From the Front Line

Following the release of the much hyped Apocalypse supplement (for fielding really, really big armies in Warhammer 40,000), one of the models available caught my eye.

There's now more opportunity to field aircraft than before, and the Thunderbolt Ground attack aircraft used by the Imperial Navy caught my eye. Okay, the Thunderhawk Gunship did too, but we'll come to that later.

Whilst thinking how great these would be (just as a cool model, in addition to being useful in the game), and knowing full well that the Forge World model was well outside my budget, I happened across a set of templates for scratch building one.

Scratch building means just that; building the model from scratch, using whatever materials are available/suitable/can be begged borrowed or scrounged from sources. Not something I have done in a few years, my only experience being a couple of Ork tanks many years ago that were made from cereal packet card.

So, armed with the templates, some plastic card, a tool box and plenty of TV time over Christmas I was able to put the first model together over the last couple of weeks.

The end result was better than I had hoped. After 20 hours effort, I had something that, admittedly, wasn't as detailed as the Forge World model, but was more than adequate. I was pleased when I got some positive comments when I took it up to the GW store to work on it some more.

At the moment, the engines are the only things to be finished, and then I can paint it.

The plan at the moment is to get the first model completely painted, then think about making two more for a squadron. A couple of people asked me how much I would charge to make them models...not sure if that is something I would want to do given the time needed. Effort aside, total cost for the model was about £5.

Anyway, below are some extracts from emails with a friend on using the Thunderbolt in games, mostly for me to keep somewhere for future reference.

Can you imagine fielding several squadrons as a significant chunk of an Apocalypse army? It would sure confuse those with all-tank armies, as they'd be mostly hitting on sixes :) And nailing Baneblades is always satisfying... How many pintle-mounted weapons can people field?

Okay, it only works until people cotton on to the hydra...

Anyway, as for the scale, yours is close to the images in Imperial Armour, I guess, but those don't seem to be to any particular scale as the Marauder seems to be too small in there. I haven't compared the scales in Apocalypse with models I know to comment, as it seems more likely it's a little off. I mean, GW could never consistently scale titans, so the smaller stuff could be anything. I think both our models are okay - there's not much difference between them really, and looking at things like F-15 Eagles, there is a lot of machine around the pilot. Essentially, the scales irrelevant though, as it's not like the model will be making use of cover, and range is nominally taken to the base*.

When shooting at tanks they use the rear (possibly side?) armour value (weaker armour on the top!), so even the autocannon stand a chance at getting through AV12 with that many shots. Void shields are AV12 any way, so they would be pretty good at knocking those down at the very least. Get close enough and those void shields don't work anyway. A squadron of three may not kill a Baneblade in one turn, but they could do some serious damage to it.

Add a bomb load, and they are going to eat horde armies and light armour for breakfast. Rhinos, Chimera, Trukks etc? Nailing the Whirlwind's spotter Land Speeder? Taking out indirect-fire batteries? Knocking out Hammerheads (damn Tau!)?

Aimed at a unit of light armour, the hits are going to be distributed evenly, so with 7 shots, something is going to go. Being able to get into a position to target heavy weapon squads as well will be easier - targets that would not normally be closest to the ground-based units.

Also factor in the psychology on the enemy player - something fairly killy that they can't hit back at easily is going to really wind them up! I suspect an awful lot of fire power aimed at them, which lets everything else survive another turn or two.

Admittedly they are no good for taking and holding objectives, but they would be good for clearing the objective prior to making a ground assault, just like in real life.

And, since most people won't be fielding aircraft or dedicated AAA, most things won't be able to target them. Most pintle mounted weapons are storm bolters or stubbers, and are low strength (although AV10 is still possible). As flyers they only suffer Glancing hits in any case due to the high speed.