The circumstnces which led to the Nails being forced upon him are another critical element among his story, as we see so much of the person that he could have been. Change for the legion; how going from the War Hounds to the World Eaters effects the minds of the legion and change for the primarch. I've been ranking each book in this series because they have been of such varying quality its been kind of fascinating.

I enjoyed the characters, the interactions within the legion especially regarding its changing nature with Angrons arrival, the insight into Angrons brutal childhood which might make him the most tragic of all the Emperors sons and the writing was top notch. As the Emperor travels the galaxy at the head of his Great Crusade, few events are as important as rediscovering his scattered sons, the Primarchs, and bestowing them as the masters of their Legions. There are two main threads to the novel: flashbacks to Angron’s time as a slave on Nuceria, and a campaign during the Grand Crusade surrounding the time of the World Eaters’ adoption of the Butcher’s Nails. More curiously still, there are multiple arguments made in favour of the Nails even by sane members of the legion, some of which are fairly compelling.This book tells both the story of how the XIIth legion fell to the butchers nails, and the story of how Angron gets his own infamous implants. There are so many things this book does right, especially in terms of action pacing and Angron's past.

Every XII Legion warrior, no longer War Hounds but now the Eaters of Worlds, who had undergone the procedure had died. I'd never seen anything quite like that in a book before so I said this'll be worth 18 dollars if only to spend some time speculating what those solid black pages in the back are. You dare to name yourselves the Eaters of Worlds, when again and again you fail to measure close to the fury of my brothers and sisters who earned their name and glory in fire and blood, in the lamentations of their enemies. This is no comfy, glorious gladiator area plotline, it was barbaric and vile how they treated their slaves and controlled them, you got a sense of their complete inhumanity and uncaring nature, it really made me root for their deaths.

Even though the quality of its individual stories may vary slightly, Horus Heresy: Primarchs – the ongoing set of tales about the greatest of the Emperor’s children forging the fate of a whole galaxy – is one of my favourite Black Library series. The description of the first Butcher's Nails surgery in the prologue had me floored, and the introduction to the Xenos on Ghenna was pretty sick too. Granted, those reasons translate into monstrous flesh-ripping and wholesale murder of his own Legion brought on by psychotic cybernetic implants, which isn't good, but still. Other stories did similar things, such as Angel Exterminatus utilising many characters from Storm of Iron, but that worked as it did offer more depth and detail to each one, including a proper introduction. Angron is a fascinating yet tragic villain and this is the perfectly detailed pseudo-origin story he deserves.

Given that many of the other Primarchs have received a lot more attention and examination in the Horus Heresy series proper, St. As the story is set so soon after their re-naming, there are many among their number who still remember their traditions and creeds.Theirs had been the true bonds of blood – blood spilt together upon red sands for decades and later in a meticulously-planned rebellion – while the former War Hounds are just a poor replacement, at best. Angron has always been one of the Primarchs that interests me a lot, and I have always wondered how he was like before the heresy. Set mere months into Angron taking leadership of the Legio XII, he is still a stranger to many of his sons.