Alpha Legion

The Alpha Legion is the Chaos Space Marine Traitor and Loyalist Legion. The Alpha Legion was once the XXth Legion of Astartes created during the First Founding by the Emperor of Mankind to carry out His Great Crusade to reunite all of humanity in a new golden age under His rule. They are experts in infiltration, covert operations, misdirection and diversion tactics.

The Alpha Legion's Primarch was named Alpharius, and was actually one of the identical twin Primarchs Alpharius Omegon, two brilliant and secretive sons of the Emperor, one of whom was reportedly later killed after the end of the Horus Heresy by Leman Russ, the Primarch of the Space Wolves Traitor Legion. Despite A Quarter of the legion Fell to Chaos, Most of it's Numbers Remained Loyal to the Imperium and Conducted Mass infiltration, Sabotage, misdirection and diversion tactics against the Traitor Legions. With accounts of the Heresy the purview of the Ordo Malleus and only known to the bulk of Humanity as legend and myth, records of most of the Traitor Legions are very hard to come by. This is even more the case with the Alpha Legion and it's Loyalist Counter Part, because the XXth Legion embraced misdirection and stealth as its primary means of conducting war. The Alpha Legion was the last of the Legiones Astartes to be united with its Primarch, only serving under him for a few solar decades before the Sanguinian Heresy erupted.

The Legion was known as secretive in the extreme, favouring cunning ruses and clandestine deployments, and as such very little is known of its deeds. While most accounts involving the Traitor Legions are unreliable, those that mention the Alpha Legion are regarded by most Imperial savants with outright skepticism. The misinformation surrounding the Alpha Legion even extends to the nature and identity of its Primarch. Known by the cipher "Alpharius," very little is known of the Legion's Primarch besides his genius in implementing the most cunning of stratagems and tactics.

It is said that Alpharius revelled in fighting in such a manner that his enemies only ever realised they were under attack at the very last moment. Such tactics are said to range from conventional ﬂank attacks timed to strike at the precise moment when they would precipitate the enemy's complete collapse, to extended campaigns of infiltration, exploitation of partisan groups, undermining enemy command and control assets and spreading fear and suspicion through compromised communication networks.

As Space Marines, the Alpha Legion was entirely capable of conducting the full range of military operations normally associated with these elite, superhuman warriors. However, it appears that Alpharius and his warriors were disposed towards the use of the stealth and guile, preferring such tactics to more mundane approaches to war.

This is said to have caused acrimony between Alpharius and Roboute Guilliman when the Alpha Legion was tasked with conquering the world of Tesstra Prime. The XXth Legion executed a masterful campaign in which every possible ruse and stratagem was utilised and the enemy defeated before he even realised he was fighting for his very existence, by which time he had suffered an estimated 90% losses.

The Primarch of the Ultramarines declared the campaign a grand waste of time and resources, claiming the target world could have been taken far quicker by conventional means. Alpharius replied that such an approach would have been "too easy," a view that Warmaster Sanguinius alone shared with him.

The Alpha Legion is known to have taken part in the galaxy-spanning disaster that was the Sanguininan Heresy, though as ever, its exact role is unclear. One thing is for certain, the XXth Legion was present at the Drop Site Massacre at Istvaan V, fighting on both sides of the battle, The Traitor half Attacked in the second wave as one of the three Traitor Legions that only revealed their true colours when the savagely mauled Raven Guard, Salamanders, Iron Hands and the Loyalists Half of the Alpha Legion were falling back to the drop zone.

Aside from this action, the Traitor Alpha Legion is largely absent from what accounts of the Sanguinian Heresy remain, only cropping up in a handful of places and often in contradictory fashion. The annals of the Imperial Fists and Emperor's Children both record battles against and with the Alpha Legion, and it appears that Alpharius revelled in the battles he fought against his erstwhile brothers and his Loyal Twin before he was cut down by Leman Russ.

Nearing the End of the Sanguinian Heresy Alpharius and his Traitor Forces under him Lured the Primarch Rogal Dorn of the Imperial Fists and half of the Imperial Fists Legion into a Ambush on the Planet Pluto witch resulted in the Death of Rogal Dorn after a Bloody and Long Duel between the Brothers. The fists where able to recover the Body but not his weapons.