Editing Abaddon (section)

== Abaddon's Plan ==
===V 1.0 "The Twelve Failed Crusades"===
Abaddon is clearly conceptualized as one bad motherfucker. He leads the [[Black Legion]], which remains the largest and most coherent Legions of Chaos (apart from the Word Bearers whom are space Isis and fight holding hands, the Iron Warriors who, while broken into warbands, are internally very well-organized, <s>and ''maaaaaybe'' the Alpha Legion</s> no such legion exists, please follow [[blam|this]] link instead...and the [[Death Guard]], who have somehow managed to grow to at least Heresy-era numbers, but will only fight at legion strength under their [[Mortarion|Death Daddy]]). He is the one that makes Imperial Commanders quake in their boots. He beats Draigo in one-on-one about 70% of the time. His minions even regularly sack Imperial worlds. So what happened?

[[Games Workshop]] and its inability to write worth shit happened.

Despite the fact that they wanted to make a dude who has the magnetic and indomitable personality that managed to get Chaos to get its shit together 13 times, and the fact he rewrote the book on evil after Horus went down, ''and'' the fact that he is the #1 threat to the Imperium at large, he's little more than a joke to the fanbase except for when he's in close combat (and even then, depending if the players modelled him with arms or not).

Instead of depicting him as a scheming and successful general, they chose to depict him as making ''thirteen separate attempts'' to march on Terra, each and every one supposedly stalling out in the same place. However this is far from the truth if you know anything about the objectives of each Black Crusade. This was quite evident in the Liber Chaotica, an old book most of you youngsters haven't even heard about. As a result of his 12 "failed" crusades, his reputation is a victim of the company that's trying to prop him up as a major threat.

However, the poor reputation of the Black Crusades is built on the community believing that they all have the same objective of reaching Terra and destroying the Imperium (despite this never having been the case even back in 3rd edition). The Black Crusades had clear cut goals in mind and had them all accomplished in each one ([[Sigismund|with some complications]]). Besides, even if the Black Crusades had this goal in mind, GW can hardly kill off the "main characters" of the setting, who have the most lore, the most units, and probably the most players.

A more adequate description is that he gets what he wants and then leaves. In this regard, he kind of serves all the chaos powers at once - his ambition and lust for power appeases [[Tzeentch]], the death toll the Crusades leave behind appease [[Khorne]], the sheer volume of slaves and plunder they take please [[Slaanesh]], and the destruction left in the wake of their crusades (which often end with virus bombings to cover their tracks) pleases the [[Nurgle|Plaguefather]] greatly.

Though even the staunchest of Abaddon's defenders will point out he's overpriced and that the arms on his model break fucking constantly. And that he generally sucks at extreme long-term planning. Tzeentch must enjoy fucking him over.

===V 2.0 "The CrimsonPath"===
Apparently GW realized how thoroughly they fucked up their BBEG's reputation and made a massive rework/retcon of his plans and his crusades with the 6th edition CSM codex and subsequent Black Legion supplement.

Abaddon's new plan is something called [[Bloody Path|The Crimson Path]]. The idea is to zerg Cadia with enough daemons to destroy the Pylon network, and envelop the planet in the Warp. After Cadia, he intends to use the strategy to burn/slaughter/impress his girlfriend the whole way to Terra, by bringing the Warp to it. At the same time deploying minor warbands ahead to disorganize and plunder, [[Khorne|kill, maim, burn,]] and do <strike>bad</strike> totally sweet stuff to stir up the Warp. He is preparing for the next stage of the plan, when Cadia finally <strike>falls</strike> gets potted like an eight-ball in the wrong damn pocket. Game Over.

It wouldn't be so bad. Ya'know, a planet lost in the Warp is not so uncommon these days. The bad thing is that Cadia has the ONLY warp-restraining system in thousands of light years (the aforementioned [[Necron|Pylon system]]). Why is this bad? This is when the vanguard of Chaos lackeys mentioned previously enters stage right. With the Warp getting <strike>high</strike> turned into a nightmare shitstorm worse than any previous time in the last ten millennia, the Eye of Terror itself will expand at the hilariously snuffy pain of the already ravaged and raped planets. The CSM apparently NOW CAN resist warpstorms to a degree; thus making a scar where daemons will be a common sight, warp travel now more dangerous than ever. Abbadon and [[Traitor Legions|his brohams]] could advance without opposition along the "Crimson Path". Ah, and he plans to take the path directly to Terra, hoping that the Imperium, Eldar, Tau, Orks, Rak'gol, Perpetuals, Dark Eldar, Necrons and rival Chaos Space Marines *Cough* Alpha Legion *Cough* don't get their shit together. Not to mention the gods themselves, who are pretty OK with a status-quo, as a current [[Nurgle|rotten]], [[Slaanesh|decadent]], [[Tzeentch|backstabbing]], [[Khorne|warmongering]] Imperium fuels them with all the bad emotions they need.

To add to the above, now only the 13th of Abaddon's crusades has directly targeted Cadia. His first ever Black Crusade was to recover his fancy sword and cement his position as Warmaster. His fourth Black Crusade was directed against the Citadel of the Kromach on the planet El'Phanor, which was a success (and the gates of the Citadel were even broken by Abaddon himself). His sixth ended in the betrayal and elimination of the Sons of the Eye, another warband derived from the Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus that he viewed as a threat to his claim to be Horus' successor. His ninth was directed against Cancephalus, an Imperial naval base of strategic importance and hilarious name (which he not only destroyed, but bombed it with Cyclonic Torpedoes for good measure). The tenth was a strategic success, as he was able to assault [[Medusa]] with the help of [[Perturabo]] and the [[Iron Warriors]]; even though the [[Iron Hands]] were able to survive their siege, Abaddon and Perturabo learned a lot about [[Medusa]]'s defenses and left the Iron Hands at a fraction of their original strength. His twelfth might also be considered a victory, given that he managed to acquire two [[Blackstone Fortress]]es (though it's arguable if this was his objective all along, a win is a win, pick up the chips and leave the table). Only his thirteenth Black Crusade is him directly invading Cadia, contrary to popular opinion. While he has sent forces there before then, they were primarily intended to distract the Imperium while he could accomplish his real goals. What's interesting is that we probably should have seen this coming, as his title, "the Despoiler", literally means "looter". At the very least, it explains why he wants the [[Blood Ravens|Bloody Magpies]] dead so badly.

And of course there is the little question of "wait, wasn't Cadia targeted because it was the only reliable way out of the Eye of Terror? What gives?" So the retcon has gone and introduced a rather gaping plot hole as making everything but Cadia the target for the prior twelve crusades has called into question why Cadia is even special at all. One possible answer is that Abaddon had Cadia ''appear'' as a primary goal of each Black Crusade, so the Imperium would think of it as a major defensive point and fill it with the bajillions of soldiers that he needs as a sacrifice to fuel his Crimson Path plan. Also while waiting for his final crusade maintaining the stupidly expensive Cadian gate fortress-world network would bleed the Imperium off the much needed resources that could be used to defend against shit like Tyranids or WAAAAGH! Ghazghkull so as to weaken the Imperium even more.

It also retconned the reason Abaddon wanted to take Cadia. In the old fluff the Cadian Gate was one of the few places where a huge fleet could exit the Eye of Terror (and the ''only'' one where it could be done without [[Thousand Sons|top-grade sorcery]] or [[Word Bearers|direct divine intervention]]) without being scattered all over the place and hunted down by Imperial cordoning fleets one by one. This piece of fluff was already quite dubious, considering Abby ''did'' take the full might of the Black Fleet for his [[Battlefleet Gothic|12th Black Crusade]] that took place thousands of light years from Cadia. In the new fluff the Imperium still does (somehow) think Abaddon needs Cadia to get his fleet out of the Eye, but his new "actual" plan is not so much as to ''conquer'' Cadia but to ''destroy'' it since it houses a pylon system that stops the Eye of Terror from expanding no matter how much death and suffering he causes to disturb the Warp.

===V2.1 Gathering Storm: Electric Boogaloo===
Starting early 2017 GW launched a new massive event about the Biggest, Blackest Crusade of all, starting with a Fall of Cadia in which (surprise) Abaddon fails to take over Cadia for the 13th time. Because he blows it up. By smashing it in two with the blown-up remains of one of his Blackstone Fortresses.

Later it was retconned that [[Just as planned|blowing up Cadia ''was'' his plan all along]], but he just needed to blow up all the ''other'' pylon-housing planets around the Eye before that. Destroying them was the true goal of most of his ''previous'' crusades (along with the other stuff noted above), and most of his activities, including early half-assed assaults on Cadia served to distract the Imperium and hide his true agenda. So in other words, [[Jojo's Bizarre Adventure|he was only ''pretending'' to be unsuccessful.]] Or so he tells himself - the retcons make it look like he still fucked around so long that it took him millenia to [[Exterminatus|blow up a planet]], something that happens any time an Inquisitor sneezes, whereas the previous reason for not destroying Cadia (gaining a fantastic fortress world and making it nearly impossible for the Imperium to take back so he'd have a base of operations, making it the evil counterpart to Terra) was a good enough reason for why he never tried firing one of a million ways of destroying a planet at it.

Anywho, as of the 13th Black Crusade Cadia was the last pylon-world (or the last Abaddon is aware of), and with its destruction the Eye of Terror has started to grow, allowing Chaos Fleets to leave the Eye en-masse pretty much anywhere. The end result was the creation of the [[Great Rift]], which has been fucking up the Imperium in horrible new ways. Of course, that also is not counting that the Necrons are rapidly waking and are fully capable of [[StarCraft#The_Protoss|constructing additional Pylons]]. They, unlike literally everyone else, have not lost any of their technological knowledge and capabilities and absolutely hate the Warp.

===V2.2 Cicatrix Maledictum and Vigilus===
Now the [[Great Rift]] does not outright destroy the Imperium like the loss of Terra and Mars would, but the difference is akin to that of drowning in shit and merely being neck-deep in it. The "Northern" parts of the Imperium aka [[Age of the Dark Imperium|"Imperium Nihilus"]] are cut off from Terra and the [[Astronomican]], left at the mercy of Chaos with but two constantly contested corridors of stable space that loyalists can pass through; millions of worlds are lost in the depths of the Cicatrix as it spilled out; and random armies of daemons are invading realspace all over its borders. That being said it's not all (dark) sunshine and (chaos-infested) lollipops for Abby, either - the majority of his forces went all "Fuck yeah we won!" and left his crusade to pillage random undefended Imperial worlds, so Chaos forces are tugged in all directions, and with the collapse of his command structure, he cannot fully capitalize on the Imperium's weakened state.

Additionally, [[Roboute Guilliman]] came back swinging and more-or-less stabilized the Imperium Nihilus. So while Abaddon did give the Imperium a nasty wound, they still managed to hold on long enough to avoid bleeding to death. Plus now he has to contend with an actual honest-to-Emperor living loyalist [[Primarch]] directing the Imperium, so Abby's conquests are likely to devolve more and more into stalemates at this point. The [[War of Beasts]] is no exception despite things nearly looking like a victory for him until he's thwarted at the last minute. There are some highlights, he handily defeats [[Marneus Calgar]] in single combat in spite of the latter's Primaris enhancements, after getting knocked off his feet by an uppercut from the one of the others gauntlets (after getting his jaw cracked by Calgar's bare fist) and cleaving through Marneus's chest with Drach'Nyen, cleaving one of his hearts in the process and damaging the other enough to nearly kill him outright. Abaddon is prevented from finishing Calgar off as the ''Vengeful Spirit'' was on the brink of being destroyed by a scheme involving an Eldar stealth ship filled with Vortex Missiles. In his haste to retreat he [[derp|accidentally wipes out a full third of his own fleet, costing him the victory he almost had]], which allows the Imperials to slowly retake the planet. It seems like Abaddon has already begun work on his backup plan so even if Vigilus would not be captured he might still be able to take the Nachmund Gauntlet as reports speak of the dreaded Planet Killer reappearing.

In the latest development in Abaddon’s story to seize the gauntlet he apparently teamed up with an unaligned and unusually straightforward Chaos Daemon named [[Vashtorr]] who gave Abaddon enormous super ships called the [[Ark of Omen|Arks of Omen]] in exchange for Abaddon’s help. See Vashtorr was the guy in charge of the Forge of Souls aka the place where a daemon can become a [[Soul Grinder]], but apparently he was no longer was happy in being just an arms dealer for the Chaos Gods and wanted to become one himself. To do this he needed a certain piece of tech left by the [[Old Ones]] called the “dissonance engine” to serve as a key to reach and open a vault in the [[Webway]] full of powerful artifacts and knowledge behind from the [[War in Heaven]]. Unable to acquire these things on his own Vashtorr decided to forge a deal where he would give the Arks to Abaddon to keep and use to seize the Nachmund Gauntlet in exchange for Abaddon helping Vashtorr gather up the artifacts, a deal which Abaddon accepted. So over the course of a 5 book campaign the pair set to work and in the end actually managed to rebuild the engine…which as it turns out was actually just another name for the destroyed [[Dark Angel]] home world of [[Caliban (Warhammer 40,000)|Caliban]]…needless to say the Dark Angels were pissed upon finding and tried to stop this plan from happening only to fail miserably even with the aid of a returned [[Lion El'Jonson]]. In the end Abaddon and Vashtorr succeeded in rebuilding Caliban into a [[Daemon World]] called Wyrmwood and then used it to open a massive portal which allowed all the chaos aligned folks to escape, and leaving everyone else to pray that SOMEONE will be able to track down and stop Abaddon and Vashtorr before the latter can find and open that damn vault.