First, when confronting human foes, the II Legion has shown itself to favor diplomacy and guile over overt warfare and destruction—they seem to avoid mass combat if at all possible in this context. Instead, the II Legion will choose to utilize nonviolent means like psychological, political, economic, electronic, and information warfare when negotiations fail to subvert or co-opt local elites and masses into Imperial administration and culture. This may be combined with false flag or black operations when apparently deemed necessary to foment unrest, instability, and active insurgencies, or manipulate specific interest groups using covert abductions, assassination, brainwashing, bribery, espionage, extortion, hostages, monopolies, sabotage, terror, etcetera, to achieve victory at minimal loss of human life.
The II Legion typically extends three offers of mercy before and even during battle, then offering to render assistance in rebuilding afterwards—one of the very few practices of the II Legion they confirm as true. Indeed, the II Legion widely publicizes this part of their approach to battle against human foes. But if their offers are refused, psychic abilities are leveraged to persuade foes to surrender, or enthrall to join the Imperium outright. Should these efforts prove insufficient, the Legion casts confusion, despair, discomfort, and fear about the foe, combined with chaff aerosols, computer viruses, disinformation, signal jamming, and nonlethal biological or chemical agents—and these are strongly suspected to be secretly emplaced among the enemy long before any need of use, given multiple recorded instances of such present in airtight facilities to temporarily and safely incapacitate foes and cripple communications long enough to achieve victory.
There also appears to be a focus on limiting collateral damage and preventing civilian casualties in that context, which is almost certainly a major contributing factor to the unsurpassed speed with which the II Legion brings vast numbers of fully developed human worlds into Imperial Compliance, ones genuinely eager to lend their might to the Imperium and Great Crusade. The commentators who compiled and correlated this information also found no evidence of any such world ever rebelling, an uncommon feat amongst even the Legiones Astartes.
Another likely contributing factor in that success is the II Legion’s likely very wide- and very deep-reaching intelligence network, including sleeper cells of biological and cybernetic agents surmised to be seeded months to years in advance—perhaps even decades. The II Legion has almost always appeared to know where and when to strike their foes, both figuratively and literally—and whether at the negotiating table or on the battlefield. There is an almost unanimous opinion among Imperial commentators of the II Legion that it trains and equips all its Legionnaires as intelligence officers, with emphases in clandestine human, geospatial, and signals intelligence operational techniques, asset recruitment, and tradecraft. More speculative is the same in cultural, financial, medical, meteorological, and technical intelligence, as less evidence exists to support this hypothesis—though evidence of administrative and engineering expertise is widespread at the individual level too through joint operations records and observing worlds governed by the II Legion. Like many topics concerning the II Legion, this one remains a point of contention.
Per records and observations by other Legions and auxiliary forces, the II Legion appears to prefer battle plans that are simple at their core, but extremely well thought-out and adaptable in that all plausible, mutually exclusive outcomes benefit the II Legion in some way, with multiple contingencies for unforeseen courses such that any setback still results in achieving objectives. The II Legion seems to place accomplishing their missions only above the welfare of their soldiers, including allies. Imperial forces engaged in theatres where II Legion personnel are present frequently sustain significantly lower casualty rates compared to theatres where the II Legion is absent. When the II Legion acts in a leadership role, the effect is compounded. That every Legionnaire also appears to be expertly trained in battlefield first aid and issued an unknown pattern of medkit is a likely contributing factor.
This cross-training continues across the spectrum of other soldierly disciplines, as each Legionnaire appears a fully capable of taking any combat role and using any equipment, even completely repair, service, and modify their own wargear. Certainly, the II Primarch has a very particular vision of what a superhuman soldier should be. Every known II Legionnaire has displayed near-genius ability to observe, memorize, and adapt to any situation, with extraordinary capacity for learning and perfectly fusing military science with art of war and the most advanced Imperial technology. Common consensus among Imperial analysts is that each II Legionnaire is the equivalent of professor in military science and history plus decades to centuries of combat experience. Many note this is an unusual trait even among Astartes, and suspect such traits and aptitudes are the result of unforeseen gene-seed mutations, likely connected to the II Legions early woes.
Perhaps correlating with this analysis, the II Legion seems to act as a testbed for the latest technology developed nascent Imperium, exhaustively trained in arts of war using old and new wargear and are unusually technologically innovative in their own right, with a superior standard of gear in reliability and complexity. That the II Legion traditionally deploys as small-scale special operations kill-teams seconded to other units supports this assertion, the basic rationale being that many such detachments can extract the maximum amount of information regarding the combat effectiveness of any Imperial force and technology, and how to improve their operational efficiency by bringing with an invaluable, and perhaps unparalleled record. These detachments are then presumed to report back to the II Legion everything they learned in the field so their findings can be collated. This practice is suspected to date back to the II Legin’s origins, unlike is unique stealth traditions—though concealment was always an emphasis.
The II Legion’s stealth traditions are thought to originate from their Primarch, not the Legion, given the earliest records of such date back to the first appearance of the Ghost Legion following the II Primarch’s return. After that, II Legionnaires displayed an ability to muffle the noises they make with undisclosed technology and pure skill at movement, using such to baffle the sounds of power armor in what data-fragments point to as ‘secret rites of silence.’ The more poetic among Imperial commentators say the II Legionnaires move with silence and invisibility by shifting from one pool of darkness to another within the shadows, calling such ‘wraith-slipping.’ It is unknown if this term originated from speculation or was planted by II Legion intelligence assets, but it has stuck, even in official observation reports by Imperial agencies on the II Legion’s activities.
One controversial report stated the II Legionnaires’ ability also stems from their ‘understanding the empty spaces between sounds,’ allowing the II Legionnaires to occupy them and move silently. Attempts to locate the original classifying authority for further questioning revealed them to either be missing or never existed in the first place, which led to wild speculation inappropriate for this report. It has been observed firsthand though that the II Legion utilizes a unique battle-cant analysts term ‘stalk argot,’ possibly consisting of a series of sighs and whispers near-indistinguishable from the wind and other environmental sounds. It is also suspected a small number of II Legionnaires may possess an ability—possibly a gene-seed mutation—which enables them to deny their presence to anything with a mind, effectively becoming invisible like their Primarch.
In terms of actual combat doctrine, adaptability, efficiency, and unpredictability are the most common descriptors used by Imperial commentators regarding the II Legion, as they display coordination and responsiveness arguably superior to any other Imperial forces. Likely due in part to their discipline and aptitude for planning, the II Legion rarely suffers much from any defeats—a possible point of evidence in favor of their appellate, ‘The Immortals.’ There also seem to be three major common factors to many of their victories: surprise, mobility, and violence of action—attacking when and where they want with enough force to quickly achieve objectives, minimize friendly casualties, and disappear back to the fog of war. If violence is inevitable, the Legion uses its resident Qliphoth assets for direct action to secure or eliminate high-value targets: assassinations, sabotage, small-scale raids and ambushes, or similar actions. High-value targets include sensor arrays, shield generators, spaceports, anti-air and anti-orbital weaponry, senior military and civilian leadership, power stations, life support, etc.
If such efforts prove insufficient to achieve victory, then strike forces of Sephiroth Legionnaires will deep-strike to what high-value targets remain, bypassing enemy defenders and strongpoints as Qliphoth Legionnaires and their assets continually acquire targets, direct fire support, and perform post-strike reconnaissance. Retreats, rendezvous, and redeployments are easily, fluidly, and smoothly executed due to the Legionnaires’ planning, training, freedom of maneuver, and portability of firepower. If securing or eliminating high-value targets does not achieve victory, then Legion aircraft, airborne and mechanized auxilia, battle-automata, fast armor, and self-propelled artillery will be rapidly deployed alongside countless recon drones—typically an unknown pattern of servo-skull—for more conventional warfare, working first to achieve space and air superiority or supremacy while neutralizing enemy air and space defenses. The Legion will attack from many vectors at once, as well as employing feints and ambushes, probing for weaknesses. The Legion will then bring about maximum pressure against exposed vulnerabilities, deploying reserves of shock troops, heavy armor, and siege artillery as expedient to deal a shattering death blow. Fire support is decentralized, directed by and for tactical-level units and subunits from orbiting warships, sortied aircraft, self-propelled artillery, and captured emplacements with surgical precision. Deadly biological and chemical agents may be deployed if needed, and psychic abilities may be used to kill and destroy.
As gleaned from the after-action reports of human forces brought into compliance by the II Legion, many did not know they were being attacked until it was too late—and realized in hindsight that the war was already won when the battle finally began regardless of its tactical outcome. The II Legion’s ability to deceive its foes—and, often, allies—certainly contributes to this impression. Most Imperial commentators agree the II Legion are masters of intelligence and counterintelligence—some even argue it is the Legion best at information warfare. Some suspect the Legion employs uncharted psychic abilities for these purposes combined with its intelligence network for collecting and studying the technology and techniques of other Legions and Imperial organizations as much as their foes.
Yet when fighting xenos hostile to Mankind, it’s as if another Legion replaces them, such is their apparent ferocity and ruthlessness. There are no attempts at negotiation nor use of nonlethal weapons, whether material or psychic in nature. Nor does the Legion try to limit collateral damage, instead freely using its most deadly weaponry and psychic abilities to utterly eradicate every last trace of the alien foe. There is no clemency nor respite given to the enemy here, only death, and not even a clean one, for the II Legion seems to care nothing for the honor or pride of dead xenos who mean harm to Mankind, only caring to accomplish their mission and see to the welfare of their own. And should the xenos threat by psychic as well, Emperor have mercy on them, for the II Legion will not...