Angron

"Heresy is like a tree, its roots lie in the darkness whilst its leaves wave in the sum and to those who suspect nought it has an attractive and pleasing appearance. Truly, you can prune away its branches, or even cut the tree to the ground, but it will grow up again ever the stronger and ever more comely. Yet all awhile the root grows thick and black, gnawing at the bitter soil, drawing its nourishment from the darkness, and growing even greater and more deeply entrenched."

- Angron, Primarch of the World Eaters

Angron, sometimes called the Red Angel, is the Primarch of the World Eaters. He was the most bloody-handed and savage of the Primarchs. When Horus began his rebellion, Angron was quick to join in his treachery, but his only true master was the rage and bloodlust within him. He fell to Chaos during the Horus Heresy and was transformed into a Daemon Prince of the Blood God Khorne. He was most recently banished to the Warp after he unleashed the First War of Armageddon upon the Imperium of Man in 474.M41.

Descent of the Red Angel
Kept within the deepest dungeon of the Library Sanctus on Terra is a tome known as the Liber Malum, whose bloodstained pages record the fate of those who have trod the path to damnation. To even mention its name is to risk madness. Many are the blasphemous Heretics and tyrants whose names sully the pages with their treacheries, but foremost amongst these damned souls is Angron, the Primarch of the traitorous World Eaters Space Marine Legion. Much of the legend of Angron is incomplete, and there is much that is not known or remains so shrouded in dark legend that the true facts are impossible to discern.

A very great deal about the life story of the Daemon Primarch Angron remains unknown to the wider Imperial record. During the scattering of the Primarchs' gestation capsules from the Emperor of Mankind's gene-laboratories deep beneath the Himalazian (Himalayan) Mountains, Angron was cast through the Warp to a "civilised" human world far from Terra. How Angron came to be separated from the Emperor so soon after his creation and the name of the planet he eventually came to call home was removed from the Imperial record. Indeed where this planet was or even if it still exists is uncertain to the Imperial savants of the present time. There is in fact evidence that this information, including the true name of the world he was found upon was known but was kept deliberately secret by command of the Emperor and those close to Him. That which is known is a dark tale of the Primarch's brutal upbringing, murderous violence, and Angron's revolt against his cruel masters.

AAfter Angron came to be separated from the Emperor and Terra by the mysterious machinations of the Ruinous Powers he was deposited through the Warp on the world of Nuceria. Where this planet is located in the galaxy or if it even still exists is uncertain, though most signs seem to point to somewhere in the Ultima Segmentum. Carpinus' Speculum Historiale speaks of Angron's world as technologically advanced and ruled over by a wealthy elite who lived in decadent opulence while the populace of their cities lived in abject poverty in the slums that surrounded their walled palaces and villas. To distract the populace from their poverty, the oligarchic rulers of Nuceria held regular gladiatorial deathmatches in massive arenas, using cybernetically-enhanced gladiators who battled to satisfy the endless bloodlust of the oppressed 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 known.

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 Desh'elika Mountains. History does not record what species these aliens belonged to, but many Imperial scholars believe them to have been Eldar who attempted to kill the Primarch, due to some psychic foreknowledge of the plague upon the galaxy he would one day become. Angron had been badly wounded in the combat, but remained alive. Taken as a slave, the young boy was brought to the Palace Praxica, the seat of the Reksium Throne of the powerful Nucerian city-state of Desh'ea, where he was sold to the ruling clan, the Thal'kr. The youth's obvious potential as a gladiator was soon made apparent and he was bought by the largest and most popular arena in the capital. The young Primarch was given a name, Angron Thal'kyr, and nursed back to health. He then received the bio-neural cybernetic implants known to the savants of Nuceria as the Butcher's Nails. These were hammered into the Primarch's skull and surgically grafted to his cerebral cortex. Relic devices from the Dark Age of Technology, these cortical implants would boost a warrior's adrenaline, resulting in greater strength and aggression in battle. They bleached a warrior’s mind of all reason, all caution, all the instincts of mortality. The Nails rewarded rage with spurts of electrochemical pleasure, tingling synapses and deadening enjoyment of everything else. No better machine had ever been contrived. The cells below the massive arena were home to several thousand gladiators, all implanted with the Bucther's Nails, and Angron took his place amongst them.

After only a few months, Angron Thal'kyr had become a proud warrior of fearsome skill and an even stronger sense of honour, known to the crowds as "the Lord of the Red Sands." He killed hundreds of other gladiators, but those who fought well he always spared. Although Angron seemed to enjoy the life of a gladiator and the adulation of the Desh'ean crowds, he secretly resented his slavery, and was always plotting to escape. He proved to be a troublesome champion, prone to attempt escaping whenever he saw an occasion, but such efforts always failed. Within a few standard 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 failed escape attempt, that he would never succeed alone. His unbending warrior's code and sheer combat skill had made him a well-respected leader amongst the other Desh'ean gladiators and when the largest death games ever held on Nuceria were announced, Angron planned 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 Desh'ean 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 streets of Desh'ea, stealing what weapons and supplies they could before fleeing into the northern mountains where Angron had first been discovered. Over the next few years, the rulers of the world dispatched many armed forces to kill or recapture the rebel slaves, who soon named themselves the "Eaters of Cities," 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 only 1,000 men and women remained, half the size of the original force of escapees.

On a mountain named Fedan Mhor, on a bleak spit of land known as Desh'elika Ridge, Angron and his forces were finally surrounded by no less than five large Nucerian 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 august meeting had worn off on the Primarch, the Emperor offered Angron the leadership of the XII Space Marine Legion, the War Hounds, which had been created from Angron's own genetic material, and a place at his side in the Great Crusade. To the Emperor's disbelief, Angron refused, claiming that his place remained with his fellow slaves amongst the Eaters of Cities and he would die before deserting them. The Emperor retreated to His flagship, shocked at His son's refusal.

Appraising the situation, the Emperor saw that for all of Angron's might as a Primarch and a leader, he would die in the coming battle. Losing one of His irreplaceable sons to the assault of rabble on a backwater planet soon to be brought into Imperial Compliance was simply unacceptable. Bringing His flagship into low orbit over the world, the Emperor teleported Angron away from the mountain of Fedan Mhor and the Battle of Desh'elika Ridge. Without their leader, the morale of the gladiators was destroyed and the next day they were slaughtered to the last man by the armies of Nuceria's rulers. This was a deed for which Angron would never forgive the Emperor, and a stain upon the Primarch's honour that would never fade but fester into a soul-deep wound. The exact records of the Emperor's intervention and Angron's acceptance of his new situation is a matter of shadowed rumour and conjecture, but what can be said with certainty is that Angron's first reaction to his new situation was rage. It was said with certainty that for some time any War Hound who came before him was met with a grisly death for their efforts. It is certain that at this time the Legion Master of the War Hounds, Ibram Ghreer, a respected general who had commanded the XII Legion for nearly three decades, disappeared without explanation from any record of the time and no explanation was given by his taciturn Legion for his absence. Only after murdering at least seven high-ranking officers within the Legion, including the War Hounds Legion's former commander, Captain Khârn of the 8th Assault Company voluntarily went forth to Angron's private quarters to confront the enraged Primarch. Nearly beaten to death for his efforts, Kharn's unwillingness to accept defeat even at the hands of a much superior foe finally convinced Angron of his Legion's worthiness as fellow warriors, and his place as the rightful general and commander of the XII Legion.

Angron swiftly took charge of the XII Legion. The Primarch renamed the War Hounds the World Eaters after he assumed command. Angron did this in part to honour the gladiator force he had led in rebellion on his homeworld whose warriors had been known as the "Eaters of Cities" for their wrath and violence. He chose the new name for his Legion when Dreagher, a Terran-born War Hounds Legionary who served as Captain of the Legion's 9th Company, promised Angron after meeting his Primarch for the first time that under his leadership the War Hounds would become, "...the eaters of worlds."

Soon after, the newly renamed World Eaters would be influenced by Angron's thirst for battle, amplified by the use of the cortical Butcher's Nails implants that were reverse-engineered from the cerebral modifications of the same name that Angron had received during his Nucerian gladiator training. During the course of the Great Crusade, Angron and the World Eaters reaped many victories, although some criticised the extreme and bloodthirsty tactics the Red Angel used to ensure the destruction of his opponents.

Angron's Secret
When Angron was teleported away by the Emperor from Nuceria he was examined aboard the Adamant Resolve's Apothecarion by Vel-Kheredar, the Archmagos Veneratus of the XII Legion and a representative of Kelbor-Hal, the Fabricator-General of the Mechanicum of Mars. After ordering the XII Legion's Techmarines and Apothecaries away, the Primarch was rendered somnolent by the psychic touch of Malcador the Sigillite. Vel-Kheredar examined the neural implants hammered into the Primarch's skull over the course of seven hours, all under the Sigillite's watchful eyes. The Archmagos discovered that the Butcher's Nails had remapped Angron's brain. When the Nails activated, they reduced the production of the neurotransmitter known as serotonin in the subject's brain to encourage instinctive aggression, just as they deadened emotional response and electrical activity to any other portion of the brain save for that which regulated the flow of adrenaline. Unfortunately, the malignant archeotech device had not been designed for the biological complexity of a Primarch's brain, as it eroded mental stability and slowly damaged the subjects' capacity to reason. The implants also impinged on higher brain function by rewriting emotional responses. To make matters worse, removing the Butcher's Nails would only result in the death of the Primarch.

Over time the Butcher's Nails would cause rapid cortical degeneration and eventually kill the Primarch. This was a certainty, thoughAngron's superhuman physiology would continue to try to heal the damage as the Nails bit deeper. Vel-Kheredar did not know how long it would take the Nails to kill the Primarch based on the little data available but he could make an educated estimate. The Archmagos reported his findings to the Emperor, and soon received a marked and sealed scroll with the Palatine Aquila upon it, handed to him by the Sigillite himself. It was a message from the Emperor's own hand. He ordered the Archmagos to sequester his findings and to remain silent. At the time, the XII Legion was broken, as they were one of the last of the Legiones Astartes to find their gene-sire. Morale was low. It was bad enough that they were burdened with the only Primarch to fail in conquering his homeworld. If they had discovered he was doomed to die before the Great Crusade's end, it would have annihilated what little morale amongst the Legion remained.

Lord of the Red Sands
Angron took charge of his Legion at the mustering grounds on the War Hounds' garrison world of Bodt and swiftly worked many changes on his forces. He was given a surprisingly free hand for a newly invested Primarch, for he was not required to undergo a period in which he shadowed one of his Primarch brothers while he grew into command, or even spend time in his new-found father's company. Instead he was given license to simply take charge of his host. With bellicose energy Angron prepared it for war. The regime of discipline and training the XII Legion had abided by in the past would prove to be but a shadow of what came to pass under Angron's direction and reform. Conflict became the only measure and the only judge, and training beyond its most basic elements was as real as any war or battle a World Eaters Astartes would find themselves in. Blood, live rounds and bared blades, fighting pits and gladiatorial combat; these were the methods now used to test the mettle of the Primarch's sons, to make them more brutal and efficient killers, in the image of their genetic father. Each warrior soon bore scars by which to count the lessons learned amid heat and the bitter volcanic sands, and those that failed did not live long enough to try again.

Butcher's Nails and the World Eaters
Knowing how successful his own cortical implants could be at boosting a warrior's prowess in battle, Angron ordered his Apothecarion to insert the Butcher's Nails implants within every Astartes of the World Eaters Legion to enhance aggression and pain tolerance far beyond that which even the gene-engineered flesh of a member of the Space Marine Legions was capable. But the drawbacks were that such surgical procedures left the individual devoid of joy or peace save for that found in battle. In this dark endeavour, Angron ordered the study of the implants he had been given by his Nucerian slave masters, the infamous Butcher's Nails, to serve as a template. The Techmarines of the World Eaters attempted to duplicate the process using the Primarch's own implants as templates to reverse-engineer the devices. However, this proved difficult, for Angron's implants were a relic of a long-lost human technology, little understood by its makers, while removing them from Angron for close study would have proved fatal to the Primarch.

Early attempts to duplicate these implants by the combined efforts of the Legion's Techmarines and Apothecaries were far from successful, and resulted in high rates of mortality and irrecoverable homicidal frenzy on test recruits. However as time progressed, a viable form of the cortical implant technology was replicated and steadily improved, although it was never fully stable or constant between subjects, and entire newly-formed companies of World Eaters recruits were implanted, as well as large numbers of existing World Eaters who volunteered for the dangerous operation. The majority of these Astartes were absorbed back into the Legion's line units, while those deemed perhaps too unstable for such tasks joined a growing number of near-berserker assault units known as Rampager Squads, and within these those too far gone to be anything but restrained as savages between battles became known as the Caedere or the "Butchers," a frightening portent of what was soon to come for the entirety of the XII Legion.

Great Crusade
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, so potent had their bloody legend grown. With this legend came dark tales of atrocity and wanton destruction that froze the blood of even hardened Imperial Commanders and caused concern even at the level of the Imperial War Council and the other Primarchs. Not least of the XII Legion's detractors was Roboute Guilliman, the Primarch of the Ultramarines, who fought beside Angron and his Legion during the Cleansing of Arigatta and saw at first hand the bloodbath they had left in the wake of their attack on the Basalt Citadel, where the last defenders of this non-Compliant human world had made their stand. Guilliman had seen the ramp of World Eaters corpses that had been used to finally mount a breach in the mighty fortress and the vengeful horror the Space Marines had wrought within and been sickened. Angron soon earned the nickname the "Red Angel" for the bloody atrocities committed across the width and breadth of the galaxy. Of all his titles, given in glory or earned in infamy, Angron most despised being named the Red Angel. The Imperium already had an Angel in Sanguinius, and Angron had no desire to ape the fey mutant that commanded the IX Legion. For all his flaws, he was his own man, and took pride in that above all else. Though Angron loathed this epithet, it proved among his most fitting titles.

Ghenna Scouring and the Night of the Wolf
Yet it was not long before the Legion's use of cybernetic implants in its Neophytes became known in the wider Imperium. 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 cortical implants. Imperial records state that two Primarchs came to Angron, both claiming to have been sent by the Emperor, intending to convince him to stop the dangerous practice. The first arrived soon after Angron joined his Legion after being unwillingly rescued from Nuceria. The second would not come until almost a century later. But by then, it would be too late to stop the tragedy that had already begun to unfold.

The Night of the Wolf is a little known incident that occurred shortly after the massacre of the entire planetary population of Ghenna. The Primarch Leman Russ had been charged by the Emperor to take his Space Wolves Legion to Ghenna to bring the World Eaters to heel. The two Legions met at Malkoya, on the fields beyond the dead Ghennan city of that same name. The World Eaters, battered and bleeding from Ghenna’s Imperial Compliance campaign, formed ragged lines before the assembled Space Wolves Legion.

The Primarchs stood before their hosts, armed and armoured – Angron awash with blood and carved up by fresh wounds; Leman Russ in resplendent battle-plate the colour of the storms on his tempestuous homeworld of Fenris. In these early years of the Great Crusade, Angron still carried his first axe, the precursor to all others. He called it Widowmaker. It would break this very day, never to be used again. Russ carried Krakenmaw, his immense Chainblade, toothed by some Fenrisian sea-devil from that blighted world’s many myths. Angron refused to recognise his brother's authority, and warned the Wolf King to depart before the situation became something that he would regret. But Russ refused to be cowed by the warlike Primarch. He informed Angron that the implantation surgeries must end, for the Emperor Himself had deemed it so. The massacres of newly discovered human worlds were to end with the fall of Ghenna. The World Eaters were to submit to the Space Wolves as their escorts for their Legion's return to Terra. Once they reached the Imperial Palace, everything would be done to remove the parasitic Butcher's Nails implants from the World Eaters' minds. Angron was not amused by Russ' implied threats.

No one ever saw who fired the first shot. In the decades after, the World Eaters claimed it came from the Space Wolves' lines, and the Space Wolves claimed the same of the XII Legion. Without either Primarch giving an order, the two Space Marine Legions fought. The Night of the Wolf, it was later called. Imperial archives referred to it as the Ghenna Scouring, omitting the moment the World Eaters and Space Wolves drew blood. A source of pride for both Legions, and a source of secret shame. Both claimed victory. But both feared they had actually lost, and in truth, the battle proved bloody but inconclusive. But the World Eaters did not return to Terra, and Angron refused to stop the implantation of his Astartes.

Paying no heed to the Emperor's command, Angron ordered his Techmarines to continue to use the Butcher's Nails implant 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' Legionary rituals and customs as they continued to slaughter their way across a broad swathe of the galaxy. It soon became common practice for World Eaters to compete in the number of skulls that they could take in battle. For some World Eaters Space Marines, the result was an uncontrollable thirst for slaughter even away from the battlefield. However, the results produced by the World Eaters on the frontlines were so effective that the Imperium --and its Emperor -- proved willing to turn a blind eye to the World Eaters’ savage practices for quite some time during the course of the Great Crusade.

Istvaan III Atrocity
By the dawn of the 31st Milllennium, as the World Eaters' vicious savagery 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, Horus saw a warrior consumed by bitterness and resentment towards the Emperor and it was simple for Horus to feed that bitterness and emphasise the Emperor's betrayal of him at Nuceria, 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 into treachery. 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.

During the first battle of the Horus Heresy, also known as the Istvaan III Atrocity, the Warmaster Horus at last declared his traitorous hand and openly defied the Emperor. Angron led the World Eaters personally in the first surface assault on Istvaan III to destroy the remaining Loyalist Astartes of the four original Traitor Legions, including their own Loyalist World Eaters, who had survived the traitorous virus-bombing of Istvaan III's capital of Choral City by Horus' orbiting fleet. Horus had deceitfully launched this treacherous saturation bombardment of the planet after the four Traitor Legions' known Loyalists were already engaged against the Slaaneshi rebels who held the world. The deadly cargo which contained the deadly life-eater virus killed billions of innocents, whose psychic death scream was said to be louder than the holy beacon of the Astronomican. Much to the Traitors' surprise, nearly two-thirds of the Loyalists from the first wave survived the orbital bombardment, thanks in no small part to the timely warning of the Loyalist Emperor's Children Captain Saul Tarvitz.

Taking matters into his own hands, Angron defied Horus' plans and spearheaded a second Drop Pod wave after the bombardment failed to eliminate all of the Loyalists. The Warmaster and his allies could only look on in outrage as the Red Angel made planetfall at the head of a full 50 companies of his bloodthirsty Astartes, landing in the plaza areas to the west of the Precentor's Palace, hunting for their own kin with fratricide in their hearts. The World Eaters bloodily massacred most of their Loyalist Battle-Brothers, plunging into their former comrades' ranks like a white hot dagger. Incensed at his brother's disobedience, the Warmaster saw no choice but to support his ill-tempered and impulsive ally since the after effects of the global conflagration unleashed by the virus bombs made it impossible to carry out an immediate, accurate orbital bombardment. Horus ordered all of the Traitor forces to commence a ground attack to salvage victory from disorder. Nearly two full solar months passed on the Dead World of Istvaan III as the Loyalist survivors stalled the Warmaster's plans by tenaciously holding out against the Traitor forces. But their numbers quickly waned against the Traitors reinforcements and steady supply of munitions. Eventually, once the world's atmosphere had cleared enough to make accurate orbital fire once again possible, the Traitors leveraged their superiority of arms at last, and soon the slaughter swung decisively in the Warmaster's favour following another orbital bombardment of the Loyalist positions. The gauntlet had been thrown down and the Horus Heresy had begun.

Shadow Crusade
"Let history mark my words well, for I care nothing about who sits proud on the Throne of Terra when the last day dawns. Horus is a fine commander, but that’s the limit of my admiration for that arrogant, preening bastard. I joined his rebellion because I can tolerate him easier than I can endure the abomination that names himself Master of Mankind. You want the truth of my life and death? I am Angron, the Eater of Worlds, and I am already dead. I died over a hundred years ago, in the mountains north of the city that enslaved me. I died after Desh’ea."

- Primarch Angron talking to his brother Lorgar

During the opening days of the Horus Heresy, in the wake of the Battle of Calth, the Word Bearers Legion, led by the Primarch Lorgar, linked up with the World Eaters to launch a Shadow Crusade against the Realm of Ultramar's Five Hundred Worlds in an attempt to spread the massive Warp Storm known as the Ruinstorm that had been conjured by the Word Bearers at Calth across the Eastern Fringe. This would split the galaxy in half and deny needed reinforcements to the Loyalists as Horus drove onwards towards Terra in an attempt to overthrow the Emperor of Mankind. But Lorgar noticed that the mental stability of Angron, the Primarch of the World Eaters, was rapidily deteriorating because of the damage caused by the Butcher's Nails, the cortical implant that had been forced upon Angron by the slavemasters of his homeworld of Nuceria. With the savants of the Traitor Legions and the Dark Mechanicum unable to divine a way to either remove the implant without killing the Primarch or to prevent the escalating deterioration of Angron's mind, Lorgar suggested that the Word Bearers and the World Eaters return to Nuceria to gather knowledge about the implants and then raze the world to the ground.

Purge of Nuceria
When Angron returned to his homeworld, he learned that in the Terran century since the Emperor had rescued him unwillingly from certain death beside the rebel band of gladiators he had led, the Nucerian slavemasters had concoted a story that he had cowardly run away from the rebels' last stand at the Battle of Desh'elika Ridge and left them to be slaughtered alone. Enraged by the lies that had been told about him over the last century, Angron ordered his Legion to kill everyone in the city of Desh'ea, the masters of which had once claimed to own him. Then they were to kill everyone on the planet. At the height of the final battle against the last city on Nuceria, Lorgar was confronted by his wrathful brother Roboute Guilliman of the Ultramarines Legion, who had been chasing him and the XII Legion since the destruction of Calth. As the two Primarchs fought, Guilliman gravely wounded Lorgar and was about to deliver a killing stroke to his wretched brother. But Angron intervened, facing the Lord of Ultramar in single combat.

On his chest hung a bandolier of skulls taken from the mass grave at Desh’elika. Blood painted them as surely as it marked Angron. Even through the Nails’ pain, that pleased him. He wanted his brothers and sisters to taste blood once more. He had carried them with him across Nuceria, letting their empty eyes witness the razing of the high-rider cities. As the two Primarchs fought, Guilliman landed a glancing blow, his fist pounding across Angron's breastplate. One of the skulls of Angron's fallen kinsman that hung from the chain worn across his breastplate was partially shattered and scattered across the ground. Guilliman stepped back, his boot crushing a skull's remnants to powder. Angron saw it, and threw himself at his brother, his howl of wrath defying mortal origins, impossibly ripe in its anguish. Lorgar saw it, too. The moment Guilliman's boot broke the skull, he felt the Warp boil behind the veil.

The Bearer of the Word started chanting in a language never before spoken by any living being, his words in faultless harmony with Angron's cry of torment. Lorgar enacted his dark plan to save his brother's life, summoning the Ruinstorm to the world of Nuceria, tearing the sky open and unleashing a crimson torrent, formed from the ghosts of a hundred murdered worlds, raining blood. Lorgar focused his concentration on the triumphant form of his mutilated brother, calling for the Neverborn, the entities men called Daemons, to answer in kind. He locked Angron’s muscles, setting fire to the synapses in his brain. The first spasms wracked their way through Angron’s sinews, turning his blood to quicksilver, then to lava and at last to holy fire. His cries of thwarted rage were tainted by an agony beyond comprehension. His body started tearing itself apart, growing, rising. Perfecting, after a lifetime of broken torture. This was the moment of Angron's apotheosis into daemonhood.

The remaining World Eaters Librarians sensed the fey powers being summoned by Lorgar. In an attempt to halt the Urizen's dark plans, the 19 remaining Librarians harnessed their collective psychic powers to manifest a psychic entity known as the Communion, the gestalt consciousness of 19 psychic minds. In the midst of Lorgar's incantations, the Communion pulled the soul of the Primarch from his body. The two psychic entities confronted one another within the Warp, locked in a deadly contest of wills, each convinced that they were the one responsible for saving Angron. But ultimately, the Communion failed, for Lorgar was just as powerful in the Warp as he was in the material universe. After Angron's completed metamorphosis into a new Daemon Prince, the Daemon Primarch turned his attention to the Librarians. The Daemon Primarch's rage killed the remaining Libarians, each of them tasting a different doom. Angron killed the last of the Librarians, expunging his Legion of the mutant weakness that had plagued his gene-sons since his reunification with them a century earlier. The Librarius of the World Eaters, the last fragment of the War Hounds within the XII Legion, was no more. Now there would only be blood, an ocean of blood carried on a tide of eternal slaughter.

Roboute Guilliman escaped from Nuceria, unable to face or even fully comprehend what both of his brothers had become through their corruption by the Ruinous Powers. The World Eaters completed their purge of Nuceria until not one human life remained on the benighted world. Angron, now the very embodiment of the Blood God's Eight-Fold Path, shook the dust of the world from his feet and did not think of it again.

Post-Heresy
Angron's sighting in the Materium have been mercifully rare in the millennia after the Horus Heresy, since it appears that the Daemon Primarch is busy either prosecuting his patron's wars with the other Forces of Chaos or ruling his personal Daemon World within the Eye of Terror. There are, however, two well-documented occasions after the end of the Horus Heresy where Angron himself led the Blood God's forces against the Imperium.

The Dominion of Fire
In the mid-38th Millennium, Angron and 50,000 Chaos Space Marines and troops drawn from the other Forces of Chaos slaughtered their way through a large swathe of Imperial space for over two standard centuries. They took control of over 70 Sectors. In response, a combined force of 4 Space Marine Chapters, 2 Titan Legions and more than 30 Imperial Guard regiments participated as part of a massive Imperial Crusade to retake what the Imperium had lost to the Red Angel's assault. Ninety percent of the territory that had been lost to Angron's forces was eventually recovered by the Imperium's defenders. This protracted campaign is know in Imperial archives as the Dominion of Fire.

First War for Armageddon
The conflict later known as the First War for Armageddon began within the great Warp rift known as the Eye of Terror. The forces within, being devoted to the service of Chaos and the Ruinous Powers, usually fought against each other as was their fractious nature, but occasionally and inexplicably they put aside their rivalries to launch an assault on their common enemy, the Imperium of Man. In this case, the unity of the Ruinous Powers of Chaos was triggered by the arrival of the Space Hulk Devourer of Stars around a Daemon World within the Eye of Terror that was controlled by the Daemon Prince Angron and his World Eaters Traitor Legion. Angron had spent much of the 10 millennia following the Horus Heresy attempting to restore some level of unity amongst the divided warbands of what had once been his XII Legion of Space Marines. The World Eaters' dedication to the Blood God Khorne during the Horus Heresy had reduced them for much of that time into a fractious force of Khornate Berserkers just as likely to kill each other as their true foes. The emergence of the Devourer of Stars into orbit around Angron's Daemon World provided just the opportunity he had been looking for to recreate some semblance of common purpose for his scattered Legion. The Space Hulk proved sufficiently large enough to carry large numbers of Chaotic troops but only on an erratic course into realspace. This is how the Forces of Chaos unexpectedly emerged from the Warp aboard the Space Hulk in the Armageddon System in 444.M41. The arrival of Angron at Armageddon probably had nothing to do with Angron's own desires, rather the location was determined by the chaotic currents of the Warp which sent his Space Hulk to Armageddon, possibly at the whim of one of the Gods of Chaos, probably Khorne, if there was any intent behind the Devourer of Stars'course at all.

Meanwhile, on Armageddon, a series of strange events culminated in an armed rebellion breaking out in half a dozen of the world's large hive cities against the Imperium's authority at the same time that massive Warp Storms cut off the world from Imperial communications and commerce. The revolts, largely initiated by Chaos Cultists taking advantage of food shortages caused by the Warp Storms to stir up trouble, were quickly put down in the eastern region of the world's southern continent of Armageddon Secundus, but amongst the more widely scattered hives of the western region of the northern continent of Armageddon Prime the rebels proved more difficult to eradicate. As Armageddon's Planetary Defence Forces (PDF) and the few regiments of the Imperial Guard's Armageddon Steel Legion present on the world seemed capable of dealing with the revolt, no additional units were sent by the Imperium to handle the problem once the Warp Storms cleared. Armageddon was a very long way from the Eye of Terror in the galaxy's Segmentum Obscurus, and no one in the Imperium suspected any more sinister cause for the revolts than simple civil unrest.

Busy containing the rebellion, the Imperial forces were caught by surprise when the Space Hulk Devourer of Stars suddenly emerged from the Warp in the Armageddon System. On board the Devourer of Stars was an enormous Chaos army led by the Daemon Primarch Angron, including millions of Chaos Cultists known as the Children of Sanguinary Unholiness and the Twelve -- the Cruor Praetoria, the twelve strongest daemons of Khorne whose lives and deeds most pleased their wretched Blood God. Chaos Space Marines from the World Eaters Legion and hordes of other daemonic creatures dedicated to the Blood God also poured from the Space Hulk onto the surface of Armageddon and swept across the land.

The insidious effects of Chaos were quickly felt as nearly half the Planetary Defence Force of Armageddon unexpectedly went over to the invaders, declaring their loyalty to the Ruinous Powers of Chaos. The few remaining Loyalist defenders were quickly routed from the continent of Armageddon Prime. Falling back through the equatorial jungles in the south, the survivors joined up with the Imperial PDF units that had been left on the continent of Armageddon Secundus and prepared to make a last ditch defence along the banks of the Rivers Styx and Chaeron.

But the expected attack did not manifest itself. The Warp Storm that had carried the Devourer of Stars to Armageddon had started dying out, cutting off the vital supply of Warp energy that allowed Angron and the other daemons to remain in the Materium. Angron then reluctantly stopped his advance on Armageddon Secundus and ordered his forces to build monuments to the Blood God in the equatorial jungles separating both continents. The Chaotic army then spent the following weeks erecting colossal piles out of the skulls of the fallen defenders, anointing them with the blood of sacrificed prisoners and slaves, as well as their own.

The Imperial defenders gained valuable time while Angron raised bloody monuments to the Blood God from the wreckage of the dead instead of pressing his advantage. Many wondered why the monstrous Primarch halted with victory in his grasp, but in truth, Angron had no choice: without the supply of raw Warp energy generated by the construction of the monuments, the daemonic components of his army would soon start to dissolve back into the Warp, unable to maintain their presence in the Materium. When his "supply lines" were finally secured, and his army emerged from the equatorial jungles that separated Armageddon Prime from Armageddon Secundus, Angron found the Imperial defenders ready and waiting -- and reinforced by the Space Wolves. Unknown to the Forces of Chaos, the Great Company of Space Wolves Astartes led by the Chapter's Great Wolf (Chapter Master) Logan Grimnar had been assigned to the defence of this sector of the Imperium, and they moved quickly to provide aid to the beleaguered defenders as soon as they received the astropathic distress messages from Armageddon describing the Chaotic invasion of the Hive World.

Huge battles erupted along the entire front. In the east, along the Chaeron River, the Imperial forces held, but towards the west on the Styx River Angron led the way himself. He smashed through the Imperial lines and led his forces towards Hive Infernus and Hive Helsreach. But there Logan Grimnar unleashed his secret weapon. He had called for the assistance of the Grey Knights, the psychic Space Marine Chapter that served the Ordo Malleus of the Inquisition as its Chamber Militant, as soon as he had heard of the daemonic nature of the attacking forces. Only the Grey Knights had the ability to truly defeat a daemonic entity of such malevolent power as Angron. As the very existence of Chaos was one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Imperium of Man, few amongst even the Space Marines knew of the existence of the Grey Knights, the most elite Chapter of Astartes ever formed who were tasked specifically with combat against daemons. But Grimnar had seen them in action on more than one occasion and as the lord of an Astartes Chapter he had never been forced to submit to the Inquisitorial mind-wipe that was required of nearly all witnesses to the Grey Knights in action.

Amongst the Grey Knights units deployed for action on Armageddon was Squad Castian, which joined an ad hoc "Ragged Brotherhood" of Grey Knights under the command of Taremar Aurellian, the Brother-Captain of the 3rd Brotherhood. When the call came, the Grey Knights teleported directly into the midst of the advancing Chaos horde, surrounding the gigantic Daemon Primarch. Taking heavy losses from Angron's battle prowess, the Grey Knights inflicted their own punishment, and eventually Squad Castian engaged in melee with the Daemon Primarch. After Angron mangled the squad, the only Grey Knight left standing was the Pyrokine (master of psychic flame) Hyperion. Trying to protect a still-surviving squad mate, in a tremendous display of faith, power, and effort, Hyperion used his psyker abilities to shatter the Primarch's daemonic sword, the hideous Khornate relic known as the Black Blade -- while he collapsed into unconsciousness from the sheer effort. Captain Aurellian then confronted the bladeless Daemon Prince of Khorne and managed to banish him back to the Warp, though at the cost of his own life.

Hyperion was one of only 13 Grey Knights to survive the battle, out of the 109 Astartes of the 3rd Brotherhood who had been deployed for the campaign. Found alive but in terrible shape by the Space Wolves on the hellish field after the battle, Hyperion soon acquired the honorific "Bladebreaker" for his feat. He had to be put in temporary stasis in order to survive, and underwent surgery that replaced half his face and skull with augmetics. He eventually reported back to duty more than 4 months later.

The Grey Knights had defeated the Daemon Prince, hurling his spirit back into the Warp from where he could not return for over one hundred Terran years. At the same time as the Grey Knights were teleporting directly into the centre of the daemonic force to launch their attack on the Daemon Primarch, the Space Wolves launched their own massive counter-offensive all along the Imperial lines. The Forces of Chaos were routed after they watched their leader defeated and only the World Eaters managed to retreat back to the Space Hulk and escape into the safety of the Warp. The Imperial victory was complete and overwhelming -- though it had come at a great and terrible cost.

Wargear

 * Armour of Mars - Angron wears Artificer Armour that was crafted by the Artificers of the XII Legion from the gladiatorial armour in which he fought as a Nucerian slave.
 * Black Blade of Angron - Primarch Angron's personal daemonic sword, this gigantic black blade can cleave anything in two. This weapon was destroyed by the powerful psychic defence of the Grey Knights Space Marine Chapter during the First War for Armageddon.
 * Widowmaker - Widowmaker was the precursor to all of the other Chainaxes that Angron would use throughout his life. This formidable weapon was destroyed when he was confronted and fought his brother Primarch Leman Russ on the world of Ghenna, who had challenged him on behalf of the Emperor for allowing his World Eaters to be implanted with the Butcher's Nails and the continuing atrocities of his Legion.
 * Brazentooth - Brazentooth was the massive two-handed Chainaxe that the Primarch Angron used before taking up Gorefather and Gorechild. Brazentooth was so large only a Primarch could wield it with any result. Brazentooth was later presented by Angron to Lorgar of the Word Bearers to cement the alliance between their two Legions at the time of the Horus Heresy. Brazentooth was apparently destroyed or lost in the vacuum of space after the destruction of the Word Bearers' Battleship Furious Abyss in the early days of the Heresy.
 * Gorefather and Gorechild - During the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy these archaic Chainaxes were amongst the most potent weapons known amongst the relics of the Primarchs, made all the more deadly by Angron's consummate skill as a fighter.
 * The Spite Furnace - Angron also carries a master-crafted Plasma Pistol known as the Spite Furnace.
 * The Butcher's Nails - The Butcher's Nails are bio-neural cybernetic implants which were surgically grafted directly into Angron's cerebral cortex. An archeotech relic device from the Dark Age of Technology, these implants could massively boost a warrior's ferocity, courage and production of adrenaline, resulting in greater strength and aggression in battle, transforming him into a nigh unstoppable berserker -- at the cost of the slow deterioration of all of his mental faculties and capacity for reasoned thought.