Angron: Slave of Nuceria: Slave of Nuceria (Volume 11) (The Horus Heresy: Primarchs)

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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. He's a furious rage monster, but lacks many of the more human quirks which he supposedly lost over time. The brother morality struggle reminds me a lot of Galaxy in Flames so it becomes a little similar to that which is a bit annoying.

This novel is ultimately based around the decision of when the World Eaters take the Butcher's Nails.His disobedience in killing his mentor as instructed by the High Riders had caused the rage inducing Butchers Nail (think lobotomy) to be install within him, to result in the Angron we know. Takes a look at the angriest of all the primarchs and really makes a effort to in a way humanise him. Being a highly intelligent (super)man, with great level of empathy especially to his fellow gladiators Angron has everything stacked against him and when finally nails come in as a punishment. What empire has ever been anything more than the ruins that are discovered by the one that rises after it?

One of Batto's arms crashed at Mago's feet, the fingers twitching around the chainglaive they still held. As I came close to finishing the book, I realized that Angron is just a lot more interesting after he falls to Chaos. However, not enough of the book is about the primarch himself, and it tells us little about him that we did not already know. Angron has only been at the centre of one novel before, Betrayer, and a handful of short stories — most notably After De’Shea by Matthew Farrer, and Butcher’s Nails and Lord of the Red Sands by Aaron Dembski-Bowden (all three are collected in Angron). There was a period of relative lucidity between his acceptance of his role in the legion, and the Horus Heresy.

The combats in the novel felt almost meaningless (I won’t go into too much detail as it will spoil certain aspects) but every conflict just felt like a ‘nothing conflict’ and I found myself trudging through the pages rather than flipping through them with gusto.

However, view Angron’s struggles in context with his Primarch brothers, some of whom start in at least as difficult circumstances. The warhounds (the old name for the world eaters) once seemed the epitome of discipline, relying on each other while calmly walking into battle in thightly knit phalanxes. I've always felt for him, his tragic story, most unfair treatment by the Emperor, wasted potential, defective, wrong, irreversible damage. Angron’s better part had been forever left on distant Nuceria, although it is darkly ironic that the Primarch who had showed such touching sentiment and care towards his enslaved mortal fellows would become the one to eventually turn his gene-sons into berserk, blood-crazed beasts with no trace of humanity altogether.I was therefore very much looking forward to another book that delves into Angron’s past and also his impact on the World Eaters. Kharn, even without citing any attachment to Angron himself, brings up a multitude of points in their favour. United with the War Hounds – now renamed the World Eaters – the gladiator Angron gives his sons an ultimatum that will change their very nature, and their destiny. 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.

But, ever since taking part in the Great Crusade, Angron regards himself as only a ghost of his former self, and sees the Emperor as just another high-rider, a despot as much intent on his enslavement as those cursed others had been. Several books later, it does seem most of them have been happy to follow a familiar pattern: the Primarch and his Legion come to a non-compliant world, we meet some ‘new’ characters (who are doomed) and some previously established characters from the Legion (who we already know will make it through to the Heresy, in most cases) and the Primarch acts exactly as you’d expect, probably doing awful atrocities on the world while cackling (if a Traitor) or doing awful atrocities on the world while feeling a bit bad or at least ambivalent about it (if a Loyalist). 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. This book gives a glimpse into Angrons past, showing how he was before the nails poisoned his mind: Kind, calm, and it seems he might have even had some latent psychic abillities. This amount includes seller specified domestic postage charges as well as applicable international postage, dispatch, and other fees.It was interesting to learn of a sizable faction in the legion that had serious doubts about drilling spikes into their skulls designed to make you a non stop kill frenzy brute was a good idea. For one thing, it took multiple prototypes for anyone to get a working set, and even then it was only accomplished by an outside source taking interest in the work involved, and a discovery from a lost planet. The book shows us how the imprint of gene seed effect the Legion on the emotional level and how will the majority of them took some really drastic way to understand their gene sire.