Chaos Space Marine Units and Tactics: Abbadon the Despoiler!

I originally planned to take care of Abbadon last in my tactica article, but I wanted my last Tactica of the year to be special and nothing is more special than the Warmaster! So, in his glorious name, I present my tactical approach to Abbadon!
.
Holy Points Cost Batman! We all did a double-take when we saw his price - nearly 300 points is a lot when you consider the points-cost of everything else we field, but let's take a look at what we are getting in return; A terminator model with Eternal Warrior and a 4+ Invul (not bad, he can't really cut things down, but then nothing really lives through a combat with the Warmaster). He also has a daemon weapon (careful, he can still get a 1) plus his base number of attacks, giving him the potential of 10 S8 attacks in a turn! Not to mention he will reroll his failed to-wound dice. Sprinkle on a little I6 and you may just have the greatest 1-on-1 close-combat model in the game. It gets sticky though when people try to create an effective way to field him.
.
The usual suspect: All across the pick-up game battlefields of the FLGS universe, you can see folks stuffing Abbadon in a Land Raider with berserkers or terminators. They understand that this unit is hard as nails and they understand that it is a good way to transport him across the field, but they also suffer from the massive point sink of a unit and transport that will only be able to effectively engage two, maybe three targets the whole game, while the rest of their list is sparse due to a lack of points to spend elsewhere.
.
This can be fun, but loses its shine once it is realized that it will not win games against anyone with a balanced list and a tactical approach to the game. I would only field this in a massive apoc game and even then, there are so many cool apoc models and formations that I would still do something different with old Abbey. So, moving on ...
.
Beam me down Scotty! Another way I have seen Abbadon used is a little more effective. Folks will Deepstrike him in with a unit of Terminators right into enemy territory. This save huge points from not having to use the Land Raider for him and it usually forces the enemy into focus firing the crap out of his unit, buying time for your other units to do their job. What other choice do they have - to let him walk is to possibly be assaulted by him, which is bad for business for anyone but the most mobile armies.
.
Here is where it goes wrong; plasma or big ordnance and focus fire can smoke termies pretty quick and then abbadon is just a couple rapid fires and maybe a throw away unit from being killed himself. Add this to the still pricey unit and the Despoiler himself and it just seems like a really expensive scare tactic to me - one which we can do for much cheaper with other units in our codex. Then there is the huge "what if" of deepstriking that occurs. Sometimes the ballsy player can turn the game by making a gutsy deepstrike move with abbadon and turn the game, but that same idea turns to mush when a scatter occurs causing a mishap. Then an overly cautious player is too careful and drops the Warmaster in the middle of no-man's land without a prayer of getting into the fight - so to me, this is better than the land raider for the rest of my army, but still too much of an investment for what it does. Moving on ...
.
You want this objective, come take it! Playing the defense is usually the very last thing on a person's mind when they field the Master of the Black Crusade, but it can be one of the best ways to use him in objective play.
.
This works best in missions with 2-3 objectives; basically imagine your objective holding unit (mine would be the plague marines). Sure this unit is tough and most troops will have a hard time once stuck in with them. This almost always means the enemy is going to show up at your door with his Bloodthirst, Carnifex, Daemon Prince, Iron Clad, Biker Command Squad ect. This usually means that a portion of your army stays with a range of mutual support so as not to let the home objective get swept.
.
Now imagine the plague marines camped out behind their rhino with the Baddest Top-Knot Wearing Chaos Marine in the Galaxy. Suddenly, they are looking at a unit that is tough to get stuck in with AND a model capable of stomping most of the bigger, uglier models of the game and even some of the uber squads out there.
.
This forces them to do two things, fight you with everything they have at their objectives and try for some kind of last turn turbo-boost contest nonsense or they will have to commit a much larger and more dangerous force to the mission of taking the objective - now there are less of the usual counter assault units camped on their objective and a larger part of your force able to commit to his - and he will have to be moving across the board to get to it (perfect for the long range weapons). This also is one of those priciples that I beleive in - throwing the enemy off their plan. They are doing something they did not expect to do and something they are less than comfortable doing, which as long as you are comfortable, gives you an edge. For objective games, this is the way I run Abbey.
.
Final thoughts: Now just because all of that sounds fun, it doesn't mean that you should pack the Warmaster into your tourney army or into every list you run - no - A) A balanced list without the Despoiler is almost always going to work better than one with him in take-all-comers games and ... B) This is the freaking Warmaster we are talking about and a great way to tie a good story into a game for a thematic battle ... not necessarily the guy to throw into every random pick-up game. I am simply encouraging you to try him out in different ways, don't just shelf the guy after you paint him, but maybe let him sit out for the tourneys : ). After all, he's fun and that's really why we all started this little hobby. Happy New Year from Dark Future Games!