Editing Lion El'Jonson (section)

===Thramas Crusade===
{{Topquote|I was content in the dark places of the galaxy, content to kill in the name of empire and be forgotten. But you have summoned me back with your pitiful flailings at rebellion, for you have endangered the empire my toil has built and for that there is a price to be paid. First we shall speak of my brothers, Curze and Horus, and then you shall learn what terror truly means for the brief remnants of your existence.|Spoken by the Lion as he drags a Praetor of the Night Lords into the ''Invincible Reason'' so that they can have a friendly chat}}

When the [[Horus Heresy]] properly broke out, the Dark Angels began a push-pull war with the [[Konrad Curze|Night Haunter]] and [[Night Lords|his legion]] known as the [[Thramas Crusade]]. The Night Lords had originally been tasked with conquering the sector and turning its assets over to the traitors, in order to fuel the war effort in Horus’ name. Perturabo, who was still playing his part as a loyal son, informed the Lion of their activities. The Lion, under the impression that Dorn’s retribution force could deal with Horus and friends, left to gather a force of Dark Angels to bring the Night Lords to heel. It would only be during the time he was gathering his own forces that the true scale of his brothers' betrayal became apparent. The Lion and the part of the legion accompanying him would now find themselves on the wrong side of the Ruinstorm, unable to get to the other side, and faced with a enemy that could not be left unchallenged and that was very much determined to keep them tied up for as long as possible.

While the Lion was a superior tactician to Curze, finishing that particular fight was more easily said than done. The nature of the combat essentially forced the Lion to play a game of cat-and-also-cat with Curze, and if there was one thing Curze was good at (besides being spooky), it was unconventional warfare. Second, successfully ambushing a warp-capable fleet with another warp-capable fleet is almost impossible. Imperial warp drives are not only inaccurate, but are very difficult to use inside of star systems, so realspace translation with a planetary target in mind has to occur pretty far away from the actual destination. This meant that if the Dark Angels tried to counter a Night Lords incursion, the Night Lords could detect the Dark Angels long before they were in engagement range. By the time the Dark Angels could get significant assets in-system, most of the Night Lords could, and often would, already be gone.  During ‘The Lion’ by Gav Thorpe, the Night Lords are actually capable of somehow following the Dark Angels' ships during Warp travel, something that should have been impossible. The Dark Angels don’t know how they were doing it, but it is likely that the Night Lords were unknowingly getting a bit of a helping hand from the Chaos gods. Traitor counterattacks on worlds such as Sedrrice and Chenros had left both sides battered and exhausted. The situation had turned into an inconclusive quagmire with no end in sight, which suited the Night Lords just fine. So long as they could continue to keep the Dark Angels stuck on the wrong side of the galaxy, their objective was fulfilled.

Also around this point it was apparent that the Lion was hanging out with the [[Watchers in the Dark]], who were apparently feeding him information. ''(Which is kind of a WTF, are they members of the Cabal or not? And do they want to fuck over humanity or not? And what '''does''' the Lion know about it?)''. The Watchers were informing him that his legion back on [[Caliban]] were starting to get naughty (though the way that they conveyed this was... unhelpfully oblique), but the Lion also knew that [[Roboute Guilliman]] had also raised his banner in the East and could have become a threat almost as bad as [[Horus]]. Knowing that it could potentially mean sacrificing his legion if he took too long, he also made it clear during this little conversation with the Watcher that he was 100% loyal to the Emperor. He in fact went so far as to state that he would not suffer the Imperium to be led by literally anyone other than the Emperor, even if that meant he had to fight any or all of his loyal brothers so stop such an eventuality.

After a year of conflict, Curze invited Lion El'Jonson to parley on the planet of Tsagualsa, either to try to turn him or just for the lulz he might get in poking fun at him. Here, Curze once again mocked the Dark Angels, telling Lion El'Jonson that in the future, the Dark Angels' loyalty would be called into question; were they truly loyal, or had they just been waiting on the sidelines to see who won the battle? This proved that Curze wasn't in the office the day the memo about “Not Mocking the Lion” was handed out. The Lion waited patiently for his brother to stop ranting, then apologized to Curze for what he referred to as '''"such a dishonourable blow"''' before he proceeded to [[Awesome|impale Konrad through the gut]] with his sword, defiantly proclaiming that '''"-‘I do not care who knows the truth now, tomorrow, or in ten thousand years. Loyalty is its own reward."''' The two brothers proceeded to have a brutal and bloody brawl which at one point had Curze nearly strangling the Lion despite having been sucker-stabbed minutes before. Fortunately for the Lion however, Corswain of the Dark Angels leapt onto Curze's back and impaled him (again), then preceded to strangle him with his own chains, riding the Night Haunter like he was in a rodeo, which allowed the Lion to get back up; the two brothers would continue to fight until large numbers of Marines from both Legions landed and pulled them apart. Being dragged back to their individual ships while flinging curses at one another, the Lion swore that '''he would not return to Terra''' before he had made Konrad Curze and his legion pay for their traitorous actions, inadvertently ensuring that Curze's prediction would come to pass. It was also after this point that the war would start to turn against Curze really badly. Once again, do NOT mock the Lion.

Taking Curze's message about being "savage weapons" to heart, the Lion stopped chasing Curze around the whole sector and instead tried something different. He enacted a scorched-earth policy to reduce the available area that he had to defend. He took what munitions and warriors he could from less-defended worlds, moved their populations en masse to more defensible locations, then destroyed whatever remained so that the Traitors were left with nothing to fight over. This sort of worked, but also  was effectively doing much of the traitors' work for them. However, this policy created such impregnable strongholds that only ''one'' of them fell to the enemy, which was Thramas itself, and that world was taken for only seven days before being reclaimed by '''Marduk Sedras''' and his forces. Unfortunately for the Lion, this also didn't exactly solve the problem of fighting the Night Lords, as their elusive fleets could still withdraw whenever they were engaged. This meant that the Lion also needed a second aspect to his plan that he believed was to be found in the '''Perditus''' system.

During the journey to Perditus, there was a short run-in with [[daemons]] where the Dark Angels aboard the ''Invincible Reason'' found themselves trapped between reality and the Warp without the protection of the Gellar fields. The command deck of the flagship was saved by the intervention of one of the legion's former Librarians breaking the Edict of Nikaea, which helped the Dark Angels to figure out that psychic powers were the best weapon against creatures of the Warp. When the Lion reinstated the Librarius, one of the [[Chaplain|Chaplains]] got a bit pissy over him defying the Edict of [[Council of Nikaea|Nikaea]] and demanded that the Librarian be immediately executed, even as tides of daemons continued to flood the ship. So what did the Lion do? Delivered a brutal backhanded slap which KNOCKED HIS FUCKING HEAD OFF! No-one fucks with the Lion. Any questions? (it should be noted that the Lion hadn't meant to kill the guy and showed genuine sorrow and regret over the Chaplain's death).

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This scene has caused no small amount of nerd rage amongst Dark Angels players. Mostly because it was fucking stupid.
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When reading this scene, there are a number of things to bear in mind:

*This was not a common occurrence; the shock displayed by the Dark Angels who witnessed the event indicates this was not the normal behaviour for the Lion.
*The entire ship was currently trapped between reality and the Warp without the protection of the Gellar field.
*The ''Invincible Reason'' was currently being overrun by a tidal wave of daemons, and the longer it took to stop them, the greater the loss would be amongst his Legion. 
*The Lion gave the Chaplain multiple chances to stand down, explaining that, yes the Librarian had broken the Edict, but their current situation required their power to be utilized. The breaking of the Edict would be dealt with only after the daemons had been dealt with first.
*The Lion struck out in anger, hitting the Chaplain with the back of his hand, as proven by the armor shards embedded in the back of his gauntlet. This looks more like a disciplinary action then an actual attempt to kill. The Lion lashed out in blind anger, not intending to actually kill; it's up to you to decide whether this makes it better or worse.
*It only took a split second for the Lion to realize what he had done, and his normally stoic appearance was replaced by one of anguish. After looking at the hand that struck the Chaplain he knelt, his eyes never leaving the ruined body and swore that they would mourn for the Chaplain once the ship was once again safe.

The author of “The Lion”, Gav Thorpe was asked what made him decide to kill off the Chaplain, his reply can be found here: http://gavthorpe.co.uk/spoilers/[[http://gavthorpe.co.uk/spoilers/]].
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The ace in the Lion's sleeve was an awesome, yet clearly heretical, sentient warp engine of unknown origin called the [[Tuchulcha]], that the Lion had first learned about during his time campaigning with [[Mortarion]] in the Great Crusade. Upon arriving at its hidden location he found that a group of [[Death Guard]] and [[Iron Hands]] were arguing over it. He very clearly told them both to stand down or he would destroy them, the engine, and the planet itself if need be, rather then let it fall into traitor hands. The Death Guard carried on, believing he was bluffing... until he actually followed through with his threat, only redirecting the attack once the Death Guard had backed down. This artifact was part of a trinity of sentient Warp constructs consisting of itself, the Plagueheart, and the [[Ouroboros]] (the creature at the heart of Caliban). All three parts were at one time part of a single warp entity used by the [[Old Ones]] to create their Webway network, or at least part of it. Strangely enough Tuchulcha refers to [[Caliban]] as its home and states that ‘Salvation’ is waiting there, not just for it but for the Dark Angels as well. However, since the Lion had no real way to tell friend from foe since the Death Guard were working for [[Horus]] and the Iron Hands were now working for [[Rowboat Girlyman]], he ended up shouting at [[Typhus|Typhon]] for a bit, told the Iron Hands to go fuck themselves, and took the Tuchulcha for himself.

At around this time, [[Magnus]] had sussed out that the Lion was carrying around the "seeds of his own destruction", but it is uncertain if he is referring to [[Tuchulcha]], the [[Watchers in the Dark]], the soon-to-be-[[Fallen Angels]], or something else, since there seems to be a lot of strange influences surrounding the First Legion during this period.

The Dark Angels used the Tuchulcha to ambush the Night Lords and eventually break their legion, forcing them to scatter and become a raiding force from then onwards. Konrad Curze, after emerging from the deathly coma caused by the savage mauling he had received at the Lion's hands during the ambush, would end up lurking around the Dark Angels flagship [[A Game of Pretend|playing a deadly game]] of hide and seek, which the Lion almost won until someone interrupted him by radio.

By the end of the conflict the Dark Angels had suffered almost 10,000 casualties, whilst the Night Lords had suffered the loss of around 40,000 marines; the Night Lords had 100,000 marine fighting in the conflict (100% of the legion) vs 70,000 Dark Angels (35% of the legion). But in completing the campaign, the Lion had to effectively damn himself twice in order to do so, first by being just as destructive as the Night Lords and effectively ruining much of the Thramas Sector, and second by bringing the forbidden Tuchulcha device on board his ship and using it. Though to be fair, the Tuchulcha amounted to a completely game-breaking piece of tech when it came to void warfare, as it allowed the Dark Angels fleet to basically ignore every limitation or danger of Imperial warp drives.

Though the Dark Angels couldn't be kept out of the greater fight indefinitely, Curze ultimately succeeded in the strategic objective the Traitors had been aiming for. The Lion had lost his chance to be present at Terra when the hammer fell, and the bulk of the Dark Angels would not be present either. It would take the full might of the Lion, two of his brothers, and their legions to finally break through the Ruinstorm; to be fair, this isn't that surprising, as Horus had years to secretly plan out everything (and it still didn't go exactly to plan) against his unknowing opponents, and to set out his strategies to isolate or sideline the brothers he knew he couldn't get to turn traitor.