I Am Alpharius

From tOther:

Howdy folks! I’m back again and this time back onto the lists I wish I could own and play. One day I may get around to buying, converting and playing with one or two of these lists but for now they are just dreams, due to the little nurgling (read as daughter) who has entered my life.

This time, Alpha Legion!

I have always been a fan of this legion, along with the Ravenguard, due to their dark and edgey backgrounds and fluff. Ok, maybe its not because of the dark and edgy flavour, but I have always liked armies and characters which manipulate engagements to their advantage, and the Alpha legion with their tricksy spy master ways and the Ravenguard with their tricksy assassin ways definitely do that.

So that’s why I have chosen Alpha Legion for this one. That and their new legion rules from the Traitor Legions book are pretty funky and cool. Chosen as troops? Units with infiltrate in a CSM army? Bonus to respawning hapless pawns…I mean cultists? And the “Many Heads of the Hydra” rule meaning that no matter how many times you cut off the hydra’s head there is always another, as your warlord switches from one character to another as they die? AWESOME!

 

Anyway onto the list:

Alpha Legion Rules:

Forward Operatives: Chosen are troops. In addition Chosen, Chaos Space marine Squads and Cultists have the infiltrate USR.

The Many heads of the Hydra: If you warlord is from an alpha legion detachment or formation then when it is killed you can immediately nominate another character in an alpha legion formation or detachment as your warlord. Generate a new warlord trait for the new warlord immediately. This can happen multiple times in a single battle, following the above steps each time. Furthermore, if your warlord is from an alpha legion detachment or formation and you are playing a mission that rewards VP for slaying the warlord, your opponent only receives these points if every character in the alpha legion detachment/formations have been slain.

 

Alpha Legion Decurion Detachment

Formation Rules:

Hidden Deployment: All none vehicle units in the army have shrouded on the first turn of the game.

I Am Alpharius:  If this is your primary detachment you can reroll warlord traits on the alpha legion warlord traits table.

All units that can have Veterans of the Long War for free.

Cult uprising (recently FAQ and errata’d: add +1 to any roll to the lost and the damned formations tide of traitors rolls, meaning they enter ongoing reserve on a 3+ rather than a 4+.

 

Chaos warband:

Chaos Lord –the vipers bite, power axe,

Sorcerer – 2x additional mastery levels

Chosen – 4x meltagun, rhino

Chosen  – 4x meltagun, rhino

Chosen – 4x meltagun, rhino

CSM – plasmagun, champion has combi plasma

CSM – plasmagun, champion has combi plasma

Bikes –3x bikes, flamer, champ has combi flamer,

Bikes – 3x bikes, flamer, champ has combi flamer,

Havocs – 5x havocs, 4x autocannon

Havocs – 5x havocs, 2x lascannon, 2x missile launchers

 

Formation rules:

Objective Secured: All units, including transports and independent characters

Favoured Scions: Roll an additional time on the chaos boon table and chose either one or both of the results when a character earns the result

 

Lost and the Damned

Dark Apostle

Cultists – 10x cultists, 1 flamer, 9 autoguns

Cultists – 10x cultists, 1 flamer, 9 autoguns

Cultists – 10x cultists, 1 flamer, 9 autoguns

Cultists – 10x cultists, 1 flamer, 9 autoguns

 

Formation rules:

A Tide of Traitors: when a unit of cultists is destroyed roll a dice, on a 4+ place the unit into ongoing reserves and it gains the outflank rule. It counts as a unit within this formation so when the new unit is destroyed it can also roll a dice and on a 4+ goes into ongoing reserve

Prophet of the Gods: the Dark Apostles zealot rule applies to all Lost and the Damned units within 6”

 

Lord of the legion:

Sorcerer – 2x additional mastery levels, mind veil

 

This army is designed to make the most of the infiltrate rule, as well as abuse the many heads of the hydra rule and the boost the lost and the damned formation gets from the alpha legion rules. It is at its heart an MSU list, but this provides 1 character per squad (unit champions), including the cultists, meaning that slay the warlord is all the harder to achieve.

The plan of attack would be to place the havocs in high spots in cover to shoot up tanks/light vehicles/anything they can see. The bikes pick a flank each. The CSM squads, 1 with the sorc with the mind veil and the chaos lord in, and the other containing the other sorcerer and dark apostle, set up in cover in the deployment zone. As these characters do not have infiltrate then these squads cannot infiltrate with them. They do however have plasma guns and the Vipers Bite (AP2 str 5 bolter) on the BS5 lord, with their 24” range to begin picking off TEQs or similar at range.

The 3 chosen squads will outflank in their rhinos, aiming to bring in their meltaguns where they will do the most damage. If any of the rhino’s survive long enough they will seek to provide cover for the chosen, or achieve line breaker if needed.

The cultists will infiltrate, so they are as close as possible to the enemy, claiming objectives is secondary for them. They may not be powerful, especially without marks of chaos, but 36 autogun/lasgun shots a turn will hurt most infantry a bit. Double that in rapid fire range. And if the enemy kills them the squads go into ongoing reserve on a 3+ and gain outflank, meaning they won’t be gone long.

The bikes will hover around the edges of the battle field, using their speed to stay in cover. On turn one their 2+ jink will mean they can get close without fear, using turbo boost to make sure they can cause pain with their flamers on turn 2. They are there to target blob squads with their flamers, seize objectives or simply distract the opponent from bigger threats.

Worst case for the army, on a table with zero cover, the cultists can be used to provide 5+ cover saves to the army, stacking with shrouded to 3+ on turn one. With a large number of units with objective secured (14 of them in fact) they should be able to contest even with SM battle companies for VPs. And the ability to outflank and infiltrate units will mean that drop pod armies will be contending with a spread out, cover hugging army on all the objectives on their first turn. Even the rhinos can infiltrate..

The sorcerers aim to take powers that add to the tricks of the army. Depending on the enemy army taking powers from the 4 newer lists: Sinestrom, ectomancy, heretech or geotmortis. Rerolls to saves, -2 to invulnerable saves, moving terrain, swapping units around (those cultists have suddenly become CSM with a chaos lord….whoa!) and so on. They are not key to the strategy and nothing tactics wise is pinned on them getting specific powers (bah, invisibility), but they do add 2 more characters for the warlord trick, 6 warpcharges for denying and then whatever powers get rolled up for them.

 

It’s not the most competitive of armies but I suspect it can hold its own pretty well.

Let me know what you think?