The best legion (please don't hurt me...) *Hides*

[Excessus]

The Alpha Legion was a very young and ambitious at the time the heresy started. Even though they were the youngest, and their Primarch(s) the least experienced in warfare, they were still rivalling the other legions in strength. If the heresy had not happened, I can't even imagine how the Alphas would have developed.

[GhostMalone]

Hmmm black legion don't have the uniformity and unity that the legions of old had they are all out to better themselves whereas they used to be united and gave their primarchs will form.

 

Without theirprimarch or higher sire to answer to all warbands and chapters don't have that single minded ness

 

The closest we have to a legion are the DA and their successors

[SpecialIssue]

Horus did it when he had the entire Legions united, disciplined and with clear command chains and logistics chains (not to mention all that useful Warp interference from his dark patrons) In 40k, Abaddon is herding a horde of cats.

[Kol Saresk]

The Alpha Legion was a very young and ambitious at the time the heresy started. Even though they were the youngest, and their Primarch(s) the least experienced in warfare, they were still rivalling the other legions in strength. If the heresy had not happened, I can't even imagine how the Alphas would have developed.

To be fair, they were experienced enough to board the Vengeful Spirit and make it to the bridge. Maybe they weren't experienced in Legion Warfare, but they were experienced in general warfare.

[Vesper]

Hmmm black legion don't have the uniformity and unity that the legions of old had they are all out to better themselves whereas they used to be united and gave their primarchs will form.

The kind of unity we witnessed on Istvaan III ? Let's not even involve the Night Lords into this .

Horus did it when he had the entire Legions united, disciplined and with

clear command chains and logistics chains (not to mention all that

useful Warp interference from his dark patrons) In 40k, Abaddon is

herding a horde of cats.

Entire Legions ? Well, I guess the few dudes that followed their Primarchs into heresy, those who weren't butchered by their brothers, those who avoided death for the whole Heresy.

Yeah.

At least Abaddon, Bile, and Khârn made it this far.

And you talk about discipline ? So I guess the World Eaters and the Emperor's Children were actually on the Emperor's side ? Now that's a twist.

[Wade Garrett]

Given that Horus's choices in waging war on the Emperor ended with his soul flayed Iinto nonexistence and all his allies running away to hide in Hell, why would Abaddon want to follow his example?

 

And heathens:

Do you consider the 30K Night Lords, World Eaters, and Alpha Legion "real" Legions?

[Marshal Rohr]

I don't know. ,aye because the Emperor isn't gonna fight Abaddon. Being dead and all.

[GhostMalone]

Discipline towards the legion so scrap the idea of istvaan and take the iron warriors or blood angels

 

They moved heaven and hell and bled in the most destructive battles mankind witnessed to serve their primarchs.

 

The blood angels held the eternity gate against the traitor legion traitor guard titan legions and deamon hordes

 

The iron warriors burnt their home unified and gun downed 3 cousin legions and were tasked with some of the worst warfare theatres imagined

[Kol Saresk]

Given that Horus's choices in waging war on the Emperor ended with his soul flayed Iinto nonexistence and all his allies running away to hide in Hell, why would Abaddon want to follow his example?

 

And heathens:

Do you consider the 30K Night Lords, World Eaters, and Alpha Legion "real" Legions?

Before the Heresy? Yeah. During the Heresy? Maybe the Alpha Legion. After? Well I wouldn't even consider the Ultramarines a Legion after the Heresy. None of the Legions survived the Heresy. In a way, Istvaan III and V were a deathblow to all, signalling the end of an Age and the beginning of the Imperium's death throes in which the whole of Humanity would be consumed.

[GhostMalone]

Given that Horus's choices in waging war on the Emperor ended with his soul flayed Iinto nonexistence and all his allies running away to hide in Hell, why would Abaddon want to follow his example?

 

And heathens:

Do you consider the 30K Night Lords, World Eaters, and Alpha Legion "real" Legions?

The legions don't exist anymore, they are all splintered warbands with the exception of the AL because no one :cussing knows what they are doing

[Russ Brother 92]

I've read all and will wager my 2-peneth - I'd vote for the Iron Warriors - these guys are still the only ones who in a united (okay different warbands but still Iron Within Iron Without) credo fight the Long War - I know the Black Legion have been mentioned and I don't dispute their prowess in the context of both Abaddon (plus his 'Old Guard') and the fact the the Imperium of 'his' universe is very much a broken beast in comparison to that of his youth when walking besides Herr Horus...

[A D-B]

I never said that the Black Legion were weak. I never said they were small. I never said that they weren't a threat. I never said any of the other things everybody is putting in my mouth.

 

I know they are deadly, monsterous in size, with allies that range from Traitor Titans, to the Dark Mechanicus, to every broken host that wears power armour, to the entirety of the daemon hosts, to the Dark Gods themselves. They will most likely stand atop the ruins of Terra, dancing on the Emperor's corpse.

 

But they are not a Legion. They are legion, but not a Legion.

 

That's what I'm disagreeing with, though. 

 

The Black Legion suffers from everything that every warband suffers from, and has the same difficulties organising en masse, etc. Just like every other faction in the Eye of Terror, it's diluted down to the local/regional/personal level.

 

But they're not just the Sons of Horus renamed and repainted. They're not just like the other Chaos Legions. Because their leadership is, ultimately, the thematic Antichrist of 40K: the one and only warlord in creation actually capable of invading the Imperium on the necessary scale to win. He's still mortal, the Daemon Primarchs aren't. He's gathered the armies of Hell which no one else can do, while the Daemon Primarchs are lost to the vicissitudes of the Great Game. The Black Legion is so strong because, when it comes to the crunch, they have a unity that no other Legion can claim on the same scale. They have a vision, and they're united in it. They're not broken, or a remnant of what came before. They're something new that rose after the Legions were broken apart as failed concepts. They're not just legion. They are a Legion. That's their main deal. It's one of the major things that marks them out as exceptional. They're not one of the Legions of the Great Crusade, now changed or warped or repainted. They're made up from the best and worst of every Legion, casting aside their former allegiances to join something bigger and grander. They're the only Legion of the Long War. 

[Komrk]

 

IIRC, Corax and the Khan backed Guilliman on the Codex issue.

I can't see either of those two forcefully arguing for the strategic straitjacket the Codex's detractors claim it is.

Would it be more right to consider their agreement to be more in line with the splitting of the Legions rather than the Codex's strategic and tactical... suggestions?

Corax was against splitting the Raven Guard because there were so few left of them anyway, he ended up backing the Codex in order to prevent another civil war.

[Wade Garrett]

I don't know. ,aye because the Emperor isn't gonna fight Abaddon. Being dead and all.

Even if Horus won the sword fight on Vengeful Spirit, he'd still have had his forces stuck between the defenses of Terra (I doubt the Khan, Valdor, Sigismund, and Amit would throw the gates open just because the Emperor was beaten) and the inbound Ultramarines, Dark Angels, and Space Wolves.

 

The Siege was Horus betting everything on a single knockout punch, and it failed miserably.

 

Abaddon's game is to slowly wear the Imperium down with a multitude of small punches, blows that might seem like nothing in and off themselves, but add up over time.

 

Thus ten thousand years of preparation instead of "Point the Spirit's nose at Terra and hit the gas! YEEEEAAAAH!"

[depthcharge12]

 

I don't know. ,aye because the Emperor isn't gonna fight Abaddon. Being dead and all.

Even if Horus won the sword fight on Vengeful Spirit, he'd still have had his forces stuck between the defenses of Terra (I doubt the Khan, Valdor, Sigismund, and Amit would throw the gates open just because the Emperor was beaten) and the inbound Ultramarines, Dark Angels, and Space Wolves.

The Siege was Horus betting everything on a single knockout punch, and it failed miserably.

Abaddon's game is to slowly wear the Imperium down with a multitude of small punches, blows that might seem like nothing in and off themselves, but add up over time.

Thus ten thousand years of preparation instead of "Point the Spirit's nose at Terra and hit the gas! YEEEEAAAAH!"

 

 

Those who haven't read history are doomed to repeat it.

 

 

And Abbadon needs to do a lot of reading.

 

 

How bout that Eliphas guy? :P

[Marshal Rohr]

We'll have to wait for the books about it come out to see the scale of the devastation inTerra at the time of the duel.

[depthcharge12]

We'll have to wait for the books about it come out to see the scale of the devastation inTerra at the time of the duel.

 

 

 

I really just want to find out what happens to Arik Tarranis

[A D-B]

I don't know. ,aye because the Emperor isn't gonna fight Abaddon. Being dead and all.

Even if Horus won the sword fight on Vengeful Spirit, he'd still have had his forces stuck between the defenses of Terra (I doubt the Khan, Valdor, Sigismund, and Amit would throw the gates open just because the Emperor was beaten) and the inbound Ultramarines, Dark Angels, and Space Wolves.

The Siege was Horus betting everything on a single knockout punch, and it failed miserably.

Abaddon's game is to slowly wear the Imperium down with a multitude of small punches, blows that might seem like nothing in and off themselves, but add up over time.

Thus ten thousand years of preparation instead of "Point the Spirit's nose at Terra and hit the gas! YEEEEAAAAH!"

Those who haven't read history are doomed to repeat it.

And Abbadon needs to do a lot of reading.

How bout that Eliphas guy?

That's not really fair. I mean, the archenemy of Mankind in the 40K is setting is Chaos. And it's not a setting about hope and victory, it's a setting about humanity's last gasp, where the Imperium is a byzantine, crumbling, decadent institution raging against the dying of the light. As much as anything regarding the "end" of 40K is conjecture, anyone who wants to put the smart money down will likely slap it on "Abaddon will probably kill the Imperium, then the tyranids will probably eventually kill the galaxy."

Failbaddon meme aside, the point of Abaddon as a character and a narrative element is that he's Chaos's best chance to win. Horus was duped, Abaddon has resisted being used. Horus had Chaos's favour; Abaddon bears the Mark of Chaos Ascendant. The very point behind Abaddon is that he's doing it right. He's not Horus's lesser reflection. He's the one destined to actually pull the trigger, when Horus realised at the very end he'd been tricked into holding the gun.

[Kol Saresk]

 

 

I never said that the Black Legion were weak. I never said they were small. I never said that they weren't a threat. I never said any of the other things everybody is putting in my mouth.

 

I know they are deadly, monsterous in size, with allies that range from Traitor Titans, to the Dark Mechanicus, to every broken host that wears power armour, to the entirety of the daemon hosts, to the Dark Gods themselves. They will most likely stand atop the ruins of Terra, dancing on the Emperor's corpse.

 

But they are not a Legion. They are legion, but not a Legion.

That's what I'm disagreeing with, though.

 

The Black Legion suffers from everything that every warband suffers from, and has the same difficulties organising en masse, etc. Just like every other faction in the Eye of Terror, it's diluted down to the local/regional/personal level.

 

But they're not just the Sons of Horus renamed and repainted. They're not just like the other Chaos Legions. Because their leadership is, ultimately, the thematic Antichrist of 40K: the one and only warlord in creation actually capable of invading the Imperium on the necessary scale to win. He's still mortal, the Daemon Primarchs aren't. He's gathered the armies of Hell which no one else can do, while the Daemon Primarchs are lost to the vicissitudes of the Great Game. The Black Legion is so strong because, when it comes to the crunch, they have a unity that no other Legion can claim on the same scale. They have a vision, and they're united in it. They're not broken, or a remnant of what came before. They're something new that rose after the Legions were broken apart as failed concepts. They're not just legion. They are a Legion. That's their main deal. It's one of the major things that marks them out as exceptional. They're not one of the Legions of the Great Crusade, now changed or warped or repainted. They're made up from the best and worst of every Legion, casting aside their former allegiances to join something bigger and grander. They're the only Legion of the Long War.

So..... The Legions 2.0?

[Wade Garrett]

We'll have to wait for the books about it come out to see the scale of the devastation inTerra at the time of the duel.

Fair point.

 

Side stepping to another topic for a second, I brought up the 30K World Eaters and Night Lords as a comparison to the Black Legion for a reason.

 

In the case of the XII, they were very willing to kill one another in the pit fights and had a singular lack of leadership at the top.

 

The VIII's Primarch hated them and they were willing to kill each other in duels...and on the battlefield. In the showers. While grabbing lunch. Pretty much anywhere.

 

And the Alphas took lack of brotherhood to the point of every single Alpha Legionary simultaneously conspiring against every other Alpha Legionary.

 

I'd say the modern Black Legion is positively brimming with trust and comradely good fellowship compared to the Heresy era versions of the VIII, XII, and XX.

[A D-B]

 

 

 

I never said that the Black Legion were weak. I never said they were small. I never said that they weren't a threat. I never said any of the other things everybody is putting in my mouth.

 

I know they are deadly, monsterous in size, with allies that range from Traitor Titans, to the Dark Mechanicus, to every broken host that wears power armour, to the entirety of the daemon hosts, to the Dark Gods themselves. They will most likely stand atop the ruins of Terra, dancing on the Emperor's corpse.

 

But they are not a Legion. They are legion, but not a Legion.

That's what I'm disagreeing with, though.

 

The Black Legion suffers from everything that every warband suffers from, and has the same difficulties organising en masse, etc. Just like every other faction in the Eye of Terror, it's diluted down to the local/regional/personal level.

 

But they're not just the Sons of Horus renamed and repainted. They're not just like the other Chaos Legions. Because their leadership is, ultimately, the thematic Antichrist of 40K: the one and only warlord in creation actually capable of invading the Imperium on the necessary scale to win. He's still mortal, the Daemon Primarchs aren't. He's gathered the armies of Hell which no one else can do, while the Daemon Primarchs are lost to the vicissitudes of the Great Game. The Black Legion is so strong because, when it comes to the crunch, they have a unity that no other Legion can claim on the same scale. They have a vision, and they're united in it. They're not broken, or a remnant of what came before. They're something new that rose after the Legions were broken apart as failed concepts. They're not just legion. They are a Legion. That's their main deal. It's one of the major things that marks them out as exceptional. They're not one of the Legions of the Great Crusade, now changed or warped or repainted. They're made up from the best and worst of every Legion, casting aside their former allegiances to join something bigger and grander. They're the only Legion of the Long War.

So..... The Legions 2.0?

 

I like that analogy. I hesitate to say anything's "better", as just because something has more military might or a different culture doesn't objectively make it "better". But in this case, the Black Legion is pretty much the Chaos Marines' success story.

 

The biggest mistake anyone makes with Chaos Marines is assuming the Black Legion are vanilla, the way the Ultramarines are vanilla. I'm not a fan of that expression anyway, but it fits the Ultramarines in the sense that they're the exemplars of the Space Marine ideal; they embody the core of its concept - which, incidentally, is one of the reasons I love them. The Black Legion are the best, worst, and everything else of not just every Legion, but every Space Marine that ever rebelled against the Imperium. They're vanguard of the Armies of the Damned. They're the ones that want the Imperium to burn. Warbands from the other Legions may want the same, but not to the point where they're organised enough (or possess leaders capable enough) to make it happen. The Black Legion does. They even lead the other Legions out of the Eye on the Black Crusades. 

 

Of course, to answer the thread's actual title, the "best" Legion is the Blood Angels. Not for any real reason. Just because the old Blood Angel Orange was the best Citadel colour ever made.

[SpecialIssue]

Entire Legions ? Well, I guess the few dudes that followed their Primarchs into heresy, those who weren't butchered by their brothers, those who avoided death for the whole Heresy.
Yeah.
At least Abaddon, Bile, and Khârn made it this far.
And you talk about discipline ? So I guess the World Eaters and the Emperor's Children were actually on the Emperor's side ? Now that's a twist.

By discipline, i mean actually maintaining a relatively centralised command chain and collective goal (well, at least in the early stages, long enough for them to get to Terra). Primarily, in the form of the Primarchs. Especially for the two Legions mentioned, only the authority of their Primarchs could hold them together once they had started to shed their sanity and military professionalism.

I think what marks out the Black Legion is their purity of purpose - revenge and spite for the Imperium. It gives them the unity and discipline the Legions once had, and the Purpose is in large part propagated by Abaddon, and kept pure by him. This purpose allows what would have started out as a warband indistinguishable from any other to stay together when so many others have fragmented, to preserve a modicum of professionalism and objectivity in waging war (maintaining command effectiveness and endurance in sustained open conflict), and thus weld the insanity of Chaos with their own rational, yet dark-hearted needs without destroying themselves.

Edit: essentially, what ADB just said above. Also, in pure military effectiveness, I remember reading something that goes; the inexperienced talk tactics, while the informed talk logistics.

In industrialised warfare it is a firmer bet on the mountains of steel and blood provided by firm supply chains and coherent organisation structure, than the mental spark of a tactical genius So I will go for Robby G's Legion as being most effective

[Kais Klip]

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't know. ,aye because the Emperor isn't gonna fight Abaddon. Being dead and all.

 

Even if Horus won the sword fight on Vengeful Spirit, he'd still have had his forces stuck between the defenses of Terra (I doubt the Khan, Valdor, Sigismund, and Amit would throw the gates open just because the Emperor was beaten) and the inbound Ultramarines, Dark Angels, and Space Wolves.

The Siege was Horus betting everything on a single knockout punch, and it failed miserably.

Abaddon's game is to slowly wear the Imperium down with a multitude of small punches, blows that might seem like nothing in and off themselves, but add up over time.

Thus ten thousand years of preparation instead of "Point the Spirit's nose at Terra and hit the gas! YEEEEAAAAH!"

Those who haven't read history are doomed to repeat it.

And Abbadon needs to do a lot of reading.

How bout that Eliphas guy? :P

 

As much as anything regarding the "end" of 40K is conjecture, anyone who wants to put the smart money down will likely slap it on "Abaddon will probably kill the Imperium, then the tyranids will probably eventually kill the galaxy"

And that is what will make me buy books set in the 41st millenium again. But shhh, maybe if we only whisper it the dream that is RO- I mean, at least real-time plot advancement, may come true one day. I know I know, I'm just raging along with my favourite galactic establishment.

 

On a more encouraging note, the point about the Black Legion being vanilla is contrary to what my perception of it was, although it might be due to a lack of recent reading as aforementioned. Either way, I'm looking forward for Talon if this is the line it'll take, but then again I am the guy that expected Unremembered Empire to be a political intrigue piece.

[Kol Saresk]

Of course, to answer the thread's actual title, the "best" Legion is the Blood Angels. Not for any real reason. Just because the old Blood Angel Orange was the best Citadel colour ever made.

There you go folks! The Space Marines that killed a little girl are the best! Wait, shouldn't that be the Night Lords then?

Note: This is no way official or an attempt to put words in the mouth of AD-B nor is it a serious attempt to twist his words. It is a joke.

[Hyaenidae]

*Shakes head* I'm not gonna argue with the guy who is literally re-writing the Black Legion as we speak, and who has breathed life into the World Eaters and Night Lords, the two forces I used to see as the most bland cultures ever (and for that, you have my upmost respect). I'll just sit around and wait for you to prove me wrong. Again.

 

 

Just.... stop killing all my favorite characters, alright? Mercutian, Aquilion, Lhorke, Argel Tal.... enough already.  :P