Could The Skaven Be The Dark King’s Army?
So as many of you know, the Emperor is prophesied to become the Dark King, the 5th Chaos God. My question is what kind of armies do you think the Dark King could use? His aspect is Ruin, he represents stagnation and decay, a different kind of decay to nurgle, more similar to a crumbling building than a rotting corpse. He could potentially use a death theme, with skeletons and zombie marines fighting for him.
I think the more interesting choice though would be to draw from Age of Sigmar. The Skaven are one of the most popular factions in Warhammer, but bringing them over to 40K without stepping on my beloved Orks' toes as the wacky comic relief faction with amusing lore and funny dialects is difficult.
In AoS lore the Great Horned Rat, god of the Skaven, became the 5th official Chaos God relatively recently. He also represents ruin, so is ostensibly the AoS equivalent of the Dark King. As such, I thought it would be interesting if the Dark King's armies were a more serious and 40K chaos styled take on the Skaven, still with some of the franchise's signature dark humour but more intimidating than the Skaven of other Warhammer universes
What do you think of this idea? If you disagree, what army would you give the Dark King? If this question has already been answered in canon, please provide me with a source
Posted Dec 3, 2025, 1:25 AM UTC