I've been playing Alpha Legion since the 90s, the old lore from 2nd ed is that they were *really* good at coordinating attacks, and their aspirants were failed or accepted as a team instead of individuals. It was a version of the right hand _actually_ knows what the left hand is doing type of thing. The cultist thing came in Index Astartes and is pretty in line with the rest of it.
I've been looking forward to this one. Legion is definitely my favorite of the few Heresy books I've read, mainly because it does something I thought was impossible after my early exposure to the 40K community: It made me think the Alpha Legion were the coolest thing ever. And that's not even touching how amazing the human characters are. Can't wait to get out of class to watch!
I am so with you. I've been looking forward to this one, chock full of non-transhuman but still super interesting characters, and a look at a very non-standard (for 40K at least) regiment. "For the Emperor!" and "Hydra Dominatus!"
Peto Soneka feels simultaneously exceptionally unlucky and fortunate. He survives however many attempts to hide the truth, becomes an incredibly lonely operative, and is one of four Imperials who gets to see The Acuity (and unlike Shere, he survives). Plus he gets to save his buddy as a personal favour from the primarch.
John does indeed have an American accent in the audiobooks. I sort of always thought it was because he is like bizzaro James Bond so instead of being a suave brit he is a tired beat up space cowboy secret agent.
_Legion,_ by chance, was the first Horus Heresy book I read. I cannot believe my luck, that it was one of the best in the series. I love its focus on human characters and the way it only examines the title legion from the outside in. Which works very well for a sneaky, duplicitous group that is all about conspiracies. A book that more closely followed them and revealed their motives would ironically be poorer at capturing what makes the Alpha Legion cool. On the subject of "whose side are they on?", my interpretation is that any kind of control of the Alpha Legion died with Alpharius (assuming it was him who dies to [Redacted]), and it probably was lost even before that. The Alpha Legion are a self-perpetuating terror movement operating on the cellular level. Splinters are created, nominally to serve some intended purpose. But the legion became so large, so spread out, so secretive, and so complicated, only Alpharius and Omegon could possibly have kept it all straight. Possibly not even then, especially as the Heresy ground on and the exigencies of war demanded ad hoc changes and new forces mustered. So by the time the Heresy ended, no one was really in control. There was just a thousand warbands, continuing to operate according to plans laid down years, centuries, and latterly _millennia_ before. All certain THEY are the lynchpin of the legion's plans, and ALL not really understanding what they're doing. Alpha Legion captains create new warbands and send them off with pretenses and lies, not knowing that's exactly what _their_ handlers did to them. It's a hydra that has grown so many heads, any possibility of unity or even awareness of the whole is impossible on the part of those heads. A _fractal_ of duplicity, that operates on its own momentum. Mutating and reproducing itself endlessly.
My favourite 'holy shit these guys are awesome' moment in the heresy was with the white scars. Turning Mongals on spacebikes into a living breathing awesome culture.
When you started this series, the three I most looked forward to were Fulgrim, Legion, and Betrayer. First two have been great, and I'll wait patiently for the next!
John sounds like Martin Freeman’s character in Black Panther. Someone who is clearly British, but using an American accent. It’s all I pictures whilst listening to it 😂
Also, the Geno 52 get a blink and you'll miss it shoutout in the End and the Death, just as part of a long list of regiments and astartes formations grappleing for life in no mans land.
Keeble decided to give John Gramaticus an American accent in the audiobooks. Some of the accents he gives seems to just be him trying to find a new unique voice for a character. In Mortis he gives a titan princeps a Belfast accent for no particular reason. For Jonny G I think he's trying to anchor our perception of John as someone from our time that is still alive in M31 by giving him an accent that is unusual in 40k but evokes a sense of the common man to an English language media consumer.
Namatjira's name is from Albert Namatjira, a famous indigenous Australian artist from the first half of the 20th Century. The thylacine is named after the Tasmanian tiger. Not sure why Dan made those Australia-centric choices though.
Hydra Dominatus! My favourite book of the Heresy series too. As a follow up, a review of "Alpharius: Head of the Hydra" by Mike Brooks would be awesome.
This is one of the Heresy books I'll revisit often. I just can't get enough of all the details in the different armies. I wish I could make a geno 52 kill team.
Uxor is a real word - it's just not English. It's Latin for "wife". Also, one piece of lore that existed for the Alpha Legion before this book was written that Ian didn't mention is that their battle cry as Chaos Space Marines in the 40k setting is "For the Emperor," which is probably why Dan Abnett ran with making their actual allegiance very ambiguous. As for the legion's flaw, I think, after this book, it's that their various companies and battlegroups are so autonomous that they're not really a cohesive legion at all - they're basically multiple splinter legions who aren't necessarily working toward the same goals. But maybe... they're not.
Omegon being the leader of the Stealth squad making the brothers giggle and the twins complaint that the claim of the Eldar would be heresy might be the two favourite moments in this novel 🙃
Thanks to your review i started listening to the audiobook. 1 hour in and i'm loving it! It reminds me of another book with a human tank crew with a cool veteran who was praying to a made up godess of war. Maybe Valdor - Birth of the Imperium.
Legion was the first 40k (well 30k technically) I read after reading the Eisenhorn books and I basically knew nothing about Astartes in the current timeline, much less any of the legions, and the way Alpha is portrayed is so compelling in this book that it's almost hard to believe they were more of a meme army before the meme really existed. It may seem like an odd story to serve as an introduction to the overall setting, but I still would love to see Legion given big screen treatment, the way it introduces chaos to the knowledge of the imperial perspective is one of the most fascinating things about the story, to me. Like sure the EMP knows about it, but even Alpharius/Omegon describe it as a "strange xenos threat" giving me the impression even the twins had only an entry level understanding of what it could do, at least until the world was consumed by chaos sorcery.
The only appropriate way to play Alpha Legion is to play an entirely different army. Then, whether you win or lose, twirl a moustache and say it's all according to plan.
this is probably one of my favorite HH books even though it gets kinda retconned later on, but i love John Grammaticus and Johnathan Keeble's "American" accent for him is so charming. Whenever I hear him speak in Grammaticus' voice I always think it's funny that he sounds vaguely like what a Brit thinks a New Yorker sounds like. Also Uxor is the Latin word for "wife" and Hetman sounds like a reference to the German rank "Hauptman" and the Geno 5-2 Chiliad were genenhanced soldiers who fight in a sort of pike and shot formation.
Hauptman is usually translated from German to the rank of Captain in the Army. Uxor, depending on which language root you go for. it generally means wife, woman or mother in law.
Hetman, on the other hand - which is what Ian and Mira said, I don't know what's actually in the book - is an Eastern European title or position roughly analogous to "Lord Constable" as in the "Lord Constable of France." It was the head of the army in 1500s Poland and used by a few other groups and nations in the area as well. There is debate whether the term originates from the German Huaptman (which at the time, and like the English "Captain," mean anyone in charge of any identifiable group of soldiers) or the Turkish "ataman."
Man i’ve never read a 40k book properly other than listening to the audio book version of the infinite and divine. But the way you break these books down is dope.
I think in the 4th edition codex, Alpha legion were the only ones that could take cultists. Which would make sense if their units contained so many humans
The lore before this book was that everything about the Alpha Legion is secret and everything you've ever heard about them is a lie...and it hasn't changed much several novels later!
In this world where everything has gone mad watching Lore Master Ian walk the lovely Mira through the 40K universe has become one of my life's simple pleasures.
Legion, a book that showed what Great Crusade/Early Heresy stories could be, before we went fully into the narrow channel of marine-on-marine violence (which, there's plenty of those I like but still, bit of variety wouldn't hurt)
I absolutely love this book. As a teenager I read this when it came out and Alpha Legion became by far my favourite legion ever since. Abnett is a genius
John Grammaticus definitely has an American accent in the audiobooks. There are a few other characters voiced the same way and I always like to think they are, in fact, John but in full on spy mode
@@BM-is5ei Logokines can speak any and every accent of any and every language. India is the most populous country that has English as it's official language, most old English empire countries have kept it as a part of their national identity. You could make the argument that most of the English speakers in the world live in the US, however it's impossible to say which part of these people are native english speakers.
21:18 - “I wonder if any Alpha Legion fans got their brand.” I wasn’t an AL fan till this book and after I finished it I went out and got a tattoo of the hydra on my forearm
Rukhsana and Peto actually survive the Alpha Legion killing spree. I think it is a nice continuity with the "we look after our own" thing. Also makes them les horrible than 90% of all Astartes!
In the novel Alpharius mentions that the Geno. 52's way of creating soldiers actually helped to inspire the Emporer's creation of the legions. Personally, I also think it's how Kreig does it, since if they harvested female eggs early on, the women could go on to die for the emporer and not waste their "usefulness".
Siege of Vraks pt1 explains that there are no women (no eggs) on Krieg and the Vitae-Wombs are housed in dusty warehouses underneath the planet. The 2022 Krieg novel also explains that all of the Death Korps are clones of Colonel Jurten.... naturally the lore permits one to consider these sources unreliable so your theory is just as good as any other one.
One of my favorite characters in that book is the lord commander. He’s so pompous and extravagant and way different than the lord commanders in the 40k setting
Great breakdown! I loved this book and the AL are definitely my favourite Legion. So well written and fleshed out by Dan Abnett (as always). I highly recommend Mike Brooks' Primarch novel Head of the Hydra too, a really great read.
My suggestion for the "flaw" of the Alpha Legion would be that their reasonableness and rationality actually prevent them from gaining the insane, brute-force powers that many of the other legions wield. Like, tactics and strategy will only get you so far when faced with the overbearing insanity of legions like the World Eaters or Space Wolves. Ironically, those legions probably would have successfully brought Nurth to compliance by just massacring the Echvehnurth and leveling their city before they could activate the Black Cube. As a real military force, the Alpha Legion and Ultramarines are pretty clearly the best managed, since being well managed is kinda their whole thing. But once you factor in the ancient technology, mystical abilities, and literal superpowers that all the other legions have, I think it balances out fairly well. There's something to like about all of them.
Love to match Abnett's love for complex conspiracies and plans... and Malcador's final remarks on plans and life in TEATD III. You could even consider he's reflecting on his career and as a BL writer there.
Both the title of hetman and uxor was used in eastern europe. A "baszor/basior"/bashor is both a last name and a specific rank of non comissioned officer , used in XVIth-XVIlth century infantry drawn from peasents .today it is an non common last name and the name of villages where such soldiers would be settled after a 20year military service.
Is it just me, or does anyone else think "Nurth" could be a corruption of Nu-Earth? They've forgotten their heritage, but the original settlers may have named the planet as a "New Earth"? 😊 Also, I love that the book's focus is everything except the Alpha Legion; they're in the background, quietly manipulating events how they wish them to play out... just like the Alpha Legion always try to do. This is one of my favourite HH books, and is Dan Abnett at his absolute peak of writing talent. A must read.
Any chance these episodes will be uploaded as podcasts. There have been no new episodes added to your audible feed since December last year? I do hope you put these on at some point.
Good to video. I don't play AL, but a friend plays them and talks a lot. I had no idea that the twin thing was invented for Legion. Nice to know now. And yeah, Dan is really good at writing about hyper competent people clashing with other hyper competent people and the chaos that ensues there. The entire HH series seemed to me to be about taking the legions that were jokes and making them cool.
Since there hasn't been updates to bastard scale, I'm posting it as it were. Waiting for the next one gang! Lucius - 27 Fabius - "blown up the scale"/ contested by Ian Erebus - 12 The Lion - 9 Bequa - 9 Fulgrim - 8.5 Julius - 6 Marius - 5.5 Solomon - 3 Everyone else in Descent of Angels - 3 Iacton Cruze - 1 If I missed smth, as always - let me know
Eidolon. I'm assuming this list doesn't account all of HH since there are a few night lords missing. It should change after book #34. Fabius is actually a good guy in 40k, but I guess his goodness only comes out after the HH.
@@merci_ann I have no idea, I'm not part of the (not so secret) club. Eidolon got into my craplist because as a commander he kept stealing the credit from his underlings in Horus Rising. One of the redeeming features of Fabius is that at one point he keeps a still living, severed head of Eidolon in a cupboard just to mess with him. Without Fabius, Garro also would have died at Istvaan and the flight of the eisenstein would have been a lot shorter without him.
@@glandhound eeem okay. The list is made to keep track of list of people that Mira and Ian mention. They didn't mention Eidolon so he's not on the list
As an American listener, John doesn't really sound like any specific American accent, but that Hugh Laurie as House or Cumberbatch as Dr Strange kinda unplaceable surly mixed with cocky may have been what they were going for. Not sure how old John is, but I chose to interpret it instead as a result of his omni-lingualism, a mish mash resulting in a neutral tones. Come to think of it, I think Oll Persson and Damon Prytanis are voiced similarly, so maybe it's just their way of distinguishing these pre-Imperial Perpetuals.
I tried to read the whole hours heresy in the past. "Battle for the Abyss" is where I lost steam. Best of luck, I look forward to hearing what you all think of it!
Awesome book - wish we had more lore what happened to the Geno 52 Chiliad - somebody noted they fought on Terra during the Horus invasion of Terra on the loyalist side in the "The End And the Death". Amazing world building from the beginning in Book 7 with introducing John Grammaticus, the Cabal,and later Oll Perrson.
9 месяцев назад+2
One of the best books I've read in the series. Maybe the best.
I really enjoyed Legion and after this am going to go back to it again. I do find though that John's voice in the books always felt a bit off, like it didn't quite fit in, which also felt funny with the spy having the most different voice that stuck out like a sore thumb from everyone else.
I have been resisting even touching the Horus Heresy with a 16 foot force pike for a very long time. But these Book Club videos are slowly crumbling my desparate resolve not to go there.....Damn you two!
@@Keevanus 50+ books of grisly grinding pseudo biblical cataclismic horror that makes the entire Old Testament seem like a single light novella? Might just give me a little pause for thought. And this comment is coming from a guy who actually read War and Peace, more or less got it and actually enjoyed it at times...
5:14 "Hetman is a political title from Central and Eastern Europe, historically assigned to military commanders (comparable to a field marshal or imperial marshal in the Holy Roman Empire)." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetman
Always loved the alpha Legion with their plans within plans. Finding out that they might have cultivated that rep in order to throw people off is even better. So that's plans within plans adjacent to plans within plans 😅
Cool discussion thanks, Legion sits at the table for my 5 favourite heresy novels, Abnett writing at his very best. The idea of writing a book about the Alpha Legion from the perspective of (mainly) outsider non-Astartes was an inspired choice. I've often thought John Grammaticus is Abnett's favourite heresy character based on this book and his many appearances in later novels. I once had chance to ask him in person about Grammaticus and he said one of main narrative purposes of Legion was to set his character up for the series. Also, got to admire Abnett's choice of name for his perpetual Cabal spy; he literally used a name straight out of history, John VII of Constantinople aka John Grammatikos (Grammaticus). Given John's nature in the book, I don't think this choice was based alone on how interesting this name sounds. John is an agent of the Cabal, implacably opposed to the primordial annihilator has more than a passing similarity to Grammatikos' real-life role as a Byzantine Iconoclast, a destroyer of symbols of false religious beliefs.
I think Dan Abnett needs to answer why everyone is always from the Karelia hive. (John Grammaticus, Kasper Hawser, The Emperor himself). I've heard that this is somehow related to Graham McNeill's taste in music. I bet there's a story related to it and Warhammer Santa needs to deliver the answer!
I think Grammaticus met E in Anatolia Hive, which is where John also died the first time. John might have mentioned being born in Karelia, but I'm not really sure about that one either. Even Kaspar Hawser is only mentioned having worked in Karelia hive at Aleksanterinkatu something... which is also the most common street name in Finland. A lot of the world have Alex streets of them own seeing it's Alexander the Great where it gets it's name from. Alexander the Great is also whom the Emperor is named as by Horus in The End and the Death. The book Mechanicus mentions E riding into town with a pale horse and Master of Mankind mentions E being a kid way before any sort of writing was a thing. It's probably safe to say a lot of people are from a lot of places, but a lot of them also have the Karelia hive in common.... and after breaking the fourth wall, it's at least partially because Graham McNeill likes/liked Finnish metal. As a closet finn, I just wanted Abnett to talk about Finland. :)
Overall I found it a bit disappointing. There are two pitfalls of the Alpha legion I felt it kinda embodied; 1) if they’re so clever and amazing at what they do, it’d be impossible for them to ever fail 2) their acceptance of the cabal feels weird. While Pretorian of Dorn is great as it helps to show up point 1, this book needed to better express the weaknesses of the Alpha legion; displaying plans going wrong, their hubris and the chaotic nature of the universe belying the complex webs they weave. It’s worth mentioning character arcs etc are still good though. It is an Abnett book after all.
There's a scene early in the novel Harrowmaster by Mike Brooks, where some alpha legionaries have to flee from a bitch mission. Whilst they're running away, one of them postulates that the imperium will probably assume they had an ulterior motif that they accomplished and then made a tactical retreat, when they're literally just runnig because the its a raid that was pear shapes on them. The other guy in the squad ways if they want to think that, then they shouldn't stop them from being paranoid about it. Good book too, Mike delves into what it is like to be part of a legion where absolutely no one trusts each other, and everyone is out to secure their ambitions without getting a knife in the back.
One of the funniest moments in the first 10 books: Marine sneaks up behind guard leader on the toilet "I am Alpharius" *confuses the situation, refuses to elaborate, leaves*
riffing off sonething mira said, this book is one of the only times a war in 40k feels very contemporary, like Afghanistan/Iraq. Especially at the start.
I always thought Grammaticus has an unusual accent compared to the others to show how old he really is, so his (internal) language is different from those born millenia after him. Though the other perpetuals don't do that as much.
Are y'all planning to do the short story anthologies? There's a lot of great stuff tucked away in those, I distinctly remember a couple Alpha Legion stories (and the closest we get to a Night Lords book is in an anthology as well)
Legion hooked me to the alpha legion so much so some of my salamander army has a coat of UV paint that changes them to alpha legion under blue light.
Nice!
holy shit that's awesome!!
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right... Stuck in the middle with Uxor Mu.
Well I started out with nothing and I’m proud that I am Mu’s hetman
I REALLY hope that Mira asks Dan if this song was the motivation for the companies' and Mu's names! It'd be brilliant if it was!
I've been playing Alpha Legion since the 90s, the old lore from 2nd ed is that they were *really* good at coordinating attacks, and their aspirants were failed or accepted as a team instead of individuals. It was a version of the right hand _actually_ knows what the left hand is doing type of thing. The cultist thing came in Index Astartes and is pretty in line with the rest of it.
I have never wanted a jumper more in my life than seeing what Mira is wearing.
It is certainly Codex Compliant! 😍
@@euansmith3699 oh but it isn't, the real aquila has one of it's eyes closed
Mira: "In the next video, Battle for The Abyss..."
Ian: "Oh God!"
He knows....
I've been looking forward to this one. Legion is definitely my favorite of the few Heresy books I've read, mainly because it does something I thought was impossible after my early exposure to the 40K community: It made me think the Alpha Legion were the coolest thing ever. And that's not even touching how amazing the human characters are. Can't wait to get out of class to watch!
and of course I edit the comment to fix a spelling error and the heart disappears. Oh well. Thanks Ian!
I am so with you. I've been looking forward to this one, chock full of non-transhuman but still super interesting characters, and a look at a very non-standard (for 40K at least) regiment. "For the Emperor!" and "Hydra Dominatus!"
Just a small side note: "uxor" is not a made-up word, but it means "wife" in Latin. Love you both! Keep up with this amazing series! ❤
Peto Soneka feels simultaneously exceptionally unlucky and fortunate.
He survives however many attempts to hide the truth, becomes an incredibly lonely operative, and is one of four Imperials who gets to see The Acuity (and unlike Shere, he survives).
Plus he gets to save his buddy as a personal favour from the primarch.
John does indeed have an American accent in the audiobooks. I sort of always thought it was because he is like bizzaro James Bond so instead of being a suave brit he is a tired beat up space cowboy secret agent.
💯
The narration of grammaticus reminds me of Nick Valentine from fallout 4
These reviews and discussions are always so charming! And a great way to relive the stories, top notch stuff.
It's just occurred to me that the game they play with the heads at Visages is right out of Taskmaster.
"The Mr Benn of spies"
Best description ever. 10/10 no notes 😂
he really is Johnny English isn't he??
Mira's Emperor voice is now canon.
_Legion,_ by chance, was the first Horus Heresy book I read. I cannot believe my luck, that it was one of the best in the series. I love its focus on human characters and the way it only examines the title legion from the outside in. Which works very well for a sneaky, duplicitous group that is all about conspiracies. A book that more closely followed them and revealed their motives would ironically be poorer at capturing what makes the Alpha Legion cool.
On the subject of "whose side are they on?", my interpretation is that any kind of control of the Alpha Legion died with Alpharius (assuming it was him who dies to [Redacted]), and it probably was lost even before that. The Alpha Legion are a self-perpetuating terror movement operating on the cellular level. Splinters are created, nominally to serve some intended purpose. But the legion became so large, so spread out, so secretive, and so complicated, only Alpharius and Omegon could possibly have kept it all straight. Possibly not even then, especially as the Heresy ground on and the exigencies of war demanded ad hoc changes and new forces mustered.
So by the time the Heresy ended, no one was really in control. There was just a thousand warbands, continuing to operate according to plans laid down years, centuries, and latterly _millennia_ before. All certain THEY are the lynchpin of the legion's plans, and ALL not really understanding what they're doing. Alpha Legion captains create new warbands and send them off with pretenses and lies, not knowing that's exactly what _their_ handlers did to them.
It's a hydra that has grown so many heads, any possibility of unity or even awareness of the whole is impossible on the part of those heads. A _fractal_ of duplicity, that operates on its own momentum. Mutating and reproducing itself endlessly.
My favourite 'holy shit these guys are awesome' moment in the heresy was with the white scars. Turning Mongals on spacebikes into a living breathing awesome culture.
When you started this series, the three I most looked forward to were Fulgrim, Legion, and Betrayer. First two have been great, and I'll wait patiently for the next!
I want to see if Mira can get through Pharos.
Not The First Heretic?
That jumper is awesome Mira.
John sounds like Martin Freeman’s character in Black Panther. Someone who is clearly British, but using an American accent. It’s all I pictures whilst listening to it 😂
Also, the Geno 52 get a blink and you'll miss it shoutout in the End and the Death, just as part of a long list of regiments and astartes formations grappleing for life in no mans land.
Everytime they got mentioned i couldn't help but smile
I am Alpharius - that’s how I’m commenting before the video even comes out
You look like Omegon to me
As an Alpharius-aproved Alpharius, I, Alpharius, can confirm that you, Alpharius, are indeed, Alpharius.
You too?! I am Alpharius as well.
Alright! Hi-five! Oh, sorry. 😅
I am alpharius
37:08 one correction there, they don’t kill Peto and Rukhsana (and they rescue Bronzi)
Oh no 😅 what could I say.. it was a long night of filming
Legion is one of the best Horus Heresy books. The mystery and conspiracy were fantastic, with the ending being a hammer blow.
Keeble decided to give John Gramaticus an American accent in the audiobooks. Some of the accents he gives seems to just be him trying to find a new unique voice for a character. In Mortis he gives a titan princeps a Belfast accent for no particular reason. For Jonny G I think he's trying to anchor our perception of John as someone from our time that is still alive in M31 by giving him an accent that is unusual in 40k but evokes a sense of the common man to an English language media consumer.
Namatjira's name is from Albert Namatjira, a famous indigenous Australian artist from the first half of the 20th Century. The thylacine is named after the Tasmanian tiger. Not sure why Dan made those Australia-centric choices though.
Scrolled through the comments to find this, I'm glad that the first nations is able to be represented somewhat in the 31st millennium
John as a tired American from the audiobooks is very much my canon voice for him ❤ especially later
I love nebulously texan John. I also miss midlands farmer Oll, but Jonathan Keeble does a great job of him as a tired old soldier.
Hydra Dominatus!
My favourite book of the Heresy series too.
As a follow up, a review of "Alpharius: Head of the Hydra" by Mike Brooks would be awesome.
This is one of the Heresy books I'll revisit often. I just can't get enough of all the details in the different armies. I wish I could make a geno 52 kill team.
Uxor is a real word - it's just not English. It's Latin for "wife".
Also, one piece of lore that existed for the Alpha Legion before this book was written that Ian didn't mention is that their battle cry as Chaos Space Marines in the 40k setting is "For the Emperor," which is probably why Dan Abnett ran with making their actual allegiance very ambiguous.
As for the legion's flaw, I think, after this book, it's that their various companies and battlegroups are so autonomous that they're not really a cohesive legion at all - they're basically multiple splinter legions who aren't necessarily working toward the same goals. But maybe... they're not.
Hydra Dominatus
Ive been waiting for this ! Love to hear Miras perspectives as a new reader and new to the genre/lore!
Omegon being the leader of the Stealth squad making the brothers giggle and the twins complaint that the claim of the Eldar would be heresy might be the two favourite moments in this novel 🙃
Thanks to your review i started listening to the audiobook. 1 hour in and i'm loving it! It reminds me of another book with a human tank crew with a cool veteran who was praying to a made up godess of war. Maybe Valdor - Birth of the Imperium.
Legion was the first 40k (well 30k technically) I read after reading the Eisenhorn books and I basically knew nothing about Astartes in the current timeline, much less any of the legions, and the way Alpha is portrayed is so compelling in this book that it's almost hard to believe they were more of a meme army before the meme really existed. It may seem like an odd story to serve as an introduction to the overall setting, but I still would love to see Legion given big screen treatment, the way it introduces chaos to the knowledge of the imperial perspective is one of the most fascinating things about the story, to me. Like sure the EMP knows about it, but even Alpharius/Omegon describe it as a "strange xenos threat" giving me the impression even the twins had only an entry level understanding of what it could do, at least until the world was consumed by chaos sorcery.
And also...
"For the Emperor!"
The only appropriate way to play Alpha Legion is to play an entirely different army. Then, whether you win or lose, twirl a moustache and say it's all according to plan.
I do that with my Orks.
Easily my favourite book in the series. Only Scars comes close for me. I own a huge army of Alpha Legion now due to this book.
I occurs to me that one of the most unsettling things would be a Space Marine yoga class. Especially the breathing exercises...
this is probably one of my favorite HH books even though it gets kinda retconned later on, but i love John Grammaticus and Johnathan Keeble's "American" accent for him is so charming. Whenever I hear him speak in Grammaticus' voice I always think it's funny that he sounds vaguely like what a Brit thinks a New Yorker sounds like.
Also Uxor is the Latin word for "wife" and Hetman sounds like a reference to the German rank "Hauptman" and the Geno 5-2 Chiliad were genenhanced soldiers who fight in a sort of pike and shot formation.
Hauptman is usually translated from German to the rank of Captain in the Army. Uxor, depending on which language root you go for. it generally means wife, woman or mother in law.
Hetman, on the other hand - which is what Ian and Mira said, I don't know what's actually in the book - is an Eastern European title or position roughly analogous to "Lord Constable" as in the "Lord Constable of France." It was the head of the army in 1500s Poland and used by a few other groups and nations in the area as well. There is debate whether the term originates from the German Huaptman (which at the time, and like the English "Captain," mean anyone in charge of any identifiable group of soldiers) or the Turkish "ataman."
@@davydatwood3158 either could be correct. I guess we both need to read the book.
@@Yandarval It's spelled Hetman in the book, and the cover art shows soldiers that look kinda eastern European
@@ReverendMeat51 I shall acquiesce to your explanation.👍
@@Yandarval Should still read the book though, it's fun :)
i really enjoyed this book, it felt like a return to form in the series
Man i’ve never read a 40k book properly other than listening to the audio book version of the infinite and divine. But the way you break these books down is dope.
I think in the 4th edition codex, Alpha legion were the only ones that could take cultists. Which would make sense if their units contained so many humans
It was the seccond 3rd edition ckdex, but you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a 4th edition codex.
3rd edition, second codex. In 4th edition Chaos Space Marines lost legion rules entirely.
@@ImrahilToChaos that's right. Two codexs in one edition, what a time
Oh wow, I just started this one yesterday. I'll try and finish it as fast as I can so I can come back and watch this video.
One of the best books of the series. The scene where Slau Dha steps through the reflecting puddle is tops
The lore before this book was that everything about the Alpha Legion is secret and everything you've ever heard about them is a lie...and it hasn't changed much several novels later!
In this world where everything has gone mad watching Lore Master Ian walk the lovely Mira through the 40K universe has become one of my life's simple pleasures.
I was a fan of the Alpha Legion from the primarch book. This book really solidified my love for their whole vibe.
Legion, a book that showed what Great Crusade/Early Heresy stories could be, before we went fully into the narrow channel of marine-on-marine violence (which, there's plenty of those I like but still, bit of variety wouldn't hurt)
Alpha Legion only show up and announce themselves if they WANT you to know.
I absolutely love this book. As a teenager I read this when it came out and Alpha Legion became by far my favourite legion ever since. Abnett is a genius
John Grammaticus definitely has an American accent in the audiobooks. There are a few other characters voiced the same way and I always like to think they are, in fact, John but in full on spy mode
Grammaticus is a logokine so he would naturally choose the most common English accent... which is probably Indian.
@@glandhoundeh what?
@@BM-is5ei
Logokines can speak any and every accent of any and every language.
India is the most populous country that has English as it's official language, most old English empire countries have kept it as a part of their national identity.
You could make the argument that most of the English speakers in the world live in the US, however it's impossible to say which part of these people are native english speakers.
@@glandhound i know what he is but what you are saying doesn't make any sense.
21:18 - “I wonder if any Alpha Legion fans got their brand.”
I wasn’t an AL fan till this book and after I finished it I went out and got a tattoo of the hydra on my forearm
🎉
Rukhsana and Peto actually survive the Alpha Legion killing spree. I think it is a nice continuity with the "we look after our own" thing. Also makes them les horrible than 90% of all Astartes!
In the novel Alpharius mentions that the Geno. 52's way of creating soldiers actually helped to inspire the Emporer's creation of the legions. Personally, I also think it's how Kreig does it, since if they harvested female eggs early on, the women could go on to die for the emporer and not waste their "usefulness".
Siege of Vraks pt1 explains that there are no women (no eggs) on Krieg and the Vitae-Wombs are housed in dusty warehouses underneath the planet. The 2022 Krieg novel also explains that all of the Death Korps are clones of Colonel Jurten.... naturally the lore permits one to consider these sources unreliable so your theory is just as good as any other one.
I don't need to read the Horus Heresy, I just listen to Mira's action movie plot summary
YES! I love this book. I've been looking forward to this review. Thanks Mira and Ian.
One of my favorite characters in that book is the lord commander. He’s so pompous and extravagant and way different than the lord commanders in the 40k setting
He even has a sinister feline creature to pet smugly
@@brundlefly45 it's a Thylacine isn't it? Nothing more extravagant than an extinct earth species
Great breakdown! I loved this book and the AL are definitely my favourite Legion. So well written and fleshed out by Dan Abnett (as always). I highly recommend Mike Brooks' Primarch novel Head of the Hydra too, a really great read.
My suggestion for the "flaw" of the Alpha Legion would be that their reasonableness and rationality actually prevent them from gaining the insane, brute-force powers that many of the other legions wield. Like, tactics and strategy will only get you so far when faced with the overbearing insanity of legions like the World Eaters or Space Wolves. Ironically, those legions probably would have successfully brought Nurth to compliance by just massacring the Echvehnurth and leveling their city before they could activate the Black Cube.
As a real military force, the Alpha Legion and Ultramarines are pretty clearly the best managed, since being well managed is kinda their whole thing. But once you factor in the ancient technology, mystical abilities, and literal superpowers that all the other legions have, I think it balances out fairly well. There's something to like about all of them.
They are also really small, even the Primarchs are barely taller than the Marines.
The added lore we knew of was their warcry is "For the Emperor" which is seen as being mocking of their enemy but Legion now makes you think is it?
Love to match Abnett's love for complex conspiracies and plans... and Malcador's final remarks on plans and life in TEATD III. You could even consider he's reflecting on his career and as a BL writer there.
Honestly when I read this the first time I felt like it was aiming for the tone of an Iain M Banks culture novel
Both the title of hetman and uxor was used in eastern europe. A "baszor/basior"/bashor is both a last name and a specific rank of non comissioned officer , used in XVIth-XVIlth century infantry drawn from peasents .today it is an non common last name and the name of villages where such soldiers would be settled after a 20year military service.
Is it just me, or does anyone else think "Nurth" could be a corruption of Nu-Earth? They've forgotten their heritage, but the original settlers may have named the planet as a "New Earth"? 😊
Also, I love that the book's focus is everything except the Alpha Legion; they're in the background, quietly manipulating events how they wish them to play out... just like the Alpha Legion always try to do. This is one of my favourite HH books, and is Dan Abnett at his absolute peak of writing talent. A must read.
crazy the amount of stuff Ian can remember. I have read this book aswell last year and the names didnt stuck wtih me what so ever
I really really enjoyed this. Thank you so much. I’m going to go back and listen to all the book reports.
Any chance these episodes will be uploaded as podcasts. There have been no new episodes added to your audible feed since December last year? I do hope you put these on at some point.
Good to video. I don't play AL, but a friend plays them and talks a lot. I had no idea that the twin thing was invented for Legion. Nice to know now. And yeah, Dan is really good at writing about hyper competent people clashing with other hyper competent people and the chaos that ensues there. The entire HH series seemed to me to be about taking the legions that were jokes and making them cool.
Since there hasn't been updates to bastard scale, I'm posting it as it were. Waiting for the next one gang!
Lucius - 27
Fabius - "blown up the scale"/ contested by Ian
Erebus - 12
The Lion - 9
Bequa - 9
Fulgrim - 8.5
Julius - 6
Marius - 5.5
Solomon - 3
Everyone else in Descent of Angels - 3
Iacton Cruze - 1
If I missed smth, as always - let me know
Eidolon.
I'm assuming this list doesn't account all of HH since there are a few night lords missing. It should change after book #34. Fabius is actually a good guy in 40k, but I guess his goodness only comes out after the HH.
@@glandhound was eidolon rated by Mira so far? What rating did he get?
@@merci_ann I have no idea, I'm not part of the (not so secret) club. Eidolon got into my craplist because as a commander he kept stealing the credit from his underlings in Horus Rising. One of the redeeming features of Fabius is that at one point he keeps a still living, severed head of Eidolon in a cupboard just to mess with him. Without Fabius, Garro also would have died at Istvaan and the flight of the eisenstein would have been a lot shorter without him.
@@glandhound eeem okay. The list is made to keep track of list of people that Mira and Ian mention. They didn't mention Eidolon so he's not on the list
Friday came early, its review time! I love when they get to be in the same room recording these
As an American listener, John doesn't really sound like any specific American accent, but that Hugh Laurie as House or Cumberbatch as Dr Strange kinda unplaceable surly mixed with cocky may have been what they were going for. Not sure how old John is, but I chose to interpret it instead as a result of his omni-lingualism, a mish mash resulting in a neutral tones.
Come to think of it, I think Oll Persson and Damon Prytanis are voiced similarly, so maybe it's just their way of distinguishing these pre-Imperial Perpetuals.
I tried to read the whole hours heresy in the past. "Battle for the Abyss" is where I lost steam. Best of luck, I look forward to hearing what you all think of it!
...and then reading 'Alpharius' gives this book a whole new spin.
I’m always so pleasantly surprised by these! Great stuff. ❤
Twelve books into the Heresy, and i will say Legion so far has been my favorite.
Awesome book - wish we had more lore what happened to the Geno 52 Chiliad - somebody noted they fought on Terra during the Horus invasion of Terra on the loyalist side in the "The End And the Death".
Amazing world building from the beginning in Book 7 with introducing John Grammaticus, the Cabal,and later Oll Perrson.
One of the best books I've read in the series. Maybe the best.
IN A WORLD where Mira is Alpharius!
One of my favourite-ever HH books. Must reread this some time.
I really enjoyed Legion and after this am going to go back to it again. I do find though that John's voice in the books always felt a bit off, like it didn't quite fit in, which also felt funny with the spy having the most different voice that stuck out like a sore thumb from everyone else.
I have been resisting even touching the Horus Heresy with a 16 foot force pike for a very long time. But these Book Club videos are slowly crumbling my desparate resolve not to go there.....Damn you two!
why you even resiting against this? what is the reason to NOT read the books?
@@Keevanus 50+ books of grisly grinding pseudo biblical cataclismic horror that makes the entire Old Testament seem like a single light novella? Might just give me a little pause for thought. And this comment is coming from a guy who actually read War and Peace, more or less got it and actually enjoyed it at times...
Upside is that you don't/have/ to read all of them - there are lots of mini story arcs throughout that you can dip into whenever you fancy!
"Legion" is dedicated to my son Jack.
5:14 "Hetman is a political title from Central and Eastern Europe, historically assigned to military commanders (comparable to a field marshal or imperial marshal in the Holy Roman Empire)."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetman
i guess one could say the chiliad isn't chill at all
Always loved the alpha Legion with their plans within plans. Finding out that they might have cultivated that rep in order to throw people off is even better. So that's plans within plans adjacent to plans within plans 😅
Cool discussion thanks, Legion sits at the table for my 5 favourite heresy novels, Abnett writing at his very best. The idea of writing a book about the Alpha Legion from the perspective of (mainly) outsider non-Astartes was an inspired choice.
I've often thought John Grammaticus is Abnett's favourite heresy character based on this book and his many appearances in later novels. I once had chance to ask him in person about Grammaticus and he said one of main narrative purposes of Legion was to set his character up for the series.
Also, got to admire Abnett's choice of name for his perpetual Cabal spy; he literally used a name straight out of history, John VII of Constantinople aka John Grammatikos (Grammaticus). Given John's nature in the book, I don't think this choice was based alone on how interesting this name sounds. John is an agent of the Cabal, implacably opposed to the primordial annihilator has more than a passing similarity to Grammatikos' real-life role as a Byzantine Iconoclast, a destroyer of symbols of false religious beliefs.
Yep this book was astounding
Fantastic book, so far my fav of the HH (and probably whole Black Library)
I'm definitely not going to read the HH series, but you're still fun to watch :D
Alpha Legion painters are nuts though. I've seen so many of AL shifting from a loyalist color into the Legion.
Understand that all of the books are about the Alpha Legion.
#1 John Grammaticus fan reporting in
#2 John fan here, love the guy
#1 John Hater reporting for duty! (Also he’s really great in this book.)
“Forge the link and break the chain, break the chain and forge the link.” ∞
Yes!!!!!! (That's just how react whenever I see a new book club video with you two has been uploaded)
3:24 'Horrible Elf' - but you repeat yourself!
I think Dan Abnett needs to answer why everyone is always from the Karelia hive. (John Grammaticus, Kasper Hawser, The Emperor himself).
I've heard that this is somehow related to Graham McNeill's taste in music. I bet there's a story related to it and Warhammer Santa needs to deliver the answer!
Warhammer Lapland/Karelia Hive is obviously where Warhammer Santa lives. Question answered.
The big E is from Anatolia Hive isn’t he? Not Karelia
I think Grammaticus met E in Anatolia Hive, which is where John also died the first time. John might have mentioned being born in Karelia, but I'm not really sure about that one either. Even Kaspar Hawser is only mentioned having worked in Karelia hive at Aleksanterinkatu something... which is also the most common street name in Finland. A lot of the world have Alex streets of them own seeing it's Alexander the Great where it gets it's name from. Alexander the Great is also whom the Emperor is named as by Horus in The End and the Death. The book Mechanicus mentions E riding into town with a pale horse and Master of Mankind mentions E being a kid way before any sort of writing was a thing. It's probably safe to say a lot of people are from a lot of places, but a lot of them also have the Karelia hive in common.... and after breaking the fourth wall, it's at least partially because Graham McNeill likes/liked Finnish metal.
As a closet finn, I just wanted Abnett to talk about Finland. :)
Overall I found it a bit disappointing. There are two pitfalls of the Alpha legion I felt it kinda embodied; 1) if they’re so clever and amazing at what they do, it’d be impossible for them to ever fail 2) their acceptance of the cabal feels weird. While Pretorian of Dorn is great as it helps to show up point 1, this book needed to better express the weaknesses of the Alpha legion; displaying plans going wrong, their hubris and the chaotic nature of the universe belying the complex webs they weave. It’s worth mentioning character arcs etc are still good though. It is an Abnett book after all.
There's a scene early in the novel Harrowmaster by Mike Brooks, where some alpha legionaries have to flee from a bitch mission. Whilst they're running away, one of them postulates that the imperium will probably assume they had an ulterior motif that they accomplished and then made a tactical retreat, when they're literally just runnig because the its a raid that was pear shapes on them. The other guy in the squad ways if they want to think that, then they shouldn't stop them from being paranoid about it.
Good book too, Mike delves into what it is like to be part of a legion where absolutely no one trusts each other, and everyone is out to secure their ambitions without getting a knife in the back.
One of the funniest moments in the first 10 books:
Marine sneaks up behind guard leader on the toilet
"I am Alpharius"
*confuses the situation, refuses to elaborate, leaves*
riffing off sonething mira said, this book is one of the only times a war in 40k feels very contemporary, like Afghanistan/Iraq. Especially at the start.
I always thought Grammaticus has an unusual accent compared to the others to show how old he really is, so his (internal) language is different from those born millenia after him. Though the other perpetuals don't do that as much.
Are y'all planning to do the short story anthologies? There's a lot of great stuff tucked away in those, I distinctly remember a couple Alpha Legion stories (and the closest we get to a Night Lords book is in an anthology as well)