Awesome / Warhammer: Age of Sigmar

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• The creation myth. Cast adrift through the nothingness, Sigmar clinged to the remains of the world-that-was. He was discovered by Dracothion, the Great Drake, who revived him with his breath!. Sigmar is so badass he can not only survive dragon's breath, but it makes him stronger. Aided by Dracothion, Sigmar proceeded to build a new pantheon entirely from scratch. The experience from building the empire really came in handy, didn't it?
• Khorne absolutely steamrolling everything in the setting's ancient history. Gork and Mork? Couldn't touch him. The Aelves? Bulldozed aside. Sigmar's alliance? Crushed. The best part? During the later Age of Chaos, when all the other gods tried to gang up on him, they STILL couldn't hope to challenge the Blood God, united as they were! He ended up invading their realms in the Realm of Chaos itself. This finally offers definitive proof of what has been stated in the background fluff for both Fantasy as well as 40K - Khorne truly is the mightiest of all the gods. BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!
• However, Khorne gets overshadowed by Tzeentch who ends up being the true mastermind behind much of the events of above, in order to keep Chaos chaotic and further his own plans. JUST AS PLANNED!
• Khorne also gets overshadowed by Sigmar at the end of the Age of Chaos and start of the Age of Sigmar, when Khorne's armies (previously unstoppable even against the other Chaos Gods) get obliterated by the new Stormcast Eternals. He's so angry by being denied his final victory that he releases a scream that bellows throughout all the Mortal Realms, yet over the next centuries his (and the other Chaos Gods') forces are rolled back.
• The fact the aelves somehow managed to capture and neutralise Slaanesh given how utterly unstoppable and omnipotent he/she has been portrayed as in both 40k and Fantasy thus far. Though this may be related to the fact that the four Chaos Gods each send a super champion to fight. Slaanesh, the Deity of Excess and Pleasure, sent the weakest one in a temporary fit of moderation. This apparently bit Slaanesh square back in the ass. Bonus points for how various battletomes describe how Slaanesh has spent the last few thousand years in literally unimaginable, agonizing pain. The best part? At the time, Slaanesh was the most powerful of the four Chaos Gods. If there needed to be any more proof that Chaos is beatable, this is it.
  • However, it should be noted that going off and doing this caused Sigmar's alliance to weaken enough for Chaos to get a much needed foothold due to their absence.
  • It's also worth noting that Slaanesh's minions are still around and causing trouble in their search to find where the Aelves have imprisoned Slaanesh. This could make Slaanesh a particularly nasty kind of Sealed Evil in a Can. Some material from Malign Portents suggests the taking of Aelf souls from Slaanesh is inherently risky.. And that Slaanesh itself is aware of the goings-on around it, no longer glutted on souls.
• The entirety of Sigmar's Tempest is a continuous moment of awesome, the Mortal Realms are basically finished off, ready to be consumed by Chaos, the whole weave of creation is falling apart and the few non-Chaos mortal races are going extinct in an scenario akin to The last chapter of the End Times, then, suddenly, across all the cosmos massive storms roll over Chaos held territories, blasting the corrupted ground apart with electric fury, after the glow fades away hosts of celestial warriors are revealed, the forces of Chaos close upon them, monsters who once were men empowered by gods and allied with rampaging daemons, surely they would crush these interlopers too? To the sudden horror they discover these foes are no mere mortals to butcher, but warriors as empowered as them, The Stormcast Eternals proceed to crush them, oh sure, they too can be bested, but they find they don't die as mortals do, instead they are snatched away into heaven, to be made again just as if they were daemons, the Stormcast Eternals kill and kill until they reach the Gates of Azyr and after an aeon, these portals are opened and the armies of Order pour into the Realms, forcing the hosts of the Dark Gods back. Finally the war for the Mortal Realms has truly begun.
• The Celestant-Prime, the first of the Stormcast Eternals and the most powerful champion of Order apart from Sigmar himself and possibly the spirit of Karl Franz reincarnated, can do something even Sigmar cannot do. He can purify Daemons. He can convert the very essence of Rage, Plague, Lust and Change into energies of the light, and Sigmar can turn that energy into Stormcast Eternals. The Prime can redeem Chaos.
  • It has been confirmed! The Celestant-Prime can redeem souls from the corruption of Chaos with Ghal-Maraz, the Nurglite Chaos Lord Torglug the Despised being the first Champion of Chaos to be redeemed and added to the ranks of the Stormcast Eternals, as Tornus the Redeemed of the Hallowed Knights.
  • One instance from the Stormcast Battletome details the attempts to take Black Chasm Bridge; eleven Stormhosts had failed previously. With the arrival of the Celestant-Prime, the way was cleared quickly.
  • The Celestant-Prime killstreak is finally ended by Lady Olynder, Mortar of Grief, she throws what is basically an entropic grenade to his face, and not even the celestial energies of Sigmar's top warrior could overcome so much Shyshian concentrated power specifically geared to bring him down, making Ghal-Maraz go through his first reforging ever.
• The Seraphon (Lizardmen) have taken a million levels in badass and become Daemons of Order, Azyr magic forming their very bodies, while the Starseers (Slann) have decided to take advantage of Chaos' greatest weakness; its inability to learn from its mistakes, really to learn anything at all. With their ability to see everything that goes on in the Mortal Realms, something even Tzeentch can't do, the Seraphon have essentially turned the entire Realmgate Wars into a chess match between them and the Dark Gods.
  • During one battle against Chaos "a mummified Slann with a golden mask that wielded the powers of a god and whose soul is more ancient than the first Daemons rained down meteors from the sky using his mind." And as that happened "the stars re-arranged themselves into the grinning face of a frog with red eyes.". In other words: Lord Kroak is back, baby.
  • During another battle against Chaos a horde of Nurglite warriors accidentally opened a Realmgate into the Seraphon's realm rather than Nurgle's, and in the ensuing massacre the Warlord managed to kill one of the rampaging Order Daemons, only for the Azyr magic it was formed of to remove Nurgle's taint from him, rendering him killable.
    • While this was happening a lone Skaven watched the battle and "was plagued by horrific nightmares of Lustria, Skaven being ritually sacrificed and all the horror the Lizardmen inflicted on the Ratmen through the ages." This is because during the End Times the Horned Rat went up against Sotek the Snake God and was beaten down so completely that even now the Skaven are utterly horrified by just the sight of the Seraphon.
• At one point during The Realmgate Wars book series, a Lord-Celestant named Gardus draws a Great Unclean One into the Realm of Chaos itself. No Eternal has ever been there, and Sigmar has no presence there. Even more awesome? He lives. And comes back.
• The Hunt for Nagash audio-drama series sees the Hallowed Knights Warrior-Chamber, "The Bullhearts", dispatched to Shyish to attempt to recruit Nagash to Sigmar's side for the Realmgate Wars. Needless to say, it goes badly. Nagash refuses any kind of deal with Sigmar and kills all of the Stormcast remaining aside from Lord-Celestant Tarsus Bullheart, but also prevents their souls from returning to Azyr. Knowing what he has to do, Tarsus launches the Azyrite hammers from his cloak and catches Nagash off-guard, actually knocking the God of the Dead on his ass, allowing his brothers to escape while he remains trapped. And how does he go out? Charging head first into an extremely pissed-off Nagash with no fear. Sigmar would be proud.
  • Another rather awesome moment is that despite being sold out by Mannfred von Carstein in those final moments, Tarsus still gives Mannfred a chance to escape Nagash's wrath as repayment for the genuine help the Vampire actually did give them in their journey across Shyish. This event actually made Mannfred feel guilty after countless aeons.
• And a nice slice of Awesome for you, the players, to experience, is the Battleplan Clash of Titans in the 1st Edition Battletome: Everchosen. You take two of the big God models (in-story, this is done with Nagash and Archaon) and they duke it out, complete with armies fighting all around them and them using a very cinematic system to plan their moves. The focus is entirely on them, and it is infinitely awesome to have these two duke it out.
• The novel Plague Garden has one for Gardus and the Hallowed Knights, after being forced to make a rescue mission on Nurgle's Realm of Chaos they end in the Manse of Grandfather himself, while he is about to snatch and consume Gardus' band once and for all, they finally discorporate into lightning which races back to Azyr, effectively hurting Nurgle's essence, sure they die and have to go through the reforging and is but a scratch for Nurgle, but to manage to directly hurt one of the Chaos Gods is a feat few entities in Warhammer meta-setting can make a claim for, let alone tell the tale.
• The Kharadron Overlords have an special one from an ideological and social point of view, during the Age of Chaos they faced two choices, either fight to the bitter end in their mountains strongholds after the Gates of Azyr closed or submit to the forces of Chaos like their distant ancestors from the world-that-was. They chose another path, they took to the skies foregoing their underground existence, where in the past ancestry and grudges were all that mattered now only merit and profit will decide who was in charge, where gods and magic had failed miserably science and logic would lead the way to a new tomorrow, the Kharadron Overlords not only survived but thrived while most of the Realm of Chamon was falling apart under the assault of the Dark Gods. Upon the return of Sigmar they were ready to ally themselves with the forces of Order, giving the Alliance important technological firepower and mobility, at a reasonable cost of course.
• Nagash is making a comeback after over two years of Chaos being the most prominent threat of the game; Kicked off with a bunch of well-written and acted mini-videos and a brand new website, Malign Portents is story-based event with the Lord of Undeath seemingly finalising the construction of a new Black Pyramid, and the other alliances racing to stop his machinations. That GW have already stated 2018 is going to be a good year for Death players suggests they're already too late.
  • Him making a ritual which effectively changed the nature of magic in the Cosmos, short of 40k's Webway Network this is probably the largest attempt at cosmological engineering in any Games Workshop setting, while the ritual failed the Undying King still managed to keep it under enough control to reap the benefits, all of this while facing all the Chaos Gods and his former Pantheon's allies, the end result was a complete multiversal cataclysm, with untold ghosts suddenly infesting the realms, unending spells rampaging across reality and ancient sources of power revealed to everyone.
  • Nagash's managed to alter the polarity of Shysh, think about it, an almost infinite dimension composed of untold underworlds and afterlives, they are now being consumed by the Shysh Nadir, a point of utter annihilation only Nagash could tap for power, and even him must pull off after a time. And to cherrytap all of this? Nagash started as a mortal man, that's a long way from the Khemrian priest who wanted to achieve immortality.
• The Soul Wars trailer. A lone Stormcast faces down a horde of Nighthaunts, seemingly overwhelming odds. In the background, a storm is brewing. Lightning strikes, and you know what that means...
  • In the novel there is at the end of the story a confrontation between Sigmar and Nagash, and both of them are totally pissed off with the other, revealing their full divine nature, each less an individual and more a force of creation, it becomes evident in that single scene why both managed to give Chaos a run for their money and why the Dark Gods only got the upper hand by making them go separate ways.
    • And their meeting? It was engineered by Arkhan, so they can let off some steam and come to their senses, while it didn't work it was still quite a feat to manipulate both gods into such a situation, also bonus points to Arkhan for pointing out that the only way for the Mortal Realms to win against Chaos would be a new alliance between Order and Death. Further bonus points to Arkhan pulling this while making Nagash think Arkhan is fanatically dedicated to him while actually being fully aware since his resurrection in the Mortal Realms and keeping this illusion.
• As of the 2019 Chaos Battletome: Hedonaties of Slaanesh, the Dark Prince has managed to use the imperfections in his prison, caused by Morathi's duplicity, to gather enough information to shatter a number of the chains keeping him confined, and kept this fact hidden from the Aelven gods with his illusions.
• The events of Broken Realms; across the three books available as of April 2021, Morathi has risen to godhood by deliberately using the situation with Slaanesh to her advantage, managing to secure the city of Anvilgard as her own in the face of Stormcast retaliation. Slaanesh itself has managed to slip a piece of itself known as the Newborn back into the Mortal Realms, to the delight of its followers (they promptly die without accomplishing anything not long after). Teclis has struck down Nagash and seemingly killed the God of Death, while the Light of Eltharion has similarly dispatched Arkhan, ending the Soul Wars and putting a stop to the disruption of magic caused by the Shyish Nadir.... but not before Nagash severely wounded Teclis. Elsewhere Be'lakor has carried out a plot that has darkened the skies of the Mortal Realms, stopping the Stormcast Eternals' souls from being reforged and actively torturing them, before the First Daemon Prince is barely driven off in confrontation with the forces of Order. And elsewhere, Destruction stirs as the monstrous god Kragnos is about to be freed...
• Broken Realms: Kragnos contained large victories for the relative mundanes of the Cities of Sigmar, who had spent most of the lore playing second-banana to the Stormcast. Excelsis not only beats back a large Destruction invasion in the tens of thousands, they do so while also being attacked from within by the Skaven and having Chaos cults trying to destroy the city in the meantime. Caught between three attacks each of whom could have felled most other states, the Excelsians come out ahead in a big way, shattering Kragnos's army and killing the aforementioned Synessa and Dexcessa before they could manage to do anything. Be'lakor insults the twins over a terrible first showing.
• Lord Kroak's new model counts as a moment of awesome by itself. Kroak is the most powerful wizard on the Fantasy side of Warhammer and willing himself back to life and countless eons has, if anything, only strengthened him. He plays Kragnos like a fiddle and breaks the siege of Excelsis.
• The story of Tornus, a protagonist in several of the Stormcast Eternal-centric novels. In his mortal life, he fell to the corruption of Chaos and became a powerful champion of Nurgle known as Torglug the Despised, who rampaged across Ghyran, the Realm of Life, committing such atrocities as devastating the empire of the Root-Kings, a race of woodworking, tree-dwelling duardin. When he faced off against the Celestant-Prime, Torglug fell... but not to simply death. Instead, the Celestant-Prime purified Tornus' soul, wresting him away from Chaos and causing him to be reborn as a Stormcast Eternal. A similar feat has never been seen in the canon of Warhammer Fantasy or Warhammer 40,000.
• A small moment from the novel Plague Garden. Long story short, Tornus is part of an expedition deep into the daemonic Garden of Nurgle. In one of the deepest of the garden's seven tiers, his old incarnation as Torglug manifests as an Enemy Without, seeking to slay Tornus and return to life. Part of the expedition is Gatrog; a Chaos Champion of Nurgle, and a member of the Order of the Fly, a Nurglish warband who think of themselves as a twisted form a knightly brotherhood. Gatrog had been spared death at Tornus' hand, who believed there was some capacity for redemption in the Nurglite knight, and had sworn an oath to assist the Stormcast Eternals in their delve into the garden. During the battle, Torglug frees Gatrog and naturally expects the Nurglite knight to come to his aid. Instead, just as Torglug is about to finish off Tornus, a voice calls out from behind him, denying him his victory. Turning, Torglug laughs to see that Gatrog has picked up a Stormcast runeblade and is brandishing it to battle Torglug, and demands to know what Gatrog is thinking. Gatrog has a simple reply:
  Gatrog: "I am Lord-Duke of Festerfane. And I swore an oath."
  • Then, unflinching even as the holy enchantments on the blade burns his tainted flesh, Gatrog steps forward and skewers Torglug, who roars in pain and cuts the Nurglite knight down. Still, it gives Tornus the opening he needs to banish the Nurglite champion's shade. Then Tornus turns to the dying Gatrog, and demands to know why he turned on his former ally, for Gatrog and Torglug had fought together long ago. Gatrog simply laughs, and states that he swore an oath. When Tornus pushes for more than that, Gatrog simply shrugs and suggests that maybe he wanted to pay his debt. Before dying, he has one last thing to say:
  Gatrog: "I am a true knight, Torglug. That is all I ever wished to be..."