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Just a reminder.

This

http://www.tamiya.com/english/products/60325/index.htm

is £100 in the UK.

Its a less bulky than a thunderhawk, but there are 18 sprues including etched metal and some fabric harnesses. I've built one, no filler needed or anything, the internal detail is incredible.

Tamiya do bigger volume production runs,, but at £135 as rumored, a thunderhawk in plastic is entirely feasible.

Oh if we're doing that



$90, 22" long and makes for a nice attractive flying brick. Sub out the cockpit and you've got a cool 40k troop shuttle. I've built 3 of the smaller 1/72 ones.

If a thunderhawk comes out I'm going to challenge my modeling supremacist friend (he thinks he's better than me because he builds planes and boats) to a build off.

NoggintheNog wrote:
Just a reminder.

This

http://www.tamiya.com/english/products/60325/index.htm

is £100 in the UK.

Its a less bulky than a thunderhawk, but there are 18 sprues including etched metal and some fabric harnesses. I've built one, no filler needed or anything, the internal detail is incredible.

Tamiya do bigger volume production runs,, but at £135 as rumored, a thunderhawk in plastic is entirely feasible.

Tamiya are one of the more expensive kits on the market but they are still a bargain compared to most GW stuff

Over here especially we can get a Tamiya 1/32 superkit for LESS than an Imperial Knight. Looks like Tamiya charges similar prices in the UK and Australia.

Tamiya only do a handful of those big superkits and they sell 1+ of each to almost every hobby store in the world. But they do a good job of making GW's big kits look like terrible value

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
The point about repeating sprues is a good one. GW could make the top and bottom of the wings symmetrical,

Honestly I really think doing that would compromise the aesthetic

Not really. I doubnt anyone's going to notice the panel lines on the top are the same as on the bottom, and locating points for the missile hardpoints and lascannon rests can be disguised as vents, depressed detail, etc.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
The point about repeating sprues is a good one. GW could make the top and bottom of the wings symmetrical, and if they skip doing an interior the left and right sides could reuse a sprue.

Perhaps the hull and top plates could be repeated 2 or 3 times.

Certainly the left and right engines could be the same.

So it's possible they could keep the number of different sprues down.

But this is a showcase piece and lately even workman-like vehicles like the Taurox have had interiors. In fact I think all the vehicles since the 3rd edition land raider had interiors so I think we may not see any repeated parts.

Actually, the Corvus Blackstar didn't have an interior. Nor the Goliath tank

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 EmberlordofFire8 wrote:
Well, I'm pretty sure those Rhino-sized doors will be the same on both sides

Which Rhino sized doors? I thought the only Rhino sized door was on the front.

On the sides of the Thunderhawk, front bit.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 EmberlordofFire8 wrote:
Well, I'm pretty sure those Rhino-sized doors will be the same on both sides

Which Rhino sized doors? I thought the only Rhino sized door was on the front.

I'd consider the ramp at the front more of the Land Raider's assault ramp. The two doors on either side of the nose are the Rhino doors.

 cuda1179 wrote:
I'm not so sure that the Thunderhawk couldn't have many repeat frames.

For what GW will charge for this kit, they won't need to compromise the aesthetics just to save cutting a tool.

Yes, a number of the details and bits (engines, stabilizers, weapons) could be duplicated, but the core will have a lot of unique panels, just like the Baneblade / Shadowsword / Stormlord 8-in-1 kit.

The real challenge is designing the kit so that it makes both Transporter and Gunship variants with maximum sprue overlap - the bodies are quite different, but being able to share half of the sprues would be a big help.

Some interior detail would be nice, but having seats and stuff? That's what FW is for. Along with further specialty variants, much as we saw with the Arkurion pattern superheavies.

Here it is layed out. 109 parts.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 EmberlordofFire8 wrote:
Well, I'm pretty sure those Rhino-sized doors will be the same on both sides

Which Rhino sized doors? I thought the only Rhino sized door was on the front.

I'd consider the ramp at the front more of the Land Raider's assault ramp. The two doors on either side of the nose are the Rhino doors.

The front door is far larger than a raider ramp. And the doors are land raider doors, not rhino. The storm raver is the one with the rhino side doors and rear hatch sized front ramp.

Interior of the thunderhawk, I can see them doing a halfway point, with interior detailing for the troop bay with a roof, and a small cockpit section, but not the large rear cockpit that connects into the troop bay and is invisible unless you tak e the top off.

The Thunderhawk ramp is supposed to be able to deploy a Dreadnaught, IIRC. The Land Raider cant carry dreadnaughts...makes sense that the door would be bigger!

This guy (Richard Powell) spent $250+ making his own Thunderhawk... (2 stormraven kits, a rhino, and a valk...)

https://spikeybits.com/2015/01/plastic-thunderhawk-conversion-how-to.html

 krazynadechukr wrote:
This guy (Richard Powell) spent $250+ making his own Thunderhawk... (2 stormraven kits, a rhino, and a valk...)

https://spikeybits.com/2015/01/plastic-thunderhawk-conversion-how-to.html

It looks, odd. Maybe if there were doors instead of the hurricane bolters it would look better.

I have wonder if this Thunderhawk will be any different in size from the resin one. The Thunderhawk is supposed to only hold 30 marines and alternatively an appropriate number of terminators, bikes, or dreadnought. A Stormeagle can carry 20 marines or 10 Terminators... and yet it's less than half the size of the resin Thunderhawk. The original metal Thunderhawk is only a bit larger than the Stormeagle.

 aka_mythos wrote:
I have wonder if this Thunderhawk will be any different in size from the resin one. The Thunderhawk is supposed to only hold 30 marines and alternatively an appropriate number of terminators, bikes, or dreadnought. A Stormeagle can carry 20 marines or 10 Terminators... and yet it's less than half the size of the resin Thunderhawk. The original metal Thunderhawk is only a bit larger than the Stormeagle.

Is it possible that the resin kit was scaled up slightly so they could use thicker resin pieces?

A Rhino is meant to carry 10 marines (+ the driver?). Things in 40K are subject to Whovian physics.

 aka_mythos wrote:
I have wonder if this Thunderhawk will be any different in size from the resin one. The Thunderhawk is supposed to only hold 30 marines and alternatively an appropriate number of terminators, bikes, or dreadnought. A Stormeagle can carry 20 marines or 10 Terminators... and yet it's less than half the size of the resin Thunderhawk. The original metal Thunderhawk is only a bit larger than the Stormeagle.

I wouldn't be surprised if the plastic version would be smaller than the resin. Could call it a Voss-pattern Thunderhawk or something.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
I wouldn't be surprised if the plastic version would be smaller than the resin. Could call it a Voss-pattern Thunderhawk or something.

I would. The plastic Valk was FW size - HUGE! Same with the other recent stuff being big. Besides, plastic is so much cheaper to mass produce, and GW will sell so many of them, no need to shrink it.

I'm not saying GW has ever been rational but for what the Thunderhawk does the resin version is too big and doesn't fit the proportional size difference of the aircraft that have been made for SM.

Before the Thunderhawk was resin and large it was metal and half the size... in the lore "Thunderhawk" is a classification for how it is used and not a name of any specific pattern of craft. Even within the lore there are smaller and larger Thunderhawk patterns. So there isn't anything really keeping them from altering the size.

Even if they were to make it smaller, to make more sense, it doesn't need to be that much smaller.

 aka_mythos wrote:
I'm not saying GW has ever been rational but for what the Thunderhawk does the resin version is too big and doesn't fit the proportional size difference of the aircraft that have been made for SM.

Before the Thunderhawk was resin and large it was metal and half the size... in the lore "Thunderhawk" is a classification for how it is used and not a name of any specific pattern of craft. Even within the lore there are smaller and larger Thunderhawk patterns. So there isn't anything really keeping them from altering the size.

Even if they were to make it smaller, to make more sense, it doesn't need to be that much smaller.

.... I can't believe anyone would even ask for a model to be made worse.

It's not too big, it's a super heavy flyer and the resin version is vastly better than the metal one.
You're supposed to be able to fit a ton of stuff in there, even the current resin model might be a bit small to stuff all that.

Why would GW feth up the release of the iconic plastic thunderhawk with a "hey we made it worse, I hope you like it"?

morgoth wrote:

 aka_mythos wrote:
I'm not saying GW has ever been rational but for what the Thunderhawk does the resin version is too big and doesn't fit the proportional size difference of the aircraft that have been made for SM.

Before the Thunderhawk was resin and large it was metal and half the size... in the lore "Thunderhawk" is a classification for how it is used and not a name of any specific pattern of craft. Even within the lore there are smaller and larger Thunderhawk patterns. So there isn't anything really keeping them from altering the size.

Even if they were to make it smaller, to make more sense, it doesn't need to be that much smaller.

.... I can't believe anyone would even ask for a model to be made worse.

It's not too big, it's a super heavy flyer and the resin version is vastly better than the metal one.
You're supposed to be able to fit a ton of stuff in there, even the current resin model might be a bit small to stuff all that.

Why would GW feth up the release of the iconic plastic thunderhawk with a "hey we made it worse, I hope you like it"?

Smaller isn't worse, though. Just smaller. It's down to preference if that's worse or not.

 ImAGeek wrote:

morgoth wrote:

 aka_mythos wrote:
I'm not saying GW has ever been rational but for what the Thunderhawk does the resin version is too big and doesn't fit the proportional size difference of the aircraft that have been made for SM.

Before the Thunderhawk was resin and large it was metal and half the size... in the lore "Thunderhawk" is a classification for how it is used and not a name of any specific pattern of craft. Even within the lore there are smaller and larger Thunderhawk patterns. So there isn't anything really keeping them from altering the size.

Even if they were to make it smaller, to make more sense, it doesn't need to be that much smaller.

.... I can't believe anyone would even ask for a model to be made worse.

It's not too big, it's a super heavy flyer and the resin version is vastly better than the metal one.
You're supposed to be able to fit a ton of stuff in there, even the current resin model might be a bit small to stuff all that.

Why would GW feth up the release of the iconic plastic thunderhawk with a "hey we made it worse, I hope you like it"?

Smaller isn't worse, though. Just smaller. It's down to preference if that's worse or not.

Sure, but I bet most players prefer their toys to be in scale with each other.
I think most people also said that the old mini-rhino was worse than the new rhino.
And quite obviously, they've voted with their wallets on the more recent more to scale kits.
It's not about "smaller" or "bigger", it's about "to scale" or "wrong scale".
How do you expect anyone to have a "Thunderhawk" impression if it's the size of a "Wolfhawk" and a quarter at best?

morgoth wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:

morgoth wrote:

 aka_mythos wrote:
I'm not saying GW has ever been rational but for what the Thunderhawk does the resin version is too big and doesn't fit the proportional size difference of the aircraft that have been made for SM.

Before the Thunderhawk was resin and large it was metal and half the size... in the lore "Thunderhawk" is a classification for how it is used and not a name of any specific pattern of craft. Even within the lore there are smaller and larger Thunderhawk patterns. So there isn't anything really keeping them from altering the size.

Even if they were to make it smaller, to make more sense, it doesn't need to be that much smaller.

.... I can't believe anyone would even ask for a model to be made worse.

It's not too big, it's a super heavy flyer and the resin version is vastly better than the metal one.
You're supposed to be able to fit a ton of stuff in there, even the current resin model might be a bit small to stuff all that.

Why would GW feth up the release of the iconic plastic thunderhawk with a "hey we made it worse, I hope you like it"?

Smaller isn't worse, though. Just smaller. It's down to preference if that's worse or not.

Sure, but I bet most players prefer their toys to be in scale with each other.

Those players must already be disappointed in GW though, as none of the vehicles are in scale with infantry.

Yeah nothing's in scale as it is. I wager more people would prefer practicality than scale.

 aka_mythos wrote:
I'm not saying GW has ever been rational but for what the Thunderhawk does the resin version is too big and doesn't fit the proportional size difference of the aircraft that have been made for SM.

Before the Thunderhawk was resin and large it was metal and half the size... in the lore "Thunderhawk" is a classification for how it is used and not a name of any specific pattern of craft. Even within the lore there are smaller and larger Thunderhawk patterns. So there isn't anything really keeping them from altering the size.

Even if they were to make it smaller, to make more sense, it doesn't need to be that much smaller.

The FW Thunderhawk *is* BIG, because that's how big GW really wanted it to be. The metal Thunderhawk was some sculptor squirreling away bits of material to make his own Thunderhawk, getting caught, and having the resulting "side project" productized since the sculpting labor had already been spent. The smaller / larger bit is GW retroactively making both sizes canon. But make no mistake that the FW Thawk is the size GW wants it to be.

And really, the FW / plastic Valk is already way too big, but it wasn't designed to fit a smaller sprue count at a smaller price point. The Thawk has the luxury of getting however many sprues it needs, and driving whatever price GW finds appropriate.
____

 ImAGeek wrote:
Smaller isn't worse, though. Just smaller. It's down to preference if that's worse or not.

TWSS?

 aka_mythos wrote:
I have wonder if this Thunderhawk will be any different in size from the resin one. The Thunderhawk is supposed to only hold 30 marines and alternatively an appropriate number of terminators, bikes, or dreadnought. A Stormeagle can carry 20 marines or 10 Terminators... and yet it's less than half the size of the resin Thunderhawk. The original metal Thunderhawk is only a bit larger than the Stormeagle.

Doesn't the Thunderhawk only carry troops in the nose section while the Stormeagle carries them along the full length of the hull?

Either way the Thunderhawk has a big engine in the fuselage and a big turret gun, those things are going to take a lot of space inside the hull itself, not just externally. The Stormeagle only has wing mounted engines and no hull mounted main weapon that's going to take up space.

FW are usually better than GW proper at scaling their kits.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ImAGeek wrote:
Yeah nothing's in scale as it is. I wager more people would prefer practicality than scale.

Given how much the rules suck these days, I'll take scale over practicality.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 krazynadechukr wrote:
This guy (Richard Powell) spent $250+ making his own Thunderhawk... (2 stormraven kits, a rhino, and a valk...)

https://spikeybits.com/2015/01/plastic-thunderhawk-conversion-how-to.html

I'm sure they put a lot of effort in to it, but it looks like a Frankenstein monster to me. There's more to designing a nice looking model than throwing existing pieces together, for example I scratch built the wings on my Stormtalon conversion because I couldn't find anything that didn't look weirdly out of proportion.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
And really, the FW / plastic Valk is already way too big,

Not really; aircraft are big. A Blackhawk is 20 metres long; twice as long as an Abrams tank. The Valkyrie is the size it needs to be to be in scale with the infantry (Forge World used to make a set of ten seated Elysians to go in the back of one; they fit, but only just).

No, because 40k foreshortens everything except the Valk. Proportionally, the Valk is more true than heroic, so it doesn't match so well. If GW had bobbed the nose, trimmed the tails, I wouldn't have an issue with the size of the model.

morgoth wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:

morgoth wrote:

 aka_mythos wrote:
I'm not saying GW has ever been rational but for what the Thunderhawk does the resin version is too big and doesn't fit the proportional size difference of the aircraft that have been made for SM.

Before the Thunderhawk was resin and large it was metal and half the size... in the lore "Thunderhawk" is a classification for how it is used and not a name of any specific pattern of craft. Even within the lore there are smaller and larger Thunderhawk patterns. So there isn't anything really keeping them from altering the size.

Even if they were to make it smaller, to make more sense, it doesn't need to be that much smaller.

.... I can't believe anyone would even ask for a model to be made worse.

It's not too big, it's a super heavy flyer and the resin version is vastly better than the metal one.
You're supposed to be able to fit a ton of stuff in there, even the current resin model might be a bit small to stuff all that.

Why would GW feth up the release of the iconic plastic thunderhawk with a "hey we made it worse, I hope you like it"?

Smaller isn't worse, though. Just smaller. It's down to preference if that's worse or not.

Sure, but I bet most players prefer their toys to be in scale with each other.
I think most people also said that the old mini-rhino was worse than the new rhino.
And quite obviously, they've voted with their wallets on the more recent more to scale kits.
It's not about "smaller" or "bigger", it's about "to scale" or "wrong scale".
How do you expect anyone to have a "Thunderhawk" impression if it's the size of a "Wolfhawk" and a quarter at best?

To some degree scale is what I'm talking about... I am taking about its relative size to the other aircraft, that it is currently larger than it should be in that context. I'm not saying it should be smaller, but I'm saying there is a basis fictional and scale wise for its size to be different. In my mind I think GW should simply increase its carry capacity in the rules. However if they are stuck on that transport capacity it should be 15-20% smaller.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

allseeingskink wrote:
Doesn't the Thunderhawk only carry troops in the nose section while the Stormeagle carries them along the full length of the hull?

No. It extends further back into the Thunderhawk.