5 Minute History: Valkyrie

The Valkyrie Airborne Assault Carrier is an armed VTOL transport used by the Imperial Navy in the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop game. In the game background, the aircraft's role is the transportation of special forces infantry in the same way as the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters used by the 160th SOAR of the US Army. The Valkyrie acts as an armed troop transport providing fast deployment to ground troops in a survivable platform that can lay down suppressing fire for the troops it delivers.

 The Valkyrie is armed with either a multilaser or a lascannon in a mount beside the cockpit, and wing mounted hellstrike missiles, rocket pods, or drop tanks (for heavy loads). In addition, it has two heavy bolters mounted in its cargo bay for door gunners to operate. The Valkyrie first appeared as a resin kit released by Forge World in 2003 its rules were published that same year in Imperial Armour Volume 1. Games Workshop later released a plastic kit in 2009, replacing the Forge World version. Rules for the Valkyrie can be found in the 5th Edition Imperial Guard Codex. The Codex also includes rules for a variant,the Vendetta gunship. It replaces the multilaser and hellstrike missiles with three twin-linked lascannons. The Vendetta is used as a tank hunting aircraft while retaining its transport ability.

Outside of the tabletop game, the Valkyrie appears as an enemy boss in the PC/Windows/PlayStation 2 first-person shooter game Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior and has also appeared in several mods for dawn of war, although mainly as non player character transport.