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It's something iconic to the hobby, which may be reason enough for some to get one.

IMO, it's partly the iconic nature of the Thunderhawk. To me, more than even the landraider or rhino, it is THE marine vehicle. Others may disagree with that of course. So it's partly just the iconic nature of the kit.

How does it improve the space marine list? I'm sure that question would be impossible to answer at the moment being dependent on rules we don't have using 8th edition mechanics we don't understand. Time will tell if it's actually WORTH the investment from a gameplay perspective.

Even if it's only a beautiful terrain piece for a lot of games, I think it would make for an amazing objective. Having your marines secure a Thunderhawk which has been forced down due to mechanical problems is all kinds of cinematic.

Knowing GW they will release it in plastic and only vanilla marines will get it since they usually only let those in awe of girlyman get new toys just look at the terminators and contemptor

So will the plastic Thunderhawk be ridiculously out of scale like the Corvus Blackstar?

Hoping it won't be Chinese plastic and come pre-clipped in bags.

I'd prefer a plastic Thunderbolt but I'll still probably pick one up to put on my to-do shelf.

 bubber wrote:
I'd prefer a plastic Thunderbolt but I'll still probably pick one up to put on my to-do shelf.

More like use it AS a shelf. Have your models out on the wings and standing on the fuselage.

I need a plastic T-Hawk like I need Dorn's model.

So, not really at all, but I will get them and I will have an Imperial Fist army to start.

 Floyd73 wrote:
Hoping it won't be Chinese plastic and come pre-clipped in bags.

I would say you're partially right on that. In order to make this thing viable, I would expect much of the main body and the main wings to be single, large pieces of plastic, much like the base of the Aquila Strongpoint model is one giant piece of plastic. So, yes, I expect parts of it to be "pre-clipped". And the a bunch of sprues to add on the bits and stuff.

Forget the flying brick, where the F is the plastic Warhound!? It would have more uses on the field than that flying hunk of junk!

 Brother Xeones wrote:
I'm curious about the additional options Harry has mentioned. We had speculated earlier that if they re-did the kit (either a new resin re-model from FW or a new plastic one) that additional weapons options would be likely, but this is the first tidbit that isn't pure speculations based on current kit trends.

Based on the size of a T-hawk kit (even if it's more the size of the old metal model) would that put it's main dorsal armament at about the same scale as Imperial knight weaponry? If so, any of those weapons could be fair game which could boost the optional list of main weapons up to 4 (RF Battle Cannon, Thermal Cannon, and Avenger Gatling Cannon) plus the Turbo Laser which I'm sure it would still have as an option. Then you've still got the Heavy Bolter Turrets which might be swappable for other heavy weapons like the Stormraven and other marine flyers can do—and that still doesn't even cover the two lascannons and underwing ordinance. That's a lot of available options.*

*I don't consider this wishlisting. I'm just speculating based off of Harry's rumor of more options.

The dorsal cannon is basically 8dentical to the Shadowsword kit, and could even use the same cad assets. For other weapon options, it has pylons on the wings that could carry missiles or bombs, and the turrets could be a mix of heavy bolters, melta, assault cannons, Las cannons, or plasma cannons based on other sm fliers.

There will definitely be at least two bought between my brother and I. One for my Crimson Fists and the other for his Dark Angels. There is a distinct possibility my 30K Imperial Fists will get one. Or my Deathwatch. But definitely for my Crimson Fists.

Good news for traitors is we will not feel compelled to buy such an expensive model, thus saving hundreds of dollars, seeing as how GW can't be bothered to spend the extra 30 minutes of manpower to write rules to include us to double the return on such an investment

IA13 is a thing, even if it is currently OOP. There's little to no reason to think CSM won't/can't take them.

macluvin wrote:
Good news for traitors is we will not feel compelled to buy such an expensive model, thus saving hundreds of dollars, seeing as how GW can't be bothered to spend the extra 30 minutes of manpower to write rules to include us to double the return on such an investment

Don't worry, i expect they will let dark angels use them. More seriously, ia13 and the 30k books let the traitor legions take them.

My general rule is that each of my armies will have a Special Character, a flyer, and a Lord of War/superheavy.

A plastic thunderhawk goes a long way to letting me double-up for some of my armies. World Eaters have the Lord of Skulls..... which os both derpy lookng and has lackluster rules.

I'm actually fully expecting some of the parts to be totally cross-compatible with other kits. Weapons with the Baneblade, sponsons with the Land Raider (Who wouldn't want to see a Hurrican bolter thunderhawk?, possibly parts from the Storm Talon and Storm Raven.

 Azreal13 wrote:
IA13 is a thing, even if it is currently OOP. There's little to no reason to think CSM won't/can't take them.

At least until 8th Ed hits and the new Thunderhawk has 30 wounds and a 3+ save and AI13 becomes basically worthless.

Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Floyd73 wrote:
Hoping it won't be Chinese plastic and come pre-clipped in bags.

I would say you're partially right on that. In order to make this thing viable, I would expect much of the main body and the main wings to be single, large pieces of plastic, much like the base of the Aquila Strongpoint model is one giant piece of plastic. So, yes, I expect parts of it to be "pre-clipped". And the a bunch of sprues to add on the bits and stuff.

How big are the biggest frames GW currently casts? Other UK companies do frames big enough to be a Thunderhawk.

Probably only the sides of the fuselage would be 1 big piece, I imagine the bottom/top of the fuselage would be multiple pieces. Even then the sides could be broken down in to smaller pieces.

Depends how many they plan to make I guess.

Hive City Dweller wrote:Can somebody explain to me the appeal of this gargant of a kit? I'm not trying to be "that guy", I'm genuinely curious why people are so interested in it. I've been in the hobby since 2001 and I never understood how something that size can be utilized in a tabletop battle, other than Apocalypse sized battles.

Is it the fact it was previously only metal/resin? Is it more of a collector's piece? How does this kit improve a SM list?

I'm happy for the people who've been waiting for this one nonetheless!

My guess is most people want it as a cool display piece, something that is going to be an interesting challenge to build/paint and maybe once in a blue moon pull it out for an actual game.

Companies like Airfix and Tamiya revolve around customers who buy models just for the hell of building and displaying them without ever thinking of playing an actual game with them.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
IA13 is a thing, even if it is currently OOP. There's little to no reason to think CSM won't/can't take them.

At least until 8th Ed hits and the new Thunderhawk has 30 wounds and a 3+ save and AI13 becomes basically worthless.

Yeah... pretty suspicious about buying any rules between now and when the next edition drops.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Floyd73 wrote:
Hoping it won't be Chinese plastic and come pre-clipped in bags.

I would say you're partially right on that. In order to make this thing viable, I would expect much of the main body and the main wings to be single, large pieces of plastic, much like the base of the Aquila Strongpoint model is one giant piece of plastic. So, yes, I expect parts of it to be "pre-clipped". And the a bunch of sprues to add on the bits and stuff.

How big are the biggest frames GW currently casts? Other UK companies do frames big enough to be a Thunderhawk.

Probably only the sides of the fuselage would be 1 big piece, I imagine the bottom/top of the fuselage would be multiple pieces. Even then the sides could be broken down in to smaller pieces.

This picture might give you an idea, if you haven't seen an Aquila Strongpoint in person:


That is one piece of plastic. No sprue attached to it in the box, either (I have one). The big turret next to is also one piece. That's why I can see GW making this with several large pieces for the wings and main body, without having to break any of them up. Then just several sprues of bits to go on it. Ultimately, we'll just have to wait and see how it goes.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Floyd73 wrote:
Hoping it won't be Chinese plastic and come pre-clipped in bags.

I would say you're partially right on that. In order to make this thing viable, I would expect much of the main body and the main wings to be single, large pieces of plastic, much like the base of the Aquila Strongpoint model is one giant piece of plastic. So, yes, I expect parts of it to be "pre-clipped". And the a bunch of sprues to add on the bits and stuff.

How big are the biggest frames GW currently casts? Other UK companies do frames big enough to be a Thunderhawk.

Probably only the sides of the fuselage would be 1 big piece, I imagine the bottom/top of the fuselage would be multiple pieces. Even then the sides could be broken down in to smaller pieces.

This picture might give you an idea, if you haven't seen an Aquila Strongpoint in person:

Spoiler:

That is one piece of plastic. No sprue attached to it in the box, either (I have one). The big turret next to is also one piece. That's why I can see GW making this with several large pieces for the wings and main body, without having to break any of them up. Then just several sprues of bits to go on it. Ultimately, we'll just have to wait and see how it goes.

Sorry I should have been more clear, those preclipped pieces as far as I'm aware come out of China. The reason they are "pre clipped" is possibly because they use a hot-runner casting machine.

My question was how big are the largest sprues GW themselves make in house. I imagine the Baneblade or Gargant are probably the largest kits they currently do?

I'd think GW wouldn't want to outsource a kit like the Thunderhawk to China unless they're only planning on doing a limited run of it.

This thread is going the same direction as this one a few weeks back...

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/716256.page

For the people asking about the size of the metal T-hawk, here's mine next to a Stormraven:

 krazynadechukr wrote:
This thread is going the same direction as this one a few weeks back...

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/716256.page

We probably could have just necroed that thread instead of starting a new one if anyone had remembered about it


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Heliodore wrote:
For the people asking about the size of the metal T-hawk, here's mine next to a Stormraven:

Wow, that's not nearly as big as I thought it would be. I guess the Epic 40k Thunderhawk that it was possibly based off was also quite small back then.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 krazynadechukr wrote:
This thread is going the same direction as this one a few weeks back...

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/716256.page

We probably could have just necroed that thread instead of starting a new one if anyone had remembered about it


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Heliodore wrote:
For the people asking about the size of the metal T-hawk, here's mine next to a Stormraven:

Wow, that's not nearly as big as I thought it would be. I guess the Epic 40k Thunderhawk that it was possibly based off was also quite small back then.

Yeah, There's a great debate and good logic on number of sprues, weight, cost, etc...

" 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."

 Heliodore wrote:
For the people asking about the size of the metal T-hawk, here's mine next to a Stormraven:

If they scale it closer to this model then it's definitely usable on a 6x4 table with a single sturdy flight stand. However I doubt they make it this small.

Nah it's just the limitation of metal. That's probably one of the (if not "the") largest model ever released in metal by a gaming company.

I do think that "size" while out of scale is much better/reasonable for gaming purposes, but as a set-piece or a terrain piece I'd like the proper scaled one.

 krazynadechukr wrote:
.....~11"x17"...

Yeah I remember that discussion, just couldn't remember the sprue sizes.

If it's 11"x17" they should be able to fit the fuselage halves on to a regular sprue without having to rely on China and their frameless pieces. The FW Thunderhawk is apparently 19" long, some of that's going to be the engines which protrude, so once you remove those the sides will probably fit on the same sprue as the Baneblade.

God I hope they don't make it the same size as the metal Thunderhawk that would look way to small, almost as bad as the Corvus Blackstar (like that could fit 5 bikes in)

I can't wait for the community facebook page to make a post about the new plastic thunderhawk! Then myself and many others will ask 'why can't dark angels/blood angels/space wolves/ and chaos use the thunderhawk when they're all founding chapters?' and then GW will delete the whole post to silence opinions.

Ahhhh.....good times.