Saturday, 7 March 2015

Hopes and fear for The End Times: Archaon


Last night I pre-ordered The End Times: Archaon from my local GW, standing in line with the same crew that turns out for every End Times book. I'm going to miss that bunch. I'll see them, of course, but there's a certain camaraderie to the queuing experience when you're a nerd among nerds in a dedicated nerd space.

I say this on the assumption this is the last End Times book, which has all but been announced but I could be reading my tea leaves wrong. I do hope its the end because I want to know how this ends so I can get back to telling my stories for my armies in the brave new world that results.

And I do hope its a brave new world full of hope in which the coming darkness has been vanquished because that's how the story is supposed to end, especially as The End Times is as blatant a narrative collapse story as has ever been written.

Restoration of order! Heroic victory! Hope!

NOT a bleak nihilistic ending in which Chaos wins. I really, really don't want that and I am a player who absolutely loves Chaos. I've had Warriors Of Chaos, Chaos Space Marine and Lost And The Damned armies, I love the concept BUT, just to be clear, I don't want them to win on the macro scale because that would end the story.

Then again it isn't like GW doesn't like its nihilism. I just hope they realise that that's what 40k is for: the bleak, nihilistic universe in which progress is impossible whereas Warhammer Fantasy has always been essentially hopeful.

On the smaller scale I really, really want Archaon to die. I feel he's served his purpose and should get a proper death to cap off the story, the sort of closure he didn't receive in the Mark I version of this story back in Storm Of Chaos. 

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