Thunderhawk Gunship - Part I

 

More speed required; quick, paint it red!

The Aeronautica Imperialis scale Adeptus Astartes Thunderhawk Gunship (to give the entire title) has been recently released, and naturally I had to pick one up. It will of course be painted in Blood Angels colours, and will very likely be considered the centrepiece of any Aeronautica squadrons I end up collecting. This is not foreseen to be a quick project.

The model itself is wonderfully detailed. Casting processes and CAD designs really have improved over the last few years, and Games Workshop was correct to wait for now to be releasing such things.

Assembly was fairly good, not much cleanup required, and everything fits together well. It's difficult to put pieces in the wrong spot or the wrong way around, and I was impressed with that aspect. The front foils, and the tail, have to be glued in place carefully or they'll be leaning off to one side too much, but that's really the only assembly issue I had.

Oddly enough, the kit doesn't come with wing attachable bombs, even though that's an option on the included rules sheet. I still have spares of those from the Thunderbolts, but it's odd to give an option that the kit can't provide. The missiles are all there, and I suspect will be what most people want anyway, but given that some tournament rules are "the model must represent what it has in the game" then this might annoy some people.

The landing gear can be either up or down. I have it in the down position because I like it for display that way, but I haven't glued it in place. It doesn't look suitable for magnetising to swap around either, not without a lot of hassle and far more experience in such matters than I currently have, and that's also a shame. I'll just be using blu-tac for now; I can always change my mind later.

So with this model, and Project 20 Marines, and a couple of other things in the works, I'm really getting bogged down in any feeling of progress. Fortunately a lot of it is Blood Angels, so I am familiar with the colours, I will be using the Forgeworld paint scheme for reference, and I should be able to swap around projects to keep interest going. Expect things to be a little chaotic for the rest of the year.

-- silly painter.