Perturabo
"Tell them ruin has come to their world, death, despair and red war...
Tell them their hopes and pride have come to nothing.
Tell them their empty whispers fall upon deaf ears - their gods are dead, human logic has killed them.
Tell them the Angels of Death have come.
Tell them that nothing can save them now."
Primarch of the Iron Warriors.
Origins
Before he knew the full measure of what he was, Perturabo was a cultivated-scholar and a gentle man of peace. He loved peace, freedom, democracy, and stopping conflicts through diplomacy if at all possible. His foster-father was a tyrannical asshole, mind, so their family was strained. After E-Money showed up on the East Side lookin' for his homey-boys up in the 'hood, Perturabo used his armies to depose his father and reinstitute democracy among the Greeks Olympians. He thought he was finally home.
Unfortunately for him, the Imperium was the exact opposite of a democracy, its leader had no real desire for a diplomat when he wanted a general, and the father he'd found was every bit the tyrannical distant asshole his other parent had been and more. Whoops.
Great Crusade
Shortly after he was re-united with his Legion, something inside him switched drastically; rather than continuing to promote the peaceful compromise that is "democracy" he went full Tyrant himself. His first act as Commander was familiarise himself with the history of his Legion; then he decided to enact the age-old procedure of Decimation, where one-in-ten soldiers (determined by lottery) would be beaten to death by the other nine. Most of the other Primarchs declared that Perturabo was mad, but the Emperor let it slide as Perturabo's reasoning being: "Not that they had failed... instead they had not reached their potential." Therefore it was not enough to be merely superior, but Perturabo decided that his legion should have been Supreme.
At the time of The Crusade, Perturabo was a busy boy, building citadels and forts on the planets that he conquered, leaving always a little of his forces behind. In the end it became a stereotype that the Iron Warriors had the best army for sieges. He was also kept far away by the other Primarchs, mainly because Perturabo had so much badass technology they did not possess, but also because Big E wasn't too keen on having him ramble on about all this "democracy and peace" garbage. Peturabo had a big hard on for Leonardo Da Vinci and spent much time searching the ruins of Old Earth for copies of his surviving journals, gathering his hidden papers and learning of the works he pursued in private.
What's also known about him is his rivalry with Rogal Dorn. What we know about these two is that their quarrels were equivalent to the typical sibling rivalry. While Dorn's Daddy's Golden boy, Perturabo serves as the incredibly jealous brother who just wants to tear his brother limb from limb. Another reason why he was jealous of Dorn was due to Peturabo considering himself an architect and builder but was left destroying everything instead while Dorn did what he wanted to be doing. The most iconic incident occurred when Fulgrim asked Dorn if he could build a fortress that Perturabo couldn't crack; Dorn answered "Yes" and Perturabo threw a fit and left. Dorn also said this of Peturabo, "Perturabo throws men at walls. If the Araakites (opponents of that campaign) so much as thought a wall he would pelt it with our legionaries as if there were no other way." He also had an inferiority complex and was greatly pressured when he and his Legion were relegated to garrison duty. They became so frustrated that they vented their frustrations by slaughtering everyone in their own homeworld when it had revolted.
Also, every last one of his brothers treated him like shit and called him a stupid hick (except Sanguinius, best of men, and Magnus, who appreciated Perturabo's scholarly side). He held it all in for a long, long time, until, after a grueling three-part campaign in which the Iron Warriors, Blood Angels, and Imperial Fists all ganged up on a Fortress World, Rogal Dorn was given a medal, Peturabo was given nothing, and a master artist showed him a master-work of a painting depicting the battle, in which the Imperial Fists won a heroic victory while the Iron Warriors were literally ground face-first into the mud. And that, as they say, was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Perturabo actually bought that painting, then burned it, stamped on it and pissed on it, then when Dorn went to the artist to commission a second one, he wisely refused for fear of the same happening to him.
Horus Heresy
He joined Horus and the other traitor legions during the Horus Heresy when they promised him that he would be forgiven for his actions on Olympia in exchange for his loyalty. He supervised the Iron Warriors as they bombed the shit out of Terra, and also the main siege. (He was also nearly killed by Fulgrim when the latter tried to suck the life out of him to aid his ascension to Princedom.) And he took much pleasure in taking the Emperor's Palace's walls down with the aid of traitor titan legions and the other traitor Astartes. However, Horus lost and they all fled to the Eye of Terror like little bitches.
Iron Cage Trolling
But before fleeing he performed one of the greatest acts of trolling in the entire fluff, called the "Eternal Fortress". A trap set for the Imperial Fists who wanted to take revenge on Perturabo who claimed to be residing in the Central Keep of the Fortress. Surrounding the Fortress was a 20 kilometer killzone, filled with mine fields, traps, bunkers, trenches, and every other kind of base defense imaginable in order to make the assault on the keep a very costly affair. This was intended to bleed the Imperial Fists dry for when they reached the actual fortress. This was made more effective by the fact that the Imperial Fist's fleet was kept busy dealing with the Iron Warriors' fleet, preventing them from providing effective orbital support to Dorn's forces on the ground, isolating them all the more.
When the Imperial Fists DID manage to get to the keep, after wading through twenty miles of killing ground and losing a great deal of their forces in the process, they found out the Central Keep was *plot twist* empty! (Except for the various inward-pointing guns aimed directly at the Imperial Fists, essentially trapping them inside the fortress.) This caused Rogal Dorn to become a normal man after getting trolled: Sad, broken and RAGED. But before the Imperial Fists even got out of the mess they had get shot at for three weeks before getting saved by none other then the great heroes of the Imperium, the *cough* Ultrasmurfs *cough*. The Iron Warriors then, realizing they couldn't beat both legions at the same time, decided to instead deny the Imperial Fists from recovering their fallen brothers' gene seed, 400 of which were never recovered, and dealing a great blow to the Fists' ability to replenish their numbers after the assault.
The Iron Warriors obtained the gene-seed of hundreds of Imperial Fists and sacrificed it to the Chaos Gods, who showed their gratitude by elevating Perturabo to the position of Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided. Except some of this gene-seed was used to create few IF/IW half-breeds (may be with a little Fabulous support), including the eviliest motherfucker of 41-st millennium.
While his brothers don't do all that much, Perturabo doesn't sit on his ass all day. In 400.M32, he single-handedly annihilated the forge world of Toil in eight days. With Nurgle's help, he unleashed a machine-plague that transformed the planet's factories into walking monstrosities while causing Daemon Engine-spewing cables to burst out of the ground. This makes him the most deadly hacker to ever exist. And he also helped Abaddon fuck up the Iron Hands during the 10th Black Crusade (possibly because he was sick of people getting the Iron Warriors and the Iron Hands mixed up all the time), making him the only Daemon Primarch to actually participate in a Black Crusade.
Personality
Greatly known for his mastery of siege warfare. He is feared for his status as a Daemon Prince, and his Rage, which is mainly due to an itch to the back of his head that he cant scratch due to the cable wiring (refer to the picture on the right). In other words, he's one big, mean and badass motherfucker who knows how to make the strongest thing go down.
He is described as "mercurial" in the Index Astartes article, which may be why his personality is so different between the two Horus Heresy authors who have portrayed him. Graham McNeill presents him in "Angel Exterminatus" as a vastly intelligent, very meticulous man who resented his legion's treatment at the Emperor's hands. Kinda the way he's described as being elsewhere in the fluff.
In "Crimson Fist", Perturabo becomes a Saturday-morning villain who flips his shit when a flunky brings him bad news. His emotions range from "hand-wringing evil" to "I'll get you next time". Thanks, John French.
Unknown to anyone else, Perturabo had always possessed a strange connection to the Eye of Terror - for some reason, he could sense it from anywhere in the galaxy, and he became convinced that it was constantly watching and judging his every action. The resulting inferiority complex wasn't really helped by the fact that when he tried ask others if they could see the Eye, they assumed he was hallucinating. (Ironically, he was actually the one to give the Eye its current name- before then, it was called Cygnus X-1.)
Oh, and Perturabo enjoyed playing Warhammer 40000, and no we're not kidding, his legion's warrior lodge had a whole bunch of tables set up where they could all play scenarios against each other and see who's tactics and armies would win. Proving that the Iron Warriors are Neckbeards (which would go a long way to explaining why the IV Legion was so embittered). Perturabo himself owned an awesome clockwork Warhound Scout Titan (I'd buy one! three) which he facepalmed Fulgrim with just to prove a point.
Tabletop
At 490 points when kitted out with Forgebreaker he's the second most expensive Primarch after Horus. But he's worth it.
On his own merits, he's sort of what you'd get if you crossed the rules of Horus with Ferrus Manus. Like Manus, his armour is a veritable bag of tricks, although less killy overall since he has fewer attacks and the hammer is unwieldy. Also rather than carrying an arsenal of ranged weapons he has practically every item of wargear attached, making him much more of a support character since he can teleport, and then bring on other teleporting dudes around himself. Units cannot infiltrate around him and the unit he's with can use Interceptors on enemy units arriving by deep strike.
Furthermore his Cortex Controller allows him to take a unit of Castellax which is one of the few units that a Primarch really benefits from sticking with, since his average toughness won't take a dive by hanging with his sons. The Iron Circle aren't out yet, but we can cross our fingers.
For what he gives to everyone else, his whole army gains a bit more of a close combat focus by becoming Stubborn which makes them very difficult to shift and they also all gain Furious Assault when in the enemy deployment zone, though you may not necessarily have built your army to fully utilise this since Iron Warriors tend to have all the guns. He can also make all other terminators teleport (including siege terminators) though he does not make them into troops like Horus does. Though like Horus he has a wrist mounted gun, though Perturabo's is better, and he also has an Orbital Strike, which is D3 blasts rather than just the one.
| The Primarchs of the Space Marine Legions |
|---|
 Loyalist Corvus Corax - Ferrus Manus - Jaghatai Khan Leman Russ - Lion El'Jonson - Roboute Guilliman Rogal Dorn - Sanguinius - Vulkan |
 Traitor Alpharius/Omegon - Angron - Fulgrim Horus - Konrad Curze/Night Haunter - Lorgar Magnus the Red - Mortarion - Perturabo |