 As noted in one's previous record upon this subject, obtaining coherent information on the topic of the 20th Legion is an impossible task. Even where evidence can be extracted from the murky haze of untruths and obfuscation the Alpha Legion surrounded itself with, it is usually contradicted by additional evidence of seemingly unimpeachable veracity. Paradox is ever the watchword. But to admit defeat is not in the nature of a chronicler, at least of all this one, and so I will pursue this study until I am truly unable. Know then that this is a record of the tactical nature, organisational structure, and war disposition insofar as any of these things can be ascertained. Of the 20th Legion, Alpha Legion. When considering the inner workings of the 20th, any student must bear in mind one thing, and that is the degree of importance the Alpha Legion placed upon unity. Coordination and discipline, thoughtless both, with a hallmark of how the Legion operated. The most obvious aspect of this is cosmetic. It is said, perhaps prosaically, that all members of the Alpha Legion wore the same face, and this is true to a certain extent. Legion's gene seed, similar to other legions, would often affect a pronounced change in facial structure during Astartes' elevation, and this was said to have been augmented by the 20th Legion themselves through surgical means. Further reports state that many Alpha Legionnaires were larger than their cousins of other legions, and others claim that Alphaeus was the smallest in stature amongst his brother Primarchs. The 20th would perennially refer to themselves as Alphaeus when asked for their name by outsiders, something that doubtlessly would have proved shocking at first and then infuriating as time went on, subsequent to the subject realizing the ruse that has been played upon them. Other surgical or memetic implantation practices, prohibited mental manipulation or perhaps arcane technologies were employed in this all-is-one type of approach, remains unknown, as it does to what degree individual Astartes accepted these procedures voluntarily. This focus on unity extended beyond the singular level, as the Legionaries of the 20th trained and fought as units, not individual soldiers. This serves in market contrast to other legions, such as the 12th Legion World Eaters, or 3rd Legion Emperor's Children, which would often place high value on individual heroism or the skill of its warriors. The Alpha Legion were diametrically opposed to this way of war. To them, the success of the one is dependent on the success of the unit, and vice-versa. Responses for aspirants required keen intelligence and cooperation to overcome, such that at the most basic level of training, recruits learned that collaboration was paramount. The primary commonality, observed throughout the entirety of the Legion's history, was its superlative proficiency in the arts of infiltration, intelligence, espionage, sabotage, asset retrieval, and assassination operations. The ultimate goal of this was to leave an enemy crippled and unable to resist when the main body of the Legion made planet fall. The 20th shunned additional warfare of all sorts, actively avoiding theaters that would have seen them placed in, for example, trench warfare. Static defense, or forlorn last stands, were also entirely out of the question. The Alpha Legion was never one to let its elements become surrounded or cut off, with no clear path of retreat. The focus on the covert level of operations should not lead one to underestimate the Legion's skill in open warfare, however. They were still an Astartes Legion, and well able to fight as such. Indeed, comporting themselves with a level of coordination and skill that drew grudging respect from Alpharius's many critics. Indeed, the 20th skill in covert warfare often served to aid it upon the field of battle, as the tactical coherence they were known for made their masters of the font and ambush. It was noted by observers that the Alpha Legion fought as a unified whole, with its infantry and war machines operating so coherently as to almost be beholden to a single will. Within their command structure, it is unclear whether or not the Legion ever followed the strictures of the Principia Bellicosa, or even paid lip service to it. Certainly, their shadowed history, as elucidated upon in a previous record, does not provide much evidence of this, as the recluded founding and absence from the Crusade's frontlines for well over a century would not support the rigid hierarchy usually present in an Astartes Legion. After their arrival on the battlefields of the Rangdan Xenocides, they presented outwardly as having an extensive resemblance to basic Legion patterns, although this was, as ever, likely a façade. Given the evidence available, it is highly probable that the command structure was a completely mutable thing. An individual Legionary's role, regardless of his rank, appears to have changed as demanded, both on and off the battlefield. An Alpha Legion Astartes could serve as a tactical squad member one battle, a support weapons operator the next, and as reconnaissance before the next campaign had even begun. There is additional evidence that purports to show the Legion engaging in a habit of impersonation, with line Astartes mimicking officers when in contact with outsiders, often again under the single Appalachian Alphaeus. The Alpha Legion's companies, battalions, and chapters, sometimes referred to as instruments, cohorts, harrows, and splinters, depending on what record one examines, were formed and broken apart and reformed seemingly at the whim of the Legion's commanders and their primarch, with personnel reassigned or removed entirely from an order of battle, only to later again be replaced by entirely different Astartes, or the same Astartes purporting to be of an entirely different formation. This maddening dedication to obfuscation was enhanced by the willful swapping of numerical unit numerations and the willful changing of unit iconography. Such administrative transfers were noted to occur not simply from campaign to campaign, but even from battle to battle within a certain war zone. This all had the effect of making the Alpha Legion's true strength impossible to gauge from the outsider, either friend or foe, and made their intentions completely occluded. While a Legion deployment would nominally be under the command of a captain, the co-operative nature of the 20th meant it was just as likely that command would have been highly decentralized and rendered onto whatever Legionary was best suited for the task. Likewise, this was seemingly further compartmentalized by each Legion unit being expected to operate as a self-governing cell, pursuing a wider battle plan using its own initiative in numerous cases where direct communication with a command figure was neither possible nor simply an option. Even when such commanders did take to the field personally, it was never in the role of champion or heroic battlefield leader, simply as another Astartes whose skills and experience, arguably both greater than that of his subordinates, were required. Alpha Legion commanders were noted by those they encountered to be almost dispassionate in their approach to battle. For such was a disdain for the concept of personal glory the Legion held, that the intervention on their part was only undertaken when it would best tilt the course of the battle in the Legion's favor. Terminology, such as it can be defined, apparently shifted from Astartes to Astartes. The Alpha Legion would often ape the command structure of the Legions they served alongside, but it is not known if this was done out of a desire to integrate operational information with allies, or as a form of mocking jest. Scrutiny of numerous archives does however render one verifiable fact, and that is of the existence of a unique title within the Legion, that of Harrowmaster, or Yariuk. The Harrowmaster was a Legionary given overall operational command in any given theater. While such a position would be analogous to a Warlord or Warmaster, the Harrowmaster rarely, to never, would take to the field of battle, as it was his role to monitor the full scope of Legion operations within the warzone, from the covert level to the grand strategic one, and to adapt, create, and abandon battle plans with bewildering speed and flexibility. Essentially, it was to govern the sum total of all Legion assets in play in any given theater. The title was a supreme honor for one amongst the Legion, and it was possible for any Alpha Legionary to obtain it, should he be so skilled. More often than not, however, it was held by what we can presume to be senior captains. It is a particular note that the personal names of the Harrowmasters of the Legion are one of the few things independently verifiable about the 20th, as the names of men like Armilius Dinat are of common record. This being said, it is highly possible, given the Legion's nature, that the names themselves, and the Harrowmasters they represented were in reality simply another title or guise the Alpha Legion would fill when their inscrutable needs required it. A remarkable importance when discussing the operation of the 20th Legion is the consideration of its non-Astartes human assets, both baseline and augmented. While every one of the Legion's Astartes employed mortal assets, be it Legion serfs or crews or detachments from the Navis Imperialis or the Imperial Auxilia, subservient Legion command, the Alpha Legion made specific use of well-trained and well-equipped agents and paramilitaries, specifically for the purposes of espionage, intelligence gathering, and terrorism. They are unique amongst their fellow legions for such a practice, as well as for the closeness with which Astartes teams in the field would operate with these agents. Being ostensibly human basic, such Sparitoy, an ancient Terran term meaning so men, would move amongst human populations far easier than an Astartes could, and would prove highly adept in their roles as spies, demagogues, and terrorists, spreading descent, misinformation, discord, panic, or more directly, inflicting widespread infrastructural damage or inciting ethnic violence within whatever population they were released into. Their level of involvement in broader operations was usually kept to a minimum, depending upon operational exigencies, and were often purported to have little knowledge of who their true masters actually were. To this end, the Legion is likely to have employed quite heavily corrosive memetic conditioning or even psychic manipulation to habituate these agents into the type of ruthlessness the 20th demanded. Subjecting the Sparitoy to surgical, biochemical, psychic, and cybernetic augmentation was also undertaken to better help them complete their goals. It seems that the Legion would spare no expense to give its tools exactly what they needed to succeed in their roles. It is apparent, in horrible retrospect, that even during the years of the Great Crusade and immediately prior to the heresy, the Alpha Legion expanded this network deep into the bodies and worlds of the Imperium and the Mechanicum. Their cancerous existence only revealed when the fires of treachery burned outwards from the Istvan system. Strategically speaking, the Legion's dedication to flexibility was writ large upon the wide array of assets they were clearly at pains to maintain. Focus in particular was paid towards transport vehicles, allowing Legion infantry formations to be ferried to the point on the battlefield they were needed most. The 20th played a special attention to the application of overwhelming firepower where possible, maintaining an extensive artillery train that coordinated seamlessly with Legion intelligence operatives to deliver almost surgical strikes. The armor pool of the Legion was equally impressive, with pictorial evidence showing a preference for, again, vehicles with formidable ranged weaponry, as well as a notable number of the more modern and advanced vehicles at Legion S Astartes disposal. These would include the Sikaran battle tank and its subtypes, all the way up to superheavies such as the Dlave. This preference for the latest and most technologically advanced war gear was marketed among the Legion, and there is bountiful evidence that their stocks of cutting edge and sophisticated technology matched any other Legion to a considerable degree. An excellent example of this is the Legion's possession of the Mark VI Corvus pattern armor as early in history as a dropside massacre, which, at this point, was not in general circulation amongst the legions, having thought to be only in the possession of the 19th Legion Ravenguard. Later analysis run on recovered 20th Legion Mark VI suits shows that they are themselves a unique variant, dubbed by the dumbfounded tech priests as the Corvus Alpha pattern, seemingly developed separately from an early prototype of the Mark VI. This was discerned as the armor pattern showed deviations from the final production model, but just how such a prototype version found its way into the hands of the Alpha Legion is unknown. Given their level of influence and penetration into all aspects of human society, it would appear that this is full proof if any is needed that nothing seems to have been beyond their reach. Another, and far more sinister development encountered by the loyalist Astartes of the early heresy, was the 20th Legion's use of what had been dubbed Bainstrike Bolterrans. These munitions, apparently designed by the 20th Legion for their own employment, were intended for one purpose alone, to breach the Ceramite of Legion as Astartes' power armor. While their employment degraded the quality of the firing Bolter quite rapidly, and their nature limited their range, they were nonetheless used to utterly devastating effect on loyalist Astartes during the Dropsite Massacre, and subsequently at the first battle of Paramar. In terms of warships, the Alpha Legion was known to possess an extensive fleet, although one that lagged behind their contemporaries in terms only of heavy capital ships. The Legion showed a preference for lighter tonnage vessels outfitted for speed, operational independence, and efficiency. It has additionally been darkly rumored that the Alpha Legion went so far as to employ captured Xenos vessels, and indeed incorporate Xenos technology into their void ship designs. A practice all Acolytes will know that even in this period of history was strictly forbidden without the sanction of the Mechanicum. Given however the Legion's entirely unscrupulous nature and frequent activities beyond the borders of the Imperium, such suspicions are impossible to prove, but quite likely. The exact numerical strength of the Legion at the outbreak of treachery is quite impossible to ascertain. Even counting the vagaries of warp dilation and ongoing combat losses that make the dispositions of all legions difficult to account for, the Alpha Legion made consistent and very deliberate efforts to hide its true numbers. The majority of contemporary accounts range from around 120,000 to 130,000 Astartes under arms, although some argue for a range based on the largest concentration of Alpha Legion forces ever observed that the Legion could not have accounted for more than 90,000. I would contend that only through the dreadful hindsight of the Horus Heresy, and the array of evidence one has pointing to the existence of hundreds and largely independent operating Alpha Legion battle groups, that the range is in fact as high as 180,000 Legionaries. This would place the Alpha Legion in the highest tier of Astartes legions in sheer size, and account for how the 20th Legion appeared throughout the years of the conflict to be both everywhere and nowhere at once. Additionally, the 20th Legion demonstrated an enviable ability to replace its battlefield losses. While the war continued and many legions saw their strengths severely depleted, the Alpha Legion appeared to grow more and more numerous throughout the conflict, suffering seemingly no loss in operational efficiency due to several quite seemingly serious defeats, truly living up to the myth of the Hydra they cherished as their emblem. Quite how this was managed is a matter for conjecture, but consider if you will the simple fact that no one in the wider Imperium had any idea of where the Legion's recruitment fives lay. In keeping with their predilection for asymmetrical warfare and redundant assets, the 20th likely had dozens if not hundreds of recruitment facilities constantly supplying the Legion with fresh Astartes. Their locations kept secret to prevent any loss of manpower due to enemy intervention. There is a potentially deeper meaning behind just why the Legion's numbers are so unknowable, and it is truly unsettling. The theory, circulated amongst those of us privy to such knowledge, is that the Alpha Legion did not and never did know the true extent of its own shape, that only Alpharius himself knew the true boundaries of his Legion's domain, strength and assets, and even then perhaps imperfectly. This quite terrifying possibility means the Alpha Legion was, and is, a self-sustaining, self-replicating weapon whose limits and size and capabilities are literally impossible for any one individual to ever ascertain. A perfect force of arms who could never be infiltrated, usurped, or even properly controlled, and therefore utterly unstoppable. If this is indeed the case, then tens of thousands of Astartes and whole expeditionary fleets could have spent their entire existence in utter ignorance of their Legion's wider operations, unaware of its goals, all believing themselves to be the true Alpha Legion, when they were simply tendrils of an immense and formless serpent burrowed through the roots of the galaxy, if true. The implications of this enormous deception are truly stunning. Until such a time as I possess the faculties to deal with the concept of this hideous Legion once more, Ave Imperator, Gloria in Excelsis Terra. This video and this channel is made possible through the incredibly kind support of my Patreon subscribers. If you'd like to help support the channel, head on over to patreon.com forward slash Oculus imperia if you want to kick me a buck or two to help keep the lights running and the scripts flowing. 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