Storm of Chaos was the second 'big'
GW campaign for
WHFB supposedly based on player-reported results, with the Albion campaign being the first. The idea was that a number of threats were descending on the Warhammer World, much like the End Times. They actually had three separate 'wars' you could commit your forces to, so every army had at least one place where it made sense for them to participate. Morathi had cut deals with a number of Slaanesh-worshiping Hung tribes and taken her pleasure cults south to invade Lustria. The Tomb Kings were starting to expand into the Badlands under Settra. The main event, of course, was that Archaon had gathered the servants of Chaos under his banner, slaughtering a crusade under Arch-Lector Volkmar and resurrecting him to use as a standard on his march. His goal was to take Middenheim and extinguish the flame in the Temple of Ulric, with the Empire and its allies rallying against him under Valten, a blacksmith with a twin-tailed comet birthmark who might or might not have been the reincarnation of Sigmar. The whole thing was supposed to affect the background. A lot of people got excited about the concept...and then Chaos got stomped, badly.
(Partially because the orcs decided to play spoilers instead of act like good little villainous mooks, which DID end up getting reflected in the campaign fluff...)
See, the way it worked was that people would report battles to certain areas, with their wins, losses, and draws affecting who controlled them. Chaos needed to reach Middenheim, but kept getting stalled by the good guys. That didn't work with the grand climactic finale
GW had planned, so...somehow Archaon's host made it to Middenheim, despite the theoretical line holding them waaay far away from it. He started kicking the crap out of Valten in the subsequent inevitable duel, and then Grimgor ambushed him while his ladz plowed into Archaon's bodyguards, headbutted him into semi-consciousness, and wandered off roaring about how he was da best.
There were some definite problems with the campaign. They set the stakes way too high, for one. If Chaos won, that would have absolutely devastated several factions.
GW also didn't really live up to their 'completely player-driven' promise, because that didn't fit with their idea for a climactic end battle. Some of the fluff was a little clumsy. There was no real verification system to prevent cheating.
But, looking back on it...I think people were way too critical. Overall, it was a very cool event with a very cool concept. They put a lot of work into it, coming out with a campaign book you could pick up that had scenarios and alternate army lists with new units (Cult of Pleasure, Grimgor's 'Ard Boyz, Dwarf Slayers...), and, if I remember correctly, they eventually posted the lists and scenarios up for free, too. They gave updates and (I think, they might have only done this with the later Nemesis Crown campaign) mentioned player armies and characters by name if you included them in reports! Best of all, it set the stage for what I consider to be a particularly good era of
WHFB background, which is the one they had for 2nd edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and 7th Edition
WHFB. The northern half of the Empire is a war-torn ruin, but starting to get back to its feet. The dwarfs settled a bunch of grudges. Naggaroth is full of political unrest, with followers of Morathi and followers of Hellebron at each other's throats (moreso than usual). Grimgor's experiencing a serious case of existential ennui (he headbutted Archaon,
what is he supposed to do next?) Valten was killed, seemingly by a skaven assassin - but it's implied that Karl Franz may have done something unsavory to prevent civil war in his devastated Empire. Volkmar and Luthor Huss are at odds over the direction of the Cult of Sigmar. It set the stage for a lot of potential interesting events, and it's a shame they scrapped it when they moved on to 8th edition.
Also, it was way better than the Nemesis Crown, which was the last big 'report in' campaign they did and was...not as good. None of the effort or fanfare that went into Storm of Chaos, apart from the fluff updates, and you can absolutely tell. I almost never see it mentioned anywhere, either nostalgically or critically.
~4100
~1660
