Likeable Alpha Legion

[b1soul]

Flipping through Legion, the AL are portrayed as quite likeable...what a shock.

 

Secretive and play by their own rules? Yes...but also there to aid Imperial forces (and conserve Imperial lives) in their own unconventional yet highly efficient way. To regular IA troopers, they're objects of admiration.

 

In later AL books, they seem to devolve into reptilian schemers nobody can relate to...

 

Anyone have the same feeling?

[rendingon1+]

Abnett < Sanders/French.

[R_F_D]

Is this more to do with context?  In Legion they were still nominally loyal to the Emperor?

[Qkhitai]

Yeah, things went all kinds of crazy with them later on (and arguably even in Legion itself), because people can't break seem to break free from the secrets/lies/I am Alpharius way of looking at the legion - which has made them increasingly bland and one dimensional. They're one of my favourite legions, but I'd agree that somewhere along the way it became much harder to relate to them. The old Index Astartes fluff, which had them turning traitor essentially because nobody liked them other than Horus, was quite poignant and would have been a nice, 'human' theme to explore, echoing the better books in the series.

[Kelborn]

What came first?

 

Legion or Extermination?

 

I rather see it like this

 

Dans Legion into Extermination into French / Sanders

 

Comparable to Dan started the 30K Wolves

 

Imho :)

[Lucerne]

Shroud of Night has some fairly affable Alpha Legion...but at the end of the day, they're a bunch of prideful :cusss with a very sociopathic mindset even before they went rogue, whose whole way of war is based around dishonorable tactics and treachery. They are not nice "people" and never were.

Edited September 29, 2017 by Ugolino

[rendingon1+]

For me it's FW HH3 Sanders, French and seventh serpent + cameos in scars, wolves series. Legion has so many dumb (my opinion of course) moments that it cannot be taken seriously. Like Alpharius being sassed by imperial army commander, Alpharius (?) kneeling before humans and all this Cabal bull. It can all be forgiven however since it was the 5th(?) book in the series. Forgiven and forgotten.

And,of course, it's all my opinion.

[Phoebus]

I think the main reason, as others offered, can be found in the context of things.

 

The Alpha Legion are ruthless. They are capable of many awful things. We talk about the conditioning of Space Marines, and in this case it does not appear Alpharius and Omegon needed to undergo a major purge of their legionaries in anticipation of Horus’s betrayal: the XXth Legion was ready for it. We have very limited exposure in their escapades during the Great Crusade, but it’s dangerous to presume that the Alpha Legion weren’t as ruthless (or at least as capable of being ruthless) during the period of their novel entry. At the risk of being rude, I’d offer we’re naive if we assume the characters introduced in Legion weren’t prepared to write off the “assets” they developed in that novel if it became necessary.

 

I also don’t think it’s particularly fair to distinguish between Abnett’s work and that of Sanders or French where the portrayal (and scheming) of the Alpha Legion is concerned. Crucial to the stories the latter two authors wrote is a device that Abnett established: Alpharius and Omegon being a primarch who was split in two. I would be shocked if Abnett wasn’t aware of the fact that the two would eventually be at odds with one another.

 

As a minor aside, it’s probably worth remembering that neither Dinas Chayne nor Lord Commander Namatjira likely set eye on Alpharius or Omegon. One of the twists of Legion, which Sanders seems to confirm, is that it’s one of their subordinates who is usually seen in combat action.

[mc warhammer]

like a few others, i was charmed by their portrayal in legion and found it an interesting contrast/ hard to reconcile with the alpharius trolling dorn in that last novel. the alpharius that was introduced in legion seemed above those things, if resigned to the fact that others didn’t think he was

 

i’d really like to see abnett revisit them

[mc warhammer]

As a minor aside, it’s probably worth remembering that neither Dinas Chayne nor Lord Commander Namatjira likely set eye on Alpharius or Omegon. One of the twists of Legion, which Sanders seems to confirm, is that it’s one of their subordinates who is usually seen in combat action.

as a minor tangent to your minor aside: didnt the alpharius trolls dorn scene also settle the alpharius is a shorty debate?

[Ascanius]

I really liked Legion, at least partly because I think the Cabal's plan for defeating Chaos is better than the Emperor's plan in several ways.

[Brother Captain Kezef]

Shroud of Night has some fairly affable Alpha Legion...but at the end of the day, they're a bunch of prideful :cusss with a very sociopathic mindset even before they went rogue, whose whole way of war is based around dishonorable tactics and treachery. They are not nice "people" and never were.

 

dishonourable tactics? Deception is a vital and important part of warfare, study Tsun Tzu sometime and look up WW2's Operation Mincemeat.

[Phoebus]

as a minor tangent to your minor aside: didnt the alpharius trolls dorn scene also settle the alpharius is a shorty debate?

It settles (about as much as anything related to the Alpha Legion can settle anything about them) that Alpharius and the warriors he chooses to masquerade as or have masquerade as himself are ...

 

... shorter than Dorn, but taller than [Archamus] – very large for legionaries, but within a blurred zone of size that made it difficult to judge whether they were legionary or primarch.”

 

Excerpt From

Praetorian of Dorn

John French

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/praetorian-of-dorn/id1141796257?mt=11

This material may be protected by copyright.

Where this topic (or at least where one of rendigon1+’s concerns) is concerned, however, the issue is whether or not it was Alpharius who was present in the dealings with Lord Commander Teng Namatjira. In my humble opinion, the implication in Legion is that it’s Sheed Ranko who is playing “Omegon” when Dinas Chayne stabs him halfway through the novel, and who is playing “Alpharius” when the Lucifer Black stabs him again at the very end: the phrase “that’s all you get” being the common denominator in those two encounter.

[bluntblade]

 

Shroud of Night has some fairly affable Alpha Legion...but at the end of the day, they're a bunch of prideful :cusss with a very sociopathic mindset even before they went rogue, whose whole way of war is based around dishonorable tactics and treachery. They are not nice "people" and never were.

 

 

dishonourable tactics? Deception is a vital and important part of warfare, study Tsun Tzu sometime and look up WW2's Operation Mincemeat.

Yes, but they are directly contrasted with the Ravens in this regard. The AL's campaigns are characterised by malice, bringing down infrastructure wholesale with no consideration for a world's future stability, let alone the wellbeing of its inhabitants.

[slitth]

 

 

Shroud of Night has some fairly affable Alpha Legion...but at the end of the day, they're a bunch of prideful :cusss with a very sociopathic mindset even before they went rogue, whose whole way of war is based around dishonorable tactics and treachery. They are not nice "people" and never were.

 

dishonourable tactics? Deception is a vital and important part of warfare, study Tsun Tzu sometime and look up WW2's Operation Mincemeat.

Yes, but they are directly contrasted with the Ravens in this regard. The AL's campaigns are characterised by malice, bringing down infrastructure wholesale with no consideration for a world's future stability, let alone the wellbeing of its inhabitants.

 

 

That not how I see the Alpha Legion way of doing things.

Where the Raven guard seem more like guerrilla warfare.

The Alpha Legion sound more like Black Ops warfare.

 

It nearly the same way of fighting, but has some small differences.

As Black Ops take a good deal of planning to be effect.

 

A total attack with the right information will be fast and brutal.

And will do considerable damage to the infrastructure.

But if successful it will have remove all opposition and rebuilding can start faster.

 

And considering that a world has a level of opposition that request Astartes involvement before the Alpha Legion will engage.

It would be safe to say that the world will suffer massive damage to the infrastructure and would not be allowed to recover without imperial help

[bluntblade]

But in canon the Alpha Legion are seen to absolutely cripple planets. Guilliman criticised them explicitly for attacking in a way that did not leave a world ready to prosper and contribute to the Imperium. That's not opinion on my part, it's what French and Bligh put in Extermination.

 

The Raven Guard, as people have pointed out elsewhere, weren't simply 80,000 guerilla fighters. They were a Legion, with all the power and assets that go with that, favouring a highly mobile doctrine augmented with extensive use of clandestine tactics. They get misrepresented very easily.

[Ascanius]

I think of the Raven Guard as being as much about direct action operations as they are about special reconnaissance or guerilla warfare.

 

In contrast, I think of the Alpha Legion as eschewing direct action in favour of unconventional warfare - they do really rely on agents and proxy forces a lot - to achieve their goals. Likewise I think their intelligence approach is more towards true espionage than special reconnaissance. They also, of course, would engage in guerilla warfare.

 

The Raven Guard are stealthy because they're more effective when they can infiltrate undetected and escape likewise, whereas the Alpha Legion also employ stealth to confuse and misdirect the enemy as a goal in itself. The Raven Guard want to surprise you, but the Alpha Legion want you to not even understand exactly what's happening until it's too late.

 

The Night Lords, for a third example, are stealthy when it increases the effect of their terror tactics, but abandon stealth altogether when that serves their purposes better. It's a Legion of slasher-movie killers; they'll take lives from the shadows and leave the bodies displayed to terrify the survivors, then switch to openly chasing their victims down. There wouldn't be any point hanging skins or skulls from their armour if they didn't want to be seen at some point.

 

Going the other way, the White Scars also use hit-and-run tactics and aggressive forward momentum to thrust deep into enemy territory, but they're much more open about their approaches. Their effectiveness relies on speed more than stealth or surprise.

Edited October 1, 2017 by mhacdebhandia

[Lucerne]

 

Shroud of Night has some fairly affable Alpha Legion...but at the end of the day, they're a bunch of prideful :cusss with a very sociopathic mindset even before they went rogue, whose whole way of war is based around dishonorable tactics and treachery. They are not nice "people" and never were.

 

dishonourable tactics? Deception is a vital and important part of warfare, study Tsun Tzu sometime and look up WW2's Operation Mincemeat.

 

 

Deception isn't the main issue. The pre-heresy Alpha Legion routinely conducts war crimes even by the Imperium's lax standards and has an alarming tendency to skirt the line of necessity and self-gratification.

 

Also talk about low hanging fruit for namedrops...

Edited October 1, 2017 by Ugolino

[Kelborn]

@Blunt: The Alpha Legion did this to show their capabilities. They always wanted to proof their worth to the "older Legions", especially after Alpharius was discovered. As RG criticized them, they wanted to show him of what they are capable of.

 

Because of that, did they destroyed the worlds infrastructure bit by bit and extending said campaign to a ridiculous degree. FW stated that they spent way more time in order to defeat their enemies in the most difficult way. Maybe as an exercise or maybe just to show: "See what we've done? We could do this to you, as well."

 

Usually, the AL could just be very precise and quick in disabling their foes. But they choose to do not.

[Lucerne]

The Alpha Legion's noted to actually go out of their way to show off, ironically enough for memetic infiltrators. Sooner or later, they just have to show off or rub it in- one of their hats is a great big blatant hydra plastered everywhere from tanks to their servants, after all. They're "pragmatic" to an extent...but their pragmatism is nothing but a vehicle for their own ego at the end of the day.

[slitth]

But in canon the Alpha Legion are seen to absolutely cripple planets. Guilliman criticised them explicitly for attacking in a way that did not leave a world ready to prosper and contribute to the Imperium. That's not opinion on my part, it's what French and Bligh put in Extermination.

 

The Raven Guard, as people have pointed out elsewhere, weren't simply 80,000 guerilla fighters. They were a Legion, with all the power and assets that go with that, favouring a highly mobile doctrine augmented with extensive use of clandestine tactics. They get misrepresented very easily.

 

The bit about the Alpha Legion in Extermination is written from imperial view.

It's filled with negative tones, has many theories and few facts.

So some of the information for a source like this are intentionally open to interpretation.

 

I will not dispute that the Alpha Legion will absolutely cripple planets. Because that one of the few facts in the book.

But that does not mean that is unnecessary, because I think the Alpha Legion would do it to insure a complete and successful conquest.

 

And that would not be surprising because it stated in Extermination, that one of the redeeming qualities was that they were effective at finding and removing rebellion and treachery from newly compliment worlds.

So they are finishing the job of some the less thorough compliments.

 

Besides many world are still recovering from the new state of compliment, did Horus not try an stop taxes because it was to soon and would most likely start a civil war?

 

As for the Raven Guard, no they are not just guerrilla fighters. They are a highly trained professional army that are extremely adept in guerrilla tactics.

[Phoebus]

I think it’s beneficial to step back for a second and look at this setting without the filters we take for granted in the real world.

 

The Great Crusade is an odd enterprise. Its aim is benevolent: to unify humanity in order to protect the species from Chaos, which dominates this dystopian universe. Its execution, however, is uncompromising: a world will comply and join the Imperium, or it will suffer total war. The more developed the world attempting to defend itself, the more brutal this war will be; the most advanced worlds will necessitate void war and orbital bombardment, the latter of whose results probably approximate our nightmare scenarios of all-out nuclear war. Even a “good” legion, like the Imperial Fists, will unflinchingly go through millions of human beings to achieve victory.

 

Rogal Dorn probably sums it up best in Praetorian of Dorn: Alpharius gets under his skin because although his methods are undoubtedly effective his ego gets in the way of optimal results. It’s understood that Rogal Dorn himself would commit a whole slew of war crimes - as we understand them - but only if he felt it necessary to do so. By contrast, Alpharius probably thinks it’s naive to spend time worrying about the morality of his mode of war.

 

Mind you, that’s before we start talking about those of the Legiones Astartes for whom war crimes - again, as we understand them - may as well be their calling card. The Death Guard use the most awful weapons against the enemy, with little regard or distinction shown to civilians or the environment. The Night Lords are, by definition, terrorists and torturers who systematically target civilian populations. When they eventually lose themselves to the Butcher’s Nails, the World Eaters are indiscriminate butchers who will eventually come to the point where they exterminate all life on an entire planet. Within that context, Alpharius probably feels quite comfortable waging his wars the way he does.

Edited October 1, 2017 by Phoebus

[bluntblade]

Yes Extermination is from an Imperial perspective, but that fictional historian also finds it in himself to praise other Legions who turned, and talks at length about the cold ruthlessness of the Iron Hands. By those standards the AL are portrayed as actively cruel.

 

Phoebus, excellent points.

[Brother Captain Kezef]

I think it’s beneficial to step back for a second and look at this setting without the filters we take for granted in the real world.

 

The Great Crusade is an odd enterprise. Its aim is benevolent: to unify humanity in order to protect the species from Chaos, which dominates this dystopian universe. Its execution, however, is uncompromising: a world will comply and join the Imperium, or it will suffer total war. The more developed the world attempting to defend itself, the more brutal this war will be; the most advanced worlds will necessitate void war and orbital bombardment, the latter of whose results probably approximate our nightmare scenarios of all-out nuclear war. Even a “good” legion, like the Imperial Fists, will unflinchingly go through millions of human beings to achieve victory.

 

Rogal Dorn probably sums it up best in Praetorian of Dorn: Alpharius gets under his skin because although his methods are undoubtedly effective his ego gets in the way of optimal results. It’s understood that Rogal Dorn himself would commit a whole slew of war crimes - as we understand them - but only if he felt it necessary to do so. By contrast, Alpharius probably thinks it’s naive to spend time worrying about the morality of his mode of war.

 

Mind you, that’s before we start talking about those of the Legiones Astartes for whom war crimes - again, as we understand them - may as well be their calling card. The Death Guard use the most awful weapons against the enemy, with little regard or distinction shown to civilians or the environment. The Night Lords are, by definition, terrorists and torturers who systematically target civilian populations. When they eventually lose themselves to the Butcher’s Nails, the World Eaters are indiscriminate butchers who will eventually come to the point where they exterminate all life on an entire planet. Within that context, Alpharius probably feels quite comfortable waging his wars the way he does.

 

It's not just the traitors either, the Space Wolves have a deserved reputation for ruthless savagery, the Iron Hands brutal, unemotional pragmatism.

 

Legions known for their humanity and ethics seem to be in the minority.

[Phoebus]

Point of fact, no legion should be known for their humanity and ethics. Every one of them is willing to unleash total war on any planet unwilling to comply with the Imperium. There is no compromise in this. Certain legions may be more concerned with minimizing civilian losses and the like, but that’s all relative and within the context of the ethics of the Imperium of Man, circa M30-31.

 

To put it in perspective, the Salamanders are best known for using weapons that pulp, melt, or burn alive their opponents; it’s not like they can “set phasers on less burning alive.” That they feel bad about the misguided humans of whatever planet happened to not want to be part of the Imperium doesn’t mean that they died any less horribly, or that they would stop short of achieving Compliance because they couldn’t bear to kill too many people.

Edited October 1, 2017 by Phoebus