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DakkaDakka has a topic on the "smallest imperial warp capable ship". I was wondering what information there is on shuttle-sized vehicles, which are just used for landing from orbit, or transit between starships. What would an Inquisitor's team generally use to conduct a strike against a space hulk for example? Here is a compilation of what I could find, so please add whatever you can:


Arvus Lighter



The standard shuttle sized craft of the Imperium. Probably ubiquitous throughout the galaxy. Likely used to ferry civilians and cargo into and from orbit. Maybe millions are produced at Forge Worlds across the Imperium.


Aquilla Lander



The luxury shuttle, equivalent of the lambda class shuttle in Star Wars, in other words a vehicle for VIPS, officers, etc. Likely used by an Admiral or General for an inspection, or to carry other important persons like Inquisitors.


Valkyrie Gunship



The Imperial Guard may deploy a special forces squad from the troop compartment of a Valkyrie, and they seem to be capable of reaching orbit, making them similar to the Clone Trooper LAAT gunship in Star Wars.


Thunderhawk Gunship



The Space Marine's orbital vehicle of choice, used since it replaced the earlier Stormbird of the Horus Heresy. A heavily armed ship capable of landing a Space Marine strike force in a battlefield, or attack ground targets.


Any others? Particularily civilian or Adeptus Administratum? What do Sisters of Battle use?

Those are the only ones I'm familiar with named in canon.

You might want to add the Stormbird though; the predecessor to the Thunderhawk - even larger! Although out of service come 41st millenium.
Plus Stormeagle and Stormraven. The former being a rare relic and the latter fairly common among Space Marines.

I'm sure there's also a legion of assorted other craft, often just glossed over in novels as "shuttles" or similar.
They crop up sometimes in artwork as just random ships.

Eisenhorn uses a “gun cutter” for orbital stuffs.

The Cain books have various platoon and company sized shuttles that can take infantry and vehicles. It also describes how civilian shuttles are retrofitted to enable military drops as required into friendly drop zones.

Titans have specific massive drop ships to bring them down.

It’s non imperial, but I know Dakkajets can go orbital, and there’s at least 5 grots crammed into the wires of em, idk if that’s a transport or not though.

You might look here

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Imperial_Aircraft


It lists all imperial aircraft including ones there are no models for.

Having looked up some more, I guess we can add:


Vendetta Gunship



Another gunship of the Aeronautica Imperialis, capable of deploying Imperial Guard drop troops


Devourer Dropship



A heavier type of Imperial Guard dropship, that seems to have a large internal capacity.


Tetrarch Lander



Perhaps the biggest Imperial Guard landing vehicle, capable of deploying a company.


Thunderhawk Transporter



A larger variant of the Thunderhawk, used to transport Space Marine tanks and APCs.


Space Marine Landing Craft



Seems to be the largest Space Marine lander, and looks related to the Thunderhawk.


Stormbird Gunship [RETIRED]



The antique Space Marine gunship of the Horus Heresy, since abandoned for the Thunderhawk.


Caestus Assault Ram



Used for void-based boarding actions of enemy starships, but can also be deployed as dropship.


Orion Gunship [RETIRED]



An ancient Adeptus Custodes dropship, probably no longer in use as of the 41st millennium.


Gun-Cutter



Used by Inquisitor and Rogue Traders. Possibly a general classification for many ship classes.


That final one, the Gun Cutter, is probably quite important, for the purposes of role-playing and fluff, as it sounds like the designation or class that would generally be used by the Inquisition and other specialist forces. It essentially looks like a Thunderhawk, so probably a very capable vessel used for elite purposes like deploying Inquisitors in war zones. A few others mentioned without images were the Eagle Shuttle (Adeptus Cutodes), RE-45 (civilian), Talion (Sisters of Silence), and Corona Lander (civilian and military). They might just be variants of existing patterns, as the Vendetta is of the Valkyrie; Eagle and Aquilla mean the same thing for example, meaning it could just be an Aquilla Lander.

I think FW used to make that Thunderhawk Transporter- I'm pretty sure I remember seeing pics with it carrying two rhinos or one land raider.

They still do make the IG Valkyrie Skytalon- but they no longer make the Elysian buggy it was designed to carry- too bad too, because the combo was particularly bad@$$.

I've been told that there's virtually nothing in the range that it can carry... But I'm curious about the Wargames Exclusive cars. Here are some links:

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-CA/Imperial-Navy-Valkyrie-Sky-Talon

https://wargameexclusive.com/shop/heresy-hunters/heresy-hunter-interceptor-car/

The car is specifically designed to be an Inquisitor's ride, so you'd want to kit the Skytalon up with some =][= BLING =][=

There are almost assuredly many hundreds or thousands of different types of vessels capable of traveling from a planet's surface to space, and thus also capable of in-system travel in theory. The ones actually named in the lore will mostly be the military ones, but there were definitely be many unnamed military and many more unnamed civilian craft as well.

The Stormbird wasn't retired as the various Marine Chapters and Chaos Warbands can't afford to just stop using perfectly good equipment. They don't get built but they are actively maintained and used but only in dire circumstances.
The Cutsodes also haven't stopped using the Orion or the Ares Gunship.

Sisters and administratum seem to mostly use lighters and landers from what I recall.

For the xenos side of things, I think the Manta is the only named tau "shuttle", though it's maybe on the large side for that title. Seems likely they would have smaller craft that just aren't named. The coldstar is void-capable, but a suit probably doesn't count as a "shuttle."

For eldar, you have Asurmen's Storm Lance, which is probably one-of-a-kind but seems to be roughly yacht-sized. There's the vampire which has (had?) a transport capacity of something like 20 models. I think their tanks might all be orbit-capable. (There's art of falcons flying in the clouds, and they have stratagems representing high-altitude flight.)

In Lukas the Trickster, we see drukhkari arrive planetside in raiders and venoms via a temporar (webway?) portal that connects their hangar to Fenris. So it may be possible that drukhari don't actually utilize "shuttles" at all. Although they do have boarding craft per Battle Fleet Gothic. (At least, the video game version.)

Tyranids mostly arrive via their drop pod equivalents, but I guess the flying superheavy that serves as a transport for gargoyles might technically count? (Not sure if it's capable of re-entering the void once it's in a planet's atmosphere though.)

Necrons have their tomb (night?) scythes with the invasion beams that sort of kind of teleport units. Pretty sure direct teleportation is their main way of delivering the bulk of their forces though.

Orks probably have boarding craft that could unreliably survive orbital re-entry, but I'm not aware of an identified standardized class of ork vehicle that carries a pile of boyz to and fro. Like, I'm sure they've done that from time to time, but it seems like they're equally happy just crash-landing a rock into the planet and making do with whatever orks survive the crash.

Let's not forget the Corvus Blackstar, which is my favorite design for a landing craft in the entire 40k catalog. Even though it's still a brick, it almost looks like it can fly. I've often thought that a single guy could almost have one as his own personal space RV, Mandalorian style.

Tau also have the Orca from back in the day. Not sure if its still available, but it had 40k and Epic rules at one point.

Good catch, Flinty. I thought I was forgetting something.

RomulanSoldier wrote:

Valkyrie Gunship



The Imperial Guard may deploy a special forces squad from the troop compartment of a Valkyrie, and they seem to be capable of reaching orbit, making them similar to the Clone Trooper LAAT gunship in Star Wars.

Bear-in-mind the Valkyrie is not an Imperial Guard vehicle. It belongs to the Aeronautica Imperialis, which is apart of the Imperial Navy. Valkyries can be used by any faction in the Imperium.

" In Lukas the Trickster, we see drukhkari arrive planetside in raiders and venoms via a temporar (webway?) portal that connects their hangar to Fenris. So it may be possible that drukhari don't actually utilize "shuttles" at all. Although they do have boarding craft per Battle Fleet Gothic. (At least, the video game version.)"

They're called Slavebringer assault boats and are in the board game too. Based on their capability they're vampire/thunderhawk size.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Speaking of assault boats, dont forget the navy shark assault boat - their equivalent of the caestus.

Eldar in general have Vampires that fill that role. Not all planets are connected to the webway, so they do need some degree of orbit to ground transport, even if its just to get the webway gate fiddler (its a technical term, go look it up...) on the ground.