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 ImAGeek wrote:
Yeah nothing's in scale as it is. I wager more people would prefer practicality than scale.

Lets be real here for a moment - there's nothing practical about flyer models period, nevermind superheavy fliers of any size worthy of that designation.

People who care about a practical gaming experience who bought Thunderhawks used them as display pieces or terrain, not functional tabletop models, and I doubt that would change if the plastic version was ~20% smaller.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
Yeah nothing's in scale as it is. I wager more people would prefer practicality than scale.

Lets be real here for a moment - there's nothing practical about flyer models period, nevermind superheavy fliers of any size worthy of that designation.

People who care about a practical gaming experience who bought Thunderhawks used them as display pieces or terrain, not functional tabletop models, and I doubt that would change if the plastic version was ~20% smaller.

Yeah, I remember doing a true scale marine army two years ago, A Land Raider model is the true scale of a rhino if you are being a real stickler on true scale. The LR was like a baneblade size, etc... If you want to be a realistic/practical gamer, that's what historical gaming is for!

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
No, because 40k foreshortens everything except the Valk. Proportionally, the Valk is more true than heroic, so it doesn't match so well. If GW had bobbed the nose, trimmed the tails, I wouldn't have an issue with the size of the model.

IOW, if GW had completely ruined the model. No thanks, let's not have that happen to the Thunderhawk.

JohnHwangDD wrote:No, because 40k foreshortens everything except the Valk. Proportionally, the Valk is more true than heroic, so it doesn't match so well. If GW had bobbed the nose, trimmed the tails, I wouldn't have an issue with the size of the model.

Doesn't it make sense the Valk is proper sized given the original Valk was a FW model and FW tend to scale their vehicles better, GW just kept that scale?

Maybe if the Valk was never a FW model before being a GW model it would have been chibi scale like all the rest of GW's vehicles?

aka_mythos wrote:

allseeingskink wrote:
Doesn't the Thunderhawk only carry troops in the nose section while the Stormeagle carries them along the full length of the hull?

No. It extends further back into the Thunderhawk.

Spoiler:

Yeah I saw a picture after I posted that. Even though it uses more than just the nose section, it kind of confirms what I said, the floor area of the troops carrying portion of the Thunderhawk is only a small part of the total hull, where as the Storm Eagle it's most the hull. Look at this pic...



The entire upper level where the cockpit is is NOT part of the troop carrying area, you just have the small room behind the cockpit, then the slope that leads down to the nose contains a door, so you effectively can't have troops there either, then you have the flat part of the underside of the nose, that can contain troops, then you have the big door, which is again effectively wasted space.

When you look at the top down and subtract away all the area that the Thunderhawk can't use for carrying troops (centre mounted engine, turret, rear nose door) then really the Thunderhawk troop area isn't much more than 50% larger than the Storm Eagle.... which is exactly what it's supposed to be.

Do the cheek mounted guns need to retract in to the nose as well? So you might also have to allow space for that.



Basically I don't think the Thunderhawk is as oversized as you think compared to the Storm Eagle, the Storm Eagle just makes more efficient use of space to carry troops where as the Thunderhawk is more of a command vehicle with significant space dedicated to a control deck, engines and extra weapon systems.

The command deck is incorporated and already represented immediately behind the cockpit. The whole aft is presumably the space for a volcano cannon or superheavy battle cannon. What I am comparing is really just the transport bays of the two flyers.

The way I see it, if the width and height were equal then the relative length would be the correct and proportional length to represent the relative capacity. However the transport section of the Thunderhawk is ~20% wider, obviously to accommodate an internally stowed Dreadnought. Relative to each other the Thunderhawks greater width should allow it to hold 40 marines instead of 30.

I'm not saying the model "should" be smaller, just that I think the model reflects something a bit bigger than its rules. That the fiction does have the wiggle room to increase that capacity value or reduce the size to better match the rules, to improve consistency. I'm not even saying that it's necessary, just that GW has the opportunity to rethink the Thunderhawk.

.

Well then! I think we should revise the Rhino Transport capacity to match the models as well!

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Well then! I think we should revise the Rhino Transport capacity to match the models as well!

Agreed, to a degree. In the least it'd be interesting to see how large the model should be if everything were properly scaled. A rhino holds 10 marines, but realistically a capacity of 10 marines should equal 12+ guardsmen. If GW maintained a consistent scale a Land Raiders would be closer to Crassus which holds 30 guardsmen.

Realistically, a capacity of 10 Marines should equal 16 Guardsmen. A Rhino should hold 6 Marines. A Razorback? 3 or 4.

Also, observe that it's not physically possible for a Marine to fit his shoulders through any of the hatches.

 aka_mythos wrote:
The way I see it, if the width and height were equal then the relative length would be the correct and proportional length to represent the relative capacity. However the transport section of the Thunderhawk is ~20% wider, obviously to accommodate an internally stowed Dreadnought. Relative to each other the Thunderhawks greater width should allow it to hold 40 marines instead of 30.

I'm not saying the model "should" be smaller, just that I think the model reflects something a bit bigger than its rules. That the fiction does have the wiggle room to increase that capacity value or reduce the size to better match the rules, to improve consistency.

I just copied that image and drew some squares over the actual troop carrying areas (by looking at a WIP model showing the interior and finding where the troops areas line up on the hull itself). By my calcs, the troop carrying area of the Thunderhawk model is only ~60% larger than the Storm Eagle.

EDIT: That's breaking it down into 3 decks, lower nose, mid deck and upper deck that is the cockpit so not used for troop carrying. If you assume the rear of the upper deck behind the cockpit is also used for troop carrying, the Thunderhawk has roughly 85% more area than the Storm Eagle... BUT, at that point you have troops split across 3 levels of the ship and you can't just densely pack them in anymore, you need space for Marines to traverse down the ladder from the top deck to the mid deck and then down the stairs from the mid deck to the lower deck.

So really, they aren't all that inconsistent with each other.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Well then! I think we should revise the Rhino Transport capacity to match the models as well!

I'm not even sure the Thunderhawk is realistically scaled, I'm just saying it's relatively consistent with the Storm Eagle. The reason the Thunderhawk is more than twice the size than the Storm Eagle but only has 50% more carrying capacity has to do with how the space is used. The Storm Eagle is basically a transport ship with a few weapons, the Thunderhawk is a full on gunship/command vehicle with some transport capacity to be used as a dropship.

As far as the Rhino is concerned, people have been talking about how the Rhino is undersized for the past 20 or 30 or so years (I'm not sure if it was big enough to fit 10 Rogue Trader style marines?). Undersized Rhinos are practically an iconic 40k trait now, along with Leman Russ turrets that wouldn't even fit the breach mechanism let alone the commander/gunner and non-functional tank suspension Doesn't mean we have to shrink everything else down as well.

As I said FW are usually pretty good with their scaling. I'm sure there's some things that are off (especially vehicles that are based off GW plastics to begin with) but I usually assume if FW picked a certain size for their vehicle, there's a good chance it's in the right ballpark.

40k Thunderhawk didn't translate IMO because there was no mechanism to carry over the best aspects of it from Epic. People are trying to talk about doing this and that to the model based on some crappy 40k interpretations of what is an Epic unit.

In Epic it may carry 8 infantry units, attack bikes, and dreads..

The Storm Eagle can carry 20 models. Period. IF it were an Epic unit (I couldn't find Net Epic rules for it) I would assume a 2 unit capacity and likely no ability to carry Dreads (maybe I'm wrong about that.. I don't have the Storm Eagle rules and am going off what I can find on the web).

So.. again.. my point is, the original domain of Thunderhawks was Epic not 40k and it was a pack mule.

 MLaw wrote:
In Epic it may carry 8 infantry units, attack bikes, and dreads..

In 2nd (1991) and 3rd ed (1997) Epic it could only carry 6 infantry units. I'm not sure about the more recent versions, but the Thunderhawk has historically only had a 30 man transport capacity.

To be honest I didn't use the Thunderhawk a whole heap in Epic, but when I did I remember being a little bit underwhelmed by it due to the needing to take several to drop any significant force. But maybe I was just using it wrong, I was pretty young at the time

EDIT: It seems they bumped it to a transport capacity of 8 when they released the free rules, not sure what year they were released but traditionally it's only been 30 infantry, I don't know how you could possibly fit 4 Dreadnoughts in one, hanging off the wings maybe ).

It even says in the free Epic description of the Thunderhawk "Launched from the orbiting Battle Barge Dominatus, three pairs of Thunderhawk Gunships carrying one hundred and eighty Space Marines descended..." 3 pairs = 6 total, 180 Marines divided by 6 Thunderhawks = 30 per Thunderhawk, so it seems they just abstracted it to carrying 8 units for the sake of the rules.

With a heavy gun and relatively small transport capacity, the Thunderhawk is like a flying razorback, while the larger Storm Bird is a flying Land Raider (well, Land Raider Crusader for the Sokar pattern)

No plastic...

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/04/10/thuderhawk-inbound/

Ah, too bad. Looks like a decent update, but nothing that has me ready to tear open my wallet.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
WHY GW
WHY YOU DO THIS

Thuderhawk, Inbound


We’ve had a lot of questions over the last few weeks, since our venerable Thunderhawk gunship sold out online.

We can now announce that the Forge World studio are nearing completion on a brand new updated version.

Pre-production model – there may be some slight differences in the final model.



This new resin Thunderhawk keeps the iconic and uncompromising outline of the Thunderhawk we all know and love, but also takes on a few design cues from other recent kits, like the Stormbird and Heresy-era Space Marine Legion tanks.

For the moment, we don’t have anymore to show you, but you can rest assured this Lord of War will be touching down very soon.

In fact, we’re hoping to have it available first at Warhammer Fest this May (which you can get a ticket for here):

So our so-called reliable rumormonger fails us... at least the model is pretty.

Definitely looks better detail wise.

This doesn't mean there isn't a plastic one coming.

I don't really care either way, just thought I'd point that out.

Ha not plastic. The price hike is going to be insane. I'm out. A plastic one I could consider doing but not expensive FW.

Hahaha...ha..ha. okay. That was good. Plastic? Not a chance.

Well that stinks. Sorry, but they should have went plastic, this is a fail for me, and GW has not failed much recently.

Also very misleading 'last ever thunderhawk!' stuff, then 2 weeks later, 'first ever thunderhawk!' from FW lol -

I think many will be quite disappointed by this turn of events, for price implications alone...

 TalonZahn wrote:
This doesn't mean there isn't a plastic one coming.

I don't really care either way, just thought I'd point that out.

Why would Forgeworld spend the time and effort to make a new resin Thunderhawk, if there was a plastic one coming out soon, that would make it obsolete?

 Verviedi wrote:
So our so-called reliable rumormonger fails us... at least the model is pretty.

Every in the know person starts getting duff info at some point. It's important to remember that most reliable ones are just passing on what they've been told.

It's a shame that it's looking like his info well is drying up though.

Puts a big doubt in my mind about the Super Marines too.

 TalonZahn wrote:
This doesn't mean there isn't a plastic one coming.

I don't really care either way, just thought I'd point that out.

You honestly think that they will simultaneously release the same kit in plastic and resin??

I guess that could appeal to the 'I'd actually like to pay 5x the price for no benefit, makes me feel important' 24carat iphone crowd lol.

 General Kroll wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
So our so-called reliable rumormonger fails us... at least the model is pretty.

Every in the know person starts getting duff info at some point. It's important to remember that most reliable ones are just passing on what they've been told.

It's a shame that it's looking like his info well is drying up though.

Puts a big doubt in my mind about the Super Marines too.

I severely doubt Super Marines will actually happen, honestly.

Yes, it is sad. Reliable rumors are really what makes things work around here, and now we can trust him just a little bit less.

 Verviedi wrote:

 TalonZahn wrote:
This doesn't mean there isn't a plastic one coming.

I don't really care either way, just thought I'd point that out.

Why would Forgeworld spend the time and effort to make a new resin Thunderhawk, if there was a plastic one coming out soon, that would make it obsolete?

Why would Forge World spend the time and effort to make the Xiphon Interceptor when the Stormhawk Interceptor had recently come out/was on its way out?
Did the plastic Venerable Dreadnought kit invalidate the resin kit?

GW producing something in plastic != obsolete resin kits.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:

 TalonZahn wrote:
This doesn't mean there isn't a plastic one coming.

I don't really care either way, just thought I'd point that out.

Why would Forgeworld spend the time and effort to make a new resin Thunderhawk, if there was a plastic one coming out soon, that would make it obsolete?

Why would Forge World spend the time and effort to make the Xiphon Interceptor when the Stormhawk Interceptor had recently come out/was on its way out?
Did the plastic Venerable Dreadnought kit invalidate the resin kit?

GW producing something in plastic != obsolete resin kits.

I doubt a plastic kit will come out now that we know there is a new resin kit.

However, if a plastic thunderhawk does come out this year, it's because GW and FW do a gakky job of talking to each other.

 MajorTom11 wrote:

 TalonZahn wrote:
This doesn't mean there isn't a plastic one coming.

I don't really care either way, just thought I'd point that out.

You honestly think that they will simultaneously release the same kit in plastic and resin??

I guess that could appeal to the 'I'd actually like to pay 5x the price for no benefit, makes me feel important' 24carat iphone crowd lol.

Ironclad Dreadnought is in both plastic and resin. Not "the same kit", mind, but they've had plastic/resin variants of stuff in the past.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kronk wrote:

I doubt a plastic kit will come out now that we know there is a new resin kit.

However, if a plastic thunderhawk does come out this year, it's because GW and FW do a gakky job of talking to each other.

Or they wanted to make two different variants.

Not saying it's 100%, but one does not necessarily preclude the other.

While the new Thunderhawk does look good, and I would like one (but wont be buying one). I think going for resin rather than plastic is a mistake.