The Primarchs - Alpharius/ Omegon

[Fedor]

 

Looking back over it as a whole, their 30k run of books fits together quite well when purely looking at it from an AL perspective imo.

 

You've got your Legion introduction novel.

 

Then Deliverance Lost and the few setups around that where we see them at their most dominant and really expanding the scheming with rejection of the Cabal/playing Horus.

 

Serpent Beneath, the Chondax stuff and McNeill's Novella that show the Legion possibly splitting into different factions.

 

Finally Praetorian where they make their first big play against the Terran defences and they come undone.

 

Not that i'm saying all of those stories were great and there's a long period of time between the Raven Guard infiltration and Praetorian where the idea they were too successful kicked in, with not just a few also considering them to be starting to get too pigeonholed into the hidden infiltrator role. However as an arc for the Legion it hangs together well enough, gives them some time to shine before pulling the rug away.

 

i'm hoping the upcoming Primarchs book gives us something more character driven than the often plot-heavy shenanigans we have so far. There is space for a Fulgrim-type book for the twins.

[mc warhammer]

in "legion", the AL and the primarchs themselves had the rug pulled out under their feet and the game switched up on them.

 

they didn't exactly succeed in assassinating guilliman either.

[Fedor]

in "legion", the AL and the primarchs themselves had the rug pulled out under their feet and the game switched up on them.

 

they didn't exactly succeed in assassinating guilliman either.

Yeah that's true. Legion is altogether pretty crazy and ambitious book as far as introduce a legion stories go.

[bobbybrewster]

I have been loving the new books BL has been releasing Lately they seem to be on a good run

[Knockagh]

I loved Legion it’s the best alpha legion work to date. (That I’ve read) sadly I doubt Dan will be writing this.

 

The primarchs series has, I feel, kind of lost it’s steam. There have been quite a few poor offerings in the series. The long gaps between books and newer better series’s emerging has left me rather lacklustre for it generally. I feel like mid heresy and tramping my way through no mans land.

Edited September 12, 2020 by Knockagh

[b1soul]

I think PoD resolved the AL arc (what little they had in the HH series)...it's just that some AL fans weren't too fond of the scene in which

 

Dorn caves in Alpharius' head and then when they started grasping at straws, the authour stepped in to say Alpharius was truly dead.

Edited September 12, 2020 by b1soul

[Noserenda]

Noone who can read is disputing that Alpharius is dead, but its an abrupt stop to a plot with no hints of the fallout, i mean imagine if the Emperors children arc just stopped at Fulgrims ascension or the Shattered Legions all just vanished after Istvaan. You dont just stop an arc at the crescendo, or worse, at the end of Act 2. :)   

[b1soul]

Quite a few were disputing that until French stepped in, based on the deceptive nature of the legion and the meme-worthy portrayals of it.

 

The "resolution" for the purpose of the Heresy is that the AL are largely crippled and in-fighting among themselves for the rest of the Heresy...the heads of the Hydra eating each other, so to speak, with Omegon's control of the multiple heads seriously in doubt. That was my read.

 

I didn't really view the death as necessarily a "to be continued" moment...though I would've welcomed a novel exploring the aftermath of PoD from the Omegon faction's perspective, but sadly can live without it for now.

 

Maybe more reason to treat 30K like a setting.

Edited September 12, 2020 by b1soul

[Knockagh]

Quite a few were disputing that until French stepped in, based on the deceptive nature of the legion and the meme-worthy portrayals of it.

 

The "resolution" for the purpose of the Heresy is that the AL are largely crippled and in-fighting among themselves for the rest of the Heresy...the heads of the Hydra eating each other, so to speak, with Omegon's control of the multiple heads seriously in doubt. That was my read.

 

I didn't really view the death as necessarily a "to be continued" moment...though I would've welcomed a novel exploring the aftermath of PoD from the Omegon faction's perspective, but sadly can live without it for now.

 

Maybe more reason to treat 30K like a setting.

30k is a setting it’s just down to how much it’s used. I wonder how big the heresy gaming / modelling world is now with the rules so different from 40k. Who buys the black books? Fluff readers or players? I’ve never even played a game of 40k but I own all the black books and a few of the models. I’m still burned out on the heresy setting for novels, still love the history black book side but it will be a long time before I crave a heresy era novel. Always wanted the primarch series to be more about their background than heresy stories.

[DarkChaplain]

Noone who can read is disputing that Alpharius is dead, but its an abrupt stop to a plot with no hints of the fallout, i mean imagine if the Emperors children arc just stopped at Fulgrims ascension or the Shattered Legions all just vanished after Istvaan. You dont just stop an arc at the crescendo, or worse, at the end of Act 2.    

 

Even DURING the arc, it was made clear that one hand didn't even know what the other was doing - and for all intents, the Alpha Legion had more hands than an entire Genestealer Cult. The breakdown of communications and coordination within the Legion was pretty much the point of Alpharius and Omegon working at cross-purposes. It's been made abundantly clear that neither Half-Primarch actually knew what the other was truly up to, where his part of the Legion was, or what their missions were. Not a bug, but a feature.

 

So now Omegon knows about what a chunk of his own dudes were up to, at least those he still retained full tabs on. With how many independent operations were running, even those will be reasonably limited. As for Alpharius' half? Tough luck. It'd probably take another Great Crusade scale endeavour just getting everybody back into the fold, especially since they've been sent out with warnings not to trust their own, in high likelihood.

 

The Alpha Legion is utterly broken, and "Alpharius" can only do so much to stitch it back together. And it wasn't actually Dorn that broke them - it was Alpharius/Omegon.

[Noserenda]

But none of that actually addresses my point, yes the Alpha Legion is working at all kinds of purposes but what happens next? Is preposterous to think that literally none of those schemes will result in anything of note, especially given that one or more of them is being run by a Primarch.

I wouldnt be surprised to find out the surprise arrival at the end of Saturine was one at least, but yeah as the end of a thread/arc for one of the Legions its outright terrible.

Anecdotally everyone from my gaming group who bought the latest Black book has either bought it for fluff or to turn a profit down the line but we are all pretty turned off by 7th to actually play it anymore.

[Kelborn]

With the recent "oh so mysterious" announcement, it's fair to start a separate topic to clean up the Upcoming Stuff section.

 

Well, it's about Alpharius and/ or Omegon.

 

Enjoy. :)

[DarkChaplain]

But none of that actually addresses my point, yes the Alpha Legion is working at all kinds of purposes but what happens next? Is preposterous to think that literally none of those schemes will result in anything of note, especially given that one or more of them is being run by a Primarch.

 

I wouldnt be surprised to find out the surprise arrival at the end of Saturine was one at least, but yeah as the end of a thread/arc for one of the Legions its outright terrible.

 

 

 

What happens next? Omegon tapped out of the Heresy after handing Horus the plans to Dorn's defences, such as they were, yet various cells will still continue the war regardless, because they were set on that course before / left to their own devices.

Individual cells will keep doing their own thing, Omegon/"Alpharius" will have to make new plans to gather his Legion's strength once more, and it'll culminate in the battle of Eskrador, where Guilliman beheads the Hydra again - either killing Omegon, too, or giving him an opportunity to quit the war and sneak off.

 

We've never even had an actual insight in what their actual third way was even going to be. We do know they were playing both sides, and they managed to do that, with a failure condition fulfilled on Alpharius' side, which also invalidates what Omegon was trying to do, and ripping out the coordinating brain from the Alpharius side. They're still succeeding in causing chaos, disrupting supply lines, supplying the war effort on the traitors' side, and gathering intel, but they're not doing so as a coherent Legion following a real plan, but as independent groups acting on their own discretion. That's not the realm of getting major payoffs from grand master schemes.

[Marshal Loss]

It's key to remember that the Alpha Legion were never about a giant singular grand master plan, as per Extermination. They're basically a bunch of nutters who have a never-ending list of often amorphous objectives. Cross one off the list, fail or succeed, and they move down the list, never stopping. There is no end.

[Noserenda]

 

What happens next? Omegon tapped out of the Heresy after handing Horus the plans to Dorn's defences, such as they were, yet various cells will still continue the war regardless, because they were set on that course before / left to their own devices.

Individual cells will keep doing their own thing, Omegon/"Alpharius" will have to make new plans to gather his Legion's strength once more, and it'll culminate in the battle of Eskrador, where Guilliman beheads the Hydra again - either killing Omegon, too, or giving him an opportunity to quit the war and sneak off.

 

We've never even had an actual insight in what their actual third way was even going to be. We do know they were playing both sides, and they managed to do that, with a failure condition fulfilled on Alpharius' side, which also invalidates what Omegon was trying to do, and ripping out the coordinating brain from the Alpharius side. They're still succeeding in causing chaos, disrupting supply lines, supplying the war effort on the traitors' side, and gathering intel, but they're not doing so as a coherent Legion following a real plan, but as independent groups acting on their own discretion. That's not the realm of getting major payoffs from grand master schemes.

 

Based off of what exactly?

 

If anything the Heresy series has gone out of its way to flesh out the Legions with less stuff going on during the war and the Alpha Legion was a prime example of this, up until the series started they had Istvaan and a vague reference to the clash with the Space wolves, neither of which exactly spring to mind as the noteworthy Alpha Legion events these days (Which is weird in retrospect how little the Alpha Legion got looked at during the dropsite massacres now i think of it). There is absolutely no reason not to expect more stuff to happen with the Legion.

 

Especially with Omegon out there doing "something" any Primarch out there not explicitly taken off the table by being yeeted into space in a stasis pod  ( ;)  ) is liable to get more stories, especially Primarch voted most likely to whip off his helmet and appear literally anywhere, and who could potentially have an interesting scene with Dorn at the very least. By your own argument we still dont know what the "third way" was and there a whole buttload of hanging plot points related to that.

Really basing anything concrete on not getting a mention when the whole Siege of Terra was pamphlet sized, and the scouring might be a modest novel covering everything is reaching though.

 

It's key to remember that the Alpha Legion were never about a giant singular grand master plan, as per Extermination. They're basically a bunch of nutters who have a never-ending list of often amorphous objectives. Cross one off the list, fail or succeed, and they move down the list, never stopping. There is no end.

Exactly.

[b1soul]

Based on Legion, the ultimate objective of the AL post-Acuity was to avoid humanity's extinction following a Horusian victory and a stagnant Imperium following an Imperial Pyrrhic victory. They were apparently looking for a third way...but we know there was a possible falling out between Alpharius and Omegon, probably over which course to take.

 

Post-PoD, the AL cells within cells continue to operate in furtherance of their evolving objectives, but I think the next big beat in the AL arc is Eskrador.

 

An additional AL novel after PoD would've been a "nice to have", rather than an essential IMO. I would've appreciated a full AL novel between Legion and PoD actually, to give us more insight into the Apharius-Omegon situation and the apparent civil shadow-war within the Legion.

[Angel_of_Blood]

If the book ends up being a duel novel with two authors writing it, and those authors happen to be ADB and Abnett. Then I am totally claiming that as my idea from when I had a tea with Abnett at a BL weekender a couple years back and we talked about him and ADB doing that :P

[Karhedron]

If the book ends up being a duel novel with two authors writing it, and those authors happen to be ADB and Abnett. Then I am totally claiming that as my idea from when I had a tea with Abnett at a BL weekender a couple years back and we talked about him and ADB doing that

Abnett would appear to kill ADB only to whip off a face mask and reveal that he was really ADB all along. 

[DarkRaven89]

I would hope this book shows a lot of the infiltration and sabotage techniques of the alpha legion with showing the twin dynamic of Alpharious and Omagon 

[b1soul]

I look forward to intelligent exploration of the Alpharius/Omegon relationship.

 

I really hope it's Dan doing this one but that seems unlikely

[mc warhammer]

I would hope this book shows a lot of the infiltration and sabotage techniques of the alpha legion with showing the twin dynamic of Alpharious and Omagon 

yes. please do something with the twins to earn their existence in the story.

 

up to now we've had "one primarch two bodies, they think the same" and "one primarch, two bodies who might disagree with each other. we're not sure" to "half a primarch, one body. he's truly bummed" without any real consequences of their relationship or impact that i can see.

 

i'd also like a formal primarch height chart included to shut that debate up forever.

Edited September 14, 2020 by mc warhammer

[Sandlemad]

It's key to remember that the Alpha Legion were never about a giant singular grand master plan, as per Extermination. They're basically a bunch of nutters who have a never-ending list of often amorphous objectives. Cross one off the list, fail or succeed, and they move down the list, never stopping. There is no end.

 

This is one of the more amusing things in Extermination and I'm a little surprised there wasn't more outrage about it. "Super spies who seemingly succeed at everything" irritated a lot of people. To have that reframed/unveiled as "grinning arseholes who've cottoned on to the idea that if you're woolly enough in defining your objectives, anything counts as a victory, see? Just as planned!" is fun but it's almost lasercut to be annoying to some fans.

 

Bu yes, that angle that in their own way, through their obsessions and ego, the AL are not that much less insane and broken than the likes of the World Eaters or Night Lords is one of my favourite takes on the legion. It's elaborate plans all the way down, young man...

[b1soul]

That much secrecy, arrogance, and lack of transparency among cells (or even within each cell) was bound to lead to the heads of the Hydra warring against each other.

 

I do feel this is more a product of Sanders, McNeill and French though. In my recollection of Legion, Abnett's AL were comparatively restrained. They came across as an unconventional legion, not yet the meme they'd later become.

[Angel_of_Blood]

That much secrecy, arrogance, and lack of transparency among cells (or even within each cell) was bound to lead to the heads of the Hydra warring against each other.

 

I do feel this is more a product of Sanders, McNeill and French though. In my recollection of Legion, Abnett's AL were comparatively restrained. They came across as an unconventional legion, not yet the meme they'd later become.

 

Absolutely. The other authors have very much sprung them into the meme they are. Legion was, and still is, a truly excellent novel from the series and about the XXth, even if not directly focused on them. A legion which hold it's cards very, very close to their chest, to the point you don't even know they're holding any. Use doubles and fake identities, or swap names and roles as needed. With two Primarchs that are very much in touch with their legion and where rank really can almost be left behind, seemingly with full absolute trust in their men. Heavy use of human agents to do a lot of their work, even if some aren't even aware that they are. and also quite stealthy to boot.

 

Where as now.....where do you begin with them. Their plans have plans behind plans, hidden behind another set of plans. Ordered my a captain, who is actually a rank and file, who is actually taking orders from a sergeant, who is actually Alpharius, but actually another captain, who in actual fact may or may not be Omegon, who knows. With overlapping identities to the point some don't even know who they really are. The list goes on really.

[b1soul]

I'd dare say Legion gave the AL an air of nobility...a curious balance of unity and independence, of secrecy and trust

 

Life is about balance...not speeding off the deep end.

 

The AL of today are more a product of Sanders than Abnett