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 BrookM wrote:
Forge World isn't very fond of most of their large flyers either, they certainly said as much during the open day last year, seeing the Stormbird as the new way forward in terms of how to best do a large flyer.

I hope so, the Stormbird looks great, IMO, and is s huge step forward. Much more interesting to look at.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

GoatboyBeta wrote:
If it is a plastic T.Hawk(and that's a really big if) and not a new resin version or just art, then yeah cool. But If GW were going to do a FW SM specific super heavy in plastic I'd much prefer either the Fellblade or Spartan and there variants over a Thunderhawk.

So...generic tank A and generic tank B instead of an iconic Space Marine dropship. Ok...

*shrug* I'd get more use out of both of them then a Thunderhawk, aka generic overly long box with stubby wings A If a plastic version happens and the design is improved enough to appeal, I might get one to put on the shelf. But I doubt it would ever see the table top.

Yeah the Stormbird might be my favourite of the Thunderhawk line.

Also their new Tau flyers are simply fantastic.

If they are truly getting sick of all their old flyer models and they are updating the Tau flyers good chance we see a Manta or Manta offshoot and I'll buy that gak so hard lol. So if they update the Tau fully then look to see the better selling IoM flyers get redone.

My wallet and bank account will weep though.

Edit
Are Deathwatch allowed to take a Stormbird?

Edit2
Crazy idea. What if they made an AC-130 version of the Manta? Hahaha. All that dakka on point no matter how it turns while flying.

If they made it in plastic I would be tempted to get two. One for my 30k army and one for my 40k army.

It's probably just a refresh for the resin kit like the tau got. They did a bunch of new cad work for the storm bird, so they already had most the cad done for the thunder hawk already.

The Tau kit is not a refresh it changed the Barracuda and Tigershark a lot. They even renamed it to the Barracuda AX-2-5 to represent its a totally different upgraded model. No idea what the new Tigershark will be named.

A refresh is the exact same model brought back and FW recasts the old molds. An update of a unit is when they reshape it in design and then need a completely new mold made. Sure it looks similar to the old one, but uses a completely new mold. Google can find you old vs new cuda pics I'm sure.

 Gamgee wrote:
The Tau kit is not a refresh it changed the Barracuda and Tigershark a lot. They even renamed it to the Barracuda AX-2-5 to represent its a totally different upgraded model. No idea what the new Tigershark will be named.

A refresh is the exact same model brought back and FW recasts the old molds. An update of a unit is when they reshape it in design and then need a completely new mold made. Sure it looks similar to the old one, but uses a completely new mold. Google can find you old vs new cuda pics I'm sure.

It's referred to as a refresh because it is an update/refinement on the old design, not a completely new one. And The AX-5-2 datasheet allows them to add rules for the new model with it's alternate weapons loadout without invalidating the entry in IA3 2nd ed.

The new Tigershark will likely be the AX-1, maybe AX-1-1 and AX-1-2 for the two variants. I'd guess the basic Tigershark will be promoted to using the Riptide style Ion cannon to balance it more with the Railgun version, turret weapons will have the CIB option, and the drone bay may become an upgrade option for either build.


Back on topic of the Thunderhawk, it's on the cover as well:


Up top in the lightning. It appears to have a ventral fin, or possibly a lower part to the tail, in addition to the slightly downswept wings.

This is certainly a new Thunderhawk, but is it a plastic kit? -What I find interesting is the detailing that is different between this and the old Thunderhawk those portions clearly match up with the styling of the Sokar... this says to me what ever this new Thunderhawk is it was done either with the digital files used to create the Sokar or simply a conversion using parts from it... being either a FW model or something done with assets shared between the two studios. As much as I'm hoping it's plastic it could just as easily be a resin Heresy era Thunderhawk in the same way we have the smorgasbord of Land Raiders.

I also can't help but feel if they were doing a plastic Thunderhawk they'd have known for some time and would likely have held back on the Sokar to make use of plastic bits in the same way the Fellblade borrows sprues from the Baneblade kit.

 aka_mythos wrote:
This is certainly a new Thunderhawk, but is it a plastic kit? -What I find interesting is the detailing that is different between this and the old Thunderhawk those portions clearly match up with the styling of the Sokar... this says to me what ever this new Thunderhawk is it was done either with the digital files used to create the Sokar or simply a conversion using parts from it... being either a FW model or something done with assets shared between the two studios. As much as I'm hoping it's plastic it could just as easily be a resin Heresy era Thunderhawk in the same way we have the smorgasbord of Land Raiders.

I also can't help but feel if they were doing a plastic Thunderhawk they'd have known for some time and would likely have held back on the Sokar to make use of plastic bits in the same way the Fellblade borrows sprues from the Baneblade kit.

I would think that the size of the Sokar would make the use of plastic parts for any structural elements impractical. The Fire Raptor uses a handful of parts from the Storm Raven kit, namely the wings, cockpit hull part, and bits of the engines. As a result, the upper hull needs several additional parts to cover up the turret mount and rear intake slot from the storm raven, and the engine assemblies have to be designed to slot in the angled lip at the wing root of the plastic parts. For a much larger kit, it makes more sense to simply make more solid resin, especially if it would allow them to design the parts to fit together more specifically rather than have to compensate for plastic parts meant for slightly different use. And the Storm Bird looks like enough of a beast to build without making it a hybrid.

 BrookM wrote:
Forge World isn't very fond of most of their large flyers either, they certainly said as much during the open day last year, seeing the Stormbird as the new way forward in terms of how to best do a large flyer.

Any idea what they mean by "new way forward"? Were they talking about kit engineering and fixing some of the fit issues with the old Thunderhawk, or aesthetic changes? If it's the latter I can't see how the aesthetic changes with the Stormbird would apply to anything but space marine flyers. It wouldn't make any sense when talking about something like the Marauder or Manta.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 Kirasu wrote:
Because they've never made thunderhawk rules playable? I'd be careful with giving GW the ability to "fix bad units" since they have shown they either are incapable or unwilling.

Except this would be making GW plastic not FW resin more usable on the tabletop. You can't tell me that the criminally underpriced Wraithknight didn't happen so that more of the hem saw tabletop, thus increasing sales. Same goes for other big kits like the Riptide and Stormsurge. Perhaps we won't see the Thunderhawk under 500 pts, but don't count GW out for giving it a low points cost just to sell a $200 model.

Aa that's why dinobots, tau&dawfliers got so scrappy rules. Gw didn't want to sell new kit.

New unit getting deliberately broken rules is just urban myth

 MajorWesJanson wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
The Tau kit is not a refresh it changed the Barracuda and Tigershark a lot. They even renamed it to the Barracuda AX-2-5 to represent its a totally different upgraded model. No idea what the new Tigershark will be named.

A refresh is the exact same model brought back and FW recasts the old molds. An update of a unit is when they reshape it in design and then need a completely new mold made. Sure it looks similar to the old one, but uses a completely new mold. Google can find you old vs new cuda pics I'm sure.

It's referred to as a refresh because it is an update/refinement on the old design, not a completely new one. And The AX-5-2 datasheet allows them to add rules for the new model with it's alternate weapons loadout without invalidating the entry in IA3 2nd ed.

The new Tigershark will likely be the AX-1, maybe AX-1-1 and AX-1-2 for the two variants. I'd guess the basic Tigershark will be promoted to using the Riptide style Ion cannon to balance it more with the Railgun version, turret weapons will have the CIB option, and the drone bay may become an upgrade option for either build.


Back on topic of the Thunderhawk, it's on the cover as well:

Spoiler:

Up top in the lightning. It appears to have a ventral fin, or possibly a lower part to the tail, in addition to the slightly downswept wings.

If they do that then I sure hope the Tigershark is buffed because the old one is not very cost effective compared to Two Barracudas. The Tigershark since it doesn't seem to pack a lot of firepower for its high cost and low rate of fire. I hope the Tigershark 2 gets the Ta'unar railgun rule that lets them reroll the d roll and take the better roll.

Edit
Looking at the newest Tigershark rules. What a piece of junk. You can get Three AX-2-5's upgraded with the cyclic ion blasters for the price of one of these. Even adding in the railgun still gets you three of them. 555 points for 33 Str 7 shots vs 1 twin link dshot, 8 str 5 shot, 2 str 7, and a networked ML for 660 points! The cuda's have base BS5 vs ground targets anyways thanks to strafing run. The cuda's are all more survivable as a whole team as opposed to the gakky Tigershark. Even back in the day this thing looks like a piece of junk.

 MajorWesJanson wrote:

 aka_mythos wrote:
I also can't help but feel if they were doing a plastic Thunderhawk they'd have known for some time and would likely have held back on the Sokar to make use of plastic bits in the same way the Fellblade borrows sprues from the Baneblade kit.

I would think that the size of the Sokar would make the use of plastic parts for any structural elements impractical. The Fire Raptor uses a handful of parts from the Storm Raven kit, namely the wings, cockpit hull part, and bits of the engines. As a result, the upper hull needs several additional parts to cover up the turret mount and rear intake slot from the storm raven, and the engine assemblies have to be designed to slot in the angled lip at the wing root of the plastic parts. For a much larger kit, it makes more sense to simply make more solid resin, especially if it would allow them to design the parts to fit together more specifically rather than have to compensate for plastic parts meant for slightly different use. And the Storm Bird looks like enough of a beast to build without making it a hybrid.

There are elements of the Stormbird that are generally identical to the Thunderhawk; the engines are the same size there are just simply more of them... but structurally, the whole front cockpit section is identical in size; FW used the cockpit section from the Thunderhawk transporter with some modifications. If we imagine that section as plastic it isn't hard to imagine the simple addition of larger resin forward wings and a resin panel to cover the space for the front ramp. If there were a plastic Thunderhawk having just the necessary sprues along with resin cuts cost and reduces the weight in areas likely to seperate.

If anything I imagine that we may just be getting a tweaked resin Thunderhawk as the current one is pretty old. While I would love a plastic one (and would actually buy the thing) I don't think the first time it would be sneakily shown off would be in a FW book.

That being said, the launch of a new edition of 40K would be the absolute perfect time to release a model such as this...

Think it's more likely a variant for Sisters or Custodes ? There are differences in design but seems unlikely that they would want to show off the model on the cover of a forgeworld book. In the pic you've got another thunderhawk as well which is FW. The plastic alleged one has no weapons on pylons either, which to me further suggests a different type or variant - the other two appear to be escorts. As far as price v sales, we'll have you checked forgeworld stop sellers? Notice the warlord?

Another possible is a plastic kit to allow FW to knock out conversion kits.

 TwilightSparkles wrote:
Think it's more likely a variant for Sisters or Custodes?

If it's resin, I think it's highly unlikely to be a variant only available to Custodes or SoS just because that severely limits the appeal, which from a business perspective seems like a bad idea considering I'm sure you'd want a Thunderhawk to have as much universal appeal as possible. If it's a plastic kit, or a new resin kit that will be widely available to all marine factions, then I'd wager FW could conceivably create upgrade kits for it that would make it more faction-specific. But it's not their usual MO to release a big kit and also release faction-specific variants right off the bat. Usually the main kit is released first with a lot of fanfare and then the upgrade kits come out later.

Beyond all of that, I don't see anything in these small images that leads me to believe that it's anything other than a new generic Thunderhawk kit. It may not have under-wing weapons as standard with the new kit, so that may explain the lack of ordinance. If they do fully re-make the kit, I'd wager you'll have more weapon options for all the weapon points—like they did for the Barracuda—swap out the heavy bolters for lascannons? Who knows?

Last year they did say Specialist games and FW would now have the capacity to do plastics... we took it to mean things like Prospero Burns or the way they did Blood Bowl but maybe this there first big thing.

 aka_mythos wrote:
Last year they did say Specialist games and FW would now have the capacity to do plastics... we took it to mean things like Prospero Burns or the way they did Blood Bowl but maybe this there first big thing.

Darn it man, that's more hope than I need to have right now. My income has dropped to a quarter of what it was last year and the last thing I need right now is a plastic Thunderhawk sized itch to scratch.

I was really really laughing at this thread. The idea, or rumor, of a new Thunderhawk based off an artists rendition in a book, and in the background too! Geesh. However, I left my local GW last night, and take this with the biggest grain of salt, the manager (a friend of mine of 10 years now who just came back from London) said, his words - "There's something big landing this year! I can't tell you what it is, but it is the biggest plastic kit to date that Gw has done, it'll be limited to 2500 boxes worldwide, and be $649.99!" I hadn't even said anything to him about this (silly) rumor, and this drops on my ears. Could it really be a plastic TH? Or something else? Why, of all things, say "landing?" He dropped me hints for a few other things that were coming out months ago, and they did. (Death Watch for example). Weird...

krazynadechukr wrote:
I was really really laughing at this thread. The idea, or rumor, of a new Thunderhawk based off an artists rendition in a book, and in the background too! Geesh. However, I left my local GW last night, and take this with the biggest grain of salt, the manager (a friend of mine of 10 years now who just came back from London) said, his words - "There's something big landing this year! I can't tell you what it is, but it is the biggest plastic kit to date that Gw has done, it'll be limited to 2500 boxes worldwide, and be $649.99!" I hadn't even said anything to him about this (silly) rumor, and this drops on my ears. Could it really be a plastic TH? Or something else? Why, of all things, say "landing?" He dropped me hints for a few other things that were coming out months ago, and they did. (Death Watch for example). Weird...

FW Thunderhawk - $544.92
GW Thunderhawk - $649.99

I think the big grain of salt to which you refer is more like a bag of salt.

Truly a genius at work! Ah yes, let's make a several thousand Pound plastic kit limited, so they'll never recoup the investment made.

I just don't see a plastic Thunderhawk happening. I find it far more likely that FW is retiring the current mold and making a new refreshed Thunderhawk based on the Sokar CAD model.


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krazynadechukr wrote:
I was really really laughing at this thread. The idea, or rumor, of a new Thunderhawk based off an artists rendition in a book, and in the background too! Geesh. However, I left my local GW last night, and take this with the biggest grain of salt, the manager (a friend of mine of 10 years now who just came back from London) said, his words - "There's something big landing this year! I can't tell you what it is, but it is the biggest plastic kit to date that Gw has done, it'll be limited to 2500 boxes worldwide, and be $649.99!" I hadn't even said anything to him about this (silly) rumor, and this drops on my ears. Could it really be a plastic TH? Or something else? Why, of all things, say "landing?" He dropped me hints for a few other things that were coming out months ago, and they did. (Death Watch for example). Weird...

I can't believe this. Limited? That would be GW going from 0 to full retread at light speed.

krazynadechukr wrote:
I was really really laughing at this thread. The idea, or rumor, of a new Thunderhawk based off an artists rendition in a book, and in the background too! Geesh. However, I left my local GW last night, and take this with the biggest grain of salt, the manager (a friend of mine of 10 years now who just came back from London) said, his words - "There's something big landing this year! I can't tell you what it is, but it is the biggest plastic kit to date that Gw has done, it'll be limited to 2500 boxes worldwide, and be $649.99!" I hadn't even said anything to him about this (silly) rumor, and this drops on my ears. Could it really be a plastic TH? Or something else? Why, of all things, say "landing?" He dropped me hints for a few other things that were coming out months ago, and they did. (Death Watch for example). Weird...

All this salt has me retaining so much water my belt broke.

 oni wrote:
I just don't see a plastic Thunderhawk happening. I find it far more likely that FW is retiring the current mold and making a new refreshed Thunderhawk based on the Sokar CAD model.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

krazynadechukr wrote:
I was really really laughing at this thread. The idea, or rumor, of a new Thunderhawk based off an artists rendition in a book, and in the background too! Geesh. However, I left my local GW last night, and take this with the biggest grain of salt, the manager (a friend of mine of 10 years now who just came back from London) said, his words - "There's something big landing this year! I can't tell you what it is, but it is the biggest plastic kit to date that Gw has done, it'll be limited to 2500 boxes worldwide, and be $649.99!" I hadn't even said anything to him about this (silly) rumor, and this drops on my ears. Could it really be a plastic TH? Or something else? Why, of all things, say "landing?" He dropped me hints for a few other things that were coming out months ago, and they did. (Death Watch for example). Weird...

I can't believe this. Limited? That would be GW going from 0 to full retread at light speed.

Or making $1,625,000 at light speed with pre orders? Then releasing an unlimited, new FW, resin edition for less perhaps? I don't put anything past GW anymore...


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Let's not forget Space Hulk... limited my


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The Plastic Thunderhawk has been (strongly) rumored since at least 2014. If GW made one it would not be an exact duplication of Forgeworld's kit due to the need to streamline for a limited number of sprues and boxing size limitations. Additional weapon hard points and weapon options would also be available compared to the Forgeworld kit most likely. Look for weapon hard points and options from other Space Marine flyer kits for possible clues. Multiple Thunderhawk variants probably could be built from the one kit. That's my guess if this is actually true.

Wonder what price they'd hit eBay for after the scampers buy all of them in the first 10 seconds .

Even as big as the Thunderhawk is it isn't so big as to cost $649 in plastic. Maybe its a Thunderhawk squadron boxset.. or some formation built around Thunderhawks.

This is my estimation based on a good number of years working with injection molding, designing and sourcing, and what I've come to expect and what I can infer looking at GW's large kits...

Take for instance the Baneblade, it uses 7 of the largest sprues to date... ~11"x17"... This gives GW's Baneblade kit molds a planar area of ~1100 in^2... but only about half that areas (550 in^2) is populated with parts the rest is used for gating and temperature regulation... The Thunderhawk is a box with wings, 17" wing span ~4.5 inches at the wides part of the wing... the hull is 19" long with a ~4.5" x 5" cross section at the largest portions... Given the wings thickness I'm counting it double... at this point we have a bounding surface area of ~650 in^2... even with all the weapons and facets, I don't see it adding more than 1/3 more surface area... at shy of 850 in^2 a Thunderhawk should fit on 11 sprues with a part density like the Baneblade kit. This assumes no significant interior structure or details and it assumes no major variants like the way the Shadowsword et al are part of the Baneblade kit.

In all likely hood given how much denser GW's been able to sprue their models in recent years they could probably pack the pieces more tightly than the Baneblade sprues, either cutting down the sprue count or adding more options.

Using a similar pricing scheme as the Baneblade (retail $140 for 7 sprues or $20/sprue) we'd be looking at between $200-220 for a kit this size. GW could always charge more, but this is a baseline based on what they've done.

 oni wrote:
I just don't see a plastic Thunderhawk happening. I find it far more likely that FW is retiring the current mold and making a new refreshed Thunderhawk based on the Sokar CAD model.

You raise a good point here.

Are there any examples of GW plastic models getting a sneak peek in FW publications? There may be...but I can't think of any. It seems more likely for FW to be giving a sneak peek of an upcoming FW project. Or for this to simply be some CAD art they did at some point and not a peek at a model release.

The plastic Valkyrie CAD was previewed well in advance in the Tactica Aeronautica (or was it the Aeronautica Imperialis book?) book.

I've been let down one to many times to put faith into yet another plastic Thunderhawk rumor let alone one that claims they'll be in limited supply. My ire for GW would be inconsolable if they finally released a plastic Thunderhawk and I didn't get one.

 BrookM wrote:
The plastic Valkyrie CAD was previewed well in advance in the Tactica Aeronautica (or was it the Aeronautica Imperialis book?) book.

On the other hand, the plastic Gorgon CAD was similarly previewed years ago and still hasn't been released, so seeing a CGI version of a new Thunderhawk design doesn't necessarily mean a new kit.

 aka_mythos wrote:
Even as big as the Thunderhawk is it isn't so big as to cost $649 in plastic. Maybe its a Thunderhawk squadron boxset.. or some formation built around Thunderhawks.

This is my estimation based on a good number of years working with injection molding, designing and sourcing, and what I've come to expect and what I can infer looking at GW's large kits...

Take for instance the Baneblade, it uses 7 of the largest sprues to date... ~11"x17"... This gives GW's Baneblade kit molds a planar area of ~1100 in^2... but only about half that areas (550 in^2) is populated with parts the rest is used for gating and temperature regulation... The Thunderhawk is a box with wings, 17" wing span ~4.5 inches at the wides part of the wing... the hull is 19" long with a ~4.5" x 5" cross section at the largest portions... Given the wings thickness I'm counting it double... at this point we have a bounding surface area of ~650 in^2... even with all the weapons and facets, I don't see it adding more than 1/3 more surface area... at shy of 850 in^2 a Thunderhawk should fit on 11 sprues with a part density like the Baneblade kit. This assumes no significant interior structure or details and it assumes no major variants like the way the Shadowsword et al are part of the Baneblade kit.

In all likely hood given how much denser GW's been able to sprue their models in recent years they could probably pack the pieces more tightly than the Baneblade sprues, either cutting down the sprue count or adding more options.

Using a similar pricing scheme as the Baneblade (retail $140 for 7 sprues or $20/sprue) we'd be looking at between $200-220 for a kit this size. GW could always charge more, but this is a baseline based on what they've done.

I like your reasoning, however, consider this -

Smaug, 42 piece miniature. Weighing 2.4kgs, the height of the miniature from the bottom of the base to the tip of Smaug’s™ wing is 8.4 inches (or 21.4 cm). The base is 9.2 inches (or 23.1 cm) long and 5.4 inches (or 13.3 cm) wide. $490.

Anyhoo, I still doubt that a CAD image, a background image at that, is anything to even potentially hope and reach for to back up a rumor of a new kit.