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Abaddon and his "failed" Crusades


Kol Saresk

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So, basically it's been dished out that the whole 13 Crusades are failures because only one managed to breach the Chaos Gate. But it is also a noted fact that during every single one of the Crusades, Abaddon had a "secondary"(You could see that it was actually the purpose of the Crusade) objective that had always been achieved. So my question is this, since he had achieved every "secondary" objective in every Crusade, captured I think it was Three(?) Black Fortresses, built at least two Planetkillers and breached the Cadian Warpgate and opened it to all of the denizens of the Eye, is he truly a failure?
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Looking at the new codex, the fluff on the Black Crusades appear to have been more "streamlined" into quests for specific objects, rather than wars to overthrow the Imperium. The first, to recover Drach'nyen, must surely be considered a success? Likewise, when you re-focus the 13th not to be the downfall of Cadia, but to claim a Blackstone Fortress, Abby isn't faring so bad.

 

It's retconning, of course, but to be fair, I think it's high time that GW retcons one of the most iconic Horus Heresy-survivors into something more than "Failadon".

Looking at the new codex, the fluff on the Black Crusades appear to have been more "streamlined" into quests for specific objects, rather than wars to overthrow the Imperium. The first, to recover Drach'nyen, must surely be considered a success? Likewise, when you re-focus the 13th not to be the downfall of Cadia, but to claim a Blackstone Fortress, Abby isn't faring so bad.

 

It's retconning, of course, but to be fair, I think it's high time that GW retcons one of the most iconic Horus Heresy-survivors into something more than "Failadon".

 

Very much agree concerning "about time with the retconning".

 

He is supposed to be the bogeyman of the 40k universe and GW therefore needed to quietly erase the feeling that he had launched 13 failed crusades.

As far as I can tell, it's not a retcon so much as a shift in focus. The side objectives were always there. But the impression given was that every Crusade existed only to attack Terra. Now they are simply pointing out the fact that yes, all Thirteen of the Crusades were building up to the burning of Terra, but each one had its own purpose and that purpose was achieved.
There was one in the 12th Crusade that was destroyed and there was a second one in the Thirteenth Crusade. Before the retcon from "Success" to "Gaining momentum", it had been disabled in orbit over a planet that was between the Eye of Terror and Terra.

I see nothing as retconned. The Black Crusades have always been to make sorties out to collect the items needed to be a beefcake. One crusade was to recover the sword, another to capture Blackstones, etc. This is how the fluff has been since over a decade, so it's nothing new to me. He's been more and more successful every time.

 

As for the Planetkiller, it has always been written that way. A squadron of lunar class cruisers torpedoed it at max range at the end of the 12th crusade, but its destruction was never confirmed. Then it showed up in the 13th. Again, nothing has changed here, this is how it's always been.

I didn't pay much attention to the 13th, I missed that. Interesting. I guess they've got some pretty impressive shipyards in the eye by now.

 

The mechanicus pretends it's impossible that the Planetkiller could have been made in the material realm. Impressive ? Yeah, that might be the word.

I didn't pay much attention to the 13th, I missed that. Interesting. I guess they've got some pretty impressive shipyards in the eye by now.

 

Well, in the fluff, it often takes centuries to build large hulls, like Grand Cruisers and above (yes, yes, it`s inconsistent since during the Great Crusade they apparantly had created large Battleships, while in other parts of the fluff, these takes as I said, centuries to build). In the fluff, there is also a quite considerable part of the mechanicum that sided with Horus.

 

My point is, that its about time the "Dark" mechanicum started to roll out some capital hulls. After all, they are masters of warpfuse, and one ought to think they should be able to spew out some very impressive hulls after 10 milenna :D

So, basically it's been dished out that the whole 13 Crusades are failures because only one managed to breach the Chaos Gate. But it is also a noted fact that during every single one of the Crusades, Abaddon had a "secondary"(You could see that it was actually the purpose of the Crusade) objective that had always been achieved. So my question is this, since he had achieved every "secondary" objective in every Crusade, captured I think it was Three(?) Black Fortresses, built at least two Planetkillers and breached the Cadian Warpgate and opened it to all of the denizens of the Eye, is he truly a failure?

 

 

I never viewed him as a failure. It has always been my contention that that viewpoint is Imperial propaganda. It also seems to me that the "major" parts of the fighting in the first 12 crusades where nothing more than a large scale distraction so that he could accomplish his real objectives and have the added bonuses of testing the Imperial defenses, drain Imperial resources, and cause fear in Imperial sectors....

 

~BtW

and have the added bonuses of testing the Imperial defenses, drain Imperial resources, and cause fear in Imperial sectors....

Additionally weeding out elements of his own force that would threaten his authority / break off and do their own thing if he didn't do anything soon? :huh:

 

Sounds like something Abaddon would do to me.

 

TDA

and have the added bonuses of testing the Imperial defenses, drain Imperial resources, and cause fear in Imperial sectors....

Additionally weeding out elements of his own force that would threaten his authority / break off and do their own thing if he didn't do anything soon? :yes:

 

Sounds like something Abaddon would do to me.

 

TDA

 

 

Yup..... I can definitely see that!

 

~BtW

I never viewed him as a failure. It has always been my contention that that viewpoint is Imperial propaganda. It also seems to me that the "major" parts of the fighting in the first 12 crusades where nothing more than a large scale distraction so that he could accomplish his real objectives and have the added bonuses of testing the Imperial defenses, drain Imperial resources, and cause fear in Imperial sectors....

 

~BtW

 

I've always held the viewpoint that if Abaddon was truly a failure, how would he be able to drum up support for 13 Black Crusades to begin with? (Though IIIRC one or two of them were led by named daemon princes)

 

I think on some of them, the damage to the Imperium/slaves taken/booty gained for the various Legions/Renegades keeps his status as a facilitator intact, but on each of these crusades he has always had an ulterior motive for his own benefit. Makes sense to me, as why would Abaddon care for any other legion but his own, and even then he would probably betray them if he came out ahead in the summation.

 

From some recent BL fluff (I find it weird that a lot of people decry most BL novels as non-canon but flock to the feet of A-D-:yes: at one point that's pretty much what ol' Abby was planning to do the a subset of the NL during the 13th BC but they did it to him first.

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