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I want to start an alpha legion CSM army. However are alpha legion chaos or are they still loyal to the imperium and are playing the 'bigger game'?

I think they're generally CSM for the moment unless the current Fluff changes

Ask Alpharius.

The AL may play in both teams. 10 millenia are enough to get your goals confused. All these secrets....

They are a wholly owned franchise of Chaos in the present timeline.

Chaos is in fact an Alpha Legion franchise. As is the Imperium, the Tau Empire, both races of Eldar, the Tyranids and Necrons. They also created Orks, and later Grots just to confuse everyone.

They're dedicated to Chaos, the lingering doubt expressed in Codices or whatever are just there for fans to make their own fluff about and until current Fluff says otherwise, they're agents of Chaos.

The amount of havoc they wreak wouldn't make much sense for them to be secretly loyal anyway. I get you have to establish cover for yourself but they come off as excessive. Moreover you can't just do stuff like summon Daemons and make pacts with the Dark Gods and remain sincere to the Emperor.

Harriticus wrote:They're dedicated to Chaos, the lingering doubt expressed in Codices or whatever are just there for fans to make their own fluff about and until current Fluff says otherwise, they're agents of Chaos.

The amount of havoc they wreak wouldn't make much sense for them to be secretly loyal anyway. I get you have to establish cover for yourself but they come off as excessive. Moreover you can't just do stuff like summon Daemons and make pacts with the Dark Gods and remain sincere to the Emperor.

Well, in a way you can. The Xanthides do exactly this ( to a certain degree at least ). Still, the Alpha Legion is pretty much sworn to the cause of chaos by now.
Their actions ( Vraks, Crimson Consuls, cult activity, the daemon prince Voldorius ) speak for themselfs.

Where did people get this idea of the Alpha Legion being 'secretly loyal' anyway? At best it's possible they're trying to exterminate humanity for different reasons than the rest of the traitors.

There are many different war bands of AL many like the faithless are fully chaos but some are questionable but the alpha legion has been declared destroyed many times so there could be only one faction dedicated to chaos or not. I would recommend reading the siege of vraks to get a better idea and if you want to be safe just paint them like the faithless.

Yeah, it really is up to you. The Alpha Legion split up into small cells after the Heresy, and most of them stayed out of the Eye of Terror altogether. Some are just generally Chaos, a few might still want to fight against Chaos (but not for the Imperium), and some might be fully devoted to the Gods, like the character in the DoW series who was all about Khorne. Generally the latter is viewed as unfluffy and a stretch, but you can justify anything really with them.

Absolutely right

English Assassin wrote:Where did people get this idea of the Alpha Legion being 'secretly loyal' anyway? At best it's possible they're trying to exterminate humanity for different reasons than the rest of the traitors.

I have the same confusion.

For a while, the internet engine actually made me believe that they were "secretly loyal", since that was my only exposure to the Legion's fluff. Then I read Legion and their Index Astartes and, surprise, surprise, my impressions were wrong.

Alpha legion are a cool legion most people just don't understand them due to a lack of knowledge. There is a site called lexicanum that deals with most 40k fluff you should go check it out if you have the time.

Surely this is the great thing about them- they are ambiguous in their loyalties, which leaves a great deal of room for you as the player to fill in the gaps. I would rather that the fluff never fully decides one way or the other, but leaves small avenues of doubt for either side.

I AM Alpharius and I say Sure, we're still loyal, just misunderstood.

Now, c'mere, and hold this knife for me...

Reanimator wrote: I would rather that the fluff never fully decides one way or the other

In this case, you'll be disappointed then.

The Alpha Legion of the current setting are 100% mustache-twirling, baby-stomping, chaos-worshiping, card-carrying villains with no other agenda. This is concrete in the setting.

Whatever they were motivated by ten thousand years before the current setting is no longer an issue.

They sought to finish what the Emperor started.

Emperors Play Book:
To Destroy Chaos Plans
1. Make everybody atheists, because Chaos is like Freddy, if we ignore him and forget about him, he has no power.
2. Kill everyone, making everybody stop think about Chaos

They thought Horus was gonna win, so they went with plan 2.

Now I guess they kinda forgot all that.

Um I really wouldn't state absolutes about the Alpha Legion either way. They're, by nature, splintered into many, many groups. Think: Hydra. Presumably, they all have the same goal in sight, which was what ol' Alpharius taught, but in practice there are likely several groups that are completely cut off and now unique in mind set and long term goals. But it's very possible that some of these groups still work towards a common goal and/or still keep in touch.

I'd say the spectrum is, at best, they're renegades not devoted to chaos but not on the Imperium's side either (They have their own enigmatic goals), and, at worst, they're summoning demons and instigating chaos cults on unsuspecting Imperial worlds.

Both ends of the spectrum exist with some in the middle, not really caring about chaos as anything other than a tool to achieve whatever it is they want.

Keep in mind, they didn't beeline it to the eye after the Heresy. They went all over the place, subverting and such. So presumably they still actively recruit (Somehow?) and they aren't mutated to NEARLY the extent that their former bros are.

Another confounding factor in pinning these guys down is the fact that the big guy who *supposedly* had a plan behind all the crud they were doing, got himself killed by Big G, pappa smurf himself....Of course, there's supposedly his twin Omegon still and a lot of people think he faked his death anyhow. Either way, the purpose behind a lot of what they were doing may have been lost with Alpharius' death/retreat into hiding.

The Alpha Legion is too mysterious and secretive so it's really hard to say.

I've not seen or read much about the alpha legion that says much of a concrete belief in anything. Their mystery and the fact that relatively little is known about them remains core to their appeal for me.

Besides which, the downright sneakiness, something which is very un -spacemarine makes them pretty cool IMO, and that's more than enough for me.

None of them would be on the Imperium's side, they followed the Emperor, not the convoluted mess of government that the IoM is.