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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.
I'll try check the details later.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/03/29 19:36:22
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.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/29 16:20:07
Meanwhile other chaos commanders seize half the IM's stored geneseed, invade and conquer thousands of worlds etc. etc.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
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.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/03/29 18:01:23
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.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/29 18:26:45
Dakka does have White Knights and is also rather infamous for it's Black Knights. A new edition brings out the passionate and not all of them are good at expressing themselves in written form. There have been plenty of hysterical responses from both sides so far. So we descend into pointless bickering with neither side listening to each other. So posting here becomes more masturbation than conversation.
ERJAK wrote: Forcing a 40k player to keep playing 7th is basically a hate crime.
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...
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/03/29 19:56:29
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
Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two
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'?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/30 10:33:30
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.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/31 00:45:25
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..
Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two
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.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/31 01:10:53
I don't break the rules but I'll bend them as far as they'll go.
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.
Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two
Becoming? They've been mishandled both in Fluff and Crunch for 10+ years now.
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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.
Got a paper cut for the first time in centuries.
I don't break the rules but I'll bend them as far as they'll go.
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.
[DCM]
Chief Deputy Sub Assistant Trainee Squig Handling Intern
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.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
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..
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/04/04 12:49:38
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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.
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Kanluwen wrote:
Hell, I'm not that bothered by the Stormraven. Why? Because, as it stands right now, it's "limited use".When it's shoehorned in to the Codex: Space Marines, then yeah. I'll be irked.
When I'm editing alot, you know I have a gakload of homework to (not) do.
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
