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Hi,
guess it deserves its own thread.

StraightSilver over at Warseer had a chat with Jes Goodwin, where Jes confirmed that there will be kits for both Dark Eldar flyers (no idea if in one or two kits though). The release for them is ready to go and should come until June 2011.

Stickmonkey, a regular rumour poster over at Warseer contacted his sources and found out that 7 flyers are currently done or almost done.

These are the facts. Now come the speculation.

Will there be a common release for some of them, accompanied by a bigger (Supplement rule book like CoD, Apocalypse etc) or smaller (White Dwarf article) rule set?

What will those flyers be?
Razorwing and Voidraven for DE confirmed. In one or two kits? Kits including Craftworld versions?
Many rumours about a Storm Raven kit for GK/BA. Release with GK Codex or later? Or Xmas? Any chance for a Thunderhawk?
Other rumours include Barracuda for Tau, Fighta/Bomba for Orks, Thunderbolt for Imperials and some Tyranid flyer (Harridan too big?, Harpy?).
Is there room for a Necron flyer? Along with the Codex release?

Funny tidbit: Warseer mods see no news in the confirmation of 7 flyers being in the works and mostly done and moved the thread to general discussion.

Here the relevant quotes from Warseer threads:

StraightSilver wrote:I had a chance to have a chat with Jes Goodwin today and got some more info regarding DE release schedule.

He said that they will have 90% of the Dark Eldar models in the Codex released by June next year, so no more than 7 months.

Basically people have waited so long for this release and as it looks set to be so popular he wanted to get everything out quickly.

There are 4 new plastic kits coming next year, he wouldn't say exactly what they were but that the Venom is definitely coming soon and they have models for both flyers listed in the Dex on ready to go (but he wouldn't confirm if these were part of the 90%).(...)

He also said that now that rapid prototyping and CAD technology has progressed the design team can use 2 ups instead of 3 ups which means that making larger apocolypse style kits (Stompa and Baneblade) in plastic is now more possible.

This means that they are currently working on one of these types of kits as the sales for the Stompa etc were very good, but wouldn't say whether they had decided on what this would be, although I got the impression he wanted it to be Eldar.

Shabadoo on the 4 DE plastic kits:

Make that

Talos
Venom
Razorwing
Voidraven

and you would be more accurate.

Stickmonkey from Warseer added these well informed speculations to the flyer extension rumours:

So after reading the recent post about Jes's comments I wanted to get some inside skinny.

We know Jes mentioned the DE flyers as being "on the way" And we have had constant rumoring of the Storm Raven.

Well I did some work asking and this is what I have to report.

There are currently 7 flyers in development...some complete, some nearing completion.

Possibility for a summer "Flyer" White Dwarf to introduce them, including special rules.

Tau, Eldar/DE, Ork, SM, Nid, ???

It makes a lot of sense, but if each of these is roughly the size of a Valk set, that's a huge release.

It would give credence to prior rumors the Storm Raven would not be released with GK...assuming GK still make Q1.

It doesnt seem to invalidate anything Jes has said.

We have had a history of these "combined" releases occuring mid year for a few years.

Cheers.

Speculation by MajorWesJanson:

MajorWesJanson wrote:My guesses:
Storm Raven will get expanded to be taken by any Marine chapter.
Thunderbolt for Imperials to go along with the Valk
Fighta/Bomba for Orks
Barracuda for Tau
Void Raven/Razor kit for Eldar and Dark Eldar, with parts that can be swapped to style if for both.
Nid flying creature between the Harpy and Harridan (Call it a Virago?)
Necron flier (beetle styling?)

The plus side is that many of these kits are not required to be in a specific flier release.
Storm Raven can be a GK release, or a GK or BA wave
Necron flier can be in their new codex mid next year
Barracuda can be in the Tau codex late 2011 or early 2012, or a wave release that replaces their hybrid kits
Eldar/DEldar flier can be a DEldar wave release

That would leave the Thunderbolt, Fighta/Bomba, and Nid creature to come together in a flier release, with the first two for popular armies and the third providing more parts to kitbash for tervigons and tyrannofexes.

an Imperial Strike-Fighter sounds awesome, I'll be able to include the Imperail Navy Aspect of my Army's fluff in other ways than just a valkrye/vendetta. Asuming that it'd be useable in regular games of 40k

My Elysians could use some Thunderbolt support for sure.

Even if I weren't a Tyranid player/fan, I'd be confused and disappointed if they released a non-Harpy model before they release a Harpy.

Anyways, the more toys, the better. I'd be happy if GW followed along the lines of similar companies and released several kits for several armies like they're doing here and Spearhead rather than waiting for a codex for a massive release of many things I can't buy all at once.
However, it made sense for a massive Dark Eldar release.

My hope on the DE kits:

Venom (seems likely, if not confirmed)
Razorwing/Voidraven combo kit (would seem dumb to split out, IMO)
Talos/Chronos
Scourges

It'd be nice if the Orks got a fighta/bomma kit, for sure.

Likewise, where's the love for Chaos/Chaos Daemons? A giant flying daemon would be sweet as hell.

BrookM wrote:My Elysians could use some Thunderbolt support for sure.

Nerdgasmmmmm.

Okay, sorry for being gross BUT SERIOUSLY how awesome would that be?

These rumors make good sense to me. I want to believe.

Is it Fliers or skimmers?
As the already codified vehicles are skimmers.

Another 40k expansion would be fine, but maybe its a WD "spearhead" alike ?

Shouldn't Hydras become available too? ( Fliers -> AA tank ).
Would sacrifice precious Holidays for some of the rumored 'fliers', so I am all for a summer release.

I remember reading a WD battle report from several years ago with Imperial guard vs Orks *3rd ed codice* and they included flyers and had special rules regarding dog fights, strafing per turn and such. Maybe a call back to something possibly like that?

Intrigued, but I think there's a good reason for fliers not being introdued into the game until now. They might work ok as skimmers (i.e. Valkyrie), but in terms of game structure, why have units that cross the board in a single turn?

Intriguing...I shall await more news!

Man!

That Thunderhawk rumor just won't go away, will it?

Great news! Adding some (hopefully) better rules for air combat over the 40K battlefield would really fill out what is arguably the most potent aspect of high-tech warfare. In fact, I was just writing up a set of improved flyer rules for Apoc, with dogfighting etc. worked in. I'll probably still finish them and post them on Dakka, but really hope that whatever humble solution I come up with is quickly replaced with something smoother from the GW folks. And a free set in a WD would be great, but a full expansion a la Planetstrike would be even better.

And it'll be nice to have other players join the air war. I bought 3 of Death By Monkey's amazing Thunderbolt conversions and have 3 scratchbuilt Nightwings... but the rules for them in Apoc are really thin, making them essentially ground-attack craft that can be frustrating for anyone that hasn't specifically prepared their force to deal with flyers. More flyer vs. flyer action would be a very good thing.

Anyways, awesome revelations!

One more question... I haven't seen the new DE flyer illustrations from the book. Do they look like they might be compatible with a Nightwing combo-kit? Are the basic shapes similar to existing Eldar flyers at all? Hope so- those old Dark Eldar lyers were pants. It would be really disappointing to see the Craftworld flyers getting closer to the old DE designs rather than vice versa.

Flyers on the now standard 4'x6' table are a bit silly.

They'd be a bit much on a 4'x8' too, actually...

A "superheavy' flyer like a Thunderhawk?

OK, I suppose...

It's more likely that if there's a Flyer expansion, the Stormraven will be introduced for all Marine Chapters, or just the chassis proper with variants available.

A T-hawk may be a APoc release, so we can keep the rumor and wait for 'bigger plastic kits to come'

If the table size is all that stops fliers......GW wouldn't mind if 40k resizes to 6x of their plates o' skulls.
Plus, Imperial players are not going to complain about a resizing to 6x10 or 8x12....

Skarboy wrote:Likewise, where's the love for Chaos/Chaos Daemons? A giant flying daemon would be sweet as hell.

I hope you're not suggesting another Daemon of Genericism. Better to just give them a proper aircraft, or rules for a few god-specific daemon engines.

AlexHolker wrote:

Skarboy wrote:Likewise, where's the love for Chaos/Chaos Daemons? A giant flying daemon would be sweet as hell.

I hope you're not suggesting another Daemon of Genericism. Better to just give them a proper aircraft, or rules for a few god-specific daemon engines.

The Chaos flyer will just be the Space Marine one BUT WITH SPIKES and will thus cost an additional £10

People keep wishlisting various brand new (to 40k proper) units into being for this rumoured expansion. However there's at least 5 flyer-type units in codexes already.
The Stormraven, Vendetta, Harpy, Voidraven and Razorwing are all waiting on a release. Doesn't it make more sense that they'll fill these gaps in the ranges first before creating new stuff?

Not that this means there WON'T be new stuff. After all, the rumour is 7 models. However grounding our expectations in realism is always safer.

Vendetta likely won't get a release, simply because there is a kit for it from Forge World.

There's no reason for it to be made into an entirely new kit, simply because it's absurd to do it just for twin-linked Lascannons to be made into an entirely new sprue for the Valkyrie kit.

Crazy cool rumour, I'd get a fighta bomba and thunderbolt for my bitz box if it's true.

A Thunderbolt is a pretty large kit for something that is not much more than off board artillery with a chance of interception. A Lightning might make more sense, as it is smaller. All fliers in a game of this scale are frankly a bit dubious.

That said, a Thunderbolt would be a must buy for me, as I love the design.

No offense to the Okry types out there, but fighta-bombas might be one of the kits that GW will be less motivated to make.

It's just too easy to kitbash something orky out of regular plane models. For the sake of completeness one would hope a fighta-bomba would be put out, but it would seem less liekly to make money than, say, Imperial kits.

This sounds really cool, I really like fliers.

However how are they gonna handle the rules. If its like the Dark Eldar Codex. Skimmers that can move quickly and fire weapons while doing so it will be balanced but if they use the Apoc rules fliers are pretty overpowered if people are not ready for them. Reduced Range when shooting at them and hitting them on 6's makes them really annoying.

Man I love Thunderbolts and would totally pick one up. I hope this turns out to be true!

Flashman wrote:The Chaos flyer will just be the Space Marine one BUT WITH SPIKES and will thus cost an additional £10

How about these likely candidates:

Alpharius wrote:That Thunderhawk rumor just won't go away, will it?

Straightsilver wrote:He also said that now that rapid prototyping and CAD technology has progressed the design team can use 2 ups instead of 3 ups which means that making larger apocolypse style kits (Stompa and Baneblade) in plastic is now more possible.

Get the idea?

lasgunpacker wrote:A Thunderbolt is a pretty large kit for something that is not much more than off board artillery with a chance of interception. A Lightning might make more sense, as it is smaller. All fliers in a game of this scale are frankly a bit dubious.
That said, a Thunderbolt would be a must buy for me, as I love the design.

See?
That said, I expect future "flyers" to be included in most Codices, but downgraded to skimmers for game balance reasons. Some supplement or Apocalypse rules set may allow them to be used as true flyers again.

I do not know about the rest of you, but I have noticed a bit of a pattern in GW FW crossovers. Anything that FW has created that has done spectacularly well, Valkryes are a case in point, that GW finds a way to turn plastic is getting the treatment. It is only logical that they will now make flyers that have been selling from FW between 60 and 400 dollars available as plastics at about one half to three quarters of the price. It is also their latest pattern to produce a new set of rules as part of their summer campaign. It will be no surprise to me that this summers big release will be all about how they will include flyers full time into 40k. As an imperial player, I am not as up to speed with other army codices, but the IG and the Marines have AA turrets as a vehicle option that makes hitting flyers with their turret weapons easier. With strong rumors of GK and SOB codices around the corner, I would bet that these will include them also.

Besides, it is all plastic crack and we are going to end up buying them anyway...

Kanluwen wrote:Vendetta likely won't get a release, simply because there is a kit for it from Forge World.

There's no reason for it to be made into an entirely new kit, simply because it's absurd to do it just for twin-linked Lascannons to be made into an entirely new sprue for the Valkyrie kit.

Because stuff that Forgeworld release never EVER gets converted to plastic, does it?

Oh, except for:

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1120744a_99120104029_EldarFirePrism2_445x319.jpg
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m2620133_99120105038_IGValkyrie1MPPK_873x627.jpg
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m340110a_99120105045_IGExecutioner_445x319.jpg
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1120799a_99120105049_IGManticoreDeathstrike1_445x319.jpg
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1860136_99120101069_40kSMDropPod1_445x319.jpg
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m490197_99120113009_TauPiranhaMain_445x319.jpg

(and a few others besides).

Plus, with it only needing one sprue makes it far more likely than the Thunderbolt everyone is hoping for, as it is far less of an investment for almost guaranteed gains. And who says they won't take the opportunity to fill the sprue with other little add-ons and upgrade bits. GW do so love their gubbins these days.

(ps, Thunderbolt is also a Forgeworld model.)

I think he means that FW recently made a kit just for the IG release. Vendettas never existed for IG until 5th edition while all the mentions above have existed by FW before certain rule sets

I'm likewise doubtful of the utility of Flyers in 40k. Skimmers, like hover-tanks and VTOL stuff sure, the game is loaded with them, but the board is usually too small for a real battle anyways, what are aircraft doing in a skirmish engagement?

Now Epic Armageddon, that handles Flyers pretty well.

Nurglitch wrote:
Now Epic Armageddon, that handles Flyers pretty well.

Of course, Epic tends to handle everything a little bit differently