World Eaters
| World Eaters | ||
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| Battle Cry | Pre Skalathrax: Blood for the Primarch! Skulls for the Twelfth Legion! (I shit you not, this was their original battlecry) After Skalathrax: "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!" | |
| Number | XII | |
| Original Name | War Hounds | |
| Original Homeworld | Bodt (primary muster site), in no way Angron's homeworld of Nuceria | |
| Current Homeworld | Hell if we know (emphasis on 'hell') | |
| Primarch | Angron | |
| Champion | Khârn the Betrayer | |
| Strength | A metric fuckton of Warbands, each with numbers ranging from 12 to 12000. | |
| Specialty | Khorne Berserkers, mass infantry, raping everything in sight with chainweapons. | |
| Allegiance | Khorne | |
| Colours | Post-Horus Heresy: White body washed with the bright/dry blood of Imperial scum, with brass lines.
When Angron was found/early Horus Heresy: White body with Blue pauldrons and Blue power pack. Great Crusade era: Blue body with White pauldrons |
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"The Germans, perhaps, at first ill-treated the Jews because they hated them: afterwards they hated them much more because they had ill-treated them. The more cruel you are, the more you will hate; and the more you hate, the more cruel you will become-- and so on in a vicious cycle for ever."
- – C.S. Lewis
"Cry 'havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war, that this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men, groaning for burial."
- – From the tragedy Julus Kasar, by the ancient Terran dramaturge, Shakespire, ca. M2
"Because we couldn't be trusted. The Emperor needed a weapon that would never obey its own desires before those of the Imperium. He needed a weapon that would never bite the hand that feeds. The World Eaters were not that weapon. We've all drawn blades purely for the sake of shedding blood, and we've all felt the exultation of winning a war that never even needed to happen. We are not the tame, reliable pets that the Emperor wanted. The Wolves obey, when we would not. The Wolves can be trusted, when we never could. They have a discipline we lack, because their passions are not aflame with the Butcher's Nails buzzing in the back of their skulls. The Wolves will always come to heel when called. In that regard, it is a mystery why they name themselves wolves. They are tame, collared by the Emperor, obeying His every whim. But a wolf doesn't behave that way. Only a dog does. That is why we are the Eaters of Worlds, and the War Hounds no longer."
- – Captain Khârn, of the World Eaters Legion's 8th Assault Company, from his unpublished treatise The Eighteen Legions
The World Eaters, worshipping Khorne, are the canon Angry Marines, a Chaos Legion (or rather a collection of various warbands that all share kinship in that legion) dedicated entirely to the principle of rage. Their Primarch's name is a pun on the fact that they're so damn angry (Angron). How the Big E in all his infinite wisdom did not see the betrayal coming of a legion called the fucking "WORLD EATERS" is beyond me, but maybe it's because they were originally called the War Hounds. Anyway, they use any kind of ECKSBAWKS HUEG melee weapon capable of putting Terminator armor to shame, a pistol, their Berzerker-styled power armor and Khorne's everlasting rage, which turns them angry beyond all reason so that they simply refuse to run away when spilling blood for the blood god, even if they're hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned by 100-1 (the Blood God isn't picky, it doesn't care whose blood it is:it must be spilled). It is unknown who pilots their tanks but they still have transports; it is very unlikely that the Khornate marines are driving their vehicles like their loyalist counterparts, as with their anger they will most probably use a Rhino as a makeshift powerfist instead of a transport and if somehow made to use a Rhino, they'll probably end up killing the driver and tear their way out of the vehicle onto the battlefield. ("We need a new driver, this one is dead!") Actually, they have drivers, but even they tend to prefer rip and tear which leads to them always having an axe or so in reach for the particular I want to hit them with his sword.
Legion History
From the beginning, the World Eaters, then called the War Hounds by the Emperor, were destined to travel a dark road. The initial recruits on Terra during the Unification Wars were picked from the most aggressive and bloodthirsty candidates, the legion usually being held in reserves for when Big E needed someone or something dead and need it done fast. Once the Great Crusade kicked off, they became expert shock troops known to pacify worlds within less than a dozen hours. The majority of them were concentrated into an Expeditionary Fleet known as the "Bloody 13th", made up of various other human regiments and even Titans that just didn't give a shit about collateral damage. Sanguinius, ironically, described them as a "carnival of monsters."
For their Primarch Angron, even as a baby, he didn't take any shit. The Eldar used their psychic powers to look into the future, and saw that if Angron ever grew to be a man, he would spend his whole life slaying everything in his path. 24/7, nonstop, all the fucking time. So the Eldar sent a contingent of elite warriors to kill him. But Angron tore their fucking eyeballs out so they couldn't see, then he ripped their fucking legs off so they couldn't run away, and he beat them into a bloody pile. Even as a literal infant, Khorne had his eye on the Primarch. To reiterate, Angron was only a kid when he did this. This really speaks volumes about his combat skills and the Eldar's hilarious ineptitude in combat.
So after being found by humans this time he was brought to a city called Desh'ea, on a technologically advanced planet called Nuceria. Said city was run by a bunch of fat fucks whose only purpose in life was to build armies and make war with other city states. The best form of entertainment in Desh'ea, no, in Nuceria was watching slaves with rewired brains killing each other. Sounds like a nice place, am i right? But they fucked up when they enslaved Angron and made him a gladiator. How? You may ask, well, even Angron has his limits, I suppose. Then again he was a child at the time and made a terrible planetfall and fought with damn Eldar for his life. During this time, they tried to make Angron even more killy, but all methods failed due to his Primarch body. However, one method was successful: Butcher's Nails. What is the Butcher's Nails? It is a brain implant that drives the wearer to a berserker rage, and makes you unable to feel peace at all, unless you are butchering every goddamn thing on your path. It also has side effects like making the wearer of nails unable to sleep. Yes you heard it, ANGRON NEVER SLEPT since he was implanted with the nails on his childhood. Fucking Brutal. According to Khârn, they stunt the Serotonin in the brain as well. First he went all Conan the Barbarian on the other gladiators, but spared any who fought well despite the damn thing in his brains urging him to kill. Naturally, this earned him the respect of the other slaves, so he eventually went Spartacus on the ruler's fat asses and escaped with his buddies. Then word got out that there was a new fucking sheriff in town, even more guys started to defect, and pretty soon Angron had his own slave army ready to take over the whole planet. They started killing every warlord and their armies in sight non-stop, but eventually, Angron and his merry band of warriors faced a combined army of 7 warlords. They were readying themselves for their inevitable deaths because they were already outnumbered and outgunned, when the Emperor came down to talk to Angron, promising him an army of his own and a life of eternal war for humanity.
But then, Angron said: "Fuck that shit, I'm taking care of business." And because the Emperor knew Angron would simply waste his life and die in combat, he forcefully beamed up Angron into his ship, just before the final assault, which naturally pissed off Angron for millennia to come because he didn't die along with his soldiers, thus earning an honorable death. This made Angron develop an ever-lasting hatred of his father that would eventually come back to bite him in his divine ass.
Much later when Angron was about to be presented to the Astartes Legion he was going to command, the Emperor gathered the War Hounds' Captains and commanded them to persuade their father to be their leader without laying a hand on him. Still frothing and outraged that he'd been denied death alongside his brothers and sisters, Angron outright refused to command the then-War Hounds Legion, taking out his rage on his own legionnaires (since Big. E and his bananas had wisely made themselves scarce). You can pretty much imagine the results: Angron killed every Captain that tried to negotiate with him, up until he got to Captain Khârn who somehow managed to talk him down and get him to assume the title of Primarch of the War Hounds, which he subsequently renamed the "World Eaters". Khârn, who had climbed up the ranks as Angron had killed all the other higher ranking Captains, would then go on to be Angron's "cool head", assuming the rank of Angron's personal equerry, even after receiving the mental upgrades that turned the World Eaters more bloodthirsty than they already were. Seriously, a hell of a guy that Kharn.
With that business concluded, first stop for the World Eaters was this planet they were supposed to help conquer with the Luna Wolves and the Ultramarines. Angron and his Legion, who were itching to go down to the planet's surface and get their hands dirty, grew irritated at Horus and Guilliman as they held back the Imperial forces in order to make a plan of attack. Foreshadowing the future events on Istvaan III, Angron jumped the gun, ignored his two brothers and deployed himself and his forces straight into the thick of the enemy and engaged the rebels in bloody melee. Unable to cease shit from hitting the fan, the Luna Wolves and Ultramarines could only watch in horror as the World Eaters hacked the defenders apart and decimated everything in their path. Horus and especially Guilliman, who had always tried to minimize casualties and overall damage to a rebelling planet and its infrastructure, were obviously furious at Angron not only for trashing their well-laid plans but more importantly for slaughtering most of the population and leaving the planet in ruins. Even the Emperor himself, when he eventually heard about this, was angry as well but he could not do much to reprimand the already disobedient Primarch as he had other things to take care of.
Angron then had his worst idea ever: in order to improve his Legion, he ordered (poor) copies of his Butcher's Nails to be added first to new recruits then to everyone else, removing their ability to feel or care about fear but increasing their aggression by large amounts. Only the few psykers still in the Legion were not implanted, and even then this was only because the damn things malfunctioned when implanted in a psyker and killing him in the process. The Emperor eventually banned this practice after the World Eaters exterminated all life on a planet in one night, but Angron didn't listen. As it eventually turned out, the implants were reacting abnormally to Angron's physiology; the Adeptus Mechanicus predicted that they would kill Angron before the end of the Great Crusade. After numerous attempts at removing them from other World Eaters resulted in the death of the subjects, the Emperor 'wisely' decided to hide this from Angron and his Legion and drop the subject, aggravating an already delicate situation.
Leman Russ, acting both out of a sincere desire to help and on the orders of the Emperor to make Angron stop implanting the Butcher's Nails, attempted to talk some sense into his brother. Angron, furious that the Emperor was trying to have Russ push him around, attacked him in a fit of anger [It was recently revealed in the novel "Betrayer" that Russ did not come on order of the Emperor, but of his own accord in a (futile) effort to try and make Angron see what he had done to his sons]. The impromptu duel caused the dam to burst and a skirmish between the present forces broke out. In the end, Angron disarmed Russ, but in the process was surrounded by the Space Wolves, guaranteeing his own death if he tried to kill his brother. However, Russ called them off, insisting that he had proved his point and Angron did likewise, retreating with his sons. No one else was ever told what happened, but both Legions insisted they won, though no one was sure. Overall, the Space Wolves took more casualties and Angron had Russ pinned to the floor and disarmed, but Angron and the remaining World Eaters were outgunned and outmaneuvered, very likely being killed on the spot as well if Angron had gone through with killing Russ. In the end though, it proved futile: the Nails and Angron's own stubbornness had already broken down what rationality he had.
Horus, corrupted and seeking to turn the Primarchs to his cause, didn't have to do much to get Angron to side with him, as all it took was to tell him that the Emperor was weak and to stir up his rage at preventing his honorable death on Nuceria. This might not have been the smartest of ideas as Angron proved to be uncontrollable, though, and Horus would more than once lament that those who sided with him weren't exactly paragons of mental stability. In the purging of the loyalists from the Traitor Legions on Istvaan III, Angron trashed Horus's plans for a clean Exterminatus by deploying to the surface to butcher the enemy, inevitably drawing out the slaughter and costing Horus precious time in consolidating his resources. They also participated in the battle on Istvaan V, where they massacred a fair share of the loyalists in bloody hand-to-hand combat. Angron even almost came to hands with Vulkan during the first part of that battle, challenging him to a duel; but heavy bombardment drove them apart before they could go mano-a-mano.
Lorgar later brought the World Eaters back to Nuceria during his Shadow Crusade alongside his own Word Bearers, ostensibly to find any information about how to keep Angron from being killed by his implants. In reality, Lorgar knew that when Angron learned that his former masters claimed that he had fled from battle, the resulting rage produced by Angron (and the World Eaters' subsequent annihilation of all life on Nuceria) would allow Lorgar to perform a ritual that would turn Angron into a Daemon Prince while also generating a warpstorm large enough to completely cut off Ultramar from the rest of the Imperium. Guilliman tried to intervene and stop Lorgar from completing his ritual, but even he and his Blue Boys were no match for Angron and the World Eaters when really angry and they had to retreat from Nuceria after Angron thrashed Guilliman and ascended. To be fair though, in "Betrayer" Lorgar makes it quite clear when fighting Girlyman that he truly believed he was saving his brother. So it is not like he tricked Angron to go to Nuceria as part of some great Chaos Scheme with the end goal of turning him into a Daemon Prince. It was simply the only way how he saw he could save his brother from an otherwise inevitable death.
When the Legions of Horus attacked the Imperial Palace, the World Eaters were at the forefront of the Traitor Marines, rushing into the breach and killing the most inside the palace. Sadly, they lost when Horus was killed aboard his flagship, and the World Eaters with Angron fled to the Eye of Terror. Kharn himself was killed and his corpse dragged from the debris, but Khorne blessed him with a second chance and resurrected him to slaughter and maim for millennia to come.
World Eaters Schism and Khârn
A hell of a guy by the name of Khârn comes from this Legion. Hell of a guy that Khârn is... Even if he single handily split his legion into countless warbands.
The World Eaters are not organized anymore (at least no more than any other Chaos Legion, except for the Word Bearers maybe which still operate as a legion). After the Heresy, the majority of the World Eaters legion stayed together whilst fleeing from the Imperium but rivalries and power plays continued to drive them apart. Angron had vanished into the Warp somewhere and the only other figurehead, Khârn himself, was in a comatose state after having his almost dead body dragged away from the Siege of Terra. The legion stumbled upon a planet in the warp, isolated by a barrier of normal space; a oasis of safety in the Warp. Unfortunately, the Emperor's Children had also found it. Half the Legion wanted to do their own thing, whilst half wanted to stay together and rebuild. Kharn suddenly woke up and proceeded to murder the shit out of an entire berserker assassination squad (no, really) that had been sent to off him. He then took authority over the leading legionary elements and proceeded to wreck pretty marine face.
The end result of this venture was that Khârn irrevocably split the Legion on Skalathrax when the World Eaters were kicking the Emperor's Children's asses. Khârn got pissed off at his fellow Legionnaires for taking shelter from the Ice Cold Darkness, because the cold stuff on Skalathrax would freeze you to death. Khârn took a flamer and torched everyone's shelters and started killing everything in sight, while his fellow brothers fought for whatever shelters were left, even after kicking the Emperor's Children's asses off the planet. The World Eaters are now fractured into Warbands, who sell their services to other Chaos Armies for the lulz (for the lul throne).
Noteworthy Shenanigans
- Cerberus Insurrection, where the legion engaged in a manly duel with Thunder Warrior escapees, showing them the true power of rage (despite losing 4 to 5 for each Thunder Warrior, with the exception of Endryd Haar, who single-handedly took out a Thunder Warrior by snapping his neck!). (Pre-Heresy)
- The Cleansing of Arrigata (Pre-Heresy campaign. This was noteworthy in that the World Eaters slaughtered the entire world's population in a single day.)
- Beat (and got beaten) the shit out of the Space Wolves when they were asked to come with them to get "Help by some doctors to make them not crazy anymore." A ridiculous battle, really. (Pre-Heresy)
- Battle of Isstvan III
- And Isstvan V.
- The Shadow Crusade with Lorgar and his home boys, and making Rowboat Girlyman literally crawl away on Nuceria after getting his pompous blue ass kicked while Lorgar lol'ed.
- Siege of the Emperor's Palace. Where Angron got beat up by Sanguinius. In melee.
- Most of Failbaddon's Black Crusades.
- Cholercaust Blood Crusade - The World Eaters and Khornate followers in general curb-stomp the Imperium into the ground, until they're turned back by the fucking Legion of the Damned (a force around 200 strong, mind you, or as many as necessary) because GW loves its stagnation and if they continued on they would have gotten to Terra and killed the Big E. This is also clear evidence that Khornates are the only Chaos Worshipers who get shit done.
- Doombreed's actually successful black crusade. ('Success' is debatable, since the Imperium still stands. Doombreed's crusade did inflict one hell of a lot of damage to the Imperium. And to Chaos' side as well, but Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows!)
- Angron's Dominion of Fire campaign, where 50,000 World Eaters and Angron wasted over 70 Imperial Sectors in two Centuries. That's one sector every 2.86 years... which means that Khorne must have blessed Angron with extra heroin-induced RAEG to get shit done this quickly.
- First War of Armageddon. Where Angron
got raped by a Grey Knightgot his sword broken by a Grey Knight and proceeded to Rip and tear.
General need to know information
The World Eaters are all Berserkers, thanks to the Butcher's Nails. Homever, before Skalathrax, not all of them were Khorne worshippers, instead they were naytheists that couldn't give a shit about chaos. Kinda like the Night Lords. Considering the funky state of time in the warp, there is bound to be naytheist warbands of World Eaters, who swore to never worship chaos after the horror on Skalathrax. They use Chainaxes, one of the most brutal hand to hand weapons in the game and whole 40K. Also, Angron killed all of their librarians because they tried to kill Lorgar. One wishes that they were successful, because if Lorgar died, Angron would have finally died too, finally having his deathwish on his homeworld, after two centuries of brutal warfare, guilt, sadness and deathseeking. Fucking Word Bearers, they ruined the goddamn galaxy.
The helmets that Berserkers wear are representations of the Khorne Skull icon, or the mark of Khorne. It's like a cool stylized eight thing. Khorne's favorite number is eight, so every Khornate Warband organizes its marines into squads of 8 and its multiples. Scary shit. But this also proves that World Eaters are just big nerds with rage, because they can do on-the-spot mathematics in the middle of a combat scenario just so they can make sure they do everything in multiples (or factors) of eight. Bet the Loyalists can't do that. Bet the Blood Angels with THEIR prissy version of RAEG can't do that. Thus it is proved that Zerkers are smart and can drive tanks.
Summary
Ruthless, manly, bloody, and awesome. They are the most angry, awesome and brutal Space Marines out there, Closest Imperial equivalents are the Space Wolves, Blood Angels or the Black Templars. Primarily due to the fact that they fight the exact same way.
Trivia
Catch Phrase
World Eaters use the most used catch phrase in 40k next to "WAAAAAAAAGH!!!!" or For the Emperor! They scream BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD in combat, while taking skulls for the skull throne. It is unknown what they scream while taking blood for the blood god, but it is probably SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE. Luckily the two activities are rather interchangeable, but at home life gets rather confusing as they bellow MILK FOR THE KHORNE-FLAKES while filling out their tax returns, or howl "POPKHORNE!!!!!!" whenever anybody suggests a movie.
Colors
The World Eaters Pre-Heresy colour scheme was white and blue, both colors which believe it or not in many cultures ironically stand for calmness (blue) and purity (white), white being cultural and blue being a biological human reaction (since most shades of blue have been scientifically proven to calm and relax the human mind). Blue and white are also the colours of the Finnish flag, so yeah that's yet another Nordic connection. If you factor in the biological responses to those colors, though, they would make sense for use by Angron's legionnaires as the sight of them would help stem their RAEG just briefly enough to avoid attacking their battle-brothers ("Friendly Fire" being something the Emperor probably wouldn't have appreciated much).
However in Japan and other Asian cultures white stands for death, and often bloody death, as the white brings out the color red. Also, corpses tend to go pale due to blood loss and/or lack of blood flow to the skin. Meanwhile, blue was the favourite colour of Turkic and Mongolian nomadic empires, as it represented the clear blue sky of the steppe - Doombreed certainly approves.
While most World Eaters repainted their armour after embracing Khorne (what with the bronze trim), according to fluff, some World Eaters never repainted their armor, the red is simply layers of dry blood. Which doesn't make much sense because dried blood is brown due to the iron in the blood oxidizing, unless they just keep adding new layers of 'paint'.
Daily Rituals
04:00 - The World Eaters rise up from the mountain of corpses.
04:30 - Morning Practice. The World Eaters start to train and work out.
05:30 - Morning Meal. Nothing is prepared, the marines simply grab the nearest slave available, rip out their heads, and drink their blood. Eating their flesh is optional but encouraged for nutritional purposes. Eating yesterday's leftovers are also an option.
06:00 - Morning Firing Rites. The World Eaters conduct in target practice. Most marines attempt to practice marksmanship with their bolt pistols, but most of, if not all fail in this task. The practice typically ends with them simply throwing their pistols and axes at the target and mercilessly tackling them in frustration.
07:00 - Battle Practice. Not so much as practice as it is a giant gladiatorial game where the berzerkers fight just about anything from daemons, captured slaves, giant beasts, each other...etc.
14:00 - Tactical Indoctrination. Surviving marines are corralled into the briefing room, where the warlord simply shows a picture of the planet, the main objective, and the rest of the marines simply shout in approval. Injuries and fatalities arise from the more "overzealous" marines.
14:30 - Evening Firing Rites. The marines now attempt marksmanship training in the dark. It usually just ends up with them using the muzzle flash of their guns as a flash light so they can close in on the target. Some marines may now actually hit something with their guns while doing this, but its usually another marine using the same tactic.
15:00 - Battle Practice. The marines now attempt to spar with each other, it isn't complete unless it ends up with a handful of fatalities.
20:00 - Evening Meal. Typically, nothing is still prepared and the marines will simply use slaves for nourishment. But any slave or marine capable of cooking and still alive will attempt to create some dishes for their bloodthirsty brethren (blood sausage and blood stew is a common favorite). Anything from warpspawn or slave innards can and will be used.
21:00 - Evening Practice. Battle is the greatest form of worship to Khorne, the marines will then proceed to battle each other in a massive moshpit.
23:40 - Rest Period. By this point, most of the marines have knocked each other out or killed the ones still awake. The slaves enjoy a few hours of peace until their psychotic masters wake up in a few hours.