The Great War Against Chaos

When the northern sky turned black and the hordes of the Wastes came south in their countless thousands, it seemed the world of men might end. The struggle that followed, The Great War Against Chaos, was the gravest trial the Empire of Man had faced since its founding, and it forged a legend that would outlast the age.

The Everchosen Asavar Kul had united the tribes of the north under the banners of the Dark Gods and hurled them against Kislev, drowning that stern land in blood. Praag was besieged and horribly defiled, and the warriors of Chaos pressed on toward the heart of the Empire while its Elector Counts squabbled and its armies fell back in disarray. Refugees choked the roads south, and whole provinces emptied before the advance of the Everchosen's champions. Kislevite boyars and Ungol horse-archers bought precious time with their lives, but could not stem the tide alone.

Salvation came in the person of Magnus, a humble scholar of Nuln touched by holy visions, who preached unity where there had been only division. Rallying the Empire, the dwarfs and even the elves to his cause, Magnus the Pious marched north to lift the siege of Kislev. Battle-wizards of the fledgling Colleges of Magic rode beside him (for he had won a dispensation to wield the very sorcery the Empire had once feared), and before the walls of the city he shattered the Chaos host in a final, cataclysmic battle.

The Great War Against Chaos ended in hard-won victory, but it reshaped the Empire forever: it made Magnus a near-saint, rekindled the faith of Sigmar, and reopened the old alliance with the dwarfen holds. For the full chronicle of that desperate age and the saint who saved it, see the Great War Against Chaos.