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[Viken]

I heard some time ago that there are splinter cells of the Chaos Legions that didn't support the rest, and were absorbed into smaller chapters after the Codex was created at the end of the Horus Heresy.  Thanks to their uncorrupted geneseed, atleast some of them still carry the fundimentals of the legions that had fallen, even though they cannot even think of htemselves as being part of their lost heritages.

[Digital Hellhound]

I'm pretty sure most/part of the Alpha Legion is pretty corrupted by now, their original purpose for joining the Heresy long forgotten (or don't even know they're not supposed to be straight-up Chaos).

[Criptfeind]

Yeah. Just because you don't live in the warp does not make you not chaos. Does the Alpha Legion work for and/or worship the chaos gods would be the defining thing I would think.

[Scoops Novel]

I get the impression that chunks are choas corrupted, but at least one of their primarch's (twins, though they've been described as "one soul with two bodies" -i have my doubts, not canon supported aside from their endless tricks- and one may be dead, though even his "killers" doubt it) still alive and the only reason he joined Horus in the first place was so that chaos would be defeated at the cost of humanity thanks to Horus's guilt, or face chaos's victory around 10000 to 20000 years later from a stagnant imperium, as prophesied and strived for by the Cabal who he was working with -up to a point-. On the other hand, their plans (or at least that of John Grammaticus) may have changed even before Horus's death, what with Ollanius Pius's (a perpetual, seems to have got the reincarnation business nailed down whether he likes it or not- who knows, there may be more shamans yet) vision and possible status as the guy who's appearance and apparent death by Horus motivated the emperor to kill his son, so who the hell knows their end game now.

[nenjin]

I get the impression that chunks are choas corrupted, but at least one of their primarch's (twins, though they've been described as "one soul with two bodies" -i have my doubts, not canon supported aside from their endless tricks- and one may be dead, though even his "killers" doubt it) still alive and the only reason he joined Horus in the first place was so that chaos would be defeated at the cost of humanity thanks to Horus's guilt, or face chaos's victory around 10000 to 20000 years later from a stagnant imperium, as prophesied and strived for by the Cabal who he was working with -up to a point-. On the other hand, their plans (or at least that of John Grammaticus) may have changed even before Horus's death, what with Ollanius Pius's (a perpetual, seems to have got the reincarnation business nailed down whether he likes it or not- who knows, there may be more shamans yet) vision and possible status as the guy who's appearance and apparent death by Horus motivated the emperor to kill his son, so who the hell knows their end game now.

Yeah, post-Heresy the goals of the Alpha Legion aren't very well known. Obviously, they still believe in fighting the Imperium. To what end though, whether it's different than every other Traitor Legion's goal of Death to the Imperium, isn't clear.

I heard some time ago that there are splinter cells of the Chaos Legions that didn't support the rest, and were absorbed into smaller chapters after the Codex was created at the end of the Horus Heresy.  Thanks to their uncorrupted geneseed, atleast some of them still carry the fundimentals of the legions that had fallen, even though they cannot even think of htemselves as being part of their lost heritages.

I'd say only if they "defected" to the Imperium before the end of the Heresy.

There were Legionnaires that, during the Heresy, realized their Legion and Primarch had made a terrible mistake and broke with their own Legion to rejoin the Imperium. I only think that kind of deal really held until the day Horus almost slew the Emperor.

Yeah. Just because you don't live in the warp does not make you not chaos. Does the Alpha Legion work for and/or worship the chaos gods would be the defining thing I would think.

It varies cell to cell. They don't organize the way other Traitor Legions do. They operate autonomously, so some may worship the Dark Gods and take the lead from them in plots, others may continue to be independent (though still jaded and bitter) from Chaos.

[Scoops Novel]

Anyone know much about only war?

[nenjin]

I've got the book sitting next to me, what do you want to know?

In terms of power scale, it's above Dark Heresy but below all the other titles. Players cooperatively build a regiment and then pick guard classes from within that regiment, and go die for the Emperor. Includes rules for piloting and destroying tanks and other vehicles.

Characters start out with more skills and better equipped than they do in Dark Heresy by far. Their weapons are also slightly more effective than their DH counter parts. Being the last thing published, its rules are about the tightest one can reasonably expect from the series (which still isn't saying a ton, but it's way smoother than Dark Heresy.)

Other than that, I think the real difference is the kind of games you end up running. Combat is notoriously slow in all these games, because it's tries to incorporate as many table top war gaming elements as it can. And Only War invites the biggest, most complicated combats of any of the games, to me. The Imperial Guard are soldiers so they're in battles. And unless you're running a campaign based 100% on stealth infiltrator squads working behind the lines, you're bound to end up running a large combat at least once. And by large I mean, several hordes worth. Where a "scene" in the other games might be a city or a starship, in Only War they'd be battle fronts. (Of course you could run any kind of adventure, but these are what I think distinguishes OW from the other games.)

I can see it requiring some fairly different thinking and handling from the GM's side than your typical adventure where there's bad guys and you go find them and kill them. I haven't read a ton of the example adventure and what FF thinks constitutes an adventure of Only War....but part of me feels the game is almost designed to played like a weekly, on-going table top war game. At least, it's set up to do that and how you handle the action determines whether it ends up that way.

All that said, I think it has the best rationale for bringing a group of players together of any of the games, and the players being able to design their own regiments sounds really fun and like something people would get attached to. Only War puts far more control in the hands of the players during Character Creation, so they can really build themselves out to try and survive...instead of like Dark Heresy where characters start with jack and squat. Then again, the Only War book mentions "You" dying more than any other core rule book I've read through so far. While it's not stated outright, the implication to me is that OW characters are supposed to go in feeling expendable. (Since that's thematically what the Imperial Guard is all about.)