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My favourite Abaddon moment is when they first find out that the Emporer is now considered a god, and they all just burst out laughing "The word bearer's were right"
@@weshammer "The Word Bearers have won. They eat dirt and drink shame. They chant prayers to the unwanted truth through bloodied lips. They lost everything. And yet they still won." - Telemachon, Black Legion
@@firmak2 It's at the start of Black Legion, the traitor legions are just starting to think about returning to real space. A chaos witch makes contact with them and tells them what's been happening while they were on holiday in the eye.
For real, I spent 40$ for another model off eBay just to get the arm and trophy rack off it. Secured the pieces with green stuff and crazy glue, with baking soda as the catalyst for a rock hard cement.
I think Abaddon can be 'rehabilitated' if we just let ADB do his thing. The black legion books are great, and in general he's a pretty good chaos writer.
Sorry - Which book was that? I know it was referenced in the Black Legion Omnibus about Magnus kneeling to Abaddon but I've never found the source book. @@PsicoPrime
I think it’s also worth noting that even in the vague original codex descriptions, it makes it clear that each time Cadia got closer to breaking. The implication was always that cadia was always being worn down to be broken by Abaddon
Back in the day each invasion was utterly point less except for maybe some random worlds taken non important characters killed. This was do to them not wanting to advance the plots and having to lose character and replace models. Now this has changed and this recon had to happen. I remember years ago them injecting that each crusade had mysterious motives but really after the invasion they just hit a reset button and it went back to how it was before it.
The thing is, back in that time, each codex was writtent that way, with the race in question being a serious threat, if they did X, X being a looming event that never concretized totally. The lore was completely stalled, and so it kinda became a joke ^^' At least, that's how I remember it, I started 40K at that time, and when you read your first codex it's exciting, but quickly it becomes laughable and cliché ^^
@@krankarvolund7771ah it was like that for all the non- imperium fsctions. As I remember it; The necrons were supposedly only barely awake but would easily destroy everyone if they did, the Nids were waiting for the hive mind to reach the galaxy with the majority of their forces, the orks were supposedly starting to heed some mysterious call to Gazkull that would unleash an unstoppable waagh, the craft worlds were gonna resurrect Khane, it was implied the etherials had a grand plan for the tau involving chaos that would put them on top, and Vect of the dark Eldar had some crazy plan to use the infinite knowledge of the black library to invade realspace. If anything, it’s a credit to Abbadon that his big thing actually happened while the rest of the stuff has basically silently disappeared or been disappointing compared to the buildup.
@@keenanmccarty9925 "it was implied the etherials had a grand plan for the tau involving chaos that would put them on top" That one I've never read, and Tau is my main army, in my codex, it was just "they're a little empire, but with a better tech than the Imperium, and a rapid growth, they'll one day dethrone it", and honestly iy was probably the most realistic one ^^
Abaddon is a fantastic character, but he suffers from what I call "the arch-enemy syndrome": the writer wants to use the arch-enemy as often as possible, as the character is so epic, but given that the penultimate goal of the writer is to keep the story going (so as to milk the cash cow) for as long as humanly possible without a final resolution, the arch-enemy must repeatedly fail, thus giving rise to the sentiment that the arch-enemy is an incompetent, bumbling boob. I don't blame the underlying character Abaddon for fans bestowing upon him the "Fail-baddon" moniker; rather, I blame GW for over-using Abaddon, which inevitably means that he must repeatedly fail in order to maintain the existence of the Emperor and the Imperium intact and by extension keep the GW money-train chugging down the tracks. In contrast, Huron Blackheart is most likely viewed by many fans as being more "successful" than Abaddon, but I argue that this is mainly due to the fact that Huron is more of a peripheral bad guy rather than the arch-enemy; so Huron appears much less often, and his goals are more limited (not the overthrow of the entire Imperium), and therefore, he can be allowed to succeed more often.
Yep the only true mainvillains are the chaos gods and ultimately Abbadon is their greatest puppet despite his resistance or actually, because of it. See how useless every guy who embraces chaos becomes in the materium. (Word Bearers) But yeah the GW should stop making Abbadon and chaos space marines into the main villain and just make them a faction. Hell they should make a campaign where imperium is the villain.
But he hasn't failed. That's the point of this video. He's only seen as failing by the Imperium, who think his goal at each crusade was simply to get Terra, when we know that is not correct. We know he had goals and achieved them.
For a noob like myself, I appreciate all the hard work you put into all your videos you make. All the work you do in finding all the lore and consolidating it into articulate easy to listen and enjoy in 30-60 minute videos that probably took weeks to complete help bring the universe of 40k into a much more cohesive understanding and appreciation to all the writers and artists who make this miserable, depressing and grim world so fun to explore.
I feel that if they had him win more significant and apparent victories prior to the 13th crusade it would be different. But it kinda does seem like the sneaky stuff either was made to save face, or was not stressed and brought to the forefront enough, which results in what seems to be a 'Big Bad' that always loses. And you can only hear "Next time Gadget! Next time!" so many times before you can't take it seriously anymore. TL;DR his 13th Black Crusade victory came too late to keep him threatening, by then it was a consolation prize. But the foundation is there, they just really need to go hard at it to make him imposing again.
I always say that they should have had multiple Warmasters of Chaos like there were multiple Everchosen's before Archaon in Heresy. So Abbadon would not have lead all 12 of the Black Crusades before the 13th, only the most recent ones. So he would not have suffered that many defeats.
Yeah, it doesnt add up Thr whole "Pylons" thing Conisdering Abbadon could have literally just solo showed up to Cadia and smashed it, considering it was literal tribesmen
Technically, all of Chaos was retconned to be successful. From what my friends (who have been into Warhammer longer than I have) told me, Games Workshop likes to hold official tournaments to help determine the direction of the story, with the “Gathering Storm” event representing the 13th Black Crusade. The problem is that the Chaos factions were completely decimated in these games, meaning that Cadia should have technically not only mounted a successful defense but also a successful invasion into the Eye of Terror. But because this is not what they wanted, Games Workshop ignored these results and made it so that Chaos won an absolute victory. But this is another issue entirely.
This right here is one of the several reasons why we DONT CUT GW SLACK. I have played/followed 40K over 3 decades and trust me GW is so two faced that it does not surprise me they pulled this, cause it has happened before.
That's why I have the same approach to 40k that I have to Star Wars since Disney took over: "I like this, so this is canon to me, I don't care what they say" My explanation to why Abaddon is now arming literal Space Hulks, is because of how Spire and the Indomitus Crusade decimated his actual fleets in BFGA2
I think one of the things that did the most damage to Abaddon's reputation with the fan-base, is what the lore stats about the Gothic War; namely, Abaddon entrusting Planet Killer to a guy who got it torpedoed out from under him by a handful of cruisers. According to lore from 1999, Abaddon gives Arkham command of his flagship to make a "diversionary attack" with no support, then fails his own campaign and abandons Arkham and Planet Killer (who a little while later runs into four Lunars and gets pelted with torps from outside of gun range). Which is just a prime example of Abaddon making a bizarre strategic gaff for someone supposed to be the greatest threat to the Imperium. The combination of this, the old Black Crusade lore boiling down to "he broke some stuff, but was rebuffed by Cadia, the first planet he comes across", and his mini being horrific to build ("the Armless"), leads to the meme of him being a walking disaster.
@@Gozkiel It's an issue that could've easily been fixed if we gottan more writing from the perspective of Chaos: something that will be a norm moving forward, I hope.
Abaddon's best moment is still in the Siege of Terra novel "The Lost and the Damned." The traitor Primarchs are all having a meeting over hololith on the Vengeful Spirit. Angron is pacing back and forth and raging whenever he speaks, Fulgrim is flirting with anything that moves, Perturabo is grumbling about how he's carrying the heresy, Magnus is bored and barely paying attention, and Mortarion is nowhere to be found. Abaddon walks into all this nonsense, turns to a raging Angron and, showing off some serious brass balls, tells them to mute his mic.
I thought abaddon was quite a good character in horus heresy books. However I liked how Torgaddon, Loken, Aximand and Abaddon bounced off each other. I do not know much of him outside of the heresy books. I've only followed Loken's lore
I would agree if it wasn't for the fact in the actual books its them taunting or teasing each other and Abaddon being insecure and getting upset from it. It consistently makes him come off like a little bitch in most cases.
@@gelonvia8525 I personally did not mind that so much. Every group of friends sort of has that person. for me I just thought it was more relatable to people I knew.
@@gelonvia8525 I kind of liked that because it shows that Horus is incredibly uptight and sensitive and for me that makes me realise how he has fallen so easily and so heavily to chaos. It will of been easy for the chaos gods and Horus to influence him into thinking the emperor and loyalists are against him
Kind of funny that, for me, that all big monologue you gave about Abbandon near the end, fit Warhammer AoS’s Archaon better… He is a Man who became A Demi-god or even a God of Chaos by his cheer willpower and determination to destroy Sigmar and is constantly doing a balancing act to never be claimed by any of the Chaos Gods… I think Abbandon may have worked better if he was « A Villain » … not « THE Villain » of 40k…
Archaon was, back in the 2000s, arguably more of a joke than Abaddon was, if you listened only to the memes. The Storm of Chaos campaign - the Warhammer Fantasy version of the 13th Black Crusade, which took place a year later - centred around Archaon's assault on the Empire and siege of the city of Middenheim... except that there was no clear reason *why* Archaon was assaulting Middenheim, and he got slapped around by Grimgor Ironhide during the campaign. It was only when GW rewound and attempted that story again - as part of The End Times - that Archaon actually triumphed. Before that, Archaon's battleplan was: Step 1: Besiege Middenheim Step 2: ??? Step 3: Victory!
Thing is: I actually played in the original 13th Black Crusade, where GW ran this thing where players fought battles and then uploaded their results over the weeks, to save/break Cadia. There were wild results to this- Eldrad Ulthran got eaten by a Blackstone Fortress for example. But I think stuff went the opposite way to the way GW wanted coz it's just been quietly retired
@@zogwort1522 the inablity to have a flexible narrative it's their fault, the crusade could've be beaten back Just for the demon primarchs to kick back After the imperium would've tried to invade the eye
Thanks for this Wes- I’m listening to the Horus Heresy audiobooks, and one thing in there I see that’s missing is how Abbadon was considered Horus’s successor- he’s basically a non-entity in most cases and his greatest involvement was getting all of his company killed on Terra. I’d like to see him get more fleshed out in the Horus Heresy if possible.
I kinda agree with MajorKill when he says that Huron Blackheart is the better warmaster. He is basically abbadon, but a competant leader who doesnt rely on chaos to win, but uses is because its a tool.
I honestly like the tone of the Badab War more than the Horus Heresy. The Astral Claws didnt turn because of some corrupting influence of a warp god, it happened for bureaucratic reasons. It feels much more "human" and grounded.
I don't think I agree. Chaos lords fall into two categories; those who embrace chaos, and those who seek to use it, but both are ultimately going to the Four for power. The Four go to *Abaddon* for power. He is the exception, that's why he can wrangle Daemon primarchs, the Four need Abaddon's favour and so they wrangle their greatest champions to serve him to purchase it. Blackheart could become that, but Abaddon already is that.
I think it’s more about how that the fandom dislikes how abaddon has too much plot armor especially the moment when he survives being stabbed by a 1000 year old space marine
Shit like that happens all the time though. Curze never should have survived the Lion shoving the Lion sword up to the hilt in his guts, but, hey, Rule of Cool.
I think it's most down to GW having Abbadon's successes be in relatively obscure source books for so long. Clearly in the Liber Chaotica GW had the ideas for the Black Crusades being more subtle operations than they first appear, and they had those ideas for a long time. And that's a great way to get some longevity out of your arch villain, he didn't outright kill the heroes but he definitely jacked some shit in a way they didn't really make note of but will hurt them later. Fantastic outline for a baddie dynamic. Problem is Liber Chaotica is NOT a wide spread book in the slightest, and as near as I can tell it's by far the most explicit version of that idea until 8th edition and The Fall of Cadia. I don't really blame people for thinking this all came out of nowhere when it kinda did if you didn't read this 1 book. If they'd included even brief summations of the Liber Chaotica versions of the Crusades in the next Chaos Codexes or other main line books, the idea would've had way longer to germinate in fan's heads and wouldn't have felt like so much of a retcon.
Yo be fair Thr Black Library is doing a lot better. Im in the midst of "Talon of Horus" while i wait for thr next Siege of Terra book, its a great read and i really enjoy Abbadon
Legit got emotional hearing the quote regarding abaddon at the end of the video It's dumb that I got emotional over a fictional villain, but it furthermore exemplified my love and interest for Abaddon and his black legion This was an awesome video, Abbadon is cool, and I can't wait to see where he goes next in the lore
Not dumb at all. Literature is at its best when a character ceases becoming merely words on paper and leaves a genuine emotional mark on us. Just like a real person would.
Not dumb at all I almost teared up at a chapter in "Mortis" where a Conscript Gaurdsman swore an oath to hold the line, to a dying Blood Angel He took command of the gaurd and faced down the horrors of Nurgle with the Dewth Gaurd Legion with nothing but his brothers and their flashlights
@Adrien Watson that sounds really intense, but I see >.< It's really interesting how warhammer can just make us emotional like that, it's actually kind of cool now that I think about it ^^,
I was there in the 1990's. There was alot of chat in 1999 about him being under written and hopeless from the GW Staff and Managers. We would talk about the books be they considered retcons even back then just a few years later.
It was a retcon because I think the original idea of a lot of the lore was to provide colour for events that were determined by official games mainly in the UK so there was no actual story plan for that stuff until much later.
As a Warhammer enthusiast myself the sheer amount of hoops and volumes books that you have to go through just to prove a point, makes it a retcon. Any good business understands that one of the key elements in deciding how well your product will be received by your target market is how you promote it. Inaction merely serves to maintain the status quo. Even back in the day Games Workshop had the means and opportunity to shape fan perceptions to match their story better, but they opted not to.
Death to the false emperor! I think that several of the chaos Primarchs have great stories around their fall. Magnus, Angron and Lorgar I think all have great stories. The Despoiler serves as the biggest chaos threat that isn't singularly directed by one god which makes it more of a wild card in the great game they play but also harder to recruit and organize. IMO keep up the great vids!!
MY GUY HAS 500K!!! Been around for a while but absent for a few months! It's great to see you growing!! I have mad love to Wes for being my bridge to learn about Warhammer!
In Abaddon's credit - the Imperium doesn't even view the 13th Crusade as a loss, given that the Cadian Gate still holds. Cadia fell, but the Eye of Terror is still relatively contained, which means Terra is also still very much safe. But also, something Wes didn't touch on, is that Abaddon kind of lives in the shadow of his parallel in Archeon the Everchosen. Archeon is everything that Abaddon isn't when it comes to the community. It would be really interesting to hear an analysis of why that ending quote at 23:43 was translated so perfectly with Archeon, but failed so utterly with Abaddon... Because that final quote sums up Archeon perfectly as well.
As someone who played from 3rd edition, I'm surprised people actually thought this about Abaddon the Brilliant. Also I owned the Libre Chaotica too, my space marines army was a Khorne devoted army. Also I remember that campaign and watched many of the battles in person. I remember they said these battles were going to decide the cannon (we called "fluff"). As a Khorne player, the biggest letdown I felt about the lore was when I realized Angron accepted the god's gifts and in a way became a slave to Khorne... I saw things the way Kharn did, that doing that is weakness and pathetic in character.
I love Abbadon, he’s this overwhelmingly powerful character in mind and might. He’s the only one who’s ever truly united the forces of chaos, and his goals aren’t about his faith in the ruinous powers or anything like that. It’s all about his disillusion with the imperium, he believes in his ability to do better, to unite humanity under his black banner and return the rightful rulers of men to their stations. He’s an angel of death, and to him that means he should lead rather than serve, and I love that idea
@WesHammergiveaway. oh, a not weshammer, weshammer scammer. I hope one kf the chaos gods turns your butthole into a chaos spawn. But only your butthole. That way you can be fully alert for all the butt themed mayhem that will hopefully ensue 😁
I love that the books are spread out and around different character with different points of views. The galaxy is huge and its cool seeing different perspectives.
Hey, all I’m saying is that my beloved planet of regular Mon-kiegh Cadians beat him back so well that he had to drive his fancy spaceship into the planet to win . . .
I remember when I disvoered the intro of BFG, I've heard taht Abaddon used a balckstone fortress to destroy Cadia, so I was expecting the fortress to shoot something lile the Death Star in Star Wars. And then I saw him ramming into the planet and I thought it was very dumb and very unclimatic XD
My personal headcannon is that abaddon has developed a captain jack sparrow type of philosophy by embracing his role as the warmaster of chaos. Yes, he was fed up, yes he didnt care about his legion anymore, yes he had enough of war and ran off into the warp. He was after all a normal human and not an immortal daemon or demigod. But something happened there that changed his mind and lead him to embrace the role he fell into: the warmaster of the dark forces, the adversary of the empire, the despoiler and destroyer. It would explain why he tries to slowly drain the imperium of power instead of a quick and brutal war like horus did. He sees it as his purpose in the universe, like the tyranids devour and the orks Waaargh. I think that would add up wonderfully. I also like to imagine that he actually has prosthetic arms after loosing both of his arms when he attempted to impress Tzeentch by playing "Rush E" on the black templars chruch organ.
Abaddon was successful in the Black Crusades. He chipped away at defenses and finally turned the major loss of the Blackstone Fortress into an ultimate win by destroying Cadia.
This was very informative. I always thought that the supposed "retcon" was appropriate than to leave Abaddon as a failure forever but to learn that there's proof that something was happening behind the scenes since 2003 really makes me appreciate Abaddon even more. I agree it wasn't a smart choice to keep this important information in the dark but I suppose it makes sense lore-wise, it makes the sudden undeniable victory over Cadia much more impactful.
I want you to know, WesHammer, that it's your videos that always tempt me into making a Chaos Space Marine Army. You came close to succeeding again today, but only close.
In my opinion, the best way to think of the lore and retcons is that we are getting our information filtered through the imperium. It's not so much he is failing, but we are being shown his failures to highlight the success of the empire. It's only when he has a major victory (such as Cadia) that the imperium is forced to accurately report what has happened.
Great video Wes. It’s a shame none of it matters since Ghazhkull Uruk Thraka destroyed him with a vortex grenade 25 years ago. My game results being canon of course.
Liber Chaotica being considered ‘obscure’ makes me feel old. 👴🏻 As far as I’m aware, the results of the EoT campaign, just like the SoC campaign over in WHFB, was quietly retconned by implication only a few years after it ran. The following global campaign, Medusa V, ran two years later and was explicitly set after EoT (similarly SoC got a smaller scale sequel, Nemesis Crown, that was set in the aftermath of Archaon’s invasion), but with an edition/edition-and-a-half, no timeline in any of the codices included events after 995.999.M41 which was the moment the 13th Black Crusade began, and the Crusade was only referred to as on its way (same thing happened in Fantasy; the timeline was rolled back to a minute to midnight). Unless I’m mistaken, between then and the release of The Gathering Storm, the only things published that were set after the 13th Black Crusade were the framing devices in the Ciaphas Cain books, but even then they didn’t say anything in relation to the outcome of it. Technically there was never an official statement that EoT and SoC were retconned until their replacements were published, but the implication of all information relating to them and subsequent events being scrubbed from future publications and said publications saying that the Black Crusade and Chaos Incursion are yet to happen is undeniably that GW considered them no longer canon.
Worst retcon in 40k is that orks don't have dongs anymore. I liked the 1st space wolves omnibus where a drunk ork scout pisses on a hidden Ragnar Blackmane and cuts a huge fart lol
@@weshammer Mark Hamill should play Fulgrim using his Joker voice in any 40k film or show! Whether that happens or not I will now and forever read Fulgrim in my minds ear with that particular voice!
First, great job here. Your understanding of the lore is tops. Second, anyone who sees Abaddon as being retconned with victory doesn't understand 40K. No one side can achieve the upper hand for too long. There must always be war and it will most likely to be a desperate affair. That is the true nature of 40K.
The original lore: 13th crusade 999.M41 Games Workshop Global store Campaign event date: 2004 - Imperium Verses Chaos Space Marines and friends. Actively tallied the results on the internet, showed it on a website and made a big deal out of the whole thing. Went to the effort of commissioning two tie in novels, based a BFG campaign around it and even released a codex, what they thought they'd get is another Armageddon, instead what they got was a stalemate with the Imperium barely holding onto Cadia; Not the result they wanted, they wanted the Imperium to lose to set up a cool new chapter in the game's story moving forward; Having already made material ready to print and send out about how the Eldar heroically kicked Abaddon's butt and other such shenanigans with everything continuing as per normal. Instead what they got was a situation they didn't like, so they chucked a massive hissy fit and froze the lore in place for 12 YEARS while they tried to figure out a way to get around this, telling writers to not go past 999.M41 and no one was allowed to touch or talk about the 13th Black Crusade ever again until they say so. The current lore: A decade later, the 13th Black Crusade is reduced to a series of novels which covers the whole event with zero involvement from the player base of the table top game in the way Games Workshop wants it to unfold as a set up to what they planned to do going forward as just the prelude to the Dark Imperium era, with the whole thing segregated to being a plot in the second BFG video game with Abaddon succeeding in destroying Cadia and opening up the great rift and then... scooting off, not to be seen or heard from again from that point forward, with the focus shifted to Mr Pappa Smurf of the Smurf Marines and the shenanigans of the Deamon Primarchs. Wow GW...
Until Abbadon actually kills a named character (like a space marine or top leader of a Xenos faction) in the lore, he has no impetus to ever be considered a true threat. Death has to be meaningful, and a real and present danger. Planets are disposable in 40k. Characters have to be treated the same way, or we have a static universe.
I agree with your sentiment. Death has to be a real consequence in war novels, but I will point out that Abby has actually racked up a decent number of main character or main character level kills like Jubal Khan and sigismund
You ask for something impossible with GW: they don’t want to kill named characters (the only one I can think of is Tycho and only because he was considered redundant during the 3rd war for Armageddon campaign). They had Abaddon manhandle Calgar only to have him leave before finishing Calgar off because his ship was being stolen for example.
The trick here is that Abaddon is not just a character in a story, because 40k is not just a story. GW sells a model of Abaddon, and there are rules for using him to lead Chaos Marine armies. Those things are a higher priority to GW than the novels, which make up only a tiny fraction of their revenue. How would you like it if a model you'd carefully assembled or painted and wanted to use in your armies was suddenly killed off in a cheap pulp novel by some freelance novelist?
I'm almost brand new to all of this 40k stuff. I started learning lore and reading books around Aug, I dont play tabletop or honestly consume anything other than just lore and storytelling. Loving the universe so far even midst its faults and back tracking. However this is generally my first dabble with abbadon. And I am very pleased with the type of character arc it has. I think he is a really cool villain with enough flavor to not just be one of those, "bad just to be bad".
He is a cool villain and I'm a big fan! If you like audio books, the talon of Horus and black legion are great and the narrator is fantastic. They are on audible and can highly recomend
GW should make compilation books for major characters that have their lore spread over multiple sources and compile it all into one book. I know they'd lose some money from people not buying some of the books with lore for a certain character, but in the compilation book they could give a summary of that info and say something like "if you want the full story/ more detailed info see book X". That way, you can still get the most important info from those articles or old source books without going down a Google rabbit hole. This could also give GW an opportunity to add more details to events or characters and more clearly establish what is and isn't cannon.
I always appreciate youtubers who segment the sponsored parts of their videos so we can skip that if it's something we already have/already seen and don't care about
Bols wants to complain about abby being retcon king, but nobody remembers when Necrons went from space terminators to cranky Egyptian space terminators
Yeah, I was totally lost when they started talking about Necrons wanting stuff, or having goals, as my main knowledge of Necrons was old lore where they're just ancient machines that destroy everything they find when you awake them XD I see why changing them is probably for the better, but still ^^
I'm thankful that there is content like this online! I was into warhammer when I was 11-14 then it has totally fallen off until now. Im 33 and get to plunge right into the lore and everything I've missed, but also SKIP all the negative sides with the fandom, Its so nice to not have to trudge trough misconceptions and pettiness. Thank you for the intro to Abadon. And going off of this video, It seems like an interesting character. A character that exudes this nietzschean will to power in the most chaotic of realms! Pretty interesting stuff :)
Abaddon gets far to much hate. The one thing going against him is for him to win the most popular factions need to suffer massive L. It hard for gameswork shop to serve up an L to popular faction like the Space Marine and Imperial Guard. I someone who plays Cadian Gaurd. I was surprised when they were allowed to sufferer such a massive defeat losing their home world
I don't think GW ever intended him to be a "failure", it's just that he never went over with the fan base, so he got memed to what he was. Kinda like how every now and then, WWE tries to push a wrestler over as a face, but for one reason or another, the fans just don't like him, and either boo him or meme him. I think it's the same with Abandon.
What the fans don’t understand is that abaddon has nothing but time and the great scale of 40k every crusade doesn’t need to be a large advancement or great victory with each crusade he pushes the imperium of man closer to the edge of the cliff, it’s why they had to bring back guilliman because they needed someone to help push back the 13th black crusade it was almost the end for the empire and mankind.
As a Abby fan, I love him, he is best boi, also he is the best duelist in the game , only beaten by like three people 1v1, played against Abby today , he killed two captains and a chapter master and got healed to full health , he is insane and it’s fun
I think this stems from a fundamental issue with the Warhammer lore which is that the Space Marines follow a very rigid hierarchy of genetic ubermensch supremacy. This narrows storytelling options since characters can't become significantly more or less capable over time.
As a veteran of the long war who was there for the Eye of Terror campaign, the way I remember things is that Chaos was kicking ass. Towards the end a bunch of special cards (I think they were cards) were discovered/won by Imperial players. This is what dragged it to a "draw", I remember it being a minor Imperium win in how it was put across. The common belief among the Chaos players was that GW intentionally influenced it back towards what they wanted. The fact they never did something like that again is sad.
I’ve always wanted to see a Abaddon transformation story How cool would it be if he was just like fuck this, goes to Davin, goes to Dwell, goes to Molech, goes wherever he needs to go to find Primarch levels of chaos power without achieving daemonhood and literally takes the chaos power for himself like his father did.. except unlike Horus doesn’t let it destroy him and controls it.. leading to the man we know and love today, that’s how I’d explain it, mix in gradual acceptance and understanding of chaos and it’s ways and his ambition for power and revenge, we’d really be able to see him start to learn how to use it as a weapon not just as a source of new masters like the Primarchs would have done, it could be an excellent way of showing fans why he’s the Warmaster of chaos and not Lorgar
Now, please do "Why Horus is worse than Abaddon". We all know Horus was a gullible failure that took the word of a long-dead man over his own brother, when his brother was really attempting to warn him.
Maybe a better change would have been that SOME of his Crusades were successful, but in some of them the other factions in the galaxy did well and set his agenda back. That way everybody gets to look better.
This series sounds really interesting, and isn't something any other RUclipsr does. It's still something I absolutely think should be a thing, good initiative!
Dude, I LOVED the Eye of Terror campaign. My buddies and I were on a huge BFG kick at the time and we filled GW's results with as many fleet battles as we could. Good times.
My favourite Abaddon moment is the birth of the Black Legion and the Long War. We were born for battle, Khayon. We were made to conquer the galaxy, not to rot in Hell and die upon our brothers' blades. Who are the architects of the Imperium? Who fought to purge its territory of aliens and expand its borders? Who brought rebellious worlds to heel and slaughtered those who refused the light of progress? Who walked from one side of the galaxy to the other, marking their passage in a trail of treacherous dead? This is our Imperium. Built across the worlds we burned, over bones we broke, with the blood we shed. You see it too. You feel it now, don't you? - A new war. One not born of bitterness nor founded on revenge. - The Long War, Khayon.
Compared to the daemon primarchs and other characters Abbadon will always feel like a lesser villain. Even if he destroyed Terra and killed the Emperor people will not accept him. You can write a villain that is a big "threat" but it is something entirely different to actually convince the audience he is a threat and a well written villain. Abbadon is the "Jailer" from WoW's last expansion of Warhammer 40k.
Abbadon is an abject failure as both an antagonist and literary character. The Warzone Vigilus shows this. Instead of a massive ground war, all he needed to do was to amass the entire Chaos Fleet, put the Planet Destroyer in the center of it, and go full speed towards Vigilus. There would be no need to worry about casualties at all since if the Planet Destroyer made contact with Vigilus and destroyed it then he would have won. The Niumund Corridor would have been gone and with that the Imperium of Man since it would be easy prey to Chaos Incursions. GW made a mistake in giving Abbadon as powerful tools as he has since every time he fails to use them to solve a narrative issue it just highlights how incompetent he is.
Abaddon needs a goal that he can accomplish without undoing the Imperium. Perhaps raiding Terra and damaging the Golden Throne would be enough, something that the Imperium would denounce as an utter falsehood and therefore nothing that can be substantiated within the Imperium but something concrete that can be pointed to for the fans to agree he is able to succeed. This could be where Adeptus Custodes Shield Captain Heraclast Vadrian comes in with technology uncovered on the forgeworld Morvane to keep the Throne from failing completely and maybe even start a slow process of repair back to its original state.
I think that this goes back to a fundamental misunderstanding of how chaos works. For example, chaos doesn't measure victory and defeat by the number of pawns sacrificed and, to them, even Horus was expendable.
Give him a clear goal he is working towards and that would fix alot of things and give everyone in the setting to stop him. Also give the Chaos Space Marines clear goals as well. Have far more comradery within the chaos space marines, have them care about each other while they still indulge in their own twisted ways. Also have them talk about how the Emperor was gonna destroy them like the Thunder Warriors in the past and they are fighting for survival at all costs. Even throw in being tools of the Emperor and not being happy with that. This alone would make things seem more relatable and give Abaddon far bigger motivations to keep fighting the Imperium of Man. As for Abaddon himself, he does seek power but make it clear what he intents to do with that power, and their is a hint he wants to Rule and be a King for good and bad reasons. Have a mix of them and it will help you understand how twisted of a person he really is.
honestly my favourite character of the human side of species in 40k would still be fabious bile. super fleshed out character, verry interesting man of science who like abadon doesnt give his soul to any power but rather than abadon, understands that those are verry powerfull warp entitys, he doesnt regard em as gods and instead just recognizes their existence as xenos while pusuing his own goals
A friend who worked for games workshop at the time and was tasked with building terrain for gamesday 2003 told me they wanted to decide everything through a big climactic game on gamesday itsself. A game which was won by chaos, but never led to chaos victory in the lore. If that's true, GW put an old wrong right by destroying cadia in the later iteration of the campaign.
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GW is gods fo chaos they shuffle story line to tier liking... All books and codex`ex is canon. Just different point of view(warp timeline).
No, I don't think I will.
Nope, I'm not supporting scummy trash like that
"Iscandar Cain" ...purge him!
My favourite Abaddon moment is when they first find out that the Emporer is now considered a god, and they all just burst out laughing "The word bearer's were right"
YES!!!! What an absolutely amazing moment that was! 😂
@@weshammer "The Word Bearers have won. They eat dirt and drink shame.
They chant prayers to the unwanted truth through bloodied lips. They lost everything. And yet they still won." - Telemachon, Black Legion
Lost every battle but won the war
Where was this from?
@@firmak2 It's at the start of Black Legion, the traitor legions are just starting to think about returning to real space. A chaos witch makes contact with them and tells them what's been happening while they were on holiday in the eye.
My favorite Abaddon memes aren't about him being a failure but just about how his old metal minis arms kept falling off.
For real, I spent 40$ for another model off eBay just to get the arm and trophy rack off it. Secured the pieces with green stuff and crazy glue, with baking soda as the catalyst for a rock hard cement.
That's some awesome meme content.
RIP 1D4chan.
@@Saif-zf9vbi love the regular marines in metal. But characters just look. Blegh
I had to kit bash mine so it looked like his sword was absorbing a soul just to add something to support his arms
@@goukigp01Rip? Since when? It's still there, it just doesn't show up in google search results anymore.
I think Abaddon can be 'rehabilitated' if we just let ADB do his thing. The black legion books are great, and in general he's a pretty good chaos writer.
But please… for the love of the Imperium… KEEP HIS HANDS OFF BIG E
ADB is a great 40k writer in general
Doesnt he have a TS sorcerer making his primarch Kneel before abaddon?
Sorry - Which book was that? I know it was referenced in the Black Legion Omnibus about Magnus kneeling to Abaddon but I've never found the source book. @@PsicoPrime
ADB is my favourite 40k writer.
I think it’s also worth noting that even in the vague original codex descriptions, it makes it clear that each time Cadia got closer to breaking. The implication was always that cadia was always being worn down to be broken by Abaddon
Back in the day each invasion was utterly point less except for maybe some random worlds taken non important characters killed. This was do to them not wanting to advance the plots and having to lose character and replace models. Now this has changed and this recon had to happen. I remember years ago them injecting that each crusade had mysterious motives but really after the invasion they just hit a reset button and it went back to how it was before it.
It's one planet lol
The thing is, back in that time, each codex was writtent that way, with the race in question being a serious threat, if they did X, X being a looming event that never concretized totally. The lore was completely stalled, and so it kinda became a joke ^^'
At least, that's how I remember it, I started 40K at that time, and when you read your first codex it's exciting, but quickly it becomes laughable and cliché ^^
@@krankarvolund7771ah it was like that for all the non- imperium fsctions.
As I remember it; The necrons were supposedly only barely awake but would easily destroy everyone if they did, the Nids were waiting for the hive mind to reach the galaxy with the majority of their forces, the orks were supposedly starting to heed some mysterious call to Gazkull that would unleash an unstoppable waagh, the craft worlds were gonna resurrect Khane, it was implied the etherials had a grand plan for the tau involving chaos that would put them on top, and Vect of the dark Eldar had some crazy plan to use the infinite knowledge of the black library to invade realspace. If anything, it’s a credit to Abbadon that his big thing actually happened while the rest of the stuff has basically silently disappeared or been disappointing compared to the buildup.
@@keenanmccarty9925 "it was implied the etherials had a grand plan for the tau involving chaos that would put them on top"
That one I've never read, and Tau is my main army, in my codex, it was just "they're a little empire, but with a better tech than the Imperium, and a rapid growth, they'll one day dethrone it", and honestly iy was probably the most realistic one ^^
Abaddon is a fantastic character, but he suffers from what I call "the arch-enemy syndrome": the writer wants to use the arch-enemy as often as possible, as the character is so epic, but given that the penultimate goal of the writer is to keep the story going (so as to milk the cash cow) for as long as humanly possible without a final resolution, the arch-enemy must repeatedly fail, thus giving rise to the sentiment that the arch-enemy is an incompetent, bumbling boob. I don't blame the underlying character Abaddon for fans bestowing upon him the "Fail-baddon" moniker; rather, I blame GW for over-using Abaddon, which inevitably means that he must repeatedly fail in order to maintain the existence of the Emperor and the Imperium intact and by extension keep the GW money-train chugging down the tracks. In contrast, Huron Blackheart is most likely viewed by many fans as being more "successful" than Abaddon, but I argue that this is mainly due to the fact that Huron is more of a peripheral bad guy rather than the arch-enemy; so Huron appears much less often, and his goals are more limited (not the overthrow of the entire Imperium), and therefore, he can be allowed to succeed more often.
There are no lies here
So Abbandon’s reputation and successes were nothing but sacrifices GW made to maintain the sacred Status Quo
Yep the only true mainvillains are the chaos gods and ultimately Abbadon is their greatest puppet despite his resistance or actually, because of it. See how useless every guy who embraces chaos becomes in the materium. (Word Bearers) But yeah the GW should stop making Abbadon and chaos space marines into the main villain and just make them a faction. Hell they should make a campaign where imperium is the villain.
@@Historyfrek4ever Worst take on the Word Bearers in existence
But he hasn't failed. That's the point of this video. He's only seen as failing by the Imperium, who think his goal at each crusade was simply to get Terra, when we know that is not correct. We know he had goals and achieved them.
For a noob like myself, I appreciate all the hard work you put into all your videos you make. All the work you do in finding all the lore and consolidating it into articulate easy to listen and enjoy in 30-60 minute videos that probably took weeks to complete help bring the universe of 40k into a much more cohesive understanding and appreciation to all the writers and artists who make this miserable, depressing and grim world so fun to explore.
I feel that if they had him win more significant and apparent victories prior to the 13th crusade it would be different. But it kinda does seem like the sneaky stuff either was made to save face, or was not stressed and brought to the forefront enough, which results in what seems to be a 'Big Bad' that always loses. And you can only hear "Next time Gadget! Next time!" so many times before you can't take it seriously anymore.
TL;DR his 13th Black Crusade victory came too late to keep him threatening, by then it was a consolation prize. But the foundation is there, they just really need to go hard at it to make him imposing again.
I always say that they should have had multiple Warmasters of Chaos like there were multiple Everchosen's before Archaon in Heresy. So Abbadon would not have lead all 12 of the Black Crusades before the 13th, only the most recent ones. So he would not have suffered that many defeats.
Yeah, it doesnt add up
Thr whole "Pylons" thing
Conisdering Abbadon could have literally just solo showed up to Cadia and smashed it, considering it was literal tribesmen
Technically, all of Chaos was retconned to be successful. From what my friends (who have been into Warhammer longer than I have) told me, Games Workshop likes to hold official tournaments to help determine the direction of the story, with the “Gathering Storm” event representing the 13th Black Crusade. The problem is that the Chaos factions were completely decimated in these games, meaning that Cadia should have technically not only mounted a successful defense but also a successful invasion into the Eye of Terror. But because this is not what they wanted, Games Workshop ignored these results and made it so that Chaos won an absolute victory.
But this is another issue entirely.
This right here is one of the several reasons why we DONT CUT GW SLACK. I have played/followed 40K over 3 decades and trust me GW is so two faced that it does not surprise me they pulled this, cause it has happened before.
That's why I have the same approach to 40k that I have to Star Wars since Disney took over: "I like this, so this is canon to me, I don't care what they say"
My explanation to why Abaddon is now arming literal Space Hulks, is because of how Spire and the Indomitus Crusade decimated his actual fleets in BFGA2
Yep remember the end of fantasy?
Chaos got their arse whipped but GW ignored it cos they wanted to release AOS.
And a great success that was lol 😆
Chaos won the 2003 campaign which is why gw probably had them win is what I would believe to play devils advocate
@@demonlordwrath1718 Makes some sense.... I mean, the final battle of Cadia was being written for a decade
I think one of the things that did the most damage to Abaddon's reputation with the fan-base, is what the lore stats about the Gothic War; namely, Abaddon entrusting Planet Killer to a guy who got it torpedoed out from under him by a handful of cruisers. According to lore from 1999, Abaddon gives Arkham command of his flagship to make a "diversionary attack" with no support, then fails his own campaign and abandons Arkham and Planet Killer (who a little while later runs into four Lunars and gets pelted with torps from outside of gun range). Which is just a prime example of Abaddon making a bizarre strategic gaff for someone supposed to be the greatest threat to the Imperium.
The combination of this, the old Black Crusade lore boiling down to "he broke some stuff, but was rebuffed by Cadia, the first planet he comes across", and his mini being horrific to build ("the Armless"), leads to the meme of him being a walking disaster.
Classic GW moment: his crusades being secret victories wasn't a retcon, GW just failed to communicate the clues.
imo it makes sense considering they were "secrets" to begin with. What GW failed to do is point us to the clues after the big reveal.
@@Gozkiel It's an issue that could've easily been fixed if we gottan more writing from the perspective of Chaos: something that will be a norm moving forward, I hope.
Yup, GW tends to retcon stuff a lot and then lie to your face saying it's been that way all along and we just "didn't understand".
It's been long enough now, so which RUclipsr is he talking about, that used the chaos codec for his info in their argument?
@PchyshoCannel4GameS the lords of science books were so good I really hope we get more Chaose POV
The FailBaddon the Armless is a really funny meme though.
Abaddon's best moment is still in the Siege of Terra novel "The Lost and the Damned." The traitor Primarchs are all having a meeting over hololith on the Vengeful Spirit. Angron is pacing back and forth and raging whenever he speaks, Fulgrim is flirting with anything that moves, Perturabo is grumbling about how he's carrying the heresy, Magnus is bored and barely paying attention, and Mortarion is nowhere to be found. Abaddon walks into all this nonsense, turns to a raging Angron and, showing off some serious brass balls, tells them to mute his mic.
Absolute power move.
Rip whoever muted the mic
I loved that.
So abandon is a keyboard warrior?
@@acedeci4560 Basically.
I thought abaddon was quite a good character in horus heresy books. However I liked how Torgaddon, Loken, Aximand and Abaddon bounced off each other. I do not know much of him outside of the heresy books. I've only followed Loken's lore
I would agree if it wasn't for the fact in the actual books its them taunting or teasing each other and Abaddon being insecure and getting upset from it. It consistently makes him come off like a little bitch in most cases.
@@gelonvia8525 I personally did not mind that so much. Every group of friends sort of has that person. for me I just thought it was more relatable to people I knew.
My dude I really recommend the talon of Horus and then the black legion book by aaron dembski bowden, fucking masters pieces👌
@@konradsommer6927 I'll definitely give them a look! thank u for the recommendations!
@@gelonvia8525 I kind of liked that because it shows that Horus is incredibly uptight and sensitive and for me that makes me realise how he has fallen so easily and so heavily to chaos. It will of been easy for the chaos gods and Horus to influence him into thinking the emperor and loyalists are against him
Kind of funny that, for me, that all big monologue you gave about Abbandon near the end, fit Warhammer AoS’s Archaon better…
He is a Man who became A Demi-god or even a God of Chaos by his cheer willpower and determination to destroy Sigmar and is constantly doing a balancing act to never be claimed by any of the Chaos Gods…
I think Abbandon may have worked better if he was « A Villain » … not « THE Villain » of 40k…
He is a villain. He is Vader not palpatine
@@RandomPerson-tz7wk don't insult Vader in that way. The only "villian" in 40k that gets anywhere close to Vader's iconic status is Horus.
Still think Archaon is a better Horus
Archaon was, back in the 2000s, arguably more of a joke than Abaddon was, if you listened only to the memes. The Storm of Chaos campaign - the Warhammer Fantasy version of the 13th Black Crusade, which took place a year later - centred around Archaon's assault on the Empire and siege of the city of Middenheim... except that there was no clear reason *why* Archaon was assaulting Middenheim, and he got slapped around by Grimgor Ironhide during the campaign.
It was only when GW rewound and attempted that story again - as part of The End Times - that Archaon actually triumphed.
Before that, Archaon's battleplan was:
Step 1: Besiege Middenheim
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Victory!
@@N0-1_H3r3 well....but he won
Thing is: I actually played in the original 13th Black Crusade, where GW ran this thing where players fought battles and then uploaded their results over the weeks, to save/break Cadia. There were wild results to this- Eldrad Ulthran got eaten by a Blackstone Fortress for example. But I think stuff went the opposite way to the way GW wanted coz it's just been quietly retired
Chaos got absolutly STOMPED
But GW brought out the retcon hammer and pretending Chaos won
@@zogwort1522 the inablity to have a flexible narrative it's their fault, the crusade could've be beaten back Just for the demon primarchs to kick back After the imperium would've tried to invade the eye
chaos wasn’t stomped. chaos was stalemated after making landfall on Cadia. The event in 2017 isn’t based on the OG black crusade.
Thanks for this Wes- I’m listening to the Horus Heresy audiobooks, and one thing in there I see that’s missing is how Abbadon was considered Horus’s successor- he’s basically a non-entity in most cases and his greatest involvement was getting all of his company killed on Terra. I’d like to see him get more fleshed out in the Horus Heresy if possible.
I kinda agree with MajorKill when he says that Huron Blackheart is the better warmaster. He is basically abbadon, but a competant leader who doesnt rely on chaos to win, but uses is because its a tool.
I honestly like the tone of the Badab War more than the Horus Heresy. The Astral Claws didnt turn because of some corrupting influence of a warp god, it happened for bureaucratic reasons. It feels much more "human" and grounded.
I don't think I agree. Chaos lords fall into two categories; those who embrace chaos, and those who seek to use it, but both are ultimately going to the Four for power.
The Four go to *Abaddon* for power. He is the exception, that's why he can wrangle Daemon primarchs, the Four need Abaddon's favour and so they wrangle their greatest champions to serve him to purchase it. Blackheart could become that, but Abaddon already is that.
@@PoolNoodleGundamAbby got clapped by old elder and a sister of battle LAMO
@@argeltalthecustodiankiller6552 he also got permanent injuries from an under equipped warn thin death company srgt or captain don't remember which
@@miguelperez9906 I believe Abbadon got into a fight with giga Chad old man Sigismund, and only beat Sigismund because chaos plot armor
I think it’s more about how that the fandom dislikes how abaddon has too much plot armor especially the moment when he survives being stabbed by a 1000 year old space marine
I disagree, abaddon doesn't have as much plot armor as people say he does, and that stab wasn't that bad, any space marine could've survived that
@@TheHandofDestiny remember that time Eldrad stabbed Abaddon in the throat so hard he teleported away alive?
@@KuatPronunciations1860 Erebus was busy that day as Lorgar had transferred him to a school for deaf kids.
Shit like that happens all the time though. Curze never should have survived the Lion shoving the Lion sword up to the hilt in his guts, but, hey, Rule of Cool.
@@KuatPronunciations1860 That's one case, though I really can't think of anything else
I think it's most down to GW having Abbadon's successes be in relatively obscure source books for so long. Clearly in the Liber Chaotica GW had the ideas for the Black Crusades being more subtle operations than they first appear, and they had those ideas for a long time.
And that's a great way to get some longevity out of your arch villain, he didn't outright kill the heroes but he definitely jacked some shit in a way they didn't really make note of but will hurt them later. Fantastic outline for a baddie dynamic.
Problem is Liber Chaotica is NOT a wide spread book in the slightest, and as near as I can tell it's by far the most explicit version of that idea until 8th edition and The Fall of Cadia. I don't really blame people for thinking this all came out of nowhere when it kinda did if you didn't read this 1 book. If they'd included even brief summations of the Liber Chaotica versions of the Crusades in the next Chaos Codexes or other main line books, the idea would've had way longer to germinate in fan's heads and wouldn't have felt like so much of a retcon.
Yo be fair
Thr Black Library is doing a lot better.
Im in the midst of "Talon of Horus" while i wait for thr next Siege of Terra book, its a great read and i really enjoy Abbadon
Though that might have been GW's idea, to make that eventual chaos victory a surprise, making people go "what the fuck just happened?".
Legit got emotional hearing the quote regarding abaddon at the end of the video
It's dumb that I got emotional over a fictional villain, but it furthermore exemplified my love and interest for Abaddon and his black legion
This was an awesome video, Abbadon is cool, and I can't wait to see where he goes next in the lore
Not dumb at all. Literature is at its best when a character ceases becoming merely words on paper and leaves a genuine emotional mark on us. Just like a real person would.
@@ghostwood9174 that's true! ^^,
Not dumb at all
I almost teared up at a chapter in "Mortis" where a Conscript Gaurdsman swore an oath to hold the line, to a dying Blood Angel
He took command of the gaurd and faced down the horrors of Nurgle with the Dewth Gaurd Legion with nothing but his brothers and their flashlights
@Adrien Watson that sounds really intense, but I see >.<
It's really interesting how warhammer can just make us emotional like that, it's actually kind of cool now that I think about it ^^,
I was there in the 1990's. There was alot of chat in 1999 about him being under written and hopeless from the GW Staff and Managers. We would talk about the books be they considered retcons even back then just a few years later.
It was a retcon because I think the original idea of a lot of the lore was to provide colour for events that were determined by official games mainly in the UK so there was no actual story plan for that stuff until much later.
Love your content bro. I'm glad to see you succeed in viewership and sponsorship. Keep kicking butt!
As a Warhammer enthusiast myself the sheer amount of hoops and volumes books that you have to go through just to prove a point, makes it a retcon.
Any good business understands that one of the key elements in deciding how well your product will be received by your target market is how you promote it.
Inaction merely serves to maintain the status quo. Even back in the day Games Workshop had the means and opportunity to shape fan perceptions to match their story better, but they opted not to.
Death to the false emperor! I think that several of the chaos Primarchs have great stories around their fall. Magnus, Angron and Lorgar I think all have great stories. The Despoiler serves as the biggest chaos threat that isn't singularly directed by one god which makes it more of a wild card in the great game they play but also harder to recruit and organize. IMO keep up the great vids!!
MY GUY HAS 500K!!! Been around for a while but absent for a few months! It's great to see you growing!!
I have mad love to Wes for being my bridge to learn about Warhammer!
In Abaddon's credit - the Imperium doesn't even view the 13th Crusade as a loss, given that the Cadian Gate still holds. Cadia fell, but the Eye of Terror is still relatively contained, which means Terra is also still very much safe.
But also, something Wes didn't touch on, is that Abaddon kind of lives in the shadow of his parallel in Archeon the Everchosen. Archeon is everything that Abaddon isn't when it comes to the community. It would be really interesting to hear an analysis of why that ending quote at 23:43 was translated so perfectly with Archeon, but failed so utterly with Abaddon... Because that final quote sums up Archeon perfectly as well.
As someone who played from 3rd edition, I'm surprised people actually thought this about Abaddon the Brilliant.
Also I owned the Libre Chaotica too, my space marines army was a Khorne devoted army.
Also I remember that campaign and watched many of the battles in person.
I remember they said these battles were going to decide the cannon (we called "fluff").
As a Khorne player, the biggest letdown I felt about the lore was when I realized Angron accepted the god's gifts and in a way became a slave to Khorne... I saw things the way Kharn did, that doing that is weakness and pathetic in character.
I love Abbadon, he’s this overwhelmingly powerful character in mind and might. He’s the only one who’s ever truly united the forces of chaos, and his goals aren’t about his faith in the ruinous powers or anything like that. It’s all about his disillusion with the imperium, he believes in his ability to do better, to unite humanity under his black banner and return the rightful rulers of men to their stations. He’s an angel of death, and to him that means he should lead rather than serve, and I love that idea
Perfectly put. Unfortunate it's not made clear to everyone else.
Lmao he really said "Oxford defines" 😅😂 remindes me of so many essays from high-school 😆
@WesHammergiveaway. oh, a not weshammer, weshammer scammer. I hope one kf the chaos gods turns your butthole into a chaos spawn. But only your butthole. That way you can be fully alert for all the butt themed mayhem that will hopefully ensue 😁
I love that the books are spread out and around different character with different points of views. The galaxy is huge and its cool seeing different perspectives.
Hey, all I’m saying is that my beloved planet of regular Mon-kiegh Cadians beat him back so well that he had to drive his fancy spaceship into the planet to win . . .
More usage of the pay-to-win gear, I see.
I remember when I disvoered the intro of BFG, I've heard taht Abaddon used a balckstone fortress to destroy Cadia, so I was expecting the fortress to shoot something lile the Death Star in Star Wars. And then I saw him ramming into the planet and I thought it was very dumb and very unclimatic XD
My personal headcannon is that abaddon has developed a captain jack sparrow type of philosophy by embracing his role as the warmaster of chaos. Yes, he was fed up, yes he didnt care about his legion anymore, yes he had enough of war and ran off into the warp.
He was after all a normal human and not an immortal daemon or demigod.
But something happened there that changed his mind and lead him to embrace the role he fell into: the warmaster of the dark forces, the adversary of the empire, the despoiler and destroyer.
It would explain why he tries to slowly drain the imperium of power instead of a quick and brutal war like horus did. He sees it as his purpose in the universe, like the tyranids devour and the orks Waaargh.
I think that would add up wonderfully.
I also like to imagine that he actually has prosthetic arms after loosing both of his arms when he attempted to impress Tzeentch by playing "Rush E" on the black templars chruch organ.
I LOVE ABBY! after 20 years of being a fan. I pray 🙏🏻 I can be blessed enough to write a book one day for GW.
Abaddon was successful in the Black Crusades. He chipped away at defenses and finally turned the major loss of the Blackstone Fortress into an ultimate win by destroying Cadia.
This was very informative. I always thought that the supposed "retcon" was appropriate than to leave Abaddon as a failure forever but to learn that there's proof that something was happening behind the scenes since 2003 really makes me appreciate Abaddon even more.
I agree it wasn't a smart choice to keep this important information in the dark but I suppose it makes sense lore-wise, it makes the sudden undeniable victory over Cadia much more impactful.
Fantastic video.
I want you to know, WesHammer, that it's your videos that always tempt me into making a Chaos Space Marine Army. You came close to succeeding again today, but only close.
In my opinion, the best way to think of the lore and retcons is that we are getting our information filtered through the imperium. It's not so much he is failing, but we are being shown his failures to highlight the success of the empire. It's only when he has a major victory (such as Cadia) that the imperium is forced to accurately report what has happened.
Great video Wes. It’s a shame none of it matters since Ghazhkull Uruk Thraka destroyed him with a vortex grenade 25 years ago. My game results being canon of course.
Liber Chaotica being considered ‘obscure’ makes me feel old. 👴🏻
As far as I’m aware, the results of the EoT campaign, just like the SoC campaign over in WHFB, was quietly retconned by implication only a few years after it ran. The following global campaign, Medusa V, ran two years later and was explicitly set after EoT (similarly SoC got a smaller scale sequel, Nemesis Crown, that was set in the aftermath of Archaon’s invasion), but with an edition/edition-and-a-half, no timeline in any of the codices included events after 995.999.M41 which was the moment the 13th Black Crusade began, and the Crusade was only referred to as on its way (same thing happened in Fantasy; the timeline was rolled back to a minute to midnight). Unless I’m mistaken, between then and the release of The Gathering Storm, the only things published that were set after the 13th Black Crusade were the framing devices in the Ciaphas Cain books, but even then they didn’t say anything in relation to the outcome of it.
Technically there was never an official statement that EoT and SoC were retconned until their replacements were published, but the implication of all information relating to them and subsequent events being scrubbed from future publications and said publications saying that the Black Crusade and Chaos Incursion are yet to happen is undeniably that GW considered them no longer canon.
This is super interesting! Thanks for sharing. I was unaware of the second campaign!
Worst retcon in 40k is that orks don't have dongs anymore. I liked the 1st space wolves omnibus where a drunk ork scout pisses on a hidden Ragnar Blackmane and cuts a huge fart lol
I've been waiting for the next black legion novel for WAY too long! And give Khayon his daemon wolf back! Give it BACK! 🥺
Right?! I was promised a trilogy! *Joker voice* where's my god damn final book Bruce!
@@weshammer Mark Hamill should play Fulgrim using his Joker voice in any 40k film or show! Whether that happens or not I will now and forever read Fulgrim in my minds ear with that particular voice!
ruclips.net/user/shortsI3NzsISVC50?feature=share
This was the bit I was referencing, but us that would be awesome!
First, great job here. Your understanding of the lore is tops.
Second, anyone who sees Abaddon as being retconned with victory doesn't understand 40K. No one side can achieve the upper hand for too long. There must always be war and it will most likely to be a desperate affair.
That is the true nature of 40K.
FailBandon the Armless is so incredibly hilarious.
"You can make all the memes you want, it won't bring back Cadia" - Abbadon the Despoiler
The original lore: 13th crusade 999.M41 Games Workshop Global store Campaign event date: 2004 - Imperium Verses Chaos Space Marines and friends. Actively tallied the results on the internet, showed it on a website and made a big deal out of the whole thing. Went to the effort of commissioning two tie in novels, based a BFG campaign around it and even released a codex, what they thought they'd get is another Armageddon, instead what they got was a stalemate with the Imperium barely holding onto Cadia; Not the result they wanted, they wanted the Imperium to lose to set up a cool new chapter in the game's story moving forward; Having already made material ready to print and send out about how the Eldar heroically kicked Abaddon's butt and other such shenanigans with everything continuing as per normal. Instead what they got was a situation they didn't like, so they chucked a massive hissy fit and froze the lore in place for 12 YEARS while they tried to figure out a way to get around this, telling writers to not go past 999.M41 and no one was allowed to touch or talk about the 13th Black Crusade ever again until they say so.
The current lore: A decade later, the 13th Black Crusade is reduced to a series of novels which covers the whole event with zero involvement from the player base of the table top game in the way Games Workshop wants it to unfold as a set up to what they planned to do going forward as just the prelude to the Dark Imperium era, with the whole thing segregated to being a plot in the second BFG video game with Abaddon succeeding in destroying Cadia and opening up the great rift and then... scooting off, not to be seen or heard from again from that point forward, with the focus shifted to Mr Pappa Smurf of the Smurf Marines and the shenanigans of the Deamon Primarchs. Wow GW...
Abaddon is my favorite character. He’s so cool and the black legion books are so gooood. I’m so glad you’re giving him his dues
Until Abbadon actually kills a named character (like a space marine or top leader of a Xenos faction) in the lore, he has no impetus to ever be considered a true threat.
Death has to be meaningful, and a real and present danger.
Planets are disposable in 40k. Characters have to be treated the same way, or we have a static universe.
I agree with your sentiment. Death has to be a real consequence in war novels, but I will point out that Abby has actually racked up a decent number of main character or main character level kills like Jubal Khan and sigismund
You ask for something impossible with GW: they don’t want to kill named characters (the only one I can think of is Tycho and only because he was considered redundant during the 3rd war for Armageddon campaign). They had Abaddon manhandle Calgar only to have him leave before finishing Calgar off because his ship was being stolen for example.
Abbadon mocked horuses efforts but he killed sanguinius and crippled the emperor for a start!
You say planets are disposable but he destroyed probably the second least disposable planet the imperium had (had)
The trick here is that Abaddon is not just a character in a story, because 40k is not just a story.
GW sells a model of Abaddon, and there are rules for using him to lead Chaos Marine armies. Those things are a higher priority to GW than the novels, which make up only a tiny fraction of their revenue. How would you like it if a model you'd carefully assembled or painted and wanted to use in your armies was suddenly killed off in a cheap pulp novel by some freelance novelist?
Very good work, thanks Wes
Hi Wes.
Can you cover the history of Fabulous Bob?
Only War has a decent series of videos about him
I'm almost brand new to all of this 40k stuff. I started learning lore and reading books around Aug, I dont play tabletop or honestly consume anything other than just lore and storytelling. Loving the universe so far even midst its faults and back tracking. However this is generally my first dabble with abbadon. And I am very pleased with the type of character arc it has. I think he is a really cool villain with enough flavor to not just be one of those, "bad just to be bad".
He is a cool villain and I'm a big fan! If you like audio books, the talon of Horus and black legion are great and the narrator is fantastic. They are on audible and can highly recomend
My favorite Abandon moment was when he named all 40k war hammers
GW should make compilation books for major characters that have their lore spread over multiple sources and compile it all into one book. I know they'd lose some money from people not buying some of the books with lore for a certain character, but in the compilation book they could give a summary of that info and say something like "if you want the full story/ more detailed info see book X". That way, you can still get the most important info from those articles or old source books without going down a Google rabbit hole. This could also give GW an opportunity to add more details to events or characters and more clearly establish what is and isn't cannon.
I always appreciate youtubers who segment the sponsored parts of their videos so we can skip that if it's something we already have/already seen and don't care about
Bols wants to complain about abby being retcon king, but nobody remembers when Necrons went from space terminators to cranky Egyptian space terminators
Yeah, I was totally lost when they started talking about Necrons wanting stuff, or having goals, as my main knowledge of Necrons was old lore where they're just ancient machines that destroy everything they find when you awake them XD
I see why changing them is probably for the better, but still ^^
I'm thankful that there is content like this online! I was into warhammer when I was 11-14 then it has totally fallen off until now. Im 33 and get to plunge right into the lore and everything I've missed, but also SKIP all the negative sides with the fandom, Its so nice to not have to trudge trough misconceptions and pettiness. Thank you for the intro to Abadon. And going off of this video, It seems like an interesting character. A character that exudes this nietzschean will to power in the most chaotic of realms! Pretty interesting stuff :)
Hi !
Your work has been massive here (looking for info, doing the video, editing etc.)
Thank you man ! Keep it up
We really appreciate your work ! :)
It almost sounds like Abaddon has become the champion of Malice. He is all and none at the same time. Just gives me those vibes
The Aba vs Sigismund meeting was epic. Sigismund, even in death, is just chilling.
Abaddon gets far to much hate. The one thing going against him is for him to win the most popular factions need to suffer massive L. It hard for gameswork shop to serve up an L to popular faction like the Space Marine and Imperial Guard.
I someone who plays Cadian Gaurd. I was surprised when they were allowed to sufferer such a massive defeat losing their home world
"The Leiber Chaotica is an old, obscure art book that nobody has read." :Looks at my copy on the shelf: proceeds to feel ancient and called out.
I don't think GW ever intended him to be a "failure", it's just that he never went over with the fan base, so he got memed to what he was.
Kinda like how every now and then, WWE tries to push a wrestler over as a face, but for one reason or another, the fans just don't like him, and either boo him or meme him. I think it's the same with Abandon.
PS, you rock, thanks for that video, it's a good dive into questions I know people have, so good on you.
What the fans don’t understand is that abaddon has nothing but time and the great scale of 40k every crusade doesn’t need to be a large advancement or great victory with each crusade he pushes the imperium of man closer to the edge of the cliff, it’s why they had to bring back guilliman because they needed someone to help push back the 13th black crusade it was almost the end for the empire and mankind.
A lot of the jokes are also tied to his old finecast model which was notorious for having its arms fall off.
I'm new to the actual lore and this video actually makes me like this character I previously only knew a little bit about.
As a Abby fan, I love him, he is best boi, also he is the best duelist in the game , only beaten by like three people 1v1, played against Abby today , he killed two captains and a chapter master and got healed to full health , he is insane and it’s fun
Also the only people who beat him have “this weapon ignores all rules to avoids wounds” or are morty, and that’s just cause morty is morty
Straight away, the man himself with his Draachnian demon sword.
I think this stems from a fundamental issue with the Warhammer lore which is that the Space Marines follow a very rigid hierarchy of genetic ubermensch supremacy. This narrows storytelling options since characters can't become significantly more or less capable over time.
As a veteran of the long war who was there for the Eye of Terror campaign, the way I remember things is that Chaos was kicking ass. Towards the end a bunch of special cards (I think they were cards) were discovered/won by Imperial players. This is what dragged it to a "draw", I remember it being a minor Imperium win in how it was put across. The common belief among the Chaos players was that GW intentionally influenced it back towards what they wanted.
The fact they never did something like that again is sad.
I’ve always wanted to see a Abaddon transformation story
How cool would it be if he was just like fuck this, goes to Davin, goes to Dwell, goes to Molech, goes wherever he needs to go to find Primarch levels of chaos power without achieving daemonhood and literally takes the chaos power for himself like his father did.. except unlike Horus doesn’t let it destroy him and controls it.. leading to the man we know and love today, that’s how I’d explain it, mix in gradual acceptance and understanding of chaos and it’s ways and his ambition for power and revenge, we’d really be able to see him start to learn how to use it as a weapon not just as a source of new masters like the Primarchs would have done, it could be an excellent way of showing fans why he’s the Warmaster of chaos and not Lorgar
Nice ! I always love that kind of vod ! Cheers man
Now, please do "Why Horus is worse than Abaddon". We all know Horus was a gullible failure that took the word of a long-dead man over his own brother, when his brother was really attempting to warn him.
Abaddon: FINALLY! Now no one shall mock me again!!! (raises both arms in the air and they both fall off) DAMMIT!!!
Another great video Wes, never stop!
The biggest retcon about Abaddon is him suddenly having arms.
I think we can all agree that the Red Gobbo would make for the perfect primary antagonist for 40k.
Maybe a better change would have been that SOME of his Crusades were successful, but in some of them the other factions in the galaxy did well and set his agenda back. That way everybody gets to look better.
This series sounds really interesting, and isn't something any other RUclipsr does. It's still something I absolutely think should be a thing, good initiative!
Can’t wait till Wes get to one mil. Keep it up bro, you deserve it!
Dude, I LOVED the Eye of Terror campaign. My buddies and I were on a huge BFG kick at the time and we filled GW's results with as many fleet battles as we could. Good times.
One doesn't need to like a character in a story. They're there to serve a purpose, and if they do that, great!
My favourite Abaddon moment is the birth of the Black Legion and the Long War.
We were born for battle, Khayon. We were made to conquer the galaxy, not to rot in Hell and die upon our brothers' blades. Who are the architects of the Imperium? Who fought to purge its territory of aliens and expand its borders? Who brought rebellious worlds to heel and slaughtered those who refused the light of progress? Who walked from one side of the galaxy to the other, marking their passage in a trail of treacherous dead? This is our Imperium. Built across the worlds we burned, over bones we broke, with the blood we shed. You see it too. You feel it now, don't you? - A new war. One not born of bitterness nor founded on revenge. - The Long War, Khayon.
Compared to the daemon primarchs and other characters Abbadon will always feel like a lesser villain.
Even if he destroyed Terra and killed the Emperor people will not accept him.
You can write a villain that is a big "threat" but it is something entirely different to actually convince the audience he is a threat and a well written villain.
Abbadon is the "Jailer" from WoW's last expansion of Warhammer 40k.
Abbadon is an abject failure as both an antagonist and literary character.
The Warzone Vigilus shows this. Instead of a massive ground war, all he needed to do was to amass the entire Chaos Fleet, put the Planet Destroyer in the center of it, and go full speed towards Vigilus. There would be no need to worry about casualties at all since if the Planet Destroyer made contact with Vigilus and destroyed it then he would have won. The Niumund Corridor would have been gone and with that the Imperium of Man since it would be easy prey to Chaos Incursions.
GW made a mistake in giving Abbadon as powerful tools as he has since every time he fails to use them to solve a narrative issue it just highlights how incompetent he is.
GW has plot-saved Failbaddon countless times. It used to be in the books before retconning.
You actually made me now like abbadon as you pointed out alot of good things about him
The main fail-baddon meme was due to his miniature. His arms kept falling off.
Abaddon needs a goal that he can accomplish without undoing the Imperium. Perhaps raiding Terra and damaging the Golden Throne would be enough, something that the Imperium would denounce as an utter falsehood and therefore nothing that can be substantiated within the Imperium but something concrete that can be pointed to for the fans to agree he is able to succeed. This could be where Adeptus Custodes Shield Captain Heraclast Vadrian comes in with technology uncovered on the forgeworld Morvane to keep the Throne from failing completely and maybe even start a slow process of repair back to its original state.
I think that this goes back to a fundamental misunderstanding of how chaos works.
For example, chaos doesn't measure victory and defeat by the number of pawns sacrificed and, to them, even Horus was expendable.
Yoooo you retconned the meaning of retcon for this videooo. Metaretconceptionnnn *hits bong*
This was one of the most informative lore video I have seen. And I have seen A LOT of them.
Give him a clear goal he is working towards and that would fix alot of things and give everyone in the setting to stop him. Also give the Chaos Space Marines clear goals as well.
Have far more comradery within the chaos space marines, have them care about each other while they still indulge in their own twisted ways. Also have them talk about how the Emperor was gonna destroy them like the Thunder Warriors in the past and they are fighting for survival at all costs. Even throw in being tools of the Emperor and not being happy with that. This alone would make things seem more relatable and give Abaddon far bigger motivations to keep fighting the Imperium of Man.
As for Abaddon himself, he does seek power but make it clear what he intents to do with that power, and their is a hint he wants to Rule and be a King for good and bad reasons. Have a mix of them and it will help you understand how twisted of a person he really is.
Dayum, your channel grows rapidly. And your videos are getting more and more awesome.
honestly my favourite character of the human side of species in 40k would still be fabious bile. super fleshed out character, verry interesting man of science who like abadon doesnt give his soul to any power but rather than abadon, understands that those are verry powerfull warp entitys, he doesnt regard em as gods and instead just recognizes their existence as xenos while pusuing his own goals
A friend who worked for games workshop at the time and was tasked with building terrain for gamesday 2003 told me they wanted to decide everything through a big climactic game on gamesday itsself. A game which was won by chaos, but never led to chaos victory in the lore. If that's true, GW put an old wrong right by destroying cadia in the later iteration of the campaign.
Abaddon needs to be more menacing and feel more like a genuine threat imo.
Did a good job in the fall of cadia book with him
I haven't cared about Abbadon since ever but that Quote you read off at the end explain who he is made me a huge fan.