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Gw still has smaug for the hobbit in stock at 385e which i would guess is even a smaller niche than the thunderhawk which will likely be around half the price from smaug. I dont think they will make the thunderhawk a limited item since it has been on sale for so many years now just because it wont be used in games as often. If they make enough stock at release is another matter.

Cergorach wrote:

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.

QFT bro.

The first Epic Scale Model I got was the smaller version of the Thunder Hawk. I hoped one day that a plastic kit released for War Hammer 40'000 with rules for use in game & would be produced by regular Games Workshop.

Smaug is resin though.

In 20 years GW will sell real scale Land Raiders, fully functional ,and people still will buy that. Take my words!

 Galas wrote:
In 20 years GW will sell real scale Land Raiders, fully functional ,and people still will buy that. Take my words!

Spoiler:

They already have done a rhino!


PD: I'm not making fun of people that buy expensive and decorative models. More power to you! I can't afford those

It'd make parking easier

 NivlacSupreme 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.


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 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.

Smaug is also a Forgeworld product, that's sold by GW (as opposed to Forgeworld). They even say right in the description that it's made with FW resin and hand cast.

IIRC they named Smaug as their top selling model that year.

Now there was a lot to unpack in that claim, our conculsion must be it was dollars not units and online sales vs total but still, that means someone, a lot of someones bought a $400 models based on a very mediocre film.

Or a much beloved book....

Or because DRAGON.

I mean, he is a nice looking Dragon.

Not that is terribly important, but would a plastic Thunderhawk be FW or GW?

If FW, it would be a new thing for them to get into plastic.

The April issue of White Dwarf had it's Temporal Distort article focus on White Dwarf issue 196, making special mention of the metal Thunderhawk kit released around then.

Could be a coincidence, could be a sly hint of things to come?

 BrookM wrote:
The April issue of White Dwarf had it's Temporal Distort article focus on White Dwarf issue 196, making special mention of the metal Thunderhawk kit released around then.

Could be a coincidence, could be a sly hint of things to come?

I wonder if I still have that issue, it would be a fun retro review.

I remember some line about anyone who spends $200 on a thunderhawk must be crazy or American...


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 General Kroll wrote:
Or a much beloved book....

I read a book called 'The Hobbit'.

I saw 3 movies called 'The Hobbit' (well 2 and a half since I feel asleep at one).

As far as I can tell they had nothing to do with one another.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I read a book called 'The Hobbit'.

I saw 3 movies called 'The Hobbit' (well 2 and a half since I feel asleep at one).

As far as I can tell they had nothing to do with one another.

Which was best?
My bet is on the movies .

Still the best




On topic, yes, yes, yes, yes, in a rational world fliers would be repped by epic models mounted on 18" bases because they'd never get close enough for ground weapons and certianly would never land in a hot fire zone.

And if it was up to me we'd all be talking about the plastic Warhound coming.

But the last 10 years have proven we will pay stupid amounts of money for big models, especially if they're Space Marines (or Dragon versions of Benedict Cumberbatch).

We don't really have any idea how many Smaugs they sold and whether it was enough to justify doing him in plastic. If anything Smaug was better suited to plastic in the sense you could divvy him up in a way that doesn't take up an inordinate amount of frames where as the Thunderhawk with it huge hull will probably consume 3-4 frames for the hull alone and another 2 or more frames for the wings alone.

People obviously buy big expensive kits, people were buying the resin thunderhawk before now The question isn't whether some people will buy it, the question is will enough people buy it to justify the machining cost to make the moulds and the manufacturing time to set them up to cast. Tamiya make a 1/32 scale Mosquito which is even bigger than a Thunderhawk, comes on 15 sprues and has a RRP of $280 USD and people buy that too, Airfix make their 1/24 kits that would dwarf a Thunderhawk and cost similar or even more money than we are predicting the Thunderhawk will be. BUT, Airfix and Tamiya sell those kits in damned near every hobby store in dozens of countries, they probably make back most of their money at wholesale before a single customer has even bought one.

 schoon wrote:
Not that is terribly important, but would a plastic Thunderhawk be FW or GW?

If FW, it would be a new thing for them to get into plastic.

It wouldn't actually, since Specialist Games (Blood Bowl etc) are under FW.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I remember some line about anyone who spends $200 on a thunderhawk must be crazy or American...

If someone managed to get a thunderhawk back then for $200 they'd be crazy like a fox. The flying bricks originally cost £400, or as they liked to put it, 40,000p.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
The April issue of White Dwarf had it's Temporal Distort article focus on White Dwarf issue 196, making special mention of the metal Thunderhawk kit released around then.

Could be a coincidence, could be a sly hint of things to come?

I wonder if I still have that issue, it would be a fun retro review.

I remember some line about anyone who spends $200 on a thunderhawk must be crazy or American...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 General Kroll wrote:
Or a much beloved book....

I read a book called 'The Hobbit'.

I saw 3 movies called 'The Hobbit' (well 2 and a half since I feel asleep at one).

As far as I can tell they had nothing to do with one another.

You know Smaug was pretty important in the book too don't you?

There is a pretty good reason I think a plastic Thunderhawk would be economically viable: The Ork Stompa.

Sure, it's not as big as the thunderhawk, but it is still pretty big and has some major volume to it, much like the Thunderhawk. It also prooved to be a commercial success.

Now, while the Stompa requires about 60% of the sprues that a Thundhawk would it also has a much wider customer base. The stompa can be used for ONE army, Orks. On the other hand there are currently 11 codexes in which a Thunderhawk would make sense. Considering that the different flavors of Marines and Chaos marines are among them (the best selling lines) I wouldn't be surprised if the potential customer base is 25 times larger than that of the number of Ork players.

 Mymearan wrote:
It wouldn't actually, since Specialist Games (Blood Bowl etc) are under FW.

Now that I come to think of it, GW is technically releasing Blood Bowl, and FW is doing the resin special players, so perhaps the roles really haven't changed. Pity.

.

The single most expensive all plastic model GW has is

Archaon Everchosen at $165 usd. That's Eighty-five components in total are included, with a gigantic Citadel 160mm Round base. 3 sprues.

Renegade Knight $160 usd with 221 components and stands tall on a Citadel 170mm Oval Base. 3 sprues.

KV128 Stormsurge is $150 with 171 components on a 170mm Oval base. 3 sprues.

That being said, it is plausible a Thunderhawk could come in at $199.99 if GW was considerate of it's audience.

The FW TH is a 109 part kit

You have to figure the Thunderhawk will need 4-6 sprues just for its main components given the sheer contiguous surface area of the wings and hull.

If it's coming in plastic, it is going to completely dwarf anything else produced right now.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
You have to figure the Thunderhawk will need 4-6 sprues just for its main components given the sheer contiguous surface area of the wings and hull.

If it's coming in plastic, it is going to completely dwarf anything else produced right now.

How many sprues does the Tesseract Vault come with? Five. The Thunderhawk kit can do that easily. Of course it's going to be over $200 US because they won't be able to save money by using the same mold four times but as long as it's less than $250 US, I expect it will sell very well.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
You have to figure the Thunderhawk will need 4-6 sprues just for its main components given the sheer contiguous surface area of the wings and hull.

If it's coming in plastic, it is going to completely dwarf anything else produced right now.

That's assuming it's the iconic standard Thunderhawk that gets put into plastic...

Purportedly, this is the design we're seeing in plastic.

I like that one even better. I always loved the waist ball mounted guns on the Fire Raptor so much i never finished building or painting it, and would definitely buy one of these too so I could never finish building or painting it.

I have a MDF thunderhawkesque aircraft that I mocked up to look like a Thunderhawk Gunship but tbh the big tank turret on top always looked goofy to me.

The one with the waist mounted guns is a Storm Bird, the T Hawk is the little one on the right.

Maybe they will make a basic T.hawk, and then have a seperate kit to detail the interior, and possibly another kit to turn it into a T.hawktransporter . The interior detailing kit being separate could help lower the overall cost.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
You have to figure the Thunderhawk will need 4-6 sprues just for its main components given the sheer contiguous surface area of the wings and hull.

If it's coming in plastic, it is going to completely dwarf anything else produced right now.

I bought Imperial Knights Renegade, and that was a lot of plastic. You're thinking the Thawk has more than that?