Editing Angron (section)

===Great Crusade===
[[File:Preheresy-world-eaters.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Angron back when the Great Crusade was still a thing. Along with [[Kharn|that swell guy]] on his right and [[Lotara Sarrin|the angriest, most heterosexual woman in existence]] on his left.]]
{{Topquote|You kept that mule Kor Phaeron. Russ kept his kin-friends. The Lion kept Luther. Humans - brothers and foster fathers - saved and raised into Legion ranks. But not me. Not Angron, no. Did the Emperor teleport his gold-wrapped Custodians down to help me and my army? No. Did he free the War Hounds and order them to battle, fight alongside me? No. Did he save my brothers and sisters the way he spared the Lion’s closest kin? No, no, and no. No mercy for Angron. Angron the Oathbreaker. Angron the Betrayer.| Angron explains his anger towards the Emperor to Lorgar, during one of his more calm moments.}}

Either way, when Angron was introduced to his legion he was inconsolable. He ended up hacking apart the legion captains until Khârn (who was actually much further down the list of command, having risen up the ladder thanks to several of his superiors' untimely ends) managed to talk some sense into his father. Though bearing in mind the Emperor had already let [[Perturabo]] dispassionately decimate 10% of an ''entire legion'', Angron killing some captains in an emotional meltdown is small potatoes.

Anyway, [[Kharn]] successfully talks some sense into him, and Angron renamed his legion ''World Eaters'', a name you might recognize translates to ''fucking savage'' in the common tongue. Angron's old army of gladiators whom he'd led to freedom and been denied death alongside them was known as "the eaters of cities" on [[Nuceria]]. So, as Dreagher, a Terran-born War Hounds legionary who served as Captain of the Legion's 9th Company, described it: ''from then on, they would no longer be the War Hounds, but Angron's "eaters of worlds"''.

Angron then replicated the Butcher's Nails technology on his legionaries, despite the Empy's warnings and how much he hated the source of the Nails, his old masters - <s> which adds a little hypocritical spice to his complaints about how the Nails ruined his life, given that he did the same thing to other people for no fucking reason when given the chance. Perhaps Angron wanted his sons to feel the same pain he experienced since he would never be able to remove the goddamn thing from his brain and it pissed him off that his own flesh and blood did not suffer as he did.</s> More likely he was desperately trying to emulate his blood brothers and sisters in the pits since they were the only ones to give a shit (plus Lorgar). Even in spite of being the first legionary to GIT SOME, [[Kharn|that swell guy]] became Angron's 'cool headed' equerry. Ironic.

The Nails also negatively interacted with psykers, killing Librarians who tried to get them installed (blowing holes in spaceships and taking down entire squads of space marines in the process as their altered brain chemistry made it impossible for them to control their abilities anymore). Also merely being near a psyker made other Legionaries feel... ''uncomfortable'' (described as ''ticking'' by Kharn). Angron personally took this to eleven, hating psykers for the additional pain they brought - with the strange exception of Lorgar & the Emperor, who seemed not to trigger that effect. Still, the whole Butcher's Nails thing is actually quite tragic (could the fact that even being psykers caused pain to everyone implanted with the nails indicate that they were not just archeotech, but technology corrupted by Khorne who hates psykers? And even the daemon primarch still has them implanted...all the implications). In "Betrayer" Argel Tal asks Kharn why the World Eaters allowed themselves to be mutilated so, to which Kharn replies that they thought it would bring them closer to their father. Argel Tal continues asking if it worked, and Kharn sadly mutters to himself "no, it didn't". So, before Erebus made sure that Kharn would become the RAAAAAAGE train we know in 40k by killing Argel Tal (in the same novel), because - as Erebus put it - his damned humanity would have spared Kharn this fate (because becoming a berzerk psychopathic killer is so much more awesome than staying sane) he appears to be regretting this decision - at least at this point.
[[File:World Eaters.jpg|400px|thumb|right|Angron and his World Eaters, pre-heresy and pre-[[daemon prince]] in a rare state of tranquility standing on top of [[grimdark|a pile made of snow and dead bodies]]. It's hard to calm down when there's nails in your brain.]]

During the Great Crusade, the World Eaters were known as the Imperium's butcher force. Their arrival or even just the threat of their arrival in a system was enough to make non-compliant Imperial worlds surrender, lest they be completely and utterly be butchered by the Red Angel and his sons - which only made it easier for the World Eaters to butcher them. They were typically unleashed in situations where the Imperium really didn't care about collateral damage. For where the Space Wolves and Dark Angels, the other two extermination legions of the Imperium, could be controlled, the World Eaters simply could not be. Angron ordered his sons to complete every single conquest and compliance action in thirty-one hours, since he and his gladiator army had once destroyed an entire city on Nuceria in the same span of time. When and if they failed, he mocked them for being inadequate and ordered them to [[Perturabo|decimate themselves]], it apparently not having occurred to him that it's a little harder to take down an entire planet than it is one city, even if you are a Space Marine legion (remember, not the brightest of his brothers). Things were getting so bad that some of the World Eaters' senior officers were considering going to the Emperor for help, at least until the Nails became a thing and they stopped caring about anything beyond RIP AND TEAR. One of them even talked back to Angron on the subject, which caused him to RAEG the fuck out and start killing his own sons again until some of the Librarians knocked him out.

He also had a run in with [[Leman Russ]] at some point, just after the XII Legion started getting their brains Nailed. Russ came to Angron after having heard reports that the World Eaters were increasingly just bathing in blood, instead of bringing worlds to compliance. Angron wasn't as brain-damaged as he would be later, so he asked if Russ had come on order of the Emperor. Russ grudgingly had to admit he wasn't; this wasn't an execution ordered by the Emperor (yet) and he privately didn't want it to become one in the future. So he went on saying that implanting Angron's legionaries with the Nails had to stop and that they'd be brought to Terra so a way of removing them could be devised (so he basically told Angron to sort his shit out and stop mutilating his sons). But we all know how good Russ is with people and generally <s>just liked throwing his weight around</s>. In more seriousness, this is one of the cases where Russ really, genuinely wanted to help one of his brothers, having had his own bouts with [[rage|irresistible murderous intent]] to deal with. Additionally, it is heavily implied that the two missing Primarchs met their end at Russ's hands on orders from the Emperor. Russ was not a fan of his role as being the Emperor's personal Judge Dredd as would later be demonstrated by the fact that he pleaded Lorgar's case (of all people) to the Emperor when He was considering 86ing the Word Bearers. Russ's approach sadly [[fail|wasn't well thought out]]. Though to be fair Angron wasn't exactly diplomatic either, telling Russ that the Nails were the only thing that kept him going, that the EMPRA was just another slaver (and that bringing "compliance" to worlds was just a way of candycoating enslaving worlds which merely had wished to be left alone), and that without the Nails he might go to Big.E and chop "the slaving bastard's" head off. Ironically enough Angron had a solid point with the former argument, but the very suggestion of turning against Emps basically made Russ [[rage|lose what remained of his cool on the spot]] with the result one would expect.
[[File:Angron, lord of the locker room.jpg|thumb|right|A Remembrancer's sketch of the duel between Angron and Leman Russ.]]

There was a brief skirmish between the two Legions (an event which would come to be known as the "Night of the Wolf") where Angron fought Leman Russ in personal combat. [[Rape|He made him his personal bitch]] until he was outmaneuvered by the Space Wolves troops and surrounded, isolated from his World Eaters who were just like their father putting up one hell of a fight and hurt on the Wolves but being slowly separated and isolated from each other. Russ then tried to make his point a second time; that Angron's berserker rage made him and his Legion lose sight of the larger tactical and strategic objectives and that Russ had deliberately lured him into a position where he could be gunned down with a snap of Russ fingers. Angron refused to acknowledge his losing position since he was the one holding the weapon at his brother's throat and that killing EVERYONE should be the only objective anyway. Russ might be very well holding the proverbial gun to his temple, but it was only worth anything if he was willing to pull the trigger. Which at that point Russ wasn't, so Angron completely ignored him. Yet, surprisingly, Angron did not press his attack either and both Primarchs separated and went their own way. But, as time would show, the nails had a degrading effect on Angron's ability to hold back and remain coherent, so maybe that's your answer right there.

Angron was certain of his victory that day and didn't give the incident any more thought, the Nails stayed with him and his Legion. In the end, though, Leman Russ was right: Angron's failure to learn and control his murderous rage would be amply demonstrated and only become worse with time. At the tail end of the Great Crusade when he butchered a whole city which had just surrendered, on Isstvan III when he sabotaged Horus' clean [[Exterminatus]] by going down to rip the loyalists apart personally, and on Nuceria where he ordered every living being killed. But what’s truly sad is that Lorgar actually did seemingly succeed where Russ had failed in teaching the lesson of the Night of the Wolf years later. Weirdly, he did this by simply telling Angron in no uncertain terms that Russ had won and why, and for whatever reason Angron's previous retardation dawned on him this time. In the case of Lorgar's explanation, not being in the middle of a fight to the death (at least as far as Agron was concerned) probably helped with regard to Angron's perceptiveness (fewer MURDERMURDERKILLKILL impulses from the Nails). Additionally, on their way to Nuceria during Angron’s last weeks as a human, he actually seemed to be trying to open himself up a little more to his legion by joining them in watching pit fights and hanging out with them during feasts, all of which was rendered too little too late by what went down when they reached their destination.