Jump to content

Legion Disposition...of the 2nd and 11th?


Demus Ragnok

Recommended Posts

There has been much talk of the two lost legions of late and today this crossed my mind.

 

There has been much discussion on the roles or peronalities of the legions. Like the seige craft of the Fists and Iron Warriors, the "directness" of the World Eaters and the Luna Wolves, or the covert actions of the Alpha Legion. Each legion had a speciality/role/preferred style or tactic. All that being said brings me to my question.

 

Given the tactical dispositions of the 18 known legions what could have been possible roles for the 2nd and 11th to fill?

I'm thinking of this question in more of tactical military standpoint. What other roles could there have been that would need to be filled by a primarch and a legion during the great crusade?

Well if you take the First Heritic fluff the two Missing Legions didnt make it passed the first 150 years of the great crusade. at the start Each legion began at Regimental strength and grew to Legion strength. All Legions started in Grey Armour and as they won Battle honours and nick names that stuck, and Armour changed Colour to as custom dictated (like the red right arm of the dusk raiders).

 

I believe that Legions grew in to roles, based on the atributes and personalitys of the respective Primarks once reunited (apart from genetic deviancy) and the coments in prospero burns were roles evolved in to rather than by the Emporors design.

 

At the start of the great crusade all legions would have been near on identical in disposition.

Think grey MKII and MKIII armour with roman Numerals to denote Legion.

Well if you take the First Heritic fluff the two Missing Legions didnt make it passed the first 150 years of the great crusade. at the start Each legion began at Regimental strength and grew to Legion strength. All Legions started in Grey Armour and as they won Battle honours and nick names that stuck, and Armour changed Colour to as custom dictated (like the red right arm of the dusk raiders).

 

I believe that Legions grew in to roles, based on the atributes and personalitys of the respective Primarks once reunited (apart from genetic deviancy) and the coments in prospero burns were roles evolved in to rather than by the Emporors design.

 

At the start of the great crusade all legions would have been near on identical in disposition.

Think grey MKII and MKIII armour with roman Numerals to denote Legion.

 

Yes. I'm up on all of that. The thought I had is, given the known legions are their other military/tactical roles to be filled in the crusade?

Most of the present Legions have their specialization "in couples". Say Blood Angels & World Eaters for assaults and Imperial Fists & Iron Warriors for siege.

 

Those Legions we have that don't have a counterpart could be the missing ones. But as Count says they were all similar like a common army so it's also possible that these two Legions had no time to express themselves...

I feel somewhat comfortable in saying that going by what seemed to be the trend of having two of the same kind the logical conclusion would be that one of the two missing legions was a psyker legion and the other would have been similar to Alpha Legion.

Primarchs come in pairs, but they come in slightly altered ones.

 

Thousand signs are psykers who can fight chaos by using the warp.

A legion of pariahs would be a legion that can fight chaos without using.

 

As the Lion said: "every brother has his equal."

 

The alpha legions "mirror twin"? Dunno

What I gather from the Major Arcana interpretation is one was indeed a psychic legion, possibly even with a primarch who possessed the navigator gene. The other, I kinda want to go with some sort of dashing rogue/space pirate type character, with more of a focus on the spectacle of the fight and the morale of those they fought alongside rather than efficiency. Possibly even pushing the skill in ship to ship combat.
Yeah i could imagine one of the 2 unknown being psykers. My reasoning behind that would be the fact that It provides an equal for the thousand sons and their primarch could have fallen to chaos easier because of similar reasons as Magnus which in turn causes the Emperor to send Russ to kill him which could add to all hate russ has towards psykers thanks to the last pryker primarch turning against the Emperor. Then the Emperor cracks down on Magnus so hard because he doesnt want to see another psyker primarch fall. Please excuse the ramble haha

I've just had an idea, what if Omegon is the 2nd/11th primarch - the counterpart to Alpharius? He somehow escaped the 'purge' or whatever, whilst making everyone think he was dead. He then fled into the galaxy and joined forces with the young Alpharius.

 

Sounds unlikely, I know. :) But what if?

Well it could be and not that unlikely if he wasn't the twin of another one. He would need a completely different character rather than an opposite/parallel one.

 

From Deliverance Lost I remember the passage of Corax discussion with Dorn and reading how he talked about Angron I suspected one of the missing Primarchs was someone like him. Still brutal assault specialist but maybe not insane.

I'd go with the equal and opposites route... lets see what we have (all from memory and my interpretation)

 

Imperial Fists =/= Iron Warriors - Siege defense and attack

Raven Guard =/= Night Lords - Gorilla warfare

Ultramarines =/= Death Guard - Mass infantry combat

Word Bearers =/= Alpha Legion - Hearts and Minds warfare

Emperors Children =/= White Scars - Mobile warfare

Thousand Sons =/= unknown - Psychic warfare

Blood Angels =/= Space Wolves - Close assault

Dark Angels =/= Sons of Horus - Glory boys

Iron Hands =/= Salamanders - More mass combat

World Eaters =/= Unknown - Planetary assault

I'd go with the equal and opposites route... lets see what we have (all from memory and my interpretation)

 

Imperial Fists =/= Iron Warriors - Siege defense and attack

Raven Guard =/= Night Lords - Gorilla warfare

Ultramarines =/= Death Guard - Mass infantry combat

Word Bearers =/= Alpha Legion - Hearts and Minds warfare

Emperors Children =/= White Scars - Mobile warfare

Thousand Sons =/= unknown - Psychic warfare

Blood Angels =/= Space Wolves - Close assault

Dark Angels =/= Sons of Horus - Glory boys

Iron Hands =/= Salamanders - More mass combat

World Eaters =/= Unknown - Planetary assault

 

I'd say it was like -

Imperial Fists =/= Iron Warriors - Siege

White Scars =/= Night Lords - Lightning Warfare?

Ultramarines =/= Word Bearers - Secular and Religious, equally Ultramarines could be compared with Emperor's Children for co ordination.

Death Guard = / = Iron Hands - Stamina, relentless advance through organic resistance and mechanic resistance

Alpha Legion = / Raven Guard -Espionage/sabotage?

Dark Angels = / = Sons of Horus- Spear to the Heart

World Eaters = / = Space Wolves- Controlled Fury/Unleashed fury

Emperor's Children = / = Blood Angels = / = Pride and Humble nobility?

Salamanders = / = Unknown - Empathy?

Thousand Sons = / = Unknown - Psychic Warfare?

 

There's different ways you could group each legion together, there's a practical sense and then there's the mirrored aspects where they fulfill the same role but come at it from different avenues.

 

 

I don't the ones I've suggested are entirely correct, things like Emperor's Children and Blood Angels are me grasping at straws

It might not fit perfectly but it does fit since each Primarch is a Facet of the Emperor and the whole universe is made up of equal and opposites any (positrons - Electrons, Material - Immaterial/Warp) so the precedent is there, yes the Legions and Primarchs can do and fill many rolls but like humans they have something their special at and its the same with real life combat forces (afaik)

It is not as simple a thing as saying that each is the polar opposite of another. For example Spaces Wolves can be put opposite the Word Barers as examples of balanced spirituality and zealots. Ultramarines/Lunar Wolves are the in game examples of Master of all tactics and flexibility. Dark angels and Death Guard are both the unyielding advance regardless of the cost, and at least 6 known legions, Blood Angles, Space Wolves, Night Lords, Raven Guard, White Scars and World Eaters, can lay claim to different aspects of close assault mastery as a Legion. Raven Guard and Alpha Legion both excelled at intelligence gathering. So it is not as simple as seam at first glance.

 

That said that you can make some educated guesses here. Of the 2 the XI primarch is probably the easier of the 2 because the clues dropped in the books so far point to him being the origin of the event in question. So with at in mind and noting what other Legions where censured for here is what I purpose.

XI - advanced tech, especially, augmetics, psy tech, AI, and xenos tech. High Psychic potential but limited control. Geneseed moderately unstable.

Legion traits Combined arms tactics with emphasis on making use of the most advanced weapons available, regardless of its origins. Vehicle heavy battle groups. Use of custom augmetics to enhance abilities including Psy abilities and replace gene damaged components. High incidence of custom alterations to wargear and vehicles. Reverse engineered xenos tech in use.

Relations with Mechanicum strained because of their tinkering and an unwillingness to turn over promising tech for study. Standoffish with other Legions with the possible exceptions of the II and XVII Legions.

 

I don't quite have the II primarch figured out yet.

my take: a chaotic (active) and a loyalist (passive) side to every coin. note how outlook/personality often interchange and every legion/primarch shares some aspect with their counterpart but supress/deny it (magnus and russ).

 

Imperial Fists =/= Iron Warriors - siege warfare: defense/attack

Raven Guard =/= Alpha Legion - guerilla warfare: invisible/diversive

Ultramarines =/= Word Bearers - morale: secular/religious

White Scars =/= Night Lords - fast attack: wrath/terror

Iron Hands =/= Emperors Children - perfection: machine/flesh

Space Wolves =/= Thousand Sons - mutation: body/psyche

Blood Angels =/= World Eaters - close combat: finesse/brutality

Dark Angels =/= Sons of Horus - leadership: dominance/charisma

Salamanders =/= Death Guard - resiliency: stoic/ruthless

Unknown =/= Unknown - ???

 

my guess for the two missing legions would also be a pariah gene. with he first heretic talking of a "broken heart" and "shame", I'd say they either chose to oppose the emperor (maybe having their loyalities elsewhere) or destroyed each other.

or maybe it's nagash and sigmar <_<

Blood Angels/ Emperor's Children -- perfectionists

Dark Angels / Sons of Horus -- prideful - '1st Legion' and 'Legion of the Warmaster'

Imperial Fists / Iron Warriors -- siege specialists

Iron Hands/ World Eaters -- non astartes artificial enhancement

Raven Guard/ Alpha Legion -- infiltration specialists

Salamanders/ Death Guard -- resolute

Space Wolves/ ? -- ?

Ultramarines/ Word Bearers -- empire builders

White Scars/ Night Lords -- fast attack/terror

?/ Thousand Sons -- psychic powers

 

The different replies could suggest that we're trying to shoehorn these attributes but a number of couples do seem to stand out.

I like the idea of the two legions doing each other in, but it appears that the Space Wolves did over one of them. Maybe one of the missing destroyed the other using psykers and then the Wolves were sent in to destroy that one. It would also be why the Wolves were called upon to deal with the Thousand Sons as they had already proven themselves capable of dealing with psychic enemies (with the help of the Silent Sisterhood of course).

my take: a chaotic (active) and a loyalist (passive) side to every coin. note how outlook/personality often interchange and every legion/primarch shares some aspect with their counterpart but supress/deny it (magnus and russ).

 

Imperial Fists =/= Iron Warriors - siege warfare: defense/attack

Raven Guard =/= Alpha Legion - guerilla warfare: invisible/diversive

Ultramarines =/= Word Bearers - morale: secular/religious

White Scars =/= Night Lords - fast attack: wrath/terror

Iron Hands =/= Emperors Children - perfection: machine/flesh

Space Wolves =/= Thousand Sons - mutation: body/psyche

Blood Angels =/= World Eaters - close combat: finesse/brutality

Dark Angels =/= Sons of Horus - leadership: dominance/charisma

Salamanders =/= Death Guard - resiliency: stoic/ruthless

Unknown =/= Unknown - ???

 

my guess for the two missing legions would also be a pariah gene. with he first heretic talking of a "broken heart" and "shame", I'd say they either chose to oppose the emperor (maybe having their loyalities elsewhere) or destroyed each other.

or maybe it's nagash and sigmar :)

 

I arrived second... You have already written the comparison between every "brother" that I have in mind... good points

 

Possible alternatives:

 

Raven Guard vs Night Lords (the two Primarchs are similar but throught a deformed glass/mirror)

Dark Angel vs Alpha Legion (the First against the Last... both Legions have two faces: one known and one in the shadow, only in reversed order)

White Scars vs Luna Wolves (fast hit at the enemy - cutting the head)

 

of the two unknown one was surely a powerful psyker and my guess is that he delved too deep in Necromancy and/or merged with the Necrons.

the second having both the pariah gene and the connection with the Warp, suffered a constant and high mental damage, until he killed himself to end the pain (all the primarchs are psykers but different than a human or astartes they don't have a special zone in the mind, so he cannot destroy it like Atharva in Outcast Dead and stop the pain)

What I gather from the Major Arcana interpretation is one was indeed a psychic legion, possibly even with a primarch who possessed the navigator gene. The other, I kinda want to go with some sort of dashing rogue/space pirate type character, with more of a focus on the spectacle of the fight and the morale of those they fought alongside rather than efficiency. Possibly even pushing the skill in ship to ship combat.

 

I like this idea

 

so one is a bit like The Khan

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.