Abaddon the Despoiler

One thing I wanted to get out of my system, something that infuriates me in this hobby, is people that believe Abaddon is a total failure, a shadow of Horus and not worthy of the title Despoiler of Worlds.

But this is completely wrong, Horus was the one who messed up, it was Horus who led the Chaos Legions to decimation and it was Horus that failed in his task. Abaddon saw the tactical flaws in Horus' plan. Wait, what plan? The entire idea of the heresy was to spear tip straight into Terra as fast as the warp could take them. This obviously led to the failure on Terra and the splitting up of Chaos' somewhat coherent fighting force. Lets look at the Battle of Terra hypothetically. If Horus had won, he would have been emperor for approximately 22 seconds.

 The Ultramarines, the Dark Angels and the Space Wolves were all en route to Terra and would have arrived soon after Horus was crowned Emperor. The traitor legions that were on Terra would have been at half or less than half strength, and would have been facing the largest legion in the galaxy, the greenest army in the galaxy and the legion who were designed to hunt and kill other space marines, all 3 of these legions were at relatively good strength and would have doubtlessly smashed Horus and the remaining traitors.

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

-Abaddon the Despoiler, Archfiend of Chaos

In this hypothetical, where we assume The Emperor could be killed, and Horus succeeded, then it would have been highly likely that Horus would be very badly wounded after the fight, perhaps even unable to lead. This would leave; Deamon Angron, not a very good choice as a leader, Possessed/Deamon Fulgrim, too up himself to lead, Transfigured Lorgar, who nobody liked, and lastly Pertuarbo, who would likely have become Leader at that point as he was one of the last sane (relatively) ones on Terra. Put the tactical might of Pertuarbo up against that of Roboute Gulliman and see who the victor would be.

Abaddon saw the battle of Terra for what it was, a mistake. That is why he had the body of Horus destroyed when Fabius Bile tried reincarnating him, to save the forces of Chaos from another colossal screw up. Abaddon realized that this "Drop everything and attack Terra" idea would never have worked, thus why he is on his 13th black crusade. The first 12 crusades were in fact not failures, just steps of preparation leading up to the final crusade against Terra, if Abaddon wanted to, he could attack Terra whenever he pleases, though he realizes that in the long run, it would not achieve anything, he would be on Terra for Days at max before the rest of the Imperium arrived and banished him back to the Eye of Terror.

Now lets look at Abaddons characteristics, much unlike other Chaos leaders such as Kharn, Typhus, Lucius and Ahriman, Abaddon is the only one who has mental fortitude. I would not be surprised if he was offered deamonhood on deamon prince status on a daily basis, each God trying to get Abaddon under his command. Though Abaddon, unlike the others, resists this and stays true to himself, true to his purpose. It might be just me, but I don't see Abaddon as the one to pray to the God's at every chance he gets, rather, he still acknowledges his humanity and his freedom of choice, something stolen from many other followers of Chaos.

In conclusion I think people should stop and see Abaddon for who he really is, the first Chaos warlord with more than 2 brain cells.