direction in Archaon killing Nagash, the lord of the undead in the original Warhammer Fantasy, in order to promote Archaon as the new

big bad Big Bad is a term to describe a major recurring adversary, usually the chief villain or antagonist in a television series or a particular broadcast season of a series, originally used by the series ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer''.MacNeil, W. P. (200 ...

in the franchise.Alex Lucard
Tabletop Review: White Dwarf, Issue #79 (Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, Warhammer 40,000)
Diehard GameFAN, 1 August 2015. Accessed 2 August 2021.

References

{{Warhammer Fantasy Fictional attempted suicides Fictional generals Male literary villains Warhammer Fantasy (setting)