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I think that a war was never over and Abbaddon didn't lose war! he lost battles or took major damage in battles or whatever ! I mean, all that stuff like "well spec marines kicked his butt mwahaha like 12 times" is trash, you can win battle and lose your whole army ! Look at the game sometimes you win with 10% of your forces after you lose like 90 % of your models on the table ! I think it's goals that matter . Look at Vietnam they lost like 10 time more soldiers but they won that war!( I don't want to offend anyone by this if its sounds like that btw) So i don't really get that all failbadon stuff , I think there's no one like Aby on imperium side !

 darkflame182 wrote:
I think that a war was never over and Abadon didnt luse war! he lost battles or took major damage in battles or what ewer ! I mean all that stuf like well spec marines kicked his but muahaha like 12 time is trash you can win battle losing whole ur army ! Look at the game sometimes you win with your 10% of forces after you lose like 90 % of your models on the table ! I think its goals that mether . Look at Vietnam they lost like 10 time more soldiers but they win that war! ( I dont want to ofend eny on by this if its sounds like that) So i dont realy get that all failbadon stuff i think theres no one like Aby on imperium side !

Was that English?

If I understand what you're on about you think you can win a war after suffering 90% casualties? No, an expeditionary force like the 13th Black Crusade cannot sustain those sorts of casualties against an endless opponent like the Imperium and call it a victory. Luckily, I don't think they're in that situation...

 Still Standing wrote:


Was that English?

If I understand what you're on about you think you can win a war after suffering 90% casualties? No, an expeditionary force like the 13th Black Crusade cannot sustain those sorts of casualties against an endless opponent like the Imperium and call it a victory. Luckily, I don't think they're in that situation...

Abbaddon didnt lose war, he lost battles, war was never over and I meant that a battle may be considered a victory even if your forces got obliterated, but you achieved some of your goals ! + He's chaos, his resources are a lot more flexible than imperium's, he doesn't care if he lost 10 000 heretics, just replace them with demons or new heretics, as long as he achieves his objectives ! For example, if he didn't achieve his goal in first crusade, maybe there wouldn't be a second one ! And so on...

 Still Standing wrote:

Was that English?

Notice that little flag next to his name?

By writing in a second language he's clearly making an effort to engage in the conversation. If you don't want to reciprocate with a small effort to understand him, then just don't answer. I thought his message was perfectly understandable.

tgjensen wrote:

 Still Standing wrote:

Was that English?

Notice that little flag next to his name?

By writing in a second language he's clearly making an effort to engage in the conversation. If you don't want to reciprocate with a small effort to understand him, then just don't answer. I thought his message was perfectly understandable.

No, I didn't. His English is far better than my Latvian. I read his post as a native speaker who was purposefully trying to text speak. I guess that means his English is pretty good.

Ah well, apologies for the snappy tone in my post then. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by an oversight, and all that.

I believe you will find Hanlon's Razoor is "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." That is quite apt here.

If we could leave aside the epeen waving over which faction won/lost what crusade:

The point is precisely that the Imperium doesn't have an equivalent to Abaddon. He's the Warmaster, basically for life. The Imperium occasionally has a Warmaster - or the bowdlerized Lord Solar - but even Macharius didn't command all the resources of the Imperium, though he did have all the elements of his Crusade under his authority.

And that's by design - the settlement after the Heresy was that there would never again be someone like Horus - heck, look what happened when Goge Vandire pulled his mini-Heresy. All this talk about who can beat up whom is pointless; as in the comics world a fan can always cite authorial fiat/external circumstances/plot armour if they don't like a conclusion, and a writer can use the same reasons to produce whatever outcome they feel like. But the narrative role that Abaddon has is not reflected on the Imperial side.

Also, I'm not sure why anyone's committed to the position that Abaddon has failed at 12 crusades. There are any number of human wars in our history that haven't been fought for total conquest, and there's no reason to think that all the Black Crusades were either. I'm also not in favour of the "just as planned" view that each one was an unequivocal success, but that's also an equally boring position.

As an aside, Talon of Horus makes clear - and it's been hinted at plenty of times elsewhere - that there's a distinction to be drawn between the Daemon Primarchs and Abaddon + his mortal chums. Take the basic nature of the Daemon - it's an existence of tension, because a daemon wants to manifest in the mortal world, but also can't do it very easily, because the mortal realm is pretty much anathema to it. The Daemon Primarchs and the gods themselves have sort of the same love/hate relationship going on - it seems quite clear that none of them want total dominion over the physical world, because what would they do then? Angron turns up for some bloodshed now and then, but the others have pretty resolutely been caught up in the otherworld frippery of the gods.

Abaddon - and other veterans of the long war, if I might borrow the phrase - aren't interested in any of that - they want to see the galaxy burn, topple the corpse god, etc. etc. I'm not really concerned that they have anything so inane as governance or legitimacy on their minds beyond that. Imagine, for a moment, that Abaddon succeeds where Horus failed. He shatters the gates of Terra, dethrones the Emperor... then what? Is he going to get up on that grand golden seat himself and rekindle the Great Crusade? Would the gods draw away their favour before or after this moment? Certainly they seem uninterested in extending the Eye of Terror's warp/realspace bleed all across the galaxy - what, after all, would any of them do other than plot against each other, then? (And run up against the Necrons or Tyranids, but that's another plotline).