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I think the guard are missing a vehicle from their armory. I mean they have the Vietnam troops in catachan yet no guard helicopters to keep with the theme. It might be a stupid idea to have a helicopter in the 41st millennium but hell orks have em and space marines have flying church stands so It can't be that far fetched. I personally would love to see some Helicopter variant, maybe one that can be build different ways like one been a flyer transport the other a light assault craft. Not to mention they could introduce copter based infantry with cool flight helmets.

Come on you know you want it

I think the valkyrie/vendetta is supposed to fill the helo slot as they have vtol.

A helecopter should be their new model once its their turn to get a new codex

I agree with above. I have seen some nice conversions that people have done. And guard will be my next army (DKoK) so yes, give them some shiny stuff

To be fair, a helicopter is virtually inferior in every way to a jet that can hover when it wants. That's why the CV-22 Ospreys are becoming more and more used.

On the other hand, it is often more about what looks cool with 40k, as it should be. And helos do look cool.

I wanted one. So I built one.



Helicopters are cool.....

I have a giant seaking heli model and a tiny H-13H that await conversion.

Combat wise helicopters are rather slow (compared to say a VTOL craft) due to there being an actual physical speed limit for helicopter aircraft where if a helicopter travels to fast its method of keeping itself in the air actually hinders it to the point it falls out of the sky. Im sure the Imperium has the capability to create a helicopter aircraft but I think they don't do it since the VTOL craft they already have are more then able to fill the role a Heli would fill, that and they would be able to move faster and travel further then a Heli.

But you can build a heli vendetta and it would work.

AtomicEngineer wrote:I think the guard are missing a vehicle from their armory. I mean they have the Vietnam troops in catachan yet no guard helicopters to keep with the theme.

The Ultramarines novels mention 'ornithopters' in use by the PDF, so it looks like Cadians get the good stuff, and PDF make do with locally produced rotary wing aircraft (Because the Mechanicus lost the blueprints for the Huey)

tanuvein wrote:To be fair, a helicopter is virtually inferior in every way to a jet that can hover when it wants. That's why the CV-22 Ospreys are becoming more and more used.

Not necessarily, At low speed and in the hover choppas do much better, especially in close quarters.

Not to mention VTOL craft spend proportionately more fuel in Hover and have to employ heavy extra engines, like the Short SC.1, Dornier Do 31 and Yak-38or heavy thrust fans driven by the engine like the F-35B

I hate to say it but I cant see a place for a helicopter in the 41st millennium.

As above, if the Valkyrie/vendetta have some sort of vtol technology which they most likely do, what advantage would there be to have a helicopter over that.A helicopter would be less maneuverable surely and get shot down easy.

I'm not saying Im against helicopters, they are pretty cool, but even now technology is improving on vtol style aircraft, F35 and V-22. I think the humble helicopter will become obsolete as we progress in tech.

Just my 2c

Edit for spelling.

Helicopters just have this vibe of Awesome about them that jets lack, however fluffwise theres no point for them since theres so many full fledge jets that can hover even though they look like they cant. Unless they got their own unique flying ruleset (such as they have no minimum movement and can rotate 360" before moving straight or even go backwords/sideways, and their Hard to Hit rule makes things BS2 instead of BS1 since they are technically always hovering) which is unlikely, they would be horrid units.

If i had a guard army i'd just kitbash my Vendettas as an attack helicopter and call it a day.

 tuiman wrote:
I hate to say it but I cant see a place for a helicopter in the 41st millennium.

As above, if the Valkyrie/vendetta have some sort of vtol technology which they most likely do, what advantage would there be to have a helicopter over that.A helicopter would be less unmovable surely and get shot down easy.

I'm not saying Im against helicopters, they are pretty cool, but even now technology is improving on vtol style aircraft, F35 and V-22. I think the humble helicopter will become obsolete as we progress in tech.

Just my 2c

Yet there is a place for all other tech we use today. Sorry but that doesn't make sense. There is as much place for artillery and foot soldiers as helicopters.

No thanks we need an undercosted, over performing, heldrake level of broken equivalent of an A-10 Warthog. Something that is near indestructible and can lay down a feth ton of supporting fire for 90 points.

I am sure Matt Ward could design it in a jiffy and GW would only charge a hundred bucks. Thats like 300$ from every one that plays IG, how can they not do it?

 AtomicEngineer wrote:
I think the guard are missing a vehicle from their armory. I mean they have the Vietnam troops in catachan yet no guard helicopters to keep with the theme. It might be a stupid idea to have a helicopter in the 41st millennium but hell orks have em and space marines have flying church stands so It can't be that far fetched. I personally would love to see some Helicopter variant, maybe one that can be build different ways like one been a flyer transport the other a light assault craft. Not to mention they could introduce copter based infantry with cool flight helmets.

Come on you know you want it

Valkyries and their variants can already act as VTOL craft, rendering rotary helicopters obsolete as they are far slower and more vulnerable (rotors are seriously vulnerable to damage).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

JWhex wrote:
No thanks we need an undercosted, over performing, heldrake level of broken equivalent of an A-10 Warthog. Something that is near indestructible and can lay down a feth ton of supporting fire for 90 points.

I am sure Matt Ward could design it in a jiffy and GW would only charge a hundred bucks. Thats like 300$ from every one that plays IG, how can they not do it?

Personally I think its more to do with how hard it is to model rotor blades that look reasonable without being too fragile. Ork deff koptas get away with it because ork tech doesn't have to look particularly workable. Imperial rotors would just be snap city.

So GW introduced other vehicles in the same role, namely land speeders, valkyries and vultures.

We are talking about the helicopter being no good, but yet everything the imperium has almost looks like a flying brick?

As others said in this thread, who cares if they are functional or not, it looks freaking cool. What ever happened to the rule of cool?

The Valkyrie takes a number of design cues from the Apache and the Hind; I think that's close enough to tell you the truth.

Davor wrote:
We are talking about the helicopter being no good, but yet everything the imperium has almost looks like a flying brick?

As others said in this thread, who cares if they are functional or not, it looks freaking cool. What ever happened to the rule of cool?

Where is your Helicopter now?

 Senden wrote:

AtomicEngineer wrote:I think the guard are missing a vehicle from their armory. I mean they have the Vietnam troops in catachan yet no guard helicopters to keep with the theme.

The Ultramarines novels mention 'ornithopters' in use by the PDF, so it looks like Cadians get the good stuff, and PDF make do with locally produced rotary wing aircraft (Because the Mechanicus lost the blueprints for the Huey)

tanuvein wrote:To be fair, a helicopter is virtually inferior in every way to a jet that can hover when it wants. That's why the CV-22 Ospreys are becoming more and more used.

Not necessarily, At low speed and in the hover choppas do much better, especially in close quarters.

Not to mention VTOL craft spend proportionately more fuel in Hover and have to employ heavy extra engines, like the Short SC.1, Dornier Do 31 and Yak-38or heavy thrust fans driven by the engine like the F-35B

An "Orinthopter" is an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings. It's not a helicopter. Here's an RC orinthopter:



And if you would like to know more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornithopter

... and in the Imperium, we have anti-grav technology, so we don't worry about engine ratings, fuel consumption or anything of the sort.

As stated, Valks and Vendettas fill the role of a helicopter. both the Valk and Vendetta carry comparable armaments to modern helicopters, and also act as transports.

In fact, any of the Flyers that have the hover type are the helicopter equivalents in 40k.


Roters have been swapped for either powerful thrusters and/or anti-gravity technology.

 Rippy wrote:

 tuiman wrote:
I hate to say it but I cant see a place for a helicopter in the 41st millennium.

As above, if the Valkyrie/vendetta have some sort of vtol technology which they most likely do, what advantage would there be to have a helicopter over that.A helicopter would be less unmovable surely and get shot down easy.

I'm not saying Im against helicopters, they are pretty cool, but even now technology is improving on vtol style aircraft, F35 and V-22. I think the humble helicopter will become obsolete as we progress in tech.

Just my 2c

Yet there is a place for all other tech we use today. Sorry but that doesn't make sense. There is as much place for artillery and foot soldiers as helicopters.

Yea I got carried away a little bit there...

But I say that with vtol style aircraft such as valkyrie that you wouldnt need a helicopter in 40k