Yesterday the Warhammer-Community website released part 1 of their HH: Inferno previews. There was an interesting photo showing several Space Wolves dropships including a new/updated version of the Thunderhawk.



Article: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/01/31/first-look-at-inferno/



Battle Bunnies posted a detailed comparison with the former kit:

http://battlebunnies.blogspot.de/2017/01/could-this-be-plastic-thunderhawk.html




There is a good chance this could be a teaser for an upcoming product. Made in resin or even plastic.




Update #1

 zedmeister wrote:
Well...

More fuel for the fire and Forgeworld refusing to talk about said image!

Thunderhawk in plastic would be incredible. Not getting my hope up, though.

Looks like a CAD model in the pic - and given it's clearly been Photoshopped for cool, I wouldn't rule that out.

With the year of 40k's 30th anniversary and GW having bought new plastic production technology for larger kits ~2 years ago (see previous annual report) I think a plastic TH kit could actually come out in 2017

 Hanskrampf wrote:
Thunderhawk in plastic would be incredible. Not getting my hope up, though.

I agree completely - a plastic TH would be an automatic buy for me...but not holding my breath...

Also, I think this has already been (very briefly) discussed in the general FW N&R thread...

I disagree, given the sheer number of units that require either a miniature or an upgrade as their mini is so old, a thunderhawk seems like a massive waste of resources.

Joyboozer wrote:
I disagree, given the sheer number of units that require either a miniature or an upgrade as their mini is so old, a thunderhawk seems like a massive waste of resources.

Like that ever was an argument for GW. The amount of kits they pumped out the last 1,5 years that were compeletely new kits is massive, while we still have fugly Khorne Berserkers or named character miniatures from the early 90s.

Joyboozer wrote:
I disagree, given the sheer number of units that require either a miniature or an upgrade as their mini is so old, a thunderhawk seems like a massive waste of resources.

They have pretty much stopped producing upgraded kits. Well at least for anything but space marines that sell. Wouldn't surprise me if it's because they think existing kits remade don't sell enough since people wouldn't want to buy new versions of models they have.

Wouldn't surprise me if we never got new version of berserkers/ork boyz/IG. At best we might get new khorne themed special unit for CSM's but no berserkers.

It was brought up by Atia's War of Sigmar blog as well (posted by Bob), and they only report about stuff that is more than just some baseless speculation.

The other large kits like Stompa, the all-in-one-box-Shadowsword and Tesseract Vault have been released a while ago, 2013. So they had a lot of time to work on new super-heavy kits. Ishagu on B&C had rumored the possibility of a plastic Warhound.

GW could sell thousands of TH and other large plastic kits.

Yup.

They're an attractive proposition, and a single kit covers all Space Marines, so that's a very large potential market.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Looks like a CAD model in the pic - and given it's clearly been Photoshopped for cool, I wouldn't rule that out.

That was my first thought. Something does look a little off about it.

Well here's hoping

A plastic Thunderhawk would be awesome. Honestly, it is probably just a resin refresh like what was done for the Tau flyer. But if it is, indeed, a plastic GW Thunderhawk, I know of at least two sales that would be guaranteed. My Crimson Fists and my brother's Dark Angels would definitely be getting one.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
A plastic Thunderhawk would be awesome. Honestly, it is probably just a resin refresh like what was done for the Tau flyer. But if it is, indeed, a plastic GW Thunderhawk, I know of at least two sales that would be guaranteed. My Crimson Fists and my brother's Dark Angels would definitely be getting one.

Heresy. The new Barracuda design is radically different from the previous.

Cool looking display piece aside, do people think they have a spot in lists? I mean, I covet a plastic Thunderhawk as much as the next guy, but paying that many points for a flyer that starts in reserves seems a bit crazy. And that’s empty. Fill it up, and that’s most of your list.

There are already so many units that don't belong on the tabletop it really doesnt matter at this point. GW is not going to attempt to keep any sort of balance in game play, that has been relegated to the players for awhile now.

I do think a plastic Thunderhawk would sell. Particularly if it's priced anywhere under $200 - they'd sell them.

One thing I think would have been an interesting idea with things like the Thunderhawk...hybrid kits. It strikes me that laser-cut MDF kits combined with genuine resin bits would be an easy way to make a much cheaper/easier to assemble and less-heavy Thunderhawk.

While it wouldn't work for many things, I can't see too many pieces of the Thunderhawk (and similar super blocky designs) which couldn't benefit from large portions of precisely cute MDF --- then add all of the details/extras on as resin.

 Verviedi wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
A plastic Thunderhawk would be awesome. Honestly, it is probably just a resin refresh like what was done for the Tau flyer. But if it is, indeed, a plastic GW Thunderhawk, I know of at least two sales that would be guaranteed. My Crimson Fists and my brother's Dark Angels would definitely be getting one.

Heresy. The new Barracuda design is radically different from the previous.

Yes, but it is a Resin -> Resin refresh. GW did not release a plastic version of it. Radically different in terms of construction, sure. But the Thunderhawk appears to be quite different as well.

Years ago I had a chat with a GW employee (i.e. not a store manager), and the Thunderhawk came up. This person said it was feasible at that time, but the issue was that it'd tie up the machines for too long and mess up the production schedule. But now GW apparently has more capacity.

I agree that it looks like a CAD design. But then it also makes sense to me that they'd design the thing in CAD just so it's in their back pocket, and not necessarily because it's indicative of an imminent release.

As long as I get my freaking turbo-laser, I will be happy. Maybe they will give it a points cost as stupid as the Wraithknight so it will see play in regular games.

Squadrons of thunderhawks for 250 per hawk obviously. Comes with the turbolaser.

I think they've been successful enough with big plastic kits and maybe 3-4 years ago this wouldn't have been possible but maybe now there's a better chance. And by now they gotta know if they did make one, they'd most certainly sell a metric crapton of them. I'd certainly buy one just because, I don't even play marines, but I'd love to have one either way.

 Nevelon wrote:
Cool looking display piece aside, do people think they have a spot in lists? I mean, I covet a plastic Thunderhawk as much as the next guy, but paying that many points for a flyer that starts in reserves seems a bit crazy. And that’s empty. Fill it up, and that’s most of your list.

I'm 32 years old, I've got tens of thousands of points of models painted for both 40k and fantasy and I've played about three games, ever. Even if it doesn't have much practical utility GW would make one to sell as a collectors piece.

I've been expecting a plastic thunderhawk for years, its more a surprise its taken this long. Its an obvious winner.

Promethius wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
Cool looking display piece aside, do people think they have a spot in lists? I mean, I covet a plastic Thunderhawk as much as the next guy, but paying that many points for a flyer that starts in reserves seems a bit crazy. And that’s empty. Fill it up, and that’s most of your list.

I'm 32 years old, I've got tens of thousands of points of models painted for both 40k and fantasy and I've played about three games, ever. Even if it doesn't have much practical utility GW would make one to sell as a collectors piece.

I've been expecting a plastic thunderhawk for years, its more a surprise its taken this long. Its an obvious winner.

It’s value to collectors is obvious. It’s a classic, iconic, part of 40k. Anyone with a decent sized army on the shelf will want one just for looks. I’m right there with you on that.

I’ve got a reasonably tight hobby budget. For me, is it worth picking up something that I’ll never game with? The number of apoc sized games I’ve ever been part of can be counted on one hand, and I’ve been playing since the RT era. If I’m going to blow what amounts to most of a year’s worth of my budget on a centerpiece model, I’d like to have it see some play. Would a fellblade or a sparten from FW be a better use?

The Thunderhawk is so iconic, even if it’s hot garbage on the table, I still might pick one up. I’ve got a large enough collection to justify it as a centerpiece, and it’s something new. I’d rather dump cash on something I don’t have, then yet another copy of XX unit, even if I could use a couple more in my lists. It’s the balance of the gamer and the painter.

 Necros wrote:
I think they've been successful enough with big plastic kits and maybe 3-4 years ago this wouldn't have been possible but maybe now there's a better chance. And by now they gotta know if they did make one, they'd most certainly sell a metric crapton of them. I'd certainly buy one just because, I don't even play marines, but I'd love to have one either way.

I doubt they'd sell a "metric crapton" of thunderhawks. It's a massive model (WAY bigger than the current plastic kits, you can fit at least 4 baneblades in its shadow) that has 0 functional use on the battlefield due to the rules. Sure you'd have some people buy one but that's about it.

I think you underestimate Nerds

No, I know them pretty well. There is always way more talk about buying stuff then there is actual buying. Especially when you need someone to make your army better. Do you spend 300$ on a useless flyer or do you buy a Lord of Change and Magnus?

People bought tons of Knights because they use them on the battlefield. Otherwise you'd just buy 1 to paint. Obviously there are people that buy tons for no reason but those people are few.

Thunderhawk is a loss waiting to happen.

 Kirasu wrote:

 Necros wrote:
I think they've been successful enough with big plastic kits and maybe 3-4 years ago this wouldn't have been possible but maybe now there's a better chance. And by now they gotta know if they did make one, they'd most certainly sell a metric crapton of them. I'd certainly buy one just because, I don't even play marines, but I'd love to have one either way.

I doubt they'd sell a "metric crapton" of thunderhawks. It's a massive model (WAY bigger than the current plastic kits, you can fit at least 4 baneblades in its shadow) that has 0 functional use on the battlefield due to the rules. Sure you'd have some people buy one but that's about it.

Whats to stop GW from changing the rules and making them more common and easy to use on the table?

Because they've never made thunderhawk rules playable? I'd be careful with giving GW the ability to "fix bad units" since they have shown they either are incapable or unwilling.

Wasn't Smaug the #1 seller for GW recently? If that sold, I'm sure a Thunderhawk would do fine

 Kirasu wrote:
Because they've never made thunderhawk rules playable? I'd be careful with giving GW the ability to "fix bad units" since they have shown they either are incapable or unwilling.

Except this would be making GW plastic not FW resin more usable on the tabletop. You can't tell me that the criminally underpriced Wraithknight didn't happen so that more of the hem saw tabletop, thus increasing sales. Same goes for other big kits like the Riptide and Stormsurge. Perhaps we won't see the Thunderhawk under 500 pts, but don't count GW out for giving it a low points cost just to sell a $200 model.

When people saw the cover for this White Scars novel, they started "wishin' 'n' fishin'" too. They saw alternate vehicles and flyers, oh my! It's just art work, not concept art for a new mini, IMHO.

It's because modern GW only makes art of models. They view art as a marketing tool. As my GW manager says, loosely paraphrased.

When a customer looks at the art, and they like it, we can show them the models and tell them "look, you can make that exact guy in the art!" Customers get disappointed and tend to complain if they see something awesome in the art, and they can't replicate it as a model.

Verviedi wrote:It's because modern GW only makes art of models. They view art as a marketing tool. As my GW manager says, loosely paraphrased.

When a customer looks at the art, and they like it, we can show them the models and tell them "look, you can make that exact guy in the art!" Customers get disappointed and tend to complain if they see something awesome in the art, and they can't replicate it as a model.

Thing is, the "art" GW is using is crap. It's not that great. While now it's better, than what a year and half ago when Age of Sigmar started, the art is still not that great. It's good now, but nothing like the awesomeness they had in the codices around 5th edition and before.

The "art" they are using to show the multiple ways to colour in your troops/broods/gangs or what ever in the codices and battletomes are not really good on border line pathetic for a "premium" company. The art work is what Deviant Artwork the best and nothing that wants me to go out and buy minis and try and convert them into the artwork.

Maybe I am in the minority on thinking this, but using "art" as a tool I don't think is correct. Before GW used art as a tool. But with what 6th edition codices or is it 7th, instead of using art now to show the mini they are explaining, they are using actual pictures now. I wonder why they did that? Maybe because using amateur artists for cheap work doesn't inspire at all.

oh, then maybe not.. for some reason I was thinking a thunderhawk was more around the size of a baneblade or so. Still though, I wouldn't put it past them to try.. I do think it would sell really well. I imagine the knights sell good and they're a pretty huge kit. They have a giant lord of change coming out too. They're getting a lot better at producing big kits.

No way would I use it in game but boy what a display piece that would be, for me mostly because it used to be THE biggest, most expensive kit you could get, plus I think my dad would really like this one since he loved painting small scale planes back in the day.

I don't think it's anything but art.

If GW did release a plastic Thunderhawk I would grab one for my Deathwatch. Hell yeah. Get those boys traveling in style. I like the Corvus more, but a Thunderhawk looks cool too and has its mission uses.

 Gamgee wrote:
I don't think it's anything but art.

Most of us do, too. That doesn't prevent the fringe elements from coming unhinged and seeing things that just aren't there. After that, the fanboys begin to pile on and you have a "plastic thunderhawk" thread. Again.

I could be wrong but isn't this a stormbird?

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-IE/Space-Marine-Sokar-pattern-Stormbird

They are referring to the two flyers behind the Stormbird.

Plastic Thunderhawk: the white whale of 40k

Oh man... My effing wallet.... can't pass that up -

 BrookM wrote:
They are referring to the two flyers behind the Stormbird.

Actually, just the larger one behind the main stormbird. The smaller one that's more in the shadows is certainly another stormbird. The other one...

If I were a betting man, I'd say it's just a Forgeworld re-release of the Thunderhawk kit. It's a very old kit at this point (one of the original FW kits iirc) and from what I've heard, the molds are really showing their age.

That said, I wouldn't mind being wrong and finding a plastic T-hawk inbound!

Edit: looking closely at the image, it appears to me that the nose-mounted heavy bolter sponsons have an over/under layout like the old Thunderhawks --rather than the side-by-side configuration of the current FW kit. --Which is kind of a cool feature and might make the nose a little more sleek and streamlined on the new one if that's the case.

If it is a plastic T.Hawk(and that's a really big if) and not a new resin version or just art, then yeah cool. But If GW were going to do a FW SM specific super heavy in plastic I'd much prefer either the Fellblade or Spartan and there variants over a Thunderhawk.

Spartan isn't a super-heavy though.

Thunderhawk is far more iconic of space marines.

The reason people are worked up is because while gw often does art for covers, fw generally uses model pictures photos shopped into scenes.

Not to mention, with a bit of converting it can be an excellent dropship / transport for other factions and settings.

 Kirasu wrote:
Because they've never made thunderhawk rules playable? I'd be careful with giving GW the ability to "fix bad units" since they have shown they either are incapable or unwilling.

They are often quite willing and capable of giving good rules to units they want to sell a new model of.

 Rippy wrote:
Plastic Thunderhawk: the white whale of 40k

Actually, the fact that this thread is not drowned in sarcasm and snide remarks towards anyone who dare hope, just show how much has changed lately.

Can we get it?
Yes we can!

Not to mention, with a bit of converting it can be an excellent dropship / transport for other factions and settings.

I would certainly get one to turn it into a gun cutter for my inquisition and a second to turn into a Guard mini-dropship.

 BrookM wrote:
Not to mention, with a bit of converting it can be an excellent dropship / transport for other factions and settings.

Thunderhawk transporter return? Please? That thing was quite cheap and it could be used in a 30k orbital assault list to drop a Spartan in the middle of a surprised players backline

The thunderhawk transporter had even worse rules than the Gunship tho.. the core problem is the lack of understanding of how the damn game works.

Sure, the counter argument is "but....they could change it". Except they dont! The transporter has the same nonsensical rules for like 4 iterations now.

GoatboyBeta wrote:
If it is a plastic T.Hawk(and that's a really big if) and not a new resin version or just art, then yeah cool. But If GW were going to do a FW SM specific super heavy in plastic I'd much prefer either the Fellblade or Spartan and there variants over a Thunderhawk.

So...generic tank A and generic tank B instead of an iconic Space Marine dropship. Ok...

 BrookM wrote:
Not to mention, with a bit of converting it can be an excellent dropship / transport for other factions and settings.

The fun part about the Thunderhawk is you don't even have to go too far in terms of conversions.

You have Sororitas, Grey Knights, Deathwatch, all the Loyalist Marines, and the Traitor Marines who use it. Add in Inquisition and you have a pretty large pool of potential purchasers.

I believe a BoLS commenter said it best: The plastic Thunderhawk is the Half Life 3 of wargaming.

 MajorTom11 wrote:
Oh man... My effing wallet.... can't pass that up -

Current TH is what, £435? It will still be £350 model in plastic probably. So yea, dragon punch to your wallet.

Given Specialist Games are making plastic figures, could it be feasible that ForgeWorld produces their own plastic Thunderhawk?

The molds on it are pretty damn old now, and the kit isn't exactly user friendly. Even the bare resin Thunderhawk on display in the FW store at WHW doesn't look that great, and I got to see that in August.

I don't buy much anymore but I'd instantly purchase a plastic Thunderhawk.

Yeahhh, if it came out in plastic I'd definitely think about getting one if it looked cool enough.

The thing is, I was never very fond of the Forge World one. I found it a little plain for it's size. So if they do make a new kit, it's entirely up to the aesthetics as to whether or not I'd get one.

If this isn't true I may have to build a wooden one for my legion army.

Forge World isn't very fond of most of their large flyers either, they certainly said as much during the open day last year, seeing the Stormbird as the new way forward in terms of how to best do a large flyer.

 BrookM wrote:
Forge World isn't very fond of most of their large flyers either, they certainly said as much during the open day last year, seeing the Stormbird as the new way forward in terms of how to best do a large flyer.

I hope so, the Stormbird looks great, IMO, and is s huge step forward. Much more interesting to look at.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

GoatboyBeta wrote:
If it is a plastic T.Hawk(and that's a really big if) and not a new resin version or just art, then yeah cool. But If GW were going to do a FW SM specific super heavy in plastic I'd much prefer either the Fellblade or Spartan and there variants over a Thunderhawk.

So...generic tank A and generic tank B instead of an iconic Space Marine dropship. Ok...

*shrug* I'd get more use out of both of them then a Thunderhawk, aka generic overly long box with stubby wings A If a plastic version happens and the design is improved enough to appeal, I might get one to put on the shelf. But I doubt it would ever see the table top.

Yeah the Stormbird might be my favourite of the Thunderhawk line.

Also their new Tau flyers are simply fantastic.

If they are truly getting sick of all their old flyer models and they are updating the Tau flyers good chance we see a Manta or Manta offshoot and I'll buy that gak so hard lol. So if they update the Tau fully then look to see the better selling IoM flyers get redone.

My wallet and bank account will weep though.

Edit
Are Deathwatch allowed to take a Stormbird?

Edit2
Crazy idea. What if they made an AC-130 version of the Manta? Hahaha. All that dakka on point no matter how it turns while flying.

If they made it in plastic I would be tempted to get two. One for my 30k army and one for my 40k army.

It's probably just a refresh for the resin kit like the tau got. They did a bunch of new cad work for the storm bird, so they already had most the cad done for the thunder hawk already.

The Tau kit is not a refresh it changed the Barracuda and Tigershark a lot. They even renamed it to the Barracuda AX-2-5 to represent its a totally different upgraded model. No idea what the new Tigershark will be named.

A refresh is the exact same model brought back and FW recasts the old molds. An update of a unit is when they reshape it in design and then need a completely new mold made. Sure it looks similar to the old one, but uses a completely new mold. Google can find you old vs new cuda pics I'm sure.

 Gamgee wrote:
The Tau kit is not a refresh it changed the Barracuda and Tigershark a lot. They even renamed it to the Barracuda AX-2-5 to represent its a totally different upgraded model. No idea what the new Tigershark will be named.

A refresh is the exact same model brought back and FW recasts the old molds. An update of a unit is when they reshape it in design and then need a completely new mold made. Sure it looks similar to the old one, but uses a completely new mold. Google can find you old vs new cuda pics I'm sure.

It's referred to as a refresh because it is an update/refinement on the old design, not a completely new one. And The AX-5-2 datasheet allows them to add rules for the new model with it's alternate weapons loadout without invalidating the entry in IA3 2nd ed.

The new Tigershark will likely be the AX-1, maybe AX-1-1 and AX-1-2 for the two variants. I'd guess the basic Tigershark will be promoted to using the Riptide style Ion cannon to balance it more with the Railgun version, turret weapons will have the CIB option, and the drone bay may become an upgrade option for either build.


Back on topic of the Thunderhawk, it's on the cover as well:


Up top in the lightning. It appears to have a ventral fin, or possibly a lower part to the tail, in addition to the slightly downswept wings.

This is certainly a new Thunderhawk, but is it a plastic kit? -What I find interesting is the detailing that is different between this and the old Thunderhawk those portions clearly match up with the styling of the Sokar... this says to me what ever this new Thunderhawk is it was done either with the digital files used to create the Sokar or simply a conversion using parts from it... being either a FW model or something done with assets shared between the two studios. As much as I'm hoping it's plastic it could just as easily be a resin Heresy era Thunderhawk in the same way we have the smorgasbord of Land Raiders.

I also can't help but feel if they were doing a plastic Thunderhawk they'd have known for some time and would likely have held back on the Sokar to make use of plastic bits in the same way the Fellblade borrows sprues from the Baneblade kit.

 aka_mythos wrote:
This is certainly a new Thunderhawk, but is it a plastic kit? -What I find interesting is the detailing that is different between this and the old Thunderhawk those portions clearly match up with the styling of the Sokar... this says to me what ever this new Thunderhawk is it was done either with the digital files used to create the Sokar or simply a conversion using parts from it... being either a FW model or something done with assets shared between the two studios. As much as I'm hoping it's plastic it could just as easily be a resin Heresy era Thunderhawk in the same way we have the smorgasbord of Land Raiders.

I also can't help but feel if they were doing a plastic Thunderhawk they'd have known for some time and would likely have held back on the Sokar to make use of plastic bits in the same way the Fellblade borrows sprues from the Baneblade kit.

I would think that the size of the Sokar would make the use of plastic parts for any structural elements impractical. The Fire Raptor uses a handful of parts from the Storm Raven kit, namely the wings, cockpit hull part, and bits of the engines. As a result, the upper hull needs several additional parts to cover up the turret mount and rear intake slot from the storm raven, and the engine assemblies have to be designed to slot in the angled lip at the wing root of the plastic parts. For a much larger kit, it makes more sense to simply make more solid resin, especially if it would allow them to design the parts to fit together more specifically rather than have to compensate for plastic parts meant for slightly different use. And the Storm Bird looks like enough of a beast to build without making it a hybrid.

 BrookM wrote:
Forge World isn't very fond of most of their large flyers either, they certainly said as much during the open day last year, seeing the Stormbird as the new way forward in terms of how to best do a large flyer.

Any idea what they mean by "new way forward"? Were they talking about kit engineering and fixing some of the fit issues with the old Thunderhawk, or aesthetic changes? If it's the latter I can't see how the aesthetic changes with the Stormbird would apply to anything but space marine flyers. It wouldn't make any sense when talking about something like the Marauder or Manta.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 Kirasu wrote:
Because they've never made thunderhawk rules playable? I'd be careful with giving GW the ability to "fix bad units" since they have shown they either are incapable or unwilling.

Except this would be making GW plastic not FW resin more usable on the tabletop. You can't tell me that the criminally underpriced Wraithknight didn't happen so that more of the hem saw tabletop, thus increasing sales. Same goes for other big kits like the Riptide and Stormsurge. Perhaps we won't see the Thunderhawk under 500 pts, but don't count GW out for giving it a low points cost just to sell a $200 model.

Aa that's why dinobots, tau&dawfliers got so scrappy rules. Gw didn't want to sell new kit.

New unit getting deliberately broken rules is just urban myth

 MajorWesJanson wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
The Tau kit is not a refresh it changed the Barracuda and Tigershark a lot. They even renamed it to the Barracuda AX-2-5 to represent its a totally different upgraded model. No idea what the new Tigershark will be named.

A refresh is the exact same model brought back and FW recasts the old molds. An update of a unit is when they reshape it in design and then need a completely new mold made. Sure it looks similar to the old one, but uses a completely new mold. Google can find you old vs new cuda pics I'm sure.

It's referred to as a refresh because it is an update/refinement on the old design, not a completely new one. And The AX-5-2 datasheet allows them to add rules for the new model with it's alternate weapons loadout without invalidating the entry in IA3 2nd ed.

The new Tigershark will likely be the AX-1, maybe AX-1-1 and AX-1-2 for the two variants. I'd guess the basic Tigershark will be promoted to using the Riptide style Ion cannon to balance it more with the Railgun version, turret weapons will have the CIB option, and the drone bay may become an upgrade option for either build.


Back on topic of the Thunderhawk, it's on the cover as well:

Spoiler:

Up top in the lightning. It appears to have a ventral fin, or possibly a lower part to the tail, in addition to the slightly downswept wings.

If they do that then I sure hope the Tigershark is buffed because the old one is not very cost effective compared to Two Barracudas. The Tigershark since it doesn't seem to pack a lot of firepower for its high cost and low rate of fire. I hope the Tigershark 2 gets the Ta'unar railgun rule that lets them reroll the d roll and take the better roll.

Edit
Looking at the newest Tigershark rules. What a piece of junk. You can get Three AX-2-5's upgraded with the cyclic ion blasters for the price of one of these. Even adding in the railgun still gets you three of them. 555 points for 33 Str 7 shots vs 1 twin link dshot, 8 str 5 shot, 2 str 7, and a networked ML for 660 points! The cuda's have base BS5 vs ground targets anyways thanks to strafing run. The cuda's are all more survivable as a whole team as opposed to the gakky Tigershark. Even back in the day this thing looks like a piece of junk.

 MajorWesJanson wrote:

 aka_mythos wrote:
I also can't help but feel if they were doing a plastic Thunderhawk they'd have known for some time and would likely have held back on the Sokar to make use of plastic bits in the same way the Fellblade borrows sprues from the Baneblade kit.

I would think that the size of the Sokar would make the use of plastic parts for any structural elements impractical. The Fire Raptor uses a handful of parts from the Storm Raven kit, namely the wings, cockpit hull part, and bits of the engines. As a result, the upper hull needs several additional parts to cover up the turret mount and rear intake slot from the storm raven, and the engine assemblies have to be designed to slot in the angled lip at the wing root of the plastic parts. For a much larger kit, it makes more sense to simply make more solid resin, especially if it would allow them to design the parts to fit together more specifically rather than have to compensate for plastic parts meant for slightly different use. And the Storm Bird looks like enough of a beast to build without making it a hybrid.

There are elements of the Stormbird that are generally identical to the Thunderhawk; the engines are the same size there are just simply more of them... but structurally, the whole front cockpit section is identical in size; FW used the cockpit section from the Thunderhawk transporter with some modifications. If we imagine that section as plastic it isn't hard to imagine the simple addition of larger resin forward wings and a resin panel to cover the space for the front ramp. If there were a plastic Thunderhawk having just the necessary sprues along with resin cuts cost and reduces the weight in areas likely to seperate.

If anything I imagine that we may just be getting a tweaked resin Thunderhawk as the current one is pretty old. While I would love a plastic one (and would actually buy the thing) I don't think the first time it would be sneakily shown off would be in a FW book.

That being said, the launch of a new edition of 40K would be the absolute perfect time to release a model such as this...

Think it's more likely a variant for Sisters or Custodes ? There are differences in design but seems unlikely that they would want to show off the model on the cover of a forgeworld book. In the pic you've got another thunderhawk as well which is FW. The plastic alleged one has no weapons on pylons either, which to me further suggests a different type or variant - the other two appear to be escorts. As far as price v sales, we'll have you checked forgeworld stop sellers? Notice the warlord?

Another possible is a plastic kit to allow FW to knock out conversion kits.

 TwilightSparkles wrote:
Think it's more likely a variant for Sisters or Custodes?

If it's resin, I think it's highly unlikely to be a variant only available to Custodes or SoS just because that severely limits the appeal, which from a business perspective seems like a bad idea considering I'm sure you'd want a Thunderhawk to have as much universal appeal as possible. If it's a plastic kit, or a new resin kit that will be widely available to all marine factions, then I'd wager FW could conceivably create upgrade kits for it that would make it more faction-specific. But it's not their usual MO to release a big kit and also release faction-specific variants right off the bat. Usually the main kit is released first with a lot of fanfare and then the upgrade kits come out later.

Beyond all of that, I don't see anything in these small images that leads me to believe that it's anything other than a new generic Thunderhawk kit. It may not have under-wing weapons as standard with the new kit, so that may explain the lack of ordinance. If they do fully re-make the kit, I'd wager you'll have more weapon options for all the weapon points—like they did for the Barracuda—swap out the heavy bolters for lascannons? Who knows?

Last year they did say Specialist games and FW would now have the capacity to do plastics... we took it to mean things like Prospero Burns or the way they did Blood Bowl but maybe this there first big thing.

 aka_mythos wrote:
Last year they did say Specialist games and FW would now have the capacity to do plastics... we took it to mean things like Prospero Burns or the way they did Blood Bowl but maybe this there first big thing.

Darn it man, that's more hope than I need to have right now. My income has dropped to a quarter of what it was last year and the last thing I need right now is a plastic Thunderhawk sized itch to scratch.

I was really really laughing at this thread. The idea, or rumor, of a new Thunderhawk based off an artists rendition in a book, and in the background too! Geesh. However, I left my local GW last night, and take this with the biggest grain of salt, the manager (a friend of mine of 10 years now who just came back from London) said, his words - "There's something big landing this year! I can't tell you what it is, but it is the biggest plastic kit to date that Gw has done, it'll be limited to 2500 boxes worldwide, and be $649.99!" I hadn't even said anything to him about this (silly) rumor, and this drops on my ears. Could it really be a plastic TH? Or something else? Why, of all things, say "landing?" He dropped me hints for a few other things that were coming out months ago, and they did. (Death Watch for example). Weird...

krazynadechukr wrote:
I was really really laughing at this thread. The idea, or rumor, of a new Thunderhawk based off an artists rendition in a book, and in the background too! Geesh. However, I left my local GW last night, and take this with the biggest grain of salt, the manager (a friend of mine of 10 years now who just came back from London) said, his words - "There's something big landing this year! I can't tell you what it is, but it is the biggest plastic kit to date that Gw has done, it'll be limited to 2500 boxes worldwide, and be $649.99!" I hadn't even said anything to him about this (silly) rumor, and this drops on my ears. Could it really be a plastic TH? Or something else? Why, of all things, say "landing?" He dropped me hints for a few other things that were coming out months ago, and they did. (Death Watch for example). Weird...

FW Thunderhawk - $544.92
GW Thunderhawk - $649.99

I think the big grain of salt to which you refer is more like a bag of salt.

Truly a genius at work! Ah yes, let's make a several thousand Pound plastic kit limited, so they'll never recoup the investment made.

I just don't see a plastic Thunderhawk happening. I find it far more likely that FW is retiring the current mold and making a new refreshed Thunderhawk based on the Sokar CAD model.


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krazynadechukr wrote:
I was really really laughing at this thread. The idea, or rumor, of a new Thunderhawk based off an artists rendition in a book, and in the background too! Geesh. However, I left my local GW last night, and take this with the biggest grain of salt, the manager (a friend of mine of 10 years now who just came back from London) said, his words - "There's something big landing this year! I can't tell you what it is, but it is the biggest plastic kit to date that Gw has done, it'll be limited to 2500 boxes worldwide, and be $649.99!" I hadn't even said anything to him about this (silly) rumor, and this drops on my ears. Could it really be a plastic TH? Or something else? Why, of all things, say "landing?" He dropped me hints for a few other things that were coming out months ago, and they did. (Death Watch for example). Weird...

I can't believe this. Limited? That would be GW going from 0 to full retread at light speed.

krazynadechukr wrote:
I was really really laughing at this thread. The idea, or rumor, of a new Thunderhawk based off an artists rendition in a book, and in the background too! Geesh. However, I left my local GW last night, and take this with the biggest grain of salt, the manager (a friend of mine of 10 years now who just came back from London) said, his words - "There's something big landing this year! I can't tell you what it is, but it is the biggest plastic kit to date that Gw has done, it'll be limited to 2500 boxes worldwide, and be $649.99!" I hadn't even said anything to him about this (silly) rumor, and this drops on my ears. Could it really be a plastic TH? Or something else? Why, of all things, say "landing?" He dropped me hints for a few other things that were coming out months ago, and they did. (Death Watch for example). Weird...

All this salt has me retaining so much water my belt broke.

 oni wrote:
I just don't see a plastic Thunderhawk happening. I find it far more likely that FW is retiring the current mold and making a new refreshed Thunderhawk based on the Sokar CAD model.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

krazynadechukr wrote:
I was really really laughing at this thread. The idea, or rumor, of a new Thunderhawk based off an artists rendition in a book, and in the background too! Geesh. However, I left my local GW last night, and take this with the biggest grain of salt, the manager (a friend of mine of 10 years now who just came back from London) said, his words - "There's something big landing this year! I can't tell you what it is, but it is the biggest plastic kit to date that Gw has done, it'll be limited to 2500 boxes worldwide, and be $649.99!" I hadn't even said anything to him about this (silly) rumor, and this drops on my ears. Could it really be a plastic TH? Or something else? Why, of all things, say "landing?" He dropped me hints for a few other things that were coming out months ago, and they did. (Death Watch for example). Weird...

I can't believe this. Limited? That would be GW going from 0 to full retread at light speed.

Or making $1,625,000 at light speed with pre orders? Then releasing an unlimited, new FW, resin edition for less perhaps? I don't put anything past GW anymore...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Let's not forget Space Hulk... limited my


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The Plastic Thunderhawk has been (strongly) rumored since at least 2014. If GW made one it would not be an exact duplication of Forgeworld's kit due to the need to streamline for a limited number of sprues and boxing size limitations. Additional weapon hard points and weapon options would also be available compared to the Forgeworld kit most likely. Look for weapon hard points and options from other Space Marine flyer kits for possible clues. Multiple Thunderhawk variants probably could be built from the one kit. That's my guess if this is actually true.

Wonder what price they'd hit eBay for after the scampers buy all of them in the first 10 seconds .

Even as big as the Thunderhawk is it isn't so big as to cost $649 in plastic. Maybe its a Thunderhawk squadron boxset.. or some formation built around Thunderhawks.

This is my estimation based on a good number of years working with injection molding, designing and sourcing, and what I've come to expect and what I can infer looking at GW's large kits...

Take for instance the Baneblade, it uses 7 of the largest sprues to date... ~11"x17"... This gives GW's Baneblade kit molds a planar area of ~1100 in^2... but only about half that areas (550 in^2) is populated with parts the rest is used for gating and temperature regulation... The Thunderhawk is a box with wings, 17" wing span ~4.5 inches at the wides part of the wing... the hull is 19" long with a ~4.5" x 5" cross section at the largest portions... Given the wings thickness I'm counting it double... at this point we have a bounding surface area of ~650 in^2... even with all the weapons and facets, I don't see it adding more than 1/3 more surface area... at shy of 850 in^2 a Thunderhawk should fit on 11 sprues with a part density like the Baneblade kit. This assumes no significant interior structure or details and it assumes no major variants like the way the Shadowsword et al are part of the Baneblade kit.

In all likely hood given how much denser GW's been able to sprue their models in recent years they could probably pack the pieces more tightly than the Baneblade sprues, either cutting down the sprue count or adding more options.

Using a similar pricing scheme as the Baneblade (retail $140 for 7 sprues or $20/sprue) we'd be looking at between $200-220 for a kit this size. GW could always charge more, but this is a baseline based on what they've done.

 oni wrote:
I just don't see a plastic Thunderhawk happening. I find it far more likely that FW is retiring the current mold and making a new refreshed Thunderhawk based on the Sokar CAD model.

You raise a good point here.

Are there any examples of GW plastic models getting a sneak peek in FW publications? There may be...but I can't think of any. It seems more likely for FW to be giving a sneak peek of an upcoming FW project. Or for this to simply be some CAD art they did at some point and not a peek at a model release.

The plastic Valkyrie CAD was previewed well in advance in the Tactica Aeronautica (or was it the Aeronautica Imperialis book?) book.

I've been let down one to many times to put faith into yet another plastic Thunderhawk rumor let alone one that claims they'll be in limited supply. My ire for GW would be inconsolable if they finally released a plastic Thunderhawk and I didn't get one.

 BrookM wrote:
The plastic Valkyrie CAD was previewed well in advance in the Tactica Aeronautica (or was it the Aeronautica Imperialis book?) book.

On the other hand, the plastic Gorgon CAD was similarly previewed years ago and still hasn't been released, so seeing a CGI version of a new Thunderhawk design doesn't necessarily mean a new kit.

 aka_mythos wrote:
Even as big as the Thunderhawk is it isn't so big as to cost $649 in plastic. Maybe its a Thunderhawk squadron boxset.. or some formation built around Thunderhawks.

This is my estimation based on a good number of years working with injection molding, designing and sourcing, and what I've come to expect and what I can infer looking at GW's large kits...

Take for instance the Baneblade, it uses 7 of the largest sprues to date... ~11"x17"... This gives GW's Baneblade kit molds a planar area of ~1100 in^2... but only about half that areas (550 in^2) is populated with parts the rest is used for gating and temperature regulation... The Thunderhawk is a box with wings, 17" wing span ~4.5 inches at the wides part of the wing... the hull is 19" long with a ~4.5" x 5" cross section at the largest portions... Given the wings thickness I'm counting it double... at this point we have a bounding surface area of ~650 in^2... even with all the weapons and facets, I don't see it adding more than 1/3 more surface area... at shy of 850 in^2 a Thunderhawk should fit on 11 sprues with a part density like the Baneblade kit. This assumes no significant interior structure or details and it assumes no major variants like the way the Shadowsword et al are part of the Baneblade kit.

In all likely hood given how much denser GW's been able to sprue their models in recent years they could probably pack the pieces more tightly than the Baneblade sprues, either cutting down the sprue count or adding more options.

Using a similar pricing scheme as the Baneblade (retail $140 for 7 sprues or $20/sprue) we'd be looking at between $200-220 for a kit this size. GW could always charge more, but this is a baseline based on what they've done.

I like your reasoning, however, consider this -

Smaug, 42 piece miniature. Weighing 2.4kgs, the height of the miniature from the bottom of the base to the tip of Smaug’s™ wing is 8.4 inches (or 21.4 cm). The base is 9.2 inches (or 23.1 cm) long and 5.4 inches (or 13.3 cm) wide. $490.

Anyhoo, I still doubt that a CAD image, a background image at that, is anything to even potentially hope and reach for to back up a rumor of a new kit.

I have no doubt whatsoever that there has been a computer model of the Thunderhawk ready to go for plastic tooling for years now.
There are just too many reasons to not actually make it all this time.

And I don't see all of those reasons going away anytime soon. It's too big of a model. The only way I can see GW doing it that could somehow be even close to $250 would be to take the same route they did with the Aquila Strongpoint and make the core of the model a few giant, solid pieces of plastic (the body and wings) with several sprues of parts to tack onto them. It would be like the equivalent of the Aquila Strongpoint kit plus a Baneblade kit in parts and sprues.

GW could still surprise us all and actually do it, and it would be a very pleasant surprise to me (I'd buy at least one, possibly two). But it's not a surprise I'm going to hold my breath waiting for.

krazynadechukr wrote:

 aka_mythos wrote:
Even as big as the Thunderhawk is it isn't so big as to cost $649 in plastic. Maybe its a Thunderhawk squadron boxset.. or some formation built around Thunderhawks.

This is my estimation based on a good number of years working with injection molding, designing and sourcing, and what I've come to expect and what I can infer looking at GW's large kits...

Take for instance the Baneblade, it uses 7 of the largest sprues to date... ~11"x17"... This gives GW's Baneblade kit molds a planar area of ~1100 in^2... but only about half that areas (550 in^2) is populated with parts the rest is used for gating and temperature regulation... The Thunderhawk is a box with wings, 17" wing span ~4.5 inches at the wides part of the wing... the hull is 19" long with a ~4.5" x 5" cross section at the largest portions... Given the wings thickness I'm counting it double... at this point we have a bounding surface area of ~650 in^2... even with all the weapons and facets, I don't see it adding more than 1/3 more surface area... at shy of 850 in^2 a Thunderhawk should fit on 11 sprues with a part density like the Baneblade kit. This assumes no significant interior structure or details and it assumes no major variants like the way the Shadowsword et al are part of the Baneblade kit.

In all likely hood given how much denser GW's been able to sprue their models in recent years they could probably pack the pieces more tightly than the Baneblade sprues, either cutting down the sprue count or adding more options.

Using a similar pricing scheme as the Baneblade (retail $140 for 7 sprues or $20/sprue) we'd be looking at between $200-220 for a kit this size. GW could always charge more, but this is a baseline based on what they've done.

I like your reasoning, however, consider this -

Smaug, 42 piece miniature. Weighing 2.4kgs, the height of the miniature from the bottom of the base to the tip of Smaug’s™ wing is 8.4 inches (or 21.4 cm). The base is 9.2 inches (or 23.1 cm) long and 5.4 inches (or 13.3 cm) wide. $490.

Anyhoo, I still doubt that a CAD image, a background image at that, is anything to even potentially hope and reach for to back up a rumor of a new kit.

Smaug is a resin kit.

 Lockark wrote:

krazynadechukr wrote:

 aka_mythos wrote:
Even as big as the Thunderhawk is it isn't so big as to cost $649 in plastic. Maybe its a Thunderhawk squadron boxset.. or some formation built around Thunderhawks.

This is my estimation based on a good number of years working with injection molding, designing and sourcing, and what I've come to expect and what I can infer looking at GW's large kits...

Take for instance the Baneblade, it uses 7 of the largest sprues to date... ~11"x17"... This gives GW's Baneblade kit molds a planar area of ~1100 in^2... but only about half that areas (550 in^2) is populated with parts the rest is used for gating and temperature regulation... The Thunderhawk is a box with wings, 17" wing span ~4.5 inches at the wides part of the wing... the hull is 19" long with a ~4.5" x 5" cross section at the largest portions... Given the wings thickness I'm counting it double... at this point we have a bounding surface area of ~650 in^2... even with all the weapons and facets, I don't see it adding more than 1/3 more surface area... at shy of 850 in^2 a Thunderhawk should fit on 11 sprues with a part density like the Baneblade kit. This assumes no significant interior structure or details and it assumes no major variants like the way the Shadowsword et al are part of the Baneblade kit.

In all likely hood given how much denser GW's been able to sprue their models in recent years they could probably pack the pieces more tightly than the Baneblade sprues, either cutting down the sprue count or adding more options.

Using a similar pricing scheme as the Baneblade (retail $140 for 7 sprues or $20/sprue) we'd be looking at between $200-220 for a kit this size. GW could always charge more, but this is a baseline based on what they've done.

I like your reasoning, however, consider this -

Smaug, 42 piece miniature. Weighing 2.4kgs, the height of the miniature from the bottom of the base to the tip of Smaug’s™ wing is 8.4 inches (or 21.4 cm). The base is 9.2 inches (or 23.1 cm) long and 5.4 inches (or 13.3 cm) wide. $490.

Anyhoo, I still doubt that a CAD image, a background image at that, is anything to even potentially hope and reach for to back up a rumor of a new kit.

Smaug is a resin kit.

Fantastic! GW will never go below $550 (FW price) if they ever make a plastic &/or FW makes a new resin TH. Period. The stormbird is a friggin $940! Just saying. (This thread should be locked by now)

 aka_mythos wrote:
Even as big as the Thunderhawk is it isn't so big as to cost $649 in plastic. Maybe its a Thunderhawk squadron boxset.. or some formation built around Thunderhawks.

This is my estimation based on a good number of years working with injection molding, designing and sourcing, and what I've come to expect and what I can infer looking at GW's large kits...

Take for instance the Baneblade, it uses 7 of the largest sprues to date... ~11"x17"... This gives GW's Baneblade kit molds a planar area of ~1100 in^2... but only about half that areas (550 in^2) is populated with parts the rest is used for gating and temperature regulation... The Thunderhawk is a box with wings, 17" wing span ~4.5 inches at the wides part of the wing... the hull is 19" long with a ~4.5" x 5" cross section at the largest portions... Given the wings thickness I'm counting it double... at this point we have a bounding surface area of ~650 in^2... even with all the weapons and facets, I don't see it adding more than 1/3 more surface area... at shy of 850 in^2 a Thunderhawk should fit on 11 sprues with a part density like the Baneblade kit. This assumes no significant interior structure or details and it assumes no major variants like the way the Shadowsword et al are part of the Baneblade kit.

In all likely hood given how much denser GW's been able to sprue their models in recent years they could probably pack the pieces more tightly than the Baneblade sprues, either cutting down the sprue count or adding more options.

Using a similar pricing scheme as the Baneblade (retail $140 for 7 sprues or $20/sprue) we'd be looking at between $200-220 for a kit this size. GW could always charge more, but this is a baseline based on what they've done.

Just one point, wouldn't we assume that the interior is detailed and possibly two separate pieces as well? Don't doubt your numbers, but they would probably detail the hell out of the interior as well.

Also, don't think a baneblade released now would retail for $140, probably closer to $200 these days.

*edit* don't doubt your logic just thinking you may need to increase your surface area estimates.

 BrookM wrote:
Truly a genius at work! Ah yes, let's make a several thousand Pound plastic kit limited, so they'll never recoup the investment made.

It's like they don't want to make money...

 aka_mythos wrote:
Even as big as the Thunderhawk is it isn't so big as to cost $649 in plastic. Maybe its a Thunderhawk squadron boxset.. or some formation built around Thunderhawks.

This is my estimation based on a good number of years working with injection molding, designing and sourcing, and what I've come to expect and what I can infer looking at GW's large kits...

Take for instance the Baneblade, it uses 7 of the largest sprues to date... ~11"x17"... This gives GW's Baneblade kit molds a planar area of ~1100 in^2... but only about half that areas (550 in^2) is populated with parts the rest is used for gating and temperature regulation... The Thunderhawk is a box with wings, 17" wing span ~4.5 inches at the wides part of the wing... the hull is 19" long with a ~4.5" x 5" cross section at the largest portions... Given the wings thickness I'm counting it double... at this point we have a bounding surface area of ~650 in^2... even with all the weapons and facets, I don't see it adding more than 1/3 more surface area... at shy of 850 in^2 a Thunderhawk should fit on 11 sprues with a part density like the Baneblade kit. This assumes no significant interior structure or details and it assumes no major variants like the way the Shadowsword et al are part of the Baneblade kit.

In all likely hood given how much denser GW's been able to sprue their models in recent years they could probably pack the pieces more tightly than the Baneblade sprues, either cutting down the sprue count or adding more options.

Using a similar pricing scheme as the Baneblade (retail $140 for 7 sprues or $20/sprue) we'd be looking at between $200-220 for a kit this size. GW could always charge more, but this is a baseline based on what they've done.

Imperial Knight Gallant

3 sprues

$157

Smaug was resin and compared to FW Harridans and Thunderhawks was a pretty decent deal on the price. With a manufacturing meathod like injection molding surface area is good enough for a good estimate of cost however with resin casting its volume that affords a comparably worth while estimate.

 aka_mythos wrote:
Using a similar pricing scheme as the Baneblade (retail $140 for 7 sprues or $20/sprue) we'd be looking at between $200-220 for a kit this size. GW could always charge more, but this is a baseline based on what they've done.

Whilst your reasoning is sound, you've forgotten the "GW" of it all.

They'll price it at some stupid price, and us Aussies will have to pay fething double.

 aka_mythos wrote:
Smaug was resin and compared to FW Harridans and Thunderhawks was a pretty decent deal on the price. With a manufacturing meathod like injection molding surface area is good enough for a good estimate of cost however with resin casting its volume that affords a comparably worth while estimate.

Imperial Knight Gallant

3 sprues

$157

krazynadechukr wrote:


Imperial Knight Gallant

3 sprues

$157

Minor details, the Imperial Knight kit is technically 5x 8-1/2"x11" sprues and a base.

Imperial Knights Renegade: 9x Knight Sprues, 2x bases, 3x terrain sprues, and the game's contents for $200.

Simply put GW charges a higher premium on Knights than most of there other kits. Consider the Deathwatch Land Raider kit which has roughly the same amount of sprue in the kit as the Knight kit for half the price. Like I said in my estimate, that baseline is as the price relative to the Baneblade. That GW can always charge more, but that regardless of what they charge by that comparison it is a $200-$220 kit. GW can always charge more as that is their prerogative, but it doesn't alter the reality that they could sell it for that $200-$220 and still be as profitable per kit as the Baneblade.

Sometimes GW is kind and sometimes they are not.

 aka_mythos wrote:

krazynadechukr wrote:


Imperial Knight Gallant

3 sprues

$157

Minor details, the Imperial Knight kit is technically 5x 8-1/2"x11" sprues and a base.

Imperial Knights Renegade: 9x Knight Sprues, 2x bases, 3x terrain sprues, and the game's contents for $200.

Simply put GW charges a higher premium on Knights than most of there other kits. Consider the Deathwatch Land Raider kit which has roughly the same amount of sprue in the kit as the Knight kit for half the price. Like I said in my estimate, that baseline is as the price relative to the Baneblade. That GW can always charge more, but that regardless of what they charge by that comparison it is a $200-$220 kit. GW can always charge more as that is their prerogative, but it doesn't alter the reality that they could sell it for that $200-$220 and still be as profitable per kit as the Baneblade.

Sometimes GW is kind and sometimes they are not.

That's my point. anyone's mathematical calculation is irrelevant when it comes to GWs pricing logic. They come out with the most sought after model they'll go high.

There is what it "can" cost, which is anything, and there is what it "should" cost... GW's rationale is not always rational, so we can talk about the infinite possibilities of their irrationality or we can talk through it rationally and walk away with a clear sense of how unreasonable GW actually is if and when they release a plastic Thunderhawk.

If they do a plastic kit...$219.95.

 Verviedi wrote:
It's because modern GW only makes art of models. They view art as a marketing tool. As my GW manager says, loosely paraphrased.

When a customer looks at the art, and they like it, we can show them the models and tell them "look, you can make that exact guy in the art!" Customers get disappointed and tend to complain if they see something awesome in the art, and they can't replicate it as a model.

What a load of rubbish.

With that attitude, we'd never have gotten many of the amazing 2nd ed codex covers, at least half of all the incredible pieces by artists like Wayne England and Adrian Smith would have never seen the light of day, and classic productions like the Mordheim rulebook with its mental margin art would never have happened.

It's sentiments like that which make me hesitant to fully get behind GW again despite all the little positive moves they've been making recently, because they illustrate that the underlying attitudes at the company probably haven't actually moved on all that much from those that originally saw them focus on churn & burn rather than customer retention.

 silent25 wrote:

 aka_mythos wrote:
Even as big as the Thunderhawk is it isn't so big as to cost $649 in plastic. Maybe its a Thunderhawk squadron boxset.. or some formation built around Thunderhawks.

This is my estimation based on a good number of years working with injection molding, designing and sourcing, and what I've come to expect and what I can infer looking at GW's large kits...

Take for instance the Baneblade, it uses 7 of the largest sprues to date... ~11"x17"... This gives GW's Baneblade kit molds a planar area of ~1100 in^2... but only about half that areas (550 in^2) is populated with parts the rest is used for gating and temperature regulation... The Thunderhawk is a box with wings, 17" wing span ~4.5 inches at the wides part of the wing... the hull is 19" long with a ~4.5" x 5" cross section at the largest portions... Given the wings thickness I'm counting it double... at this point we have a bounding surface area of ~650 in^2... even with all the weapons and facets, I don't see it adding more than 1/3 more surface area... at shy of 850 in^2 a Thunderhawk should fit on 11 sprues with a part density like the Baneblade kit. This assumes no significant interior structure or details and it assumes no major variants like the way the Shadowsword et al are part of the Baneblade kit.

In all likely hood given how much denser GW's been able to sprue their models in recent years they could probably pack the pieces more tightly than the Baneblade sprues, either cutting down the sprue count or adding more options.

Using a similar pricing scheme as the Baneblade (retail $140 for 7 sprues or $20/sprue) we'd be looking at between $200-220 for a kit this size. GW could always charge more, but this is a baseline based on what they've done.

Just one point, wouldn't we assume that the interior is detailed and possibly two separate pieces as well? Don't doubt your numbers, but they would probably detail the hell out of the interior as well.

Also, don't think a baneblade released now would retail for $140, probably closer to $200 these days.

*edit* don't doubt your logic just thinking you may need to increase your surface area estimates.

Depending on the design, and how the parts are cut, there is enough bilateral symetry that they could do 1-2 duplicate sprues. I can think of several ways to make both wings and side engines work using the same parts duplicated twice, the attack wings are ridiculously easy to design to work for either side, parts of the main hull could also be cut in a way that they use duplicate parts.

 Yodhrin wrote:
What a load of rubbish.

It's not though, or at least it isn't now.

It's a more recent trend. GW artwork is starting to only be of the miniatures. It was really obvious with the latest Tzeentch release.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
It's not though, or at least it isn't now.

It's a more recent trend. GW artwork is starting to only be of the miniatures. It was really obvious with the latest Tzeentch release.

I think the point there is that GW's attitude is a load of rubbish, not that the comment that GW only uses model photographs was rubbish. And it's obviously true, the fluff would be a lot less interesting if you take away all the art that has been produced over the years and replace it with nothing more than catalog pictures borrowed from their online store.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

krazynadechukr wrote:
They come out with the most sought after model they'll go high.

I think you're overstating the desire for the plastic Thunderhawk a bit. Yeah, a lot of people say they like the idea, but how many people are going to spend hundreds of dollars on a model that is too big to use in a normal game? Baneblade-size models are bad enough as it is, trying to use a Thunderhawk model in a game is a nightmare. I love my Marauder, but it is not in any way a practical gaming piece. So the primary market for a plastic Thunderhawk is the dedicated collectors who will buy expensive models just to admire them on their display shelf, but how many of those people haven't already bought the resin Thunderhawk? Finding enough buyers for the new kit is going to be hard enough at a semi-reasonable price, if GW makes it really expensive because "OMG PLASTIC THUNDERHAWK SPACE MARINES ARE THE BESTEST" most of them are just going to collect dust on the shelf.

Lot of these arguments are similar to the "GW will never do plastic heresy models" arguments of a couple of years ago.

I'm still not convinced this is a thing, for reasons I've already said, but if it was then it would sell. Bigger and fewer games is a common thing now, Forgeworld could make tons of add ons, it's as energy piece as well, plus a lot of people are not so much put off by the price of the FW thunder hawk but by the thought of assembling it.

Bear in mind the model originally began years ago as a metal limited edition in a wooden case that cost more than the average PC and basically required massive skills to even get together , and had no rules either. And sold out.

 TwilightSparkles wrote:
plus a lot of people are not so much put off by the price of the FW thunder hawk but by the thought of assembling it.

This. I have a Warlord, Reaver, and 2 Warhounds. I know how old the Thunderhawk design is, and have no intention of building one myself. If they make a new one, I will buy that one. If it is a new FW resin, I'll save up and get it. If it is GW plastic, I will likely get 2 instead- one for my 40K chapter, and one for 30K ultramarines.

 Peregrine wrote:


I think you're overstating the desire for the plastic Thunderhawk a bit. Yeah, a lot of people say they like the idea, but how many people are going to spend hundreds of dollars on a model that is too big to use in a normal game? .

Sorry, Peregrine, but I have to disagree here - I think a lot of customers would shell out for what is, after all, an icon of GW's best-selling range of sci-fi miniatures.

I mean, impracticality isn't the barrier to sales that it might have been once. Look at the sales for the Warlord Titan...440 at least, and probably a lot more by now...

I suppose time will tell, but I just hope GW does come to the party one day.

I've always said that I'd buy two, one to build and use, the other to build and put in a big plastic bag (thanks Kyoto!) and throw off my friend's third story balcony a few times.

Why? To break it up naturally to make crashed Thunderhawk terrain set!

I just hope that it comes with a good flying stand or the like.

 BrookM wrote:
I just hope that it comes with a good flying stand or the like.

I just hope that it comes at all!!!

 Padre wrote:
I mean, impracticality isn't the barrier to sales that it might have been once. Look at the sales for the Warlord Titan...440 at least, and probably a lot more by now...

Two things on this:

1) The Warlord is considerably more practical than the Thunderhawk. Yeah, it's big, but all you have to do is put it in the corner and shoot stuff. But superheavy flyers are just terrible from a practicality point of view. I own a Marauder and I'd barely consider it a viable gaming model. Transporting it to a game requires its own special box which is larger than the cases some people use for their entire armies. It requires its own huge (and heavy) base to have any kind of stability, and it has to be perfectly flat on the table or it's going to fall over and break. Because of this it's virtually impossible to move it around the table without resorting to "just pretend it's over there", but because it's a flyer you have to move it every turn. And the Thunderhawk is (IIRC) somewhat larger than the Marauder, so all these problems only get worse. GW's best hope is that most people don't understand what they're getting into until they've bought the Thunderhawk kit and it's too late to back out.

2) The Warlord never had a model. If you wanted one you had to build it yourself, and virtually all of the "scratchbuilds" were trash. When an official model finally arrived it got the benefit of the full built-up demand from people with lots of money to spend and a desperate need for a Warlord titan. The Thunderhawk, on the other hand, doesn't have that advantage. There's been a model available for years for anyone who wants to buy one, and a lot of people have bought them. That initial built-up demand was satisfied a long time ago and all that's left is a handful of people stubbornly refusing to deal with resin.

So, of course it's going to sell some copies, but I don't think it's going to be a game-changing event for GW. If they're smart they'll consider it a nice bonus that maybe should be done someday if everything lines up right, and I suspect that's why we haven't seen a plastic Thunderhawk yet.

If they make one in plastic and it costs $350 or less I'm buying one for my Grey Knights army.

I have MANY armies. I generally have two rules for all my armies. They must all be over 3000 points, and they must all contain a flier and a super heavy.

If a thunderhawk actually happens and it's in plastic I will be getting at least three (Space Wolves, Grey Knights, Dark Angels)

 Peregrine wrote:

 Padre wrote:
I mean, impracticality isn't the barrier to sales that it might have been once. Look at the sales for the Warlord Titan...440 at least, and probably a lot more by now...

Two things on this:

1) The Warlord is considerably more practical than the Thunderhawk. Yeah, it's big, but all you have to do is put it in the corner and shoot stuff. But superheavy flyers are just terrible from a practicality point of view. I own a Marauder and I'd barely consider it a viable gaming model. Transporting it to a game requires its own special box which is larger than the cases some people use for their entire armies. It requires its own huge (and heavy) base to have any kind of stability, and it has to be perfectly flat on the table or it's going to fall over and break. Because of this it's virtually impossible to move it around the table without resorting to "just pretend it's over there", but because it's a flyer you have to move it every turn. And the Thunderhawk is (IIRC) somewhat larger than the Marauder, so all these problems only get worse. GW's best hope is that most people don't understand what they're getting into until they've bought the Thunderhawk kit and it's too late to back out.

2) The Warlord never had a model. If you wanted one you had to build it yourself, and virtually all of the "scratchbuilds" were trash. When an official model finally arrived it got the benefit of the full built-up demand from people with lots of money to spend and a desperate need for a Warlord titan. The Thunderhawk, on the other hand, doesn't have that advantage. There's been a model available for years for anyone who wants to buy one, and a lot of people have bought them. That initial built-up demand was satisfied a long time ago and all that's left is a handful of people stubbornly refusing to deal with resin.

So, of course it's going to sell some copies, but I don't think it's going to be a game-changing event for GW. If they're smart they'll consider it a nice bonus that maybe should be done someday if everything lines up right, and I suspect that's why we haven't seen a plastic Thunderhawk yet.

I completely agree. I bought my Thunderhawk when it first came out, I enjoyed building and painting it, but I have only used it as a gaming piece a handful of time since then as it requires a large board without scenery if you plan on using it as a flyer, it simply takes up far too much room. Mine has a footprint of approx 18" * 19", that is most of a realm of battle tile.

I have used my Titans far more than I have ever used my Thunderhawk just because they take up less space on the table making them less painful to game with. I would much rather see a plastic Warhound than a plastic Thunderhawk as you would see far more of the Warhounds in games.

I really hope if they do push ahead with the Thunderhawk they make a smaller variant for the plastic kit.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
What a load of rubbish.

It's not though, or at least it isn't now.

It's a more recent trend. GW artwork is starting to only be of the miniatures. It was really obvious with the latest Tzeentch release.

I meant the idea - I know it's happening, but it's stupid, hence the comments that followed.

 Looky Likey wrote:
I would much rather see a plastic Warhound than a plastic Thunderhawk as you would see far more of the Warhounds in games.

Well, I could cheerfully live with that alternative too!

 BrookM wrote:
Truly a genius at work! Ah yes, let's make a several thousand Pound plastic kit limited, so they'll never recoup the investment made.

How expensive kit to do is that 1.6 millions in sales doesn't give profit?

 Peregrine wrote:

 Padre wrote:
I mean, impracticality isn't the barrier to sales that it might have been once. Look at the sales for the Warlord Titan...440 at least, and probably a lot more by now...

Two things on this:

1) The Warlord is considerably more practical than the Thunderhawk. Yeah, it's big, but all you have to do is put it in the corner and shoot stuff. But superheavy flyers are just terrible from a practicality point of view. I own a Marauder and I'd barely consider it a viable gaming model. Transporting it to a game requires its own special box which is larger than the cases some people use for their entire armies. It requires its own huge (and heavy) base to have any kind of stability, and it has to be perfectly flat on the table or it's going to fall over and break. Because of this it's virtually impossible to move it around the table without resorting to "just pretend it's over there", but because it's a flyer you have to move it every turn. And the Thunderhawk is (IIRC) somewhat larger than the Marauder, so all these problems only get worse. GW's best hope is that most people don't understand what they're getting into until they've bought the Thunderhawk kit and it's too late to back out.

2) The Warlord never had a model. If you wanted one you had to build it yourself, and virtually all of the "scratchbuilds" were trash. When an official model finally arrived it got the benefit of the full built-up demand from people with lots of money to spend and a desperate need for a Warlord titan. The Thunderhawk, on the other hand, doesn't have that advantage. There's been a model available for years for anyone who wants to buy one, and a lot of people have bought them. That initial built-up demand was satisfied a long time ago and all that's left is a handful of people stubbornly refusing to deal with resin.

So, of course it's going to sell some copies, but I don't think it's going to be a game-changing event for GW. If they're smart they'll consider it a nice bonus that maybe should be done someday if everything lines up right, and I suspect that's why we haven't seen a plastic Thunderhawk yet.

Well if it's plastic it's probably going to be a lot lighter. Also if people break away from their fascination with light weight oval bases you can get better stability with a V shaped or tripod base that isn't really any larger than, say, an IK base. You can even go for something like a cast metal base like historic modellers sometimes use, the base is heavier than the model so it can be smaller without being at risk of toppling.

I think a plastic Thunderhawk would sell quite a few kits. If they price it at about $300 or less I'm sure a lot of people would buy it mostly for display and occasional gaming. I'm sure there's still a lot of people who are put off by both the resin and the price tag of the FW kit.

tneva82 wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
Truly a genius at work! Ah yes, let's make a several thousand Pound plastic kit limited, so they'll never recoup the investment made.

How expensive kit to do is that 1.6 millions in sales doesn't give profit?

In general, once you factor in overhead cost, something like this has to make 300% of what it cost in revenue be profitable. This kit will need to be 10-11 large baneblade sized sprues... each of those molds even if made with relatively cheap aluminum instead of steal will cost ~$40k per mold... so not counting overhead, not counting the modeling time of designers, not counting the time to setup the molding machine, and not counting the material, labor, and fallout in manufacturing the kits, cost to package and warehouse... it'll already cost $440,000 for all the molds before that.

So IF GW's expenses for all those other costs exceeds $94,000 the Thunderhawk is not profitable at a $649.99 price point selling only 2500 kits.

Those 2500 kits, having 27500 sprues... even in China with a lot of cut corners the price per sprue would come in at $1.50-1.75... which is about half that remaining cost limit.

$45,000 balance. The cost to employer of a minimum wage employee, per year in the U.K. is £46000. I'd like to believe GW on average across different tiers of seniority, that they compensates their skilled labor better than that. Let's say it averages out to 1.5 times minimum... £58500 or $72000. This normalizes the labor, design, marketing overhead down to a hypothetical individual. So if you imagine this one average person doing all the work by themselves they'd have to complete it in 7.5 months to be profitable... realistically it's minimally a team of 3... which gives them 2.5 months to complete start to finish. This isn't outside the realm of possibility, but with how these numbers come out it points to one conclusion IF the Thunderhawk is profitable at a $649.99 price point it's just barely. This indicates that while the price is profit driven, the choice to make only 2500 was not.

So why 2500... my guess is that this is the number of this kit that fit into a standard production run. Dedicate one machine for this job, run it for a a block of time and it yield 2500 kits plus a few more for studio and marketing.

Thank you!

I remember from back in the day that a GW rep told us that the plastic Land Raider kit (current design, not the old one from the RT era) was such an investment for GW at the time that it took them several years to recoup the investment put into the whole process, from design to mold making.

Your welcome.

At $649.99 price point it's about recouping those costs all at once instead of over time. If they treated this like the baneblade, it could be profitable at $220 a kit, but they'd have to sell 10k+ units... I think they could, but my guess is that the manufacturing capacity that would be used and warehousing costs for such a large kit probably make them feel nervous about holding that kind of inventory for the time it'd take to sell 10k+.

Someone earlier on drew the comparison of this possible price to the forgeworld resin kit... and this is a perfect example of how production volume is everything. Simple put purely from a financial side this isn't a smart choice to manufacture so few of something in plastic.

 aka_mythos wrote:
Your welcome.

At $649.99 price point it's about recouping those costs all at once instead of over time. If they treated this like the baneblade, it could be profitable at $220 a kit, but they'd have to sell 10k+ units... I think they could, but my guess is that the manufacturing capacity that would be used and warehousing costs for such a large kit probably make them feel nervous about holding that kind of inventory for the time it'd take to sell 10k+.

Someone earlier on drew the comparison of this possible price to the forgeworld resin kit... and this is a perfect example of how production volume is everything. Simple put purely from a financial side this isn't a smart choice to manufacture so few of something in plastic.

I just can't believe them doing Thunderhawks as a short run kit, and I especially can't believe them doing it over $400.

Especially given that the Thunderhawk, as a kit, is something that could easily be fielded by 7 6 different armies.
Sisters of Battle, Space Marines, Grey Knights, Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Chaos Space Marines.

That's a rather large player base to pull from.


Edit note:
Fixed the numbers. Thought SoB had Thunderhawks. My bad.

Since when do Sisters have the Thunderhawk? Is there a source for this?

 BrookM wrote:
Since when do Sisters have the Thunderhawk? Is there a source for this?

That's my bad. I thought I remembered them having access to Thunderhawks from the old IA2(the only version of it I own).

Still, 6 armies for 1 kit isn't bad.

That's why I think this rumoured choice is at least partially driven by manufacturing capacity and an unwillingness to hold enough in inventory. Keep in mind that last year GW completed a change in their inventory management regimen so they could convert warehouse space to the manufacturing space to support Specialist Games and FW with plastic kits but the consequence is that they can only keep on hand so much and they are forced to run many more smaller production runs. A Thunderhawk even limited in volume is never a "small" production run... making a Thunderhawk means not making 12 times as many tactical marine squads. GW's decision markers have always been reluctant to commit to new product without sales data to back it up. The sales data GW is looking at is probably the data that says FW has only sold ~2000 Thunderhawks ever.

 aka_mythos wrote:
That's why I think this rumoured choice is at least partially driven by manufacturing capacity and an unwillingness to hold enough in inventory. Keep in mind that last year GW completed a change in their inventory management regimen so they could convert warehouse space to the manufacturing space to support Specialist Games and FW with plastic kits but the consequence is that they can only keep on hand so much and they are forced to run many more smaller production runs. A Thunderhawk even limited in volume is not a "small" production run... making a Thunderhawk means not making 12 times as many tactical marine squads. GW's decision markers have always been reluctant to commit to new product without sales data to back it up. The sales data GW is looking at is probably the data that says FW has only sold ~2000 Thunderhawks ever.

The problem with that is there has always been certain big ticket items from FW that aren't actually stored/warehoused. They're cast to order. Thunderhawks, Mantas, the Fortress Walls, things like that.

Indeed, the really big stuff, aside from the very popular Warlord and its smaller cousins, are made to order, though it will specifically say so on the FW site.

What you're saying is actually the reason to make the decision GW did... GW would have to warehouse what FW never did. FW has sold relatively few. Why should GW make so many more that they think they can sell? GW is at least confident enough to say they can sell in month what's taken FW years to sell.

I know and you know GW could sell enough, but GW doesn't think it can. They have consistently been selling out of new releases... GW has clearly underestimated the demand for their plastic kits.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
Since when do Sisters have the Thunderhawk? Is there a source for this?

That's my bad. I thought I remembered them having access to Thunderhawks from the old IA2(the only version of it I own).

Still, 6 armies for 1 kit isn't bad.

No harm done. Who knows, maybe they'll get access to it down the line, to even further market the kit to as many factions as possible.

But like I said before, if this happens, I so want one for my Solar Auxilia as a dropship of sorts.

Battle Bunnies will report from the HH event this weekend and if it will be something like a re-designed resin kit from FW we could know soon. Thanks for the numbers, Mythos, really interesting and it puts things into perspective.

 aka_mythos wrote:
What you're saying is actually the reason to make the decision GW did... GW would have to warehouse what FW never did. FW has sold relatively few. Why should GW make so many more that they think they can sell? GW is at least confident enough to say they can sell in month what's taken FW years to sell.

I know and you know GW could sell enough, but GW doesn't think it can. They have consistently been selling out of new releases... GW has clearly underestimated the demand for their plastic kits.

That's the rub though. They've been selling out of new releases(and actually, not as consistently as you're making it out to be. It took a week for the Triumvirate to sell out, the Disciples of Tzeentch stuff didn't sell out instantly, etc etc)...but they have also immediately been doing follow-up runs.

And again, there's no real evidence that this "decision" was actually made. We have one person saying $649 Thunderhawks and limited run.

If anything, if this ever happens at all, they'll limit the production run (say like 25,000 - 30,000 or so models) in order to make it profitable and and price it, I'd say, at a minimum of 299.99 and not a penny under (that's wishful thinking), but more likely $399.99+. You can do all your fancy cost/profit calculation matrix's if you'd like, but GW is an unstable pricing beast and logic doesn't figure in with them sometimes. When you have an Imperial Knight with 3 sprues priced at $157+ and your talking about a kit with at least 10X & double the size sprues, and thinking GW will price it at $200 or even $250 you're fooling yourself. IMHO... Don't get me wrong, I'd love a $200 kit for sure.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 aka_mythos wrote:
What you're saying is actually the reason to make the decision GW did... GW would have to warehouse what FW never did. FW has sold relatively few. Why should GW make so many more that they think they can sell? GW is at least confident enough to say they can sell in month what's taken FW years to sell.

I know and you know GW could sell enough, but GW doesn't think it can. They have consistently been selling out of new releases... GW has clearly underestimated the demand for their plastic kits.

That's the rub though. They've been selling out of new releases(and actually, not as consistently as you're making it out to be. It took a week for the Triumvirate to sell out, the Disciples of Tzeentch stuff didn't sell out instantly, etc etc)...but they have also immediately been doing follow-up runs.

And again, there's no real evidence that this "decision" was actually made. We have one person saying $649 Thunderhawks and limited run.

I wasn't trying to say it had been made. I was just giving a break down to say its not an unrealistic price for an unusually small number of kits. I think its crazy if it is the decision they've made and represents a misappropriation of resources.

I also said the concern with such a kit like a Thunderhawk could very well be a production capacity and warehouse limitation. Even 2500 thunderhawks will displace the creation and storage of 25,000 Tactical Marine sized kits. Its a lot of alternative cost risk, and GW is very risk adverse.

As far as selling out and warehousing product go, GW's old practice was to create enough product to last it about 3 years and warehouse it indefinitely. Where they would sometimes end up sitting on kits for a lot longer. Now they create enough product to last them 3 months, where by their book keeping the profitability of an individual model kit is determined by those peak sales in that first 3 months. If they sell out in the first 3 months of a product's release its a success. If it takes longer they just break even or write it off. There was some blog post by a GW designer on their private blog that said as much in explaining the decision making process of revisting certain kits. GW's shift comes from the realization that they were seeing 50% of all the sales of a given kit occur in the first 3 months after its release and so everything about their marketing, budgeting, planning, and now inventory is built around this time frame. So when they underestimate demand we reach that point too soon.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

krazynadechukr wrote:
When you have an Imperial Knight with 3 sprues priced at $157+ and your talking about a kit with at least 10X & double the size sprues, and thinking GW will price it at $200 or even $250 you're fooling yourself. IMHO... Don't get me wrong, I'd love a $200 kit for sure.

Like I said my breakdown was based on what we get in the Baneblade kit. Proportional to the Baneblade kit $200-$220 is appropriate. That analysis was meant mostly to establish a grounded baseline of what we should expect.

The Renegade Knights game gives you an equivalent of 6 baneblade sized sprues for $200, as opposed to the 7 for $140 the Baneblade kit gives us. Based on that game we'd expect between $330-$360; based on the Knight kit alone it comes to $660.

All three a reasonable estimations of what it could cost and mine isn't anymore right or wrong than the others. I was just saying that at $200-$220 its just as profitable as a Baneblade, assuming they sell a comparable volume.

The $660 is close to the rumored price. If they did that it'd have to be out the sort of necessity of recouping the cost quickly, such as that very limited run.

$660 would be more than the FW Thunderhawk so they'd be limiting themselves to customers who want a plastic kit but weren't willing to buy the resin one for less money. At that price I think they'd struggle to sell 1000.

I think there's only very limited value in comparing to existing kits. It really just comes down to how much GW think people will pay and whether at that price they think they'll sell enough to make money off it.

I reckon the spot they'd want to aim for is around the $300 mark give or take and targeting around 4 to 5000 sales, which probably amounts to selling a few through each retail store and a couple at the larger FLGS's and maybe a few hundred to a thousand-ish through the webstore.

I think if we look at different GW products we can get a sense of their pricing tiers and what they think marks different levels of accessibility. The Realm of Battle Boards are what?-$360 that would put it in line with estimates based on the sprue count to price of the Renegade Knights boxed games.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
$660 would be more than the FW Thunderhawk so they'd be limiting themselves to customers who want a plastic kit but weren't willing to buy the resin one for less money.

Well, it would be a more detailed, and lighter, model, or has options for multiple TH builds & or 30k & 40k options? What if FW agrees to retire the resin one in unison, or before, with the release of the newer plastic? I had the resin FW Valk way back in the day, and it vanished from FW right before the plastic one came out. It happens. Just a thought....

krazynadechukr wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
$660 would be more than the FW Thunderhawk so they'd be limiting themselves to customers who want a plastic kit but weren't willing to buy the resin one for less money.

Well, it would be a more detailed, and lighter, model and also what if it is a dual kit (TH or SB), or has options for multiple TH builds & or 30k & 40k options? What if FW agrees to retire the resin one in unison, or before, with the release of the newer plastic? I had the resin FW Valk way back in the day, and it vanished from FW right before the plastic one came out. It happens. Just a thought....

How often do you see a HUGE price bump for a "dual kit"?

Just a thought...

 Kanluwen wrote:
Especially given that the Thunderhawk, as a kit, is something that could easily be fielded by 7 6 different armies.
Sisters of Battle, Space Marines, Grey Knights, Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Chaos Space Marines.

That's a rather large player base to pull from.

Correction: it can sit on the display shelf of 6 different armies. Zero armies can use it in an actual game of Warhammer 40k.

 Kanluwen wrote:

krazynadechukr wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
$660 would be more than the FW Thunderhawk so they'd be limiting themselves to customers who want a plastic kit but weren't willing to buy the resin one for less money.

Well, it would be a more detailed, and lighter, model and also what if it is a dual kit (TH or SB), or has options for multiple TH builds & or 30k & 40k options? What if FW agrees to retire the resin one in unison, or before, with the release of the newer plastic? I had the resin FW Valk way back in the day, and it vanished from FW right before the plastic one came out. It happens. Just a thought....

How often do you see a HUGE price bump for a "dual kit"?

Just a thought...

Erm.... Dark elf witches and sisters of slaughter? I don't want to agree with him, but gw HAS done this before....

 Lockark wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

krazynadechukr wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
$660 would be more than the FW Thunderhawk so they'd be limiting themselves to customers who want a plastic kit but weren't willing to buy the resin one for less money.

Well, it would be a more detailed, and lighter, model and also what if it is a dual kit (TH or SB), or has options for multiple TH builds & or 30k & 40k options? What if FW agrees to retire the resin one in unison, or before, with the release of the newer plastic? I had the resin FW Valk way back in the day, and it vanished from FW right before the plastic one came out. It happens. Just a thought....

How often do you see a HUGE price bump for a "dual kit"?

Just a thought...

Erm.... Dark elf witches and sisters of slaughter? I don't want to agree with him, but gw HAS done this before....

So, one example so far.

Compare that to the Baneblades, Knights, Stormhawk/Stormtalon, and a slew of other options that didn't see a huge price jump when they went from being "single kits" to "multikits"..

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Lockark wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

krazynadechukr wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
$660 would be more than the FW Thunderhawk so they'd be limiting themselves to customers who want a plastic kit but weren't willing to buy the resin one for less money.

Well, it would be a more detailed, and lighter, model and also what if it is a dual kit (TH or SB), or has options for multiple TH builds & or 30k & 40k options? What if FW agrees to retire the resin one in unison, or before, with the release of the newer plastic? I had the resin FW Valk way back in the day, and it vanished from FW right before the plastic one came out. It happens. Just a thought....

How often do you see a HUGE price bump for a "dual kit"?

Just a thought...

Erm.... Dark elf witches and sisters of slaughter? I don't want to agree with him, but gw HAS done this before....

So, one example so far.

Compare that to the Baneblades, Knights, Stormhawk/Stormtalon, and a slew of other options that didn't see a huge price jump when they went from being "single kits" to "multikits"..

I believe they all did see a price rise? Looks like the Stormtalon went up by ~$10, not sure about the Baneblade? The Imperial Knight is probably unique in that you can still buy a "basic" one, usually they just remove the option to do so.

Maybe not 'uuuuuge price rises, but I guess it depends what you consider 'uuuuuuuge to be. If you believe GW base their prices solely on sprue area, then you'd think those are actually bargains.... I tend to think sprue area is actually one of the smaller elements when it comes to GW choosing a price. For many kits (especially popular ones like Knights) they'd rather be earning less per sprue but more per box.

GW is littered with kits that are overpriced when you consider them on a per model basis and seemingly the reason being they're dual kits. Wildwood Rangers/Eternal Guard, Wild Riders/Sisters of Thorn, Ripperdactyls/Terradons, Hearthguard Berzekers/Auric Hearthguard, Tempestus Scions/Tempestus Command Squad.

It was GW's trend for a while has been to split what probably could have been considered a weapon option for 1 unit in to 2 separate units, bump up the price by X% to account for being able to make 2 units out of it, but you actually just end up paying X% more per model.

I'd actually love to know what GW does pay to cut a mould these days. Someone did an estimate on getting the Land Raider moulds cut some 10 years ago and only estimated about ~$20k for the kit moulds themselves, which I thought was a bit of an underestimate. But based on how GW have been running their business in the past 10 years I would have guessed the cost of mould cutting costs in general aren't as significant as they once were.

Outside of GW I've noticed plastic kit manufacturers seem more willing to make physically larger limited run kits (like Eduard, Special Hobby) for prices that aren't massively higher than the standard run kits (Tamiya, Airfix, etc).

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Lockark wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

krazynadechukr wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
$660 would be more than the FW Thunderhawk so they'd be limiting themselves to customers who want a plastic kit but weren't willing to buy the resin one for less money.

Well, it would be a more detailed, and lighter, model and also what if it is a dual kit (TH or SB), or has options for multiple TH builds & or 30k & 40k options? What if FW agrees to retire the resin one in unison, or before, with the release of the newer plastic? I had the resin FW Valk way back in the day, and it vanished from FW right before the plastic one came out. It happens. Just a thought....

How often do you see a HUGE price bump for a "dual kit"?

Just a thought...

Erm.... Dark elf witches and sisters of slaughter? I don't want to agree with him, but gw HAS done this before....

So, one example so far.

Compare that to the Baneblades, Knights, Stormhawk/Stormtalon, and a slew of other options that didn't see a huge price jump when they went from being "single kits" to "multikits"..

I believe they all did see a price rise? Looks like the Stormtalon went up by ~$10, not sure about the Baneblade? The Imperial Knight is probably unique in that you can still buy a "basic" one, usually they just remove the option to do so.

Maybe not 'uuuuuge price rises, but I guess it depends what you consider 'uuuuuuuge to be. If you believe GW base their prices solely on sprue area, then you'd think those are actually bargains.... I tend to think sprue area is actually one of the smaller elements when it comes to GW choosing a price. For many kits (especially popular ones like Knights) they'd rather be earning less per sprue but more per box.

GW is littered with kits that are overpriced when you consider them on a per model basis and seemingly the reason being they're dual kits. Wildwood Rangers/Eternal Guard, Wild Riders/Sisters of Thorn, Ripperdactyls/Terradons, Hearthguard Berzekers/Auric Hearthguard, Tempestus Scions/Tempestus Command Squad.

Minor quibble, Eternal Guard and the Wild Riders got cheaper when they became dual kits. They initially were metals(in the case of Wild Riders, metal/plastic hybrid kits) and the Eternal Guard were one of those that later got split into the 5 model half-boxes with command figures sold separately.

It was GW's trend for a while has been to split what probably could have been considered a weapon option for 1 unit in to 2 separate units, bump up the price by X% to account for being able to make 2 units out of it, but you actually just end up paying X% more per model.

The Wood Elf options you gave were not ever weapon options. Sisters of Thorn and Wildwood Rangers didn't exist before they became part of the dual kit.

Scions and Hearthguard are stupidly priced, period.

Firewarriors didn't used to be AUD$85 per box. Pretty sure that at their peak they were AUD$50-$55. Now they cost significantly more because, what, they're a dual kit? Box still only makes one squad.

"There's a turret in there now!"

And that's worth a further thirty bucks?

 Kanluwen wrote:
Minor quibble, Eternal Guard and the Wild Riders got cheaper when they became dual kits. They initially were metals(in the case of Wild Riders, metal/plastic hybrid kits) and the Eternal Guard were one of those that later got split into the 5 model half-boxes with command figures sold separately.

Yeah I'm aware of that, but they're still expensive for 10 plastic Wood Elf infantry models or 5 plastic Wood Elf cavalry models. Compare them to Glade Guard that are less dollars for twice the models, or the Glade Guard (that I can't remember the price of but were a hell of a lot cheaper than Wild Riders.

The Wood Elf options you gave were not ever weapon options. Sisters of Thorn and Wildwood Rangers didn't exist before they became part of the dual kit.

It's a good thing I never said they were previously weapon options then! I said...

"It was GW's trend for a while has been to split what probably could have been considered a weapon option"

Well...

More fuel for the fire and Forgeworld refusing to talk about said image!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Firewarriors didn't used to be AUD$85 per box. Pretty sure that at their peak they were AUD$50-$55. Now they cost significantly more because, what, they're a dual kit? Box still only makes one squad.

"There's a turret in there now!"

And that's worth a further thirty bucks?

It's great that we can have these discussions without me even having to be involved.

Yeah, Fire Warriors are stupidly priced. $50 for a squad of 10 is ridiculous. Same with the $75 for 3 Crisis Suits. It's why I'm not buying either of those kits individually, just going for the Start Collecting set whenever I want one or the other unit.


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AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Minor quibble, Eternal Guard and the Wild Riders got cheaper when they became dual kits. They initially were metals(in the case of Wild Riders, metal/plastic hybrid kits) and the Eternal Guard were one of those that later got split into the 5 model half-boxes with command figures sold separately.

Yeah I'm aware of that, but they're still expensive for 10 plastic Wood Elf infantry models or 5 plastic Wood Elf cavalry models. Compare them to Glade Guard that are less dollars for twice the models, or the Glade Guard (that I can't remember the price of but were a hell of a lot cheaper than Wild Riders.

Glade Riders weren't that much cheaper than Wild Riders from what I can remember. It was something like $36 for a box of 5. I can't say for sure as I never bought any by themselves, I only got the Wood Elf Battalions when I wanted Glade Riders and more Scouts/Glade Guard.

Also, Glade Guard give you 16 not 20. The sprues for them are exceedingly weird though.

The Wood Elf options you gave were not ever weapon options. Sisters of Thorn and Wildwood Rangers didn't exist before they became part of the dual kit.

It's a good thing I never said they were previously weapon options then! I said...

"It was GW's trend for a while has been to split what probably could have been considered a weapon option"

That's me misunderstanding what you were going for then, Skink.

 zedmeister wrote:
Well...

More fuel for the fire and Forgeworld refusing to talk about said image!

Thanks for linking I have somehow missed it, will add it to the 1st post

 Kanluwen wrote:
It's great that we can have these discussions without me even having to be involved.

Some might call it "poisoning the well", but I call it pre-empting you because I know you Kan and that's exactly what you would have said as an excuse.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Yeah, Fire Warriors are stupidly priced. $50 for a squad of 10 is ridiculous. Same with the $75 for 3 Crisis Suits. It's why I'm not buying either of those kits individually, just going for the Start Collecting set whenever I want one or the other unit.

Nice to hear you say.

I was at my GW last night talking about the new Primarch model. This is the manager I mentioned before that said |something big is landing this year" and "biggest kit ever by GW" anyways, he said, about the Primarch "He'll need something appropriate in granduer to deliver him into battle!" What the #$%^&* is up with his obtuse hints?


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krazynadechukr wrote:
I was at my GW last night talking about the new Primarch model. This is the manager I mentioned before that said "...something big is landing this year..." and ".....biggest kit ever by GW......" anyways, he said, about the Primarch "He'll need something appropriate in granduer to deliver him into battle!" What the #$%^&* is up with his obtuse hints?

 zedmeister wrote:
Well...

More fuel for the fire and Forgeworld refusing to talk about said image!

A while ago on the bbc film review show when Cillian Murphy was asked if he was going to be in the third batman movie, he said that he was not allowed to talk about it, which of course proved that he would be in the movie.
This tidbit has convinced me.

 zedmeister wrote:
Well...

More fuel for the fire and Forgeworld refusing to talk about said image!

*taps nose*

 zedmeister wrote:
Well...

More fuel for the fire and Forgeworld refusing to talk about said image!

Well that's interesting. Doubt they would not talk about it at all if it was a new resin version in either 40k or (new)epic scale. Hopefully it sells well enough for GW to do other massive kits. While I'm personally meh on the Thunderhawk, a Warhound titan has the advantage of being a giant robot

I have to admit I am on the fence with selling my FW Thunderhawk, its a heavy model that takes up a lot of space on the table and has been used for 1 game in 6 years. Sure it looks awesome but that much £££ and time sat on a flying base on a game table leaves me nervous.

Daston wrote:
I have to admit I am on the fence with selling my FW Thunderhawk, its a heavy model that takes up a lot of space on the table and has been used for 1 game in 6 years. Sure it looks awesome but that much £££ and time sat on a flying base on a game table leaves me nervous.

I think one of the big appeals of a plastic thunderhawk is that it'd be significantly lighter so it would be more stable on a well designed flying base and if they design it well you could have it held together with magnets so you could pull it apart and store/transport it easier.

I've always thought extremely large models like the Thunderhawk were more meant as display pieces than actual gaming pieces. They are too large and heavy to really be practical in a game, which is also why I think GW is never going to make one in plastic.
I do not see what is so special about the Thunderhawk in the FW book. Thunderhawks have been featured in FW books for years. Likely this is just a new variant of the FW kit.

Still, I secretly hope that we will get a plastic thunderhawk that is relatively affordable. I want one sooo badly :(

I'm really hoping that if this is a new TH, then it's a separate variant entirely, rather than an older mark - sort of a Ryza pattern to the current Mars pattern. The reason being is that if it is an older mark, then you've got the possibilities of 'new' chapters running around with Great Crusade Era relics, which is unfeasible from a fluff perspective. But if it's a separate variant made on a different Forgeworld or from a different STC, then it makes more sense because then it's not tied to a specific time-frame - it could have been manufactured at any point between M30 and M40.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
I've always thought extremely large models like the Thunderhawk were more meant as display pieces than actual gaming pieces. They are too large and heavy to really be practical in a game, which is also why I think GW is never going to make one in plastic.
I do not see what is so special about the Thunderhawk in the FW book. Thunderhawks have been featured in FW books for years. Likely this is just a new variant of the FW kit.

Still, I secretly hope that we will get a plastic thunderhawk that is relatively affordable. I want one sooo badly :(

There was a WD article a year, maybe two, where GW said they had always planned on getting 40k games to become like epic games. Huge walkers, hundreds of foot sloggers, screaming aircraft... I'll try to find the article if I can.


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 Warpig1815 wrote:
I'm really hoping that if this is a new TH, then it's a separate variant entirely, rather than an older mark - sort of a Ryza pattern to the current Mars pattern. The reason being is that if it is an older mark, then you've got the possibilities of 'new' chapters running around with Great Crusade Era relics, which is unfeasible from a fluff perspective. But if it's a separate variant made on a different Forgeworld or from a different STC, then it makes more sense because then it's not tied to a specific time-frame - it could have been manufactured at any point between M30 and M40.

Like I said a page back, most likely if it happens we could look forward to - "....a more detailed, and lighter, model, maybe options for multiple TH builds &/or a 30k or 40k option..."


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My money is on it happening, plastic TH with options (I'll magnetize the bejesus outta it), not limited, and between $275-399... for 2500pt+ games or bigger & 500ish points +/- 200 pts....

I can't see a dual Thunderhawk/Storm Bird, but I can easily see a Thunderhawk kit with some weapon options- Cannon or turbolaser could basically reuse those elements from the Shadowsword. Heavy Bolter sponsons could see some variety added. Missile or bomb pylons to add under the wings. Things like that.

Probably different cannon options and wing mounted weapons, landing gears and from the looks of it may have sponson options instead of just the bolters

 MajorWesJanson wrote:
I can't see a dual Thunderhawk/Storm Bird, but I can easily see a Thunderhawk kit with some weapon options- Cannon or turbolaser could basically reuse those elements from the Shadowsword. Heavy Bolter sponsons could see some variety added. Missile or bomb pylons to add under the wings. Things like that.

Agreed... however I could see FW rework the Stormbird to use portions of a Thunderhawk kit, in the same way they've done with the Kytan and Fellblade.

I think it's important to compare the size of the Thunderhawk and Stormbird. While elements such as engines and the forward fuselage and cockpit are similar enough for cross compatibility the rest is a whole 'nother league:


It's worth noting the forward fuselage of the Stormbird was a modified Thunderhawk transporters forward fuselage.