Alpha Legion plans

I'm intrigued by the Alpha Legion chaos space marines. Check 'em out on the Lexicanum wiki if you're not familiar, but the Chaos Space Marines of the old XX Legion are "experts in infiltration, covert operations, and manipulating events in their favor" and who promote revolution and revolt in the Imperium. Whether they are for or against the long-term interests of chaos is a moot point but, for now, they're happy to foment trouble.

So I fancy making an CSM war band as part of the Alpha Legion Uprising Chaos Army List, but there is also the Vraskian Traitors Chaos Army List, where they are listed as allies. These are both developmental lists under NetEA. I could squeeze them into a Black Legion CSM list too, which has the advantage of being a "final" list, but I'd have to give up on my cultists and mutants. 

So let's see ...

The Alpha Legion warband is led by Lord Decius Jugurthala. He and his Ordo Omicron first planted the seeds of their plan several centuries ago. The plans of the Alpha Legion run very deep! Ever since then they have cultivated the beliefs of their cult, nurtured their operatives and grown their support base; brick by brick, soul by soul. There are only a couple of hundred Alpha Legion marines in the war band, but they continue to cause disproportionate problems for the Imperium. Operating from their carefully cloaked war barge Perfidiae, they control their web of operatives and stir troubles, pirate important cargos, encourage mutant uprising, and look forward to the day when they can turn whole systems towards Chaos. The Chaos Space Marines are looked on as demigods by many of their followers, who are by now convinced of the utter corruption and evil of the Ecclesiarchy and Administratum. The Emperor is still revered, with Chaos Undivided being seen as His creation whose message has been warped by the parasitic crows that run the Empire. 

That will do for background; its enough to get me started anyway. 

I have plenty of figures available for basing. I intend to mount the CSMs four to a base for CSM Retinue, three for CSM Terminators and two for CSM bikes, all on 30mm x 20mm bases. CSM Infiltrators and Havocs will be based three and four respectively to a 40mm x 15mm bases. That way I should be able to distinguish the different troops from a distance. 

I have started basing beastmen (to represent mutants), seven to a 40mm x 20mm base, and three Big Mutants (minotaur models) to a base of the same size. I know those sound like big bases, but they comply with the basing rules and it will help them look more horde-like. For cultists I'll use Imperial Guard, with the occasional cultist or mutant thrown in, and these will represent PDF troops that have accepted the Truth of the message of the Ordo Omicron, and who are willing to die to free their Emperor from the shackles of the Imperium. 

Something that I have only just learned from Wikipedia is that Omicron represents the value 70 in Greek numerals, so I might see if I can make up cultists companies with that many figures. I love happenstance! 

Building an army

What follows is a bit of a mental ramble regarding how I should go about rebuilding my Epic armies. I could just pick the figures and models I like, but that would likely end up as a rather unsatisfying heap of unconnected ideas. Some structure is needed!

Epic Armageddon / NetEpic / EpicUK - it goes under various guises now, but it lives on in the UK (which is closest to me geographically) under the Epic UK banner. There it is typically played as a tournament game between armies of 3000 points. It therefore makes sense to impose the much-needed structure on my army building by using their tournament army lists as a basis.

It is unlikely that I will get to play against and opponent any time soon, so my armies are unlikely to be killers on the tournament scene. However I will strive for some approximation to tournament forces. To that end I'll follow some of the advice here (obligatory external link warning) on the Tactical Command forum. Jaldon454 seems to have drawn up some pretty sensible ideas, so I'll take them onboard.

That said, I very much doubt that I will be a slave to them (not that I suspect Jaldon would, or should, care one jot). The notional split of any army between Grunts, Fast Attack and Support makes perfect sense, but I suspect some Imperial guard armies will be short on Fast Attack, just as some Ork armies will be short on Support. But that will just add colour to any force, and colour is what I am interested in. Sure, to win a tournament game I might have had to capture some objectives in the enemy half of the table, but if my Imperial Guard army is built to sit behind fortifications, opting to grind out an attritional slugfest with an Eldar enemy, then that's OK by me. 

In fact it seems to me that the needs of a tournament scene have created a disconnect between what looks like a good army and what plays like a good tournament tool. Much of what I have read in the Tactical Command forum hammers home the need for a large number of "activations". This is a by-product of the rules, where you alternate actions with each player activating a command in turn. If Player B still has three commands left to move when Player A has exhausted his, then these can zip around freely without worrying too much about counter-moves from the enemy as their feet are now fixed in cement (until next turn anyway). There is therefore a significant short term advantage that can be gained by having a large number of small units on your side of the table. OK, that's the way the rules are written, but it's a nonsense and is too gamey for my purposes. So I'll need to prepare army lists, but I'll also expand the commands where I feel it looks better. I mean, would you call 10 Ork Nobz, 30 Ork Boyz and 10 Grotz a "warband"? Really?? 

EDIT: some more thoughts on the activation arms race on the D6 Addiction blog here.