World Eaters

The World Eaters are one of the Traitor Legions of Chaos Space Marines who now inhabit the Warp rift known as the Eye of Terror in the Imperium of Man's Segmentum Obscura. The World Eaters are also one of the twenty First Founding Space Marine Legions, though they were also one of the first to betray the Emperor for Chaos. The World Eaters are the dedicated servants of Khorne, the Chaos God of War and Murder, and live for nothing more than to spill blood in his name. The World Eaters' Primarch, Angron, was one of the first of the Space Marine Primarchs to join with the Warmaster Horus when he turned against the Emperor of Mankind and began the Horus Heresy.

Legion History
Of all the Space Marine Legions created by the Emperor of Mankind during the First Founding, none were more feared than the World Eaters. Always leading the bloodies assaults and most vicious battles of the Great Crusade, the name of the the World Eaters soon became a byword for bloodshed and fear on a mass scale.

Angron
The legend of the Primarch Angron remains frustratingly incomeplete. How Angron came to be separated from the Emperor and Terra by the mysterious machinations of the Ruinous Powers and what planet they deposited him upon after he was stolen away an an infant through the Warp is unknown. Where this planet is located in the galaxy or if it even still exists is uncertain. Carpinus' Speculum Historiate tells of Angron's homeworld that it was technologically advanced and ruled over by a wealthy caste who lived in decadent opulence while the populations of their cities lived in abject poverty in the huge slums surrounding their palaces and villas. To distract the populace from their poverty, the oligarchic rulers of this planet held regular gladiatorial games to the death in massive areans with cybernetically-enhanced gladiators who battled to satisfy the endless bloodlust of the people. It was on this world that the Primarch Angron was eventually discovered, though little else about the circumstances of how he came to be there remains unknown.

What is known is that Angron was discovered by a slaver who chanced upon the battered and bleeding figure of the young Primarch, surrounded by scores of alien corpses, high in the northern mountains of the world. History does not record what species these aliens belonged to, but many Imperial scholars believe them to have been Eldar who attacked the Primarch with some psychic foreknowledge of what he would become in the future. Angron had been badly wounded in the combat, but remained alive. Taken as a slave, Angron was nursed back to health and bio-neural cybernetic implants were surgically grafted to his cerebral cortex. Relic devices from the Dark Age of Technology, these implants would boost a warrior's adrenaline, resulting in greater strength and aggression in battle. Angron was taken to the planet's capital city where his obvious potential as a gladiator was soon made apparent and he was bought by the largest and most popular arena in the capital. The cells below the area were home to several thousand of these cyborg gladiators and Angron took his place among them.

After only a few months, Angron had become a proud warrior of fearsome skill and an even stronger sense of honor. He killed hundreds of other gladiators, but those who fought well he always spared. While Angron seemed to enjoy the life of a gladiator, he was always plotting to escape and proved to be a troublesome slave prone to multiple escape attamepts that always failed. Within a few years Angron's fame had spread to every corner of his homeworld. Under his training, the gladiators of his arena soon became the greatest their world had ever seen and none could stand against them. yet, Angron also learned, following a final escape attempt that he would never succeed alone. His unbeinding warrior's code and sheer skill had made him a well-respected leader among the other gladiators and when the largest death games ever held on the world were announced, Angron planbed his most daring escape attempt. For these new games, Angron was allowed to stage a vast combat that would involve every gladiator of his arena. As the crowd drowned out the sounds of battle, Angron's gladiators turned on their armed guards, butchering them and fighting their way to freedom. Against the guards armed with firearms, the gladiators' casualties were grievous, but nearly 2,000 survived to escape into the capital city, stealing what weapons and supplies they could before fleeing into the northern mountauins where Angron had first been discovered. Over the next few years, the rulers of the world dispatached many armed forces to kill or recapture the rebel slaves, but all were destroyed in turn by Angron's leadership, martial skill and the cybernetically-enhanced fury of the gladiators.

But attrition and hunger slowly took their toll on the slaves and eventually they numbered but 1,000 men and women. On a mountain named Fedan Mhor Angron and his forces were finally surrounded by no less than five large armies. Not even the Primarch could stand against such sheer numbers. yet it was at this time that the Emperor of Mankind came to this world, drawn by the psychic emanations of his gene-son the Primarch. The Emperor had observed Angron secretly from orbit for many months and had watched with pride as he had led his freed slaves in battle against the forces of tyranny. The Emperor descended to the world's surface and after the shock of the meeting had worn off on the Primarch, the Emperor offered Angron the leadership of the XII Space Marines Legion, which had been created from Angron's genetic material, and a place at his side in the Great Crusade. To the Emperor's disbelief, Angron refused, claiming that his placed remained with his fellow slaves and he would die before deserting them. But the Emperor knew that even though Angron was a Primarch, he would still die in the coming battle, and this could not be allowed when he was so important to the creation of the Imperium of Man and the success of the Great Crusade. Bringing his flagship in low orbit, the Emperor teleported Angron away from the mountain of Fedan Mhor. Without their leader, the morale of the gladiators was destroyed and the next day thet were slaughtered to the last person by the armies of the world's rulers. In space, Angron eventually took command of the Space Marine Legion that he renamed the World Eaters, but he would never forgive the Emperor for what had happened to his fellow slaves and what he saw as the ultimate betrayal of his honour.

The Great Crusade
Knowing how successful the cybernetic bio-neural implants could be at boosting a warriors prowess in battle, Angron ordered the Techmarines of the World Eaters to duplicate the process used on his homeworld, using the implants in his own head to reverse-engineer the devices. However, the art of this technology's construction had been long forgotten to the Adeptus Mechanicus and the early attempts to reverse-engineer it were often failures, resulting in uncontrollable psychotic episodes in the recipients. Eventually, the World Eaters Techmarines were able to construct working bio-neural implants that heightened agression and physical strength and endurance, implanting them within whole companies of the World Eaters Space Marines. At first the companies with the implants proved very successful, gaining a reputation as terror troops. Mercy was never offered by the World Eaters, only death at the end of a chain-axe or chainsword. The Liber Malus speaks of whole star systems surrendering wholesale when the World Eaters fleet was detected entering the system rather than face the wrath of Angron's Space Marines. Yet it was not long before the Legion's use of cybernetic implants in its neophytes became known. Following the infamous Ghenna Scouring, where an entire planet's population was butchered in a single night, the World Eaters were publicly censured by the Emperor and commanded to stop using the cybernetic implants.

Angron paid no heed to the Emperor's command and ordered his Techmarines to continue to use the technology until nearly every World Eater Space Marine had undergone the surgery. Blood rites like blood-drinking and vicious gladiatorial combats became an increasingly important part of the World Eaters' rituals and customs as they continued to slaughter their way across a broad swathe of the galaxy and it soon became common practice for World Eaters to compete in the number of skulls that they could take in battle. For some World Eater Space Marines, the result was an uncontrollable thirst of slaughter even away from the battlefield. However, the results produced by the World Eaters on the front lines were so effective that the Imperium was willing to turn a blind eye to the World Eaters’ practices for quite sometime during the Great Crusade. Eventually, as the World Eaters' viciousness only worsened, many of Angron's brother Primarchs voiced their concerns to the Emperor, yet the Master of Mankind proceeded to make a terrible error. He dispatched the Warmaster Horus, the Primarch he trusted over all others, to confront Angron and bring him back into the Imperial fold. Yet Horus was a master manipulator and unknown to the Emperor, had already himself been corrupted by the Ruinous Powers of Chaos. In Angron he saw a warrior consumed by bitterness and resentment towards the Emperor and it was simple for Horus to feed that bitterness and emphasize the Emperor's betrayal, feeding Angron's perception that the Emperor was a weakling in need of replacement by a stronger ruler--a ruler like Horus. Horus had told Angron exactly what he wanted to hear and when the Horus Heresy began, plunging the galaxy into civil war, Angron's World Eaters joyfully marched beside the Sons of Horus. In an event that sealed the fate of the World Eaters, Scyrak the Slaughterer, a World Eater hero, slew the Loyalist Chief Librarian of the World Eaters – the last ward against the influences of Chaos. Thus, the World Eaters became one of Horus’ original four Traitor Legions, along with the Death Guard, the Word Bearers and Horus’ own Sons of Horus.

The Horus Heresy
The ferocity once visited upon the Emperor's enemies now fell upon the Imperium of Man. The World Eaters fought in the vanguard of every battle, fighting in the bloodiest assaults, preferring to tear the enemy to pieces in melee combat rather than use long-range firepower. Angron's warriors cut a bloody swathe across the galaxy towards Terra, drinking the blood of their victims and taking their skulls to honour their new master, the Blood God Khorne. During the Horus Heresy, the World Eaters fought many bloody battles, their allegiance to Khorne growing ever stronger. The climax of the World Eaters’ glory came during the onslaught of the very heart of humanity: Terra. Newly blessed with daemonic gifts, Angron and his World Eaters first overtook the Loyalist defenders of the Eternity Wall Spaceport. Later, the World Eaters had the duty and privilege of leading the frontal assault on the Emperor’s Imperial Palace. The surviving video logs from the Siege of the Imperial Palace show the World Eaters breaching the walls of the Palace, the twisted, red form of Angron wielding his glowing runesword at their head. Among those first in was the World Eaters champion Khârn who helped to assault the Imperial Palace. Despite contrary claims by the Sons of Horus, World Eater records indicate that it was Angron’s daemonic runesword that was responsible for the downfall of the great gate of the Imperial Palace. The World Eaters reaped a true harvest of blood on Terra, but they were denied ultimate victory. With the Dark Angels and Space Wolves Legions on their way to Terra to reinforce the Loyalist defenders, Horus gambled everything in order to win the siege, lowering the void shields on his battle barge and daring the Emperor to come to him. The Master of Mankind rose to the challenge and faced his betrayer in the combat that decided the fate of the galaxy. The two fought a titanic battle that was both physical and psychic, until at last the Emperor had slain Horus and utterly obliterated even his soul from existence, but only at the cost of his own humanity and eternal internment in the Golden Throne. The mighty Chaos army then disintegrated and fled Terra. Angron was the last to leave, leading his World Eaters deep into the refuge of the great Warp storm that was the Eye of Terror in the northwestern reaches of the galaxy. He and his Chaos Space Marines would have all of eternity to seek revenge and more blood for the Blood God.

With the Horus Heresy ended, the World Eaters fled to the Eye of Terror to a Daemon World specially prepared for Angron by Khorne, though the Legion swiftly degenerated into roving warbands of Chaos Space Marines as the incessant and bloodthirsty demands of Khorne simply drove the World Eaters to turn in upon themselves. As such, even to the present time they have no particular homebase, with each band generally operatng from whatever starship they can lay their bloodstained hands upon.

The Battle of Skalathrax
The World Eaters Legion was finally sundered as a coherent force during the Battle of Slaathrax on the Daemon World of the same name where the World Eaters faced off against the Emperor's Children Chaos Marines, the devoted servants of the Chaos God Slaanesh, the chief rival among the Ruinous Powers of the World Eaters' patron Khorne. The two armies of Traitor Marines clashed through the planet's storm lashed cities of black rock and ice. City after city fell to the bezerker assaults of the World Eaters, as the chosen of Khorne hurled themselves at the Emperor's Children, slaughtering the hated Slaaneshi devotees until forced to halt their attack as the Daemon World's freezing night fell.

A Champion of Khorne named Khârn screamed his frustration as the Legion paused in its attack, demanding that he be allowed to continue killing. Furious with his comrades for taking shelter while there were still enemies left to slay, Khârn took up a flamer and turned its heat upon his fellow World Eaters Bezerkers and those who tried to stop he cut down with great sweeps of his chainaxe. As the flames spread to the rest of the city, the World Eaters Legion tore itself apart, Bezerkers fighting both each other and the Emperor's Children for what little shelter remained. Khârn burned and hacked his way through the flaming ruinis of Skalathrax, having become the living incarnation of the Blood God himself. From that day forth, the World Eaters were broken as a Legion, becoming instead scattered warbands of bezerk Chaos Marines, forever in search of more blood to spill. Khârn now stalks the Eye of Terror and only the most insane of Khornate warriors dare to fight alongside him, since few who do so ever survive.

The 41st Millennium
After Horus' death at the hands of the Emperor, the tide of the Battle for Terra turned and the remaining forces of Chaos were scattered. Angron and his World Eaters fought their way across the galaxy to reach the Eye of Terror. Once inside the Warp rift, the bloody Chaos Space Marines chose a Daemon World to settle, which Khorne blessed and perverted into a realm of constant battle, bloodshed and pain where Angron, now a Daemon Prince of Khorne, ruled over all. However, following the Battle of Skalathrax with the Emperor's Children in the Eye of Terror, the raving blood thirst of the World Eaters broke down any form of organization and control. Units of World Eaters of varying sizes broke off from the main force to seek out glory and skulls for Khorne. Squads of ancient World Eater berzerkers can be found as parts of larger Chaos armies, in Khorne-sworn forces, or even in small teams called warbands – always seeking combat, blood and skulls.

Appearance
The original blue and white heraldry of the World Eaters has given way to blood red and brass, the favored colours of Khorne, although one can find some pieces of the World Eaters’ original heraldry in individual pieces of their armour. While most World Eaters retain their original Legion badge, the Mark of Khorne, as well as other Chaos icons and symbols like the Star of Chaos, often supplements it. In battle, the World Eaters almost exclusively employ chainaxes and chainswords to maximize blood spillage, although some of the most powerful warriors of the Legion use arcane power or daemonic Khornate weapons infused with the power of a daemon of the Blood God. Other renegade Space Marines that have given in to the pull of Khorne since the end of the Horus Heresy have adopted the look of the World Eaters, but few can compare to the experience that thousands upon thousands of battles across some 10,000 years has brought to the original World Eaters. What was once the most effective shock assault force in the galaxy is now a terrifying collection of savage berzerkers and insane, psychotic killing machines that live only to spill blood and take skulls for their Lord Khorne.

Combat Doctrine
The World Eaters now possess but a single desire in life -- to slay their enemies in melee combat and take their skulls for Khorne. To this end, the Legion has cast away their long-ranged weapons completely and have taken up the chainaxe favoured by Khorne and the bolt pistol. Their thirst for blood and slaughter has become such an overpowering addiction that when battle is joined the World Eaters, now all Bezerkers, rampage across the battlefield, roaring the name of Khorne, all strategy and tactucs forgotten in their overpowering thirst for bloodshed. In combat, these frothic, psychotic bezerkers are ferocious and will fight to the death, knowing that their own blood is as welcome to the Blood God as that of their enemies.

In game play, the World Eaters are an army dedicated to close combat. Reflecting the breakdown of organization and strategy in the Legion, most World Eater combat consists of rushing a force of World Eater Berzerkers towards the enemy line as quickly as possible so they can engage in melee combat. Once locked into close combat, few enemy units can persevere against the World Eaters’ Berzerkers. World Eater armies feature little to no long-range weapons, but they balance it with their exceptional close combat and melee prowess. The World Eaters do, however, possess various artillery weapons gifted by Khorne.

Notable individuals

 * Angron, Primarch of the World Eaters and Daemon Prince of Khorne.
 * Kharn the Betrayer, Champion of Khorne
 * Kossolax the Foresworn, supported the 13th Black Crusade
 * Brother-Captain Varren, Loyalist World Eater Marine, part of the Eisenstein starship crew that warned the Emperor about the corruption of Horus after the Warmaster ordered the virus bombing of the Loyalist Space Marines of the four original Traitor Legions on Isstvan III
 * Brother-Captain Ehrlen, commanded the Loyalist World Eaters strike force at the Battle of Isstvan III
 * Lord Crull, a Chaos Lord of Khorne who led a warband of World Eaters named the Blood Legion of Khorne during the battle for Lorn V
 * Lord Zhufor, a Chaos Lord of Khorne who led a warband of the World Eaters during the Siege of Vraks

Notable Battles and Campaigns
The Cleansing of Arrigata (Pre-Heresy) 

Towards the end of the Great Crusade, Horus assembled three Legions to take back the technologically advanced planet Arrigata from the separatists who controlled it; the The Sons of Horus, World Eaters, and Ultramarines. Most of the planet was quickly conquered, except for the massive fortress within which most of the leaders of the planet cowered. Eager to be on his way, Horus commanded Angron to take back the citadel and kill only the leaders. Eagerly, Angron led the assault. However the fortress was heavily defended and the casualties were horrendous, a dozen World Eaters falling for a meter of land. Eventually, a ramp of corpses led up to a single breach in the wall, and the Marines plunged in. Filled with rage over their fallen brothers, they were merciless. By the time the Ultramarines arrived, the battle was all but over. The inside of the fortress was filled with the dismembered and mangled corpses of the defenders, for not one soul had been spared the vengeful fury of the World Eaters. It was a slaughter.5

Isstvan III Massacre

Angron led the World Eaters in the first surface attack on Isstvan III to destroy the remaining Loyalist Marines of the four original Traitor Legions, including their own Loyalist World Eaters. The World Eaters bloodily massacred most of them, plunging into the enemy ranks like a white hot dagger. It is rumoured that when the Iron Hands arrived to destroy the Traitors, Angron turned his forces around and engaged them in what was some of the most bloody fighting of the Horus Heresy. A few even whisper that Angron himself killed Ferrus Manus, the Primarch of the Iron Hands, with several mighty blows from his Chainaxe, God Tearer.

The Siege of the Imperial Palace

The walls of the Imperial Palace seemed to touch the very sky, so tall were they. Before the walls milled the combined forces of the Traitors, an army so vast and terrible that its like has never been seen before. Nor will its like be seen again until the end of times, and the final battle. Beastmen and all manner of corrupted mutants, all the Greater and lesser Daemons of Chaos, and the Traitor Legions in their fell might surrounded the last bastion of the Loyalists. The walls of the Palace were high and strong, but were breached by the Titans of the Death's Heads Legion. Into those breaches, at the forefront of each assault went the World Eaters. They charged reckless through the maelstrom, leaving heaps of their dead, consumed by madness and their lust for slaughter. It was here, in the desperate and close fighting in the breaches that a Chaos Marine named Kharn became a bloody legend, butchering and carving his way toward the Emperor's inner sanctums. They moved into the corridors running through the mile thick walls, and the tunnels and chambers swam with blood. Even as the Emperor fought Horus above the ruins of Terra, Kharn fell at last before the Eternity Gate, atop a great pile of corpses. As the World Eaters withdrew with the other Legions after Horus's fall, some dark impulse or whispering from the gods bade them take the bloodied carcass of Kharn with them, alone out of the millions of corpses left around the Palace.

The Battle of Skalathrax

On the daemon world Skalathrax, shortly after the heresy, the World Eaters and the Emperor's Children fought. Amid the World Eaters was the Champion of Khorne named Kharn. After a full day of vicious fighting, the terrible Skalathrax night began. Horrified, Emperor's Children and World Eaters alike ran to their shelters, for the freezing night would kill even a Space Marine in a matter of moments. Kharn raged over being delayed from battle for even a night. Filled with anger when he saw that his brother Marines were creeping back to the shelters, he took up a flamer and burned them down, slaying with his chain-axe Gorechild any who tried to stop him. The night was filled with the screams of the dying and the freezing as Kharn strode the streets of the dead city of black stone, killing Emperor's Children and World Eaters alike, burning any shelters he found. The night was lit by flames as the Emperor's Children and World Eaters fought each other and themselves for the few remaining shelters. By morning, most of the World Eaters were dead, the survivors split into small warbands, the shattered remnants of once great Companies.

The First War for Armageddon

The arrival of a massive and ancient space hulk at the outer edge of the Armageddon system heralded the first of the terrible wars to plague this planet. In this costly conflict, the Daemon Primarch Angron led his World Eaters in a massive invasion of the hive planet. Imperial resistance on the continent of Armageddon Prime was swiftly crushed, and the defenders withdrew beyond the vast equatorial jungles dividing Armageddon Prime from Secundus. Here, under the guidance of Logan Grimnar of the Space Wolves, the Imperial forces established a new line of defences and awaited the renewed onslaught. Complacent, and believing the campaign to be all but won, Angron wasted weeks erecting great temples and monoliths to his patron Chaos God Khorne - or so it seemed. In reality, the local Warp Storm which had allowed a large portion of his army to be summoned by a Chaos Cult native to Armageddon was dissipating, and without its influence, much of his army, which was composed of Khornate daemons, was likely to be pulled back into the Warp. So his hand was forced into erecting the monuments and temples. This proved to be a mistake. When Angron renewed his offensive, pushing through the sweltering jungles to reach Armageddon Secundus his host was met by a solid wall of defence. Nonetheless the World Eaters crashed recklessly into the Imperial line, and they were aided by the daemons of the Warp. The Imperial defences were almost overwhelmed by the sheer fury of the World Eaters assault. Angron himself led his bodyguard of Daemon Princes and Bloodthirsters against the centre of the line, held by the Space Wolves, hoping to come before the Great Wolf and slay him.

It was at this point that Grimnar played his trump card; an entire Company of Grey Knights teleported into the midst of Angron's daemonic honour guard. The titanic struggle that ensued saw earth rending energies unleashed, as the burning white light of the Emperor's finest came against the darkness of Khorne's dread servants. Angron's retinue was destroyed by the Grey Knights at a terrible cost, and the survivors now faced the corrupted Primarch.

It was this combat that would decide the fate of the world. The Grey Knights, through a supreme sacrifice, summoned the energy for a massive psychic blast that completely annihilated Angron's corporeal form and banished his spirit to the Empryean, from whence it could not return for a hundred years. A great part of the Grey Knight Company, including the Chapter Master, were destroyed in this action, for Angron was a foe of murderous strength.

With the destruction of the Primarch, the World Eaters fell into disarray and were routed. The Warp-summoned Daemons of Khorne vanished as swiftly as they had appeared, losing their fragile grip of the material plane. The survivors of the World Eaters gradually fell back into the Eye of Terror. It is said that the now recovered Angron hungers for revenge.

Fleet
During the Horus Heresy the World Eaters are known to have possessed the following vessels:1
 * Capital Ship - Gladiator
 * Capital Ship - Gatt Charge
 * Battleship - Merciless
 * Battle Barge - Conqueror (the World Eaters' flagship and Angron's personal Battle Barge)
 * Strike Craft - Blood Shrike
 * Strike Craft - Silent Fury