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Made in hk
Longtime Dakkanaut





Hear me out.

You know in history, all those great leaders. They barely took 20 to 30 years to carve out an entire empire. Alexander the Great, Napolean, Genghis Khan. Heck I believe the Qin Emperor Qin Shi Huang conquered the other 6 states and united China within ten years.

Now, Abaddon has been around for what... 10000 years? And honestly, he doesn't have that much competition when it comes to Infamous Great Chaos warlords. He has been undisputedly most powerful chaos warlord for the longest time. Abaddon is also the most active warlord. he doesn't sit around moping somewhere for thousands of years. He has launched 13 black crusades where all chaos factions can gather together to spread mayhem, death and destruction!

And unlike some of the other chaos factions, Abaddon's Black Legion faction can be joined regardless of whether you are dedicated to one particular chaos god, or if you are chaos undivided.

So my point is, if some of these past historical leaders barely took two or three decades to gather a big army and carve out huge empires. Then when we are talking about Abaddon... he has had 10,000 years! 10,000 years of renegade chapters and all manner of chaos armies joining his cause amidst 13 black crusades. And of course, since he isn't dead yet, his name would have only grown over these 10,000 years. He should have gathered an immense army and carved out a massive galaxy spanning Empire in the 40k universe by now.
   
Made in us
Terrifying Doombull




It took a long time to get to that point, though. When they first fled to the Eye, the Legion was _broken_, and were treated like dogs by everyone else, and bounced from patron god to patron god trying to hold onto anything resembling dregs of power.

It took a long time to build up from that, and even longer to start recruiting other warbands and absorbing them into the new 'Black Legion.'

Also timey-whimey nonsense. Abaddon didn't have 10,000 years of linear time, and what time he did have didn't involve population growth and limitless recruiting. It involved battles and many forms of attrition in its own right, with very rare resources (geneseed) to actually get new marines over the attrition of the years, battles, raids and infighting, not to mention degradation and indifference.

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Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

He has 10,000 years trying to build an army that is comprised of warlords and warriors who inherently will fight each other on a whim. Where there are 4 great divisions (and within that at least 2 major rivalries). In addition the patron gods themselves will interrupt and mess things up for their own ends. Indeed its often suggested that they don't want victory. They want an eternal war that never ends because that provides them the greatest feast to harvest from the mortal world.


Also don't forget many of the Earth's great leaders rose armies and went to war, often against smaller or divided nations. Abbadon is fighting a galactic empire that spans the greatest part of the Galaxy. Yes the Imperium has problems of its own which prevents it winning outright; but it is a vast thing to fight against.

Abbadon is also against all the other races too, no races save Chaos wants Chaos to win or hold any territory. Orks will fight for fun; Eldar and Necrons are almost akin to the Imperium in a holy war against Chaos; Tyranids detest Chaos too. Basically Chaos is against everyone (who are also against everyone else) and has to constantly deal with its own infighting.








It's a pattern matched across all the races- each one has the potential to win. Orks, IF they united behind one big boss, could most certainly tear up most of the other races. Eldar if they abandon some of their fears of the past could use superior Technology over most races to rise up again; Necrons are very similar they just have to wake up and unite; Tyranids in theory have the greatest chances as they've no inherent infighting (it happens but its not quite as self destructive as the other factions); though they are limited by the almost random nation of how hive fleets appear; Tau are prehaps one of the few that "can't" and that's because they are tiny; however they are showing great potential at taking over and bringing other races into their own so in theory they could reach a snow-ball moment where they can convince world after world to join.



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Gargantuan Gargant






Yeah, as others have mentioned, it's a monumental task to even rise up against the Imperium given its sheer size. Considering that it's tough enough for most people to even coordinate 60 people in old school raiding for World of Warcraft, consider how insane it must be to handle the logistics and organization of an inherently fractitious and dubiously committed rabble of dregs and opportunists against a common enemy that spans not one but a million worlds and try to not only point them in the right direction, but motivate them to stay and tow the line to actually succeed. This is without factoring the multitude of issues that being based primarily in the warp does to your supply lines and ability to muster coherent forces. Most of the time Chaos relies on cult uprisings and turncoats moreso than their own standing armies for the bulk of their forces for a reason.
   
Made in hk
Longtime Dakkanaut





Yeah, but Abaddon has showed that he has the caliber and ability to do this because he hasn't just launched only 1 black crusade, he has launched 13 whole crusades. And yes the galaxy is large with numerous planets. But it also means that the imperium is thinly spread out across a huge space. They cannot heavily fortify every single world. Its literally impossible. As for taking a long time. Abaddon has had 10,000 years. That's so much longer compared to the great conquerers we have in actual history.

I have the black legion supplement. The first black crusade was launched by Abaddon after he consolidated his legion and was done to make a name for the black legion. Then, in the supplement, it said that over the next 9000 years, Abaddon would launch more black crusades and each one would make the black legion grow stronger in name and strength.

So, the 12 black crusades have only strengthened the black legion over 9000 years each time because it just keeps growing Abaddon's name and the fame of the black legion. Hence why I feel that over such a long time, with so much fame accumulated, Abaddon really should have had a truly immense army by now. (And a massive swarth of territory if you look at our past conquerors in history).

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/12 02:23:47


 
   
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Terrifying Doombull




Fame doesn't magically make chaos marines pop into existence. There is a hard limit on the amount of viable geneseed available to the traitor legions, and even then its not a guaranteed process. And they still lose marines to their enemies (and each other).

Considering the black crusades are 'just as planned,' obviously territory wasn't a goal (nor should it be. On a galactic scale, its rather meaningless. When we see Abaddon going after specific places, its basically gates (Cadia) and bridgeheads (Vigilus), not much else matters.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/12 02:47:48


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Dakka Veteran





Yeah, except that what he has to work with are hundreds of separate groups of, effectively, insane chaos junkies that can't listen to reason (or sometimes even listen at all). He has to try and convince or coerce every one of them to get them to....maybe...go in the same general direction of his Black Crusades.

He has to curry favor of the gods too to try to get any demonic reinforcements.

Fortunately cultists can be recruited through various means, but going through a surveillance state doss come with a large amount of difficulties.

Add to that any new Space Marines need fresh geneseed, and as chaos does not nice things to geneseed, you need to either steal it from loyalists or talk to Fabius Bile. Then you need to sift through your cultist blob for potential aspirants (or kidnap some), 90% of whom won't survive the process.

Vehicles, armor and ships take negotiations with the Dark Mechanicum, who will require trade, usually something hard to get and/or find (which means spending time and resources getting them). Even then, a good chunk won't work because they threw a sentient demon into the wiring who probably isn't happy being locked in a machine.

In short, trying to run even a small chaos warband is a logistical NIGHTMARE, so it's impressive that Abaddon has been able to accomplish what he has.

   
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Fixture of Dakka





What everyone else said. Plus, there are arguably diminishing returns on having a larger force after a point. The absurd amount of bureaucracy involved in keeping the imperium's millitary halfway organized is one of their greatest weaknesses. Plus, chaos territories probably aren't as good at reliably feeding and supplying their forces. Keep growing in size, and eventually you end up with an army that is impossible to feed, coordinate, etc.

The "just as planned" nature of the Black Crusades suggests that Abaddon has a fairly specific long-term plan for how he wants to go about wrecking the imperium. Rather than amassing an increasingly unwieldy force for one huge push, he's gathering just enough forces to reliably achieve his critical short-term goals. Why spend the resources gathering and coordinating 500,000 ships to retrieve a relic when 100,000 will do?

He doesn't seize a huge amount of territory because doing so isn't crucial to his plans or of particular interest to him. He probably does hold onto some planets when they're located somewhere he can defend them in the long-term and when he has minions that he can count on to conquer and run the place after they've taken it. But a bunch of frothing Khorne-worshippers or nihilistic former Night Lords might not be well-suited to setting up supply lines in their wake.

Plus, setting up an "empire" in real-space would negate some of his biggest advantages. If he just hides out in the Eye of Terror while gathers his forces and only leaves the Eye to strike key targets, the imperium is stuck playing defense. Trying to lead imperial crusades into the Eye has historically resulted in having tons of the forces you've sent converted to chaos for no significant gains. If Abaddon spent the time and resources to establish an "empire" in real-space, he'd be giving the imperium stationary targets that they could track down and overwhelm with their larger millitary.


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You also have to remember that Abaddon's goal of annhilating the Imperium is at odds with what Chaos wants. Chaos doesn't want to win, they want war everlasting. Abaddon winning would kinda ruin the eternal playground the galaxy has become. To make matters worse, a lot of the Chaos space marines don't care about winning anymore either. They don't want to overthrow the Imperium and take it over. They just want to pursue their own personal glory and accumulation of power.

This is why most of the Daemon primarchs just sit on their butts in the Eye of Terror. They are above the petty desire of Abaddon wanting revenge and domination.

The chaos gods tolerate Abaddon because he is useful to their goals of eternal war, but they're never going to actually give him what he needs to win. They want him to keep trying, they do not want him actually succeeding. He knows it. They know it. It really is a no win situation for him.

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Longtime Dakkanaut




The eye distorts and the eye corrupts.

He hasn't had 10,000 years. Time flows differently in the warp. 10,000 years in realspace could be 500 years for some in the eye. 12 campaigns? Let's ask Calgar, Grimnar or Dante how many campaigns they've led. Don't get me wrong, what abaddon has done is extraordinary. It really is. But he is nor in the position you think he's in.

Also note that the chaos marines originated in most part from the more unstable and fractious legions. This will only be exacerbated by the effects of the Eye and the meddling of the gods. For the most part the other followers are selfish and narcissistic and pointing them in the same direction is a miracle. Chaos armies are tempirary coalitions, nothing more. Its hard to lead an army anyway, imagine how difficult it is when a good chunk of your followers want your job, dont share your goals, have their own agenda and will wander off when your back is turned and half your army wants to stab the other half in the back for petty grudges or sheer spite.

In addition the logistics base of chaos is questionable at best. Chaos corrupts. Genesed in particular. Loyalists can double their geneseed with each generation. 1 marine creates 2 progenoids, 2 give 4, 4 give 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2028, 4056, 8112, 16224, 32,448 etc. From the initial inplantation, within 15 cycles of implantation (every 10 to 20 years, so about 150 to 200 years), one geneseed can give about 30,000+ marines, not counting for casualties or geneseed failures. Chaos really do not have access to this as within the Eye, geneseed degrades terribly. They'd probably be grateful to generate a tenth of what the loyalists can misplace.
And this is geneseed only. Lets talk the myriad of other logistical requirements.

Most chaos forces are pirates and raiders, having functional manufacturing bases and logistics within the eye is tricky, and remember all of them that are have their own agendas too.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/01/12 08:04:41


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Longtime Dakkanaut





That assumes that is what abandon wants to achieve. He has to deliver on what the chaos gods want, do they want him to just amass a force and conquer the imperium? No probably not because the imperium is the biggest source of fuel for the chaos gods in the materium. So he does other things with unclear agendas, wasn’t this explain at the end of the last black crusade? And that he had waged a war across space and time because time happens differently in the Eye so events may have played out in a different order for him than the imperium making it harder to work out what he’s been up to.

Abbadon has created the great rift cutting half of the empire of man off from the astronomicon, this is a huge victory that didn’t require org siding and fighting battles across the whole galaxy like the HH.

If GW actually bothered to tell us what it was like in the dark imperium we might actually feel like there was a victory for abbadon here but instead they have basically said it’s a good thing because now we have primaris marines
   
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Longtime Dakkanaut





Fear of death is a pretty powerful thing to use to keep people in line. CSM even has "Master of Executions". If Abaddon really wants a chaos lord dead, he can send out his Master of Executions to make them one head shorter. lol

I thought Abaddon's ultimate goal has always been quite transparent. He wants to finish what Horus failed to do during the Horus Heresy. He wants to crush Terra. He wants to overthrow the Imperium and tear down the emperor from his golden Throne in Terra.

This is partly why he doesn't bend the knee to any one particular chaos god. Abaddon is Chaos Undivided precisely because he doesn't want to be beholden to one Chaos God's whim. In the lore, it is mentioned that Abaddon has been offered Daemon Prince Ascension several times, but he has always refused.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/12 09:04:01


 
   
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Decrepit Dakkanaut





Biloxi, MS USA

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I thought Abaddon's ultimate goal has always been quite transparent. He wants to finish what Horus failed to do during the Horus Heresy. He wants to crush Terra. He wants to overthrow the Imperium and tear down the emperor from his golden Throne in Terra.


One of the first things Abaddon did when uniting the Legion was decry Horus. He doesn't want to aim for Terra because his goal is overthrowing through spreading Chaos, not over throwing the Emperor directly.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2022/01/12 12:24:53


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Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






Marshalling the forces of Chaos is akin to herding cats.

Few willingly bend the knee, because the Champions are driven by their own ego and glory. Even if you outnumber them, both sides of that, shall we call it enforced collaboration, are going to take casualties.

Men, materials, war machines damaged or lost in the effort of wrangling it together.

And this is Chaos’ greatest weakness. It lacks any kind of central organisation and supply chain. You need new sets of Power Armour? You need to bargain with the Dark Mechanicus. They don’t work for free, so you need expend resources to gain their aid and expertise for your cause.

Your underlings are also not exactly Loyal. Sure, they’ll do as you ask, but they’ll also be seeking their own advantage and goals.

Much like Orks, if one of your trusted lieutenants is killed off, his warband are going to have internal conflict to pick their new head honcho, who is by no means guaranteed to be anywhere near as trustworthy.

You can plan and plan and plan. Yet the Imperium’s resources are orders of magnitude greater than your own.

The Imperium can lose quite significant ground, and not really be that much worse off. Chaos? If one of your fleets gets wrecked? You’ve no dry dock to recover it to. You’ve no central hubs to repair and rearm - not unless you forcibly take it from your foe.

And if you do capture industrial hubs? You’ve just painted it as a priority target for retribution. From there it’s really a matter of luck as to whether the enemy’s forces can be marshalled before you’ve had a chance to get things up and running and make good your repairs.

Every battle you fail to win is a blow to your efforts. A truly disastrous defeat is a far larger setback for you than it would be The Imperium.

Yes Abaddon has absolutely had successes. But he’s also suffered heavy defeats. The remains of the original Traitor Legions all have their own agendas, and barring Night Lords, they still have a Primarch as a figurehead. Beings to whom you are but an upstart. Even Abaddon doesn’t tell a Primarch what to do. He has to ask. He has to bargain. And if they tell him to sod off? Not a damned thing he can really do about it.

   
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Eye of Terror

Abaddon should *not* have amassed an unstoppable army in 10,000 years.

Because of attrition. Is a mighty Chaos Space Marine going to sit on a bench for a decade waiting for Abaddon to gather the rest of his forces?

No. That CSM is not a Rubric. He's going to have super-human motivations that include plunder, murder, depravation, rot, etc. He's going to go out in the universe and do Chaos stuff. And there's a good chance he's going to be destroyed before he could return to join the Chaos Distopia.

The Empire's population is untold billions. Short of a Tyranid Hive Fleet, there's probably no force capable of a direct assault on a significant portion of the Imperium simply because of logistics. It has to be destroyed piece by piece, and that takes a long time. Maybe even 20,000 years.

   
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Longtime Dakkanaut




mrFickle wrote:That assumes that is what abandon wants to achieve.


Ah yes, abandon the despoiler, Abaddons far less successful and far less famous peer

Eldenfirefly wrote:Fear of death is a pretty powerful thing to use to keep people in line. CSM even has "Master of Executions". If Abaddon really wants a chaos lord dead, he can send out his Master of Executions to make them one head shorter. lol


Think about the consequences...

Death? 'Khorne cares not where the blood flows from, only that it flows'. Fear of death isn't really a motivator for astartes. They're literally inhuman.

The threat of it might work on one lord. But There's every chance it'll have the opposite effect or his own guys will shank him for his perceived weakness.

In any case, say you've Louis xvi'ed him. Watch the warband tear itself apart as others vie for the dead lords position. Watch other Lords aldo vie for position and poach the other members of the disintegrating warband.

By the time the dust settles you've got a lot of casualties, a lot of munitions pointlessly spent and ten thousand new grudges and vendettas formed that'll continue to cause problems.

This is the reality of chaos.

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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Marshalling the forces of Chaos is akin to herding cats.

Few willingly bend the knee, because the Champions are driven by their own ego and glory. Even if you outnumber them, both sides of that, shall we call it enforced collaboration, are going to take casualties.

Men, materials, war machines damaged or lost in the effort of wrangling it together.

And this is Chaos’ greatest weakness. It lacks any kind of central organisation and supply chain. You need new sets of Power Armour? You need to bargain with the Dark Mechanicus. They don’t work for free, so you need expend resources to gain their aid and expertise for your cause.

Your underlings are also not exactly Loyal. Sure, they’ll do as you ask, but they’ll also be seeking their own advantage and goals.

Much like Orks, if one of your trusted lieutenants is killed off, his warband are going to have internal conflict to pick their new head honcho, who is by no means guaranteed to be anywhere near as trustworthy.

You can plan and plan and plan. Yet the Imperium’s resources are orders of magnitude greater than your own.

The Imperium can lose quite significant ground, and not really be that much worse off. Chaos? If one of your fleets gets wrecked? You’ve no dry dock to recover it to. You’ve no central hubs to repair and rearm - not unless you forcibly take it from your foe.

And if you do capture industrial hubs? You’ve just painted it as a priority target for retribution. From there it’s really a matter of luck as to whether the enemy’s forces can be marshalled before you’ve had a chance to get things up and running and make good your repairs.

Every battle you fail to win is a blow to your efforts. A truly disastrous defeat is a far larger setback for you than it would be The Imperium.

Yes Abaddon has absolutely had successes. But he’s also suffered heavy defeats. The remains of the original Traitor Legions all have their own agendas, and barring Night Lords, they still have a Primarch as a figurehead. Beings to whom you are but an upstart. Even Abaddon doesn’t tell a Primarch what to do. He has to ask. He has to bargain. And if they tell him to sod off? Not a damned thing he can really do about it.


So the greatest weakness of chaos….. is that it lacks any order?????

That’s why abbadon succeeded in plunging half the imperium into darkness and ripping open huge parts of real space, because he embraced chaos. All the black crusades were thought to be failed incursions into the imperium but actually they were part of plan spanning time and space.
   
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Yeah and what happened immediately after the Rift formed? Huge portions of the armies aligned with Abaddon ditched the overall push to go and kill, plunder and conquer worlds across the galaxy, especially within Imperium Nihilus. That's what it means to lead the forces of Chaos, you get the unstoppable hammer blow for a time before it shatters and becomes a thousand tiny cuts.
   
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 Gert wrote:
Yeah and what happened immediately after the Rift formed? Huge portions of the armies aligned with Abaddon ditched the overall push to go and kill, plunder and conquer worlds across the galaxy, especially within Imperium Nihilus. That's what it means to lead the forces of Chaos, you get the unstoppable hammer blow for a time before it shatters and becomes a thousand tiny cuts.


They went off and spread chaos.

These aren’t tiny cuts, if the imperium ever wants it territory back it will have to go on a crusade the likes of which hasn’t been seen for 10k years. Reclaiming world from CSM overlords and demon forces that have had chance to mature, human societies that have devoted themselves to chaos and can’t be brought back into the imperial cult.

Even if it’s not what abbadon wanted it’s certainly ticking all the boxes for chaos
   
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mrFickle wrote:

They went off and spread chaos.

These aren’t tiny cuts, if the imperium ever wants it territory back it will have to go on a crusade the likes of which hasn’t been seen for 10k years. Reclaiming world from CSM overlords and demon forces that have had chance to mature, human societies that have devoted themselves to chaos and can’t be brought back into the imperial cult.

Even if it’s not what abbadon wanted it’s certainly ticking all the boxes for chaos

The Imperium launched that crusade though. That's what the Indomitus Crusade is. The Imperium might not get all of its territory back but the Indomitus Crusade is the offensive to take back humanity's domain. And if a planet's population needs to be exterminated and replaced, the Imperium will just do it. It's all about the big picture for Guilliman and losing a few planets to secure thousands of others is a sacrifice he will absolutely make.
Plus, Abaddon wanted the Long War over with the 13th. It was the last great push to burn Terra and kill the Emperor. He didn't get it because as has been said, the Gods don't want him to win. The Rift is great and all but the Emperor lives, Guilliman has returned and many of the forces that swore loyalty to him, including the Primarchs, have gone off to do what they want.
   
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Longtime Dakkanaut




mrFickle wrote:


They went off and spread chaos.

These aren’t tiny cuts, if the imperium ever wants it territory back it will have to go on a crusade the likes of which hasn’t been seen for 10k years. Reclaiming world from CSM overlords and demon forces that have had chance to mature, human societies that have devoted themselves to chaos and can’t be brought back into the imperial cult.


In fairness, all that crusading is a standard Tuesday for the Imperium. They've been doing that for 10,000 years.


mrFickle wrote:


They went off and spread chaos.

Even if it’s not what abbadon wanted it’s certainly ticking all the boxes for chaos


I thought we were talking about him carving out an empire ot having an unstoppable qrmy? Going out and spreading chaos isn't quite the same thing as your initial proposition.

He should have gathered an immense army and carved out a massive galaxy spanning Empire in the 40k universe by now.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/12 22:04:02


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I imagine that organisation, or prolonged organisation in a chaos faction, where members within that faction will at times follow into a path of a specific god, who has their own will, would make leadership an absolute bag of cats.

Not to mention dealing with some of the ego's involved. It's impressive that he is so respected that he can ask the Daemon Primarchs to fall under his overall command.

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"Ask" is not really the right word. Pacts, bargains, and threats, however.
   
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 Gert wrote:
"Ask" is not really the right word. Pacts, bargains, and threats, however.


Still a case of asking, I doubt he has enough clout to threaten a Daemon Primarch, so a pact is asking something that can still be refused, and they are still being asked to fall under his command, rewards or not.

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 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Still a case of asking, I doubt he has enough clout to threaten a Daemon Primarch, so a pact is asking something that can still be refused, and they are still being asked to fall under his command, rewards or not.

It depends really. Someone like Angron doesn't really get commanded, rather just gets pointed in the general direction of the enemy and let loose. Magnus supposedly pledged fealty to Abaddon in some way as it is recounted by Iskandar Khayon that he was vital in humbling Magnus. In the same book, it's said all the Primarchs "bowed" before Abaddon but that could be interpreted in many ways. We also have to consider the Gods instructions as well. If Nurgle tells Mortarion to join with Abaddon and support his Crusade, Mortarion isn't going to say no. Some Legions don't even have their Primarch so there isn't even the need for fealty. The Emperor's Children are nominally led by the Phoenix Council and until very recently the Dark Council led the Word Bearers in Lorgars absence. Plus a lot of Abaddon's alliances are "Join me and together we will kill the Emperor" rather than "Serve me or die". It was kind of the ethos of the Black Legion, brotherhood under Abaddon but a brotherhood nonetheless.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/12 22:19:14


 
   
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Longtime Dakkanaut





Well, I understand all the difficulties some of you have mentioned. But the thing is, Abaddon has proved that he can do it. He can marshal up massive armies, get fractious chaos leaders to work with him and keep them in line, get the equipment for them.

Yes, he doesn't micromanage them. He just points in a general broad direction and sets them loose. But he has launched not just one but 13 black crusades. And the scale of each crusade gets ever bigger.

Like for the Gothic sector crusade, and for the current 13th black crusade. Abaddon assembled huge numbers of warships, and massive armies of all factions combined. And he has shown that he can get the Daemon Primarchs to work with him in the past.

Abaddon has shown that a lot of the stuff being raised here are not his limitations. He has overcome all these before.

And the Dark Mechanicum is every bit as powerful as Admech. Basically, the Admech split into two during the Horus Heresy and the Dark Mechanicum is one of the factions. Though they are not a playable faction. They are every bit able to provide the kind of war machines, daemon engines, and materials that the Admech provides to the Imperium. This is also borne out by the fact that every time Abaddon launches a black crusade, he has warmachines and bodies aplenty to throw into these crusades. Plus on top of that, he also gets to summon in entire hosts of Daemons as well once the correct rituals are done.
   
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Deadnight wrote:
mrFickle wrote:


They went off and spread chaos.

These aren’t tiny cuts, if the imperium ever wants it territory back it will have to go on a crusade the likes of which hasn’t been seen for 10k years. Reclaiming world from CSM overlords and demon forces that have had chance to mature, human societies that have devoted themselves to chaos and can’t be brought back into the imperial cult.


In fairness, all that crusading is a standard Tuesday for the Imperium. They've been doing that for 10,000 years.


mrFickle wrote:


They went off and spread chaos.

Even if it’s not what abbadon wanted it’s certainly ticking all the boxes for chaos


I thought we were talking about him carving out an empire ot having an unstoppable qrmy? Going out and spreading chaos isn't quite the same thing as your initial proposition.

He should have gathered an immense army and carved out a massive galaxy spanning Empire in the 40k universe by now.



A crusade to take back half of your empire is not Business as usual. Yes the imperium is a perpetual war machine but it just lost half its resources and I don’t think there’s any way to recover them. The Infiniti’s crusade, I thought, was about being support and relief where possible to those on the wrong side of the rift. Seeing as navigating the warp in the dark imperium is impossible organising and delivering mass campaign of war will also be impossible.

Also you’ve miss understood, I am not agreeing with the OP, I am saying that abbadon can’t amass a huge force because of chaos. The followers of chaos will act chaotically so you can only have cooperation for so long.
   
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Erm, I need to add one more point as well. Once a world has been converted into chaos. Its not so easy to "reclaim" it. The government as fallen, all loyalist soldiers are likely dead. Half or more of the population has likely turned to worship of chaos, and the other half are subsued. There are likely daemons running rampart in the streets and other chaos forces running around killing and doing chaos things.

And some of the chaos forces will stay on in the world. Because they are chaotic that way, they want to loot and murder more. Or maybe they lost their ride in space when they assaulted that world.

So, if there is a black crusade and it subjugates and converts many many worlds and systems into chaos. Those systems and worlds stay chaos controlled until the Imperium has launched a crusade to reclaim it.

A loyalist world conquered by Chaos doesn't just automatically revert back into loyalist by itself. In fact, that's why we have such a thing as Exterminatus by the loyalist forces.
   
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mrFickle wrote:

A crusade to take back half of your empire is not Business as usual. Yes the imperium is a perpetual war machine but it just lost half its resources and I don’t think there’s any way to recover them. The Infiniti’s crusade, I thought, was about being support and relief where possible to those on the wrong side of the rift. Seeing as navigating the warp in the dark imperium is impossible organising and delivering mass campaign of war will also be impossible.



As explanation, while obviously hyperbolic, I was coming from the position that the Imperium has been split before and has recovered. We've had notable extraordinarily massive campaigns in the past like the legendary scouring Post-heresy, or things like the nova terra interregnum. There have been other significant, if less major events like the fourth quadrant rebellion or the macharian crusade that have engulfed huge areas of space.

I will also add the caveat that there are significant imperial bastions and forces 'in the dark'. And when I talked about 'routine', I am referring mainly to dealing with the individual chaos warbands that have inevitably split off to pursue their own petty agendas.

What abaddon has done is extraordinary. Make no mistake. But the Imperium will draw on its strength and faith and will fight, if for no other reason this is all it knows.

mrFickle wrote:


Also you’ve miss understood, I am not agreeing with the OP, I am saying that abbadon can’t amass a huge force because of chaos. The followers of chaos will act chaotically so you can only have cooperation for so long.


Indeed, I misread you. My sincere apologies.


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