Thunder Warriors
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The Thunder Warriors were the first soldiers of the man who eventually became the Emperor of Mankind. In many ways, they were the precursors to the Space Marines.
They were formed toward the end of the Age of Strife, when the Emperor judged that it was the right time to make his presence known. He needed some advantage over the warlords, barbarians, and other would-be world rulers, and so he created twenty regiments of genetically enhanced soldiers wearing simple powered armor. Because the Emperor's symbol at the time was a thunderbolt, and this symbol was prominently displayed on the chestplate of the armor, the armor came to be known as Thunder Armor and the warriors who wore said armor were called Thunder Warriors.
The Thunder Warriors were devastatingly effective and quickly became icons of the Emperor's armies; just the threat of the Thunder Warriors' arrival could convince a warlord to surrender, and those who refused quickly learned that the Thunder Warriors' reputation was not exaggerated. According to the fluff, they were even more physically powerful and ruthless than the Space Marines. Even more so than the Custodes.
And yet, for all their successes, the Thunder Warriors were not perfect; because the Emperor was busy running the Unification Wars, fending off attacks from his neighboring warlords, and lacking the resources and expertise of Mars, he and the few scientists he had working for him were forced to cut corners, and so the Thunder Warriors were all unstable in one way or another. None of them could be counted on to last long, as either their minds or bodies gave out at unpredictable intervals, and there wasn't yet the technology available to give them a lifespan longer than the average human's. This was suitable for fighting the barbarian human armies of the Age of Strife, but not for the long, star-spanning campaign of the Great Crusade that the Emperor set as his next goal, so as soon as he had enough territory to set up a secure laboratory and enough scientists to man it, he set to work on the next generation of warriors: the Primarchs. Some of their defects were intentional, as the harsh conditions of Terra meant they were were psychopaths that the Emperor did not want to use forever. They were not what he envisioned as the defenders of humanity, so he saw no great loss in giving them an expiration date and quietly slaughtered the few remaining once Tera was firmly in his hands. Ironically, if He had made a few more regiments, or at least kept the survivors, He may well have defeated the Machine Cult on Mars (who are behind everything and needed to die) and all the grimdark the Imperium now deals with would be at a minimum instead of up to eleven. Hind sight is twenty-twenty.
A couple of them managed to escape the cull and steal a Progenitor gland to extend their lifespans, and went into hiding on Terra. The questions of whether they're ever going to show up again or what exactly they were doing during the Horus Heresy are currently left up to people who care about them even less than the Emperor did. Or you can read The Outcast Dead, which won't give you any new information on what they're up to (it's their only appearance as actual characters, and it's the one in which they steal the Progenitor gland and then disappear into an ambiguous ending) but will give you a very solid look at what they're about.
Arik Taranis
The badass grandaddy of all Space Marines and Thunder Warriors. He should even make girlyman and Dante envious for his existence. He was known to win lots and lots of battles for the Emperor and even survived the last battle, where all his teammates were dead and he is the lone survivor. Unfortunately, the Emperor being a dick and all, decided to abandon the Thunder Warriors because they are not perfect and thus eliminated all of them, but Arik forgives Emps because he understands what his daddy trying to go for and that makes him a better man than that fascist immortal cave man.*BLAM*No man is better than the Emperor!!!! and Emperor is not cave man, he is our lord, our saviour!!!
Anyway, Arik would later hide among Terra's population with his large, obvious body and become the black mask/Kingpin of Terra. He would control criminals and heretics, making Adeptus Arbites rage quit, gaining more knowledge about extending his life span and space marine creation all while Emperor was busy having bro time with his new sons.
When heresy came, Arik managed to get a copy of Progenoid Glands and was able to extend his life and his surviving fellow comrades Dhakal gang Ghota, then the ending of Shaw Shanks Redemption happened and credit roll.
Despite GW haven't expend Arik's story after the Heresy, it is possible that Arik is now immortal, has out-lived the Emperor and he would be the new pimp master on Terra without those dick heads knowing, and he would buttsecks his only Thunder Warrior friend forever and live happily ever after until the hive fleet comes to nom Terra apart.
Encounter with the World Eaters War Hound
During the Great Crusade, there was a prison break where a group of renegade thunder warriors has broke free of the asteroid prison on Cerberus. The Emperor did not like that and sent an army of diet-world eater to crash their prison buttsecks party. Having bored themselves miam and killing prisoners not worthy for their challenge, they found themselves some Thunder Warriors group up in a defensive position. Instead of just showering bullets on the surviving Warriors, the diet-world eater prefer zerg rush because thats how they get shit done. But Thunder Warriors are basically the mini Primarch without the immortality, and they were able to claim 4 to 5 of marine kills in melee for each warrior. After 5 hours of carnage and RAEG of old vs new, some marines on the orbit got bored and decided to join the party, but the party was already done and left nothing but Thunder Warriors corpses and lots and lots of diet-world eaters corpses and a lot of blood.