When did this start?

[Emperors Immortals]

That's the most useless thing I've ever read you son of a motherless goat!.

 

Like that ;)

 

 

 

I am joking, just so no one gets too offended.

[Leif Bearclaw]

Maybe if someone gets to grips with Marneus the whole OTT bubble will finally be popped although given the retcon handed down to the Battle of Maccrage I don't have high hopes

OK, while I acknowledge that I may be having a brain fail here, what Battle of Maccrage retcon are you referring to? The last last addition to that story I can recall atm is Cold Steel Ridge, and Calgar didn't exactly come out of that smelling like roses.

[Bat33.1]

That isn't Abaddon.

Showing him as the amazing leader he would have to be to perservere through all of this and keep going, keep his alliances from falling apart, being constantly able to provide a reason for Chaos to follow him, doesn't automatically mean that he's somehow a Calgar analog or that the Black Legion is the "black Ultramarines", and that he's an amazing leader doesn't mean that all of the sudden, everyone wants to join up. Even when you have an amazingly powerful vision to follow and a leader that can embody it, you will still have many that "like the cause" that simply will not join because they have a different path they want to take.

Is Abaddon an amazing leader? Or is he just the apex predator in the shark pool that is the eye of terror? I don't doubt that some will follow him from legion ties of brotherhood but his former role as the right hand of Horus will be seen as both blessing and curse depending on previous allegiances. Many of the war bands that March behind Abaddon's banner will do so from fear of the consequences rather than any great desire to follow him to Terra for a final reckoning. Even VotLW while they are survivors of the Heresy doesn't mean they still share the desire for revenge of Abaddon, for many survival itself is enough picking their own fights as and when the mood or the gods take them.

[Lucien Eilam]

Is Abaddon an amazing leader?

As portrayed in The Talon of Horus, yes, very much so.

 

Or is he justAnd the apex predator in the shark pool that is the eye of terror?

Fixed. Yes again.

[incinerator950]

One thing I've come to realize through this thread is Abaddon managed to find 13 different builds with the chaos book, a truly great acievment.

 

I'm kidding I love these threads, they expand the game and keep it fresh like chaos should. The only thing better would be if A D-B said something to me, guess I need something worth commenting on first though hmmmm......... *thinking*....

I have probably been put on ignore. After reading a few comments I promptly did the same. Haven't felt that disgusted with words since I read Dianne Feinstein's last joke of a movement.

[Loesh]

I don't feel that way, ADB has points, I listen to them, I don't agree with all of them...but I try to listen, and he's turned my view around on a few things.

 

The people in this thread have, to my knowledge, not been malicious in what they say. I think that's enough to warrant sitting down and hearing it, it's how we change and grow as people.

 

Edit: And i'm not targeting you specifically. There was a post on the other side of the fence that I consider just as bad, without quoting it, it basically said "Saying bad things leads to more bad things, so just ignore it and remain positive!" I feel that is complete nonsense. Humans are not naturally introspective creatures, if no one points out when they are acting foolish, they would continue to be foolish.

 

Even if I think someones a complete idiot, even if 99% of the time I feel their opinion is completely wrong, there's still that 1% because even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[A D-B]

 

I have probably been put on ignore.

 

 

I didn't know we could ignore people on here, and anyone who ignored you would be missing some of the forum's best wisecracks.

 

I don't know if you're referring to me with the remark about ignoring, by the way, but in case you are (and if there are ever any actual insults going around) the report button is totally fair use, dude.

[Kol Saresk]

 

That isn't Abaddon.

Showing him as the amazing leader he would have to be to perservere through all of this and keep going, keep his alliances from falling apart, being constantly able to provide a reason for Chaos to follow him, doesn't automatically mean that he's somehow a Calgar analog or that the Black Legion is the "black Ultramarines", and that he's an amazing leader doesn't mean that all of the sudden, everyone wants to join up. Even when you have an amazingly powerful vision to follow and a leader that can embody it, you will still have many that "like the cause" that simply will not join because they have a different path they want to take.

Is Abaddon an amazing leader? Or is he just the apex predator in the shark pool that is the eye of terror? I don't doubt that some will follow him from legion ties of brotherhood but his former role as the right hand of Horus will be seen as both blessing and curse depending on previous allegiances. Many of the war bands that March behind Abaddon's banner will do so from fear of the consequences rather than any great desire to follow him to Terra for a final reckoning. Even VotLW while they are survivors of the Heresy doesn't mean they still share the desire for revenge of Abaddon, for many survival itself is enough picking their own fights as and when the mood or the gods take them.

 

And that is why 1.)there are so many interpretations of what the Long War is and 2.)why not everyone is Black Legion.

[A D-B]

I don't feel that way, ADB has points, I listen to them, I don't agree with all of them...but I try to listen, and he's turned my view around on a few things.

 

Likewise. The B&C is especially awesome for getting varied perspectives from people that essentially still agree on the lore.

 

I don't post on forums to lay smackdowns of opinion, I do it because it's part of the hobby to me, like everyone else who posts. It has the sideways benefits of also getting to explain some of the complicated/crazy aspects of the lore with a little behind-the-scenes insight (as well as some of the company's workings) not to be smug but because people are legitimately confused or incorrect in their assumptions. More usefully for me, it's also a place to discuss books/career stuff/the licence in a wider pool of perspectives, and as yet another side benefit, it's also useful for getting to see what people want and expect in a novel's presentation of a faction. It doesn't mean kowtowing to that, but a lot of perspectives are still valuable. 

 

A great example is this very thread, and one specific part of it springs to mind. Kol Saresk and Tenebris have largely agreed with me, and I've largely agreed with them, yet they both have vastly different perspectives on certain aspects of the Black Legion, and both have detailed, reasonable conjecture as well as lore sources to back up their angles. I love that stuff. Great to discuss, and great to consider when writing about the faction in question.

[Loesh]

I think a large part of my initial defensiveness was just a combination of a strong identification with the Emperors Children and really valuing individuality when I get into factions in games.

 

I don't -like- the idea of Abaddon leading Chaos and I was confusing that with there actually being a problem, which there wasn't. My particular warband can still be just as badass even if Abaddons behind a lot of the damage to the imperium, when talking about 40k it's important to remember sheer scale...the Black Legion may do a vast amount of the work, but that just means their conquering millions of worlds where the other legions are 'merely' conquering thousands with much fewer resources.

 

I took the Black Legion as a threat to absorbing my favorite faction, but in reality the Emperors Children are still unique in what they do. They still are one of, if not the, best raiders in Chaos and they still have their own legion tactics and unique tools to utilize. So that paranoia I was feeling was wholly unjustified.

[Bat33.1]

I think a large part of my initial defensiveness was just a combination of a strong identification with the Emperors Children and really valuing individuality when I get into factions in games.

 

I don't -like- the idea of Abaddon leading Chaos and I was confusing that with there actually being a problem, which there wasn't. My particular warband can still be just as badass even if Abaddons behind a lot of the damage to the imperium, when talking about 40k it's important to remember sheer scale...the Black Legion may do a vast amount of the work, but that just means their conquering millions of worlds where the other legions are 'merely' conquering thousands with much fewer resources.

 

I took the Black Legion as a threat to absorbing my favorite faction, but in reality the Emperors Children are still unique in what they do. They still are one of, if not the, best raiders in Chaos and they still have their own legion tactics and unique tools to utilize. So that paranoia I was feeling was wholly unjustified.

No you are totally justified to feel the threat, it was just Tzeentch a whispering in your ear - naughty, naughty Magnus ;)

[Loesh]

I think a large part of my initial defensiveness was just a combination of a strong identification with the Emperors Children and really valuing individuality when I get into factions in games.

I don't -like- the idea of Abaddon leading Chaos and I was confusing that with there actually being a problem, which there wasn't. My particular warband can still be just as badass even if Abaddons behind a lot of the damage to the imperium, when talking about 40k it's important to remember sheer scale...the Black Legion may do a vast amount of the work, but that just means their conquering millions of worlds where the other legions are 'merely' conquering thousands with much fewer resources.

I took the Black Legion as a threat to absorbing my favorite faction, but in reality the Emperors Children are still unique in what they do. They still are one of, if not the, best raiders in Chaos and they still have their own legion tactics and unique tools to utilize. So that paranoia I was feeling was wholly unjustified.

No you are totally justified to feel the threat, it was just Tzeentch a whispering in your ear - naughty, naughty Magnus

Pfff, like any of the other three gods could actually influence me, i'm firmly in the Slaanesh camp.

[Balthamal]

 

Maybe if someone gets to grips with Marneus the whole OTT bubble will finally be popped although given the retcon handed down to the Battle of Maccrage I don't have high hopes

OK, while I acknowledge that I may be having a brain fail here, what Battle of Maccrage retcon are you referring to? The last last addition to that story I can recall atm is Cold Steel Ridge, and Calgar didn't exactly come out of that smelling like roses.

 

 

Back in the bygone days of 2nd and 3rd, a big deal was made about just how useless the UMs were proving against Hive Fleet Behemoth. Every stratagem they attempted from the Codex Astartes was met with failure. The combined fleet of UMs, Imperial Navy and any and all who responded to the calls for aid took a beating from the sheer mass of ships and their inability to effectively cripple them. It was only when Calgar was wounded and reflected on how best to respond that he realised the UMs were too proud, that by adhering to the Codex against a foe who were completely outside it's scope was a recipe for disaster. So the tactics were altered and began to pay dividends, allowing the fleet to return to Macragge and attempt to relieve the polar defence fortresses that had been targeted by the nids but all too late, the 1st Company were dead to a man along with the PDF regiments who were stationed there. All in all a great example highlighting the threat posed by the nids along with a fallibility to the UMs that dialled down the Mary Sue - o - meter significantly whilst also presenting them as a bastion of determination and nobility despite the setbacks they'd suffered.

 

Fast forward to later editions, and it's now written that despite the massacre of the 1st Company dirtside, Calgar fought a brilliant fleet action, slowly picking apart the nid fleet and preventing them from deploying en mass to the planet itself, including lots of Superman time for papa smurf. No mention of the fleet being forced to retreat or be annihilated, no mention of the 1st Company effectively being abandoned and grimly deciding that the xenos would only triumph over the cold corpses. No failings, no "the nids are the most dangerous foe to assail the Imperium" just "The UMs won, yes it cost a company but the end result was the UMs won. Can't have anything less from our poster boys"

 

That's my interpretation of it at least. And if anything from the stuff I've posted before shows, I despise elitism without compelling evidence to support it

[Marshal Rohr]

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe if someone gets to grips with Marneus the whole OTT bubble will finally be popped although given the retcon handed down to the Battle of Maccrage I don't have high hopes

OK, while I acknowledge that I may be having a brain fail here, what Battle of Maccrage retcon are you referring to? The last last addition to that story I can recall atm is Cold Steel Ridge, and Calgar didn't exactly come out of that smelling like roses.

Back in the bygone days of 2nd and 3rd, a big deal was made about just how useless the UMs were proving against Hive Fleet Behemoth. Every stratagem they attempted from the Codex Astartes was met with failure. The combined fleet of UMs, Imperial Navy and any and all who responded to the calls for aid took a beating from the sheer mass of ships and their inability to effectively cripple them. It was only when Calgar was wounded and reflected on how best to respond that he realised the UMs were too proud, that by adhering to the Codex against a foe who were completely outside it's scope was a recipe for disaster. So the tactics were altered and began to pay dividends, allowing the fleet to return to Macragge and attempt to relieve the polar defence fortresses that had been targeted by the nids but all too late, the 1st Company were dead to a man along with the PDF regiments who were stationed there. All in all a great example highlighting the threat posed by the nids along with a fallibility to the UMs that dialled down the Mary Sue - o - meter significantly whilst also presenting them as a bastion of determination and nobility despite the setbacks they'd suffered.

 

Fast forward to later editions, and it's now written that despite the massacre of the 1st Company dirtside, Calgar fought a brilliant fleet action, slowly picking apart the nid fleet and preventing them from deploying en mass to the planet itself, including lots of Superman time for papa smurf. No mention of the fleet being forced to retreat or be annihilated, no mention of the 1st Company effectively being abandoned and grimly deciding that the xenos would only triumph over the cold corpses. No failings, no "the nids are the most dangerous foe to assail the Imperium" just "The UMs won, yes it cost a company but the end result was the UMs won. Can't have anything less from our poster boys"

 

That's my interpretation of it at least. And if anything from the stuff I've posted before shows, I despise elitism without compelling evidence to support it

While this specific example would probably be handled poorly if it became just a space marine battles book, it does feel like there is a movement towards taking examples from the codex timelines and turning them into novels or novellas to expand on the story.

 

The thing that makes the Abaddon series so much more interesting to me is the focus on the character and not just a battle. Even in non-40K fiction, fictional books about battles feel weak to me because it focus on the fight itself, and not the reasons people fight. In classical literature the Melian Dialogues outweigh the epic poetry of Battles, because you get to see the underlying motivations. The danger of this in 40K is you'll get an awesome book like TFH or ToH that explains the causes of conflict and build characters that didn't exist before as the vehicle for the exposition, but then some other author will think they can do it as well and end up screwing the whole thing up or just writing a bolter porn book.

 

Prime example of this is Corswain. Awesome in Savage Weapons, but he's a moron in the novella about the DA v Typhons DG.

[Prot]

Kind of off topic:

 

The biggest disagreement I've had with ADB was pertaining to my thread on the EoT campaign when Chaos was king and it was the time of our lives in 40K (on both sides of the fence).

 

Anyway, I strongly believed (and pushed) for a new campaign that actually had allowances and consequences for 'false' change in the fluff. He kind of went on the side of 'it's not going to change' and more or less said this timeline isn't going to have any big changes... of course much more eloquently than that.

 

I just said 'hey if we blow up the deathstar, they'll just build another deathstar'. I strongly believe you could make a LOT of merchandise based on the results of a Chaos campaign. (new unit from capturing planet x, New book based on the battle of Y results. New character for chapter z. etc, etc.)

 

So I am thinking we push for another Black Crusade during the Abaddon series. Talon of Horus already gives us new characters, and some tidly  bits to chew on for fodder.... within 2-3 books I think GW would profit greatly from another EoT like campaign.

[Kol Saresk]

Well one thing that exists in the fluff, but has never really been expanded upon, is that there are more than 13 Black Crusades. There's the Cholercaust, for one thing. The Numbered Crusades are simply the Black Crusades led by Abaddon. So while I don't think we should push for another Abaddon-led Black Crusade, I think we can change the focus and push for a "minor" Crusade, b=much like the Medusa V campaign.

[Leif Bearclaw]

Kind of off topic:

The biggest disagreement I've had with ADB was pertaining to my thread on the EoT campaign when Chaos was king and it was the time of our lives in 40K (on both sides of the fence).

Anyway, I strongly believed (and pushed) for a new campaign that actually had allowances and consequences for 'false' change in the fluff. He kind of went on the side of 'it's not going to change' and more or less said this timeline isn't going to have any big changes... of course much more eloquently than that.

I just said 'hey if we blow up the deathstar, they'll just build another deathstar'. I strongly believe you could make a LOT of merchandise based on the results of a Chaos campaign. (new unit from capturing planet x, New book based on the battle of Y results. New character for chapter z. etc, etc.)

So I am thinking we push for another Black Crusade during the Abaddon series. Talon of Horus already gives us new characters, and some tidly bits to chew on for fodder.... within 2-3 books I think GW would profit greatly from another EoT like campaign.

I don't know. A month or so ago I would have wholeheartedly agreed with you that more EoT style events (maybe on a smaller scale) and plot progression would be good. However, what I've heard (admittedly second/third hand) about what they've done with Nagash and the End Times is fantasy has pretty much soured me on the idea, "be careful what you wish for" and so on. The Nagash book seems to just obliterate many characters out of hand, and screw over the majority of the fantasy factions via authorial fiat (I know that's how all fluff changes take place, but this one seems very sudden and arbitrary).

Ultimately where I fell they went wrong with Nagash is forgetting/ignoring what should be (imo) the primary governing principle of GW fluff. All factions have their fans in the fanbase, therefore good quality fluff succeeds when it tells a story without ing off fans of faction X by making their faction look stupid and/or incompetent. Examples of this being done well include ADB's NL work; where 10th Company's foes (Imperial or Eldar) are presented as serious business, fully capable of ruining the protagonist's day, or the battle for Iyanden in the 5th ed Nid codex; where the Eldar are dynamic, prepare as well as they can for the onslaught and fight hard, but are still pushed back to the verge of defeat before Yriel saves the day using the cursed spear, demonstrating that the Nids are not to be trifled with. In these stories, even the losers get a fair/decent portrayal. When this goes wrong you get things like Clan Raukaan, the 5th ed GK fluff and the behaviour of Abaddon in the Pandorax novel (which admittedly I haven't read, but have seen it being heavily criticised by BL fans on this forum). I don't want to see what appears to be a poorly implemented idea replicated in 40k.

So unfortunately I don't have much faith that today's GW could pull off a major 40k plot advancement/EoT campaign with the finesse, skill and tact needed to make such an endeavour a success.

Of course, I'd love to wrong here...

[Marshal Rohr]

The studio's capacity for creativity makes everything weak. They are never be able to do something without resorting to ruining a factions portrayal.

 

And the idiotic way the militaries of 40K are organized makes suspension of disbelief impossible. You'd have single chapters holding back an entire chunk of the black legion, a World Eaters warband of 50 killing the population of a whole Hive City, a single regiment of infantry quashing a planet wide insurgency, and all the other stupid :cuss the studio thinks would be possible.

[Kol Saresk]

And the suspension of disbelief to the Romans of how we fight wars and are able to send six highly traine men to kill dozens with firesticks is just as equal.

 

Quality is in the Eye of the Beholder, not the Creator. 40K is supposed to be to us as 2K would be to the first Homo Sapiens, irregardless to how you believe they may have come about: inconceivable. Unthinkable. Simply and itterly impossible. That's why things like seeral hundred humans standing off against the hordes of Mordor which numbered in the thousands, if not millions, for several hours sold like cuckoo bucks. Don't forget Helm's Deep.

 

We train our military with the expectation that a standard M-16/M-4 will have thirty kills per magazine. Obviously expectation falls short of reality. 40K's setting has the expectation of each Marine having at least one hundred kills in combat. 25 for each fist and another fifty for each bolt shell. Anything past that is for swords, grenades and headbutts.

[A D-B]

Kind of off topic:

 

The biggest disagreement I've had with ADB was pertaining to my thread on the EoT campaign...

 

And worth mentioning that I was explaining the lay of the land as I was aware of it, not necessarily expressing all my preferences.

[Marshal Rohr]

And the suspension of disbelief to the Romans of how we fight wars and are able to send six highly traine men to kill dozens with firesticks is just as equal.

 

Quality is in the Eye of the Beholder, not the Creator. 40K is supposed to be to us as 2K would be to the first Homo Sapiens, irregardless to how you believe they may have come about: inconceivable. Unthinkable. Simply and itterly impossible. That's why things like seeral hundred humans standing off against the hordes of Mordor which numbered in the thousands, if not millions, for several hours sold like cuckoo bucks. Don't forget Helm's Deep.

 

We train our military with the expectation that a standard M-16/M-4 will have thirty kills per magazine. Obviously expectation falls short of reality. 40K's setting has the expectation of each Marine having at least one hundred kills in combat. 25 for each fist and another fifty for each bolt shell. Anything past that is for swords, grenades and headbutts.

That isn't really the case, though. When people say 40K is more like the Somme than Fallujah, sure, on the squad level. That's just a way if saying 40K is majority conventional conflicts. A space marine has options available to him provided ONLY by his power armor. Any of his physiological enhancements are irrelevant for how he would fight, because just being super fast and strong doesn't matter with the appropriate application of ordnance.

 

To say that 40K combat is incomprehensible to out modern mind means that even the authors can't comprehend it. It isn't enough to say 'these battles are so crazy', because they are not. Even with demons walking around with swords made of depressed thoughts and armor from the bones of teenagers in the friend zone, it's still a sword and it's still armor. They can be shot and they can die. Sure they have a scary face, but so do bears and sharks and we kill them all the same.

[KrautScientist]

I've always felt that the obvious lack of tactics and organisation that would be sensible from a military standpoint could also be interpreted to be a result of the motif of stunted development that is so inherent in the 40k setting. What I mean by that is that development of technology and the military did not progress in a clean line, but has always been subjected to major uphevals in 40k: See the Astartes legions: They used to be organised far more like a conventional army, with tactics that made more sense and formations that seemed less cluttered and convoluted. And then the Heresy happened, and everything went to spit, and today we have these zealous monk-knights who look down on stuff like camouflage and asking questions first, then shooting later, due to all kinds of convoluted reasons that only make sense to them. The Mechanicum is very much the same, with their luddite approach to technology, when they should really be the exact opposite.

 

There's this one quote I really loved in Betrayer where it's stated that the Emperor engineered the Space Marines to fight the "battles of the past that would be fought again in the future." I thought that was a very clever comment by ADB on the eclectic and entirely anachronistic kind of warfare found in 30k/40k, and a nice act of handwaving the sheer absurdity of it all.

 

So, while the real life reason for so much of the background seeming a little hokey may be a case of Sci-Fi writers have no sense of scale (and similar tropes), it does fit with the way the background works after all.

 

Just my two cents.

[Marshal Rohr]

That's distances though. That's hand waved by the Warp. I'm talking about simple stuff like small unit tactics and combined arms organization. It doesn't matter if you've got lasers and gravity weapons, the basic fundamentals of any military organization isn't made irrelevant by demons and aliens. Even the Romans had an equivalent of a squad. It's people management and efficient chains of command.

[Kol Saresk]

I never said incomprehensible. I said "inconceivable", or "something outside the normal lines of thinking".

 

For example, knowing you and your writing style, you would never write a horde of Astartes charging a well-defended, albeit outnumbered, opposition that has artillery support. A D-B did. I would write that the super advanced tech still has load time, that it takes time for these super advanced computers to take time to load, that it wasn't instantaneous and as a result, if one were to use a weapon during power up, he just might need to use iron sights since the auto-targeting hasn't come online yet because priority is given to life support and motor functions.

 

You would write that a Space Marine needs a body glove to use power armor. Dan Abnett wrote that they Iron Snakes are completely clean shaven and have well-lotioned skin. I would write that my Chapter of the Veiled Warden wear ceremonial prayer robes under their armor and welcome the chafing and often have to have skin grafts after prolonged battles.

 

"Inconceivable" is relative, as is suspension of disbelief. I wouldn't blink twice if Cadmus and his six Spartoi charged through a group of sixty Imperial Guardsmen as long as it was allowable within the laws of the specific fictional universe. Someone else might have a problem of just one Spartoi killing ten people armed with carapace armor and lasguns even though the thought of just one existing was enough to convince the man that killed a dragon there shouldn't be more than six alive.

 

Its relative. We don't think in terms of battle that the ancient Greeks, Baylonians, even Colonials think of. They didn't believe a battle could be fought the way we do. Many of them would refuse to fight that way because it would be "dishonorable".

 

40K takes both and throws it together into a blender. Then it takes "magic" and "daemons" and addsrkrgb it to the mix. What comes out is something that no one person can completely imagine. It takes several, dozens, hundreds even, of different viewpoints before we begin to see the whole of what is possible.

 

EDIT: Sure, the Romans had efficient organization. What about Attila the Hun and his barbarians?

[Tenebris]

Question... 

 

Why would you fire very expensive, rare and handmade bolts from your personal cannon when you have on yourself tank armour, you wield the strength of ten men and you can fight all day without breaking stride? Do you know that a bolt is probably more worth than the life of the menial who assembled it? Why shoot when you are with mere few steps in the thick of the melee and very very few things can actually bypass your power armour...? You are quicker, stronger and probably even enhanced beyond that. 

 

Ofc. speaking from a roleplay perspective, on tabletop the marine stats are not that impressive.