History Characters / HorusHeresyTraitorLegions

* DeathByIrony: During the battle of Iydris, he tries to use his [[MakeMeWannaShout sonic shriek]] to kill Ignatius Numen, an Iron Hands Morlock in his path. However, since Ignatius was rendered deaf in one of Marius's previous attacks, the shriek [[DisabilityImmunity doesn't affect him]], and Ignatius [[NoKillLikeOverkill incinerates Marius with a volkite gun]] before he can draw a weapon to kill the Iron Hand in a more traditional way.

** They actually do have some standards regarding casualties. When a siege lost so much manpower that they could only barely take the fortress's interior, the commander of the assault was stripped of his rank. Also, artillery should never hit a friendly Astartes (they call it Iron-on-Iron, a variant of Blue-on-Blue).

* DropTheHammer: Eidolon's weapon of choice is a thunder hammer.

* DropTheHammer: He uses a thunder hammer as one of his primary weapons.

* HighlyConspicuousNinja: Despite being an assassin, he apparently tends to do his job while wearing the Alpha Legion's metallic teal and silver color scheme.

* VillainousBreakdown: A short story that picks up immediately after the events of ''Betrayer'' shows Erebus having one, following the combined humiliations of [[spoiler: Horus reaming him out for failing to kill Sanguinius and then getting his ass handed to him by Kharn for murdering Argel Tal.]] As of the latest releases, he's yet to fully recover from it.

* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler:By ''The End and The Death: Volume III'', Erebus has effectively won by tarnishing ''any'' possibility of a peaceful conclusion to the setting with his act of killing Loken as he pleads with Abaddon and his brothers to surrender after Horus's death, ensuring the eternity of bloodshed and carnage that ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' setting forever by making sure that no matter what happens, the Ruinous Powers will have their grip on mankind with its infighting and fear. Not to mention him creating Samus from sacrificing Loken's soul upon his death ensures a StableTimeLoop—[[PlaceBeyondTime thanks to the very nature of the Warp]]—that creates the Horus Heresy to begin with, [[ItsAllAboutMe all to ensure his own place is absolute forever]].]]

* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler:By ''The End and The Death: Volume III'', Erebus has effectively won by tarnishing ''any'' possibility of a peaceful conclusion to the setting with his act of killing Loken as he pleads Abaddon and their brothers to surrender after Horus's death, ensuring the eternity of bloodshed and carnage that ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' setting forever by making sure no matter what happens, the Ruinous Powers will have their grip on mankind with its infighting and fear. Not to mention him creating Samus from sacrificing Loken's soul upon his death ensures a StableTimeLoop—[[PlaceBeyondTime thanks to the very nature of the Warp]]—that creates the Horus Heresy to begin with, [[ItsAllAboutMe all to ensure his own place is absolute forever]].]]

TheBigGuy: He's huge even for an Astartes, leading to InUniverse speculation that he may be a former Thunder Warrior.

!!!Endryd Haar

* MadeOfIron: He's ''very'' hard to kill. [[spoiler: Abaddon has to stab him seven times before he dies, and Haar still nearly kills him anyway.]]

* HiddenDepths: For a person with an obvious personality disorder, Sevetar is surprisingly quite adept at understanding and debating his primarch's moral shortcomings, as well as actually understanding him better than almost any other being save the Emperor or Sanguinius. He's also capable of empathising with a human child, which is something even most loyalist legionaries can't do.

* PaintItBlack: A heroic example; he has repainted his armor to signal that he has cut ties with the Death Guard.

* SpottingTheThread: When he learns that GloryHound extraordinare Eidolon isn't leading the assault on Istvaan III, he becomes suspicious enough to finagle his way into remaining in orbit while he investigates what's going on.

* AwesomenessByAnalysis: A huge part of his genius with a sword is his ability to notice and analyse every detail of his enemy's fighting technique. And let's not forget that it's his analysis of Fulgrim that uncovers his primarch's possession.

* ApocalypseHow: Class 6. Rylanor survived one in the virus-bombing of Isstvan III at the very beginning of the Horus Heresy which sterilized all life on the planet, killing tens of billions of civilians and thousands of loyalist Space Marines. [[spoiler:He invoked another one on the same level ten thousand years by detonating an unexploded virus bomb right in his traitor primarch's face in his attempt to [[TakingYouWithMe take Fulgrim with him]] in death]].

* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler:By ''The End and The Death III'', Erebus has effectively won by tarnishing ''any'' possibility of a peaceful conclusion to the setting with his act of killing Loken as he pleads Abaddon and their brothers to surrender after Horus's death, ensuring the eternity of bloodshed and carnage that ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' setting forever by making sure no matter what happens, the Ruinous Powers will have their grip on mankind with its infighting and fear. Not to mention him creating Samus from sacrificing Loken's soul upon his death ensures a StableTimeLoop—[[PlaceBeyondTime thanks to the very nature of the Warp]]—that creates the Horus Heresy to begin with, [[ItsAllAboutMe all to ensure his own place is absolute forever]].]]

* KnightTemplar: Do '''not''' stand in Narek's way or he will kill you. [[spoiler: Even if you are a Primarch who serves the same Emperor that Narek worships, he will end you if you get in his way.]]

* MiscarriageOfJustice: He's arrested and set for execution for Vulkan's murder, even though [[spoiler:it's John Grammaticus who does the deed.]]

* SplitPersonality: [[spoiler:In ''Deathfire'' he spends a long time believing himself to be Knight Errant named Kasper Hecht, and after the lie is revealed, he spends some time wrestling with two personalities before finally reasetting himself as Narek.]]

The Alpha Legion is a force of [[ConsummateProfessional consummate professionals]] who prefer to operate in the shadows rather than performing straightforward assaults. The Legion behaves more like an army of spies and commandos rathers than soldiers; they infiltrate enemy organizations, perform surgical strikes against critical targets, cause civil unrest, and deploy many stratagems to confuses their targets. Their secrecy goes to the point all the Legionaries of the Twentieth claim to be Alpharius. The Alpha Legion's standard color scheme is teal with silver trim, but they are also known to wear black, blue, purple, and the colors of both traitor and loyalist legions.

* HopeCrusher: [[spoiler: Kills Loken in ''The End and the Death III'' as he entreats Abaddon to surrender after Horus dies, an idea Abaddon was actually considering. The act snuffs out the last flicker of hope that the war could end peacefully.]]

The Alpha Legion is the extremely secretive and inscrutable Twentieth Legion. The history of the Legion is shrouded in secrecy and what is known about them is usually contradictory. Probably formed in secret to perform unusual operations such as counter-espionage, assassination and sabotage, the Alpha Legion was reunited with Alpharius and Omegon at an undisclosed point of their history. The twin Primarchs increased the Legion's specialization in subterfuge and special operations to weaken the enemy to the point the final assault would be comparatively effortless, perhaps as a way to compensate for their Legion's short history. Alpharius was contacted by the Cabal at one point and preemptively learned of the Horus Heresy, choosing to side with Horus so that at the end, the traitors would win but Horus would destroy the Imperium in the process, saving the galaxy from Chaos.\\\

The Alpha Legion is a force of [[ConsummateProfessional consummate professionals]] who prefer to operate in the shadows rather than performing straightforward assaults. The Legion behaves more like an army of spies and commandos rathers than soldiers as they infiltrate enemy organizations, perform surgical strikes against critical targets, cause civil unrest, and deploy many stratagems to confuses their targets. Their secrecy goes to the point all the Legionaries of the Twentieth claim to be Alpharius. The Alpha Legion's standard color scheme is teal with silver trim, but they are also known to wear black, blue, purple, and the colors of both traitor and loyalist legions.

* BalkanizeMe: It's implied that the Legion's decentralized command structure worked against it after the Heresy ended. It has apparently splintered into many disparate groups with very different goals and ideologies, to an even extent greater than the other Legions that splintered into disparate warbands.

* DeviousDaggers: Alpha Legion training highlights knife combat. One of the "Alpharius"es infiltrating the Raven Guard almost blows his cover when he uses a knife trick involving switching hands during a sparring session. In the actual game, the Alpha Legion has access to power knives, which are rather weak for an Astartes weapon, but have the potential to punch right through power armor with a skilled strike.
* DoubleReverseQuadrupleAgent: They join Horus, but in reality stay loyal to the Emperor, but actually work for the Cabal, ''while in fact'' they work only for their Primarchs. Or they might ''truly'' work for any of the above. Add to that the fact that many don't know who they really work for, one or both siblings might've fallen to Chaos, or one might be working against the other and pulling part of the Legion with him, and the true loyalties of the Legionnaires are pretty much impossible to discern.

* HiddenArmyReveal: While there were well-founded rumours of a "Ghost Legion" operating before their Primarch publicly took command, and a XX Legion contingent offered aid to Lion el'Jonson during this time, the full-strength Legion still seemingly sprang into being out of nowhere after Alpharius was reunited with them.

** As the XX Legion, their designation is a HistoricalInJoke which alludes to the UK's Double-Cross System (or XX System), which was an operation overseen by {=MI5=} dedicated to rooting out and flipping Nazi spies on UK soil.

** They specialize in subverting personnel, creating usefully-placed operatives and spy networks, even amongst their allies. Their future iteration heavily relies on founding entire networks of Chaos cults to create allied forces out of loyal Imperial citizens.

* TheResenter: They resent the attention and honours the other Legions receive, while they're forced to work in shadows.

* TriggerPhrase: The Alpha Legion has planted many operatives in advance in the Sol System, and all of them were hypno-indoctrinated into responding to several trigger words. For instance "Xenophon" makes it so they'll work for the Emperor while "Sagittary" triggers the opposite effect. They also had trigger words for hundreds of other situation if needed.
* UnknownRival: To Ultramarines, thanks to Roboute Guilliman criticising their tactics and the Thirteenth being much more accomplished and rubbing this fact in the Legionnaires' faces.
* WeAREStrugglingTogether: The Alpha Legion's double play becomes so intricate that they may even perform attacks on each other, as Omegon orders a strike on a special Alpha Legion facility.

* AndIMustScream: [[spoiler: In ''The End and the Death Vol. 1'', it's revealed that he's been psychically hijacked by Actae (aka Cyrene Valantion) and forced to aid her in her plan to dominate Chaos as opposed to his original goal of activating hidden Legion assets to fight for the Emperor. When he reveals this to John Grammaticus, John takes him out of the equation by clamping a limpet mine to his chest, forcing him to remain perfectly still or be explosively disemboweled. Though John promises to return for him, the narration indicates that Pech remains trapped deep beneath the Imperial Palace for a very long time]].

* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler: He reveals himself to John Grammaticus in ''The End and the Death Vol. 1'' and explains that he has come to recognize that Horus winning the Heresy would be an unacceptable outcome, so he infiltrated Terra to try and reactivate more hidden Alpha Legion assets for the loyalist cause]].

* TortureTechnician: He refines the method by which the Word Bearers block the Custodians'astropath (torturing other astropaths and binding daemons into their bodies).

* TheUnfavourite: After completely screwing up on Calth ([[spoiler: namely by disobeying his orders to kill Guilliman and leaving the Word Bearers under his command to die in a hopeless war of attrition]]), Lorgar hangs Kor Phaeron out to dry, refusing to send him aid against the Ultramarines who have pursued him into the Maelstrom.

* MeaningfulRename: From Luna Wolves to Sons of Horus, signifying an initially-small, but then increasingly important shift in their loyalties. In-universe, they do it to mark their Primarch's ascension to rank of Warmaster.

Captain of the 10th Company of the Luna Wolves, Loken is one of the few to see the dark path his Legion is taking as they are renamed and Horus falls to Chaos. He is one of the loyalists who fights at the Battle of Istvaan III, seeming to fall after a battle with Abaddon and the last orbital bombardment, but later turns out to be alive and is recruited as one of Malcador's Knights-Errant.

* TheIdealist: At the start of the story, he believes that Legion's actions are for the best, that mankind's cause is right and that one day, the Great Crusade will be over and humanity will live in peace.

First Captain of Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus and part of the Mournival. Follows his gene-sire into treachery.

Second Captain of Luna Wolves, one of Mournival members and Garviel's good friend, he remains on loyalist side and dies on Istvaan III - not that this ends his part in the story.

Captain of the Luna Wolves 5th Company and a member of the Mournival. Sides with the Warmaster when Horus rises against the Emperor, but unlike his fellow Mournival Abaddon, Aximand appears to have reservations (albeit buried deeply) about killing his former brethren.

Captain of the Fourth Company and Horus' best friend. He's Mournival's phlegmatic member until his death at the start of the series, whereupon he's replaced by Gavriel Loken.

* OnlySaneMan: Compared to some of the other Traitor Legions, their behavior seems reasonable to the point that they act almost like loyalists. They're still incredibly ruthless, but they don't take joy in atrocity the way that, for example, the Night Lords or Emperor's Children do.

* DemonicPossession: He's possessed by a being called Raum during the Pilgrimage, and his body becomes twisted into a towering demonic form as a result. Raum considers the two of them to be BloodBrothers in his own twisted way.

* EvilCounterpart: They're like dark mirrors of the Salamanders. Both legions have Primarchs that are notoriously hard to kill, both have slow yet hard-hitting styles of combat, 7 as a holy number, 7 companies and they both have green colouring to boot. The difference is that while the Death Guard are prejudiced towards Terrans and don't give a shit about people in general, the Salamanders are the legion most dedicated to protecting humanity. Another difference is whereas the Death Guard are the legion which is most well-known for using Destroyer squads, the Salamanders are the legion which banned them outright, replacing them with Pyroclasts. The Death Guard are known for wearing utilitarian, yet ugly, neglected armor, whereas Salamanders wear beautifully crafted designs. Mortarion, on the tabletop, is a walking tank that's nearly invulnerable to poison and fleshbane weapons, with your best chance of taking him down being massed Melta and Plasma fire. Vulkan on the other hand is a walking tank that literally cannot be hurt with regular plasma guns and larger Melta and Plasma weapons only rarely do more than scuff his armor, but is best handled using poisoned or fleshbane weapons.