The Primarchs: Angron

[Jareddm]

I'm pumped for the chance to listen to the audiobook...especially now that's out and I just cranked through The Solar War.

 

For those who have read, without giving away spoilers (if you can), does it touch on why Emps teleported Angron away instead of...you know...maybe going down there and helping him win?

 

Hindsight is 20/20, even for the Emperor, but that just seems like the most obvious mistake he's ever made.

While this isn't dealt with in Slave of Nuceria, it is shown in the separate short story, Ghost of Nuceria. The Emperor is clearly acting rushed when he psychically connects to Angron. Like there's something much bigger holding his attention than finding another primarch.

 

Having now read both, I found the characterization of all involved to be excellent. The War Hounds are definitely unique in their trinity of shield, spear, and axe. The Nucerians are gaudy and hedonistic, with some very unique technology available to them. My one complaint is there's a weird timeline momentinvolving a reference to the missing legions already being gone, which seems way too early.

[librisrouge]

I had such a hard time reading through this book (I'm only 2/3 through it so far) probably because I just don't like the World Easters. I was hoping that this book would give me a bit of a view on the Warhounds or something that makes me think that the WEs are anything other than a bunch of desperate-for-daddy's-attention fools. Sadly, I'm not seeing it yet except a bit from Mago (dig him.) I loved seeing a marine stand up to Angron. Made them feel human for a moment and was the highlight of the book so far for me.

[Nazguire]

 

 

 

I think it's something to do with local (for a galactic-scale endeavor) politics at that point: the rulers of Nuceria were willing to submit to the Imperial just as soon as the matter of a little slave rebellion was mopped up. Emperor probably figured not overtly interfering was the most expedient way to purchase their loyalty, while secretly teleporting Angron away also let him get his hands on a Primary. He may not have understood at that point just how badly the Nails were screwing Angron up.

Still a ridiculous oversight for a creature millenia old.

 

Did the Emperor ever understand human nature at all ?

 

Angron is the only traitor primarch with a legitimate reason to rebel and one of the Emperors worst mistakes.

 

Off all the options open to him the Emperor chose the options which guaranteed that Angron would one day rebel against him.

 

 

Magnus and Curze would like to have a word with you. Hell, Mortarion and Perturabo would like a chat as well.  But yeah, I completely understand why Angron rebelled. He rebelled against everything and everyone because all they brought him was pain and misery. At least he's somewhat happy/permanent rage beast now.

 

Magnus : prideful believed he had all the answers was told not to do something and did it anyway dooming humanity in the process

Curze : A coward and nihilist at heart in that he foresaw what was going to happen but made no real effort to change it and took the lazy way out in regards to Nostromo something which Sevatar rightly rebukes him also went damn near catatonic with fearwhen Sanguinus almost changed his fate .

Perturabo : Petulant manchild who actively worked to distance himself from the other Primarchs then wonders why nobody liked him

Mortarion : pig stupid and gigantic hypocrite (even after 10000 years as a demon prince as evidenced in Plague war) 

 

Each of them could have made different choices but they did'nt

 

Angron had no other choices. 

 

 

Perturabo and his Legion had legitimate grievances.  It's not outside the realms of possibility that they had Astartes-version PTSD either.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Eh, they kind of covered it in his primarch book. Pert was the cause of his situation, something he realizes after Olympia.

[Karhedron]

I was hoping that this book would give me a bit of a view on the Warhounds or something that makes me think that the WEs are anything other than a bunch of desperate-for-daddy's-attention fools.

This is a recurring theme of the HH novels in general, both of the Marines to their Primarchs and the Primarchs to the Emperor. Malcador observes in one of the stories that the Legions were made for their Primarchs and were never really complete without them.

[librisrouge]

 

I was hoping that this book would give me a bit of a view on the Warhounds or something that makes me think that the WEs are anything other than a bunch of desperate-for-daddy's-attention fools.

This is a recurring theme of the HH novels in general, both of the Marines to their Primarchs and the Primarchs to the Emperor. Malcador observes in one of the stories that the Legions were made for their Primarchs and were never really complete without them.

 

And I get that. I understand that the Primarch have a sort of Force of Personality that is then dialed up to 1000% for their own legion. It's fairly well represented in this book when we see how hard it is for Mago to stand up to Angron at all. It just seems like the World Eaters suffer from it to an even greater height than any other legion. Perturabo decimated his legion once and it caused a lasting tension between them and him. Night Haunter is a loner sociopath and his legion seems content to not have him around. Angron continually murders his own, forces them to kill each other in huge numbers, and demands that they slam madness machines into their own skull and the WEs are full of legionnaires that are just fine with this. Admittedly, some are not, and I like that this is shown, but I really can't wrap my head around so many in the legion being willing to walk this path.

[godking]

 

 

 

 

I think it's something to do with local (for a galactic-scale endeavor) politics at that point: the rulers of Nuceria were willing to submit to the Imperial just as soon as the matter of a little slave rebellion was mopped up. Emperor probably figured not overtly interfering was the most expedient way to purchase their loyalty, while secretly teleporting Angron away also let him get his hands on a Primary. He may not have understood at that point just how badly the Nails were screwing Angron up.

Still a ridiculous oversight for a creature millenia old.

 

Did the Emperor ever understand human nature at all ?

 

Angron is the only traitor primarch with a legitimate reason to rebel and one of the Emperors worst mistakes.

 

Off all the options open to him the Emperor chose the options which guaranteed that Angron would one day rebel against him.

 

 

Magnus and Curze would like to have a word with you. Hell, Mortarion and Perturabo would like a chat as well.  But yeah, I completely understand why Angron rebelled. He rebelled against everything and everyone because all they brought him was pain and misery. At least he's somewhat happy/permanent rage beast now.

 

Magnus : prideful believed he had all the answers was told not to do something and did it anyway dooming humanity in the process

Curze : A coward and nihilist at heart in that he foresaw what was going to happen but made no real effort to change it and took the lazy way out in regards to Nostromo something which Sevatar rightly rebukes him also went damn near catatonic with fearwhen Sanguinus almost changed his fate .

Perturabo : Petulant manchild who actively worked to distance himself from the other Primarchs then wonders why nobody liked him

Mortarion : pig stupid and gigantic hypocrite (even after 10000 years as a demon prince as evidenced in Plague war) 

 

Each of them could have made different choices but they did'nt

 

Angron had no other choices. 

 

 

Perturabo and his Legion had legitimate grievances.  It's not outside the realms of possibility that they had Astartes-version PTSD either.

 

{Calliphone went on. 'For a long time, I thought you a fool to follow the Emperor. After all, he is a tyrant like all the rest. Look what he has done to you, I thought. He has brutalised you, and your wars have brutalised your home. But the truth is, brother, I have followed your campaigns carefully, and I noticed a pattern that disturbed and then alarmed me. Always you do things the most difficult way, and in the most painful manner. You cultivate a martyr's complex, lurching from man to man, holding out your bleeding wrists so they might see how you hurt yourself. You brood in the shadows when all you want to do is scream 'Look at me!' You are too arrogant to win people over through effort. You expect people to notice you there in the half-darkness, and point and shout out 'There! There is the great Perturabo! See how he labours without complaint!' [...]

'You came to this court as a precocious child. Your abilities were so prodigious that nobody stopped to look at what you were becoming.' [...] 'Perturabo, this will anger you, but you never truly grew into a man. It is not the Emperor who has driven this world into rebellion. It is not he who has held it back. It is you and your woeful egotism. Let me tell you, my brother, you who affects to despise love so much yet must certainly crave it over all other things, you are the biggest fool I have ever met}

 

No Perturabo has only himself to blame.

[The_son_of_Dorn]

^^^^^

 

Best human quote to mentally backhand a primarch i have ever read.

[Indefragable]

Yea that scene and the

"WHAT HAVE I DONE?" moment of self-realization for Perturabo

are what take that book from a 6.75 to a 9

[Jareddm]

 

 

 

I was hoping that this book would give me a bit of a view on the Warhounds or something that makes me think that the WEs are anything other than a bunch of desperate-for-daddy's-attention fools.

This is a recurring theme of the HH novels in general, both of the Marines to their Primarchs and the Primarchs to the Emperor. Malcador observes in one of the stories that the Legions were made for their Primarchs and were never really complete without them.

And I get that. I understand that the Primarch have a sort of Force of Personality that is then dialed up to 1000% for their own legion. It's fairly well represented in this book when we see how hard it is for Mago to stand up to Angron at all. It just seems like the World Eaters suffer from it to an even greater height than any other legion. Perturabo decimated his legion once and it caused a lasting tension between them and him. Night Haunter is a loner sociopath and his legion seems content to not have him around. Angron continually murders his own, forces them to kill each other in huge numbers, and demands that they slam madness machines into their own skull and the WEs are full of legionnaires that are just fine with this. Admittedly, some are not, and I like that this is shown, but I really can't wrap my head around so many in the legion being willing to walk this path.

This might be tied to Angron's innate connection to the concept of brotherhood, a trait that might've been passed on to his legion genetically. That a non-Nailed Angron would've built upon the tight bonds that legionaries are said to have with one another. The WE's still feel these intense feelings of loyalty and brotherhood with him, but his rejection of them is instead amplified more than it would've been for other legions. Do you believe the Xeric Tribesmen were as heartbroken when Corax was disgusted by their use of slavery?

[mc warhammer]

 

 

I was hoping that this book would give me a bit of a view on the Warhounds or something that makes me think that the WEs are anything other than a bunch of desperate-for-daddy's-attention fools.

This is a recurring theme of the HH novels in general, both of the Marines to their Primarchs and the Primarchs to the Emperor. Malcador observes in one of the stories that the Legions were made for their Primarchs and were never really complete without them.

 

And I get that. I understand that the Primarch have a sort of Force of Personality that is then dialed up to 1000% for their own legion. It's fairly well represented in this book when we see how hard it is for Mago to stand up to Angron at all. It just seems like the World Eaters suffer from it to an even greater height than any other legion. Perturabo decimated his legion once and it caused a lasting tension between them and him. Night Haunter is a loner sociopath and his legion seems content to not have him around. Angron continually murders his own, forces them to kill each other in huge numbers, and demands that they slam madness machines into their own skull and the WEs are full of legionnaires that are just fine with this. Admittedly, some are not, and I like that this is shown, but I really can't wrap my head around so many in the legion being willing to walk this path.

 

 

i think it depends on how much of the heresy you've read; don't forget that one third of the WE were wiped out on istvaan III. that third likely contained legion malcontents and dissidents of varying degrees

 

there was also a short story where

a group of world eaters are killed for attempting to abandon the conqueror and angron

 

and this from betrayer

 

Khârn crouched by the body, lifting the sergeant’s head in his hands and gently turning the helm this way and that. He had no idea where his own helmet was. He’d been breathing in the gritty air for so long that, despite the genetic enhancements done to his respiration, Armatura’s taste was a smoky itch in the back of his throat.

‘Captain,’ the wounded warrior voxed. ‘I can’t move.’

Gharte had no legs below his mid-thighs – Khârn couldn’t begin to guess where they were in this sea of mangled corpses – and his chest was a ruin of violated breastbone and ceramite.

‘Bide,’ he said, lowering the warrior’s helm. ‘Kargos will come.’

The warrior gripped Khârn’s collar with weak fingers. ‘The Nails are aflame, even now.’ He coughed something wet into his helm. ‘How can that be? I’m dying, and they still sing? What do they want from me?’

‘Bide,’ Khârn said again, though he knew it was useless.

‘Just give me the Peace.’ The warrior sank back to the ground. ‘Seventy years of serving the Butcher and his Nails is long enough.’

Khârn wished he’d not heard those words. Discomfort danced its tingling way down his backbone.

‘You served well, Gharte.’ Khârn disengaged the seals at the warrior’s throat, lifting the helm clear. There wasn’t much left of the sergeant’s face. Something must have reflected in Khârn’s expression, for Gharte made his devastated face into something like a grin.

‘That bad, eh?’ he asked. His gurgling laughter became another cough.

Khârn’s reply was solemn obedience. He held the gladius above Gharte’s left eye, its point a finger’s breadth above the dilated pupil.

‘Any last words?’

‘Aye. Piss on Angron’s grave when he finally lies dead.’

Khârn wished he’d not heard those words, either.

 

enough of it adds up to show a rounded opinion on their primarch

[The_son_of_Dorn]

Angron truly is a sad case.

 

He could of been the greatest. I personally hope to see a novel on who created the butchers nails. And that they get tore in half. Head to groin.

[carlisimo]

Other than that, I saw a lot of inspiration from the tv series Spartacus Blood and Sand, the most obvious being an old menthor gladiator called Oenomaus. This didn't tamper my enjoyment in any way at all. It was perhaps a little too obvious at times, but it just made me smile.

Nuceria was one of the towns that Spartacus’s real-life slave army occupied or raided, and Oenomaus was one of the leaders of that army. Spartacus: Blood and Sand was pretty good about using all the real names, though it made up his ethnicity (the real Oenomaus was Gaulic) and his role at Batiatus’s gladiator school.

 

I went back to check the old Index Astartes article. It doesn’t give Nuceria’s name, but the way it describes Angron’s revolt reads an awful lot like Spartacus’s Third Servile War. So I’m okay with BL keeping it obvious.

[mc warhammer]

 

 

 

 

 

I think it's something to do with local (for a galactic-scale endeavor) politics at that point: the rulers of Nuceria were willing to submit to the Imperial just as soon as the matter of a little slave rebellion was mopped up. Emperor probably figured not overtly interfering was the most expedient way to purchase their loyalty, while secretly teleporting Angron away also let him get his hands on a Primary. He may not have understood at that point just how badly the Nails were screwing Angron up.

Still a ridiculous oversight for a creature millenia old.

 

Did the Emperor ever understand human nature at all ?

 

Angron is the only traitor primarch with a legitimate reason to rebel and one of the Emperors worst mistakes.

 

Off all the options open to him the Emperor chose the options which guaranteed that Angron would one day rebel against him.

 

 

Magnus and Curze would like to have a word with you. Hell, Mortarion and Perturabo would like a chat as well.  But yeah, I completely understand why Angron rebelled. He rebelled against everything and everyone because all they brought him was pain and misery. At least he's somewhat happy/permanent rage beast now.

 

Magnus : prideful believed he had all the answers was told not to do something and did it anyway dooming humanity in the process

Curze : A coward and nihilist at heart in that he foresaw what was going to happen but made no real effort to change it and took the lazy way out in regards to Nostromo something which Sevatar rightly rebukes him also went damn near catatonic with fearwhen Sanguinus almost changed his fate .

Perturabo : Petulant manchild who actively worked to distance himself from the other Primarchs then wonders why nobody liked him

Mortarion : pig stupid and gigantic hypocrite (even after 10000 years as a demon prince as evidenced in Plague war) 

 

Each of them could have made different choices but they did'nt

 

Angron had no other choices. 

 

 

Perturabo and his Legion had legitimate grievances.  It's not outside the realms of possibility that they had Astartes-version PTSD either.

 

{Calliphone went on. 'For a long time, I thought you a fool to follow the Emperor. After all, he is a tyrant like all the rest. Look what he has done to you, I thought. He has brutalised you, and your wars have brutalised your home. But the truth is, brother, I have followed your campaigns carefully, and I noticed a pattern that disturbed and then alarmed me. Always you do things the most difficult way, and in the most painful manner. You cultivate a martyr's complex, lurching from man to man, holding out your bleeding wrists so they might see how you hurt yourself. You brood in the shadows when all you want to do is scream 'Look at me!' You are too arrogant to win people over through effort. You expect people to notice you there in the half-darkness, and point and shout out 'There! There is the great Perturabo! See how he labours without complaint!' [...]

'You came to this court as a precocious child. Your abilities were so prodigious that nobody stopped to look at what you were becoming.' [...] 'Perturabo, this will anger you, but you never truly grew into a man. It is not the Emperor who has driven this world into rebellion. It is not he who has held it back. It is you and your woeful egotism. Let me tell you, my brother, you who affects to despise love so much yet must certainly crave it over all other things, you are the biggest fool I have ever met}

 

No Perturabo has only himself to blame.

 

 

 

yes

 

but also no

 

i still believe the system took advantage of perturabo's character flaws. there's some suggestion that horus intentionally did so. i prefer to think that it's a two way street, even if it isn't an equal responsibility both ways.

 

laying everything at perturabo's feet is as bad as him laying it all at the imperium's.

[Lord_Caerolion]

I mean, Perturabo is the one who singlehandedly saved a combined Space Wolf/Raven Guard invasion, and got credited only as the "unnamed companion" of Russ and Corax. Perturabo definitely appears to have been ignored at least partly, when compared to how the other Primarchs were treated.

[b1soul]

@ mc warhammmer

 

Khârn crouched by the body, lifting the sergeant’s head in his hands and gently turning the helm this way and that. He had no idea where his own helmet was. He’d been breathing in the gritty air for so long that, despite the genetic enhancements done to his respiration, Armatura’s taste was a smoky itch in the back of his throat.

 

‘Captain,’ the wounded warrior voxed. ‘I can’t move.’

 

Gharte had no legs below his mid-thighs – Khârn couldn’t begin to guess where they were in this sea of mangled corpses – and his chest was a ruin of violated breastbone and ceramite.

 

‘Bide,’ he said, lowering the warrior’s helm. ‘Kargos will come.’

 

The warrior gripped Khârn’s collar with weak fingers. ‘The Nails are aflame, even now.’ He coughed something wet into his helm. ‘How can that be? I’m dying, and they still sing? What do they want from me?’

 

‘Bide,’ Khârn said again, though he knew it was useless.

 

‘Just give me the Peace.’ The warrior sank back to the ground. ‘Seventy years of serving the Butcher and his Nails is long enough.’

 

Khârn wished he’d not heard those words. Discomfort danced its tingling way down his backbone.

 

‘You served well, Gharte.’ Khârn disengaged the seals at the warrior’s throat, lifting the helm clear. There wasn’t much left of the sergeant’s face. Something must have reflected in Khârn’s expression, for Gharte made his devastated face into something like a grin.

 

‘That bad, eh?’ he asked. His gurgling laughter became another cough.

 

Khârn’s reply was solemn obedience. He held the gladius above Gharte’s left eye, its point a finger’s breadth above the dilated pupil.

 

‘Any last words?’

 

‘Aye. Piss on Angron’s grave when he finally lies dead.’

 

Khârn wished he’d not heard those words, either.

 

This is how you write dialogue

[mc warhammer]

@ mc warhammmer

 

Khârn crouched by the body, lifting the sergeant’s head in his hands and gently turning the helm this way and that. He had no idea where his own helmet was. He’d been breathing in the gritty air for so long that, despite the genetic enhancements done to his respiration, Armatura’s taste was a smoky itch in the back of his throat.

 

‘Captain,’ the wounded warrior voxed. ‘I can’t move.’

 

Gharte had no legs below his mid-thighs – Khârn couldn’t begin to guess where they were in this sea of mangled corpses – and his chest was a ruin of violated breastbone and ceramite.

 

‘Bide,’ he said, lowering the warrior’s helm. ‘Kargos will come.’

 

The warrior gripped Khârn’s collar with weak fingers. ‘The Nails are aflame, even now.’ He coughed something wet into his helm. ‘How can that be? I’m dying, and they still sing? What do they want from me?’

 

‘Bide,’ Khârn said again, though he knew it was useless.

 

‘Just give me the Peace.’ The warrior sank back to the ground. ‘Seventy years of serving the Butcher and his Nails is long enough.’

 

Khârn wished he’d not heard those words. Discomfort danced its tingling way down his backbone.

 

‘You served well, Gharte.’ Khârn disengaged the seals at the warrior’s throat, lifting the helm clear. There wasn’t much left of the sergeant’s face. Something must have reflected in Khârn’s expression, for Gharte made his devastated face into something like a grin.

 

‘That bad, eh?’ he asked. His gurgling laughter became another cough.

 

Khârn’s reply was solemn obedience. He held the gladius above Gharte’s left eye, its point a finger’s breadth above the dilated pupil.

 

‘Any last words?’

 

‘Aye. Piss on Angron’s grave when he finally lies dead.’

 

Khârn wished he’d not heard those words, either.

 

This is how you write dialogue

erm, do you mean the formatting on my cut and paste or adb’s lovely wordings?

[b1soul]

his lovely wordings lol

[mc warhammer]

ha, well you did a fine job spacing them out in any case 

[godking]

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think it's something to do with local (for a galactic-scale endeavor) politics at that point: the rulers of Nuceria were willing to submit to the Imperial just as soon as the matter of a little slave rebellion was mopped up. Emperor probably figured not overtly interfering was the most expedient way to purchase their loyalty, while secretly teleporting Angron away also let him get his hands on a Primary. He may not have understood at that point just how badly the Nails were screwing Angron up.

Still a ridiculous oversight for a creature millenia old.

 

Did the Emperor ever understand human nature at all ?

 

Angron is the only traitor primarch with a legitimate reason to rebel and one of the Emperors worst mistakes.

 

Off all the options open to him the Emperor chose the options which guaranteed that Angron would one day rebel against him.

 

 

Magnus and Curze would like to have a word with you. Hell, Mortarion and Perturabo would like a chat as well.  But yeah, I completely understand why Angron rebelled. He rebelled against everything and everyone because all they brought him was pain and misery. At least he's somewhat happy/permanent rage beast now.

 

Magnus : prideful believed he had all the answers was told not to do something and did it anyway dooming humanity in the process

Curze : A coward and nihilist at heart in that he foresaw what was going to happen but made no real effort to change it and took the lazy way out in regards to Nostromo something which Sevatar rightly rebukes him also went damn near catatonic with fearwhen Sanguinus almost changed his fate .

Perturabo : Petulant manchild who actively worked to distance himself from the other Primarchs then wonders why nobody liked him

Mortarion : pig stupid and gigantic hypocrite (even after 10000 years as a demon prince as evidenced in Plague war) 

 

Each of them could have made different choices but they did'nt

 

Angron had no other choices. 

 

 

Perturabo and his Legion had legitimate grievances.  It's not outside the realms of possibility that they had Astartes-version PTSD either.

 

{Calliphone went on. 'For a long time, I thought you a fool to follow the Emperor. After all, he is a tyrant like all the rest. Look what he has done to you, I thought. He has brutalised you, and your wars have brutalised your home. But the truth is, brother, I have followed your campaigns carefully, and I noticed a pattern that disturbed and then alarmed me. Always you do things the most difficult way, and in the most painful manner. You cultivate a martyr's complex, lurching from man to man, holding out your bleeding wrists so they might see how you hurt yourself. You brood in the shadows when all you want to do is scream 'Look at me!' You are too arrogant to win people over through effort. You expect people to notice you there in the half-darkness, and point and shout out 'There! There is the great Perturabo! See how he labours without complaint!' [...]

'You came to this court as a precocious child. Your abilities were so prodigious that nobody stopped to look at what you were becoming.' [...] 'Perturabo, this will anger you, but you never truly grew into a man. It is not the Emperor who has driven this world into rebellion. It is not he who has held it back. It is you and your woeful egotism. Let me tell you, my brother, you who affects to despise love so much yet must certainly crave it over all other things, you are the biggest fool I have ever met}

 

No Perturabo has only himself to blame.

 

 

 

yes

 

but also no

 

i still believe the system took advantage of perturabo's character flaws. there's some suggestion that horus intentionally did so. i prefer to think that it's a two way street, even if it isn't an equal responsibility both ways.

 

laying everything at perturabo's feet is as bad as him laying it all at the imperium's.

 

Your right.

 

Perturabo is mostly to blame for his issues but not solely to blame for his issues.

[godking]

I mean, Perturabo is the one who singlehandedly saved a combined Space Wolf/Raven Guard invasion, and got credited only as the "unnamed companion" of Russ and Corax. Perturabo definitely appears to have been ignored at least partly, when compared to how the other Primarchs were treated.

Fair enough

 

The question you have to ask is

 

Is that really how it happened or is that how Perturabo THINKS how it happened ?

 

This is a man who wasted years of his life in a meanless vendetta based on Dorn saying something that he did'nt like.

[Roomsky]

Angron: Slave of Nuceria

 

Ian St Martin continues to impress; I really enjoyed this. In regards to earlier comments, I think being a fan of the World Eaters (or at least of Betrayer) helps this one, but for me personally it definitely stands on its own two legs (I'm a big fan of the 12th, but Eater of Worlds didn't really do it for me.)

 

There's a lot packed into this short book, and St Martin uses his page count very well. We get a well-rounded new main character who isn't Khârn, an organic plot device to illustrate Angron's past, new material for old fans and very pertinent information for new fans, a conflict within the legion that makes sense and needed fleshing out, boat loads of sadistic foreshadowing for things to come, and the cherry on top is a non-standard compliance action that means the book has no excess fat in the form of bolter porn (coughcoughVulkancough). 

 

YMMV of course, but it was honestly just impressive to see the book's concept done so well. Characters sound like they should, Angron is ever the tear-jerker considering the plate of he was handed and told "this is your life," and the synth society they "need" to dismantle is quite cool, especially in how they deal with astartes. And again, as I can never stress it enough, most of the action is short, to the point, and between characters we recognize rather than the nameless masses, and that's great. And and AND we get some legion culture for the War Hounds pre-nails, the book is just packed but never feels bloated, somehow (Much like how Lucius was full of fightan but it never got boring or repetitive, St Martin's got a real knack for 40k.)

 

As far as minor issues go, I wasn't the biggest fan of the Wolves showing up at the end, maybe that fits with the timeline but it came across as too cutesy and convenient for my liking. Wasn't huge on the epilogue either, whether or not I know what happens in the 10,000 years to come, I've never liked cutting forward like it does here to 40k Khârn, kicks me right out of the story (though his finding Mago's statue was cool.) I also found the War Hounds' pre-nails strategy of walking at the enemy strange and more than a bit silly. Also the book has like, 1 woman in it and it was weird.

 

Arbitray Numerical Rating: 8/10

 

If you like the 12th this book is for you.

[Morovir]

The Wolves have been established as confronting the World Eaters after the Ghenna Scouring since Betrayer.

 

I liked the callout to the Red Centurion, who St Martin introduced in his Lucius novel.

[rendingon1+]

 

I mean, Perturabo is the one who singlehandedly saved a combined Space Wolf/Raven Guard invasion, and got credited only as the "unnamed companion" of Russ and Corax. Perturabo definitely appears to have been ignored at least partly, when compared to how the other Primarchs were treated.

Fair enough

 

The question you have to ask is

 

Is that really how it happened or is that how Perturabo THINKS how it happened ?

 

This is a man who wasted years of his life in a meanless vendetta based on Dorn saying something that he did'nt like.

Fragment about IW just being mentioned or ignored in honour rolls is from HH3 Extermination. It's not from Perturabo's perspective, it's an account written by a third person. Dorn/Perturabo rivalry was much deeper than you represent it, there were joined campaigns where IF got the victory parades and IW got nothing. Dorn being petty and Pert's anger management is the other thing.  I think that it is true the Emperor/Council of Terra/Malcador/Horus were always using Perturabo for the worst jobs no one else would want, because they knew he'll take it. I mean Hrud Campaign was just insane and impossible to win - and who got it? Iron Warriors and Perturabo. Of course, he's to blame because he had a martyr complex and his way of war was the most damaging, but it's not he's to blame for everything.

[The_son_of_Dorn]

Pertuabos mindset has always been a curious mix, desperate to receive recognition and yet more eager to spit on any form of recognition actually recieved.

 

Its a nature and nurture issue here though. He had a very damming analytical mindset which was only reinforced by the company he was forced to keep. Thing is though, he was also naturally a bit of a cold child. The vibe i get from Perty is is he accepted the bad jobs because he kinda wanted to. To reinforce his twisted views of the way he saw things.

 

Honestly, if pertuabo could just of made a friend, a REAL friend (one he couldn't kill so easily) he could of been a vrry different guy.