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We've got a CSM guy at the local club and he's got a pained metal Abaddon that looks awesome.
The problem is he's playing mostly around 1000-1250 pts. And doesn't have a landraider and ain't getting it any time soon.

Stuff at his disposal:
Abaddon
3 obliterators
1 assembled rhinio; he was about to get the 2-d one
Chosen
Helbrute
A bunch of cultists - around 30-40
A ton of marines including some plagues and zerks - most of them are not assembled yet, so he doesn't run them
Up to 6 bikes - he hasn't run them yet.

As he really want to run Abaddon, i've suggested deepstriking him alongside oblits and use helcult formation to get some backfield-midboard controle on the first turn. Paired with marines in a rhino - they could hold their own before Abaddon and oblits arrive. And bikes could help on the flanks with some melta/plasma.

So far, he's played 2 games. One was 2v2 1k per player - and he's brought a unit of 3 oblits + Abaddon, cultists as troops + helcult and marines in a rhino with plasma. It didn't go too good cause Abaddon didn't manage to arrive until 4-th turn. And than they dropped and just shot some remaining boyz and warboss to death. But it was allready too late to save his ally that got pressed pretty hard.

The second game was vs my orkses. Once again, Abaddon and 3 oblits. This time they've come turn 2 and got precicely in my backlines. Long story short, he split Abaddon to charge mek and oblits to shoot KMK on the other side of my deployment zone. But Abaddon didn't manage to make a 6' charge and got killed failing too many saves. I was very lucky. He wasn't. But even so, the killer was not Aby's fail. The killer was the fact that he had 50% of his army in reserves. I swamped the board with boyz, grots and kommandoes and scored so many points that it'd be impossible to catch up even if he'd wipe the whole backline in one turn.

I think that the solution might lie in deepstriking just Abaddon and 1 oblit. With the other 2 going separate and either supporting the line from turn 1 or deepstriking too. Maybe i miss something? And there's another better way to run Abaddon? Maybe with a blob of cultists? Or 20 footslogging khornates with an icon of Rage to make charges easier?

Before you comment, take note that he wants to run Abaddon. Advises like: "...count Abaddon as a warhound titan..." won't help. And no landraider.

Try putting him in a bunker or bastion and use the Escape Hatch to move him up the board. If I remember right, the hatch is placed 12" from the building, then you get a 6" disembark. Give him a lot of cultists as a meat shield.

Hmmm and why not space marines? Khornate for better charge range and choppiness or slaaneshits for fnp and ini5? The hatch is transport 20, right?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
That'd also give some use to a ton of marine bodies he has avaliable.

Great idea with the hatch, thank you!

Its hard for me to think your friend is going to come up with a TAC list for placing Abaddon. There's a huge difference in the kind of army you would want to bring fielding Abaddon versus Orks then fielding him against Space Marines, Eldar, Tau, AM, etc.

His primary role in each case is to get into cc. Orks are mostly going to come to you since they are also an assault army. I could simply stick him with a bunch of cultists to give him a bunch of ablative wounds and move him up the board that way. The Orks are going to get there soon enough, and it doesn't matter if he loses a ton of cultists as long as Abaddon gets his licks in.

Versus a shooty army, I would deepstrike him with a bunch of Obliterators. They get a round of shooting the turn they arrive and he can break free to charge units the next turn. It really doesn't matter if he charges or if someone else charges him, as long as his unit is not hopelessly outnumbered.

But yeah, with those models I would advise multiple lists.

It's not like i'm gona charge my boyz at Abaddon. That's the problem. He's just too choppy and rather durable in mellee. While not being very fast. It's just so much easier to avoid and shoot him rather than go for the kill when he's just footslogging from the start. The hatch might give an edge with a 12 + 6' deployment + d6 run. He'd be close to the enemy turn 1.

Maybe nurgle spawns to make charges easier? I've seen Spawns + Typhus doing decent. But that's typhus who's cheaper and he was used for plague zombies back when there were no helcults. Spawns + Abaddon could work too. Even though, he might consider it a bit...i don't know... Too bad can't make a unit of 12 spawns accompanying Abaddon.


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Where can i find the rules for it?

He could try running him with a blob of 30ish cultists just walking.

 koooaei wrote:
It's not like i'm gona charge my boyz at Abaddon. That's the problem. He's just too choppy and rather durable in mellee. While not being very fast. It's just so much easier to avoid and shoot him rather than go for the kill when he's just footslogging from the start. The hatch might give an edge with a 12 + 6' deployment + d6 run. He'd be close to the enemy turn 1.

Maybe nurgle spawns to make charges easier? I've seen Spawns + Typhus doing decent. But that's typhus who's cheaper and he was used for plague zombies back when there were no helcults. Spawns + Abaddon could work too. Even though, he might consider it a bit...i don't know... Too bad can't make a unit of 12 spawns accompanying Abaddon.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Where can i find the rules for it?

Personally, I'm thinking either escape hatch or spawn - maybe some combination there of.

People will, as you so elegantly put it, just try to shoot Abaddon to death even if they're melee oriented. The hatch gets him way closer first turn, and while Abby himself is pretty slow.. Spawn are fast as hell. You can setup some sneaky sling-shot charges to get him where he needs to be, or at least where the enemy doesn't want him to be.

My favorite has always been a large squad of CSM Terminators with Abby and just DS 'em.

Well, i really like the hatch idea. And the thing that he'd probably be great with 18 marines. And the guy has lots of marines. Got to try slaaneshits for fnp, khornate for charge range and FC or unmarked for cheapness and choose what he likes the most. It's like infiltration, basically! He can also go insane and get Fabius Bile! So that slaaneshits would be s5 or khornates s6 on the charge. Or Kharn to more reliably kill knights and invisible stuff. As we have another chaos player constantly running 2 sorcs and spawns. And the guy who owns 3 knights and runs 1-2 even in low pt games.

He doesn't have spawns atm. But he has bikers. It might work with bikes, i think. Worse than with spawns, probably. But on the other hand, they can perform some insane turbo-boost stuff to get even closer. And can have melta.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
My favorite has always been a large squad of CSM Terminators with Abby and just DS 'em.

Described the same approach with 3 oblits. It didn't work too well in such low pt games.

For a squad that big I think Slaanesh and FNP would definitely be the way to go. Not as many attacks as Khorne, but its likely that more will survive to make combat and being I5 will take less damage in combat against most units

He could also get a sorc for invis himself. But he doesn't like psy powers, so will do without sork, i guess.

Can he go in Slaanesh bikers?

Majority T5 and FNP sounds like fun to me. Plus the fast bikers can help drag Abaddon into combat.

Huge blob of CSMs with MoS and FNP (he would get FNP too).
No other choice really, maybe cultists if CSMs' cost is a problem.

Why no khornates? 6+d6 charge could be nice.

 koooaei wrote:
It's not like i'm gona charge my boyz at Abaddon. That's the problem. He's just too choppy and rather durable in mellee. While not being very fast. It's just so much easier to avoid and shoot him rather than go for the kill when he's just footslogging from the start.

But... but... isn't that the point of Orks? Don't they want to get into da fight?

As a CSM player, charging Abaddon is usually the best way to beat him. An additional 10+ attacks on the charge can make all the difference. You have to go for quantity not quality.

 koooaei wrote:

Maybe nurgle spawns to make charges easier? I've seen Spawns + Typhus doing decent. But that's typhus who's cheaper and he was used for plague zombies back when there were no helcults. Spawns + Abaddon could work too. Even though, he might consider it a bit...i don't know... Too bad can't make a unit of 12 spawns accompanying Abaddon.

Did the OP have Spawn in his list of available models? I tried to stick with that. If it's okay to take other units, there must be some way to get something that can cast warp speed + invisibility on Abaddon to make him a little quicker and sturdier.

 techsoldaten wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
It's not like i'm gona charge my boyz at Abaddon. That's the problem. He's just too choppy and rather durable in mellee. While not being very fast. It's just so much easier to avoid and shoot him rather than go for the kill when he's just footslogging from the start.

But... but... isn't that the point of Orks? Don't they want to get into da fight?

I play blood axes

 techsoldaten wrote:

Did the OP have Spawn in his list of available models? I tried to stick with that. If it's okay to take other units, there must be some way to get something that can cast warp speed + invisibility on Abaddon to make him a little quicker and sturdier.

Nope, he doesn't own spawns yet. It's more of a general direction. He has 6 bikers though.

 koooaei wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:

Did the OP have Spawn in his list of available models? I tried to stick with that. If it's okay to take other units, there must be some way to get something that can cast warp speed + invisibility on Abaddon to make him a little quicker and sturdier.

Nope, he doesn't own spawns yet. It's more of a general direction. He has 6 bikers though.

An unmarked lvl 3 sorcerer on a bike who takes all his powers from biomancy could be the key then. If there's a way to get Warp Speed on Abaddon, he can move, run and assault in the same phase. Most hordes are not going to be able to get out of the way.

Or, yeah, he can buy models.

 koooaei wrote:
Why no khornates? 6+d6 charge could be nice.

you can't put Abaddon in the unit

Oh, i've confused "reroll charge result" from an icon with 6+d6 of daemon khornates. Thanks for pointing out. I've meant chaos space marines with a mark of Khorne = Khornates. Probably just khornates sound misleading coupled with me confusing the rules

Still, this fleet is gona be quite handy for such a mellee threat.

besides deep striking, Id try putting him with a sizable unit of cultists and try fan the cultists out a fair bit to give them a bigger board presence so that you must avoid the entire cultist unit if you want to avoid Abaddon. Granted, this will pretty much fall apart if the cultists get shot up too fast and Abby will once again be left waving his sword in anger futilely trying to chase something down.

 unfassbarnathan wrote:
He could try running him with a blob of 30ish cultists just walking.

35 Cultists is more than sufficient to bring Abaddon to the enemy.