I still seethe over the Alpha Legion retcon. Prior to the Horus Heresy series, Alpharius was originally found by Horus and spent years with him before meeting the Emperor. By the time the Alpha Legion joined the Great Crusade, Bobby G. had written the Codex Astartes. Alpharius, who had become a military commander of his homeworld using regular humans, strongly disagreed with Guilliman. Whereas Gulliman would use marines for everything, Alpharius advocated using all available resources, such as local dissenters, propaganda, espionage, and assassins to conquer worlds.

When the Heresy broke out, Alpharius immediately sided with the brother he spent years with. Not only that, it would finally let him test his personal doctrines against that of Gulliman. As the story goes, the Ultramarines, being the largest legion, had purposefully been sent to the far side of the galaxy prior to the Heresy so they wouldn’t be there to protect Terra. Horus gave Alpharius his orders to engage the Ultramarines head-on.

The two legions met on an icy backwater. Gulliman deployed his forces exactly as laid out in the Codex Astartes. Alpharius predicted this and spread his legion throughout the mountain ranges of the planet, where they started a guerilla war against the significantly larger Ultramarines. For weeks, Gulliman led his men into the mountains and valleys in search of Alpharius. He thought if he killed their primarch, the rest of the legion would scatter and they could move on.

Finally, Gulliman met Alpharius in a duel and killed his little brother. However, the Alpha Legion continued to operate as they had been doing. Ships were sabotaged. Supplies were lit ablaze. Ammunition was detonated. Local humans couldn’t be trusted as they planted bombs or stole from the Ultramarines. The weeks began turning into months.

It dawned on Gulliman this was the traitors’ plan all along. He had let his pride and his desire to prove the Codex over Alpharius’ criticisms get in the way of the larger picture. The largest legion was now close to two months into a quagmire against the smallest legion. Gulliman ordered his forces to withdraw, even as sightings of the dead Alpharius continue to cast doubt whether it was really the primarch Gulliman had killed.

A small contingent of Ultramarines were left behind to monitor the Alpha Legion and report their movements off-planet. Gulliman, however, is absolutely shook by the whole ordeal. He begins to doubt himself as they begin the flight towards the defense of Terra. Worse, it had been an easy duel against another primarch. What if Alpharius is still out there? What if Legionaires infiltrated his own ranks with some type of shape-shifting technology? What if his ego just lost the war?

are the tau actual communists?