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Starting a new Eldar army and have noticed something that really bugs me...

Why on earth do Grav tanks come with the sill spindly little flying stands!? Its just asking to be broken by a slight breeze or an escaping fart.

So this is a shout out there to all Eldar players, What do you guys use as flying stand replacements? or do you literally bubble wrap you models during games?

I don't actually use flying bases for anything. I make scenic bases, be it little walls or columns. Magnetise the top and the bottom of the vehicle and then it looks like it's passing over a battlefield ...

I hated them as well, especialy, since I transport my stuff on metal sheets, but even for playing with I hate lose, wobbly flight stands.

My solution is a 60mm base with an inverted U shape I made from plasticard on it. In the top of the U is a magnet, which together with a corresponding magnet in the chassis and the fins under the rump hold the stand rigidly attached to the chassis. I cut the styrene sheet so that it looks from the side and back like some fins that coould be part of the chassis and paint it the same colour as the chassis. The height of this assembly matches the original stand.

Two magnets under the base firmly grab the metal sheet or tray I move the model on.

Liking the ventral fins idea, thats clever, you would hope somewhere deep in the bowls of GW someone sees this and is kicking themselves

I'm liking the ideas here!

Personally I was thinking of cutting a flying stand (big chunky ones that are used with flyers) into smaller lengths, maybe a couple of inches per section and mounting that to a 60mm base.
I figured if one of those could hold my Fire raptors weight, it would have no issues holding a grav tank steady! Add a sprinkling of terrain and scenic features, allow to simmer for 10 mins before
serving. Viola! grav tanks that don't fall over!

leopard wrote:
Liking the ventral fins idea, thats clever, you would hope somewhere deep in the bowls of GW someone sees this and is kicking themselves

Thank you. =]

It's actually quite easy to do. 2mm styrene sheet is easy to cut and shape, the exact shape doesn't matter since it's hardly visible, having the vertical bits grabbing the rails on the bottom is the key to stability. The magnet grabs the model, the fins prevent it from rotating.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 razarob wrote:
I'm liking the ideas here!

Personally I was thinking of cutting a flying stand (big chunky ones that are used with flyers) into smaller lengths, maybe a couple of inches per section and mounting that to a 60mm base.
I figured if one of those could hold my Fire raptors weight, it would have no issues holding a grav tank steady! Add a sprinkling of terrain and scenic features, allow to simmer for 10 mins before
serving. Viola! grav tanks that don't fall over!

Having cut the plus shaped recess that accepts the flying stand previously, it's ridiculously difficult to get it sized right.
Also, consider that the clear flying stand flanges out as it goes down, so if you slice one up, each will be a different size, requiring a different recess and locking the stands to the models.

If you want to go that way, pick up some extrusion from the DIY store with a constant dimension lengthwise and use that instead.

I haven't done this with my Eldar skimmers yet, but:
The Space Marine Land Speeders have a sensor array below them, which attaches to the underside. I have glued this to the base's pole, and magnetised the top of that. It gives a lot more space to put the magnets, and saves having to mess about with the wobbly and flimsy pole.
For the Eldar tanks, I expect I'll snip off the nobble on the pole, and glue on a small platform. There'll be some big magnets on that, and a couple more inside the hull.

 Skinnereal wrote:
I haven't done this with my Eldar skimmers yet, but:
The Space Marine Land Speeders have a sensor array below them, which attaches to the underside. I have glued this to the base's pole, and magnetised the top of that. It gives a lot more space to put the magnets, and saves having to mess about with the wobbly and flimsy pole.
For the Eldar tanks, I expect I'll snip off the nobble on the pole, and glue on a small platform. There'll be some big magnets on that, and a couple more inside the hull.

Absolutely, I have seen that done on quite some flight bases, for Tau, Necron or Eldar models.
The problem there is two-fold:

Firstly, the flight stand is brittle. The vertical pin will break under stress. It is only a small, flimsy bit of plastic and the clear plastic does seem to be weaker than the regular plastic.

Secondly, the magnet only provides attachment, it doesn't adjust rotation along the magnetic axis. So unless you use another pair to add a second point and thereby define a line, which takes more space, you will have to have everything absolutely level to avoid that the tank slides of to the side.

This is a solution I started back in 2005 when I was leaving 40K. I returned to the same thing last year when I rebuilt an entire Eldar army.

http://myminiaturemischief.blogspot.com/2016/05/ride-in-style-wave-serpents.html

^See the pictures on this blog post.

Basically you take three flight stand pegs, two longer and one shorter. Invert them and clip off the tiny insert peg. Drill out a hole in the bottom of the Falcon/Wave Serpent and glue in the flying peg upside down. I prefer a tri-pod set up as it lets the vehicle balance on various types of terrain. The pegs are permanent so you can't detach it like a flying base, but the pegs themselves don't take up much space. The tank floats about 1-1.5" off the table and you get zero wobble, etc. It's steady being placed up or down hills, etc. Stupidly robust and easy to do. I do space them out more on Falcons/Fire Prisms because they don't have the extra length that the Wave Serpent has.

Three points do define a plane! =]

Clever and useful for anyone who transports their models in foam.

I really like Elbows Design. looks good makes sense and im sure anyone who plays tau will be willing to donate a few hundred clear pins.

The 3 points looks great for most uses.
Balancing on a roof, maybe not as much, but how often does that happen...?
I'll have to try that and see how it goes.

Take a look at the omni stand from Corsec Engineering. Metal rod, screw into metal inserts in the model and the base