Abaddon vs Thanos vs Megatron (losers edition)

[t209]

So I am thinking about it for a long time so here are the three contestants.
This time who will most likely pull a loss.
Abaddon- portrayed as big scary villain but shown to be inept and being defeated by people who are lesser than him until 13th Black Crusade.
Thanos- at least in comic version after Infinity Gauntlet, basically he turned into serial villain who tends to be predictably lose every conflict save for what if’s.
Megatron- 80’s cartoon version, also maybe Starscream too. May not be fair since they wanted it to be kid friendly.

[GloatingSwine]

At least Thanos gets to win in those What Ifs...


Abaddon has no arms, so he loses first, and Megatron gets betrayed by Starscream whether he's there or not, largely out of spite to prevent him from winning, so Thanos takes it.

[The Glyphstone]

If you're giving Abbadon a fair shot as he's written and not the Failbaddon meme-ified fan version, he's got a fairly high 'win' rate. He's rarely if ever beaten by people weaker than him except through basically getting swamped by numbers, and most of his 'defeats' tend to be 'okay, got what I wanted, time to go home'.

Megatron has successfully killed Optimus Prime at least once, despite Starscream's interference - sure, he came back to life later, but it still stuck in continuity technically.

Thanos is the only one of the three who has never actually won anything - his only true victory got retroactively negated via time travel.

If it's a question of who loses first/biggest, Thanos has the most lofty ambitions, so he's got the most riding against him and most likely to fall short. Abbadon plays on a massive scale for relatively limited stakes, but the static nature of his setting means he's not permitted to make anything serious stick. Megatron's objectives tend to be the most personal and targeted, with minimal permanent or wide-spread consequences, so he's most likely to actually score wins - Starscream drags his percentage down, but Starscream is as incompetent as he is treacherous, and half the time can't even pull off a betrayal correctly.

[GloatingSwine]

If you're giving Abbadon a fair shot as he's written and not the Failbaddon meme-ified fan version, he's got a fairly high 'win' rate. He's rarely if ever beaten by people weaker than him except through basically getting swamped by numbers, and most of his 'defeats' tend to be 'okay, got what I wanted, time to go home'..

Well he eventually blew up Cadia, but blowing up one planet doesn't make you special. Archaon blew up a planet and he only had one to start with.

[Forum Explorer]

Well he eventually blew up Cadia, but blowing up one planet doesn't make you special. Archaon blew up a planet and he only had one to start with.

He blew up Cadia, which directly resulted in the galaxy being torn in half. Really Abaddon being known for nothing but failure really is a meme. He does alright for himself, and just scored a massive win.

I mean, I maintain he completely fails as the 'big bad' of the setting, since there are Demon Primarchs running around, but that's more not buying what GW is selling then canonical failures.

So I'm going with Megatron being the biggest failure.

[The Glyphstone]

Well he eventually blew up Cadia, but blowing up one planet doesn't make you special. Archaon blew up a planet and he only had one to start with.

He launched 13 crusades, and over half of them were 'kill this person/steal this thing/blow up this place' that he pulled off before the Imperium could muster enough troops to stop him. The 7th is the only time he outright failed in doing anything meaningful.

Cadia wasn't 12 failures and a win, he didn't even try for it seriously until he had already set enough groundwork to guarantee victory. All the previous crusades settled for blockading Cadia, not conquering it.

And really, Archaeon? He actually did fail, to the point of getting his butt kicked by Grimgor in single combat. It was Nagash who managed to destroy the world.

[Eldan]

And most of the Crusades had clearly defined goals that he achieved. That goes back all the way to the list of Crusades in the first chaos book in second or third edition.

He's only Failbaddon if you assume each crusade had no goals except destroy the entire Imperium.

Now, his "the Armless" moniker, on the other hand...

One also has to consider that M40 is about children squabbling in the ruins of M30 as the galaxy slides into Darkness and humanity dies out. Abby is over 12000 years old as a non-Primarch. He outlived basically everyone. That's a win.

As for Archaon (Diddy to his friends, look it up...): he hated Chaos and tried to thwart the gods. Yeah, that went welll...

[Talakeal]

And really, Archaeon? He actually did fail, to the point of getting his butt kicked by Grimgor in single combat. It was Nagash who managed to destroy the world.

As much as I love me some Nagash, that is not correct.

End Times ended with Archaon giving his life to destroy the world and Nagash being destroyed trying to maintain it.

[Eldan]

Still got krumped by Grimgor and ran away.

Plus Archaons goal was killing all gods, Northern and Southern and freeing humanity from the Tyranny of Fate. Destroying the world was the goal of the Ruinous Powers, not his own and he only started working towards that after the Crown of Domination took most of his mind and Volition and made him there slave. I'm sure Be'lakor was very disappointed.

[GloatingSwine]

Still got krumped by Grimgor and ran away.


Nah, that got retconned. Never happened. Grimgor put up a fight but got chopped the second Archaon got properly serious.

Archaon was absolutely trying to destroy the world, he just thought that was what was going to spite Chaos by denying them the food of mortal emotions.

[Eldan]

Storm of Chaos canon is superior canon. The jassassination of Valten alone is more interesting for the setting than most of End Times combined.

Plus one can argue that the newest edition of the RPG has recently retconned the End Times.

[GloatingSwine]

Oh yeah, the End Times is peak dumb and nobody likes it. But it's also what happened.

They aren't retconning it, they're just quietly not mentioning it and safely avoiding the issue by setting the return to the old world 200 years before it.

[Eldan]

I'm talking about the new RPG sourcebooks, not The Old World, which is set in the shattered empire. They moved the timeline forward recently.

[The Glyphstone]

As much as I love me some Nagash, that is not correct.

End Times ended with Archaon giving his life to destroy the world and Nagash being destroyed trying to maintain it.

Well then, apparently End Times got even dumber after I stopped paying attention.


Nah, that got retconned. Never happened. Grimgor put up a fight but got chopped the second Archaon got properly

Okay that is some squig****. I ran Orcs and Goblins during the Storm of Chaos event, and we were extremely annoyed with how GW threw that measly story sop at us so they could keep their pre-written Chaos Sue winner instead of actually letting event results influence the canon. And now you're telling me they retconned that away too once people stopped paying attention? Sure glad I don't give GW any of my money these days.

[Eldan]

Yeah, they decided that the entire Storm of Chaos didn't happen. End Times officially replaces it. And conveniently erased just about all the interesting political events that happened around that time. I mean, look at Valten's assassination. Luthor Huss, Karl-Franz, Hindenstern, Esmer, the Teutogens... all present, all with motives to have the messiah conveniently die or "depart to return at another time when his people need him". And they just erased it.

I played Skaven back in Storm of Chaos. I don't remember anyone who wasn't rooting for either Grimgor or the Skaven (or even the dark elves) to finally just backstab Archaon and get it over with, it never made sense they were allied anyway.

[GloatingSwine]

I'm talking about the new RPG sourcebooks, not The Old World, which is set in the shattered empire. They moved the timeline forward recently.

The Old World is going to have a wider scope than the three emperors/great war against Chaos (which basically managed two cities in the far north of Kislev), with Kislev and Cathay now promoted to full factions and likely to be getting their own tabletop lists.

(Pretty much everyone was having Interesting Times around then. The War of Sand and Snow kicked off, the Skaven were having a proper formal with-bells-on civil war rather than their perpetual state of informal civil war, I reckon they'll situate this as the point where the Monkey King took over in Cathay, etc.)


Well then, apparently End Times got even dumber after I stopped paying attention.


However dumb you think the End Times was it was dumber than that. Some characters died off screen because the writers literally forgot to include them (Skarsnik). And in the end the world blew up because Mannfred was a little bitch.

[Eldan]

I especially hated how Kislev was basically dispatched off-screen. The entire country.

WIthout even a single mention of The Ancient Widow, the local spirit of the land, who not only had the power to give every single witch in Kislev magic powers that were uncoupled from the Winds of Magic and chaos corruption, but also powerful enough to directly stand against the gods while in her own land. IT's the entire founding myth of the country that they could drive back chaos with her power.

[The Glyphstone]

I had the misfortune of reading the finale to Gotrek and Felix, which pulled off the 'character died offscreen', the 'character gets Worfed to let BBEG flex', and the 'complete character assassination' bingo boxes all in one novel. My expectations for the dumbness of End Times were pretty much rock bottom.

[t209]

So back on track for the topic.
I think we forgot that Thanos was from comic, like after Infinity Gauntlet where he became less of a threatening villain and more “serial villain whose ass got kicked by heroes” (I mean there were decent ones like Hickman’s run and Thanos Imperative*, most of it falls into “his ass got kicked by superheroes”).
* ironically head written by Dan Abnett, a writer for 40k.

[Talakeal]

GW is second only to BLizzard for not caring about the consistency of their lore.

I lost all respect for GW "canon" when their time of legends series ignored and or retconnined the entirety of Vampire Counts lore and was written by an author who admitted he had never even read any of the originals.

Personally, I find the idea that something "never happened" just because it is contradicted by newer books to be very silly and a form of fun policing.


End Times wasn't perfect, but I do have mad respect for GW putting that much effort into actually writing an ending for their setting and wrapping up (almost) all of the loose ends. The end times books where longer than most fantasy novels, and most fictional universes just get quietly forgotten and their plotlines unresolved.

[Fyraltari]

GW is second only to BLizzard for not caring about the consistency of their lore.

I take it you've never watched Doctor Who?

[Eldan]

I take it you've never watched Doctor Who?

I mean, at least, in Doctor Who, it kind of makes sense how little sense it makes? Wibbly Wobbly? There's so much time travel and probability manipulation, the CIA is holding the universe together with bubblegum and shoestrings.

[lord_khaine]

I think that was a reference to new doctor who?
Who as i understood basically shot the prior lore in the knee.

As for Warhammer fantasy.
Im surprised. The Endtime retconned?
No more AoS?

[Eldan]

Doctor Who shoots its own lore in the knee at least two or three times per season and it doesn't matter in the least.

[t209]

Yeah, part of me kinda feel that mood for Age of Sigmar.
Especially "Malekith was rightful king all along...despite enslaving, raiding, destroying High Elves since his toasted state and also Caradryel and Bel-Hathor lived a long life and quite decent". Not that it matter since no one like him, ended up with a civil war that killed most of the elves, and failed to stop End Times with him becoming a demon in Age of Sigmar so it wasn't worth it.
Edit: Speaking of losers, what about Annihilus from Marvel? Only had one invasions with the rest being thwarted before it began.
Also thanks to Nova, a throatless failure.

[Fyraltari]

I think that was a reference to new doctor who?
Who as i understood basically shot the prior lore in the knee.

Ah, no. DW's lore has been inconsistent and self-contradictory from the moment it has had lore. Anyone remember the First Doctor saying you can't change history?

[Eldan]

Ah, no. DW's lore has been inconsistent and self-contradictory from the moment it has had lore. Anyone remember the First Doctor saying you can't change history?

Pfff. Anyone remember the First Doctor saying he's a human from the future, not an alien?

[GloatingSwine]

I think that was a reference to new doctor who?
Who as i understood basically shot the prior lore in the knee.

As for Warhammer fantasy.
Im surprised. The Endtime retconned?
No more AoS?

They're keeping AoS they're just also going back to the Old World and sort of not talking about the End Times any more.

It's pretty much because of Total War Warhammer being extremely popular and reinvigorating the old world setting.

[Eldan]

Yeah. They are even giving attention to regions of the world that never got much before. I mean, Kislev hasn't been all that relevant for over 20 years, even if they got their own RPG sourcebook (that was pretty damn awesome). And now they are adding Cathay to TW3. And the RPG, Altdorf now officially has a Cathayan embassy. Almost certainly an attempt to get at the Chinese market (and possibly reuse some assets from Three Kingdoms by the same company?), but they look pretty cool.

[GloatingSwine]

The inclusion of Cathay and promotion of Kislev was also because of user metrics.

Basically, most people play the "good guy" factions. The most popular factions in TW1 and 2 are the Empire and High Elves, but the only remaining factions with army books are Daemons of Chaos, Ogre Kingdoms, and Chaos Dwarfs. So they wanted to repeat the pattern of having two good factions at launch, and needed to reach beyond what the tabletop had represented in order to do so.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=033FWxL22A0

Where is your Sigmar now eh?

[Eldan]

The inclusion of Cathay and promotion of Kislev was also because of user metrics.

Basically, most people play the "good guy" factions. The most popular factions in TW1 and 2 are the Empire and High Elves, but the only remaining factions with army books are Daemons of Chaos, Ogre Kingdoms, and Chaos Dwarfs. So they wanted to repeat the pattern of having two good factions at launch, and needed to reach beyond what the tabletop had represented in order to do so.

Huh. That surprises me. That's not at all how I saw it happen in the tabletop. I knew one high elf player and one imperial player, but six or seven chaos warrior players. Dark elves and vampires were also really popular.

Guess the metrics are different among non-tabletoppers.

[GloatingSwine]

It probably depends how old you are as well. I played when I was in school and things leaned Chaos and Undead heavy in our group. (For t'was the days of 4th edition where it was a single Undead list).

I played Skaven.

[lord_khaine]

Yeah im also confused about the idea of people playing the good guys.
Back when i played in 2nd ed. We had a decent amount of chaos players (because they were OP).
And then else a wide spread of everything else.

[The Glyphstone]

When I was in HS, our club had one High Elf player and one Dwarf player (brothers, actually), one Chaos player, one Tomb Kings/Dark Elves player, and one Orcs+Goblins player (myself). So yeah, definitely weighted-average towards 'bad guy' armies there as well.

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah im also confused about the idea of people playing the good guys.
Back when i played in 2nd ed. We had a decent amount of chaos players (because they were OP).
And then else a wide spread of everything else.

It's how things shake out in Total War, and you can see it from the rate of people earning achievements. The rough order of popularity based on how many people have finished a campaign or even done 10 researches for the game 2 factions is High Elves > Lizardmen > Tomb Kings > Dark Elves > Skaven > Vampire Coast.