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Abaddon as Archetype - The Champion of Chaos


Brother Casman

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The Emperor is basically a god now as of Dark Imperium: Plague War. He can bull:cuss his way out of dying easily. If he dies, I'm sure he has enough plot armor to not break the setting.

As of Dark Imperium 2 the Emperor is probably up there with the Chaos Gods in terms of power and influence...

People dislike him because he's been written so poorly for so long. They also don't want their Warband to be told what to do. Making Chaos Space Marines have a boss rubs people the wrong way. It rubs me the wrong way and I like Abaddon. I also am fine with him being replaced though.

 

The whole SETTING has been written poorly for years. ADB's Abaddon work is the only stuff of any value. 

 

Talking about replacing Abaddon simply reflects an utter lack of understanding of the setting, as much as an understanding of Abaddon's place within it.

 

Personally I love the ADB black legion books.

Well, they are the single source material which portrays him as anything other than Failbaddon the Boring.

 

 

Well, if you could name the places where it specifically states he failed in his endeavors for each of the crusades that would be helpful. The outdated failbaddon meme is what's boring...

8th Edition and Gathering Storm have shaken up the lore enough that Abaddon's role may become diminished. I'm not saying that I don't want him to be a threat or storm Terra and bring the Imperium to it's knees, but I'm also intrigued by the what the possibilities him dying and being replaced have to offer. Honestly, I just want the status quo of Chaos to go away. What I want most is for things to change A LOT. I want the other factions to FEAR Chaos, to see us as the primary antagonist we should be.

Nobody could replace Abaddon. 

 

Primarchs: They are not actual Chaos Legionaries anymore, just another facet of their patron Gods. Access to Daemonhood  goes along with losing that shard of mortality that used to make them truely characters that we can identify with.

 

Huron: I mean no offence to Red Corsairs' players / fans but he's more described as a Pirate Commodore, not a true warlord. Plus he's not of the Legions, "simply" a powerful Renegade.

 

Other warlords from the Legions, including special characters: As a Night Lord player, I'd love to see one of the Lord in Midnight Clad take the mantle but let's be honest. Each of them embodies an aspect of his original Legion, more rarely the complete soul of it. None of them can be used as a new leader who could embrace the whole spectrum of what Chaos Space Marines are in the 41st Millenium.

 

Abaddon, like it or not, is the only Chaos Character who embraces all those facets at once. He is from the Legions and yet not anymore. He plays the game of the Gods but only to his own convenience and his agenda remains his own. He is a Pirate and a Warlord.

 

Because of poor storytelling quite a deal of 40K fans have learned to despise him but ADB's version contains who and what the Warmaster is and should have been from the beginning in the lore. In my opinion, we should stick to that and not always refer to other stories that were less talentedly written.

 

I also hear the other arguments:

 

GW could bring a new Warmaster from scratch. Yes, they could and so? How could we identify to a newcomer compared to some 25 years with Abaddon? Imagine some new character replacing Ahriman or Khârn: would it be exactly the same?

 

We haven't seen him in action since the Fall of Cadia. No, we haven't and so? Since Rise of the Primarch, Guilliman is everywhere, omnipresent, omnipotent. Should any Imperial World be threatened here comes Guilliman with his Primaris to save the day. I was happy with the return of him but we are seeing too much of him. Do we want that with Abaddon? I do not think so.

 

Finally Abaddon is the one making Chaos a structured threat. Back in 2nd Edition, Chaos Space Marines were described as raiders, not conquerors. Even if the whole settings about Black Crusades have been inequally written (as far as quality is concerned) that is the main and most important evolution brought by maintaining Abaddon as the predominant figure. As far as I am concerned I largely prefer this renewed vision of my favourite army rather than playing the eternal role of the bad evil guy who comes to plunder some backwater world.

 

Celtic_Cauldron

I wanted to read this thread a few times before I flew off the handle at the inane idea of replacing a cornerstone of the setting 'for like reasons'. I'm glad I did, because Marshal Loss, who I think I agree with 99% of the time if not 100% of the time, summed it up quite well so I dont have to rage at the whole idea.

 

 

Why would you want to replace Abaddon? He is the perfect foe for innumerable reasons:

  • Quite possibly the clone-son of Horus
  • First Captain of the Sons of Horus (has pedigree, and a real reason to want revenge)
  • The only character to accumulate the Mark of Chaos Ascendant, which is an insanely big deal in its own right
  • Wields a daemon blade powerful enough to kill the Emperor, the "end of empires"
  • Wields the Talon of Horus, the weapon that killed two Primarchs and mortally wounded the Emperor
  • Forms a new Legion dedicated to waging the Long War
  • Starts the Long War
  • Has caused the most damage to the Imperium over 10,000 years
  • The only figure able to unite the Traitor Legions
  • Has humbled and commanded Primarchs
  • Is essentially walking proof that the time of the Primarchs is over

Abaddon is a big deal. You may not like him, but you can't just replace him. No other has his pedigree, his accomplishments, his history. The challenge for GW going forward is to find a way to do his narrative and character justice, not to go "oh well Primarchs are back let's reboot 30k in 40k".

 

This is why you cannot replace Abaddon, and anyone suggesting 'just build up another Character' does such a disservice to the setting itself it boggles my mind. I can go away for months, come back, and people STILL have not even bothered to try and understand 40K and it literally kills me inside, every time.

 

So thank you Marshal Loss, and the handful of other people who can continue to fight the good fight.

Yeah, it is my biased opinion. I just think Abaddon suffers from Retcon Syndrome. I'm glad he's a threat, just I wish it didn't have to be done via Retcon.

 

How is it a retcon, though? Just because (incorrect) memes exist, doesn't mean that Abaddon wasn't always a threat. Battlefleet Gothic gave us info on a non-Terra-focussed Black Crusade, showing that he achieved his goal, albeit not 100%. All they're doing now is filling in the blanks, and reinforcing the existing info we've been given.

It used to be just 13 Black Crusades with the Eye of Terror campaign resulting in an upsetting Imperial naval victory. That was scrapped making the 13th Black Crusade start in 7th Edition with Gathering Storm: Fall of Cadia. Beforehand, Abaddon the Despoiler was a Saturday Morning cartoon villain, "I'll get you next time Creed!" Now ADB and GS FoC have turned him around into the greatest threat to the Imperium of Man he should be.

I think Lorgar could become a very interesting character if they write it that the last 10,000 years of introspection have given him character growth and new resolve.

 

Edit:

 

Just spit balling some ideas....

 

Lorgar realizes everything he's done was a mistake, but can't really side with the imperium. An uncivil war breaks out between the legions of Chaos. Remaining primarchs take their legions and go after their own objectives, loose alliances are made.

 

With the Imperium split, loyalists are confused when "traitor" renegade marine forces show up to fight marauding chaos marines.

 

Weird alliances are formed when renegade, loyalist, and traitor marines fight Tyranid/Necron threats with common goals.

Lorgar is still a Chaos Primarch, having fought Warp Corax recently

 

None of the Traitor Primarchs are interested in the goals that Abaddon has

 

The Daemon Primarchs are more interested in the returning Loyalist Primarchs

 

(Angron is the only one that would be interested in the destruction of the Imperium. But it would just result in Armaggedon happening everywhere)

It's mind boggling how people remember the Eye of Terror campaign. It was a (minor) Chaos victory because the Imperial players couldn't focus their victories into one battle zone, while the Chaos forces were quite structured and organized (thanks to the Council of Three) - leaving them with almost complete victory of the campaign. Yes, the Imperials had naval control over the space lanes to Cadia, but history had been rewritten. Abaddon had cracked the defense of Cadia wide open and gained a foot hold on the planet. He defeated not just random imperial dudes like in Fall of Cadia, he defeated Creed, Logan and Azrael (if I remember correctly?) - and Logan was the Defender of the Imperium then!

 

One more thing people are missing about Abaddon and the threat that he poses: The Planet Killer. This monster of a ship, so potent the Imperial Navy will throw everything they got at it instead of letting it near any Imperial harbour, is still out there with weaponry strong enough to destroy planets in one shot! 

Agreed, also I am not sure why people keep insisting he was "currently retconned". A D-B stated on this forum that his Black Legion series was based on the chaos lore from the Rouge Trader, 2-nd and 3-rd Edition  codexes (source: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/298798-horus-vs-abaddon-post-vengeful-spirit-talon-of-horus/?p=3851825). Moreover, on multiple occasions cited the fact that lore guys within the GW are perplexed by the Failbaddon memes because they never published a source which suggested he was a failure. Misunderstanding lore is not a retcon.

I mean, it's basic 40k military strategy. If the navy wins, they can just bomb you from orbit. It's pretty cut and dry. Also, 13 Black Crusades to newcomers to 40k sounds really bad, even if each were successful, it just kind of reeks of pity victories.

The 13th Black Crusade campaign result is independent of the 13th Black Crusade in the lore. The authors and designers didn't like being held to the result of a campaign that occurred fifteen years ago, so they rolled it back to being one minute to midnight, and then they made the clock strike and now we are in a new Millennium. IE. the Imperial Navy did not win the 13th Black Crusade, the 13th Black Crusade did not occur in the lore until the Gathering Storm and now that was a hundred years ago. Also, you most often see that people complain that Cadia was destroyed, etc and they reference the old campaign but not once have I seen anyone complain (besides me) that Armageddon's lore is trashed now by making it a Daemon world, when it used to be the best example of a war in the 41st Millennium that captured the scale of the setting by showing a huge conflict with billions of orks and that even if they won, it would be a localized catastrophe to the Segmentum Solar. Now its some kind of Demon world. Pathetic.

The clock didn't strike and probably won't ever. It's still one minute to midnight but it moved a few seconds closer.


Midnight isn't the dawn of a new millenium, midnight is when the big thing happens and the setting basically ends.

I mean, it's basic 40k military strategy. If the navy wins, they can just bomb you from orbit. It's pretty cut and dry. Also, 13 Black Crusades to newcomers to 40k sounds really bad, even if each were successful, it just kind of reeks of pity victories.

If that's the case, why are we even playing 40K? We should all just play BFG since apparently those are the only games that matter, right?

 

Another point to make is that control of the space lanes doesn't necessarily equate to control of orbital space, but this is all really beside the point since the campaign result was rolled back (Eldrad was killed, for example, but now he's running around preaching for Ynnead). So if you look at the 13th crusade as its final form...Abaddon won. The Gate is broken, Cadia is gone, the hordes of the damned have flooded into the Imperium and the Cicatrix Maledictum has split the galaxy. The only other Chaos champion to achieve anything close to this level of success was Horus himself.

Except that "one minute to midnight" has nothing to do with time. It just means "very close to the end". It didn't end so we didn't struck midnight yet.


Of course you can have your very own definition of what it means and that's completely fine, doesn't change the fact that it's not what GW is talking about tho.

I mean, it's basic 40k military strategy. If the navy wins, they can just bomb you from orbit. It's pretty cut and dry. Also, 13 Black Crusades to newcomers to 40k sounds really bad, even if each were successful, it just kind of reeks of pity victories.

 

...

 

You grossly miss...well it seems a lot.

 

'Why are we not just throwing asteroids at every planet, how has Chaos not already won! Its so simple!'

 

 

It used to be just 13 Black Crusades with the Eye of Terror campaign resulting in an upsetting Imperial naval victory. That was scrapped making the 13th Black Crusade start in 7th Edition with Gathering Storm: Fall of Cadia. Beforehand, Abaddon the Despoiler was a Saturday Morning cartoon villain, "I'll get you next time Creed!" Now ADB and GS FoC have turned him around into the greatest threat to the Imperium of Man he should be.

 

I'm going to guess, you were not playing at the time.

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