A Vehicle Worthy of a Primarch!

 Thunderhawk Gunship

This project completely came out of nowhere! After speaking with a friend who recently got a Bambu X1 Carbon printer and wanted to really try it out on a big project, I thought of what I could add to my Horus Heresy Imperial Fists. While I've never really considered buying any of Forgeworlds mega expensive models, they sure are impressive. So after a quick search on Cults 3D I found Nordwand's Deliverance Pattern Heavy Assault Gunship and thought it looked like a great project! 

Nordwand's 3d model is set up more like a model kit than a wargaming miniature with lots of individual parts. It took me a long time to get all the print plates set up with the many pieces of the kit. I then printed most of the small parts on my Elegoo Mars Pro II. Then in just a few days all the parts were finished, and it only took a single roll of the cheapest Bambu filament! 3D printing consistently blows my mind with how quickly technology is progressing!

Originally, I had grand plans on magnetizing parts of the hull to reveal the detailed interiors and have marines preparing to disembark. However, I quickly reeled myself in and remembered that I have very little time and a mountain of projects to finish. So, I instead decided to focus on a detailed cockpit as a mini diorama and eventually some troops at the assault ramp.

I modified various 3d marines to make my crew miniatures. I can do minor changes to stl files but am not skilled enough to make models from scratch.

Only some of the first batch of printed parts!

The fuselage assembled.

I wanted to make sure I had a detailed cockpit.

I was very happy to get a clear canopy printed.

I was assembling everything as they came off the plates.

The completed gunship.

Still working on the crew.

Had to do some work to get the assault ramp to open easily.

First round of paint.

Bright, but I plan on weathering it.

Painted, with no decals.

Complete with weathering and decals.

The transparent cockpit turned out great.

This will mainly be used as terrain, but I still love it!

Ready to make landfall!

I am happy with how the cockpit turned out.

I'll have to make some other photos as there are a lot of extra details in the cockpit.

I've never bought a FDM printer due to the layer lines, but this Thunderhawk has proven to me that the technology is definitely there to print miniatures with incredible detail on a FDM printer!

At the end of the day, I could not be happier with this project and how it turned out. With very limited time to build and paint, I have far too many projects that get boxed away unfinished, I'm very glad this one was completed.