Warhammer 40K: Superhuman Showdown – When Space Marines Fought Thunder Warriors
If you’ve ever wondered who would win in a fight between Space Marines or the proto-Space Marine Thunder Warriors, now’s the time to find out.
The Cerberus Insurrection was a conflict involving the forces of the Imperium and the renegade prisoners of the Cerberus prison colony, bolstered by ancient super-soldiers. It is noted as the only time Space Marine and Thunder Warrior forces have ever engaged in battle.
On Thunder Warriors
Thunder Warriors were large, greater in size than most Space Marines. Despite physical deterioration, the few Warriors that survived the end of the Unification Wars were easily more than a match for an Astartes, and in some cases, outperformed Custodians during combat engagements. 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 was considered to be unparalleled, which, when coupled with their early model of power armor, made them virtually unbeatable in close combat.
Sigil of the Emperor’s Thunder Legions
However, thunder Warriors were genetically unstable and were not made to last. At the end of the Unification Wars on the slopes of Mount Erarat, the Thunder Warriors were swept away in a final pyrric victory that cemented the Emperor as the undisputed master of Terra. Dark whispers say that the Custodes ensured there wee no survivors, and the Emperor turned his attention to the next generation of super soldiers – the Adeptus Astartes.
History – The Cerberus Revolt
War Hounds – XIIth Legion name and panoply prior to discovery of Angron
The brutal War Hounds, who would go on to become the infamous World Eaters, were tasked alongside the Terran XXIInd Dracos Regiment of the Imperial Army to subdue the asteroid prison colony of Cerberus that had risen up in anarchic revolt in a state of near-continuous rioting and mob violence. Initial attempts to impose order by Terran troops had been thrown back in disarray as it became apparent that among the insurrectionists was a renegade cadre of outlawed Thunder Warriors, long believed dead, calling themselves the Dait’Tar. With many of the Space Marine Legions already assigned to the first Expeditionary Fleets of the Great Crusade and en route to the stars, the Emperor Himself dispatched His War Hounds to Cerberus with explicit instructions to reclaim Cerberus colony and carry the Emperor’s wrath to those that had defied Him.
Into Battle
The War Hounds slaughtered all prisoners, but their confidence would soon be shaken when they encountered the Dait’Tar, despite being greatly outnumbered by Astartes and Guardsmen, the Thunder Warriors held their ground, fighting amongst the bleak tunnels of Cerberus. Eventually, after five hours of brutal close-quarters fighting, a signal was received that Cerberus-Primary had been returned to Imperial Compliance.
The second wave of Imperial Army troops was ordered with the bleak task of clean-up operations in the wake of the War Hounds’ assault. They hunted down any survivors hiding in the warren of tunnels and passageways, which proved to be precious few. There were multiple reports of coming across the hulking carcasses of Thunder Warriors, each with four to five Space Marines dead around them. Rooms being turned into blood soaked charnel houses and prisoners weapons being found abandoned. Aside from these facts much else remains a mystery and the entire insurrection is kept highly secret by the Imperium to the present day.
Lingering Questions
There is no known explanation of how the Thunder Warriors of the Dait’Tar came to be on Cerberus. All Thunder Warriors were supposed to be long dead by this time. It also leaves the question open whether any other Thunder Warriors may have survived. The casualty rates of the encounter would seem to point to the inconvenient truth that on a man-to-man basis, Thunder Warriors could easily defeat Adeptus Astartes. At least when they faced each other in tight close quarters which lend themselves to the strengths of the Thunder Warriors.
Learn More of the
Thunder Warriors
and
World Eaters
~ Just think of what a legion of Thunder Warriors could do in the 40th Millennium… and who could make them?
Early GW Thunder Warrior minis
