World Eaters

The Conqueror — The Butcher's Nails, War Hounds & The Eightbound

Before Angron was teleported off Nuceria against his will while his gladiator brothers and sisters died below, the XII Legion was known as the 'War Hounds'—a fiercely proud, disciplined brotherhood clad in white-and-blue who fought in tight Phalanx formations and served as the Emperor's shock vanguard whenever an enemy had to be annihilated to the last man.

Despising the Emperor as just another 'High-Rider' tyrant and hating his genetic sons for not dying on Nuceria, Angron slaughtered every War Hounds commander who tried to speak with him until young Captain Khârn beat and reasoned his way into the Primarch's presence. desperate to win their broken father's love, the XII Legion voluntarily ordered their Apothecaries and Techmarines (led by Gahlan Surlak) to reverse-engineer Angron's Dark Age 'Butcher's Nails' ('Cruciamen') and hammer them into their own brains—replacing every human emotion except blinding rage with agony, and sealing the Legion's fate at the Night of the Wolf and the Shadow Crusade.

Sub-Factions, Secret Orders & Classified Relics

• The Gladiatorial Cadre 331 — A renegade World Eaters warband who still wear the pre-Heresy white-and-blue of the War Hounds to remind themselves of the martial discipline they lost to the Nails.
• The Eightbound & Exalted Eightbound — World Eaters who survive the 'Eightfold Cage' ritual on Goremongers' daemon-forges by having eight separate Bloodletter daemons crammed into their single mortal body.
• The Skullharvest, Brazen Beasts & Butcherhorde — Massive Khornate warbands that fractured after Khârn the Betrayer burned their shelters at the Battle of Skalathrax.