Archaon: Subjugation, the Lord of the End Times and Warriors of Chaos

What Update 9.0 changed

• Subjugation of Chaos Legendary Lords — the headline change, detailed below.
• The Lord of the End Times choice after short victory — a permanent switch from conquest to destruction.
• Warriors of Chaos warband recruitment now scales better with campaign turn and difficulty, and the AI unlocks technology-restricted Warriors of Chaos units more reliably.
• Building priorities and province development were adjusted for Warriors of Chaos factions.
• Archaon's campaign AI now expands more purposefully and engages lore-appropriate enemies sooner instead of grinding regional conflicts around his start.
• Daemonic Re-Emergence — defeated daemonic factions (including Legendary Lords) can return to the map after a number of turns, respawning in a province with high corruption. That matters to Archaon specifically: more daemons in the world means more candidates still standing to subjugate later.

Subjugation: collecting Chaos Legendary Lords

Defeat an eligible Chaos Legendary Lord in battle and you can subjugate them. What you get depends on which kind of lord they are:

• Warriors of Chaos lords — their faction is confederated and their settlements come to you directly.
• Mono-god lords (Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh, Tzeentch) — the character joins your roster, but their land is handed to a new vassal faction of that god's culture that is loyal to you. Subjugating Skarbrand, for example, adds him to your faction and gives his regions to a new Khornate vassal.

Who is excluded: Beastmen, Chaos Dwarfs, Daemons of Chaos and Norsca. If your plan was to absorb every Chaos faction on the map, that is the wall.

If a lord dies before you reach them, the game can offer Archaon a dilemma some turns after their demise: fight an army led by that lord, and winning adds them to your roster anyway. Community reports note these armies come with tier 4–5 elites — Chosen and Greater Daemons — so treat the dilemma as a real battle rather than a formality.

Warriors of Chaos fundamentals

Subjugation sits on top of the existing Warriors of Chaos toolkit, and the campaign does not work if you skip it:

• Warband upgrades — your units evolve rather than being replaced. Marauders promote into Warriors, Warriors into Chosen, so the army you recruited at turn 5 is still the core at turn 100.
• Dark Fortresses — the settlement type that matters. Update 9.0 added a batch of new ones, including the Black Pyramid of Nagash, Couronne, Karaz-a-Karak, Khemri, Kislev, Lothern, Naggarond, Skavenblight, the Oak of Ages, Lahmia and Nagashizzar.
• Dark Authority — provides cost reductions and healing, and is the currency behind the faction's recruitment decisions.
• Path to Glory — turns generic characters into daemonic champions.
• Vassalisation — a core tool rather than a side option. With mono-god conquests turning into vassals automatically, your empire is a tributary network whether you planned one or not.
• Marks of Chaos — the roster has almost no shooting, and the marks are how you compensate. The same twenty units can be marked for Khorne for damage, Nurgle to survive missile fire, Tzeentch against magical damage, or Slaanesh for speed and leadership pressure.

A first-30-turns shape

1. Turns 1–8: consolidate your start and build the warband chain. Because units promote rather than get replaced, early recruitment is an investment — do not spam fresh marauders when you could promote the ones fighting for you.
2. Turns 8–20: take a Dark Fortress. Fortresses are the recruitment and garrison backbone of the faction, and 9.0 added more of them specifically to spread that backbone across the map.
3. Turns 20–30: pick your first subjugation target deliberately. Choose the one whose land you actually want, or whose roster fixes a gap — not simply the nearest.
4. Throughout: bank Dark Authority and treat vassals as income, not as decorations.

Turn counts are experience guidelines. The sequencing principle is: fortress first, subjugation second, apocalypse last.

The Lord of the End Times choice

On achieving his short victory, Archaon is offered a choice: continue as normal, or become the Lord of the End Times. The second option:

• Locks out conquest. Neither Archaon nor his vassals can capture further settlements.
• Refocuses the campaign on razing and Devastation. Progress is measured in destroyed land rather than owned land.
• Scales with destruction. His faction receives bonuses based on the number of devastated provinces; community testing reports per-scorched-region bonuses along the lines of reduced upkeep, ward save for his armies and increased income from sacking, and that destroying more than half of a region's settlements can scorch it permanently so no one else can take it.
• Cannot be reversed. Save before you click.

When to take it: if you have already won the map and want the campaign to have a proper ending. When not to: if you still need territory for economic reasons, or if you are playing a long victory you have not finished.

Note the mirror image in the wider game: the Chaos Invasion end game scenario is everyone else fighting this exact Archaon. Reading that page tells you what your own faction looks like from outside.

Battle notes

• Your army will be melee-heavy. Marks and the Warshrine are the two tools that let the same stack handle different threats without re-recruiting.
• Bring an answer to gunlines. Chaos Warhounds and Chaos Furies exist to reach enemy artillery; the Hellcannon is your own siege attacker and your only real ranged damage.
• Use your collected lords. A subjugated Legendary Lord is a second army's worth of leadership, not a trophy. Field them.
• Expect elite enemy stacks at dilemmas — the wipe-out battles come with top-tier units and should be fought manually.

Common mistakes

• Clicking Lord of the End Times on impulse. It is permanent and it removes your ability to expand.
• Subjugating whatever is nearest instead of what your campaign needs.
• Treating mono-god conquests as land. They become vassals, so your economy plan has to account for tribute rather than holdings.
• Ignoring warband promotion and re-recruiting instead, which throws away the faction's main long-term advantage.
• No plan for gunlines. Chaos has little shooting; if your answer to artillery is "walk forward", you will lose to every Dwarf and Empire stack you meet.
• Assuming every Chaos faction can be absorbed. Beastmen, Chaos Dwarfs, Daemons of Chaos and Norsca are off the list.