Flawed Ones

Belatedly giving it the fluff written to date.

The Flawed Ones are an Alpha Legion warband, notable primarily for failing to wipe out the Emperor's Nightmare Chapter.

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The galaxy is a flawed place. Weapons malfunction, strategies fail, and the sheer scale and mindless incompetence of the Imperium are often its own worst enemy. The Flawed Ones understand this, know it with every fiber of their being, and seek to exploit it.

To fight the Flawed Ones is never a simple engagement of armies. Like their parent Legion, they will use every single conceivable strategy and advantage. False colour operations, sabotage, infiltrators and spies...the Flawed use these and more. In particular, they will seek out critical weak points in the enemy's strategy and command structure.

On the rare occasions where their hand is forced and they must resort to direct combat, the Flawed follow the strategies of their parent Legion. Multipronged attacks by self-sufficient squads divide and conquer the foe, while specialized units such as the warband's few Terminators destroy critical targets or the enemy's leadership. From information gleaned the few recorded engagements, it is believed that the Flawed are more willing to use the powers of the Warp than is common for other warbands. Daemonhosts and Dark Pacts are comparatively common, with the former often used to spearhead assaults or distract the enemy, while the latter are believed to be used even among the rank and file. Such Warp-sorcery, however, is not indiscriminate. The daemonweapons of the Flawed are tightly bound, and have more in common with those of Radical Inquisitors than other warbands. Similarly, the Flawed are rarely observed to summon daemons on the field of battle, finding their indiscriminate slaughter too unpredictable.

An Ork WAAGGHH that stumbles into the Veiled Regions might be abruptly derailed by a sorcerous assault tearing apart its Nobs and the destruction of its Hulks' engines by teleported-in suicide cultists, while a Codex Chapter may be subject to long-range assassinations of any Librarians in its force, followed by the usage of foul daemonhosts to spearhead a multi-pronged assault. The Flawed are notorious for using the bodies of any captured Marines for such purposes, while using the same warriors' armour to strike at their comrades with within.

The Flawed operate in assigned squads, continuing the traditions laid down by their progenitor before the Horus Heresy. Mutations and chaos fetishes aside, squad members are usually indistinguishable from one another, with even some Lords and Sorcerors wearing the armour of the rank and file. Upon the deaths of individual leaders, pre-appointed individuals will take up the role almost at once, with minimal disruption to overall strategy.

As would be expected of the sons of Alpharius, they scorn the worship of the Ruinous Powers, seeing them as simply another tool in their diverse arsenal. On those occasions when they take to the field, they will seek to pit themselves against worthy adversary: any loyalist Marines will be subjected to the most vicious assaults.

Infiltration is perhaps their most prized tool, with copious usage of sleeper agents, indoctrinated operatives recruited from both within and without the Veiled Region, and the killing and replacement of enemy officers.

These tactics have earned them a rare notoriety for members of their Legion, most notably for their strike at Icelus and the destruction of the forge world Clavius IV. Three thousand years of supplying the Emperor's forces were ended in a single night when WAAAGGHH Cogsmasha descended unopposed onto the venerable forge world- the famed cogitator-batteries of the planetary defenses inexplicably failed and the noosphere connection was severed shortly before the WAAAGGH's arrival. In the confusion, the Skitarii were slaughtered and the techpriests enslaved by the savages. The region would not recover from this setback for several centuries, during which the Flawed struck worlds in the area almost unopposed.

The warband is of unknown size, but given that the operations of the Flawed continue to this day, and their modus operandi, there may yet be remnants of their band lurking among the worlds of the Veiled Region.