+ Legion Cultural Influences +

[jeremy1391]

In regards to the salamanders I see them drawing a lot of their cultural inspiration from Tolkien's presentation of Dwarves and his descriptions of some of the harshest places of middle earth, master craftsmen, ridiculous constitution, miners, fortress cities, fire dragons, mighty mountains,

 

The returning to the earth aspect of the salamanders when they die aspect also appears to dwarven in nature, the ancient dwarves of middle earth returned their souls to the Earth in Mount Gundabad.....

 

Aulë the Smith God one of the Valar is in much respect an analog of Vulcan (and Vulkan).

 

i could be way off but when I read the Silmarillion I automatically made this connection lol.

 

On that same note Horus could easily be Morgoth.

[STC Logisengine]

Helloes.

 

In regards to the early XIXth Legion. (Terran origin, before the coming of the Lord of Ravens)

The XIXth recruited exclusively, from Alpha-stage implantation and combat viability trials to full legion muster, from a single source: The Xeric techno-nomads of the Asiatic Dustfields.

 

Geography: HH3 locates the Asiatic Dustfields and more importantly, the Xeric tribes to the south of the Indonysic Bloc (remember that as of early M.30 most of the oceans have gone; the mediterranean is a dustbowl, only saline lakes remain of the Pacific etc.) so what we have here is the Austalian/ New Zeeland / western Polynesian regions of modern day earth.

 

These tribes are technologically advanced and have been engaged in warfare with the Indonysic Bloc for generation by the time of Unification. The closest thing you will find here as a cultural analogy is the Mad Max films I am afraid, sure, they use an impressionistic dot-and-line artstyle wich is a blend of Aboriginal, Maori and Polynesian styles but that's about it. Legion cultures are in most cases a wild mash-up of different themes and ideas and people tend to read a bit too much into the most prominent themes.

There is this odd idea that has gotten snagged in the community that there is a Native American influence to the XIXth: But there is NONE.

The origin of this idea lies with an entry to the Golden Demon competition in 1998 or 1999 of a sculpt of Corax wich more or less looked like Crazy Horse in powerarmour with a jumppack.
 

 

 

 

 

XXth Legion
 

The Legion has no real cultural references to speak of, it uses the letters of the Greek Alphabet, the Laernean Hydra and other visual formats of the late Classical period but that is also all it is, symbols.

People like to assign them into the ''special forces'' slot but that's not culture - it's tactics.

The culture of the Legion is rather one of Unity, Collectivism and individual sacrifice for the collective good. The warriors of the Legion may revel in their anonymity to to outside world but are also at the same time the most individualistic and unconstrained of the Legiones Astartes, in a sense, the most human in their way of thinking and resoning.

Theirs is a Legion wich fosters and approves of individual thought and initiative however with a focus of team effort - if the group fails, individual achivement is in the end meaningless.

This capacity for independent thought is what sets them truly apart and grants the legion its greatest asset: Unsurpassed tactical flexibility.

 

Any legionaire can run Infiltration missions as well as veteran of the XIXth, hunt tanks with the same unerring accuracy as the veteran Havoc squads of the Imperial Fists, deliver a counter-charge as furious as a Luna Wolf and stand against the fell powers of the warp as none other, save perhaps the sons of Magnus the Red.

 

Speaking shortly on tactics however: All legions used mass-deployment tactics, you have gotten this one a bit mixed up. What the legion was unusually good at was large-scale, rapid assault armoured warfare - Coordinating large tankformations as lightning-assault spearheads with integrated infantry support. A favoured tactic of Harrowmaster Armillus Dynat.
 

[Marshal Rohr]

 

XXth Legion

 

The Legion has no real cultural references to speak of, it uses the letters of the Greek Alphabet, the Laernean Hydra and other visual formats of the late Classical period but that is also all it is, symbols.

People like to assign them into the ''special forces'' slot but that's not culture - it's tactics.

The culture of the Legion is rather one of Unity, Collectivism and individual sacrifice for the collective good. The warriors of the Legion may revel in their anonymity to to outside world but are also at the same time the most individualistic and unconstrained of the Legiones Astartes, in a sense, the most human in their way of thinking and resoning.

 

Theirs is a Legion wich fosters and approves of individual thought and initiative however with a focus of team effort - if the group fails, individual achivement is in the end meaningless.

This capacity for independent thought is what sets them truly apart and grants the legion its greatest asset: Unsurpassed tactical flexibility.

 

Any legionaire can run Infiltration missions as well as veteran of the XIXth, hunt tanks with the same unerring accuracy as the veteran Havoc squads of the Imperial Fists, deliver a counter-charge as furious as a Luna Wolf and stand against the fell powers of the warp as none other, save perhaps the sons of Magnus the Red.

 

Speaking shortly on tactics however: All legions used mass-deployment tactics, you have gotten this one a bit mixed up. What the legion was unusually good at was large-scale, rapid assault armoured warfare - Coordinating large tankformations as lightning-assault spearheads with integrated infantry support. A favoured tactic of Harrowmaster Armillus Dynat.

 

 

The bolded portion is the only thing you said I disagree with, primarily because if that were the case it means the Alpha Legion was categorically 'the best'. It also assumes the Alpha Legion was capable of cross-training its legionaries to a standard no other legion was able to replicate, which would also indicate the Alpha Legion were above and beyond the other Legions.

 

That is simply not the case.

 

The problem with the 'SOF' theme is that it doesn't work for a large, six-figure military formation. SOF operators are trained in a way that makes it impossible to mass produce. Any attempt in history of mass producing 'elite' units has the effect of diluting the potency of their abilities. Modern Western SOF are as much professional athlete as they are warfighters. The amount of resources they receive are staggering, but not undeserved. To apply that level of logistical and materiel support to an entire army of over one hundred thousand is impossible. For an Alpha Legionary to be capable of performing long-range reconnaissance missions as well as the specifically trained LRR units of the Raven Guard, or as capable as a siege engineer as an Iron Warrior, or as skilled in Melee Combat as a World Eater or Blood Angel would be downright impossible. The other legions are good at those things because they give up a little bit of something else. Every legion will have every capability, but a legion's special characteristics or the type of mission they undertake more frequently will lend experience the Alpha Legion cannot gain. If the Imperial Fists earned a reputation as masters of void warfare, then the Alpha Legion cannot match that, because of the time invested in earned that reputation. Time is the key factor in training, and there are only 200 years to work with. It is impossible for the Alpha Legion to have risen head and shoulders above their peer legions in every form of combat in the same amount of time it took the other legions to become good at a handful of combat situations. 

 

The Alpha Legion appear better because they are divided up in unto autonomous deployments that can give the impression of a larger force, and each of these cells can win victories using strategies that might make the Legion look good at everything, but really doesn't accurately reflect their ability as a whole. For instance, because the Alpha Legion wins the siege at Talassa Prime, simultaneously defeats an ork horde in another sector with an armored encirclement, defeats an Eldar fleet in another in a void battle, and successfully performs a snatch and grab on a secessionist planetary governor does not mean they are the primier siege, armored, void, and air assault masters of all the Legions. Every legion could do the same. The White Scars can besiege fortresses, the Blood Angels can win tank battles, and the Raven Guard can win a trench war. 

 

To say the Alpha Legion is the most capable for every mission is patently false. 

[Brother Heinrich]

"The culture of the Legion is rather one of UNITY"

 

We aren't talking about the Alpha Legion are we?

 

http://static1.squarespace.com/static/537e0722e4b0c3338dfc5521/t/53dd4a9ae4b01c361c9810b4/1407011496490/question-31842991.jpeg

[Fire Golem]

To be fair, before the heresy, unity was a big thing to the Alpha Legion; many heads, one mind. It's only really since Horus turned that there's been schisms appearing in the legion as far as I know.

[Kol Saresk]

yeah, the whole unity/cell organization was why I drew a parallel to the CIA. Special Forces are completely unified. Sure, individual teams maybonly know what relates specifically to their mission, but there is still an overarching command structure that is aware of every single mission and how it folds out. And contrary to other intelligence agencies such as the Guistappo, Stasis, and KGB, the CIA was always fractious and borderline rogue pretty much most of its existence, especially during the Cold War. It wasn't rarethat entire portions of the agency were operating under the radar, despite the fact that it is supposed to be a unified organization.

 

And when you get the Alpha Legion, you have a single, unified organization. That then has independent cells. And some of those cells are so independent that the upper heirachy of the Legion isn't fully aware of what they're doing. Case in point, The Serpent Beneath and how Omegon destroyed the Tenebrae Installation.

 

A single heirarchy that then has many, many branches, some so concealed behind others so that even the tree trunk doesn't realize they are branches.

 

But yeah, special forces definitely works to describe the main core of the Legion.

[DuskRaider]

I hate to say it, but categorically Alpha Legion WERE the best (and if still operational in 40K as they are in 30K, remain so). Remember, they weren't just a Legion formed like the others, they were a special creation devised by the Emperor.

[Kriegriss]

right there the best that's why they lost

[Sheesh Mode]

I hate to say it, but categorically Alpha Legion WERE the best (and if still operational in 40K as they are in 30K, remain so). Remember, they weren't just a Legion formed like the others, they were a special creation devised by the Emperor.

 

I do not comprehend this sentence. 

[Marshal Rohr]

But that would make the Salamanders and Space Wolves also the best, since they were the other two legs of that trip-pod. 

[Brother Heinrich]

Technically all the legions are a special creation of the emperor, otherwise he would've just popped out Guillimans gene template and made 50 carbon copy legions with it. There is a reason that each legion is a unique and special snowflake and why none are better than the others at everything.

[Marshal Rohr]

He couldn't have made more than one Guilliman. They'd have all killed each other much faster than it took Horus to be upset he didn't get a statue. :D

 

There is something to be said that The World Eaters, Dark Angels, Ultramarines, Iron Warriors, and Word Bearers all had the easiest time recruiting with their geneseed. It's almost like a built in obsoleteness in the other legions. 

[Emperor's Furor]

I suppose the Dark Angels geneseed was so "pure" because it was the first he worked on and was needed at the time to be the most successful so he could get his campaign up and running.

[depthcharge12]

Yeah I can imagine the first set of dark Angels are big nasty affairs closer to the thunder warriors, but more genetically stable. It would ring true to the lore that they did some pretty dark stuff in their early days.

[DuskRaider]

right there the best that's why they lost

But did they?

 

@Sheesh Mode, try reading it again. Slowly.

[Memento Of Prospero]

Saying the alphas are special is ludicrous. The emperor did not make generic legions. Hey you guys over there, you will specialize in... well nothing. Just make sure you keep your armour blue as well.

[Marshal Rohr]

The alphas may have a special, unknown purpose but legionary to legionary they are no better or worse than any other.

[Legatus]

In general there were three "paragon" Legions, but the Alpha Legion was not one of them. Perhaps they could have been, since the Alpha Legionaries were trained to a very high standard, but their mania manifested much earlier and more pronounced than for, say, the Emperor's Children. It prevented the Alpha Legion to be a very effective Legion. Skilled, just not effective.

[Marshal Rohr]

In general there were three "paragon" Legions, but the Alpha Legion was not one of them. Perhaps they could have been, since the Alpha Legionaries were trained to a very high standard, but their mania manifested much earlier and more pronounced than for, say, the Emperor's Children. It prevented the Alpha Legion to be a very effective Legion. Skilled, just not effective.

 

Oh you've done it now. 

[DuskRaider]

In general there were three "paragon" Legions, but the Alpha Legion was not one of them. Perhaps they could have been, since the Alpha Legionaries were trained to a very high standard, but their mania manifested much earlier and more pronounced than for, say, the Emperor's Children. It prevented the Alpha Legion to be a very effective Legion. Skilled, just not effective.

The three "specialized" Legions were Salamanders, Space Wolves, and Alpha Legion. What their specializations were, no one knows. Remember, the HH books were written posthomously, and even then the reason for these Legions' creations was highly classified and the two guys who would know are either a pile of dust or in a perma-coma.

 

Make no mistake, the Alpha Legion were good. Great. I'm not even really a fan of the Legion, but to deny it is to ignore the canon. The Legion became much more flawed as the Heresy set in and they took their scheming to a whole new level. Pre-Heresy (and indeed, Pre-Primach((s)) they were the Ghost Legion. Sent on special missions by the Emperor himself to do... well, we don't know.

 

Don't shoot the messenger because: 1) I'm relaying what's been written, both by BL & FW... and 2) the messenger is a master of chemical warfare and I will virus bomb your recruitment planet.

[Kol Saresk]

Except that BL, FW and GW have always written the Alpha Legion background as being "suspect" at best and "urban myth" at its worst. Sven Extermination follows that route. Which is saying something since the entire background is "This happened. And we think it may have happened this way, possibly, maybe?"

[DuskRaider]

We know the facts. They were created for a special purpose by the False Emperor himself. It's all ridiculously classified. They did crazy commando stuff. Ghosts.

[Legatus]

With the three "paragon" Legions I was refering to the Legions whose warriors were sort of the exemplars of the full potential that Space Marines could achieve, and whose model the other Legions (ideally) could have followed. The Alpha Legion campaigns are described as over-elaborate and wasteful, otherwise they might well have been counted among those Legions. As I said, they had the skill for it, they just did not make good use of it.

[DuskRaider]

Paragon Legions? Oh, you mean Sons of Horus, Death Guard and World Eaters. I get it now.

[Kol Saresk]

Actually he probably means Ultramarines, Sons of Horus and maybe Imperial Fists, but that's because he was talking about one thing while y'all were talking about another.