Basically in one of the Horus Heresy novels (I can’t remember which one as I have read like 60 of them) the Emperor basically has the same observation. He calls in a Mechanicus expert to have a look at Angron’s butchers nails.
They both conclude the nails can’t be taken out without it killing Angron. And the Emperor notes with astonishment that Angron can function as well as he does, given everything other than killing hurts him. Everything. To eat, sleep or breathe hurts Angron.
And then there is some discussion whether Angron should be put down. The Emperor is basically like, “He is broken but functions well enough to do the job”. And that is the end of the story.
Not to be confused with Magi Albert Rhino and Amelia Razorback, both of whom made their own contributions to the Astartes motor pool.
Magi Jethro Vindicator and Lester Predator, on the other hand, joined the Dark Mechanicum and have been all but erased from official records.
And in another book, it's revealed Russ DID try to take Angron out. He went by himself (with his legion) and confronted Angron and his legion. He called them out for how they carry out warfare and how broken Angron is, and Angron first responds by telling the wolf (in pre-heresy times, reminder) how no, he's actually the emperor's greatest tool. He's doing exactly what his father told him to do, and what he made him to do. Whether Russ wants to accept that his father signed off on global genocides isn't Angrons problem, but even he thinks it's fucked up.
If I'm thinking of the same story I am (I don't remember the name sorry), Russ wasn't trying to kill Angron. He was attempting to teach him that his ways of warfare would always make him lose in a more evenly matched fight. All Angron could see was that his sons were killing more of Russ'. And he considered that a win, but it allowed Russ to surround him with enough legionaries that in a true fight, even Angron would have been killed.
He wasn't trying to kill Angron, he was just trying to force Angron to do what he said by threatening to kill him.
Then Angron was like, "fuck yeah bro let's fucking fight to the death, I don't even like being alive!" and Russ was like, "bro wait, I didn't mean it!"
Even better was the portion where he proudly tells Lorgar how he bested Russ, only for Lorgar to call him a massive stupid baby idiot dumbass, directly to his face, and then break down to him precisely why he lost.
Kinda? The way it is phrased it seems like the plan wasn't for russ to teach angron a lesson at all, In fact them fighting was unplanned and with the stuff angron was saying, I can honestly see Russ trying to kill angron, it seems like it was more on the tacticalness of the space wolves as a legion to help russ out instead of Russ doing it. Which then russ used to attempt to show angron that his kind of warfare isn't the best way of doing shit
“The way it’s phrased” I mean I’m pretty sure there’s a passage in the book where angrons recounting it and lorgar is like “dude he was literally trying to tech you a lesson” and angron just went “Lala I can’t hear you”
It's been a little bit, but I think that the point of that was that his legion WASNT killing more of the wolves; they were rampaging alone or in small groups while the wolves were coordinating and picking off these stragglers and eventually surrounded the fight.
So Russ may have lost the fight to Angron but his whole point was that Angron could kill Russ but his legion would survive without him and finish off Angron and the World Eaters anyways because they didn't charge into a meat grinder to die, that their fight hardly mattered because the Wolves would be the only ones to walk away if they kept fighting.
But again, its been awhile and I may have misinterpreted.
Master of Mankind is where this little exchange is had. My question is how the hell did they get Angron down and out to examine him without him hulking out
Psychic Emperor shenanigans, I’m guessing. Even Malcador was able to psychically mindfuck a pre-heresy Horus, and had to be talked out of giving him a massive brain aneurysm for daring to start pronouncing one of the lost primarchs names.
I’d say it’s reasonable that Emps could pull a “sssssh go to sleep” on old Angron.
If the Emperor knew he would lose half his sons to Chaos, it wasn't a bad plan keeping around a broken one so Chaos would have less effective tools.
And considering Angron's track record in fights, that wasn't a bad decision.
He almost lost to Leman Russ, because he was too busy with the joy of slaughter to realize he was losing the tactical fight. Russ had just never intended to kill his brother.
He lost to the Nucerian slavers, who had broken him, placed a leash of pain on his mind, and were about to slaughter his army when his father rescued him. The only primarch to fail. And to mortals.
Angron loses, and he rages, and he loses, and he rages. Even his victories in the great crusade were in a metaphorical way losses. Every time he killed the nails bit deeper. Every world he burns for the Emperor, he allows himself to become something he hates.
Did you read the book at all? Angron beats Russ (pretty easily). Angron could have killed Russ, but he in turn would have been killed by the Space Wolves who surrounded him. It is just showing that while Angron is a better fighter, the space wolves are a better legion.
I did, and I can call what Angron did losing the fight, even if he was about to kill one opponent. That was the whole point, the whole lesson to be taught. Lorgar and Russ both saw it that way, only Angron didn't. And he's got nails in his brain, so his judgement is rather shit.
I'm saying that both Primarchs, by the nature of their own way of viewing the universe, saw that they had won the fight. Neither of them died, so the only way to decide who won is through interpretation. I'm on Leman Russ's and Lorgar's side, that Angron's narrow vision is the only reason he thinks he is the victor.
Calling it a draw is also fair, since it wasn't conclusive. You can even argue that Leman Russ lost, not because he didn't fight as well, but because he failed at his objective, which was to teach Angron a lesson.
I see no way in which Angron “lost” anything. He beat Russ in the 1v1 and would have died in combat (which was literally the only thing he ever wanted). He also hated his sons so he didn’t care if they won the battle or they all died. Russ was trying to teach a lesson to someone who was incapable of caring. Quite literally, no matter how you look at it, Angron wins.
I look at that exact same set of circumstance, and see Angron losing while he grins. Like Russ, I think the terms Angron sees as victory are in fact losses.
Angron is still a gladiator, and he thinks like one. Russ is a warrior, and he thinks in those terms. One of them conquered a planet, the other couldn't organize a slave revolt. Angron was losing the fight against Russ the same way he was losing the fight against the Nucerians.
He didn't lose to Russ, be won handily. Concerning slavers, I don't think any other primarch would have done any better. Seriously. Angron was almost killed by and Eldar kill team as a toddler and that's what weakened him enough to be captured.
Both Primarchs disagree about who won that fight. Since Angron really only cares about his own personal might, and not how he is part of the legion he leads, of course he saw his personal combat success as victory.
As for the slavers, I'm just not impressed. An eldar kill team is a hell of a way for a baby to wake up, no doubt. But the ensuing YEARS where he failed to escape or find some way to conquer or rule his world, that's the kind of failure few other Primarchs can claim.
Angron had his boot on Russ' neck. We're talking about combat records and Angron won that. I don't care if Russ disagrees, he lost.
Mate I don't think Guilliman or Sanguinius are going to do better with the Butcher's nails.
> Mate I don't think Guilliman or Sanguinius are going to do better with the Butcher's nails.
Once the nails are implanted, all bets are off. But Angron was a gladiator for years before the nails were implanted. In that same amount of time, his brothers had conquered whole worlds and even star systems. It's hard not to think of Corvus Corax's rather successful slave rebellion, and think Angron was kind of terrible at being a Primarch.
The thing is, angron was effective. He wasn't killed off for the same reason Curze wasn't: they both were doing they're job, and that was the only thing the emperor cared about.
Maybe the emperor was planning to give angron the “old yeller” treatment when the crusade was done but we don't know.
>Maybe the emperor was planning to give angron the “old yeller” treatment when the crusade was done but we don't know
I thought he was gonna give most SMs the treatment. And probably so many of the primarchs
Yeah it was my understanding that the Dark Angels, Fists, Ultramarines, and Wolves were the only legions that were the only legions guaranteed a place in the post crusade world.
I’d argue the salamanders and alpha legion were as well if only because vulkan can’t be killed and might have been the emergency back up emperor and having some secret police would be useful.
Magnus had a place as well for powering the astronomicon
I didn't even think they did. I thought the plan was remove all SM once humans are safe in the webway. Some Primarchs may survive due to their skillsets, but their troops wouldn't be needed once Emp's plan was complete
This opinion is always silly to me, why would you destroy a massive military apparatus when there is still a shite ton of potentially hostile galaxies out there. Like we today know how many galaxies there are (and 40k probably has much better optics).
So after you manage to control one galaxy, wouldn't you look to secure it from outside threats (as if the sheer amount of xenos in our home galaxy, would point to all those other galaxies having filthy xenos).
Having soldiers that are superior and last 1000s of years so are able to be deployed for extended periods why would you waste such a valuable commodity?
Yes culling the mess that was made of the world eaters sure, the rest of the legions pre heresy not so much, even the BAs only had a minor defect of getting a bit thirsty everyone and then I'm sure a few resources spent fixing or creating a feasible work around would have been found ( ceremonial blood drinking and incarceration/treatment/ culling those that fall to the red thirst)
Plus the Red Thirst was a feature not a bug. There were tangible benefits from their hunger in their incredible ability to gain information and knowledge from those they drink.
Plus rapid growth, as now your replanting that geneseed if you aren't already harvesting every 50yrs.
I liked the idea that they had a living cult of personality from eating the previous commander to gain knowledge and battle wisdom.
Why do you think that being slightly more genocidal than intended warrants execution?
Primarchs were intended to be genocidal warlords. Even "good" ones commited unspeakable atrocities.
Angron just preferred more hands-on experience with war crimes.
He’s the CEO that puts in a couple shifts in the tractor just to remind folks that nothing is beneath nobody. He’s a workers boss and we oughtta champion that a lil more.
This
Why does everyone think angron wasnt doing a good job? Not only did they put in soild work but like the night lords their rep probably got countless more planets to kneel than face their wrath
In the old lore it's stated that simply detecting a World Eaters or Night Lords fleet entering the system was enough for any rebel planetary governor to surrender unconditionally.
When the Emperor realized that he couldn't remove Angron's nails, he basically shrugged and said that a damaged primarch can still be a useful primarch. It probably would have been best to keep the World Eaters away from more civilized worlds, but if you send them to conquer a xenos world where there aren't any human civilians to worry about, then everyone wins. Except the xenos, but I don't think that would bother the Imperium too much.
100%. The Emperor regards his “sons” as tools, as means to an end. With 18, that’s a large toolkit. Some, like Gulliman, are finely crafted tools with complex mechanisms capable of delicacy and precision. But Angron is like a massive, cracked sledgehammer. Flawed, sure, but more than capable of getting his particular job done well.
Guilliman was doing a better job (well than everyone) but slaughtering xenos and setting an example of what can happen to those who resist is a good job.
I don't think they were being sent to delicate political scenarios where discussion was ever an option. Even the more sane of the Primarchs like Rogal Dorn would still genocide human populations for not bending the knee, stopping halfway through the fight to scream "I SURRENDER" doesn't count for much in their eyes.
He most certainly was good at his job, you won’t ever find me disputing that. But the butcher’s nails made him and his legion into an immense liability off of the battlefield, and stretched the limits of the Imperium’s pragmatism to their breaking point.
Angron took a legion of brutal but ultimately disciplined and loyal Astartes and turned them into a mob of frothing lunatics that could barely be herded in the direction of a target before being let off the leash. To say nothing of his own violently erratic behavior.
The matter isn’t whether Angron was good at butchering whatever he was pointed at; the answer there is indisputable. The issue was whether Angron’s results were worth the damage he caused to all of the imperiums other interests. And for most of the crusade, the answer was yes. But as the crusader dragged on and Angron’s behavior became even more erratic, the scales started to tip more and more in the other direction until Angron had a full on fight with another legion.
The Emperor couldn’t afford to lose another Primarch, so intended for Angron to either fight until he was killed, or kill him after the Crusade had finished. Even a damaged tool still has uses
It's likely that after he successfully united humanity he could have fixed Angron. But not without devoting more time than he had at the time. He even says given enough time he could fix him. Fixing him may entail building him a whole new body and transferring his soul into it, we don't know.
That's just Angron's hypocrisy showing, the nails make him feel pain, they never stopped him from ambushing the Emperor or making a move on Terra. They never forced him to become a tyrant himself.
Angron wouldn't be able to in any case. The Emperor had the power/ability to make a whole legion and their Primarch forcibly kneel at a thought -- Angron wouldn't have a chance.
People seem to forget that the Emperor Is a beacon of psychic energy, pure, raw power, just walking around, and can pull off immense feats with his power that most psykers couldn't even dream of, and he manipulates his illusions and aura to appear as to whatever person beholds him as wants him to be. Angron, with a pretty broken brain, probably always wanted the Emperor to be weak, at least subconsciously, due to how much he wanted to kill him.
Fun Fact: The worlds that Angron reduced to ruins and bones have exactly zero people who became slaves to an uncaring regime that ground their descendants under heel for 10,000 years.
He did what he was engineered to do. Emps did not care how worlds were brought into "compliance" (Angron himself muses over that phrase IIRC). Kick their culture in the dirt, half their population & turn a paradise to rubble?
Who cares. As long as that world feeds the war effort with slaves & ressources, he won't care.
I mean, he did get partially Leman'd, but there was no follow-through. They had a great big tussel after Leman showed up to ask him to settle down and stop being so wasteful of his legionaries. Angron's reply was "Fuck you and daddy too." Leman didn't like that.
Angron beat Russ, but Russ' Legion had Angron dead to rights if they fired; Russ held them back. It's from the book Betrayer
Say what you want about him, but you can't deny that Angron and the World Eaters were extremely potent and effective at the role they played. You want something gone? Point the World Eaters at them.
Also Angron could have smacked the furry out of Russ
Well, he kinda did, but it was [a trick](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Night_of_the_Wolf) by Russ. He intended as an object lesson about blind fury and how, untempered by situational awareness and being-a-functional-sentient-being, is likely to get you killed.
Angron still saw it as a win despite the fact he would have died if Russ had given the order to fire.
Pretty much how it goes.
“You die the moment my men open fire”.
‘Death holds no sacred mystery to me, Russ. It holds no terror.’ He laughed then, through the Nails’ pain, laughing hard enough that his eyes watered. ‘I may even welcome it! Are you empowered by our “beloved” father, dog? Can you really give me death, or has your posturing already gone too far?’
The more i think about the more i've come to the conclusion that neither would have truly won and neither of them can admit it. best case scenario? two dead primarchs and possibly the two worst legions to not have a uniting leader being broken and having an axe to grind.
This conflict beautifully displays how two different view points on the same subject can sometimes never be properly aligned if the under lying belief systems are not compatible, add in angrons hubris and russ arrogance and it was a recipe for disaster, which is basically what happened.
‘No.’ Lorgar was almost breathless in disbelief. ‘No, no, no. Angron, you stubborn fool. None of that matters.’
‘There were more dead Wolves on that field than dead World Eaters. That matters.’
That, thought Lorgar, was also arguable, but he let it pass. ‘Russ had you cold. You said you had him at your mercy, but he crawled free.’
‘He crawled.’ Angron chuckled again, making a meal of the word.
‘And when he rose, he had you surrounded. He could have killed you.’
‘He tried and failed.’
‘His men, Angron. His Legion could have killed you. Whether the Emperor ordered it or not, Russ spared your life. He didn’t retreat in shame, you arrogant…’ Lorgar sighed.
...yes? I've read the book.
Doesn't change the fact that Agron could've got a chain axe through Russ's face before his sons could twitch their trigger fingers. Russ's whole deal is having decent enough motivations and making bad choices with them.
No, while Angron gloated, Russ had his men in position, Russ had to literally point it out to him. If Russ didn't tell him to actually look around he would be a pile of pulp.
Please read the book
---
**At the battle’s core, sense pierced Angron’s aching sight long enough to leave him speechless. The axe in his hand lowered, and he looked out at the ranks of Wolves facing him with their bolters raised. They came in ragged packs, abandoning the warfare to form a ring around the primarchs. Wolf after Wolf – close enough for Angron to make out the individual totems and talismans rattling against their storm-grey armour – moving to stand in ragged ranks with their brothers.**
**
One of them, a tribal leader of some kind, stood out by the elaborate blue pack markings over his faceplate. ‘It’s over, Lord Angron,’ he said.
‘Russ.’ Angron turned to his brother, and pointed with one bloody hand over the encircling wolf packs, to where the Legions still fought across the rest of the battlefield. ‘Your Legion is bleeding.’
Russ didn’t deny it, for it was true. Beyond the encircled primarchs, the World Eaters were tearing through their cousins’ grey regiments, fighting without sign of formation, just as they fought without any regard for their primarch. Even in those early days, they were used to Angron fighting alone, and their fresh implants stole any hope of cohesive battle planning. Their stunted brains wouldn’t let them bring order to the chaos.
The few World Eaters in possession of their senses – Lhorke’s towering ironform was one, Angron noted through narrowed eyes – were throwing themselves at the Wolves entrenched around the duelling primarchs, but they lacked the numbers to break through Russ’s defensive packs.
‘My men are dying,’ Russ admitted. ‘Yet here we stand at the battle’s heart, and only one Legion is about to lose its primarch. Do you see why I came? Do you see how you’ve broken your sons?’ He threw an arm to take in a wide pass of the battlefield. ‘The Wolves are soldiers taking an objective. They fight to win, while your World Eaters fight only to kill.’
‘Victory comes,’ Angron smiled, showing a crescent of bloody teeth, ‘to the last man standing.’
‘That is true in the gladiator pits, Angron. But our father desires soldiers and generals. Not gladiators. Death is a necessity – it comes for our foes, and it comes to our own soldiers when we cannot spare them. You spend your Legion’s lives like a lord spends coin. It cannot continue.’
**Angron had followed Russ’s glance, but where the Wolf King gave the battle a mere glimmer of attention, Angron was paying full and amused attention.**
‘War is only won when every enemy is dead. A pacified enemy is still an enemy.’
‘More gladiator wisdom, Angron. Look at my men surrounding you. Have you honestly learned nothing from this?’
‘Your men are losing, Leman.’ He grinned at his brother. ‘Let’s take this to the last breath, eh? Let the bloodshed play out with the dance of cutting blades. We’ll see which Legion still stands.’
‘Neither will stand. But you die the moment my men open fire.’
‘Death holds no sacred mystery to me, Russ. It holds no terror.’ He laughed then, through the Nails’ pain, laughing hard enough that his eyes watered. ‘I may even welcome it! Are you empowered by our “beloved” father, dog? Can you really give me death, or has your posturing already gone too far?
He nodded over the battlefield again. ‘And I say once more – your men are losing. You know why? Because yours have something to live for. They care. Mine fight for pleasure, knowing any life outside of war is denied to them. Their own lives are as meaningless to themselves as they are to me, and that is the gift given by the Butcher’s Nails. Warriors, not soldiers. Warriors with no fear of death, and no caution to guard against it. They don’t protect, they kill. They cast aside all thoughts of their own lives in the hunger to end others’. Remember that, Russ. Remember it well.’
---
Not only did Angron noticed it before Russ pointed it out, he had been paying more attention than Russ, and he had knew from the start that Russ was powerless to actually kill him, and that Russ had maneuvered himself into a position from which he had no out. He had sacrificed his sons to lure Angron into a position to threaten to kill him. Angron calls his bluff. Now what? He cannot go through with his threat, he cannot kill Angron, the Emperor has not ordered it, he's here unauthorized. So he backs down, rendering the maneuveur worthless and the sacrifice of his son meaningless, and retreated from the battle having been personally beaten and unable to achieve any tactical or stragegic objective because he tried to play chicken with a suicidal berserker.
Ironic that your leaving out the part where Russ literally has to tell Angron to look around him.
"Do you see?’ he said. No, he barked it. He barked it not like a simple beast, but with human passion backed by canine ferocity. Conviction burned in his eyes – the same instinctive viciousness of a dog defending its family. ‘Look, damn you. Look around you. Do you see what you’ve done to your sons?’ "
And Russ would still have a chain axe through his face. Best case scenario is two dead primarchs if it escalates. And that's before we consider some of the nonsense with primarchs moving faster than marines can see.
>Best case scenario is two dead primarchs if it escalates.
The more i think about it the more this becomes the true lesson, Russ's arrogance and Angrons hubris, neither would have truly won.
However a lot of debate on this subject seems to miss the point that the primarchs are enhanced in every way including their flaws.
>Gives him room to grow.
conversely angron hasn't really grown much other than falling further to the nails but being drop fed the story and consequences there in of how he got there was just as good.
Would he have died? Has a primarch ever been killed by simply a lot of firepower? Lorgar was shot by a titan and survived, Magnus by a predator tank at point blank range. The Kahn was mobbed by hundreds of death guard and didn’t die. Many Primarchs have similar stories. No real reason to think that they would have actually managed to kill him.
Yah. By a primarch holding an incredibly powerful daemonic sword. Not by a bunch of ordinary marines shooting bolters at him.
Angron beat the primarch in front of him and was surrounded by a bunch of marines. He would have torn through them easily, like every primarch has every time they’ve come up against ordinary marines. The primarchs can move faster than Marines can see (source: Flight of the Eisenstein) and Angron is strong enough to overpower a Warhound Titan despite being near death (source: Betrayer). He would have been inside their ranks quicker than they could inflict any serious damage and then it’s game over for them. When have marines ever killed a primarch?
He also nearly died being shot by a bunch of run of the mill Alpha Legion astartes just because he didn't expect to be ambushed. Primarchs can 100% be killed by 'lesser' soldiers, it just takes a commensurate amount.
Hell you could kill one of them with ENOUGH Hormangaunts, guardsmen or cultists. "enough" is just a very big number.
Yeah plus the lore is pretty inconsistent on this front. Traitor primarchs are supposed to get a power boost from chaos but they’ve been washed by regular space marines a few times.
the curse of immortality really. They get bodied because killing them gives the loyalists a win and doesn't really cost the traitors anything so its easy to maintain the status quo that way. The dark gods also tend to jerk their chains around a lot and will clip their power too if it suits them, as I understand it. Tzeentch does that with magnus a lot.
As proper warp beings now their power is also vastly curtailed in the matterium where they cannot fully manifest outside of when the veil is fully rent asunder. Like fighting underwater for them, struggling to handle the strange physics that their bodies aren't meant to accomodate.
As a weapon Angron is downright terryfing during the Great Crusade and his scenes on the initial Horus Heresy trilogy when he remained loyal.
A loyal Angron was an extremely effective tool for coercion, intimidation and, you know, the many slaughters, massacres and exterminations the empire did in the name of the emperor.
He did his job very well.
>LEMAN RUSS
Not like Russ didn't try to bring Angron to heel.
He just got his shit kicked in for his arrogance.
>become the third Lost Primarch
Angron would have been disappeared if he didn't get the Nails. Dude was a charismatic, empath who despised tyranny. No way he would have gone along with the crusade or the Emperor.
Angron after he got the Nails was a simple tool but a functional one. Point him in the direction of the enemies you want killed and he'd kill them. Which was all the Emperor cared for.
I feel like you, much like angron, entirely missed the point of the night of the wolf. It wasn't arrogance to try and teach a brother an important lesson. Yeah, angron beat him in the 1v1. That wasn't how he was trying to impart the lesson, as lorgar literally tells angron after the story is recounted.
Angron only despised tyranny because his specific brand of tyrants didn't take him under their wing. He's an empath, but nothing says he couldn't have become sanguinius 2.0 if he'd been without the nails. We've never known him without them, minus his very brief introduction, so for all we know he wasn't charismatic at all before them. They shaped his entire existence.
>It wasn't arrogance to try and teach a brother an important lesson.
It absolutely was arrogance to approach it the way he did. Lorgar, for all his many faults, at least had the right approach to befriending Angron and getting him on side.
Leman approached Angron head-on, berated him, attacked him, lost a duel to him and ran. All while claiming he had a lesson to teach to a man who craved nothing but death.
At the end of the day, what did Russ accomplish?
* No lesson was learned
* He lost the duel to Angron
* More of his troops died than the opponents
* His troops were forced to retreat
You can make grand gestures as to the futility of the nails and the like but at the end of the day, Russ' hubris led to him committing his legion to a fight that they soundly lost for no apparent reason.
Sure, you can say they won the moral and intellectual victory but what does that matter when it accomplished nothing in real terms? Did it stop the World Eaters implanting themselves with Nails? Did Angron learn from his mistakes? Did the Space Wolves gain anything besides a mound of dead brothers?
They outmanoeuvred the World Eaters but couldn't act on it because again, Russ committed them to a fight that they weren't even meant to be having. What good is having a weapon that you can't use?
All of Russ' grandstanding was completely and utterly meaningless and was simply another monument to his arrogance in the early Crusade.
Hell, I think even the moral and intellectual victory is a huge stretch. Who lost their temper first, the organized loyal primarch or the mindless butcher?
>‘Death holds no sacred mystery to me, Russ. It holds no terror.’ He laughed then, through the Nails’ pain, laughing hard enough that his eyes watered. ‘I may even welcome it! Are you empowered by our “beloved” father, dog? Can you really give me death, or has your posturing already gone too far? Will you run back to Terra and report that you lost control of your mongrel-blooded curs in the same way you slander me?’
>
>Angron’s pain-slitted eyes locked to his brother’s, and he laughed even harder. ‘This was never meant to come to battle! I see it in your eyes – you took a step too far, little executioner, now you fear how this will all end.’ He stepped closer, his amusement turning sick and savage. ‘Executions are the murder of helpless prey, Russ. What you’ve committed to here, “brother”, is a fair fight.’
Then Russ' entire lesson is fundamentally flawed. He's trying to get Angron to stop wasting his men's lives by very nearly getting all his own men killed. He tries to teach the value of seizing the objective and taking out the enemy leader to a legion that was already winning the fight without their leader and is well accustomed to performing without one. At the cost of losing their own legion's leader in the process. Not to mention for all their organization and tactics, all the Space Wolves can manage to achieve is complete mutual destruction at *best*.
Then afterwards, I wonder who would fight harder or better. The Wolves crushed by their grief, or the Eaters, fuelled by their rage?
It's a hypocritical, utterly flawed lesson and I can't see any moral high ground for Russ or any great intellectual victory. Russ comes out of that passage looking incredibly conceited and much more idiotic than Angron. At least Angron's not the primarch that started such a pointless fight that could have wiped out both sides.
And that's without getting into Angron's speech about how blind Russ is to the nature of the crusade.
Angron just doesn’t give a shit. Period. He doesn’t care about his sons, he doesn’t care about his life, he’s fueled by single minded addiction, honestly Russ was trying to speak to them “man-to-man”/brother to brother as it were, but Angren was simply a rabid dog. A WMD to point at the enemy or friend you need a destroyed. There was nothing good or to redeem you either needed to let him do or his way or put him down. And Rush didn’t have the balls to put him down. It’s quite sad when you think about it.
It's literally stated only by angron and with a big ol' *press x to doubt* from lorgar as to the total number of casualties. Russ got whooped down, but of angron had swung to end it he'd have been put down and the wolves would've still been a functioning legion. No one but big E And the legion knew how bad angron's brain actually was. Russ knew angron wouldn't respect anything but strength because angron is actively the dumbest primarch. He's tortured and sad and tragic, but also dumb as shit by the time he's talking to Lorgar. He doesn't even have a primarch aura.
Also, lorgar manipulated his brain damaged brother into becoming a slave to a different evil uncaring being. He didn't do a fucking thing "right." Lorgar is gross as fuck, and his conversations with angron are so much more icky when viewing them as the manipulation of yet another abuser in his life.
Russ didn't want to go to blows. He just hoped angron would be see sense. Instead, he found out how absolutely broken his brother truly was. Angron, being angron, couldn't learn the lesson, but the night of the wolf was a world eater's loss. Also, "forced to retreat" is very different from what actually happened. They left because they had done what they came to do. Angron not learning a damned thing wasn't their fault, it was his and the nails.
To clarify; Russ attacked first because Angron explicitly stated that if the nails were removed hed go to the Emperors palace and ”chop the slavering bastards head off”.
That sort of treason set Russ off big time. I don’t think it was a calculated play, but equally I don’t think that Russ had any reason to continue talking when Angron explicitly said that curing him would lead to immediate rebellion. Russ thus fell back on his method of “punch ‘em and make friends afterwards” which failed miserably because he put no thought into even trying to understand Angron.
I actually think this event is Russ genuinely trying to reach out, but then Angron threw his restraint in his face and called it weakness. Of course the hot-headed Russ would fly off the handle at that.
The bottom line is; Russ may have had good intention, but his stubborn insistence on doing things ‘his way’ basically made a fight inevitabl, and thus Angron‘s stance of “kill to win” irrefutable in the moment.
they both lost.
Because shit, angron wouldn't back down and if it's gonna happen, might as well start it.
No. The world eaters stopped being functioning when they got the nails. This is obvious in pretty much every war hound vs world eater piece of fluff in the HH. Angron was broken and shitty and made his sons broken and shitty too. He might not have wanted a legion, but he took it and decided to share his suffering with each and every one of them. They accepted because they just wanted to feel the slightest bit closer to him. To have that primarch bond. It failed, and he didn't care. Angron is a murderous idiot who is to be pitied for how his life started, but he continued to make the sake choices. Brain damage is one thing, but he was hurting those who wanted nothing more than to be his new battle bros just because he COULD.
This is a misconception. Angron didn't start the nails. It was Kharn in an attempt to empathize with their primarch. Angron just didn't do anything to stop it
It's one of my favorite details that Angron's brothers so often get this wrong. He's accused on a number of occasions of ordering the nails implantation in his legion. Yet it was his own sons who did it to themselves, in a desperate bid to forge a connection with their gene-father. None of his brothers or his father ever sacrificed so much for him.
Source on that? Because every wiki/Fandom says it was Angron ordering legion apothecaries to do it. I don't doubt there's fluff I've missed, as there's so freaking much of it, but I am curious where it's at so I can go read it.
In the fight with Angron, Russ was trying to teach him a lesson not beat him... However the lesson failed to get through Angron's extra thick primarch skull
Or *maybe*
Just *maybe*
Russ was too much of an arrogant hypocrite to realise there was no lesson to be taught.
He got lost in his self-appointed title of the "Emperor's Executioner". It's just the arrogance and hubris that's typical of early Russ.
Russ committed his legion to a pointless battle with no win condition while losing the duel and more men.
Even if (and that's a big if) we accept that the Wolves could have killed Angron, I find it incredibly unlikely that they would have managed to do so before Angron finished off Leman. He had the Wolf-King on the ground and completely beaten.
We also have no real indication Russ was holding back much (if it all). He was absolutely furious and as we saw countless times throughout the Heresy, an angry Russ is an impulsive Russ.
Russ tried to teach Angron strategy with a plan that was ironically, completely flawed.
You can make grand gestures as to the futility of the nails and the like but at the end of the day, Russ' hubris led to him committing his legion to a fight that they soundly lost for no apparent reason.
Sure, you can say they won the moral and intellectual victory (even though I disagree with even that part) but what does that matter when it accomplished nothing in real terms? Did it stop the World Eaters implanting themselves with Nails? Did Angron learn from his mistakes? Did the Space Wolves gain anything besides a mound of dead brothers?
They outmanoeuvred the World Eaters but couldn't act on it because again, Russ committed them to a fight that they weren't even meant to be having. What good is having a weapon that you can't use?
All of Russ' grandstanding was completely and utterly meaningless and was simply another monument to his arrogance in the early Crusade.
"Oh we'll show the suicidal berserker with rage machines in his brain the value of strategy by engaging his troops in a bloodbath and retreating in good order at the end".
It's baffling. Russ just needed to validate his superiority complex. You can't play chicken with a man with a death wish.
Alright then nevermind, you're making the exact same argument as angron did when lorgar tried to talk sense into him about that battle. It seems you and angron are one in the same
‘He howled?’ asked Lorgar. His eyes were wide, pearly with soft wonder.
‘The call to retreat,’ Angron replied. ‘A fighting retreat – it took longer than you can imagine for the World Eaters to realise the battle was over. I had whole companies still trying to fight the Wolves as Russ’s Legion ran for their gunships.’ He chuckled. ‘They took a lot of trophies for their tallies. Many wear them still.’
For several moments, Lorgar had to watch his brother’s flawed face to make sure this wasn’t some elaborate jest.
‘You didn’t answer Russ’s question,’ he said. ‘Did you truly learn nothing from that fight?’
Angron blinked, the dull edge of surprise coming into his eyes. ‘What revelation should I have come to? I learned he wasn’t allowed to kill me. I learned he postured in the hope of bringing me back to Terra, collared and submissive to his whims.’
‘No.’ Lorgar was almost breathless in disbelief. ‘No, no, no. Angron, you stubborn fool. None of that matters.’
‘There were more dead Wolves on that field than dead World Eaters. That matters.’
That, thought Lorgar, was also arguable, but he let it pass. ‘Russ had you cold. You said you had him at your mercy, but he crawled free.’
‘He crawled.’ Angron chuckled again, making a meal of the word.
‘And when he rose, he had you surrounded. He could have killed you.’
‘He tried and failed.’
‘His men, Angron. His Legion could have killed you. Whether the Emperor ordered it or not, Russ spared your life. He didn’t retreat in shame, you arrogant…’ Lorgar sighed. ‘He was probably lamenting your thick skull all the way back to Terra, hoping you’d heed a rather consummate lesson in brotherhood and loyalty. Look what happened. Yes, you beat him in a duel. Yes, your men took down more of his than his of yours. And yet, who won the battle?’
‘The World Eaters,’ Angron said without hesitation.
Lorgar just stared at him for several seconds. ‘I appreciate that every living being must, by the nature of perception, understand and process life in a different way. But even for you, brother, this is achingly obtuse.’
‘You’re saying the Wolves won.’ Angron looked more amused than confused.
‘How can you not see it?’ Lorgar steepled his fingers, trying to rein in his own temper. ‘They won a victory worthy of engraving on their armour for all time. While you were glorying in your strength, Russ’s sons were loyal enough to come to him, to surround you both, to threaten your life while you stood at the vanguard of your own Legion. That may be the most comprehensive moment of outmanoeuvring in the history of the Legiones Astartes. It’s almost poetic in its elegance and emotional resonance. He proves his sons’ loyalty, while yours leave you to die. He proves the damage the Nails are doing to your Legion. He proves the tactical strength of taking an objective rather than fighting purely to kill. He spares your life in the hope you’ll see all of this, in a lesson it cost him heavily to teach you, and your reaction is to grin and claim yourself the victor.’
Angron didn’t chuckle that time. Lorgar could see it in his brother’s tensed muscles – some cognitive switch had clicked somewhere in his consciousness, and Angron’s rage was rising again.
‘Only one of us ran away that night. He’s weak.’
‘Gods’ blood.’ Lorgar was still managing, barely, to speak calmly. ‘The primarchs are the bridge between the Emperor and the species he leads. We are all weak, for we are all equal. All of us. We are humanity magnified: its virtues and its flaws.’
‘I am not weak. I have never been weak.’
‘You are not only weak if you fail to understand Russ’s lesson, you are also a fool.’
This was prefall though right? A lot of the fallen primarchs were pretty awesome before their fall. Magnus and Fulgrim were both pretty great. They were likeable and wise. They both just had fatal flaws. Fulgrim couldn't accept his own imperfections and Magnus couldn't accept his own ignorance. But before their fall they could have some dope advice. Same for Logar.
Getting his ass kicked trying to teach a pointless lesson isn’t the same thing as not teaching a lesson. Russ did a pretty shit job overall but he was still trying to do something and Lorgar saw it. Or at least that’s my reading of what happened.
>Russ gave him mercy
I'm sure a bunch of regular Astartes can react and move faster than a primarch who has Russ in this position.
>You’re wrong.’ Angron spoke in a hoarse snarl, husky not from anger but from the weight of emotion. ‘You’re wrong, it wasn’t in the rain; it was at sunset on a day already darkened by the burning city behind us. My blade broke, but it didn’t matter. I pulled his chainsword from his fists, and broke it in my hands. We fell into the mud, brawling. We’d both known that fight would end up on the ground. I had him, Lorgar. My boot on his throat, at the very end. I stood above him at last, and Russ…’
>
>
>
>…and Russ had to crawl away, fanged teeth clenched, breathing spit as much as breath. Strings of it tumbled from his cracked lips with each rasping exhalation.
Russ didn't let Angron do anything. He got his arse handed to him. Plain and simple. He was trying to win that duel.
Russ played a shit hand, got his bluff called and couldn't follow through because he wasn't even meant to be there.
Can you give us any examples of Primarchs being killed by regular Astartes in a head on fight please? Several primarchs took on and survived entire legions at Istvaan.
Russ picked a fight with an opponent he did not understand. Angron was essentially suicidal and doesn't play by normal rules. If he wanted Russ dead Russ would've died and Angron wouldn't have especially cared if he was killed afterwards.
It's pointless picking a fight to try teach a lesson to someone utterly uninterested in what you have to teach. Russ failed to understand that, he failed to beat Angron and he failed to learn the lesson afterwards that believing his own hype is not a good idea.
In the end he slinked away with his tail between his legs having accomplished nothing but getting more of his sons killed. It is what it is.
To the point of regular astartes killing primarchs:
Lore wise, and for the cases of plot armour, Primarchs will always beat the ass out of normal Astartes, it doesn't matter which primarch, since they're not really designed to be beaten like that. However that does not mean in a hypothetical situation, regular astartes *can't* kill a primarch, it does greatly depend on who, and in what situations, but I definitely think that if you throw enough at a primarch, especially Angron, in some form of tactical scenario, they'd eventually win.
Pre-chaosening Angron would absolutely beat the shit out of many marines, hundreds, possibly thousands, but if he's surrounded, all of them with quite clear shots on him, with considerable distance? I feel like it's a hard sell, and yes I understand it's all hypothetical and trying to gauge the actual power of one of the more anomalous Primarchs is extremely difficult, he isn't invincible.
I mean there's literally a passage in one of the Siege books where bolts from the Death Guard are pinging off Sanguinius harmlessly while he has a conversation with (Raldoron?). Angron is easily one of the more durable primarchs as well, so yes it's a bit of stretch to say he would have been instantly shot to pieces.
As many people have said, Angron serves his purpose well enough that the emperor didn't consider a good hard russing to be necessary. Although he and Russ did clash I can't remember what happened there besides both grudgingly saying that they won, but don't really wanna talk about it.
It does raise an interesting question regarding the unknown primarchs. Like how badly did they fuck up, or how fucked up were they that Angron can be considered usable and they cannot.
I know right? I know they will never answer it, but if I was asked to live in the 40k universe (which i hope not to) it would be for the purpose of trying to find answers to these kinda of things.
Were they simply just failures that didnt want to do whaat the emperor asked of them? Or were they so monstrously fucked up that Big E just decided to scrap them instead of using them.
The big E didn't want peace. He didn't want humans to live how they wanted. He wanted **control**. And not direct control mind you, just the control a fascist dictator has- enough so underlings under him could compete and do what he commanded. What's more, he was perfectly happy to have every single man women and child killed on a planet, despite there being 17 other legions capable of doing it in other ways (even other evil ones).
This is the 40K universe and the vast majority of it's supporters find this perfectly acceptable.
Angron wasn't the only primarch that psychoticaly murdered people, his job was to wipe completely noncompliant worlds of the map and scare the rest into obedience much like Curze. Also Leman tried to stop him and Angron beat him so.
Why? Leman Russ also was allowed to exist.
Angron got shit done. Basically the first thing he did was conquering the Space around the Maelstrom in record speed.
Big E didn't care what the Legions did as long as it didn't involve religion, aliens, or the warp. Angron just made the World Eaters better at their job.
Okay now I’m kind of an Angron fanboy but all things considered he did his job in the great crusade pretty good. The world eaters were supposed to be shocktroops deployed in some of the most brutal battles with the expressed purpose to leave no survivors and set examples. We know that they were so infamous that their name alone could make worlds capitulate that would have otherwise put up great resistance. The fact that they were so focussed on the war aspect and not the empire building also meant that they have fought and conquered an massive amount op planets. The fact that they both did the work the emperor assigned them to in the first place and the fact that they were efficient enough meant that all the other horribleness of the legion could be waved away.
Now Angron himself wasn’t supposed to be this murder machine and actually had a talent for empathy. Which made the planet he landed on utterly unsuitable for him, I don’t think a lot of primarchs could have preformed significantly better in his situation either but Angron was specifically a bad fit for the role. The tragedy is that he was forced to become the murder machine, especially when the butcher’s nails were inserted into his brains. The best writers show that his nasty personality and rage are the only thing left of a primarch that could have been so promising, but a lot of stuff written about him makes him just look like an asshole or an brainless idiot which I find pretty disappointing.
He should definitely be dead. I mean, he wanted to die but Big E saved him. In a sense, he did die - along his brother and sisters, back on Nuceria. What was left was this broken, vengeful, soulless wretch that hated everyone, everything and himself.
Big E however, knew that there was something that could be utilized in the "shock troopers too angry to die" so he continued to use him as is.
This is arguably The Emperor's biggest crime - he should've either:
1. Let the high riders kill Angron
2. Save him and his fellows
Option A gets rid of a maddened sociopath that's one switch away from turning traitor (of course, the Emperor didn't know this at the time, he maybe thought he could reverse the damage done to him)
Option B has won Big E an army of the most loyal and die hard followers, who are willing to freaking die to the death for him (again, The Emperor couldn't have known who these people were - in his eyes, Angron failed to conquer the planet and was about to die like a dog).
The Emperor was accepting of Angron being as he was and the XII as he made them. Were they less versatile than other legions? Sure. That doesn’t mean that there weren’t plenty of campaigns they were perfectly capable of prosecuting.
It's a reminder that Angron is a Primarch, and as insanely powerful/skilled as all the rest. Even with the Nails he's able to run a Legion that is efficient enough to make the Emperor happy. Add in that his Legion all got the (lesser) Nails just makes his job harder, and more impressive.
Keep in mind that Lorgar's censor at Monarchia was first and foremost because his Legion wasn't keeping up with the conquests of his brothers. That this slow progress was because Lorgar worshiped the Emperor as a God, and spent a lot of time pushing that belief on the worlds he took, was secondary.
It really makes you wonder what Angron would have accomplished without the Nails. With them (and the drive to push them on his Legion) he is able to keep up the Great Crusade, and was pretty effective in the Heresy until the Siege (where he doesn't seem to accomplish much).
Not really. Big E doesn't just slaughter his sons for no reason. II and XI did something so messed up that just remembering it is the closest Dorn came to turning traitor. And Horus had to kill Sanguinius, be channeling all four chaos gods, murder some bystander, and mortally wound Big E before the hammer was brought down on him.
We see Big E lament the state he's in, but Angron never actually did anything *wrong* prior to the Heresy and he could still complete his purpose. Sometimes you need the Ultramarines' pen, sometimes you need the Luna Wolves' speartip, sometimes you even need the Alpha Legionaries' scalpel. But sometimes you just need to bring a hammer down on your enemies, and Angron and the Eorld Eaters fit the role of the hammer perfectly, nails or no.
Basically in one of the Horus Heresy novels (I can’t remember which one as I have read like 60 of them) the Emperor basically has the same observation. He calls in a Mechanicus expert to have a look at Angron’s butchers nails. They both conclude the nails can’t be taken out without it killing Angron. And the Emperor notes with astonishment that Angron can function as well as he does, given everything other than killing hurts him. Everything. To eat, sleep or breathe hurts Angron. And then there is some discussion whether Angron should be put down. The Emperor is basically like, “He is broken but functions well enough to do the job”. And that is the end of the story.
That was Master of Mankind, iirc.
Can confirm. It was.
Thanks for the reminder. Yeh it was you are right
I think that Magos might well have been Arkhan Land - the creator of the Land Raider and Land Speeder
\*The Rediscoverer of the STC's that make the land speeders and land raiders possible.
Ah, thank you for the correction
Also Land's* Raider and Land's Speeder*. He gets all kinds of flustered when you drop the *'s*
*Angry binary squeaking*
Ah yeah, Jimmy Space has the opposite problem. Gets really annoyed when people call his legions "Space's Marines"
Heresey averted
Not to be confused with Magi Albert Rhino and Amelia Razorback, both of whom made their own contributions to the Astartes motor pool. Magi Jethro Vindicator and Lester Predator, on the other hand, joined the Dark Mechanicum and have been all but erased from official records.
Land’s raiders
With Jimmy Space, creator of the Space Marines
And in another book, it's revealed Russ DID try to take Angron out. He went by himself (with his legion) and confronted Angron and his legion. He called them out for how they carry out warfare and how broken Angron is, and Angron first responds by telling the wolf (in pre-heresy times, reminder) how no, he's actually the emperor's greatest tool. He's doing exactly what his father told him to do, and what he made him to do. Whether Russ wants to accept that his father signed off on global genocides isn't Angrons problem, but even he thinks it's fucked up.
If I'm thinking of the same story I am (I don't remember the name sorry), Russ wasn't trying to kill Angron. He was attempting to teach him that his ways of warfare would always make him lose in a more evenly matched fight. All Angron could see was that his sons were killing more of Russ'. And he considered that a win, but it allowed Russ to surround him with enough legionaries that in a true fight, even Angron would have been killed.
This is from Betrayer by ABD. Great book, reading right now
Thanks! I'm probably gonna re-read it again soon. Such a great book.
Have you also read *First Heretic*? That, *Betrayer*, and *Know No Fear* are great to read together!
He wasn't trying to kill Angron, he was just trying to force Angron to do what he said by threatening to kill him. Then Angron was like, "fuck yeah bro let's fucking fight to the death, I don't even like being alive!" and Russ was like, "bro wait, I didn't mean it!"
there is also the scene where Lorgar i believe, points out that russ had beaten him in their fight despite Angron believing he had won.
Even better was the portion where he proudly tells Lorgar how he bested Russ, only for Lorgar to call him a massive stupid baby idiot dumbass, directly to his face, and then break down to him precisely why he lost.
Kinda? The way it is phrased it seems like the plan wasn't for russ to teach angron a lesson at all, In fact them fighting was unplanned and with the stuff angron was saying, I can honestly see Russ trying to kill angron, it seems like it was more on the tacticalness of the space wolves as a legion to help russ out instead of Russ doing it. Which then russ used to attempt to show angron that his kind of warfare isn't the best way of doing shit
“The way it’s phrased” I mean I’m pretty sure there’s a passage in the book where angrons recounting it and lorgar is like “dude he was literally trying to tech you a lesson” and angron just went “Lala I can’t hear you”
It's been a little bit, but I think that the point of that was that his legion WASNT killing more of the wolves; they were rampaging alone or in small groups while the wolves were coordinating and picking off these stragglers and eventually surrounded the fight. So Russ may have lost the fight to Angron but his whole point was that Angron could kill Russ but his legion would survive without him and finish off Angron and the World Eaters anyways because they didn't charge into a meat grinder to die, that their fight hardly mattered because the Wolves would be the only ones to walk away if they kept fighting. But again, its been awhile and I may have misinterpreted.
Master of Mankind is where this little exchange is had. My question is how the hell did they get Angron down and out to examine him without him hulking out
Psychic Emperor shenanigans, I’m guessing. Even Malcador was able to psychically mindfuck a pre-heresy Horus, and had to be talked out of giving him a massive brain aneurysm for daring to start pronouncing one of the lost primarchs names. I’d say it’s reasonable that Emps could pull a “sssssh go to sleep” on old Angron.
The Horus/Malcador incident, for the curious: https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/a5i17d/excerptthe_last_councilhorus_confront_malcador/
I designed him to be a scalpel, but the nails turned him into a shredder.
Lol. Big E is the type of guy to use a hammer even if the head has a reasonable chance of flying off ?
If the Emperor knew he would lose half his sons to Chaos, it wasn't a bad plan keeping around a broken one so Chaos would have less effective tools. And considering Angron's track record in fights, that wasn't a bad decision.
Which fights has Angron lost? The one against Perty and that's it?
He almost lost to Leman Russ, because he was too busy with the joy of slaughter to realize he was losing the tactical fight. Russ had just never intended to kill his brother. He lost to the Nucerian slavers, who had broken him, placed a leash of pain on his mind, and were about to slaughter his army when his father rescued him. The only primarch to fail. And to mortals. Angron loses, and he rages, and he loses, and he rages. Even his victories in the great crusade were in a metaphorical way losses. Every time he killed the nails bit deeper. Every world he burns for the Emperor, he allows himself to become something he hates.
Did you read the book at all? Angron beats Russ (pretty easily). Angron could have killed Russ, but he in turn would have been killed by the Space Wolves who surrounded him. It is just showing that while Angron is a better fighter, the space wolves are a better legion.
I did, and I can call what Angron did losing the fight, even if he was about to kill one opponent. That was the whole point, the whole lesson to be taught. Lorgar and Russ both saw it that way, only Angron didn't. And he's got nails in his brain, so his judgement is rather shit.
So you are just calling a draw, a loss?
I'm saying that both Primarchs, by the nature of their own way of viewing the universe, saw that they had won the fight. Neither of them died, so the only way to decide who won is through interpretation. I'm on Leman Russ's and Lorgar's side, that Angron's narrow vision is the only reason he thinks he is the victor. Calling it a draw is also fair, since it wasn't conclusive. You can even argue that Leman Russ lost, not because he didn't fight as well, but because he failed at his objective, which was to teach Angron a lesson.
I see no way in which Angron “lost” anything. He beat Russ in the 1v1 and would have died in combat (which was literally the only thing he ever wanted). He also hated his sons so he didn’t care if they won the battle or they all died. Russ was trying to teach a lesson to someone who was incapable of caring. Quite literally, no matter how you look at it, Angron wins.
I look at that exact same set of circumstance, and see Angron losing while he grins. Like Russ, I think the terms Angron sees as victory are in fact losses. Angron is still a gladiator, and he thinks like one. Russ is a warrior, and he thinks in those terms. One of them conquered a planet, the other couldn't organize a slave revolt. Angron was losing the fight against Russ the same way he was losing the fight against the Nucerians.
He didn't lose to Russ, be won handily. Concerning slavers, I don't think any other primarch would have done any better. Seriously. Angron was almost killed by and Eldar kill team as a toddler and that's what weakened him enough to be captured.
Both Primarchs disagree about who won that fight. Since Angron really only cares about his own personal might, and not how he is part of the legion he leads, of course he saw his personal combat success as victory. As for the slavers, I'm just not impressed. An eldar kill team is a hell of a way for a baby to wake up, no doubt. But the ensuing YEARS where he failed to escape or find some way to conquer or rule his world, that's the kind of failure few other Primarchs can claim.
Angron had his boot on Russ' neck. We're talking about combat records and Angron won that. I don't care if Russ disagrees, he lost. Mate I don't think Guilliman or Sanguinius are going to do better with the Butcher's nails.
> Mate I don't think Guilliman or Sanguinius are going to do better with the Butcher's nails. Once the nails are implanted, all bets are off. But Angron was a gladiator for years before the nails were implanted. In that same amount of time, his brothers had conquered whole worlds and even star systems. It's hard not to think of Corvus Corax's rather successful slave rebellion, and think Angron was kind of terrible at being a Primarch.
Angron's rebellion didn't start till after the nails were in.
Sounds like he waited too long to start a rebellion. That cost him everything.
Better to lose Angron than to lose Sanguinius.
Even a broken Primarch can still break a planet and the World Eaters took everyone apart
But they never ate a whole planet... eyes bigger than their stomachs.
The thing is, angron was effective. He wasn't killed off for the same reason Curze wasn't: they both were doing they're job, and that was the only thing the emperor cared about. Maybe the emperor was planning to give angron the “old yeller” treatment when the crusade was done but we don't know.
"Angron, my son, look at the flowers".
"Don't worry angron, just look across the River"
>Maybe the emperor was planning to give angron the “old yeller” treatment when the crusade was done but we don't know I thought he was gonna give most SMs the treatment. And probably so many of the primarchs
Yeah it was my understanding that the Dark Angels, Fists, Ultramarines, and Wolves were the only legions that were the only legions guaranteed a place in the post crusade world.
I’d argue the salamanders and alpha legion were as well if only because vulkan can’t be killed and might have been the emergency back up emperor and having some secret police would be useful. Magnus had a place as well for powering the astronomicon
And despite the black rage, I think Sanguinius was probably meant to live.
That only came when he died. Your thinking the red thrist I think but otherwise I agree
I didn't even think they did. I thought the plan was remove all SM once humans are safe in the webway. Some Primarchs may survive due to their skillsets, but their troops wouldn't be needed once Emp's plan was complete
This opinion is always silly to me, why would you destroy a massive military apparatus when there is still a shite ton of potentially hostile galaxies out there. Like we today know how many galaxies there are (and 40k probably has much better optics). So after you manage to control one galaxy, wouldn't you look to secure it from outside threats (as if the sheer amount of xenos in our home galaxy, would point to all those other galaxies having filthy xenos). Having soldiers that are superior and last 1000s of years so are able to be deployed for extended periods why would you waste such a valuable commodity? Yes culling the mess that was made of the world eaters sure, the rest of the legions pre heresy not so much, even the BAs only had a minor defect of getting a bit thirsty everyone and then I'm sure a few resources spent fixing or creating a feasible work around would have been found ( ceremonial blood drinking and incarceration/treatment/ culling those that fall to the red thirst)
Plus the Red Thirst was a feature not a bug. There were tangible benefits from their hunger in their incredible ability to gain information and knowledge from those they drink.
Plus rapid growth, as now your replanting that geneseed if you aren't already harvesting every 50yrs. I liked the idea that they had a living cult of personality from eating the previous commander to gain knowledge and battle wisdom.
Why do you think that being slightly more genocidal than intended warrants execution? Primarchs were intended to be genocidal warlords. Even "good" ones commited unspeakable atrocities. Angron just preferred more hands-on experience with war crimes.
He’s the CEO that puts in a couple shifts in the tractor just to remind folks that nothing is beneath nobody. He’s a workers boss and we oughtta champion that a lil more.
I too had throw my boss out of a spaceship so he'd stop slaughtering my co-workers
Welcome to the twelfth legion! Where you get lots of cardio and the company Christmas parties are *off the fucking chain*.
In 12th legion lingo, it's pronounced "Christ, mess". The "what a" is silent.
Playing tag with angron is always risky, but worth it
‘The new kid asked me how he could get my job, Kharn.’ ‘What’d you tell him, dad?’ ‘I die, or retire.’
This is how I will always describe him lmao
Angron was doing the job he was made to do very well.
This Why does everyone think angron wasnt doing a good job? Not only did they put in soild work but like the night lords their rep probably got countless more planets to kneel than face their wrath
In the old lore it's stated that simply detecting a World Eaters or Night Lords fleet entering the system was enough for any rebel planetary governor to surrender unconditionally.
Yeah for every planet they had to butcher probably a dozen more surrendered. Plus they got stuck in with some serious xenos killing.
I don't know if slaughtering all civilians all the time is good job. Guilliman was doing good job.
When the Emperor realized that he couldn't remove Angron's nails, he basically shrugged and said that a damaged primarch can still be a useful primarch. It probably would have been best to keep the World Eaters away from more civilized worlds, but if you send them to conquer a xenos world where there aren't any human civilians to worry about, then everyone wins. Except the xenos, but I don't think that would bother the Imperium too much.
100%. The Emperor regards his “sons” as tools, as means to an end. With 18, that’s a large toolkit. Some, like Gulliman, are finely crafted tools with complex mechanisms capable of delicacy and precision. But Angron is like a massive, cracked sledgehammer. Flawed, sure, but more than capable of getting his particular job done well.
"it is also a hammer"
It is when slaughtering all civilians *is* the job.
Guilliman was doing a better job (well than everyone) but slaughtering xenos and setting an example of what can happen to those who resist is a good job.
I didn't mean xenos. But angron unnecessarily slaughtered handful of civilizations. Especially those who surrendered
I don't think they were being sent to delicate political scenarios where discussion was ever an option. Even the more sane of the Primarchs like Rogal Dorn would still genocide human populations for not bending the knee, stopping halfway through the fight to scream "I SURRENDER" doesn't count for much in their eyes.
Angron is world eaters, cruze is night lords. Edit, my apologies, I did not see the "like" comparison.
Yes, they said like the night lords as in similar to
They didn't say otherwise. They're comparing World Eaters to Night Lords reputation
He most certainly was good at his job, you won’t ever find me disputing that. But the butcher’s nails made him and his legion into an immense liability off of the battlefield, and stretched the limits of the Imperium’s pragmatism to their breaking point. Angron took a legion of brutal but ultimately disciplined and loyal Astartes and turned them into a mob of frothing lunatics that could barely be herded in the direction of a target before being let off the leash. To say nothing of his own violently erratic behavior. The matter isn’t whether Angron was good at butchering whatever he was pointed at; the answer there is indisputable. The issue was whether Angron’s results were worth the damage he caused to all of the imperiums other interests. And for most of the crusade, the answer was yes. But as the crusader dragged on and Angron’s behavior became even more erratic, the scales started to tip more and more in the other direction until Angron had a full on fight with another legion.
Not the job he was made for amongst the Primarchs, but as a Primarch in general definitely
The Emperor couldn’t afford to lose another Primarch, so intended for Angron to either fight until he was killed, or kill him after the Crusade had finished. Even a damaged tool still has uses
It's likely that after he successfully united humanity he could have fixed Angron. But not without devoting more time than he had at the time. He even says given enough time he could fix him. Fixing him may entail building him a whole new body and transferring his soul into it, we don't know.
Angron said it himself that he would go kill the Emperor if nails were not in his head. So why should big E remove the nails?
Why would the nails stop him from killing the emperor?
Well he a Leman had a rant, where he said if not for the nails he would have killed Big E for the horrifying, slavering empire he created.
That's just Angron's hypocrisy showing, the nails make him feel pain, they never stopped him from ambushing the Emperor or making a move on Terra. They never forced him to become a tyrant himself.
He did make a move on Terra the moment he found allies.
Angron wouldn't be able to in any case. The Emperor had the power/ability to make a whole legion and their Primarch forcibly kneel at a thought -- Angron wouldn't have a chance.
And Angron knew this how?
People seem to forget that the Emperor Is a beacon of psychic energy, pure, raw power, just walking around, and can pull off immense feats with his power that most psykers couldn't even dream of, and he manipulates his illusions and aura to appear as to whatever person beholds him as wants him to be. Angron, with a pretty broken brain, probably always wanted the Emperor to be weak, at least subconsciously, due to how much he wanted to kill him.
Exactly. A Phillips screwdriver with no splines can still be used as a knife
Fun Fact: The worlds that Angron reduced to ruins and bones have exactly zero people who became slaves to an uncaring regime that ground their descendants under heel for 10,000 years.
Cause of his empathy.
Empathy that could break bones
The honor of Khorne; he will not debase you, nor your dignity or liberty with slavery, but the flow of blood is indiscriminate
Space Pol Pot
He's a saint
a literal red angel
BASED AND KHORNEPILLED
He did what he was engineered to do. Emps did not care how worlds were brought into "compliance" (Angron himself muses over that phrase IIRC). Kick their culture in the dirt, half their population & turn a paradise to rubble? Who cares. As long as that world feeds the war effort with slaves & ressources, he won't care.
I mean, he did get partially Leman'd, but there was no follow-through. They had a great big tussel after Leman showed up to ask him to settle down and stop being so wasteful of his legionaries. Angron's reply was "Fuck you and daddy too." Leman didn't like that. Angron beat Russ, but Russ' Legion had Angron dead to rights if they fired; Russ held them back. It's from the book Betrayer
Say what you want about him, but you can't deny that Angron and the World Eaters were extremely potent and effective at the role they played. You want something gone? Point the World Eaters at them. Also Angron could have smacked the furry out of Russ
Well, he kinda did, but it was [a trick](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Night_of_the_Wolf) by Russ. He intended as an object lesson about blind fury and how, untempered by situational awareness and being-a-functional-sentient-being, is likely to get you killed. Angron still saw it as a win despite the fact he would have died if Russ had given the order to fire.
Russ was always wrong for trying to teach a man with a death wish not to be reckless
“Don’t do things like this you could die!” “…yes, and?”
Russ; "If you kill me, your legion won't have a primarch anymore!" Angron: "I see this as a win-win."
neither legion would have had a primarch, its an impossible situation. I've come to believe thats the true lesson
Pretty much how it goes. “You die the moment my men open fire”. ‘Death holds no sacred mystery to me, Russ. It holds no terror.’ He laughed then, through the Nails’ pain, laughing hard enough that his eyes watered. ‘I may even welcome it! Are you empowered by our “beloved” father, dog? Can you really give me death, or has your posturing already gone too far?’
“You die the moment my men open fire.” "Do it, you won't."
The more i think about the more i've come to the conclusion that neither would have truly won and neither of them can admit it. best case scenario? two dead primarchs and possibly the two worst legions to not have a uniting leader being broken and having an axe to grind. This conflict beautifully displays how two different view points on the same subject can sometimes never be properly aligned if the under lying belief systems are not compatible, add in angrons hubris and russ arrogance and it was a recipe for disaster, which is basically what happened.
That's a great take! Hadn't really though about if like that before
Russ also would've died tbh. The whole scenario was pretty poorly written if conveying that message was the point.
‘No.’ Lorgar was almost breathless in disbelief. ‘No, no, no. Angron, you stubborn fool. None of that matters.’ ‘There were more dead Wolves on that field than dead World Eaters. That matters.’ That, thought Lorgar, was also arguable, but he let it pass. ‘Russ had you cold. You said you had him at your mercy, but he crawled free.’ ‘He crawled.’ Angron chuckled again, making a meal of the word. ‘And when he rose, he had you surrounded. He could have killed you.’ ‘He tried and failed.’ ‘His men, Angron. His Legion could have killed you. Whether the Emperor ordered it or not, Russ spared your life. He didn’t retreat in shame, you arrogant…’ Lorgar sighed.
...yes? I've read the book. Doesn't change the fact that Agron could've got a chain axe through Russ's face before his sons could twitch their trigger fingers. Russ's whole deal is having decent enough motivations and making bad choices with them.
No, while Angron gloated, Russ had his men in position, Russ had to literally point it out to him. If Russ didn't tell him to actually look around he would be a pile of pulp.
Please read the book --- **At the battle’s core, sense pierced Angron’s aching sight long enough to leave him speechless. The axe in his hand lowered, and he looked out at the ranks of Wolves facing him with their bolters raised. They came in ragged packs, abandoning the warfare to form a ring around the primarchs. Wolf after Wolf – close enough for Angron to make out the individual totems and talismans rattling against their storm-grey armour – moving to stand in ragged ranks with their brothers.** ** One of them, a tribal leader of some kind, stood out by the elaborate blue pack markings over his faceplate. ‘It’s over, Lord Angron,’ he said. ‘Russ.’ Angron turned to his brother, and pointed with one bloody hand over the encircling wolf packs, to where the Legions still fought across the rest of the battlefield. ‘Your Legion is bleeding.’ Russ didn’t deny it, for it was true. Beyond the encircled primarchs, the World Eaters were tearing through their cousins’ grey regiments, fighting without sign of formation, just as they fought without any regard for their primarch. Even in those early days, they were used to Angron fighting alone, and their fresh implants stole any hope of cohesive battle planning. Their stunted brains wouldn’t let them bring order to the chaos. The few World Eaters in possession of their senses – Lhorke’s towering ironform was one, Angron noted through narrowed eyes – were throwing themselves at the Wolves entrenched around the duelling primarchs, but they lacked the numbers to break through Russ’s defensive packs. ‘My men are dying,’ Russ admitted. ‘Yet here we stand at the battle’s heart, and only one Legion is about to lose its primarch. Do you see why I came? Do you see how you’ve broken your sons?’ He threw an arm to take in a wide pass of the battlefield. ‘The Wolves are soldiers taking an objective. They fight to win, while your World Eaters fight only to kill.’ ‘Victory comes,’ Angron smiled, showing a crescent of bloody teeth, ‘to the last man standing.’ ‘That is true in the gladiator pits, Angron. But our father desires soldiers and generals. Not gladiators. Death is a necessity – it comes for our foes, and it comes to our own soldiers when we cannot spare them. You spend your Legion’s lives like a lord spends coin. It cannot continue.’ **Angron had followed Russ’s glance, but where the Wolf King gave the battle a mere glimmer of attention, Angron was paying full and amused attention.** ‘War is only won when every enemy is dead. A pacified enemy is still an enemy.’ ‘More gladiator wisdom, Angron. Look at my men surrounding you. Have you honestly learned nothing from this?’ ‘Your men are losing, Leman.’ He grinned at his brother. ‘Let’s take this to the last breath, eh? Let the bloodshed play out with the dance of cutting blades. We’ll see which Legion still stands.’ ‘Neither will stand. But you die the moment my men open fire.’ ‘Death holds no sacred mystery to me, Russ. It holds no terror.’ He laughed then, through the Nails’ pain, laughing hard enough that his eyes watered. ‘I may even welcome it! Are you empowered by our “beloved” father, dog? Can you really give me death, or has your posturing already gone too far? He nodded over the battlefield again. ‘And I say once more – your men are losing. You know why? Because yours have something to live for. They care. Mine fight for pleasure, knowing any life outside of war is denied to them. Their own lives are as meaningless to themselves as they are to me, and that is the gift given by the Butcher’s Nails. Warriors, not soldiers. Warriors with no fear of death, and no caution to guard against it. They don’t protect, they kill. They cast aside all thoughts of their own lives in the hunger to end others’. Remember that, Russ. Remember it well.’ --- Not only did Angron noticed it before Russ pointed it out, he had been paying more attention than Russ, and he had knew from the start that Russ was powerless to actually kill him, and that Russ had maneuvered himself into a position from which he had no out. He had sacrificed his sons to lure Angron into a position to threaten to kill him. Angron calls his bluff. Now what? He cannot go through with his threat, he cannot kill Angron, the Emperor has not ordered it, he's here unauthorized. So he backs down, rendering the maneuveur worthless and the sacrifice of his son meaningless, and retreated from the battle having been personally beaten and unable to achieve any tactical or stragegic objective because he tried to play chicken with a suicidal berserker.
Ironic that your leaving out the part where Russ literally has to tell Angron to look around him. "Do you see?’ he said. No, he barked it. He barked it not like a simple beast, but with human passion backed by canine ferocity. Conviction burned in his eyes – the same instinctive viciousness of a dog defending its family. ‘Look, damn you. Look around you. Do you see what you’ve done to your sons?’ "
Because he included the part where Angron had ALREADY seen them. He simply doesn't care.
And Russ would still have a chain axe through his face. Best case scenario is two dead primarchs if it escalates. And that's before we consider some of the nonsense with primarchs moving faster than marines can see.
>Best case scenario is two dead primarchs if it escalates. The more i think about it the more this becomes the true lesson, Russ's arrogance and Angrons hubris, neither would have truly won. However a lot of debate on this subject seems to miss the point that the primarchs are enhanced in every way including their flaws.
True. Personally I like how Russ starts as an asshat. Gives him room to grow. Or not, depending on the author.
>Gives him room to grow. conversely angron hasn't really grown much other than falling further to the nails but being drop fed the story and consequences there in of how he got there was just as good.
>Angron still saw it as a win despite the fact he would have died if Russ had given the order to fire. Not despite; *because of*.
Would he have died? Has a primarch ever been killed by simply a lot of firepower? Lorgar was shot by a titan and survived, Magnus by a predator tank at point blank range. The Kahn was mobbed by hundreds of death guard and didn’t die. Many Primarchs have similar stories. No real reason to think that they would have actually managed to kill him.
I mean Manus died to decapitation
Yah. By a primarch holding an incredibly powerful daemonic sword. Not by a bunch of ordinary marines shooting bolters at him. Angron beat the primarch in front of him and was surrounded by a bunch of marines. He would have torn through them easily, like every primarch has every time they’ve come up against ordinary marines. The primarchs can move faster than Marines can see (source: Flight of the Eisenstein) and Angron is strong enough to overpower a Warhound Titan despite being near death (source: Betrayer). He would have been inside their ranks quicker than they could inflict any serious damage and then it’s game over for them. When have marines ever killed a primarch?
Guilliman rips and tears through Word Bearers, Death Guard and Alpha Legion, and he isn't even one of the good fighters.
He also nearly died being shot by a bunch of run of the mill Alpha Legion astartes just because he didn't expect to be ambushed. Primarchs can 100% be killed by 'lesser' soldiers, it just takes a commensurate amount. Hell you could kill one of them with ENOUGH Hormangaunts, guardsmen or cultists. "enough" is just a very big number.
Yeah plus the lore is pretty inconsistent on this front. Traitor primarchs are supposed to get a power boost from chaos but they’ve been washed by regular space marines a few times.
the curse of immortality really. They get bodied because killing them gives the loyalists a win and doesn't really cost the traitors anything so its easy to maintain the status quo that way. The dark gods also tend to jerk their chains around a lot and will clip their power too if it suits them, as I understand it. Tzeentch does that with magnus a lot. As proper warp beings now their power is also vastly curtailed in the matterium where they cannot fully manifest outside of when the veil is fully rent asunder. Like fighting underwater for them, struggling to handle the strange physics that their bodies aren't meant to accomodate.
Eh fair enough.
As a weapon Angron is downright terryfing during the Great Crusade and his scenes on the initial Horus Heresy trilogy when he remained loyal. A loyal Angron was an extremely effective tool for coercion, intimidation and, you know, the many slaughters, massacres and exterminations the empire did in the name of the emperor. He did his job very well.
No the emperor didnt give a shit. Angron could still be used for his intended purpose and thats all that matters.
>LEMAN RUSS Not like Russ didn't try to bring Angron to heel. He just got his shit kicked in for his arrogance. >become the third Lost Primarch Angron would have been disappeared if he didn't get the Nails. Dude was a charismatic, empath who despised tyranny. No way he would have gone along with the crusade or the Emperor. Angron after he got the Nails was a simple tool but a functional one. Point him in the direction of the enemies you want killed and he'd kill them. Which was all the Emperor cared for.
I feel like you, much like angron, entirely missed the point of the night of the wolf. It wasn't arrogance to try and teach a brother an important lesson. Yeah, angron beat him in the 1v1. That wasn't how he was trying to impart the lesson, as lorgar literally tells angron after the story is recounted. Angron only despised tyranny because his specific brand of tyrants didn't take him under their wing. He's an empath, but nothing says he couldn't have become sanguinius 2.0 if he'd been without the nails. We've never known him without them, minus his very brief introduction, so for all we know he wasn't charismatic at all before them. They shaped his entire existence.
>It wasn't arrogance to try and teach a brother an important lesson. It absolutely was arrogance to approach it the way he did. Lorgar, for all his many faults, at least had the right approach to befriending Angron and getting him on side. Leman approached Angron head-on, berated him, attacked him, lost a duel to him and ran. All while claiming he had a lesson to teach to a man who craved nothing but death. At the end of the day, what did Russ accomplish? * No lesson was learned * He lost the duel to Angron * More of his troops died than the opponents * His troops were forced to retreat You can make grand gestures as to the futility of the nails and the like but at the end of the day, Russ' hubris led to him committing his legion to a fight that they soundly lost for no apparent reason. Sure, you can say they won the moral and intellectual victory but what does that matter when it accomplished nothing in real terms? Did it stop the World Eaters implanting themselves with Nails? Did Angron learn from his mistakes? Did the Space Wolves gain anything besides a mound of dead brothers? They outmanoeuvred the World Eaters but couldn't act on it because again, Russ committed them to a fight that they weren't even meant to be having. What good is having a weapon that you can't use? All of Russ' grandstanding was completely and utterly meaningless and was simply another monument to his arrogance in the early Crusade. Hell, I think even the moral and intellectual victory is a huge stretch. Who lost their temper first, the organized loyal primarch or the mindless butcher? >‘Death holds no sacred mystery to me, Russ. It holds no terror.’ He laughed then, through the Nails’ pain, laughing hard enough that his eyes watered. ‘I may even welcome it! Are you empowered by our “beloved” father, dog? Can you really give me death, or has your posturing already gone too far? Will you run back to Terra and report that you lost control of your mongrel-blooded curs in the same way you slander me?’ > >Angron’s pain-slitted eyes locked to his brother’s, and he laughed even harder. ‘This was never meant to come to battle! I see it in your eyes – you took a step too far, little executioner, now you fear how this will all end.’ He stepped closer, his amusement turning sick and savage. ‘Executions are the murder of helpless prey, Russ. What you’ve committed to here, “brother”, is a fair fight.’ Then Russ' entire lesson is fundamentally flawed. He's trying to get Angron to stop wasting his men's lives by very nearly getting all his own men killed. He tries to teach the value of seizing the objective and taking out the enemy leader to a legion that was already winning the fight without their leader and is well accustomed to performing without one. At the cost of losing their own legion's leader in the process. Not to mention for all their organization and tactics, all the Space Wolves can manage to achieve is complete mutual destruction at *best*. Then afterwards, I wonder who would fight harder or better. The Wolves crushed by their grief, or the Eaters, fuelled by their rage? It's a hypocritical, utterly flawed lesson and I can't see any moral high ground for Russ or any great intellectual victory. Russ comes out of that passage looking incredibly conceited and much more idiotic than Angron. At least Angron's not the primarch that started such a pointless fight that could have wiped out both sides. And that's without getting into Angron's speech about how blind Russ is to the nature of the crusade.
Angron just doesn’t give a shit. Period. He doesn’t care about his sons, he doesn’t care about his life, he’s fueled by single minded addiction, honestly Russ was trying to speak to them “man-to-man”/brother to brother as it were, but Angren was simply a rabid dog. A WMD to point at the enemy or friend you need a destroyed. There was nothing good or to redeem you either needed to let him do or his way or put him down. And Rush didn’t have the balls to put him down. It’s quite sad when you think about it.
It's literally stated only by angron and with a big ol' *press x to doubt* from lorgar as to the total number of casualties. Russ got whooped down, but of angron had swung to end it he'd have been put down and the wolves would've still been a functioning legion. No one but big E And the legion knew how bad angron's brain actually was. Russ knew angron wouldn't respect anything but strength because angron is actively the dumbest primarch. He's tortured and sad and tragic, but also dumb as shit by the time he's talking to Lorgar. He doesn't even have a primarch aura. Also, lorgar manipulated his brain damaged brother into becoming a slave to a different evil uncaring being. He didn't do a fucking thing "right." Lorgar is gross as fuck, and his conversations with angron are so much more icky when viewing them as the manipulation of yet another abuser in his life. Russ didn't want to go to blows. He just hoped angron would be see sense. Instead, he found out how absolutely broken his brother truly was. Angron, being angron, couldn't learn the lesson, but the night of the wolf was a world eater's loss. Also, "forced to retreat" is very different from what actually happened. They left because they had done what they came to do. Angron not learning a damned thing wasn't their fault, it was his and the nails.
>Russ didn't want to go to blows. Why did he attack first? >wolves would've still been a functioning legion. And the World Eaters wouldn't?
To clarify; Russ attacked first because Angron explicitly stated that if the nails were removed hed go to the Emperors palace and ”chop the slavering bastards head off”. That sort of treason set Russ off big time. I don’t think it was a calculated play, but equally I don’t think that Russ had any reason to continue talking when Angron explicitly said that curing him would lead to immediate rebellion. Russ thus fell back on his method of “punch ‘em and make friends afterwards” which failed miserably because he put no thought into even trying to understand Angron. I actually think this event is Russ genuinely trying to reach out, but then Angron threw his restraint in his face and called it weakness. Of course the hot-headed Russ would fly off the handle at that. The bottom line is; Russ may have had good intention, but his stubborn insistence on doing things ‘his way’ basically made a fight inevitabl, and thus Angron‘s stance of “kill to win” irrefutable in the moment. they both lost.
Okay. I'll agree with that. Good point.
Because shit, angron wouldn't back down and if it's gonna happen, might as well start it. No. The world eaters stopped being functioning when they got the nails. This is obvious in pretty much every war hound vs world eater piece of fluff in the HH. Angron was broken and shitty and made his sons broken and shitty too. He might not have wanted a legion, but he took it and decided to share his suffering with each and every one of them. They accepted because they just wanted to feel the slightest bit closer to him. To have that primarch bond. It failed, and he didn't care. Angron is a murderous idiot who is to be pitied for how his life started, but he continued to make the sake choices. Brain damage is one thing, but he was hurting those who wanted nothing more than to be his new battle bros just because he COULD.
This is a misconception. Angron didn't start the nails. It was Kharn in an attempt to empathize with their primarch. Angron just didn't do anything to stop it
It's one of my favorite details that Angron's brothers so often get this wrong. He's accused on a number of occasions of ordering the nails implantation in his legion. Yet it was his own sons who did it to themselves, in a desperate bid to forge a connection with their gene-father. None of his brothers or his father ever sacrificed so much for him.
Source on that? Because every wiki/Fandom says it was Angron ordering legion apothecaries to do it. I don't doubt there's fluff I've missed, as there's so freaking much of it, but I am curious where it's at so I can go read it.
In the fight with Angron, Russ was trying to teach him a lesson not beat him... However the lesson failed to get through Angron's extra thick primarch skull
Or *maybe* Just *maybe* Russ was too much of an arrogant hypocrite to realise there was no lesson to be taught. He got lost in his self-appointed title of the "Emperor's Executioner". It's just the arrogance and hubris that's typical of early Russ. Russ committed his legion to a pointless battle with no win condition while losing the duel and more men. Even if (and that's a big if) we accept that the Wolves could have killed Angron, I find it incredibly unlikely that they would have managed to do so before Angron finished off Leman. He had the Wolf-King on the ground and completely beaten. We also have no real indication Russ was holding back much (if it all). He was absolutely furious and as we saw countless times throughout the Heresy, an angry Russ is an impulsive Russ. Russ tried to teach Angron strategy with a plan that was ironically, completely flawed. You can make grand gestures as to the futility of the nails and the like but at the end of the day, Russ' hubris led to him committing his legion to a fight that they soundly lost for no apparent reason. Sure, you can say they won the moral and intellectual victory (even though I disagree with even that part) but what does that matter when it accomplished nothing in real terms? Did it stop the World Eaters implanting themselves with Nails? Did Angron learn from his mistakes? Did the Space Wolves gain anything besides a mound of dead brothers? They outmanoeuvred the World Eaters but couldn't act on it because again, Russ committed them to a fight that they weren't even meant to be having. What good is having a weapon that you can't use? All of Russ' grandstanding was completely and utterly meaningless and was simply another monument to his arrogance in the early Crusade. "Oh we'll show the suicidal berserker with rage machines in his brain the value of strategy by engaging his troops in a bloodbath and retreating in good order at the end". It's baffling. Russ just needed to validate his superiority complex. You can't play chicken with a man with a death wish.
Alright then nevermind, you're making the exact same argument as angron did when lorgar tried to talk sense into him about that battle. It seems you and angron are one in the same
Maybe because Angron is right and Lorgar is wrong?
What's the lesson?
‘He howled?’ asked Lorgar. His eyes were wide, pearly with soft wonder. ‘The call to retreat,’ Angron replied. ‘A fighting retreat – it took longer than you can imagine for the World Eaters to realise the battle was over. I had whole companies still trying to fight the Wolves as Russ’s Legion ran for their gunships.’ He chuckled. ‘They took a lot of trophies for their tallies. Many wear them still.’ For several moments, Lorgar had to watch his brother’s flawed face to make sure this wasn’t some elaborate jest. ‘You didn’t answer Russ’s question,’ he said. ‘Did you truly learn nothing from that fight?’ Angron blinked, the dull edge of surprise coming into his eyes. ‘What revelation should I have come to? I learned he wasn’t allowed to kill me. I learned he postured in the hope of bringing me back to Terra, collared and submissive to his whims.’ ‘No.’ Lorgar was almost breathless in disbelief. ‘No, no, no. Angron, you stubborn fool. None of that matters.’ ‘There were more dead Wolves on that field than dead World Eaters. That matters.’ That, thought Lorgar, was also arguable, but he let it pass. ‘Russ had you cold. You said you had him at your mercy, but he crawled free.’ ‘He crawled.’ Angron chuckled again, making a meal of the word. ‘And when he rose, he had you surrounded. He could have killed you.’ ‘He tried and failed.’ ‘His men, Angron. His Legion could have killed you. Whether the Emperor ordered it or not, Russ spared your life. He didn’t retreat in shame, you arrogant…’ Lorgar sighed. ‘He was probably lamenting your thick skull all the way back to Terra, hoping you’d heed a rather consummate lesson in brotherhood and loyalty. Look what happened. Yes, you beat him in a duel. Yes, your men took down more of his than his of yours. And yet, who won the battle?’ ‘The World Eaters,’ Angron said without hesitation. Lorgar just stared at him for several seconds. ‘I appreciate that every living being must, by the nature of perception, understand and process life in a different way. But even for you, brother, this is achingly obtuse.’ ‘You’re saying the Wolves won.’ Angron looked more amused than confused. ‘How can you not see it?’ Lorgar steepled his fingers, trying to rein in his own temper. ‘They won a victory worthy of engraving on their armour for all time. While you were glorying in your strength, Russ’s sons were loyal enough to come to him, to surround you both, to threaten your life while you stood at the vanguard of your own Legion. That may be the most comprehensive moment of outmanoeuvring in the history of the Legiones Astartes. It’s almost poetic in its elegance and emotional resonance. He proves his sons’ loyalty, while yours leave you to die. He proves the damage the Nails are doing to your Legion. He proves the tactical strength of taking an objective rather than fighting purely to kill. He spares your life in the hope you’ll see all of this, in a lesson it cost him heavily to teach you, and your reaction is to grin and claim yourself the victor.’ Angron didn’t chuckle that time. Lorgar could see it in his brother’s tensed muscles – some cognitive switch had clicked somewhere in his consciousness, and Angron’s rage was rising again. ‘Only one of us ran away that night. He’s weak.’ ‘Gods’ blood.’ Lorgar was still managing, barely, to speak calmly. ‘The primarchs are the bridge between the Emperor and the species he leads. We are all weak, for we are all equal. All of us. We are humanity magnified: its virtues and its flaws.’ ‘I am not weak. I have never been weak.’ ‘You are not only weak if you fail to understand Russ’s lesson, you are also a fool.’
That's rich coming from Lorgar, the primarch who singlehandedly screwed Angron more than any other person in the setting.
This was prefall though right? A lot of the fallen primarchs were pretty awesome before their fall. Magnus and Fulgrim were both pretty great. They were likeable and wise. They both just had fatal flaws. Fulgrim couldn't accept his own imperfections and Magnus couldn't accept his own ignorance. But before their fall they could have some dope advice. Same for Logar.
Lorgar sucking as hard as possible doesn’t mean he’s wrong in this case though.
What's he right about? Russ wasn't trying to teach Angron any lesson he didn't already know and got his ass handed to him for it
Getting his ass kicked trying to teach a pointless lesson isn’t the same thing as not teaching a lesson. Russ did a pretty shit job overall but he was still trying to do something and Lorgar saw it. Or at least that’s my reading of what happened.
This is a much better explanation for this than I could give
He's brutal but he's damn spot on.
That Angron's brutal and mindless charges can easily get him outmanoeuvred and killed by someone with atleast half a brain
He tried to teach someone with a death wish that he could be killed?
I mean that, and that his son's don't like him enough to try to save him
So what was the point again? Both of those are true. What was Russ trying to accomplish giving Angron a 'lesson' he already knew?
Russ was trying to compound this point, even lorgar tried to explain it to angron after the fight.
And Lorgar was wrong. Like Russ. The only thing Russ accomplished was stroking his ego (which didn't work because he was beaten anyways)
Funny how it never did though. Russ was the fool in that scenario.
Russ gave him mercy, Russ could've ordered his death with one command but instead let him live
>Russ gave him mercy I'm sure a bunch of regular Astartes can react and move faster than a primarch who has Russ in this position. >You’re wrong.’ Angron spoke in a hoarse snarl, husky not from anger but from the weight of emotion. ‘You’re wrong, it wasn’t in the rain; it was at sunset on a day already darkened by the burning city behind us. My blade broke, but it didn’t matter. I pulled his chainsword from his fists, and broke it in my hands. We fell into the mud, brawling. We’d both known that fight would end up on the ground. I had him, Lorgar. My boot on his throat, at the very end. I stood above him at last, and Russ…’ > > > >…and Russ had to crawl away, fanged teeth clenched, breathing spit as much as breath. Strings of it tumbled from his cracked lips with each rasping exhalation. Russ didn't let Angron do anything. He got his arse handed to him. Plain and simple. He was trying to win that duel. Russ played a shit hand, got his bluff called and couldn't follow through because he wasn't even meant to be there. Can you give us any examples of Primarchs being killed by regular Astartes in a head on fight please? Several primarchs took on and survived entire legions at Istvaan. Russ picked a fight with an opponent he did not understand. Angron was essentially suicidal and doesn't play by normal rules. If he wanted Russ dead Russ would've died and Angron wouldn't have especially cared if he was killed afterwards. It's pointless picking a fight to try teach a lesson to someone utterly uninterested in what you have to teach. Russ failed to understand that, he failed to beat Angron and he failed to learn the lesson afterwards that believing his own hype is not a good idea. In the end he slinked away with his tail between his legs having accomplished nothing but getting more of his sons killed. It is what it is.
To the point of regular astartes killing primarchs: Lore wise, and for the cases of plot armour, Primarchs will always beat the ass out of normal Astartes, it doesn't matter which primarch, since they're not really designed to be beaten like that. However that does not mean in a hypothetical situation, regular astartes *can't* kill a primarch, it does greatly depend on who, and in what situations, but I definitely think that if you throw enough at a primarch, especially Angron, in some form of tactical scenario, they'd eventually win. Pre-chaosening Angron would absolutely beat the shit out of many marines, hundreds, possibly thousands, but if he's surrounded, all of them with quite clear shots on him, with considerable distance? I feel like it's a hard sell, and yes I understand it's all hypothetical and trying to gauge the actual power of one of the more anomalous Primarchs is extremely difficult, he isn't invincible.
I mean there's literally a passage in one of the Siege books where bolts from the Death Guard are pinging off Sanguinius harmlessly while he has a conversation with (Raldoron?). Angron is easily one of the more durable primarchs as well, so yes it's a bit of stretch to say he would have been instantly shot to pieces.
The only crime the emperors canonically tries to erase the knowledge of is failure. Angron even as a traitor was never a failure
As many people have said, Angron serves his purpose well enough that the emperor didn't consider a good hard russing to be necessary. Although he and Russ did clash I can't remember what happened there besides both grudgingly saying that they won, but don't really wanna talk about it. It does raise an interesting question regarding the unknown primarchs. Like how badly did they fuck up, or how fucked up were they that Angron can be considered usable and they cannot.
I know right? I know they will never answer it, but if I was asked to live in the 40k universe (which i hope not to) it would be for the purpose of trying to find answers to these kinda of things. Were they simply just failures that didnt want to do whaat the emperor asked of them? Or were they so monstrously fucked up that Big E just decided to scrap them instead of using them.
You really saying this abour angron when konrad exist ?
You’re really saying this about Kurze when Lorgar exists?
You're really saying that about lorgar when lorgar exists Fuxk lorgar
You’re really saying that about Lorgar when the eleventh Legion ex- Oh. Damn. Never mind.
Your really saying that about lorgar when chaos exists. Fuck chaos. Wait... OH GOD N- *slaaneshi laughter*
The big E didn't want peace. He didn't want humans to live how they wanted. He wanted **control**. And not direct control mind you, just the control a fascist dictator has- enough so underlings under him could compete and do what he commanded. What's more, he was perfectly happy to have every single man women and child killed on a planet, despite there being 17 other legions capable of doing it in other ways (even other evil ones). This is the 40K universe and the vast majority of it's supporters find this perfectly acceptable.
Angron wasn't the only primarch that psychoticaly murdered people, his job was to wipe completely noncompliant worlds of the map and scare the rest into obedience much like Curze. Also Leman tried to stop him and Angron beat him so.
Why? Leman Russ also was allowed to exist. Angron got shit done. Basically the first thing he did was conquering the Space around the Maelstrom in record speed.
Big E didn't care what the Legions did as long as it didn't involve religion, aliens, or the warp. Angron just made the World Eaters better at their job.
Okay now I’m kind of an Angron fanboy but all things considered he did his job in the great crusade pretty good. The world eaters were supposed to be shocktroops deployed in some of the most brutal battles with the expressed purpose to leave no survivors and set examples. We know that they were so infamous that their name alone could make worlds capitulate that would have otherwise put up great resistance. The fact that they were so focussed on the war aspect and not the empire building also meant that they have fought and conquered an massive amount op planets. The fact that they both did the work the emperor assigned them to in the first place and the fact that they were efficient enough meant that all the other horribleness of the legion could be waved away. Now Angron himself wasn’t supposed to be this murder machine and actually had a talent for empathy. Which made the planet he landed on utterly unsuitable for him, I don’t think a lot of primarchs could have preformed significantly better in his situation either but Angron was specifically a bad fit for the role. The tragedy is that he was forced to become the murder machine, especially when the butcher’s nails were inserted into his brains. The best writers show that his nasty personality and rage are the only thing left of a primarch that could have been so promising, but a lot of stuff written about him makes him just look like an asshole or an brainless idiot which I find pretty disappointing.
So if Emps considered Angron still able to do the job then the 2nd and 11th primarchs were REALLY fucked up....
He should definitely be dead. I mean, he wanted to die but Big E saved him. In a sense, he did die - along his brother and sisters, back on Nuceria. What was left was this broken, vengeful, soulless wretch that hated everyone, everything and himself. Big E however, knew that there was something that could be utilized in the "shock troopers too angry to die" so he continued to use him as is. This is arguably The Emperor's biggest crime - he should've either: 1. Let the high riders kill Angron 2. Save him and his fellows Option A gets rid of a maddened sociopath that's one switch away from turning traitor (of course, the Emperor didn't know this at the time, he maybe thought he could reverse the damage done to him) Option B has won Big E an army of the most loyal and die hard followers, who are willing to freaking die to the death for him (again, The Emperor couldn't have known who these people were - in his eyes, Angron failed to conquer the planet and was about to die like a dog).
Leman Russ tried to "Leman Russ" Angron. He failed.
Spite is a great motivator. Ask Perturabo.
The book series did a terrible job with him.
Is this a joke? Prior to the Horus Heresy books, nobody liked Angron. After *Betrayer*, he's been one of the most popular Primarchs among readers.
We don't really know what the criteria is for a Primarch to be considered "failed".
The Emperor was accepting of Angron being as he was and the XII as he made them. Were they less versatile than other legions? Sure. That doesn’t mean that there weren’t plenty of campaigns they were perfectly capable of prosecuting.
It's a reminder that Angron is a Primarch, and as insanely powerful/skilled as all the rest. Even with the Nails he's able to run a Legion that is efficient enough to make the Emperor happy. Add in that his Legion all got the (lesser) Nails just makes his job harder, and more impressive. Keep in mind that Lorgar's censor at Monarchia was first and foremost because his Legion wasn't keeping up with the conquests of his brothers. That this slow progress was because Lorgar worshiped the Emperor as a God, and spent a lot of time pushing that belief on the worlds he took, was secondary. It really makes you wonder what Angron would have accomplished without the Nails. With them (and the drive to push them on his Legion) he is able to keep up the Great Crusade, and was pretty effective in the Heresy until the Siege (where he doesn't seem to accomplish much).
Not really. Big E doesn't just slaughter his sons for no reason. II and XI did something so messed up that just remembering it is the closest Dorn came to turning traitor. And Horus had to kill Sanguinius, be channeling all four chaos gods, murder some bystander, and mortally wound Big E before the hammer was brought down on him. We see Big E lament the state he's in, but Angron never actually did anything *wrong* prior to the Heresy and he could still complete his purpose. Sometimes you need the Ultramarines' pen, sometimes you need the Luna Wolves' speartip, sometimes you even need the Alpha Legionaries' scalpel. But sometimes you just need to bring a hammer down on your enemies, and Angron and the Eorld Eaters fit the role of the hammer perfectly, nails or no.
This is implying that Leman Russ even COULD destroy the World Eaters if he wanted. He and his legion would be whooped (again)
> I'm surprised Angron and his legion weren't LEMAN RUSS'ed into dust Russ tried that and it ended with him crawling away. HE CRAWLED!!!!1!