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True-Scale Thunder Warriors

CommodusXIII

By CommodusXIII
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CommodusXIII

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I've been enjoying a long break from 40K to explore Age of Sigmar.  Lately, though, I felt the itch to dive into another Kill Team-scale project.  After kicking around a few ideas, I came to rest on the Thunder Warriors.  I've always been a sucker for obscure facets of 40K history, and the Thunder Warriors have not only been glossed over - they've been purposefully buried.

My projects typically begin with the rules.  This particular project started when I was thumbing through Horus Heresy, Book 6.  I found that the Blackshield Chymeriae are perfect to represent Thunder Warriors in 30K.  Their genetic attributes push their abilities well above Space Marines, and also represent their inherent instability.  The wide range of weapon options for the Blackshield Marauders and Reaver Lord suit the nature of the Thunder Warriors quite well.

Finally, their Pariah Power Armour is a great way to represent Mk I Thunder Armour.  I'm pulling a lot of inspiration from White Dwarf 129, which describes these early suits as follows:

 

The first type of armour is now often referred to as 'Mark 1'.  In fact this is the sort of armour worn by the techno-barbarian warriors that dominated the Earth.  When the Emperor began his conquest of the planet his retinue was equipped and armed in the same way as the troops of other warlords.  The first Space Marines formed part of that retinue and were equipped with the same sort of armour as other warriors of the time.

The thunder-bolt and lightening emblem on the breastplate of this suit was the personal badge of the Emperor in those days, predating the Imperial eagle which only became the symbol of the Imperium much later.  This emblem gives the suit its other common name - Thunder Armour.

 

http://i.imgur.com/qvxDQAhl.png
 

This is not really a single enclosing suit and offers no atmospheric protection or life-support facilities - all of these being unnecessary while fighting was restricted to Earth.  The helmet and the top plume are fairly typical, but these early suits were manufactured on an entirely local basis and their exact designs were often a matter of personal taste.  The main part of the armour is the massive powered torso which encloses the chest and arms.  Beneath the armoured chest plate coiled energy cables transmit power into the arms, effectively multiplying the wearer's fighting abilities three or four times over.  During this period most fighting consisted of close combat, warriors preferring to grapple with each other rather than use long range weapons - the power of a warrior's chest and arms was therefore of paramount importance.

The warrior's legs are not power armoured at all but enclosed in tough padded breeches.  In the example shown the warrior wears armoured greaves and armoured boots.  These were not standard by any means, but were worn by many of the better-equipped warriors and were common amongst the early Space Marines.  The warrior wears a backpack which provides his suit with power - most of its bulk is taken up by a cooling mechanism meant to prevent the power unit from overheating.

Warriors equipped in this way fought during all the Emperor's wars on Earth, and also on the Moon and Mars which have Earth-type atmospheres.  Mark I armour is unlikely to be seen on the 41st millennium battlefield but ceremonial units are sometimes equipped this way.

 

Basically, Thunder Armour is limited to the chest, arms and backpack. The legs and head are non-powered, possibly even unprotected.  This opens up a lot of options for modeling.  It's also a great chance to test out some true scale concepts without looking out-of-place next to other armies - the Thunder Warriors dwarf Astartes anyway.

 

http://i.imgur.com/Mj9bwm5l.jpg
 

This except explains the armour and tactics, but leaves quite a few gaps as it was written before the concept of Thunder Warriors or even proto-Astartes came about.  To fill those gaps, my other major source of inspiration is, unsurprisingly, The Outcast Dead.  I certainly won't quote that book in detail here, but the general idea is that the Thunder Warriors performed well for conquering Terra but didn't match the Emperor's vision for the warriors needed for the Great Crusade.  We know what that vision was - the glorious Astartes.  It stands to reason, then, that the Thunder Warriors were the opposite.  They were huge, hulking brutes - and just as barbaric as the other Terran armies.  Hardly the inspiring presence the Emperor would want to project into the galaxy during the Great Crusade, and so they were unceremoniously culled.

To represent this inherent barbarism, I'll be incorporating a larger number of parts from the Chaos Space Marines and Age of Sigmar lines.  If an Astartes were to stumble on a Thunder Warrior, his first reaction should be shock - similar to a Roman soldier encountering a Neanderthal.  The overall concept strikes me as being closer to the wasteland warriors of Mad Max.

 

http://i.imgur.com/5GvkE5Dl.jpg

 

One stylistic change that I'm making involves the helmets.  To be honest, I really dislike the "combat helmet, aviator sunglasses and topknot" look of the classic models and illustrations.  In keeping with the "wasteland warriors" theme, most of my Thunder Warriors will have bare heads with respirators.  A few will have feral proto-Astartes helmets.  For those, I'll be referencing Blanche's later artwork - these illustrations are still much more regal than I'm shooting for, but it's a great place to start.

So that's the background.  Now, I just have to wait for all of the bits to arrive.

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CommodusXIII Veteran

CommodusXIII

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Thank you very much!  I focus mostly on kitbashing existing bits, with a minimum of my own sculpting.  I'm going to try to document as much as I can so that, if something catches the reader's eye, it should be easy to track it down with a minimum of searching.

 

I put in several orders with my favoured bits sellers before the holiday weekend, so hopefully in a week or two you'll get to see the first examples take shape.  In the meantime, here's what I'm sourcing from my current inventory:

 

Legs

 

As I mentioned in my first post, I want to stick with the concept of heavily-armoured torsos but unarmoured legs.  I considered using Stormcast Eternal legs, which would match the Blanche illustration included above.  I decided that they were too well-armoured, and could be confused for power armour.

 

I then played around with several options of carapace armour legs - Space Marine Scouts, Militarum Tempestus, Mad Robot Miniatures, MaxMini, etc.  I felt that these were either too modern, too "civilized", or simply too small for the scale I was trying to obtain.  Dogfender actually hit upon my final choice - Khorne Blood Warriors from Age of Sigmar.

 

http://i.imgur.com/QwuooQ0l.jpg

 

Here's an example next to a leftover Mk III body.  It's roughly the same dimensions, perhaps a little taller, and they're much bulkier.  Half of the legs in the set have Khorne emblems somewhere on them - these were donated to a friend's KDK army.  The other half have a variety of skulls and other savage implements.  Perfect for the look I'm aiming for.

 

Heads

 

This was a lot of fun to sort out, and was really where the concept for this army originated.  Here are six examples chosen from my current stock:

 

http://i.imgur.com/sZqCbdxl.jpg

 

They are from the following sets, left to right:  Chaos Space Marines, Space Marines Tactical Squad, Chaos Space Marine Bikes, CSM vehicle crew, CSM vehicle crew, Space Marine Commander.  The first two had topknots donated from Space Wolves, with some cleaning up yet to be done.  The helmets were chosen to match Blanche's illustration above.  I'm aiming for 11 models, and the remaining 5 heads have already been sourced.

 

Backpacks

 

As the rest of the Thunder Warrior will be cobbled together from unrelated bits, I wanted the backpack to at least be recognizable as power armour.  Not too recognizable, though, to set it apart from Mk II and later suits.  I settled on these leftover bits from the Legion Rapier kit.  They're Mk II/III backpacks, similar to the Heavy Weapon variant a bit of asymmetrical bulk.

 

http://i.imgur.com/IJ9Ml0el.jpg

 

I'm particularly pleased with the rearranged exhaust vents.  They make the pack seem more cumbersome and remind me of the nozzles of a Russian Soyuz rocket.  They also won't get in the way of any capes or pelts that I might add, and make room for additional equipment attachment points to either side.

 

Weapons

 

Keeping with the general wargear options for the Blackshields, I'll be giving my Thunder Warriors a mix of chain axes and bolt pistols, Pariah bolters, and two-handed chain blades.  Perhaps with one or two more specialized, esoteric weapons.  The chain weapons were relatively easy to sort out.  The bolt pistols and bolters proved to be a bit more difficult.

 

http://i.imgur.com/ulqpwokl.jpg

 

The bolter has always been a distinctly-Terran weapon compared the Martian volkite.  I wanted something heavy and brutalist, like the illustration above.  I considered the Phobos-pattern bolter, as it was the earliest and most primitive variant available in the 30K range.  I just couldn't get past the inherent anachronism - these bolters were hand-crafted by Mars to arm the Space Marines, but Mars wasn't at all in the picture during the Unification Wars.  I had to find something much older.

 

I dug through my bits box and found these pistols - modern bolt pistol included for comparison.  They're obviously Second Edition-era weapons, but I'm not sure if they're from the Space Marine, Imperial Guard or even the Space Ork line.  Whatever the case, they fit the bill for sidearms.

 

http://i.imgur.com/xQY0UCil.jpg

 

You'll have to wait a little while longer to find out what I sourced for full-sized boltguns!

CommodusXIII Veteran

CommodusXIII

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Heads (2)

 

Two more donors:

 

http://i.imgur.com/ARPfpkjl.jpg

 

Chaos Space Marine (left) and Death Guard upgrade kit (right).

 

Backpacks (2)

 

http://i.imgur.com/TH0nOlpl.jpg

 

Legion Rapier Crew (left), Mk II/III Heavy Weapon Marine (middle), and Mk III Techmarine (right).

 

Weapons (2)

 

http://i.imgur.com/pKd3tx4l.jpg?1

 

Turns out those pistols were from the 2E Space Ork sprue.  And here are my Unification War-era boltguns, repurposed from Gorkamorka.  They also came with some great pouches and stick grenades!

 

http://i.imgur.com/8G3Kn99l.jpg

 

I've also started collecting close combat weapons.  From left to right:  Cataphractii Terminator chainaxe, two Phobos-patter chainaxes, an Ashen Circle chainaxe, a MkII power gladius and Khârn's Cutter.

 

Now I just need some torsos and bases.  Baby, we've got a stew going.

CommodusXIII Veteran

CommodusXIII

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This is finally starting to look like a valid WIP thread and not just a picture of random bits!

 

Torsos

 

This was another bit that I tossed and turned a bit over.  I wanted something suitably-archaic, but close enough to power armour to see the resemblance to the later Astartes.  And, most importantly, I needed some kind of lightning bolt motif to remain true to the original models:

 

http://i.imgur.com/Ldp9Dh1.jpg

 

I flirted with repurposing the White Scars Mk II torsos from Forge World.  If I had gone with a different leg choice this would have been almost perfect.  Once I ventured down the true scale path, though, it became clear that I needed something a little beefier.  Keeping with my appropriation of Age of Sigmar bits, I settled on the chests of Stormcast Eternal Paladins.

 

http://i.imgur.com/UMkBf9Jl.jpg

 

It was all downhill from there.  Next, I had to find a solution to mounting the Mk III backpacks.  I had a lot of leftover Space Marine bits from various other projects, and a free Saturday morning to spend with my hobby knife set.  I found an efficient method for carving out the backpack mount from the rear torso bit:

 

http://i.imgur.com/Gtlxe1Kl.jpg

 

A little plastic glue, a little greenstuff and it blends in with the torso relatively well.

 

http://i.imgur.com/MIs2ofdl.jpg

 

I dry-fitted the legs, torso and backpack next to my hapless Mk III body to get a sense of how much larger these Thunder Warriors are going to be.  It turns out, quite a bit!  The backpack juts out a little farther than I would like, but once I add all of the extra equipment and other details it shouldn't seem so out of place.

 

http://i.imgur.com/TmiW2BOl.jpg

 

From the front, with one of the heads:

 

http://i.imgur.com/EBftpMxl.jpg

 

He has a bit of a Detroit lean going on, but that seems like a good place to take a break for now.  I spent the rest of the day dividing up bits to build the first half of the squad.  I've placed an order for bases, after which I can start the actual assembly.

CommodusXIII Veteran

CommodusXIII

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I briefly considered it, but all I see is a funny-looking Cadian helmet. I've seen some proof-of-concept examples of a Thunder Warrior helmet from Anvil Industries but it doesn't seem to have ever entered production.

 

At any rate, the non-Blanche Thunder Warriors have always seemed far too clean-cut to have been the barbarians that conquered Terra. Perhaps they're better examples to follow for the later and more noble proto-Astartes and pre-Great Crusade Legions.

CommodusXIII Veteran

CommodusXIII

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Watching this one with baited breath. Will some of them have cloaks at all?

You're getting ahead of me! tongue.png The Blanche illustrations all feature cloaks, and I've already decided to go with an over-the-shoulders style rather than the traditional cape that most Space Marines are modeled with. That should work to increase the bulk of the Thunder Warriors even more, while hiding some of the less-impressive parts of my work.

What I haven't decided is if I'll add them to every model, or just the officers. I think I'll tinker with a couple examples and see where that takes me.

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