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Hey, everybody. I'm looking at my Guard army, and I realized "Hey. This would look so much better with some helicopters." Now, I love helicopters. My favorites are American. My favorite scale is 1/72. However, it seems the prevailing opinion is that 1/72 is too small to match 40K standards. That said, the vehicles in 40K are already undersized. So, would it be unacceptable to use 1/72? Or does it not really matter?

I'd go with 1/48 scale - closer to GW's "scale". Having said that, what birds are you looking at using?

They are REALLY too small for 40k.
1/48 is closer and you can get quite a few eggbeaters helos in that scale - and even modify the pilots with guard bits for example.

(Used to do this back in the RT days - a gaming mag (not WD) had articles for eggbeaters in 40k. Fast, lightly armed gunships or transports that were not exactly hard to take down.)

I'm actually trying to get my number of current projects caught up so I can orkify a 1/48 Chinook/Shytehook as they are commonly called.

If you've ever flown one you'd understand.

I would think 1/48 woudl be best. i myself had parts from a MASSIVE SeaKing model (it was 1/35th scale and the hull was longer then a baneblade and taller with the rotor) and i used the blades and rotor assembly for my Heli Vendetta (the width of the assembly stretches over the Vendettas wings easily as shown)

I would think the best models would be helis like the Soviet Hind, or American Hueys and other helicopters with troops transport bays. maybe even blackhawks.

1/35th scale helis and aircraft dwarf land vehicales, unless you really want a gigantic aircraft for something like mass troop deployment.

Hey, everybody. After everybody's unanimous agreement on the size issue, I've looked into 1/48 scale models. My initial reactions are positive. The helicopter I'm interested in most is the MH- or AH-6 Little Bird. I'd like to use it in flights of four or scout teams of two, sort of as a highly mobile anti-tank and reconaissance unit. Obviously, I'm gonna need help writing rules for them. I think an armor value of 10 makes solid sense. Do you?

Sounds like a good start - was thinking of using Little Birds as Def Kopta's myself.

Little Birds are pretty versatile choppers. If I can find kit pieces for different weapon options, I'll be golden, because I can only seem to find them with twin TOW launchers.

A fast light chopper like the Little Bird works. armor 10 all around but with it able to really move would be good.

weapon wise the little bird can carry few weapons. at most either only a pair of benchs for a special forces squad. or as a light gunship a few rocket pods and machien guns.

for 40k it could do both.

load out would be like a pair of stubbers 1 on each little wing with a cirular missle pod (or even the sentinal missle pod) on the end with a bench above the wings for the squad of troops.
special rules im not sure about.

trying to make it strong but not overly powerful for its role. krak missles from a missle team are not titan killers but they get the job done when you want a rhino, predator or whatever out of your way. and stubbers not best machine gun weapons ever. could swap for bolters but i think a stubber would be lighter so the little heli could carry it. your choice though.

Since you're doing it for 40k I'd say look at any of the 1/48 aircraft weapon add on kits.

In terms of 1/48 scale add-ons, my choices are limited. I can get rocket pods, if I buy a box set that includes a metric ton of air-to-ground missiles and various sensor pods. This seems like sort of a waste, when all I need out of it is the three rocket pods it contains. Any suggestions?

My attempt at helicopters. used the gi joe six sigma dragonhawk turbines
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26990385@N06/5197850386/in/photostream

Did you look at add-ons for fixed-wing aircraft in 1/48 scale? There are probably more options for jets than for helicopters. Heck, with exagerated 40k weapons sizes, you could even look at 1/35 scale weapons.

If you're going to add a helicopter to your force and you end up going back to using existing codex entry, I'd strongly suggest the russian Hind. It's attack and transport capability matches up well with the Valkyrie and it has a very rough 40k look.

AirborneDropper wrote:In terms of 1/48 scale add-ons, my choices are limited. I can get rocket pods, if I buy a box set that includes a metric ton of air-to-ground missiles and various sensor pods. This seems like sort of a waste, when all I need out of it is the three rocket pods it contains. Any suggestions?

Plastic tubing and a little green stuff.

AirborneDropper wrote:In terms of 1/48 scale add-ons, my choices are limited. I can get rocket pods, if I buy a box set that includes a metric ton of air-to-ground missiles and various sensor pods. This seems like sort of a waste, when all I need out of it is the three rocket pods it contains. Any suggestions?

Go in on it with someone who either A- does military models or B, like me does alot of scratch build?

Rules wise, the EASY thing would be to run them as flying scout sentinals, that obviously aren't walkers. There's a lot of 40k weapon bits that would look good. The stubby autocannon fromt eh sentinal, smart missle (or two missile pods) from Tau, or even a havoc launcher..