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Hi Dakka, i've been out of the game for a few years, just catching up on stuff. Thinking of coming back to Blood Angels, one of my centrepiece models is a Thunderhawk Gunship. Can anyone point me to where the most current rules for this thing are, and what sort of games I can run it in, what are the restrictions...it's a 'Lord of War' now I take it? Can you play one in a standard CAD thing or the given Blood Angels formation thing? Is there any way to run it and Dante in the same game?

Any ideas on what would make a cool army built around it? Just persuing the 'new' Blood Angels book now, seems a lot has changed re: the old Feel no Pain and these new detachment and superheavies

It's a Lord of War, it's allowed in any standard CAD you can fit it in. You're allowed to run it and Dante in any game large enough to fit two CADs (by my count the absolute minimum required to run both is 1,255, but that's Dante, the Thunderhawk, and about 350pts of bare Scouts and Techmarines to hit detachment restrictions. In practice you probably want to hold off until you hit 2,000pts at least.)

There are no Blood Angels formations that include Thunderhawks; generally you can't get formations that allow Forge World units.

If you want to build an army around a Thunderhawk the first and most important thing you'll need is a Skyshield Landing Pad (will have to double check where the rules are printed now), 775pts (with the turbo-laser, more if you buy any other upgrades and even more if you put people in it) is way too much to be reliant on Reserves rolls. After that I'd take a scattering of backfield objective-holding units and load the Thunderhawk with infantry Death Company or some such scary things that'd be happy with a functionally guaranteed turn three charge (after the turbo-laser has blown up the really hard targets).

You can find rules for it in Apocalypse and Escalation, I believe.

I'd personally be wary of running it at less than 2500 points.

It's a really big target - visual and size-wise - even moreso than a Baneblade. It has to go into skimmer mode to let occupants disembark, which leaves it vulnerable to shooting and especially assault.

It's only side/front 12, barely better than a Rhino, and rear 10, which means any average Marine has a chance to glance it.

I guess it could make a decent firing platform if you keep it in the air, especially if you don't use the Death From the Skies book. But even then, I feel that the same number of points in Stormravens and Stormtalons would get a lot more done, as they could maneuver better and actually Jink in response to being shot at.

It looks nice, but with today's range of Superheavies and anti-Superheavy weaponry, it's not a powerful option.

As said above, you NEED a Skyshield. Period. Otherwise, you are throwing away your points. Even with other rules to make arrival on turn 2 reliable, you can't afford to kill 1000 points of your army for a turn.