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So, for 265 points, Abbadon the despoiler gets you a:

WS7 BS5 S4 T5 W4 I6 A4 Ld10 2+/4++ terminator lord with, if you break up compound USRs, Champion of Chaos, EW, Fearless, IC, Hatred (Space Marines) Rage and Counter Attack. But I'm curious about possibly making a Black Legion Army, but my group never plays at higher points games than 1250. So, is 265 points for one model ever worth it even if they tank wounds like a boss?

Simply put, Abby is the best combat character in the game. The swarmlord gave him a run for his money, as did ghazzy, but both of them have been nerfed. He is the undisputed king of hand to had, so i would say hes worth it. You just have to ask yourself if thats what you want/need in a character.

 th3maninblak wrote:
Simply put, Abby is the best combat character in the game. The swarmlord gave him a run for his money, as did ghazzy, but both of them have been nerfed. He is the undisputed king of hand to had, so i would say hes worth it. You just have to ask yourself if thats what you want/need in a character.

With this in mind, is there a build involving him that maximizes his usefulness? I had thought of taking plas spam chosen, some terminators to act as a little retinue for abby, with 5-man raptors on either side to form a kind of spear head type assault. Would it be better if I just took 3 terminator squads and dropped abby in one?

KOS probably eats abby for breaky.. 1250 point games are painful to play.. encourage your group to stop sucking and try some 2k point games, or at least 1850

BE WARNED. GW removed the thing in the FAQ that says that Abby is immune to Spawndom and Apotheosis, so RAW he is now subject to those again.

if you stick him in a LR, give him 3 suitably equipped Termies and a Dark Apostle (for re-rolling on the boons table for Abby, and being a spare character should you ever need one). Go up the table as fast as possible (unless facing Necrons, who make this wall of all-your-points about as effective as removing water with a sieve), and smash things.

Under at least 1850 abaddon just isn't worth it IMO. Sure he's an absolute beast... But he's also slow. More than likely he's gonna assault one squad and then wander around hoping someone gets close enough for him to assault again.

At the same time, you pack him in a landraider with some slaanesh termies with FNP and he suddenly becomes the greatest fire magnet you've ever seen lol. In the end abaddon is VERY good, but don't forget he's a single model (and a beatstick at that, not a buff machine), you need enough other points to still have an effective army to back him up.

Abaddon can do grotesque damage. The only difficulty is making sure he gets the right targets, and isn't stuck eating 50 point guard squads and the like.

He's definitely worth it for the points... but. He does cost a lot of them, which means you might have to over-sacrifice at lower points levels.

Agreed.

He's not that bad defensively due to the automatic Black Crusader warlord trait if playing space marines, but even then he's expensive for his role. He really, really needs to get up close and personal.

Teleporting in or piling up the board in a land raider (or dropping in in a Kharybdis) is pretty much compulsory. But yeah....at >1500 he's very much eggs-in-one-basket, and if that basket finds itself being forced to chew through expendable broods of termagants before it can get in on the action..... not so great.

Sticking him in a land raider or giving him a terminator retinue to deep-strike with is the only viable way to run him.

But... as noted, that's a hard sell in a 1250 point game. If I were to design a list... dunno. Thinking about it on the fly I'm considering something like:

Abaddon
8xBeserkers (1xPower Fist)
Land Raider
10xChaos Space Marines (2xPlasma Guns, 1xCombi-Plasma)
Rhino
10xChaos Space Marines (2xFlamers, 1xCombi-Flamer)
Rhino
Maulerfiend

Comes out to about 1250 points, give or take a few.

The name of the game is to go all-in. Throw everything up the board turn 1- on turn 2, get Abbadon and his beserker bros in combat with the nastiest thing in range, get your maulerfiend in combat with the second nastiest thing, then have your marines pop out and slaughter the weaker units that are hanging around.

Avoid blobs and monstrous creatures that have 2++ saves with Abaddon's unit- they both take too long for him to kill- everything else is fair game.

If you absolutely have to take him in games below 1850, i'd deepstrike him with a couple of termies or an obliterator. Cause spending further points on a landraider and vast retinue will be more harmful than useful. Usually, a regular termie sorc would be better in there but if you have a model and want to field it badly, why not. Besides, he's gona feel fluffy deepstriking with a unit of retinue termies.

Abby -> No. Hes too slow. Part of his price tag includes stuff about chosen and hes too expensive.

Belakor -> Stronger than abby in CC. Can fly. Can cast all telepathy powers..etc

jakl277 wrote:
Abby -> No. Hes too slow. Part of his price tag includes stuff about chosen and hes too expensive.

Belakor -> Stronger than abby in CC. Can fly. Can cast all telepathy powers..etc

And costs 350 points, requires a dataslate and has a totally different feel.

And likes taking anti-MC weapons to the face.

 th3maninblak wrote:
Simply put, Abby is the best combat character in the game. The swarmlord gave him a run for his money, as did ghazzy, but both of them have been nerfed. He is the undisputed king of hand to had, so i would say hes worth it. You just have to ask yourself if thats what you want/need in a character.

Actually, a kitted out necron overlord was shown to best abbadon greater than 50% of the time.

In a 1vs1, abbadon has a less than 50% chance of passing the mindshackle test meaning he hits himself then the overlord hits him. Not to mention that the overlord has a 3++, Str 7 ap1 attacks, and even if Abby kills him, he gets back up on a 4+ starting the whole thing over.

That's a bit misleading. Abaddon B2B with a mindshackle Lord is comparatively rare. It might happen, of course, but there's no reason to presume it will. Abaddon lives in units, Necron Lords typically live on barges. If the two fight Abaddon will usually have some pawns to be the one B2B, or, if he's forced into B2B to join him there and have an equal chance being the shackle victim.

In 6th the Necron could use Duels to fix this, but we play 7th now.

The bit about the Necron overlord standing up 50% of the time is sort of pushing it, unless you put a res orb on your barges (which makes your Lord MORE expensive than Abaddon...mind boggles). 33% is sufficient to make the point though.

The only fair way to judge who the strongest is to face off 1vs1.

Of course characters being in units can affect the outcome, but if your going to start adding in other things when trying to determine the king of assault, then I can just say the army with abbadon isn't as good as the army with the overlord, so the overlord wins. That's goofy though.

1-1 comparison is the only way to compare that makes sense.

An overlord with MSS, res orb, 3++, and a Warscythe kills abbadon greater than 50% of the time in 1vs1. A that for 190 points if I remember correctly. Far cheaper than abbadon.

Overlord is the king of assault.

Or why not go the whole hog and use a Tesseract Labyrinth as many times as the list will allow?

Whilst I fully agree on the 1v1 Nercron lord being one of the best duellers, Skarbrand is the most powerful model in combat. Trouble is getting him there.