The End Times I

The 2014, near-end of 8th Edition supplement for Warhammer Fantasy (coming before the Beastmen, Skaven, and Bretonnia updates only). Or as least it was released as if a supplement at first. In truth, it makes across-the-board changes to the core rules of the game, and if one player has a copy then it's the most up to date version, no permission needed. The FAQ released in the latter half of October 2014 made it quite clear that End Times replaces the Big Red Book rules.

With its release, Storm of Chaos is now non-canon in its entirety as an alternate universe alongside Warhammer Online, and remains only as optional alternate rules (and expensive models who have little to no purpose except as proxies).

In the story of the Warhammer Fantasy universe, the End Times is where every prophesy made by anyone either comes true or is proven wrong regarding the ultimate fate of the setting; either as a past-tense meal for Chaos within the multiverse, or as the first (known) setting to free itself from the grasp of The Four (and friends). The big plotters like Tzeentch, Be'lakor, and the Horned Rat to Asuryan, Loec, Sigmar, and Morai-Heg are all finally revealing their hands and eying the pot. Unlike 40k where Chaos winning is a foregone conclusion, everything is up in the air and nobody knows how things are going to turn out.

The last time this happened (Storm of Chaos, as mentioned earlier) Chaos was set to trump everything in the setting and usher in unending darkness/oblivion but in fan games to decide how the story was set to go (which were meant to enforce the status quo by both sides winning and losing equally) they lost horribly time after time regardless of who they were matched against (in fact, the only faction in the "Forces of Chaos" that made meaningful gains was the Tomb Kings who were attached for a very flimsy fluff reason), so GW decided to write their own version where Archaon somehow managed to appear outside the gates of Middenheim despite having not been able to break out of his starting area while the Tomb Kings apparently just ed off back to Nehekhara. Even THIS battle he lost. Rather than have the Empire triumph over the Warriors of Chaos, GW wrote a story in which a single Orc sucker punched the head of the big bad and thereby defeating all Chaos forever. This time GW selected a popular character this time and kept every faction fully involved. Said character is Nagash, a THE lich who plans to make all life into unlife, then invade the Warp and become a THE Chaos God.

Major characters were killed, others resurrected or brought back into modern fluff for the event.

In addition, a "new" army was brought into the game as a combination of two armies, Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings (plus some unique options and mechanics), into Undead Legion which echoes a time in earlier editions when Undead was one army.

On October 22, 2014 Games Workshop officially made End Times a part of vanilla Warhammer Fantasy, making Undead Legion a legitimate army, Lore of Undeath a legit core Lore able to be taken by any Wizard in the game, and a 50% allowance for Lords and a 50% allowance for Heroes (25% Core still mandatory). Praise the Chaos Pharaoh of Phalanges!

The Fluff

Beastmen

    Same old story. Raiding the Brets and Empire, getting filled full of holes by Wood Elves. This time though, Chaos is surging so it can be surmised they're doing pretty well. But in the end, they'll probably just end up as the redshirts at the front of Archaon's army.

    Malagor had been told by the Gods to stop Nagash's ascension. He did an admirable job of trolling Skeletor's flunkies to prevent his resurrection but ultimately failed (obviously). This was probably due to the vast power difference between the Undead and Beastmen lists, but he still deserves credit for trying.

Bretonnia

    Half the population of Bretonnia has been wiped out by war and plague.

    Morgiana le Fay, the Fay Enchantress and daughter of the Lady, was turned into a vampire by Mannfred. After being used as a plaything to unleash on captive Bretonnians for lulz, she was lead to a sacrificial alter and bled out over a cauldron alongside Aliathra and Volkmar to summon Nagash's spirit.

    Bretonnian nobility has gone the way of Sylvanian nobility, with vampirism spreading in the ranks.

    Mallobaude, bastard son of the king, (aka "Not-Mordred") has lead Bretonnia in a cluster civil war. He was supported by Arkhan the Black while the dukes of Carcassonne, Lyonesse, and Artois rose up in his support.

    King Louen Leoncoeur fought Mallobaude in battle, and it was initially believed he was killed. He then conquered every Bretonnian city he attacked and killed every opponent who he fought without a scratch.

    The Green Knight was revealed to be Gilles Le Breton, founder of Bretonnia. Le Breton is functionally immortal, having become the demigod servant of the Lady. He has retaken his place as True (God) King of Bretonnia, and in an uncharacteristic display of things going well for Bretonnia he killed Mallobaude, beat (most of) the undead out of his nation, and is preparing Errantry War against the Destruction armies of the setting. All of them.

    Louen Leoncoeur was revealed to be alive, and he's not exactly pleased with his demotion from king to champion. Despite this, after being informed by the Lady that the Germans are the key to the safety of the world, he dutifully lead a huge army of Bretonnian knights (including his own personal RAF of Pegasus Knights) through Athel Loren and against the forces of Chaos, saving the Empire (for now). Louen himself dies in the temple of Shallya at the hands of Festus the Leechlord, after killing Ku'Gath the Plaguefather.

Daemons of Chaos

    Chaos Gods are sitting back and jazzing Chaos into the material plane and otherwise doing all of Jack and shit after Jack left town. Nurgle, who's power waxes to become the strongest Chaos God and wanes to the weakest depending on the state of the mortal world, is supercharged right now thanks to the happenings (mainly all the rotting zombies about).

    Chaos Gods of Order are doing even less than that.

    Be'lakor is doing all the heavy lifting for Chaos, and is trying to get Nagash out of the way. As usual, he acts like he's got shit under control and everyone is his bitch like Tzeentch with a 2-inch "Widowmaker".

    The largest force of Daemons ever to appear in the material plane, surpassing even the fall of the Warp Gates, has appeared in the Chaos Wastes. Pledged entirely to Archaon (rather than any of the Chaos Gods or their various champions), they are awaiting the word to march.

Dark Elves

    A huge army of Warriors of Chaos besieged Naggaroth, and Malekith may have used the opportunity to assassinate Morathi. Malus Darkblade makes a small cameo; still kicking and scheming, that dastardly.

    Malekith's plans to rape Ulthuan are on hold while he deals with the Chaos army, meaning he may just care about Naggaroth more than the Phoenix Throne. He's also in contact with Teclis.

Dwarfs

    Dwarfs, with their massive huge army of technologically advanced sturdy and stubborn, are debating retreating to their Holds and retaking everything from the Goblins once and for all then hiding like Wood Elves thus becoming irrelevant (Tolkien's Curse) or suicidally using that army to up Chaos/Nagash and save the Keebs and Humans (remember that "Human" is Dwarfish for "suck").

    Either way, the Slayers will pick the latter route.

    Thorek Ironbrow suicided by overcharging his anvil as a nuke (to be fair, the anvil was already cracked and so blowing up was the only thing it could do, and he was already fatally wounded). The result was massive destruction of the Undead of Nagash, forcing them out of the Dwarf Holds. However Neferata still escaped with a relic snack for Naggy. Thorek also opened Valayas Gate, doing so is supposed to lead them to another golden age but Nagash went through instead and drained the sleeping Valaya of her stored up magic. Presumably the gate's still open and she isn't dead (since it never specifically says Nagash ate her, just her magic, and it also says he only reached divinity when he ate Usirian) and presumably there's still another Dwarf God just inside of it.

High Elves

    The Annuli, long thought to be the realm of the Gods where Daemons sometimes invade from for some reason, have been leaking Daemons like Games Workshop releases Space Marine models (heyo!). Whether this is because the High Elf Gods were booted out of the Warp like the Woodies say, or because everyone who got close had Warpdust high induced hallucinations, or if they were just that ing dumb is unclear.

    Finubar the Seafarer has locked himself in a tower to figure shit out, and if what Arkhan says is anything to go by (as well as Teclis's horror upon finding him) he is now dead.

    Aliathra is revealed to be Tyrion's daughter, not Finubar's. She's now dead, having been used as the last sacrifice to resurrect Nagash.

    Tyrion is still an emo brooding prick. But now he's an emo brooding prick that stuffed up royally (literally, he cuckolded the Phoenix King), so Teclis wants him to lead the High Elf armies in Finubar's absence.

    Teclis is manipulating everyone like a mortal Be'lakor. He did everything short of slapping Tyrion due to his cheap shit, he's trying to get the Empire in fighting shape, and he's possibly manipulating Dark Elves into a race-wide An Hero. He also intentionally let Aliathra get sacrificed in order to bring Nagash back, since she's actually Tyrion's secret bastard and thusly her blood "infected" Nagash with Anerion's curse, rather than giving him the double-dose of divine power he expected from a true Everchild.

    Eltharion the Grim is dead. Kicked ass, took names, did NOT save the girl. Went out like the grim hero he was, incinerated aged to dust by Arkhan the Black.

    Caledor has seceded from the Phoenix Throne. Because that worked out so well the first time.

    Regardless of how things turn out, Dragons (at least the intelligent ones) will go extinct according to their own prophesy.

    Alarielle is heading to the Old World to save the Wood Elves.

    The high elves are apparently about to drop the idiot ball of all idiot balls and screw over their entire race with their petty shit as Ulthuan is drug into ANOTHER civil war, with GW claiming that now the Asur prove "they aren't a race of good". .

Lizardmen

    Having lost most of the Temple Cities and with most of the jungle on fire, the remaining Slann have declared the plans of the Old Ones to have failed and are preparing for a mass Exodus. To where isn't known.

Ogre Kingdoms

    The Mountains of Mourn have been lost to the eruption of the volcano the Firebellies worship as a war god sibling to the Great Maw, and taking it as a sign the fleeing Ogre tribes are rushing to join other (as in all) factions in this World War.

    Greasus Goldtooth has taken advantage of the situation to declare himself leader of all Ogres.

    There's another mass migration as the entire Ogre race starts to leave (evacuate) the Mountains of Mourn.

Orcs & Goblins

    Grimgor Ironhide is gettin' his pimp hand ready and marching for the northern wastes to challenge the chaos champions.

    Skarsnik is still flashy.

    Wurrzag, realizing that the above two are so much cooler than he is, has decided they will be the chosen champions of Gork and Mork. He has begun a mighty quest to inform them of the fact.

    Grom the Paunch remains dead HAH.

    The Orcs as a whole are supercharged on WAAAGH energy and have stopped all of their infighting. Nobody knows which side they'll ultimately end up on.

Skaven

    Skaven are invading the world, and have taken most of Lustria and large chunks of the Old World. They are doing so on command from the Horned Rat, showing he may be making his move to become the rat inside Chaos God Nagash's ribcage.

    The Horned Rat grew tired of the current chief Grey Seer and incinerated him.

    Clan Skryre have invented a portable communication device called the Farsqueaker. Six-nipple selfies and furry dickpics are the newest plagues to the world. More importantly, the Skaven CIA/Homeland Security taskforce along with Horned Rat evangelism has united the Skaven for the first time in their history.

The Empire

    With the retcon that Storm of Chaos never happened, Volkmar the Grim has been saved from his time spent as the personal banner of Be'lakor. So GW decided he deserved an even worse fate. He gets butthurt when Mannfred decides to quit the Empire and he goes off, alone, to have a chat with the vampire. Clearly that didn't go as well as Volkmar (and only Volkmar) expected, and he was captured. In captivity he was constantly plagued with nightmares of Nagash, and was brutally beaten to an inch of his life and only kept alive through magic. After putting him through the worst shit you can imagine (GW must HATE this guy), he finally was sacrificed along with Aliathra and the Fey Enchantress. During their ritual to resurrect Nagash, Volkmar's hand was chopped off and replaced by Nagash's, all Vecna-style, allowing Nagash to (very painfully) takes possession of his body, and mutating it to become the new Nagash we all know and love. Being a daemon's flag doesn't sound so bad after all...

    Some time ago, a minion of Queen Neferata gave Balthazar Gelt, head of the Colleges of Magic and the Gold Order, a scroll containing information that Gelt used to create a magical set of uber anti-chaos wards; using ritual circles all around the countryside fueled by both arcane and divine magics, he created a HUGE stone wall (which contained a Great Unclean One), too high for any Chaos monstrosity to fly over and capable of healing any damage inflicted to it. This wall surrounded the borders of (what was once) Kislev and kept the hordes of Chaos out, but was constantly in danger of being breached. Seeing this, Vlad secretly gave Gelt a copy of one of Nagash's books, and Gelt was tempted to reading it. At one climatic battle where Chaos managed to breach the wall and kill all of Gelt's mystic allies, he was left with the choice between raising the dead and having a breach he could not stop. Thinking it was for the good of the Empire, he chose the former option. Having switched to Necromancy from Metal magic, he started playing with corpses and being pretty outspoken about using the undead in place of regular soldiers. After being outed publicly, he was confronted by Aldebrand Ludenhof, the local Elector Count, whom he killed after the count tried to kill him after refusing to see things his way. The wards failed as a result of Gelt's actions (the Sigmarites refused to have anything to do with him, including helping with the wards, which as mentioned need their faith to work), the Gold Order dissolved in the wake of Witch Hunter inquisitions while the Colleges of Magic appointed a new head. Regardless, Necromancy has begun to spread through the Empire.

    Archaon immediately ordered an invasion after that to help out the recently freed Great Unclean One, lead by Aekold Helbrass. Aekold, lacking the patience to follow instructions, destroyed Kislev instead sending refugees running to the Empire. Crom was sent off to a fight he'd probably die in. He also sent a very large chunk of Nurgle's champions, including three great Warriors lords and the ing Glottkin, to cut down south and destroy Altdorf.

    As the combined forces of the Empire waited to make a stand against Crom's force, they were joined by Gelt and Vlad's massive Undead army (and his PR campaign looking for recruits) who are now keeping Archaon and the combined forces of Chaos at bay (despite some Blood Dragons having other ideas).

    Karl Franz and Deathclaw were bested by the leader of the Blood Dragons that broke from Vlad's relief forces (who turned to Khorne worship, of all the vampires they were probably the worst ones to send up north) in solo combat against him and his dragon. After taking a sword through the chest and falling hundreds of feet to the ground and somehow surviving, he crawled his way to a Chaos camp where Deathclaw was awaiting slaughter. The two managed to make their way through the massive hordes of Chaos back to Altdorf, where he took command of the defense forces. After Louen Leoncoeur's men broke through the Chaos lines, Karl was left dying by Otto Glott on the Altar of Sigmar. He became host to Sigmar's holy power as well as the souls of every Emperor and every major human hero too awesome to be forgotten, becoming the true God Emperor of Warhammer Fantasy. His holy visage burned away all Undead, all Chaos, and even the dirt, dust, oil, weeds, the remnants of the plague victims in the quarantined districts that have been rotting away for decades, and so forth until Altdorf (what remained) was a city of light. Deathclaw fought a Chaos Spawn during the battle and has not been seen since.

    During the battle, the forces of Chaos directed most of their efforts against the various temples of the human pantheon. Barring the powers of Sigmar in Valten/Karl Franz and the powers of Morr that were stolen by Nagash, the human pantheon is too diminished to be a factor now.

    Kurt Helborg was killed by Otto Glott in the battle as well.

    Vlad's forces mopped up all the Chaos forces left outside the city. Festus was personally killed by Vlad, who then drank Otto's blood which wasn't a good idea considering he's a nurgle champion forcing him to  off.

    Schwarzhelm, Luthor Huss, plus Valten and Ghal Maraz are MIA from the battle in Altdorf. Nulndon still stands.

    Marienburg, Carroburg, and Altdorf are the three cities destroyed by Nurgle's forces. Altdorf is still in human hands.

    Genevieve Sandrine du Pointe du Lac Dieudonné is now canon, thanks to Drachy being canon again. Somewhere in the Empire, a Wuxia French Lahmian/Blood Dragon Vampire blessed by Sigmar and her epic level Bard hubby are waiting to  up the first Chaos or Nagashi minions who try to leave her inn without leaving a tip.