Angron: The Red Angel (Warhammer 40,000)

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There are a few nods to Aaron’s The Emperor’s Gift , as some of the events that took place there – and the consequences of Angron’s last banishment – have a big part to play in The Red Angel . Because it felt like the true point of this book was to make you understand how the nails feel and operate.

Given that his name is in the title, you would expect him to be more prominent, and while he is central to the story, he is not the focus. Angron’s a tricky one – he’s one of those “force of nature” characters that you can’t really empathise with or get inside the head of, so there’s definitely a challenge there. A deeper character study of Angron is something I think I would have enjoyed more (and is possibly what his Horus Heresy-era novel is more in line with) but given what little I know about the man, perhaps it is wise to keep him off the page for as long as Guymer does.It's the most unreserved, honest critique of Angron in any text I've seen and it does not pull a single punch. And I really liked how they use the "creature feature" rule of just giving glimpses of Angron here and there throughout until that final big juicy reveal. I enjoyed the character writing, but the pacing and changes in perspective made it hard for me to really get into the characters. For taste, the best scene in the book is a Heresy-era World Eater realising how Angron has been actively screwing over the Legion for literally millennia.

He’s plunged over the edge of berzerkerdom, he barely remembers who he is, and his fragmented personality sometimes starts a scene as one person and ends as another. Now, that may not be a type of character I usually find interesting, but there are interesting things you can do with such characters. We have characters who’ve been trying and failing to bring their Legion back together for millennia, and the book zeroes in on their perspective when this incredibly important figurehead re-enters the limelight. David: With Angron, and characters like him, you don’t really look at them from the inside – from their perspective. Naturally, Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s Betrayer was a big part of my preparation, being the seminal Horus Heresy World Eaters novel.

It depicts the titular Primarch as less a character and more an elemental force and shows the impact that his presence has on his followers, which is a really effective approach.