Abaddon the Despoiler
SWORD: what Abaddon the Despoiler kills
Damage for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 300 pts kill ~147 pts in one activation.Typical melee unit: 55 per 100
Best against heavy vehicles and monsters, weakest against hordes
Into each enemy type
Units near it by SWORD
In Chaos Space Marines
Across the game· melee units
SHIELD: how hard Abaddon the Despoiler is to kill for its points
Toughness for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 300 pts take ~387 pts of enemy units to kill.Typical melee unit: 307 per 100
Units near it by SHIELD
Across the game· melee units
What creators say
5 creators- A strong warlord and melee threat 2 of 5
- Protective aura for the Chosen brick 2 of 5
- Often not needed 2 of 5
- A big commitment in points 1 of 5
Compare
| Unit | Letter | SWORD | SHIELD | Lists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abaddon the Despoiler300 pts | B | Bottom 38% | Bottom 1% | 20of 184 |
| Vashtorr the Arkifane220 pts | A | Top 40% | Top 20% | 30of 184 |
| Masters of the Maelstrom150 pts | A | Top 18% | Top 50% | 98of 184 |
Leading a squad
| Solo | Leading | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 49 | 39 |
| SHIELD | 129 | 187 |
| Solo | Leading | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 49 | 43 |
| SHIELD | 129 | 162 |
Per 100 pts: on its own, then for it and the squad together.
How we got these numbers
What we ran
Abaddon the Despoiler, 300 pts, with its datasheet's weapons, in Veterans of the Long War. On its own: no leader, no stratagems, no other units' auras. Counted as dice: the army rule and the detachment's rule.
SWORD
Enemy points it kills in one activation, per 100 pts of its own, against a mix of targets weighted like top tournament lists.
300 pts → kills ~147 pts → 49 per 100SHIELD
Enemy points it takes to kill it, per 100 pts of its own: the points of the cheapest units from top lists that kill it 80% of the time. It's per point, so a costly unit has to be much tougher to score the same.
~387 pts → 129 per 100Top and bottom %
Where each number ranks among the game's 571 melee units. How we score.
The letter
The average of 8 creators' newest Chaos Space Marines tier lists: M.S.G. (CSM tier list, 25 Oct) (25 Oct), Goonhammer / tabletopbattles.com (dataslate review, Detachment Focus, Competitive Innovations: 4 post-dataslate lists) (28 Oct), Auspex Tactics (meta watch of 30 lists, first month of 11th) (14 Jul), Boltgun Tactics (dataslate review and London GT recap; his own lists, inferred) (6 Oct), Exalted40k (every CSM list at the WTC, counted; post-dataslate list writing) (6 Oct), 40K Dirtbags (Chaos Cults list, 3-0 and 1st of 30 at an RTT) (19 Oct), 6 Plus Plus Gaming (interview with Theo Hayat, 5-0 at Birmingham) (14 Jul), 1d6chan (community 11th-edition tactics wiki, much text carried over from 10th) (30 Oct). Questions? Get in touch.
Lists
184 public Chaos Space Marines tournament lists, September – November 2026, from grimstat-corpus (CC BY 4.0). Also from Listhammer, MiniHeadQuarters, ChampionsHub. Questions about a list or an event? Get in touch. Numbers run 4 Nov.