Red Butchers

World Eaters Red Butcher Terminator Zhukel Dror

The Red Butchers were a specialised shock-assault unit of the World Eaters Legion during the Horus Heresy. These ferocious warriors were the precursor of the Khornate Berserkers of the later Age of the Imperium. The psycho-sugery inflicted upon the Red Butchers by the so-called Butcher's Nails cybernetic implants hammered into their skulls and the awakening taint within the World Eaters Legion combined to create a superhuman killing machine without reason or restraint. The Red Butchers were controlled only through the use of brutal shock implants and the prison of their specially constructed Terminator Armour into which they had been fused by the XII^th's Techmarines. In between battles the Red Butchers were hung in chains in the holds of the World Eaters' warships, foaming and screaming in impotent rage, until such time that they were released once again against the Loyalist forces of the Imperium or upon the innocent.

History

An eyewitness sketch from a surviving Legionary of the Loyalist Space Marine Legions shattered at Istvaan V, portraying a pair of Red Butchers during the Drop Site Massacre

A pair of World Eaters Red Butchers

In the opening days of the Horus Heresy, the Istvaan III Atrocity unleashed a madness that had long festered in the World Eaters Legion and its Primarch Angron, a blood-hungry rage that afflicted the very core of the Legion's being. This psychosis was amplified by the horrific hyper-aggression-inducing cranial surgery and the implantation of the implants known as the Butcher's Nails into the skulls of the Legion's Astartes that so many World Eaters willingly subjected themselves to. On the killing ground of Istvaan III, there were World Eaters on either side of the conflict who succumbed utterly, devolving into mindless frenzied savages who could not be controlled. Rather than "putting down" such individuals as had happened in the past (as such things had occurred from time-to-time long before the Horus Heresy), the XII^th Legion's Apothecaries had the mad Astartes subdued and chained for a far darker fate.

The World Eaters' Techmarines made customised suits of Terminator Armour from recovered wargear for them, fashioning the suits as both armour and as confinement; mechanised prison cells that could be immobilised with a remote signal. Hung in chains in the holds of the World Eaters' warships, foaming and screaming in impotent rage, the Red Butchers were born. Unleashed first against the Loyalists during the Drop Site Massacre at Istvaan V, these damned souls, insane with murderous wrath, were loosed to careen blindly into the foe, hacking and slaughtering with savage abandon. Few survived, but the fragments of their Terminator suits, spattered with gore, were found and remade anew for fresh occupants to inhabit.

Unit Composition

• 1 Devoured (Sergeant)
• 4 to 5 Red Butcher Terminators

Wargear

• Cataphractii Pattern Terminator Armour
• Power Axe
• Combi-Bolter

Optional Wargear

• Additional Power Axe
• Pair of Lightning Claws

Optional Wargear (Devoured Only)

• Power Fist
• Chainfist
• Thunder Hammer
• Combi-Weapon

See Also

• Caedere Squad
• Khornate Berserkers

Sources

• The Horus Heresy - Book Six: Retribution by Alan Bligh, pg. 124
• The Horus Heresy - Book Two: Massacre, by Alan Bligh, pg. 216
• Forge World - World Eaters Legion Red Butchers