Backgroung

Beware…the heresy here is the size of a Warp Rift – the Ocularis Terribus, to be precise. This list is based on the “Eye of Terror” campaign (2003) and the army is “the Lost and the Damned” (1500 points), so it’s not like things could go much better. Still, what you see here is my own EXTREME take, the most thematic and blasphemous version I could imagine: Thunder Warriors reborn or maybe never truly gone. Hard to say! There’s a 99% chance this triggers a Custodes response. I hope you’re not out hiking on Mount Ararat or something.

A desperate army of the truly desperate led by a bunch of Thunder Warriors, one sergeant and three rank-and-file. Super-soldiers, constantly degenerating…basically walking tumors with bulging biceps. Somehow, they survived the culling after the Unification Wars, drifting in shadows from the Imperium, as mercenaries, gladiators and test subjects. Oh yeah there are plenty of slowing therapies to make this even remotely believable: cybernetic replacement like the Adeptus Mechanicus, soul rejuvenation like the Dark Eldar or (more simply) the touch of Chaos. And yet, I don’t see them as truly corrupted…more like a dying faith still flickering in the dark, cursed and hunted, but not entirely gone.

The HQ is made entirely of “Thunder Warriors” using Lieutenants and Champions of Chaos profiles, stacked with upgrades to match the raw power of the first gene-enhanced warriors. So, Veteran Skills like Counter-attack and Furious Charge, Terminator Armour as a stand-in for Mark I Thunder Power Armour and Daemonic Gifts for their increased strength and toughness.

Everything else in the army becomes a series of attempts to recreate proto-soldiers. Whoops – Luna’s gene-labs are out of reach! Sometimes you get Mutants. Sometimes you overdo the macro-steroids and get Big Mutants. Sometimes… failure is absolute…and well…welcome, Chaos Spawn!

Instead of Obliterators (uhhh technovirus experiments), Khorne Berzerkers could have been an option too. Lore suggests that some World Eaters and figures like the Blackshield Endryd Haar, may have been Thunder Warriors, later reforged into Space Marines. The 30k budget version of the Rubicon Primaris. Anyway, there’s already way too much heresy going on. Let’s roll before a Guardian Spear interrupts the game.