Headhunters

An Alpha Legion Headhunter in modified Mark IV Maximus Power Armour.

Headhunters, who were part of Headhunter Kill-teams, were an elite formation of Space Marine infiltrators, assassins and saboteurs exclusively utilised by the Alpha Legion during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy.

The Alpha Legion's elite stealth operators known as Effrit also sometimes served in the Headhunter Kill-teams, leading to a confusion about which units properly earned the name. It is unknown if the Alpha Legion Traitor Legion maintains this elite formation in the 41st Millennium.

Role

An Alpha Legion Headhunter Kill-Team taking out vital targets.

The histories of the Great Crusade record that it was the Alpha Legion that first conceived of the deployment of Legion Seeker Squads, a unit configuration that spread to the other Legions as the Great Crusade expanded outwards across the galaxy. The XX Legion did not halt at the creation of Seeker Squads however, and later fielded a further refinement of the Seeker concept in the form of Headhunter Kill-teams.

Known variously as Headhunters or "Effrit" (although this latter term may also have referred to the act of assassination, and the sowing of destruction and chaos behind enemy lines mid-battle, as well as a particular elite unit type, the Effrit Stealth Squad), their preference for high-impact strikes carried out by small, elite infantry units was evidenced by the fact that both Destroyer Squads (who in the Alpha Legion suffered none of the opprobrium found in some Legions to those so assigned), as well as specialised Alpha Legion sabotage operatives who were also classified as "Effrit" in some accounts, were treated as a respected Veteran cadre within the XX Legion.

Alpha Legion Headhunter Eskyrx during the Horus Heresy.

These supremely skilled infiltrators specialised in creating conditions of all-consuming chaos among the enemy's ranks, sowing confusion by eliminating key officers, positions and strategic assets. In doing so, the Headhunters brought about a tipping point in a battle or an entire campaign, the fulcrum upon which the fate of worlds was balanced.

Headhunter Kill-teams were made up of the most skilled infiltrators and assassins in the Alpha Legion, and fielded at the direct command of a senior commander. They had access to some of the most prized wargear their Legion could provide, including special "Banestrike" ammunition conceived specifically to penetrate armour up to and including Legiones Astartes ceramite battle plate.

In the ranks of a Legion already renowned for its ability to infiltrate, misdirect and assassinate, the Headhunter Kill-teams were nigh-unsurpassed and their deeds were known beyond their Legion and feared the galaxy over.

Unit Composition

• 4-9 Headhunters

• 1 Headhunter Prime

Wargear

Alpha Legion Headhunters in heavily modified Mark IV Maximus Power Armour armed with Combi-bolters.

• Power Armour (Any Firstborn pattern)

• Bolt Pistol

• Bolter with Banestrike Ammunition

• Power Dagger

• Krak Grenades

• Venom Spheres

Optional Wargear

• Combi-bolter with Banestrike Ammunition

• Heavy Bolter with Anti-grav Suspensor Web and Banestrike Ammunition

Optional Wargear (Headhunter Prime Only)

• Artificer Armour

• Plasma Pistol

• Inferno Pistol

• Power Fist

• Power Weapon (Any type)

• Melta Bombs

Dedicated Transport

• Rhino Armoured Personnel Carrier

• Dreadclaw Drop Pod

Notable Headhunters

• Eitan - Acting as a Headhunter, according to an account the Alpha Legion primarch Alpharius states is a lie, Eitan was amongst those Alpha Legionaries who worked closely with the XX Legion primarch in his earliest days.

• Eskyrx - Eskyrx was an Alpha Legion Headhunter during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy.

• Interfector - The Interfector was the title used by an Alpha Legion Headhunter who led a cadre of his brethren in the Chondax Campaign during the Horus Heresy. Among the many White Scars the cadre was responsible for killing was Nogai Noyan-Khan. These Headhunters were also charged with wiping out the surviving members of the White Scars company known as the Brotherhood of the Sabre Wolf on the world of Phemus IV. However the depleted brotherhood was under the command of the White Scars Moritat Munokhoi, whose leadership prevented the Interfector's cadre from slaying the entirety of the force. The hunt for the Brotherhood of the Sabre Wolf ended when Primarch Jaghatai Khan arrived and destroyed the Alpha Legion's forces on the moon. It is unknown if the Interfector was killed in the battle or managed to escape from Phemus IV.

• Kel Silonius - Kel Silonius was a high-ranking member of the Alpha Legion who, like the rest of his Legion, was physically modified to be near-identical in appearance to his twin primarchs, Alpharius Omegon. Originally serving as a Headhunter, Silonius eventually rose to become a Harrowmaster and one of Alpharius' favorite commanders alongside Ingo Pech and Mathias Herzog. In preparation for the Solar War that would see the Alpha Legion's drive on the Sol System begin to prepare the battlefield within the system for the coming Siege of Terra by the Traitor forces, Silonius was charged with a vital mission by Alpharius himself. Using Alpha Legion Librarians, Silonius seemingly had his mind psychically switched with that of Alpharius while the primarch took on the Harrowmaster's identity. Alpharius, having taken on the persona of Silonius, infiltrated Terra itself and set the stage for the Alpha Legion's arrival in the Sol System by activating sleeper cells and assets on the Throneworld and throughout the system. The real Silonius, commanding the XX Legion from the battle barge Alpha, spent the next standard year in stasis as he powered down the Alpha Legion fleet to gradually drift into the Sol System in order to avoid detection by the Loyalists' system defences. Silonius led the Alpha Legion fleet of over 200 warships in the subsequent Battle of Pluto. However, when Alpharius was seemingly killed during the operation by the Imperial Fists' primarch Rogal Dorn, Sidonius ordered a retreat and seemed unconcerned with his primarch's death, stating that the entire Legion acts as one.

• Headhunter Prime Phocron - Phocron was the designation given to a headhunter prime of the Alpha Legion during the Horus Heresy. Long before the Heresy began, Phocron and several other Alpha Legionaries were secretly put into stasis under Terra to act as a sleeper cell in case they were ever needed by the XX Legion for operations on the Thoneworld itself. In the opening salvoes of the Solar War that was initiated by the Alpha Legion, the Legion's Human operative Myzmadra awoke Phocron and his battle-brothers and set them their first mission. Together with the Harrowmaster Kel Silonius, who was in reality the Alpha Legion primarch Alpharius wearing the Headhunter Silonius' identity, they committed acts of sabotage and subterfuge against the Loyalists on Terra to pave the way for the Legion's assault on the Sol System in the Battle of Pluto. However, during an ambush by the Imperial Fists at Artefact 9-Kappa-Mu, a mysterious geodesic sphere of black metal 30 kilometres in diameter that orbited Sol between Terra and Venus, Phocron was seemingly killed by Archamus, the commander of Primarch Rogal Dorn's Huscarls honour guard. Millennia after the end of the Horus Heresy, an Alpha Legion Chaos Lord known as Phocron was responsible for the deaths of entire worlds across the Imperium through acts of sabotage, war, and terrorism undertaken by his vast network of Chaos Cultists and mortal agents. Pursued by an unnamed Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor for nearly a standard century, in the end Imperial forces discovered Phocron's hideout, a derelict void station and space hulk called the Hydra's Eye. Yet, despite capturing the station and cornering Phocron, the Inquisitor was shocked to find that "Phocron" was an alias used by many Alpha Legion members. There had never been a true Phocron, it was merely a name used by Alpha Legion Heretic Astartes to organise Chaos Cultists and other mortal agents across the Imperium. Moreover, now that the identity had been compromised by the Loyalists, the Alpha Legion decided to end its use. Even worse for the Inquisitor, a member of the Alpha Legion had surgically altered his face to match the Inquisitor's own, indicating that his was the new identity chosen by the Alpha Legion to replace that of Phocron.

Sources

• Alpharius: Head of the Hydra (Novel) by Mike Brooks, "In the Shadows"
• The Horus Heresy Book Three: Extermination (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 88, 260, 308
• The Horus Heresy Book Eight: Malevolence (Forge World Series), pp. 88, 97-98
• The Horus Heresy: Legions, Hidden Dagger: Alpha Legion (Mobile Game)
• Praetorian of Dorn (Novel) by John French, Part 3, Chs 4–5; Part 4, Chs. 5–6
• We Are One (Short Story) by John French