Better Than Astartes? The Thunder Warriors
If you think Space Marines are bad ass, don’t forget about their predecessors – the legendary Thunder Warriors!
I love the story in the first Horus Heresy book that describes the taking of a penal outpost, who’s defense was led by a small number of incarcerated Thunder Warriors. When they eventually succumbed, the stacks of Astartes corpses around them was said to be 5 deep in all directions.
I bet Imperial Commanders would LOVE to be able to call on these guys still!
Lore via Lexicanum:
Overview
Thunder Warriors were the soldiers that marched with the Emperor to conquer Terra in the Wars of Unification. The engineering that the Emperor used to create the Thunder Warriors was not as efficient as what he would use later to create the Space Marines, nor was the technology as advanced or the geneticists as entirely willing.
These proto-Astartes were organized in twenty regiments of no more than a few hundred warriors, each named by the Emperor himself.
Appearance
Thunder Warriors were large, easily the size of a Space Marine, and in some cases even larger. Even the few that survived the end of the Unification Wars were more than a match for an Astartes in single combat. They were made highly resistant to psychic attack, perhaps because of the sorcery they would regularly face during the Age of Strife. They had tremendous upper body strength that, when coupled with their early model of power armor, made them virtually unbeatable in close combat.
Fate
Imperial history records that the Thunder Warriors had all died by the end of the Unification Wars and the Legiones Astartes were created to replace them.
Early in the Great Crusade, a group of Thunder Warriors calling themselves the Dait’Tar were among the renegades of the Cerberus Insurrection. The Emperor dispatched the XII Legion (the “War Hounds”) to quell the uprising and punish the traitors. The Thunder Warriors managed to kill four to five times their number in Astartes, but the insurrection was slaughtered in roughly five hours.
+++SPOILER ALERT+++
At least one Thunder Warrior survived to the time of the Horus Heresy: Arik Taranis, who had taken many names in the interim, including Babu Dhakal. Taranis had learned some of the techniques the Emperor had used to create him and tried to make his own army. He believed that the Emperor had deliberately engineered his kind with a limited lifespan; Thunder Warriors that did not die in battle suffered from cellular degeneration or mental instability.
If you want to include a Thunder Warrior in YOUR army try converting one up by using a Cadian sunglasses head and a Ork boy topknot!
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Rob Baer
Job Title: Managing Editor
Founded Spikey Bits in 2009
Socials: Rob Baer on Facebook and @catdaddymbg on X
About Rob Baer: Founder, Publisher, & Managing Editor of Spikey Bits, the leading tabletop gaming news website focused on the hobby side of wargaming and miniatures. Rob has won many Warhammer 40k Tournaments over the years, including the Adepticon Team Tournament and American Team Tournaments, and is on a first-name basis with almost every major company in the space.
He’s all gaming all the time. With over 30 years of experience in retail and distribution, Rob knows all the products and exactly which ones are the best. He advocates for gaming stores and manufacturers in these difficult times, always looking for the next big thing to feature for the miniatures hobby, helping everyone to provide the value consumers want.
While he’s played every edition of Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy (since 5th Edition) and has been hobbying on miniatures since the 1908s, Titans of all sizes will always be his favorite! It’s even rumored that his hobby vault rivals the Solemnance Galleries, containing rulebooks filled with lore from editions long past, ancient packs of black-bordered Magic Cards, and models made of both pewter and resin.
