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Curious if there's any references to Imperial void fighters (Post Heresy era) other than the Fury? http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Fury_Interceptor

Wondering if there's something out there smaller, the Fury is 100m long or something. Any Black Library references to anything? Sometimes they mention unique planet/system specific vehicles that aren't used elsewhere or widely in the Imperium don't they?

Cheers.

One wiki said designs are 40-70m but still no small aircraft.

Thunderhawks get used by marines for combat missions of all kinds.

Not very. Maybe some mention to fighters in few HH novels but I Don t recall a exact class.

Sorry.

Bear in mind that the smallest Imperial warships depicted in Battlefleet Gothic (the Cobra destroyer) is around a kilometre long - you'd need large fighters and bombers to make any sort of dent in them.

It does mean that the performance of Thunderhawks in BFG is ... anomalous; Either they're so good in space dogfights that they can outclass multiple enemy ships each much larger than themselves, or the waves launched from Marine starships have more gunships than the other sources state.

There's another model of fighter mentioned in one of Dan Abnett's books; IIRC it's one of the early Gaunt's Ghosts books, in the opening scene/prologue

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Bear in mind that the smallest Imperial warships depicted in Battlefleet Gothic (the Cobra destroyer) is around a kilometre long - you'd need large fighters and bombers to make any sort of dent in them.

It does mean that the performance of Thunderhawks in BFG is ... anomalous; Either they're so good in space dogfights that they can outclass multiple enemy ships each much larger than themselves, or the waves launched from Marine starships have more gunships than the other sources state.

There's another model of fighter mentioned in one of Dan Abnett's books; IIRC it's one of the early Gaunt's Ghosts books, in the opening scene/prologue

Thunderhawks are much higher tech than there comparable fighters and extremely well armoured, advanced computers etc. One Thunderhawk is potentially fairly equal to several others. Marine crews can also do manoovers that kill humans.

Possibly. Although it's a multipurpose aerospace vehicle going up against a dedicated space superiority fighter with equal or better armament, outnumbered five to one.

In BFG rules, Thunderhawks were slower in speed than Furies but had a 50% chance of remaining after an interception (standard fighters were removed after an interception) representing their greater durability. Furies therefore might be bigger but thin-skinned and more easily rendered combat incapable. There is also the other factor of combat endurance. Perhaps the Thunderhawks had more efficient engines and therefore could stay active longer. Eldar Darkstar fighters had a similar 50% chance of remaining and part of the reason given in the BFG rulebook was having more energy than the fighters of other races', allowing for longer endurance.

Do aerospace ships such as the Marauder, Lightning and Thunderbolt count?

Most imperial flyers are void-capable; the Stormtalon, for example is explicitly being able to be used in space in Stormcloud Attack.

 Stormonu wrote:
Do aerospace ships such as the Marauder, Lightning and Thunderbolt count?

Most imperial flyers are void-capable; the Stormtalon, for example is explicitly being able to be used in space in Stormcloud Attack.

The Marauder, Lightning, and Thunderbolt are aerospace fighters rather than pure void starfighters. They can launch and land from orbital launch facilities or ships but their role is still that of ground attack or acting as fighters in atmosphere.

Isn't the Xiphon capable of space flight as well?

Iracundus wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
Do aerospace ships such as the Marauder, Lightning and Thunderbolt count?

Most imperial flyers are void-capable; the Stormtalon, for example is explicitly being able to be used in space in Stormcloud Attack.

The Marauder, Lightning, and Thunderbolt are aerospace fighters rather than pure void starfighters. They can launch and land from orbital launch facilities or ships but their role is still that of ground attack or acting as fighters in atmosphere.

I think its meant they can do short trips in the void and so, and there designed for thin upper atmosphere etc.

The thunderhawk and other are pure void fighters and can operate long missions in void without external oceygen etc,
There hence, a tiny non warp space going vessel vs a fighter than can do void operations of short duration.

The marauder, xiphon, etc, can fly in the void but don't really perform well there. The xiphon and lightning can work as void interceptors - because they only have to kill a thunderhawk sized target - but only a huge target can carry ordanance which can affect a starship...

The Thunderhawk is about the same size as the fury - it's smaller than the starhawk bomber (which is more stormbird sized) but about the same as the fury, which has a half-a-dozen man crew and (ten!) lascannons as its main armament, compared to the two-lascannons-and-a-turbolaser of the 'thawk

The sisters of silence use the 'cull' interceptor, but that's implied to be a one-(wo)man ship closer to a thunderbolt or lightning.

I was looking through this, http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Thunderbolt
...and under Combat Roles it mentions a 'Kestral' variant that's designed for void combat. Anyone know anything more on it?

Only what's written there. I assume it's from an imperial armour book?

Probably. Or a Black Library author sneaked it in somewhere

The trouble with stuff like this is that it's completely irrelevent to the tabletop, so outside of BFG no-one's really needed to write about it. The existing one type of fighter exists, so if you need to name drop a fighter, there's that one and... No further motivation for adding new ones to the setting.

The rogue trader RPG (especially the Battlefleet Koronus sourcebook) has a lot of this detail - with a more detailed write-up on the performance and armament of sharks, starhawks and furies and their pirate and xenos analogues.

That said, the bomber's warheads don't have 'human scale' stats - realistically they'd be deathstrike warheads at a minimum.

To put it into 40k scale, a sword-class frigate is 1.6km x 300m in size - so imagine a stretch of 30 realm of battle boards long by 3-6 wide (varying along the length) where every single inch is crammed with aquila macrobatteries, bastions with icarus turrets, void shield generators, and so on.

This is what you need to destroy a meaningful chunk of to 'kill' one of the smallest BFG ship....

Double Eagle was all about void fighters if I remember correctly.

 novaspike wrote:
Double Eagle was all about void fighters if I remember correctly.

You do not. It was about aeronautica fighters and bombers (specifically following a thunderbolt squadron).