This is an article on my Warhammer 40,000 Chaos Space marine Alpha Legion Army. Why I built it the way I did. And how I went about it. And how you could go about building your own Alpha Legion army.

The Faceless, an Alpha Legion Warband, operate in the Ultima Segmentum. They are notorious for using subterfuge and misdirection to outsmart their enemies.

The Faceless take this approach to the extreme by undergoing cosmetic surgery to make their faces identical.Equipping the same armor, and taking the name Alpharius, even in the presence of other Alpha Legion Warbands. This makes it impossible to identify their command structure and causes confusion on the battlefield. You may never know how many Alpha Legion members are involved in an operation.

My Alpha Legion Army

My Alpha Legion warband applies the concept of the Faceless to the tabletop. So members use the same armour, specifically Mk.VI armour from the plastic Horus Heresy kit. I customised the helmet in Blender to emulate the Headhunter kit from Forgeworld. And added cameleoline cloaks using foil from a takeaway dish and Mulliput.

On the tabletop, people usually celebrate having many customised and unique characters in an army. Especially in Warhammer 40,000 where heroes are rife.

An Alpha Legion army of Chaos Space Marines where all members are identical runs counter to this philosophy of big bombastic characters. They don't want their leaders to stand out, it fits narratively with the Alpha Legions secrecy in the lore. Chop off the head of the Hydra and two more will take its place. So the leader you thought slain may, in fact, be a distraction.

It's just as likely that the Legionary to his left is the real lead of the operation. And even when a leader is slain. All operatives have a deep understanding of the mission and will continue to carry out their objectives.

I love the idea that you are never quite sure if the operative you have killed is the real leader, or a decoy. Further compounded by them all wearing identical armour. So its impossible to fully grasp the structure of the warband, or how many opperatives are in play.

Modelling an identical Alpha Legion Army

Though for modelling opportunities it could be very bland if I just took the base kit MK. VI space marine kit and painted them up without any tweaks. I wanted my Alpha Legion army to have a bit of character, so the addition of the Headhunter helmets and the cloaks allowed me to add a bit of theme and visual interest without breaking the rule of having identical armour.