++ The Harrowing - An Alpha Legion Community ++

[ChazSexington]

Thing is, the reason Alpharius let the Raven Guard with Corax get away is so that they could get the research from the Primarch Project without even having to go through the very secret base it was kept in. While the plan wasn't a complete success in that they failed to destroy the Raven Guards' geneseed, they still completed the main goal. I'd say its a win for Horus there.

 

As for the White Scars situation, you have to remember that we never find out why the Alpha Legion stalled them. In fact, them getting Dorns' message then led to the Khan going to Prospero in order to see if the Space Wolves had attacked. If it wasn't for Magnus being shattered and a fragment of his soul being there, he'd of joined Horus in the end which lines up with the Alpha Legions' plans.

 

To sum it up, the Alpha Legion don't go in to fights to win the battle but by the war at the end.

 

The main goal for the Alpha Legion on Deliverance was to get cloning technology. How they knew Corax would get his paws on that prior to him knowing is a bit of a mystery, but it could be Loyalists within the Alpha Legion did that on their own initiative. Regardless, that didn't actually affect the outcome of the Heresy - the Raven Guard were reduced to a few thousand doing hit and run attacks, while the cloning tech was ruined. Now, if the Alpha Legion hadn't interfered on Isstvan, Angron would have plucked more than Corax's feathers, and the only Raven Guard left would probably be the Nomad Predator Fleets (aka Carcharadons), made up of Terran (and pro-Horus, probably) Raven Guard. Branne would've been blasted out of the sky along with the rest. 

 

From the Serpent Beneath and Scars, it's clear they are being held in place by Omegon/Loyalist Alpharius so they wouldn't get destroyed at Isstvan V and could later be recalled to Terra. 

 

Considering that there's the theory that the Alpha Legion is secretly loyal (I'd say they might used to be but are just as corrupted now but that's not the point now), the real question is....would it made have a big difference if the Alpha Legion were openly on the loyalists side? Maybe they wanted everything to happen as it happened while achieving other goals and the real big thing they did was simply not fighting against Horus forces. ^^

 

More likely tho is that it's simply not very well thought-out.

 

My theory is the Alpha Legion really split. Their whole effort become fragmented and counterproductive, with the left hand not knowing what the right one was up to. 

[hushrong]

@micahwc, I do not know if it's viable but it sounds fun as ! I've built five 'infiltrating, sneaky, berzerkers' and I plan on adding more. The only thing I would do is bring that sweet icon for a reroll. Since you can still move after infiltrating that extra reroll might be a nice little helper.

 

@Scourged, the Primarch is looking righteous!

[Iron Father Ferrum]

I built a squad of nine Berzerkers for my current list. I've got a decent test scheme on one of them I'll put up...eventually.

[Dragonlover]

So I took my 2k list from a few pages back for a test drive last week... I think I'm in love. First test game I annihilated a Dark Angels army, second one I lost 21-12 to Blood Angels but he only had about 12 dudes left on the board. Definitely a game where the score did not reflect how close the game was.

 

One change I'm probably gonna have to make is dropping a missile launcher in favour of a Helbrute close combat weapon of some kind, just to help discourage my firebase being attacked in the event of the bubble wrap having to wander off for some reason. For example, to tarpit a Librarian Dread. The lord is good, but he's not quite good enough.

 

Dragonlover

[adreal]

So I have managed to get a second hand spartan cheaply, so yay I have a super heavy now, anyone have any experience in using one??

[hushrong]

I don’t have one but every instinct in my body says load up with berzerkers and move that beast up the field.

[hushrong]

 

Well, here I thought I wasn’t going to need to spend more money on this hobby this year...

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Aren't.  They.  Beautiful.

 

 

I saw them on Facebook a little while ago.  I'll probably get Alpharius' model just to have it even though I have no intention (as yet) of getting into 30K.

[ChazSexington]

I was just about to order volkite chargers and power axes from FW - they're becoming standard Cataphractii Termies now! Those are GORGEOUS! And so is Alphie!

[Excessus]

Had a few games at WHW this weekend, and I must say the Hydra blade is awesome! :D

 

And also, the Predator autocannon is a beast!!!

[adreal]

I had planned on buying the hydra and ghost knight and making them into daemon princes, looks like I'll buy two alpharius and magnetise wings on them

[Scourged]

I mean... sure, I already whipped up some Laerneans, and have myself a WIP Primogenitor... So I'm fine... totally fine.

 

...I'm not fine. I have to have it. All of it. I can't not have it. I'm not going to say I need it, because of course I don't! But yeah, I need it. Time to save up.

[hushrong]

I didn't even want to mention that when I posted the pictures...or how similar the pose seems.

[Withershadow]

I mean... sure, I already whipped up some Laerneans, and have myself a WIP Primogenitor... So I'm fine... totally fine.

 

...I'm not fine. I have to have it. All of it. I can't not have it. I'm not going to say I need it, because of course I don't! But yeah, I need it. Time to save up.

Just use the official Lerneans as a command squad instead! They are quite overwrought. :P

[Excessus]

I finally painted my chaos lord I converted for BCKs challenge.

Just need some more detailwork on him before he's completely finished...

[Lucerne]

I've always liked your AL style, and this guy actually salvaged the Kranos model for me. Any advice on how to approach cutting up and upscaling the DV marines like this?

[ChazSexington]

So with Sons of the Hydra, we got an inside look at the 40k Alpha Legion's possible state.

 

One of the main warlords of the eastern fringe/near the malestrom is an Alpha Legion Lord with an obsession with wiping out Ultramarine successor chapters and has done so to four as of the start of the novel (He's the one who pulled the chapter ending stunt in the "Long Games" short story) by gathering other warbands to cooperate, along with assorted catspaws. The AL seems to basically be a way of warfare/mentality as much as a Legion proper and this guy's noted as obsessive and very practiced at what he does- earning the name "Angelbane".

 

The MC and his AL are actually all renegades who adopted the AL's way of war (with the zeal of converts) and who mostly think they're doing the Emperor's work- Occam himself is fanatically faithful in an Istvaanian Inquisitor style way, but even the Word Bearers in the novel don't buy what he's selling. Occam's warband's main party trick is to use scaled armor that changes color, coupled with their sorceror doing psyker tricks to sell the illusion- and it does go wrong several times.

 

The splinter warband's "loyalty to the Emperor" intentionally comes over as perverse given that they basically cull those they see as "weak" in the Imperium, including three Chapters of luckless ultramarine successors- the results are basically indistiguishable from those of Chaos Space Marines even if the means are much less Warp-based.

 

The novel finally shows us what a "loyalist" Alpha Legion might look like in 40k- a ragtag band of competent, cold blooded murderers that make unreliable allies. Despite not being Alpha Legion by geneseed, they very much believe in Alpharius's philosophy that "war is the galaxy's hygiene..." and that comes over as this warband being made of renegade Marines believing they're doing the Emperor's work while basically being Istvaanians with bolters rubbing shoulders with proper Chaos Marines.

 

"He will deliver the promised empire – a dominion humanity can be proud to call its own – but for such an Imperium to exist, both the tainted meat of the body Imperial and the useless fat must be cut away. The weak and faithful of the galaxy are just as much an impediment to such an outcome as the powerful and traitorous.’"

 

I imagine a lot of traitor warbands- though not the Alpha Legion warlord who was giving them orders- would be quite amused by the Redacted and Occam, because their mentality doesn't actually stop them from doing exactly the same thing as Chaos worshippers in effect. Just in this novel alone, the Redacted have the blood of three Chapters of loyalists on their hands, try and set up a false crusade for their own ends, offer Word Bearers a chance to corrupt most of said crusade in exchange for their own survival and the cream of the crop, set loose a greater daemon on a shrine world, actually led the surviving word bearers in slaughtering the ecclesiarchy of several other worlds out of spite...

 

And these are the "loyalist" Alpha Legion. Like Istvaanians, their professed loyalties might follow internal logic but to any outside observer, it'd come over as sheer, deranged madness that serves the ends of the dark gods.

 

Even the Word Bearer calls him out on it:

‘You are a twisted serpent, Occam the Untrue – proud and full of faith. We see, however, that you have finally made your pact with the darkness. That upon your order you unleashed the dread fury of the daemon storm.’

The Dark Apostle had listened to Occam’s final order: the order that had damned his ship and brought forth daemonic vengeance upon Quetzel Carthach and his Sons of the Hydra.

‘To utilise the power of the storm is not to become one with it,’ Occam told the Dark Apostle.

 

Cells that may well have completely different mentalities and degrees of contempt for each other but are brought together by common goals- and the Alpha Legion less as a bloodline or chain of command (hell, we see what some of their "high command" really is in this novel and it's somewhat fitting that there isn't a warrior-king on a throne to reunite the legion) but as a mentality.

 

The Alpha Legion is a philosophy, a style of war, and a legacy of a Legion that split itself into countless fragments. There isn't any one leader to be corrupted, or any one battle that can destroy its ability to wage war, because as long as one cell is familiar with its philosophies of warfare, as long as one group of Marines wears blue-green armor and a hydra on their shoulder, the Alpha Legion is still in existence.

 

This novel basically gives us one interpretation of the state of the Legion in 40k. Countless cells and warbands each following their interpretation of Alpharius's ways- some corrupted/influenced by the warp, some not, but all influenced by the methodology of that Legion. And the results are lethal- the Angelsbane and the warbands under him systemically wiped out the four Chapters charged with guarding the Malestrom by taking advantage of existing losses and tipping the scales when each of these chapters was already weakened then actively encouraging further losses before covertly wiping out the remainder of each chapter. The Marines Mordant were actively played by the Alpha Legion sending a false distress call from the Chapter they'd just finished wiping out to weaken them further. Sanders may not have done a great job with the character writing in this novel but he's still good at depicting how the Alpha Legion campaigns against loyalist chapters would work. Whittle them down without being caught, and then sucker punch the last of them when they're weakened.

 

The Legion is one of ruthless, precise planning and victory through weakening a foe they understand quite well. They're uninterested in appeasing gods- they have the same cold pragmatism of the Night Lords, married to appalling hubris that extends to those who have the mentality to wear the colours- but at the same time, there's a certain tendency towards grandstanding paired with unorthodox or excessive- if planned- solutions to problems.

 

Of course the whole bunch of AL in this novel- hundreds of them from different warbands, plenty of which are corrupted madmen, and a second subfaction of more "operator" AL taking orders from a disguised Deceiver shard in a Warp nullzone almost all end up dead, so that loose end tied itself up but it's definitely an interesting look into the Legion even if the character writing is less than gripping.

 

So after having read Sons of the Hydra...

 

I quite like the take on the Alpha Legion in 40k. It gives all the space required for our warbands. As you mention, there's all kinds of warbands floating around, similar to what we saw ADB do with the Night Lords. What I found odd was their Lectitio Divinitatus-based worship of the Emperor. That branch is otherwise extinct, so he must've been converted by Euphrati Keeler's lot. I don't know if it's on oversight or on purpose, but I would love to see how Occam became a worshipper of the Corpse-God.

 

Characters weren't that memorable and I wasn't really attached to any of them. While they may have had quirks and personalities, it didn't come through as the focus wasn't there. It seemed to be a lot of "Vilnius Malik killed it with plasma."

 

I thought the pokéball trick was kind of amusing, but a bit silly. I didn't like when they on purpose made something difficult ever more difficult for the Hell of it. It would make sense to make something easy a bit more challenging, but not what they were up to.

 

All in all, fairly middling, but good to have some light shed on the structure of the Alpha Legion 10,000 years on.

[adreal]

I havnt read sons of the hydra yet, the free exert seemed very dry, but I loved shroud of night.

 

From what I understand both work for 40k, neither work for my harrow, but that's not a bad thing

[slitth]

I think I found the perfect models to use as cultist in my army.

I was originally gonna use the "chaos cultist" for my army, even though they are a bit too chaotic for my alpha legion for my taste.

 

So the release of the Necromunda gangs are a happy surprise for me. I especially like the look of the Orlock Gang.

Any of you gonna use Necromunda gangs as cultist?

It would be a nice way of getting in to Necromunda and add a different look to your army at the same time.

[hushrong]

Man, I need to finish Sons of the Hydra. It's a very interesting novel and I do like the set up. And what I have read thus far is good but I just lack the motivation to pick it up and read.

 

Excessus, nice to see the legionary painted! What detail do you have left to work on?

 

slitth, I do agree that the Orlock are pretty sweet. Aside from the rag-tag rabble of the DV cultists I like that these guys would look more organized and are better armed. Just sucks that cultists only have a few weapon options. Also, how big are the Orlocks compared to marines? Goliaths are huge and I think the Escher are quite tall too.

[Panzer]

I've heard the whole Necromunda range is bigger scaled than the 40k range, even Orlocks who serve as the standard for humansized gangs for Necromunda. I'd love to have a direct comparison tho.

[slitth]

Going on the pictures on GW it look like a dice reachers their waists.

But the Necromunda dice could be bigger than the other GW dice I own.

[Excessus]

Excessus, nice to see the legionary painted! What detail do you have left to work on?

Yes I'm quite glad of him. Oh some highlights to the metals and cloth, transfers and some scrapes and bruises here and there...and the sword is just basically washed leadbelcher so it needs a bit enhancing. :)

These guys need some touch-ups as well, I painted the last three of them in warhammer world on the day of my arrival before I got any games in. :P

[slitth]

¤Excessus Nice job, they look awesome.

 

¤hushrong I have preordered a gang to see how they match up to my marines. I will post a picture to show size comparison when I get them.

If the scale is good I will order more.

 

[hushrong]

Excessus, I love the look of the mixed terminator plates. I want to build a BL terminator army and was wondering how well cataphractii, tartaros, and indominus marks looked together. Must say that I like it a lot!

 

sfPanzer & Slitth, yeah, I think the necromunda gangs would make great cultists but without adding some height to the current marines they will be bigger. Goliaths would be sweet for Khorne in particular and I was thinking the same thing about starting Escher for a gang and for cultists with big, rainbow colored hair and animal print clothing. Yet goliaths are really huge looking and thanks to the big hair and bigger build the ladies would make marines look small.