Flight Stand Socket – Scratchbuild

You're grounded!

Last week I was using my Dreadclaw in a game over at Frontline Gaming when Keno and I had a bit of an odd situation: a Dreadclaw model doesn’t typically have a flight stand and seeing as 40k is True Line Of Sight, does it grant cover saves to units behind it even though it’s “Zooming” (Boy, I HATE the name of that rule) through the air?

“It’s not on the ground ‘cause it’s Zooming” (HATE, HATE, HATE!) is what we finally agreed on, but the TLOS does get a little wonky in situations like this.

So, to avoid these circumstances in the future I added a flight stand to my scratchbuild Dreadclaw.  The ‘Claw is still a WIP as it seems like it needs a ton more detail, but I do use it far more now that it’s a Flyer with the Assault Vehicle rule!

What you’ll need to add a socket to your flying model:

• A flight stand
• A small container that the end of the stand will fit into, in my case, the plastic no-tamper stopper to my airbrush cleaning solution.
• Green Stuff
• Milliput or another way to permanently affix the socket to the model.
• A hobby knife (maybe)

Take the small container and fill it halfway with Green Stuff (I know the one above is filled with Milliput but after filling the container, I thought that Milliput may be a bit too permanent, so I cleaned it out and used GS instead).

Smoosh the flight stand into the GS filled container.  Smooth the GS around the end of the flight stand, as needed.  Make it as neat and clean as possible.  Let it cure overnight.

Once cured, carefully work a hobby knife between the GS and the stand wherever you can.  After a tiny bit of knife work my socket just twisted out of the stand with a little elbow grease.

Clear the area inside the model where you want to place the socket.  In my case, I could remove the iris door and dig a hole into the filler foam.

I mounted my socket using Milliput.  That stuff is rigid and strong!

Now that my Flyer is actually flying, no more TLOS issues!  It’s a very snug fit.  I had to cut away some of the GS and sand down the very end of the stand to make it all fit together smoothly.

The great thing about this socket is that I can just put the iris door back in and hide it completely if I want to.  It's also a very sturdy joint because the socket is about 0.75" deep and a fairly tight fit.  I really need to use some strength to get them apart sometimes.

The tilted pose was a mistake I made while smooshing the stand onto the GS but I think it turned out to be a good thing, after all.  It lends a certain feel... like how a helicopter is tilted forward when it's moving fast.  The pose also helps denote which way is forward when making those pesky 90 degree turns while Zooming (Have I mentioned I hate the name of that damned rule?).