Advice needed on making a good base for a Forge World flier (Imperial Navy Vulture)

[Duke111]

Heh that vulture you linked to was my boss's For my thunderbolt I used 1/4" thick, 10" long clear plastic rod, available from Plastruct. (I apologize I don't have the product code) Anyway, I went to a local industrial plastic maker with a box of doughnuts, and they made me 3 6" diameter discs from off cuts for free. If you can, get it in black; if it ever chips its less pronounced. If you do this, make sure to take a Dremel to the surface, or sand it down in some way, as glue doesn't seem to adhere well to the perfectly-smooth surface; when I based it, all the gravel came off really easily. Once I stipped it all off and Dremeled the base, it stuck fine. Anyway, I drilled a hole with a standard drill using a 1/4" bit into both the base and my Thunderbolt with no difficulty. I even purposely drilled in a little sideways to make it look like my plane was performing some manoeuvre. I was careful, but at least with Thunderbolts, there is a lot of room to drill. 10" was plenty long, and I wouldn't recommend going much higher than that. My thunderbolt is really stable, but you don't want to risk your expensive aircraft falling!

[chrispcarter]

Thanks again to everyone for all the help :-)

I seem to have all the parts I need for the base now apart from the base itself! I can't find any pieces of wood the right shape and thickness. I've tried a local model shop and a DIY place and neither has anything like that - it's looking like I'm going to have to just buy a chunk of wood and cut it to size myself!

Even ebay has failed to provide which I found surprising.

[chrispcarter]

Well yet again, no sooner have I posted saying I can't find something that I find it.

The Cutting Room Circles, Quadrants, Semi Circles, Ovals,

This site was just the job, shipping is a bit excessive but at this point I'm happy just to have ordered it.

So all systems are go for the base... all I need to do now is get my hands on the Vulture itself!

[chrispcarter]

Well a few weeks down the line and it's about time I gave you an update...

I got all the parts, the Vulture last of all, and discovered...

ARGH! 15mm rod is too fethin' wide!!!

So I ordered another (10mm) one... but that left me with a problem - I needed to have the model ready (well built) for a game on the 25th, thankfully The Emperor provides... so witness the ghetto vulture with the hollowed out Bic Biro flying stand!



I have actually got the correct rod and widened the hole for it now, but I don't have any pictures yet.

I have also put the canopy in place and it rests quite well, well enough for gaming anyway!

Oh and the weapons are indeed magnetised according to plan!

[chrispcarter]

Hi all,
finally got round to taking some pics of the Vulture with the right flying base in. It did very well in it's first game (check my sig for a link to the BR), but I decided to give it some alternative armament options, so I now have lascannons, hellstrikes, hunter killer missiles, and 2 sets of rocket pods to choose from, all magnetised of course!

Here are some pics (just need to start painting it now)!

Multiple Rocket Pods



Twin-Linked Lascannon and Hunter Killer Missiles



Long shot of flying base:



I'm not sure if that rod is just too long, but time will tell! As I said, now I just need to get it painted!

[Zeewulf]

Y'know, that's a real good height..is it sturdy enough, though? I'd almost want to take a few inches off myself, but, at the same time, it really makes a good 'flying high' impression.

[chrispcarter]

Originally Posted by Zeewulf

Y'know, that's a real good height..is it sturdy enough, though? I'd almost want to take a few inches off myself, but, at the same time, it really makes a good 'flying high' impression.

It seems to be so far. The rod has a slight give in it when I move it around, but nothing major. It's a really tight fit too so the vulture and the base are both sturdily stuck on, so I'm not overly worried, but I will see how it goes over time, if it starts to get a bit loose or wobbly, I'll probably switch to a smaller rod.

[Zeewulf]

In that case, it looks great. By the way, I'm glad to hear your vulture met a much, much better run than my own did in its first battle. I still feel a bit bad about being swatted by a titan.

[chrispcarter]

Well it knocked a structure point off a Baneblade and killed a couple of Chaos Terminators and Sorceror, so that's definitely the points made back as far as I'm concerned, however Guard BS + One Shot weapons was the bane of the Hellstrikes (both missed), so I've replaced them with more numerous Hunter Killers for better armour battering capacity.

Obviously the 4 Multiple Rocket Pods are for use against the 30 strong Ork Mobz I seem to be seeing with alarming regularity these days, or even (gulp) "Da Green Tide"...

I think it survived mainly because my opponent didn't feel it was worth the effort of shooting at it though, I imagine the situation will change once he has some AA mounts!

Sorry to hear about your Titan woes, was it brought down by VMB fire? Anything else seems it would be overkill... actually, even the VMB seems overkill!

[Zeewulf]

Why yes, it WAS a VMB that got it! 9 pens, in fact. I don't think the crew had time to THINK 'eject.'
My kills weren't that hot, either. Just a handful of some daemon scrubs. Can't even remember what they're called, they were so pointless. Then I went over to shoot at something bigger, and SPLAT!
Stupid titans.

I really do need to pick up another 2 pods...I've decided I really like the rocket pods, though I'm fenced about my support sentinels...maybe I'll just settle on 3 missile ones (since they can do Indirect fire), and 3 rocket ones, and just make another Emperor's Talon formation! I do have a set of missile pods, multilasers, and lascannons for the Vulture, though, just to round things out.