How would you represent the Alpha Legion with C:CSM ?

[GreyCrow]

Greetings dark brothers !

 

So, I'm still trying to figure out which kind of warband I would enjoy playing the most with my Chaos project, but I really like to troll my opponent and mess up with his head on the tabletop. After all, this is why I play Raven Guard for my C:SM army :p

 

As such, the Alpha Legion would feel really interesting for me ! But I have trouble seeing which units would work well to represent an Alpha Legion mindset on the tabletop. After all, from what I see about the CSM units, they seem very good for a straightforward, brutal assault than deceit and trickyness...

 

So I'm turning to your knowledge of the dark armies ! :p

 

Cheers

[Lagrath]

Yeah our current codex is terrible in a lot of ways, and this is one of them.

Try chosen, deep striking terminators, unmarked units, Alpharius from Vraks end edition.

[ThatOneMarshal]

Huron could be good for is guaranteed warlord trait. as lagrath said those are good units. Since the alpha legion are known for their cultists making use if regenades and heretics could work. Also remember we don't really know much about the alpha legion. As you may know in the horus heresy their special rule is mutuable tactics which let's you pick from a host of special rules. Basically what I'm saying is that with the right amount of explanation ( or lack of since alpha legion) you can make any tactic work. Also slaanesh lord with mount for outflank could help.

[GreyCrow]

Yeah our current codex is terrible in a lot of ways, and this is one of them.

 

Try chosen, deep striking terminators, unmarked units, Alpharius from Vraks end edition.

 

I'll try to find someone with the Vraks books, I'm interested in what you said about Alpharius...

 

Great idea for the Deep Striking Terminators ! Actually, I was just listing all the units that could Deep Strike so that I could surprise my opponent... I mean, it's not because you can Deep Strike that you absolutely must, right ? ;) So much mind games could be going on, tee hee ! So far, Terminators, Oblits and Warp Talons steal the spot for me.

 

 

Huron could be good for is guaranteed warlord trait. as lagrath said those are good units. Since the alpha legion are known for their cultists making use if regenades and heretics could work. Also remember we don't really know much about the alpha legion. As you may know in the horus heresy their special rule is mutuable tactics which let's you pick from a host of special rules. Basically what I'm saying is that with the right amount of explanation ( or lack of since alpha legion) you can make any tactic work. Also slaanesh lord with mount for outflank could help.

 

Good point about Huron. Even though I prefer to not use named characters for personal reasons, I can see this as a valuable trade-off :) Good points about the Cultists too ! I had an idea by using 2 blobs of Cultists as Troops, one joined by a Lord and the other by an Apostle as centerpiece units, then having all if not most of the support units able to come down by Deep Strike so I could either place them on the board or hold them back.

[Lord Asvaldir]

Unfortunately our codex makes representing legions or specific warbands rather difficult, there just isn't enough customization to do that, especially without sacrificing competitiveness over fluff. For example, the Night Lords are well known for their use of raptors, and the models look awesome-but unfortunately game wise they are quite sub par. 

 

Really the best you can do is use units the legion is known for, and stay away from units they don't use. Cultists are a good example of troops the Alpha Legion does use, while you might want to stay away from cult troops as they are less common in the Alpha Legion. 

[GreyCrow]

I definitely agree that concessions will have to be made based on the Codex and the units ;) (as a side point regarding the Raptors, I think they aren't that bad and they're definitely much better than Assault Marines in C:SM. The ability to make them 5 men melta delivery units or larger assault squads for glorious melee is quite awesome).

 

I posted a list that I'll like to play that I feel fit the Alpha Legion fluff. Might not be the most competitive list, but I think it could do relatively well :p

[totgeboren]

It's kinda hard to represent a legion which is all about infiltration, outflanking and coordinated troop movements when we don't have a single unit with Infiltrate, only a daemonic steed giving outflank (AL are not really about super-mutated champions riding daemons) and no means improving reserve reliability or deep strike precision.

 

I would say the CSM book is probably one of the worst books you can use to represent the AL. I would suggest you have a look at the 30k Legion list instead to be honest.

[Dragonlover]

Huron, three Marine units in Rhinos, Obliterators, two Heldrakes, a Forgefiend and some Cultists. Oh, and some autocannon Havocs. The Forgefiend will soon be a Fire Raptor.

 

The way I see it, Alpha Legion are all about supremacy. Every unit in that army can make short work of a lot of units, its Battle Forged so you get that edge, and you're putting a lot of bodies on the table.

 

Dragonlover

[Lay]

Try the Cypher Dataslate.

[Dallas Drake]

This might be utter heresy but... You could use the Space Marine codex. Model up plenty of 'Scouts' (oh man the potential there is just limitless!), teleport homers in SM squads landing Tactical terminators in, few Chaos Landspeeders, bikes, or whatever? Devs as Havocs. Allies well with IG for a Vet squad/drop troops/ratlings or some PDF counts as anti-air/armour.

Honestly, let your imagination drive this one, you could always model/paint them as infiltrating a SM chapter or just a warband fighting guerrilla warfare, heavily using SM loyalist tech, armour and weapons. It's common for CSMs to use loyalist armour to repair their power armour, or pick up loyalist weapons/ammo, I see Alpha Legion taking that one step further.

 

Edit: if you modelled it with one eye on the FW HH rules & the CSM codex in mind you could have 3 armies in one. Very Alpha Legion.

[Excessus]

Ally with Renegades & Heretics. It fits the Alpha Legion MO perfectly, infiltrating and subjugating worlds with minimum marine involvement. Letting the mortals fight and die for the cause instead of precious astartes... :D

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

Paint and model them as Loyalists other then thenir chapter symbol, I can see the Alpha legion being more then willing to fight to save imperial worlds, put down rebellions ect like a loyalist chapter, to be able to sink their claws into those planets, regiments and fleets they fight alongside, to gain access to modern wargear/equipment. I mean in a galaxy of over a thousand chapters, is an imperial guard commander or Govenor really going to see these marines whose battle cry is f"or the emperor" and appear nthing other then a loyalist chapter as traitors just because he has never heard of the "Knights of the Hydra/Sons of Omega/whatever they are calling themselves just because he has never heard of them?

Sadly, like most legions, a loyalist book is better to represent the Alpha legion then the chaos one unless it's an element that has gotten caught up in the part of chaos worshipping/daemon engine using path.

[Rain]

The problem is that the Alpha Legion MO is hard to represent in 40k period. The AL is all about defeating the enemy before the fight even begins, so, assassination, destruction of infrastructure, planting false orders, activating sleeper agents, etc. None of this is represented in the game, the closest you can get is the reserves thing in 30k where an AL unit can come in instead of one of your opponent's units when he rolls for reserves to represent traitors or his units being misdirected or whatever.

 

Or you could just play AL the way they appear in the big spread picture in the Chaos Codex, that is, blue/green Chaos Marines with hellturkeys, plasma centaurs, and the whole deal walking at the enemy in a big blob. But then they aren't really AL, they're just a color scheme. In other words, I don't think AL can be well represented at all, at least not in 40k, 30k is a good deal better, but it's 30k. Blue/green Marines still looks pretty cool though.

[Excessus]

The problem is that the Alpha Legion MO is hard to represent in 40k period. The AL is all about defeating the enemy before the fight even begins, so, assassination, destruction of infrastructure, planting false orders, activating sleeper agents, etc. None of this is represented in the game, the closest you can get is the reserves thing in 30k where an AL unit can come in instead of one of your opponent's units when he rolls for reserves to represent traitors or his units being misdirected or whatever.

 

Or you could just play AL the way they appear in the big spread picture in the Chaos Codex, that is, blue/green Chaos Marines with hellturkeys, plasma centaurs, and the whole deal walking at the enemy in a big blob. But then they aren't really AL, they're just a color scheme. In other words, I don't think AL can be well represented at all, at least not in 40k, 30k is a good deal better, but it's 30k. Blue/green Marines still looks pretty cool though.

I tend to see the Alpha Legion trickery, deception and infiltration as something done before the battle begins. If they haden't sabotaged the enemy base, you would have been in trouble in the game with a few extra tanks tipping the balance in your opponent's favor. Or by poisoning the watersupply only 60% of the infantrymen could be mustered...and that weakened force is what has deployed opposite you on the field of battle.

 

Widen your perspective, not everything in the fluff needs to be represented on models or on the battlefield! Bring daemon support, the cultists that summoned them most likely died off before the hostilities even started. Bring bikes and spawn, like Alpha Legion don't have bikes, and failed champions chained up somewhere. Bring cult marines, I doubt any mercenary berzerker group would say no to the opportunity to spilling enemy blood, or Plague Marines to the opportunity to spread diseases...

 

It's not black and white, use whatever you want, it's a large universe and the heresy was 10k years ago...a lot of things could have happened to a warband in that time...

[Rain]

Yeah, you can look at it that way, but an equal points game is still a relatively "even" battle, and that's something the Alpha Legion tries to avoid in fluff. Sure not everything must be represented, but special rules tend to give armies flavor, especially when you are trying to differentiate between different factions of Space Marines. But yes, you could integrate Berzerkers, or Plague Marines, or whatever else, and it would be plausible, but then you're basically just playing blue/green Black Legion. Which is fine, but it seems like the original poster, wants to play AL according to their  "classic" fluff of special forces/spy marines, and not just a generic Chaos warband that happens to have a lot of members from the Alpha Legion.

[GreyCrow]

Well, I want to try and remain true to their spirit in the fluff on the tabletop. Obviously, deep cover mechanics aren't well represented in warhammer, but I was thinking of a very mobile and confusing force.

 

So far, what I was thinking about was a large cultists blob with a dark apostle, a Chaos Lord in a squad of regular space Marines armed with Bolters and BP+CCW, Terminators with combi-weapons, 3 individual Oblits, and Raptors/Warp Talons. The idea would be to mess around with the opponent's head and don't allow him to see any form of battle plan, with relatively mobile units going to support each other. Also, lots of Gifts of mutation to represent adaptive tactics and once again throw him off ^^

[the jeske]

The problem is non of the units you listed are very mobile, and your opponent can clearly see what you are going to do. Even worse some of the units can't realy do the stuff they are ment for [like talons for example].

 

 

 

It's not black and white, use whatever you want, it's a large universe and the heresy was 10k years ago...a lot of things could have happened to a warband in that time...

 

 

Only it feels like playing BL not AL. Its like telling a WS player that at some point of history one of their brotherhoods had to fight on foot and was mostly made out of scouts. Possible? yes[anything that isn't female marines is "possible"]. Does it feel WS at all? not very much.

[Trevak Dal]

I tend to take ubergrit (extra CCW) on Ctacs with "Professional, Ready for anything" mentality.  It's served me better than Marks in general.

 

The army that best plays like how the Alpha Legion is described in the books, is Tau.  The whole "Mont'ka/Kau'yon" thing is pretty alpha Legion-y and you can sort of do the same tactics with Chaos...but it's a lot harder because we don't have teleport homers.

 

 

I've actually built my main CSM army around an Codex Space Marine sample army from the 5th edition Codex Space Marine army (except we don't have Scouts, and I don't use Cultists) a balanced-"Battleforce" force that's Ctac heavy in Rhinos at it's core.

 

Lord

 

Ctacs + ccws, 2x plasma Champ (combi Plasma Bolt pistol, Power sword) rhino

 

Ctacs + ccws, 2x Plasma Champ (combi plasma, bolt pistol, power axe) rhino

 

5 x Raptors 2x Meltagun Champ with 2x Plasma pistols MoK

 

5 x raptors 2x Meltagun Champ with lightning claws MoK

 

Heldrake

 

7 x Havocs +CCW  2x Plasma, 2x Melta Champ (Combi Plasma Meltabomb) Rhino (lord goes here unless I'm using JuggerLord, or TDA Lord) I can take all melta or all plasma, but I find that when they are camping their rhino, being only able to shoot 2 weapons out of it, and having different targets-it's come in handy)

5 x Havocs 4x Autocannons Champ (Bolter, Bolt Pistol CCW) (TLLC helbrute goes with them)

 

2x Oblits with Mark of Nurgle. (RAC helbrute goes with them)

 

 

Terminators x 5 (x4 if taking TDA Lord) typically with Combi Meltas and Power axes in Dedicated Landraider.

A helbrute with Twinlinked Lascannon and Powerfist.

 

A helbrute with RAC and Powerfist.

 

Dirge Casters on everything.

My Camping elements (Oblits, AC havocs and Helbrutes) hopefully deploy in some good camping places, while the rest of my army forms up behind the Landraider and plays "Move Bitch" by Ludacris and goes up a board edge with the "Command" rhino in the center as needed.

 

Sprinkle in Havoc launchers if I'm wanting to play the long game or against Horde armies.

The raptors keep up with the tanks, and are the "Door kickers"-they follow the Ctac rhinos (not the command Rhino-that keeps on the Landraider's ass)  in a turn, the rhino dismounts its guys-who shoot the hell out of a unit, while the raptors then shoot the unit and then assault it/finish it off.  Turkey comes in and hits targets of opprotunity.

 

I can also play the reserves/outflanking game.

[GreyCrow]

Definitely agree with you Trebak dans thanks for the great post ! The Tau connection is probably the best way to summerize the Alpha Legion battle tactics :) (And now we can legitimately ask : did the Alpha Legion influence the Etherals ? :p ).

 

I'm gravitating towards a list like yours. Ubergrit on the CSM, because I think the Alpha Legion would train its operatives to be better in close combat than many other Legions (and based on Deliverance Lost, they apparently are !), Elite units with the ability to Deep Strike (Terminators, Obliterators), and Fast Moving elements. I'm going to have a lower Power Armoured body count, but a big blob of Cultists led by a Dark Apostle (to represent an Infiltrated AL operative riling up a rebellion) and a few "beasts" (Spawns and Maulerfiend) for the fast moving elements. I don't think the AL would look down on using mutants and biomechanicodaemonic machines to get the job done.

[Lagrath]

I think Forgefiends might be cool for the 3-headed Hydra look. They are overcosted sadly, but oh well.

 

You could also bring some Renegades and Heretics to represent the PDF forces or IG forces they converted to Chaos prior to arriving.

[GreyCrow]

I think Forgefiends might be cool for the 3-headed Hydra look. They are overcosted sadly, but oh well.

 

You could also bring some Renegades and Heretics to represent the PDF forces or IG forces they converted to Chaos prior to arriving.

 

True, I really considered the Forgefiend ^^ But like you said, they are a bit overcosted for my liking and I really want to use Oblits for fire support so they would be redundant unfortunately :/

 

I was thinking of using a Maulerfiend with Tendrils, both tactically to debuff the enemy MC or strong CC units, and also because I could convert the end of the tendrils with dragon/snake heads to represent a Hydra. That'd give a cool "Scylla" look to the beast in my opinion if I can manage to pull it off, hehe !

 

Renegades and Heretics army lists could work yeah ! In France, FW isn't much accepted unfortunately so I'll start an army core with C:CSM and see whether my gaming groups accept me going with ForgeWorld rules on the later part of the army before I go ahead and buy the models :p

[Lagrath]

I think Forgefiends might be cool for the 3-headed Hydra look. They are overcosted sadly, but oh well.

You could also bring some Renegades and Heretics to represent the PDF forces or IG forces they converted to Chaos prior to arriving.

True, I really considered the Forgefiend ^^ But like you said, they are a bit overcosted for my liking and I really want to use Oblits for fire support so they would be redundant unfortunately :/

I was thinking of using a Maulerfiend with Tendrils, both tactically to debuff the enemy MC or strong CC units, and also because I could convert the end of the tendrils with dragon/snake heads to represent a Hydra. That'd give a cool "Scylla" look to the beast in my opinion if I can manage to pull it off, hehe !

Renegades and Heretics army lists could work yeah ! In France, FW isn't much accepted unfortunately so I'll start an army core with C:CSM and see whether my gaming groups accept me going with ForgeWorld rules on the later part of the army before I go ahead and buy the models

That's silly; FW is 100% legal for 40k under 7th edition rules. At least in the U.S., almost all major national tournaments allow FW now.

[GreyCrow]

I think Forgefiends might be cool for the 3-headed Hydra look. They are overcosted sadly, but oh well.

You could also bring some Renegades and Heretics to represent the PDF forces or IG forces they converted to Chaos prior to arriving.

True, I really considered the Forgefiend ^^ But like you said, they are a bit overcosted for my liking and I really want to use Oblits for fire support so they would be redundant unfortunately :/

I was thinking of using a Maulerfiend with Tendrils, both tactically to debuff the enemy MC or strong CC units, and also because I could convert the end of the tendrils with dragon/snake heads to represent a Hydra. That'd give a cool "Scylla" look to the beast in my opinion if I can manage to pull it off, hehe !

Renegades and Heretics army lists could work yeah ! In France, FW isn't much accepted unfortunately so I'll start an army core with C:CSM and see whether my gaming groups accept me going with ForgeWorld rules on the later part of the army before I go ahead and buy the models

That's silly; FW is 100% legal for 40k under 7th edition rules. At least in the U.S., almost all major national tournaments allow FW now.

It's not that it's illegal in France. It's that there is a huge language barrier with a mainly non-english speaking Warhammer community and the fact that FW books are exclusively English. So people tend to refuse the FW models mainly because while they can comprehend the unit profile and the general USR, as soon as you've got some unique special rules written in English, people get confused and thus try to avoid playing with FW except for friendly games. As such, many T.O. ban the use of FW just to prevent confusion between the players. And you know how much change adverse the Warhammer community is, imagine this feeling exacerbed by people who have trouble understanding the additions altogether :p

Another thing in France is that because FW isn't well known, it is considered mainly as an unofficial extension for Warhammer 40k.

Stupid situation, I know, but I don't have the will to educate the French community to the joys of Shakespear's tongue and the coolness of FW unfortunately :/

[Lagrath]

It's not that it's illegal in France. It's that there is a huge language barrier with a mainly non-english speaking Warhammer community and the fact that FW books are exclusively English. So people tend to refuse the FW models mainly because while they can comprehend the unit profile and the general USR, as soon as you've got some unique special rules written in English, people get confused and thus try to avoid playing with FW except for friendly games. As such, many T.O. ban the use of FW just to prevent confusion between the players. And you know how much change adverse the Warhammer community is, imagine this feeling exacerbed by people who have trouble understanding the additions altogether

Another thing in France is that because FW isn't well known, it is considered mainly as an unofficial extension for Warhammer 40k.

Stupid situation, I know, but I don't have the will to educate the French community to the joys of Shakespear's tongue and the coolness of FW unfortunately :/

Oh really? I didn't realize that there were no other language options. I'm also surprised that English proficiency isn't more common, considering that people who can afford and enjoy Warhammer as a hobby are probably better off in terms of education and income than your average random person.

Still kind of sad, since it leaves French players playing a rather different 40k game than many other countries that have increasingly accepted FW and the increasingly large roster of units and rules that are included from those supplements.

It's especially bad for those armies, like Chaos, that get expanded so dramatically from FW.

You can also tell your community that if they don't want to accept the (legal) FW renegades lists, they should let you bring in Imperial Guard allies as Battle Brothers instead. If they bend the rules you can bend the rules :-)

[GreyCrow]

Yeah, it is kind of sad, many FW units are so cool and bring quite a lot of narrative :) But to give you an example, a guy in my gaming club plays Chaos and was super thankful and thrilled that I let him play his Fire Raptor. He had it for 1 year and it was the second time someone agreed to face it. Pretty sad indeed.

 

The Imperial Guard allies is a cool idea if FW doesn't work that much. Even with Come The Apocalypse, I can definitely see the two forces operating in different parts of the table staying a couple of inches away :p