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I don't get how the Alpha can avoid being corrupted by Chaos. From about Master of Mankind onwards, all of the other legions have gone essentially full Chaos. They are perfectly aware that they are servants of the ruinous powers and intend for chaos to reign supreme over everything and whatever petty grudges or motivations they had initially have just been subsumed in the grand design of the arch enemy. Except the Alpha Legion. Apparently none of the Thousand Sons, Word Bearers or Sons of Horus psykers or Primarches. Tzeentch himself, cannot deduce the machinations and deception of the Alpha Legion. Apparently Sanguinious can almost fall to Chaos on two separate occasions and yet even a lowly Alpha Legionary can effortlessly avoid being mutated or corrupted by the same Gods who have turned half the Legions? Surely the Alpha Legion would either get corrupted or would be found out and purged like we see all of the Chaos Legions do to their own number...

Not only that but every Alpha Legionary is a super marine. Literally bigger and taller than normal marines. Because that would obviously make them better spies and infiltrators; help them blend in. I mean that is just pure fan boy.

We then have an entire legion who can fight as well as any other and yet they have these super mega plans going back before the Heresy. Which lets them infiltrate Terra and do all kinds of mad stuff easily. So they have a few hundred thousand guys who are better than any agent of the Officio Assasorium? Really? They just easily procure all of the shape changing stuff that normally only a handful of individuals can be given? Okay, sure. I mean I have read the Assassins book where they stress that these uber assassins who are mint at the tabletop are constantly struggling to infiltrate a humble planet so they can shoot Horus from a few miles away; never mind compromise the entire defence network of Sol that Dorn has spent years preparing. Or being able to get ten marines in the same room alone with Guilliman and have it presented that they have a good odds of killing him. At least Curze has the excuse that he is a Primarch when he does OTT and dumb things but with the Alpha you are constantly bombarded with obscene things like this.

Plus one of the recurring points made in the Horus Heresy ever since Loken is that Space Marines are not humans and don't easily fit in with society because they haven't led normal lives. How on earth can the Alpha Legion possibly act as spies and reasonably pass for normal people? How can they have the people skills and knowhow to form these big networks of spies and informants?

The whole reason they go traitor makes no sense. They have zero reason to believe that the vision they see is anything other than a deception by those aliens. Why would the Eldar be party to a plan to destroy humanity when in 40k they regularly ally with humans against chaos? Chaos existed before humanity, how will killing humanity end chaos? The Eldar have seen the Rhana Dhandra and know that their doom cannot be prevented; so they know any scheme to kill Chaos that doesn't involve their death must fail. Its a stupid plan to quote Nick Fury. Sanguinious sees visions of the future and they show Chaos ruling the galaxy. In Wolfsbane you clearly see that Horus is a willing puppet of the Dark Powers. Alpharius would have to be an idiot to think that he's going to magically change his mind after he kills father and then go kill the Chaos Gods....somehow....Plus, we know this does not come to pass so using this ridiculous notion as a legions motive for changing sides doesn't make sense.

Making it the Alpha Legion who sabotaged Corax's attempt to rebuild his Legion cheapens the original story about how Corax had good intentions to save his Legion but ultimately failed. Instead it turns the whole thing into moustache twirling Alpha Legion having their super mega infiltrators steal the technology and then sabotage the whole thing to dupe Corax into thinking it was a failure.

Oh and they've got twin Primarches that nobody ever knows about. Ohhh, such edge.

Oh and they have an obnoxious catchphrase.

Oh and they all like to cosplay as their Primarch and play mind games over who the leader is because reasons.

Oh and a Primarch can pass as an ordinary person and yet he is physically able to best Dorn until one of his men saves him in Praetorian? Even though Dorn has all of his armor/energy shields and Alpharius is still wearing normal battleplate from when he was infiltrating.

Lets retcon him being killed by Guilliman.

Horus lets them steal all of his ammunition and power armour. Never finds out (somehow) and never punishes Alpharius for this.

A legion which is supposed to be themed around infiltration and stealth still has access to super heavy battle tanks, wears ornate snake skin armour that is a painfully bright blue and are regularly shown sneaking up on people in that armor? Including on members of the Assassins BTW?

Alpha Legion can infiltrate and sneak and scout, sure, but that's more the gimmick of Raven Guard. Alpha Legion are that and sabotage/espionage and that kinda thing.

40k is pretty silly.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
They have zero reason to believe that the vision they see is anything other than a deception by those aliens.... The Eldar have seen the Rhana Dhandra and know that their doom cannot be prevented;

What ever point you tried to make you lost it with this. So one groups vision is false where another group's vision is true? Are we not cherry picking what is correct and what is not? Either both visions are correct, or both are wrong, because we can't choose what is correct because you don't know what is true or not.

Davor wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
They have zero reason to believe that the vision they see is anything other than a deception by those aliens.... The Eldar have seen the Rhana Dhandra and know that their doom cannot be prevented;

What ever point you tried to make you lost it with this. So one groups vision is false where another group's vision is true? Are we not cherry picking what is correct and what is not? Either both visions are correct, or both are wrong, because we can't choose what is correct because you don't know what is true or not.

Because the Eldars own Farseers have seen these prophecies and visions. They don't have any reason before the whole Ynnari subplot to believe this vision is incorrect and act contrary to it.The Alpha Legion got their vision from aliens they were gleefully exterminating not ten minutes ago and now they suddenly trust them enough to go along with a plan to betray the Emperor and condemn humanity to extinction if it saves all life in the galaxy? We are not comparing like with like here. One is in character and rationalises their motiviation. The other makes utterly no sense for a supposedly super mega intelligent Primarch to be that gullible and that stupid.

My point with the Rhana Dhandra is a separate point about how anything the Alpha Legion plotline touches is just a mess of retcons and lore breaking silliness. So of course all the Eldar Craftworlds act completely out of character and don't act as they do in 40k and KILL CHAOS; with the exception of Eldrad who really just potters about in Fulgrim. Which is purely to enable a hair brained plot that they would never agree to if they know the tale of the Doom of the Eldar. Even if they did, why would the Harlequins not be trying to thwart Chaos? Oh, because all the aliens are part of this silly pact to use the Alpha Legion to destroy Chaos....


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Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Alpha Legion can infiltrate and sneak and scout, sure, but that's more the gimmick of Raven Guard. Alpha Legion are that and sabotage/espionage and that kinda thing.

Because the notion of a James Bond Space Marine is ridiculous. They're eight foot tall super soldiers wearing bright blue power armor with dragon scales on. Why is such a flamboyant legion got a reputation for being sneaky and crafty?

Aren't all imperial fists architects?

They certainly know how to build a fort

 fraser1191 wrote:
Aren't all imperial fists architects?

They certainly know how to build a fort

That's purely technical knowledge and its related to war. An eight foot tall anti social superhuman in bright armor can be a good architect and it perfectly fits.

The problem is that they are literally doing things that its been repeatedly stressed that non Astartes do. Normally the Assassins or Inquisitors etc etc do all of the espionage and infiltration and spying whilst the marines do all of the killing because those sorts of henchmen are experts and know what they are doing whereas a marine would be monstrously unsuited to the task. But in the Horus Heresy were are repeatedly told that the Alpha Legion are just outright better than all the other Imperial arms despite being Space Marines who are singularly unsuited for that kind of subtle espionage work because 8 foot tall anti social superhumans in bright armor don't make good spies.

You do have to remember that the arrogance of the Eldar has them automatically assuming they are right, even when the Farseers of the craftworlds try to teach up and coming warlocks that to focus too much upon a future will bring it to pass, or to ignore a future doesn't mean it won't come to pass. The Path of the Seer novel shows this pretty well with how Thirianna sees the invasion of Alaitoc, and yet it takes the influence of the Exarch of the Striking Scorpion shrine to get them to take her seriously. Whether Thirianna brought about, or helped to influence the events of the invasion is left to the reader to decide, but the warning is still there that to focus upon a future too much may bring about its occurrence.

The Eldar only focus on visions that they think are the best probable futures to explore and cultivate, however the problem is that its only focused on the continuation of the Eldar and no one else. They'll ally with the Imperium just to forward their own prosperity until they need to interject in the affairs of the galaxy again.

Zelarias wrote:
You do have to remember that the arrogance of the Eldar has them automatically assuming they are right, even when the Farseers of the craftworlds try to teach up and coming warlocks that to focus too much upon a future will bring it to pass, or to ignore a future doesn't mean it won't come to pass. The Path of the Seer novel shows this pretty well with how Thirianna sees the invasion of Alaitoc, and yet it takes the influence of the Exarch of the Striking Scorpion shrine to get them to take her seriously. Whether Thirianna brought about, or helped to influence the events of the invasion is left to the reader to decide, but the warning is still there that to focus upon a future too much may bring about its occurrence.

The Eldar only focus on visions that they think are the best probable futures to explore and cultivate, however the problem is that its only focused on the continuation of the Eldar and no one else. They'll ally with the Imperium just to forward their own prosperity until they need to interject in the affairs of the galaxy again.

Theres a difference between a self fulfilling prophecy and buying into the idea that "Oh, if Horus kills the Emperor and conquers the Imperium then he can destroy Chaos" As opposed to the more likely scenario that he is a pawn of the Dark Gods, won't care and this will leave Chaos free to destroy the Eldar. Its an incredible gamble to make on such an obscene plan. How can Horus kill the Chaos Gods? But oh of course, the master plan can only work if the greatest legion of them all could be swayed to join the Warmasters cause as a double agent. Its not like Chaos will see straight through this deception instantly and that they can arrange for the Legion to be purged or have it slowly corrupted....

The idea of Horus bringing about the fall of the Chaos gods is that the imperium would be in such a weakened state that it would then crumble quite quickly and from there the biggest source of power for chaos wouldbe easily overrun. The chaos gods feed off of emotion and the states associated with their sphere of influence and if the biggest source of their power starts to wither or be lost entirely, then they'llbe in such a weakened state that killing them will be easier accomplish.

Also it's more difficult to corrupt a legion that didn't retreat to the eye of terror, as their existence doesn't require as strong of a connection to the warp as those who did retreat into the eye. If it really was so easy, then why haven't all space marines been corrupted over the long term with how many sorties have taken them up against the great enemy?

In addition, remember we're talking about a setting that has Magnus seeing the fall of Horus, and yet the greater psyker by far, the Emperor, didn't see it and can only give a bullgak answer for why he didn't foresee it.

Yes, they are idiots. That's the point.

They are evil and not nearly as smart as they think they are. That's why they constantly fail.

This is the point of Alpha Legion. This is why they went to Chaos.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Yes, they are idiots. That's the point.

They are evil and not nearly as smart as they think they are. That's why they constantly fail.

This is the point of Alpha Legion. This is why they went to Chaos.

^This

The Alpha Legion have been hoodwinked, They HAVE fallen too chaos, and are just too stupid to realize they'd been played.

Covert Operations =/= being invisible James Bond.

"It is not essential that the enemy be taken unaware, only that he becomes aware too late to react effectively." - some guy

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Covert Operations =/= being invisible James Bond.

"It is not essential that the enemy be taken unaware, only that he becomes aware too late to react effectively." - some guy

Someone gets it.

A few points to make...

First the silly one: of course the Alpha Legion doesn't make no sense, it's the whole point of the "plans within plans" and of the "no one knows what they are really up to"... I do get why people can find that gimmicky, because it is, like the rest of the Grimdark...

Second, having an 8-foot tall superhuman in bright blue power armor with scales being all sneaky of course makes no sense, but as is discussed in length in the HH novels and background books, that's not what the Alpha Legion is about. They make extensive use of non-astartes agents to do their bidding, and they use their enemies fears and confusion against them. They are also not always in bright blue armor, at least in the 30k era, where they are described as sometimes using the livery of other legions just to confuse the enemy...

And one last point: anything and everything in 40k makes no sense if you think about it too much...

Alpha Legion used to be just space taliban, easy and simple. Now their lore is convoluted nonsense with endless "I am Alpharius" shyamalan-esque twists

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Because the notion of a James Bond Space Marine is ridiculous. They're eight foot tall super soldiers wearing bright blue power armor with dragon scales on. Why is such a flamboyant legion got a reputation for being sneaky and crafty?

By sneaking around when nobody is watching with help of skill and equipment.

Also alpha's are noted for not running around in flashy armour all the time. Dragon scale armour is more of their parade/big battle armour. What makes you think they have those all the time? Fluff already has them using other looking armours all the time and FW noted with the primarch model that's his full gear look that's more for show when it's less important to blend in. Common armour would be much more plain and likely not that different to basic marines. But that makes not that interesting looking model to sell. Big tactical marine. Whoo.


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 Totalwar1402 wrote:

 fraser1191 wrote:
Aren't all imperial fists architects?

They certainly know how to build a fort

That's purely technical knowledge and its related to war. An eight foot tall anti social superhuman in bright armor can be a good architect and it perfectly fits.

The problem is that they are literally doing things that its been repeatedly stressed that non Astartes do. Normally the Assassins or Inquisitors etc etc do all of the espionage and infiltration and spying whilst the marines do all of the killing because those sorts of henchmen are experts and know what they are doing whereas a marine would be monstrously unsuited to the task. But in the Horus Heresy were are repeatedly told that the Alpha Legion are just outright better than all the other Imperial arms despite being Space Marines who are singularly unsuited for that kind of subtle espionage work because 8 foot tall anti social superhumans in bright armor don't make good spies.

you are also assuming alphas do that all themselves. And not say...utilize others. It's not like alphas are drinking in bars asking for information. They would be recruiting others do that instead.

Yuup plenty of others.

If you want a good book about how powerfull and fallible the AL is I'd read Praetorian of Dorn AKA Dorn vs Alpharius the big invisible measuring contest.

The problem is that the Alpha Legion lore has evolved numerous times.

Way way back the idea was that the Alpha Legion just wanted to be better soldiers than the other chapters. Not tougher, or faster, or braver or more ferocious - but cleverer. More akin to what makes armies better or worse in real life. This meant informed asymmetric warfare and tactics akin to real life. Its not as if you killed a general today there would be a medieval style collapse of authority. I think the "I am Spartacus" bit first appeared in their 3.5 Ed White Dwarf fluff when RG supposedly kills Alpharius and they don't even blink.

I don't think there is much wrong with this in theory. Acquiring information, identifying weak points, organising spies, recruiting the support of local forces is a branch of warfare. Its probably the main one if you are going to run an Empire. The classic "blood for the blood god (other battle cries are available), we smashed the enemy but lost 1/3rd of the legion in the fighting" approach might work - but the Marine chapters should constantly be needed to stop and recover their losses. But then like Eldar, there are always as many Space Marines as the plot requires.

Unfortunately I guess "Marines want to be better than everyone -> arrogance is bad" wasn't much of a story. In part because it sort of applies to almost every chapter that falls to chaos. So we got Legion. Which was clearly divisive - but arguably one of the better Horus Heresy books in that it goes beyond mere bolter porn. The whole whose in and whose out revelations made it interesting.

But yeah, the alien conspiracy was something that probably made sense in a briefing room but collapses on inspection. The subsequent descent into suicide mission impossible - and constantly messing with the chapters for "reasons" - has made even less sense.

Fictionwise they need a HH book that translates the Alpha Legion from the Heresy to today. I am not convinced its going to happen though. Although there could be 10 books on the Siege of Terra, so who knows.

The original drive of the Alpha Legion was an inferiority complex. Alpharius was thelast Primarch found by a significant margin, and he and his Legion found themselves playing catch-up with the others. That was the weakness that drew them to Chaos.

The mysterious aspect was, IIRC, introduced in 2nd edition, with the hydra imagery.

Now? IMO, they absolutely follow Chaos. It doesn't matter if that was their intention, or if they thought they were somehow working for humanity's benefit, but now they're gone. At best, you can see them as unwitting pawns in someone else's plan.

Which side are they really fighting for? Maybe they have turned to Chaos and the gods have prevented any mutations or other obvious effects to continue to sow the seeds of doubt (Slaanesh would probably enjoy the irony)
Maybe they are still loyalist but trying to fight the long game from within, or more likely believe themselves to be loyalist whilst unwittingly fighting for Chaos.
They're not supposed to be super marines either, not sure where this has come from. In fact their Primarch is the smallest, and one of the least fighty I believe. Instead they use subterfuge and surprise to win their fights.
Also and most importantly GW will continue to retcon all their lore to suit their current whims or story arcs, so anything could change.

Isn't convoluted nonsense the entire point of Alpha Legion?

They are like the PsyOps specialists of the galaxy. GW just writes in some crazy propaganda pieces to introduce logic holes to make Alpha Legion just look... silly?

Seems like Alpha Legion may be writing their own fluff to throw you those Imperial hounds off their scent.

meleti wrote:
40k is pretty silly.

Basically this.... it's best not to think about it most times until it becomes so stupid you kinda have to talk about it. Which had to be pretty stupid in terms of overall 40k.


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Tyel wrote:
The problem is that the Alpha Legion lore has evolved numerous times.

Way way back the idea was that the Alpha Legion just wanted to be better soldiers than the other chapters. Not tougher, or faster, or braver or more ferocious - but cleverer. More akin to what makes armies better or worse in real life. This meant informed asymmetric warfare and tactics akin to real life. Its not as if you killed a general today there would be a medieval style collapse of authority. I think the "I am Spartacus" bit first appeared in their 3.5 Ed White Dwarf fluff when RG supposedly kills Alpharius and they don't even blink.

I don't think there is much wrong with this in theory. Acquiring information, identifying weak points, organising spies, recruiting the support of local forces is a branch of warfare. Its probably the main one if you are going to run an Empire. The classic "blood for the blood god (other battle cries are available), we smashed the enemy but lost 1/3rd of the legion in the fighting" approach might work - but the Marine chapters should constantly be needed to stop and recover their losses. But then like Eldar, there are always as many Space Marines as the plot requires.

Unfortunately I guess "Marines want to be better than everyone -> arrogance is bad" wasn't much of a story. In part because it sort of applies to almost every chapter that falls to chaos. So we got Legion. Which was clearly divisive - but arguably one of the better Horus Heresy books in that it goes beyond mere bolter porn. The whole whose in and whose out revelations made it interesting.

But yeah, the alien conspiracy was something that probably made sense in a briefing room but collapses on inspection. The subsequent descent into suicide mission impossible - and constantly messing with the chapters for "reasons" - has made even less sense.

Fictionwise they need a HH book that translates the Alpha Legion from the Heresy to today. I am not convinced its going to happen though. Although there could be 10 books on the Siege of Terra, so who knows.

This sounds ab8utnright probably. Like with most 40k, the lore starts out silly but it's interesting. It's just crazy enough to be fun... but then over time they over emphasis something and just make it too silly to the point your brain just snaps and it's no longer fun it's funny.

FOR THE EMPEROR!

 Huron black heart wrote:
Which side are they really fighting for? Maybe they have turned to Chaos and the gods have prevented any mutations or other obvious effects to continue to sow the seeds of doubt (Slaanesh would probably enjoy the irony)
Maybe they are still loyalist but trying to fight the long game from within, or more likely believe themselves to be loyalist whilst unwittingly fighting for Chaos.

Why not both? Part of the Alpha Legion's thing is that they operate in cells, no cell knows what other cells are doing, their could very well be cells working to the Imperium's benefit while other cells work to benefit chaos instead. Wouldn't even be out of character for them to be honest, Horus was complaining about their byzantine nature and plans during the heresy. Imagine how much worse it's probably gotten over 10,000 years of conflict with the legion spread across the entire galaxy and with only limited contact with other cells and warbands.

 gbghg wrote:

Why not both? Part of the Alpha Legion's thing is that they operate in cells, no cell knows what other cells are doing, their could very well be cells working to the Imperium's benefit while other cells work to benefit chaos instead. Wouldn't even be out of character for them to be honest, Horus was complaining about their byzantine nature and plans during the heresy. Imagine how much worse it's probably gotten over 10,000 years of conflict with the legion spread across the entire galaxy and with only limited contact with other cells and warbands.

This is how I have always viewed it. There are many heads to the hydra, after all, and not all the heads need to be on the same page. The majority of the Legion cells are allowed to fall to Chaos to keep up appearances, while a select few still act as loyalists.

I dislike the whole cabal thing, though I guess it explains the superior intel.

I find the whole deep level covert spy stuff fine – they were part of the fabric of the Imperium, were covertly active for the Emperor, and their modus operandi meant they embedded people everywhere. Just as spy agencies do today, but with added magic and grimdark. The Corax book where the alpha legion ruin the new generation of space marines is a good example of how they move and operate and the weirdness of the Imperium helps that. Again intel agencies today do that – most of it is about recruitment and running agents. Their loyalties are complex focusing on the group rather than the individual while expecting individual initiative and action.

The legion has different factions and loyalties are there are examples of Alpha Legion unity and loyalty fracturing during the heresy. I completely think they are a traitor legion though not necessarily a chaos legion. The desire to measure themselves against the other legions was extremely strong and despite the guff about being modest and humble wanted recognition of their superior skills and tactics. As an organisation where so much was hidden turning traitor could simply have broken them with all loyalty questioned. They still have their unique style and training methods enabling them to work together but personal loyalty and dedication to a higher cause is gone. Many are corrupted by chaos as the vacuum there would be easy to fill and if they ever slipped up and got themselves into situations they couldn’t get out of who else can they call upon?

If their Primarchs are dead it would explain why they haven’t come together in any significant numbers and continue to generate missions and objectives in order to do more of the same. Obsessed with their plans and gathering power simply to enact more plans etc etc. If one or both of their Primarchs are alive perhaps they are simply insane, or are hidden as by betraying everyone during the Heresy including many of their own legion they are reduced to shadow puppet masters.

Their recruitment worlds were never found and the legion didn’t decamp to the Eye of terror, instead their remaining fleet assets dispersed into realspace. I can well imagine training facilities known to perhaps no-one in the surviving Legion churning out new recruits and depositing them at ancient muster points as they always have. Easy enough to do – breeding populations of humans to produce geneseed – 1 for the probably vat born recruit who then goes into the training programmes, the other for a fresh geneseed host. Just think of the idiosyncrasies and oddities that would have crept into that process over the 10,000 years… Using highly shielded means and probably a separate organisation they could deliver them to the old muster points and so on. A chain of recruitment that would be more robust than the highly defended but known recruitment systems that can be overcome by sheer force of arms. Would also be a reason why the legion couldn’t decamp to the eye as they simply didn’t know where many of their rear echelon support was, being just the forward fighting arm.

Yea, I agree.

The whole "nobody knows what the alpha legion is up to" thing is pretty much like the today USA intelligence branches.

They are so many, working so many different angles, spying on anyone and anything-including each other and nobody really knows what they are up to as a whole because each agency has no idea of the big picture either.

Its easy to lose track of a group when it is fractured and does not work in anything resembling cohesion. maybe part of the reason they manage to get into so many places is because they have so many different splinter groups try to same things and one of them pulls it off.

The warp does not taint the Alpha Legion.

Alpha Legion taints the warp.

I am Alpharius