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It makes sense in a Black Legion army where marines would rather stay in Chaos Undivided versus aligning themselves to a god. But, from a lore point of view, unless they had found some old armor that would help them infiltrate a certain group, I can’t think of a reason why an Alpha Legion army would want Emperor’s Children, Noise Marines, Plaue Marines, Berzerkers, and Rubrics in their army:

SG

Alpha Legion do not make sense on so many levels now - especially since "Legion" by Abnett.

I believe the general idea is that groups of Chaos marines are treated as individual warbands, they ally under powerful generals even if they have different god allegiances - think Saxon warbands each following a slightly different cult getting on a ship to go raiding together.

You may or may not find that convincing.

Nice and simply?

They're allies.

Chaos Warbands are, with the notable exception of Black Legion and Deathguard, just small bands of Murder Buddies.

They're not formally organised military units. And it's relatively uncommon for them to be individually sizeable.

So when you see Cult Troops amongst Vanilla Chaos, that's what you're seeing. Allies (however temporary) working together to achieve a goal. Sure, once that's done they may well turn on each other. But that's not important to the game overall.

Berzerkers? Ever heard of mercenaries?
plague marines? Same as above.
Rubricae, generally speaking the sorcerer controlling them is also out for some personal gain and are also often hired as mercs.
Noise Marines: Distractions abused as fodder.

They're not formally organised military units. And it's relatively uncommon for them to be individually sizeable.

not entirely true, whilest many legions where shattered, others still are organized, (WB, IW, BL and RC) come to mind.

AL is wierd mostly because even pre heresy they had a thing for adhoc formations.
(considering they were never driven out of the materium, it is hgighly possible that they turned into an unholy amalgam of any Parisan terrorist paramilitary secret service like organisation. )

all of those things are just assets at the end of the day, a core of 30 alpha legion marines backed up by some bezerkers ready to go nuts makes complete sense, they sneak the bezerkers into place and let rip

Or let the Berzerkers off the leash, and sneak around whilst everyone is distracted by the carnage

Even for the organised legions, some bands will have broken off over the millennia to do their own thing. It's entirely probable that, irrespective of what's happening with the rest of the legion, that some fragments of the AL have broken off to operate independently and genuinely fallen to Chaos, and hence are as likely as anyone else to have parts decide to worship individual gods and hence become cult troops.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Berzerkers? Ever heard of mercenaries?
plague marines? Same as above.
Rubricae, generally speaking the sorcerer controlling them is also out for some personal gain and are also often hired as mercs.
Noise Marines: Distractions abused as fodder.

They're not formally organised military units. And it's relatively uncommon for them to be individually sizeable.

not entirely true, whilest many legions where shattered, others still are organized, (WB, IW, BL and RC) come to mind.

AL is wierd mostly because even pre heresy they had a thing for adhoc formations.
(considering they were never driven out of the materium, it is hgighly possible that they turned into an unholy amalgam of any Parisan terrorist paramilitary secret service like organisation. )

Even the Black Legion and Iron Warriors have splintered. Yes, they still have a large "core formation", but there's still Black Legionaries who can't be bothered with Abaddon.

 Sgt.Hawke wrote:
Alpha Legion do not make sense on so many levels now - especially since "Legion" by Abnett.

AL is only confusing if you think after ten thousand years the AL is still doing the "double agents" thing. and haven't ended up falling into chaos themselves

Noise marines are easily duped into working for anyone pro bono in exchange for 'exposure' and 'experience'.

Think past Alpha Legionnaires as sneaky infiltrating buggers, that's relatively new lore. They were originally supposed to be dedicated to tactical flexibility and strategy, martial pride was what Horus used to flip them in the old lore because as the youngest legion they were obsessed with proving themselves relative to the other legions.
I believe the Alpha Legion would likely function more as an intact legion than many others, albeit in dispersed units. As for the cult troops, Alphas were described as contemptuous of chaos worship. Except for a few rogue individuals they never joined marked units themselves but they are more than willing to take advantage of marked troops when it suits their purposes

I believe the Alpha Legion is like the Night Lords in their opinion on Chaos: Some despise it, some are indifferent, some worship Chaos outright and some are so knee-deep in warp matter that they do not really have a say in the matter anymore.

While I would assume that a majority of the Alpha Legion isn't really buddy-buddy with Chaos, there would still be a noticeable amount of them who are perfectly okay with worshipping the gods and getting their very own mark of Chaos with all the benefits and downsides that brings.

BrianDavion wrote:
AL is only confusing if you think after ten thousand years the AL is still doing the "double agents" thing. and haven't ended up falling into chaos themselves

Pudis wrote:I believe the Alpha Legion is like the Night Lords in their opinion on Chaos: Some despise it, some are indifferent, some worship Chaos outright and some are so knee-deep in warp matter that they do not really have a say in the matter anymore.

While I would assume that a majority of the Alpha Legion isn't really buddy-buddy with Chaos, there would still be a noticeable amount of them who are perfectly okay with worshipping the gods and getting their very own mark of Chaos with all the benefits and downsides that brings.

The Ambush at Vhorak Pass and the experience of Mathieu as a student when the AL came to his planet, massacred almost everyone and defiled the holy centers definitely shows that there are Alpha Legion units that do embrace Chaos or at least use it willingly for their own sick ends. There's also a Legionnaire that's part of Kharn's warband in the novel The Red Path who is wholly into spilling blood for Khorne, though to be fair, that band was made up of troops from all sorts of myriad backgrounds

You should really read the Lex on AL op.

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Alpha_Legion

Far as a TLDR an exert of the article that best fits.

"These warriors were clearly Astartes, but carried no heraldry and sometimes even operated under the 'False Flag' of another Legion. The operations they undertook were near uniformly assassinations, subterfuge, espionage, sabotage, and recovery of unknown artifacts. They also abducted important individuals from anti-Imperial groups. They made it a policy to never leave any witnesses to their activities. However, rumor still spread across the galaxy of a Ghost Legion."

So to your question. It would more then likely 'lore wise' be they where doing some kind of friendly false flag operation weather called back or nearing departure is another thing. I don't really see them as undivided even just a crazy group with their own plans, more the unstable shapeshifters. Though undivided is misleading cause of all the other types of legions running around with them when its really just stolen paint jobs & weapons. Far as chaos influence I think its probably just as wildly different from each AL member, squad, cell etc.

I always figured cults in the AL would be specialized branches of a particular theater of war. These are space terrorists. Plagues would be the bio weapons team, rubrics and tzeentch for info gathering, berserkers for terror troops, and slaanesh as the experimental psychotropic drugs department. Like Resident Evil meets the MK Ultra experiments, in space!

 ServiceGames wrote:
It makes sense in a Black Legion army where marines would rather stay in Chaos Undivided versus aligning themselves to a god. But, from a lore point of view, unless they had found some old armor that would help them infiltrate a certain group, I can’t think of a reason why an Alpha Legion army would want Emperor’s Children, Noise Marines, Plaue Marines, Berzerkers, and Rubrics in their army:

SG

When you pigeon hole them as 'stealth legion' it makes no sense.
When you note that they carry chainswords that are not silenced, they must be terror troops like other marines. They may get there sneakier than a drop pod assault (but not always) but once in combat they aren't limited to sniping and pressing detanator buttons.

Khorne Berzerkers- a close support operator team has played the shock and awe to cover the hidden blade for a thousand years of warfare against xenos and human worlds, After their initial infiltration, they burst into action among the enemy, causing as much noise and destruction as possible, drawing the enemy's focus from the infiltrated agents and traitors among their command staff. The ultraviolent close range style of war, high casualty counts, combat drugs and exposure to the warp start to take their toll. On return to the hidden base near a warp fissure, the team leader's second in command is contacted by a bloodletter, who promises him great power if he will offer his leader's skull to Khorne. The leader and third in command have also been offered similar bargains.

Rubrics- A librarian of the Alpha Legion becomes involved in a joint action with the Thousand sons. Through mundane, non psychic surveillance he learns the secrets of controlling his rubrics. He assassinates the Sorcerer and takes his place.The rituals involved do require you to sell your soul to Tzeentch and the sorcerer is resurrected by his followers as soon as the AL leave so its not clear who played who here. Any Tzeentch sorcerer can command Rubrics - getting them is usually the hard part.

Plague Marines- got sick. Attacked by deathguard plague weapons, fought alongside deathguard and the armour seals failed. One way to stave off death- submit to Nurgleth, lord of plagues. Particularly disturbed apothecary pursues immortal life through experiments on his brothers.

Noise Marines- desensitised by constant combat drug use and not having fought a worthy/interesting foe (constant action against untrained human forces/low risk surveillance insertions) a marine squad seeks release through substance abuse, pain cages, other pursuits. Degeneracy ensues- and their senses become increasingly dulled. Eventually they need killing - and even this is not enough- the killing has to be spectacular. Sonic weapons destroy human bodies in particularly spectacular ways and the vibrations have interesting local effects on themselves.

Lets not forget that even before the Heresy there were frequent times the various legions worked together on the same planet/system. Alpha Legion "manipulating" some Berserkers, Noise Marines, and a Thousand Sons Sorcerer who thinks he's manipulating them while they're manipulating him while he's manipulating them wouldn't be new territory for anyone, and mirror's the same multi-chapter crusade action we see from the Loyalists who co-op while still having their own Agenda. Like Ravenwing splitting from White Scars to go check out a dust storm hiding some Fallen that are sort of but not really working with Abadon they REALLY came to investigate.

I mean, it gets sillier. Back in 30K they could even take the specialist troops of other marine legions which is pretty wicked and in some situations silly. I suppose it represents sleeper agents, hypnotized or brainwashed marines who exist as per normal until the Alpha Legion needs to make use of them. Very 90s movie feeling but it is what it is I suppose.

nareik wrote:
Noise marines are easily duped into working for anyone pro bono in exchange for 'exposure' and 'experience'.

Haha! Exalted!


On topic, as stated before they're just assets to be used to get the job done. Need a distraction? 10 Khorne Berserkers certainly have few equals in sheer shock and awe value to take attention of everyone. Something needs guarding? endlessly loyal sentinels who obey without question and require only ammo is pretty damn good. Plague Marines? Sometimes the enemy just needs a nice hug.

AL has demon princes in its ranks. It also has no problems summoning massive amounts of demons. So, yea, at least some of them are into chaos worship.


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BrianDavion wrote:

 Sgt.Hawke wrote:
Alpha Legion do not make sense on so many levels now - especially since "Legion" by Abnett.

AL is only confusing if you think after ten thousand years the AL is still doing the "double agents" thing. and haven't ended up falling into chaos themselves

But are there any of those people really left? Newest Chaos Codex pretty much blasts that fan theory into the sun.

At its core I think the survivors of the AL are still experts at espionage. I think 8 and a half foot tall super soldiers are the worst possible basis for a secret intelligence organization, but I believe that's still how they confront the IoM. I think this guiding ideology would translate late to a more SF effort on the battlefield akin to the Green Berets.

They use them like Mercinaries. Likley they promise each warband something of interest. So Rubrics are promised some sort of magical knolledge while Khorn Bezerkers would be promised a bloody war of some kind, that sort of thing. AL are more methodical than a lot of the traitor legions; they think of how they can use others to their advantage in order to get closer to their real goal.