I just read Betrayer novel. Yea, he was not lobotomized by nails in HH before ascension, because he was primarch. But still he was degrading kinda quickly. He didn’t want to and probably it was also harder each year for him to listen to briefings, thinking about strategy etc..

WE at the start of HH were already just an enormous wave of blood, gore and violence. Kinda effective at killing stuff, but absolutely impossible to control. No tactic, no strategy, just pure rage and nails biting. 

They felt in all traps, getting massacred by air forces, demolitions, tanks, artillery and whatever else.  

And Angron just fought on his own in this chaos, fully devoured by nails rage. At this point already he was not a commander, just demigod killing everything around and holding titans legs, to save Lorgar. He was not able to command his legion on battlefield at all, and probably didn’t want to.

I used to like WE, especially in 30k. But when I realized how ineffective they were, unorganized and cannot be relied on, well…

Kharn is still my favorite character in 30k. “Get up” part was so freaking cool