Stormbird
The Thunderhawk’s big older brother and predecessor, the Stormbird was to the Legiones Astartes of the Great Crusade what the Thunderhawk is to the Astartes Chapters of the 41st Millenium: a primary means of transport and air support for Space Marines. The Stormbird, however, was much bigger, able to carry up to 50 Space Marines as well as dreadnoughts and rhinos, protected by void shields, and armed with a ton of firepower. So it was basically an Imperial Manta for all intents and purposes.
By the time of the Horus Heresy, though, while some of the bigger Legions insisted on keeping their Stormbirds in service, most had begun relying more and more on the smaller and easier to produce Thunderhawk. After the Codex Astartes reforms, the ability to carry half a company’s worth of marines all in one aircraft wasn’t even arguably economical anymore, and the remaining Imperial Stormbirds were finally mothballed. A rare case of a weapon disappearing from the Imperium's arsenal, not so much because of a lost ability to produce it, but because it was just too big and expensive to be of practical use anymore.
As of the 41st Millennium, it’s currently unknown if there are any Stormbirds still left in Loyalist vaults, though Traitor Legions like the Word Bearers are said to still have a few around, and if Forge World’s recent development of a Stormbird model is anything to go by, odds are there probably will be a couple of chapters that will be revealed to, surprise, surprise, still have their Stormbirds as well (But then again, maybe not. If the Stormhammer is any indication, not everything big is necessarily transferable to 40k).
It is interesting to note, though, that Forge World's stormbird is almost an entirely different aircraft from the one pictured in older fluff. Where the old Stombird looked like an giant Valkyrie with two tiltrotor turbofan engines each almost as big as the aircraft itself, the new Stormbird is basically just a Thunderhawk on steroids (The old Stormbird was also fluffed as having a 100-marine carrying capacity, rather than the Sokar's 50). A bit odd, as Forge World has generally tried to maintain the Rogue Trader look when updating the old material. Whether this is simply a very different pattern of the same general classification of aircraft (a distinct possibility, as one of the apparent advantages of the Thunderhawk over the Stormbird was that it was a standard template design and the Stormbird was not), or if the Sokar has retconned the old one out of existence entirely, is debatable.
One notable Stormbird is the one Nathaniel Garro had pimped out for his personal use by Malcador so that he could cruise around the galaxy hunting down members for his loyalist A-Team.
Tabletop
Funnily enough, the reasons the Imperial Manta was mothballed in the fluff are also kind of represented in the crunch. The Stormbird is so big and expensive that outside of the biggest games (as in, boards where Basilisks run out of range) a Thunderhawk probably would be a more economical option most of the time. Relatively. Hell, if a Stormbird was ever fielded in any game under 1,500pts whatever army you had left would probably be able to fit inside the thing. With all that said, though, you certainly get your points worth. The Stormbird has 14/13/12/ and 12 HP. It comes with five turreted Twin-linked Lascannons (so right then and there, you got more laser dakka than a Terminus Ultra), six Dreadstrike Missiles (S10 AP2 Ordnance, small blast) which can be replaced with a single use 3D6 Apocalyptic Barrage that hits like a Battle cannon. It can buy an Orbital Strike, with Strength D AP1, Massive blast, Indirect fire only and multiple use for the low, low price of 150 pts. Its 2 Void Shields can become a 12" bubble if you go into hover mode, which is a safe idea since you also get Armoured ceramite and a 5++ invul. Transport capacity of 50 can carry pretty much everything including Dreadnoughts and (fully loaded) Rhinos which take up 10/12 slots respectively. Good thing the Age of Darkness FoC limits you to 25% spending on LOWs and no one actually has the money to play Apoc with FW, right?
Gallery
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The only image of a Stormbird people had for years (and the basis for many an awesome scratch-build) before Forge World came out with the Sokar Pattern.
