Thunderhawk Gunship - Imperial Fists

The Thunderhawk gunship!

An image I took of the latest Thunderhawk model on one of my many Warhammer World visits! I've wanted to cover the Thunderhawk in depth for a very long time, and now I have a very good excuse so please bare with me.

The Thunderhawk gunship is used by the Adeptus Astartes as their primary means of deploying forces for ground combat as well as their primary source of air support. The Thunderhawk gunship is often considered the lynchpin of any Space Marine Chapter, as it is able to fulfill many combat roles. The Thunderhawk is fully capable of functioning as an orbital drop ship, a heavy ground attack gunship, or as a bomber. The aircraft is able to quickly carry Space Marine forces from orbiting starships down into the midst of a battle, while at the same time providing supporting fire against enemy ground or air targets. The Thunderhawk is a formidable heavy weapons platform in its own right. Equipped with a dorsal mounted Turbo laser, the Thunderhawk is able to engage targets as large as Warhound Scout Titan or super heavy tanks! In addition to its main weaponry, the Thunderhawk mounts numerous Heavy Bolters with which it can clear a landing zone of enemy troops in a firestorm of mass reactive shells. An additional payload of wing mounted missiles allows the Thunderhawk to operate in close airsupport/firesupport or fill the heavy bomber role for troops in battle.

The 28mm Thunderhawk Gunship has been an iconic staple throughout the years with at least 4 versions made in the "40k / 28mm scale" (I'll not dip into epic scale much here, simply because i dont know much about it, but it has existed in tiny scale iterations too with epic 40k/Aeronautica Imperialis/Legions Imperialis)

I wanted to discuss its extraordinary past before getting to the present, as it’s always fun to look back at the history and how some of our most favorite models have evolved over time and the Thunderhawk has evolved.

The 1st big Thunderhawk came crashing in as the ultimate HEAVY METAL 28mm "miniature" back in the 1997 made of white METAL and weighed in at 10kg!!! It was a feat of engineering for its time, i cant think of a metal model so big that Games Workshop had done before it, or since! The metal Thunderhawk was available only for a limited time and each box was individually numbered from 40,001 to 40,500 this ambitious model was sculpted by Tim Adcock who had made one prior to his time working at GW for a Games Day event 1995.

Keeping with the 40k theme it was for sale in the UK for 40,000 pennys (£400!) It came in a pine wooden box which was velvet lined and individually embossed with each unique number! To this day its classed as one of the rarest Citadel Miniatures ever made, they don't come up for sale very often! Apparently one famously sold for over £25,000 not that long ago!

I really do miss the old GW sense of humour, seen clearly with these old ads! (Even the order form stated that you'd have to be barking mad, or American to buy it, and need to have a sanity check!! I couldn't see this type of text coming out of Nottingham today!) They did everything they could to try talk you out of buying one!!

The Thunderhawk enters the resin era.....

Before long the metal 500 had sold out and in early 2000s a newly formed Forge World began work on its full resin replacement which would refine its design and bring it up to date (like they also did with the Titans at the same time) arriving in 2004 and was one of the first Forge World BIG KITS! Once again hand sculpted by Tim Adcock. Beautifully detailed and Measuring 19" long and 17" wide! It was a technological masterpiece of its time. Apparently the kit wasn't without its problems and a skilled experienced hand was needed to extract the most out of the model. It was way beyond what I could afford and I always told myself it was the ultimate bucket list model should I get a lottery win. Even more a miracle than normal because I didn't play the lottery either!! It was looking slim lets say the least!

Thunderhawk Gunship for 30k Heresy era World Eaters on display at Warhammer World.

Red Scorpions Thunderhawk Gunship. As soon as I laid eyes on this model it went straight on the bucket list!! Oooffff

The original resin Forge World Thunderhawk was in production for 13 years and came with a numbered certificate like the Titans still do now which made it feel pretty special in my eyes. (all my Titan certs are lovingly framed and displayed with their respective God Engines)

Out of production Thunderhawk cert.

Thunderhawk featured in the classic Dawn Of War video game, which i still love to this day! I used to play this morning, noon and night and say it was research for the shop!!! I used to take my laptop to the shop on occasion to get more research in if we were quiet!

A new varient...
Also around the mid 2000s the 3rd version/varient of the Thunderhawk entered service also via Forge World: The Thunderhawk Transporter. Sculpted by Tim Adcock and Darren Parwood. (Don't you miss when GW credited their artists and model makers!!)

This was also a version I wanted terribly, I told myself, if I won the lottery I'd get two of these to have both the Land Raider and Rhino versions on display in our model shop !!

The huge resin model could transport either 2 Rhino APCs underslung, or a chonky Land Raider deep into the heart of enemy contact!

Thunderhawk Transporter with Rhinos underslung.

HERESY era Sons Of Horus Thunderhawk Transporter deploying a Land Raider Proteus.

Thunderhawk Transporter had a lot of differences to the main Gunship varient!

I always hoped Forge World would rerelease this glorious model one day!

Thunderhawk Transporter Carrying a later Land Raider Phobos.

I can't find the date the Thunderhawk Transporter was discontinued but it had seemed to have been gone a for quire a while leaving only the then existing Thunderhawk gunship as the only varient you could still buy from Forge World. That was until 2017, after 13 years of honourable service it too was sadly stood down!

The Stormbird, Thunderhawk and Storm Eagle on display in 2016! Love the Astartes fliers!

Many people thought it would in fact return in plastic, and that rumour circulated for many years over the Internet, even GW trolled us with it! Which was hilarious of them.

Behind the Warhammer presenter. To do list: assemble plastic Thunderhawk on the white board.

Plastic or resin, I honestly didn't care as long as it did indeed return one day. I was hoping I'd not missed my chance yet again, for a 2nd time like I had with the transport varients. Then to my relief...

An icon is reborn

In 2017 to my delight the latest generation resin Thunderhawk Gunship was once again released by Forge World in glorious resin! This time Designed by Daren Parrwood.

"This new resin Thunderhawk keeps the iconic and uncompromising outline of the Thunderhawk we all know and love, but also takes on a few design cues from other recent kits, like the Stormbird and Heresy-era Space Marine Legion tanks"

Designed in CAD for the first time the Thunderhawk had a very sizeable refreshen / modernisation update to the Forge World predecessor that went before it.

1. Redesigned main fuselage, with sloping upper left and right sides – as opposed to the previous model’s flying breadbox slab sides.

2. Completely redesigned cockpit, now coming with a large clear piece canopy that spans the entire width of the fuselage. The old one was a narrower affair that protruded from the forward hull. This should also have the effect of filling in the windows with clear plastic much easier with a smaller amount of larger windows. The previous Thunderhawk was a terror in this hobby department.

3. Forward canards resigned, with thicker roots, hopefully making them sturdier on the model.

4. Chin hull sponsons redesigned. They more closely match Heresy-era Land Raider style sponsons, rather than the 40K Predator designs.

5. Larger and more prominent wing root air intakes.

6. Dorsal Turbo Laser is slightly thinner, with a less blockly rear weapon housing.

7. Airbrakes/thrust reversers on the rear fuselage now more detailed and open in the opposite direction.

8. Horizontal stabilizer on the empennage is gone. Apparently this model of Thunderhawk maneuvers more on brute thrust and less on airfoils.

9. Movable secondary weapon wings are substantially redesigned. They have more negative space, much more detailed hinges and the tip-mounted las-cannons are smaller.

10. Overall ratio of the wings to the fuselage is altered in favor of the wings. This has the effect of making the craft seem more balanced and “believable”. The previous model has more fuselage to wings in ratio making it appear especially ungainly.

11.Large hinge mechanism added to the lower sides of the forward ramp.

To the present day

This takes me to now. Thursday the 11th of January 2024. The final item on my dream bucketlist, my very own Thunderhawk gunship finally lands after 20 years of hoping and dreaming!! Super fast delivery from Games Workshop, it also arrived a day earlier than intended with lightning speed from UPS.

Watch this space, I'll be building it along side the Sokar Pattern Stormbird! Oh my sanity!

Friday the 12th of January 2024.

What's for dinner? A free-range Nottinghamshire Thunderhawk, served up with a hearty side order of washing up liquid!

Thunderhawk wash day! A quick check of the components as I go through it and the resin is a beautiful cast, the details are dry, razor sharp, clean and crisp, completely grease free, no visible mould release agent anywhere. It's one of the nicest Forge World models I've had recently. It bothers me when people critise the kits when the quality is this high. I can't wait to get stuck into this build. Its been on my wants list for so long!!!

Unfortunately I've encountered a broken part, the two prongs at the bottom of the canopy have snapped off, I was debating on painting the glass, so if the broken parts was inside the box, I'd have glued them on, filled it and no one would have been any the wiser. Unfortunately after a thorough search through the bags and box the missing parts aren't here. So I'll have to contact Customer Services at Games Workshop. These things happen but it's a shame. Build on hold now until I hear back from them. As always I'm very honest with my kit reviews and builds so I've had to mention it. :-( email sent.

Update already!! Spoke to a lovely staff member, Beth on their Customer service team who's putting in a replacement part order today! Awesome to deal with, can't fault the customer service and professionalism on this! Build will progress on now, and I can't wait!

One of things that Forge World are doing better at is instructions!

Old Thunderhawk photocopy instructions!

New Thunderhawk has the newer style full colour step by step instructions which I think will take some of the pressure off this quite daunting model!

Okay, I think I'm addicted to stress!!

The new instructions are detailed and hopefully will make this a breeze right, right??? Tell me its going to be a breeze!!

A little wing size comparison between the Thunderhawk and its predecessor the Stormbird! The Thunderhawk isn't little, the Stormbird is just massive!!

Stormbird and Thunderhawk fuselage comparison.

One of the first things I got for this kit was the later of the out of production Forge World door sets for the Imperial Fists. Brand new, second hand on ebay.

One of the things thar bother me about some of the Forge World doors is a lack of interior detail. There's nothing behind them!!

On the reverse of the doors that came with the kit have some nice interior detail!

One of the first mods I've done, is sand back both sets of doors and combine them together. They are slightly thicker than normal, but are reinforced armoured and have detail on both sides. Hours of work. Wants filling and sanding some more! Why am I like this!?

How the new chonky armoured doors will look!

Lots of interior detail to pick out, already got ideas!!

I love Forge World for what they do on these models! Detailed roof section and under the flight deck.

Cockpit! I'll fully paint that before its glued into place. Like I have the Stormbird.

The Pilots that come with the kit are the later Mk7 Space Marines. A little bit annoying for us Heresy folks! The torso is molded to the legs, I'm not really feeling upto cutting them apart if I'm honest!! The risk of butchering them is a bit too much to take on.

The arms that come with the kit also have molded on shoulder pads!!

Being the eagle eyed legend that my buddy Joe is, he spotted that they are resin casts of the crew from the old 40k Rhino APC!

Least using the old plastic arms, I'll be able to give them Mk6 pads and Helmets, it will help sell the Heresy era a bit more! I'm still so tempted to have the torsos off and file the knees down to look like mk4 armour... wish they just had the same crew as the Stormbird!

Lower crew compartment, there's a rear exit ramp and rear bulkhead door above it.

Prefer the way they did these ladders leading up to the flight deck over the Stormbird.

How cool is all that interior detail to pick out!!

Another cool feature is movable airbrakes! Closed position.. .

Airbrakes open! Cool feature, I don't think it will have a long life expectancy before something breaks tho!!!

I think all that work on those doors will have been worth it?

I put a couple of heavy 8x5mm N52 magnets in the heavy bolter turrets, they allow the bolters to turn 360° and elevate up and down. Way over kill with their 2.57kg pull but I need the chonk to fill the cavity. I could have stacked smaller but at least they aren't going to easily get knocked off easily and break.

The ammo feeds for the heavy bolters pass both sides of the magnets easily so elevation isn't a problem.

JB Welded the two bottom halves of the fuselage together as well an interconnection part, which will also be structural. I'm happy to super glue bits like i do my Titans, but anything that carries any structural load I recommend the stinky epoxy!

As the mentioned stinky weld is setting I'm devising a plan to mount a flight stand, will be drilling a sizable hole through the bottom of the fuselage, pretty much where my thumb is, will be a good place to evenly take the weight and its through some pretty solid resin without compromising any of the models structural rigidity.

After the weld set, I primed some of the Internals ready to paint!

I've got more magnets on order for the doors but enough things left to keep me going with the project.

Started on the cockpit!

Started the cockpit interior.

Cockpit dry fitted into the hawk.

Quite enjoyed working on this!

Its a fairly simple scheme, going with the modern military look to this, I'm not going to go all out with chevrons and haz markings on the Inner belly of this, I feel like I got that well and truly out of my system on the Stormbird.

The top and bottom half are still separate, but I installed the magnets for the front ramp today. Massive pain, I made life difficult for myself ordering the smallest magnets known to man, and it took hours of trying and swearing to get it done. Its a big job ticked off tho!

18mm hole bored into the bottom of the hawk to mount a flying stand!

18mm clear acrylic rod mounted to a Warhound Titan size resin base from www.Marchofwar.co.uk idea borrowed from Sultan Plays YouTube channel!

Finished the interior and yes, I forgot to get pics before I perminantly glued the upper and bottom shells together!

Started to weld the wings in place, glued the front Canards on too! Starting to look like a Thunderhawk!!

The irwin quick grip clamps once again proving useful, the have earned their purchase a hundred times over it feels. With all the Titans and Stormbird!!

Glued on the hinges for the ramp to open and close!

Really starting to look like the iconic Thunderhawk now!

Had an awesome hobby hang out with the awesome Lee Godden (Goddenzilla) yesterday!

Got the landers on the Hawk and the canopy masked!!

Gave me plenty of advice on things I was struggling with, sometimes it needs two heads and someone elses perspective and input to show you things you've missed or different ways to do things. Always learning in this hobby. He's got something cool in the works for my Stormbird too!

Thanks for the hospitality and company bro! Hope its not too long until next time!!

After Lee got the ball rolling again on the T-hawk I got it primed white!

The the pre shading hello kitty phase of pink!

then some zenithal white to stop the next stage going full orange!

Can't wait to stay getting yellows down!!

I've added some black sections (kinda based on the Blood Angels one Forge World did, I seem to think Giuseppe painted that one but I wanted to do my own thing with mine. Did the black no, should anything have gone drastically wrong at this stage, like paint bleeding under the masking tape, it would be easier to fix now than if I'd spent days working on the yellow!

First layer of Yellow done!

Finally got this thing basecoated, it feels like proper painting started now!

Got some panel shading down on the Hawk and highlighted the black areas

More work in progress got some decals on and some weathering.

My buddy Joe came up to have a Horus Heresy game, and I decided while packing the army up to just take everything I've got painted and get a nice army shot as I don't have the space here.

The Thunderhawk makes a great centerpiece for any army! I can't wait to get the Stormbird done!

The Thunderhawk did get quite a bit of attention whilst on the table at Hobby Workshop but it's just because it's one of those rarely seen models, unless you visit Warhammer World often!

Day after the game, had another awesome hang out with my buddy Chris, and I'd asked if he minded adding some airbrushed filth onto the engines and vents etc, I don't airbrush and certain things just work better. He kindly accepted!

definitely added something thar was missing and smoothed about and corrected areas where my shading was a little rough! The engines and vents was a HUGE improvement. Its so hard to control with a brush on a model this size.

Onto the pilots next, I filed the armour details off the later Mk7 armour, to try and make it look more Heresy era. My buddy Lee the Goddenzilla hooked me up with old plastic arms, so I could replace the shoulder pads. Added mk2 shoulder pads and mk4 Phalanx Warder heads to make them appear older, they should look right at home next to the Stormbird better now. Kinda bugged me that you get the later 40k tech Marine looking pilots and nothing as an option for 30k! The reason I didn't paint the pilot for the Fire Raptor.