Is it just me or has chaos completely turned into a Saturday morning cartoon villain at this point? I read Wrath of Magnus hoping that it would be a return to form, and on the tabletop it absolutely was, but... there were two books in the set, and the first book, the bigger book, was a story about how the Thousand Sons invaded Fenris again and lost again. The writers really went through pains to not specify exactly how much both sides lost; I don't remember reading a single statistic or figure about exactly how many Rubricae and Sorcerers were lost vs. how many loyalist marines died. For all we know, this was a story where the Thousand Sons were decimated by the Space Wolves. The story itself read from the perspective of the Imperials, showing them as glorious heroes who all managed to take down scores Rubric Marines before they died. In fact, there was even a particular article where a Space Wolf captain fought his way all the way to a balcony of a silver tower, only to be met by a sorcerer that flung him off with a psychic blast. Guess what happened? He got caught in mid air by a Dark Angel and was let back down to continue fighting. Every single time the Thousand Sons made ANY progress in Wrath of Magnus, they got shut down almost immediately. And again and again the story repeated that narrative in different theaters. Thousand Sons show up, do something imaginative, lose anyway. Even the planet at large managed to defend itself fairly well despite a full-on daemonic incursion. I guess you could say that if one planet in the Galaxy could get away with this it's Fenris, but still. The point is, Chaos has become a joke. Everywhere they show up they just get mowed down, even when a daemon primarch is there. I was SO excited to see Magnus orchestrate the downfall of a planet, but he couldn't even do that.
And to the surprise of no one, it was all justified with a "Just as planned" right at the end, teleporting the Planet of Sorcerers and Magnus directly to Segmentum Solar. So I was able to let that go until Rise of the Primarch revealed that Magnus' real plan was to show up on Terra's moon to get slapped by Guilliman for 30 minutes, slapped some more by the Sisters of Silence, and then finally cast out into a dark corner of the webway by Guilliman... I mean, come on. If Guilliman had to go all day he could have, Sisters of Silence or no, let's be real here. There's no threat anymore. Chaos has become a joke.
Chaos has been a joke and the whipping boys of the Imperium since at least 4th edition.
If anything the last few years have actually INCREASED Chaos' street-cred, with the BL supplement retconning the first 12 crusades into "actually all 12 were successful!" and now Cadia being blown up.
I think there was some bad fluff in 3rd/4th, cos if you look at the 2nd ed codex you will see the early black crusades were preliminary actions with specific objectives working up to something bigger.
Either that or the 12 failures is just a popular internet meme that never mated well with the actual fiction.
Forces of Chaos are the villains of the story. How many orcs and clever plans Sauron had and were thwarted at the very last second by a bunch of heroes who unite the squabbling armies of their respective nations? This type of trope is one of the most iconic element of the fantasy genre and 40K is nothing else but fantasy.
What is supposed to be attracting in the forces of Chaos isn't their power, their might and their victory. In the realm of power fantasy, villains will always let you down. It's their purpose. What is supposed to be attractive is their weaknesses: their rage, their hubris, their vanity and, in the case of the Chaos Space Marines, their melancholy. Don't expect villains to be heroes, expect them to be villains. They will not look heroic, brave and victorious for they are none of those things. Their moment of glory is when at the height of their power, when they think they will finally win, they get beaten by an unforseen foe. Heroes are loved for their actions, villains are loved for their thoughts. The semi factual, action based style of writting of codexes isn't that good to make villains feel interesting, but in novels they frequently turn out to be much more interesting then heroes when they become the center of the action.
epronovost wrote: Forces of Chaos are the villains of the story. How many orcs and clever plans Sauron had and were thwarted at the very last second by a bunch of heroes who unite the squabbling armies of their respective nations? This type of trope is one of the most iconic element of the fantasy genre and 40K is nothing else but fantasy.
What is supposed to be attracting in the forces of Chaos isn't their power, their might and their victory. In the realm of power fantasy, villains will always let you down. It's their purpose. What is supposed to be attractive is their weaknesses: their rage, their hubris, their vanity and, in the case of the Chaos Space Marines, their melancholy. Don't expect villains to be heroes, expect them to be villains. They will not look heroic, brave and victorious for they are none of those things. Their moment of glory is when at the height of their power, when they think they will finally win, they get beaten by an unforseen foe. Heroes are loved for their actions, villains are loved for their thoughts. The semi factual, action based style of writting of codexes isn't that good to make villains feel interesting, but in novels they frequently turn out to be much more interesting then heroes when they become the center of the action.
epronovost wrote: Forces of Chaos are the villains of the story. How many orcs and clever plans Sauron had and were thwarted at the very last second by a bunch of heroes who unite the squabbling armies of their respective nations? This type of trope is one of the most iconic element of the fantasy genre and 40K is nothing else but fantasy.
What is supposed to be attracting in the forces of Chaos isn't their power, their might and their victory. In the realm of power fantasy, villains will always let you down. It's their purpose. What is supposed to be attractive is their weaknesses: their rage, their hubris, their vanity and, in the case of the Chaos Space Marines, their melancholy. Don't expect villains to be heroes, expect them to be villains. They will not look heroic, brave and victorious for they are none of those things. Their moment of glory is when at the height of their power, when they think they will finally win, they get beaten by an unforseen foe. Heroes are loved for their actions, villains are loved for their thoughts. The semi factual, action based style of writting of codexes isn't that good to make villains feel interesting, but in novels they frequently turn out to be much more interesting then heroes when they become the center of the action.
So the whole "Time of Ending" thing is essentially retconned.
The Time of Ending starts with the destruction of Tyran by the then named Tyranids. The Time of Ending isn't the great victory of Chaos, that's Warhammer Fantasy story line with Archaon being the Lord of the End Times. In 40K, the End Time is the end of the line for everybody. The Imperium will fall, but so will the Chaos Gods, the Eldars, etc. It was clearly stated numerous time that if all the races of the galaxy don't unite, Tyranid will devour them all. Since they will never unite, they will all get eaten. The Archaon of 40K isn't Abbadon, it's the Swarmlord.
Every time Chaos gets into a fight with the Imperium they seem to suffer inordinate casualties...
Honestly, it feels as if the faction as a whole should have been wiped out by now. Imperial victory over Chaos achieved, the only thing left to deal with being the occasional cultist uprising, and of course xenos on all fronts.
I'd much prefer a 50/50 win/loss ratio between the Imperium and Chaos, it would be FAR more interesting, and much less predictable.
epronovost wrote: Forces of Chaos are the villains of the story. How many orcs and clever plans Sauron had and were thwarted at the very last second by a bunch of heroes who unite the squabbling armies of their respective nations? This type of trope is one of the most iconic element of the fantasy genre and 40K is nothing else but fantasy.
The big difference between Sauron and Chaos in 40k is pretty damn huge. The first major difference is that Sauron was actually a credible threat, on the verge of wiping out the free peoples of Middle Earth and despite all of the bravery and skill of Gondor, Rohan and others he would have succeeded had it not been for Frodo. Abbadon is supposed to fulfill the same role in 40k that Sauron fullfills in LotR. However, Abbadon is not a credible threat. He has never been able to seriously threaten the Imperium's existence yet, let alone being on the verge of wiping it out. Unlike Sauron, Abbadon has never really enjoyed any significant, lasting success in his wars against the Imperium. In LotR, Sauron orchestrated the Fall of Numenor, destroyed the kingdom of the high Elves, forced the dwarves of Moria (the most powerful dwarven realm) to lock themselves up in their mountains, conquered Minas Ithil, destroyed Osgiliath (the capital of Gondor), killed Elendil, killed Gil-Galad etc. etc. etc. In short, he accomplished many great feats that showcase his great power and strength and credibly establish him a huge threat to the 'good guys' of the setting. In 40k, what has Abbadon accomplished? Launched 12 wars against the Imperium all of which failed to leave any sort of lasting impact on it? Being sent back running with his tail between his legs into the Eye of Terror? That doesn't exactly establish him as an actual threat to the Imperium, and apart from those 12 failed crusades (and just recently finally taking Cadia after I don't know how many attempts) Abbadon really hasn't done anything of note. Taking Cadia was a good first step, but it is no more than that. Cadia is a single world in an empire of a million worlds. Far more is needed to actually make him look good.
The second difference is that Sauron was only defeated once (not including his final defeat of course, or before he became the Big Bad), and only through the utmost effort of the good guys. Their victory was in fact a Pyrrhic victory, since they failed to defeat Sauron completely and were so weakened they would never recover, leaving them unable to defeat Sauron the second time. Even in defeat, Sauron's amazing power and extremely high threat level is obvious. This is how the Imperium's victories against Chaos should have worked, too. Instead however Abbadon has been defeated more times than you can count on two hands, always coming back with yet another silly plot and angrily shouting "I'll get you next time!" when said plot inevitably gets foiled. In short, Abbadon behaves like the villain in a kid's cartoon show, having a new plot every episode, getting defeated and being back next episode with yet another plot without the status quo of the cartoon setting ever changing.
At this point Chaos in 40k works pretty much the same way as Dark Elves used to in Fantasy. There are two possibilities:
1) Mass cloning: Abaddon/Malekith own impressive cloning factories able to mass produce troops on a constant basis. This is how the insane amounts of losses in each failed incursion can be assumed without breaking a sweat. Or...
2) Everything's a charade: The CSM/Dark Elves land, kill, burn and plunder for a while, patiently waiting for the good guys (Imperium/High Elves) to arrive. Once the good guys arrive, it's a curb-stom battle that leaves the forces of evil scattered and badly mauled. The good guys celebrate and everyone's happy. When the night falls, the CSM/Dark Elves (who had been playing dead all along) rise, wipe the dust off their armors and silently go back to the Eye of Terror/Naggaroth until duty calls again. Long ago Abaddon/Malekith struck a deal with the Imperium/Ulthuan: to fake such incursions and attacks so both populations have a great enemy to fight and care about (siege mentality is super useful towards the masses' control) and insane military budgets are not disputed by the public opinion. The charade must be kept at all costs, that's the important issue here.
Korinov wrote: At this point Chaos in 40k works pretty much the same way as Dark Elves used to in Fantasy. There are two possibilities:
1) Mass cloning: Abaddon/Malekith own impressive cloning factories able to mass produce troops on a constant basis. This is how the insane amounts of losses in each failed incursion can be assumed without breaking a sweat. Or...
2) Everything's a charade: The CSM/Dark Elves land, kill, burn and plunder for a while, patiently waiting for the good guys (Imperium/High Elves) to arrive. Once the good guys arrive, it's a curb-stom battle that leaves the forces of evil scattered and badly mauled. The good guys celebrate and everyone's happy. When the night falls, the CSM/Dark Elves (who had been playing dead all along) rise, wipe the dust off their armors and silently go back to the Eye of Terror/Naggaroth until duty calls again. Long ago Abaddon/Malekith struck a deal with the Imperium/Ulthuan: to fake such incursions and attacks so both populations have a great enemy to fight and care about (siege mentality is super useful towards the masses' control) and insane military budgets are not disputed by the public opinion. The charade must be kept at all costs, that's the important issue here.
Second possibility is so likely it hurts.
your forgetting possiability 3: warp time shinnagens allows them to raise new troops VERY fast
Cothonian wrote: I'd much prefer a 50/50 win/loss ratio between the Imperium and Chaos, it would be FAR more interesting, and much less predictable.
The problem here is that IoM's forces are orders of magnitudes larger than the forces of Chaos. A 50/50 win/loss ratio would be unrealistic. There's a reason they can only really survive in pockets such as the Eye of Terror or the Maelstrom. It's because while Chaos itself is insidious and pervasive, its forces in the Materium are really the underdogs. Hounded dregs and traitors that can't stray far from their sanctuaries without being overwhelmed by superior numbers.
And this is how it should be. The IoM is the superpower of the 40k universe. Nobody should have a 50/50 ratio against it, because firstly that would make no sense in the lore, and secondly, because it's beset on all sides by enemies, a 50/50 ratio against it would eventually lead to it collapsing. It takes much longer to settle a planet than it does to pillage or destroy one, so if the IoM lost half its battles, then it would be on a constant decline. Hell, even a 25/75 combined ratio by its enemies would likely be enough to cause it to be at the level of stagnation and seige that it is now.
Chaos rarely ever fights Tyranids, Tau, Orks or Dark Eldar,. They have only a few run-ins with Necrons, and mainly fight the Eldar and IoM. The IoM fight almost everyone all the time. If any one of their enemies were an even match for them, the setting would be over.
Chaos Marines are also not what they used to be (at least lore-wise). While there's still a large number of Heresy-era veterans and recent traitors, a large number of them are recent recruits made via cloning or brainwashing and enslaving native populations in the Eye of Terror. I doubt they'd be a match for a fully trained Astartes, simply because Chaos lacks the same resources, and doesn't have the same amount of care towards their troops.
usmcmidn wrote: Well he killed Cadia so who knows what future fluff will hold.
He killed Cadia after his superweapon fired and did nothing, after his forces invaded and failed and after lierally everything. he threw at them failed. He destroyed Cadia by launching a comet at it with the broken remnants of his up-til-then useless superweapon.
usmcmidn wrote: Well he killed Cadia so who knows what future fluff will hold.
He killed Cadia after his superweapon fired and did nothing, after his forces invaded and failed and after lierally everything. he threw at them failed. He destroyed Cadia by launching a comet at it with the broken remnants of his up-til-then useless superweapon.
Alternative way to look at it: despite the Imperium barely pushing him back whenever it counted, Abaddon still succeeded, and the Imperium still failed. Cadia fell despite the defenders giving literally everything they had, even after dozens of heroic victories.
No other enemy would have pushed them that far, and no other enemy would have won against the Imperium pulling out deus ex machine after deus ex machina.
usmcmidn wrote: Well he killed Cadia so who knows what future fluff will hold.
He killed Cadia after his superweapon fired and did nothing, after his forces invaded and failed and after lierally everything. he threw at them failed. He destroyed Cadia by launching a comet at it with the broken remnants of his up-til-then useless superweapon.
So he defeated the IoM with... Guile so what? Cadia was one of the best defended worlds in the IoM it wasn't gonna go down easy, chaos threw everything they had at the IoM and won in part because they where smart. Abbaddon had likely been working on the "black stone debris contingency" by time his forces landed on cadia. my guess is the entire chaos invasion was in part a giant distracxtion carnifex, if it won, great! if not, they'd keep the IoM from realziing what they where doing
Flanker wrote: Well, yeah. Chaos has become the whipping boys of the Imperium both in the lore and the tabletop.
Lore wise I don't know, but on the tabletop it's the opposite. Chaos, CSM and Renegades are the most dominant tournament force in the meta today.
Renegades are great and all, but they're also FW rules, not GW. CSM are definitely not dominant and haven't been for a long time. They've been one of the weaker factions for years.
The Time of Ending starts with the destruction of Tyran by the then named Tyranids. The Time of Ending isn't the great victory of Chaos, that's Warhammer Fantasy story line with Archaon being the Lord of the End Times. In 40K, the End Time is the end of the line for everybody. The Imperium will fall, but so will the Chaos Gods, the Eldars, etc. It was clearly stated numerous time that if all the races of the galaxy don't unite, Tyranid will devour them all. Since they will never unite, they will all get eaten. The Archaon of 40K isn't Abbadon, it's the Swarmlord.
So the end times will never come untill the ultramarines are no more?
So the end times will never come untill the ultramarines are no more?
The End Times is an era that has already started. It will end when everybody is dead and Tyranids move on to the next galaxy or starve to death themselves. As the name might imply no one makes it out of this one.
BrianDavion wrote: my guess is the entire chaos invasion was in part a giant distracxtion carnifex, if it won, great! if not, they'd keep the IoM from realziing what they where doing
the entire chaos invasion is ALWAYS a giant distraction carnifex with Abaddon.
I swear, he just deploys the troops that he can't be assured of their loyalty, lets the imperial meat grinder deal with them, then in the chaos he slinks off to grab whatever artefact / commit whatever atrocity his plan demand in relative quiet.
BrianDavion wrote: my guess is the entire chaos invasion was in part a giant distracxtion carnifex, if it won, great! if not, they'd keep the IoM from realziing what they where doing
the entire chaos invasion is ALWAYS a giant distraction carnifex with Abaddon.
I swear, he just deploys the troops that he can't be assured of their loyalty, lets the imperial meat grinder deal with them, then in the chaos he slinks off to grab whatever artefact / commit whatever atrocity his plan demand in relative quiet.
and, Abbaddon gets the stuff he wants and conveniantly likely kills troops whom are troublesome anyway I imagine more then a fewtimes Abbaddon's given "Bob the terriable" an up and coming chaos lord whose getting a bit too big for his britches a front and center spot in an invasion plan, simply so he emerges from the conflcit weaker. consider the crimson slaughter whom suffered IMMENSE casualties in one of the more recent campaigns.
The Chaos Gods don't want an all out victory. If Chaos wins then the human race will destroy itself. Since the Chaos Gods linked themselves with humanity long ago, if humanity becomes extinct so do the negative emmotions that sustain the Chaos gods and their daemons. This has been stated in the Heresy series and was the reason the Alpha Legion turned - to 'ensure' a Horus victory so that humanity would destroy itself and the rest of the Galaxy's species would be free of Chaos.
Not sure whether I like that explanation myself but it's written into the lore.
Poly Ranger wrote: The Chaos Gods don't want an all out victory. If Chaos wins then the human race will destroy itself. Since the Chaos Gods linked themselves with humanity long ago, if humanity becomes extinct so do the negative emmotions that sustain the Chaos gods and their daemons. This has been stated in the Heresy series and was the reason the Alpha Legion turned - to 'ensure' a Horus victory so that humanity would destroy itself and the rest of the Galaxy's species would be free of Chaos.
Not sure whether I like that explanation myself but it's written into the lore.
The Cabal claimed that Horus would destroy humanity if he beat the Emperor which would destroy Chaos. However, there is no reason to think Abaddon would do the same nor is there much reason to believe the Cabal in the first place. The Cabal could have been entirely wrong (knowingly or unknowingly). The Cabal, being largely xenos, would have had a vested interest in seeing the Imperium as weak as possible as a result of the Horus Heresy so that they would have less capacity to continue the Great Crusade and eradicate xenos.
TL: DR don't always believe in-universe sources of information.
Fluffwise it's just bad writitng that causes Chaos to be so utterly incompetent.
If a small chaos force arrives outnumbered, gets beaten back but still achieving their main objective that can work. However they are always described as this massive giant war machine that gets defeated hero style by the good guys (not necesarily imperium) all the time. Once the good guys are heroes but all the time just makes your villain incompetent.
We know from the silmarion/backstory Sauron and Morgoth win more then they lose. Hell look at the story of Numenor. Sauron: "I can't win by force? Fine, I'll win by deception."
Also Tolkien makes Sauron a crediblke threat by downplaying him. From the start we knonw he is not that much stronger then the heroes. He however is getting stronger whereas his opponents are becoming weaker. The fights are more equal from thje start so the bad guys don't look like starscream (okay Saruman does) when they lose.
A well written story can end more as a draw rather then outright total victory for either side. There are way too few draws/ small skirmishes in the background.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Example of this done right by GW:
CSM, chaos, and orks have always been the "bad guys" on the tabletop though as the bad guys 6th edition means you get a very weak neutering codex, and fluff wise you are on point it goes from following your own ambitions to tying damsels to railroad tracks for no real reason
So far I wouldn't discard Abbadon yet. It has been stated that all 12 crusades were preparation for the 13th. Now the 13th is there, yet his first trick, the blackstone fortress Abby did the 12th crusade for, doesn't work. For me that was the weakest part about gathering storm. However, he still got Cadia destroyed, and Biel-tan, and Commorragh and he united what seemed to be un-unitable. I hope GW allows him to get some not-pyrric victory for once.
Actually in that he's similar to Ghazgkull. Despite everything Armageddon hasn't fallen yet, which is a shame as it sets the Orks in the same weak light as Chaos.
usmcmidn wrote: Well he killed Cadia so who knows what future fluff will hold.
He killed Cadia after his superweapon fired and did nothing, after his forces invaded and failed and after lierally everything. he threw at them failed. He destroyed Cadia by launching a comet at it with the broken remnants of his up-til-then useless superweapon.
So he defeated the IoM with... Guile so what? Cadia was one of the best defended worlds in the IoM it wasn't gonna go down easy, chaos threw everything they had at the IoM and won in part because they where smart. Abbaddon had likely been working on the "black stone debris contingency" by time his forces landed on cadia. my guess is the entire chaos invasion was in part a giant distracxtion carnifex, if it won, great! if not, they'd keep the IoM from realziing what they where doing
Winning with guile is great, but that 'guile' was used after his forces were utterly wrecked. His 'guile' involved getting in to a war of attrition with the galaxy's greatest power where attrition is involved.
And again, if that were his end game, then well done Abaddon. But it isn't - Earth is And every force he lost on Cadia is a force that won't be available on Earth when he will be facing Guilliman. He lost a huge chunk of his forces over a war that should have been 'Drop a comet on it' from the very beginning.
Instead, he got in to a stupid war over a planet he couldn't have cared less about to make a point that nobody but him cared about and which ultimately wasn't even made.
The Space Wolves took heavy losses, including the death of a Wolf Lord. Though it doesn't give exact numbers, but it was implied that not only did they loose a large number of the Dreadnoughts, but each company was decimated.
As for Thousand Sons losses, there's some fluff saying that Magnus easily resurrects fallen TS between fights, so I doubt they really suffered. There's also the fact that those villages that did survive the daemonic assault, were still culled by the Grey Knights later on. Plus the planet itself took a serious hit because of Midguardia being destroyed. So in all, Fenris is hurting. Let's not forget about the little bit at the end after the Wolves depart for Cadia, where Magnus mutters something about all going according to plan.
I HIGHLY doubt Grey Knights would be permitted on Fenris. All their fluff says Fenris would be the tomb of any marine-imperial or Chaos- who stepped on its soil without permission.
The comparison with sauron is flawed. I get it and you're not wrong but Sauron has to deal with one planet. That's peanuts to Abaddon, he has WAY more on his plate to deal with than that.
As for being a threat even in death, well, Abaddon is absurdly hard to kill. God knows how often he has "died" already, only to get right back up. Even celestine couldn't kill him with a clean shot.
Not sure what is more impressive. Being a threat from the grave or never dying in the first place with several space faring civilisations AND entities wanting him dead.
And let's not forget that Abaddon is a high profile champion of Tzeentch. I don't think he ever really looses.
The previous crusades were meant to prepare for the crimson path and as as far we know they did just that.
They may not have gone how he ideally envisioned them, but they did not fail their main objectives.
Plus, with traitor's hate it became abundantly clear that he uses the crusades to further increase his power. He sent the crimson slaughter on a suicide mission.
They were almost wiped out, but even had they been completely wiped out, it would have been a win for him by virtue of further fuelling the spell to crack the prison and getting rid of a weakling or potential threat.
Had they survived stronger, the CS would have proven themselves as a worthy tool in his pocket while also having decimated the enemy (otherwise they wouldn't have survived) and by doing so perhaps his plan would have succeeded the way he wanted it to.
So, the CS did exactly what they were meant to do. And even though kranon didn't die and is rebuilding, he was severely weakened. Even with everything else failing it would still have been a win for abaddon.
One chapter worth of upstart renegades isn't a big loss for Abaddon.
Either way, his standing among the gods improved and the spirit cage thing is going to break, so it was a success despite his forces being beaten back.
Ideally he would have conquered that sector completely and have the cage open by now, but it was still a success all said and done.
And if I'm not mistaken, he also used this distraction to get hold of yet another artefact or something along those lines as well.
Abaddon is an master manipulator and engineers fate in such ways as to serve his plans one way or another. I mean, he literally scries for possible futures and pulls strings accordingly to ensure the best possible success rate.
In that way, even when he does lose, he still becomes stronger in some way or another.
He never goes out to achieve one thing in particular, there's always fallbacks and other gains.
But as people have pointed out, he has to go up against a giant, with limited resources AND his patrons gods want him to fail in some way or another. They are in no rush for this crimson path to come to fruition.
That doesn't mean that stuff couldn't be written better mind you. I agree with OP in that sense. That's like what? The third time TSons have failed to take fenris? And it almost feels like Magnus get's his ass handed to him like every other fight.
And personally too, not just in the sense of battles despite being possibly one of the most powerful creatures out there.
Chaos as a whole is like children pranking a house on halloween then running away scared when the door opens.
You have to go out of your way to see the positives. They're there, but yea.
Frazzled wrote: Its frankly amazing any of the primarchs would permit their legions to follow him.
I don't think they really care. Angron invaded at the head of 50, 000 berserkers, once. That's 50 space marine chapters to those counting, and he was stopped by 3 chapters. Yes, he lost when he outnumbered the marines more than 16 to one.
Fulgrim disappeared(Although he might not be Fulgrim).
Alpharius, or possibly Omegon, or possibly both, haven't been heard from. Or are dead. Or Cypher. Or both.
Horus is dead.
Lorgar has been sitting on a single planet for 10, 000 years just chilling.
Magnus might care, or might not, but his losses are just as bad as Abaddon.
Actually, now that I think about it, Alpharius and/or Omegon are probably the best Primarchs still around. Their whole schtick is that nobody knows what they're up to and there aren't a lot of losses on their plate, barring Dawn of War I - And they were awesome in that. Firaeaveus Carron was amazing.
Didn't the reign of fire end because Angron just got bored and left? Tree chapters were needed for the cleanup.
I know the comparison with Sauron isn't perfect but the Abaddon Roknar describes is the one GW insists exists but never properly shows up (except in the first 3 HH books where we clearly see he's a badass commander).
Frazzled wrote: I HIGHLY doubt Grey Knights would be permitted on Fenris. All their fluff says Fenris would be the tomb of any marine-imperial or Chaos- who stepped on its soil without permission.
Logan was reluctant to let them on the planet, but apparently if a normal person fights a daemon and survives they carry the seed of a daemon inside them. So Logan allowed the Grey Knights to kill the survivors to prevent another incursion.
The big problem Games Workshop has is that it's terrified of lasting victories for the villains that run the risk of showing up the Space Marines. At best, Xenos/Chaos receive Pyrrhic victories after smashing through a bunch of Imperial Guard/PDF/Sisters of Battle. At worst, they're set up so they can smash through a bunch of Imperial Guard/PDF/Sisters of Battle so they can get their arses handed to them by Space Marines.
Neither Chaos nor Xenos feel like credible threats because there's just so much damn Bolter porn. The rule of the setting has largely been that there is very little that cannot be beaten by the application of men in power armour (so long as they have Aquilias). In universe, this 'could' be balanced around the idea that whilst the Space Marines are brilliant at saving the day, there's just too damn few of them to act as the cavalry EVERYWHERE that needs it... however, it feels like the only worlds of any importance within the Imperium are Terra, Cadia (rip) and founding chapter homeworlds. So whenever we're told "oh no Nurgle's Rot/cultists/Tyranids/Orks destroyed [planet]!" it means nothing, because they're not Terra/Cadia/Macragge/Baal, etc. Hell, even with Fenris they couldn't give Magnus a complete victory, they had to wuss out with "y-yeah, it's corrupted real bad... b-but it's still there! They could probably recover!" just because GW were too spineless to take out a first founding Space Marine homeworld.
Meanwhile, Cadia gets blown up/sucked into the Warp/whatever finally but the actual way it's achieved only serves to make Abbadon look like a total moron. It's only two books later before the Imperium's trump card shows up and that's in the PROLOGUE.
About the only real threat that most people take seriously in the lore now is the Tyranids and their encroaching main force, but that's only because the Tyranids barely appear in the lore as is. With the way the plot is going though, no doubt they'll turn up in a book and quickly be kicked in the bollocks by a brand new loyalist Primarch appearing whilst somebody in the background goes "wooOOOooo, they're such a big danger! WoooOOOoooo, good thing Corax/Not-Sangy/Dorn/Vulkan/Jal/Not-Ferrus is here to help stop them! WoooOOOOooo!"
Also Tolkien makes Sauron a crediblke threat by downplaying him. From the start we knonw he is not that much stronger then the heroes. He however is getting stronger whereas his opponents are becoming weaker. The fights are more equal from thje start so the bad guys don't look like starscream (okay Saruman does) when they lose.
....... what? ummm noooo Suaron is INCREDIABLY powerful, he's a corrupted Maia. basicly a demi-god. yes Gandolf is a Maia but there is never any doubt Sauron is the stronger. the over all story of LOTR is rather then the most unassuming of being, whom are "neither counted among the powerful, not the very wise" can fill a critical role. a compartison to LOTR would be if Abbaddon was a demon primarch, and while gulliman held his attention in a massive battle, a pair of guardsmen performed a covert mission that handed victory to the IoM
I recently GM'd a Black Crusade mixed with Rogue Trader, where the players took a more macro perspective and ran a warband taking on an Imperial colony on the fringes of the Koronus Expanse. In the end, they won against the Imperial colony - outnumbered by about 4-1 and against an entrenched enemy.
How?;
1. Total disregard for collateral damage, it mattered not to them that the colony was ruined and unable to sustain itself afterwards. (In contrast, the Imperium wants to expand and keep land intact. It's why they outlawed Nukes because it renders valuable ground uninhabitable).
2. Daemonic entities. No need for logistics, transport, ammunition or maintenance. There are also many means available to release Daemons, which ruin Imperial Morale and defensive strategy. Used in combination with a combined arms offensive, they are downright dirty. (Seriously imagine yourself trying to organise an effective defense when you hear that your walls and fortifications have been simply ignored and horned daemons etc. are running around behind your lines cutting off your supply lines or destroying what you're protecting --- all whilst you're under attack from the front).
3. Enemy ignorance. The PDF/ Guard are trained to deal with Orks and common Xeno threats but suppressed knowledge of the existence of the great enemy hamstrings Imperial forces. (Whereas Chaos forces know and understand Imperial organisation and strategy well, their tactics are even designed to counter them.).
4. 'Divine' intervention. When Imperial forces pray to their God Emperor they get nothing (more often than not, once in a blue moon the LOTD appear), whereas when favoured chosen of chaos gods, either with sacrifice or deeds, pray for support... they get literal daemons or boons (more often than not, in contrast with the Imperials getting nothing). Try and stay loyal to your God Emperor then.
Whilst this all takes place in an RPG, I do believe it fits perfectly within 40k fluff. I just don't see the Imperium stacking up against Chaos on a normal world. Their only real strength is numbers.... and those numbers most often break or convert when subjected to the above.
Arbitrator wrote: The big problem Games Workshop has is that it's terrified of lasting victories for the villains that run the risk of showing up the Space Marines. At best, Xenos/Chaos receive Pyrrhic victories after smashing through a bunch of Imperial Guard/PDF/Sisters of Battle. At worst, they're set up so they can smash through a bunch of Imperial Guard/PDF/Sisters of Battle so they can get their arses handed to them by Space Marines.
Remember the wailing and gnashing of teeth from Imperial players after the Eye of Terror worldwide campaign over a decade ago when the Forces of Disorder actually won? Conspiracy theories sprouted about how the non-Imperials "cheated" or were helped by GW, and then there were some players that simply outright refused to accept the results or tried to argue how the loss was really a win, or at worst a stalemate (despite the black and white in print results in WD by GW declaring the victory for Disorder). And yet there was none of this protesting over every single other worldwide campaign where the Imperium was the declared winner.
The problem right now is all the background fluff and novels have followed the template of initial Chaos/Xenos victories followed by the heroic Space Marines saving the day in the end. Do the opposite, and you will have accusations of the Imperium being the designated punching bag (though other factions like the Eldar have had to endure that with all the Avatars dying). Follow the template, and we have the issue of the non-Imperial factions being not seen as a real threat, and the expectation that the Imperium is always supposed to win. All the wailing over the Eye of Terror campaign I think stemmed from this inbuilt expectation of inevitable Imperial victory, and then getting a rude awakening.
The solution? I think GW needs to be more even handed in its focus on all the factions so that all factions can have significant victories, not just a one line mention of newly invented random planet being taken. The problem is increasingly GW seems to be vague and impressionistic in their descriptions of battles or even entire campaigns. GW now avoids giving numbers, dates, or other hard data. More and more now it just seems their battles devolve into skirmishes describing unit type A taking out enemy unit B and then enemy unit C taking out unit A, until the special characters move along the plot. The universe as a whole just feels smaller as now it seems only the big special characters matter at all.
I don't mind the numlbers being gone, they never made sense anyway.
Strangely the more I think about it, the more recent publications are better then some of the older stuff but nowhere the oldest stufff.
Fall of cadia explains why abadonn fights a ground war. He wants the planet and mostly the pylons keeping the cadian gate stable intact. SO he prevents escalation when possible because he doesn't want to smash it. He ends up smashing the planet only after the pylons are overloaded so it doesn't matter objectively in the long run.
Automatically Appended Next Post: ps: While I'd love to continue the Sauron discussion I think we've derailed the thread enough as is.
Earth127 wrote: I don't mind the numlbers being gone, they never made sense anyway.
Strangely the more I think about it, the more recent publications are better then some of the older stuff but nowhere the oldest stufff.
Fall of cadia explains why abadonn fights a ground war. He wants the planet and mostly the pylons keeping the cadian gate stable intact. SO he prevents escalation when possible because he doesn't want to smash it. He ends up smashing the planet only after the pylons are overloaded so it doesn't matter objectively in the long run.
Automatically Appended Next Post: ps: While I'd love to continue the Sauron discussion I think we've derailed the thread enough as is.
the moving away from giving numbers is a good thing, and over all I thought the fall of Cadia was excellent. (I throughly enjoyed GS3 too, they really gave a feeling that they where writing about people) and yeah I felt Cadia was laid out in a logical fashion. which is why I disagree that chaos ended up "looking bad" chaos won a hard fought victory, it wasn't just a gimmie. and too rarely does that happen in 40k (granted this is because 90% of battles are covered in 2 sentences that amount to "faction X fought faction Y. Faction X won it with the genius of *COOL CHARACTER FOR FACTION X HERE!* utlizing the awesome power of the *COOL CODEX OPTION HERE!*")
I think thats part of the problem with 40k, a lotta people wanna see complete and utter crushing victory for non Imperial factions, but generally speaking those are, and need to be, rare given the nature of the setting. it's a common problem of the "heros defending the status quo" motiff of many long standing settings.
PS. re Sauron yeah no sense getting bogged down in a discussion of tolken lore, as enjoyable as it can be to debate it
Actually, if you step away from Failbaddon, Chaos does just fine in many 40K novels and canon. The Sabbat Worlds takeover and eventual crusade is an excellent example. Chaos is tough, competent, and often victorious. Storm of Iron is another excellent example.
By numbers and actual details, I mean something like the original FW Taros campaign. We get details of the participating forces, maps showing their movements, supporting naval assets, etc... At least an attempt was made to make it like reading about a RL historical campaign. The last two Gathering Storm books have come off as a pub crawl. The main special characters lurch from one place to another, where they just happen to appear just as a battle is about to begin or already in progress.
Frazzled wrote: I HIGHLY doubt Grey Knights would be permitted on Fenris. All their fluff says Fenris would be the tomb of any marine-imperial or Chaos- who stepped on its soil without permission.
I don't think it's permission that would bring the Greyknights to Fenris - they would likely go to destroy it along with forces of the inquisition - for it's obvious daemonic influences.
Frazzled wrote: I HIGHLY doubt Grey Knights would be permitted on Fenris. All their fluff says Fenris would be the tomb of any marine-imperial or Chaos- who stepped on its soil without permission.
I don't think it's permission that would bring the Greyknights to Fenris - they would likely go to destroy it along with forces of the inquisition - for it's obvious daemonic influences.
And absent some mary suiism, would run into the teeth of the wolves there, thus starting a new civil war. Attacking the home world of a founding chapter and one of the most revered would be a blow that could split apart the Imperium. Every chapter would think they could be next, and would shock the average Joe citizen.
Sgt. Cortez wrote: So far I wouldn't discard Abbadon yet. It has been stated that all 12 crusades were preparation for the 13th. Now the 13th is there, yet his first trick, the blackstone fortress Abby did the 12th crusade for, doesn't work. For me that was the weakest part about gathering storm. However, he still got Cadia destroyed, and Biel-tan, and Commorragh and he united what seemed to be un-unitable. I hope GW allows him to get some not-pyrric victory for once.
Actually in that he's similar to Ghazgkull. Despite everything Armageddon hasn't fallen yet, which is a shame as it sets the Orks in the same weak light as Chaos.
Well in both those instances I can actually understand, because in the case of Cadia, the Imperium knew it would happen sooner or later and they prepared for every conceivable contingency. They had much, much more time, resources, and thought put into it than Abbadon ever could, so it only makes sense that Cadia would turn out the way it did. Armageddon was similar in that the entire Imperium had its eye on it by the end, and although I never read what exactly happened there, I like the concept that the Imperium can actually defeat any foe if they all work together on it.
That was not the case with Fenris. No one expected it, Magnus had every possible advantage and still lost. Against Logan Grimnar. Logan Grimar > Magnus the Red. Let that sink in.
Frazzled wrote: However according to fluff the Fang was the 2nd most heavily defended location after Terra (not sure why other than the wolves are ornery).
All things being equal a legion's worth of ships should outclass a chapter's. It all comes down to how strong the Fang's antiship defenses are.
The book made it clear that Magnus' forces avoided the fang and were targeting the planet itself, spreading out across its surface to corrupt the magma at the core. The only involvement with the Fang they had was a distraction in the catacombs below it where they sent a bunch of pyromancers in from below to cut the power, which they did. Not that it mattered.
And that Magnus actually reached his power out into space and flung the ships above him against each other, destroying them.
I recently GM'd a Black Crusade mixed with Rogue Trader, where the players took a more macro perspective and ran a warband taking on an Imperial colony on the fringes of the Koronus Expanse. In the end, they won against the Imperial colony - outnumbered by about 4-1 and against an entrenched enemy.
How?;
1. Total disregard for collateral damage, it mattered not to them that the colony was ruined and unable to sustain itself afterwards. (In contrast, the Imperium wants to expand and keep land intact. It's why they outlawed Nukes because it renders valuable ground uninhabitable).
2. Daemonic entities. No need for logistics, transport, ammunition or maintenance. There are also many means available to release Daemons, which ruin Imperial Morale and defensive strategy. Used in combination with a combined arms offensive, they are downright dirty. (Seriously imagine yourself trying to organise an effective defense when you hear that your walls and fortifications have been simply ignored and horned daemons etc. are running around behind your lines cutting off your supply lines or destroying what you're protecting --- all whilst you're under attack from the front).
3. Enemy ignorance. The PDF/ Guard are trained to deal with Orks and common Xeno threats but suppressed knowledge of the existence of the great enemy hamstrings Imperial forces. (Whereas Chaos forces know and understand Imperial organisation and strategy well, their tactics are even designed to counter them.).
4. 'Divine' intervention. When Imperial forces pray to their God Emperor they get nothing (more often than not, once in a blue moon the LOTD appear), whereas when favoured chosen of chaos gods, either with sacrifice or deeds, pray for support... they get literal daemons or boons (more often than not, in contrast with the Imperials getting nothing). Try and stay loyal to your God Emperor then.
Whilst this all takes place in an RPG, I do believe it fits perfectly within 40k fluff. I just don't see the Imperium stacking up against Chaos on a normal world. Their only real strength is numbers.... and those numbers most often break or convert when subjected to the above.
Yes, all of these are good points. The problem is that in many of the books Chaos Warbands are responded to not only by PDF/Guard, but by Space Marines. Let's see how the factors you listed work when the enemy has power armor and plot armor too:
1: Yes, this can still work against Space Marines, but it gets more difficult because they're so hard to wear down.
2: Daemons are great and all but are cannon fodder to SM. Morale doesn't matter if they Know No Fear, and SM defensive strategies are supposed to have some way to deal with daemon summoning.
3: PDF/Guard may be ignorant about Chaos/xenos, but spacemarines aren't, making this irrelevant.
4: CSM pray to Chaos, get gribblies and random mutatoes. SM pray to Emps, get plot armor and reinforcements. SM pray to the author, get plot armor and become the heroes of the story guaranteeing their victory. SM pray to the codex writer, get better rules for free.
Earth127 wrote: Didn't the reign of fire end because Angron just got bored and left? Tree chapters were needed for the cleanup.
I know the comparison with Sauron isn't perfect but the Abaddon Roknar describes is the one GW insists exists but never properly shows up (except in the first 3 HH books where we clearly see he's a badass commander).
That's pretty much my point. He DOES exist and it's similar with the rest of chaos, but they are all hamstringed by bad writing.
Especially Abaddon though as his meme has been perpetuated so long within the fan base that it has been accepted as truth.
That's something that annoys me a little. Nobody bothers to read between the lines and people rather just run with the him being a buffoon.
It's not his fault that like 90% of the lore we get is bolter porn and mary sueism from marines.
You don't get to be the effective warmaster of chaos space marines for so long by being a total failure. Unless you accept that the rest of the csm/daemon forces are even bigger failures.
Which makes no sense at all. Plus all we ever get to read are imperial perspective stories. The few times that we do get to read from the perspective of csm they are shown to be certified badasses.
With GW lore you kind of have to read it with a certain focus and a broader perspective at the same time. As a whole it doesn't make sense.
Take Magnus. Are you going to judge him of being a wimp and getting his ass handed to him by a bunch of drunk puppies and girl scouts, or do you tell a tale where he wanted to make the wolves lose their homeworld in much the same way he did?
Because in that that tale he achieved what he set out to do. Being beaten back physically is of little concern to somebody who is immortal, both in form and age. Perhaps even less so now that the planet of sorcerers is in real space.
He even got their allies to turn on them. Everything else was more than likely just a bonus to him and his success or failure should be measured by what is important to him. He doesn't share the same values as us mortals after all.
I'm sure it's possible to shine a much kinder light on Magnus and his endeavors than the one we have gotten so far. Same with chaos in general.
It's just really easy to forget that there is more to chaos than GW likes to spoon feed us.
I'm sure it's possible to shine a much kinder light on Magnus and his endeavors than the one we have gotten so far. Same with chaos in general.
It's just really easy to forget that there is more to chaos than GW likes to spoon feed us.
There really isn't. 'Chaos' doesn't exist. It is fiction written by Games Workshop - If Games Workshop writes them as idiots who fail constantly, then they are idiots who fail constantly. It is bad writing and it doesn't make sense,, but there it is. Your particular Chaos Warband might not be an idiot who fails constantly, but that's irrelevant: Chaos are a bunch of idiots who fail constantly.
They're GW's baby, and they are writing them like buffoons who fail at every endeavor they have.
I recently GM'd a Black Crusade mixed with Rogue Trader, where the players took a more macro perspective and ran a warband taking on an Imperial colony on the fringes of the Koronus Expanse. In the end, they won against the Imperial colony - outnumbered by about 4-1 and against an entrenched enemy.
How?;
1. Total disregard for collateral damage, it mattered not to them that the colony was ruined and unable to sustain itself afterwards. (In contrast, the Imperium wants to expand and keep land intact. It's why they outlawed Nukes because it renders valuable ground uninhabitable).
2. Daemonic entities. No need for logistics, transport, ammunition or maintenance. There are also many means available to release Daemons, which ruin Imperial Morale and defensive strategy. Used in combination with a combined arms offensive, they are downright dirty. (Seriously imagine yourself trying to organise an effective defense when you hear that your walls and fortifications have been simply ignored and horned daemons etc. are running around behind your lines cutting off your supply lines or destroying what you're protecting --- all whilst you're under attack from the front).
3. Enemy ignorance. The PDF/ Guard are trained to deal with Orks and common Xeno threats but suppressed knowledge of the existence of the great enemy hamstrings Imperial forces. (Whereas Chaos forces know and understand Imperial organisation and strategy well, their tactics are even designed to counter them.).
4. 'Divine' intervention. When Imperial forces pray to their God Emperor they get nothing (more often than not, once in a blue moon the LOTD appear), whereas when favoured chosen of chaos gods, either with sacrifice or deeds, pray for support... they get literal daemons or boons (more often than not, in contrast with the Imperials getting nothing). Try and stay loyal to your God Emperor then.
Whilst this all takes place in an RPG, I do believe it fits perfectly within 40k fluff. I just don't see the Imperium stacking up against Chaos on a normal world. Their only real strength is numbers.... and those numbers most often break or convert when subjected to the above.
Yes, all of these are good points. The problem is that in many of the books Chaos Warbands are responded to not only by PDF/Guard, but by Space Marines. Let's see how the factors you listed work when the enemy has power armor and plot armor too:
1: Yes, this can still work against Space Marines, but it gets more difficult because they're so hard to wear down.
2: Daemons are great and all but are cannon fodder to SM. Morale doesn't matter if they Know No Fear, and SM defensive strategies are supposed to have some way to deal with daemon summoning.
3: PDF/Guard may be ignorant about Chaos/xenos, but spacemarines aren't, making this irrelevant.
4: CSM pray to Chaos, get gribblies and random mutatoes. SM pray to Emps, get plot armor and reinforcements. SM pray to the author, get plot armor and become the heroes of the story guaranteeing their victory. SM pray to the codex writer, get better rules for free.
I get your answer is 'Space Marines', yet Chaos has them too... so they should just cancel each other out making Space Marines on both sides in effect irrelevant to the power level discussion between Chaos and the Imperium. Leaving chaos with all the other benefits STILL over the Imperium (if you disregard plot armour).
I think you misunderstood me. They don't fail, at least not as much as people like to believe. Magnus did corrupt fenris, abaddon did open the cage on diamor, it's just a matter of time, but it's going to break. He obtained all the relics he ever wanted to. Angron was defeated, but let's not pretend like he was only facing a couple chapters. It's not like there were any guard present or titans or anything like that, nevermind butchering his way though entire sector for a century before that happened.
I'm saying GW manages to make their victories and baddassery look weak or non existant. Not giving them any success without immediately shutting them down in the most hamfisted way possible while still somehow giving them ultimate victory if you care to look for it.
Roknar wrote: I think you misunderstood me. They don't fail, at least not as much as people like to believe. Magnus did corrupt fenris, abaddon did open the cage on diamor, it's just a matter of time, but it's going to break. He obtained all the relics he ever wanted to. Angron was defeated, but let's not pretend like he was only facing a couple chapters. It's not like there were any guard present or titans or anything like that, nevermind butchering his way though entire sector for a century before that happened.
I'm saying GW manages to make their victories and baddassery look weak or non existant. Not giving them any success without immediately shutting them down in the most hamfisted way possible while still somehow giving them ultimate victory if you care to look for it.
Abaddon did get all the relics he wanted, like the Blackstone Fortress, which mightily showed up and got destroyed while simultaneously doing nothing. That was well worth a Black Crusade that cost him many, many precious troops he needed to invade Earth.
Or his 11th Black Crusade where he kidnapped a bunch of Orks and learned absolutely nothing concretely useful. That was well worth the Black Crusade that cost him many, many precious troops he needed to invade Earth.
Or the 8th Black Crusade, where he killed enough people to create a mathematical equation which had no concrete applications and cost him many, many precious troops he needed to invade Earth.
He is truly a tactical genius whose success is assured.
My impression was that the 8th Black Crusade was basically a big feat to gain favor with Tzeentch. Abaddon appears to be balancing between the gods, doing things to please each one but never fully aligning himself with one. While such acts may not directly result in material gain, the favor of a Chaos god would be of use in the future. Of course the god in question might also reward by giving Chaos gifts to Abaddon or his followers.
Iracundus wrote: My impression was that the 8th Black Crusade was basically a big feat to gain favor with Tzeentch. Abaddon appears to be balancing between the gods, doing things to please each one but never fully aligning himself with one. While such acts may not directly result in material gain, the favor of a Chaos god would be of use in the future. Of course the god in question might also reward by giving Chaos gifts to Abaddon or his followers.
That would depend on whether or not his material gain with Tzeentch actually did anything. It did not, and I am willing to bet will not.
After all, the Blackstone Fortresses didn't do anything and his crusade to gain Greenskins for experimentation didn't bear anything out.
Most of his Crusades didn't get anything of concrete worth. Drach'nyen - That was a win for Abaddon, since that was the Demon that said he would kill the Emperor and the Emperor responded with 'Maybe, but not today'.
But for the most part, his crusades have born little to no fruit.
except the blackstone fortress DID do something. without that fortress Cadia would NOT have fallen. yes he lost it, but in the long run clearly abbaddon didn't have a pressing need for the things. I mean apparently he was willing to gift one to the red cosairs. which suggests whatever he needed the things for (and he already ahd the planet killer so clearly it wasn't a despirate desire for a death star super laser) he's likely.. already got.
as for what he gained from Tzeetch, with the gods it's hard to tell, simply maintaining their favor is proably priceless.
Ghorros the 8th (edit: wait, do we mean 11?) crusade actually wasn't intended to create chaos orks;
If I remember rightly, there was a different objective, but he got thrown of course / emerged in the wrong place / warp trickery, so he just had to make the best of a bad job.
as for what he gained from Tzeetch, with the gods it's hard to tell, simply maintaining their favor is proably priceless.
Maintaining the favor of the gods is itself a form of maintenance for the forces of Chaos. All the sorcery and visions Abaddon and his followers use may require him to be in good standing with the gods. Abaddon may have been simply "paying his dues"
Roknar wrote: I think you misunderstood me. They don't fail, at least not as much as people like to believe. Magnus did corrupt fenris, abaddon did open the cage on diamor, it's just a matter of time, but it's going to break. He obtained all the relics he ever wanted to. Angron was defeated, but let's not pretend like he was only facing a couple chapters. It's not like there were any guard present or titans or anything like that, nevermind butchering his way though entire sector for a century before that happened.
I'm saying GW manages to make their victories and baddassery look weak or non existant. Not giving them any success without immediately shutting them down in the most hamfisted way possible while still somehow giving them ultimate victory if you care to look for it.
Abaddon did get all the relics he wanted, like the Blackstone Fortress, which mightily showed up and got destroyed while simultaneously doing nothing. That was well worth a Black Crusade that cost him many, many precious troops he needed to invade Earth.
Or his 11th Black Crusade where he kidnapped a bunch of Orks and learned absolutely nothing concretely useful. That was well worth the Black Crusade that cost him many, many precious troops he needed to invade Earth.
Or the 8th Black Crusade, where he killed enough people to create a mathematical equation which had no concrete applications and cost him many, many precious troops he needed to invade Earth.
He is truly a tactical genius whose success is assured.
He didn't just get the black stone fortress, which btw was directly involved in the destruction of cadia. He also gained a bunch of relics, including the hand of darkness with which he bought the support of mortarion for the 13th cursade.
That alone would have been worth a crusade.
The 8th was one giant tzeentchian ritual, which he completed sucessfully. That's all we know. To say it has no applications is a bit silly. Several worlds worth of people died, which is useful in and of itself.
It might have been nothing but a crusade to improve his standing with tzeetnch, it might have more conrete applications later down the line. We know that abaddon scries for future events and this might have to do with manipulating said future to come to fruition, we simply don't know. It was completed, so whatever it does/did, it was obviously worth any casualties he took.
Same with the 11th. We aren't told what happened to the captured orks. For all we know it started/is going to start some major waaaagh, which in turn would earn abaddon great favour with the gods again.
That crusade seems to have failed in that he didn't complete his intended objective, but he still got something out of it. Perhaps he traded them with fabius for his services, which would also be valuable to him.
Perhaps they're turned into ticking timebombs of some sort.
On a whole though, the crusades main objective is to prepare for the crimson path.
The first was to obtain drachnyen and cemented him as the new warmaster, well worth an entire crusade.
The second cursed a sector, which obviously has long term implications. At the very least saturating that sector with negative emotions over time.
The third killed millions, which we know makes it easier for the warp to spill out and he destroyed the body of some saint. Both ensuring he wouldn't rise again and demoralizing people.
The fourth allowed him to permanently destroy one the premier strongholds guarding the eye, thus preparing the way for the 13th to break cadia. He took heavy casualties, but cadia might not have fallen otherwise, which is a worthy prize.
The aftermath also might have pleased slaanesh.
The fifth secures him the service of doombreed. Not to mention wiping out two chapters of marines and slaying several million people. Doombreed alone is worth any casualties he took.
The sixth somewhat mirror istvan in that he got rid of a rival, while simultaneously bolstering his ranks with Drecarth's own warband and securing a forgeworld to fuel his war efforts.
The seventh spreads paranoia, misinformation and deceit (as if the imperium needed more of that), probably seeding chaos cults across the imperium. He also manages to almost wipe out the blood angels.
The eight was the ritual.
The ninth has him destroy a naval fortress by way of direct slaughter and engineering a war that starves two worlds of fighting population. Allowing him to go rampage across the sector at will.
The resulting war also almost causing the destruction of another chapter.
The 10th brings yet another chapter to the brink of destruction and gives him valuable intel for a future assault.
The 11th failed but he still got a bunch of orks for reasons undetermined. They're valuable even as nothing else but entirely expendable shock troops.
The 12th has him aquire the black stone fortresses, which right then and there destroy a number of planets. That's a loss the imperium cannot recover from.
And that's only what we know on the surface. The crusades don't include other raids like that on Diamor. We only get summaries of what happened for the most part.
By the time of the current events, Abaddon must be directly responsible for a body count in the hundreds of millions that we know of just in real space. That kind of slaughter no doubt leaves a mark in the warp.
Never mind the rituals and negativity he is responsible for, or cults. We also know for a fact that he is a champion of all four gods, yet you never really hear about how he appeases nurgle and slaanesh, so there must be events we are not aware of.
And clearly loosing "many many precious units" is not a concern for the warmaster. Hell, half the time he doesn't even send his own troops. Instead he sends some schmuck to go get himself killed...or not..all the same to abaddon.
Plus, csm can churn out new marines much faster than loyalists and that's not accounting for millions of renegades and mutants and daemons or steering ork invasions or straight up fanning the flames of war as seen in the ninths crusade.
And besides, what war, in the history of ever, was fought without losses on both sides. Of course he will loose units, how the hell does that diminish his ability to lead?
Every greater venture into real space has him weaken real space itself for a future daemonic assault or strengthen his position for the final push.
And that's before considering that he does some things for no other reason than to gain favour with the gods and/or to make powerful allies.
Frazzled wrote: Meanwhile other chaos commanders seize half the IM's stored geneseed, invade and conquer thousands of worlds etc. etc.
How does that diminish Abaddons achievements? It's not like he sits around for centuries staring at a wall between crusades.
Besides, conquering worlds for the sake of conquest and pillage is beneath him. He has chaos lords serving under chaos lords serving under chaos lords for that.
Also, people say chaos is a joke, but is the imperium any better?
How much have they actually done? All they seem to do is defend, defend, defend. When was the last time they actually got gak done?
Meanwhile, every planet lost to chaos or exterminatus due to reasons or hive fleets, etc is lost pretty much permanently. Even as they drive back those that caused it.
Frazzled wrote: Meanwhile other chaos commanders seize half the IM's stored geneseed, invade and conquer thousands of worlds etc. etc.
How does that diminish Abaddons achievements? It's not like he sits around for centuries staring at a wall between crusades.
Besides, conquering worlds for the sake of conquest and pillage is beneath him. He has chaos lords serving under chaos lords serving under chaos lords for that.
Also, people say chaos is a joke, but is the imperium any better?
How much have they actually done? All they seem to do is defend, defend, defend. When was the last time they actually got gak done?
Meanwhile, every planet lost to chaos or exterminatus due to reasons or hive fleets, etc is lost pretty much permanently. Even as they drive back those that caused it.
The difference its that the Imperium downfall its the core narrative of the setting, so them losing ground all the time its what you should expect from them.
Chaos should be the main driven force in the downfall of the empire, but in reality, its just the inverse.
But well, with the return of Guilliman its obvius that this its no longer the case. Now the Empire will be the attacking force again.
Roknar wrote: I think you misunderstood me. They don't fail, at least not as much as people like to believe. Magnus did corrupt fenris, abaddon did open the cage on diamor, it's just a matter of time, but it's going to break. He obtained all the relics he ever wanted to. Angron was defeated, but let's not pretend like he was only facing a couple chapters. It's not like there were any guard present or titans or anything like that, nevermind butchering his way though entire sector for a century before that happened.
I'm saying GW manages to make their victories and baddassery look weak or non existant. Not giving them any success without immediately shutting them down in the most hamfisted way possible while still somehow giving them ultimate victory if you care to look for it.
Abaddon did get all the relics he wanted, like the Blackstone Fortress, which mightily showed up and got destroyed while simultaneously doing nothing. That was well worth a Black Crusade that cost him many, many precious troops he needed to invade Earth.
Or his 11th Black Crusade where he kidnapped a bunch of Orks and learned absolutely nothing concretely useful. That was well worth the Black Crusade that cost him many, many precious troops he needed to invade Earth.
Or the 8th Black Crusade, where he killed enough people to create a mathematical equation which had no concrete applications and cost him many, many precious troops he needed to invade Earth.
He is truly a tactical genius whose success is assured.
He didn't just get the black stone fortress, which btw was directly involved in the destruction of cadia. He also gained a bunch of relics, including the hand of darkness with which he bought the support of mortarion for the 13th cursade.
That alone would have been worth a crusade.
The Black Stone Fortress had jets attached to it after it was destroyed and was slammed in to Cadia.. He didn't need to lose a lot of troops to find a big rock to put rockets on. And Mortarion's rage was so great when he heard Guilliman was alive, it spawned a bunch of new plagues - Abaddon didn't need to pay off Mortarion to do what Mortarion wanted to do anyway.
The 8th was one giant tzeentchian ritual, which he completed sucessfully. That's all we know. To say it has no applications is a bit silly. Several worlds worth of people died, which is useful in and of itself.
It might have been nothing but a crusade to improve his standing with tzeetnch, it might have more conrete applications later down the line. We know that abaddon scries for future events and this might have to do with manipulating said future to come to fruition, we simply don't know. It was completed, so whatever it does/did, it was obviously worth any casualties he took.
Okay, so the 8th had no effects that we know of. We just know what GW keep writing, which is that Abaddon fails. A lot.
Same with the 11th. We aren't told what happened to the captured orks. For all we know it started/is going to start some major waaaagh, which in turn would earn abaddon great favour with the gods again.
That crusade seems to have failed in that he didn't complete his intended objective, but he still got something out of it. Perhaps he traded them with fabius for his services, which would also be valuable to him.
Perhaps they're turned into ticking timebombs of some sort.
If your argument is, "We don't know what effects this had", what you're really saying is "If Abaddon hadn't lost the horrendous amount of troops he did in each Crusade, he would have lost even worse than he had", then that isn't really a stunning discussion on his tactical genius. You're really saying, "He would have haemorrhaged troops even more without doing these vague things that had no concrete effects."
On a whole though, the crusades main objective is to prepare for the crimson path.
Which he did in The Traitor's Path - A story where he sent an actually competent commander(Really. Xorphan is very clever despite being outnumbered and outgunned in every conceivable way) and didn't provide him with the tools to do the job - A job that would have sped his invasion by perhaps years. The end of the story has it that it will eventually fall, but with no concrete evidence as to when.
The first was to obtain drachnyen and cemented him as the new warmaster, well worth an entire crusade.
That was a win. It was suggested in the Horus Heresy that Drach'nyen was the Daemon that would 'Be the death of the Emperor', so getting it is a coup, no doubt.
The second cursed a sector, which obviously has long term implications. At the very least saturating that sector with negative emotions over time.
What concrete effect did this have? How was -this- sector worse than any other sector of the Imperium? What, specifically, did the massive loss of troops achieve? Please be specific how this was worth the massive loss of life.
This killed millions, which we know makes it easier for the warp to spill out and he destroyed the body of some saint. Both ensuring he wouldn't rise again and demoralizing people.
This was a win. There was a prophecy the saint would come back in the final Black Crusade and cause major problems, so well done him in achieving a goal. Did it cause fewer casualties in the long run? Maybe. If he were truly clever, he'd have done what the Alpha Legion would and infiltrate/destroy it.
The fourth allowed him to permanently destroy one the premier strongholds guarding the eye, thus preparing the way for the 13th to break cadia. He took heavy casualties, but cadia might not have fallen otherwise, which is a worthy prize.
The aftermath also might have pleased slaanesh.
Fun fact: Lots of other Chaos Commanders have pleased the deities without allowing these to fall. Please explain how this particular Kasr not falling would have stopped a comet with rockets attached to it. There was no suggestion that this particular stronghold had 'Anti-Comet' defenses. Definitely point me to any lore that suggests this incredible fortress had anti-comet capabilities, however.
The fifth secures him the service of doombreed. Not to mention wiping out two chapters of marines and slaying several million people. Doombreed alone is worth any casualties he took.
He wiped out the Warhawks and the Venerators, which was good. As for Doombreed, what - Specifically - Has he done? A much more useful thing was the geneseed he stole - Fully 2000 marines worth. Given how many he keeps losing, he no doubt needed them - And has lost them again.
The sixth somewhat mirror istvan in that he got rid of a rival, while simultaneously bolstering his ranks with Drecarth's own warband and securing a forgeworld to fuel his war efforts.
Yep. His most successful Black Crusade enabled him to kill a potentially talented Chaos Marine and take his Warband - Numbers he needed as has been pointed out.
The seventh spreads paranoia, misinformation and deceit (as if the imperium needed more of that), probably seeding chaos cults across the imperium. He also manages to almost wipe out the blood angels.
Probably his second most successful Crusade. Beating the Blood Angels and taking their most potent Geneseed was a win, for sure. He needed those numbers to bolster his constantly haemorrhaging numbers. As for the paranoia, what - Specifically - Effect did this have on that area? How was it worse than other sectors? What specifically did this Crusade do besides provide him numbers that he promptly loses in his next crusade?
Again, what -specifically- did this do? What aid did Tzeentch provide that he wouldn't have provided otherwise? Magnus seems to be doing his own thing despite Abaddon having Tzeentch's favour.
The ninth has him destroy a naval fortress by way of direct slaughter and engineering a war that starves two worlds of fighting population. Allowing him to go rampage across the sector at will.
Very clever. His third real win so far and done with actual forethought and strategy. We don't know what the fleets actually did, but that's all right. We'll call it a win.
The 10th brings yet another chapter to the brink of destruction and gives him valuable intel for a future assault.
He attacked a chapter, failed to kill it and learned a lot of intel about a chapter that has literally not changed since he fought them in the Horus Heresy. What, specifically, could he have learned about the Iron Hands(Which are full strength again, so he didn't capitalize on it) that he couldn't learn fighting the exact same forces using the exact same tactics during the Horus Heresy?
The 12th has him aquire the black stone fortresses, which right then and there destroy a number of planets. That's a loss the imperium cannot recover from.
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Actually, the Imperium settle planets all the time. They also lose planets all the time. They are so enormous it makes no difference unless something important falls. Which didn't happen. Instead, Abaddon started a crusade that essentially got him a large rock. Because that's all the Blackstone Fortress was used for in the end.
And that's only what we know on the surface. The crusades don't include other raids like that on Diamor. We only get summaries of what happened for the most part.
By the time of the current events, Abaddon must be directly responsible for a body count in the hundreds of millions that we know of just in real space. That kind of slaughter no doubt leaves a mark in the warp.
Never mind the rituals and negativity he is responsible for, or cults. We also know for a fact that he is a champion of all four gods, yet you never really hear about how he appeases nurgle and slaanesh, so there must be events we are not aware of.
And clearly loosing "many many precious units" is not a concern for the warmaster. Hell, half the time he doesn't even send his own troops. Instead he sends some schmuck to go get himself killed...or not..all the same to abaddon.
Plus, csm can churn out new marines much faster than loyalists and that's not accounting for millions of renegades and mutants and daemons or steering ork invasions or straight up fanning the flames of war as seen in the ninths crusade.
And besides, what war, in the history of ever, was fought without losses on both sides. Of course he will loose units, how the hell does that diminish his ability to lead?
Every greater venture into real space has him weaken real space itself for a future daemonic assault or strengthen his position for the final push.
And that's before considering that he does some things for no other reason than to gain favour with the gods and/or to make powerful allies.
Three crusades. One in four managed some success, the rest were utter failures. Very similar to Abaddon himself, who lets massive numbers of troops die for no concrete gain in almost every Black Crusade.
Ok now you're just trolling.
He SUCCESSFULLY performs a massive ritual involving several sectors, not planets, sectors. "countless worlds have been saturated in death", whether part of the ritual, result or side effect.
At the bare minimum this scale of slaughter would have the potential to permanently weaken the barrier between realities in that segmentum. Never mind the ritual.
And simply because we don't know what the effects were you count this not only as dubious but outright as a failure?
That makes zero sense. If you can't see this as a success then nothing short of actually destroying the imperium would warrant even a "meh".
Successfully completing a ritual of that scale is massive undertaking and he did so in realspace, in imperial space no less.
It could have been a ploy to gain Magnus' allegience for the 13th in that it this ritual allowed him to move the planet of sorcerers, who knows.
Whatever it did, it certainly wasn't evidence of abaddon failing. A lot... seriously, wut?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Sometimes I think people set impossible standards for abaddon.
Conquer a few worlds and your a bad ass lord. Do that, eliminate any oppostiton, form an a mighty allegiance, set out on the grandest raids into realspace but get a model whose arms don't hold and suddenly you're the laughing stock of the world...
In Vengeful Spirit, Horus had to spend years in the Warp leading daemon armies to get back to the material realm with the powers of the Chaos Gods.
We learn they want deeds from their champions and things take a long time.
Abaddon brings giant armies on doomed crusades and his forces do get slaughtered. But it's not like he's running out of Chaos Space Marines. Khorne is getting his skulls, Slannesh is getting her Eldar souls, Nurgle is getting his filth spilt, and Tzeentch is getting plenty of ways to mess it all up.
We are judging events from a human perspective. Things happens on the pace the Gods want it. If he was a failure he would be spawn by now.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Speaking of Abaddon - anyone notice the Robute Gulliman sculpt is Abaddon in reverse?
Roknar wrote: Ok now you're just trolling.
He SUCCESSFULLY performs a massive ritual involving several sectors, not planets, sectors. "countless worlds have been saturated in death", whether part of the ritual, result or side effect.
At the bare minimum this scale of slaughter would have the potential to permanently weaken the barrier between realities in that segmentum. Never mind the ritual.
And simply because we don't know what the effects were you count this not only as dubious but outright as a failure?
That makes zero sense. If you can't see this as a success then nothing short of actually destroying the imperium would warrant even a "meh".
Successfully completing a ritual of that scale is massive undertaking and he did so in realspace, in imperial space no less.
It could have been a ploy to gain Magnus' allegience for the 13th in that it this ritual allowed him to move the planet of sorcerers, who knows.
Whatever it did, it certainly wasn't evidence of abaddon failing. A lot... seriously, wut?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Sometimes I think people set impossible standards for abaddon.
Conquer a few worlds and your a bad ass lord. Do that, eliminate any oppostiton, form an a mighty allegiance, set out on the grandest raids into realspace but get a model whose arms don't hold and suddenly you're the laughing stock of the world...
it's a binary thing. Abbaddon is eaither all powerful always victorious, or he's a failure. the iodea that he's building to something and we've not seen the full results of it seems to be one that is denied. Hell, Fall of Cadia suggests, very VERY strongly, that the past 12 black crusades also had Abbaddon destroying other pylon networks no one else knew about
Abaddon slowly consolidating the forces of chaos, forging alliances and gathering relics to forward his long term end game isn't exactly new fluff either.
I think the teeny tiny 3rd ed codexes failed to convey this properly, which is where the impression that Abaddon was making a bunch of WWI style failed 'Big Pushes' came from.
From 2nd ed:
"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.
Roknar wrote: Ok now you're just trolling.
He SUCCESSFULLY performs a massive ritual involving several sectors, not planets, sectors. "countless worlds have been saturated in death", whether part of the ritual, result or side effect.
At the bare minimum this scale of slaughter would have the potential to permanently weaken the barrier between realities in that segmentum. Never mind the ritual.
And simply because we don't know what the effects were you count this not only as dubious but outright as a failure?
That makes zero sense. If you can't see this as a success then nothing short of actually destroying the imperium would warrant even a "meh".
Successfully completing a ritual of that scale is massive undertaking and he did so in realspace, in imperial space no less.
It could have been a ploy to gain Magnus' allegience for the 13th in that it this ritual allowed him to move the planet of sorcerers, who knows.
Whatever it did, it certainly wasn't evidence of abaddon failing. A lot... seriously, wut?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Sometimes I think people set impossible standards for abaddon.
Conquer a few worlds and your a bad ass lord. Do that, eliminate any oppostiton, form an a mighty allegiance, set out on the grandest raids into realspace but get a model whose arms don't hold and suddenly you're the laughing stock of the world...
See, now I would see what you're doing as 'Trolling'. I admitted three of his crusades were successes, with 11 being failures. Drach'nyen? Success - And needed.
I will give you a few examples of 'Success' that you see in other armies in the so-called 'Gathering Storm'.
1) Ynnead destroyed 3 Greater Daemons of Slaanesh, including one that was apparently hundreds of feet tall, in seconds the moment he got his sword.
2) Guilliman ended a Chaos invasion of his planet in hours, successfully battling off a force Abaddon expected was strong enough to stop his resurrection(Spoiler alert: It was not).
3) The rather clever Huron Blackheart waited in ambush for Guilliman to get in to an area where his forces could not bring his tactical genius to bear and successfully captured the greatest tactician in the universe in a single fell swoop despite his overwhelming capabilities. Even captured him.
4) Cypher lured a Khornate fleet in to engaging with Huron Blackheart, snuck in to the heart of Huron Blackheart's fortress and broke Guilliman out while a war waged all around him.
5) Yvraine waved her hands and tossed one of the greatest Psyker's Chaos has, along with his psychic superpowered allies, out in to the warp.
Of those successes, only two were related to cunning(Spoiler alert: It wasn't Abaddon, but it was Chaos. And Cypher, but the jury is out on who he's with) and the rest were just brute-force candy.
There are a lot of other successes that take place in those novels. Can you point us to some where Abaddon unequivocally 'won', rather than lost and then after the fact rubbed his hands together and said 'Just as planned'?
What I want to know is what the hell he went back into the Eye of Terror for at the end of Traitor's Hate...
As an English major I am amused by the parallels in the two arguments being produced. One side is suggesting that Abaddon is a failure because he loses extraordinary amounts of troops (not on a galactic scale, but certainly not an insignificant amount of super-humans) and sacrifices resources with little to show for it. The other side is suggesting that Abaddon is incredibly successful because he is constantly achieving his set goals, or making the best of aweful situations.
I feel that if a step back is taken and one regards both sides of the argument equally, we see that in reality Abaddon is neither flawless or incompetent. He is a well written character. He has strengths (his ambition, ruthlessness, will-power, and tactical wit) and weaknesses (he is callous with his troops and resources, he is rather supersticious and dependant on the Chaos Gods for parts of his campaign that ought to require more reliable patrons). The main problem is that it is hard to put this image of Abaddon together until one reads the entirety of the canon on him with an unbiased eye.
If a player unfortunately reads a story which focuses on his incompetence first, or perhaps the opening post to a thread such as this, and they find themselves approaching the other works with confirmation bias (see? He did do something incompetent, I knew he was worthless!). The inverse is true of players like me who approach Abaddon from the perspective of novels like Talon of Horus, which paint him as an incredibly powerful individual, leads us to glossing over his weaknesses in order to focus on his strengths.
As far Chaos being a joke on the wider scale, I feel that this has been true for a long time. I would suggest reading up on the Astra Militarum short stories, the ones with Creed as the protagonist absolutely paint just how absurdly intense a threat Chaos is to the Imperium.
Recent successes of note...
The sacking of Fenris.
Spoiler:
The sacking of Fenris resulted in the destruction of its industrial world of Midgardia by the Space Wolves' own hand, the death of Sven Deathhowl (the leader of the Iron Wolves, who I believe are the armored division of the Space Wolves), the destruction of 54 of the 60 Dreadnoughts the Space Wolves own, the complete destruction of Bjorn the Felhanded's armor (he's alive, but there's no way he'll be participating in any more of the Black Crusade), the collection of immense amounts of Imperial lore by the Changeling (enough to make a ritual that can make Magnus immune to all Imperial weapons), the decimation of Fenris' defense fleet and lets not forget the Grey Knights taking away an immense amount of Fenris' meager population for seeing the daemons and the rest are all tainted. We also have the loss of many Grey Knights, the freeing of Luther, and the fact that a Grey Knight Brother Captain, Ragnar Blackmane and an inquisitor got a guided tour of the bowels of the Rock. The implications could mean the annihilation of the Dark Angels and their excommunication. Magnus approached Fenris expecting to lose some of his Silver Towers, but not only did they all escape, they were all charged to maximum capacity before they left. Then after 'winning', the wolves charge off to Cadia only to be recalled due to a secondary problem which we don't know about. So the fighting on Fenris isn't even done yet, because the Prospero rune of vengeance is still cropping up in their divinations.
The Traitor's Hate.
Spoiler:
Blood Angel's First Company is nearly destroyed which makes the war against Leviathan even more devastating, the untrustworthy Crimson Slaughter are bloodied, an immense daemon prison is slowly breaking apart, Kharn the Betrayer is shackled on board a space ship and is now a magical teleport away from any battlefield of Abaddon's choosing.
The Fall of Cadia.
Spoiler:
Space Wolves lose an entire company, Black Templar lose more than an entire company and a Marshal, the Phalanx is heavily damaged, invaded by daemons, Iron Warriors and is NOT AT TERRA TO DEFEND IT! Creed is felled, and Saint Celestine is almost killed. The Pylons holding the Eye of Terror in check are obliterated and the Crimson Path begins.
The Battle for Ultramar
Spoiler:
Ultramar as a whole is constantly being besieged by Chaos Space Marines and daemons. The Ultramarines are embattled everywhere, are not pushing back the Chaos Marines, and cannot respond to any other threats or call for aid (Remind you of a certain Shadow Crusade?). The Galaxy is filled with warpstorms and barely capable of moving through the turbulent warp.
The Battle for the Webway
Spoiler:
Ahriman and Magnus have broken into the webway. They have broken into the WEBWAY. They can now go almost anywhere the Eldar can, they can hunt down the Black Library, and they can GO INTO THE WEBWAY. This is HUGE. Ahriman loses every now and then because of the inconvenient intervention of a GOD, but he has learned that Yvraine is capable of reversing the Rubric. The truth is that the Rubricae lost are not actually casualties, as they can simply be summoned back into new suits of armor. Give Ahriman ten thousand empty suits of armor, enough sorcerers to bind all of the lost rubricae to them, and if he manages to harness Ynnead's power he can ressurect his entire Legion. That knowledge alone is a huge boon to Ahriman.
The good guys have, in turn... Slain nobody of importance, destroyed a Blackstone Fortress (which, in turn, blew up Cadia) and successfully not died en mass. Lets not forget the zombie plague claiming millions with Typhus at its head. They have, to be fair, ressurrected Roboute Guilliman and begun the awakening of Ynnead (still a work in progress, lets not forget). So they have one primarch and one God on their side, to Chaos' 4 Gods and 6 daemon-primarchs, as well as one unaccounted for Primarch.
Casualties are a problematic way of approaching whether Abaddon is actually doing these things with any sort of efficiency because we have no idea what his overall fighting strength actually is in terms of genuine material. Heck, I doubt even he truly knows. Words are thrown around which are subjective and could mean many things. Technically the Sons of Horus were almost wiped out in M31 when the Emperor's Children attacked them and stole Horus' body. Their lost soul-searching led them to claiming many patrons and experimenting with demonic possession "almost wiped them out." Then Abaddon proceeded to murder all of their captains to assert his dominance. Assuming a fighting strength as impressive as 100'000 marines, going through the mass casualties of Iistvan 3, and the actual Heresy itself, then the Scouring, and then the Legion Wars in the Eye of Terror sounds like an overwhelming amount of casualties to sustain. The Sons of Horus were "almost wiped out" by so many events that it gives one pause. What does that even mean? It is impossible to validate casualties as being a truly significant statistic, and if that doesn't sum up Warhammer 40k, nothing does.
Just to be clear. I wasn't implying that he is infallible, merely that he is a far cry from the failure everybody likes to paint him as.
Also enjoyed your post, Kraytirous, have an exalt.
actually the Phallanx has returned to Terra by GS3.
1) Ynnead destroyed 3 Greater Daemons of Slaanesh, including one that was apparently hundreds of feet tall, in seconds the moment he got his sword.
I assume you mean the Yrcrine, an avatar of a god said specificly to be an anathema to chaos. one whom given their nature it is fair to assume would be naturally opposed to Slaanish.
2) Guilliman ended a Chaos invasion of his planet in hours, successfully battling off a force Abaddon expected was strong enough to stop his resurrection(Spoiler alert: It was not).
No he didn't. "the War for Macragge took a little over a month, and it's pace was blistering" -GS3 pg 41 third paragraph and he won it not by the physical force of his own arms but simply being such a better commander (ohh and moral on the IoMs side being high as hell) then the chaos commander.
3) The rather clever Huron Blackheart waited in ambush for Guilliman to get in to an area where his forces could not bring his tactical genius to bear and successfully captured the greatest tactician in the universe in a single fell swoop despite his overwhelming capabilities. Even captured him.
even if gulliman escaped, Huron just gained himself a Gloriana class Battle Barge. pretty solid win for chaos.
4) Cypher lured a Khornate fleet in to engaging with Huron Blackheart, snuck in to the heart of Huron Blackheart's fortress and broke Guilliman out while a war waged all around him.
I'm not sure if Cypher lured them in, the Khronite fleet was hunting Gulliman already.
5) Yvraine waved her hands and tossed one of the greatest Psyker's Chaos has, along with his psychic superpowered allies, out in to the warp.
not sure which event in GS3 you're refering to here..
Funny, I seem to recall Warzone Fenris being the death of hundreds of Space Wolves, thousands of daemons - which is kind of questionable since a lot of scources claim the chaos gods can effectively recycle the energy of a killed daemon - the impacts of Rubric Marine Deaths are equally questionable because they seem to be recyclable as well.
As for Thousand Sons sorcerers, how many times has Ragnar offed Madox?
Biggest loss suffered by Chaos in Warzone Fenris to my thinking is the psychological blow of having Magnus return to the warp with his proverbial tail tucked between his legs.
Dakka Wolf wrote: Funny, I seem to recall Warzone Fenris being the death of hundreds of Space Wolves, thousands of daemons - which is kind of questionable since a lot of scources claim the chaos gods can effectively recycle the energy of a killed daemon - the impacts of Rubric Marine Deaths are equally questionable because they seem to be recyclable as well.
As for Thousand Sons sorcerers, how many times has Ragnar offed Madox?
Biggest loss suffered by Chaos in Warzone Fenris to my thinking is the psychological blow of having Magnus return to the warp with his proverbial tail tucked between his legs.
and even then he was chasing down Gulliman within months afterward so clearly wasn't banished.
Dakka Wolf wrote: Funny, I seem to recall Warzone Fenris being the death of hundreds of Space Wolves, thousands of daemons - which is kind of questionable since a lot of scources claim the chaos gods can effectively recycle the energy of a killed daemon - the impacts of Rubric Marine Deaths are equally questionable because they seem to be recyclable as well.
As for Thousand Sons sorcerers, how many times has Ragnar offed Madox?
Biggest loss suffered by Chaos in Warzone Fenris to my thinking is the psychological blow of having Magnus return to the warp with his proverbial tail tucked between his legs.
and even then he was chasing down Gulliman within months afterward so clearly wasn't banished.
Roknar wrote: Just to be clear. I wasn't implying that he is infallible, merely that he is a far cry from the failure everybody likes to paint him as.
Also enjoyed your post, Kraytirous, have an exalt.
I rather fear Chaos supporters aren't looking at things right.
Chaos Space Marines have one way to take down the Imperium, and that's killing The Emperor.
Other than that, they don't have anything like the numbers and resources of the Imperium - not even close.
Sure, they can take a planet here, a system there. Cause anarchy and confusion. But every single warband is but a single disastrous campaign away from oblivion - and it doesn't have to be a comprehensive defeat.
Let's consider getting from A to B, your fleet or armada. The Imperium simply has more ships, and more facilities to replace losses, given time.
Warband A has a fair sized fleet, but picks the wrong target. Some of it's Escorts break away in time, but the larger capital ships take a right pasting. Some are lost with all hands, some are left adrift. Some take a battering but ultimately escape. How do they replace those losses? They don't have the same supply lines the Imperium enjoys.
You want your ship repaired, rearmed and generally resupplied? Off you go to the Dark Mechanicus. Who of course want paying. What's that? Your raid was an abject failure? Well well well....how you going to pay for those? And until you do, your Warband isn't just weakened, but at threat from other, more hale and healthy Warbands, who kind of like the look of that Slaughter Class Cruiser currently serving as your flagship....
Chaos is it's own worst enemy. Abaddon is the only being with any semblance of control - but even then it's far from absolute. Sure, your Lord Commander might understand the need to fulfil whatever Contract was drawn up. Shame about the absolute lunatics under his command.
You only have to look at the Heresy to see that writ large. For me, the Heresy was lost the moment Angron descended upon Istvaan III. That bought The Imperium far too much breathing space, and cost Horus too much time. Yes it was nice that as a result very, very few survived, and fortunate indeed it didn't affect Istvaan V - but it still ate into the timetable. The element of surprise was lost.
Now, the former Traitor Legions and their foes are mere shadows of themselves. Yes, Chaos has 10,000 year old Veterans. Shame a majority are utterly insane, more beholden to their given God's whims than Abaddon's designs.
Yes, Abaddon has been playing a far, far longer game than anyone guessed - but even so, he's on his final roll of the dice. This 13th Black Crusade (or indeed the ongoing shenanigans of the 1st, depending on how you look at it) has to succeed. He's throwing everything at it. And he's already fouled up over Cadia, and hadn't previously accounted for Guilliman making a return to the stage.
Abaddon, like it or not, is on the backfoot. He's raised the Imperium ire, and he's emptied the Eye of Terror. There's no more support. He wins, or he dies.
In fairness the Crimson Path path would protect Abaddon's logistics, give Chaos a relatively safe haven to strike from and increase the ease of summoning Daemonic allies to nearby battlefields. At the same time the areas enveloped by the Eye of Terror cannot be reclaimed by the Imperium.
Chaos can't afford a straight up fight but spreading the Eye of Terror could give them the edge especially since the Imperium suffers more from xeno assaults due to it's greater size..
To be fair, almost everyone in the setting is now a joke in some form. It was about the 5th edition Blood Angels Codex (and the infamous bro-fist scene) that 40k lost any semblance of seriousness in it's setting.
Chaos lost a jumping off point and victory against the morale of the Imperium, as the goal was to capture it. Blowing it up just makes the Imperium moral higher to a degree. The saying is "Cadia fell before the Guard" as you may know. they forced Chaos into a corner into a petty blow up your planet tact.
Imperium lost a major world for military power in the sector, with some of their best troops killed and as well as an entire military industrial complex. Some morale being lost. However, you now have the resurrection of Guilliman , which is a pretty positive thing.
Chaos lost a jumping off point and victory against the morale of the Imperium, as the goal was to capture it. Blowing it up just makes the Imperium moral higher to a degree. The saying is "Cadia fell before the Guard" as you may know. they forced Chaos into a corner into a petty blow up your planet tact.
Imperium lost a major world for military power in the sector, with some of their best troops killed and as well as an entire military industrial complex. Some morale being lost. However, you now have the resurrection of Guilliman , which is a pretty positive thing.
Well the main goal was to destroy the Pylons.. the 2nd was to capture the planet
Having failed to achieve the secondary during the 13th black crusade campaign (years ago) this time he went in with the intention of blowing it up.. which is why the first move was to shoot the Blackstone at it.. unlucky for Abaddon was that the duders managed to get the shields up in time
Roknar wrote: The eye of terror increased threefold in size iirc. I'd count that as a win.
it's yet again a chaos player arguing that because the battle didn't IMMEDIATLY go PERFECTLY the way Chaos might have wanted it in the most ideal result, it was a loss.
Roknar wrote: The eye of terror increased threefold in size iirc. I'd count that as a win.
it's yet again a chaos player arguing that because the battle didn't IMMEDIATLY go PERFECTLY the way Chaos might have wanted it in the most ideal result, it was a loss.
When have you ever seen Chaos flat out win a campaign? That's where the butthurt is coming from. Even if Cadia was destroyed/became a daemon world, Guilliman returned and the Ynnari are now an incredibly powerful force (on theTT, but still), so those overshadow any Chaos victory.
When has the Imperium actually lost a campaign? Never. Or, if they do "lose", there's some great silver lining (like Guilliman coming back).
Roknar wrote: The eye of terror increased threefold in size iirc. I'd count that as a win.
it's yet again a chaos player arguing that because the battle didn't IMMEDIATLY go PERFECTLY the way Chaos might have wanted it in the most ideal result, it was a loss.
When have you ever seen Chaos flat out win a campaign? That's where the butthurt is coming from. Even if Cadia was destroyed/became a daemon world, Guilliman returned and the Ynnari are now an incredibly powerful force (on theTT, but still), so those overshadow any Chaos victory.
When has the Imperium actually lost a campaign? Never. Or, if they do "lose", there's some great silver lining (like Guilliman coming back).
yeah because chaos is TOTALLY hard done by in the primarchs department. :eyeroll: Magnus is already back, Mortarian is looking to be VERY soon. and according to the rumors we can expect the other "big 4" to show within the year or so. Chaos is having it pretty good these days, better then they've had in ages. Don't demand total victory, you won't get it. anymore then the IoM will (whom let's face it, fends off a chaos attack, but abbaddon gets what he really wants and retreats into the eye of terror, to rest and recharge quickly due to weird warp time flow gak) keep ion mind EVERY battle chaos fights is an offensive action, for the most part.
Robin5t wrote: I'll invite you to take a look at this new, official map of the galaxy and revise your opinion:
Spoiler:
Some joke.
Who spilled ink over it? Are those splotches Chaos?
No, that's an oily/bloody sneeze from a freshly converted servitor not quite adapted to their new dusty surroundings. Scribe had the servitor changed into a coffee machine, and a new map without the errors has been started by the scribe again.
Iron_Captain wrote: The big difference between Sauron and Chaos in 40k is pretty damn huge.
The second difference is that Sauron was only defeated once (not including his final defeat of course, or before he became the Big Bad), and only through the utmost effort of the good guys. Their victory was in fact a Pyrrhic victory, since they failed to defeat Sauron completely and were so weakened they would never recover, leaving them unable to defeat Sauron the second time. Even in defeat, Sauron's amazing power and extremely high threat level is obvious. This is how the Imperium's victories against Chaos should have worked, too. Instead however Abbadon has been defeated more times than you can count on two hands, always coming back with yet another silly plot and angrily shouting "I'll get you next time!" when said plot inevitably gets foiled. In short, Abbadon behaves like the villain in a kid's cartoon show, having a new plot every episode, getting defeated and being back next episode with yet another plot without the status quo of the cartoon setting ever changing.
Actually Sauron was defeated multiple times from what I recall.
He was overpowerd by Luthien and Huan and fled He was part of the great defeat of Morgoth and had to flee into the depths of the earth iirc to avoid the wrath of the Valar
The Numenorians invaded with a vast force and he quickly surrendered as he could not fight them - he then later managed to corrupt them but he was militarily defeated. His attempt to get them to invade the West succeeds but results in everyone dying and his "fair" form being destroyed.
He was defeated by the last Alliance and his physical form destroyed again.
He arose as the Necromancer and was defeated by the White Council.
However I would agree that Chaos is often used as whipping boy, but then the Space Wolves have become increasingly silly - with plot shields 10 miles thick.
Chaos doesn't look bad because it achieves nothng, it looks bad because GW isn't good at writing. So meta wise Chaos has gained major ground however Rise of the primarch reads a bit more:Guilliman punches stuff dies, villains stroke their moustache.
Earth127 wrote: Chaos doesn't look bad because it achieves nothng, it looks bad because GW isn't good at writing. So meta wise Chaos has gained major ground however Rise of the primarch reads a bit more:Guilliman punches stuff dies, villains stroke their moustache.
... did you read the same book I did? Gulliman suffered defeats and it took him months to clear Macragge.
Earth127 wrote: Chaos doesn't look bad because it achieves nothng, it looks bad because GW isn't good at writing. So meta wise Chaos has gained major ground however Rise of the primarch reads a bit more:Guilliman punches stuff dies, villains stroke their moustache.
... did you read the same book I did? Gulliman suffered defeats and it took him months to clear Macragge.
Yes, Guilliman does suffer defeats. However the book doesn't dwell on them too much and in the end focuses more on what went well for the Imperium rather than what was lost.
Earth127 wrote: Chaos doesn't look bad because it achieves nothng, it looks bad because GW isn't good at writing. So meta wise Chaos has gained major ground however Rise of the primarch reads a bit more:Guilliman punches stuff dies, villains stroke their moustache.
... did you read the same book I did? Gulliman suffered defeats and it took him months to clear Macragge.
Yes, Guilliman does suffer defeats. However the book doesn't dwell on them too much and in the end focuses more on what went well for the Imperium rather than what was lost.
sure, just as I'd expect a book focused on abbaddon to focus on his wins rather then dwell endlessly on every little defeat. still Gulliman lost the ultramarines flagship, and likely a considerably amount of the best ships in the ultramarines fleet. and was forced to flee into the webway. sure Magnus lost at Luna but let's be honest here, it was on the doorstep of the most heavily defended world in the IoM, it was to be expected.
I won't disagree on the rules front chaos has been a bit behind, however we've been seeing some positive trends (renegade knights are actually better then their loyalist counterparts, traitor legions, the 1k sons, the upcoming death guard) and given GW has said they wanna turn the focus on the IoM vs chaos conflict I think we can perpare to see more for chaos. the IOM'll get stuff too but honestly, the IoM is pretty "complete" right now. however it's pretty likely death guard will be followed by a world eaters and emperor's children release.
as for the focus, well 40k has ALWAYS been viewed through an IoM centric lens, that doesn't discount what actually HAPPENED. if you wanna read some fiction that describes chaos wacking a buncha hapless guardsmen without any heroic actions well... I'm sure there is some fan fiction out there. but it'd be kinda dull honestly.
BrianDavion wrote: given GW has said they wanna turn the focus on the IoM vs chaos conflict I think we can perpare to see more for chaos
Remember when 7th edition came out 3 years ago and GW said they wanted to turn the focus of the setting to IoM vs Chaos? I do. And then I remember 3 years of the IoM getting tuns of stuff and Chaos getting tired, poorly thought out close combat units that didnt work.
the IOM'll get stuff too but honestly, the IoM is pretty "complete" right now.
They were complete, then they got the Triumverate of the Imperium and the Triumverate of the Primarch. Chaos got how many new miniatures to play the campaign?
The IoM will continue to get more stuff because that is GW's player base. They can't seem to write Chaos well, or give them good rules, and so they can't sell a diverse line of minitures for them.
I'd agree that Chaos still looks far from competent or powerful compared to the Imperium (particularly with GS3 seemingly implying that even after suffering their greatest defeat in centuries the Imperium instantly became MORE powerful the moment Guilliman took over instead of decreasing in power).
However, on the other hand, without a doubt the new fluff has painted Chaos in a better light than has been seen in ages. Abaddon does at least win in Cadia (even if the book tries to rob as much value from it as it can) and the Diamor Campaign does end up transforming into a Chaos success with the confirmed retreat of the Blood Angels and release of the Daemons from their cage.
It obviously can't be compared in sheer numbers to the amount of Imperium wins, but it is still an improvement over Chaos' showing in primary fluff in preceding years.
Overall I'd say its a mixed bag. Though Chaos had been a sort of joke for some time now, I'd say recent fluff is the first genuinely effective steps at fixing this, even if its far from actually changed the overall status.
On the other hand at least Chaos and Imperium are being hyped as all-important. At this stage Xenos literally feel like some after-thought shoved in with little to no purpose (unless they are in some way advancing a human plot line), which kills my enthusiasm.
They were complete, then they got the Triumverate of the Imperium and the Triumverate of the Primarch. Chaos got how many new miniatures to play the campaign?
The IoM will continue to get more stuff because that is GW's player base. They can't seem to write Chaos well, or give them good rules, and so they can't sell a diverse line of minitures for them.
chaos got magnus the red, Tzanagor's,revised rubric marines and scarab occult terminators. like a month before.
If Chaos don't feel like a threat at this very time, then unfortunately it is your own twisted perception.
A massive part of the galaxy just got swallowed by the warp.
Plus Chaos play the long game, everyone that dies adds another soul to the chaos gods, every emotion adds to their power.
Things are very dire for the imperium, especially from the hands of Chaos. I suggest that you attempt to re-align your perception of the current state of affairs, and actually look at what Abaddon is.
Is he a threat? Yes
Does he keep the chaos forces a lot more united than they could be? Hell yes
Did he successfully break the warp in to real space? Yes, over 13 black crusades.
The writers somewhat were writing themselves in to a hole, but have a look at the current big picture.
Rippy wrote: If Chaos don't feel like a threat at this very time, then unfortunately it is your own twisted perception.
A massive part of the galaxy just got swallowed by the warp.
Plus Chaos play the long game, everyone that dies adds another soul to the chaos gods, every emotion adds to their power.
Things are very dire for the imperium, especially from the hands of Chaos. I suggest that you attempt to re-align your perception of the current state of affairs, and actually look at what Abaddon is.
Is he a threat? Yes
Does he keep the chaos forces a lot more united than they could be? Hell yes
Did he successfully break the warp in to real space? Yes, over 13 black crusades.
The writers somewhat were writing themselves in to a hole, but have a look at the current big picture.
agreed. overall I think GW's done a pretty good job of redeeming chaos. certainly the best job they could without resorting to the tired cliche trick of having Abbaddon replaced by some new leader whom we're constantly TOLD is a military genuins, but whose victories mostly come from everyone fighting him suddenly taking mass doses of "stupid pills"
Iron_Captain wrote: The big difference between Sauron and Chaos in 40k is pretty damn huge.
The second difference is that Sauron was only defeated once (not including his final defeat of course, or before he became the Big Bad), and only through the utmost effort of the good guys. Their victory was in fact a Pyrrhic victory, since they failed to defeat Sauron completely and were so weakened they would never recover, leaving them unable to defeat Sauron the second time. Even in defeat, Sauron's amazing power and extremely high threat level is obvious. This is how the Imperium's victories against Chaos should have worked, too. Instead however Abbadon has been defeated more times than you can count on two hands, always coming back with yet another silly plot and angrily shouting "I'll get you next time!" when said plot inevitably gets foiled. In short, Abbadon behaves like the villain in a kid's cartoon show, having a new plot every episode, getting defeated and being back next episode with yet another plot without the status quo of the cartoon setting ever changing.
Actually Sauron was defeated multiple times from what I recall.
He was overpowerd by Luthien and Huan and fled He was part of the great defeat of Morgoth and had to flee into the depths of the earth iirc to avoid the wrath of the Valar
The Numenorians invaded with a vast force and he quickly surrendered as he could not fight them - he then later managed to corrupt them but he was militarily defeated. His attempt to get them to invade the West succeeds but results in everyone dying and his "fair" form being destroyed.
He was defeated by the last Alliance and his physical form destroyed again.
He arose as the Necromancer and was defeated by the White Council.
However I would agree that Chaos is often used as whipping boy, but then the Space Wolves have become increasingly silly - with plot shields 10 miles thick.
Even with their Wulfen boosting the Space Wolves are down from a couple of hundred in each of twelve chapters, 3500 or so to about a thousand or less, half of which are truly insane, they've lost three Wolf Lords and an entire chapter, had major numbers taken from their only recruitment planet by allies, who knows how many they actually lost to Daemons before the Grey Knights "cleansed" the planet and all the Dreadnoughts who were in the Fang during Warzone Fenris are half melted and down for the count, I'd love to use a politer turn of phrase but - plot shield my arse.
Iron_Captain wrote: The big difference between Sauron and Chaos in 40k is pretty damn huge.
The second difference is that Sauron was only defeated once (not including his final defeat of course, or before he became the Big Bad), and only through the utmost effort of the good guys. Their victory was in fact a Pyrrhic victory, since they failed to defeat Sauron completely and were so weakened they would never recover, leaving them unable to defeat Sauron the second time. Even in defeat, Sauron's amazing power and extremely high threat level is obvious. This is how the Imperium's victories against Chaos should have worked, too. Instead however Abbadon has been defeated more times than you can count on two hands, always coming back with yet another silly plot and angrily shouting "I'll get you next time!" when said plot inevitably gets foiled. In short, Abbadon behaves like the villain in a kid's cartoon show, having a new plot every episode, getting defeated and being back next episode with yet another plot without the status quo of the cartoon setting ever changing.
Actually Sauron was defeated multiple times from what I recall.
He was overpowerd by Luthien and Huan and fled He was part of the great defeat of Morgoth and had to flee into the depths of the earth iirc to avoid the wrath of the Valar
The Numenorians invaded with a vast force and he quickly surrendered as he could not fight them - he then later managed to corrupt them but he was militarily defeated. His attempt to get them to invade the West succeeds but results in everyone dying and his "fair" form being destroyed.
He was defeated by the last Alliance and his physical form destroyed again.
He arose as the Necromancer and was defeated by the White Council.
However I would agree that Chaos is often used as whipping boy, but then the Space Wolves have become increasingly silly - with plot shields 10 miles thick.
Even with their Wulfen boosting the Space Wolves are down from a couple of hundred in each of twelve chapters, 3500 or so to about a thousand or less, half of which are truly insane, they've lost three Wolf Lords and an entire chapter, had major numbers taken from their only recruitment planet by allies, who knows how many they actually lost to Daemons before the Grey Knights "cleansed" the planet and all the Dreadnoughts who were in the Fang during Warzone Fenris are half melted and down for the count, I'd love to use a politer turn of phrase but - plot shield my arse.
in fairness the space wolves do have a bit of plot protection in that if they weren't a first founding chapter I'd be worried that they may be dead. but yeah they've suffered heavy losses as the great company that was on Cadia was also wiped out to a man. the space wolves are in a bad place right now and I hope when they next get looked at GW addresses this and shows it, and doesn't just ignore it. but I think they will, with Russ rumored to come out later this year, my guess is GW wants the space wolves to be at an all time low, when Russ returns
Hopefully, the fluff for the past five editions has claimed Russ will return for the Wolf Time/End Times, hopefully the writer will aknowledge the Wolves have their backs against the wall.
Dakka Wolf wrote: Hopefully, the fluff for the past five editions has claimed Russ will return for the Wolf Time/End Times, hopefully the writer will aknowledge the Wolves have their backs against the wall.
granted that fluff I always saw as being more a religious belief of the space wolves then anything, but yeah definatly be good to see some aknowledgement that the wolves are in a BAD state right now. I'd be dissappointed if the space wolf codex in 8th mostly just ignores the events and presents the wolves as being a powerful vital chapter. the Wolves are in a bad place right now, but a cornered wolf is at it's most dangerous
Dakka Wolf wrote: Hopefully, the fluff for the past five editions has claimed Russ will return for the Wolf Time/End Times, hopefully the writer will aknowledge the Wolves have their backs against the wall.
granted that fluff I always saw as being more a religious belief of the space wolves then anything, but yeah definatly be good to see some aknowledgement that the wolves are in a BAD state right now. I'd be dissappointed if the space wolf codex in 8th mostly just ignores the events and presents the wolves as being a powerful vital chapter. the Wolves are in a bad place right now, but a cornered wolf is at it's most dangerous
It's expressions like that one that make me fear a Wulfen MC Russ...
Dakka Wolf wrote: Hopefully, the fluff for the past five editions has claimed Russ will return for the Wolf Time/End Times, hopefully the writer will aknowledge the Wolves have their backs against the wall.
granted that fluff I always saw as being more a religious belief of the space wolves then anything, but yeah definatly be good to see some aknowledgement that the wolves are in a BAD state right now. I'd be dissappointed if the space wolf codex in 8th mostly just ignores the events and presents the wolves as being a powerful vital chapter. the Wolves are in a bad place right now, but a cornered wolf is at it's most dangerous
It's expressions like that one that make me fear a Wulfen MC Russ...
a Wulven Russ might be moderatly intreasting, however I think it'd be a lost oppertunity. assuming the order rumored is true there is gonna be a time when the only two primarchs active will be Gulliman and Russ, and I think it'd be a shame for them not to be able to interact as brothers (I mean, it's pratically a buddy copy movie there. you have the straight as an arrow studious gulliman trying to study, while his brother the druken college frat boy is trying to drag him out to the big party etc!
