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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.
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.
My favorite thing about Abaddon is that he's not just a mindless puppet like other chaos leaders, he is distrustful of the chaos gods and works towards his own goals. He's very much sane and very deadly.
I love Abaddon as a villain. His portrayal in 30K is fantastic as Horus’ most loyal and brutal Capt. Then in 4OK lore he is vocal about how Horus failed because he is weak. I love how in his mind HE is using Chaos and not the other way around, just like Horus thought. It’s pretty poetic.
@@16Vessel the only goals he's allowed to achieve are things the chaos gods agree with. He's not accomplishing anything, they are. He's a meditation on freewill, if anything.
I was a player back in the before times. My first codex was Chaos Space Marines 3rd edition, second codex. I devoured all the lore I could get my hands on in early 2000s Australia without having much money, and I always pointed out that Abaddon refused to submit to Chaos which lead to him getting the Mark of Chaos Ascendant. I've never thought he failed in his Black Crusades, and I recall the campaign you mentioned and how it fizzled. Almost as a reflection of the state of the galaxy, no power can take over because they're all trying to get through the door at once like that old Simpsons episode where Mr Burns has every disease and thus isn't dying from any. Back on point, I think Abaddon understands Chaos in the same way an old-time experienced sailor understands the sea. They can use it, they can read it, but they can never trust it because it will always ebb and flow like the tides. He will never succumb to the Sea of Souls, but he has a certain love for it. Born of respect, healthy amounts of fear, and millennia of experience. He knows that Chaos is always there, but that he cannot master it, only master using it to further his goals. I wouldn't be surprised if what he tells the Ruinous Powers he wants and what he actually wants, are two very different things. He knows if he is promised what he wants, what he truly desires, it gives them a place to lever his mind open and consume his soul. He has seen Primarchs, Astartes, and even men try to control chaos and fall to it. Or tell it what they truly want, and become consumed by it. He is a man who knows he cannot build his plans on a single great push, because the nature of Chaos is that it will desert his side at that moment. So he carefully builds his plans one step at a time, changing the status quo so when the Sea is calm again it has changed to be in a better spot. He's a man digging a grounded ship out with his bare hands, each time the tide comes in it shifts just a little more and erases most of his work, but the ship is slowly getting free. I think ultimately, his victory will be through the various Astartes champions of Chaos. Kharn, Ahriman, possibly even Lucius and Typhus. They are each the pinnacle of the Space Marine for each God, if he could get them to join the Black Legion and throw off the shackles of their Primarch's deity then perhaps they could join him as Chaos Ascendant. But, he knows until then he must treat them as all aspects of the Sea. They rise and fall with the Great Game, so none can be relied upon.
I'm a highschooler that's fallen in love with warhammer in the last year or 2 and I started with a friend explaining bolters now I'm an avid tyrandid lover who never stops looking for more lore this depth is the reason I love this franchise
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.
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 mean the big advantage of Guilliman over Abaddon is that he's functionally a new character. Yeah, he existed in 30K and was obviously known in 40K, but fonctionally in the 40K timeline, he's a new character with an impressive backstory. There's not thirty years of lore to retcon and readapt to the new story, it's just "oh, he's alive now" and then you developp his motivations ^^
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 ^^
my favourite moment was when abaddon met with iskander and his rubric marines, they seemed to show their individuality again as if abaddons presence weakened the rubric spell and showed the men who they once were even if it was for a moment. clearly abaddon is special somehow. please do a video like this on ahriman. It would be a lot of work with so many books and sources but he like abaddon does not want to be a pawn of the chaos gods and is trying to fight fate itself.
He could also, without using psychic powers (atleast that iskandar could tell), partially read iskandars mind and also recount the names and battle honours of his rubrics.
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 loved Abby in saturnine. Running around, dueling, asking why he's even there. Barely making it out alive. I know he kinda had some plot armor to survive but I loved that human side of Abby examining himself
@@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.
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!
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
Maybe unpopular but I actually really like the Abbadon "retcons". I think it's a great example of how historical revisionism would display itself in the 40k universe. Of course the imperium would spin it as every time Abbadon shows his face and fails to take Terra as "Well done heroes of the Imperium! We have held firm against another of the vile Despoiler's great Black Crusades! Truly, the might of the Emperor is beyond doubt, the great enemy will never defeat us!" I collect and play mostly Imperial factions, but it just rings so true that the Imperium would do exactly that. The Imperium is a grand parody of an authoritarian dystopia, of course they would seek to control the narrative like that. Chaos is meant to be insidious, they are playing the long game, they always have been, their goals were meant to be inscrutable, and now we have some lore that shows that what looked like repeated "pathetic failures" were just steps in a plan spanning 10 millennia. I love it, I think it adds tension back to the setting, I think it's a perfect way to display that Chaos ARE a threat, and always have been. And it does it by expanding on the already established failings of the Imperium, their wilful ignorance, the impossibility of properly governing and policing such a widely dispersed populace, their refusal to change their ways of thinking, the impossibility of properly gathering intelligence against an enemy that can hide in another dimension, whose plans make no sense according to conventional military doctrine.
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.
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
You can also look at it from the angle that aside from actual story telling from a books perspective or even abbadon himself, that the reason he seems so inferior is because of the Inquisition Ordo that removes key info and makes things contradict and redundant in Imperium and Inquisition records.
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 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
i think abaddon has potential to be a great antagonist, there should be more books dedicated to him, i also think that he can work as A antagonist instead THE antagonist because chaos has multiple antagonists (huron,honsou,fabius, daemons, daemon primarchs) he can be the type that "helps to organise and direct" the other chaos antagonists under his leadership
I don't think 40k should have a main antagonist. It's not like Fantasy where things are toned down and everyone can kinda work together to fight Chaos and Archaon. Everyone in 40k hates each other, and everything is so over the top and ridiculous that saying one person is the objective villain is weird.
Thank you so much wes. Amazing video. That section of Aaron talking about abaddon was fantastic. Truly shows some of the authors really know the style of the universe and the lore.
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.
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.
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
I think the most interesting interpretation for Abaddon is that the Chaos Gods don't care, and their relationship with Abaddon is one of mutual sufferance. They have their own things going on between each other, and are generally looking to keep the galaxy burning to fuel their own fires and win within the Warp, not real space; which vibes with the farseeing of the Cabal, showing the potential future of a Horus victory resulting in the annihilation of Chaos. Abaddon wants to defeat the Imperium because of his disgust with Horus' failure, seeing that his arrogance and trust of the Warp is what doomed them all to defeat. He understands that Chaos is inherently treacherous and there's no happy ending there. So he refuses ll offers of apotheosis to become a Daemon Prince. Chaos wants to use him to keep the galaxy in flames, but Abaddon wants to use Chaos to get the power he needs to bring down the Emperor, supplant him, then turn on Chaos. Make him the Necessary Evil character, in the same way that the Emperor operates. So Abaddon is basically having to wait and pick his moments to rally Chaos forces as the objectives of the Gods, warbands and Abaddon happen to align, and working to manipulate the situation to align them faster and more often, without letting the Gods screw him over. He's herding cats and leading Chaos for his own ends, not those of Chaos itself. It would neatly explain his inactive periods, his failures, his lack of overwhelming support from the Gods, and help flesh out his motivations and goals by contrasting his objectives against those of Horus. He learned from Horus' failures, took the slower path, recognized the dangers, wouldn't be goaded into being consumed by arrogance and hubris as he saw happen to Horus. But that's just my opinion.
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.
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!
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 ^^,
For it to be true that this was all according to plan, it would mean Abaddon is canonically smarter than Mortarion a primarch. As in one of his stories he remarks that even he didn’t see the great rift coming
Maybe - Mortarion ain't the smartest of the Primarchs but you don't have to be smarter than someone to surprise them. It does mean Morty underestimated Abaddon and his designs though which is something
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.
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 😁
This is going straight into favorites!! This was masterfully done! I'm literally dumbstruck by the composition of this video...... This is so well done. From the structuring of the arguments, to the way you explain things in an understandable and concise way. While at the same time being respectful and considerate of all the different sides. From the fans to the authors, to the lore material itself! Organizing it in a way that actually substantiates the representation of the causal connection between all the fucking elements in an understandable and sensible way. Well done, Wes. Well fucking done!! You have every reason to be proud of this 👏 At first I was worried this was overanalyzing the whole matter, and that it would try to pander to every side and lose the point you made towards the end. But from the second half, I understood it was done in just the right way to convey the message of the video properly! And I absolutely agree with your take on it. And making and conveying this video, in the way you have done here, is beyond me! Masterfully done. Nothing more to say about it!!
Fantastic video, the old Abaddon model was the very reason I got into warhammer, I saw someone using him in a battle down at my local shop about 23 years ago, I got that model the following week and that started my love of Chaos.
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.
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!!
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.
Most people ponti to the first 12 Black Crusades and see them failures. They say he made 12 attempts at a complete victory and failed. But think about, he staged massive Chaos incursions into an Imperium that was heavily defended and just waiting to attack him when he left the Eye of Terror, and got away with 12 times in a row! Horus only had one shot at it and failed. The Imperium is not know for letting enemies escape if they can help it. From Abandon's perspective it's like he fought is way into and out of Hell 12 times. That's the kind of feats even the Greek gods couldn't pull off. If you have read the Horus Heresy and Siege of Terra books you'll know Abaddon was always trying to get Horus to slow down and consolidate his victories before heading to Terra. He saw first hand the mistake Horus made in his war on the Imperium and decided to fight it his way, building up allies, strengthening his weapons and setting up contingencies for the Imperium inevitable response.
Yeah people miss the point of the Black Crusades, none of them are actually meant to destroy the imperium, but to slowly weaken them Kill their strongest warriors, destroy their literal and metaphorical door to the realm of chaos and take out key bases and strongholds
Another thing people forget is when the black crusades happen. They strike right before the empire can consolidate and retaliate. He is fighting a war of attrition with the goal of grand annihilation and an immortals lifespan to see it done.
I feel it’s worth remembering that most of the lore/codicies are from the point of view of the Imperium - tough practically speaking they are retconing Abbadon, I like to think that’s because the Imperium now realizes what happened vs the propaganda they had before about him
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
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.
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.
yes, retcons can help make the story easier to follow, but the main problem with retcons is that you cannot trust anything in the story anymore if the writer or company in charge uses it often. who knows if what you read yesterday isnt gonna be retconned out of existence in a couple of years, so why even bother with the story in the first place. warcraft being a good example of using it so much it totally ruins some stories. wich is why id personally rather not see retcons happen, its too tempting to keep doing it and overdo it.
The reason I enjoy this channel so much is the quality of the scripts. As someone who's done a fair amount of technical writing and proof reading as well as spending an absurd number of years trying to get my novels published I am well acquainted with the challenges of this kind of writing. The pacing is excellent which is not an easy thing to get just right. I'm guessing there are two to three drafts of the outline alone. Wes has an excellent working lexicon of words and phrases which he deploys beautifully to convey the precise shades of meaning to optimize his story telling. The deep and abiding love for the material being presented is engaging even to people who have no knowledge of 40K. I know this because my girlfriend asked what I was watching on TH-cam last weekend and then sat down to watch a few videos with me and totally got into it. I can't think of a better compliment. I tried for a long time to make my dream of being a novelist come true. To see someone making a career out of something they truly love is one of the highest aspirations a person can have. Seeing someone actually pull it off is heartening. Keep up the good work!
As for the 13th Black Crusade "Retcon" the start of Gathering Storm 1: The Fall of Cadia refences the events and aftremath in the 13 Black Crusade Black Ground Book. So like you said it's just a 20yr continuation. Also doing 6th and 7th ed. GW acted like the 13th Black Crusade Campaign don't happen, all the lore doing that time was set just after The Battle of Tyrok Fields and the start of the Crusade.
I cannot stand how 40k players see things evolving from their source material and call it a retcon. Recently the Kroot that aren't sided with the T'au have been given more information for and people call it a retcon! No! We just hadn't seen that side of the Kroot yet!
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 is both simple and complex, simple in goals but complex in reaching his goals due to chaos power, endless warbands and forced retreats he had to do for survival. e.g. Vigilus campaign in 8th, Abaddon was forced to retreat due to either trap on Vigilus with all his enemies or runaway to fight again
I don't think his retreat from Vigilus at that point was due to his survival. He was more leaving to save the Vengeful Spirit than to save himself. Figuring it was more important to keep one of the most powerful vessels in the lore than kill Calgar (who he can just wait for to die, as countless Imperial heroes have during the long 10,000 years after the Heresy) or take Vigilus at that moment (it's not like it's his only chance to take the planet) winning now when he didn't absolutely need to wasn't worth the sacrifice of one of the greatest Gloriana-class Battleships
10:54 good defintion of retcon I personally have witnessed this with my own lore, the collective loves to insert either made up or heavily exaggerated events to prove their dumb point and paint my the mc in a type of way, usually negative in the hopes the viewers only see bad and think evil things for future events, it truly is tiring, thankfully I have called out these obvious retcons and I just relax laughing as this nonsense gets exposed as obv retcons by literally relaxing and watching as it falls apart 🗿
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.
@@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!
I never really thought much of Abaddon, he always seemed like a big bad evil guy for the same reason as all the other traitors. But with that quote pertaining to his inner turmoil and how he absolutely disdains the chaotic, more than I already knew, and was actually the only reason chaos wasn't winning, I have a new found respect for his character.
I don't think abaddon is inherently a bad character but the way in which GW unveiled abaddon was the problem...like dropping breadcrumbs that have no consistency and then all of a sudden the entire loaf is dropped and you're told tada the story and their greatness/failures
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
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.
I'm honestly stunned by the claim that the Cadian pylons are a retcon. I've never played the game (although I got as far as buying a few boxes of Orks); my spouse got me interested in the lore shortly after we got married and started me off with the Eisenhorn omnibus, in which, as you say, those pylons are a major plot element. And I know how long ago those books were written and published.
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?
From what I understand as the Cadian campaigns were raging results and votes were uploaded online. It became it's own unique battleground and it was always an agreement that many chaos players hacked these websites to manipulate the online results and votes. Sadly these sites are either really old or really dead so all we can scrap is what's been archived. And for a funny one :D If you ever see Abbadon with no arms this was not from the lore but his very own model. His original model used to be way smaller (marine sized) but once he had a new model players had a funny experience. The new Abbadon for some reason painted or not his arms would just never hold on and even in game just by putting him on the table they'd fall off. Imagine your beautiful traitor army and Abbadon just loses his arms because they were too heavy or something. Just another day in the grimdark future where Imperial and Xenos watch the Traitors trip down the demonic stairs. smh
I love the Chaos Space Marines 🖤 Most of my Horus Heresy is Traitor (Iron Warriors + Word Bearers + making some Sons of Horus and Night Lords) but they need work. Too many times it's just the issue of bad character motives and quick switches from understanding to impossibly evil. Primarchs making the DUMBEST desicions and once they're Chaos they try too hard to be well "chaos". I like the Renegade, the guys who fight to change the galaxy in their flawed image, guys who loved the Imperium and were screwed by it and are only retaliating out of spite or desperation. The Badab War is the best example, if anyone wants a great event in general 40k but for this a good origin of a Chaos war band learn about the Badab War. From the noble Astral Claws to the Red Corsairs they could honestly replace the Black Legion as the leading force in Chaos undivided. They have motive, they have history, and they have BAD BLOOD on the table and so could the other legions.
online voting was a very new thing back then. there had been big summer campaigns before (third war for armageddon) but those results of matches all over the world were either gathered by actual physical game stores, mainly GW stores, or sent in via physical mail to the White Dwarf. However, how I remember it, Chaos was very much whiped because there just never were enough chaos players. At least half of ALL players played Space Marines in 3rd and 4th edition, since they were included in the start box and were the cheapest way to get a functional army back in those times when a lot of armies didn't even have plastic models for their basic squads. Also just with the release of this storm of chaos campaign, they released cadian shocktroops which were the first imperial army plastic models besides the terrible catachan jungle fighters - and so there was a BIG influx in imperial army players in addition to half of all players being Space Marine players. they tried to remedy that with special rules for traiter imperial army with the campaign book and I remember well how actual loyalist players were grouped in with the chaos side on the gaming table at events in the GW because otherwise there just would not have been a actual battle but a massacre of 10 players with 2,000 points each vs. two players. Also, arms falling off was a VERY common occurence in the days of metal miniatures. I used putty dough instead of super glue and re-attached arms everytime I placed my character models on the table after transport.
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...
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.
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.
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
The main thing that makes these "retcons" acceptable to me is that they at least excuse why Abaddon kept managing to put together Black Crusade after Black Crusade. Chaos is not forgiving and if they were all failures it would be ridiculous to accept him as continuing to be in charge of any.
Abaddon the 'armless'. The giant power claws on the lead model always used to drop off if glued or he used to topple forward till he grounded on the damn things at a 45 degree angle. Fun times. For the empraa!
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.
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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.
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.
My favorite thing about Abaddon is that he's not just a mindless puppet like other chaos leaders, he is distrustful of the chaos gods and works towards his own goals. He's very much sane and very deadly.
who could've thought that not having a servile attitude in a high ranking position is a good idea
I love Abaddon as a villain. His portrayal in 30K is fantastic as Horus’ most loyal and brutal Capt. Then in 4OK lore he is vocal about how Horus failed because he is weak. I love how in his mind HE is using Chaos and not the other way around, just like Horus thought. It’s pretty poetic.
He's lane asf and I hope Magnus rips him apart.
Yeah he may be manipulated by caos but he do be accomplishing his goals
@@16Vessel the only goals he's allowed to achieve are things the chaos gods agree with. He's not accomplishing anything, they are.
He's a meditation on freewill, if anything.
@@NoConsequenc3 Exactly. Although he leads them now, when he falls another can always take his place.
I was a player back in the before times. My first codex was Chaos Space Marines 3rd edition, second codex. I devoured all the lore I could get my hands on in early 2000s Australia without having much money, and I always pointed out that Abaddon refused to submit to Chaos which lead to him getting the Mark of Chaos Ascendant. I've never thought he failed in his Black Crusades, and I recall the campaign you mentioned and how it fizzled. Almost as a reflection of the state of the galaxy, no power can take over because they're all trying to get through the door at once like that old Simpsons episode where Mr Burns has every disease and thus isn't dying from any.
Back on point, I think Abaddon understands Chaos in the same way an old-time experienced sailor understands the sea. They can use it, they can read it, but they can never trust it because it will always ebb and flow like the tides. He will never succumb to the Sea of Souls, but he has a certain love for it. Born of respect, healthy amounts of fear, and millennia of experience. He knows that Chaos is always there, but that he cannot master it, only master using it to further his goals. I wouldn't be surprised if what he tells the Ruinous Powers he wants and what he actually wants, are two very different things. He knows if he is promised what he wants, what he truly desires, it gives them a place to lever his mind open and consume his soul.
He has seen Primarchs, Astartes, and even men try to control chaos and fall to it. Or tell it what they truly want, and become consumed by it. He is a man who knows he cannot build his plans on a single great push, because the nature of Chaos is that it will desert his side at that moment. So he carefully builds his plans one step at a time, changing the status quo so when the Sea is calm again it has changed to be in a better spot. He's a man digging a grounded ship out with his bare hands, each time the tide comes in it shifts just a little more and erases most of his work, but the ship is slowly getting free. I think ultimately, his victory will be through the various Astartes champions of Chaos. Kharn, Ahriman, possibly even Lucius and Typhus. They are each the pinnacle of the Space Marine for each God, if he could get them to join the Black Legion and throw off the shackles of their Primarch's deity then perhaps they could join him as Chaos Ascendant. But, he knows until then he must treat them as all aspects of the Sea. They rise and fall with the Great Game, so none can be relied upon.
The comparison with how a sailor looks at the sea was incredibly insightful. Thanks for making this post!
This is deep, bruh
I'm a highschooler that's fallen in love with warhammer in the last year or 2 and I started with a friend explaining bolters now I'm an avid tyrandid lover who never stops looking for more lore this depth is the reason I love this franchise
Dam well said
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.
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 mean the big advantage of Guilliman over Abaddon is that he's functionally a new character. Yeah, he existed in 30K and was obviously known in 40K, but fonctionally in the 40K timeline, he's a new character with an impressive backstory. There's not thirty years of lore to retcon and readapt to the new story, it's just "oh, he's alive now" and then you developp his motivations ^^
"somehow Guilliman returned"
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 ^^
my favourite moment was when abaddon met with iskander and his rubric marines, they seemed to show their individuality again as if abaddons presence weakened the rubric spell and showed the men who they once were even if it was for a moment. clearly abaddon is special somehow.
please do a video like this on ahriman. It would be a lot of work with so many books and sources but he like abaddon does not want to be a pawn of the chaos gods and is trying to fight fate itself.
Maybe hes a minor empath I some way
for a second i heard iskander my brain instantly thought of iskander form the fate series
He could also, without using psychic powers (atleast that iskandar could tell), partially read iskandars mind and also recount the names and battle honours of his rubrics.
Ahriman should kill Abaddon
@@dubstepXpower I disagree
Thank you so much for this video. It breaks my heart to see all the hate Abaddon gets!
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 loved Abby in saturnine. Running around, dueling, asking why he's even there. Barely making it out alive. I know he kinda had some plot armor to survive but I loved that human side of Abby examining himself
HUGE plot armor, Ask Garro lol
But yeah, that was awesome
It made me like Abbadon a lot, his internal rantings as he dueled insanely beast Champions
Like... Garro later went 1v1 with Mortarion and managed to slit his neck
That was nice plot armor too
Well Garo did have Excalibur and was getting juiced by a saint. But at least they didn't just go plot armor throat slash lol!
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 TH-camr 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
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
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
Maybe unpopular but I actually really like the Abbadon "retcons".
I think it's a great example of how historical revisionism would display itself in the 40k universe.
Of course the imperium would spin it as every time Abbadon shows his face and fails to take Terra as "Well done heroes of the Imperium! We have held firm against another of the vile Despoiler's great Black Crusades! Truly, the might of the Emperor is beyond doubt, the great enemy will never defeat us!"
I collect and play mostly Imperial factions, but it just rings so true that the Imperium would do exactly that. The Imperium is a grand parody of an authoritarian dystopia, of course they would seek to control the narrative like that.
Chaos is meant to be insidious, they are playing the long game, they always have been, their goals were meant to be inscrutable, and now we have some lore that shows that what looked like repeated "pathetic failures" were just steps in a plan spanning 10 millennia. I love it, I think it adds tension back to the setting, I think it's a perfect way to display that Chaos ARE a threat, and always have been.
And it does it by expanding on the already established failings of the Imperium, their wilful ignorance, the impossibility of properly governing and policing such a widely dispersed populace, their refusal to change their ways of thinking, the impossibility of properly gathering intelligence against an enemy that can hide in another dimension, whose plans make no sense according to conventional military doctrine.
fuck yeah, exactly
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.
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?".
You can also look at it from the angle that aside from actual story telling from a books perspective or even abbadon himself, that the reason he seems so inferior is because of the Inquisition Ordo that removes key info and makes things contradict and redundant in Imperium and Inquisition records.
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 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
The FailBaddon the Armless is a really funny meme though.
i think abaddon has potential to be a great antagonist, there should be more books dedicated to him, i also think that he can work as A antagonist instead THE antagonist because chaos has multiple antagonists (huron,honsou,fabius, daemons, daemon primarchs) he can be the type that "helps to organise and direct" the other chaos antagonists under his leadership
Talon of Horus was FANTASTIC
Worth the read if you havnt already
I don't think 40k should have a main antagonist. It's not like Fantasy where things are toned down and everyone can kinda work together to fight Chaos and Archaon. Everyone in 40k hates each other, and everything is so over the top and ridiculous that saying one person is the objective villain is weird.
Wow, great job on this deep dive! Thank you for pulling together their wildly scattered information in such an accessible way.
Thank you so much wes. Amazing video. That section of Aaron talking about abaddon was fantastic. Truly shows some of the authors really know the style of the universe and the lore.
Love your content bro. I'm glad to see you succeed in viewership and sponsorship. Keep kicking butt!
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
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.
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.
I think the most interesting interpretation for Abaddon is that the Chaos Gods don't care, and their relationship with Abaddon is one of mutual sufferance. They have their own things going on between each other, and are generally looking to keep the galaxy burning to fuel their own fires and win within the Warp, not real space; which vibes with the farseeing of the Cabal, showing the potential future of a Horus victory resulting in the annihilation of Chaos. Abaddon wants to defeat the Imperium because of his disgust with Horus' failure, seeing that his arrogance and trust of the Warp is what doomed them all to defeat. He understands that Chaos is inherently treacherous and there's no happy ending there. So he refuses ll offers of apotheosis to become a Daemon Prince. Chaos wants to use him to keep the galaxy in flames, but Abaddon wants to use Chaos to get the power he needs to bring down the Emperor, supplant him, then turn on Chaos. Make him the Necessary Evil character, in the same way that the Emperor operates. So Abaddon is basically having to wait and pick his moments to rally Chaos forces as the objectives of the Gods, warbands and Abaddon happen to align, and working to manipulate the situation to align them faster and more often, without letting the Gods screw him over. He's herding cats and leading Chaos for his own ends, not those of Chaos itself. It would neatly explain his inactive periods, his failures, his lack of overwhelming support from the Gods, and help flesh out his motivations and goals by contrasting his objectives against those of Horus. He learned from Horus' failures, took the slower path, recognized the dangers, wouldn't be goaded into being consumed by arrogance and hubris as he saw happen to Horus. But that's just my opinion.
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.
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!
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 ^^,
For it to be true that this was all according to plan, it would mean Abaddon is canonically smarter than Mortarion a primarch. As in one of his stories he remarks that even he didn’t see the great rift coming
Maybe - Mortarion ain't the smartest of the Primarchs but you don't have to be smarter than someone to surprise them. It does mean Morty underestimated Abaddon and his designs though which is something
@@xanderrichards1166 Yeah
Being smarter than Mortarion is not an impressive feat
Mortarion kinda saw the destruction of cadia coming since he sees all of time at once. He was more confused over if it was intentional or an accident.
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.
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 😁
This is going straight into favorites!! This was masterfully done! I'm literally dumbstruck by the composition of this video...... This is so well done. From the structuring of the arguments, to the way you explain things in an understandable and concise way. While at the same time being respectful and considerate of all the different sides. From the fans to the authors, to the lore material itself! Organizing it in a way that actually substantiates the representation of the causal connection between all the fucking elements in an understandable and sensible way. Well done, Wes. Well fucking done!! You have every reason to be proud of this 👏 At first I was worried this was overanalyzing the whole matter, and that it would try to pander to every side and lose the point you made towards the end. But from the second half, I understood it was done in just the right way to convey the message of the video properly! And I absolutely agree with your take on it. And making and conveying this video, in the way you have done here, is beyond me! Masterfully done. Nothing more to say about it!!
🥲 Thank you. I worked really hard on it
@@weshammer It tells! Not sure I want to know how long you spent on this 😅
Fantastic video, the old Abaddon model was the very reason I got into warhammer, I saw someone using him in a battle down at my local shop about 23 years ago, I got that model the following week and that started my love of Chaos.
Abbadon is that positive mindset grind in a character
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.
Happy new year Wes!
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!!
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.
Most people ponti to the first 12 Black Crusades and see them failures. They say he made 12 attempts at a complete victory and failed. But think about, he staged massive Chaos incursions into an Imperium that was heavily defended and just waiting to attack him when he left the Eye of Terror, and got away with 12 times in a row! Horus only had one shot at it and failed. The Imperium is not know for letting enemies escape if they can help it. From Abandon's perspective it's like he fought is way into and out of Hell 12 times. That's the kind of feats even the Greek gods couldn't pull off.
If you have read the Horus Heresy and Siege of Terra books you'll know Abaddon was always trying to get Horus to slow down and consolidate his victories before heading to Terra. He saw first hand the mistake Horus made in his war on the Imperium and decided to fight it his way, building up allies, strengthening his weapons and setting up contingencies for the Imperium inevitable response.
Yeah people miss the point of the Black Crusades, none of them are actually meant to destroy the imperium, but to slowly weaken them
Kill their strongest warriors, destroy their literal and metaphorical door to the realm of chaos and take out key bases and strongholds
Another thing people forget is when the black crusades happen. They strike right before the empire can consolidate and retaliate. He is fighting a war of attrition with the goal of grand annihilation and an immortals lifespan to see it done.
I fought in the 2003 worldwide Warhammer 40,000 Eye of Terror Campaign. 20 years later Cadia did stand.
I feel it’s worth remembering that most of the lore/codicies are from the point of view of the Imperium - tough practically speaking they are retconing Abbadon, I like to think that’s because the Imperium now realizes what happened vs the propaganda they had before about him
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
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 ! :)
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.
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.
yes, retcons can help make the story easier to follow, but the main problem with retcons is that you cannot trust anything in the story anymore if the writer or company in charge uses it often. who knows if what you read yesterday isnt gonna be retconned out of existence in a couple of years, so why even bother with the story in the first place.
warcraft being a good example of using it so much it totally ruins some stories.
wich is why id personally rather not see retcons happen, its too tempting to keep doing it and overdo it.
Nice ! I always love that kind of vod ! Cheers man
The reason I enjoy this channel so much is the quality of the scripts. As someone who's done a fair amount of technical writing and proof reading as well as spending an absurd number of years trying to get my novels published I am well acquainted with the challenges of this kind of writing. The pacing is excellent which is not an easy thing to get just right. I'm guessing there are two to three drafts of the outline alone. Wes has an excellent working lexicon of words and phrases which he deploys beautifully to convey the precise shades of meaning to optimize his story telling. The deep and abiding love for the material being presented is engaging even to people who have no knowledge of 40K. I know this because my girlfriend asked what I was watching on TH-cam last weekend and then sat down to watch a few videos with me and totally got into it. I can't think of a better compliment. I tried for a long time to make my dream of being a novelist come true. To see someone making a career out of something they truly love is one of the highest aspirations a person can have. Seeing someone actually pull it off is heartening.
Keep up the good work!
As for the 13th Black Crusade "Retcon" the start of Gathering Storm 1: The Fall of Cadia refences the events and aftremath in the 13 Black Crusade Black Ground Book. So like you said it's just a 20yr continuation. Also doing 6th and 7th ed. GW acted like the 13th Black Crusade Campaign don't happen, all the lore doing that time was set just after The Battle of Tyrok Fields and the start of the Crusade.
"You can make all the memes you want, it won't bring back Cadia" - Abbadon the Despoiler
I cannot stand how 40k players see things evolving from their source material and call it a retcon. Recently the Kroot that aren't sided with the T'au have been given more information for and people call it a retcon! No! We just hadn't seen that side of the Kroot yet!
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 is both simple and complex, simple in goals but complex in reaching his goals due to chaos power, endless warbands and forced retreats he had to do for survival. e.g. Vigilus campaign in 8th, Abaddon was forced to retreat due to either trap on Vigilus with all his enemies or runaway to fight again
I don't think his retreat from Vigilus at that point was due to his survival. He was more leaving to save the Vengeful Spirit than to save himself. Figuring it was more important to keep one of the most powerful vessels in the lore than kill Calgar (who he can just wait for to die, as countless Imperial heroes have during the long 10,000 years after the Heresy) or take Vigilus at that moment (it's not like it's his only chance to take the planet) winning now when he didn't absolutely need to wasn't worth the sacrifice of one of the greatest Gloriana-class Battleships
The point is he was forced to retreat, not to mention not all his men are loyal to him can betray him at anytime
You make the best point, Abaddon needs a definitive book series to help flesh him out and fix the confusion.
10:54 good defintion of retcon I personally have witnessed this with my own lore, the collective loves to insert either made up or heavily exaggerated events to prove their dumb point and paint my the mc in a type of way, usually negative in the hopes the viewers only see bad and think evil things for future events, it truly is tiring, thankfully I have called out these obvious retcons and I just relax laughing as this nonsense gets exposed as obv retcons by literally relaxing and watching as it falls apart 🗿
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.
Fantastic video.
Oh a 30 minute wes video, time to get some tea and get cozy
Hi Wes.
Can you cover the history of Fabulous Bob?
Only War has a decent series of videos about him
i love exposition dumps if its about a cool character. if used right it can make for great writing
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!
th-cam.com/users/shortsI3NzsISVC50?feature=share
This was the bit I was referencing, but us that would be awesome!
I never really thought much of Abaddon, he always seemed like a big bad evil guy for the same reason as all the other traitors. But with that quote pertaining to his inner turmoil and how he absolutely disdains the chaotic, more than I already knew, and was actually the only reason chaos wasn't winning, I have a new found respect for his character.
I don't think abaddon is inherently a bad character but the way in which GW unveiled abaddon was the problem...like dropping breadcrumbs that have no consistency and then all of a sudden the entire loaf is dropped and you're told tada the story and their greatness/failures
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
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!
Another great video Wes, never stop!
2:44 raid shadow legends ends
I'm honestly stunned by the claim that the Cadian pylons are a retcon. I've never played the game (although I got as far as buying a few boxes of Orks); my spouse got me interested in the lore shortly after we got married and started me off with the Eisenhorn omnibus, in which, as you say, those pylons are a major plot element. And I know how long ago those books were written and published.
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?
I do think Abaddon is a good character, but I think it's time for someone new to be the main villain.
or at the very least someone else as a main villain in addition to Abaddon
@@frostyfoster7267 That would be interesting if other Primarchs where to return.
You made me love him with the last quote tbh
From what I understand as the Cadian campaigns were raging results and votes were uploaded online. It became it's own unique battleground and it was always an agreement that many chaos players hacked these websites to manipulate the online results and votes. Sadly these sites are either really old or really dead so all we can scrap is what's been archived.
And for a funny one :D
If you ever see Abbadon with no arms this was not from the lore but his very own model. His original model used to be way smaller (marine sized) but once he had a new model players had a funny experience. The new Abbadon for some reason painted or not his arms would just never hold on and even in game just by putting him on the table they'd fall off. Imagine your beautiful traitor army and Abbadon just loses his arms because they were too heavy or something. Just another day in the grimdark future where Imperial and Xenos watch the Traitors trip down the demonic stairs. smh
I love the Chaos Space Marines 🖤
Most of my Horus Heresy is Traitor (Iron Warriors + Word Bearers + making some Sons of Horus and Night Lords) but they need work. Too many times it's just the issue of bad character motives and quick switches from understanding to impossibly evil. Primarchs making the DUMBEST desicions and once they're Chaos they try too hard to be well "chaos". I like the Renegade, the guys who fight to change the galaxy in their flawed image, guys who loved the Imperium and were screwed by it and are only retaliating out of spite or desperation. The Badab War is the best example, if anyone wants a great event in general 40k but for this a good origin of a Chaos war band learn about the Badab War. From the noble Astral Claws to the Red Corsairs they could honestly replace the Black Legion as the leading force in Chaos undivided. They have motive, they have history, and they have BAD BLOOD on the table and so could the other legions.
online voting was a very new thing back then. there had been big summer campaigns before (third war for armageddon) but those results of matches all over the world were either gathered by actual physical game stores, mainly GW stores, or sent in via physical mail to the White Dwarf.
However, how I remember it, Chaos was very much whiped because there just never were enough chaos players. At least half of ALL players played Space Marines in 3rd and 4th edition, since they were included in the start box and were the cheapest way to get a functional army back in those times when a lot of armies didn't even have plastic models for their basic squads. Also just with the release of this storm of chaos campaign, they released cadian shocktroops which were the first imperial army plastic models besides the terrible catachan jungle fighters - and so there was a BIG influx in imperial army players in addition to half of all players being Space Marine players. they tried to remedy that with special rules for traiter imperial army with the campaign book and I remember well how actual loyalist players were grouped in with the chaos side on the gaming table at events in the GW because otherwise there just would not have been a actual battle but a massacre of 10 players with 2,000 points each vs. two players.
Also, arms falling off was a VERY common occurence in the days of metal miniatures. I used putty dough instead of super glue and re-attached arms everytime I placed my character models on the table after transport.
actually made me change my stance on abbadon, good video
Abbadon is fine imo, but like you said, the problem is how GW does their storytelling.
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
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...
This was one of the most informative lore video I have seen. And I have seen A LOT of them.
Yes. The short answer to the video is Yes he was.
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.
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.
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
The main thing that makes these "retcons" acceptable to me is that they at least excuse why Abaddon kept managing to put together Black Crusade after Black Crusade. Chaos is not forgiving and if they were all failures it would be ridiculous to accept him as continuing to be in charge of any.
Can’t wait till Wes get to one mil. Keep it up bro, you deserve it!
My guy... That was beautiful. Keep doing what you do.
Abaddon the 'armless'.
The giant power claws on the lead model always used to drop off if glued or he used to topple forward till he grounded on the damn things at a 45 degree angle.
Fun times. For the empraa!
You actually made me now like abbadon as you pointed out alot of good things about him
PS, you rock, thanks for that video, it's a good dive into questions I know people have, so good on you.
What a phenomenal idea for a series, keep up the great work!!!
My favourite memory with Abaddon the Ezekiel was when he confronted Simpgiunius and said "Its morbin time"
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.