Hello,

Recently I had tried to explain that Abbadon is not an incompetent commander and in fact is the most dangerous individual in the galaxy. His achievements arguably are greater than one's of the Emperor like uniting Chaos, killing few Primarchs and all that while refusing to be a servant to any Chaos god in return. Something that even Horus did not managed to. I was showing how each Black Crusade achieved its goal, how Abbadon only grew in power and how cunning he was in choosing not to go all out against Imperium, but space himself through 13'th Crusades and slowly increase might of his forces while Imperium only decayed.

I do realize that lore was changed and issues with models only made it force, but ignoring more recent changes it would be like thinking that Squats are still official part of w40k. Yet, they delude themselves into thinking that they are right. That they do follow official lore and I'm wrong then every example in the lore speaks the opposite.


One of more recent examples of IG fanboyism was in Battlefleet Gothic Armada video game where chaos is portrayed like saturday cartoon villains, creaming empty threats and having nothing relevant to say. Worse yet, they do not shower why Chaos is so enticing and how they are ultimately right. Even though, expecting for IG fanboy to understand why Chaos is ultimately right about this universe and nature of humanity is like asking Christian to use its reason. It is pointless since these two groups long forgotten how to think for themselves. Their beliefs are now that defines them and that makes them, them. Questioning that they believe is like question their own inherent worth as human beings.


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So, I do want to know why it is so hard to accept that Abbadon is in fact extremely competent individual. It is only natural and logical to everyone who knows at least basic gak about Chaos. Chaos do not tolerate weakness. Nuff said...

I do realize that it might tickle a lot of fanboys in a wrong way or I might appear arrogant, but I'm way beyond such mortal concerns. I know that I'm right. I was forced to check wikis far too many times and I read far too much of w40k lore in order to know that I'm right in this.

So, I do want to know why it is so hard to accept that Abbadon is in fact extremely competent individual. It is only natural and logical to everyone who knows at least basic gak about Chaos. Chaos do not tolerate weakness. Nuff said...

Because the problem is for the longest time, the whole "Crusades have goals!" Was not a major thing for each Black Crusade from the beginning and as a result it's gotten stuck in.

Of course there's other problems that tend to stick even with recent stuff, like people wondering why Ultramarines are pushed so hard in the Space Marine Codex (Because it was originally Codex: Ultramarines), Grey Knights killing Sisters of Battle for a blood ritual (When they used to slaughter entire worlds that knew of them or daemons before without care of the populace)..

It's just not going to change, people are going to constantly get themselves over various subjects, it doesn't help that much of this tends to stem from /tg/ and 1d4chan.

One of more recent examples of IG fanboyism was in Battlefleet Gothic Armada video game where chaos is portrayed like saturday cartoon villains, creaming empty threats and having nothing relevant to say.

Considering that Battle Fleet Gothics campaign is based on.. Well Battle Fleet Gothic, which was introduced back in 3rd edition, also known as the "Grimmest GrimDark version" where Chaos really WAS like that... Remember that this edition when Alpha Legion was more using Cultists because they were more like suicide bombing terrorists rather then plotters and elaborate scheme makers they've become today.

He hasn't united Chaos, to my knowledge he hasn't killed any Primarchs and refusing to serve Chaos is no big deal. Almost all Eldar and Space Marines do that. Big whoop.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

So, I do want to know why it is so hard to accept that Abbadon is in fact extremely competent individual. It is only natural and logical to everyone who knows at least basic gak about Chaos. Chaos do not tolerate weakness. Nuff said...

Because the problem is for the longest time, the whole "Crusades have goals!" Was not a major thing for each Black Crusade from the beginning and as a result it's gotten stuck in.

Of course there's other problems that tend to stick even with recent stuff, like people wondering why Ultramarines are pushed so hard in the Space Marine Codex (Because it was originally Codex: Ultramarines), Grey Knights killing Sisters of Battle for a blood ritual (When they used to slaughter entire worlds that knew of them or daemons before without care of the populace)..

It's just not going to change, people are going to constantly get themselves over various subjects, it doesn't help that much of this tends to stem from /tg/ and 1d4chan.

^This.

Originally the black crusades were all failed attempts to attack the imperium, then GW realised that their biggest bad guy had never actually accomplished anything so they changed the black crusades to make it seem as though Abaddon succeeded in finding a relic or testing the imperiums defences.

pm713 wrote:
He hasn't united Chaos, to my knowledge he hasn't killed any Primarchs and refusing to serve Chaos is no big deal. Almost all Eldar and Space Marines do that. Big whoop.

Refusing to serve, whilst benefitting from them, is unique to Abbadon. Eldar and imperial marines aren't carrying any marks of chaos. I think the unity comes from the fact that they all support him, so he is a warrior they are all agreed upon who will cause the most, well, chaos.

The main issue I think is that he's been around for 18 years without any story progression. It makes him seem like a stagnant threat, rather than an imminent one. Hopefully the black crusade supplements and likely new model will restore him to his intended status.

IIRC, he killed a clone of Horus. Does that count as a Primarch ?

he killed Sigismund, that's not a Primarch but still that dude was a badass.

really, the thing is that Chaos has for a long time BEEN treated like bumbling 80s saturday morning cartoon villains, like your Cobra Commander or Megatron who is built up to be this supreme badass that threatens the world, only to have their crazy schemes (which get crazier) easily thwarted by the good guys time and time again after basically accomplishing nothing.

 Ernestas wrote:
Hello,

Even though, expecting for IG fanboy to understand why Chaos is ultimately right about this universe and nature of humanity is like asking Christian to use its reason. It is pointless since these two groups long forgotten how to think for themselves. Their beliefs are now that defines them and that makes them, them. Questioning that they believe is like question their own inherent worth as human beings.


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So, I do want to know why it is so hard to accept that Abbadon is in fact extremely competent individual. It is only natural and logical to everyone who knows at least basic gak about Chaos. Chaos do not tolerate weakness. Nuff said...

I do realize that it might tickle a lot of fanboys in a wrong way or I might appear arrogant, but I'm way beyond such mortal concerns. I know that I'm right. I was forced to check wikis far too many times and I read far too much of w40k lore in order to know that I'm right in this.

You're taking this a bit too serious bud. People take the piss on Abaddon because it's funny. He's tried so hard, but in the end always gets foiled by the heroes and does the "If it weren't for you meddling kids!" thing. Chill, and watch that edge man.

 Ernestas wrote:
but I'm way beyond such mortal concerns.

Whoa

 toasteroven wrote:

 Ernestas wrote:
but I'm way beyond such mortal concerns.

Whoa

Smells like Heresy.

WayneTheGame wrote:
really, the thing is that Chaos has for a long time BEEN treated like bumbling 80s saturday morning cartoon villains, like your Cobra Commander or Megatron who is built up to be this supreme badass that threatens the world, only to have their crazy schemes (which get crazier) easily thwarted by the good guys time and time again after basically accomplishing nothing.

This. Both Chaos and Imperial fluff portrays Chaos as the ultimate deadly threat, but this hasn't really been supported anywhere. If anything Imperial purges of suspected Chaotic influence have death tolls several orders of magnitude higher than anything Abaddon has ever accomplished. He's not the biggest enemy of mankind, the IoM itself is.

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The reason nobody is scared of Failbaddon is because he has no arms.

His old metal model had the arms fall off so much I think I've seen them attached exactly one time in real life.

Also, the lore really reeks of a desperate "I meant to do that guys! Honest!" vibe. If you've ever worked with someone who gives lots of excuses, failbaddon is annoyingly similar due to how his lore is treated.

You can claim this was your plan all you want bob, I still don't believe your screw up is helping us, and especially dont believe it's part of some master plan.

I mean look at his name! HE HAS "BAD" IN HIS NAME! Thatd be like an Ultramarines character named Failius Maximus.

I don't accept the changed lore regarding Abigail. He's going to continue being a failure in my eyes, plus that's what the gods want. They want continuing chaos, not a successful campaign. Get a cocky guy that thinks he came do it and you got yourself what you need.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I mean look at his name! HE HAS "BAD" IN HIS NAME! Thatd be like an Ultramarines character named Failius Maximus.

To be fair, that is not because he is bad in general, his fellow captains just felt he was really bad at donning his armour.

Hence a bad don.

Abbadon's so fat he needed a battle barge just to carry his ass.

I think TVTropes summed this up pretty well.

If Abaddon's end goal is to get to Terra and that each Crusade before the 13th had accomplished it's goal of doing whatever Abaddon wanted, then there's no point in the buildup of them ramming the Cadian Gates; they clearly had some way of sneaking out and back to the Eye without going through that bullcrap.

Like I said in the "Why isn't Kharn a Daemon Prince" thread, this is due to the original writers lacking foresight in addition to not knowing the implications of what they're doing. Abaddon is basically Archaon IN SPACE but Archaon differs from Abaddon in that he's a relatively new champion of Chaos, while Abaddon inherited the title shortly after Horus bit the dust some 10k years ago. This is a huge difference in that the world at large doesn't know about Archaon prior to the "present" of the story and so he can have a ton of minor victories building up to his greatest achievements (and indeed his "black crusade" only had one iteration and it blew up the world).

The other issue with Abaddon is that his goals go directly against what he's been doing for the past 10k years. Asdrubael Vect, arguably the only other villain as old as him, only has survival (and being a bigger dick than Eldrad) as his primary motivation, thus it's understandable that he's basically done jack for the same amount of time; maintaining status quo in Commoragh while he's top dog is basically his end goal. Abaddon's characterization would have gone a lot better if they had implied he spent the last 10k years uniting Chaos. While that sounds like an even greater failure, it's stated numerous times that this has never been done before. Instead it sounds like whenever chaos needs uniting, he just calls the Power Puff Girls hotline and has an army ready, then gets beaten back to the warp for the next pre-13th try.

Sadly when I view Chaos I view them as how the Deceptions are betrayed in Transformers. Only a few characters but the rest faceless being to look bad ass and be numerous only to loose and not be taken seriously.

Basically like the someone said, Cobra Commander and his whelps or more like Star Wars Storm Troopers, look cool but can't hit the side of a barn.

Davor wrote:
Sadly when I view Chaos I view them as how the Deceptions are betrayed in Transformers. Only a few characters but the rest faceless being to look bad ass and be numerous only to loose and not be taken seriously.

Basically like the someone said, Cobra Commander and his whelps or more like Star Wars Storm Troopers, look cool but can't hit the side of a barn.

Yes. That's probably the BIGGEST issue I have with Chaos in general. In the fluff, the mere HINT of a Chaos taint gets a world blown up, or gets its population forcibly sterilized and/or sent to to a concentration camp the rest of their life. The First War for Armageddon had basically all the regiments that took part sterilized and then sent off to the corners of space; IIRC they were going to just kill them, and it took Logan Grimnar basically saying if they did that, he'd butcher them all for them to back down, just because they fought against Chaos and saw daemons and saw a Daemon Primarch. Millions were going to be executed, and in the end got basically shunted off to die in some far reach of space, just for the sheer chance that someone was exposed to corruption by Chaos; how's that for a reward for fighting against supernatural horrors. About the only thing besides Chaos that warrants an Exterminatus is the Tyranids.

That's the big problem. Chaos is the ultimate enemy, the foil to Mankind, but in the game? They're a bad joke. The fact that Abaddon has a meme and is essentially stigmatized as being a loser when he's in the fluff supposed to be the Antichrist and the guy who is supposed to finally complete Horus' goal and overthrow mankind speaks volumes.

When a bad guy doesn't succeed in blowing up earth and all the heroes on it, it doesn't make him incompetent it just makes him the bad guy. If you don't like this philosophy then stop watching batman.


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 MrMoustaffa wrote:

His old metal model had the arms fall off so much I think I've seen them attached exactly one time in real life.

I wonder how many of the kids joking around with this have ACTUALLY ever put a metal model together. I don't know about you guys but abandon isn't even in my top 10 of hard models to put together. There is noting hard about him, its just 2 hands with more than enough space to pin or magnetize them.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

If Abaddon's end goal is to get to Terra and that each Crusade before the 13th had accomplished it's goal of doing whatever Abaddon wanted, then there's no point in the buildup of them ramming the Cadian Gates; they clearly had some way of sneaking out and back to the Eye without going through that bullcrap.

Yes, Abaddon can get out of the Eye of Terror other than through the Cadian Gate. However he doesn't seem to be able to bring all of his forces through with him. The Imperium is militarily stronger than Abaddon and doesn't have the level of disunity as Chaos does. Abaddon's plan is to tear open the Cadian Gate and spread the Eye of Terror in a Crimson Path. This requires the Gate to be sundered. It does make sense.

Also Abaddon "inherited" a crippled Legion and remade into the most powerful one. Every time he sally's out in force he has to unite a bunch of ambitious and backstabbing superhumans. It's not as if he has it easy.

Davor wrote:Basically like the someone said, Cobra Commander and his whelps or more like Star Wars Storm Troopers, look cool but can't hit the side of a barn.

If Star Wars Stromtroopers are bad how much worse does that make the rebel soldiers? They get hammered by Stormtroopers.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

If Abaddon's end goal is to get to Terra and that each Crusade before the 13th had accomplished it's goal of doing whatever Abaddon wanted, then there's no point in the buildup of them ramming the Cadian Gates; they clearly had some way of sneaking out and back to the Eye without going through that bullcrap.

Yes, Abaddon can get out of the Eye of Terror other than through the Cadian Gate. However he doesn't seem to be able to bring all of his forces through with him. The Imperium is militarily stronger than Abaddon and doesn't have the level of disunity as Chaos does. Abaddon's plan is to tear open the Cadian Gate and spread the Eye of Terror in a Crimson Path. This requires the Gate to be sundered. It does make sense.

Also Abaddon "inherited" a crippled Legion and remade into the most powerful one. Every time he sally's out in force he has to unite a bunch of ambitious and backstabbing superhumans. It's not as if he has it easy.

Davor wrote:Basically like the someone said, Cobra Commander and his whelps or more like Star Wars Storm Troopers, look cool but can't hit the side of a barn.

If Star Wars Stromtroopers are bad how much worse does that make the rebel soldiers? They get hammered by Stormtroopers.

And let's not forget the numerous hits Stormtroopers got while firing from the hip.

Well, thank you for explaining it. I just take lore too seriously and I'm irritated by most of w40k fans who take positions of: ''chaos wtf? They are are failures, 13'th crusades and got their asses beaten''. I tend to look at w40k as seriously as possible, trying to see all the hints which writers throw at us and want it to as far as possible from anime bs of one individual pwning entire armies and can only be beaten by another even more badass character.

 Happyjew wrote:

And let's not forget the numerous hits Stormtroopers got while firing from the hip.

Whilst charging through a doorway with no cover at rebel troopers set up in cover no less.

Ernestas wrote:Well, thank you for explaining it. I just take lore too seriously and I'm irritated by most of w40k fans who take positions of: ''chaos wtf? They are are failures, 13'th crusades and got their asses beaten''. I tend to look at w40k as seriously as possible, trying to see all the hints which writers throw at us and want it to as far as possible from anime bs of one individual pwning entire armies and can only be beaten by another even more badass character.

40K started as satire so I'd be wary of taking it too seriously. The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer is not something to be read in a serious manner as an example.

And with that they had done to warhammer fantasy universe, end times are truly near! I'm truly afraid that bad thought out fan fiction level of bs they are going to produce next.


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Well, in Abbadon's defense, he has to unite not disciplined legions with clear hierarchy, but warbands. He also does not have surprise of ''It is heresy bitches'' and wipe out vast portions of loyal space marines within a simple massacre. Nor any of the Primarchs would ever follow a mere space marine. In addition, he is dealing with selfish individuals at best, at worst lunatics who are ready to split each other's head at mere provocation with additionally having a nice little trait of each chaos god follower attacking other specific God on sight. Like leaving berserker and demonette in the same room is not a winning combination...

pm713 wrote:
and refusing to serve Chaos is no big deal. Almost all Eldar and Space Marines do that.

Ahahah good one you are such a joker ^^.
It's like half the marines serves Chaos.
Fair for Eldar though.

Because the last time i faced him on tabletop he died from a bubblechaka shot made by a grot.

 koooaei wrote:
Because the last time i faced him on tabletop he died from a bubblechaka shot made by a grot.

Whut.... I have so many questions about this "bubblechaka"

Well, you will never ever achieve persuading anyone through hammering your own fanboy message down "OMG ABBADONZ SO BADASS U FOOLZ" and arguing as if it were some real life, mattering issue... To be honest the worst fanboy between you and the one you call such... is you. Abaddon is just here to serv as a punching ball for imperial forces whose purpose is to play the whole galaxy's punching ball in return, no further. As far as the character, his being a great individual has, Under no circumstances, aims nor profits in bereaving other factions and especially the most importants one as orks and imperium, to be represented by their own ones.

You did notice your arrogance, you though missed your ridiculous misunderstanding of the case.

ALTHOUGH, even if none of the matter you evoked is envolved, 40k community does struggle with the problem of being immature people invaded.

 koooaei wrote:
Because the last time i faced him on tabletop he died from a bubblechaka shot made by a grot.

This is actually a fascinating point about Abigail. Theoretically he has good stuff going on for him:
1. T5 plus EW
2. A S8 AP3 shredding weapon or a S5 AP2 weapon that adds about 3-4 attacks per turn
3. I6 means you go before lots of dudes

However, we then incorporate his price tag of 265. Then we realize that if he's the Warlord he's stuck with a very specific Warlord trait. Then we realize that he can't get anywhere without being slingshot into combat.

Look at Typhus for comparison. He is tougher to anything that doesn't cause ID, and actually enhances your army by giving you Plague Marines instead of Garbage Marines (both Vanilla and Chosen) and makes your Cultists better. He gets a VERY awesome weapon that can cause ID (needs warp charges of course) but is still S6 and lets him hit around 6-7 times compared to Abigail's 8-9 times. Then he is 35 points cheaper, which is enough for two Plasma Guns or three Melta Guns.

So there is the realization he isn't that durable for the price. Smashfucker is around the same price and has more mobility to boot.

 mrhappyface wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

So, I do want to know why it is so hard to accept that Abbadon is in fact extremely competent individual. It is only natural and logical to everyone who knows at least basic gak about Chaos. Chaos do not tolerate weakness. Nuff said...

Because the problem is for the longest time, the whole "Crusades have goals!" Was not a major thing for each Black Crusade from the beginning and as a result it's gotten stuck in.

Of course there's other problems that tend to stick even with recent stuff, like people wondering why Ultramarines are pushed so hard in the Space Marine Codex (Because it was originally Codex: Ultramarines), Grey Knights killing Sisters of Battle for a blood ritual (When they used to slaughter entire worlds that knew of them or daemons before without care of the populace)..

It's just not going to change, people are going to constantly get themselves over various subjects, it doesn't help that much of this tends to stem from /tg/ and 1d4chan.

^This.

Originally the black crusades were all failed attempts to attack the imperium, then GW realised that their biggest bad guy had never actually accomplished anything so they changed the black crusades to make it seem as though Abaddon succeeded in finding a relic or testing the imperiums defences.

This is really interesting. Didn't realise Abaddon's Black Crusades predated the 2nd ed codex.

nareik wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

So, I do want to know why it is so hard to accept that Abbadon is in fact extremely competent individual. It is only natural and logical to everyone who knows at least basic gak about Chaos. Chaos do not tolerate weakness. Nuff said...

Because the problem is for the longest time, the whole "Crusades have goals!" Was not a major thing for each Black Crusade from the beginning and as a result it's gotten stuck in.

Of course there's other problems that tend to stick even with recent stuff, like people wondering why Ultramarines are pushed so hard in the Space Marine Codex (Because it was originally Codex: Ultramarines), Grey Knights killing Sisters of Battle for a blood ritual (When they used to slaughter entire worlds that knew of them or daemons before without care of the populace)..

It's just not going to change, people are going to constantly get themselves over various subjects, it doesn't help that much of this tends to stem from /tg/ and 1d4chan.

^This.

Originally the black crusades were all failed attempts to attack the imperium, then GW realised that their biggest bad guy had never actually accomplished anything so they changed the black crusades to make it seem as though Abaddon succeeded in finding a relic or testing the imperiums defences.

This is really interesting. Didn't realise Abaddon's Black Crusades predated the 2nd ed codex.

Me either. Even in 2nd the Black Crusades were for specific goals, not just "try to conquer the Imperium". So I'm not even really sure where this "Failbaddon" meme came from, because as far back as I can recall, every Black Crusade (and a lot were not fleshed out at that time) were basically diversions while Abaddon went out and got some phat lewtz for later. They were never "drat and double drat I'll get you marines next time!" failures.

My view of him has changed a ton since reading Talon of Horus, it really makes him and the Black Legion seem awesome.

 Ernestas wrote:
I hope you do realize that I'm here to ask questions and not to convince anybody. I already know my gak and I know that fanboys are beyond reason, I can show them all the facts to the contrary and they still be reduced to ''chaos sucks'' level. They cannot reason, they cannot improve and I do not have to respect them. If you think like that and you think that the lore supports your position then you are simply wrong. Extremely wrong and it is not up to me to educate you. I'm tired of being insulted by morrons who could not figure out the basic facts about w40k universe and yet they presume to know better despite that I point case after case proving it to be wrong.

That's pretty dang rude there. You might get better results from people if you didn't use words like that.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

If Abaddon's end goal is to get to Terra and that each Crusade before the 13th had accomplished it's goal of doing whatever Abaddon wanted, then there's no point in the buildup of them ramming the Cadian Gates; they clearly had some way of sneaking out and back to the Eye without going through that bullcrap.

Yes, Abaddon can get out of the Eye of Terror other than through the Cadian Gate. However he doesn't seem to be able to bring all of his forces through with him. The Imperium is militarily stronger than Abaddon and doesn't have the level of disunity as Chaos does. Abaddon's plan is to tear open the Cadian Gate and spread the Eye of Terror in a Crimson Path. This requires the Gate to be sundered. It does make sense.

Also Abaddon "inherited" a crippled Legion and remade into the most powerful one. Every time he sally's out in force he has to unite a bunch of ambitious and backstabbing superhumans. It's not as if he has it easy.

See this is exactly the "Voodoo Shark" effect where the attempt at explaining it just creates more questions that it answers:

If Abaddon can get out of the Eye of Terror at all without much interference, why doesn't he just fortify his escape route and slowly pour his troops into realspace from there? Also his entire schtick is that he can unite chaos like no other, yet he commonly gets backstabbed or betrayed at some point, which kinda goes against that characterization.

All of these do in a sense explain it, but it's going in a roundabout way of doing so that not only makes the narrative clunky but also makes it seem convoluted at times. Instead there's two ways I could have seen it play out without much explaining:

1.) The other 12 crusades weren't Abaddon's idea; they were led by other random Black Legion chaos lords and "Black Crusade" is just a generic term for any random lord to go on a galactic rampage. Abaddon would be the 13th to do this, but it would be his first attempt. This would lend some weight to it because it would mean that, prior to this, Abaddon hasn't taken center stage at all and this is where he truly shows off his stuff.

2.) the other 12 crusades were fetch quests and Abaddon's greater goal was to gain the favour of various legions and gods, much like the trials Archaon had to go through to earn the title of Everchosen. This would actually be a logical progression as each of Abaddon's 12 crusades would instead be a piece of the greater whole of the 13th, showing that he's a long-time schemer like Palpatine or Teridax. I'm pretty sure this was what the Writers were going for considering the 1st Black Crusade had them actually realizing that the Eye was the portal to realspace and the 12th had Abaddon claim the Blackstone Fortress (rather than some of the other ones that made it seem like Abaddon just went out for a day of shopping for loyalist corpses).

...Well, scraping past the insults and the piles and piles of irony, there isn't a 'right' or 'wrong' anwser to questions like 'is Abaddon competent?'.

The lore changes frequently and unevenly, so some people may be working off older iterations of the lore. Vast amounts of the lore is written to push 'army X is awesome' over any idea of consistency, so figuring out what's actually going on is always pretty subjective. There isn't a 'right' or 'wrong' answer to whether Abaddon is competent, and people who answer one way aren't any dumber or less rational than people who answer the other.

JNAProductions wrote:

 Ernestas wrote:
I hope you do realize that I'm here to ask questions and not to convince anybody. I already know my gak and I know that fanboys are beyond reason, I can show them all the facts to the contrary and they still be reduced to ''chaos sucks'' level. They cannot reason, they cannot improve and I do not have to respect them. If you think like that and you think that the lore supports your position then you are simply wrong. Extremely wrong and it is not up to me to educate you. I'm tired of being insulted by morrons who could not figure out the basic facts about w40k universe and yet they presume to know better despite that I point case after case proving it to be wrong.

That's pretty dang rude there. You might get better results from people if you didn't use words like that.

Well, my apologies. Just ignore my arrogance and do not provoke me and it will get better over time. I'm warm person and I do explain in depth of why I think so, but I'm really tired of fools who cannot even read that I write and yet they assume to know better.

 Ernestas wrote:
That's pretty dang rude there. You might get better results from people if you didn't use words like that.

Well, my apologies. Just ignore my arrogance and do not provoke me and it will get better over time. I'm warm person and I do explain in depth of why I think so, but I'm really tired of fools who cannot even read that I write and yet they assume to know better.

text removed.

Reds8n

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
This would actually be a logical progression as each of Abaddon's 12 crusades would instead be a piece of the greater whole of the 13th, showing that he's a long-time schemer like Palpatine or Teridax

Teridax is what Abaddon wishes he was. I like him a lot more, but then Teridax has a luxury of a universe with a lot more shades of grey, white and black.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Teridax is what Abaddon wishes he was. I like him a lot more, but then Teridax has a luxury of a universe with a lot more shades of grey, white and black.

Who the heck is Teridax?

MechaEmperor7000,


Yes, this is also interesting question to me. I thought that Cadia was the only stable gateway out of Eye of Terror and Chaos fleets simply overwhelmed its fleet and slipped through other sectors. Now it seems that they can deploy on mass through multiple points from eye of terror. Can anyone explain this phenomena? Did it ever was explained?

 Ernestas wrote:
MechaEmperor7000,


Yes, this is also interesting question to me. I thought that Cadia was the only stable gateway out of Eye of Terror and Chaos fleets simply overwhelmed its fleet and slipped through other sectors. Now it seems that they can deploy on mass through multiple points from eye of terror. Can anyone explain this phenomena? Did it ever was explained?

Because there are temporary portals out once in a while to realspace, but they are very unstable and often you'll lose ships entering or leaving, not to mention the fact that the entrance may be gone whether hours, days, months or years.

It's not stable in the least, one can also create them with various things but it tends to require a ton of power/luck.

 Ernestas wrote:
Well, thank you for explaining it. I just take lore too seriously and I'm irritated by most of w40k fans who take positions of: ''chaos wtf? They are are failures, 13'th crusades and got their asses beaten''. I tend to look at w40k as seriously as possible, trying to see all the hints which writers throw at us and want it to as far as possible from anime bs of one individual pwning entire armies and can only be beaten by another even more badass character.

I think this here is the underlying issue to the consternation you've experienced with people treating Chaos as ridiculous: the setting itself was created to be ridiculous. 40k used to look like this:


Future-80's shade-wearing British super cops, basically!

And, sure, the fluff has started to take itself quite seriously nowadays, but the whole concept that forms the basis of the setting is really quite absurd. Things aren't just grim and dark in the 41st Millennium. They're at the grimmest and darkest that they ever have and can be, nothing can be fixed, human suffering happens on a such a grotesque scale that it skips right over being appalling to end up in a place where it's downright comical, and the only way this is ever going to end for anyone is when some gigantic, seven-breasted crab monsters literally crawls its way out of their eye sockets and murders everyone.

And don't get me wrong, I love the setting, the miniatures, and there are some great, compelling characters out there, but there's still that sheer ridiculousness of the setting that makes it a fun, amusing, rather than depressing, place to visit in the imagination.

I believe GW also said at one point that there are no invalid sources of lore. Abbadon is a gigantic failure in some lore incarnations and, more recently, a scary super genius (Though a badly written one, I feel, in that basically one day GW just told us that his Crusades have accomplished stuff). But either view of him is right because, hey, 'all lore you're willing to accept is valid, forge the narrative.'

And I would like to say that Chaos goes just beyond just tolerating weakness, it loves weakness--it's literally fuelled by human weakness! I felt that Abbadon was more interesting as an incompetent commander still desperately trying to claw his way out of Horus' shadow long after the Warmaster's death while all four gods divvy up his soul , rather than just a standard Arch-villain.

I think what they mean by all sources of lore are accurate is that everything that's printed is actually printed (or said, or whatever) somewhere in the far future. That does not make it correct.

But yeah, I do agree that the universe is large enough that multiple views can be held. It's a work of fiction-nothing wrong with conflicting opinions on it.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Teridax is what Abaddon wishes he was. I like him a lot more, but then Teridax has a luxury of a universe with a lot more shades of grey, white and black.

Who the heck is Teridax?

A villain from a storyline almost as complex as 40k, which means explaining everything he did would be far too long. Ashiraya basically summed it up; he's essentially (in terms of characterization) what Abaddon should have been.

He's a Character (and villain) from Bionicle btw. Going any further would actually start spoiling the plot.

He should be like Khan Noonian Singh from Wrath of Khan.
Sadly, he is like Apophis from SG-1.....

It's the same fandom that regurgitates "HERESY1111!1" like a hyperactive child every opportunity it gets.

I mean the bar for 'maturity' has never been very high. Five minutes on 1d4chan and everybody's a comedian.

Why the fan base is so immature. Mostly because it is.
A large portion of us might be relatively calm adults, but an other portion of us are just 17 year old kids who like to make fun of stuff, cursing enjoy repeating "fun" memes / hearsay and being loud in general.


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Why abandon is picked on, well...

My first guess would be that
-its easy to bastardize his name to words like failbaddon
-he has an old model and old rules
-he is the major villain to the most popular armies.

And then I looked ad Ghazkull. He does have horrible rules, a very outdated chunky looking model, lost his grand campaigns to humanity. There isn't much of a difference really and jet no one is calling him faillskull or picking on his poorly fitting metal parts.

So It might just be that he isn't portraited as the major antagonist of armies popular with beginners.


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It might be the same response as the real live ridiculing of political adversaries.

I used to hang out with Abaddon in high school. He never bought weed. Not once!

I don't know why you need to convince everyone that your opinion is the correct one. Just because they don't agree with you doesn't make them deluded.

other than that I agree with you. Abbadon is meant to be a leader of chaos. I've never seen much depicting him as a mindless brute.

I don't really understand how anyone with a sense of historical context can take the 40k setting/lore so seriously. I mean, come on. This is a quote from RT:

Strike the first rune upon the engine's casing employing the chosen wrench. Its tip should be anointed with the oil of engineering using the proper incantation when the auspices are correct. Strike the second rune upon the engine's casing employing the arc-tip of the power-driver. If the second rune is not good, a third rune may be struck in like manner to the first. This is done according to the true ritual laid down by Scotti the Enginseer. A libation should be offered. If this sequence is properly observed the engines may be brought to full activation by depressing the large panel marked "ON".

The tongue that spoke those words is so deeply embedded in the cheek that you'd need to dig it out with a backhoe just to see it.

40k was originally all about satire, humor, and absurdity. It's only in the last couple of editions that it got "super-duper-srs-busness-guiz!" when GW had to start catering to the fantasies of Little Timmy in order to stay afloat. Some of that is even starting to turn around under the new CEO, like the pretty decent throwback Regimental-Standard website (even if some of it is still advertising).

EDIT: Also, to those complaining about the story in BFG: Armada... You do realize that the story wasn't just "made up" by the developer, right? They pretty much transcribed the story (almost word-for-word in some places) from the original BFG rulebook produced by GW itself. The only thing they added was a "protagonist" character for you to play as during the campaign (along with some supporting characters representing the factions). All the story elements were basically lifted from real printed GW material.

Ah, that explains it. You see, I'm a late comer to this universe. Relic had introduced me with its Dawn of War series. I had played gak out that game and the cooleness of its carnage made me curious of that these dudes exactly were. So, I started to read wiki, then books then forums and I felt in love with this universe.

You see, I grew up with Relic portrayal of w40k and then it naturally was strenghtened in DoW2. Both of these games did an absolute justice to every race, portraying them in respectful and damn cool manner. This is how I grew to respect each individual race instead of looking it as a fluff made for lolz.

 JamesY wrote:

pm713 wrote:
He hasn't united Chaos, to my knowledge he hasn't killed any Primarchs and refusing to serve Chaos is no big deal. Almost all Eldar and Space Marines do that. Big whoop.

Refusing to serve, whilst benefitting from them, is unique to Abbadon. Eldar and imperial marines aren't carrying any marks of chaos. I think the unity comes from the fact that they all support him, so he is a warrior they are all agreed upon who will cause the most, well, chaos.

The main issue I think is that he's been around for 18 years without any story progression. It makes him seem like a stagnant threat, rather than an imminent one. Hopefully the black crusade supplements and likely new model will restore him to his intended status.

Then Abaddon is like most Radical Inqusitors.

 Ernestas wrote:
Ah, that explains it. You see, I'm a late comer to this universe. Relic had introduced me with its Dawn of War series. I had played gak out that game and the cooleness of its carnage made me curious of that these dudes exactly were. So, I started to read wiki, then books then forums and I felt in love with this universe.

You see, I grew up with Relic portrayal of w40k and then it naturally was strenghtened in DoW2. Both of these games did an absolute justice to every race, portraying them in respectful and damn cool manner. This is how I grew to respect each individual race instead of looking it as a fluff made for lolz.

I agree that Relic did a fantastic job with the DOW series (both 1 and 2), which I still play even today.

But now that you've got a little historical knowledge behind you, I'd try not to get so worked up about the humor and "lulz" from some of the fanbase... It's kinda like people getting mad and claiming that WH40k/WHFB ripped off Starcraft/Warcraft, without realizing that the former predates the latter, and while both are similar takes on similar material, the one does not necessarily invalidate the other.

He's a pawn of all the Ruinous Powers, not independent of them. Should he lose their collective favor, he'd be Spawn.

You see, I grew up with Relic portrayal of w40k and then it naturally was strenghtened in DoW2. Both of these games did an absolute justice to every race, portraying them in respectful and damn cool manner. This is how I grew to respect each individual race instead of looking it as a fluff made for lolz.

So, despite the claim in your OP, you actually have very little idea of what you're talking about, is that what you're saying? As there are several things Relic got "wrong" in the DoW series, when comparing it to previously-released information from GW.

Do realize, however, that there's no such thing as a "canon" to 40k. This setting doesn't work like pre-Disney Star Wars. There's no pyramid of "this is more canon than this". It's all rumors, myths, lies and half-truths from an in-universe perspective. The tales we get in Codices, BL books, White Dwarf, etc. are all things that are true. Or might be true. Or could be true. Or are made up out of whole cloth. Every individual fan is free to take or leave the aspects of the setting that appeal to them the most/least and form their own version of the setting.

Really, read Talon of Horus. It shows some insight to Abaddon and makes him out to be pretty much a badass. The whole point for creating the Black Legion was to start a new legion, powerful enough to retake the Imperium (that seems to be his goal, not just conquest but more or less that the Imperium is unworthy successors to people like him who broke their backs to build it). He's the one who united the Nine Legions, and put an end to the Legion War, the one who made the Daemon Primarchs kneel to him and brought a unified army back to the Imperium after the Heresy.

He's not some cartoony villain with zany schemes who gets thwarted by meddling kids and their dog, he's the Antichrist of the setting.

I for one like the "change" to his crusades being successful. Change is in quote marks because I'm not sure they are a change at all. The majority of lore is told from an imperial perspective and from their point of view they were failures. Including black library novels
Then eventually we get our first black legion codex that focuses on these things and actually goes into the detail. Here we learn that they were actually successful. It works in the sense that we just hadn't heard the whole truth yet. And even if it was a retcon, it makes much more sense this way imho. Certainly a scheme befitting somebody chosen by tzeentch to be the warmaster of chaos.

Horus was mighty enough to equal the emperor and failed, so obviously a different course of action needs to be taken. Abaddon won't allow himself to fail and so does whatever he thinks is necessary to guarantee success.
In order to do that he needs venture into real space and into imperial territory. EVERYBODY is expendable in order to ensure his success and since he knows he can't take on the imperium by him self, he needs to attack en masse at cadia to keep the imperium distracted long enough for him to succeed. Bonus points if cadia were to actually fall, but that's not his main objective, least not for the past crusades.
So even cadia makes sense to me. A crusade on cadia certainly takes a toll on resources for the imperium. Also we don't know how long it takes him to prepare a warpjump behind the enemy lines so to speak.
Plus he probably doesn't want a large scale invasion to pick up some artefact. It would probably be much harder to open a passage for such a fleet, if it's possible at all. And he would have to make it back in one piece too, which would probably be even harder to do at that scale. Going with the idea of fulfilling certain objective during each crusade also means that he bleives chaos isn't ready yet to head to terra and so retreat would be mandatory. Taking a comparatively small contingent helps with that.

Look at the traitors hate campaign. For all we know Xorphas had been preparing for centuries before going there. They exactly what was hidden there and how to open it. They had to get the artefact first and some means of locating the weakest spot. Not to mention learning the appropriate rituals. AND then manipulating the enemy into doing their bidding. That's one hell of a scheme and that's just for this particular objective.

Either way, it sure beats him flailing his arms and loosing them as he repeatedly smashes his head into a wall screaming IT'S JUST A FLESH WOUND!

And as i tired of those kind of loeple who resort to direct attavk "moron" to justify their wrong conclusions let by and arrogance not knowing the least limit.

You wanted praise, you got it from half the answers. You needed to confirm your opinion then there basically is something wrong. You're not able to tell important matters and what's besides apart: see "christians" which in a wargaming section is totally irrelevant...

But you're right, you needn't educate me: i'm already wel-bred enough to know not to maliciously argue ad hominem, nor to get upset to thoroughly incontrolable wrath against all what's of different state of wind. You might learn from it, as far as i'm concerned i've wasted enough time with you're childish behavor and cinvictions.

I'm still waiting to see the pre-2nd ed codex stuff that states the first crusades were failures.

"Abaddon has led twelve Black Crusades against the Imperium. Some have been great invasions of whole Legions of the lost and the damned, others have been vicious raids with only a few companies of the most deadly Chaos Space Marines at his command. Each attack has sent the Imperium reeling and ravaged worlds close to the Eye of Terror. The High Lords of Terra live in fear of the day that Abaddon unites all of the Traitor Legions into an unstoppable horde and returns to play out the last acts of treachery begun by Horus ten thousand years ago."

"Abaddon dreams of forging a diabolic empire of his own from the blazing ruins of the shattered Imperium. Each world, each city destroyed, is a step closer to wiping the canvas clean so he can make his mark upon the galaxy."

"Abaddon the Despoiler, most feared adversary of the Imperium, has slowly but surely marshalled the forces of countless Traitor Legions to the point where he stands on the brink of challenging the Emperor himself as Warmaster Horus did before him."

To me, perhaps with the benefit of perspective of where the fluff is today, the way the 2nd ed codex is setting the scene is Abaddon has been bringing together the forces of chaos to the point where he can launch the greatest and final black crusade, the one which will bring the imperium to it's knees.

I didn't really play 4th/5th edition; did that the codexes for that period describe the first crusades as failures?

OP, please learn some manners. Most responded in fair comments, and you lashed out if they disagreed with you over background of a game. This isn't arguing "Naziism was wrong, and anyone disagreeing with me is a moron", this was "this fantasy character is amazing, and anyone disagreeing is a moron". While both are opinions, one is grounded in reality that a HUGE portion of the world will agree with, while another is fantasy; it's an escape from the horrors of the real world. Take time to enjoy the setting; both the good and the bad. Enjoy discussion with people who disagree with you, and see if you can sway them to your line of thought through positive examples, not insults.

For what it's worth, I thought Abby was kinda cool in the Horus Rising series. He's no Archaon (that guy is made of win), but he's pretty cool. And I don't consider him a failure.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
OP, please learn some manners. Most responded in fair comments, and you lashed out if they disagreed with you over background of a game. This isn't arguing "Naziism was wrong, and anyone disagreeing with me is a moron", this was "this fantasy character is amazing, and anyone disagreeing is a moron". While both are opinions, one is grounded in reality that a HUGE portion of the world will agree with, while another is fantasy; it's an escape from the horrors of the real world. Take time to enjoy the setting; both the good and the bad. Enjoy discussion with people who disagree with you, and see if you can sway them to your line of thought through positive examples, not insults.

For what it's worth, I thought Abby was kinda cool in the Horus Rising series. He's no Archaon (that guy is made of win), but he's pretty cool. And I don't consider him a failure.

And I did responded in a fair manner, but it is people like you who must pick up a fight over nothing. I will ignore fools who insist on teaching me a lesson basing their arguments on foolish ideas like there is no lore. Of course there is. W40k lore is loose, but GW made it clear that can be considered cannon and that cannot and then fans goes directly against established norms, then there is a problem. It is like saying that squats is still official part of w40k universe because ''hey man, nothing is cannon''.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Roknar wrote:
I for one like the "change" to his crusades being successful. Change is in quote marks because I'm not sure they are a change at all. The majority of lore is told from an imperial perspective and from their point of view they were failures. Including black library novels
Then eventually we get our first black legion codex that focuses on these things and actually goes into the detail. Here we learn that they were actually successful. It works in the sense that we just hadn't heard the whole truth yet. And even if it was a retcon, it makes much more sense this way imho. Certainly a scheme befitting somebody chosen by tzeentch to be the warmaster of chaos.

Horus was mighty enough to equal the emperor and failed, so obviously a different course of action needs to be taken. Abaddon won't allow himself to fail and so does whatever he thinks is necessary to guarantee success.
In order to do that he needs venture into real space and into imperial territory. EVERYBODY is expendable in order to ensure his success and since he knows he can't take on the imperium by him self, he needs to attack en masse at cadia to keep the imperium distracted long enough for him to succeed. Bonus points if cadia were to actually fall, but that's not his main objective, least not for the past crusades.
So even cadia makes sense to me. A crusade on cadia certainly takes a toll on resources for the imperium. Also we don't know how long it takes him to prepare a warpjump behind the enemy lines so to speak.
Plus he probably doesn't want a large scale invasion to pick up some artefact. It would probably be much harder to open a passage for such a fleet, if it's possible at all. And he would have to make it back in one piece too, which would probably be even harder to do at that scale. Going with the idea of fulfilling certain objective during each crusade also means that he bleives chaos isn't ready yet to head to terra and so retreat would be mandatory. Taking a comparatively small contingent helps with that.

Look at the traitors hate campaign. For all we know Xorphas had been preparing for centuries before going there. They exactly what was hidden there and how to open it. They had to get the artefact first and some means of locating the weakest spot. Not to mention learning the appropriate rituals. AND then manipulating the enemy into doing their bidding. That's one hell of a scheme and that's just for this particular objective.

Either way, it sure beats him flailing his arms and loosing them as he repeatedly smashes his head into a wall screaming IT'S JUST A FLESH WOUND!

Well, I would personally say that Abbadon is even more powerful now than Horus at its prime and would stand far greater chance against the Emperor. Just his little sword rivals power of C'than weaponary and would cut Emperor's armor as it would be paper. Emperor's psychic might would only empower sword further. Even though, it is Horus talons who deserve to finish his life.


Well, knowing how disorganized chaos is by nature it is not hard to imagine that Abbadon cannot easily gather all of his allies and he would march out with less that full Black Crusade. One of most notable examples is 12'th Crusade and how one feeble Gothic sector managed to fend off Abbadon's forces. That would be impossible if it full out Chaos assault, so I do assume that you are right. Finding these temporary openings is difficult. Supplying full out invasion is impossible. That would explain chaos raider like behavior during Crusade, using hit and run raiding tactics instead of waging on true head on engagement with feeble servants of the Emperor!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nareik wrote:
I'm still waiting to see the pre-2nd ed codex stuff that states the first crusades were failures.

"Abaddon has led twelve Black Crusades against the Imperium. Some have been great invasions of whole Legions of the lost and the damned, others have been vicious raids with only a few companies of the most deadly Chaos Space Marines at his command. Each attack has sent the Imperium reeling and ravaged worlds close to the Eye of Terror. The High Lords of Terra live in fear of the day that Abaddon unites all of the Traitor Legions into an unstoppable horde and returns to play out the last acts of treachery begun by Horus ten thousand years ago."

"Abaddon dreams of forging a diabolic empire of his own from the blazing ruins of the shattered Imperium. Each world, each city destroyed, is a step closer to wiping the canvas clean so he can make his mark upon the galaxy."

"Abaddon the Despoiler, most feared adversary of the Imperium, has slowly but surely marshalled the forces of countless Traitor Legions to the point where he stands on the brink of challenging the Emperor himself as Warmaster Horus did before him."

To me, perhaps with the benefit of perspective of where the fluff is today, the way the 2nd ed codex is setting the scene is Abaddon has been bringing together the forces of chaos to the point where he can launch the greatest and final black crusade, the one which will bring the imperium to it's knees.

I didn't really play 4th/5th edition; did that the codexes for that period describe the first crusades as failures?

Well, I'm in interesting position myself. As a later comer and living in small second world country, I'm isolated from community at large and certainly table top game. I never saw Abbadon failing in lore, but I really hope that in w50k Abbadon comes to the Holy Terra itself, smashes rotting Corpse of the Emperor, seals warp portal, denounces ties with Chaos Gods and becomes a second Emperor of mankind. This is only fair considering how much he got gak from w40k community.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Psienesis wrote:
He's a pawn of all the Ruinous Powers, not independent of them. Should he lose their collective favor, he'd be Spawn.

You see, I grew up with Relic portrayal of w40k and then it naturally was strenghtened in DoW2. Both of these games did an absolute justice to every race, portraying them in respectful and damn cool manner. This is how I grew to respect each individual race instead of looking it as a fluff made for lolz.

So, despite the claim in your OP, you actually have very little idea of what you're talking about, is that what you're saying? As there are several things Relic got "wrong" in the DoW series, when comparing it to previously-released information from GW.

Do realize, however, that there's no such thing as a "canon" to 40k. This setting doesn't work like pre-Disney Star Wars. There's no pyramid of "this is more canon than this". It's all rumors, myths, lies and half-truths from an in-universe perspective. The tales we get in Codices, BL books, White Dwarf, etc. are all things that are true. Or might be true. Or could be true. Or are made up out of whole cloth. Every individual fan is free to take or leave the aspects of the setting that appeal to them the most/least and form their own version of the setting.

Nope. I told you that I grew up on DoW series. It is completely different than it being original setting without flaws. It means, that DoW gave me first impression of this world to which I fell in love with. It was a starting point rather than how it must be. In addition, while w40k universe is loose there are clear boundaries which GW set. You cannot just tell any bs and claim it is my lore. Same as with Abbadon, I never encountered him being incompetent and thus I wanted to ask from where it stems.

Abaddon isn't anywhere near as powerful as horus or the emperor was. From what I understand they were essentially demigods among demi gods. However, judging by the fluff in traitors hate, Abaddon might be trying to achieve the same level of power that they had right now.

 Ernestas wrote:
...It is like saying that squats is still official part of w40k universe because ''hey man, nothing is cannon''...

But Squats are still official. They've been renamed to 'Demiurg', appeared in Battlefleet Gothic as a Tau client race, and been mentioned in the Horus Heresy novels.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Ernestas wrote:
...It is like saying that squats is still official part of w40k universe because ''hey man, nothing is cannon''...

But Squats are still official. They've been renamed to 'Demiurg', appeared in Battlefleet Gothic as a Tau client race, and been mentioned in the Horus Heresy novels.

That's actually not true. Squats still existed; they just are extinct.

Demiurg are an alien race. Squats were an abhuman race. Very different.

 Ernestas wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Psienesis wrote:
He's a pawn of all the Ruinous Powers, not independent of them. Should he lose their collective favor, he'd be Spawn.

You see, I grew up with Relic portrayal of w40k and then it naturally was strenghtened in DoW2. Both of these games did an absolute justice to every race, portraying them in respectful and damn cool manner. This is how I grew to respect each individual race instead of looking it as a fluff made for lolz.

So, despite the claim in your OP, you actually have very little idea of what you're talking about, is that what you're saying? As there are several things Relic got "wrong" in the DoW series, when comparing it to previously-released information from GW.

Do realize, however, that there's no such thing as a "canon" to 40k. This setting doesn't work like pre-Disney Star Wars. There's no pyramid of "this is more canon than this". It's all rumors, myths, lies and half-truths from an in-universe perspective. The tales we get in Codices, BL books, White Dwarf, etc. are all things that are true. Or might be true. Or could be true. Or are made up out of whole cloth. Every individual fan is free to take or leave the aspects of the setting that appeal to them the most/least and form their own version of the setting.

Nope. I told you that I grew up on DoW series. It is completely different than it being original setting without flaws. It means, that DoW gave me first impression of this world to which I fell in love with. It was a starting point rather than how it must be. In addition, while w40k universe is loose there are clear boundaries which GW set. You cannot just tell any bs and claim it is my lore. Same as with Abbadon, I never encountered him being incompetent and thus I wanted to ask from where it stems.

...Point of order on this one. The Eldar in Dawn of War are whiny idiots whose precognitive powers don't work on Space Marines and who spend their time getting wiped out while ranting about how the humans should just listen...after not trying to talk to them. The Relic portrayal does them no justice at all.

Nobody likes xenos.....

 Kanluwen wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Ernestas wrote:
...It is like saying that squats is still official part of w40k universe because ''hey man, nothing is cannon''...

But Squats are still official. They've been renamed to 'Demiurg', appeared in Battlefleet Gothic as a Tau client race, and been mentioned in the Horus Heresy novels.

That's actually not true. Squats still existed; they just are extinct.

Demiurg are an alien race. Squats were an abhuman race. Very different.

Actually they brought squats back, they just don't have a homeworld or their own forces anymore, the 6th+ listed them as still active.

...Point of order on this one. The Eldar in Dawn of War are whiny idiots whose precognitive powers don't work on Space Marines and who spend their time getting wiped out while ranting about how the humans should just listen...after not trying to talk to them. The Relic portrayal does them no justice at all.

Nah, I think they got it down perfectly, tried to talk down the humans, didn't tell the humans anything important while still telling them to basically "go away, we better then you and know better then you."

 Kanluwen wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Ernestas wrote:
...It is like saying that squats is still official part of w40k universe because ''hey man, nothing is cannon''...

But Squats are still official. They've been renamed to 'Demiurg', appeared in Battlefleet Gothic as a Tau client race, and been mentioned in the Horus Heresy novels.

That's actually not true. Squats still existed; they just are extinct.

Demiurg are an alien race. Squats were an abhuman race. Very different.

As far as I know the history of the Squats there isn't any reason they couldn't have had colonies out in the eastern fringe past where the Great Crusade got to that never encountered the Imperium. The fragments of lore given in BFG don't explicitly state whether the Demiurg are alien or abhuman, and the rest of the descriptions could easily be talking about the same faction. The technology (repurposed mining tools, engine technology beyond the Mechanicum's understanding, heavy use of automation) is another point of similarity.

That said this one doesn't actually have an official answer, and my 'wait, what if...' reading doesn't constitute canon. I know this is more likely a result of the Demiurg's start as a reboot of the Squat concept (statement from Jervis Johnson to the effect at http://web.archive.org/web/20060129002420/http://forums.specialist-games.com/epic/forum_b/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=2532&whichpage=3 (scroll down a bit)), but I like trying to find in-universe explanations for things.


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 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

...Point of order on this one. The Eldar in Dawn of War are whiny idiots whose precognitive powers don't work on Space Marines and who spend their time getting wiped out while ranting about how the humans should just listen...after not trying to talk to them. The Relic portrayal does them no justice at all.

Nah, I think they got it down perfectly, tried to talk down the humans, didn't tell the humans anything important while still telling them to basically "go away, we better then you and know better then you."

Eldar outside Dawn of War don't find it damaging to their egos to use other forces as pawns instead of committing troops to the field themselves (the way Idranel does in DoW2), don't put themselves in positions where their survival is completely dependent on the actions of humans (the way Taldeer does in the canon ending of Winter Assault), and don't hand victory to Chaos by whining (the way Macha does in the original game). The only DoW game that treats the Eldar with any semblance of fairness is Retribution (possibly because that's the one where there's a plot and the Eldar can be protagonists for it).

 Kanluwen wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Ernestas wrote:
...It is like saying that squats is still official part of w40k universe because ''hey man, nothing is cannon''...

But Squats are still official. They've been renamed to 'Demiurg', appeared in Battlefleet Gothic as a Tau client race, and been mentioned in the Horus Heresy novels.

That's actually not true. Squats still existed; they just are extinct.

Demiurg are an alien race. Squats were an abhuman race. Very different.

Also not true, Squats are listed in the BRB fluff section as sanctioned ab humans (not extinct).

Yeah, the Squat homeworlds were devoured, but this is a galaxy-spanning civilization we're talking about. Are we to believe that every single Squat in the galaxy was home for the holidays when the Tyranid arrived? I'd imagine there are still Squat Enclaves throughout the Imperium, but are so few and far between that the Squats, as an effective faction, are extinct.

 Psienesis wrote:
Yeah, the Squat homeworlds were devoured, but this is a galaxy-spanning civilization we're talking about. Are we to believe that every single Squat in the galaxy was home for the holidays when the Tyranid arrived? I'd imagine there are still Squat Enclaves throughout the Imperium, but are so few and far between that the Squats, as an effective faction, are extinct.

Nah they jumped to an alternate universe and renamed themselves to the Forge-Fathers now...

 Ernestas wrote:

And I did responded in a fair manner

No, you really didn't. Make sure what you are posting is actually polite, so far you have been really toeing that line, which shouldn't be how you approach your general posting (or any posting).

To the thread in general, let's remember rule 1.

It's just a joke, OP. I don't think anyone actually takes the 40k memes seriously. Unless you think the fanbase seriously believes the Blood Ravens are a bunch of thieves as well.

Just take a few steps back and realize these is just a bunch of silly stories about a game who's sole purpose is to sell people $200 tanks the size of a shoe.


Abaddon will always be Failbaddon the Armless to me, though.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
It's just a joke, OP. I don't think anyone actually takes the 40k memes seriously. Unless you think the fanbase seriously believes the Blood Ravens are a bunch of thieves as well.

Just take a few steps back and realize these is just a bunch of silly stories about a game who's sole purpose is to sell people $200 tanks the size of a shoe.


Abaddon will always be Failbaddon the Armless to me, though.

I thought the blood ravens were a bunch of thieves :( *picks up shattered dreams*

Reavas wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
It's just a joke, OP. I don't think anyone actually takes the 40k memes seriously. Unless you think the fanbase seriously believes the Blood Ravens are a bunch of thieves as well.

Just take a few steps back and realize these is just a bunch of silly stories about a game who's sole purpose is to sell people $200 tanks the size of a shoe.


Abaddon will always be Failbaddon the Armless to me, though.

I thought the blood ravens were a bunch of thieves :( *picks up shattered dreams*

The guys with their "Steehl Reihn?

Guess what: even people who aren't at all fans of the imperium don't take chaos seriously.

People don't not take yabbadabbadon and chaos seriously because they know how the setting works.

Gw is a company that likes to sell models. They don't like invalidating models for no reason. When you have a villain whose mustache twirling ambition is to DESTROY THE ENTIRE SETTING, until the game gets as poor selling as fantasy, it ain't gonna happen.

This is why 100% of the tension went out of death masque the second eldrad revealed that his plan would kill everyone in the imperium, and all the eldar Wraith models would be gone. From that point on, it didn't matter how stupidly out of character they'd have to make him act, you knew the rest of the book was going to be gw fellating a bolt gun.

Gws setting used to work because everything was grimdark and crappy. It didn't matter if the big bads didn't threaten the whole galaxy because the galaxy was basically a depressing piece of crap. With the shift to shiny heroes vs cartoon villains it's hard to get into it anymore.

I also never understood the hype about abbadon, Be'lakor has been puppeting him for his own gains for a very long time, and is in large part the reason he has even seen minor success. While abbadon's crusades never really made it to terra Be'lakor upstaged abbadon and single handedly launched a daemonic incursion on terra out if sheer spite a jelousy. He was obviously unsuccessful, due to his narrowmindedness and arrogance (such is the way of daemons) but if Be'lakor collected himself for even a short period and thought things through he could easily strike a strong blow against the imperium. But alas daemons are fickle and due to his emotional shortcomings that embody his very being its impossible for him to do such a thing.

I guess its part of why its important for champions of chaos to remain human, they arent pure unstable beings of emotion.

But yeah, in the long run abbadon isn't the most powerful being chaos has to offer, never has been. But he is the most organised, and when it comes to chaos, order is a hard thing to come by. So abbadon is somewhat important.

What everyone is describing is called Villain Decay.

Basically you introduce a bad guy and that bad guys is a bad ass. You show off his might and he is a real threat to the hero/es. The problem is the heroes have to win, so with each subsequent showing of the villain the threat he poses becomes less and less as he continually gets trounced.

Different properties have dealt with villain decay in various ways. You can replace the villain with a even bigger bad who he becomes a lacky for. (Anyone remember Jackie Chan Adventures? Remember how the big bad guy in the green suit eventually just became one of the mooks when the dragon spirit thing became the new big bad?)

Othertimes you can stave off villain decay by not having the villain actually loose. Xanatos from Gargoyles would place the heroes in situations where it didn't matter what they did he won. That TVTrope is called a Xanatos Gambit because he was the grand master of it.

Abbadon is some supposed bad ass of chaos who spent the last 10k years in the fluff and 30 years irl getting trounced every time he shows his face with no real consequence to anyone he is plotting against and nothing to really show for it. He has suffered the worst, most extreme version of villain decay. His actions need to have consequences to carry weight. They don't so he doesn't. He is like a episodic sit-com where at the end of the episode everything is restored to the status quo and ready for the next little story. After 12-13 episodes of him doing the same things with each time nobody is ever the worse for wear you just stop viewing him as anything more then a nuisance.

 Lance845 wrote:
What everyone is describing is called Villain Decay.

Basically you introduce a bad guy and that bad guys is a bad ass. You show off his might and he is a real threat to the hero/es. The problem is the heroes have to win, so with each subsequent showing of the villain the threat he poses becomes less and less as he continually gets trounced.

Different properties have dealt with villain decay in various ways. You can replace the villain with a even bigger bad who he becomes a lacky for. (Anyone remember Jackie Chan Adventures? Remember how the big bad guy in the green suit eventually just became one of the mooks when the dragon spirit thing became the new big bad?)

Othertimes you can stave off villain decay by not having the villain actually loose. Xanatos from Gargoyles would place the heroes in situations where it didn't matter what they did he won. That TVTrope is called a Xanatos Gambit because he was the grand master of it.

Abbadon is some supposed bad ass of chaos who spent the last 10k years in the fluff and 30 years irl getting trounced every time he shows his face with no real consequence to anyone he is plotting against and nothing to really show for it. He has suffered the worst, most extreme version of villain decay. His actions need to have consequences to carry weight. They don't so he doesn't. He is like a episodic sit-com where at the end of the episode everything is restored to the status quo and ready for the next little story. After 12-13 episodes of him doing the same things with each time nobody is ever the worse for wear you just stop viewing him as anything more then a nuisance.

Like I said, Abaddon is built up to be Sauron, and instead ends up Megatron or Cobra Commander as portrayed in the 80s cartoon, a bumbling fool who is supposed to be this super dangerous threat, but always gets defeated.

pm713 wrote:
He hasn't united Chaos, to my knowledge he hasn't killed any Primarchs and refusing to serve Chaos is no big deal. Almost all Eldar and Space Marines do that. Big whoop.

Not according to new books. In "Talon of Horus" he made all of the Daemon Primarchs to kneel before him, as well as being presented as a poor and misunderstood badass. ADB is pushing his "The Emperor was a jerk for trying to stop the four monstrous Gods who would destroy the whole universe" agenda down our throats so hard that it hurts. I even read somewhere on B&C that he initially wanted to be the one who writes about Rogal Dorn's death, and I can bet all of my money, that if he would have his wish granted, then Abby would be the one to stick his Talon up Dorn's backside.

Abaddon may be presented as a competent leader in some of 40K's media, but as long as Chaos in general will be described as a bunch of frothing loonies who say dumb things like "no good deed shall go unpunished", then good luck with making him look good. Also yes, Chaos is the de facto truth and winner of 40K, there's no arguing about that, but the fact that its victory will mean that the whole galaxy will be flooded in madness in death, really makes it hard to sympathise with them, even if "Grandaddy betrayed us wah wah wah".

I know, right?

God forbid Aaron Dembski-Bowden give a marginalized, one dimensional faction something as breathtakingly refreshing as a motive.

Having all that plot structure and character development shoved down my throat is so ridiculous. Why can't he get with the program and just write a couple hundred pages of vaguely homoerotic bolter porn?

Yeah that's part of the issue with playing a faction whose end goal is basically the destruction of everything else (see: Tyranids and Necrons), you can't really do much without killing everyone else. Compare that to Orks where you can have a group that just wants to pillage and burn and crump some 'eadz, but the end result can be a chunk of space they take over, without just obliterating the world. It's hard to win when you winning results in the end of the game, so you have a cartoony faction that can talk big and bad but can't actually do anything meaningful.

Fantasy chaos had the same problem, which is why AOS lore now is basically the heroic Stormcasts pushing back against the domain of Chaos and defeating them constantly to retake the world, which is nearly as lame because Chaos has to lose constantly since them winning is bad for everyone else.

I rather enjoyed Black Crusade's take on the Chaos Gods for pushing them a bit further out from the one dimensional role.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Ernestas wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Psienesis wrote:
He's a pawn of all the Ruinous Powers, not independent of them. Should he lose their collective favor, he'd be Spawn.

You see, I grew up with Relic portrayal of w40k and then it naturally was strenghtened in DoW2. Both of these games did an absolute justice to every race, portraying them in respectful and damn cool manner. This is how I grew to respect each individual race instead of looking it as a fluff made for lolz.

So, despite the claim in your OP, you actually have very little idea of what you're talking about, is that what you're saying? As there are several things Relic got "wrong" in the DoW series, when comparing it to previously-released information from GW.

Do realize, however, that there's no such thing as a "canon" to 40k. This setting doesn't work like pre-Disney Star Wars. There's no pyramid of "this is more canon than this". It's all rumors, myths, lies and half-truths from an in-universe perspective. The tales we get in Codices, BL books, White Dwarf, etc. are all things that are true. Or might be true. Or could be true. Or are made up out of whole cloth. Every individual fan is free to take or leave the aspects of the setting that appeal to them the most/least and form their own version of the setting.

Nope. I told you that I grew up on DoW series. It is completely different than it being original setting without flaws. It means, that DoW gave me first impression of this world to which I fell in love with. It was a starting point rather than how it must be. In addition, while w40k universe is loose there are clear boundaries which GW set. You cannot just tell any bs and claim it is my lore. Same as with Abbadon, I never encountered him being incompetent and thus I wanted to ask from where it stems.

...Point of order on this one. The Eldar in Dawn of War are whiny idiots whose precognitive powers don't work on Space Marines and who spend their time getting wiped out while ranting about how the humans should just listen...after not trying to talk to them. The Relic portrayal does them no justice at all.

And that is different then 99% of the eldar fluff how?

 Ernestas wrote:

I do realize that it might tickle a lot of fanboys in a wrong way or I might appear arrogant, but I'm way beyond such mortal concerns. I know that I'm right. I was forced to check wikis far too many times and I read far too much of w40k lore in order to know that I'm right in this.

Then you would be surprised to hear that Abbadon the Despoiler is actually Omegon in disguise. I sat next to Graham McNeil on a plane and I know I'm right. You can't tell me I'm wrong. That might make me appear arrogant, but don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

 kronk wrote:

 Ernestas wrote:

I do realize that it might tickle a lot of fanboys in a wrong way or I might appear arrogant, but I'm way beyond such mortal concerns. I know that I'm right. I was forced to check wikis far too many times and I read far too much of w40k lore in order to know that I'm right in this.

Then you would be surprised to hear that Abbadon the Despoiler is actually Omegon in disguise. I sat next to Graham McNeil on a plane and I know I'm right. You can't tell me I'm wrong. That might make me appear arrogant, but don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

Seems legit.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 kronk wrote:

 Ernestas wrote:

I do realize that it might tickle a lot of fanboys in a wrong way or I might appear arrogant, but I'm way beyond such mortal concerns. I know that I'm right. I was forced to check wikis far too many times and I read far too much of w40k lore in order to know that I'm right in this.

Then you would be surprised to hear that Abbadon the Despoiler is actually Omegon in disguise. I sat next to Graham McNeil on a plane and I know I'm right. You can't tell me I'm wrong. That might make me appear arrogant, but don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

Seems legit.

The only way Abadabadabadoon could be in any way an actual threat.

 kronk wrote:

 Ernestas wrote:

I do realize that it might tickle a lot of fanboys in a wrong way or I might appear arrogant, but I'm way beyond such mortal concerns. I know that I'm right. I was forced to check wikis far too many times and I read far too much of w40k lore in order to know that I'm right in this.

Then you would be surprised to hear that Abbadon the Despoiler is actually Omegon in disguise. I sat next to Graham McNeil on a plane and I know I'm right. You can't tell me I'm wrong. That might make me appear arrogant, but don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

as usual, kronk brings back humour to a thread!


...wait, what you posted - it's just a prank, right?

 Vector Strike wrote:

 kronk wrote:

 Ernestas wrote:

I do realize that it might tickle a lot of fanboys in a wrong way or I might appear arrogant, but I'm way beyond such mortal concerns. I know that I'm right. I was forced to check wikis far too many times and I read far too much of w40k lore in order to know that I'm right in this.

Then you would be surprised to hear that Abbadon the Despoiler is actually Omegon in disguise. I sat next to Graham McNeil on a plane and I know I'm right. You can't tell me I'm wrong. That might make me appear arrogant, but don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

as usual, kronk brings back humour to a thread!


...wait, what you posted - it's just a prank, right?

What humor? Kronk clearly got the word straight from the dragon's mouth!

Because he is a crappy bad guy, his whole character is living in the shadow of the greater evil, and trying to live up to that but failing every single time.

He is akin to cobra commander.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kronk wrote:

 Ernestas wrote:

I do realize that it might tickle a lot of fanboys in a wrong way or I might appear arrogant, but I'm way beyond such mortal concerns. I know that I'm right. I was forced to check wikis far too many times and I read far too much of w40k lore in order to know that I'm right in this.

Then you would be surprised to hear that Abbadon the Despoiler is actually Omegon in disguise. I sat next to Graham McNeil on a plane and I know I'm right. You can't tell me I'm wrong. That might make me appear arrogant, but don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

Kronk strikes again!

But really Abbadon has always been the mustache twirly villain, hell if it was not for his terminator armor, and the fact he got assaulting for a month straight, Lokan would have taken him in one on one combat. Abbadon is just a pawn for the Chaos gods, he has not rallied them, but rather at least got them all the bless him as a champion.

 mrhappyface wrote:

^This.

Originally the black crusades were all failed attempts to attack the imperium, then GW realised that their biggest bad guy had never actually accomplished anything so they changed the black crusades to make it seem as though Abaddon succeeded in finding a relic or testing the imperiums defences.

It doesn't help, that when a black crusade finally wins due to the playerbase, despite all promises, GW despites to go *LALALALA NEVER HAPPENED!* then retcon as if the 13th black crusade never happened!

The bad guy finally win a major campaign and actually get somewhere to further the plot and GW goes, "nope cos Terr'uh".

 Baldeagle91 wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:

^This.

Originally the black crusades were all failed attempts to attack the imperium, then GW realised that their biggest bad guy had never actually accomplished anything so they changed the black crusades to make it seem as though Abaddon succeeded in finding a relic or testing the imperiums defences.

It doesn't help, that when a black crusade finally wins due to the playerbase, despite all promises, GW despites to go *LALALALA NEVER HAPPENED!* then retcon as if the 13th black crusade never happened!

The bad guy finally win a major campaign and actually get somewhere to further the plot and GW goes, "nope cos Terr'uh".

Thats why i giggle every time i see them going, "The 13th black crusade is starting up!" im like....oh thats happening again, what is this? The third time now?

I blame Tzeentch. He's bored and his fav show is on hiatus, so he has to keep rewinding the 40k Universe like that 6 year old kid who loves to watch that one goofy scene over and over again.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
I blame Tzeentch. He's bored and his fav show is on hiatus, so he has to keep rewinding the 40k Universe like that 6 year old kid who loves to watch that one goofy scene over and over again.

Well that would explain cypher then, trying to get the gak head to stop hitting rewind on the damn thing.

That moment when an offhand joke makes more sense than the actual canon.

Oh boy.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
That moment when an offhand joke makes more sense than the actual canon.

Oh boy.

I mean think about it, we know that So eh who know!!

Jimsolo wrote:I
God forbid Aaron Dembski-Bowden give a marginalized, one dimensional faction something as breathtakingly refreshing as a motive.

Having all that plot structure and character development shoved down my throat is so ridiculous. Why can't he get with the program and just write a couple hundred pages of vaguely homoerotic bolter porn?

Problem is it leaves the Emperor seeming dumb and almost malevolent. We need something written about him to explain the reasoning behind his colossal screw ups (preferably something other than he had to do it to get the one good future because that's dumb). As it stands he veers between super genius saviour of humanity and idiot who couldn't lead anybody).

Backspacehacker wrote:
But really Abbadon has always been the mustache twirly villain, hell if it was not for his terminator armor, and the fact he got assaulting for a month straight, Lokan would have taken him in one on one combat. Abbadon is just a pawn for the Chaos gods, he has not rallied them, but rather at least got them all the bless him as a champion.

I don't think it's fair to hold the Loken thing against him. Had Horus come down Loken would probably have done something similar. Loken was superdooperawesome. That book got pretty bad.

 Ernestas wrote:


One of more recent examples of IG fanboyism was in Battlefleet Gothic Armada video game where chaos is portrayed like saturday cartoon villains,

Short answer, they are saturday morning cartoon villains, pretty much.

I've said this before, if you asked your average 10-14 year old what to write an "adult, mature" story, you'd end up with violence, sex, swearing, the idea that humans are bastards, religious imagery and probably the protagonists smoking and drinking a lot just to show how "edgy" the writer can be.

These ingredients, do not make a serious, mature story. They make a child's idea of a seroius, mature story.

 Ernestas wrote:
Even though, expecting for IG fanboy to understand why Chaos is ultimately right about this universe and nature of humanity is like asking Christian to use its reason. It is pointless since these two groups long forgotten how to think for themselves.

but I'm way beyond such mortal concerns.

Before putting "mortal concerns" behind you, learn to communicate with people civilly; you didn't need flame bait or the ever-classy "here's an argument from another forum presented one-sidedly! Agree with me!"

One thing about the 40k fluff is that I liked when the Heresy was just legend; I mean, fleshing it out is awesome, but reading through the first few HH books, I was completely sympathizing with Horus instead of booing him as the villain, and Loken came off like a whiny little punk who was all "Where has my Legion gone?". Erebus is a piece of gak though, straight up the Word Bearers are like absolute garbage and TFGs for what they did, just because they were wasting everyone's time building cathedrals and saying the Emperor was a god instead of doing their job and conquering the galaxy. Pure spoiled brat emo kid "Waah mommy yelled at me I'm going to cut myself and call child services on her" trash.

The problem though is that Chaos gets presented as one-dimensional crap because of the Chaos Gods, who also fall into one dimensional tropes nowadays: You have the angry "grr I want to kill everyone" bully (Khorne), what is for all intents and purposes a diseased Santa Claus who just wants to spread the love through diseases and plagues (Nurgle), the mwa-ha-ha everything is just as I planned even though you beat me I really will win just give it a few more centuries constant schemer for the sake of scheming (Tzeentch) and what is literally sex, drugs and rock and roll (Slaanesh). They are pretty much caricatures right now, so why is it any wonder that the Chaos factions tend to be as one-dimensional "Ha ha ha none can defeat me soon the world will be mine!" cartoon villains? The entirety of Chaos is basically a caricatured attempt at "evil" now, and then you throw in actual renegades who aren't necessarily Chaos but think the Imperium are hardasses and are basically biker gangs out of Mad Max and hang out in Daemonic Mos Eisley with the other scum and villainy of the galaxy (which is ironic because in the RT days weren't Space Marines like criminal scum who were press-ganged into service?).

nareik wrote:
I'm still waiting to see the pre-2nd ed codex stuff that states the first crusades were failures

It doesn't exist. Abbadon only came into being in 2nd ed. Black crusades are not unique to Abbadon, other warlords can take their warbands on a black crusade. Abby is now on his 13th. The references to failed crusades in RT refer to those conducted by other warlords.

WayneTheGame wrote:
One thing about the 40k fluff is that I liked when the Heresy was just legend; .

So, kinda like how Darth Vader was a more formidable villain his "destruction of the Jedi" was just slaughtering kids?

Tyranno wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
One thing about the 40k fluff is that I liked when the Heresy was just legend; .

So, kinda like how Darth Vader was a more formidable villain his "destruction of the Jedi" was just slaughtering kids?

That was the moment where all respect for Lucas was lost. Not even Jar Jar did it. But that did.

Tyranno wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
One thing about the 40k fluff is that I liked when the Heresy was just legend; .

So, kinda like how Darth Vader was a more formidable villain his "destruction of the Jedi" was just slaughtering kids?

Well he did kill other Jedi after becoming Vader to be fair. This isn't Abigail we're talking about at least, who decides that "testing the defenses" of different areas is a crusade and then counts it as a victory lest his ego go down, and had to have that added after everyone in our universe considered him gak at his job.

Tyranno wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
One thing about the 40k fluff is that I liked when the Heresy was just legend; .

So, kinda like how Darth Vader was a more formidable villain his "destruction of the Jedi" was just slaughtering kids?

Something like that if I understood you correctly. I think the Heresy stuff was better as something that happened in the background eons ago and just fragments of it exist in myth and legend. You know, like the Bible or King Arthur with bits of Ancient Rome in the sense that there are some items that exist from that time, but nobody is 100% certain what actually happened then.

The novels are great, don't get me wrong.

WayneTheGame wrote:

Tyranno wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
One thing about the 40k fluff is that I liked when the Heresy was just legend; .

So, kinda like how Darth Vader was a more formidable villain his "destruction of the Jedi" was just slaughtering kids?

Something like that if I understood you correctly. I think the Heresy stuff was better as something that happened in the background eons ago and just fragments of it exist in myth and legend. You know, like the Bible or King Arthur with bits of Ancient Rome in the sense that there are some items that exist from that time, but nobody is 100% certain what actually happened then.

The novels are great, don't get me wrong.

^ This.

The events of the Heresy are myth in the "current era" of 40k. They are things that are not even half-remembered, they are fragments of tales that have a seed of truth to them, in some way or another, but have grown so much in the telling that it's impossible for anyone, even old, decrepit, senile Bjorn the Fell-Handed, alive in M42 to say what *really* happened. They should have stayed that way. Adding specifics to these events really dispels some of the mystique of the setting, and invalidates a lot of backstory one could have with certain armies and Legions.

Kinda like how Wolverine should never have had a concrete backstory

 Jimsolo wrote:
I know, right?

God forbid Aaron Dembski-Bowden give a marginalized, one dimensional faction something as breathtakingly refreshing as a motive.

Having all that plot structure and character development shoved down my throat is so ridiculous. Why can't he get with the program and just write a couple hundred pages of vaguely homoerotic bolter porn?

He's not developing them beyond anything other than his new, best band of Mary Sue super soldiers "we didn't nothing wrong, no siree". There's a difference between poorly explaining the actions of a Chaos worshipping genocidal maniac and bolter porn (which I never liked). Chaos has always been written as pure evil, which corrupts the souls of men, weak men. You don't need any other reason, because there are none. Horus, Abaddon and other CSM/Renegades rebeled because they've got seduced with power, end of story. There is nothing to add here really, and trying to make them look sympathetic is like trying to exucse the actions of real world genocidal dictators. You can't and in the end, they will still remain just that - monsters.

 Xathrodox86 wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
I know, right?

God forbid Aaron Dembski-Bowden give a marginalized, one dimensional faction something as breathtakingly refreshing as a motive.

Having all that plot structure and character development shoved down my throat is so ridiculous. Why can't he get with the program and just write a couple hundred pages of vaguely homoerotic bolter porn?

He's not developing them beyond anything that his new, best band of Mary Sue super soldiers "we didn nothing wrong, no siree". There's a difference between poorly explaining the actions of a Chaos worshipping genocidal maniac and bolter porn (which I never liked). Chaos has always been written as pure evil, which corrupts the souls of men, weak men. You don't need any other reason, because there are none. Horus, Abaddon and other CSM/Renegades rebeled because they've got seduced with power, end of story. There is nothing to add here really, and trying to make them look sympathetic is like trying to exucse the actions of real world genocidal dictators. You can't and in the end, they will still remain just that - monsters.

Maybe that's what doesn't feel "right" about Talon of Horus, despite it being an awesome novel. I get that "you're never the bad guy in your own story" but reading ToH and even some of the HH novels, it almost makes it out like the Emperor really is the bad guy and that he had something going on that would have been really bad, just due to the Heresy he never got a chance to do it. ToH does make Abaddon and the Black Legion out to be not so much good guys but decidedly "anti-hero" in their approach. Like, you get the impression that Abaddon is not in any way, shape or form a nice person, but his reasons for wanting to unify the Traitor Legions goes from being a power-mad, genocidal despot to more "The Imperium used us as threw us away, they aren't worthy of the legacy we built for them" which doesn't suit because as you said, Chaos has always been pure evil and corrupting; the only motive needed was either revenge for losing the Heresy or simply "I want the world on a platter". It didn't need this sympathetic undertones that maybe, just maybe, he's right. There were already legions that had some inkling of that as their backstory; Iron Warriors spring to mind where they were literally treated like gak by everyone else and used as little more than fodder themselves, and it made them bitter and twisted and now they are cruel for cruelty's sake but also because they were tempered in it.

I mean it's still a good novel, but I can't get past this idea that it's trying to justify Chaos as something other than people who have literally sold their souls to the devil in exchange for power.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Xathrodox86 wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
I know, right?

God forbid Aaron Dembski-Bowden give a marginalized, one dimensional faction something as breathtakingly refreshing as a motive.

Having all that plot structure and character development shoved down my throat is so ridiculous. Why can't he get with the program and just write a couple hundred pages of vaguely homoerotic bolter porn?

He's not developing them beyond anything that his new, best band of Mary Sue super soldiers "we didn nothing wrong, no siree". There's a difference between poorly explaining the actions of a Chaos worshipping genocidal maniac and bolter porn (which I never liked). Chaos has always been written as pure evil, which corrupts the souls of men, weak men. You don't need any other reason, because there are none. Horus, Abaddon and other CSM/Renegades rebeled because they've got seduced with power, end of story. There is nothing to add here really, and trying to make them look sympathetic is like trying to exucse the actions of real world genocidal dictators. You can't and in the end, they will still remain just that - monsters.

Maybe that's what doesn't feel "right" about Talon of Horus, despite it being an awesome novel. I get that "you're never the bad guy in your own story" but reading ToH and even some of the HH novels, it almost makes it out like the Emperor really is the bad guy and that he had something going on that would have been really bad, just due to the Heresy he never got a chance to do it. ToH does make Abaddon and the Black Legion out to be not so much good guys but decidedly "anti-hero" in their approach. Like, you get the impression that Abaddon is not in any way, shape or form a nice person, but his reasons for wanting to unify the Traitor Legions goes from being a power-mad, genocidal despot to more "The Imperium used us as threw us away, they aren't worthy of the legacy we built for them" which doesn't suit because as you said, Chaos has always been pure evil and corrupting; the only motive needed was either revenge for losing the Heresy or simply "I want the world on a platter". It didn't need this sympathetic undertones that maybe, just maybe, he's right. There were already legions that had some inkling of that as their backstory; Iron Warriors spring to mind where they were literally treated like gak by everyone else and used as little more than fodder themselves, and it made them bitter and twisted and now they are cruel for cruelty's sake but also because they were tempered in it.

I mean it's still a good novel, but I can't get past this idea that it's trying to justify Chaos as something other than people who have literally sold their souls to the devil in exchange for power.

Because evil people never have motivations other than being evil for evil's sake because they're evil, right?

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Xathrodox86 wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
I know, right?

God forbid Aaron Dembski-Bowden give a marginalized, one dimensional faction something as breathtakingly refreshing as a motive.

Having all that plot structure and character development shoved down my throat is so ridiculous. Why can't he get with the program and just write a couple hundred pages of vaguely homoerotic bolter porn?

He's not developing them beyond anything that his new, best band of Mary Sue super soldiers "we didn nothing wrong, no siree". There's a difference between poorly explaining the actions of a Chaos worshipping genocidal maniac and bolter porn (which I never liked). Chaos has always been written as pure evil, which corrupts the souls of men, weak men. You don't need any other reason, because there are none. Horus, Abaddon and other CSM/Renegades rebeled because they've got seduced with power, end of story. There is nothing to add here really, and trying to make them look sympathetic is like trying to exucse the actions of real world genocidal dictators. You can't and in the end, they will still remain just that - monsters.

Maybe that's what doesn't feel "right" about Talon of Horus, despite it being an awesome novel. I get that "you're never the bad guy in your own story" but reading ToH and even some of the HH novels, it almost makes it out like the Emperor really is the bad guy and that he had something going on that would have been really bad, just due to the Heresy he never got a chance to do it. ToH does make Abaddon and the Black Legion out to be not so much good guys but decidedly "anti-hero" in their approach. Like, you get the impression that Abaddon is not in any way, shape or form a nice person, but his reasons for wanting to unify the Traitor Legions goes from being a power-mad, genocidal despot to more "The Imperium used us as threw us away, they aren't worthy of the legacy we built for them" which doesn't suit because as you said, Chaos has always been pure evil and corrupting; the only motive needed was either revenge for losing the Heresy or simply "I want the world on a platter". It didn't need this sympathetic undertones that maybe, just maybe, he's right. There were already legions that had some inkling of that as their backstory; Iron Warriors spring to mind where they were literally treated like gak by everyone else and used as little more than fodder themselves, and it made them bitter and twisted and now they are cruel for cruelty's sake but also because they were tempered in it.

I mean it's still a good novel, but I can't get past this idea that it's trying to justify Chaos as something other than people who have literally sold their souls to the devil in exchange for power.

Because evil people never have motivations other than being evil for evil's sake because they're evil, right?

I don't think he said that. He said that Chaos worshippers are evil for evil's sake, because chaos has corrupted them. Not that all people ever are evil for evil's sake. The Tau, for example, earnestly believe what they are doing is good.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Xathrodox86 wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
I know, right?

God forbid Aaron Dembski-Bowden give a marginalized, one dimensional faction something as breathtakingly refreshing as a motive.

Having all that plot structure and character development shoved down my throat is so ridiculous. Why can't he get with the program and just write a couple hundred pages of vaguely homoerotic bolter porn?

He's not developing them beyond anything that his new, best band of Mary Sue super soldiers "we didn nothing wrong, no siree". There's a difference between poorly explaining the actions of a Chaos worshipping genocidal maniac and bolter porn (which I never liked). Chaos has always been written as pure evil, which corrupts the souls of men, weak men. You don't need any other reason, because there are none. Horus, Abaddon and other CSM/Renegades rebeled because they've got seduced with power, end of story. There is nothing to add here really, and trying to make them look sympathetic is like trying to exucse the actions of real world genocidal dictators. You can't and in the end, they will still remain just that - monsters.

Maybe that's what doesn't feel "right" about Talon of Horus, despite it being an awesome novel. I get that "you're never the bad guy in your own story" but reading ToH and even some of the HH novels, it almost makes it out like the Emperor really is the bad guy and that he had something going on that would have been really bad, just due to the Heresy he never got a chance to do it. ToH does make Abaddon and the Black Legion out to be not so much good guys but decidedly "anti-hero" in their approach. Like, you get the impression that Abaddon is not in any way, shape or form a nice person, but his reasons for wanting to unify the Traitor Legions goes from being a power-mad, genocidal despot to more "The Imperium used us as threw us away, they aren't worthy of the legacy we built for them" which doesn't suit because as you said, Chaos has always been pure evil and corrupting; the only motive needed was either revenge for losing the Heresy or simply "I want the world on a platter". It didn't need this sympathetic undertones that maybe, just maybe, he's right. There were already legions that had some inkling of that as their backstory; Iron Warriors spring to mind where they were literally treated like gak by everyone else and used as little more than fodder themselves, and it made them bitter and twisted and now they are cruel for cruelty's sake but also because they were tempered in it.

I mean it's still a good novel, but I can't get past this idea that it's trying to justify Chaos as something other than people who have literally sold their souls to the devil in exchange for power.

Because evil people never have motivations other than being evil for evil's sake because they're evil, right?

I don't think he said that. He said that Chaos worshippers are evil for evil's sake, because chaos has corrupted them. Not that all people ever are evil for evil's sake. The Tau, for example, earnestly believe what they are doing is good.

And I'm saying that's stupid fluff. That's literally Saturday morning cartoon villian levels of stupid.

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Xathrodox86 wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
I know, right?

God forbid Aaron Dembski-Bowden give a marginalized, one dimensional faction something as breathtakingly refreshing as a motive.

Having all that plot structure and character development shoved down my throat is so ridiculous. Why can't he get with the program and just write a couple hundred pages of vaguely homoerotic bolter porn?

He's not developing them beyond anything that his new, best band of Mary Sue super soldiers "we didn nothing wrong, no siree". There's a difference between poorly explaining the actions of a Chaos worshipping genocidal maniac and bolter porn (which I never liked). Chaos has always been written as pure evil, which corrupts the souls of men, weak men. You don't need any other reason, because there are none. Horus, Abaddon and other CSM/Renegades rebeled because they've got seduced with power, end of story. There is nothing to add here really, and trying to make them look sympathetic is like trying to exucse the actions of real world genocidal dictators. You can't and in the end, they will still remain just that - monsters.

Maybe that's what doesn't feel "right" about Talon of Horus, despite it being an awesome novel. I get that "you're never the bad guy in your own story" but reading ToH and even some of the HH novels, it almost makes it out like the Emperor really is the bad guy and that he had something going on that would have been really bad, just due to the Heresy he never got a chance to do it. ToH does make Abaddon and the Black Legion out to be not so much good guys but decidedly "anti-hero" in their approach. Like, you get the impression that Abaddon is not in any way, shape or form a nice person, but his reasons for wanting to unify the Traitor Legions goes from being a power-mad, genocidal despot to more "The Imperium used us as threw us away, they aren't worthy of the legacy we built for them" which doesn't suit because as you said, Chaos has always been pure evil and corrupting; the only motive needed was either revenge for losing the Heresy or simply "I want the world on a platter". It didn't need this sympathetic undertones that maybe, just maybe, he's right. There were already legions that had some inkling of that as their backstory; Iron Warriors spring to mind where they were literally treated like gak by everyone else and used as little more than fodder themselves, and it made them bitter and twisted and now they are cruel for cruelty's sake but also because they were tempered in it.

I mean it's still a good novel, but I can't get past this idea that it's trying to justify Chaos as something other than people who have literally sold their souls to the devil in exchange for power.

Because evil people never have motivations other than being evil for evil's sake because they're evil, right?

I don't think he said that. He said that Chaos worshippers are evil for evil's sake, because chaos has corrupted them. Not that all people ever are evil for evil's sake. The Tau, for example, earnestly believe what they are doing is good.

And I'm saying that's stupid fluff. That's literally Saturday morning cartoon villian levels of stupid.

Oh yeah. I mean, it always struck me that Chaos basically has always been a super clichéd villain type. I have never personally been heavily engaged with them on the narrative level. "OH! Daemons who make our soldiers grow teeth and claws and lose their minds and sanity. Let's worship them because that can't possibly be ebil."


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Even the chaos gods are like:

"So, Tzeench, what are we gonna do tonight?"
"Same thing we do every night, Nurgle. Try to take over the MATERIAL UNIVERSE!"
"But isn't the material universe an anathema to our very forms?"
"WE WANTS IT!!!!!" *hisss*

I think basically you need to accept abbadon for what he is, a mustache twirling villain. The story needed that when it first got launched because its an easy way to have your bad guy character for a story.

This guy is evil for evils sake, go kill him for the emperor!

What the real problem is, we have seen now abbadon has had a lot of character development which makes the backstory of him no longer fit the meta lore, IE Mustache twirling villain. But since GW never advances the over arching 40k plot line, outside of the 41st millennia, abbadon is still stuck in this mustache twirling state and until the story advances to show he is more then that, its never going to happen.

That said, im not sure how you can show him as anything more then a mustache twirling villain considering Chaos is just, murder, kill, death.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Xathrodox86 wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
I know, right?

God forbid Aaron Dembski-Bowden give a marginalized, one dimensional faction something as breathtakingly refreshing as a motive.

Having all that plot structure and character development shoved down my throat is so ridiculous. Why can't he get with the program and just write a couple hundred pages of vaguely homoerotic bolter porn?

He's not developing them beyond anything that his new, best band of Mary Sue super soldiers "we didn nothing wrong, no siree". There's a difference between poorly explaining the actions of a Chaos worshipping genocidal maniac and bolter porn (which I never liked). Chaos has always been written as pure evil, which corrupts the souls of men, weak men. You don't need any other reason, because there are none. Horus, Abaddon and other CSM/Renegades rebeled because they've got seduced with power, end of story. There is nothing to add here really, and trying to make them look sympathetic is like trying to exucse the actions of real world genocidal dictators. You can't and in the end, they will still remain just that - monsters.

Maybe that's what doesn't feel "right" about Talon of Horus, despite it being an awesome novel. I get that "you're never the bad guy in your own story" but reading ToH and even some of the HH novels, it almost makes it out like the Emperor really is the bad guy and that he had something going on that would have been really bad, just due to the Heresy he never got a chance to do it. ToH does make Abaddon and the Black Legion out to be not so much good guys but decidedly "anti-hero" in their approach. Like, you get the impression that Abaddon is not in any way, shape or form a nice person, but his reasons for wanting to unify the Traitor Legions goes from being a power-mad, genocidal despot to more "The Imperium used us as threw us away, they aren't worthy of the legacy we built for them" which doesn't suit because as you said, Chaos has always been pure evil and corrupting; the only motive needed was either revenge for losing the Heresy or simply "I want the world on a platter". It didn't need this sympathetic undertones that maybe, just maybe, he's right. There were already legions that had some inkling of that as their backstory; Iron Warriors spring to mind where they were literally treated like gak by everyone else and used as little more than fodder themselves, and it made them bitter and twisted and now they are cruel for cruelty's sake but also because they were tempered in it.

I mean it's still a good novel, but I can't get past this idea that it's trying to justify Chaos as something other than people who have literally sold their souls to the devil in exchange for power.

Because evil people never have motivations other than being evil for evil's sake because they're evil, right?

I don't think he said that. He said that Chaos worshippers are evil for evil's sake, because chaos has corrupted them. Not that all people ever are evil for evil's sake. The Tau, for example, earnestly believe what they are doing is good.

And I'm saying that's stupid fluff. That's literally Saturday morning cartoon villian levels of stupid.

Oh yeah. I mean, it always struck me that Chaos basically has always been a super clichéd villain type. I have never personally been heavily engaged with them on the narrative level. "OH! Daemons who make our soldiers grow teeth and claws and lose their minds and sanity. Let's worship them because that can't possibly be ebil."

Do you have any idea how evil Chaos Space Marines are? They're the evilest! Everything they do is the opposite of good! For example, good people eat breakfast in the morning because it's the most important meal of the day. But instead of breakfast Chaos Space Marines eat pure evil. Or maybe they eat pure good. I dunno, which ever is more evil to eat. And while good people eat with their mouths and poop with their butts (often after they have their morning cup of coffee), Chaos Space Marines do the opposite because they are evil! So after they eat pure evil with their butts they buttdrink pure blood (which I'm pretty sure is the opposite of coffee) and then barf out Cheerios. And that's why they hate the Emperor.

Yes. That's basically how Chaos has been for like... ever. AFAIK even the vaunted 3.5 book was like "Many of them have forgotten who they were, but they have not forgotten their sworn vengeance upon the Imperium!" which sounds like the tagline for a B movie lol.

Even the chaos gods are like:

"So, Tzeench, what are we gonna do tonight?"
"Same thing we do every night, Nurgle. Try to take over the MATERIAL UNIVERSE!"
"But isn't the material universe an anathema to our very forms?"
"WE WANTS IT!!!!!" *hisss*

Do not bring ssshame on the gloriousss path of CHANGE!!!
*Behaves like a Tzeentch-fanboy again.....*

 Ankhalagon wrote:

Even the chaos gods are like:

"So, Tzeench, what are we gonna do tonight?"
"Same thing we do every night, Nurgle. Try to take over the MATERIAL UNIVERSE!"
"But isn't the material universe an anathema to our very forms?"
"WE WANTS IT!!!!!" *hisss*

Do not bring ssshame on the gloriousss path of CHANGE!!!
*Behaves like a Tzeentch-fanboy again.....*

Sorry! I just think it's very cartoon-villain-like to want to conquer the known universe because... REASONS! And to fight amongst themselves because uniting would make it 'too easy' just seems, well... cartoon-villain-like.

Chaos are the settings cartoon villains I guess.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yes. That's basically how Chaos has been for like... ever. AFAIK even the vaunted 3.5 book was like "Many of them have forgotten who they were, but they have not forgotten their sworn vengeance upon the Imperium!" which sounds like the tagline for a B movie lol.

The thing to remember though is that a lot of these guys turned against the Emperor out of loyalty to their primarch. And now they're damned. What's that like? To lose a great civil war and be forced to flee into hell? To try to survive? To feel your body changing and mutating? And through it all to one day hope for vengeance? There's more potential there that could be explored once you get past the "we do it for the evulz hurr."

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yes. That's basically how Chaos has been for like... ever. AFAIK even the vaunted 3.5 book was like "Many of them have forgotten who they were, but they have not forgotten their sworn vengeance upon the Imperium!" which sounds like the tagline for a B movie lol.

Yeah because 3rd edition fluff was the grimmest of the grimdark, cutting out the funny bits and nuance of goodness (with exception of Tau). Beating out even Rogue Trader at times, though at the least Chaos has gotten some semblance of it's old self back, Khorne used to have martial pride and the like rather then blood blood blood for example.

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yes. That's basically how Chaos has been for like... ever. AFAIK even the vaunted 3.5 book was like "Many of them have forgotten who they were, but they have not forgotten their sworn vengeance upon the Imperium!" which sounds like the tagline for a B movie lol.

The thing to remember though is that a lot of these guys turned against the Emperor out of loyalty to their primarch. And now they're damned. What's that like? To lose a great civil war and be forced to flee into hell? To try to survive? To feel your body changing and mutating? And through it all to one day hope for vengeance? There's more potential there that could be explored once you get past the "we do it for the evulz hurr."

They turned out of loyalty to their primarch.... who allied with another primarch... who virus-bombed a planet for no reason. The Chaos primarchs did blatantly evil things during the Heresy, and if your loyal to the point of blindness... well, that's on you, I suppose.

Also, it's not like the Primarchs had good reasons to turn.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yes. That's basically how Chaos has been for like... ever. AFAIK even the vaunted 3.5 book was like "Many of them have forgotten who they were, but they have not forgotten their sworn vengeance upon the Imperium!" which sounds like the tagline for a B movie lol.

The thing to remember though is that a lot of these guys turned against the Emperor out of loyalty to their primarch. And now they're damned. What's that like? To lose a great civil war and be forced to flee into hell? To try to survive? To feel your body changing and mutating? And through it all to one day hope for vengeance? There's more potential there that could be explored once you get past the "we do it for the evulz hurr."

They turned out of loyalty to their primarch.... who allied with another primarch... who virus-bombed a planet for no reason. The Chaos primarchs did blatantly evil things during the Heresy, and if your loyal to the point of blindness... well, that's on you, I suppose.

Also, it's not like the Primarchs had good reasons to turn.

He didn't virus bomb a planet for no reason. He virus bombed a planet to eliminate his enemies. Because it was war. And in war people die. It's not like Imperium didn't do equally horrible things during the Great Crusade. Hell, the Emperor reprimanded a primarch for not being bloodthirsty enough. And that's what ultimately set in motion the events that caused the Heresy.

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yes. That's basically how Chaos has been for like... ever. AFAIK even the vaunted 3.5 book was like "Many of them have forgotten who they were, but they have not forgotten their sworn vengeance upon the Imperium!" which sounds like the tagline for a B movie lol.

The thing to remember though is that a lot of these guys turned against the Emperor out of loyalty to their primarch. And now they're damned. What's that like? To lose a great civil war and be forced to flee into hell? To try to survive? To feel your body changing and mutating? And through it all to one day hope for vengeance? There's more potential there that could be explored once you get past the "we do it for the evulz hurr."

They turned out of loyalty to their primarch.... who allied with another primarch... who virus-bombed a planet for no reason. The Chaos primarchs did blatantly evil things during the Heresy, and if your loyal to the point of blindness... well, that's on you, I suppose.

Also, it's not like the Primarchs had good reasons to turn.

He didn't virus bomb a planet for no reason. He virus bombed a planet to eliminate his enemies. Because it was war. And in war people die. It's not like Imperium didn't do equally horrible things during the Great Crusade. Hell, the Emperor reprimanded a primarch for not being bloodthirsty enough. And that's what ultimately set in motion the events that caused the Heresy.

Yeah but the virus bombing of battle brothers is far more atrocious, to the loyalists, its was as if their own family had betrayed them, not just some enemy that was out to kill them, but people they trusted with their lives.

So its a wee bit more horrible then what the Big E has done, that said, the Big E has done some shady gak.

Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yes. That's basically how Chaos has been for like... ever. AFAIK even the vaunted 3.5 book was like "Many of them have forgotten who they were, but they have not forgotten their sworn vengeance upon the Imperium!" which sounds like the tagline for a B movie lol.

The thing to remember though is that a lot of these guys turned against the Emperor out of loyalty to their primarch. And now they're damned. What's that like? To lose a great civil war and be forced to flee into hell? To try to survive? To feel your body changing and mutating? And through it all to one day hope for vengeance? There's more potential there that could be explored once you get past the "we do it for the evulz hurr."

They turned out of loyalty to their primarch.... who allied with another primarch... who virus-bombed a planet for no reason. The Chaos primarchs did blatantly evil things during the Heresy, and if your loyal to the point of blindness... well, that's on you, I suppose.

Also, it's not like the Primarchs had good reasons to turn.

He didn't virus bomb a planet for no reason. He virus bombed a planet to eliminate his enemies. Because it was war. And in war people die. It's not like Imperium didn't do equally horrible things during the Great Crusade. Hell, the Emperor reprimanded a primarch for not being bloodthirsty enough. And that's what ultimately set in motion the events that caused the Heresy.

Yes... big E reprimanded Lorgar for not being speedy enough in his conquests. Not all conquests need be blood-drenched war-fighting affairs; I imagine some of the long-lost human colonies would be grateful to see more humans. A good general does not have to be 'bloodthirsty' but he also cannot spend all of his time building architectural masterpieces of worship to someone who explicitly forbids worshipping him.

I honestly think Lorgar overreacted. The Emperor told him to be an atheist, and he decided not to be, because 'reasons'... and then decided that submitting the future of humanity to dark, alien gods was a preferable alternative to atheism.

Really lorgar? Why ya' gotta' be like that?

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yes. That's basically how Chaos has been for like... ever. AFAIK even the vaunted 3.5 book was like "Many of them have forgotten who they were, but they have not forgotten their sworn vengeance upon the Imperium!" which sounds like the tagline for a B movie lol.

The thing to remember though is that a lot of these guys turned against the Emperor out of loyalty to their primarch. And now they're damned. What's that like? To lose a great civil war and be forced to flee into hell? To try to survive? To feel your body changing and mutating? And through it all to one day hope for vengeance? There's more potential there that could be explored once you get past the "we do it for the evulz hurr."

They turned out of loyalty to their primarch.... who allied with another primarch... who virus-bombed a planet for no reason. The Chaos primarchs did blatantly evil things during the Heresy, and if your loyal to the point of blindness... well, that's on you, I suppose.

Also, it's not like the Primarchs had good reasons to turn.

He didn't virus bomb a planet for no reason. He virus bombed a planet to eliminate his enemies. Because it was war. And in war people die. It's not like Imperium didn't do equally horrible things during the Great Crusade. Hell, the Emperor reprimanded a primarch for not being bloodthirsty enough. And that's what ultimately set in motion the events that caused the Heresy.

Yeah but the virus bombing of battle brothers is far more atrocious, to the loyalists, its was as if their own family had betrayed them, not just some enemy that was out to kill them, but people they trusted with their lives.

So its a wee bit more horrible then what the Big E has done, that said, the Big E has done some shady gak.

The Emperor created the Thunder Warriors as disposable warriors and turned on them and killed them all when their usefulness had expired. They were not disloyal.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yes. That's basically how Chaos has been for like... ever. AFAIK even the vaunted 3.5 book was like "Many of them have forgotten who they were, but they have not forgotten their sworn vengeance upon the Imperium!" which sounds like the tagline for a B movie lol.

The thing to remember though is that a lot of these guys turned against the Emperor out of loyalty to their primarch. And now they're damned. What's that like? To lose a great civil war and be forced to flee into hell? To try to survive? To feel your body changing and mutating? And through it all to one day hope for vengeance? There's more potential there that could be explored once you get past the "we do it for the evulz hurr."

They turned out of loyalty to their primarch.... who allied with another primarch... who virus-bombed a planet for no reason. The Chaos primarchs did blatantly evil things during the Heresy, and if your loyal to the point of blindness... well, that's on you, I suppose.

Also, it's not like the Primarchs had good reasons to turn.

He didn't virus bomb a planet for no reason. He virus bombed a planet to eliminate his enemies. Because it was war. And in war people die. It's not like Imperium didn't do equally horrible things during the Great Crusade. Hell, the Emperor reprimanded a primarch for not being bloodthirsty enough. And that's what ultimately set in motion the events that caused the Heresy.

Yes... big E reprimanded Lorgar for not being speedy enough in his conquests. Not all conquests need be blood-drenched war-fighting affairs; I imagine some of the long-lost human colonies would be grateful to see more humans. A good general does not have to be 'bloodthirsty' but he also cannot spend all of his time building architectural masterpieces of worship to someone who explicitly forbids worshipping him.

I honestly think Lorgar overreacted. The Emperor told him to be an atheist, and he decided not to be, because 'reasons'... and then decided that submitting the future of humanity to dark, alien gods was a preferable alternative to atheism.

Really lorgar? Why ya' gotta' be like that?

Lorgar sought the truth and found it. The Imperial Truth was a lie from the beginning. A useful lie, but a lie nonetheless.

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yes. That's basically how Chaos has been for like... ever. AFAIK even the vaunted 3.5 book was like "Many of them have forgotten who they were, but they have not forgotten their sworn vengeance upon the Imperium!" which sounds like the tagline for a B movie lol.

The thing to remember though is that a lot of these guys turned against the Emperor out of loyalty to their primarch. And now they're damned. What's that like? To lose a great civil war and be forced to flee into hell? To try to survive? To feel your body changing and mutating? And through it all to one day hope for vengeance? There's more potential there that could be explored once you get past the "we do it for the evulz hurr."

They turned out of loyalty to their primarch.... who allied with another primarch... who virus-bombed a planet for no reason. The Chaos primarchs did blatantly evil things during the Heresy, and if your loyal to the point of blindness... well, that's on you, I suppose.

Also, it's not like the Primarchs had good reasons to turn.

He didn't virus bomb a planet for no reason. He virus bombed a planet to eliminate his enemies. Because it was war. And in war people die. It's not like Imperium didn't do equally horrible things during the Great Crusade. Hell, the Emperor reprimanded a primarch for not being bloodthirsty enough. And that's what ultimately set in motion the events that caused the Heresy.

Yeah but the virus bombing of battle brothers is far more atrocious, to the loyalists, its was as if their own family had betrayed them, not just some enemy that was out to kill them, but people they trusted with their lives.

So its a wee bit more horrible then what the Big E has done, that said, the Big E has done some shady gak.

The Emperor created the Thunder Warriors as disposable warriors and turned on them and killed them all when their usefulness had expired. They were not disloyal.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yes. That's basically how Chaos has been for like... ever. AFAIK even the vaunted 3.5 book was like "Many of them have forgotten who they were, but they have not forgotten their sworn vengeance upon the Imperium!" which sounds like the tagline for a B movie lol.

The thing to remember though is that a lot of these guys turned against the Emperor out of loyalty to their primarch. And now they're damned. What's that like? To lose a great civil war and be forced to flee into hell? To try to survive? To feel your body changing and mutating? And through it all to one day hope for vengeance? There's more potential there that could be explored once you get past the "we do it for the evulz hurr."

They turned out of loyalty to their primarch.... who allied with another primarch... who virus-bombed a planet for no reason. The Chaos primarchs did blatantly evil things during the Heresy, and if your loyal to the point of blindness... well, that's on you, I suppose.

Also, it's not like the Primarchs had good reasons to turn.

He didn't virus bomb a planet for no reason. He virus bombed a planet to eliminate his enemies. Because it was war. And in war people die. It's not like Imperium didn't do equally horrible things during the Great Crusade. Hell, the Emperor reprimanded a primarch for not being bloodthirsty enough. And that's what ultimately set in motion the events that caused the Heresy.

Yes... big E reprimanded Lorgar for not being speedy enough in his conquests. Not all conquests need be blood-drenched war-fighting affairs; I imagine some of the long-lost human colonies would be grateful to see more humans. A good general does not have to be 'bloodthirsty' but he also cannot spend all of his time building architectural masterpieces of worship to someone who explicitly forbids worshipping him.

I honestly think Lorgar overreacted. The Emperor told him to be an atheist, and he decided not to be, because 'reasons'... and then decided that submitting the future of humanity to dark, alien gods was a preferable alternative to atheism.

Really lorgar? Why ya' gotta' be like that?

Lorgar sought the truth and found it. The Imperial Truth was a lie from the beginning. A useful lie, but a lie nonetheless.

No it wasn't. The Chaos gods aren't gods in the strictest sense of the words; merely powerful warp-entities. Humanity co-existed with them for millennia without having a god.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Xathrodox86 wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
I know, right?

God forbid Aaron Dembski-Bowden give a marginalized, one dimensional faction something as breathtakingly refreshing as a motive.

Having all that plot structure and character development shoved down my throat is so ridiculous. Why can't he get with the program and just write a couple hundred pages of vaguely homoerotic bolter porn?

He's not developing them beyond anything that his new, best band of Mary Sue super soldiers "we didn nothing wrong, no siree". There's a difference between poorly explaining the actions of a Chaos worshipping genocidal maniac and bolter porn (which I never liked). Chaos has always been written as pure evil, which corrupts the souls of men, weak men. You don't need any other reason, because there are none. Horus, Abaddon and other CSM/Renegades rebeled because they've got seduced with power, end of story. There is nothing to add here really, and trying to make them look sympathetic is like trying to exucse the actions of real world genocidal dictators. You can't and in the end, they will still remain just that - monsters.

Maybe that's what doesn't feel "right" about Talon of Horus, despite it being an awesome novel. I get that "you're never the bad guy in your own story" but reading ToH and even some of the HH novels, it almost makes it out like the Emperor really is the bad guy and that he had something going on that would have been really bad, just due to the Heresy he never got a chance to do it. ToH does make Abaddon and the Black Legion out to be not so much good guys but decidedly "anti-hero" in their approach. Like, you get the impression that Abaddon is not in any way, shape or form a nice person, but his reasons for wanting to unify the Traitor Legions goes from being a power-mad, genocidal despot to more "The Imperium used us as threw us away, they aren't worthy of the legacy we built for them" which doesn't suit because as you said, Chaos has always been pure evil and corrupting; the only motive needed was either revenge for losing the Heresy or simply "I want the world on a platter". It didn't need this sympathetic undertones that maybe, just maybe, he's right. There were already legions that had some inkling of that as their backstory; Iron Warriors spring to mind where they were literally treated like gak by everyone else and used as little more than fodder themselves, and it made them bitter and twisted and now they are cruel for cruelty's sake but also because they were tempered in it.

I mean it's still a good novel, but I can't get past this idea that it's trying to justify Chaos as something other than people who have literally sold their souls to the devil in exchange for power.

Maybe it's because I started in third, but this is what csm have always been for me. In their minds, they essentially created the imperium. The imperium is built on their blood. I'm sure the lord solar had nothing to do with that but that's not he point lol.
And all the primarchs were equals, brothers, and suddenly ye old emps let's them drop like a hot potatoe and elevates horus above all others and yet doesn't even tell him what's going on. They were right to be mad at that. They were created for conquest and looking at how most of them immediately saw the emperor as their long lost father figure, they imagined to fight side by side with him. Not as his lackeys and most certainly not at the command of ordinary humans.
Then throw in some word bearers whom emps denied them that which fulfills them. It's in their geneseed, they are driven to worship something. And what could be more worthy of worship than actual gods. Gods who are quite literally the truth.. And they do not lie. So naturally the word bearers would be drawn to them, regardless of the nature of what they do. Fast forward to horus getting tricked into receiving visions of the future.
In which it looks like the emps is full of bolony, being venerated as a god among side a few other primarchs and yet not him. So he came to the conclusion that the emperor was basically trying to get rid of him, his favoured son. After all the sacrifice and work he and he's brothers did. They were mere tools to be used by the emperor. If that doesn't feel like betrayal I don't know what would.
Plus I always had the impression that the primarchs were rather moody. They seem to have strong emotions, but never learned to work with them through all the conquering in addition to having a tendency to take everything to extremes. So instead of going to the emperor and asking what the feth this was all about, they went full table flip mode.

Following that, Magnus was betrayed by the emperor as well. He tried to warn him and help him, with tzeentch offering him the help he needed to contact the emperor but instead he flipped him the bird and sent the wolves to destroy him ( at least that's what it would have looked like to him.) . Had he told Magnus what he was doing, the webway might not have been destroyed.
The alpha legion had to endure mockery and scorn from day one, despite their successes. And I like to think they aided horus in order to stop the gods.
The night lords were always murderers first, no surprise there that they went traitor. Same with Angron would was never quite right in the head after the implants.
The emperors children were driven to slaanesh much like the word bearers. Their geneseed set them up for this path once in contact with the corrupting nature of chaos.
I mean, all the legions that fell to a god would naturally do as their god demands. Gods who have no concept of morality. I don't think they're evil for evil's sake, but they are single minded. Slaanesh demands excess and depravity and so they do it for the sake of it. They don't really have a mind of their own. And the gods don't really do these things to be evil either. They do what they were born to do, they don't know any better. Like slaanesh basically IS greed and all that, while at the same time feeding on it. I'm not sure the gods are sentient in the same way we are.

Either way, the undivided legions all have some reason or another to feel betrayed by the emperor and the corrupting influence of chaos then does it's thing over the millenia to pervert that reasoning and forcing them into situations where sacrificing a planet or two is the only course of action.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yes. That's basically how Chaos has been for like... ever. AFAIK even the vaunted 3.5 book was like "Many of them have forgotten who they were, but they have not forgotten their sworn vengeance upon the Imperium!" which sounds like the tagline for a B movie lol.

The thing to remember though is that a lot of these guys turned against the Emperor out of loyalty to their primarch. And now they're damned. What's that like? To lose a great civil war and be forced to flee into hell? To try to survive? To feel your body changing and mutating? And through it all to one day hope for vengeance? There's more potential there that could be explored once you get past the "we do it for the evulz hurr."

They turned out of loyalty to their primarch.... who allied with another primarch... who virus-bombed a planet for no reason. The Chaos primarchs did blatantly evil things during the Heresy, and if your loyal to the point of blindness... well, that's on you, I suppose.

Also, it's not like the Primarchs had good reasons to turn.

He didn't virus bomb a planet for no reason. He virus bombed a planet to eliminate his enemies. Because it was war. And in war people die. It's not like Imperium didn't do equally horrible things during the Great Crusade. Hell, the Emperor reprimanded a primarch for not being bloodthirsty enough. And that's what ultimately set in motion the events that caused the Heresy.

Yes... big E reprimanded Lorgar for not being speedy enough in his conquests. Not all conquests need be blood-drenched war-fighting affairs; I imagine some of the long-lost human colonies would be grateful to see more humans. A good general does not have to be 'bloodthirsty' but he also cannot spend all of his time building architectural masterpieces of worship to someone who explicitly forbids worshipping him.

I honestly think Lorgar overreacted. The Emperor told him to be an atheist, and he decided not to be, because 'reasons'... and then decided that submitting the future of humanity to dark, alien gods was a preferable alternative to atheism.

Really lorgar? Why ya' gotta' be like that?

The problem was, the Emperor overlooked his worship for a while.. And then chastised him so harshly that even the Ultramarines thought it harsh by burning his grandest city, forcing him to kneel in the ruins to him, Malcador, and Gulliman.

Plus I always had the impression that the primarchs were rather moody. They seem to have strong emotions, but never learned to work with them through all the conquering in addition to having a tendency to take everything to extremes. So instead of going to the emperor and asking what the feth this was all about, they went full table flip mode.

Because the Emperor's major problems could be summed up as the Emperor is definitely not a people person, thinking everyone would be like him and he tends to have a bit of a problem if they aren't, when they DID ask him he tended to blow them off or ask why aren't they doing what he told them to do.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yes. That's basically how Chaos has been for like... ever. AFAIK even the vaunted 3.5 book was like "Many of them have forgotten who they were, but they have not forgotten their sworn vengeance upon the Imperium!" which sounds like the tagline for a B movie lol.

The thing to remember though is that a lot of these guys turned against the Emperor out of loyalty to their primarch. And now they're damned. What's that like? To lose a great civil war and be forced to flee into hell? To try to survive? To feel your body changing and mutating? And through it all to one day hope for vengeance? There's more potential there that could be explored once you get past the "we do it for the evulz hurr."

They turned out of loyalty to their primarch.... who allied with another primarch... who virus-bombed a planet for no reason. The Chaos primarchs did blatantly evil things during the Heresy, and if your loyal to the point of blindness... well, that's on you, I suppose.

Also, it's not like the Primarchs had good reasons to turn.

Hey now there was a reason for virus-bombing Istvaan III; it was to wipe out the people who weren't expected to side with Horus in his rebellion. He purposely sent people who were "troublemakers" to Istvaan to wipe them out.

I do feel the Heresy novels explain more than just "Haha I am evil!", it gives them personality. I just find that ADB went a bit too far with Abaddon in Talon of Horus to make him out as an anti-hero instead of being a villain. One can be a villain and have good motives and goals without becoming sympathetic to the reader to where you start to think he's not that bad. I feel Chaos still needs to be decidedly in the "evil" category, but they can have their motives. Like what attracts me to the Iron Warriors is their fluff, that they were constantly sent to the hardest, most unforgiving places, given hardly any credit, and while other Primarchs were all like "Hell no you aren't splitting up my legion" the IW were all "Okay, an order is an order" along with Perturabo being a megalomanical genius who told his own guys to decimate their ranks not because their record was poor, but because they were viewed as workhorses. That's pretty three-dimensional to me, how they are cold and calculating and see themselves as, to paraphrase the 3rd edition Index Astartes: "Titans of old who are loose in the world, knowing that nothing can stop them".

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yes. That's basically how Chaos has been for like... ever. AFAIK even the vaunted 3.5 book was like "Many of them have forgotten who they were, but they have not forgotten their sworn vengeance upon the Imperium!" which sounds like the tagline for a B movie lol.

The thing to remember though is that a lot of these guys turned against the Emperor out of loyalty to their primarch. And now they're damned. What's that like? To lose a great civil war and be forced to flee into hell? To try to survive? To feel your body changing and mutating? And through it all to one day hope for vengeance? There's more potential there that could be explored once you get past the "we do it for the evulz hurr."

They turned out of loyalty to their primarch.... who allied with another primarch... who virus-bombed a planet for no reason. The Chaos primarchs did blatantly evil things during the Heresy, and if your loyal to the point of blindness... well, that's on you, I suppose.

Also, it's not like the Primarchs had good reasons to turn.

Hey now there was a reason for virus-bombing Istvaan III; it was to wipe out the people who weren't expected to side with Horus in his rebellion. He purposely sent people who were "troublemakers" to Istvaan to wipe them out.

I do feel the Heresy novels explain more than just "Haha I am evil!", it gives them personality. I just find that ADB went a bit too far with Abaddon in Talon of Horus to make him out as an anti-hero instead of being a villain. One can be a villain and have good motives and goals without becoming sympathetic to the reader to where you start to think he's not that bad. I feel Chaos still needs to be decidedly in the "evil" category, but they can have their motives. Like what attracts me to the Iron Warriors is their fluff, that they were constantly sent to the hardest, most unforgiving places, given hardly any credit, and while other Primarchs were all like "Hell no you aren't splitting up my legion" the IW were all "Okay, an order is an order" along with Perturabo being a megalomanical genius who told his own guys to decimate their ranks not because their record was poor, but because they were viewed as workhorses. That's pretty three-dimensional to me, how they are cold and calculating and see themselves as, to paraphrase the 3rd edition Index Astartes: "Titans of old who are loose in the world, knowing that nothing can stop them".

Agreed. Horus was evil, narcissistic, and ambitious, but he didn't bomb the planet for no reason. He did it to expressly get rid of those who stood in his way, like Logan.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yes. That's basically how Chaos has been for like... ever. AFAIK even the vaunted 3.5 book was like "Many of them have forgotten who they were, but they have not forgotten their sworn vengeance upon the Imperium!" which sounds like the tagline for a B movie lol.

The thing to remember though is that a lot of these guys turned against the Emperor out of loyalty to their primarch. And now they're damned. What's that like? To lose a great civil war and be forced to flee into hell? To try to survive? To feel your body changing and mutating? And through it all to one day hope for vengeance? There's more potential there that could be explored once you get past the "we do it for the evulz hurr."

They turned out of loyalty to their primarch.... who allied with another primarch... who virus-bombed a planet for no reason. The Chaos primarchs did blatantly evil things during the Heresy, and if your loyal to the point of blindness... well, that's on you, I suppose.

Also, it's not like the Primarchs had good reasons to turn.

He didn't virus bomb a planet for no reason. He virus bombed a planet to eliminate his enemies. Because it was war. And in war people die. It's not like Imperium didn't do equally horrible things during the Great Crusade. Hell, the Emperor reprimanded a primarch for not being bloodthirsty enough. And that's what ultimately set in motion the events that caused the Heresy.

Yes... big E reprimanded Lorgar for not being speedy enough in his conquests. Not all conquests need be blood-drenched war-fighting affairs; I imagine some of the long-lost human colonies would be grateful to see more humans. A good general does not have to be 'bloodthirsty' but he also cannot spend all of his time building architectural masterpieces of worship to someone who explicitly forbids worshipping him.

I honestly think Lorgar overreacted. The Emperor told him to be an atheist, and he decided not to be, because 'reasons'... and then decided that submitting the future of humanity to dark, alien gods was a preferable alternative to atheism.

Really lorgar? Why ya' gotta' be like that?

The problem was, the Emperor overlooked his worship for a while.. And then chastised him so harshly that even the Ultramarines thought it harsh by burning his grandest city, forcing him to kneel in the ruins to him, Malcador, and Gulliman.

I understand that he was chastised harshly... but that has nothing to do. His instructions were to stop worshipping Gods, and instead of stopping he went right on and found powerful aliens, built them up to be gods, and then started worshipping them. He was so desperate for a deity he nearly doomed humankind in his quest for "truth" which is subjective anyways in this case. (This case being spirituality, rather than philosophy or reality).

Honestly.. I think Abbadon's a chump because he -thinks- he's not serving the chaos gods, but the joke's on him. No one benefits from the chaos gods that ultimately doesn't end up serving their ends, whether intentionally or not. Also, his motivations are stupid just like most of the childish motivations in 40k. "whhhaaaaa, my traitor daddy got killed by the empire loyalists, I'm going to kill everybody everywhere because of that." As far as him being successful or not, well, as others have stated, the writers seem to have shifted his crusades from being failed attempts to end the empire to instead being successful in their real goals of advancing his power. I'm fine with that answer.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yes. That's basically how Chaos has been for like... ever. AFAIK even the vaunted 3.5 book was like "Many of them have forgotten who they were, but they have not forgotten their sworn vengeance upon the Imperium!" which sounds like the tagline for a B movie lol.

The thing to remember though is that a lot of these guys turned against the Emperor out of loyalty to their primarch. And now they're damned. What's that like? To lose a great civil war and be forced to flee into hell? To try to survive? To feel your body changing and mutating? And through it all to one day hope for vengeance? There's more potential there that could be explored once you get past the "we do it for the evulz hurr."

They turned out of loyalty to their primarch.... who allied with another primarch... who virus-bombed a planet for no reason. The Chaos primarchs did blatantly evil things during the Heresy, and if your loyal to the point of blindness... well, that's on you, I suppose.

Also, it's not like the Primarchs had good reasons to turn.

He didn't virus bomb a planet for no reason. He virus bombed a planet to eliminate his enemies. Because it was war. And in war people die. It's not like Imperium didn't do equally horrible things during the Great Crusade. Hell, the Emperor reprimanded a primarch for not being bloodthirsty enough. And that's what ultimately set in motion the events that caused the Heresy.

Yes... big E reprimanded Lorgar for not being speedy enough in his conquests. Not all conquests need be blood-drenched war-fighting affairs; I imagine some of the long-lost human colonies would be grateful to see more humans. A good general does not have to be 'bloodthirsty' but he also cannot spend all of his time building architectural masterpieces of worship to someone who explicitly forbids worshipping him.

I honestly think Lorgar overreacted. The Emperor told him to be an atheist, and he decided not to be, because 'reasons'... and then decided that submitting the future of humanity to dark, alien gods was a preferable alternative to atheism.

Really lorgar? Why ya' gotta' be like that?

The problem was, the Emperor overlooked his worship for a while.. And then chastised him so harshly that even the Ultramarines thought it harsh by burning his grandest city, forcing him to kneel in the ruins to him, Malcador, and Gulliman.

I understand that he was chastised harshly... but that has nothing to do. His instructions were to stop worshipping Gods, and instead of stopping he went right on and found powerful aliens, built them up to be gods, and then started worshipping them. He was so desperate for a deity he nearly doomed humankind in his quest for "truth" which is subjective anyways in this case. (This case being spirituality, rather than philosophy or reality).

What I find most interesting about Lorgar is that the Imperium eventually became what he wanted, and worshiped the Emperor as a god. I did find it really interesting that the Emperor was basically an atheist and wanted science over religion, but then the cult formed and when Euphrati Keeler became a 'saint" it kind of pushed worshiping him instead. What makes it the most interesting is that clearly there was something divine at work, so was the Emperor just trying to deny the fact he was a god?

Isn't the imperial faith based on something he wrote?

Roknar wrote:
Isn't the imperial faith based on something he wrote?

I don't remember. Probably taken from it, but I doubt officially because that would not suit well to know the Imperial Creed is based on the works of a heretic. I know that in the first three novels, it's basically a cult following that isn't allowed to officially be recognized, until Euphrati Keeler fights off a daemon with "faith" and becomes considered a saint, then it sort of spreads.

So what would it take to have the CSM and Abbadon be taken more seriously? An advance in the plot in which he does actually accomplish something?

A box game (similar to Deathwatch) but include a new Abby and have a driven plot to reinvent the man?

 Field_Mouse wrote:
So what would it take to have the CSM and Abbadon be taken more seriously? An advance in the plot in which he does actually accomplish something?

A box game (similar to Deathwatch) but include a new Abby and have a driven plot to reinvent the man?

Stop retconning the fluff, advance the fluff, have him destroy something significant and give him a reason to be feared (destroy a homeworld or assault the gates of Terra, something)

Actually break Cadia in two.

Its been said earlier in the thread, by a wise man, that Abby has some SERIOUS bad guy decay. I think its about time to retire him and replace him with a more credible threat. After the 13th crusade of course.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

I understand that he was chastised harshly... but that has nothing to do. His instructions were to stop worshipping Gods, and instead of stopping he went right on and found powerful aliens, built them up to be gods, and then started worshipping them. He was so desperate for a deity he nearly doomed humankind in his quest for "truth" which is subjective anyways in this case. (This case being spirituality, rather than philosophy or reality).

The Chaos gods are not xenos as the Emperor falsely claimed. They are reflections of humanity. The gods don't make the galaxy this way, we do.

In an honest response as well...wasn't Archaon technically a moustache twirling villain too, right up until the End Times? I mean, he's had small successes, but always got beaten back until he finally won because GW decided he needed to. Of course, fantasy Chaos has always trumped 40k chaos in GW's eyes.

WayneTheGame wrote:

Roknar wrote:
Isn't the imperial faith based on something he wrote?

I don't remember. Probably taken from it, but I doubt officially because that would not suit well to know the Imperial Creed is based on the works of a heretic. I know that in the first three novels, it's basically a cult following that isn't allowed to officially be recognized, until Euphrati Keeler fights off a daemon with "faith" and becomes considered a saint, then it sort of spreads.

How many people even know of lorgar though? Let alone some creed he supposedly wrote. That creed must have been circulating long before before the horus heresy had any effect on your average citizen.
I could have this all wrong but I feel like that knowledge was spreading even before he got reprimanded by the emperor. I doubt setting one city on fire would be enough to rid the imperium of his doctrines.
They have probably deviated from whatever he initally wrote down, so I'm not sure it would even be associated to him.

I also like to entertain the thought that those writings are what is keeping the imperium running these days. To the point that all this worship might yet end up turning him into another chaos god. The irony.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
In an honest response as well...wasn't Archaon technically a moustache twirling villain too, right up until the End Times? I mean, he's had small successes, but always got beaten back until he finally won because GW decided he needed to. Of course, fantasy Chaos has always trumped 40k chaos in GW's eyes.

I pointed out that Archaon was in the same boat, but because he was a relatively new character in the canon this wasn't as bad for him. Abaddon was already a decorated general before the Heresy then spent 10k years more or less having his ass handed to him. In addition, I don't think Archaon ever screwed up twice in the same way, while Abaddon keeps doing the same thing and gets rebutted each time.

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

I understand that he was chastised harshly... but that has nothing to do. His instructions were to stop worshipping Gods, and instead of stopping he went right on and found powerful aliens, built them up to be gods, and then started worshipping them. He was so desperate for a deity he nearly doomed humankind in his quest for "truth" which is subjective anyways in this case. (This case being spirituality, rather than philosophy or reality).

The Chaos gods are not xenos as the Emperor falsely claimed. They are reflections of humanity. The gods don't make the galaxy this way, we do.

They're a reflection of every living thing in the galaxy, not just humanity. And they're not all a reflection of humanity, either, as there are soulless humans. Chaos are life in the warp, perhaps shaped and evolved by the emotions of all sentience (not just humans) in the Milky Way, but life on its own. They're not reflections of us, not completely. Our negative sides, maybe. But there's no Chaos god of compassion, love, empathy, and kindness - which are just as significant in the sphere of human existence as hatred, despair, hope, and lust.

Hey! Papa nurgle spreads plenty of love .
I don't remember where I read it, but I believe that all emotions have some kind of entity associated with them, they're just not as strong as the big four.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

I understand that he was chastised harshly... but that has nothing to do. His instructions were to stop worshipping Gods, and instead of stopping he went right on and found powerful aliens, built them up to be gods, and then started worshipping them. He was so desperate for a deity he nearly doomed humankind in his quest for "truth" which is subjective anyways in this case. (This case being spirituality, rather than philosophy or reality).

The Chaos gods are not xenos as the Emperor falsely claimed. They are reflections of humanity. The gods don't make the galaxy this way, we do.

They're a reflection of every living thing in the galaxy, not just humanity. And they're not all a reflection of humanity, either, as there are soulless humans. Chaos are life in the warp, perhaps shaped and evolved by the emotions of all sentience (not just humans) in the Milky Way, but life on its own. They're not reflections of us, not completely. Our negative sides, maybe. But there's no Chaos god of compassion, love, empathy, and kindness - which are just as significant in the sphere of human existence as hatred, despair, hope, and lust.

Considering that Soulless humans were originally created by old Necron's (3rd edition) introducing things into them so that they could use them to create monsters to fight and help destroy the warp itself.. I don't think they count in general.

Roknar wrote:
Gods who are quite literally the truth.. And they do not lie.

Gods who do not lie? Are we talking about Tzeentch here?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
But there's no Chaos god of compassion, love, empathy, and kindness - which are just as significant in the sphere of human existence as hatred, despair, hope, and lust.

Not in 40k they're not. If they were, the galaxy wouldn't be the horrible crapsack that we all know and love.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Roknar wrote:
Gods who are quite literally the truth.. And they do not lie.

Gods who do not lie? Are we talking about Tzeentch here?

The irony is that nothing the Chaos gods showed Horus was a lie. A misleading, sefl-fulfilling prophecy, yes. But not a lie.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Roknar wrote:
Gods who are quite literally the truth.. And they do not lie.

Gods who do not lie? Are we talking about Tzeentch here?

Tzeentch never ever lies!
*Lies...*

 Ankhalagon wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Roknar wrote:
Gods who are quite literally the truth.. And they do not lie.

Gods who do not lie? Are we talking about Tzeentch here?

Tzeentch never ever lies!
*Lies...*

His lies are truth. Only the truth is a lie.

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Xathrodox86 wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
I know, right?

God forbid Aaron Dembski-Bowden give a marginalized, one dimensional faction something as breathtakingly refreshing as a motive.

Having all that plot structure and character development shoved down my throat is so ridiculous. Why can't he get with the program and just write a couple hundred pages of vaguely homoerotic bolter porn?

He's not developing them beyond anything that his new, best band of Mary Sue super soldiers "we didn nothing wrong, no siree". There's a difference between poorly explaining the actions of a Chaos worshipping genocidal maniac and bolter porn (which I never liked). Chaos has always been written as pure evil, which corrupts the souls of men, weak men. You don't need any other reason, because there are none. Horus, Abaddon and other CSM/Renegades rebeled because they've got seduced with power, end of story. There is nothing to add here really, and trying to make them look sympathetic is like trying to exucse the actions of real world genocidal dictators. You can't and in the end, they will still remain just that - monsters.

Maybe that's what doesn't feel "right" about Talon of Horus, despite it being an awesome novel. I get that "you're never the bad guy in your own story" but reading ToH and even some of the HH novels, it almost makes it out like the Emperor really is the bad guy and that he had something going on that would have been really bad, just due to the Heresy he never got a chance to do it. ToH does make Abaddon and the Black Legion out to be not so much good guys but decidedly "anti-hero" in their approach. Like, you get the impression that Abaddon is not in any way, shape or form a nice person, but his reasons for wanting to unify the Traitor Legions goes from being a power-mad, genocidal despot to more "The Imperium used us as threw us away, they aren't worthy of the legacy we built for them" which doesn't suit because as you said, Chaos has always been pure evil and corrupting; the only motive needed was either revenge for losing the Heresy or simply "I want the world on a platter". It didn't need this sympathetic undertones that maybe, just maybe, he's right. There were already legions that had some inkling of that as their backstory; Iron Warriors spring to mind where they were literally treated like gak by everyone else and used as little more than fodder themselves, and it made them bitter and twisted and now they are cruel for cruelty's sake but also because they were tempered in it.

I mean it's still a good novel, but I can't get past this idea that it's trying to justify Chaos as something other than people who have literally sold their souls to the devil in exchange for power.

Because evil people never have motivations other than being evil for evil's sake because they're evil, right?

I don't think he said that. He said that Chaos worshippers are evil for evil's sake, because chaos has corrupted them. Not that all people ever are evil for evil's sake. The Tau, for example, earnestly believe what they are doing is good.

And I'm saying that's stupid fluff. That's literally Saturday morning cartoon villian levels of stupid.

You've just described Chaos in 40K from the past 4 editions. They were never anything else and the decision to suddendly change them into a bunch of relatable characters is simply funny. The Emperor was a monster and a liar, but at least he didn't wanted to plunge the material universe into hell.

The Emperor was a monster and a liar, but at least he didn't wanted to plunge the material universe into hell

For humanity anyways, for any sort of Xenos.. Yeah.

But it's why I'm glad that thanks to Black Crusade (RPG books) and others are starting to branch Chaos back to something beyond Saturday Morning Cartoon Evil.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Field_Mouse wrote:
So what would it take to have the CSM and Abbadon be taken more seriously? An advance in the plot in which he does actually accomplish something?

A box game (similar to Deathwatch) but include a new Abby and have a driven plot to reinvent the man?

Stop retconning the fluff, advance the fluff, have him destroy something significant and give him a reason to be feared (destroy a homeworld or assault the gates of Terra, something)

Like 2 planets in the Cadian system.

Wait...

Maybe the 13 Black Crusades of Chaos would have been successful if they were more organized instead of being so...

chaotic...

Most of this thread is Imperial perspectives about the Astartes warrior who has arguably been more successful than any Loyalist. Too much focus is given to his Black Crusades, and not enough to what he actually does in his role at the Warmaster of the Black Legion.

Let's remember, Traitors don't really like each other, and Traitor Legions aren't really stable, organized forces. The fact he's able to keep a legion going is a big deal. Sure, Iron Warriors and Night Lords are still around, but most other legions split into warbands and don't really exist as a single entity anymore. The fact he can keep one together is a huge organizational success.

Second, he operates out of the Eye of Terror. It's not real space, it's a mix of the material and the Immaterium. He does all this without the aid of consistent physical laws and constant threats from predatory warp entities. The fact he can keep it together in a place where things are never really is a huge achievement.

Third, he calls the shots for most of what happens in the Eye of Terror. No one crosses him. Arguably, he's as important as the Chaos Gods themselves, in that he can dictate the fate of of those who reside there. He has a level of personal power that exceeds that of the worst branches of the Imperium, and I've never seen anything in the fluff to contradict that. The fact the Gods don't dictate his every move or turn him into a spawn means something.

Fourth, given those points - who are we to say what his real plans are or what he finds important? Sure, he's fighting a war against the Imperium, but the laws of time and space don't really matter. He can send out armies to accomplish unfathomable goals where success is measured in ways that would drive ordinary men insane. On his timeframe, I am sure he's going to get to Terra eventually.

Well, I see this problem and in this community of having attitude ""I do not know, I do not care and I know better''. It is just me taking lore seriously while everybody else is just not giving the gak. This is the problem I have in life generally. Like I just started my master studies with a lot of thought and dedication and I was just shocked that pitiful students my peers are.


As for Horus and Emperor being demigods, well, I'm not a fan of dragon ball z approach to story telling where Emperor takes two Emperor class titans in each of his hands, start smashing Horus using them as clubs and then heroic titan crew detonates plasma core of the emperor class titan, making them frag grenades for the Emperor. Emperor then throws these titans to Horus, resulting explosion stuns him briefly, enough for the Emperor to fly to orbit, tear lance weaponary from the biggest ship in orbit, power it by its own awesomes and blow the plant with Horus briefely stunned on it.

And while it often not that bad, it is still same principle. Oh, all that stuff who only becomes stronger as their target is stronger? Does not matter, lore will suddenly go into full slow mode and demigod will kick its ass. Like swords ignoring armor, well, Emperor's armor is made up of some never heard, one time use metal. Sword only becomes deadlier as more psychic energy is present? Well, Emperor will use his psychic might to destroy this sword... Yeah, logic. Same with psyker killers, there was some humans during great crusade that could drive Emperor mad just by their near pressense and would just execute unguarded Emperor, mind you, not kill, but execute.


I prefer to use saner approach to power levels and story telling. Horus already killed primarch in melee combat and probably Fulgrim by collatorial damage then his squad was being awesome. But I do realize that this way is not that most people like. I seek for mature story telling, I'm glad that GW also seeks that while most of the fanbase wants to stay in how w40k is being perceived. As silly and over the top sci setting.

 Ernestas wrote:
As for Horus and Emperor being demigods, well, I'm not a fan of dragon ball z approach to story telling where Emperor takes two Emperor class titans in each of his hands, start smashing Horus using them as clubs and then heroic titan crew detonates plasma core of the emperor class titan, making them frag grenades for the Emperor. Emperor then throws these titans to Horus, resulting explosion stuns him briefly, enough for the Emperor to fly to orbit, tear lance weaponary from the biggest ship in orbit, power it by its own awesomes and blow the plant with Horus briefely stunned on it.

And while it often not that bad, it is still same principle. Oh, all that stuff who only becomes stronger as their target is stronger? Does not matter, lore will suddenly go into full slow mode and demigod will kick its ass. Like swords ignoring armor, well, Emperor's armor is made up of some never heard, one time use metal. Sword only becomes deadlier as more psychic energy is present? Well, Emperor will use his psychic might to destroy this sword... Yeah, logic. Same with psyker killers, there was some humans during great crusade that could drive Emperor mad just by their near pressense and would just execute unguarded Emperor, mind you, not kill, but execute.

A wise man once said:

 Ernestas wrote:
I will ignore fools who insist on teaching me a lesson basing their arguments on foolish ideas like there is no lore. Of course there is. W40k lore is loose, but GW made it clear that can be considered cannon and that cannot and then fans goes directly against established norms, then there is a problem. It is like saying that squats is still official part of w40k universe because ''hey man, nothing is cannon''.

...

In addition, while w40k universe is loose there are clear boundaries which GW set. You cannot just tell any bs and claim it is my lore.

You may not like the ridiculous fluff but, as you said, that's what GW has decided is canon and that's all there is to it.

 Ernestas wrote:
Well, I see this problem and in this community of having attitude ""I do not know, I do not care and I know better''. It is just me taking lore seriously while everybody else is just not giving the gak. This is the problem I have in life generally. Like I just started my master studies with a lot of thought and dedication and I was just shocked that pitiful students my peers are.


As for Horus and Emperor being demigods, well, I'm not a fan of dragon ball z approach to story telling where Emperor takes two Emperor class titans in each of his hands, start smashing Horus using them as clubs and then heroic titan crew detonates plasma core of the emperor class titan, making them frag grenades for the Emperor. Emperor then throws these titans to Horus, resulting explosion stuns him briefly, enough for the Emperor to fly to orbit, tear lance weaponary from the biggest ship in orbit, power it by its own awesomes and blow the plant with Horus briefely stunned on it.

And while it often not that bad, it is still same principle. Oh, all that stuff who only becomes stronger as their target is stronger? Does not matter, lore will suddenly go into full slow mode and demigod will kick its ass. Like swords ignoring armor, well, Emperor's armor is made up of some never heard, one time use metal. Sword only becomes deadlier as more psychic energy is present? Well, Emperor will use his psychic might to destroy this sword... Yeah, logic. Same with psyker killers, there was some humans during great crusade that could drive Emperor mad just by their near pressense and would just execute unguarded Emperor, mind you, not kill, but execute.


I prefer to use saner approach to power levels and story telling. Horus already killed primarch in melee combat and probably Fulgrim by collatorial damage then his squad was being awesome. But I do realize that this way is not that most people like. I seek for mature story telling, I'm glad that GW also seeks that while most of the fanbase wants to stay in how w40k is being perceived. As silly and over the top sci setting.

40k was founded based on being a collection of parodies and playing on tropes from fantasy and sci fi. GW started taking things more seriously and while some enjoy that sort of thing, others enjoy treating the setting as light hearted. Also lets be real here, this is a universe where orbital bombardment is a thing as well as plentiful amounts of accurate, high powered, and long ranged shooting weapons and yet there are guys running around with chainsaw swords getting into melee combat with each other. The setting is basically a giant joke and while GW may have forgotten its roots, a lot of people still view it as that and enjoy it for what it is. If somebody wants to view 40k as a serious setting and follow the lore closely then sure more power to them but the people who view the setting as a parody and being over the top silly are not in the wrong.

 Ernestas wrote:
Well, I see this problem and in this community of having attitude ""I do not know, I do not care and I know better''. It is just me taking lore seriously while everybody else is just not giving the gak. This is the problem I have in life generally. Like I just started my master studies with a lot of thought and dedication and I was just shocked that pitiful students my peers are.


As for Horus and Emperor being demigods, well, I'm not a fan of dragon ball z approach to story telling where Emperor takes two Emperor class titans in each of his hands, start smashing Horus using them as clubs and then heroic titan crew detonates plasma core of the emperor class titan, making them frag grenades for the Emperor. Emperor then throws these titans to Horus, resulting explosion stuns him briefly, enough for the Emperor to fly to orbit, tear lance weaponary from the biggest ship in orbit, power it by its own awesomes and blow the plant with Horus briefely stunned on it.

And while it often not that bad, it is still same principle. Oh, all that stuff who only becomes stronger as their target is stronger? Does not matter, lore will suddenly go into full slow mode and demigod will kick its ass. Like swords ignoring armor, well, Emperor's armor is made up of some never heard, one time use metal. Sword only becomes deadlier as more psychic energy is present? Well, Emperor will use his psychic might to destroy this sword... Yeah, logic. Same with psyker killers, there was some humans during great crusade that could drive Emperor mad just by their near pressense and would just execute unguarded Emperor, mind you, not kill, but execute.


I prefer to use saner approach to power levels and story telling. Horus already killed primarch in melee combat and probably Fulgrim by collatorial damage then his squad was being awesome. But I do realize that this way is not that most people like. I seek for mature story telling, I'm glad that GW also seeks that while most of the fanbase wants to stay in how w40k is being perceived. As silly and over the top sci setting.

Back to not caring about your "peers" eh? Look, the biggest problem is GW cannot decide what they want 40k to be: this big dramatic epic or an over the top Sci-Fi setting. I get where you're coming from in that you want 40k to be serious, but that's hard to do with factions like Orks and models like Wulfen running about and some of the lore GW has written. GW is moving more towards the dramatic story and away from the sillier Rogue Trader days, but that will always be in the back of veteran players minds.

Your best bet is to take GW's own advice: Suck it up, "Forge the narrative", and consider only the lore you like.

What are we eve going on about at this point, i dipped out a few pages back, can some one get me up to speed?

 Backspacehacker wrote:
What are we eve going on about at this point, i dipped out a few pages back, can some one get me up to speed?

I would, but I am above such mortal concerns.

I found this interesting:

https://regimental-standard.com/2016/08/31/what-is-a-black-crusade/

pm713 wrote:
He hasn't united Chaos, to my knowledge he hasn't killed any Primarchs and refusing to serve Chaos is no big deal. Almost all Eldar and Space Marines do that. Big whoop.

So I'm a little late to the party here - but you completely misunderstand what has occurred.

He HAS united many of the disparate Chaos forces (Not only CSM, but traitor forces as well as Daemonic forces) under his banner.

He HAS killed (at least) one Primarch (the clone of Horus).

He has NOT "refused Chaos". What he has done is negotiated, forced, cajoled and tricked his way into the favor of the four Chaos Gods.

The real thing to know about Abaddon is that unlike Horus, he wasn't TRICKED into his allegiance to Chaos. He went into it willingly and with both eyes open.

A lot of discussion around Talon of Horus and ADB's portrayal of Abaddon (which I personally think was amazing).

https://aarondembskibowden.wordpress.com/2013/08/22/lets-talk-about-abaddon/

That sums it up nicely in my mind.

I'm sorry for being late. I just cannot juggle full time work and studies in master. Last friday I had like 2.5 hours to sleep for 40 hours of work. This is why I'm often absent and cranky.


Yes, I do understand the issue is with how lore was and how GW wants new lore to be. I do respect choices of other people if they understand lore in their own way, I do the same, by taking it very seriously. The only issue I have is then they take their own interpretation of lore like ''Chaos is completely incompetent and gets crushed every time'' and says it is the fluff, the official story line then everything in the newer lore says completely different thing. In almost all cases they cannot create a decent argument made up by examples in the fluff and all they can do is to show their ignorance by saying ''Abbadon failed 13 Black Crusades to conquer Imperium'' which is so wrong and ignorant on so many levels that it is hard to believe...

 cvtuttle wrote:

pm713 wrote:
He hasn't united Chaos, to my knowledge he hasn't killed any Primarchs and refusing to serve Chaos is no big deal. Almost all Eldar and Space Marines do that. Big whoop.

So I'm a little late to the party here - but you completely misunderstand what has occurred.

He HAS united many of the disparate Chaos forces (Not only CSM, but traitor forces as well as Daemonic forces) under his banner.

He HAS killed (at least) one Primarch (the clone of Horus).

He has NOT "refused Chaos". What he has done is negotiated, forced, cajoled and tricked his way into the favor of the four Chaos Gods.

The real thing to know about Abaddon is that unlike Horus, he wasn't TRICKED into his allegiance to Chaos. He went into it willingly and with both eyes open.

A lot of discussion around Talon of Horus and ADB's portrayal of Abaddon (which I personally think was amazing).

https://aarondembskibowden.wordpress.com/2013/08/22/lets-talk-about-abaddon/

That sums it up nicely in my mind.

Thanks for that link, Awesome read. That's pretty much the best description I've ever heard of abaddon and matches my idea of him to a T.

Killing a clone of Horus isn't really a big deal.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Killing a clone of Horus isn't really a big deal.

Killing something with the power of the greatest Space Marines to walk the galaxy is not a big deal?

Well, during that particular piece of lore, clone of Horus appeared to be as mighty as a Primarch, killing space marines left and right. The level of cloning differs massively from being demigods to just some chaos spawn.

Remember: PRIMARCHS WERE A VAT GROWN! So, there was nothing natural about them and there is very little reason of why primarchs cannot be vat growned again. In fact, Chaos is posing far more dangers to Imperium than its Black crusades. Emperor is being cloned, Typhius is creating an ultimate life destroying disease, new man are infecting Imperium society from within thus ascending humanity with genetically superior human strain.

Risks that pose chaos is far more greater and sinister than most fans of w40k know,

 General Annoyance wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Killing a clone of Horus isn't really a big deal.

Killing something with the power of the greatest Space Marines to walk the galaxy is not a big deal?

A clone with none of the real experience of the actual primarch and likely not as used to the same equipment if he had it? It is like punching out a full grown clone of Muhammad Ali.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 General Annoyance wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Killing a clone of Horus isn't really a big deal.

Killing something with the power of the greatest Space Marines to walk the galaxy is not a big deal?

A clone with none of the real experience of the actual primarch and likely not as used to the same equipment if he had it? It is like punching out a full grown clone of Muhammad Ali.

Considering the primarchs as children were able to do some extraordinary things, Angron had a group of slaughtered aliens around himself for example which were thought to be Eldar, Leman Russ hunted with his wolf pack and killed quite a bit...

It's like Muhammad Ali if at the age of infancy he somehow slaughtered people with his punches.

It would be nice if people would actually read stuff about which they are talking about...

It would be nice if you weren't so condescending, but we don't always get what we want.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 General Annoyance wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Killing a clone of Horus isn't really a big deal.

Killing something with the power of the greatest Space Marines to walk the galaxy is not a big deal?

A clone with none of the real experience of the actual primarch and likely not as used to the same equipment if he had it? It is like punching out a full grown clone of Muhammad Ali.

Considering the primarchs as children were able to do some extraordinary things, Angron had a group of slaughtered aliens around himself for example which were thought to be Eldar, Leman Russ hunted with his wolf pack and killed quite a bit...

It's like Muhammad Ali if at the age of infancy he somehow slaughtered people with his punches.

The difference between a clone and the original is we don't know what else was done to the nascent embryos by the Emperor beyond simple physical engineering.

 Azreal13 wrote:
It would be nice if you weren't so condescending, but we don't always get what we want.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 General Annoyance wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Killing a clone of Horus isn't really a big deal.

Killing something with the power of the greatest Space Marines to walk the galaxy is not a big deal?

A clone with none of the real experience of the actual primarch and likely not as used to the same equipment if he had it? It is like punching out a full grown clone of Muhammad Ali.

Considering the primarchs as children were able to do some extraordinary things, Angron had a group of slaughtered aliens around himself for example which were thought to be Eldar, Leman Russ hunted with his wolf pack and killed quite a bit...

It's like Muhammad Ali if at the age of infancy he somehow slaughtered people with his punches.

The difference between a clone and the original is we don't know what else was done to the nascent embryos by the Emperor beyond simple physical engineering.

Well considering that the Clone Horus was slaughtering space marines left and right who were decked out in full power armor.. The thing of the matter was that this was not the only clone horus, this was the perfected one that Fabius Bile had created after many failures, the same Clone that was created with the same genetic material from the corpse of Horus himself, and that Fabius Bile's cloning methods and is one of the few able to create full on Chaos Space Marines for the various warbands that seek his services, that Fabius Bile created to curry favor with Abbadon. Fabius Bile is a vast perfectionist, if he truly thought he created the perfect clone then he would certainly present it instead of some weakling or worthless one to Abbadon.

I don't doubt it. My point is the replicating Horus physically, even if done perfectly, may not necessarily duplicate everything that the original possessed.

The original was created by the Emperor, who is probably the only one who truly understood the process, and at his height was blessed by all 4 gods (much like Abaddon.)

The Bile clone, while physically perfect, and no doubt a handful, may have been lacking substantial power that Horus himself could wield.

Your point is invalid since Emperor himself did not understood this process. He had many failures, some of which were so shameful that he was forced to censor information of his humiliation (missing legions) and pure genetic seed is rare among space marines. Many chapters ultimately becoming little more than monsters rather than reaching end of their lifespans. Look no further than blood anglels, thousand sons, space wolves.

This is ignoring how many completely idiotic mistakes Emperor was doing left and right. Practically, entire Horus Heresy happened only because Emperor was a massive dick and a terrible father. In the end, he was not the only perfect alpha psyker who tried to conquer the galaxy. The only difference was that Emperor had tried to do that in a manner which a mortal would do and not in a way as a God would do. It takes brilliant mind to understand your limits then you literally are God.

Making mistakes doesn't mean you don't understand something.

In fact, it is often the way towards greater understanding.

Your whole second paragraph has no relevance to the discussion of Horus' clone and its relative power level.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Making mistakes doesn't mean you don't understand something.

In fact, it is often the way towards greater understanding.

Your whole second paragraph has no relevance to the discussion of Horus' clone and its relative power level.

The problem with that logic is, for all we know is that Fabius Bile has an even greater understanding and that the Horus clone could've been more perfect then it originally was, with extra alterations to make it even better. Speculation doesn't really help when we know that the God Emperor, no matter what his intention was had flaws within the various primarchs or even the armies he eventually created from their batch. Saying he has a greater understanding yet we know the geneseed was flawed in various places doesn't help your speculation on said matter.

We know Bile isn't the greatest psyker ever known, and we know the Chaos gods interfered with the Emperor's process.

We also know that the blessings of all four was sufficient to jack original Horus from "just" a Primarch to an entity capable of beating the Emperor.

There's plenty of plausible reasons that the clone Horus was a pale imitation of his original self, which would make "killing a Primarch" somewhat of an exaggeration on Abby's CV.

Yes we know that the Chaos Gods made Horus quite strong, however Horus beforehand was one of the stronger Primarchs beforehand, still to put it bluntly an unaltered unchaos Horus getting beat by a single marine is actually a vast feat for said marine, in this case Abbadon.

Also Bile isn't a psyker at all, he was originally an apocathery.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Yes we know that the Chaos Gods made Horus quite strong, however Horus beforehand was one of the stronger Primarchs beforehand, still to put it bluntly an unaltered unchaos Horus getting beat by a single marine is actually a vast feat for said marine, in this case Abbadon.

Also Bile isn't a psyker at all, he was originally an apocathery.

Quite frankly if Abigail could do it, any other Chapter Master equivalent could do it.

You are grabbing at straws here. Your reasoning process is flawed and you want to create a story rather than to develop it. You have an idea of how you want it to be and you try to look for clues in the lore, anything at all to confirm this instead of looking at the facts and later developing relevant assumptions from it.

 Ernestas wrote:
You are grabbing at straws here. Your reasoning process is flawed and you want to create a story rather than to develop it. You have an idea of how you want it to be and you try to look for clues in the lore, anything at all to confirm this instead of looking at the facts and later developing relevant assumptions from it.

If Calgar can kill a Carnifex and Avatar, and Dante can kill a Bloodthirster, then Chapter Master equivalents would be able to kill a Horus clone. Sorry, it simply isn't impressive, nor is Abigail that impressive.

 Ernestas wrote:
You are grabbing at straws here. Your reasoning process is flawed and you want to create a story rather than to develop it. You have an idea of how you want it to be and you try to look for clues in the lore, anything at all to confirm this instead of looking at the facts and later developing relevant assumptions from it.

You mean the lore that is inherently, and deliberately, contradictory? That lore? The lore that can be used to support a number of perfectly credible interpretations?

Or the lore that you've created and held up as the one lore to rule them all, while simultaneously failing to grasp the inherent irony of criticizing anyone for interpreting a different situation from the same body of information?

40K: "Everything is canon, and nothing is."

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Ernestas wrote:
You are grabbing at straws here. Your reasoning process is flawed and you want to create a story rather than to develop it. You have an idea of how you want it to be and you try to look for clues in the lore, anything at all to confirm this instead of looking at the facts and later developing relevant assumptions from it.

If Calgar can kill a Carnifex and Avatar, and Dante can kill a Bloodthirster, then Chapter Master equivalents would be able to kill a Horus clone. Sorry, it simply isn't impressive, nor is Abigail that impressive.

Avatar's are killed all the time, they are quite literally the punching bags in the lore for if you wanna show someone as strong, and Carnifex aren't exactly the biggest measuring stick.

I mean really, there's only one known instance of a Space Marine killing a Primarch and this is it.

No, the problem with is you take flawed example and try to brute force it in order to fit your created image of how primarchs and Emperor are irreplacable and totally unique. After you had been show wrong, you refuse to admit that your point was invalid and now you troll people around. You are arguing about arguing now instead of trying to prove your original point.


Please, get real and make a proper argument with a title (that you claim in one sentence), create a point (make us see why it is logical as it should be) and then, give examples from the lore which would support your point of view.


This is how it looks. Title:
Primarchs are unique demigods who's power is matched only by the Emperor himself and other primarchs.

Argument:
Nobody had ever created Primarchs again in a same manner as Emperor did. All the examples in the past were failures. Nobody had ever killed Primarch in a duel except another Primarch or the Emperor himself.

Example:
Fabius the Bile tried to clone the Primarchs and they all were inferior genetic freaks, mere shadows of that they had been.


See, this is how you create an argument. Now, we had shown you that your base assumption (nobody had ever done this after) was wrong. We also had proven that cloned Horus seemed to be perfect. If you cannot continue debating on this matter by bringing new points, perspectives and arguments then please be a man and admit that you were wrong for once in your life. I'm tired of people always trying to shift talk and look how they could sting others instead of going hard way and actually standing up for that was said.

Wow, patronizing, condescending and being wrong, all at once..

Reread my posts. Nobody has proven them "wrong" because there's zero evidence. They were speculative, there is no evidence either supporting nor denying my idea that the Emperor had extra stages to the Primarch creation process that Bile failed to replicate, leading to a genetically perfect, yet still inferior, clone. It was just something I find plausible.

What you've done, as, along with using a generally unpleasant tone, you've done all through the thread is make the assumption that your opinion is somehow the correct one, despite the fact you're arguing (with a straight face, no less) about a fictional universe, based in parody and satire, riddled with inconsistency and acknowledged as being so.

There are no 'facts.' We're one short story, codex or novel away from anything you hold as somehow being incontrovertible being utterly turned on its head.

So my advice is stop taking the whole thing so seriously, perhaps pay more attention to actual history if you're so bent on uncovering the 'truth' and try and be more pleasant.

Now, I'm out before I break rule 1 and tell you what I really think of your manner and get given a Dakka holiday.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Ernestas wrote:
You are grabbing at straws here. Your reasoning process is flawed and you want to create a story rather than to develop it. You have an idea of how you want it to be and you try to look for clues in the lore, anything at all to confirm this instead of looking at the facts and later developing relevant assumptions from it.

If Calgar can kill a Carnifex and Avatar, and Dante can kill a Bloodthirster, then Chapter Master equivalents would be able to kill a Horus clone. Sorry, it simply isn't impressive, nor is Abigail that impressive.

Avatar's are killed all the time, they are quite literally the punching bags in the lore for if you wanna show someone as strong, and Carnifex aren't exactly the biggest measuring stick.

I mean really, there's only one known instance of a Space Marine killing a Primarch and this is it.

Horus' are killed all the time they appear just like Avatars and Carnifexes. One being killed by Abigail shows how weak they are.

RULE #1 REMINDER - BE POLITE.

As a follow on point - especially when we're all discussing the made up history that makes up the background for our game of toy soldiers, yes?

 Ernestas wrote:
After you had been show wrong,

I haven't seen this happen yet.

If you cannot continue debating on this matter by bringing new points, perspectives and arguments then please be a man and admit that you were wrong for once in your life.

By all means.

 Alpharius wrote:
RULE #1 REMINDER - BE POLITE.

As a follow on point - especially when we're all discussing the made up history that makes up the background for our game of toy soldiers, yes?

I thought this was all the prophetic visions of Rick Priestly, future Emperor or someone?

May all your d6's roll Priestly.

Clone Horus was such a chump, the Clone Emperor Palpatine called him a flim-flam man.

Well, this thread already run its course and was exhausted. I'm out of it too.

 Ernestas wrote:
Well, I see this problem and in this community of having attitude ""I do not know, I do not care and I know better''. It is just me taking lore seriously while everybody else is just not giving the gak. This is the problem I have in life generally. Like I just started my master studies with a lot of thought and dedication and I was just shocked that pitiful students my peers are.

Why the mortal concerns though.

 Ernestas wrote:
As for Horus and Emperor being demigods, well, I'm not a fan of dragon ball z approach to story telling where Emperor takes two Emperor class titans in each of his hands, start smashing Horus using them as clubs and then heroic titan crew detonates plasma core of the emperor class titan, making them frag grenades for the Emperor. Emperor then throws these titans to Horus, resulting explosion stuns him briefly, enough for the Emperor to fly to orbit, tear lance weaponary from the biggest ship in orbit, power it by its own awesomes and blow the plant with Horus briefely stunned on it.

And while it often not that bad, it is still same principle. Oh, all that stuff who only becomes stronger as their target is stronger? Does not matter, lore will suddenly go into full slow mode and demigod will kick its ass. Like swords ignoring armor, well, Emperor's armor is made up of some never heard, one time use metal. Sword only becomes deadlier as more psychic energy is present? Well, Emperor will use his psychic might to destroy this sword... Yeah, logic. Same with psyker killers, there was some humans during great crusade that could drive Emperor mad just by their near pressense and would just execute unguarded Emperor, mind you, not kill, but execute.


I prefer to use saner approach to power levels and story telling. Horus already killed primarch in melee combat and probably Fulgrim by collatorial damage then his squad was being awesome. But I do realize that this way is not that most people like. I seek for mature story telling, I'm glad that GW also seeks that while most of the fanbase wants to stay in how w40k is being perceived. As silly and over the top sci setting.

The more serious and mature the 40k story gets, the sillier, in a bad way, it actualy becomes. The inherent, underlying absurd of it all becomes more apparent. The suspension of disbelief gets harder to achieve, paradoxicaly. It's so mature, so deep, so multi layered, oh hey look it's orks, waaaaaggh unz ard boyz lad eh?

Really there is plenty of deep, mature sf literature but 40k is not it. It's a series of awesome hardcore bolter porn pictures and grimdarked pulp sf posters tied together with stories ripped of from basicaly everywhere. And then the Orkz, how are you going to keep them and a mature story the same time.

Not to mention, if you limit polysyllabic adjectives in Lovecraft works, you won't make it better - you'll just make it less Lovecraft. Same with 40k, while Rogue Trader was indeed a bit too silly, the new serious approach is silly too and makes 40k less 40k but more a less subtle gothic Dune something something.

You could always bump the Orks out of the setting

*keeps fingers crossed*

Yes the serious Warhammer (fantasy or 40k) would require axing a few factions and seriousizing a few others. Or just humans, daemons and chaosified humans.

I would love to see such a spin-off or how you call it. 40k is what it is though, ridiculous space fantasy.

Wayniac wrote:
he killed Sigismund, that's not a Primarch but still that dude was a badass.

really, the thing is that Chaos has for a long time BEEN treated like bumbling 80s saturday morning cartoon villains, like your Cobra Commander or Megatron who is built up to be this supreme badass that threatens the world, only to have their crazy schemes (which get crazier) easily thwarted by the good guys time and time again after basically accomplishing nothing.

Remember that one Transformers three parter where Megatron literally teleported Cybertron into Earth's atmosphere? I'd say it came pretty damn close then. Watch Headmasters and both sides take losses. Ultra Magnus VS Soundwave (Soundwave superior, Ultra Magnus inferior, of course), so on so forth. In Victory, Convoy finally cops it as a Powermaster...

It's not all Saturday morning when you do some more reading.