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And the 13th has failed. Total spacial supremacy by the Imperium.

Dark angels supreme grand master?

not the same CC deamon powered monster but has large numbers at hand, yes distrusted but the authority of a first founding chapter master.

and one well experienced in war, plus where better to hunt the fallen.

 Still Standing wrote:
And the 13th has failed. Total spacial supremacy by the Imperium.

Inb4 End Times retcon.

1st Crusade "I will lead the hordes of the unholy to conquer the entire... erm, how about I just get this sword and go home, that's totally what I set out to do, yes!"

2nd through 12th - rinse and repeat, failure and excuses... 'Oh I totally just wanted to fight the blood angels and go home', 'Oh I fully charged up a planet killer and some blackstone fortresses so I could... go home' etc etc etc...

"I entirely planned to be driven back to the eye, yet again, because it's all part of the plan guys!"

Sooner Ghazghkull tears off his stupid head and uses his ridiculous topknot to eat his brains like a lollipop, the happier everyone will be.

Still Standing wrote:And the 13th has failed. Total spacial supremacy by the Imperium.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:1st Crusade "I will lead the hordes of the unholy to conquer the entire... erm, how about I just get this sword and go home, that's totally what I set out to do, yes!"

2nd through 12th - rinse and repeat, failure and excuses... 'Oh I totally just wanted to fight the blood angels and go home', 'Oh I fully charged up a planet killer and some blackstone fortresses so I could... go home' etc etc etc...

"I entirely planned to be driven back to the eye, yet again, because it's all part of the plan guys!"

Sooner Ghazghkull tears off his stupid head and uses his ridiculous topknot to eat his brains like a lollipop, the happier everyone will be.

The 13th is ongoing. Can't fail when its only just been launched.

The first crusade's only objective was to capture Drachnyen. The 12th was solely to capture Blackstones. The 9th to weaken enemy power. But all of them were simply preparation for the 13th. Driven back, or retreated, its irrelevant. They achieved their primary objectives. Capture this, destroy that, test defences and learn for No 13. He did all that. That's the definition of success, not failure.

At what point can the 13th be considered a failure?

When their fleets are scattered? When they are confined to a foothold on a single planet? When there are several sector fleets sat watching just waiting to glass the entire continent?

Oh, all that already happened.

Captain General of the Custodes? Valdor if he is still alive? He bested a primarch in single combat before, he would wipe Abbaddon's

If Abaddon were a failure, the gods would have spawned him long ago. Instead he canonically keeps getting offers from them to be a daemon prince but rejects them so he can continue pursing the long war.

This is very explicit. All this jibber jabber about him being a failure is only due to narrative fault of the authors being unable to portray competence. Regardless of that fault, he canonically explicitly is successful in clear terms as stated by fluff sources, no matter how you try to interpret the events.

Except he canonically ends up defeated every time, no matter how you try to interpret them.

He wins battles, but never wars. Talon of Horus just offers Abaddon's PR spin on events, lol.

"No guys! I swear, this time I've got a great plan."

Maybe Abaddon is kept aroun not because he's successful, but because he's the least failure. Who else does Chaos have? Angron the Repeatedly Banished who leads thoughtless rampages before being bansihed back to the warp? Lorgar the Bookworm? Perturabo the Paranoid? Abaddon, despite his repeated defeats, is still the only guy they have who can put an army together.

Chaos is doomed to eternal failure. That's part of the curse of their treachery. In their hubris, they grasped at glory and now they're cursed to live lives of eternal bitterness and regret.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Except he canonically ends up defeated every time, no matter how you try to interpret them.

He wins battles, but never wars. Talon of Horus just offers Abaddon's PR spin on events, lol.

"No guys! I swear, this time I've got a great plan."

Maybe Abaddon is kept aroun not because he's successful, but because he's the least failure. Who else does Chaos have? Angron the Repeatedly Banished who leads thoughtless rampages before being bansihed back to the warp? Lorgar the Bookworm? Perturabo the Paranoid? Abaddon, despite his repeated defeats, is still the only guy they have who can put an army together.

Chaos is doomed to eternal failure. That's part of the curse of their treachery. In their hubris, they grasped at glory and now they're cursed to live lives of eternal bitterness and regret.

Hmmmm well then I'm going to argue that SM have no massive victories. Draigo's big three were only one because of other characters, includes killing the most pathetic daemon prince ever, an avatar of khaine which is a joke to kill, and the only reason Ultramar won was because they cheat the Imperium's orders and a fleet of human beings saved the UM's butts

Seriously though. Horus has won. Even if he had failed that many times, the fact he still lives is what's impressive! When you are generally pointed as the main enemy of 40k against the protagonists that the writers obviously have a bigger liking for it's not surprising. And if you disagree with that I'll just point out how the only reason the Imperium is still alive is because of an infinite number of plot devise movements. Sure Orks if united would slaughter everyone else, sure chaos if they get past cadia will kill everyonelse, sure if Necrons awaken enough they will autowin, sure tyranids will autowin when more of them come, etc. There's a lot of sures then there are groups like Tau that have a massive plot shield to survive

40k is a silly stupid world. I like it but it's built for nothing to ever really happen.

Meanwhile, on Terra...

My Lord! The Chaos Lord Abbadon the Despoiler has begun a new campaign!

(mild yawns reply).

Alright, up the count. We're on what... Abbadon's 13th Successive Failure now?

I'm guessing you thought that was pretty insightful.

All I'm saying is that people miss the very clear parable of the 40K universe. Lorgar wriites a book nobody will ever read. Perturabo fortifies a planet nobody will ever attack. Angron spends most of his existence confined to the Warp because he keeps getting banished. Those are the rewards of Chaos. Eternal madness and bitterness.

Chaos's champions don't win. They're tools. Pawns. Chaos gains nothing from total victory, which is why they have no vested interest in wholly supporting the efforts. They dangle carrots in front of their subjects, spurning them to further acts of Chaos.



And the Imperium doesn't exist because of plot device, lol. Orks exist because of plot device, heh. They used to just be the galaxy's obnoxious neighbors stuck in an eternal Mad Max cosplay acid trip that were only a huge threat when a warlord emerged who could contol that many Orks at a time through kult of personality. Then somebody turned them into infinitely spawning space fungus because +1 Grimdark. Traitor Marines exist solely because of a plot device. What do you think the Eye of Terror is? A convenient place for the Traitors to run away to every time they lose where the Imperium cannot finish them for good. It's their Cambodia, lol.

And it's not about the writers "liking" the Imperium more. That's the 40K universe. There's this giant Imperium which spans the galaxy being slowly eaten away by various otside elements. If the writers really liked the Imperium more, the fluff would all be Macharian Crusades, rather than Black Crusades and Abyssal Crusades.

 Killionaire wrote:
Meanwhile, on Terra...

My Lord! The Chaos Lord Abbadon the Despoiler has begun a new campaign!

(mild yawns reply).

Alright, up the count. We're on what... Abbadon's 13th Successive Failure now?

Nope 14th!

Ah look who is high and mighty now. The one that's going on and whining about every faction when their main faction is the one that gets the vast majority of the love and constantly gets humans and Space marines that defy all logic to survive. And all that glorious Draigo and Matt Ward fluff

Now joking aside. I'm going to be honest. 40k fluff is god awful. It is preposterously bad. It's everything is really really stupid. But it also happens to be so stupid it is charming. It's grimderp really! It's a story of one group that gets grinded away at the sides and fights the impossible odds against it grating down gradually, where nobody is supposed to matter but swords and CC are a surprisingly iconic and regular enough thing to be brought to the field of battle, where terribly clunky tanks and flashlights are the primary armament of the largest force (discounting tyranids and mainly hinting at the Imperium).

 Still Standing wrote:
At what point can the 13th be considered a failure?

When their fleets are scattered? When they are confined to a foothold on a single planet? When there are several sector fleets sat watching just waiting to glass the entire continent?

Oh, all that already happened.

No, when he retreats with the pylons and the Eye same as before. As long as the pylons are destroyed, he is successful. His objectives for the first 12 were completed. Doesn't matter that he retreated, its irrelevant. The other thing that determines success or failure is completed. Anything else is a bonus.

Since when was Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade a failure?
Even in the the actual player based summer campaign, Chaos won.

Umm, they scored better in the ground campaign. The Imperium crushed them in the space campaign. What use is a force of Marines without support?

The Imperium won the space lanes, but Chaos still had their fleets within the sector.

(Sigh) I thought this debate was settled. Abaddon won the 13th Crusade. Period. End of story. It's in the campaign books, it's in the official report and the ending you spout was made up. Were you guys not their for the actual campaign or are you still butthurt over the results?

 Veteran of The Long War wrote:
(Sigh) I thought this debate was settled. Abaddon won the 13th Crusade. Period. End of story. It's in the campaign books, it's in the official report and the ending you spout was made up. Were you guys not their for the actual campaign or are you still butthurt over the results?

I was there for the campaign, and played neither Chaos nor Imperial. I remember the results unbiased by anything else.

"The campaign ran for eight weeks, in which more than 40,000 players registered to submit over a quarter of a million games results to the campaign website. The conclusion of the campaign resulted in a minor victory for Chaos. The line was held in many places but on the strategic level the Disorder players were considered to have consistently out-fought and out-maneuvered their opponents, and held over half of Cadia itself. The Forces of Chaos made slow but somewhat steady progress on many fronts, yet could not claim a decisive victory, especially when a "backstage" plan to gain a foothold in the Eldar Webway system turned into a complete and total failure. In addition, Abaddon suffered severe losses to his fleet in the Crusade, which allowed the forces of Order to bottle up the Chaotics on Cadia itself, preventing them from launching a full invasion of the Imperium."

Most people don't understand what it means to lose your fleets in a naval battle... How well would the US have done in the pacific arena of WW2 if they landed their troops on a particular island, then lost their ships?

Its a different thing altogether. The Imperium has the orbital superiority (at the moment mind, but moving on) but it does them no good when Chaos can materialise reinforcements directly to the planet anyway. Not only that, but the ships cannot just glass the planet. Cadia is absolutely vital to the Imperium's survival. Have I and the fluff not made that clear?

Why would they need to destroy the entire planet? They only need to destroy those parts of the planet that have buildups of Chaos forces, or more more importantly, their command, control and logistic elements. Chaos cannot simply materialise enough supplies to run an entire army. If they could, they would have materialised themselves there long ago.

 Still Standing wrote:
Why would they need to destroy the entire planet? They only need to destroy those parts of the planet that have buildups of Chaos forces, or more more importantly, their command, control and logistic elements. Chaos cannot simply materialise enough supplies to run an entire army. If they could, they would have materialised themselves there long ago.

Because those Chaos forces happen to be in the areas the Imperium needs to control? Because collateral damage? Because they can't do bombing while the Chaos Fleets present a risk that if ignored could regain dominance? Because they need to focus on not having the Planet Killer wreck face. Any number of reasons.

It sounds like from the after-action report that the 13th Crusade failed it's objectives and is now bottled up on Cadia. That is not a good position to be in.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
It sounds like from the after-action report that the 13th Crusade failed it's objectives and is now bottled up on Cadia. That is not a good position to be in.

Failure can only come after completion. The Crusade is ongoing, and until Abaddon has no way to push forth, it hasn't failed. Note also that the Crusade has pnly just launched and he already has a major foothold on the primary target. Much of his forces are still to come including the Daemon Primarchs and Daemon Lords.

 Still Standing wrote:
Umm, they scored better in the ground campaign. The Imperium crushed them in the space campaign. What use is a force of Marines without support?

Abaddon doesn't need space support, he can simply open portals through the Warp and march men and materials through them.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Still Standing wrote:
Umm, they scored better in the ground campaign. The Imperium crushed them in the space campaign. What use is a force of Marines without support?

Abaddon doesn't need space support, he can simply open portals through the Warp and march men and materials through them.

If that were possible on a large enough scale be matter he'd have done it already, and on far more important planets than Cadia. Terra, for example.

Terra is fairly protected against such things, that's the whole thing about the Infinity Gate and the like.

Also, Abaddon would need to land Sorcerers on Terra first to open the gate there to send things out of the Eye from the staging world. However, Abaddon on Cadia has that problem already solved.

One of the problems with the GW writing team is that they forget what capabilities their various factions actually have. They seem to forget, quite frequently, that Chaos has magic readily available. It's, like, the whole schtick of Chaos, is that it's fething magic swords and gak.

This is 40k. The magic is limited.

Maybe on the tabletop, but definitely not in the books or background.

Really? In all the books I've read they have struggled to bring even a few men through the warp. This is usually on planets without super tech Necron psy suppressing pylons.