At Wargamer, we don't usually engage in the Warhammer 40k rumor mill, traffic in supposed leaks and theories about secret releases, or huff in any other manner upon the hopium pipe. But, when Games Workshop dropped a tease-filled hype clip for this weekend's World Championships of Warhammer Preview Stream that prominently featured, of all things, an airplane, it planted a seed of hope in my mind I haven't been able to shake free. Could GW really bring back Aeronautica Imperialis?
A history lesson: Aeronautica Imperialis was an aerial dogfighting miniature wargame set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe that focused on neither ground warfare (like mainstream 40k) nor space battles (like the long lost, lamented Battlefleet Gothic) but combat between atmospheric aircraft. It was a game about sci fi airplanes fighting - a surprisingly rare thing in GW's 50 year oeuvre.
On its original release in 2007, Aeronautica Imperialis was a Forge World specialist game in 6 millimeter Epic scale, that played on an open field, similarly to the late, great Star Wars: X-Wing. After a bit of time away, GW relaunched it in 2019 as more of a grid based board game, in parallel with a stompy robot based contemporary, Adeptus Titanicus.
And, while it lasted, the game looked very cool. It played out 40k battles in a setting and combat style that the mainline wargame just can't fully integrate - the war in the air - and therefore gave us scope to paint the one element of our favorite Warhammer 40k factions that you see least on the 10th Edition 40k tabletop: the planes!
GW released 40k-era aircraft models for the Aeronautica itself (the official air force of the Imperium of Man), the Astra Militarum, the Space Marines, and four Xenos races: Aeldari, Orks, T'au, and Necrons. Semi-directly, the game spawned two of the best Warhammer 40k books you've probably never read: Dan Abnett's brilliant dogfighting duology of Double Eagle (2004) and Interceptor City (2025).
It even got a (sadly very mid) PC adaptation in the form of Green Man Gaming's Aeronautica Imperialis: Flight Command, released in 2020 and, er, no longer available on Steam. But then it pretty much died.
GW released a Horus Heresy campaign expansion in 2022, along with a bunch of Imperial planes you'll recognize from the Horus Heresy books. After teeny tiny Heresy wargame Legions Imperialis launched in late 2023, those 30k planes were added to the new game, and everything else from Aeronautica (bar the rulebook and, for some reason, a single model of Adeptus Custodes gunship) disappeared from GW's store.
So, why am I dredging this up now? Two reasons. First, I'm genuinely gutted that I never took the chance to try Aeronautica Imperialis while it was around; I love planes and dogfighting games, and ever since I read Double Eagle I've been kicking myself for not buying myself a set while I could.
And, second, GW's Adam Troke and Eddie Eccles just put out a teaser video for this weekend's big Warhammer Preview stream in which, for no explicit reason, they get in a plane. They just get in a plane. Every frame of the 32 second clip features video (and audio) of a plane.
OK, let's be real. There is nothing else in this video that relates even slightly to Aeronautica Imperialis. There are a lot of red stripy rockets, which is a head-bonkingly clear sign that the stream's reveals for Warhammer The Old World are going to focus on Grand Cathay, with its Medieval China-inspired fixation on weaponized fireworks.
There's a gross, leaky, Nurgle flavored chest that - combined with WarCom's judicious use of the word 'bubo' in its announcement article - has me convinced that we'll see some new toys for the Maggotkin of Nurgle Age of Sigmar army. And that red and white barrel in the foreground, printed with an Aquila, has 40k folks rabbiting on about Astra Militarum releases.
But there's no hard evidence to point to Aeronautica, a game that still has its own pages on GW's webstore and fluff site, but hasn't seen hide nor hair of a new release for over two years. Except, you know, the plane. Why are they getting in a plane? Why can I see and hear an airplane from the start to the end of this video?
Why would GW go to the trouble of hiring a light aircraft just to shoot a half minute teaser, if they had nothing remotely plane-related on the docket for Friday's preview? OK, the 'theme' is that self confessed Brits Adam and Eddie are flying over to Atlanta for the show. But other Warhammer preview streams have been broadcast live from US based events, and I didn't see them waving Cessnas about then. It's gotta mean something.
I'll be realistic: the most likely outcomes are either a) more Heresy era aircraft are coming to Legions Imperialis (which would still be cool) or b) it's a hilarious GW misdirect, born of the same devious minds that wrote the words "there's always leaks" into the script for this video.
But just this once, I'll let myself hope for the specific, very unlikely thing that I particularly want. Aeronautica Imperialis was my GW 'one that got away', and I want my chance to paint teeny little squadrons of Barracudas, Nightwings, and Fighta Bommas. May the Emperor of Mankind smile upon my fate.
What do you reckon? Am I a fool to hope, or am I onto something? Should I just give up and buy some xenos planes off Ebay? Come join the free Wargamer Discord community and let me know! You'll be just in time to join our live video AMA with 3D printing powerhouse MyMiniFactory on Thursday, November 6!