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

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It is truly heartbreaking to see the brotherhood and culture of War Hounds, knowing how they will end up once they accept the Nails. Personally it's the first one that I'd say actually perfectly met the criteria of what I expected this series to be. Batto, captain of the Devourers, was the first to come forward to his father's side to try to placate him.

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. The World Eaters become split, however, as some believe the Nails will be the doom of the Legion and work to prevent successful completion of the project.The really baffling thing is why he still gave the 12th Legion to them knowing how broken Angron was - unless he wanted Angron to break the 12th as well? In the book, Angron’s previous life is sometimes mentioned by himself, but the larger part of it is shown through the visions of a Legion Librarian, tracing his father’s tortured life path from the beginning. 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.

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. To Angron, the transhuman warriors under his command are so weak and worthless compared to the ordinary men and women whose resilience and bravery he’d so often witnessed – those who had fought beside him, bringing terrible retribution upon their oppressors, before the Primarch was snatched from them by a distant entity that denied the only true future both to himself and those he had suffered and fought with. Angron’s father has given him command over the World Eaters Legion, Space Marines that fight with tactics out of date since about the time of Caesar.Kharn, even without citing any attachment to Angron himself, brings up a multitude of points in their favour. The flashbacks of Angron’s childhood in the gladiator pits are truly awful and so upsetting to see how he was broken by the abuse he suffered. The rebel planet is home to a threat that you just don't see too often in these stories, and seeing the space Marines struggle against them creates one of the more memorable battle scenes. Before the Horus Heresy novels and short fiction, the World Eaters often seemed to be rather two-dimensional: they were bloodthirsty berserkers, without the Viking stylings of the Space Wolves. But this is a tale about Angron-Thal'kr too, Child of the Mountain and property of House Thal'kr, raised in the brutal world of Nuceria as a slave, and about his suffering a whole lifetime of tortures and abuses in the arena by the planet's ruling masters known as High-Riders, and how they have broken him at last.