valkyrie

This photograph was taken at Games Day 2009 and uploaded live to the blog during the event.

New Forge World Transfers

Forge World have announced two new sets of transfers.

The Ork Transfer sheet, designed by Start Witter, is crammed with a profusion of over 1700 individual symbols covering all the major Ork Clans such as the Bad Moons, Bloodaxes and Evil Sunz as you can see here. The sheet is A4 (8.2” by 11.69”) and in colour, it features huge quantities of Ork glyphs, dags, flames, checks and symbols to add lavish Orky detail to your boyz and vehicles.

The Valkyrie & Vulture Transfer sheet, designed by Stuart Witter provides some fantastic decals, kill markings and insignia for the Imperial Valkyrie and Vulture models. You can see the sheet here. This white A4 sheet features skulls, Aquilas, and fuselage decorations of eyes and fanged maws to personalise your aircraft, as well as unit markings and pilot designations. The sheet also features three sets of Imperial wing decals; these will require the use of a modelling blade and are intended for experienced modellers.

Very nice looking and they look useful.

Ork Great Gargant and a plastic Thunderhawk

At GamesDay 2003 there were a lot of Forge World Warhound Titans which has just been released. Amongst all that Imperial heavy armour was this lone Ork Great Gargant.

This was from Armorcast in the days before Games Workshop took large scale resin models back in house and created Forge World. It was only (in theory) available in the USA and was very difficult if not impossible to get in the UK.

If I could find one, afford one and have the time to paint one, I really would like to get hold of this model, but alas I think everything is against me!

With the release of the plastic Stompa you can compare the detail of the Armorcast Gargant versus the well detailed plastic Stompa now available. Large plastic kits are now certainly achievable technically from Games Workshop, of course the business case has to be made. It is this business case which I suspect means we may never see a plastic Gargant. The main problem will be having such a large kit in the stores. Taking up a large amount of shelf space, means that less space for smaller (probably more profitable) kits. Games Workshop have already started to
reduce the space taken by particular models, by combining all variants into a single box. So no longer do we have separate boxes for the Land Raider variants such as the Crusader, but now have a single box containing all variants. This has made room for the larger kits such as the Baneblade, the Shadowsword and the Stompa.

However to make room for a Gargant kit would mean removing more than just the variant boxes.Interestingly we could see a Reaver, though just as tall as a Gargant, certainly does not need such a large box as it is not as big as a Gargant (in terms of girth).

So what will be the next big plastic kit?

My view is that we will probably see a Space Marine Thunderhawk.

This has been rumoured for many years, it’s not a matter of if, more a matter of when.

One tidbit to think about with the release of the Skyshield Landing Pad is the following description.

Landing pads are launch bases used by flight-capable craft to unload or evacuate troops and vital personnel. The Skyshield landing pad used by the Imperial Navy, though originally purpose-built to accommodate Valkyrie and Vendetta gunships, is robust enough to serve even the Thunderhawks of the Adeptus Astartes, and has field generators that protect the craft and its crew from incoming fire.

Note my emphasis. Now obviously this could be referring to the Forge World model, but why note this in a kit description. In the rules yes, in the marketing for Games Workshop mainstream, generally they don’t mention Forge World models as part of describing other products, normally as a separate page or link.

The Skyshield landing pad is a very nice model, perfect for the Valkyrie.

So no plastic Gargant but maybe a plastic Thunderhawk…. perhaps…

Forge World Valkyrie at GamesDay 2003

With the release of the plastic Valkyrie you forget that the resin Forge World model has been with us for over six years now.

This was the Forge World model that was entered into the Golden Demon at GamesDay 2003.

A Forge World Valkyrie which was entered into the 2003 Golden Demon awards.

See more photographs from GamesDay 2003.

See our Valkyrie Gallery.

Vultures at the Forge World Open Day

Next month sees the release of the plastic Valkyrie from Games Workshop.

At the recent Forge World Open Day we saw some conversion kits for the plastic Valkyrie including a Vulture and a Vendetta.

With the release of the plastic Valkyrie, Forge World at their Forge World Open Day 2009 showed off a new Vulture conversion kit. — With the release of the plastic Valkyrie, Forge World at their Forge World Open Day 2009 showed off a new Vulture conversion kit

The Vulture makes use of some of the plastic components, whilst the Vendetta conversion turns the Valkyrie into a heavily armed gunship.

Alas I didn’t manage to get any photographs of the Vendetta (I thought I had, but I hadn’t).

Forge World will also be making some new weapon packs as well.

Really nice kits.

Update: you can now see all my photographs from the Forge World Open Day 2009 in this gallery.

Plastic Imperial Guard Valkyrie at Design Studio Open Day

The rumours are right it would appear that there is going to be a plastic Valkyrie for the Imperial Guard.

This image is from the Design Studio Open Day which was today. Photo source.

This image is from the Games Workshop newsletter.

Looks very nice, might get one for my Daemonhunters army, well better get painting the rest of it first. What is also nice is that it comes with a decent flying stand which I hope will be available separately so I can put my Ork Bommer on one.