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So I just finished the Alpharius Primarch book and it was really great. Another one of those books that twists everything on its head. To give you a summary.

The book opens with Alpharius and his motley crew of space ships fighting off against Horus and the Luna Wolves. This is the official original discovery of Alpharius. Here, Horus will have his ship infiltrated, and meet Alpharius as the young primarch boards his ship, and learns of the Imperium for the first time.

Then the whole book jumps back to before this....

The Emperor finds Alpharius first, but keeps him a secret. Alpharius becomes the secret assassin and surprise weapon The Emperor is saving for a rainy day. He is present when Horus and The Lion are discovered, but hides among their legion of marines. It mentions that Alpharius actually has the power to become less noticeable and less memorable, almost like a warp trick or psychic power. Almost, but not quite... This explains things like how his forge world model can blend with the rest of a unit of Mk IVs, or how people who see him assume he's just an ordinary astartes.

He is tutored by Malcador on how to hide his thoughts and feelings. One day, without authority, he leaves the imperial palace, re-infiltrates it, kills a custodes, and plans to make a mock assassination attempt on the emperor's life. He technically succeeds, inspiring Valdor to create the blood games. Though he succeeds, the author paints an impression of the Alpha Legion's flaw, without truly highlighting it: Alpharius likes to over-complicate things.

Alpharius talks about how he feels amidst his other brothers. All the while, he never truly fits in. The writing here is superb, showing his social awkwardness, arrogance at being their superior, assumptions that he knows everything, but also whilst showing the reader some great insights to his brothers.

Alpharius does an amazing job of speaking to the reader in catch22-isms. He does not trust Dorn, because Dorn never lies, would be a favourite of mine. He exists in a realm of contradiction, where a false can be true. An example is when he says The Emperor is never wrong, for if he says something is untrue, reality must shift to make it true. Very 1984.

Alpharius and his legion, unknown to anyone but Malcador, The Emperor, and Valdor, fly ahead of the Imperial Fists, and use assassination and insurrection to weaken systems before the Imperial Fists arrive, making it easier for them to conquer. The first time we see this, they kill a dictator, and trigger an insurrection from the cultures history that was long thought stamped out. Unknowingly, it is briefly implied, Alpharius has awoken a Khornate cult. Here we see an example of him thinking he has thought of everything, but overlooked something.... Alpharius is not as perfect as he thinks he is.

Alpharius hears rumours of a missing primarch, and follows rumours of it. He comes to a planet and asks refugees fleeing from an alien invasion what they saw. There's a brief bit of commentary here about the plight of refugees, but as ever, Alpharius makes things worse without realising it. All in all, this is the weakest part of the book, as not a lot happens, but it eats up a few too many pages.


Alpharius meets The Lion in the warzone where Omegon is rumoured, but poses as a regular tactical marine. The Lion suspects nothing, but this is the first time the whole XX legion appears, and the rest of the imperium is aware of their existence. As far as the Imperium (minus the emperor and malcador and valdor know), The Alpha Legion still don't have a primarch, and this will be their first battle. The Lion allows them to act in his warzone.

Alpharius and a team of terminators and headhunters goes to an alien warzone, only to be ambushed by the Slaught, a sort of Kronenberg, body horror bunch of fat maggot people who eat the mass of sentient races. Immense firepower causes the Alpha Legion fleet to disengage, and so only Alpharius and his coterie make it planet-side. The monsters are able to harm Alpharius, kill his librarian, and murder most of his squad. Alpharius moves on alone, and finally meets Omegon, armed with the silent spear. They seem to understand one another perfectly, and finally, fighting side by side, murder a ton of the Slaught before fleeing off world and reuniting with the fleet. It's awesome to see them meet.

AND THEN...

Alpharius and Omegon agree to keep Omegon a secret until all the other primarchs are found. This allows them to understand the role they must fill in the Imperium at large. When only Alpharius remains to be discovered (even though he was here all along), he pretends to run into the Luna Wolves, and resist them. Now we come to the canonical discovery of Alpharius. Alpharius* really Omegon, boards the Vengeful Spirit, fights his way to the bridge, meets Horus, and Horus rejoices with excitement at finding his long lost brother. He embraces Omegon, and asks him his name. Then, the most beautiful closing line of the book hits.

"I am Alpharius"
This is a lie

So Alpharius was first but never announced. Last was Omegon, posing as Alpharius, who was announced. Nobody outside of the legion knows they both exist, not even the Emperor.

*********

So I really loved this book. Some parts seem a little bit like filler or poorly paced, but by the by, it captures the psyche, the paranoia, the ego of Alpharius perfectly, in that it does it subtly, without ramming it in your face. He offers interesting insights into his reasoning, and to all of his brothers and his thoughts on their conduct. My only other complaint might sound like sour raspberries here, so totally disregard this, but it seems Mike Brooks is trying the gender diversity styling of ADB, in that practically every NPC is a woman. Alpharius infiltrates a system, the captain is a woman, who transfers him over to another woman. He goes to the surface, and his contact is a woman, who tells him to meet two refugees, wife and wife, and their daughter. On the way they pass the administrator running the tower block, also a woman. Im glad we're getting representation, be it in colour, creed, or gender, and it can be tough in a predominantly space marine novel to add that, but it felt at times more like pandering. Interestingly, when Alpharius meets the two refugees and their daughter, he wonders if she was gene crafted from their DNA, so it's cool something like that exists in the 30k imperium where two mothers can have a daughter <3

Anyway that is a tiny nitpick. The book was fantastic, and washed the depressing tone of Curze out of my mind. Up next, I think I'll try Perturabo. Thank you Mike Brooks for this brilliant tale.

Is it explained who Omegon is? I mean, how does the Emperor not know about him if hes a primarch which is a creation of the Emps?

It's almost as if the warp copy-pasted Alpharius, so he's half the soul but now there's an extra 100% of the genetic material walking about. He is a biological copy of Alpharius, with half his spirit. Together they are one. This happened after the Emperor lost them.

In the the early HH book where Horus goes on his vision whilst injured by the anathema, and he goes to the gestation pods of the primarchs in the emperors secret lab, doesn’t he look at a few of the pods and make observations about the missing primarchs and the twin souls in pod XX. Or have I dreamed that

Also, glad to see more of the Slaugth. Ever since they turned up in a 40k RPG adventure (appropriately enough entitled Maggots in the Meat) they've been amongst my favourite 40k bad guys.

Very good review, and nice to hear of this funnily overcomplicated character getting such a fitting treatment.

Alpharius being secretly discovered first and Omegon discovered last, and how two of the 'mutually exclusive' origin stories are true, is so perfect.

So the question is....where was Omegon the whole time?

Thanks for the overview. Will definitely avoid this one.