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How do!

Thread title is a thought that just struck me. Whilst we know the Thunder Warriors were superseded by the Primarchs and Astartes, there can be no denying that not only were they exceptionally effective shock troops? But not having been exclusive to The Emperor’s forces? The product of a comparatively low tech level.

We also know that, pound for pound, a Thunder Warrior was superior to an Astartes in resilience and physical might. But, the downsides were a tendency to hyper-violence and a shortened life span. The bright candle that burns quickly if you will. Though how one compares to a Primaris I guess we’re not likely to find out.

But they were still effective. Even if strip away the fancy armour and Bolters? You still have a cadre of warriors that could make a real difference to the modern Imperial War Machine, even if their creation and deployment is severely limited to extreme situations, where their shortened lifespans are actually kind of a boon.

So that they weren’t repurposed by the modern, post-Heresy Imperium seems odd.

Even if they’re created centrally, and issued in stasis or cryonics, in strictly limited numbers to Planetary Governors as a final sanction option? They’d be a ridiculously powerful tool. The sort that could be deployed against an Orky Warboss as a fire and forget resource. One never really intended to be recovered and put back to bed after victory. And when expended in the name of victory? The Planetary Governor can request replacements. That they’re centrally provided, and so records of who’s trying to order more when they’ve no combat related reason to? It seems a waste of potential.

They don’t even need Thunder Armour or Bolters. I mean, it would help of course. And neither would have to be particularly fancy versions.

So…do we know what happened to their creation process? Was it destroyed, is it simply banned and suppressed?

I always assumed that the Thunder Warriors were a uniquely imperium tech, did some of the other human civilisations at that time use them?

I don't think the lack of thunder warriors seems weird, I just assume that they were superseded by Astartes. That the facilities and resources that would be used to make thunder warriors could instead be used to make Astartes and that this is considered a better use of resources. Obviously, this being the imperium, the process is probably also banned and mostly forgotten - but the reason they allowed it to fall by the wayside and be forgotten was because they had Astartes so they didn't ned them any more.

(Just headcannon.)

They were a stopgap to fill the roll that would later be filled by the Astartes. The Emperor knew they were only meant for the unification of Terra. And so built flaws into their structure to keep them on a leash with the promise of fixing them later. He also knew that he had fugged up a bit by making them too hyper aggressive and independent nature. So streamlined a few things when it came to the Astartes. Like being less strong, less bat gak crazy and more willing to follow orders and act as a whole. Though if he had the time a resources. He'd probably would have made legions of Custodians. But it takes too long to make someone into one, and is labour and resource draining. He needed armies of super warriors to help conquor the galaxy. And so, settled for less with the Astartes.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But not having been exclusive to The Emperor’s forces? The product of a comparatively low tech level.

I'm not sure the Thunder Warriors weren't exclusive to the Emperor's forces, Doc - but there may have been similar troops amongst the armies of other Warlords on Terra.

There was a HH-themed article in UKWD 515 which talks about the development of The Legiones Astartes, but it starts by talking about the Thunder Warriors - to quote from page 77 of UKWD515:

Since that time, gene-breed, war-wights and ironsides had all carved their bloody names into the histories of the incessant conflict between the techno-barbarian tribes and city-states of Old Earth, as war raged unabated for thousands of years. But it was the Emperor's own Thunder Warriors - named for the thunderbolt and raptor's head heraldry of their master - that were to prove superior to them all. A gestalt mix of superhuman physical power, warlike spirit, gene-programmed resistance to environmental forces and psychic attack, and the Emperor's own strategic genius, the Thunder Regiments were an army unlike any that had come before them.

(Emphasis mine).

That quote certainly reads like TW were Emperor-only, compared to other bio-engineered troops of the time.

Lexicanum supports that too.

Perhaps it’s another case of me conflating sources. The difference between Everyone Used Genhanced Horror Infantry, and All Genhanced Horror Infantry Were Thunder Warriors.

It’s still a curious tech to leave entirely on the shelf.

My headcanon for this is that Plague Marines are generally surviving Thunder Warriors who made the pact with Papa Nurgle to stop their degeneracy and eventual deaths.

I think it's cooler if some of the Thunder Warriors escaped.

But I never particularly liked the twist in HH novels that they were actually even better than Marines, because that sort of power scaling stuff is tiresome.

But I think there's space in the galaxy for some mad warlord out there to have found the Thunder Warrior formula and have an army of unstable technobarbarians. That'd be an awesome looking force on the table.
Be easy to Counts As with a bunch of different factions too.

House Goliath may be a form of the underlying technology. Though they’re almost universally born that way.

Most are Vat Born still, including rapid maturation and data slugs for education.

A fairly rare few are Nat Born, because uhh, nature finds a way.

But crucially? Regular humans can be “upgraded” to Goliath via surgery and stimulants.

The Nat Born also have a relatively short lifespan, even outside of gang violence. Their biology just burns brighter and faster.

Thunder Warriors are of course a cut considerably above in terms of raw power. And I kinda like that one for one, they’re mightier than a Space Marine. To me, it shows an ongoing study and understanding of gene science. That perhaps the Firstborn couldn’t get to those levels of strength without compromising their longevity.

 Da Boss wrote:
But I never particularly liked the twist in HH novels that they were actually even better than Marines, because that sort of power scaling stuff is tiresome.

They weren't, though, that's the whole point. The Thunder Warriors were stronger and tougher, but they were genetic timebombs that went from useful shocktroops to roided-out angry gorillas in a very short timeframe. Not exactly the weapon to conquer the stars with.

The Astartes were superior because they adapted incredibly well to unfamiliar situations, could be produced en masse, were functionally immortal, and didn't go banana's afer a few years.

Also the Valdor book hammers home how undisciplined the Thunder Warriors were. Being a musclebound brute might win you a brawl but isn't enough to win wars where guns are involved.

Even the World Eaters, as renowned as they are for fury, are also characterised by their bonds of brotherhood, as emphasised in the book Betrayer. When the captain of the Triarii takes things a step too far, his brothers punish him for it. Even as they descend into Khorne's corruption, there's still an implicit underlying system here, without which they'd not even be able to travel from one war zone to another.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Thunder Warriors are of course a cut considerably above in terms of raw power. And I kinda like that one for one, they’re mightier than a Space Marine. To me, it shows an ongoing study and understanding of gene science. That perhaps the Firstborn couldn’t get to those levels of strength without compromising their longevity.

While it's worth reminding that the actual degree to which the Thunder Warriors were superior varies substantially with author (as is to be expected - 40k is hardly a setting which concerns itself with powerscaling debates), they are essentially the equivalent to a heavy hand cannon or black powder arquebus, where Space Marines are akin to modern small calibre rifles. The former may have more brute force and spectacle, but they are also unreliable, prone to catastrophic failure, inefficient, inaccurate (see when Thunder Warriors killed more than they were ordered to) and ultimately obsolete. Their power really is not as much to their credit as it looks.

There is also no real reason he needed thunderwarriors to fight techno barbarians but not to fight the interex.

Either they were superior to marines and should have been used all the time, or worse and never produced at all.

The only reason I can see for them to exist at all isn't because of EmperortacticalgeniusTM but because he could make them faster and easier than a marine so he spat them out to build his capacity on earth to give him breathing room to build better soldiers. Knowing that technobarbarians weren't going to be that big a threat, but he still needed something quick and destructive to overcome them.

I can't see any reason that his special plan required that specific warrior to fight technobarbarians but nothing else, instead of just launching with marines.

Longevity, and the experience benefits thereof. Also the mental instability.

When considering Thunder Warriors, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking “and that’s exactly how The Emperor wanted them” and worse “and he started off with the all tech he could’ve wanted”.

We know that neither are necessarily true, especially not the latter.

Much as the now Firstborn Astartes were something of a bodge job to salvage as much as possible from the Primarch Project? We can’t say he ever considered the Thunder Warriors any more than “good enough” for the job at hand.

Likewise, we see him more than willing to fold newly recovered/seized technology and scientists into his ongoing experiments. And that would surely include during Unification.

It seems entirely possible that the toys used to make the Primarchs and bodge together the Astartes were originally in the hands of other Terran Warlords. And it’s not until they’re subjugated that he had everything needed to start working on the next iteration. The ones without the instability of temperament and biology.

Powerful as a Thunder Warrior might’ve been? Can it really compare to the lure of not quite has powerful but can have centuries of real world combat experience across as many theatres and environments as you can find to throw them into?

I can see two or three reasons they may have disappeared.

We don't really know how essential the Emperor was to the constructions of Custodes, Primarchs, Marines and Thunder Warriors. It may be without his presensce whether for hard science reasons (he alone knew the secrets, they needed his blood) or psychic/magic reasons (he had to provide some spark from his powers) he may have been completely essential. So with the Emperor entombed, they can't make any more.

The second and more important is that the Imperium's greatest fear for 10,000 years has been rebellion. Nothing, not the War of the Beast, not the Tyranid Invasion, nothing has come as close to destroying the Imperium as the Horus Heresy. The Imperium is deliberately structured to prevent rebellion. The Imperial Guard can't have ships, if you rebel you can't get to another world. The Imperial Navy can't have troops, if you rebel you can't take and hold worlds. The Marines have both, but are in limited numbers. And so on.

So it would make sense that making enhanced troopers is very tightly controlled. In fluff, a marine is Captain America wearing Iron Man armor carrying Thor's hammer (or something), and 100 of them dropped on a planetary capital can overthrow the government before dinner time. The Imperium has a strong interest is making sure no individual world or general has troops who can match Marines. You want to be sure that if Governor Notatraitor is making noises the Marines will have little trouble kicking down his door and explaining things.

If this means worlds don't have troops who can match the average Ork or Nid so be it. They just have to get more. And more. A large army of guys with guns requires a lot of support and is pretty conspicuous, but if the technology for supersoldiers gets out a potential rebel is harder to detect and to stop.

So IMHO the Imperium since the Heresy has been deliberately hobbling itself, having less effective forces than it could because it is so big and so powerful. The only thing that can threaten the Imperium of Man is the Imperium of Man.

That’s a good way to look at it to be fair, and a solid counter to my argument of allowing however few Turbo Nutters to be held on ice. Especially as the whole shtick of modern Astartes is extremely rapid decapitation strikes. Heck, if they’re really good, they could possibly end it just by landing the Drop Pod on the Governor. Which must surely have happened at least once?

Landing drop pods on targets risks damaging the troops inside, at least that's my excuse for why they can't smash enemy units in the game.

And of course if they could, why have drop pods at all, why not just bomb them from orbit?

Marines, I would guess are used for percision destruction. IE kick down the door, decapitate the Rebel Governor/Warboss/Mutant Psyker/Farseer and carry the head through the streets as a sign to all that you do not @#$% with the Imperium.

If you just want the dude dead, that's what the bombardment cannon is for. No need to even get out of the ship.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That’s a good way to look at it to be fair, and a solid counter to my argument of allowing however few Turbo Nutters to be held on ice. Especially as the whole shtick of modern Astartes is extremely rapid decapitation strikes. Heck, if they’re really good, they could possibly end it just by landing the Drop Pod on the Governor. Which must surely have happened at least once?

Reminder that the Imperium does have psycho turbo-nutters on ice ready to ship to wherever they need a situation to play out like a gore splattered horror movie. The eversor temple of assassins specializes in just that kind of thing.

 Hellebore wrote:

Either they were superior to marines and should have been used all the time, or worse and never produced at all.

Do you also believe that the Nokia should never have been invented because the IPhone now exists?

The Thunder Warriors and every other genetically-engineered soldier used by the nascent Imperium were all build up to the Primarch and Astares projects.

 Hellebore wrote:
There is also no real reason he needed thunderwarriors to fight techno barbarians but not to fight the interex.

Either they were superior to marines and should have been used all the time, or worse and never produced at all.

The only reason I can see for them to exist at all isn't because of EmperortacticalgeniusTM but because he could make them faster and easier than a marine so he spat them out to build his capacity on earth to give him breathing room to build better soldiers. Knowing that technobarbarians weren't going to be that big a threat, but he still needed something quick and destructive to overcome them.

I can't see any reason that his special plan required that specific warrior to fight technobarbarians but nothing else, instead of just launching with marines.

Pretty much. That or he just needed more time to develop the more refined Astartes (seeing as the Primarchs were involved with them, which adds a layer of complexity) whereas the Thunder Warriors seem strong but pretty basic, and their instability suggests a rush job.

Makes sense to me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Landing drop pods on targets risks damaging the troops inside, at least that's my excuse for why they can't smash enemy units in the game.

They can and do smash into enemies in Dawn of War II (and it's very satisfying) but yes, logically it would present a danger if they hit a hard target such as a vehicle, but most of all the game writers don't want the cheap deep strike button to become a pocket nuke.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
If this means worlds don't have troops who can match the average Ork or Nid so be it. They just have to get more. And more. A large army of guys with guns requires a lot of support and is pretty conspicuous, but if the technology for supersoldiers gets out a potential rebel is harder to detect and to stop.

So IMHO the Imperium since the Heresy has been deliberately hobbling itself, having less effective forces than it could because it is so big and so powerful. The only thing that can threaten the Imperium of Man is the Imperium of Man.

I can't believe I am doing this since I am not even a fan of IG, but I am going to actually defend them here.

The Imperium may be hobbling itself in many ways for reasons ranging from caution to satirical levels of incompetence, but don't undersell the regular human armies here. Even in the Great Crusade, there were so many crusade fleets that many had to make do without any Space Marines at all, and they still ultimately got the job done.

A Guardsman may not be a physical match for an Ork Boy, but he has a higher quality and more dependable gun, more effective armour, and while the Boy is tough, he is not so tough that the lasgun can't take him down with a well-placed shot. The IG on a fundamental level are capable of fighting back the basic threats the Imperium faces. The Leman Russ may be a big dumb brute of a tank that hates its crew (the rant about it in Warhawk was pretty funny) but it's still a tank that works.

To be honest I was more referencing the Wizard of Oz.

The mental image of the heretic being squished, and a single Marine popping out, pointing at the others and just saying “No. Dirty Boys” appeals to me.

Plus, I’d imagine anyone caught under a Drop Pod would be roasted to death before the squishing. Retrothrusters, innit.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Likewise, we see him more than willing to fold newly recovered/seized technology and scientists into his ongoing experiments. And that would surely include during Unification.

It seems entirely possible that the toys used to make the Primarchs and bodge together the Astartes were originally in the hands of other Terran Warlords. And it’s not until they’re subjugated that he had everything needed to start working on the next iteration. The ones without the instability of temperament and biology.

This is canon btw. In Valdor: Birth of the Imperium we see how the Emperor recruiting scientists from his defeated enemies to work on his projects is a thing ongoing throughout Unification. Marines are only actually finished by the time the job is mostly done.

 Gert wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

Either they were superior to marines and should have been used all the time, or worse and never produced at all.

Do you also believe that the Nokia should never have been invented because the IPhone now exists?

The Thunder Warriors and every other genetically-engineered soldier used by the nascent Imperium were all build up to the Primarch and Astares projects.

This. Consider some early engines. Getting extreme torque isn’t a massive problem. But making the engine fuel efficient whilst also providing sufficient torque and capacity for rapid acceleration? That takes iteration and refinement.

If memory serves, Custodes have always been bespoke jobs. The upgrades tailored to that one individual. So we can, if we assume Custodes didn’t go through iterations towards what they wound up being? Thunder Warriors and Astartes were studies in how to mass produce that with as optimal a mix of overall results, resource efficiency and minimised tissue rejection. Primarchs were apparently the next logical step - specifically, can I create without upgrading an existing subject.

What we don’t and will hopefully never see* are the surely inevitable failures. Those attempts which just created raving lunatics of strictly limited use beyond making an unholy mess before you have to put them down. The early, cruder versions of all, including the Custodes.

*Because some things are genuinely better left to the imagination.

It seems likely Thunder Warriors were only used under direct command of the Emperor or very close to direct command. They were never really meant as a properly autonomous force int he same way SM are. The whole point of SM is they are superior in terms of strategy, teamwork, loyalty, etc. Thunder Warriors were a blunt instrument next to the scalpel that the Legions were designed to be.

Perhaps the Emperor also realised the Legions would have the logistics necessary for superior weapons and armour, so he could scale back some of the brute strength and toughness of the Thunder Warriors, which could have been directly tied to their aggression and metabolic burnout.

The differences seem to amount to different tools for different jobs. Thunder Warriors needed to conquer Terra as quickly as possible, on a fairly short leash. SM were always going to be used on extended campaigns with relative autonomy.

 Gert wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

Either they were superior to marines and should have been used all the time, or worse and never produced at all.

Do you also believe that the Nokia should never have been invented because the IPhone now exists?

The Thunder Warriors and every other genetically-engineered soldier used by the nascent Imperium were all build up to the Primarch and Astares projects.

Can you point to a nokia that is superior to an iphone in all factors except battery life? Because that's what your analogy is doing.

We are specifically told the thunder warriors are superior to marines in most of their offensive ways. The techno barbarians didn't NEED better than marines in all but longevity to defeat. the Interex might have. There is no logical path from superior to inferior against a back drop of mad max to super aliens/humans that makes sense. Unless the emperor wasn't interested in their prowess and only in the speed of their production.


This is a discussion about why the thunder warriors existed and why he replaced them with the inferior marines. One could make the argument that given as Kyoto says the imperium is paranoid about people getting supersoldier weapons, the thunder warriors are a better option than marines. Because they can't retain institutional knowledge, they can't retain personal experience and you can't have a 1000 year old super soldier leading an army of supersoldiers with all the experience and power and risk of insurrection that brings. They are a good fire and forget weapon that even if people get a hold of, they don't have the resources to endlessly pump them out like the greater imperium does. A rogue planet making thunder warriors is not going to be a threat, while a rogue planet led by centuries old space marines are a HUGE threat. We're getting a whole campaign right now about exactly that scenario.


All I'm saying is that the thunder warriors were not a precisely created instrument as part of a perfect plan the emperor implemented that he then downgraded to marines in his infinite wisdom.

Their downsides are not downsides unless you need venerable marine protagonists. Marine casualties, aggression and destruction, psycho indoctrination that auto downloads knowledge, the inducti, all show that in the end, most of the marines lived as long and knew as much as a thunder warrior in that situation anyway. The downsides of the thunder warriors were seen throughout the marine legions as casualties, butchers nails, emo batmen, angry wolfmen, crazed vampires etc.

The rangdan xenocides would not have been worse if thunder warriors did it instead of marines, because it didn't take that long that the warriors would have died of old age and uber aggression would have been an advantage.

 Hellebore wrote:
We are specifically told the thunder warriors are superior to marines in most of their offensive ways. The techno barbarians didn't NEED better than marines in all but longevity to defeat. the Interex might have. There is no logical path from superior to inferior against a back drop of mad max to super aliens/humans that makes sense. Unless the emperor wasn't interested in their prowess and only in the speed of their production.

I think this is an overly simplified way to look at it. What even is "superior" in this context?

Superior physical strength? Yes, they had that, and it's often mentioned. Any superiority beyond that is largely inferred or speculated. And physical strength is not the end-all and be-all for a good sci-fi soldier.

The Emperor made quick crude creations to win Unification. They were very strong because that was easy to do (Old Earth, after all, had countless horrible gene-modified soldiers like them) and he didn't need to concern himself with the long-term ramifications of their biology, for they were made for his immediate needs while he worked on something better.

The prowess was almost certainly just something the Emperor added in because he could rather than a requirement to win Unification. Let's be honest, Space Marines would have been more than enough for the job. And indeed towards the end they showed as much, as they joined in the fray and ruthlessly disassembled the remaining holdouts against him. But the Emperor had little reason to not tune up power to the max on what was going to be a disposable force anyway, the better to conquer quicker (as he was evidently in a hurry - that much is indicated by many details about the Crusade).

The rangdan xenocides would not have been worse if thunder warriors did it instead of marines, because it didn't take that long that the warriors would have died of old age and uber aggression would have been an advantage.

It was not just a longevity issue. They were unstable, difficult to control, prone to acting without orders, and did not take well to attempts to instil discipline in their ranks. Rangda would have been a disaster. The Thunder Warriors would have tried fighting it with brute force instead of the tactics devised by the Primarchs, and would have suffered horribly for it against such a foe, for they would not have the Ork-like numbers and sustainability to make such an approach function (assuming even the Orks could have done it - the Orks certainly did not hurt the Legions as much as the Rangda did).

We also see the Astartes during unification adopt what we might call more special ops approaches, alongside more brute force tactics.

I’m not sure if we know whether Thunder Warriors had the others bells and whistles. Stuff like resistance to disease and toxins, being able to fight for shockingly sustained periods without loss of combat effectiveness etc.

If they did lack them? Then despite the difference in physical strength and general resilience, the Astartes are clearly superior troops.

We can also look at the deficiencies of Thunder Armour compared to “proper” Power Armour.

Black Carapace entirely aside? MkII and onwards was fully powered. Armour with its own internal support and motivator bundles. Thunder Armour somewhat less so.

It still offered superb protection, but wasn’t vacuum sealed for breathing or fully covering. And it didn’t have power going to the legs.

Once full Power Armour was developed? You didn’t need the same raw power in wearer, as the suit provided that even without the Black Carapace.

Thunder Warrior prowess is notoriously inconsistent even by Black Library standards, ranging from obscenely strong even next to Custodians in the Outcast Dead to being "essentially Marines" elsewhere.

There seems to be a lot of fans leaning into the former and a fair bunch of players who do convert Thunder Warrior armies proxy them as Custodians, but I figure Blackshields are probably a better ruleset for them, as Blackshields do offer a lot of customisation to get the gene-twisted vibe right.

Tangent aside, the Valdor book pretty much made the Thunder Warriors an open and shut case, and I recommend anyone who has questions about them to read it. They don't actually feature that much onscreen (and their only fight scene sees the Thunder Warrior commander do his best to not die to Valdor for as long as possible, which he inevitably fails at - not much to judge by when up against such a foe!), but it at least explains the context they were introduced in, what their problems were, and why they didn't last any longer than they did.

That is to say, they were really really really unstable. That is fine for Terra when you can just point in a direction, let them loose and return when the killing is done, but when the war becomes strategic rather than tactical, that's simply not good enough. Even the World Eaters had better discipline than that up until they actually fell to Khorne outright (and importantly had bonds of brotherhood that saw them discipline each other when necessary).

That's all I'm pointing at. Their prowess is irrelevant, it was the speed of production that was the reason they were made.

My argument has been against the notion that their prowess is a factor in the discussion. If it was then it introduces a whole host of issues as I've described.

They were churn and burn fire and forget tools and thus only useful on earth.

The Valdor book and Outcast Dead as far as I know are our main sources of information on TWs.

In Valdor they were basically ambushed and wiped out by Gen 1 Space Marines which strongly implies they were not nearly as good as Marines. Maybe human states, 4+ save and +1 strength? Or even +2 to S5?

But in Outcast Dead they were uber marines.

So... why not both.gif?

Individual TWs were by and by inferior to marines. No power armor, no eating brains, no spitting poison. En mass they were also inferior, no discipline, no combined arms, basically an Ork hoard.

And maybe the process was inconsistent? Something like the old possessed or Fabius Bile rules, start with base stats and roll. Maybe you get the +1S, maybe you get +1T, maybe you lose d3 models.

And maybe the ones who didn't drop dead after a few years got stronger and better as time went on.

So the two from Outcast Dead were the apex of TW tech, the ones who survived a few centuries and kept getting better and stronger. They're the 1% or 0.0001% of the breed, not the typical dude.

It can also point to uneven results.

Sure, every Thunder Warrior ends up unnaturally strong and resilient compared to a baseline smelly hooman. That is after all the whole point.

But just as regular smelly hoomans can vary quite wildly in size and basic physical strength? Why couldn’t the conversion process amplify that.

Consider Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson or Eddie “The Beast” Hall. Both are ludicrously strong. And that’s not all down to training, just as you don’t become a top Olympian Athlete just by training alone, there is a genetic lottery element to it.

And so if the Thunder Warrior process is applied to me, some scrawny teenage tosspot and Eddie The Beast? You’re going to end up with three different end products. And, if it is altering gene expression? It’s entirely possible it’s the scrawny teenage tosspot that ends up the monster.

Therefore it’s entirely possible all Thunder Warriors we meet are lore accurate. There was just greater variation and “never quite know what you’re going to get” going on.

That again would be call for further research, development and refinement of the process. To move away from what we in Bile’s current status of “prod that, give that a genetic twist, wait and see what happens” into a more reliable process and uniform outcome.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
In Valdor they were basically ambushed and wiped out by Gen 1 Space Marines which strongly implies they were not nearly as good as Marines. Maybe human states, 4+ save and +1 strength? Or even +2 to S5?

The Valdor book at the very least implies (if not outright states) that the Marines outnumbered the Thunder Warriors by that point, mind. Which means that them losing is less conclusive than it seems.

The book definitely drives home the difference in discipline and sheer efficiency. But at that point the Thunder Warriors were just a fragmented remnant of survivors who did not get caught at Ararat.

Ararat itself never appearing onscreen directly as far as I know, or at least not in any detail. Valdor implies at least one Custodian died there (potentially an unknown number more)... and that's about all we got.

I don't think GW authors care much for powerscaling.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

I’m not sure if we know whether Thunder Warriors had the others bells and whistles. Stuff like resistance to disease and toxins, being able to fight for shockingly sustained periods without loss of combat effectiveness etc.

As far as we know from sources already mentioned, the Thunder Warrior's psychological defects got much worse on battlefields where significant amounts of warpcraft were involved - this poses several problems for using them galaxy-wide: they'd be risky to use against psychic Xenos, and of course really Chaotic enemies, which was almost a given at some point, and it would be at least questionable if they could survive longer periods of warp travel without terminally freaking out.