Black Legion Supplement Hardcover Release

[Excessus]

Yeah, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" is a quote most fitting for our beloved Thousand Sons.

 

 

But speaking of the mutating bit, there are Thousand Sons Daemon Princes in the fluff, which wouldn't be possible without mutating...and obviously, the crappy codex also further the idea...

[Prot]

I think some of the problems being discussed here are a side effect of a 'game' with a rich background that's been partially written by a zillion people, and then tweaked to fit a gaming system.

 

I've often sat back and wondered how certain things would get fleshed out for chaos that kind of don't really make sense, or have changed a bit. This codex, and the Horus series in general have done a lot for Abaddon for instance.

 

Conversely I'm still not sure why a Chaos Marine would ever want to be possessed. It seems the exact opposite of what they were bred for. I dunno. Or now the discussion of what a Daemon Prince actually does as a day job. It seems no one really fleshed that out much and now we have to see where it goes since at this point in the story I think Fulgrim (lunatic anyway) and I guess Perturabo are now.... Daemon/Primarchs? Oh and I guess that includes Angron too now.

 

I'm very curious how they will be handled going forward in the story.

[Phoros]

Conversely I'm still not sure why a Chaos Marine would ever want to be possessed. It seems the exact opposite of what they were bred for.

Power, I guess. In the Word Bearers trilogy, there's a Posessed Marine who seems to share control with the daemon; likewise for the Gal Vorbak from the Horus Heresy. If I remember right, I think that some sources have said that whether you shackle the daemon and use it, or be taken over by it, depends on the posessee's willpower.

[Midnightmare]

Having started a (Khornate heavy) Black Legion army on account of the supplement, all I can say is I am soooooooo looking forward to your work ADB.

[Sception]

 

 

But rubric cleaned the 1ksons from any mutation , they armors are not mutated , the sorcs maybe , specialy if they wearing demon power armor , but 1ksons are runing around in non mutated power armor suits .

The original Thousand Sons are cleansed from mutation. Newer recruits wouldn't be so fortunate...

how would they even get new recruits . they  don't have the gene seed so can't make pre rubric marines and the last time rubric was cast it was cast on a very specific group of people [no idea if it would work on humans or  non 1ksons marines] and required so much power that it was never cast again en mass.

 

 

 

As stories goes , what I like to see is the world from the bottom tiers. The main character always has plot armor [specialy if there is 1+tome planed] , but it is less thicker then for a some dudes that become marines , then someone like abadon. Does not mean tha t abadon is a bad character to write/read about , of course not . But it is more fun for me to read books technicly abadon , but which tell me more about chaos cosmology or the black legion , then be another "Tales of Draigo:Chaos Strikes Back:". Not that I dislike the hackn'slash/heroic type of books , I smuggled Conans in to Russia [and at the time I did it you and your family could get in to serious trouble for that] , when I was a kid.

 

Wasn't it part of the lore that Magnus was trying to rebuild his legion?  Only way to do that is with new recruits, and I imagine the Sons recruit the same way every other legion in the Eye does it, by corrupting loyalist marines, stealing uncorrupted geneseed from dead loyalists, or contracting Fabulous Bill to whip up some 'new men' out of cultists and feral world chaos warriors.

 

Yeah, they aren't making new rubric marines, but that doesn't mean there haven't been new thousand sons.  It's just that new recruits are 'dudes with the mark of tzeentch' instead of 'cult marines'.  Well, sorcerous new recruits might eventually be the squad leaders of cult units, but not the regular rubric guys in the squad.

 

Really, the only chaos legion where it makes any sense for all the chaos marines in the legion to be cult marines is the Death Guard, since joining their cult is a matter of contracting a communicable disease.  With world eaters, to become a berzerker you need to be implanted with the butchers nails, and those are in limited supply, which means not all those who have joined the World Eaters since the heresy can have them - the rest are, again, normal dudes with the mark of khorne.  And well for it, since a military body like the world eaters can't be comprised exclusively of frothing madmen, they need specialists, scouts, heavy support, pilots, etc.  Same with Emperor's Children, not all who join the legion will have gotten the psycho-surgery characteristic of noise marines.  You've got to earn that.

 

 

I happen to appreciate that there's a distinction between 'cult' guys and 'other' guys, nor am I a fan of the 'every single dude in the 40k era legions is a cult dude/30k era vet' mentality that came out of the 3.5 book.  Not that I'm trying to excuse the lack of cult terminators or generic HQs, mind.

[daveNYC]

Problem is that GW's gone with there being only one type of cult troop.  So you get all Slaaneshi cultists being noise marines, etc.  Of course you've then got Lucius as the cult HQ guy, and he's more a slice and dice guy than a Noise Marine, though he does have the Doom Siren.  Having a couple different options on what kind of cult guy your cult guy is would be nice.  Teeth of Khorn and all that.

[A D-B]

No offense, ADB, but I'm curious to see you tackling a series where the main character is pretty much required to kick copious amounts of buttock and end on a triumphant note, given how the Night Lords trilogy (SEE First Claw run away from Blood Angels, Red Corsairs, and eldar!) The First Heretic (WATCH Lorgar have a psychological breakdown and have Corax smack the taste out of his mouth) The Emperor's Gift (LEARN why it is a spectacularly bad idea to hack off Logan Grimnar) played out.

 

Given that Book 3 of this trilogy kind of has to end with Abaddon as King of Hell who won the Legion Wars forever...I guess what I'm trying to long windedly ask is if this presents a unique challenge for you as an author?

 

Book 3 might be a little early for that. There's so, so much to cover with Abaddon and the Black Legion. I mean, look at the Sabbat Worlds Crusade. That spans, like, fifteen books or something. And that's small fry compared to just one Black Crusade - let alone 13 of them, and let alone the Black Legion's formation in the Legion Wars; its early wars in the Eye of Terror, and so on. 

 

Even with the freedom to jump around in time, let's just say that we won't be reaching the 13th Black Crusade any time soon. Way too much cool stuff to play around with first.

 

That's the weirdest part of this: not writing the underdogs, which I tend to do. But there're ways around that (commonly seen in the best historical fiction, too) such as focusing on the characters around the "famous" one, like how the main character in Gates of Fire isn't a Spartan in the phalanx, but the squire of an officer; and the main character in The Winter King isn't 'King' Arthur, but rather one of his regiment leaders. 

 

tl;dr -- Not a unique challenge, but definitely a different one. 

 

---   ---   ---

 

"First we will come to Ezekyle Abaddon. My Warmaster, my brother, burdened by responsibility beyond any other warrior that has ever lived. The man who watches the galaxy burn through eyes bleached gold by the light of a false god.

 

When I had last seen him, he told me of his intent to walk among the Radiant Worlds. To reach those planets savaged by the burning light of the Astronomican, we had to sail through the Avernus Breach."

[Prot]

ADB, I envy you in a way. What a huge opportunity to represent Abaddon as 'Darth Vader' in this series as opposed to the school yard bully he's been portrayed as thus far.

 

I guess it could be intimidating as well, but it's such a great chance to spread your wings on a very mediocre 'super villain'. I'm sure you'll do very well with it. The codex has given a good groundwork (even if it is just a glimpse) in the right direction.

 

Perhaps I'm most eagerly awaiting Abaddon's 'Captains' or 'Warlords' or whatever they will be called. I see these guys could be a total blank slate and provide us with a lot of entertainment and food for our gaming appetites. (Personally I've always wanted one of his Sorcs to be a little more interesting. There's so much room to play there!)

 

It's going to be a good time moving forward. Chaos may not play nearly as popular or potent as they did 10 years ago, BUT it sounds like they'll be a strong character army with rich background by the time this stuff all gets rolling.

 

For example, Dan Abnett is pretty much the major reason I started this project: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/265166-prots-blood-pact-ig/?p=3231124

[Trevak Dal]

I think some of the problems being discussed here are a side effect of a 'game' with a rich background that's been partially written by a zillion people, and then tweaked to fit a gaming system.

 

I've often sat back and wondered how certain things would get fleshed out for chaos that kind of don't really make sense, or have changed a bit. This codex, and the Horus series in general have done a lot for Abaddon for instance.

 

Conversely I'm still not sure why a Chaos Marine would ever want to be possessed. It seems the exact opposite of what they were bred for. I dunno. Or now the discussion of what a Daemon Prince actually does as a day job. It seems no one really fleshed that out much and now we have to see where it goes since at this point in the story I think Fulgrim (lunatic anyway) and I guess Perturabo are now.... Daemon/Primarchs? Oh and I guess that includes Angron too now.

 

I'm very curious how they will be handled going forward in the story.

 

 

I'm totally with you on the Possessed bit, but maybe they see it as some twisted form of faith, or a desperate act.

[Sception]

ADB, I envy you in a way. What a huge opportunity to represent Abaddon as 'Darth Vader' in this series as opposed to the school yard bully he's been portrayed as thus far.

 

Actually, I think one of the biggest problems with the portrayal of Abaddon through the years has been using Darth Vader as a model.  Darth Vader was one of the most powerful figures in a galaxy-spanning evil empire with unlimited resources and man power.  One of the things Star Wars did with Vader to establish his character was have him murder his underlings for basically any failure, no matter how small, even if it couldn't have been there fault.  He also terrorized and slaughtered entire planets of civillians to terrorize other systems into obedience and tighten imperial control.  And all of that made sense for a co-ruler of an evil organization with limitless resources seeking to maintain the control that it already has and looking to isolate and weed out a much smaller resistance with painfully limited resources and manpower.

 

But in 40k, none of that describes the Chaos Legions.  That describes the Empire.  So when Abaddon acts like Darth Vader, he just comes off as an idiot.  When Abaddon in BFG fires on his own ships, or when Abaddon's master of fleet in Pandorax decides his only hope is to desert the Black Legion because Abaddon will kill him for not magically defeating an insanely superior fleet in a straight up naval battle, when those things happen Abbadon comes off as a blithering idiot, because, unlike the Empire in Star Wars, the Chaos Legions in 40k don't have limitless resources in terms of manpower or machinery, and instead of picking on insanely outgunned rebels, they're going up against an Empire far larger and far more powerful than themselves.  Abaddon doesn't have manpower or machinery to spare.  There aren't any more heresy era traitor marines rolling off the assembly line.  Chaos can't just pump out entire chapters of new marines whenever they want, when they want to recruit it has to be an elaborate, centuries long plot just to corrupt or steal the geneseed for a few handfulls of new chaos marines.  And while Chaos has Daemon Forges cranking out ships and war engines, their output is nothing compared to the Imperium, which can and does have the resources of a galaxy-spanning empire dumped into its practically infinite warmachine.

 

The master of fleet from pandorax should have been expecting a massive reward from Abaddon for holding off a superior Imperial fleet as long as they did, and then getting most of their capitol ships out intact, if damaged, when surprise reinforcements dwarfing both already engaged fleets showed up to support the imperials, but instead, no, the moment he has to back down or risk throwing away dozens of ships and countless lives in a hopeless battle, suddenly its "well, that's it for me in the Black Legion, better beg Huron for aid - oh wait no he shot me guess I'm dead now", and yeah, Abaddon just comes off as a stupid, pathetic, shredder-level cartoon villain in that moment.

 

Likewise with the casual slaughter and torture of entire planets.  In 40k, the Chaos Legions aren't the Empire, they're the Rebel Alliance, and like the Rebel Alliance, the strongest tool they have is the propaganda generated by the Imperium's casual and grand scale villainy, driving well meaning insurgents to the banner of anyone who would oppose that evil empire.  Yet why would any such rebels turn to Chaos in 40k when everywhere the Chaos Legions and Abaddon in particular goes, they set about demonstrating just how much worse off the galaxy would be if he was in charge instead?

 

 

Chaos in 40k isn't an Empire asserting dominance.  Maybe within the Eye Abaddon can play that game, but the moment he sets foot outside of the Eye, he's leading an insurgency struggling to pick apart a superior foe through guerrilla tactics.  Abaddon, at least before the 13th Crusade, should be playing the hit and run game - rolling in, causing as much damage as possible, and leaving with as much of his strength intact before the High Lords of the Imperium, panicking at the return of the 'great enemy', and re-route the forces to stop him.  Then they should hear Abby laughing from the eye when those forces reach the blackened, daemon-infested ruins of the battlefield to find he's already gone, then find that they've lost even more from the Tyranids or Tau or Necrons or whoever those forces were fighting to begin with before the Lords of Terra pulled them away.

 

Every time Abaddon rolls into this or that book playing the Darth Vader style 'evil overlord', murdering his best men for 'failing him' by not magically defeating a foe with infinite strength and resources in a straight forward brawl, acting like the chaos marine forces under his command are totally disposable, it just creates this massive dissonance with the position the forces of chaos actually occupy in the 40k lore.

[Tzen]

I don't have much to add to this conversation other than to say how much I am looking forward to the Abaddon series! :D

I won't be getting the Black Legion supplement for at least a month. :(

[A D-B]

 

ADB, I envy you in a way. What a huge opportunity to represent Abaddon as 'Darth Vader' in this series as opposed to the school yard bully he's been portrayed as thus far.

 

Actually, I think one of the biggest problems with the portrayal of Abaddon through the years has been using Darth Vader as a model.  Darth Vader was one of the most powerful figures in a galaxy-spanning evil empire with unlimited resources and man power.  One of the things Star Wars did with Vader to establish his character was have him murder his underlings for basically any failure, no matter how small, even if it couldn't have been there fault.  He also terrorized and slaughtered entire planets of civillians to terrorize other systems into obedience and tighten imperial control.  And all of that made sense for a co-ruler of an evil organization with limitless resources seeking to maintain the control that it already has and looking to isolate and weed out a much smaller resistance with painfully limited resources and manpower.

 

But in 40k, none of that describes the Chaos Legions.  That describes the Empire.  So when Abaddon acts like Darth Vader, he just comes off as an idiot.  When Abaddon in BFG fires on his own ships, or when Abaddon's master of fleet in Pandorax decides his only hope is to desert the Black Legion because Abaddon will kill him for not magically defeating an insanely superior fleet in a straight up naval battle, when those things happen Abbadon comes off as a blithering idiot, because, unlike the Empire in Star Wars, the Chaos Legions in 40k don't have limitless resources in terms of manpower or machinery, and instead of picking on insanely outgunned rebels, they're going up against an Empire far larger and far more powerful than themselves.  Abaddon doesn't have manpower or machinery to spare.  There aren't any more heresy era traitor marines rolling off the assembly line.  Chaos can't just pump out entire chapters of new marines whenever they want, when they want to recruit it has to be an elaborate, centuries long plot just to corrupt or steal the geneseed for a few handfulls of new chaos marines.  And while Chaos has Daemon Forges cranking out ships and war engines, their output is nothing compared to the Imperium, which can and does have the resources of a galaxy-spanning empire dumped into its practically infinite warmachine.

 

The master of fleet from pandorax should have been expecting a massive reward from Abaddon for holding off a superior Imperial fleet as long as they did, and then getting most of their capitol ships out intact, if damaged, when surprise reinforcements dwarfing both already engaged fleets showed up to support the imperials, but instead, no, the moment he has to back down or risk throwing away dozens of ships and countless lives in a hopeless battle, suddenly its "well, that's it for me in the Black Legion, better beg Huron for aid - oh wait no he shot me guess I'm dead now", and yeah, Abaddon just comes off as a stupid, pathetic, shredder-level cartoon villain in that moment.

 

Likewise with the casual slaughter and torture of entire planets.  In 40k, the Chaos Legions aren't the Empire, they're the Rebel Alliance, and like the Rebel Alliance, the strongest tool they have is the propaganda generated by the Imperium's casual and grand scale villainy, driving well meaning insurgents to the banner of anyone who would oppose that evil empire.  Yet why would any such rebels turn to Chaos in 40k when everywhere the Chaos Legions and Abaddon in particular goes, they set about demonstrating just how much worse off the galaxy would be if he was in charge instead?

 

 

Chaos in 40k isn't an Empire asserting dominance.  Maybe within the Eye Abaddon can play that game, but the moment he sets foot outside of the Eye, he's leading an insurgency struggling to pick apart a superior foe through guerrilla tactics.  Abaddon, at least before the 13th Crusade, should be playing the hit and run game - rolling in, causing as much damage as possible, and leaving with as much of his strength intact before the High Lords of the Imperium, panicking at the return of the 'great enemy', and re-route the forces to stop him.  Then they should hear Abby laughing from the eye when those forces reach the blackened, daemon-infested ruins of the battlefield to find he's already gone, then find that they've lost even more from the Tyranids or Tau or Necrons or whoever those forces were fighting to begin with before the Lords of Terra pulled them away.

 

Every time Abaddon rolls into this or that book playing the Darth Vader style 'evil overlord', murdering his best men for 'failing him' by not magically defeating a foe with infinite strength and resources in a straight forward brawl, acting like the chaos marine forces under his command are totally disposable, it just creates this massive dissonance with the position the forces of chaos actually occupy in the 40k lore.

 

Godlike.

[Wade Garrett]

I disagree a bit on the idea that Abaddon can't play attrition games with the Empire.

 

After all, the Warp will never run short of daemons, and every regiment of Traitor Guard that raises the Eight Pointed Star standard counts twofold, as a loss to the Imperium and a gain for Chaos.

 

It's in the use of his Astartes that the Despoiler must exercise restraint, much like the Imperium itself.

 

As for propaganda....look at the cruelties the Imperium perpetuates every day. Its victims don't need to be spoon fed some great lie about the morality of Abaddon's cause, they just need the chance to strike back at those who oppress them.

[Scribe]

Nah malisteen's point still stands. Its the whole reason I cant get behind the 'mindless berzerker 100% of the time' model GW paints for World Eaters in 40K. It simply couldnt function that way.

 

If Abby could get along killing his best whenever he wanted to, the war would be won already, but I am sure ADB will bring in some grounded choices in his series, I look forward to it greatly.

[chillin]

I agree , if chaos especially brzrkrs/khorne armies killed their own half as much as some of the books say they do, chaos wouldn't even be a threat .

[Spacefrisian]

Than again, if we are to believe GW the 41st millenium is pretty barren in terms of human lives.

 

Lets see:

-People being fed to the emperor to keep him and his chair running.

-Exterminated by an inquisitor cause 1 chaos dude showed up.

-Ritually sacrificed for the Greyknights cause it seems they have some inert resistance to chaos.

-Slaughtered by Orks.

-Eaten by the hivemind.

-Harvested by the Necrons

-Taken as slaves by Dark Eldar

-Killed for being on a planet by the Eldar

And loads more.

[Sception]

All the time, chaos marines are used in the fiction as fodder. All the time. Over and over we see ultramarines movie style slaughter of dozens, hundreds, of raving idiot chaos marines by the small bands of loyalists, and it just makes no damn sense. The chaos Legions shouldn't have those kinds of numbers, they should be rare elites, not hordes. Further,they have all the strength of marines,minus the shackles of subservience to the empire, plus all the unholy daemonic power afforded by the favor of dark gods who want nothing more than to bask in the horrors that their mortal champions will unleash.

 

Chaos marines should be portrayed as nigh immortal warrior kings, ancient and terrible and swollen with dark power. They should be rare elite forces, like grey knights. Seeing a chaos marine should be an 'oh, :cuss' moment. The forces of chaos have petty cultist, feral warriors, and the limitless daemonic hordes of the warp to serve the fodder role, true chaos marines should be more than that.

 

It's why I'm still of the opinion that the ideal hypothetical chaos marine codex would look more like the 'lost and the damned' list than any actual chaos marine book gw's put out. Chaos marines in 40k doesn't have the manpower or material strength to be that meaningful a threat on the macro scale, but they should shine on the micro scale, with each individual chaos marine being monstrous in their own right.

 

Instead we have neither. In galactic terms, traitor legions are horribly outmatched and outnumbered, but then whenever we zoom in on a conflict we always see dozens of chaos marines getting cut down like dogs by mere handfulls of loyalists, and it makes the whole faction look pathetic.

 

Some writers are better than others, you of course being better on this than most, ADB, but somebody really needs to go around stapling notes to the foreheads of the rest of the writers, so when they look in the mirror they will see 'in the 41st millenium, the imperium has the advantage in material and manpower. Do not write stories about 'a few brave imperials' fighting off superior forces', thats not how the setting works.

 

It's the same problem as with writing for most modern military shooters. They all want to follow the cliche of having the protagonists be the underdogs fighting the 'good fight' against 'impossible odds', but then they also want to make the Americans the protagonists, and it creates this ridiculous dissonance when the side the plot tells youis the underdog has the obvious military and technological superiority. They have to make up absurd, or insulting, or worse stories in their attempt to 'have their cake and eat it too'.

 

The imperium is America i modern military games. The Imperium is the empire in star wars. The imperium in the 41st millenium is not the underdog, no mattef how many sides it's besieged on. I wish the black library would stop trying to write them that way.

[Prot]

 

ADB, I envy you in a way. What a huge opportunity to represent Abaddon as 'Darth Vader' in this series as opposed to the school yard bully he's been portrayed as thus far.

 

Actually, I think one of the biggest problems with the portrayal of Abaddon through the years has been using Darth Vader as a model.

 

Yea, sorry I didn't mean "Darth Vader" I just meant a character of note. Right now Abaddon is poorly displayed background character. A lot of chaos is.... Plague marines are zombies with bolters, etc.  I just mean character of note... literally. There's a TON of room for him to grow. It looks like it will finally start which is long over due and awesome.

 

Besides... there's only one Vader. ;)

[Phoebus]

 

ADB, I envy you in a way. What a huge opportunity to represent Abaddon as 'Darth Vader' in this series as opposed to the school yard bully he's been portrayed as thus far.

 

There aren't any more heresy era traitor marines rolling off the assembly line.  Chaos can't just pump out entire chapters of new marines whenever they want, when they want to recruit it has to be an elaborate, centuries long plot just to corrupt or steal the geneseed for a few handfulls of new chaos marines.  And while Chaos has Daemon Forges cranking out ships and war engines, their output is nothing compared to the Imperium, which can and does have the resources of a galaxy-spanning empire dumped into its practically infinite warmachine.

 

All the time, chaos marines are used in the fiction as fodder. All the time. Over and over we see ultramarines movie style slaughter of dozens, hundreds, of raving idiot chaos marines by the small bands of loyalists, and it just makes no damn sense. The chaos Legions shouldn't have those kinds of numbers, they should be rare elites, not hordes. Further,they have all the strength of marines,minus the shackles of subservience to the empire, plus all the unholy daemonic power afforded by the favor of dark gods who want nothing more than to bask in the horrors that their mortal champions will unleash.

Chaos marines should be portrayed as nigh immortal warrior kings, ancient and terrible and swollen with dark power. They should be rare elite forces, like grey knights. Seeing a chaos marine should be an 'oh, :cuss' moment. The forces of chaos have petty cultist, feral warriors, and the limitless daemonic hordes of the warp to serve the fodder role, true chaos marines should be more than that.

 

This.  "Veterans of the Long War" should mean something and more often than not it doesn't.  At the very least, when we see loyalist Space Marines prevail against Chaos Space Marines, there should be more emphasis given when their opponents happen to be renegades of the 41st millennium, or otherwise neophytes to the Long War.

 

That having been said, I disagree with your points about how Abaddon conducts his wars and what his strategy should be like.  Abaddon may very well have a vision of how the future of Humanity will be, but I don't think it was ever in the cards that his struggle would be won through public relations.  Mankind will be put through a catastrophic crucible, and only afterwards will the survivors rise ever more powerful thanks to their embracing Chaos.  As such, Abaddon torching planets in genocidal rituals is not the issue... it's whether such a ritual results in a tangible benefit for the Black Legion.

On a similar note, I don't doubt that Abaddon and his forces can play at being insurgents and can do so very well, but I can't picture that being his default modus operandi.  Do the Traitor Legions possess the military might to take on the Imperium of Man in pitched battle?  No.  Does that mean that Abaddon cannot apply overwhelming power at any number of strategic points throughout the Imperium, though?  Of course not!  While the sum of the Imperium's might is unmatched, it is just as true that this might has to be divided across the Galaxy, and the process of bringing this power to where it most needs to be is a time-consuming process.  Often enough, that might never arrives in time.   As such, there is nothing wrong with the theme of Abaddon showing up on Planet X with overwhelming military might that forces the heroes to desperate last stands.

 

To put it in perspective, it has long been a truism (and one that has been re-affirmed in the recent Forgeworld Horus Heresy books) that a Chapter's might is enough to bring ruin to most developed planets in the Imperium of Man.  Assuming Abaddon has a pathway open through the Eye of Terror, I can't imagine a scenario where he won't be able to call upon a Chapter's worth - nay, several Chapters' worth - of firepower to bear against those aforementioned strategic points.  The "insurgency" portion of his campaign begins and ends with the amount of time he needs to travel to and fro without attracting undue attention.

 

Just my humble opinion!  :)

[Sception]

But he can't just show up anywhere at will. The whole point of the cadian gate is that it serves as a bottleneck, the whole point of the black crusades is that it takes a major alliance of factions within the eye to overwhelm the gate and threaten further systems. Yet another reason to be frustrated with Pandorax - how the heck did Abaddon get there in force without anyone noticing to begin with? Not that it's an impossible premise, but it deserves to be explained, at least.

[daveNYC]

I've never really gotten how Cadia is supposed to work as a bottleneck.  OK, I get that the warp around the border of the EoT is extra-special dangerous, and the section near Cadia is stable, thus allowing safer warp transit.  Fine.  What doesn't make sense is why any forces would need to transit back to real space in the Cadian system when they're moving in and out of the eye.  Just stay in the warp and cruise on through without anyone being the wiser.

[Iron_Within]

Plot. 

Maybe you cannot fully translate into the warp while within the Eye, it's a merged realm of the Warp and realspace, so that could kind of make sense in a fudgy sci-fi way. You have to navigate to a point where it's safe to translate, the safest being the passage out of Cadia; and you cannot make a translation easily if you're coming under fire. 

[RapatoR]

Well it is matter of scale. You can get one ship relatively safely out of eye anywhere you wish, however if you want to get a fleet out of it, without becoming too scattered/loosing too many ships, you should use passageways. The bigger the fleet is the bigger passageway you need, so for Black Crusade you need to overwhelm Cadia.

[Phoebus]

But he can't just show up anywhere at will. The whole point of the cadian gate is that it serves as a bottleneck, the whole point of the black crusades is that it takes a major alliance of factions within the eye to overwhelm the gate and threaten further systems. Yet another reason to be frustrated with Pandorax - how the heck did Abaddon get there in force without anyone noticing to begin with? Not that it's an impossible premise, but it deserves to be explained, at least.

 

I agree with the last part of your post, and even then to an extent.  I couldn't name the source off-hand, but there's at least one piece of lore that qualifies the Cadian Gate as the most stable route out of the Eye of Terror, and the one that can accommodate large forces.  How large?  I don't think this concept is ever qualified in numbers (e.g., how many ships), but I imagine it boils down to this:  you need to get past the Cadian Gate if you intend to bring enough ships to truly threaten the Imperium.

 

So, if you're Abaddon, and you need to invade Crythe in order to “repair, outfit and construct Titans to serve in [your] coming crusade" and plunder "huge quantities of materiel and resources ... from the fortress-factories here" then you can apparently get thirteen vessels (including at least two battle-barges: the Vengeful Spirit and the Hunter's Premonition) out of the Eye of Terror without great difficulty.  To those, add Titans and other war-engines.  Nor is the campaign depicted in Soul Hunter unique.  We can extrapolate that Abaddon took a fleet of similar size to Pythos in Pandorax.

 

No, Abaddon won't be invading Armageddon or Cypra Mundi with that force... but he could lay waste to virtually any other system should he wish to.  And that's why his conflicts can only be described as an insurgency when we're talking about his need to withdraw before the Imperium can bring to bear its power.  Until they do so, though, the overwhelming majority of the time Abaddon should be able to enjoy crushing advantages in terms of firepower and manpower - insofar as he will almost always have more Chaos Space Marines than there will be loyalist ones, and his warriors will be worth exponentially more than mortal guardsmen and PDF troopers.  As such, it's only logical that, far more often than not, the "good guys" facing Abaddon will be the ones fighting the desperate last stands.