New Project

And that new project is: The Alpha Legion! 

When I started playing Warhammer 40k, I was immediately pulled into the story, the "fluff". Even when I started (~ mid 3rd edition), the stories about each faction, and the Adeptus Astartes (Space Marines) especially, were many, mysterious, tragic, grim, and dark. Though I started playing the loyalist Blood Angels, I quickly learned about all of the original legions and their primarchs. One that didn't seem very well fleshed out or interesting, though, was the Alpha Legion. Sure, they were described as stealthy, unorthodox, and secretive, but it always seemed to boil down to "they were upset that all the other legions said they weren't good enough, so they joined Horus to prove they were the best" in the fluff, and "they have some marines and mostly cultists and Imperial Guard that they swayed to their side" in their rules. It seemed so simplistic and petty, and thus they never held much interest for me.

Then the Horus Heresy book series started, and the seventh book, "Legion", changed my opinion.

Copyright belongs to Games-Workshop.

The Alpha Legion became my favorite group of Astartes over the course of that book. It gave so much more depth to their motivations and methods. In the book, they manipulate and casually use other Imperial forces as if playing chess, while still a loyalist legion! As more stories involving the Alpha Legion were written, I only liked them more and more. Where forces such as the Raven Guard are in many ways the Astartes equivalent of modern day US Army Rangers or Marine Recon, the Alpha Legion mix qualities of special forces like the US Delta Force and UK SAS with clandestine agencies like the US CIA and UK MI6 taken to their 41st millennium extreme. They suspend animation in order to get shipped across the galaxy to infiltrate highly secure targets years in advance. They infiltrate other space marine legions by surgically grafting other space marines' faces over their own and use their omophagea organ to learn that marine's habits and mannerisms. They use all the tactics other space marines, even other traitors, look down upon as dishonorable: assassination, false flags, sabotage, espionage, infiltration, and general mayhem.

I could go on and on. Once this fascination took root, I wanted to build an army to represent them, of course. I will discuss paint schemes, rules, and backstory in coming posts. For now, the example marine below in Mk IV Maximus armor represents my first attempts at the color scheme. More on  the final scheme, why these colors, what rules I am using, and the army in general, to come!

  

+++ Hydra Dominatus +++