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I've been wondering for a while, what have the Alpha Legion actually done to further Horus' (or the Emperor's) cause?



Their infiltration of the Raven Guard actually hurt the Traitors, as they had to let Corax escape Isstvan V for it to occur (and nothing came of the infiltration in the end), and they nearly assassinated Guilliman (emphasis on nearly). This brings us to the most recent 30k Alpha Legion source, where they faceplant into the Sol System with all the grace and elegance of a drunk teenager at 4 AM, which sees them defeated at asymmetric warfare by Dorn (queue slow clap).

Otherwise, they've got their asses kicked by Space Wolves (Wolf King), White Scars (Scars), and get butchered by the Iron Warriors (Extermination) in their attempt to take a supply point (though they do seize it after stupid casualties). They seize some no-name and planet and supply ship in Sedition's Gate, and otherwise keep sabotaging other Alpha Legionnaires. Autilon Skorr personifies this utter lack of results at the Siege of Epsilon-Stranivar IX and the Siege of Mezoa.

In essence, they held up the White Scars long enough for them to get Dorn's message and not turn Traitor (but would the Khan have turned either way?), and it's hinted in Extermination that the Isstvan V Beach Party may have been Alpharius' idea. They also ensured Corax's survival (whom basically didn't do anything for the rest of the Heresy). So...

...Could you remove the Alpha Legion and the Heresy happens as normal?

The problem is the grand plot of the Heresy was arrived at before the Alpha Legion were invented - so now they've got to take this Legion which has (fairly recently) been built up as super-spies and infiltrators par excellence and fit them in around the edges without changing anything.

Well, a few points, in some in spoilers if it is mostly stuff from BL books.



As for Paramar, I don't think the Alpha Legion took stupid casualties- afterall, they took most of the heavily fortified system without losing anything, and would've taken the system with very light casualties if the Iron Warriors hadn't been there by chance. In addition, much of the casualties were by allied Mechanicum units and not by the Alpha Legion themselves.

I think the Alpha Legion's largest contribution was probably in the Dark Compliance campaign in bringing worlds under the Warmaster's fold. Having said this, those worlds were more under the sway of the Alpha Legion than the Sons of Horus, so it is dubious what efficacy this had when the assets gained could not be directly used by Horus. I think this is the general issue with the contributions of the Alpha Legion- they do useful stuff, but then the gains from this are mitigated by them having mysterious objectives for their own gain, and disunity of goals across the Legion. This makes the Alpha Legion the Alpha Legion, but it also makes them terribly unreliable allies. If the Alpha Legion had been under the direct control of Horus in the way that the Death Guard, Iron Warriors, Word Bearers and World Eaters were*, they would likely have got a lot more done for the Traitor's cause.




*Yes, I know all of these Legions had issues, especially the World Eaters, but they broadly conformed to Horus' strategic goals, and aided him as assets directly under his control rather than a sort of loose ally like the Alpha Legion, Night Lords and Emperor's children. There were times when all Traitor Legions were operating for their own goals, but these 4 are the most reliable from Horus' perspective (Angron is reliable in a "aim and release" kind of way).

 Haighus wrote:
Well, a few points, in some in spoilers if it is mostly stuff from BL books.

Spoiler:

They were also involved in Tallarn, a very important battle in that it held up the vast majority of one of Horus' most capable Legions for years, yet acheived basically nothing for the Traitors' cause. So in other words a resounding strategic success for the Loyalists. Alpha Legion operatives were instrumental in allowing the Iron Warriors to gain a foothold on the planet, which they promptly fortified and never lost over the war. They likely would've gained this foothold without the Alpha Legion, but at much greater cost against stiffer resistance (for example, they still lost some Titans to Shadowsword ambushes even with the sneaky plan). However, the Alpha Legion was helping the Iron Warriors for their own goals, so they basically opposed them from then out, and may have contributed to the Iron Warriors not acheiving their goals of recovering the Chaos artefact on the planet. However, the Alpha Legion were only thwarted from acheiving the same by a very adept Vanus assassin operative, who gave their life in order to stop the Alpha Legion. So it was a very close run thing in general.

As for Paramar, I don't think the Alpha Legion took stupid casualties- afterall, they took most of the heavily fortified system without losing anything, and would've taken the system with very light casualties if the Iron Warriors hadn't been there by chance. In addition, much of the casualties were by allied Mechanicum units and not by the Alpha Legion themselves.

I think the Alpha Legion's largest contribution was probably in the Dark Compliance campaign in bringing worlds under the Warmaster's fold. Having said this, those worlds were more under the sway of the Alpha Legion than the Sons of Horus, so it is dubious what efficacy this had when the assets gained could not be directly used by Horus. I think this is the general issue with the contributions of the Alpha Legion- they do useful stuff, but then the gains from this are mitigated by them having mysterious objectives for their own gain, and disunity of goals across the Legion. This makes the Alpha Legion the Alpha Legion, but it also makes them terribly unreliable allies. If the Alpha Legion had been under the direct control of Horus in the way that the Death Guard, Iron Warriors, Word Bearers and World Eaters were*, they would likely have got a lot more done for the Traitor's cause.

Spoiler:

How did the Alpha Legion help Corax escape? I know they infiltrated the Legion, but as far as I can tell Corax escaped basically on his own skills as a guerilla commander, and a healthy dose of luck when the guy back on Deliverence gets Emperor-inspired visions. Without the latter, they would've been exterminated just as Horus planned. I feel like infiltrating the Legion as a contingency for their survival actually helped the Traitors' cause considerably in this case with the sabotage of the Raptors programme.

*Yes, I know all of these Legions had issues, especially the World Eaters, but they broadly conformed to Horus' strategic goals, and aided him as assets directly under his control rather than a sort of loose ally like the Alpha Legion, Night Lords and Emperor's children. There were times when all Traitor Legions were operating for their own goals, but these 4 are the most reliable from Horus' perspective (Angron is reliable in a "aim and release" kind of way).

Yeah, world eaters are very point, fire and forget weapon.

you can guarantee whatever you send them at, carnage will follow in short bloody order.
They are a tad willing to break strategy for there own berserk drives though so you can rely as long as your not relying on them for a key mission that hinges a entire campaign

 Haighus wrote:
Well, a few points, in some in spoilers if it is mostly stuff from BL books.

Spoiler:

They were also involved in Tallarn, a very important battle in that it held up the vast majority of one of Horus' most capable Legions for years, yet acheived basically nothing for the Traitors' cause. So in other words a resounding strategic success for the Loyalists. Alpha Legion operatives were instrumental in allowing the Iron Warriors to gain a foothold on the planet, which they promptly fortified and never lost over the war. They likely would've gained this foothold without the Alpha Legion, but at much greater cost against stiffer resistance (for example, they still lost some Titans to Shadowsword ambushes even with the sneaky plan). However, the Alpha Legion was helping the Iron Warriors for their own goals, so they basically opposed them from then out, and may have contributed to the Iron Warriors not acheiving their goals of recovering the Chaos artefact on the planet. However, the Alpha Legion were only thwarted from acheiving the same by a very adept Vanus assassin operative, who gave their life in order to stop the Alpha Legion. So it was a very close run thing in general.

As for Paramar, I don't think the Alpha Legion took stupid casualties- afterall, they took most of the heavily fortified system without losing anything, and would've taken the system with very light casualties if the Iron Warriors hadn't been there by chance. In addition, much of the casualties were by allied Mechanicum units and not by the Alpha Legion themselves.

I think the Alpha Legion's largest contribution was probably in the Dark Compliance campaign in bringing worlds under the Warmaster's fold. Having said this, those worlds were more under the sway of the Alpha Legion than the Sons of Horus, so it is dubious what efficacy this had when the assets gained could not be directly used by Horus. I think this is the general issue with the contributions of the Alpha Legion- they do useful stuff, but then the gains from this are mitigated by them having mysterious objectives for their own gain, and disunity of goals across the Legion. This makes the Alpha Legion the Alpha Legion, but it also makes them terribly unreliable allies. If the Alpha Legion had been under the direct control of Horus in the way that the Death Guard, Iron Warriors, Word Bearers and World Eaters were*, they would likely have got a lot more done for the Traitor's cause.

Spoiler:

How did the Alpha Legion help Corax escape? I know they infiltrated the Legion, but as far as I can tell Corax escaped basically on his own skills as a guerilla commander, and a healthy dose of luck when the guy back on Deliverence gets Emperor-inspired visions. Without the latter, they would've been exterminated just as Horus planned. I feel like infiltrating the Legion as a contingency for their survival actually helped the Traitors' cause considerably in this case with the sabotage of the Raptors programme.

*Yes, I know all of these Legions had issues, especially the World Eaters, but they broadly conformed to Horus' strategic goals, and aided him as assets directly under his control rather than a sort of loose ally like the Alpha Legion, Night Lords and Emperor's children. There were times when all Traitor Legions were operating for their own goals, but these 4 are the most reliable from Horus' perspective (Angron is reliable in a "aim and release" kind of way).

Removing the Alpha Legion could mean Perturabo would've got the Black Oculus, so that is something actually. I've not read Ironclad, mind.

Their casualties were heavy at Paramar, and were described as such in Extermination. They also outnumbered the Iron Warriors massively (18,000 to 2000 or so, not counting auxiliae). As a sidenote, an issue for me is that if Armillus Dynat and/or Autilon Skorr are meant to be awesome and great generals, they better pull off something against other Legions. I would also love to have Sheed Ranko as a Loyalist Alpha Legion Terminator Praetor.

The Dark Compliance could be something, but our example there (Autilon Skorr) is one of abject failure. As with anything not detailed in 40k, it's hard to say exactly what the Alpha Legion's effect was on this. It was certainly nothing along the lines of storming the gates of the Imperial Palace or the Raving on Calth.

Corax was knowingly allowed to escape by the Alpha Legion. He was cornered by Angron, but the timely intervention of Branne allowed them to escape. However, they only escaped the Isstvan system because the Alpha Legion killed the World Eater Commander who would've stopped their escape.

But aye, Horus very much doubted his own control over the Alpha Legion. It's even mentioned in Extermination.

Yeah. The Alpha Legion is pretty much useless. They always fail miserably in everything they plan because BL writers tend to use them as saturday morning cartoon villains.
All traitor legions suffer from this problem, even the supposedly really capable ones like the Iron Warriors are often treated badly by BL writers who only care about making the (loyalist) hero of their story look cool. But the Alpha Legion suffers from this the most of all. They never win at anything. You could easily remove them from the setting and nothing would change. BL would just need to find a new villain for its heroes to bash.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Yeah. The Alpha Legion is pretty much useless. They always fail miserably in everything they plan because BL writers tend to use them as saturday morning cartoon villains.
All traitor legions suffer from this problem, even the supposedly really capable ones like the Iron Warriors are often treated badly by BL writers who only care about making the (loyalist) hero of their story look cool. But the Alpha Legion suffers from this the most of all. They never win at anything. You could easily remove them from the setting and nothing would change. BL would just need to find a new villain for its heroes to bash.

<3

That's what I feel. Bligh gave them depth at least, and Rob Sanders ain't half bad, but the rest's portrayal of the Alpha Legion is pretty poor.

The Alpha Legion are a victim of the author. The concept is more intelligent then the people writing it, so... it fails.

 ChazSexington wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
Well, a few points, in some in spoilers if it is mostly stuff from BL books.

Spoiler:

They were also involved in Tallarn, a very important battle in that it held up the vast majority of one of Horus' most capable Legions for years, yet acheived basically nothing for the Traitors' cause. So in other words a resounding strategic success for the Loyalists. Alpha Legion operatives were instrumental in allowing the Iron Warriors to gain a foothold on the planet, which they promptly fortified and never lost over the war. They likely would've gained this foothold without the Alpha Legion, but at much greater cost against stiffer resistance (for example, they still lost some Titans to Shadowsword ambushes even with the sneaky plan). However, the Alpha Legion was helping the Iron Warriors for their own goals, so they basically opposed them from then out, and may have contributed to the Iron Warriors not acheiving their goals of recovering the Chaos artefact on the planet. However, the Alpha Legion were only thwarted from acheiving the same by a very adept Vanus assassin operative, who gave their life in order to stop the Alpha Legion. So it was a very close run thing in general.

As for Paramar, I don't think the Alpha Legion took stupid casualties- afterall, they took most of the heavily fortified system without losing anything, and would've taken the system with very light casualties if the Iron Warriors hadn't been there by chance. In addition, much of the casualties were by allied Mechanicum units and not by the Alpha Legion themselves.

I think the Alpha Legion's largest contribution was probably in the Dark Compliance campaign in bringing worlds under the Warmaster's fold. Having said this, those worlds were more under the sway of the Alpha Legion than the Sons of Horus, so it is dubious what efficacy this had when the assets gained could not be directly used by Horus. I think this is the general issue with the contributions of the Alpha Legion- they do useful stuff, but then the gains from this are mitigated by them having mysterious objectives for their own gain, and disunity of goals across the Legion. This makes the Alpha Legion the Alpha Legion, but it also makes them terribly unreliable allies. If the Alpha Legion had been under the direct control of Horus in the way that the Death Guard, Iron Warriors, Word Bearers and World Eaters were*, they would likely have got a lot more done for the Traitor's cause.

Spoiler:

How did the Alpha Legion help Corax escape? I know they infiltrated the Legion, but as far as I can tell Corax escaped basically on his own skills as a guerilla commander, and a healthy dose of luck when the guy back on Deliverence gets Emperor-inspired visions. Without the latter, they would've been exterminated just as Horus planned. I feel like infiltrating the Legion as a contingency for their survival actually helped the Traitors' cause considerably in this case with the sabotage of the Raptors programme.

*Yes, I know all of these Legions had issues, especially the World Eaters, but they broadly conformed to Horus' strategic goals, and aided him as assets directly under his control rather than a sort of loose ally like the Alpha Legion, Night Lords and Emperor's children. There were times when all Traitor Legions were operating for their own goals, but these 4 are the most reliable from Horus' perspective (Angron is reliable in a "aim and release" kind of way).

[/spoiler]

Removing the Alpha Legion could mean Perturabo would've got the Black Oculus, so that is something actually. I've not read Ironclad, mind.

Their casualties were heavy at Paramar, and were described as such in Extermination. They also outnumbered the Iron Warriors massively (18,000 to 2000 or so, not counting auxiliae). As a sidenote, an issue for me is that if Armillus Dynat and/or Autilon Skorr are meant to be awesome and great generals, they better pull off something against other Legions. I would also love to have Sheed Ranko as a Loyalist Alpha Legion Terminator Praetor.

The Dark Compliance could be something, but our example there (Autilon Skorr) is one of abject failure. As with anything not detailed in 40k, it's hard to say exactly what the Alpha Legion's effect was on this. It was certainly nothing along the lines of storming the gates of the Imperial Palace or the Raving on Calth.

Corax was knowingly allowed to escape by the Alpha Legion. He was cornered by Angron, but the timely intervention of Branne allowed them to escape. However, they only escaped the Isstvan system because the Alpha Legion killed the World Eater Commander who would've stopped their escape.

But aye, Horus very much doubted his own control over the Alpha Legion. It's even mentioned in Extermination.

I have read Ironclad.

Paramar I still think is a success. Most of the system was entirely negated (and therefore captured intact), and the siege was over very quickly. They took casualties, but I don't think they were disproportionate to the task at hand, or even high compared to what could be expected. Generally, you need a force of at least 3 times the number to take a defensive position, with casualties, so I don't think the massively outnumbering siege specialists is a factor against them in the success of the battle, not to mention there were considerable assets other than Marines in the defending force (such as a very strong super-heavy contingent). The Iron Warriors were almost completely removed as a combat force. In addition, what may be the most casualty averse strategy was not an option here- Paramar had to be taken quickly, so casualties were inevitable if there was resistance. The Alpha Legion (and Horus) couldn't afford a strategically poor situation like the Siege of Vraks from occurring. Within these difficult parameters, Dynat did well. I'd like to see more about him, the FW stuff is really interesting across the board in my opinion. Dynat is a very good character who deserves more attributed to him.

I agree Skorr is pathetic. What we see of the Dark Compliance in the books is just the sectors Horus directly attacks to make the core of his new powerbase. I think (mostly conjecture from various short stories) the Alpha Legion was likely more instrumental in areas outside of this, where there were no large battles for control. They seem to be especially good at toppling governments, and whilst this may not turn a world to Horus' cause, it at least prevents it from being useful to the Imperium too. I would not be surprised if large swathes of the Imperium were either brought into Dark Compliance or written off as useful resources for the Imperium by Alpha Legion operatives. Not at all glamorous of course. However, the Traitors were always at a disadvantage for war material and resources, and Horus knew from the outset that they would loose if the war dragged on too long and the Imperium had time to marshall its full response. This ultimately is why Horus is forced to duel the Emperor. The actions of the Alpha Legion may well have delayed this bringing to bear of available resources, and given Horus a fighting chance. Still, not really any evidence either way for this.

The stuff about the Raven Guard's escape is interesting, can I ask where this is from? A short story I am guessing?

 ChazSexington wrote:
IThey also ensured Corax's survival (whom basically didn't do anything for the rest of the Heresy).

Well that's just plain wrong, corax and the raven guard saved the space wolves at the battle of yarrant, where they would have otherwise perished at the hands of horus as russ had suffered serious injuries during a fight with the warmaster (which is going to be expanded upon in the upcoming book, wolfsbane) and the space wolves had decided to fight a last stand in so that they may not die in vain, corax after overcoming serious personal doubt eventually convinces the wolves (and himself) that a last stand is not the way to go and so helps the wolves retreat from yarrant.

 Glasdir wrote:

 ChazSexington wrote:
IThey also ensured Corax's survival (whom basically didn't do anything for the rest of the Heresy).

Well that's just plain wrong, corax and the raven guard saved the space wolves at the battle of yarrant, where they would have otherwise perished at the hands of horus as russ had suffered serious injuries during a fight with the warmaster (which is going to be expanded upon in the upcoming book, wolfsbane) and the space wolves had decided to fight a last stand in so that they may not die in vain, corax after overcoming serious personal doubt eventually convinces the wolves (and himself) that a last stand is not the way to go and so helps the wolves retreat from yarrant.

Excellent, that's what I'm after. I wasn't aware of what happened at Yarant. So by saving Corax, the Alpha Legion incidentally save the Space Wolves after failing to finish them off themselves!

Alpharius and Omegon are brainwashed forgeries that believe they are the Primarch of the Alpha Legion, whereas the true primarch was never discovered; always operating from the shadows and pulling strings.

My headcanon.

 ChazSexington wrote:

 Glasdir wrote:

 ChazSexington wrote:
IThey also ensured Corax's survival (whom basically didn't do anything for the rest of the Heresy).

Well that's just plain wrong, corax and the raven guard saved the space wolves at the battle of yarrant, where they would have otherwise perished at the hands of horus as russ had suffered serious injuries during a fight with the warmaster (which is going to be expanded upon in the upcoming book, wolfsbane) and the space wolves had decided to fight a last stand in so that they may not die in vain, corax after overcoming serious personal doubt eventually convinces the wolves (and himself) that a last stand is not the way to go and so helps the wolves retreat from yarrant.

Excellent, that's what I'm after. I wasn't aware of what happened at Yarant. So by saving Corax, the Alpha Legion incidentally save the Space Wolves after failing to finish them off themselves!

No problem, and of course that leads to the wolves returning to terra to mop up the rest of the traitors after horus' defeat.

 Glasdir wrote:

 ChazSexington wrote:

 Glasdir wrote:

 ChazSexington wrote:
IThey also ensured Corax's survival (whom basically didn't do anything for the rest of the Heresy).

Well that's just plain wrong, corax and the raven guard saved the space wolves at the battle of yarrant, where they would have otherwise perished at the hands of horus as russ had suffered serious injuries during a fight with the warmaster (which is going to be expanded upon in the upcoming book, wolfsbane) and the space wolves had decided to fight a last stand in so that they may not die in vain, corax after overcoming serious personal doubt eventually convinces the wolves (and himself) that a last stand is not the way to go and so helps the wolves retreat from yarrant.

Excellent, that's what I'm after. I wasn't aware of what happened at Yarant. So by saving Corax, the Alpha Legion incidentally save the Space Wolves after failing to finish them off themselves!

No problem, and of course that leads to the wolves returning to terra to mop up the rest of the traitors after horus' defeat.

But... maybe that was the Alpha Legion's plan all along!
They were secretly loyalist and their plan was to save the Imperium by saving Corax so he could save the Space Wolves so they could save the Imperium!! See!!! the Alpha Legion is useful!!!!