Which legion counters the Alpha Legion?

[Excessus]

I'm getting the impression that the AL are better than everyone else. Other legions only have a chance when the AL chooses to "toy with its prey"

 

I mean really...people like this idea 

 

Long Games at Carcharias and Ghorstangrad are totally awesome and realistic...but when then UM win a few battles "OMG those Mary Sues!" 

 

OK lads...

AL aren't better than everybody else, who here says that? For 10,000 years, only two recruiting planets have fallen to chaos? Only two chapters destroyed by chaos? No, I don't think so! The stories are told since they bring flavour to a legion, not because they are superduperawesome and nobody is better than them.

 

Heck, even a corrupted mortal cleric managed to destroy a crapton of chapters by sending them on a crusade to the eye...and he was a darn mortal! I don't hear anyone saying that clerics are mary sues now do I...

 

 

I get so tired of trying to defend my poor, beloved, abused Alphas...

[Greyall]

They share a bit of the Ultramarine's plight: they're good planners and good executioners, so a lot of what they do comes out right, since Alpha plans are sturdier when in contact with reality.

 

That's true for real life, so indeed they shouldn't take any flak. Losing because you overextended your control of the situation is a pretty big flaw.

[RapatoR]

I'm getting the impression that the AL are better than everyone else. Other legions only have a chance when the AL chooses to "toy with its prey"

 

No. Just no. Dude read what I said. Any legion can defeat by Alpha Legion. Period.

 

Also why would anyone call UM Sues? I think you are building pretty big strawman here.

 

[Captain Juan Juarez]

I think you are building pretty big strawman here.

 

 

Can we put some heretics in it and burn them!?

[Tenebris]

The Alpha Legion is as all other astartes legions very capable in almost every field of war. Their talent lies in unconventional warfare, in asymmetric warfare but this does not mean that they cannot be skilled in other fields. It is the nature of the Alpha Legion to be all incorporating. For example, the Death Guard has its biological warfare specialists, guess what, the Alpha Legion observed that, copied that and created an Alpha Legion version of this unit. 

 

The core concept of the Alpha Legion is that they are a sort of special operations legion, they were tasked where subtlety, finesse and restraint was required, where minimum collateral damage was demanded or where a grain of salt would be expected. This does not mean that they lacked frontline troops but that most of their operations was of a more detailed nature, very demanding and which required a certain mindset.

 

Does this "special operations" status make them good, or even the best? No, but it validates their mindset, their organization and their command chain. I agree, some of the latest HH novels portray the Alpha Legion as an especially deadly foe, a counterpoint to the directness of the other traitor legions, but people jump to such descriptions with perhaps too much zeal. The Alpha Legion is the scalpel of the Traitor Legions, to them fall those tasks which are usually beneath the more honourable or direct legions, those tasks which require logic as well as coordination, or those tasks which require vast degrees of autonomy. 

 

When you read the Scars a person might understand the Alpha Legion as a showy force, as special operations, as super elites, but that is not the case. The Warmaster sent the Alpha Legion to do those tasks usually considered beneath the other traitor legions, namely the deception of the White Scars fleet, surgical strikes on the Space Wolves or in the case of the Unremembered Empire, assassinations and spying. For all intents and purposes in the eyes of the traitor legions the Alpha Legion is considered the underdog, a legion which is not worthy of honour and glory and thus it is given those less savoury tasks. But Horus knows different, he knows the virtues of the Alpha Legion and he uses them accordingly to the capacity of the XXth legion.

 

Even the loyalist legions have a very bad opinion of the Alpha Legion. To them the XXth are skulkers, assassins, rogues, they are beneath the codes of honour and thus more often than not underestimate the Alpha Legion. 

 

But we know different, the Alpha Legion simply are soldiers, they fight clinically, methodically and are disciplined and ruthless. Of all the traitor legions the Alpha Legion is the only one to have soldiers, the other have warriors. See the difference. Why they are considered the best (which is not the case)?

 

The Alpha Legion is an atypical traitor legion. Where on one side you have warrior cultures who prize skill at arms, personal glory, unbound loyalty to a chieftain of sorts, where you have marines who display tribal markings and are somehow barbarous in look and intent, the Alpha Legion on the other side are simply soldiers. Not for them the fetishes of the faith in dark gods, rituals and honours and glory, the Alpha Legion fights and thinks as a soldier does.

 

The only legion with a similar forma mentis of the traitor legions are the Iron Warriors and there is no wonder here why the Warmaster considers them the most reliable of the forces at his disposal. The only thing at this moment is that Horus is still not sure why the Alpha Legion sided with him, that is all there is, so he puts them constantly to test. 

 

All in all when a reader is used to the poor portrayal of a traitor legionnaire as a barbarian in power armour or a fanatical zealot of sorts, a hedonist or a death-monger, it is only understandable that when a reader is presented with a traitor legionnaire which is a more soldiery type, an operative or simply a smart fighter unbound by dogmas of faith, honour or idolatry, well the step to credit the Alpha Legion as the best, is not that far...

 

Yet we should not be mired in this assumption. The Alpha Legion are indeed good, they get things done, they are incredibly disciplined (especially when you compare them to the rout that are the other traitor legions) and they are very cost efficient fighters. But the same can be said for the Iron Warriors. Both legions are the unsung heroes of the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy. 

 

So the best? No, but effective indeed. A rare trait among the traitor legions once the corruption of chaos begun sipping in. 

[Sevatar]

Good assessment. I also think the Iron Hands, to an extent are like that. Very methodical, efficient fighters.

[Daemon2027]

B1soul, generally the Alpha Legion have been used in the past as the moustached bad guy, such as in Dawn of War and Hunt for Voldaris, so its nice to see them getting some love and being turned into the legion they were intended to be. The insidious hydra, whose bite is everywhere.

 

Anyway this thread has given me a wonderful idea!

[Kais Klip]

The core concept of the Alpha Legion is that they are a sort of special operations legion, they were tasked where subtlety, finesse and restraint was required, where minimum collateral damage was demanded or where a grain of salt would be expected. This does not mean that they lacked frontline troops but that most of their operations was of a more detailed nature, very demanding and which required a certain mindset.

 

And yet even in years prior to the Legion fully bowing to its superiority complex, it's campaigns or rather 'operations' left worlds crippled by famine, pestilence and ruin. What the World Eater's did with axes the Alpha Legion did with bombs and sabotage, but where the World Eaters reaved everything without the Alpha Legion cored out and left everything hollow within for no cause but a tactical exercise to pass the time and stroke their hubris. 

 

All in all when a reader is used to the poor portrayal of a traitor legionnaire as a barbarian in power armour or a fanatical zealot of sorts, a hedonist or a death-monger, it is only understandable that when a reader is presented with a traitor legionnaire which is a more soldiery type, an operative or simply a smart fighter unbound by dogmas of faith, honour or idolatry, well the step to credit the Alpha Legion as the best, is not that far...

 

Yet we should not be mired in this assumption. The Alpha Legion are indeed good, they get things done, they are incredibly disciplined (especially when you compare them to the rout that are the other traitor legions) and they are very cost efficient fighters. But the same can be said for the Iron Warriors. Both legions are the unsung heroes of the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy. 

 

So the best? No, but effective indeed. A rare trait among the traitor legions once the corruption of chaos begun sipping in. 

 

Yes, the singular legionnaire may well display discipline and other positive soldierly attributes you would associate with the Ultramarines, but their method of tasking left something to be desired. The force you speak of is the Raven Guard (the allies Horus wished for), and to a smaller extent the Night Lords, much less the Alpha Legion; it is not just that the Legion purposefully dragged its heels in an effort to compromise the Warmaster's war effort a la Tenebris Station, but that it continued to display almost childish behaviour of rebellion against authority in the operations it undertook. Take the Paramar effort for example, abandoned without so much as a consolidation of ground once victory was won, alongside a retort of "The devil is not mocked." in reply to Horus' demands for explanation. 

 

The Alpha Legion is the deadliest killer of all; a virus, spreading and rooting itself within the host for a death spread out across weeks if not months. But where the axeman's swift blow can be predicted, controlled or directed, the virus infects your men just as surely as it infects the enemy, leaving you with no choice but to let it the disease carry out its course and take mind not to treat too closely to the cadaver, all the time wishing for your shadow forces to have a more tangible spear thrust. 

[RapatoR]

*snip

I disagree with some points. Word Bearers, although being heavily corrupted by chaos, are apparently able to beat Alpha Legion in their own field. There are conflicting cults of WB and AL all over the Imperium and if AL would be better in this game there would be no WB cults. Also Cypher, several Inqusitors, Blood Ravens (not even counting DoW lore), Dark Angels, Raven Guard, White Scars, Novamarines, Space Wolves (in Wolf's Claw and Vengeful Spirit) and many others were able to outtroll Alpha Legion and/or beat them in conventional warfare.

[FleshTearer5000]

The legion comparisons can differ completely depending on whether it's a debate of skill or lore. Example being the Dark Angels and Night Lordss having justifiable rivalry but that could be countered with the Vulcan/Curze rivalry. Or as someone suggested above Raven Guard/Night Lords based on tactics. So many variables...for Alpha counter I think it has to come down to who is the most sneaky sneaky.

[Greyall]

No one is as sneaky sneaky...really, the only scheming way I can see of beating the Alphas is to prod them into going overboard with their schemes, using feints and making them believe their plans are working at every step so they get the twirly moustache virus.

 

Word Bearers have massive assets and their own network, but their fanaticism might put them at a disadvantage against the Alphas' pragmatism and detachment. Not having gods/family/ties is a major boon in a war.