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If this was the FW thread I'd be tempted to mention something about decals and knights or something...


You can't have one without the other!

What is that book that I'm supposed to be talking about all the time? I just woke up, can't remember.

Who is Hastings?

Mordian2016 wrote:
Who is Hastings?

A "rumour-guy" from Warseer (75Hastings69) with a good track record. I'm not sure if he is still on Warseer but he is active on Disqus.

Ohman wrote:

Mordian2016 wrote:
Who is Hastings?

A "rumour-guy" from Warseer (75Hastings69) with a good track record. I'm not sure if he is still on Warseer but he is active on Disqus.

He is somewhere higher in the GW pipeline, meaning he knows more about what will come out sooner and less accurate on the actual release time. He gives us a better idea of what's in development instead of what is being boxed up.

Context of how good Hastings is courtesy of pretre:

75hastings69 - Total rumors: (123 TRUE) / (28 FALSE) / (3 PARTIALLY TRUE/VAGUE) - Updated 1/8/2016

He's no Lady Atia, but an almost 80% correct record (taking the harshest interpretation of the partially true as being false) is nothing to sneeze at. I'd have to do a lot more number-crunching than I can at the moment, but I suspect that of the people with more than 100 rumors that's a very high rate. Not infallible though.

There's been enough rumors and actions to make me think that GW intend to release a plastic Thunderhawk, but what I'd be quite keen to know is a rough timeframe to pile together the funds. Warhammerfest? Summer? Their holiday splash release?

Hasting's is generally accurate, but I've noticed his rumours do seem to 'miss' some stuff - such as Shadow War and Hammerhal.

Can't draw conclusions about that, but suggests he has a single source within GW who doesn't have 'full access' or whatevs.

Just an observation of mine

Well, he was essentially "out" of GW since AoS - so it's not surprising he's missed more recent stuff.

Hopefully his being lured back by WHQ and the Dwarves means we have a good source back

I wrote this for the ol' resin box.

(to the tune of some old sea chanty i cant remember)

Fare thee well, Resin Thunder Hawk
Will you return in plastic? We shall see
If not the who cares, ill make my own from
Plasticard
It still wont be the same to me.

 EmberlordofFire8 wrote:
I wrote this for the ol' resin box.

(to the tune of some old sea chanty i cant remember)

Fare thee well, Resin Thunder Hawk
Will you return in plastic? We shall see
If not the who cares, ill make my own from
Plasticard
It still wont be the same to me.

Gets you right in heart strings!

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 EmberlordofFire8 wrote:
I wrote this for the ol' resin box.

(to the tune of some old sea chanty i cant remember)

Fare thee well, Resin Thunder Hawk
Will you return in plastic? We shall see
If not the who cares, ill make my own from
Plasticard
It still wont be the same to me.

Gets you right in heart strings!

Nobody that plays 40k has a heart, it's the deal we make the first time we pick up an OP model.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Hasting's is generally accurate, but I've noticed his rumours do seem to 'miss' some stuff - such as Shadow War and Hammerhal.

Can't draw conclusions about that, but suggests he has a single source within GW who doesn't have 'full access' or whatevs.

Just an observation of mine

I've noticed the same. My guess is that he is or he knows someone important but isn't so high up as to be aware of everything going on. Probably someone in the design studio but not someone who sees everything that's going on and where once something is out of their hands and off to manufacturing has no idea what's going on.

 aka_mythos wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Hasting's is generally accurate, but I've noticed his rumours do seem to 'miss' some stuff - such as Shadow War and Hammerhal.

Can't draw conclusions about that, but suggests he has a single source within GW who doesn't have 'full access' or whatevs.

Just an observation of mine

I've noticed the same. My guess is that he is or he knows someone important but isn't so high up as to be aware of everything going on. Probably someone in the design studio but not someone who sees everything that's going on and where once something is out of their hands and off to manufacturing has no idea what's going on.

I don't know how he gets his info but he lost interest in GW because of AoS and a few other things like fine cast, but talking to him he seems pretty fired up by the new stuff GW is releasing- especially Quest and the new Dwarfs. He's more interested in the fantasy side of things but I'm amazed at how far ahead he knows about some stuff- he mentioned Genestealer Cults and Deathwatch coming back over a year before it happened. Bit of a legend at Warseer but he is hanging out on War of Sigmar, hasn't returned to Warseer.

 silverstu wrote:

I don't know how he gets his info but he lost interest in GW because of AoS and a few other things like fine cast, but talking to him he seems pretty fired up by the new stuff GW is releasing- especially Quest and the new Dwarfs. He's more interested in the fantasy side of things but I'm amazed at how far ahead he knows about some stuff- he mentioned Genestealer Cults and Deathwatch coming back over a year before it happened. Bit of a legend at Warseer but he is hanging out on War of Sigmar, hasn't returned to Warseer.

He's obviously an old time GW fan, so it's no surprise the products aimed at us old time hobbyists would get him excited. His predominantly fantasy interest maybe why he doesn't get things right...

Can you imagine that "curse" where he just wants to know about fantasy but his friend at GW only works on 40k... "can you tell me about the dwarfs?" -"Don't know any about that, wanna hear about the new-new Eldar and how-" -"Please, dwarfs or nothing?"

Later that day online: "friend mentioned Eldar"

What people don't seem to get is that making resin models is work intensive, uses a lot of materials and requires quite a bit of space for each casting. That translates to quite expensive to make.

As most of us know, making plastic models requires a massive investment up front, but making each model is quite cheap materials wise, manpower wise and space wise.

If the resin Thundehawk has been selling decently for the last decade plus that means that it has proven itself and transforming the product to plastic means that it will earn itself back in the next decade and a half (many times over). Making the resources available at FW to pursue other products/projects. The same that has happened with all the other 30k/40k stuff.

Going plastic means that it's going to be significantly cheaper (I really hope that the pricing Hastings indicates is true), available in GW stores and retail (web) stores. That means more people will be able to buy it, thus selling even more copies...

Plastic means easier assembly, easier painting, easier transport, and greater durability then the resin model. I know most people are quite paranoid about their large resin FW models, especially when their Reaver fell of the table and shattered. Sure outfits like KRmulticase will sell great storage solutions, and many will buy/use them, but it'll still survive a box with good packing material (if you use plastic glue instead of superglue).

At the Hastings pricing of 125-135GBP the question for me isn't whether I buy one or not, but how many to buy right away ;-)

Rules... Those change over the years. Not buying the TH for the rules, I never do.

What some folks just don't get is that the 'pure' gamer is a rare beast in the GW customer pool. GW is a miniatures company first, a games company second. That has been true for almost three decades. Things changed when all the non-GW material was removed from WD.

Let's be honest, the GW games have never been good, especially the core games. What GW sells to most of us id the idea of the game, the fluff and the miniatures. I haven't played 30k/40k/WFB/AoS in years, but have spend more on them then most 10 40k 'pure' gamers combined. When I see a box like Calth I don't just think "A 30k or 40k army!", I think "Finally a 32mm scale way to build that Epic army from my youth I never got to buy!"...

If you don't want or need a TH on your gaming table and thus think it a bad idea. Your not the target audience, we are.

Also keep in mind that GW isn't releasing all that much new for it's core armies, but is releasing a lot. GW is diversifying it's model range. Whych is good for it's viability. You can only keep up this kind of release rate if you do more then the core miniatures and renewing those every decade or so. While everyone would love to see some plastic Sisters of Battle or Noise Marines, a plastic TH will be more profitable for GW in the long run and that's what's GW has been doing. Looking at the long run, the reason for more plastic, more games beyond 40k/WFB/LotR.

How many Thunderhawks would a Chapter have?

Yeah, if battlefleet gothic launched tomorrow i'd probsbly build the chapter fleet i wanted when i was a 13 year old but couldnt afford.

I can't wait for them to release the Plastic Thunderhawk. I hope I'm one of the 10 people worldwide who manages to buy one before they run out of their Limited Time only stock.

Loopstah wrote:
I can't wait for them to release the Plastic Thunderhawk. I hope I'm one of the 10 people worldwide who manages to buy one before they run out of their Limited Time only stock.

You understand that a boxed game with printed material and bundling of existing content isn't the same as something that would be a range item yeah?

If not, continue your griping. Facts won't matter.

But surely a Thunderhawk will be such a niche product and have such low demand that it makes sense for GW to only produce a minimum to keep their loses down?


Note: Posts may contain sarcasm, don't take them too seriously.

Loopstah wrote:
But surely a Thunderhawk will be such a niche product and have such low demand that it makes sense for GW to only produce a minimum to keep their loses down?


Note: Posts may contain sarcasm, don't take them too seriously.

Sarcastic post or not, it isn't the same situation.

Thunderhawk as a niche wouldn't matter. The driving factor behind things like Shadow War being "limited" is the extra components inside of it. The templates, the cardboard markers, the rulebook, and the two reference books.

That's stuff that GW doesn't produce in house. Thunderhawk selling out of its run wouldn't be a huge deal; there have been times where a brand new item launch has oversold the production run and they've shipped out the sprues in plain white Citadel boxes.

To use an example when Harlequin came out, that stuff sold fast. My preordered Solitaire came in a plain white Citadel character box, with "Harlequin Solitaire" on a bar code on the front.

I wouldn't put it past GW to make a Thunderhawk some sort of limited thing, I wouldn't expect them to and I hope they don't, but I wouldn't put it past them

I dunno, I could see them running a plastic thunderhawk as a "limited" item, easily. It's a large model that will most likely be $300-400, at least, and will have very limited use in the actual game as anything other than an expensive (but impressive) terrain piece or mission objective. Most people will probably be put off the idea of spending that much money on something they can't really play with too often, if at all. Then again I could be completely wrong, too.

 Sidstyler wrote:
I dunno, I could see them running a plastic thunderhawk as a "limited" item, easily. It's a large model that will most likely be $300-400, at least, and will have very limited use in the actual game as anything other than an expensive (but impressive) terrain piece or mission objective. Most people will probably be put off the idea of spending that much money on something they can't really play with too often, if at all. Then again I could be completely wrong, too.

People said that about Imperial Knights, new Archaon, the new Bloodthirster, etc.

Yeah, hence why I said I could be wrong, but to be fair those models are all around the $150-180 price point and GW seemingly hasn't gone too far above that. The thunderhawk will be easily double that, and the first kit of its kind if I'm not mistaken. Maybe people can be convinced to fork out a little over $100 for an impressive centerpiece model for their army, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll be willing to buy something even bigger and more expensive.

My brother's a Gundam nut and lost his gak when the Neo Zeong came out, which is basically a giant $300 robot model that probably stands larger than a FW titan when completed. Still hasn't gotten one. Probably never will, as he can't really afford to spend the money and has said that it would take an age to put the thing together. Time alone is a huge issue once you start getting older, sadly.

Ah, but when those high price point models were released, nothing had been at that price point.

Given FW likely had solid sales of the Thunderhawk (note the likely) despite by all accounts it being a bit of sod to put together as a kit, it may be they've crunched the numbers, and have seen projected sales based on existing data do indeed justify the costs incurred by plastic tooling.

 Sidstyler wrote:
Yeah, hence why I said I could be wrong, but to be fair those models are all around the $150-180 price point and GW seemingly hasn't gone too far above that. The thunderhawk will be easily double that, and the first kit of its kind if I'm not mistaken. Maybe people can be convinced to fork out a little over $100 for an impressive centerpiece model for their army, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll be willing to buy something even bigger and more expensive.

My brother's a Gundam nut and lost his gak when the Neo Zeong came out, which is basically a giant $300 robot model that probably stands larger than a FW titan when completed. Still hasn't gotten one. Probably never will, as he can't really afford to spend the money and has said that it would take an age to put the thing together. Time alone is a huge issue once you start getting older, sadly.

Ya I think people are over estimating the price of a plastic thunderhawk. I don't expect it to be more than 200-225. Gw charges based on amount of sales and number of sprues. This won't cost as much as a realm of battle

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Sidstyler wrote:
I dunno, I could see them running a plastic thunderhawk as a "limited" item, easily. It's a large model that will most likely be $300-400, at least, and will have very limited use in the actual game as anything other than an expensive (but impressive) terrain piece or mission objective. Most people will probably be put off the idea of spending that much money on something they can't really play with too often, if at all. Then again I could be completely wrong, too.

People said that about Imperial Knights, new Archaon, the new Bloodthirster, etc.

Well you can reference some amorphous group of "people", but the Thunderhawk is another step up in absurdity so the chance of hitting the limit is increased.

Using the IK, Archaon and Bloodthirster as an argument of where "people" were wrong and extrapolating to the Thunkerhawk is a false equivalency.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sidstyler wrote:
Yeah, hence why I said I could be wrong, but to be fair those models are all around the $150-180 price point and GW seemingly hasn't gone too far above that.

Actually they're in the $115-165 price point. I think Archaon is the most expensive kit GW have released at $165USD, unless I'm forgetting something else? Otherwise most GW expensive kits are $160 (Lord of Skulls, Obelisk, Renegade Knight).

So the Thunderhawk would probably be in the realm of $50USD more would be my guess.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Sidstyler wrote:
I dunno, I could see them running a plastic thunderhawk as a "limited" item, easily. It's a large model that will most likely be $300-400, at least, and will have very limited use in the actual game as anything other than an expensive (but impressive) terrain piece or mission objective. Most people will probably be put off the idea of spending that much money on something they can't really play with too often, if at all. Then again I could be completely wrong, too.

People said that about Imperial Knights, new Archaon, the new Bloodthirster, etc.

Well you can reference some amorphous group of "people", but the Thunderhawk is another step up in absurdity so the chance of hitting the limit is increased.

Using the IK, Archaon and Bloodthirster as an argument of where "people" were wrong and extrapolating to the Thunkerhawk is a false equivalency.

When the argument is that because people likely wouldn't buy it because it would be too big or expensive so GW would do a plastic Thunderhawk as a "limited" item, yet we have seen people at tourneys or events with all Knight armies--I think it a bit unfair to try to claim it is a false equivalency.

Sure, it's another step up in scale but I highly doubt it will be a limited run item.

 Kanluwen wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Sidstyler wrote:
I dunno, I could see them running a plastic thunderhawk as a "limited" item, easily. It's a large model that will most likely be $300-400, at least, and will have very limited use in the actual game as anything other than an expensive (but impressive) terrain piece or mission objective. Most people will probably be put off the idea of spending that much money on something they can't really play with too often, if at all. Then again I could be completely wrong, too.

People said that about Imperial Knights, new Archaon, the new Bloodthirster, etc.

Well you can reference some amorphous group of "people", but the Thunderhawk is another step up in absurdity so the chance of hitting the limit is increased.

Using the IK, Archaon and Bloodthirster as an argument of where "people" were wrong and extrapolating to the Thunkerhawk is a false equivalency.

When the argument is that because people likely wouldn't buy it because it would be too big or expensive so GW would do a plastic Thunderhawk as a "limited" item, yet we have seen people at tourneys or events with all Knight armies--it clearly is not a false equivalency.

Except it is because even an all Knight army is easier to transport, less inconvenient to play with and I'm gonna take a stab and say probably less time consuming to assemble/paint.

There's obviously some curve of size/expense/time and the further up you go it the more people are going to drop off it and stop buying. Saying some "people" were surprised how far we got up the curve doesn't mean something even further up the curve is also going to follow the same trend.

Especially when you add in the factor that this is an ex-FW model, so the crazy folk who are really far up the curve (happy to buy a very inconvenient model for several hundred pounds) will have already bought their thunderhawks.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Sidstyler wrote:
I dunno, I could see them running a plastic thunderhawk as a "limited" item, easily. It's a large model that will most likely be $300-400, at least, and will have very limited use in the actual game as anything other than an expensive (but impressive) terrain piece or mission objective. Most people will probably be put off the idea of spending that much money on something they can't really play with too often, if at all. Then again I could be completely wrong, too.

People said that about Imperial Knights, new Archaon, the new Bloodthirster, etc.

Well you can reference some amorphous group of "people", but the Thunderhawk is another step up in absurdity so the chance of hitting the limit is increased.

Using the IK, Archaon and Bloodthirster as an argument of where "people" were wrong and extrapolating to the Thunkerhawk is a false equivalency.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sidstyler wrote:
Yeah, hence why I said I could be wrong, but to be fair those models are all around the $150-180 price point and GW seemingly hasn't gone too far above that.

Actually they're in the $115-165 price point. I think Archaon is the most expensive kit GW have released at $165USD, unless I'm forgetting something else? Otherwise most GW expensive kits are $160 (Lord of Skulls, Obelisk, Renegade Knight).

So the Thunderhawk would probably be in the realm of $50USD more would be my guess.

Smaug is $490USD.