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The entire point of the Cadian Gate is that it is the largest stable passageway in and out of the Eye of Terror, given the difficulty of breaking through the Warp otherwise. So Abaddon's plan for the 13th Black Crusade is to overload the Cadian Pylons by spamming Daemons across the planet's surface. This would then envelope the planet in the Warp, turning it into a Daemon World. Then, the forces of Chaos would hopscotch from planet to planet using the same tactic, until they reach holy Terra.

This makes no damn sense.

What is the point of controlling Cadia if you are just going to suck it into the Eye of Terror? Without that stable path in and out to ferry Chaos's forces, they are still trapped in the Warp. Eventually, they'd find their next Cadian Gate equivalent, by which time the Imperium would just turn that into their next fortress world. It seems like an incredibly wasteful and slow tactic for Chaos that defeats the whole purpose of conquering Cadia. Without that passage, they're back at square one.

I vaguely recall that the Eye of Terror would grow as the forces of Chaos sweep across the Imperium. Yes, the IoM may try to turn the next planet into a fortress world, too, but would it be able to do so in time? It already throws everything it can spare at this incursion - it is quite possible that once Cadia falls, the entire defense breaks down and the Imperium cannot recover in time.

Think of Cadia like 40k's Stalingrad. Once the "Wehrmacht" is on the run, the "Russians" will just rush after them.

"On the fifth night, at the height of her fever, convulsing in spasms of agony, Sister Anastasia beheld a vision. She saw the Eye of Terror as a vast abscess upon the face of heaven. The Eye opened, and the sore spilled its filth across the Imperium, a tidal wave of corruption sweeping the Emperor's servants aside as they vainly attempted to hold it back. The wave engulfed Cadia, then, world by world, every bastion of the Emperor's armies all the way to Terra. As the mighty wave broke upon the homeworld of Mankind, Anastasia awoke with a cry: her fever had lifted and she felt suddenly cold as the sweat coating her skin cooled in the chill night air."

The bigger question is why; when the Milky Way is scheduled to pass through the Andromeda galaxy and it is highly unlikely any stars will collide due to the distances involved, Abaddon's fleet can't ignore all the other systems and go straight to Terra.

The so called defences around the eye of Terror are like having outposts on a border one thousand miles apart watching for rabbit's crossing into the country.

Wasn't it that Cadia is a sort of bottleneck, and that warp travel is extremely hazardous in other regions around the gateway system? "Entire fleets getting lost" kind of dangerous, I mean.

It still sounds a bit fishy when you think about it (without a way to intercept vessels within the warp, Abby's fleet could just pass by and go straight for Terra) ... but maybe the Chaos Gods themselves are toying with Abbadon and his followers. After all, it is not in their interest to have the conflict resolved once and for all.

Well in that case you need to ask why the Imperium feel allright risking entire fleets dropping in and out of the warp all over the galaxy but Abaddon only trusts the Eye of Terror?

 Lynata wrote:
Wasn't it that Cadia is a sort of bottleneck, and that warp travel is extremely hazardous in other regions around the gateway system? "Entire fleets getting lost" kind of dangerous, I mean.

It still sounds a bit fishy when you think about it (without a way to intercept vessels within the warp, Abby's fleet could just pass by and go straight for Terra) ... but maybe the Chaos Gods themselves are toying with Abbadon and his followers. After all, it is not in their interest to have the conflict resolved once and for all.

With Cadia essentially a stalemate, the Chaos Gods seem perfectly content to let the conflict continue as long as needed. Meanwhile the Alpha Legion continues doing Gods know what in their closet loyalist "kill chaos by destroying humanity" plans.

 Glorioski wrote:
Well in that case you need to ask why the Imperium feel allright risking entire fleets dropping in and out of the warp all over the galaxy but Abaddon only trusts the Eye of Terror?

The Eye of Terror is their safe haven, the Imperium doesn't dare go after them (at least not in grand scale) and pretty much lets them rule their worlds as they wish. They might have a much harder time trying to hold territory elsewhere in the galaxy.

In short, back after the Horus Heresy Abbadon and his people have locked themselves into the locker, and the pursueing Imperial forces stopped just before the door. What makes it next to impossible for the Imperials to enter also makes it difficult for Abbadon and his guys to leave en masse - but they've had sufficient time to build up their forces, or at least that's what they think. And now in 999.M41, it's showtime.

Arcsquad12 wrote:With Cadia essentially a stalemate, the Chaos Gods seem perfectly content to let the conflict continue as long as needed. Meanwhile the Alpha Legion continues doing Gods know what in their closet loyalist "kill chaos by destroying humanity" plans.

Aye - although I was under the impression that GW has turned back the clock a few minutes, maybe? It sounds as if the invasion of Cadia is just starting in earnest, as if the global campaign never happened. Or at least that was the impression I got from the 6E rulebook.

 Glorioski wrote:
Well in that case you need to ask why the Imperium feel allright risking entire fleets dropping in and out of the warp all over the galaxy but Abaddon only trusts the Eye of Terror?

I think Loyalist/Traitor ships can move through the warp to wherever they need, but Abbaddon wants to break open the Cadian Gate so that daemons can flood out, because I'm assuming it's much more of a hassle for daemons to appear elsewhere.

It's not like the Traitor Legions are stuck in the Eye of Terror, right?

 Lynata wrote:
Wasn't it that Cadia is a sort of bottleneck, and that warp travel is extremely hazardous in other regions around the gateway system? "Entire fleets getting lost" kind of dangerous, I mean.

It still sounds a bit fishy when you think about it (without a way to intercept vessels within the warp, Abby's fleet could just pass by and go straight for Terra) ... but maybe the Chaos Gods themselves are toying with Abbadon and his followers. After all, it is not in their interest to have the conflict resolved once and for all.

The Cadian Gate is where the warp is calmest, the Eye of Terror is surrounded by Warp storms and Cadia is the only way out for large fleets.

I have often made the same argument and believe that it is entirely achievable which is why I often state that the Black Crusades are not all about Terra, at least not until the final one. it is possible to this and pretty much what happened in the Ghost War, minus the going to Terra part or that we know of at least. This is why Cadia, or so I believed was always important and a necessary piece of the final attack on Terra as a launching base for an attack in realspace.

I also agree that the Crimson path makes no sense. Well, it does, it just seems to a be a bit of a gak idea. The description of what is intended in the 13th Black Crusade seems to differ when mention in the codex.

 Lynata wrote:

 Glorioski wrote:
Well in that case you need to ask why the Imperium feel allright risking entire fleets dropping in and out of the warp all over the galaxy but Abaddon only trusts the Eye of Terror?

The Eye of Terror is their safe haven, the Imperium doesn't dare go after them (at least not in grand scale) and pretty much lets them rule their worlds as they wish. They might have a much harder time trying to hold territory elsewhere in the galaxy.

30 entire Space Marine chapters not a big deal?

 xSPYXEx wrote:

It's not like the Traitor Legions are stuck in the Eye of Terror, right?

As Lynata says, it is their safe haven but it is also their prison. There are other ways out of the Eye, but nothing to rival the route of Cadia so only smaller fleets would be able to navigate these lesser known paths.

Pilau Rice wrote:30 entire Space Marine chapters not a big deal?

You mean that penitent crusade? Well, it didn't do much good, apparently. In the end, 30.000 Marines is a laughably small force, both in a galactic sense as well as in a "we're going to invade the realm of Chaos itself" kinda deal. The Third War of Armageddon alone saw somewhat above 15.200 Marines in action, and that was just against a bunch of Orks - and supported by countless regiments of the Imperial Guard and two Orders of Battle Sisters.

The Eye of Terror was a suicide mission compared to that.

The tricky thing about the Eye is that the "veil" between realspace and Warp gets thinner the deeper you go in. Sure, you can cleanse a couple planets with mutants on them on the outskirts, but the deeper you go in, the more and stronger daemons you face, until you get to those places where the entire planet turns on you and just swallows your drop pods as they attempt to land on something that looked like a land mass but turns out to be a giant maw. It's the CSM's "home ground", and I do not actually believe it is possible to be victorious there unless the Imperium somehow manages to gain control of the Warp itself (such as with abilities displayed by only two Saints in Imperial history) and simultaneously throwing any and all military forces the IoM can muster at the Eye for one big purge. Of course, the latter would leave the Imperium defenseless against anyone else ...

It's not the CSMs that are the problem, it is the Eye of Terror itself. At least that's what I believe these days.

It may also be that the pylons of Cadia acted as a sort of "Warp Interdictor" for the area. Once you cleared the edge of the Eye, bang, you dropped back into Realspace, and there's Cadia and all its guns.

I like that idea, but you still have Chaos forces "sneaking" by into Imperial space to raid other worlds - as far as into the Segmentum Terra...

That being said, if there is some anomaly that does pull you out into real space, it would probably be easier to escape any patrols and sensors if you crawl through the edge of the system with just 2-3 ships rather than a huge armada which would trigger all sorts of warning bells. In essence, the larger the fleet, the better the chance it gets detected and engaged.
Kind of like Cadia and its neighboring worlds acting similar to the Cold War SOSUS tracking Soviet submarines trying to pass through the gap between Greenland and the UK?

I could live with this theory.

 Arcsquad12 wrote:

What is the point of controlling Cadia if you are just going to suck it into the Eye of Terror? Without that stable path in and out to ferry Chaos's forces, they are still trapped in the Warp. Eventually, they'd find their next Cadian Gate equivalent, by which time the Imperium would just turn that into their next fortress world. It seems like an incredibly wasteful and slow tactic for Chaos that defeats the whole purpose of conquering Cadia. Without that passage, they're back at square one.

This plan comes from Abbadon, what did you except? Tactical genius?

And Cadia will remain stalemate for as long as it takes, it seems that GW plan to start end times right there because we have rumors of Chaos Primarchs approaching and at least one loyalist Primarch approaching too ( Lion, together with entire Dark Angel chapter + possible all successor chapters ).
But GW, being like they are ( total retards ) we will be lucky to see endtimes beginning in some 50 years or more. And one funny thing: Cadia is under attack and siege for how long now? And it is still miraculously sending Cadian Regiments all over the galaxy... you would think that all those Cadians would return to defend their homeworld...

 Brother Captain Alexander wrote:

And one funny thing: Cadia is under attack and siege for how long now? And it is still miraculously sending Cadian Regiments all over the galaxy... you would think that all those Cadians would return to defend their homeworld...

Erm, how would they know that it's under a great attack (it's unlikely that the extent of the 13th Black Crusade is going to be common knowledge), and how would they get there? They need transportation from the Imperial Navy. If they aren't ordered there, they don't get to go there, homeworld or not.

As for the Crimson Path, I'm assuming that the Eye of Terror is somewhat unqiue in how dangerous it is to get in and out. I don't recall hearing that the Maelstrom is as restricted (and besides, didn't the Gothic War bypass the Cadian Gate?), for instance. As such I'd imagine that past the actual gate you can enlarge the Eye since it'll essentially just be a normal Warp-overbleed and so still have relative freedom of movement (even if the Warp energies likely make navigation more difficult). Either way, turning Cadia into a Daemonworld means the Imperium can't retake it. Exterminatus would be the only option, and that's only if they can get into a position to do so.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

Erm, how would they know that it's under a great attack (it's unlikely that the extent of the 13th Black Crusade is going to be common knowledge), and how would they get there? They need transportation from the Imperial Navy. If they aren't ordered there, they don't get to go there, homeworld or not.

Imperium is pulling the Regiments all over the galaxy and throwing it at Cadian Eye ( they are all due to arrive at the beginning of M42'nd ), but surprisingly only Cadian Regiments are not called back out of all of them. It is true they didn't receive any orders to come back, but they would sure protest when they hear it. I mean, you don't pull so much military force and nobody notice it.

As for the Crimson Path, I'm assuming that the Eye of Terror is somewhat unqiue in how dangerous it is to get in and out. I don't recall hearing that the Maelstrom is as restricted (and besides, didn't the Gothic War bypass the Cadian Gate?), for instance. As such I'd imagine that past the actual gate you can enlarge the Eye since it'll essentially just be a normal Warp-overbleed and so still have relative freedom of movement (even if the Warp energies likely make navigation more difficult). Either way, turning Cadia into a Daemonworld means the Imperium can't retake it.

Fluff stated 1.00.000x that Cadian Gate ( space aroudn Cadian System ) is the only stable path into the Eye of Terror, and with Cadia engulfed in Warp that only path would be lost and all Chaos Legions would remain trapped into the Eye until somewhere stable path is created and they can go trough ( this happened before but it is rare and last only limited amount of time ). With taking over Cadia Abaddon would lock himself and Chaos Legions for who knows how long, and who knows when new stable path would be created - it could be in a year or 1000 years.

Exterminatus would be the only option, and that's only if they can get into a position to do so.

They are because Imperium is still controlling space over Cadia, so the moment that planet fell they can drop it right on traitor Legions and Daemon Primarchs.
But with Imperium's large force arriving I think that Cadia will be retaken, even if Daemon Primarch return Jonson may awaken and take control over all Dark Angels and their successors there and in combination of remaining Cadians and newly arrived Imperial forces beat them.
But that would basically move timeline forward so.... not going to happened, at least not soon enough.

The Cadians can still be deployed across the galaxy because of the Imperium's air superiority. Abaddon is stuck on the ground with most of his fleet in tatters. He's got a huge army that could give the planet a run for its money, but Chaos doesn't have the resources at hand to stop the offworld regiments from coming and going.

The idea doesn't make sense, but it was the best they could come up with and still try to incorporate the 13th crusade ending. Having Abbadon trapped on the ruins of Cadia while the imperium fleet begins extermanatus really isn't how they wanted it to end.

So to explain this they came up with the Wiley E. Coyote certified super genius plan that Abbadon Meant To Do That.

First, it's Failbaddon what do you expect?

Second, the way I originally saw it was the creation of a string of daemon worlds that would be impossible to reconquer and lead toward Terra.

Third, that has to be wrong because it's a gak idea. It's great that they will forever steal worlds from the Imperium but the CSM still have to get a superior fleet to proceed any deeper they clearly don't have considering they are trapped on the planet now after their fleet got devastated. Quite frankly it makes sense too. The production capabilities of the Imperium are infinitely superior to CSM even when taking into account the other threats they have had to deal with. The CSM will need to wait for the Necrons to vaporize, the Tau to convert, and the Nids to nomnom a significant part of the IoM before they can compete successfully.

Arcsquad12 wrote:The Cadians can still be deployed across the galaxy because of the Imperium's air superiority. Abaddon is stuck on the ground with most of his fleet in tatters. He's got a huge army that could give the planet a run for its money, but Chaos doesn't have the resources at hand to stop the offworld regiments from coming and going.

Also, I think that we might be forgetting how this timeline operates. It isn't moving. Events are inserted retroactively. The 13th Black Crusade has not been going on for several years, it "just started" by the end of 999.M41, and even if you would pull back all Cadian regiments from everywhere else it would take them months to return, so many would only get back to Cadia at about M42 ... meaning never, as the timeline does not move forward. As far as GW is concerned, the 13th Black Crusade isn't a story for you to read, but a setting for you to play in.

Besides, the Imperium at large does not "currently" expect the fighting at Cadia to be so decisive and destructive that they should throw everything they have at the region, including having Cadian regiments already engaged in a campaign pull back and redeploy, sacrificing countless victories that might in many cases only require a few more months of combat operations, and make the Imperium's home territories collapse like a card house just to reinforce one border. Much better to let them finish their job and then send them into the fight for the Gateway Region. In the meantime, there are other forces who take their place:

612 Cadian Regiments alone?

Good luck penetrating this meat shield Failbadon.

Well, distributed to several worlds in the gateway region ...

... but yes, the forces of Chaos have their work cut out for them.

I'm beginning to wonder why the Imperium just doesn't flood the world with Krieg regiments. Vat cloned siege experts that would fortify the world in a manner that would make Perturabo blush.

Hrm... I wonder WTF a Psi-Titan is.

 Lynata wrote:
As far as GW is concerned, the 13th Black Crusade isn't a story for you to read, but a setting for you to play in.

This. Although I still have the WD where the campaign results were published and it kinda does seem like the crusade ended with Abaddon's boys stuck on the planets they managed to touch down on while the Navy ran circles around the chaos fleet, and Abaddon's ultimate goal was unsuccessful.

However, Abaddon's plan still makes no sense. I have a feeling it was invented by a writer who was trying to address the grief the fans were giving Abaddon for his 12 previous "failed" black crusades. Like "oh, it was all part of the plan." But that Crimson Path garbage sounds too much like a war of attrition. Abaddon would probably run out of chaos space marines who were veterans of the Heresy before he got halfway. I mean, sheesh, they've been fighting almost non-stop for 10k years. How many of them could there possibly still be?

Actually, the results of the 13th Black Crusade were written by a world-wide event that players participated in... and were actually somewhat re-written because the Imperium got its ass handed to it.

 Psienesis wrote:
Actually, the results of the 13th Black Crusade were written by a world-wide event that players participated in... and were actually somewhat re-written because the Imperium got its ass handed to it.

The WD article about the end (way back when Andy Chambers was still on board) said it was a minor chaos victory. Heck, chaos was actually defeated on some of the planetary conflicts, including Caliban.
And let's not forget how Abaddon's right hand man went off on his own and got himself killed.

Yes... but that's not taking into account that Chaos won *far* more battles than they lost, and that, as a result of the campaign, Cadia has, effectively, fallen. Sure, the ground war continues, but the Kasrs are burning, the pylons are down, and neighboring sectors are falling to raiders, attacks on their Forgeworlds, Zombie Plagues and worse. Cadia's reinforcements may arrive far too late to do anything of worth. Even if Cadia should be reclaimed, its defenses against the Warp itself are gone, and the Gate is now open.

It's a great time for narrative tales in the 40K universe.

 Lynata wrote:

Pilau Rice wrote:30 entire Space Marine chapters not a big deal?

You mean that penitent crusade? Well, it didn't do much good, apparently. In the end, 30.000 Marines is a laughably small force, both in a galactic sense as well as in a "we're going to invade the realm of Chaos itself" kinda deal. The Third War of Armageddon alone saw somewhat above 15.200 Marines in action, and that was just against a bunch of Orks - and supported by countless regiments of the Imperial Guard and two Orders of Battle Sisters.

The Eye of Terror was a suicide mission compared to that.

YEE HAA, but it was cool, doomed to fail, but cool. I wouldn't say 30 Space Marine chapters is a small force, not in modern day 40k standards at least. Armageddon is also a very important place the Eye is important, but not somewhere you want to be sending troops.

 Lynata wrote:

The tricky thing about the Eye is that the "veil" between realspace and Warp gets thinner the deeper you go in. Sure, you can cleanse a couple planets with mutants on them on the outskirts, but the deeper you go in, the more and stronger daemons you face, until you get to those places where the entire planet turns on you and just swallows your drop pods as they attempt to land on something that looked like a land mass but turns out to be a giant maw. It's the CSM's "home ground", and I do not actually believe it is possible to be victorious there unless the Imperium somehow manages to gain control of the Warp itself (such as with abilities displayed by only two Saints in Imperial history) and simultaneously throwing any and all military forces the IoM can muster at the Eye for one big purge. Of course, the latter would leave the Imperium defenseless against anyone else ...

It's not the CSMs that are the problem, it is the Eye of Terror itself. At least that's what I believe these days.

Kinda how I see it, you enter through more or less normal space, being Cadia, and the deeper you get you eventually just pop into the warp and get eaten by a Chaos God

 Psienesis wrote:
Actually, the results of the 13th Black Crusade were written by a world-wide event that players participated in... and were actually somewhat re-written because the Imperium got its ass handed to it.

Which they seem to have forgotten about, which I don't understand really. Kind of makes the whole thing pointless if you aren't going to recognise the result.

I read the Crimson Path over a few times last night and it made a little more sense to me. Abaddon is basically trying to light a gunpowder trail all the way to Terra starting with Cadia, and the Gundpowder being blood. As he moves from planet to planet he'll soak the ground with blood, bringing forth Daemons and as more and more Daemons awaken the Eye will expand. It's kind of like the Tyranids being drawn to the Atronomicon.

Pilau Rice wrote:YEE HAA, but it was cool, doomed to fail, but cool. I wouldn't say 30 Space Marine chapters is a small force, not in modern day 40k standards at least. Armageddon is also a very important place the Eye is important, but not somewhere you want to be sending troops.

Well, definitively not small when you think about the total number of Marines, true - but small when you think about what they can accomplish without any sort of support, that's what I meant. One does not simply walk into the Eye of Terra with just 30.000 guys.

I agree about it being a cool piece of fluff - and would love GW to write some more on that. They probably won't, but I'd be really curious about details such as who this Saint was, how he lost his political pull, and what battles these 30 Chapters have fought in the Eye. Lots of story potential to be sure ...

Pilau Rice wrote:Which they seem to have forgotten about, which I don't understand really. Kind of makes the whole thing pointless if you aren't going to recognise the result.

I can sorta understand them, in that the 13th Black Crusade is cooler as a setting when the outcome of the initial invasion is not yet determined - as it was by the worldwide campaign. I think GW's mistake was to make this an event in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the idea of global campaigns (and would hope that GW does it again), but they should be fought about planets or systems that are important, yet not quite as essential as Cadia. Medusa V and Armageddon were good examples of how it should be, I think. Cadia on the other hand ... well, it would have been good if GW had not chickened out back then already by watering down the results. Either you're willing to move the timeline and make it a "living world" where players can actually drive the story forward, or you shouldn't invoke the impression that it's possible in the first place. GW sorta aimed for the middle ground, and that was the real fail. By basically "annulling" the global campaign now (if that really is what they intend to do) they can at least have a fresh start at the 13th Black Crusade, even though it still sucks for the players involved ... and some very fluff that would be lost in the process.

The official GW Eye of Terror campaign results depicting the opening phases of the 13th Black Crusade, from the WD:

Reproduced unedited:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/392010.page