Against the Grain - Alpha Legion: Alpharius, Uprising

Today we take a turn to the treacherous...or do we? That's what's so great about the Alpha Legion, no one really knows what side they're on except for Alpharius...or is it Omegon now? The masters of subterfuge and misdirection got some awesome boosts with the release of Codex: Chaos Space Marines in the form of a new Legion Tactic, Warlord Trait and Stratagems. In this edition of Against the Grain, we will attempt to recreate the feel of the Insurgency Force using the new/revamped tricks at our disposal.

The Alpha Legion

The XX Legion has always been the one army that could make me turn to Chaos, or at least the Heretic side of the story as the Sons of the Hydra have an interesting relationship with both Chaos and the Imperium. If you haven't read Legion from the Horus Heresy series, I highly recommend you do so as it's fantastic and will give you the background on what led to the legion siding with Horus.

The Alpha Legion are masters of deception and subterfuge, using guerilla infantry tactics they are able to whittle down vastly superior forces by attacking from unsuspecting quarters before disappearing back into the shadows. Ultimately, this constant pressure culminates in the Harrowing where all Alpha Legion elements begin a sustained attack that breaks the enemy completely. In the past edition, their special detachment was rightly known as the Insurgency Force because small elite units were backed up by large mobs of regular civilians turned cultist. Playing the army in 7th, you really felt that you were orchestrating the uprising of a city against a group of invaders.

For this list, we'll attempt to recreate that feel of guerrilla fighters inciting an uprising against an invading force.

The List - Sons of the Hydra

Battalion
Chaos Lord w/Jump Pack: Blade of the Hydra, Lightning Claw
Sorceror w/ Jump Pack: Death Hex, Prescience
Cultists (28)
Cultists (10)
Cultists (10)
Cultists (10)
Chaos SM (5): Icon of Vengeance, 1 Meltagun
Chaos SM (5): Icon of Vengeance, 1 Meltagun
Raptors (5): 2 Plasma, 1 Lightning Claw, Icon of Vengeance
Raptors (5): 2 Plasma, 1 Lightning Claw, Icon of Vengeance
Havocs (5): 4 Heavy Bolters, Icon of Vengeance
Havocs (5): 4 Autocannons, Icon of Vengeance
Rhino
Rhino

Vanguard
Sorceror w/ Jump Pack: Gift of Chaos, Warptime
Terminators (5): Combi-Plasma, Power Axe, Mark of Slaanesh, Icon of Excess
Chosen (5): 4 Plasma, 1 Power Axe, Icon of Vengeance
Chosen (5): 4 Plasma, 1 Power Axe, Icon of Vengeance

How it Works

The basic idea here is to maximize the number of threats so that attacks can from multiple directions at once. The Cultists simulate the mass uprising of the populace and swarm around the objectives while providing copious amounts of cheap wounds. The Tide of Traitors stratagem allows you to remove and reposition a Cultist unit anywhere within 6 inches of a board edge and return it to full strength. This is obviously incredibly good if you need to get a big blob of cultists close to an objective or simply keep the unit alive for longer. As it has to be more than 9 inches away, you probably won't be pulling off any charges, but having the 28 Cultists arrive behind a crucial objective is a threat that cannot be ignored.

The Marines and Chosen will double up in rhinos to lower our drops (there are 18 total), this list won't be likely to get the +1 to go first very often but it doesn't hurt. The Chosen are also a good unit to benefit from Forward Operatives as their plasma guns will pack a serious punch on Turn 1. This can also allow your Havocs to embark in a Rhino instead should you need to protect them a bit more than cover will allow. Otherwise, set the Havocs up towards the back to provide covering fire for the rest of your infantry.

The Raptors, Lord, Sorcerors, and Terminators are meant to drop in and waste high value targets of opportunity. The Terminators with Mark of Slaanesh are a prime target for the Endless Cacophony stratagem that lets them immediately shoot again. With the Lord granting rerolls, you can also use Veterans of the Long War to add 1 to your to wound rolls for the phase. This is a sturdy unit that will likely be able to wipe a strong unit with minimal effort.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the Warlord Trait for the Alpha Legion. In addition to taking a Chaos Space Marine trait, whenever your Warlord dies you may immediately nominate another character in your army to become the Warlord who then gains a trait. This goes on until no characters are left alive, at which point Slay the Warlord will finally be gained. There are only three characters in this list, but with their speed they should be able to stay away from fire while some of the more durable units distract the enemy with plasma fire.

Pros and Cons

This list does an excellent job of spreading the board with potent threats and grabbing objectives. The Alpha Legion trait "Hidden in Plain Sight" will help keep many of your units safe from ranged attacks while Forward Operatives will get your heavy hitters into position to make the kill. Utilizing Tide of Traitors appropriately will allow you to bring large units of Cultists to strike at weak points in the enemy lines while grabbing and holding objectives. Cultists aren't particularly tough, but there are a lot of them.

The downside of this list is twofold: 1) reliance on single wound models 2) not much speed outside of Raptors. These are somewhat mitigated by benefit of the Legion Trait and deployment options. The goal should be to have your fire teams spread across the board Turn 1 and occupying a large piece of real estate. This will mitigate some of the speed concerns and hopefully allow you to drop your Raptors into areas where they can be most effective. The same goes for the Cultists and Tide of Traitors. The -1 to hit granted by Hidden in Plain Sight will increase the survivability of these units and keep them on the field longer.

Verdict: Jury is still out as I'm still building my Alpha Legion up, but my gut instinct on this list is that it would be a fun list to play that requires good tactics to be successful. My guess would be that this would make an excellent list for a narrative event. From a competitive standpoint, it's likely a mid tables list. With my next Against the Grain, I'll attempt to put together a pure Alpha Legion list that can challenge some of the top armies in the meta.

So what do you think? What would you change to bring this up to competitive levels?

Hail Hydra