Editing Lion El'Jonson (section)

===9th Edition 40K===

{| class=wikitable
! scope=col | || Pts || M || WS || BS || S || T || W || A || Ld || Sv
|-
! scope=row | Lion El'Jonson
| 320 || 8 || 2+ || 2+ || 6 || 6 || 9 || 10 || 11 || 2+/4++
|}

Revealed as the big final surprise of the now-finished 9th Edition, the Lion is revealed as the second returning Loyalist Primarch. While his statline is pretty similar to Roboute's, his focus is less on leadership and more on dueling. Though it should be noted that Roboute is still as good as him in dueling while also being flat out better as a leader, partially because Emperor's Shield sucks and is flat-out worse than Roboute's armour. Hopefully, this issue will be fixed in the 10th edition, because as it stands, Lion is not really worth his points.
*'''Warlord Trait - ''No Escaping the Watchers'':''' Of course, as a Primarch, he has to be the warlord if he's fielded. His particular trait lets him give one Dark Angels unit within 9" the ability to heroically intervene anywhere within 6".
*'''Primarch of the First Legion:''' Friendly {{W40kKeyword|Dark Angels Core}} and {{W40kKeyword|Dark Angels Character}} units within 6" get to re-roll any 1s to hit and to wound. Pretty much the only rule both primarchs share.
*'''Forestwalk:''' Allows the Lion to deep-strike. Unfortunately as he can not deep-strike as part of a larger unit, and will be very close to an enemy unit, he will unlikely be able to be shielded from enemy attacks or charges if he fails his initial charge, which he usually will. The Lion is a very squishy model currently and will likely be caught out in the open and killed before he can do anything.
*'''Martial Exemplar:''' He always fights first in any fights. Again, honed warrior. The opponent will be able to fight first if they are the ones who charge the Lion, as per normal, as this supersedes any ‘fight first rules’. If he is charged he will only be able to fight first in the next turn, by which time he is unfortunately likely already dead- most enemy models you want him to fight, are more than capable of crushing his less than stellar defenses; three terminator’s can do the job, whilst costing less the Half the points.
*'''Watchers in the Dark:''' Has two of them on his base. Like other Dark Angels, these give him a once-per-game ability to block psychic powers with the bonus of re-rolling those denies if he's denying a {{W40kKeyword|Chaos Psyker}}.
*Wargear
**'''Arma Luminis:''' Essentially a combi-plasma bolt pistol. Both profiles are 12", with the bolt end being a Pistol 2 bolt pistol while the plasma pistol is a Pistol 1 S8 AP-4 D2 gun that can't overheat.
**'''Fealty:''' The Lion's magical new sword with two profiles. The sweep is AP-3 D2 with the ability to roll double the number of attacks to cleave crowds. The strike is S+4 AP-5 D4 so he can kill monsters and tanks.
**'''The Emperor's Shield:''' Apparently He had one and Lion dug it out of his dream-realm. Aside from the 4+ Invulnerable save (the same as a bog-standard Iron Halo), he also has the ability to roll a natural 6 on a saving throw in melee to deal a mortal wound to the enemy who hit him. Max 3 wounds per phase; against most opponents you will unlikely be able to course more than 1 mortal wound per melee phase - ultimately its just as underwhelming as the rest of the shield, and nothing that you should be relying on.

The Current ‘free’ rules for the Lion seem to have been hastily thrown together as they will no longer be playable within a few months time. The idea seems to have been to make him a melee focused model, but in reality he is more of a simple horde-killer, as any other model in his weight category will easily remove him from the game. For example both the Lion and Guilliman only need three successful wounds to go through to kill each other, but Guilliman has much better defenses. Even if the Lion charges and kills Guilliman he has a 50% chance of coming right back, and as he will be placed out of engagement range, in the opponents next charge phase Guilliman will charge the Lion, and due to how the rules for charging work, will fight first, with a very high chance of killing the Lion outright. If the Lion charges he has a chance to win if Guilliman fails his 4+ to return, but if Guilliman charges the Lion then the Lion loses heavily.

Outside of combat he really doesn’t offer anything to the army overall, and he only offers a bonus to DA marines within 6 of him; as he costs 20pts more than Guilliman, who provides the same benefits, but can extend this bonus to 12 for all marine types, on top of him being a better beat stick (both at range and melee), there really isn’t any reason to play the Lion on the table top instead of his brother- narrative play in friendly games would be the exception of course (home-brew the rules a bit if all parties are ok with it)… on the plus side, fantastic model (shame he will be spending most of his time on the shelf- but at least he’ll look great doing so.