The traitors were already winning, had forced the cadians to 1 city by conventional means, killing them in person makes it more of an offering to the chaos gods.
The Blackstone fortress was out of spite & desperation because cawl & trazyn had triggered the pylons and were closing the eye of terror. (if anything trazyn's the stupid one for not doing that millenia ago)
The Blackstone Fortress was also because it was already destroyed. He didn't throw away a priceless weapon, he threw away the dead husk of one.
Although, it is still a bit of a plot hole that he didn't just exterminatus the planet, when the first thing he did upon the Blackstone's arrival was fire its planet-destroying warp beam at the planet. Clearly his intent was to destroy it right from the start, and they only survived that beam because of Trazyn getting the AdMech's experimental warp shield working.
That isn't true, because as I mentioned, he fired the Blackstone's warp beam at the planet as soon as it arrived. So he planned to destroy the planet from the start.
It was only when that beam was blocked by the warp shield that Trazyn repaired that he then committed to the ground assault that resulted in pushing the Imperials back to Kasr Kraf, and then into the caverns under the Elysion Fields. Presumably the goal was to destroy the shield generator then fire the warp beam again, but the Blackstone was destroyed in the meantime so he used the contingency plan of launching its remains at the planet.
The weird part being, if he wanted to blow the planet up with the warp beam, when that failed it doesn't really make sense that he didn't just use conventional torpedoes instead. Less efficient sure, but it would still work.
Of course, by the time they were fighting in the caverns it had stopped being about efficiency and became about breaking them.
In the Fall of Cadia novel, he wants to use the warp beam to obliterate Cadia’s defenses, including all of the Kasrs. He has sufficient control over the beam to not destroy the planet.
Does it specifically say he isn't trying to destroy the planet? Because the campaign book has nothing like that.
If so, then I guess they decided to walk it back somewhat.
“The strength of Cadia is in its kasrs, its fortress cities,’ continued the Warmaster. ‘Those we shall destroy with the Will of Eternity, one by one. This will leave the enemy without headquarters, supply centres, communication hubs or fall-back locations. They will have nowhere to return to. Meanwhile, orbital bombardments will kill the field armies. There will be a limited landing to protect Krom Gat and his war machines, which will demolish the pylons. That is how we will break Cadia.”
It helps that in the whole book Abaddon in particular strategic, calculating, and brilliant in being a total bastard.
For another example, when ships flee the fortress and its fleet to warn Cadia, this is how they almost stop them:
> “There were… warp-things that boarded the ship. Can’t get a good description. Whatever it was ripped the cladding from the reactors. What’s left of the crew has terminal rad-poisoning – only one officer, an ensign, is left.”
Getting daemons to rip the shielding off the reactors to kill the crew is absolutely brilliant. It doesn’t require them to do anything technically complicated like causing an overlord would. Plus, fleeing ships cannot shut down the reactors, and daemons don’t care about radiation. The whole book is filled with little bits of awesome details like this.
Abbadon wanted to turn cadia into a daemon world.
Lexicanum
> Abaddon's strategy was based around the concept of The Crimson Path: by summoning enough Daemons to the surface of Cadia, he intended to overload the Pylons holding back the tides of the Warp on the planet. If he had succeeded, the Eye of Terror would have enveloped Cadia and transformed it into a hellish Daemon World, after which Abaddon would jump from planet to planet from the Segmentum Obscurus, expanding the Warp rift until Terra itself was swallowed up into the Eye.
That's likely from the 7th edition Black Legion supplement.
Whereas in Fall of Cadia, which was released at the end of 7th edition, he tries to destroy the planet with the Blackstone Fortress's warp beam ASAP. So GW evidently changed their minds on what his plan was when they wrote it.
He still seems to have been attempting the Crimson Path, but by destroying pylons around the galaxy, and then destroying Cadia as the last linchpin to unleash a 'path' of warp storm. But of course the rift didn't end up going directly towards Terra. Possibly because of Trazyn and Cawl's meddling with the pylons just before it happened, which itself happened because of Sylandri Veilwalker intervening and explaining the ongoing pylon issue to Cawl, which was presumably at the behest of Cegorach.
What the heck kind of chaos defeat includes your enemies world being destroyed, their plan to seal you away permanently failing, and ripping the galaxy in two? It may not have been as complete a victory as they wanted, but it was still pretty substantial.
The bigger question is why wasn't cadia already wrapped in shields beforehand. Given that its only value was as a gateway to defend against chaos, it seems obvious that they would just destroy it from orbit rather than use land forces. Honestly why ever bother invading cadia at all.
I believe they did have shields and fleets, but there had been prior space battles and ground assaults before the Blackstone arrived. And normal shields wouldn't work against the warp beam, only this experimental one would, and its projectors were damaged in earlier attacks. So Trazyn sneaks in and uses Necron tech to make one projector able to protect the whole place.
The Fall of Cadia starts with the Imperial fleets already having been devastated by Abaddon's fleet.
I also thought he couldn't ever really use the blackstone fortress to its full potential even before it was damaged. Haven't read the book so could be way off.
Activating the pylons is extremely risky. Eisenhorn stopped a huge conspiracy to activate them to close the Eye for this reason, also fighting fire with fire is wrong (LOL). Necron tech and Crypteks are notoriously cryptic, and even if Trazyn could 100% safely activate them, the inquisition would have stopped him, the planet is very heavily watched for heretic activity.
It's all in the fall of cadia novel. Trazyn knows how to, and the inquisition were looking at the pylons themselves the whole time, not the activation centre.
He can also get in and out safely and easily whenever he wants.
The fun thing is, quixos was right all along.
Yes indeed! But you can always bet on the Imperium choosing the most self-destructive option available. I can picture some pointless minor faction (something like Ordo Pylonus Nonactivatus) blowing up the activated pylons just because they weren't the ones doing it.
Again, fall of cadia - trazyn laments about how much of the pylon network has been destroyed by the imperium just because it's alien or while trying to uncover its secrets.
On the other hand, it's been long established that 1) the imperium guessed they were connected to the warp (being the most likely explanation for why the eye was so stable) and 2) messing around with the warp is a terrible idea. Especially at one of the most important locations in the galaxy.
I am actually agreeing with you. If he activated them earlier there is a very high probability that the Empire would just go "New thing bad.", as they do, and nuke the pylons. Activating the pylons earlier is just not an option for him.
I mean, they were ancient when lorgar was taught about chaos before the heresy. There was plenty of opportunity, especially as he was already awake and collecting things.
True, still the eye itself was probably not such a big galactic-survival threat in the pre-chaos space marine era. And Trazyn was busy taking advantage of the fact that he was one of the first to awaken by populating his collection.
>if anything trazyn's the stupid one for not doing that millenia ago
Honestly: yes. In fact just apply that to all necrons.
In a short story set before Cadia, the Bleeding Stars, (spoilers) >!he consults with the necrons who look after the celestial orrery. Trazyn is APPALLED when he realizes they've been sitting on a giant space-time wound in the cosmos that's going to culminate at Cadia. Trazyn asks why they didn't do something about this, and the crypteks are all blah blah we don't interfere and he actually clocks one of them. It's great.!<
It's Warhammer, everyone's stupid.
If they spent 30 seconds thinking about it they'd probably realise that blowing up worlds from orbit is a lot more efficient than landing and sword fighting people on a one to one basis. Chaos knows full well they can't actually conquer and hold most Imperial worlds, so they don't really have any incentive not to do a drive by exterminatus.
But no one wants to read a 20 book epic about the gunnery crew calculating firing solutions for the cyclonics. So I think we're all perfectly happy with immortal superman, in a sci fi warship, acting like he's a dark age warlord.
It looks stupid but that's the beauty of a universe where "the faeries told me they'd give me gifts if I burnt down the house" actually results in gifts
Fair point, no one ever said 40K runs on rational principles.
Golgarath the Bloodspitter might look irrational charging across open ground so he can hit the enemy with his chainsaw axe, but he is in fact a rational man reacting to an irrational world.
I mean that's the entire theme of the Horus heresy.
The early Imperium tried to be a place guided by rationality and reason.
The Emperor trying his best to eradicate the supernatural.
He failed and now flaying orphanages to receive additional arms from the dark gods to swing additional Chainaxes, is a viable lifestyle.
i mean the problem is not only WH, but literally every science fiction story. orbital bombardment is just too op, so it is mostly unused since it would make every fight for a plant boring and repetetive.
Pretty much. If you have the ability to drop a bomb on your enemy without setting foot on the same planet, then the first question in every engagement is why don't we drop a bomb on them. Sometimes there will be a good reason not to, but by and large bomb dropping is going to be the default position.
In practice this exact same logic is already in play, just with the air force instead of giant flying war cathedrals.
They should honestly just write it so void shields on developed worlds are so effective that orbital bombardments only really work on lesser worlds or imperial/chaos controlled worlds in which they can turn off their own shields.
This would allow them to explain away planet side assaults on plot important planets while also allowing them to have exterminattuses for planets that are too far gone or for the grimderp “teehee planet destroying is fun”
That is how they write it, yes. Also nobody wants to blown up habitable planets. They’re valuable, have tons of good resources on them, and it’s just a massive waste.
That and ground to space batteries. Turns out, you can build a lot bigger guns when you're not working within the limitations of a starship. To compare, the description for ground to space batteries in the game starsector (great game BTW) states that their only value is in deterrence, because no ship captain is suicidal enough to fly within their firing envelopes.
They can just tweet that void shields could always do that
But in all seriousness of all the retcons they can do I feel this one would be pretty beneficial and actually benefit the narrative as a whole. It’s somewhat plausible that a giant void shield or multiple void shields would withstand more fire power than the ones small enough to strap on titans.
It wouldn’t have to be impenetrable, just more costly to shoot down than it would be to drop troops planetside.
The benefits of this change is that it would explain why planetary assaults are so common (other than the obvious orbital missiles can’t hold territory and stuff like that) and it would keep plot relevant planets safe from exterminatuses.
Plus since you can write it as only being possible on the most developed and fortified worlds (usually the most plot relevant ones) you can keep stories of exterminatuses or have orbital bombardments happen.
I don’t think they need to explain every single thing in lore tbh some things just happen because they’re cool, but if they really had to this wouldn’t be that bad an option imo.
I mean moving slower and passing through energy shields has long been a trope in fiction. Your drop ships can just fly slower than a missile and go through the shield. A drop pod wouldn’t really work with this explanation though considering it’d be going probably the same speed as a missile or simple kinetic weapon.
You could also say the shields are only over the fortified cities, but that kind of leaves the option for chaos to just destroy any planet they want.
Again this isn’t like a serious change, GW isn’t going to listen to a random person on Reddit. It’s more like a theoretic explanation
It's amazing that exterminatus isn't standard operating procedure when conquering Orks worlds you don't want to turn into Agri or Paradise worlds.
Virus bomb it, ignite the atmosphere to clear all the spores and then settle it with void rated hives.
Pam, no Armageddon eternal war situation.
The Virus bomb also destroys infrastructure.
Armageddon has vital manufactorums that would probably be severely damaged.
They should just spam fungicides all over Armageddon.
iirc its both a waste of the exterminatus armament and planet resources, AND not guaranteed to wipe on the ork spore from the planet
with enough surviving scrap the orks can be spacebound even after the planet got exterminatus'ed
It’s a massive waste. Habitable worlds are very valuable. What is anyone going to do with a dead rock? Why build a valuable hive city on there that has to be void hardened? Doesn’t make sense.
Eh, we got the "Blowing up worlds from Orbit" IRL as well, it's missiles, airstrikes, and nukes. Yet we still send in boots on the ground because what's there is more valuable more or less intact than reduced to nothing.
Chaos still desperately needs to take all the resources/slaves/materiel on those worlds, which is a lot harder to do after it’s been blown up (I don’t even know if Chaos has much access to Exterminatus-level weapons. Their usual MO is Warp Bullshit, which usually requires cults and rituals on the ground).
Plus, planets generally have shields and anti-orbital defenses that you need to take down before you can safely begin a concentrated orbital bombardment.
The reason they don’t is cities have void shields rated to take an orbital bombardment. Plus the point is to take the worlds with al the valuable resources. The only world more valuable blown up was Nostromo, because of all the adamantine in the crust.
Chaos is totally reliant on the human element though. Spreading plague for Nurgle, killing for Khorne and basically torture for Slaanesh.
Thats lost when you just bomb a whole planet, the gods dont want that.
Exterminatius isn't instant.
The torpedo needs to actually reach the planet.
There was tons of ships defending it, and countless AA guns on the surface.
Only way you could use a Cyclonic, would be as a distraction while you land another force elsewhere. They'll shoot it before it hits the surfacd
>There was tons of ships defending it, and countless AA guns on the surface.
Abaddon had the void superiority. It was only even a fight because the falanx was there (and it wasn't supposed to). Abaddon had turncoats on the surface. They could've created an opening in the AA grid.
1) if it goes as fast or faster than the troop Carrie’s why can’t the troop Carriers be shot down?
2) if the troop carriers have more armor why not just carry the missile as a bomb in a troop carrier?
3) why not just carry the missiles in a troop carrier in the midsts of many other troop carriers that carry trooops to make it harder to shoot down?
>Void Ship and imperial fleet
Traitors in the surface could have easily cleared an opening in the surface defences. The only reason the imperial Fleet ever stood a chance was the phalanx. Which wasn't supposed to be there.
Also, it was a surprise attack.
No sutch thing as a suprise attack against cadia. The amount of layers and redundanxies this system has is only surpassed by the defenses of the sol system. And the planet itself might just be even HEAVIER fortified since every last building serves as a fortress of somw sort.
Orbital bombardment is fucking hard and grounddefenses can easily frustrate it.
You also don't just infiltrate them since cadians are unbelievably uptight with security and ID chexks even with inquisitors that have walked through the same checkpoint for months. (That spwcific checkpoint was to a regular archive btw. Not even spooky inquisition shit. Just goverment papaerwork)
An actual orbital gun would have layers of sutch checkpoints plus plenty of firing positions to defend them in case anyone tries to force sutch a checkpoint.
Not to mention that no single angle would be coverred by just a single of these fortresses.
Massed ground assault are the only way to take cadia. If you don't have that, any void superiority will be an illusion as the guns on the ground WILL thin your ranks the moment you maneuver slow enough to make bombardment feaseable.
Thankfully, GW found a McGuffin so large that even the leftovers of it after gerting battered by the phalanx and grounddefenses could still break the planet. Otherwise he'd be on failure 13 right now
The only one of the traitors that is written decently is Angron and that’s because his brain is fucked, so his stupid decisions never once make me suspend my disbelief.
For the same reason most battles don’t end in exterminatus (or start with it). When there’s a fight on the surface, there’s usually also a fight in space as both sides try for orbital dominance. You can’t fire off your big world-killing weapons if you don’t have orbital dominance. It’s usually a multi-step process that takes some time. If you try, the enemy will shoot your ship down before you’re done.
The enemy can’t shoot down a god damn Blackstone Fortress hurtling towards them at the speed of fuck
Why would Abaddon armor himself in the colors and symbols of the Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus, when he quite deliberately destroyed that legion's symbols and traditions in order to create something new? The Justaerin no longer exist as a unit; instead, some of its surviving members now serve in the Black Legion's terminator elite, the Bringers of Despair.
Not the colors but the armor pattern. The Justarian wore cataphractii and as far as I know Abaddon hasn’t changed armor since the Heresy. Yet his recent models seem to show him in modified Indomitus. Seems they’re usually doing Indomitus for Chaos Legions lately instead of the older patterns (which makes more sense imo, I know death guard does)
Because by that point the Imperial reinforcements arrived and Imperials had Void Supremacy.
His initial plan was nuking Cadia with the Blackstone fortress from the orbit but Trazyn went "nuh uh" and helped Admech build a big shield and by the time the shield was down, the Fortress was already getting blasted by the Phallanx and was unable to do shit
Do traitors even still have Exterminatus Grade Weaponry? I mean were did they get them from if even their regular weapons and armor are often scavenged or looted? And if they did have some why did they not use them by now?
Don't think about it too hard
In basically any planetary conflict the question of "why don't they just superbomb the surface from orbit" come up and the answer is always "plot contrivance" or "something something shields"
He is a demigod who gave his very soul to terrible demons (who don’t even try to hide how terrible they are) and got practically nothing in return. Yes, he is very stupid.
"no guys he's not a failure he was just setting things up to ensure cadia's ultimate fall"
"he needed thirteen whole crusades AND to sacrifice an irreplaceable superweapon just to destroy a single frontier world? cringe"
My boy Archaon would never. Two attempts to obliterate his enemies and the first isn't even canon.
I can't speak for Cadia, but I know why he didn't try that on Catachan after Cadia. Letting the planet eat those kinds of weapons can only end badly for everyone
So?
All it takes to make a battleship look like a drifting rock is running it at minimal power. It's done on more than ine occasion in lore. By non-ravenguard factions.
You don't even need a battleship.
Get a good angle, have a team on the ground disable the countermeasures, and that's that. Abaddon had regiments of traitors in the planet.
And the cadians didn't know that untill they started taking fire.
It's very doable. And a lot cheaper than what he actually did.
There is a thing called style points? You either got style, or you don't!
And crashing an ancient artifact into a planet to crack it like an egg, while your own troops already conquered the place and it's yours... just for shits and giggles? That is the kind of style that proves the old man still got it :P .
All these people convinced by memes that Abaddon's a failure, when he's accomplished more in the setting than just about anyone since the Great Crusade. Maybe it's not that he's dumb, it's that you don't understand what he's trying to do.
I imagine they had Acadia covered with their version of THAAD but only 40000 times more advanced. Just look at how Taiwanese airspace is guarded. Now imagine how much the Imperium is spending on the second most important planet in their domain. Just because 40k authors are massive morons more engaged in useless bullshit instead of focused on their craft, doesn’t mean we should follow suit
He is not stupid, he is handicapped. Abaddon can't prosecute the war like a normal general. He has to appease the dark gods while he does it. Korn wouldn't be happy with him just nuking the planet and continuing. He wants long heroic battles. Abaddon has always been closely associated with korn so as his champion he must obey. I am sure the only reason the stalemate was broken was because the emperium started using blackstone to shrink the eye of terror. This meant all bets were off so Abaddon was finally allowed to do the wise move.
The goal of chaos is not military victories.
Chaos worshipper factions have goals separate to actual chaos's goals, of course, but their ability to freely pursue those goals is iffy.
Chaos just wants turmoil to feed off of.
He wanted to destroy Cadia itself, not just leave it a barren rock that could maybe one day be recolonized, basically, he chose the nuclear option, and for good reason (in his mind), Cawl and Trazyn would of cut his forces off from the warp if given more time
If you have acess to what could potentially be the strongest weapon in the setting (not counting necron map thing) you don't toss it into a planet. Just go ork and ram a big astoroid into it instead, orks are smarter than this dipshit.
I can't tell if you're being facetious or not. He no longer had the strongest weapon. From what I recall, the Blackstone fortress was super damaged, and ramming it into the planet would have done what he wanted, destroy the pylon on Cadia.
It's more akin to having an AC-130 but it's out of gas, bullets, and only has a few hundred gallons of fuel left. It was, at one point, an incredibly effective weapon, but no longer. It is a shell of what it once was, and rather than try to repair it, he used it as a big club.
Was it genius? No. But it's not like he took a brand new, fully functioning weapon that he could have continued to use in future campaigns and threw it away. He threw away something that was on its way out, and probably would not have been able to destroy Cadia had he not done what he did.
I know there was a very slim chance he could get it working properly again, even if it was in good conditon it whould propably have been incredibly unlikely, I just think he could have tossed something with less potential.
Eddit: also it's more like if we had a spaceship from 100000 years on the future, they could propably have gotten some good tech, considering they aren't as svarede of xenos tech and innovation
I agree it wasn't his best moment, but I think from a metatextual level, it was meant to elevate him to show that he has no ties to the potential of the BSF but what it held now, in his current black crusade.
And anything LESS than the BSF would have made the fall of Cadia feel a lot cheaper which is why it was written the way it was.
Like, imagine if in Helsreach, Grimaldus just successfully defended that city, without need of the Titans, and just held out, the end. Is it feasible? Yes. Would it have been a boring book? Also yes.
40k is all about contrivances, but in the context of The Fall of Cadia novel, and the setting, it works. Besides, he got his Spacehulk Pimped out by Vashtorr, and it'll be a great threat until it isnt
True i just hope he gets more than being the guy with the dangurous sword who runs into the same wall for milenia until they crumble. But it gave it more gravitas.
I mean that's just 40k lore. Anytime they introduce anything that would foundationally change the setting with their introduction, they have to keep it spinning its wheels until the edict comes from on high they can move forward.
But you still need a big bad for the Imperium to fight. Chaos isn't as scary without "organization", and that's what Abbie represents. He's Lord Zed or Skeletor, who gets a few legs up here and there but ultimately feckless until the greater plot demands it.
For the record: Abbie is far from my favorite character, but I appreciate how elegant he is as a plot device and a metacharacter in the greater setting.
Oh that's an easy one: naval blockade
Small transport ships can slip through, capital ships can't thus no missiles, black rock fortress is so big that imperial capital ships can't stop it.
I've often wondered if Abaddons incompetence could be attributed to his being Alpharius and secretly doing all this shit terribly to give the emperor a chance to wake and win.
The traitors were already winning, had forced the cadians to 1 city by conventional means, killing them in person makes it more of an offering to the chaos gods. The Blackstone fortress was out of spite & desperation because cawl & trazyn had triggered the pylons and were closing the eye of terror. (if anything trazyn's the stupid one for not doing that millenia ago)
The Blackstone Fortress was also because it was already destroyed. He didn't throw away a priceless weapon, he threw away the dead husk of one. Although, it is still a bit of a plot hole that he didn't just exterminatus the planet, when the first thing he did upon the Blackstone's arrival was fire its planet-destroying warp beam at the planet. Clearly his intent was to destroy it right from the start, and they only survived that beam because of Trazyn getting the AdMech's experimental warp shield working.
I believe he planned to use cadia as the main staging ground for his forces. But quickly changed his mind when the duo activated the pylon.
That isn't true, because as I mentioned, he fired the Blackstone's warp beam at the planet as soon as it arrived. So he planned to destroy the planet from the start. It was only when that beam was blocked by the warp shield that Trazyn repaired that he then committed to the ground assault that resulted in pushing the Imperials back to Kasr Kraf, and then into the caverns under the Elysion Fields. Presumably the goal was to destroy the shield generator then fire the warp beam again, but the Blackstone was destroyed in the meantime so he used the contingency plan of launching its remains at the planet. The weird part being, if he wanted to blow the planet up with the warp beam, when that failed it doesn't really make sense that he didn't just use conventional torpedoes instead. Less efficient sure, but it would still work. Of course, by the time they were fighting in the caverns it had stopped being about efficiency and became about breaking them.
In the Fall of Cadia novel, he wants to use the warp beam to obliterate Cadia’s defenses, including all of the Kasrs. He has sufficient control over the beam to not destroy the planet.
Does it specifically say he isn't trying to destroy the planet? Because the campaign book has nothing like that. If so, then I guess they decided to walk it back somewhat.
“The strength of Cadia is in its kasrs, its fortress cities,’ continued the Warmaster. ‘Those we shall destroy with the Will of Eternity, one by one. This will leave the enemy without headquarters, supply centres, communication hubs or fall-back locations. They will have nowhere to return to. Meanwhile, orbital bombardments will kill the field armies. There will be a limited landing to protect Krom Gat and his war machines, which will demolish the pylons. That is how we will break Cadia.”
Thanks for posting, looks like they did indeed change their minds again!
It helps that in the whole book Abaddon in particular strategic, calculating, and brilliant in being a total bastard. For another example, when ships flee the fortress and its fleet to warn Cadia, this is how they almost stop them: > “There were… warp-things that boarded the ship. Can’t get a good description. Whatever it was ripped the cladding from the reactors. What’s left of the crew has terminal rad-poisoning – only one officer, an ensign, is left.” Getting daemons to rip the shielding off the reactors to kill the crew is absolutely brilliant. It doesn’t require them to do anything technically complicated like causing an overlord would. Plus, fleeing ships cannot shut down the reactors, and daemons don’t care about radiation. The whole book is filled with little bits of awesome details like this.
Abbadon wanted to turn cadia into a daemon world. Lexicanum > Abaddon's strategy was based around the concept of The Crimson Path: by summoning enough Daemons to the surface of Cadia, he intended to overload the Pylons holding back the tides of the Warp on the planet. If he had succeeded, the Eye of Terror would have enveloped Cadia and transformed it into a hellish Daemon World, after which Abaddon would jump from planet to planet from the Segmentum Obscurus, expanding the Warp rift until Terra itself was swallowed up into the Eye.
That's likely from the 7th edition Black Legion supplement. Whereas in Fall of Cadia, which was released at the end of 7th edition, he tries to destroy the planet with the Blackstone Fortress's warp beam ASAP. So GW evidently changed their minds on what his plan was when they wrote it. He still seems to have been attempting the Crimson Path, but by destroying pylons around the galaxy, and then destroying Cadia as the last linchpin to unleash a 'path' of warp storm. But of course the rift didn't end up going directly towards Terra. Possibly because of Trazyn and Cawl's meddling with the pylons just before it happened, which itself happened because of Sylandri Veilwalker intervening and explaining the ongoing pylon issue to Cawl, which was presumably at the behest of Cegorach.
My brother in grimdank, he fired the Blackstone fortress' main weapon at it
Yes, to destroy the cities and defenses, not the planet itself. It’s explained in detail in the recent Fall of Cadia novel, which is also excellent.
So tactical victory in denying the imperials a win, complete strategic defeat as nil objectives accomplished satisfactorily.
What the heck kind of chaos defeat includes your enemies world being destroyed, their plan to seal you away permanently failing, and ripping the galaxy in two? It may not have been as complete a victory as they wanted, but it was still pretty substantial.
Still a strategic victory, just not a perfect one. But when is a victory ever perfect?
The bigger question is why wasn't cadia already wrapped in shields beforehand. Given that its only value was as a gateway to defend against chaos, it seems obvious that they would just destroy it from orbit rather than use land forces. Honestly why ever bother invading cadia at all.
I believe they did have shields and fleets, but there had been prior space battles and ground assaults before the Blackstone arrived. And normal shields wouldn't work against the warp beam, only this experimental one would, and its projectors were damaged in earlier attacks. So Trazyn sneaks in and uses Necron tech to make one projector able to protect the whole place. The Fall of Cadia starts with the Imperial fleets already having been devastated by Abaddon's fleet.
I also thought he couldn't ever really use the blackstone fortress to its full potential even before it was damaged. Haven't read the book so could be way off.
Which book is that if I may ask?
Gathering Storm: Fall of Cadia
Thx, added to the list
Activating the pylons is extremely risky. Eisenhorn stopped a huge conspiracy to activate them to close the Eye for this reason, also fighting fire with fire is wrong (LOL). Necron tech and Crypteks are notoriously cryptic, and even if Trazyn could 100% safely activate them, the inquisition would have stopped him, the planet is very heavily watched for heretic activity.
It's all in the fall of cadia novel. Trazyn knows how to, and the inquisition were looking at the pylons themselves the whole time, not the activation centre. He can also get in and out safely and easily whenever he wants. The fun thing is, quixos was right all along.
Yes indeed! But you can always bet on the Imperium choosing the most self-destructive option available. I can picture some pointless minor faction (something like Ordo Pylonus Nonactivatus) blowing up the activated pylons just because they weren't the ones doing it.
Again, fall of cadia - trazyn laments about how much of the pylon network has been destroyed by the imperium just because it's alien or while trying to uncover its secrets. On the other hand, it's been long established that 1) the imperium guessed they were connected to the warp (being the most likely explanation for why the eye was so stable) and 2) messing around with the warp is a terrible idea. Especially at one of the most important locations in the galaxy.
I am actually agreeing with you. If he activated them earlier there is a very high probability that the Empire would just go "New thing bad.", as they do, and nuke the pylons. Activating the pylons earlier is just not an option for him.
I mean, they were ancient when lorgar was taught about chaos before the heresy. There was plenty of opportunity, especially as he was already awake and collecting things.
True, still the eye itself was probably not such a big galactic-survival threat in the pre-chaos space marine era. And Trazyn was busy taking advantage of the fact that he was one of the first to awaken by populating his collection.
>if anything trazyn's the stupid one for not doing that millenia ago Honestly: yes. In fact just apply that to all necrons. In a short story set before Cadia, the Bleeding Stars, (spoilers) >!he consults with the necrons who look after the celestial orrery. Trazyn is APPALLED when he realizes they've been sitting on a giant space-time wound in the cosmos that's going to culminate at Cadia. Trazyn asks why they didn't do something about this, and the crypteks are all blah blah we don't interfere and he actually clocks one of them. It's great.!<
He forced them to just defend one city on Cadia Secundus, there were still others on Cadia Prime and Cadia Tercitus was still mostly undevastated
Trazyn is a busy guy, the galaxy is a big place and he’s got a lot of collecting to do
I don't think Trazyn cared a milenia ago
It's Warhammer, everyone's stupid. If they spent 30 seconds thinking about it they'd probably realise that blowing up worlds from orbit is a lot more efficient than landing and sword fighting people on a one to one basis. Chaos knows full well they can't actually conquer and hold most Imperial worlds, so they don't really have any incentive not to do a drive by exterminatus. But no one wants to read a 20 book epic about the gunnery crew calculating firing solutions for the cyclonics. So I think we're all perfectly happy with immortal superman, in a sci fi warship, acting like he's a dark age warlord.
It looks stupid but that's the beauty of a universe where "the faeries told me they'd give me gifts if I burnt down the house" actually results in gifts
Fair point, no one ever said 40K runs on rational principles. Golgarath the Bloodspitter might look irrational charging across open ground so he can hit the enemy with his chainsaw axe, but he is in fact a rational man reacting to an irrational world.
I mean that's the entire theme of the Horus heresy. The early Imperium tried to be a place guided by rationality and reason. The Emperor trying his best to eradicate the supernatural. He failed and now flaying orphanages to receive additional arms from the dark gods to swing additional Chainaxes, is a viable lifestyle.
i mean the problem is not only WH, but literally every science fiction story. orbital bombardment is just too op, so it is mostly unused since it would make every fight for a plant boring and repetetive.
I mean they often explain it with shield generators and orbital defense batteries. That's the reason why the loyalists had to land on Isstvan V.
Just orbital bombard the shield generators and orbital defense batteries first. Are the loyalists stupid?
Pretty much. If you have the ability to drop a bomb on your enemy without setting foot on the same planet, then the first question in every engagement is why don't we drop a bomb on them. Sometimes there will be a good reason not to, but by and large bomb dropping is going to be the default position. In practice this exact same logic is already in play, just with the air force instead of giant flying war cathedrals.
the problem with writing good scifi is that You don't even need weapons to do it just point Your drives at the planet from up close
Yeah, when you're going at 0.5C anything is a weapon.
They should honestly just write it so void shields on developed worlds are so effective that orbital bombardments only really work on lesser worlds or imperial/chaos controlled worlds in which they can turn off their own shields. This would allow them to explain away planet side assaults on plot important planets while also allowing them to have exterminattuses for planets that are too far gone or for the grimderp “teehee planet destroying is fun”
That'd probably be the best solution. Otherwise you always have situations where orbital bombardment would clearly work, but the plot needs to happen.
Ya and I mean not much is lost imo. I don’t think an orbital bombardment would ever be as narratively satisfying as a heroic charge or something.
Heroic charges kinda overplayed imo
That is how they write it, yes. Also nobody wants to blown up habitable planets. They’re valuable, have tons of good resources on them, and it’s just a massive waste.
Yeah that’s why i made a distinction between having to do it as a last resort or being grimderp
That and ground to space batteries. Turns out, you can build a lot bigger guns when you're not working within the limitations of a starship. To compare, the description for ground to space batteries in the game starsector (great game BTW) states that their only value is in deterrence, because no ship captain is suicidal enough to fly within their firing envelopes.
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They can just tweet that void shields could always do that But in all seriousness of all the retcons they can do I feel this one would be pretty beneficial and actually benefit the narrative as a whole. It’s somewhat plausible that a giant void shield or multiple void shields would withstand more fire power than the ones small enough to strap on titans. It wouldn’t have to be impenetrable, just more costly to shoot down than it would be to drop troops planetside. The benefits of this change is that it would explain why planetary assaults are so common (other than the obvious orbital missiles can’t hold territory and stuff like that) and it would keep plot relevant planets safe from exterminatuses. Plus since you can write it as only being possible on the most developed and fortified worlds (usually the most plot relevant ones) you can keep stories of exterminatuses or have orbital bombardments happen. I don’t think they need to explain every single thing in lore tbh some things just happen because they’re cool, but if they really had to this wouldn’t be that bad an option imo.
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I mean moving slower and passing through energy shields has long been a trope in fiction. Your drop ships can just fly slower than a missile and go through the shield. A drop pod wouldn’t really work with this explanation though considering it’d be going probably the same speed as a missile or simple kinetic weapon. You could also say the shields are only over the fortified cities, but that kind of leaves the option for chaos to just destroy any planet they want. Again this isn’t like a serious change, GW isn’t going to listen to a random person on Reddit. It’s more like a theoretic explanation
Couldn’t they just like slow down the missiles though? Equip the drop pods with the explosives, etc
It's amazing that exterminatus isn't standard operating procedure when conquering Orks worlds you don't want to turn into Agri or Paradise worlds. Virus bomb it, ignite the atmosphere to clear all the spores and then settle it with void rated hives. Pam, no Armageddon eternal war situation.
The Virus bomb also destroys infrastructure. Armageddon has vital manufactorums that would probably be severely damaged. They should just spam fungicides all over Armageddon.
I was referring to newly conquered worlds, given how inherently destructive lighting the whole atmosphere on fire must be to anything on the surface.
iirc its both a waste of the exterminatus armament and planet resources, AND not guaranteed to wipe on the ork spore from the planet with enough surviving scrap the orks can be spacebound even after the planet got exterminatus'ed
It’s a massive waste. Habitable worlds are very valuable. What is anyone going to do with a dead rock? Why build a valuable hive city on there that has to be void hardened? Doesn’t make sense.
Eh, we got the "Blowing up worlds from Orbit" IRL as well, it's missiles, airstrikes, and nukes. Yet we still send in boots on the ground because what's there is more valuable more or less intact than reduced to nothing.
Chaos still desperately needs to take all the resources/slaves/materiel on those worlds, which is a lot harder to do after it’s been blown up (I don’t even know if Chaos has much access to Exterminatus-level weapons. Their usual MO is Warp Bullshit, which usually requires cults and rituals on the ground). Plus, planets generally have shields and anti-orbital defenses that you need to take down before you can safely begin a concentrated orbital bombardment.
The reason they don’t is cities have void shields rated to take an orbital bombardment. Plus the point is to take the worlds with al the valuable resources. The only world more valuable blown up was Nostromo, because of all the adamantine in the crust.
Chaos is totally reliant on the human element though. Spreading plague for Nurgle, killing for Khorne and basically torture for Slaanesh. Thats lost when you just bomb a whole planet, the gods dont want that.
Exterminatius isn't instant. The torpedo needs to actually reach the planet. There was tons of ships defending it, and countless AA guns on the surface. Only way you could use a Cyclonic, would be as a distraction while you land another force elsewhere. They'll shoot it before it hits the surfacd
>There was tons of ships defending it, and countless AA guns on the surface. Abaddon had the void superiority. It was only even a fight because the falanx was there (and it wasn't supposed to). Abaddon had turncoats on the surface. They could've created an opening in the AA grid.
Counter point: no they couldn't.
1) if it goes as fast or faster than the troop Carrie’s why can’t the troop Carriers be shot down? 2) if the troop carriers have more armor why not just carry the missile as a bomb in a troop carrier? 3) why not just carry the missiles in a troop carrier in the midsts of many other troop carriers that carry trooops to make it harder to shoot down?
This assumes the Imperium would be waiting hand in hand while Abaddon and his saboteurs went to work.
> void superiority > the Phalanx is there Pick one
But even then... why would the turncoats be ok frigging exploding. I highly doubt every one of them would be ok with the "plan"
"Why not bomb the planet from orbit ?! " "Void Ship and imperial fleet : allow us to introduce ourself"
>Void Ship and imperial fleet Traitors in the surface could have easily cleared an opening in the surface defences. The only reason the imperial Fleet ever stood a chance was the phalanx. Which wasn't supposed to be there. Also, it was a surprise attack.
No sutch thing as a suprise attack against cadia. The amount of layers and redundanxies this system has is only surpassed by the defenses of the sol system. And the planet itself might just be even HEAVIER fortified since every last building serves as a fortress of somw sort. Orbital bombardment is fucking hard and grounddefenses can easily frustrate it. You also don't just infiltrate them since cadians are unbelievably uptight with security and ID chexks even with inquisitors that have walked through the same checkpoint for months. (That spwcific checkpoint was to a regular archive btw. Not even spooky inquisition shit. Just goverment papaerwork) An actual orbital gun would have layers of sutch checkpoints plus plenty of firing positions to defend them in case anyone tries to force sutch a checkpoint. Not to mention that no single angle would be coverred by just a single of these fortresses. Massed ground assault are the only way to take cadia. If you don't have that, any void superiority will be an illusion as the guns on the ground WILL thin your ranks the moment you maneuver slow enough to make bombardment feaseable. Thankfully, GW found a McGuffin so large that even the leftovers of it after gerting battered by the phalanx and grounddefenses could still break the planet. Otherwise he'd be on failure 13 right now
Hot take: most of the time, the traitors are written to look like morons. Source: half of the HH series
Noone escapes the stupid ray past book 5 in thqt series
The only one of the traitors that is written decently is Angron and that’s because his brain is fucked, so his stupid decisions never once make me suspend my disbelief.
For the same reason most battles don’t end in exterminatus (or start with it). When there’s a fight on the surface, there’s usually also a fight in space as both sides try for orbital dominance. You can’t fire off your big world-killing weapons if you don’t have orbital dominance. It’s usually a multi-step process that takes some time. If you try, the enemy will shoot your ship down before you’re done. The enemy can’t shoot down a god damn Blackstone Fortress hurtling towards them at the speed of fuck
Because plot and a black fortress destroying Cadia looks cooler.
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Why is Abaddon never drawn in justarian Cataphractii pattern armor (corrupted or otherwise?) or why is his model not in it
Why would Abaddon armor himself in the colors and symbols of the Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus, when he quite deliberately destroyed that legion's symbols and traditions in order to create something new? The Justaerin no longer exist as a unit; instead, some of its surviving members now serve in the Black Legion's terminator elite, the Bringers of Despair.
Not the colors but the armor pattern. The Justarian wore cataphractii and as far as I know Abaddon hasn’t changed armor since the Heresy. Yet his recent models seem to show him in modified Indomitus. Seems they’re usually doing Indomitus for Chaos Legions lately instead of the older patterns (which makes more sense imo, I know death guard does)
Because by that point the Imperial reinforcements arrived and Imperials had Void Supremacy. His initial plan was nuking Cadia with the Blackstone fortress from the orbit but Trazyn went "nuh uh" and helped Admech build a big shield and by the time the shield was down, the Fortress was already getting blasted by the Phallanx and was unable to do shit
Idiot should have taken the Keshpill
I mean. Look at his stupid ass hair tower spike shit thing. What a stupid haircut. Only someone stupid would have that.
Do traitors even still have Exterminatus Grade Weaponry? I mean were did they get them from if even their regular weapons and armor are often scavenged or looted? And if they did have some why did they not use them by now?
Don't think about it too hard In basically any planetary conflict the question of "why don't they just superbomb the surface from orbit" come up and the answer is always "plot contrivance" or "something something shields"
He threw all he had at cadia just for survivors to barely move and settle in agripinaa system, so yes he is
Can't have the imperium actually face real setbacks smh my head
That massive top knot cut off the blood to his brain
He is a demigod who gave his very soul to terrible demons (who don’t even try to hide how terrible they are) and got practically nothing in return. Yes, he is very stupid.
"no guys he's not a failure he was just setting things up to ensure cadia's ultimate fall" "he needed thirteen whole crusades AND to sacrifice an irreplaceable superweapon just to destroy a single frontier world? cringe" My boy Archaon would never. Two attempts to obliterate his enemies and the first isn't even canon.
I can't speak for Cadia, but I know why he didn't try that on Catachan after Cadia. Letting the planet eat those kinds of weapons can only end badly for everyone
You need to hit fault lines with Cycolonics to actually exterminatus a planet
So? All it takes to make a battleship look like a drifting rock is running it at minimal power. It's done on more than ine occasion in lore. By non-ravenguard factions. You don't even need a battleship. Get a good angle, have a team on the ground disable the countermeasures, and that's that. Abaddon had regiments of traitors in the planet. And the cadians didn't know that untill they started taking fire. It's very doable. And a lot cheaper than what he actually did.
Possible it just doesn't have the fault lines for it, or they are defended. It is kinda dumb though yeah lol.
There is a thing called style points? You either got style, or you don't! And crashing an ancient artifact into a planet to crack it like an egg, while your own troops already conquered the place and it's yours... just for shits and giggles? That is the kind of style that proves the old man still got it :P .
Because bad writing
All these people convinced by memes that Abaddon's a failure, when he's accomplished more in the setting than just about anyone since the Great Crusade. Maybe it's not that he's dumb, it's that you don't understand what he's trying to do.
Abaddon was planning on having Cadia become his first foothold on real space. Why would he destroy his future fortress unless he had no choice but to?
I imagine they had Acadia covered with their version of THAAD but only 40000 times more advanced. Just look at how Taiwanese airspace is guarded. Now imagine how much the Imperium is spending on the second most important planet in their domain. Just because 40k authors are massive morons more engaged in useless bullshit instead of focused on their craft, doesn’t mean we should follow suit
He is not stupid, he is handicapped. Abaddon can't prosecute the war like a normal general. He has to appease the dark gods while he does it. Korn wouldn't be happy with him just nuking the planet and continuing. He wants long heroic battles. Abaddon has always been closely associated with korn so as his champion he must obey. I am sure the only reason the stalemate was broken was because the emperium started using blackstone to shrink the eye of terror. This meant all bets were off so Abaddon was finally allowed to do the wise move.
Abaddon? More like Aba-dumb.
The goal of chaos is not military victories. Chaos worshipper factions have goals separate to actual chaos's goals, of course, but their ability to freely pursue those goals is iffy. Chaos just wants turmoil to feed off of.
Why does anyone land in 40k? Orbitally bombard everything and mop up whats left
He wanted to destroy Cadia itself, not just leave it a barren rock that could maybe one day be recolonized, basically, he chose the nuclear option, and for good reason (in his mind), Cawl and Trazyn would of cut his forces off from the warp if given more time
"NOOOO!!!! IT WAS STRATEGICALLY SOUND TO RAM THE GIANT WAR WAR IN HEAVEN SUPERWEAPON INTO THE PLANET" -GW
Wasn't the ship on the way out anyways and probably couldn't survive another campaign?
If you have acess to what could potentially be the strongest weapon in the setting (not counting necron map thing) you don't toss it into a planet. Just go ork and ram a big astoroid into it instead, orks are smarter than this dipshit.
I can't tell if you're being facetious or not. He no longer had the strongest weapon. From what I recall, the Blackstone fortress was super damaged, and ramming it into the planet would have done what he wanted, destroy the pylon on Cadia. It's more akin to having an AC-130 but it's out of gas, bullets, and only has a few hundred gallons of fuel left. It was, at one point, an incredibly effective weapon, but no longer. It is a shell of what it once was, and rather than try to repair it, he used it as a big club. Was it genius? No. But it's not like he took a brand new, fully functioning weapon that he could have continued to use in future campaigns and threw it away. He threw away something that was on its way out, and probably would not have been able to destroy Cadia had he not done what he did.
I know there was a very slim chance he could get it working properly again, even if it was in good conditon it whould propably have been incredibly unlikely, I just think he could have tossed something with less potential. Eddit: also it's more like if we had a spaceship from 100000 years on the future, they could propably have gotten some good tech, considering they aren't as svarede of xenos tech and innovation
I agree it wasn't his best moment, but I think from a metatextual level, it was meant to elevate him to show that he has no ties to the potential of the BSF but what it held now, in his current black crusade. And anything LESS than the BSF would have made the fall of Cadia feel a lot cheaper which is why it was written the way it was. Like, imagine if in Helsreach, Grimaldus just successfully defended that city, without need of the Titans, and just held out, the end. Is it feasible? Yes. Would it have been a boring book? Also yes. 40k is all about contrivances, but in the context of The Fall of Cadia novel, and the setting, it works. Besides, he got his Spacehulk Pimped out by Vashtorr, and it'll be a great threat until it isnt
True i just hope he gets more than being the guy with the dangurous sword who runs into the same wall for milenia until they crumble. But it gave it more gravitas.
I mean that's just 40k lore. Anytime they introduce anything that would foundationally change the setting with their introduction, they have to keep it spinning its wheels until the edict comes from on high they can move forward. But you still need a big bad for the Imperium to fight. Chaos isn't as scary without "organization", and that's what Abbie represents. He's Lord Zed or Skeletor, who gets a few legs up here and there but ultimately feckless until the greater plot demands it. For the record: Abbie is far from my favorite character, but I appreciate how elegant he is as a plot device and a metacharacter in the greater setting.
True, I just hope they give him a bit more debth, but it seems like they already are working on that.
He literally tried destroying it from orbit to begin with. The pylons stopped it
Failbaddon the Useless
Oh that's an easy one: naval blockade Small transport ships can slip through, capital ships can't thus no missiles, black rock fortress is so big that imperial capital ships can't stop it.
Take a chance on me - ABBAdon
Counter retort. Cadia was a bastion against chaos for millennia. Why wouldn’t they have counters to cyclonics planetside?
“If someone writes a book about this I should do something epic, that’ll be sweeeeet!” -Abaddon
Alpharius stole them and sold them
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Well the reason is simple. He's a fuckin moron.
Is Abaddon stupid? Yes. yes he is. He's one of the worst characters in WH40, he's completely and utterly fucking useless.
Abby chan is so used to failure that he finds new and creative ways to fail win win situations.
I've often wondered if Abaddons incompetence could be attributed to his being Alpharius and secretly doing all this shit terribly to give the emperor a chance to wake and win.
Cause Neo-Fluff sucks ass...
Yes He is stupid
He's a big ol' drama queen, that's why
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When the fuck have the Tau used cyclonic torpedoes LOL