Thramas Crusade

Thramas Crusade
Date	007-009.M31
Scale	Regional
Theatre	Horus Heresy
Status	Dark Angels victory
Belligerents
Night Lords	Dark Angels
Commanders and Leaders
Konrad Curze	Lion El'Jonson
Strength
100,000 Night Lords	70,000 Dark Angels
Losses
Konrad Curze missing. Legio Ulricon destroyed. First Captain Sevatar captured. Around 40,000 Night Lords killed.	Billions of citizens massacred. Around 10,000 Dark Angels killed.
Outcome
The capture of Curze and the break-up of the Night Lords Legion into smaller independent warbands. The Dark Angels would then split; with the Lion joining Imperium Secundus while the bulk of the Legion would go on to engage the Death Guard.

The Thramas Crusade was a 3 year campaign of the Horus Heresy led by the VIII Legion, the Night Lords, against the I Legion, Dark Angels.

In order to distract the Dark Angels and keep them out of the war, Horus ordered his brother Konrad Curze and his legion out to the Eastern Fringes to ruin everyone's day/night/life. So Curze fucked off and spent 2 years playing a hit-and-run game while slaughtering the sector, with the Lion and Dark Angels hot on his heels.

The campaign would start out easily for the Night Lords, as during the first few months of fighting there wasn't any loyalist astates forces present. They would have a great time practicing their particular skills against the mortal forces standing against them; easily conquering the three key forge worlds that were the true prize; with the three worlds under traitor control Horus would be able to reinforce his forces. With the conquered territories close to worlds that were still pledged to the Night Lords legion, it looked like complete victory until a small number of sleek dark ships arrived in orbit.

The Lion upon learning of the full extent of the Heresy would send a number of his fastest shops ahead of him. Upon sighting the Dar Angels ships, the Night Lords knew it could only mean one thing, the Lord of the First now knew what was happening, and was coming for them.

What followed was one of the most bloody and violent campaigns of the Heresy.

For the most part the Night Lords would play into their strengths, performing sudden unexpected violent assaults across the sector, for the most part avoiding direct conflict with the Dark Angels; they were helped in this by the currents of the Warp being unusually helpful when it came to the traitors. Essentially they were running in, kicking a kitten, and then running away shouting in childish glee "you can't get us, you can't get us".

After a while Curze offered a parlay to the Lion on the world of Tsagualsa. With them they brought their honor guard, including Sevatar and Shang with Curze, and Corswain and Alajos with the Lion. The talks ended in battle as Curze revealed to the Lion that because they had fought for two years in the dark, whilst the galaxy burned, that he had foreseen that future generations would look to the legacy of the Lion and whisper of doubt, that because of the delay caused by this campaign the Lion's name and deeds would be forever tarnished with suspicion and conspiracy; where was the Lion? Could he have been waiting to see who was victorious before declaring himself?. The Lion would never be trusted ever again (the audience is meant to believe hunting an entire traitor legion and its Primarch rampaging through civilians would cause them not to be trusted; yes, we know, GW doesn’t understand people and its not like records of the campaign wouldn’t exist on worlds fought over by the two legions, exonerating the Dark Angels). The Lion, not giving a shit about how he looked in the future ("loyalty is its own reward") then apologised to his brother before striking him a lightning fast blow, which then devolved into an all out brawl. As the brothers fought, so too did their honor guard; this would prove to be the first time the two brothers had matched blades, as the Lion mentions that they have never spared before. The Lions skill with a blade proved to be the better, as he continued to inflict injuries upon his brother, although Curze didn't have the skill to match the Lion when it came to blade work, he was fast enough to avoid the injuries inflicted being fatal. After abandoning any pretence of matching blades with the Lion Curze would spear tackle the Lion, sending them both plummeting to the ground. Curze would end up on top of the Lion smashing the back of his head in against the hard rock, and then slowly choking the life out of him; as these two demigods lay in the dirt of some forgotten world, their hands around each other's throats, Curze would continue to rant and rave, claiming that the Lion should just die, and that the future would be far more kind to him if he did so. Sevatar and his companion fought Alajos two on one before removing his head from his shoulders (the last time Sev and Alajos had fought, Sev had removed the skin from his face) as he tried to hold them both off before reinforcements could arrive. Corswain would perform a heroic intervention, stabbing Curze through the spine, wrapping a chain around his neck and then ridding him like a bucking bronco (the author's intent was to demonstrate the difference in attitudes and priorities between the two legions). Reinforcements would arrive from both Legions, the bloodied and injured Primarchs were then dragged away, screaming abuse at each other.

After the shit-show of the talks, the Lion would take a break from fighting the Night Lords to engage the Death Guard over ownership of a warp device known as Tuchulcha, which could allow instantaneous travel between two point and give the owner the edge in maneuverability. Therefore the Dark Angels could now successfully ambush the Night Lords fleet and kinda just fucked up their mojo in general. The Lion didn't actually use the device straight away, as he knew that as soon as the Night Lords got a whiff of what was going on they would scattering and leave the sector. He waited months before finally springing the trap, when most of the Night Lords had gathered at a single location.

Once again the two Primarchs fought, this time with El'Jonson putting Curze into a coma. The Night Lords were forced to flee and Sevatar took command for the time being. He had decided that they had fought enough of Horus' wars for him and needed to break free, whereupon Sevatar murdered most of the Legion's Captains who didn't agree with him, and then ordered the remainder of the Legion to split up into six Grand Companies and go their separate ways, effectively breaking the Legion into a raiding force where they could rape and pillage to their hearts' content.

While Sevatar did this, the Dark Angels managed to track him down and launch a second attack. Sevatar launched a counter attack and led the Atramentar (his Terminator elite) aboard the Dark Angels fleet. The First Captain managed to help his Primarch Curze to recover from his coma and the awakened Night Haunter met with the Lion and fought yet again. What happened next, in Sev's Words, was a pathetic display of a last stand; the Night Lords were now deep within enemy territory and completely surrounded. As the Dark Angels tighten the circle Curze took one look around, realised the game was up, and abruptly performed the fastest heel turn you have ever seen, and ran away, abandoning his "son's" to their fate.

Curze would later escape from the Lion yet again while the fleet was in orbit over Macragge and performed a one man commando operation against the realm of Ultramar for a couple of years. At least until he was captured by the Lion one more time at the cost of one of Macragge's cities.