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 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
The fluff seems fairly consistent that, for the most part, the Marines were far more loyal to their primarchs than to the Emperor.

. Sometimes it works (Lorgar) and they can create a fairly believable motivation for them, sometimes it doesn't (Angron)

Really? Angron's motivation is very much believable, He was teleported out of a battle against his former masters by his father, which lead to the deaths of all of his gladiator brothers and sisters. Not to mention the mental degradtion caused by the cortical implants that were hammered into his brain. The Emperor made Angron abandon his kinsmen to die, which haunted him until he returned to Nuceria.
Plus add to that the fact that he was the only Primarch who didnt conquer his homeworld and you have an embittered man seeking the nearest oppurtunity to gain a bit of brutal revenge against his Father.

Angron considered himself dead by the time of the Great Crusade, He believed that everything he was had died on Nuceria after he was taken away and he became a hollow shell of his fromer self.
Really out of all the Primarchs he had one of, if not the greatest motivation for turning traitor.

 sierra 1247 wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
The fluff seems fairly consistent that, for the most part, the Marines were far more loyal to their primarchs than to the Emperor.

. Sometimes it works (Lorgar) and they can create a fairly believable motivation for them, sometimes it doesn't (Angron)

Really? Angron's motivation is very much believable, He was teleported out of a battle against his former masters by his father, which lead to the deaths of all of his gladiator brothers and sisters. Not to mention the mental degradtion caused by the cortical implants that were hammered into his brain. The Emperor made Angron abandon his kinsmen to die, which haunted him until he returned to Nuceria.
Plus add to that the fact that he was the only Primarch who didnt conquer his homeworld and you have an embittered man seeking the nearest oppurtunity to gain a bit of brutal revenge against his Father.

Angron considered himself dead by the time of the Great Crusade, He believed that everything he was had died on Nuceria after he was taken away and he became a hollow shell of his fromer self.
Really out of all the Primarchs he had one of, if not the greatest motivation for turning traitor.

Best story in the HH, for why/how a Primarch turns traitor? The fate of Magnus the Red. Here is a guy who had profound talents gifted him by his Father, and then in a moment of spite, the Emperor declares those talents to be blasphemous and takes his eye in the process. While Magnus and the Emperor have their disagreement, Magnus is still bonded by brotherhood to the other Primarchs, most loyally Horus. Plots of the Warp are whispered to Magnus' open senses and in a single fated moment that saw his reality shattered, he breaks the Council of Nikea's decision, damn the consequences, I have to save my Brother or die trying. Too bad he didn't die. Instead, it left this gaping wound in the Thousand Sons that would only be filled by the (two-faced) invitations of Tzeentch. Such is the complexity of the scheming of the Architect of Fate.

I picture Magnus as one of the most heart-struck and crest-fallen of them all. Despite Fulgrim's spirit being imprisoned within his own body, Magnus is bound by fate to be the Thousand Sons Daemon Primarch. It's suggested in Exile that Magnus himself craves a release from the blind shackles he is bound by. For some reason, I picture him frozen to a crystal thrown with eyes bound, but the Thousand Eyes of Light haloing his psycher struck body as all things real and unreal pour uncontrollably into his body and mind, jaw locked open in simultaneous horror and torment, just begging for his Favored Son to take his place in undoing the Legion, unfortunately another scheme of Tzeentch to draw power for himself, something Ahriman knows and realizes which is why he picks up that banner again in the first place; Leader of the Thousand Sons.

VERY. INTENSE.

sierra wrote:Really? Angron's motivation is very much believable, He was teleported out of a battle against his former masters by his father, which lead to the deaths of all of his gladiator brothers and sisters. Not to mention the mental degradtion caused by the cortical implants that were hammered into his brain. The Emperor made Angron abandon his kinsmen to die, which haunted him until he returned to Nuceria.
Plus add to that the fact that he was the only Primarch who didnt conquer his homeworld and you have an embittered man seeking the nearest oppurtunity to gain a bit of brutal revenge against his Father.

Angron considered himself dead by the time of the Great Crusade, He believed that everything he was had died on Nuceria after he was taken away and he became a hollow shell of his fromer self.
Really out of all the Primarchs he had one of, if not the greatest motivation for turning traitor.

Angron's whole story is ludicrous, and requires heaping shovels-full of suspension of disbelief.

The World Eaters, as much as I think they make for great modelling and painting projects, are the Orks of Space Marines. They're awesome, but the less you think think or talk about them and how they work, the better. The World Eaters should have never gotten their own books in the Heresy series. Absolutely ridiculous characters. It seems like Angron's motivations are clear, but the reality is, the combination of events and situations required to create those motivations is hilariously silly. Especially when you consider that apparently two entire legions were just erased. Somehow, the Emperor decided to keep an inefficient legion of uncontrollable psychopaths, led by the galaxy's biggest uncontrollable psychopath, who hated him and was openly defiant of his orders on a regular basis.

Angron exists because he started life as a one dimensional name of paper. No competent writer would ever create him a serious character. He's a cartoon villain. A relic of 40K's cartoon past.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
The Alpha Legion fluff is universally awful.


And this coming from a former Alpha Legion player from the old days. Hands down the most irretrievably ruined Legion fluff.

Examples please, ideally of terrible fluff and the ruining of said fluff? I mean, this is clearly opinion, as I find most of their fluff enjoyable and so can't regard it as universally awful, but I am curious as to why some people regard the AL with the same loathing I hold for OP codex releases.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

sierra wrote:Really? Angron's motivation is very much believable, He was teleported out of a battle against his former masters by his father, which lead to the deaths of all of his gladiator brothers and sisters. Not to mention the mental degradtion caused by the cortical implants that were hammered into his brain. The Emperor made Angron abandon his kinsmen to die, which haunted him until he returned to Nuceria.
Plus add to that the fact that he was the only Primarch who didnt conquer his homeworld and you have an embittered man seeking the nearest oppurtunity to gain a bit of brutal revenge against his Father.

Angron considered himself dead by the time of the Great Crusade, He believed that everything he was had died on Nuceria after he was taken away and he became a hollow shell of his fromer self.
Really out of all the Primarchs he had one of, if not the greatest motivation for turning traitor.

Angron's whole story is ludicrous, and requires heaping shovels-full of suspension of disbelief.

The World Eaters, as much as I think they make for great modelling and painting projects, are the Orks of Space Marines. They're awesome, but the less you think think or talk about them and how they work, the better. The World Eaters should have never gotten their own books in the Heresy series. Absolutely ridiculous characters. It seems like Angron's motivations are clear, but the reality is, the combination of events and situations required to create those motivations is hilariously silly. Especially when you consider that apparently two entire legions were just erased. Somehow, the Emperor decided to keep an inefficient legion of uncontrollable psychopaths, led by the galaxy's biggest uncontrollable psychopath, who hated him and was openly defiant of his orders on a regular basis.

Angron exists because he started life as a one dimensional name of paper. No competent writer would ever create him a serious character. He's a cartoon villain. A relic of 40K's cartoon past.

Seriously? Why not? And that is still assuming the omnipotent deification of the Emperor, which is completely false and here's how I can prove it. He's a whither husk stuck on the Golden Throne. What kind of God is that? And on top of that, the Emperor very clearly made plenty of mistakes on his own or with the goading of the Chaos Gods that brought about the end of the Imperium as he knew it.

Someone asked earlier where this idea that the Emperor didn't want to be seen as a God came from in the Horus Heresy, when he so clearly is in 40K, and I put this question to the test with this thought. Yes. The Emperor is in charge. Does that mean he's controlling what everyone thinks about him? lol, Of course not! In fact, his entire image is propaganda! The reality of the Emperor, I'd find much more fascinating, which suggests that he was playing chess with Chaos and lost. Seemingly silly mistakes like... forcing Angron to take command? Maybe he didn't see it that way. Like when you try to tell your dad you don't want to play football anymore, or some such noise. lol

Keep in mind too, that figures like the Emperor exist in a very flawed Real Space. Mistakes can be made that cannot be remedied. Time flows. Live and Learn. In the Warp, that's not the case. Time doesn't exist. Have fun at the playground.

A good example is the Emperors decision to teleport himself and Sanguinius to Horus' flagship. BIG MISTAKE, but he thought it was right at the time, because he was blinded by grief for his fallen son. Same as Dorn was blinded by rage when Garro told him of their Treachery. Same as Horus was blinded by pride and hubris when he thought he was saving his brothers and sons from the Emperor-God Worshiping fates. And why is this? Because they're playing against the freaking CHAOS GODS!

That's like 4 Emperors x 100 vs. the 1 actual Emperor and all of his pawns. No matter how good you think that game is going to end up, you're wrong and they'll make you pay for thinking otherwise. This is why the Interex were so successful. They simply did not engage with Chaos. The Emperor, on the other hand, and his entire Empire, does. Destined for failure.

 LoyalistAlphaLegion wrote:

 da001 wrote:

All Primarchs had good enough reasons to fall. And it took years. Alpharius is the exception.

Did no one in this thread read 'Legion'? Alpharius "fell" in the sense of turning traitor quickly. At the same time, there was a reason ("killing" the Chaos gods), and it's not clear if he fell in the sense of turning to Chaos. Other reasons are the sense of inequality between him and his brothers; Guilliman repetitively berated Alpharius's tactics, which drove him to do more impressive feats of tactical genius, which were unconventional, and so Guilliman would chew him out again. Killing a quartet of gods would be quite the feather in Alpharius's cap. Another point is that the only other primarch who showed him a sense of brotherhood WAS Horus. While Sanguinus and Horus were BFFs, Alpharius had no one else at all, which makes his siding more reasonable.
Look at the structure of the Alpha Legion too. It is encouraged for battle brothers to question anyone else before combat, to try and tease out the failings in a plan. Philosophy was a favored pastimes among the AL, and if they didn't once sit down and question the Emperor's choices and actions, then I'll eat my Helbrute model. The AL were also duplicitous beyond words; he shown a prophecy that his brothers would turn against each other and plunge his entire species into a civil war that may end in humanities extinction. Since the AL were/are spies and saboteurs beyond almost any other force, it makes sense that they would play to that strength and "join" Horus. Did they eventually turn fully? I dunno, given how rare AL fluff is (which doesn't help make the AL look anything other then Kendall schitzo, flitting between brilliance and window-licking) it's really hard to say anything of substance about them.

Actually, the problem lies in Legion. As depicted in the Index Astartes, the Alpha Legion was my favorite Legion, for the reasons you gave, most of them having been retconned.

Legion is an amazing book until you reach page 392 (total pages in the book: 412). Then in two pages we see Alpharius turn traitor and decide to exterminate the human race because he is told it is the only way to destroy Chaos, thus helping the filthy Xenos he was trying to wipe out right until page 391. And he does so after a three minutes conversation with an alien he just met who offer no proof other than a vision caused by a xeno contraption he brought. Really? From hero to genocidal traitor in a five minutes conversation? With an alien that he just met?

Also there are some... problems regarding this:
1) The Cabal lie. We know they do. By exterminating humanity Chaos will not be destroyed, because most alien species (starting with the Eldar and the Orks) are feeding the Warp too. Alpharius was fooled, no way around that.
2) Why the "For the Emperor!" battle cry? They are fighting to destroy everything the Emperor cares for. They are worse than Horus in this regard. Horus want to control humanity. Alpharius want to kill every single human for the Xeno to prosper.
3) The Index Astartes claimed that Horus and Alpharius were really close. This was retconned: they don´t like each other.
4) The heads of the Hydra are fighting each other. Tales after Legion depicts the Alpha Legion fighting the Alpha Legion. Completely loyal alpha legionaries kill without a second thought completely loyal alpha legionaries because someone they believe is Alpharius, or perhaps Omegon, or something else, ordered them to do so.
5) The Alpha Legion no longer value independent thought. They blindly follow orders like idiots: see point 4. They no longer know why they are fighting or who is the enemy. They are unable to know what is going on or which side are they.
6) Since having a Primarch being the puppet of an alien organization was a little too much, we see Alpharius or Omegon (or someone else) killing the Cabal´s representatives. Ok then. Now what are they up to? Is it all according to plan? Which plan? This kind of twist work in a fixed universe such as Lost or Morning Glories, but not in a setting when every author butchers the fluff whenever he wants.

Which is the reason the Alpha Legion late fluff has degenerated into a "it turns out it was the Alpha Legion all the time... What a TWIST!!!" festival that, well, it is becoming ridiculous. It doesn´t help that other Legions such as the Raven Guard have seen their own fluff butchered in the process.

Please, discuss it and convince me that the Alpha Legion is still the incredible cool army I got in love with after reading the Index Astartes.
Please






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
The Alpha Legion are (probably) like terrorists/freedom fighters (same thing); while they don't actually worship Chaos and are loyal to humanity,..

According to Legion, Alpharius turned because he was convinced in 5 minutes that humanity should be exterminated if Chaos was to be destroyed. How it comes people say they are "loyal to humanity"? They are actively trying to kill all humans, both imperial and not.

 sierra 1247 wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
The fluff seems fairly consistent that, for the most part, the Marines were far more loyal to their primarchs than to the Emperor.

. Sometimes it works (Lorgar) and they can create a fairly believable motivation for them, sometimes it doesn't (Angron)

Really? Angron's motivation is very much believable, He was teleported out of a battle against his former masters by his father, which lead to the deaths of all of his gladiator brothers and sisters. Not to mention the mental degradtion caused by the cortical implants that were hammered into his brain. The Emperor made Angron abandon his kinsmen to die, which haunted him until he returned to Nuceria.
Plus add to that the fact that he was the only Primarch who didnt conquer his homeworld and you have an embittered man seeking the nearest oppurtunity to gain a bit of brutal revenge against his Father.

Angron considered himself dead by the time of the Great Crusade, He believed that everything he was had died on Nuceria after he was taken away and he became a hollow shell of his fromer self.
Really out of all the Primarchs he had one of, if not the greatest motivation for turning traitor.

QFT

Angron is the only traitor primarch with a legitimate reason to turn ''traitor''

Each of the other traitor Primarchs fell due to their own personal faults.

Angron is also the only Primarch who has never drunk the emperors koolaid and saw him for what he was.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

The World Eaters, as much as I think they make for great modelling and painting projects, are the Orks of Space Marines. They're awesome, but the less you think think or talk about them and how they work, the better. The World Eaters should have never gotten their own books in the Heresy series. Absolutely ridiculous characters. It seems like Angron's motivations are clear, but the reality is, the combination of events and situations required to create those motivations is hilariously silly. Especially when you consider that apparently two entire legions were just erased. Somehow, the Emperor decided to keep an inefficient legion of uncontrollable psychopaths, led by the galaxy's biggest uncontrollable psychopath, who hated him and was openly defiant of his orders on a regular basis.

Angron exists because he started life as a one dimensional name of paper. No competent writer would ever create him a serious character. He's a cartoon villain. A relic of 40K's cartoon past.

I think you are wrong. The current state of the World Eaters should not be used to label them as cartoon villains. They have been "simplified" over the years, but they were not the dumb maniacs they are now. Also Betrayal, the forgeworld HH book, gives us a different version (do not confuse this book with the HH novel Betrayer)

Some old stuff:
1) They have high quality devastators called the Teeth of Khorne, who are able to resist the urges of the Butcher´s Nails.
2) They have librarians called Tally-Keepers. They do not use their powers in battle because Khorne sees it as "cheating" and (surprise!) Khorne hates cheaters above anything else. But they are high ranking advisors, and there are examples in the fluff of Khorne sorcerers invoking daemons or creating daemonic weapons right before the battle. They are also used as navigators and astropaths equivalents.
3) They have lots and lots and lots of artillery. Many unique units for the WE were artillery. The favorite tactic of the Legion is to use heavy artillery to force the enemy to get into cover, then launch an assault while lighter, high precision artillery was used dangerously close to the marines attacking. Power Armour ensured the WE had less casualties than expected. The first wave was composed of recruits, turned maniacs by the Butcher´s Nails. Explorer units detected points of resistence and veterans assaulted these points or blew them from afar.
4) However, they get lots of casualties, which explain why they had lots of apothecaries and incredible fast ways to create marines. The recruits are of lower quality than other Legions, and then they get the Butcher´s Nails, turning them into maniacs. These new warriors are sent in the first assault, which serves as a way to prove them in battle.
5) They are supposed to be a highly disciplined force that is constantly training, because they actively worship War itself.

And yes, Angron has lots of reasons to turn traitor. Coming to think of it, he never acknowledged the Emperor as anything else than a tyrant. He hated him from the beginning, he tried to kill him...

 da001 wrote:


Legion is an amazing book until you reach page 392 (total pages in the book: 412). Then in two pages we see Alpharius turn traitor and decide to exterminate the human race because he is told it is the only way to destroy Chaos, thus helping the filthy Xenos he was trying to wipe out right until page 391. And he does so after a three minutes conversation with an alien he just met who offer no proof other than a vision caused by a xeno contraption he brought. Really? From hero to genocidal traitor in a five minutes conversation? With an alien that he just met?

I see this as the problem with the Heresy novels in general. The various authors are all trying to put new spin and twists on things but do so in a clumsy, rushed, or ham fisted way.

Personally I much preferred the original Alpha Legion motivations as given in the 2nd edition Chaos Codex and then the later Index Astartes. The repeated snubbing by more established Legions and Primarchs would have bred resentment and jealousy, which are powerful emotions that would gnaw and eat away at any bonds of loyalty to the wider Imperium. What better way to prove their way than to defeat the older Legions in real war?

I also much preferred the original implication that the Alpha Legion had retreated to conduct a guerilla warfare campaign, but had perhaps lost its cohesion and ultimate purpose. Rather than have everything be some shadowy conspiracy or "just as planned" wheel within wheel machination, the Alpha Legion and its decentralized organization may have resulted in warbands each pursuing their goals, ostensibly as part of some higher ideal or campaign but in reality they are just self-justifying. Their "degeneration" siding with Horus may take a different form than the stereotypical Chaos mutations. They may very well still think they are fighting for a goal, but they may be deceiving themselves. They may set military objectives as if they were still fighting some organized campaign, but the real objective may simply be to cause random mayhem. They may have lost their true purpose without knowing it. This is implied as much in the 2nd edition Chaos Codex as they are described as increasingly setting and pursuing their own objectives without regard for the wider campaign.

@Iracundus: absolutely.

 LoyalistAlphaLegion wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
The Alpha Legion fluff is universally awful.


And this coming from a former Alpha Legion player from the old days. Hands down the most irretrievably ruined Legion fluff.

Examples please, ideally of terrible fluff and the ruining of said fluff? I mean, this is clearly opinion, as I find most of their fluff enjoyable and so can't regard it as universally awful, but I am curious as to why some people regard the AL with the same loathing I hold for OP codex releases.

Very simple.

The Alpha Legion are no longer Space Marines. Instead, they've become some kind of Galactic Mission Impossible, except where they are seven and a half foot tall Mission Impossible, able to easily insinuate themselves into other Legions with ease, as if a Space Marine Legion wasn't a ridiculously tight knit, and relatively small, organization that has complete control over all levels of its recruitment and tasking.

Space Marines existed to conquer the galaxy. Nothing more, nothing less. They were purpose built for it. The problem with Legion, and the rest of the modern Alpha Legion fluff, is that it forgets that. Abnett got wrapped up in his stupid "I am Alpharius" idea, and he's been giggling about it ever since. In the mean time, he's forgotten what the Space Marines of the Great Crusade were trying to do.

Conquer all this, in 200 years:
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090226111634/warhammer40k/images/1/17/Wh40k_starmap.jpg



The Alpha Legion turned to guerrilla war and fomenting rebelllion in 40K, because they had to. See, that's what somebody forgot at TBL when they started writing the new 30K fluff. The Alpha Legion, in the original fluff, were actually masters of being Space Marines. Where they went astray was getting too arrogant, and too overconfident. They'd become so good at being Space Marines that they started to experiment with new ways to win wars. That's the genesis of the Alpharius/Guilliman conflict. Guilliman thought Alpharius was wasting time when there were more worlds to conquer, more planets to bring in line. When the Heresy ended and Chaos lost, suddenly the Alpha Legion had no choice but to go to ground and hide and be sneaky. That was how they adapted to survive. The traitor legions took tremendous casualties in the Heresy, and after the Scouring, there weren't enough of them left to be a cohesive threat anymore. The Alpha Legion were no longer a legion, but fractured and isolated units. And the Imperium was massive, and had more than enough firepower, and new Space Marines, to crush the Alpha Legion if they continued to fight the way they had used to.

The Alpha Legion in 40K are sneaky because that's how they learned to survive. They didn't all just hide in the Eye of Terror like the rest of the cowardly Chaos Marines. And because of it, after 10,000 years, there are probably very few original Alpha Legionnaires left. That means you have generations of renegade Marines who have lived and died, surviving only on their hatred, wits, and ingenuity. That's why the Alpha Legion are the way they are. To win their war against the Imperium, they've taken the road to try and eat away at it from the inside.

Abnett and company made them ridiculously stupid. Plots within plots, and midget twin primarchs, and giddily ripping a line from the famous 1960 film Spartacus before beating it into the ground. They got confused by the idea of Alpha Legion as infiltrators and being sneaky and scretive. They thought that meant they were like James Bond apparently. When what it meant was traditional raiding and sabotage missions carried out by special operations and reconnaissance forces. The Alpha Legion weren't super spies. They were mastering unconventional warfare. Which is why they were mocked by most of the other Legions. And they turned to Chaos because of Alpharius's bond with Horus, and enjoyed fighting against the loyal Space Marines because it was a new challenge, and they could prove that their way of fighting worked. Not so that they could infiltrate the ranks of the other Legions with Spy Marines, lol. Despite the fact that the Alpha Legion IA article from back in the day is one of the less well-written ones, even it wasn't that dumb.

This sounds like it all comes back to just shoddy writting for Chaos, which I've posted elsewhere a strong agreement with. There just isn't anyone over there that cares enough about Chaos to make them out to what they should be. That, and they don't listen to their fans.

All that aside, I fell in love with the Alpha Legion as a very strong competitor to what Legion I would be in, if any. It's between them, Iron Warriors and Night Lords. Unfortunately, the only fluff I've read so far on them was a piece out of Treacheries of the Space Marines: We are One.

Spoiler: For those who don't know...

It's a story told from the perspective of an inquisitor who is attempting to chase down an Alpha Legion agent that's been hiding out in the Imperium and stirring the pot everywhere he goes. Engagement after engagement, this Agent taunts the Inquisitor and leaves a lasting impression and mark (like a missing arm or having his second flayed alive by the Warp). He thinks he's doing his work, only to find out he's been played from the get go by the Alpha Legion.

I'll end it there, and leave out the How, but that story was pretty impressive to me.

Angron exists because he started life as a one dimensional name of paper. No competent writer would ever create him a serious character. He's a cartoon villain. A relic of 40K's cartoon past.

While I can agree with that, I think that the authors who brought Angron to life in the HH novels have done a great job considering what they had to work with. ADB absolutley nailed everything I wanted in the World Eaters.

Eh, maybe. Betrayer was a short story dressed up as a novel.

Two dimensional, unbelievable characters. The Butchers Nails were a plot device. Overwhelmingly debilitating when the story needed them to be, harmless when the story needed them to be.

That story should have been a novella where Lorgar takes Angron to the planet of his upbringing and subjugates them. The entire first two-thirds of it with the Ultramarines and the "character development" of Kharn (officially one of the most ridiculously inconsistent and implausible characters in the Heresy) were completely unnecessary. Nothing more than simple bolter porn. The ending appearance of the Ultramarines nothing than another plot device to facilitate Primarch Fist Fight Porn, and another battle between primarchs with no resolution and a convenient reason why everyone gets to walk away more or less unharmed to fight another day.

I have liked ADB's novels for the most part, and his treatment of Lorgar has been really good. But trying to tackle Angron and the World Eaters was a herculean task better left un-attempted. Angron is no better of a character now as he was before. If anything, he just makes less sense. And seeing the World Eaters utterly fail at fighting wars just highlights how ridiculous their background fluff is. The way they are described fighting, they'd have ground themselves to a pulp in just a handful of campaigns.

I can't refute the dislike the AL receive, mostly because I can follow the logic for the dislike with ease. Personally, I just twist how I look at them. I didn't get into 40k till the start of 5e, so I have no pre-set love for past editions. To me, what makes the AL so great is that they never retreated into the Warp, but do survive. That they have gone out of their way to obliterate any hard knowledge about them beyond their existence. The High Lords of Terra have declared them dead three separate times, and each time (like the hydra they wear on their armour) they rise again. Even if I hated their fluff or the new retooling of their image, the fact that they're dug into the IoM and will never bee fully excised is fantastic. They are (to me) the greatest marines because they're unkillable. Not individually, but as a group. Even when the last true Alpha legionnaire lies bleeding out in the dust of some backwater world, the final gene-seed a ruined mess of gore, they won't be dead. They are V from 'V from Vendetta', they are the every Saturday morning cartoon villain, Cobra from G.I. Joe. Maybe it's just that 40k is locked in place and no first founding chapter (loyalist or traitor) will fall, but it's HOW the AL are 'locked in' that makes them so great to me.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
The way they are described fighting, they'd have ground themselves to a pulp in just a handful of campaigns.

My problem with this is that, after multiple paragraphs describing how totally fethed the World Eaters are against the Ultramarines, and how hopelessly outmatched they are, they win anyway, because "the Ultramarines had something to live for, and the World Eaters did not", lol. Shut the feth up ADB.

I like the way Aaron Dembsky-Bowden writes.
I love the World Eaters Legion.

However, I try to ignore Betrayer. The way he depicts the WE Legion has nothing to do with any other source. He actually depicts them as maniacs and only maniacs. As Veteran Sergeant says, it makes no sense, they should be dead after a few days fighting like that.

 LoyalistAlphaLegion wrote:
I can't refute the dislike the AL receive, mostly because I can follow the logic for the dislike with ease. Personally, I just twist how I look at them. I didn't get into 40k till the start of 5e, so I have no pre-set love for past editions. To me, what makes the AL so great is that they never retreated into the Warp, but do survive. That they have gone out of their way to obliterate any hard knowledge about them beyond their existence. The High Lords of Terra have declared them dead three separate times, and each time (like the hydra they wear on their armour) they rise again. Even if I hated their fluff or the new retooling of their image, the fact that they're dug into the IoM and will never bee fully excised is fantastic. They are (to me) the greatest marines because they're unkillable. Not individually, but as a group. Even when the last true Alpha legionnaire lies bleeding out in the dust of some backwater world, the final gene-seed a ruined mess of gore, they won't be dead. They are V from 'V from Vendetta', they are the every Saturday morning cartoon villain, Cobra from G.I. Joe. Maybe it's just that 40k is locked in place and no first founding chapter (loyalist or traitor) will fall, but it's HOW the AL are 'locked in' that makes them so great to me.

I can understand that feeling and I actually envy you in this regard, there was a time when it was my favorite Legion. Few things have changed since the Index Astartes concerning how the Legion operates. What was retconned in the book Legion is the reason behind it. For me it killed the interest in the army.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

That story should have been a novella where Lorgar takes Angron to the planet of his upbringing and subjugates them. The entire first two-thirds of it with the Ultramarines and the "character development" of Kharn (officially one of the most ridiculously inconsistent and implausible characters in the Heresy) were completely unnecessary. Nothing more than simple bolter porn. The ending appearance of the Ultramarines nothing than another plot device to facilitate Primarch Fist Fight Porn, and another battle between primarchs with no resolution and a convenient reason why everyone gets to walk away more or less unharmed to fight another day.

Agreed (except the Kharn part).

Without reading everything up to this point due to lack of time.
Horus was tricked along with chaos influence from his injury and that sword.
The Children of Emperor primarch- total possession from sword
Angron was still pissed that the Emperor pulled him away from his people during the middle of a battle that ended with all his people dying.
Kurze did what he was told and did it well and the Emp punished him for it.
Word Bearers were slow since they elevated the Emperor to godlike status on every world and took too long instilling this into captured cultures. Emp punished them and they felt betrayed and chaos swooped in to comfort them.
Mortarion's and his legions massive fluff change pissed me off. I still hold that he was a tragic hero trapped in the warp with his legion dying around him and Nurgle offered to save them.
1k Sons absolutely screwed over for doing the right thing. They had no choice.
Alpha- Who knows if they are even bad guys
Iron Warriors I am unfamiliar with their cause for turning.
Half the DA- sad because they were feeling left out. They were picked last for the sports team. :(

lettuceman44 wrote:
Every time I read the fluff about the Horus Heresy, the one thing that always confused me is why so many space marines turned traitor so quickly, especially against the Emperor?

If the Primarchs were loyal to the Emperor, how could t.hey fall so quickly because of Horus? Did Horus have that much influence? I mean, it is the Emperor we are talking about here. I thought everyone loved him.

Each of the traitor primarchs had a reason to hate the emperor.

Angron was prevented from participating in the grandest gladiator even on his planet, and all his friends were left to die without him.
Moriton was prevented from killing his estranged father/lord on the high peak
Magnus was prevented from exploring sorcery
Kruze was being punished for torturing people
Lorgar's perfect city was raised to the ground by the ultramarines while the emperor made the word bearers watch.
Perturbo was forced to split his legion into peice meal to garrison useless backwaters.
Alpharius/Omegron had/have serious daddy issues(more so than any of the other primarchs). The emperor didnt even bother to search them out and find them, instead their big brother did.

Fulgrim.... Ill look into, but as you can see, most if not all the primarchs had a reason to hate the emperor. When given the chance, and when they found out their brothers felt the same way, they jumped at it. All their marines were loyal to them, not to the emperor, and they followed their primarch.

Here is my thoughts on the legions following primarchs and the time frames.

Look at Ceasers attack on Rome. It didn't take magnus and co long to convince the Senate that ceaser wanted nothing but power and he should be stripped of rank. Ceaser than convinces his legion to march on Rome! This would have been like horua convincing his legion to march on terra.

History has shown people can be manipulated and lead to belive a certain point of view

Angron and a gladiatorial event? Last IA I read had the story of Angron being essentially the plot of Sparticus. He and all the other former slaves and gladiators were trapped on a mountain top with the 'Roman' army surrounding it about to attack and the Emp whisked him up and everyone was slaughtered.

Fulgrim didn't have a choice in the matter, he was possessed.

SPOILER!!!


Fulgrim's reason for defecting was not really his own. In Fulgrim, you find out that he is more deceived and corrupted, than turned Traitor of his own accord, as the first Primarch Horus seeks out after his descent, is Fulgrim. From there, Horus teaches Fulgrim all about the extravagance of feasting and celebration (which turns to narcotics) in the spreading of the Warrior Lodges through out the Legions.

In Fulgrim's case though, Horus (and Chaos) play to Fulgrim's vanity. This gets even more twisted once Fabius gets the go-ahead to start improving the gene-seed of the Emperor's Children in ways that they had seen in alien races (like the Squid race, or whatever that seem to be servile to Slaanesh already).

Actually, now that I think about it, I can pin down EXACTLY when the Emperor's Children are infiltrated by Chaos. It's when they infiltrate that alien world (flying Conch Shells or something) and they infiltrate their fane and don't realize that the musk they are breathing and the riot of colors is enslaving their senses and deadening them to normal resolve, so that from that point forward, nothing satisfies their senses anymore. Fulgrim takes this a step further by letting rememberencers enter the fane, to which they are even more distraught by the loss of their senses.

Serena D'Angelus is one of these people who is so dead in side that she literally starts raping and murdering men so that she can paint pictures with their blood, bile and feces. (YUCK!)

But anyways, in Fulgrim you see the actual corruption taking place, rather than these others who had their desires manipulated to the point of no return. Fulgrim WANTED all of that, up to the moment when he realized how far he had fallen after the Daemon Sword in his hand kills Ferrus Mannus.

That moment when he kills Ferrus is actually one of the most profound moments in the entire Heresy, and the moment leading after when Daemon Fulgrim approaches Horus with the mangled head of Ferrus.

Because what it shows you is that Fulgrim never meant for any of this to happen. After he slays Ferrus, he begs for his own death and respite from this untold trauma against a beloved brother, and in his mirth, the Daemon strikes, saying "I can take away your pain... if you'll let me." And he does, get's possessed and trapped within his own body.

Horus is the first one to see this, and because he is blinded by his pride and arrogance, he believes and says to himself that once his work is done, he will turn his attention to the Warp and free his brothers, to whom such a fate is undeserved. But he is fool. He will save nothing and die for worse.

So, despite how confusing things might seem, one must understand that a) The Primarchs were never in charge of their own destinies and 2) Chaos has been playing such a complex chess game that it swept up and swallowed the Emperor himself.

And think about it; We're dealing with forces as unknowable as "Gods." Of course we puny mortals would be confused!

godking wrote:
QFT

Angron is the only traitor primarch with a legitimate reason to turn ''traitor''

Each of the other traitor Primarchs fell due to their own personal faults.

Angron is also the only Primarch who has never drunk the emperors koolaid and saw him for what he was.

Angron was a huge donkey-cave, insane, and quite frankly, stupid. For all of Angron's talk against the Emperor, he lacked the courage to outright rebel against him until Horus did.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

godking wrote:
QFT

Angron is the only traitor primarch with a legitimate reason to turn ''traitor''

Each of the other traitor Primarchs fell due to their own personal faults.

Angron is also the only Primarch who has never drunk the emperors koolaid and saw him for what he was.

Angron was a huge donkey-cave, insane, and quite frankly, stupid. For all of Angron's talk against the Emperor, he lacked the courage to outright rebel against him until Horus did.

No one said Angron was smart or brave. They said he was Angry. It's.. almost in the name... and all that. ;>__>

Yep, for a long time Fulgrim could not resist the corruption, since he wasn't even aware that there was any corruption taking place. And during the several moments he began noticing something was amiss, the blade of the Laer influenced him to stop thinking too hard about that. Basically, he was on the verge of becoming a Loyalist few times, but never managed to tip the balance that way. And then he got possessed, and turned into a painting, and then he got better, and then he became a Daemon Primarch...

 TheRedWingArmada wrote:
SPOILER!!!


Fulgrim's reason for defecting was not really his own. In Fulgrim, you find out that he is more deceived and corrupted, than turned Traitor of his own accord, as the first Primarch Horus seeks out after his descent, is Fulgrim. From there, Horus teaches Fulgrim all about the extravagance of feasting and celebration (which turns to narcotics) in the spreading of the Warrior Lodges through out the Legions.

In Fulgrim's case though, Horus (and Chaos) play to Fulgrim's vanity. This gets even more twisted once Fabius gets the go-ahead to start improving the gene-seed of the Emperor's Children in ways that they had seen in alien races (like the Squid race, or whatever that seem to be servile to Slaanesh already).

Actually, now that I think about it, I can pin down EXACTLY when the Emperor's Children are infiltrated by Chaos. It's when they infiltrate that alien world (flying Conch Shells or something) and they infiltrate their fane and don't realize that the musk they are breathing and the riot of colors is enslaving their senses and deadening them to normal resolve, so that from that point forward, nothing satisfies their senses anymore. Fulgrim takes this a step further by letting rememberencers enter the fane, to which they are even more distraught by the loss of their senses.

Serena D'Angelus is one of these people who is so dead in side that she literally starts raping and murdering men so that she can paint pictures with their blood, bile and feces. (YUCK!)

But anyways, in Fulgrim you see the actual corruption taking place, rather than these others who had their desires manipulated to the point of no return. Fulgrim WANTED all of that, up to the moment when he realized how far he had fallen after the Daemon Sword in his hand kills Ferrus Mannus.

That moment when he kills Ferrus is actually one of the most profound moments in the entire Heresy, and the moment leading after when Daemon Fulgrim approaches Horus with the mangled head of Ferrus.

Because what it shows you is that Fulgrim never meant for any of this to happen. After he slays Ferrus, he begs for his own death and respite from this untold trauma against a beloved brother, and in his mirth, the Daemon strikes, saying "I can take away your pain... if you'll let me." And he does, get's possessed and trapped within his own body.

Horus is the first one to see this, and because he is blinded by his pride and arrogance, he believes and says to himself that once his work is done, he will turn his attention to the Warp and free his brothers, to whom such a fate is undeserved. But he is fool. He will save nothing and die for worse.

So, despite how confusing things might seem, one must understand that a) The Primarchs were never in charge of their own destinies and 2) Chaos has been playing such a complex chess game that it swept up and swallowed the Emperor himself.

And think about it; We're dealing with forces as unknowable as "Gods." Of course we puny mortals would be confused!

They've actually already revealed that Fulgrim turned willingly in the short story "The Reflection Crack'd" in The Primarchs Anthology since at some point he managed to reverse positions with the daemon that possessed him and chose to dedicate himself fully to Slaanesh. He would go later on to personally chase after "apotheosis" and become a Daemon Prince by his own actions rather than the daemon's own in Angel Exterminatus. Also the planet you're talking about are the Laer I believe which were indeed clearly Slaanesh worshippers which in turn, thanks to the lack of openness on the Emperor's part, meant that they didn't realize the potential harm in exposing themselves to their influence.

This alongside the fact that Lorgar chose to personally undertake the Pilgrimage to the Eye of Terror and bring the "primordial truth" of Chaos to the Imperium despite being personally disgusted by it shows that Primarchs were always at some level autonomous and although each were influenced by Chaos in some way the ones who were strong enough to resist stayed true to the Emperor and those that didn't fell. Circumstances or not there is always a choice which is why Tzzentch had to work so hard to try and convert Magnus to his side.

 Grimskul wrote:

 TheRedWingArmada wrote:
SPOILER!!!


Fulgrim's reason for defecting was not really his own. In Fulgrim, you find out that he is more deceived and corrupted, than turned Traitor of his own accord, as the first Primarch Horus seeks out after his descent, is Fulgrim. From there, Horus teaches Fulgrim all about the extravagance of feasting and celebration (which turns to narcotics) in the spreading of the Warrior Lodges through out the Legions.

In Fulgrim's case though, Horus (and Chaos) play to Fulgrim's vanity. This gets even more twisted once Fabius gets the go-ahead to start improving the gene-seed of the Emperor's Children in ways that they had seen in alien races (like the Squid race, or whatever that seem to be servile to Slaanesh already).

Actually, now that I think about it, I can pin down EXACTLY when the Emperor's Children are infiltrated by Chaos. It's when they infiltrate that alien world (flying Conch Shells or something) and they infiltrate their fane and don't realize that the musk they are breathing and the riot of colors is enslaving their senses and deadening them to normal resolve, so that from that point forward, nothing satisfies their senses anymore. Fulgrim takes this a step further by letting rememberencers enter the fane, to which they are even more distraught by the loss of their senses.

Serena D'Angelus is one of these people who is so dead in side that she literally starts raping and murdering men so that she can paint pictures with their blood, bile and feces. (YUCK!)

But anyways, in Fulgrim you see the actual corruption taking place, rather than these others who had their desires manipulated to the point of no return. Fulgrim WANTED all of that, up to the moment when he realized how far he had fallen after the Daemon Sword in his hand kills Ferrus Mannus.

That moment when he kills Ferrus is actually one of the most profound moments in the entire Heresy, and the moment leading after when Daemon Fulgrim approaches Horus with the mangled head of Ferrus.

Because what it shows you is that Fulgrim never meant for any of this to happen. After he slays Ferrus, he begs for his own death and respite from this untold trauma against a beloved brother, and in his mirth, the Daemon strikes, saying "I can take away your pain... if you'll let me." And he does, get's possessed and trapped within his own body.

Horus is the first one to see this, and because he is blinded by his pride and arrogance, he believes and says to himself that once his work is done, he will turn his attention to the Warp and free his brothers, to whom such a fate is undeserved. But he is fool. He will save nothing and die for worse.

So, despite how confusing things might seem, one must understand that a) The Primarchs were never in charge of their own destinies and 2) Chaos has been playing such a complex chess game that it swept up and swallowed the Emperor himself.

And think about it; We're dealing with forces as unknowable as "Gods." Of course we puny mortals would be confused!

They've actually already revealed that Fulgrim turned willingly in the short story "The Reflection Crack'd" in The Primarchs Anthology since at some point he managed to reverse positions with the daemon that possessed him and chose to dedicate himself fully to Slaanesh. He would go later on to personally chase after "apotheosis" and become a Daemon Prince by his own actions rather than the daemon's own in Angel Exterminatus. Also the planet you're talking about are the Laer I believe which were indeed clearly Slaanesh worshippers which in turn, thanks to the lack of openness on the Emperor's part, meant that they didn't realize the potential harm in exposing themselves to their influence.

This alongside the fact that Lorgar chose to personally undertake the Pilgrimage to the Eye of Terror and bring the "primordial truth" of Chaos to the Imperium despite being personally disgusted by it shows that Primarchs were always at some level autonomous and although each were influenced by Chaos in some way the ones who were strong enough to resist stayed true to the Emperor and those that didn't fell. Circumstances or not there is always a choice which is why Tzzentch had to work so hard to try and convert Magnus to his side.

I'll agree to this, to the point that a Choice is never so black and white and the "shades" between are largely circumstantial and dependent on the environment at that time. So, in Magnus' case and having potentially greater forsight than the Emperor, he'd know that his Legion would soon be dust and that he would be come demon possessed (if that's even accurate) and Ahriman would be his savior to himself and the Legion. What he doesn't know, just like the Emperor being blinded by Grief during the Siege of Terra, is that in doing so Ahriman will ascend to his position and be just as much, if not more or entirely a puppet to Tzeentch's will, and all of the psychic powers and gifts, all of the knowledge and artifacts of the universe, the entire wealth of Tzeentch's very being returned to him in one fell swoop. +__+

This is the work of the Great Conspirator, thrown from his throne by his 3 brothers when at the peak of his power, and shattered into 10,000 x 10,000 pieces and scattered across the universe.

Magnus' could also have known what this meant in the greater scheme for the universe as well 10,000 years down the line when Chaos is knocking on Terra's door and the Blood Ravens appear to fight off the Horde from behind the gate while Thousand Sons explode from within their ranks or on the flanks of Abbadons fleet. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say Abbadon and Ahriman probably don't get along. lol. And while not open to helping the Imperium outright, he could try to do good by the Thousand Sons and Blood Ravens standards and go out in a blaze of glory.

I'm getting confused because I'm on so many threads, so hopefully this was on track some.