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So, after 13 Black Crusades, and 10,000 years of trying, Abaddon still can't get the job done. However, curiously, the Chaos Gods, normally not ones to tolerate failure, still exalt him as their undivided champion.

So my question is this - if, as according to multiple sources, Chaos can't exist without humanity due to being so heavily invested, do they actually want Abaddon to succeed? Or is he a conviently incompetent figurehead that manages to cause just enough death and destruction to keep them in skulls/slaves/followers, without actually endangering humanity enough to cause them to worry about losing their source of power?

I think Abaddon has been set up to fail, and his inability to get the job done is actually part of the Gods' plan (one which he's ignorant of). The Chaos Space Marines may want the Imperium to fall (which would likely cause humanity to fall too), but the Gods just want humanity in enough peril to keep themselves in business. Abaddon's lack of success, but ability to keep his role, keeps the CSMs loyal to Chaos, and a useful tool, without realising the Gods are knowingly frustrating their ultimate goal.

Well, i doubt chaos would need to kill all the humans to destroy and assume control of the imperium. Why wouldnt the gods plan for him to win and enslave humanity for their own pleasures rather than let them remain freewilled and independent as an antithesis of chaos? Just because they need mortals to sustain their emotional existence doesnt mean they can't be billions of enslaved humans all fighting under chaos or amongst themselves. The gods' realms are constant battles amongst eachother, I dont think they would be averse to the material plane eventually becoming the same. Just a larger arena for the great game.

AOS however shows that the gods quickly become bored of omnipotence and victory, so maybe they are doing it on purpose to keep "time" interesting for them.

Not to mention there are more emotion filled mortals than humans in the universe for chaos to continue to fight.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Upon further thought, i can see the gods using abbadon as a distraction... Letting him be a constant problem makes it easy to focus on him as the main bad guy while something far more threatening readies itself unbeknownst to the imperium.

He's not incompetent. The goal of the Black Crusades is to destroy the Imperium. He might not have achieved that, but Abaddon has caused ten thousand years of destruction allowing Chaos to fester and grow. Chaos is so invested in humanity that even a perpetual stalemate is enough for them to increase their power.

It states in the BRB fluff section, Chaos takes over some planet - becomes the site of a massive incursion. It was only decades after beating Chaos back, after some other events, that Azrael realized, "hey, maybe Abaddon accomplished EXACTLY what he was doing there all those years ago."

Maybe the crusades are going exactly as planned...It's already clear the traitors are in it for the long haul...

Also, Chaos WANTS to subsume real space into warp space. They don't want an incompetent leader.

The fact that Abaddon can hold together a force of Chaos as large as his already goes a long way to disprove any incompetence. Plus I'm pretty sure he achieved his goals for the majority of his black crusades, it's not like he's been trying 13 times to take Terra, he had different objectives each time.

As of 6th edition the goal of the black crusades were all achieved and each was not a separate attempt to destroy the imperium but rather a contribution all building up to the 13t
So basically ally gw retconed bim being incompetent

Take a read of the Black Legion Codex, it outlines each of the Black crusades and their goals, if memory serves Abaddon was successful in each one and only the thirteenth has the goal of ending the Imperium. The prior crusades are all preparation for the thirteenth. For example, the goal of the first crusade was twofold, locate and obtain Drach'nyen and show the Imperium the Traitor Legions were far from destroyed.

Canonically it seems he will take Cadia and do some real damage with the 13th crusade though... But they stoppet the setting at 5 minutes to midnight.

I'm pretty sure the goals of the past 12 Crusades have been retconned into success only due to the name "Failbaddon" becoming a meme, and making that part of the fluff a bit of a joke. What is there about his plan exactly that requires 10,000 years of planning and setup?

And he has had attempts to depose him - multiple times. Even wildly sucessful Lords are constantly challenged. The argument could be that his real skill is simply holding on to his position, which being exalted by all four Gods for 10 millennia certainly helps.

My main point though is that the goals of the Chaos Gods and the CSMs are not necessarily the same. And in fact, in some instances, are actually mutually exclusive. I don't think the Gods desire the fall of the Imperium - just its constant imperilment. By keeping Abaddon in power, they pay lip service to the goals of the CSMs in order to keep them loyal, while secretly ensuring sure those goals are never fully achieved.

 triplegrim wrote:
Canonically it seems he will take Cadia and do some real damage with the 13th crusade though... But they stoppet the setting at 5 minutes to midnight.

With the Dark Angels recalling every single successor chapter to their side to form a pseudo Legion and put enough Marines between the Cadian Gate and the rest of the Imperium to hold Abaddon off.

 Arcsquad12 wrote:

 triplegrim wrote:
Canonically it seems he will take Cadia and do some real damage with the 13th crusade though... But they stoppet the setting at 5 minutes to midnight.

With the Dark Angels recalling every single successor chapter to their side to form a pseudo Legion and put enough Marines between the Cadian Gate and the rest of the Imperium to hold Abaddon off.

Not to mention the Space Wolves fully deploying against Abaddon along with their feth-huge fleet.

The Chaos Gods never wanted the Horus Heresy to be won by Horus and the traitor legion in the first place amd they knew he would fail. So I highly doubt they want abaddon to win all the sudden 10K years latter. The IoM as it is right now is the perfect catalyst to feed them for millenia.

After all they learned their lesson last time they destroyed everything, they greew tired and then the Emprah Sigmar sent a tons of Eternals to kick their ass hard.

I don't think the Chaos gods want to stop here, though. Several posts have them being satisfied with their current postion in order to feed.

I thought they wanted to make EVERYTHING chaos. They want to consume our whole dimension.

On the subject of the chaos god's plans:
If you read the blurb of 40k at the start of each BRB you'll see the Emperor is stuck on his Schrodinger's throne 'by the will of the gods', which suggests to me perhaps the chaos gods actally got exactly what they wanted with the Horus Heresy.

On the subject of recon:


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.


'12 failures' is nothing to do with retcon. It is something the playerbase invented.

nareik wrote:
On the subject of the chaos god's plans:
If you read the blurb of 40k at the start of each BRB you'll see the Emperor is stuck on his Schrodinger's throne 'by the will of the gods', which suggests to me perhaps the chaos gods actally got exactly what they wanted with the Horus Heresy.

On the subject of recon:

Spoiler:

"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.


'12 failures' is nothing to do with retcon. It is something the playerbase invented.

This. So much this. Aaron Dembski-Bowden lampshades this in Soul Hunter when Talos criticizes Abbadon to Abbadon's face and gets a sarcastic reply to the effect of "Oh, you know my own goals better than I do? How convenient."

Knowing tzeentch probably. Though chaos wants worshipers, and what a better way to do that then distract the Imperium with a really crap general making big invasions, while all the useful guys mess around in the background?

Maybe it's just head cannon but I always felt the best way things could end is Abbadon reaching the throne room and immediately turning into a spawn.

Then again GW writes the chaos gods as being semi suicidal ninnies seeking to destroy the universe that sustains them. (See Old World, The)

Nomeny wrote:
This. So much this. Aaron Dembski-Bowden lampshades this in Soul Hunter when Talos criticizes Abbadon to Abbadon's face and gets a sarcastic reply to the effect of "Oh, you know my own goals better than I do? How convenient."

Big, bad Chaos general gets called out, and his response is to get prissy? Horus would have ripped the guy's face off. If anything, it's an indictment of Abaddon that people get away with stuff like that, and that they have a pretty solid argument for calling him out in the first place.

Didnt he also get shirty with Huron Blackheart, who had just saved his skin? And instead of bending the knee, as Abaddon demanded, he just helped himself to some of the Black Legions ships and sauntered off back to the Maelstrom.

The same Blackheart of course who's also accomplished almost as much as Abaddon has, except with far fewer resources, and in a timeframe of less than a century, - not 10,000 years!