"Jump-Trooper Flight Stand Recommendations" Topic

Hey I want to beef up some of the troops by adding/featuring jump-packs, jet-packs, grav-packs and the like. At 15mm I've seen some from 15mm.co.uk. I was also thinking of trying Litko jump stands or small flight stands, or maybe the CorSecEng Omni-Stand system. But of course the idea of scratch-bashing something seems appealing.

Does your 15mm sci fi game include jump-troopers, jet-packers or other single figure fliers, and if so, did you use some kind of flight stand, and if you did, what did you use and how did you like it?

Pictures are always fun. Cheers. 8)

I would use a needle and paint it black.
Stick one end in the base, the other near the backpack/figures bum.
Thinner the needle the better, black as it is less obvious (unless you are playing against snow)

Clear ones tend to be quite thick, have big bases and reflect a lot of light and very visible as a result.

You can get small clear containers at craft or camping stores that will make a "sabot" base. I'd mount on a larger cion, decorate as normal with some snd inside for ballast. Mr Blease came up with the idea of a CD on an upturned 1/2 pint glass. Again, cheap shops can provide. Ideal for a unit.

Hi Grommet37

I used paper clips to mount some of Khurasan's Vespalids (space wasps)
- drill a pin hole in a suitable spot on the mini then straighten the paper clip enough for the height you want
- then create a spiral at the other end so you can glue it too a base (I used UK pennies)
- then sand and rock to make it look like there jumping over something.
- Paint the model, I left the support black but if you drill the hole into the jump pack you could always glue some fluff to the pin to represent smoke/ dust etc for this I'd use either steel wool or hamster bedding fluff.

The rock is fish tank ballast I think it was £1.00 GBP for a kilo ( heavy duty bag and a hammer and 2 minutes of vigorous pummelling gives some nice variation in grade.)

i think the litko stuff is easiest but sometimes it looks kind of clunky. maybe try making exhaust coming out of the jump pack that can work as a flight stand too???

"…the idea of scratch-bashing something seems appealing."

If fiddly-bits don't bother you, embed a telescoping rod into the figure/base and extend when in jump/flying mode. (I'll try to dig out/photo an example later.)

later…found old (poor) photo on file
link

Granted it's 28mm instead of 15, but the idea's the same. I don't like the clunkiness, and would make it cleaner/less-obtrusive – I like the idea of hiding the stand in the exhaust.

However fiddly/difficult it may be to construct, a big advantage of an integral stand is never having to search for and/or swap it out during play.

I used a very long piece of music wire to support my two Chuhuac recon drones. Bent one end into a 3d Z shape about 3mm long (looks kinda like ^ with the length of the wire coming up towards you).

For my zero-gee troopers, I'm just using clear acrylic bases and maybe a bubble of clear hot-glue.

A very good solution probably the best as far as 15mm goes is the straightened paper clip approach, bend a D or Z shape to fix it to the base or penny and the middle section bend giving it a slight curve leaving the other end straight that goes into the jump jet pack of your miniature. Now for the unexpected bit, before you fix the paper clip to the miniature paint it in a mix of say 70/30 white wood glue to water and sprinkle with fine sand do this several times making sure the first layer is completely dry before continuing on to the next, try to build up the base of the paper clip stem thicker with the wood glue and sand mix than the upper portion that will end up going into the jet pack of your miniature. If this is done correctly the dried sand will end up looking like a smoke plume when its painted and you will have a very strong cheap home made flight stand that looks very realistic on a games table, i have seen this technique done on quite a few mech miniatures for Battletech and it really does look good… :) Zac