 Humanity always had killers, for humanity has always needed killers. We have, for our sins, always seemed to have had a war where the violent of our society have found their place, where those with tendencies and imbalances that set them so apart from the rest of the species made a home and vocation for themselves upon blood-soaked battlefields. We have ever tried to deny the simple truth of our own nature and pretend in our grand delusion that we long ago conquered these spiritual demons of our own worst inclinations. Yet, with every advent of a new era, the specter of war inevitably returns and mankind once again turns to those who we label as wrong, as recidivist, as broken pitiful things to do the bloody work that no one else can do as well as they. Even in an age of wondrous unity, when the light of the Imperial Truth clove through the ignorance and superstition of the galaxy, we had need of such men, and the price we paid for their service will now forever haunt us. No then, that this is a record of the butchers of the great crusade, as starties soaked to their bones in the viscera of a million worlds. The 12th Legion, World Eaters. Factual data concerning the origin of the 12th Legion during the Unification Wars is markedly fragmentary compared to other legions, both due to the Legion's own disdain for keeping such records and the nature of their birth itself. It appears that no particular bias was paid to location of the initial recruitment grounds, but rather towards the neophytes themselves. Potential Legionnaires were reportedly psychologically screened from bulk influxes of Terrans to ensure that those with aggressive and competitive traits were fast-tracked for a starties conditioning. It is unclear whether it was undertaken to ensure better candidates were selected to match the psychological traits inherent in the Legion's gene seed or if it was a deliberate effort to mold the Legion from its inception into a highly bellicose force of arms. Whatever the thinking, the 12th proved immediately to be just that, violent and pugnacious in excess of their fellow as starties legions. First recorded engagement the 12th participated in was during the Sa'afric Liberation, deployed as shock assault troops in the Emperor's Vanguard. Despite their small numbers, the 12th laid into the enemy, both upon the open battlefield and in their fortified positions, with such vicious dedication that the enemy was utterly routed in the face of their bloody advance. However, despite the great victory they had attained, the Master of Mankind held the Legion in close reserve for the remainder of the Unification Wars and indeed for the majority of the subsequent solar reclamation. It was of course standard military practice to hold forces in reserves in case of a sudden reversal of fortunes during wartime, yet for what region the 12th were selected, none can truly say. The Legion trained relentlessly, maintaining both constant readiness and a steady stream of recruitment. On the few occasions they were deployed, the word Unleashed appears throughout almost every record concerning them. Remembrances of the time speak of a Legion that took a violent delight in the slaughter they meted out, for they would tear into the foe with scant regard for their own losses, butchering all who stood before them with chain-axe and ladius. It was fitting then that in the aftermath of the 12th's purgation of the Narco-Sprols of the Cephic Hives, the Emperor dubbed the 12th his Warhounds and granted them the use of the Red Canine as their sigil. The Great Crusade saw the Legion subdivided into many independent commands as the 12th worked well as assault elements within a wider expeditionary fleet. The largest of these contingents, some 8,000 to start he strong, was itself its own expedition, known as the Bloody Thirteenth amongst the forces of the Imperium. With their savagery only matched, and even then barely so, by that of the Sixth Legion, the 12th rapidly became known as the best shock troops the Crusade could call upon, serving well as frontline troops in hundreds of active theatres, and with a special predilection shown for engagements where the single killing stroke would break a stalemate or end a campaign before it had even begun. Through the sheer viciousness of their preferred tactics, the Warhounds developed a rather dark reputation amongst the armies of the Imperium. It was undeniable to any who observed them fight that engagements undertaken by the 12th would end in only one of two ways, hard fought slaughter or simple wanton butchery. How the enemy performed would not change either how the Legion fought or the outcome of the battle. Either the 12th would incur a high number of casualties or it would not. The result was always the same, for in the wake of the Warhounds, only carnage and murder remained. The foe would be utterly defeated one way or another. The efficacy of this was undoubtable. The 12th was notably ill-disciplined, with officers having to maintain an exceptionally harsh code of conduct over their men, as jewels to the death, or at the very least maiming, were quite common amongst the Legion. Astartes from other legions found them difficult to operate with effectively, for the 12th was unpredictable and often displayed wanton disregard for the chain of command. Unleashed again became the accepted term for how a deployment of the Warhounds was referred to, as, once the dogs had slipped their chain, nothing but destruction of the enemy would allow them to be brought to heel again. The first Legion master of the 12th, Ibram Grhir, was known to openly sneer at those who objected to the Legion's distemperate nature, and often kept his Warhounds at a guarded distance from their cousins. The War Council, not unaware of this, steadily began assigning the 12th to annihilation operations, believing them most suitable for campaigns where simple extermination was the goal, as opposed to the liberation of a human population. The 12th could simply not be deployed in theatres where collateral damage was to be kept to a minimum, as in their unrestrained violence, the Legion was often quite heedless of the difference between enemy soldiers and civilians. Formations seconded to the 12th were of a similar nature. The Legion developed a close association with the Bellicose Titans of the Ligio Audax, around who a dark pal of suspicion had lain ever since their participation in the Lauren Alpha massacres. Imperial army regiments fighting in theatres alongside the Legion were often drawn from the most savage and barbaric of newly compliant worlds, and the Warhounds were known to pick the most violent of these regiments as potential recruitment grounds for the Legion itself. While the Legion carved its bloody trail across the galaxy, its primarch was himself butchering his way across his adopted homeworld. Much of the records surrounding Angron's findings remain sequestered from the view of all but the most privileged of chroniclers, upon the standing orders of the Emperor himself. Carpinius's Speculum Historiae names the world he fell to as Nusiria, although the planet's exact location, and even its continued existence, none can truly speak to. It was a technologically advanced world, prosperous, with a marked wealth gap between the greater populace and the nobility, who were recorded as having lived lives of wanton decadence. To occupy the minds of the masses, the majority of whom lived in conditions of abject poverty, the aristocracy of Nusiria had created a culture of gladiatorial deathmatches in massive stadiums across the world, hitting cybernetically enhanced humans against one another in regular tournaments. Apocryphal accounts state that a slaver discovered the infant primarch in the mountains outside the vast city-state of Deshi, surrounded by the bloody remains of scores of aliens. Imperial historians speculate that these Xenos were in fact Eildare, acting perhaps on some foul vision imparted to them by their farceer of the dreadful being this child was to become. Whatever their reasoning, they had been defeated, and the remnants of their attempt demonstrated to the slaver that this child was a prize indeed. Brought back to the city, the boy was sold to the ruling clan, the Talkur, who implanted him with the bionural enhancements received by all gladiators of Nusiria, the aptly named Butcher's Nails. Quite what these devices' original intent was is lost to history, as is their origins, for they are in effect relics of the dark age of technology, and their manufacture a secret uniquely preserved upon Nusiria itself. The nails are cybernetic implants directly attached through the subject's skull into their cerebral cortex, resembling, as the name suggests, huge nails that have been hammered through the bone plate. Ugly and direct devices, these implants merge with the subject's system to massively stimulate adrenaline production, boosting aggression, speed, strength in the heat of combat. They have the added effect of corrupting the subject's mind, forcibly removing instincts pertaining to caution, reason, and morality. Warriors with the nails were not simply emotionless automata, but instead rage-filled murder machines, or to the nobility, the perfect spectacle. Angron, so named by his new owners, was thrown to the gladiator pits immediately, where the rapidly aging youth quickly earned a reputation for unparalleled skill with blade and axe. Despite reaping the heads of hundreds of opponents, the Primarch's pride in his skill extended to the development of a warrior code, imbued with the teachings of the most honorable pit masters and trainers. To those gladiators who fought with honor, Angron would extend mercy, sparing their lives. His combination of skill and character made him a star in the Deshi arena, and thousands would travel to the city to watch him fight. The Primarch, as much as he enjoyed the adulation, was nonetheless restive, ill at ease with his captivity. His numerous attempts at escape failed, as his masters had had many centuries to clad their arenas and warriors with the finest technological impediments possible. Knowing he could not succeed alone, Angron brought many of those he had defeated under his wing, training them, breaking bread with them, earning their trust, gathering around him a bloody band of the toughest and most skilled fighters. With the nobility of Deshi, unaware of the plotting happening in their pits, and the coffers, swelling with the wealth Angron's fame was garnering them, they announced that the city would hold the bloodiest games, they announced that the city would hold the grandest blood games in the planet's history, gathering only the best and most vicious gladiators from every corner of New Syria. Unwittingly, the nobility played straight into their champion's hands. At the height of a mock battle in the midst of the games, Angron and his band turned upon the guards, butchering them before the stunned crowd, before rampaging to freedom. The firearms of the guards reaped a bloody bill, cutting down hundreds, but the Primarch escaped with over 2,000 of his cybernetically enhanced comrades, as well as the weapons and technology liberated from the stores of the city-state. The gladiators fled into the mountains, where over the next several years they would destroy all armies the great and good of New Syria sent to dislodge them. Despite Angron's leadership and his own skill as a warrior, attrition, hunger, and mountain conditions took their toll upon the gladiator army, who eventually were surrounded upon the harsh peak of Fedan Moor, by armies from across New Syria. As the band prepared to sell their lives dearly, they were astonished to find in their midst a mighty figure clad in gold. The Emperor himself had come to New Syria. He had been observing the course of the guerrilla war from orbit, seeing his son Angron achieve victory after victory against insurmountable odds. The master of mankind offered the Primarch command of the 12th Legion a chance to live past the dawn and lead warriors cast in his own image across the stars, but Angron refused. His honour would not permit him to desert his people upon the eve of obliteration, and he bade the Emperor leave and permit him a good death surrounded by his fellow slaves. Although the Emperor acquiesced, he knew that his son, no matter his skill, would die in the coming battle. Primarchs were not impervious to harm, and even the Lord of Lightning's own sons could perish. The loss of one of his irreplaceable progeny on a backwater world under such conditions was simply unacceptable. And, being unable to sway his son's mind, the Emperor ordered him teleported into the hold of his flagship. Suddenly deprived of their leader in a blaze of light, the slaves despaired and proved no match for the armies arrayed against them. As the Imperial flagship broke orbit, the Gladiators were slaughtered to a man. The reunion of this Primarch and his genetic sons was for the 12th harder than any other Legion. While the exact circumstances of the aftermath of his rescue are shadowed by dark rumor, it is known that Angron's rage was boundless. He was transferred aboard the 12th Legion's battleship Adamant Resolve, sealed within a cargo hold, Berserk with Fury. The command echelons of the Legion attempted to make contact with their gene father, convinced that they could affect some change in him, that every single warhound who came before him was killed, including Legion Master Greer and many of the senior captains. It took the resolve of a Centurion of the Eighth Assault Company, a warrior known as Karn, to cam his Primarch's ire, neither yielding to the onslaught nor begging for mercy. Karn related to his genetic sire through the considerable pain of the beating he was enduring, the exploits of the 12th Legion and of the Great Crusade, supine, broken and bloody at Angron's feet. The Centurion's refusal to submit broke the Primarch's rage and demonstrated to him that his new sons were not the honourless rabble he believed them to be and that command of the Legion was not supplication at the Emperor's behest, but rather freedom to conquer the galaxy in whatever manner he so pleased. Angron's investiture in the 12th came to completion upon Bode, a fife world of the warhounds that would remain their base of operations, as the Primarch had not conquered his homeworld in the manner of his brothers. Primarch found his Legion wanting and made sweeping changes to its practices. The disciplinary procedures of the 12th, known for being incredibly harsh for an Estartes Legion, were nothing compared to what the Primarch would instigate. To their gladiator king, combat was the only test of a warrior's mettle, and so training beyond the most basic levels would now be as deadly to the hounds as any actual battlefield. Live rounds, bare blades, jewels to the death, all were now part and parcel of life for the Legion, both in and out of active duty, enhancing the brutality of an already brutal force of arms. Where his long-dead gladiator band would refer to themselves as the Eaters of Cities, Angron now renamed his sons in their honor. The 12th Legion were the warhounds no more. Only the world Eaters remained. Attempts at removing the Butcher's nails from his skull had proved nearly fatal to the Primarch, even when the attempts were undertaken by the Emperor himself. Whatever dark age of technology mechanisms were at the core of the nails, they were now as much a part of Angron as the organs the Emperor had grown for him. Seeing a use for them, however, the Primarch ordered the Mechanicum attendance of his Legion to replicate the implants for use in baseline Estartes, to bolster the aggression and pain tolerance of the already violent world Eaters under his command. Early attempts were spectacular failures, for the nails had been ill-understood even by the savants of New Syria, and many a new world-eater recruit was left catatonic, utterly broken in mind, or simply dead. Despite the mortality rates, the Primarch was undeterred, and successive study and batch implantations began to render steady improvements, until the implantation was mandatory for all new recruits, and retroactive surgery was rolled out for the Legion's veterans. It may surprise some viewers of this record to know that there were few objections. Karn, now the equary to his father, was known in conversation with his cousin Estartes of other legions, to have referred to the nails with no love, but simply as a necessary evil through which the Legion was able to feel perversely closer to their tortured Primarch, in effect, sharing the pain he felt every minute of every day. Under their Primarch, the worst aspects of the 12th Legion were exacerbated to a stunning degree. Other legions, previously wary of their bloody cousins, now actively avoided fighting alongside the world Eaters where possible, and, where cooperation was utterly necessary, learned to simply let Angron and his sons have free reign over whatever was assigned to them, as they would simply disobey any commands they did not feel like following anyway. Robut Gulliman, Primarch of the 13th Legion Ultramarines, pleaded with his father to censure the 12th after seeing them in action during the cleansing of Arigata, observing with disgust that the world Eaters simply built a ramp of their own corpses in order to summit the walls of the Basalt Citadel and butcher its defenders. Why the Emperor did not is not exactly clear, especially when the actions of the 8th Legion Night Lords and 17th Legion Word Bearers drew his direct criticism. Chroniclers have posited that it was out of a sense of guilt that he had done to his son upon finding him, or a regret for having been unable to remove the nails from his skull. Whether or not the master of mankind was capable of feeling such things, one can simply guess, but he spoke not of his son's bloody actions and the collateral damage entailed by a world Eaters deployment was simply accepted by the Imperium as a cost of their undeniable efficiency. It was in this state that the Legion would find itself when they answered the summons of Warmaster Horace, strong, yes, with an impressive victory roll, but distrusted, even hated, for their reckless abandon and the joy they seemed to take in meeting out their butchery. But, as with all such broken men in history, they would find themselves well at home in the dark times that were to follow. Until the next record, Ave Imperator, Gloria in Excelsis Terra.