Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-4851119-20140118095944/@comment-6078851-20140123141812

the thunder warriors were, in terms of physical ability, better than astartes. as for the comparitive intellect between the two that's kind of a moot issue - they only had one warzone to worry about, earth, and they were personally led by emps, so any major planning and execution of tactics would have been devised by him.

personally i doubt astartes are significantly, or any, smarter than the thunder warriors were, but astartes are far more psychlogically stable, mostly.