++ The Harrowing - An Alpha Legion Community ++

[hushrong]

Well, that and baiting.

 

This is one of those cases where I wished there was more than just a snippet of fluff.

[Panzer]

The whole snippet is supposed to indicate that the Primaris apparently aren't the solution to the Red Thirst as previously thought. If it were goading/baiting/whatever from the Alpha Legion it would defy that purpose.

Not saying Alpha Legion wouldn't be able to do something like that (maybe) but the intend of that snippet is pretty clear in light of the Blood Angels and the recent fluff developments with the Primaris imo.

[hushrong]

The whole snippet is supposed to indicate that the Primaris apparently aren't the solution to the Red Thirst as previously thought.

Yes, I read the snippet including the last three sentences.

 

If it were goading/baiting/whatever from the Alpha Legion it would defy that purpose.

"Yet the Alpha Legionnaires draw out the fight, baiting their enemies and striking to wound and goad the Primaris Blood Angels wherever possible."

 

This tells me that they didn't cut and run. The AL dragged out the fight with the primaris and it sounds like they were testing them. I'm not sure about the timeline when this happens since I don't have a BA codex but I remember in DI and Shroud of Night some forces of chaos have yet to fight primaris. They're still new and unknown and the AL (or one of its many warbands/cells) being what they are probably took the time to see how these big marines fought. That old nugget of knowledge of Know Thy Enemy.

 

Since these were BA they were fighting the loyalists couldn't keep the rage in check, went nanners, and started ripping their enemies apart.

 

Which leads me back to my original thought. What can one do to goad/provoke/annoy an astartes in battle? Again, my thoughts are that these ascended humans would not fall for petty provocation. There is an enemy to fight so kill him and move on to the next. I joked about World Eaters but those guys have some mental instability upgrades. And sure, many of the traitor forces are unhinged, but how do you poke the bear so to speak with a Loyalist marine? That is merely why I wish there was a bit more detail because I just find a topic like that interesting. 

 

They're super human but that human core just makes them more interesting on top of all those extra organs and strong bones.

[Excessus]

Heck, if anyone could annoy loyalists it would be Alpha Legion. :D

 

I bet they were taking samples at the same time, blood, sweat and geneseed... ;)

[Trevak Dal]

I originally red "Astrogranite" as "Astroglide" and I was a bit confused.

Realtalk, KY Jelly and other water based lubes can be easier to clean up when using as lube when sculpting greenstuff (compared to Vaseline).

[slitth]

I would expect that the chant of "Your Primarch was a mutant" would be really annoying after a few hours.

Followed by "Sanguinius and the Emperor sitting in a tree..."

[hushrong]

XX Legion: They are second to none. There are no masters above them and their is no tactic beneath them. Deceit, deception, and confusion are their currency. Death from the shadows their trade. Victory against all odds their art. Masters of the underhanded, lords over truth & lies, and purveyors of the sick burns & the infamous Yo Mama  Primarch jokes.

 

Yo Primarch so unlucky...

 

How unlucky was he?!

 

He rolled ones on his saves against Horus!

 

[Dizzyeye01]

The Alpha Legion just do what they do best; keep wrong footing the enemy, run them into traps, make them think they have the upper hand then pull the rug from under them and pass them a primed grenade as they fall and see their reaction. Soon enough that'll get under anyones' skins and show their weaknesses.

 

In Shroud of Darkness the AL have been stranded on a daemon world to my knowledge so have no idea of the current situation inc Primaris so when they do bump into a squad of five they are surprised by their strength etc. It does illustrate that (like everything else in 40k) that some groups are still years behind in terms of current info. That small snippet is just one example of a AL cell giving the Primaris tests in the battlefield which is why I will always have a soft spot for them. Even in the present setting they operate as they always have; by improvising, adapting and using all of their tools in their disposal depending on the rules they set themselves.

[Lucerne]

So with Sons of the Hydra, we got an inside look at the 40k Alpha Legion's possible state.

 

One of the main warlords of the eastern fringe/near the malestrom is an Alpha Legion Lord with an obsession with wiping out Ultramarine successor chapters and has done so to four as of the start of the novel (He's the one who pulled the chapter ending stunt in the "Long Games" short story) by gathering other warbands to cooperate, along with assorted catspaws. The AL seems to basically be a way of warfare/mentality as much as a Legion proper and this guy's noted as obsessive and very practiced at what he does- earning the name "Angelbane".

 

The MC and his AL are actually all renegades who adopted the AL's way of war (with the zeal of converts) and who mostly think they're doing the Emperor's work- Occam himself is fanatically faithful in an Istvaanian Inquisitor style way, but even the Word Bearers in the novel don't buy what he's selling. Occam's warband's main party trick is to use scaled armor that changes color, coupled with their sorceror doing psyker tricks to sell the illusion- and it does go wrong several times.

 

The splinter warband's "loyalty to the Emperor" intentionally comes over as perverse given that they basically cull those they see as "weak" in the Imperium, including three Chapters of luckless ultramarine successors- the results are basically indistiguishable from those of Chaos Space Marines even if the means are much less Warp-based.

 

The novel finally shows us what a "loyalist" Alpha Legion might look like in 40k- a ragtag band of competent, cold blooded murderers that make unreliable allies. Despite not being Alpha Legion by geneseed, they very much believe in Alpharius's philosophy that "war is the galaxy's hygiene..." and that comes over as this warband being made of renegade Marines believing they're doing the Emperor's work while basically being Istvaanians with bolters rubbing shoulders with proper Chaos Marines.

 

"He will deliver the promised empire – a dominion humanity can be proud to call its own – but for such an Imperium to exist, both the tainted meat of the body Imperial and the useless fat must be cut away. The weak and faithful of the galaxy are just as much an impediment to such an outcome as the powerful and traitorous.’"

 

I imagine a lot of traitor warbands- though not the Alpha Legion warlord who was giving them orders- would be quite amused by the Redacted and Occam, because their mentality doesn't actually stop them from doing exactly the same thing as Chaos worshippers in effect. Just in this novel alone, the Redacted have the blood of three Chapters of loyalists on their hands, try and set up a false crusade for their own ends, offer Word Bearers a chance to corrupt most of said crusade in exchange for their own survival and the cream of the crop, set loose a greater daemon on a shrine world, actually led the surviving word bearers in slaughtering the ecclesiarchy of several other worlds out of spite...

 

And these are the "loyalist" Alpha Legion. Like Istvaanians, their professed loyalties might follow internal logic but to any outside observer, it'd come over as sheer, deranged madness that serves the ends of the dark gods.

 

Even the Word Bearer calls him out on it:

‘You are a twisted serpent, Occam the Untrue – proud and full of faith. We see, however, that you have finally made your pact with the darkness. That upon your order you unleashed the dread fury of the daemon storm.’

The Dark Apostle had listened to Occam’s final order: the order that had damned his ship and brought forth daemonic vengeance upon Quetzel Carthach and his Sons of the Hydra.

‘To utilise the power of the storm is not to become one with it,’ Occam told the Dark Apostle.

 

Cells that may well have completely different mentalities and degrees of contempt for each other but are brought together by common goals- and the Alpha Legion less as a bloodline or chain of command (hell, we see what some of their "high command" really is in this novel and it's somewhat fitting that there isn't a warrior-king on a throne to reunite the legion) but as a mentality.

 

The Alpha Legion is a philosophy, a style of war, and a legacy of a Legion that split itself into countless fragments. There isn't any one leader to be corrupted, or any one battle that can destroy its ability to wage war, because as long as one cell is familiar with its philosophies of warfare, as long as one group of Marines wears blue-green armor and a hydra on their shoulder, the Alpha Legion is still in existence.

 

This novel basically gives us one interpretation of the state of the Legion in 40k. Countless cells and warbands each following their interpretation of Alpharius's ways- some corrupted/influenced by the warp, some not, but all influenced by the methodology of that Legion. And the results are lethal- the Angelsbane and the warbands under him systemically wiped out the four Chapters charged with guarding the Malestrom by taking advantage of existing losses and tipping the scales when each of these chapters was already weakened then actively encouraging further losses before covertly wiping out the remainder of each chapter. The Marines Mordant were actively played by the Alpha Legion sending a false distress call from the Chapter they'd just finished wiping out to weaken them further. Sanders may not have done a great job with the character writing in this novel but he's still good at depicting how the Alpha Legion campaigns against loyalist chapters would work. Whittle them down without being caught, and then sucker punch the last of them when they're weakened.

 

The Legion is one of ruthless, precise planning and victory through weakening a foe they understand quite well. They're uninterested in appeasing gods- they have the same cold pragmatism of the Night Lords, married to appalling hubris that extends to those who have the mentality to wear the colours- but at the same time, there's a certain tendency towards grandstanding paired with unorthodox or excessive- if planned- solutions to problems.

 

Of course the whole bunch of AL in this novel- hundreds of them from different warbands, plenty of which are corrupted madmen, and a second subfaction of more "operator" AL taking orders from a disguised Deceiver shard in a Warp nullzone almost all end up dead, so that loose end tied itself up but it's definitely an interesting look into the Legion even if the character writing is less than gripping.

[micahwc]

I'm going to focus some more on chaos for a while now that I've got my Astra Militarum army up and running. I've got a Betrayal at Calth set on the way to me which will be painted Alpha Legion and used either as loyalists or traitors depending on mood.

 

I plan on utilizing the Renegades and Heretics list to add Leman Russ tanks, it's only a small HQ tax to bring them in a Heavy Support slot. The 40k Designer's Commentary "What Datasheet Rules Should I Use?" chart implies I can bring Russ Tanks from the Astra Militarum codex, with the new grinding advance and objective secured if brought in a Spearhead detachment.

 

My newest list will look something like

 

Spearhead Detachment

Renegade Commander, 4x Leman Russ tanks (2 gatling cannons, 2 plasma cannons)

 

Batallion

2x Chaos Lords

3x Chaos marine squads (5 marines, plasma, combi-plasma)

 

Spearhead Detachment

Chaos Lord in terminator armor, chain fist, combi-bolter

5x Chaos Terminators, Power fists, Combi-Bolters

2x5 Havoks with 4x plasma, combi-plasma

7x Havoks with 4x missile launchers

[hushrong]

So with Sons of the Hydra, we got an inside look at the 40k Alpha Legion's possible state.

I glanced at the spoiler and I do not think I have gotten as far as you. What I have read thus far has been entertaining and I like how the Redacted/Sons of the Hydra operate.

 

I'm going to focus some more on chaos for a while now that I've got my Astra Militarum army up and running. I've got a Betrayal at Calth set on the way to me which will be painted Alpha Legion and used either as loyalists or traitors depending on mood.

 

I plan on utilizing the Renegades and Heretics list to add Leman Russ tanks, it's only a small HQ tax to bring them in a Heavy Support slot. The 40k Designer's Commentary "What Datasheet Rules Should I Use?" chart implies I can bring Russ Tanks from the Astra Militarum codex, with the new grinding advance and objective secured if brought in a Spearhead detachment.

 

My newest list will look something like

 

Spearhead Detachment

Renegade Commander, 4x Leman Russ tanks (2 gatling cannons, 2 plasma cannons)

 

Batallion

2x Chaos Lords

3x Chaos marine squads (5 marines, plasma, combi-plasma)

 

Spearhead Detachment

Chaos Lord in terminator armor, chain fist, combi-bolter

5x Chaos Terminators, Power fists, Combi-Bolters

2x5 Havoks with 4x plasma, combi-plasma

7x Havoks with 4x missile launchers

I do not know much about using renegades. That does look fun though. LR's have become a pain in my rear as of late with my bud's catachan army.

[micahwc]

25 points for a Renegade Commander gives you access to the basic Leman Russ tanks in the Astra Militarum codex. The Renegade Commander is basically useless, but the tanks are really nice to have.

 

My first real taste of how nice Leman Russ tanks can be happened in a game where I played Astra Militarum against Blood Angels. The enemy Baal Predators had many less shots than my Punishers, and my punishers had higher toughness, which I hadn't realized before.

[micahwc]

I've got a game lined up for Thursday night. I'm pretty happy with my list, which I posted in the list section. I will be fielding 4 Leman Russ tanks, a bunch of Havoks, and some Terminators. This will be the first time I use Terminators in a game for Chaos.

[hushrong]

I honestly like the russ a bit better than our tank. I just think they are a true tank while our predators are more like an IFV with turrets tacked on (basically, imagine a stryker/rhino but now you want it killing armor too).  Very interested in seeing how they perform for you. Also, where are the rules for renegades? One of the FW index books? I have the Chaos one but I do not know if I overlooked something. *I wouldn't mind fielding some and seeing my buddy throw a fit that he's not the only one who can have them.

 

Havocs and terminators were a staple in my AL army. I have really liked them and when armed with either a combi-plasma for the terminators or missile launchers for the havocs, topped off with mark of slaanesh, it was just gravy.

 

Looking forward to a battle report micahwc!

[micahwc]

Oddly enough, the Renegade and Heretic rules are in the Imperium Armor: Forces of the Astra Militarum book. We can also take Baneblades.

[hushrong]

Oddly enough, the Renegade and Heretic rules are in the Imperium Armor: Forces of the Astra Militarum book. We can also take Baneblades.

Interesting. If we can get those does that mean we can get basilisks and manticores as well? I always wanted an artillery based IW army...and with this edition it feels like its achievable.

 

Also, could you bring renegades, get a valkyrie, and stuff marines in it? Sorry these random questions. I think it would be awesome to have a valkyrie infiltrate some operatives into the heart of the enemy. Although, i do not remember the flyer ever being that great the few times I faced it.

[micahwc]

Renegades have a very limited list of Astra Militarum units they can bring, they don't get any Baneblade chassis superheavies except for the baneblade, they only get the basic Russ variants, they do get basilisks but not Manticores. Their basic infantry units are comparable to Astra Militarum units but with worse leadership, worse ballistic skill, worse armor, worse weapon options, and the same point cost. They only have a few units that were good, the Malefic Lord being the prime example. It was recently increased to almost 100 points. They do have the only unit with the Chaos keyword that can bring a sniper rifle, Marauders, which have a really cool and thematic leadership special rule.

 

To access all the guard goodies you have to bring an HQ, the cheapest of which is the Renegade Commander. A Renegade Commander is comparable to a guard Company Commander except it doesn't get to issue orders, it has a random leadership value, and it has less weapon options; for only a 5 point savings over a Company Commander. If you have points the Malefic Lord is a great choice, but like I said above it was recently increased from 30 to almost three times that.

 

All this being said, the Designer's Commentary has a flow chart entitled something like "which datasheet do I use", and following it's guidelines suggests that you get the latest codex version of Leman Russ tanks, complete with grinding advance allowing you to shoot your turret weapon twice per turn with no movement penalty. Since Leman Russ tanks are one of the best units in the Astra Militarum codex, Renegades and Heretics become a way to increase your Chaos options with some good loyalist units and/or Marauder snipers.

 

Edit: As far as Valkyries, their transport rules state "Astra Militarum Infantry", with the rule from Renegades and Heretics being that "Astra Militarum" is replaced with "Renegades and Heretics", so chaos marines can not use them as they lack the appropriate keywords.

[ChazSexington]

Posted this over on dakkadakka: 

 

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?

[Panzer]

Maybe....but maybe they're just too smart for us to see the big picture behind everything they did! /s

[Dizzyeye01]

Thing is, the reason Alpharius let the Raven Guard with Corax get away is so that they could get the research from the Primarch Project without even having to go through the very secret base it was kept in. While the plan wasn't a complete success in that they failed to destroy the Raven Guards' geneseed, they still completed the main goal. I'd say its a win for Horus there.

 

As for the White Scars situation, you have to remember that we never find out why the Alpha Legion stalled them. In fact, them getting Dorns' message then led to the Khan going to Prospero in order to see if the Space Wolves had attacked. If it wasn't for Magnus being shattered and a fragment of his soul being there, he'd of joined Horus in the end which lines up with the Alpha Legions' plans.

 

To sum it up, the Alpha Legion don't go in to fights to win the battle but by the war at the end.

[Panzer]

Considering that there's the theory that the Alpha Legion is secretly loyal (I'd say they might used to be but are just as corrupted now but that's not the point now), the real question is....would it made have a big difference if the Alpha Legion were openly on the loyalists side? Maybe they wanted everything to happen as it happened while achieving other goals and the real big thing they did was simply not fighting against Horus forces. ^^

 

More likely tho is that it's simply not very well thought-out. :P

[micahwc]

Is it a viable strategy to infiltrate 40 khorne berzerkers and a dark apostle? Sneaky berzerkers. "BLOOD FOR THE BLO...shh, blood for the blood god."

[Nemisor]

you're assuming the Alpha Legion want to further Horus, or the Emperors cause?

 

interesting

[Excessus]

The Deliverance mission was a success, they got the geneseed data to Horus as ordered, but corrupted with warp-taint...all according to plan... :)

 

Imagine if the AL didn't put up the communication blackout for the White Scars, the dropsite massacre would have been quite different with the WS there...

 

 

And besides, the AL doesn't need big triumphs, fanfare and adolation...they work in the shadows and their largest victories are probably not even known to wither side. Heck, they even had a whole hidden prometheum-refinery and fueling station planet in one of the books that wasen't on any of the "official" star-charts they had submitted after they had discovered it. Who knows how many hidden resources we had in the heresy...

[Scourged]

About time I came back with an update. Finally got some work done on the Primarch. A little bit of scenic basing here, some touch ups there, a priming, a basecoat, and bam... ready to give some true paint.

 

 

Just think of how well those scales will pop once I've got some shading in there. I'm quite pleased now that I've got some proper XX blue on him. Oh, and like I said, he does have a bit of extra basing with him for fun.

 

 

A little bit of cork here, plenty of textured acrylic base everywhere, one dead space marine with a carved out spear wound to lock the Primarch into... yup, it's all coming together nicely. 

 

I'll pop back in again when there's more to show. And I'll probably have some pictures of the Warpsmith, Venerable Helbrute, and Arkos at that point too. Plus some Possessed converted out of the DV Chosen. Also Havocs. And FW Headhunters. I guess what I'm saying is I'm painting a lot right now. Hope you enjoy.