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 BlaxicanX wrote:

Abaddo has been offered daemon princehood....

Behold, the Great Abbado! Booking at children's parties near you today!

Lets be honest, old abby really needs a new model, preferably swole on demonic power.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
I would say Kharn and Abaddon are very much on an equal level in fighting skill.

All the examples of Abby's prowess you quoted are ADB's retcons, though. The man is willing to retcon a retcon if people are still unimpressed with his efforts to prop up his pet character, sometimes producing really hilarious (unintentionally) results, like 12 Black Crusades he failed for 30 years of lore being 'complete and utter success, honest guv!'. It gets so bad his self-insert sorcerer lackey that is used as yet another method of propping up Abaddon as BIGGEST BAD effortlessly beats primarchs, major champions of other Chaos Gods despite not being one himself, somehow survived purge of Prospero despite not teleporting away, almost killed Ahriman several times, and has deck of cards with greater deamons bound in each one. ADB's characters veer so far into 'my dad can beat yours, duh!' realm they start to look comical.

In old fluff, though, old 'armless was sent running by Eldrad Ulthran despite the old Eldar not being a beatstick by any measure, his 12 Black Crusades failed utterly, even with help of such toys as Planet Killer or the Blackstone Fortresses, he had lesser stats than many loyalist SM officers in game (and was competitive mostly thanks to EW and borderline OP weapons) or indeed Kharn himself, and in general, wasn't even 5% as special as ADB tries to retcon him to be...

However, Captain Sicarius happens to be the Knight Champion of Macragge, so outranks in duelling not only his OWN company's champion, but also the CHAPTER Champion of the Honour Guard, despite him being a Captain, and so should be deferring such personal matters to as to command the battle.

Isn't Sicarius kinda special case, though? Of course company/chapter champion will protect their officers so that they can focus on command during battle, Sicarius is however the appointed sword duelist in ceremonial duties like ritual sparring between the champions of two chapters. There is literally nothing wrong with that, despite certain loud angry minority trying to brew storm in teaspoon by nitpicking at every single part of UM fluff, and only UM, ever, despite identical if not worse things being in fluff of literally every other chapter.

As for Calgar being better, he really is not. In game, he, like Abby, was competitive thanks to EW and dual fists. Which, if you think about if for a second, might not be best gear for honour duels, and Sicarius being better with sword art is perfectly reasonable. Both have same stats anyway, sooo...

He's able to go toe to toe with Horus, his martial reputation is practically untarnished - and unlike Kharn, hasn't died.

Only thanks to kilometer thick plot armour. Sigismund deals killing blow to him despite having zero boons and being slowed with age (which alone should raise big questions how "good" 'armless is if with boons he can merely match single old loyalist...), Abby somehow survives, because plot. De-powered Celestine severs his spine and pierces his heart, again, nothing happens, because plot, and he somehow teleports away despite warp supposedly being suppressed by pylons right here and then. Eldrad is about to blast his soul to bits, Gods teleport him away at last second, crying. If nearly losing to impaired loyalist SM, and two characters who despite being paragons of their respective races should be nowhere near veteral SM level in combat isn't going to make you question Abby's supposed "prowess", well...

This is true, but considering that we're not shown any deformities from the actual Horus (pre-Davin), I would have assumed he was exactly as he was pre-Davin.

Let me point out that pre-Davin Horus lost fight to a normal man. As in, regular human. Who had some Chaos backing, sure, but that sets the bar rather low when it comes to fighting confused clone who was nowhere near the level of even pre-Davin Horus, IMO.

 Irbis wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
I would say Kharn and Abaddon are very much on an equal level in fighting skill.

All the examples of Abby's prowess you quoted are ADB's retcons, though. The man is willing to retcon a retcon if people are still unimpressed with his efforts to prop up his pet character, sometimes producing really hilarious (unintentionally) results, like 12 Black Crusades he failed for 30 years of lore being 'complete and utter success, honest guv!'. It gets so bad his self-insert sorcerer lackey that is used as yet another method of propping up Abaddon as BIGGEST BAD effortlessly beats primarchs, major champions of other Chaos Gods despite not being one himself, somehow survived purge of Prospero despite not teleporting away, almost killed Ahriman several times, and has deck of cards with greater deamons bound in each one. ADB's characters veer so far into 'my dad can beat yours, duh!' realm they start to look comical.

In old fluff, though, old 'armless was sent running by Eldrad Ulthran despite the old Eldar not being a beatstick by any measure, his 12 Black Crusades failed utterly, even with help of such toys as Planet Killer or the Blackstone Fortresses, he had lesser stats than many loyalist SM officers in game (and was competitive mostly thanks to EW and borderline OP weapons) or indeed Kharn himself, and in general, wasn't even 5% as special as ADB tries to retcon him to be...

ADB's version is canon, however.

Necrons were all retconned. Half-Eldar Librarians, retconned. Ultramarines being 3rd Founding. Retconned.

As it currently looks, ADB's portrayal of Abaddon is the most modern, and is in many people's opinion, one of the best written versions of him.
His "successes" in the Black Crusades were added by GW, not ADB, and let's be honest, make FAR more sense that way.

Old fluff is just that - OLD. I'd argue it's better than it was before, given that it gives Chaos a credible threat and leader.

However, Captain Sicarius happens to be the Knight Champion of Macragge, so outranks in duelling not only his OWN company's champion, but also the CHAPTER Champion of the Honour Guard, despite him being a Captain, and so should be deferring such personal matters to as to command the battle.

Isn't Sicarius kinda special case, though? Of course company/chapter champion will protect their officers so that they can focus on command during battle, Sicarius is however the appointed sword duelist in ceremonial duties like ritual sparring between the champions of two chapters. There is literally nothing wrong with that, despite certain loud angry minority trying to brew storm in teaspoon by nitpicking at every single part of UM fluff, and only UM, ever, despite identical if not worse things being in fluff of literally every other chapter.

If that was the case, then what's the point of having a Chapter Champion if that's just him?

I like the UM fluff, but I'm just saying that this is a fault in 40k ENTIRELY, not just the UM. The idea of being a good leader is INTRINSICALLY tied to combat prowess - the game bears that out, as does the lore. We don't see the Company Champ intercept challenges at all - the Captain always heroically charges in and slices up the hated foe. That applies to every Chapter, and every Captain. We hardly have any who don't take the lead and do some heroic challenge.

Sicarius isn't really that special - he's just an exaggeration of a standard Captain.

Your final sentence is EXACTLY what I'm talking about - it's not an Ultramarine issue. It's a 40k issue.

As for Calgar being better, he really is not. In game, he, like Abby, was competitive thanks to EW and dual fists. Which, if you think about if for a second, might not be best gear for honour duels, and Sicarius being better with sword art is perfectly reasonable. Both have same stats anyway, sooo...

If you're bringing stats in, then that's proof that Sicarius isn't THAT good of a duellist - same stats as any normal Captain.
In fluff, Calgar's a beast. Held the Zalathras gate alone for a night and day, killed the Swarmlord in 1v1 combat, killed an Avatar, M'Kar the Reborn (at least twice?), An'ggrath the Unbound, etc etc.

In game, also a beast. He'll kill pretty much any Space Marine model in a challenge, both in 8th and previous editions. Regardless of HOW he was good, he was.

He's able to go toe to toe with Horus, his martial reputation is practically untarnished - and unlike Kharn, hasn't died.

Only thanks to kilometer thick plot armour. Sigismund deals killing blow to him despite having zero boons and being slowed with age (which alone should raise big questions how "good" 'armless is if with boons he can merely match single old loyalist...), Abby somehow survives, because plot. De-powered Celestine severs his spine and pierces his heart, again, nothing happens, because plot, and he somehow teleports away despite warp supposedly being suppressed by pylons right here and then. Eldrad is about to blast his soul to bits, Gods teleport him away at last second, crying. If nearly losing to impaired loyalist SM, and two characters who despite being paragons of their respective races should be nowhere near veteral SM level in combat isn't going to make you question Abby's supposed "prowess", well...

You're complaining about plot armour? The Tau as a race are armoured PURELY in the stuff.
If you're going to say he has plot armour, then why doesn't Sigismund have it too - he shouldn't have been able to make a killing blow at all. Celestine comes back to life - plot armour. Eldrad has been alive for ten thousand years, extraordinarily long for an Eldar, and isn't even a combat fighter, more of a diviner - plot armour.

See how everything just devolves when you call something plot armour? We're told and shown that he's incredibly powerful - that's his character. It's more like everyone else has the plot armour
to even come close to fighting Abaddon, if, as you say, they're "nowhere near veteran SM level" combat.

This is true, but considering that we're not shown any deformities from the actual Horus (pre-Davin), I would have assumed he was exactly as he was pre-Davin.

Let me point out that pre-Davin Horus lost fight to a normal man. As in, regular human. Who had some Chaos backing, sure, but that sets the bar rather low when it comes to fighting confused clone who was nowhere near the level of even pre-Davin Horus, IMO.

"Some Chaos backing" - that's just like saying "yeah, I mean, the Emperor slew Horus, but aside from all of his godlike psychic powers, he was JUST a man, right?"

Temba was swollen with Nurgle's power, given one of the few weapons in the galaxy that is literally kryptonite to Primarchs, and we outright see that he's attacking faster and stronger than any mortal could. Calling him "a normal man" is a gross simplification. At that point, you could call Space Marines children with the amount of simplification you're doing.