Abaddon

Daddy issues does funny things to you. It can make you go emo, colouring your skin white and you clothes black, setting your hair up in a knot and waging a ten-thousand year war against Granddaddy. You know, standard scene kid stuff.

Some men just want to watch the world burn.

-Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight

Horus was weak, Horus was a fool. He had the galaxy in the palm of his hand, and let it slip away.

-Abaddon, who would go on to fail conquering less than a quarter of what Horus did over 12 consecutive campaigns.

The Hebrew term Abaddon (Hebrew: אֲבַדּוֹן‎‎, 'Ǎḇaddōn), and its Greek equivalent Apollyon (Greek: Ἀπολλύων, Apollyon), appears in the Bible as both a place of destruction and as the name of an angel, but this article is about Ezekyle Abaddon, known as Abaddon the Despoiler to the people of the Imperium and Abaddouche, Abaddabadoo, Failbaddon the Armless or Failbaddon the Harmless to the people of /tg/, is Horus' successor as leader of the Black Legion and Warmaster of Chaos. He is renowned as the single greatest threat to the Imperium in the galaxy. This says more about the Imperium than Abaddon as his raging incompetence is now well known; he has launched thirteen consecutive Black Crusades against the Imperium, most of which originally had the objective of taking Cadia and launch an assault on Terra. All of them (except the 13th one, and only partly) failed miserably at achieving those objectives. As is well known, the ruinous powers don't tolerate failure from their servants, unless said servants have copious amounts of plot armour, and Abby has that in spades, so GW retconned the objectives of the crusades to simply causing a fuckton of mayhem and random mutilations as exactly the thing the Chaos Gods wanted, which is why Failbaddon has been rewarded with the mark of every Chaos God instead of being turned into a mindless that-which-shall-not-be-named.

The only thing that makes him better than his Warhammer Fantasy counterpart is the fact that his model is relatively much cheaper in actual money terms. Seriously, Archaon costs about as much as a whole FIVE fucking codices! That and his depiction in Lord Lucan's epic webnovel Story:The Shape Of The Nightmare To Come 50k and Story:Warhammer 60K: The Age of Dusk. He doesn't look even remotely as cool as Archaon otherwise. But then Archaon is probably the coolest looking Chaos character ever, and Abaddon has a silly topknot that mostly serves to deflate whatever intimidation his appearance may have and in more recent portrayals, Perturabo syndrome where he's got a tiny head in his big terminator armoured hood.

Appearances

Chaos Rising

Abaddon makes a brief cameo during any of the endings, who's about to torture Eliphas for his failure to kill the Blood Ravens (Dark Crusade's after action reports for Chaos mentioned Abaddon having some unexplained beef with them that the Imperium can't make sense out of). For a second, it would appear that he ACTUALLY had arms, but it was later revealed by the camera crew that another Chaos Terminator with a lightning claw was behind Abaddon to act as his arms.

Retribution

Abaddon finally gets his big break in Dawn of War II: Retribution. He appears in the Chaos Campaign and serves no purpose than to screech about killing Kyras. Again, no explanation for what he has a against the Blood Ravens. The camera is conveniently positioned and several filters are employed in his portrait to avoid showcasing his lack of arms. This would explain why all he ever does is screech. At one point after Eliphas fails to dispatch Kyras, Abaddon declares how he will make him suffer. Eliphas, no doubt unaware of his armlessness, bargains for mercy. Realizing that he can't do anything to him because he has no arms, he quickly lets Eliphas go under the guise that he wants to see him suffer.

Nurgle, Khorne, Slaanesh and Tzeentch all collectively went; 'Son, I am disappoint."

...But we all know better than that. And this is because, even with his retinue, Abaddon still could not kill off the Ulthwe Seer Council and a certain dick. Eliphas has, by this point, killed the entire Biel-Tan Seer Council with their Farseer by himself. Thus, we come to the obvious conclusion that Eliphas is probably the one who should be running the Black Legion. To be fair, /tg/ has had an ongoing betting pool on which of the Chaos Lords is going to be the first to up and try to SINDRIIIIII him, with the most common executioners listed being Ahzek Ahriman of the Thousand Sons, Erebus and/or Kor Phaeron of the Word Bearers, Eliphas the Inheritor, and Huron Blackheart. Of course, since GW considers tectonic speed to be a blisteringly fast pace for setting progression, we'll likely never know.

Battlefleet Gothic

Rules for Abaddon were included in the Armada expansion for Battlefleet Gothic, along with his flagship, (or rather, ex-flagship. He's probably built a new one since he somehow let the last one get destroyed) the Planet Killer. Crunch-wise, he's pretty good, and the planet killer is excellent. However, there is the problem of him costing 195 points, which is overpriced. He gives his ship Ld10, one Ld test re-roll per turn for his fleet, and a bunch of special rules, including one that makes his ship more difficult to be crippled by hit-and-run attacks, like having your enemy teleporting into it when the shields are down. His ship doubles its strength in boarding actions. Also he can become angry if his side fails a leadership check, firing his own guns on the ship that failed it, which pleases Him. His ship has loads of dakka (though still not enough, obviously). It also has the Armageddon Gun, which has a special rule that lets it destroy planets as if the planet killer was an exterminator ship, only better. Also, the Armageddon Gun, designed to destroy planets, can be fired on things as small as enemy ships. It cost 505 points, so fielding both Abaddon and his prized possession costs you 700 points, which is still less than one Blackstone Fortress, which ought to give some indication as to why he wanted to get those blackstone fortresses so much in the first place. Fluff-wise, Abaddon's twelfth black crusade involved him invading the Gothic sector, capturing three out of six blackstone fortresses and firing their warp cannons at the same time in order to destroy the entire Tarantis star, killing pretty much everyone in the system. He then, in true Abaddon style, managed to get his flagship blown up (by long-range torpedoes from imperial lunar-class cruisers), and then lost the gothic war. He ran back to the eye of terror, built a new planet killer, and launched his thirteenth black crusade. The rest, as they say, is(n't) history.

The recent Video Game adds to the failure by having him get his ass kicked by a rookie Admiral and having him as a C'tan puppet.

The Talon of Horus

Also see awesome. Basically a book written by the biggest Abaddon fanboy of them all, Aaron Dembski-Bowden. Though the book is mostly about Iskandar Khayon, a former Thousand Son who's really Ygethmor (except he wasn't, there never was a Ygethmor). It has a lot of the Big Bad 'Un in it.

And Abbadon kills Horus...

Yeah. In summary, in this book, the dude actually gets shit done.

Gallery

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  One of the most Feared beings in the galaxy, Carrying the Talon of Horus, one of the most feared weapons in the galaxy.
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  His rule 63 version.
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  Back when he was first captain.
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  Everyone has hobbies... What's odd is the fact that the box has the World Eaters icon... Demonic kittens?.
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  His powerful daemonsword, Drach'nyen.
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  An updated take on the motherfuckerest motherfucker in the galaxy.
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  His plan from the very beginning.

Abaddon's 14th Black Crusade

ti;mh

(Too important; moved here.)

The Despoilers plan.

Some random short story, writen by some random anonymous, on a random day:

“Do your marines speak true captain? That the Despoiler is weak and pathetic.“ When he heard the question, captain of Sons of Malice tenth company started laughing. He turned to face the renegade that was following him. The warrior stopped, his pure black eyes, clashing with his white skin, unblinkingly looked at the renegade marine.

“Only a fool dismisses the Despoiler as a weakling. Only a fool would believe what the warmaster wants him to believe.”

“What does he want us to believe?”

“For past millennia, he crusaded twelve times, each time defeated, he returned to the eye, laughing, for the worshippers of the emperor thought that they won. Each time he fell, he looked less of a threat, each time he fell, generals and chapter masters, captains and inquisitors, started dismissing him as a smaller threat, than he is. But they are fools. Despoilers plans were never to win, if he wanted, he could have crushed segmentum pacificus, solar and tempestus during his first crusade, but he waited, why? He knew, the victory would be short lived, six primarchs were still alive, his forces weren’t fully replenished, he could have crushed any army which tried to stop him, but he couldn’t control the massive territory. So he waited, gathering allies and weapons. Each of his crusades was just a fraction of the endless armies of the undivided and the four. But he waited, each crusade weakening the might of the imperium, each crusade plunging the dagger deeper. But now the thirteenth has started, full legions are now moving, armies of such might, that the great crusade would look pathetic Where hundreds of marines roared in the name of Khorne charging emperors dogs, now millions roar in bloodthirst.

Where tens of sorcerers invoked the name of Tzeench, casting arcane powers, now thousands walk, their power darkening the skies. Where small groups of Slaaneshii slaughtered, driven to ecstasy, now battalions march, their perversion driving mortal men insane. Where only few squads of Nurgles plague sons walked, their diseases poisoning the air, now uncountable armies march, bringing endless death, as even the earth brakes under their feet. The Despoiler planned this, now it’s his time to strike. The imperium besieged from all sides, each enemy requiring more than entire might of what can be given, they can’t win this battle. The Despoiler has at least nine legions of astartes. Black legion, Word Bearers, Iron Warriors, World Eaters, Thousand Sons, Death Guard, Emperors Children, Night Lords, Alpha Legion. And his ally Blacheart has his legion of Red Corsairs. For hundreds if not thousands of years these legions grew impossibly huge. Not caring about their purity, not having a tithe, they increased to tens of millions. Endlessly increasing armies of cultists and traitor guard march with them bringing endless destruction. Deamons rip to realspace with every death, bringing even more of it, slaughtering enemies easily and endlessly.

And now is the time of the end. The Imperium would have already fallen. Even the first assault was incredibly brutal the only reasons, that the empire is still holding are the genius of a general that is leading the Cadian regiments, and Necron and Eldar support. Only with this, the Imperium endures, but even so the Despoiler advances. Nothing can and will stop him, that’s why we joined him, on this crusade. We will get our homeworld back from loyalist dogs. And then the Legion of Scelus will rise again. And so you ask if the Despoiler is a fool? The fools are those, who didn’t hunt him down millennia ago. For he is the reason the Imperium shall fall.” The captain turned around and started walking, his steps, the only sound echoing in the silent corridors.

See also

• Abaddon at the Therapist
• Black Crusade
• FAIL
• [1] In which, Abaddon becomes a god among men. And this is only the start!
• The entire Abaddon Quest archive, read on and laugh hard.
• true story of how Abaddon lost his arms.
• Abaddon's epic battle with Eldrad
• Failbaddon is no more ;_;
• Abaddon's lines in Retribution.
• Thanquol, who is basically how Abaddon would be portrayed as a Skaven lord if the writers where the denizens of /tg/ (And thanks to Chaos winning at The End Times can be considered more competent than Failbaddon...)