Hello all! I was hoping that this forum could help me with some issues I am having with the campaign I have just started playing in. I created a chaos space marine character whom is a member of the Alpha Legion dating all the way back to the Horus Heresy. Now my GM is ok with this and I took the veteran of the long war talent (forget the exact name) but I am having trouble figuring when exactly he could have become a member of the legion.

During the Heresy were the legions creating new marines on a regular basis or were there set points in time? To have been a member of the legion during the heresy when would he have been "created"? Also, I know the homeworld of the Alpha Legion is unknown, but are there any other worlds they have recruited from?

I also had a question concerning actual play style. In the game we are currently playing in, I'm having some trouble truly playing up the Alpha Legion character. Sure my character and his legion brothers all introduced themselves as Alpharius when everybody first met, and of course I am able to perform the occasional sneaking around. But to me Alpha Legion are all about insanely complex plots surrounded by a web of lies with contacts everywhere. And that is the issue I am having trouble with. It seems almost impossible for me to figure out how to make a plot come together. I would really like some help if anybody has any thoughts on this. What's the best way to make contact and infiltrate organizations? Any ideas on how to actually subvert someone to my cause? Pretty much, what's the best way to make my Alpha Legionnaire actually become one as opposed to a more mysterious space marine?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Valhalla said:

Hello! Hopefully we on the forum will be able to help you so that you can bring destruction to the decadent realm of the Carrion God!

From the start I would say that most likely the Alpha Legion was continuely recruiting new soldiers from the foundation of the Legion and onwards and probably kept doing so also during and after the Horus Heresy. Therefor, and since the Alpha Legion's recruiting process were secret anyway, you should be able to pretty much make it up as you go. You could even go so far as to say that perhaps your own Legion has implanted false memories into you brain to protect their secrets if you should ever be captured. In regards to the actual process I would think that the Alpha Legion probably works pretty much as the Imperials do in that regards even if its possibly that they will draw their recruits from their various cults and such groups rather from a single recruiting world. But since we're talking about the Alpha Legion I would say that pretty much everything is possibly even if its likely to actually be missinformation spread by the Alpha Legion.

Well to start with helping you play a "proper" Alpha Legion warrior we need to know what your characters is good at and what the situation is about. Its really hard to give generic advice on this sort of thing. In regards to making complex plots I wouldn't overdo it. The Alpha Legion as an organization is good at plots but I don't think that every single member of the Legion will be an undisputed master of making such plots. As to infiltrating organizations I would first try to find some information regarding that organization and then when I have a little better take a look if there is a any reasonable way for me to work my way inside them without detection. As to person I would think that getting to know them and what they tick is the most important and then try to convince them that what they are after is actually in alignment with what you're after. Probably not that much helpful but I figured I would make an attempt anyway.

You shouldn't of course dismiss the possibility to simply play the Alpha Legionnaire as pretty much a "normal" Chaos Space Marine and watch for something to come up that you can start to work with. I think that keeping a low profile and be on the lookout for an oppertunity to present itself could work very well for an Alpha Legion warrior. And most importantly, from my perspective, don't try to take on to much at the same time. A single guy can't hope to come up with the same stuff that the entire Legion can pull off and there's no need to make things more complex than needed. After all the image of what you are and do is as important as what you actually carry of.

Some loose and somewhat disorganized thoughts on the subject. Hope it helps.

Gurkhal has it right. The Alpha Legion are secretive, and misinformation about them seems more common than any verifiable facts even now. Unless you care to scrabble and claw through every bit of GW official fiction to try and pluck out some truths, I'd say you're safe to just go with whatever works for you. The chances are that no other player at your table will know any more about the legion than you do.

As for playing the character, I don't think you need to continuously act duplicitous or sneaky. Maybe ask the GM if from time to time during lulls in adventures your character can slip off to meet with contacts, exchange seemingly meaningless tokens with apparent strangers or give odd nods to random passersby. If the GM is agreeable and the campaign style allows, you could make some rolls rolls to gather information/use infamy prior to play and have knowledge and resources at hand later to impress or worry your fellows.

I played a loyalist Alpha Legionnaire in a Great Crusade era RT/DW game, which ended up with us being seperated from the Imperium. My "Alpharius" had a squad to lead which helped but the onus was on him to further the cause of the Legion. In this case, grow their reputation and further the cause of the Emperor.

His methods included:

* charming the remembrancers on board so that they heard all about the AL exploits in battle in glowing terms and were inclined to put a positive spin on what they heard

* setting up a spy ring on board the rogue trader vessel (telling the captain beforehand in a sign of good faith) along side the even more secret Hydra agent ring.

* when said spy ring was dissolved by a distrustful captain, he was ordered to make friends with the mortals. Which he had been doing...if only to improve his intelligence gathering.

* using stealth and sniping whenever possible in combat to gain an advantage, but not being adverse to brutal upfront battle if the situation required.

I found having a variety of social skills and esoteric abilities helped greatly, along with an attitude of seizing opportunities to gather useful information or make contacts. Have him speak with humans or space marines, including those who might not make for obvious allies. They can be even better, as no-one would predict they could be won over to your side (say khornate champions). Find out what people want and dangle the prospect of getting it for them...if they help you with one little matter. An AL is not going to have the Imperial war machine behind them but that just forces creativity and adaptability.

Enjoy!

Valhalla said:

So, is your whole party Alpha Legion players? If they are, then I think the onus is on your GM to really create an environment for you guys to be all sneaky and stuff.

If you are the only Alpha Legion player, then that is an entirely different story and presents a lot of options for roleplay. I would highly recommend that you come up with a "network" idea and discuss it with your GM without the other players knowing. I would suggest that you take a minion or two, and have them operate as true NPCs. Basically, have you GM "act" your minions as NPCs so that the other players have no idea they are actually your minions. Then, at some crucial part in the game, those minions reveal their true allegiance to the Alpha Legion, and they do something that benefits your personal objectives in a Compact.

Just an idea...

It's funny you brought this up, OP. I'm starting a Black Crusade character this Saturday and was having similar questions. What's been posted so far has been quite helpful...

I think the archetype most suited to an Alpha Legion marine of this kind is the Champion, *maybe* the Forsaken. As has happened with a couple other Traitor Legions (eg. Night Lords) there's the Old Guard, those who still have the Legion's original purpose in mind and are only making due with what they have.

Reading Abnett's Legion really made me love the AL, so I knew I wanted to either play a Legionnaire or a Hydra agent loyal to the true, original cause of the AL. I'm going to avoid leaning towards any Chaos god and keep to the middle path (not easy, from what I've heard with this system) as my character scorns the Chaos gods for making most of his legion forget their original purpose and motivation.

the 'ordinary appearance' talent, or whatever it's called (don't have the book handy) might be useful. After all, Alpha Legionaries have infiltrated human cities without comment.

And a wide range of Peers would be useful - meet an imperial administrator, flash a freemason handsignal, administrator assumes you're part of the secret fraternal brotherhood (actually set up by the Legion centuries ago for just this purpose) and is suddenly inclined to be helpful to you and your party of associates.

And IIRC the Legion is still recruiting marines, presumably from all over the galaxy

_{I think the best way would to play as a khorne berserker who gets the exalted minion talent that happens to be another chaos marine , but when the time is right the two switch and turns out the khornite was the minion after all...queue evil laugh.}

The first Astartes of each legion were recruited from Earth, and while it's true that the Earth recruits who were likely to be loyal to the Emperor were purged, you could easily play one of those who was gung-ho loyal towards his primarch.

As far as your 'plottiness' goes, the example Alpha Legionnaire in Broken Chains (the preview adventure for BC) is not particularly a plotter, though he trusts his brothers in his Legion even if they don't tell him everything. You might be on a mission, not having any of the details, but trusting that you're working to further your commander, and the Legion as a whole. If you're actually using the Alpha Legionnaire archetype from the Tome of Fate, though, you better be a plotter with that Deceive +30 at character creation, lol.