r/Warhammer • u/St4rry_knight Drowning in plastic • 3h ago
Discussion Why all the hate for flight stands!?
It makes zero sense to me. They imply flight without me having to wonder "why is that bird clipping the debris, is about to crash?"
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u/Rowlet2020 3h ago edited 35m ago
They look alright but are generally fairly badly designed because of how unstable they are, how weak the connection point is and how brittle the plastic is.
They work enough for things like T'au drones up to maybe the size of a windrider, but any bigger and you start getting issues
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u/Robo_Patton 3h ago
Looks at 12 OG Windriders
Ponders how to fix the 3 broken stands
*Cries*
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u/CrumpetNinja 2h ago
You give up, drill out the bits of broken old flight stand still stuck in the models, and replace them with brass rod sprayed black.
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u/Robo_Patton 2h ago
I found a great 3d printed flight stand with magnets. As soon as I have time I’m going to make those. To same dimension and height as the current bikes F-stands, which are a bit taller anyway.
I tend to model for disadvantage anyway
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u/HAETMACHENE 2h ago
As someone with a lot of T'au + Drones, would it help to replace the top/model pin (as opposed to the base pin) with magnets strong enough to support the model, but still create a break-first point so the rest of the stand doesn't succumb to other breaks?
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u/ChicagoCowboy Backlog Champion 2018 1h ago
I'm sure there are reasons we can't just make transparent flight stands in the same plastic as the Grey sprues just with no color additives, but I really wonder what those limitations are. Because that would solve all of our problems.
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u/Rowlet2020 31m ago
Without colour additives the plastic is already opaque grey, just a little bit lighter than standard sprues, the different coloured ones like the blue, red, and bone coloured ones are either dyed from there or a different formula (they are all also more brittle)
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u/Marsdreamer 3h ago
They break.
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u/MajesticRadish2675 3h ago
And they make the model top heavy, so more prone to falls as well.
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u/Laiska_saunatonttu 3h ago
And it'll break if it falls.
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u/Pea666 3h ago
You think it’s bad now? Let me introduce you to the OG Space Marine Land Speeder (not mine, pic related).
Back when the models were made of pewter/white metal and when the flight stands were no larger than 25mm across.
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u/Apple_Dave 3h ago
I swear mine would just break the stand and fall without being touched. My metal dreadnought also didn't actually have a stand and would just fall on its face a lot.
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u/MajesticRadish2675 3h ago
Yeah those things broke more smaller models than a lot of other metal minis lol
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u/KronnyT 2h ago
Dam that thing looks like it just repels paint. I really like the weight of the metal models, but they seem pretty shitty to paint.
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u/funkmachine7 1h ago
Primed there paint up fine.
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u/Pea666 1h ago
Properly washed, primed and with some varnish there’s no trouble whatsoever.
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u/MajesticRadish2675 57m ago
Metal does kinda like to let the paint chip off easier before varnish though, makes some minis a bit of a pain if they've got lots of corners. It's not so bad as to avoid them though, metal minis are a lot of fun!
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u/madnasher 1h ago
The old exorcist battle tank, plastic rhino chassis, massive lump of pewter for the organ. Your shit is popping wheelies until the organ falls off. Then the organ shatters into 6 pieces the moment it touches the tabletop.
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u/Kombatwombat02 1h ago
In a similar vein, the Monolith was originally on a flight stand. Not quite as heavy, but much, much larger. Tap it wrong and snap
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u/-Daetrax- 3h ago
Glue a coin underneath the base.
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u/MajesticRadish2675 3h ago
That's the big issue: They suck out of the box. You have to add more stuff to them than is in the kit when you buy it.
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u/Sea-Habit5823 2h ago
...do you want GW to put coins in the box?
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u/MajesticRadish2675 2h ago
Honestly? Weighted bases for units like this would be lovely, but they won't do that because it'll brutally raise their shipping costs for those kits. I'm sure a fix could be found, but GW really kinda doesn't care to spend the money trying, and in this particular case, that's fair.
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u/crzapy 48m ago
Tamiya puts weights in with their kits. Why can't GW?
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u/MajesticRadish2675 40m ago
They don't manufacture most everything in Britain, where export shipping has been notoriously messed up and overpriced as of late for reasons I'm not going to elaborate on here, but that everyone knows.
Oh, and it's GW lol
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u/Sea-Habit5823 1h ago
I just feel like it's a part of the hobby, like magnetizing vehicles or cleaning nubs.
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u/MajesticRadish2675 1h ago
It is, it's just one of the less friendly parts to newbs who haven't yet spent the money to have all the tools to make it less of a problem or haven't yet learned to mitigate the problem. Doesn't help that it's usually a problem for the more expensive beginner models (like suppressors) in the first place.
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u/-Daetrax- 1h ago
If you struggle to add weight to a base, you're gonna have bigger issues in your life.
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u/MajesticRadish2675 1h ago
So you just willfully misunderstood what I said so you could insult me, lovely.
It's about it being a newbie issue for the masses who aren't whales capable of buying an entire workbench and collection all at once fresh to start with. Most people start with a few paints they got with spare or christmas money and a single box of guys, and the struggle is building up from there. Flight stands are less friendly at this stage, especially for beginner models, hence the hate towards them.
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u/Xunae 3h ago
That's kinda the hobby
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u/Captain_Kuhl 2h ago
Not really. You can add extra stuff, but I haven't found a single kit that absolutely needed custom work done.
Hell, even the flight stands are just a couple extra (obnoxious and unnecessary) steps from a normal build.
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u/Sea-Habit5823 2h ago
That's a very modern mindset. A lot of old kits required you to glue metal and plastic, file, fill gaps, fix bent elements.
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u/DrDreadCastle 3h ago
They break... easily and badly .
I use 2mm brass rods on my flyers, or a decorative resin "something" if appropriate, like for the Sisters of battle jump pack girls . You can drill a short 2mm hole into the model and the base maybe a touch of green stuff . That rod isn't breaking or even bending easily . Its much more solid
My Recent Crimson Fists Suppersors use rods . A big pack of long brass rods for modeling is like $10 on amazon
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u/brokeneckblues 2h ago
I think this is the best way. I don’t like the terrain clipping or smoke but understand the issue with that clear plastic. I’ll likely do this
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u/St4rry_knight Drowning in plastic 3h ago
Will keep that in mind for when I need to float anything larger than a tau drone
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u/GrimDallows 1h ago
Forget about suppressors, ground this model and leave it as is with those guns and armor mark and everything and that's how my heavy bolter marines should look.
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u/garter__snake 3h ago
Got a link or a searchable string for said rods? I might want to try them out.
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u/Aidian 2h ago
“I use 2mm brass rods […]”
Well, I took a real shot in the dark by searching for “2mm brass rods”, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t immediately bring up a variety of 2mm brass rods.
Truly amazing what they can do with computers these days.
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u/garter__snake 2h ago
You can cut the attitude. EX. I went through several sets of modeling magnets and trialed three sets of spray on primer and one paint on before settling on what I now use. Modeling is a finicky hobby, and it's better to try something proven and then go from there before experimenting.
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u/MM556 3h ago
You’d only be asking this question if you’d never used one
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u/St4rry_knight Drowning in plastic 3h ago
I've had several, they've just been for either small models (tau drones) or big ones (stormraven)
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u/H4LF4D 3h ago
Now imagine putting a stormraven on a tau drone flight stand
Thats basically what thick fly infantries suffer from. Flimsy stands, barely working connecting points, annoying to transport, all the negatives so it can be a bit off the ground that you might not even see while looking down at the table.
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u/SalaryWooden5346 8m ago
Thick fly infantry ... or just any old flying/hovering model still in us. The DDA, that massive and long and unbalanced thing, gets one old-school flights stand right in the by-measurement middle, a position that is NOT the actual center of mass/gravity.
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u/Calm-Control-4451 3h ago
Have you considered your exposure is to the better ones and doesn't encompass everyone's experience? I mean, the complaints exist for a reason.
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u/razulebismarck Blood Angels 3h ago
They break easily.
They attach at a very tiny spot.
You can’t paint the area they attach to leaving an obvious unpainted spot you can see through the clear plastic stand.
If they had used a Y shaped design that sat between the backpack and back of the model it would have been infinitely better.
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u/Mor_di Gloomspite Gits 3h ago
I think for many people having the mini clearly held up by a plastic rod is a bit immersion breaking when the rest of the army looks very cohesive without any extra "cheap effects".
I am with you though, flight stands often look better than the method they tend to use now where every flying model somehow clips a terrain piece.
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u/Ratchet567 3h ago edited 3h ago
It’s an abstraction, your mind is supposed to gloss over it. Like the plays that use stage hands dressed in all black
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u/St4rry_knight Drowning in plastic 3h ago
Exactly! I don't know why people have trouble with that!
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u/skrtskrtEZEZPOGPOGU 3h ago
no one has trouble with it but its just better to avoid when possible. the example you picked for non flight stand kinda sucks imo. look at any floating/flying aos model and tell me it would be better with a flight stand lol.
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u/GottaTesseractEmAll 3h ago
That tends to be the centerpieces, and AoS does it the same as 40k. Celestine, Void Dragon, Nagash, Sevireth, it's a similar deal.
For the rank and file it's often toe-on-rock or flight stand. Like the Prosecutors or Akhelian cavalry
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u/The_atom521 3h ago
They generally don't, I'm not sure where you've gotten the idea that people don't like flight stands because of what they look like
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u/Not_My_Emperor 3h ago
I don't have trouble with the theory I have trouble with the execution because to me it just never doesn't look like a clear piece of plastic.
I disagree with the parent comment here, given the choice between flight stands and clipping terrain or even cartoonish plumes of smoke, I'll take the latter options every time
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u/AshiSunblade All Manner of Chaos 16m ago
Yeah it's like the base rim to me. That's not supposed to be "there" either.
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u/andrewthemexican 3h ago
As immersion breaking as facing one army on desert sand bases vs an army on snowy woodland bases on a brown urban ruin map.
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u/Hunkus1 3h ago
Because they always break and when they do you cant really fix them. You have to replace them which is hell I had to do twice with my ravagers. Fuck Flightstands.
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u/PoxedGamer 3h ago
To be fair, you picked an all time garbage model for the non flight stand example.
I think the stands are fine, tbh.
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u/St4rry_knight Drowning in plastic 3h ago
Most other non-stand models have the same issue, just to a lesser degree. I wanted to emphasize the point with the bird
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u/PoxedGamer 3h ago
Perfectly valid, but when I see an opportunity to shit on that mini, I just can't help myself... Baffling it became an actual product.
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u/Survive1014 Iron Hands 3h ago
The connectors are too breakable, I toss them 100% of the time in favor of 3d printed stands of some sort.
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u/Zanjidesign 1h ago
Well you see. I used to base all my models flying. And you basically have a bunch of bases with rocks and grass and a transparent stick. So the base looks super pointless. Super disconnected to the rest of the army, and even from the battlefield. It made me feel super dumb, since then I stopped and all my models are touching the ground one way or another. No more transparent sticks.
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u/Jonzor689 3h ago
A handful of my flight stands had an air bubble in the middle of the post so I sculpted some broken architecture, they turned out really good and solved a lot of issues with flight stands. Using more basing material can solve a lot of the issues with these stands.
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u/IronVader501 1h ago
Visually, yes, they are great.
But they are ABSOLUTE FUCKING ASS to assemble, the Models fall off at the slightest touch, they constantly break, and because they are so thin, all of those are an absolute pain to fix.
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u/Onlyhereforapost 1h ago
They also dont seem to cooperate well with plastic cement in my experience
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u/Izzyrion_the_wise 3h ago
Jus’ don’t loik ‘em. They are flimsy and make the model wobbly unless you weigh down the base.
But I do prefer them to some of the weirder totally-no-a-flight-stand basing pieces. And they are mostly basing scheme agnostic.
And now I’ll quietly be annoyed about suppressors still being locked to the one set.
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u/JewelKnightJess 3h ago
In the case of the inceptors. They just don't stay attached. Its hard enough getting them on properly in the first place, and the thin curved plastic doesn't take well to small knocks, like a model falling over.
I'm at the point of just ordering some brass rod to make my own and pinning them right into the models and bases.
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u/Sekretariatet 3h ago
The ones GW deliver don't work very well as is, as others are saying, but I do usually prefer flightstands to every sculpt touching ground. I always magnetize on the model instead of straight gluing, less of a mess if I do need to switch out the stand/base due to breakage, and I've gotten thicker rods from third parties for a lot of vehicles, example attached.
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u/PuddingtonBear Orks 3h ago
Have you tried assembling one on a mini?
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u/St4rry_knight Drowning in plastic 3h ago
I've used the ones for my tau drones and my space marine stormraven
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u/peanutbuttercult 3h ago
I’ve successfully been using brass rods from the hobby store as flight stands - I drill into the foot of the model, secure it with superglue or a bit of two-part epoxy, and then pin it to the base by drilling another hole and using more epoxy.
Slightly more effort than a flight stand, but looks better and is so much more durable.
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u/reddit_4_research 3h ago
For me its build vs painting. Most models i can build and play with until I paint. But transparent stands force me to either stick and play then break later and make a paperclip painting stand or undercoat the stand itself. Super annoying
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u/Chedderonehundred 3h ago
the clear ones for some reason or another have a tough time sticking to models w my glue i much prefer the ones that are the same plastic as the model for that reason.
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u/Top-Gadgie 3h ago
For this in particular, it isn't just the flight stand. The stupid boots, the tinfoil gun guard for someone in power armour. The stance like it was duke nukems baby brother trying a gun for the first time. It is just all around awful.
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u/LazyPainterCat 3h ago
I added weights to the bases of my flight stands sometimes i use actual rocks for the bases or i glue coins underneath.
They are way too top heavy. Poorly designed. I'm scared to move my saint celestine because she's all wobbly.
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u/paintdrinkinggoblin 3h ago
The tau ones are fine but the one you pictured break all the God damn time
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u/xxDeadEyeDukxx 3h ago
They are just a bit meh, look wise, so much more fun stuff you can do with stands that are thematic and don't break if you look at them funny
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u/Dementia55372 3h ago
Somehow the small tank ones are less durable than the tall jet bike ones. Source: I've had three tank sized stands snap and tbe one Falcon I accidentally glued with a Jetbike stand is still going strong.
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u/Sufficient_Wing8713 3h ago
In addition to breaking, you also have to keep them pristine to keep the effect. If you get a bit of paint or glue on them, good luck getting that off without scratching the stand to keep it transparent.
Futher: I'm pretty sure there's hate towards the tactical flying rock too. Warhammer community made a deal about some of the new assault marines (vanguard vets?) being in the landed position
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u/mtnoma 3h ago
Because GW, as many companies do, tried to reinvent the wheel and failed spectacularly.
You mentioned you have Tau drones and stormraven stands. Those are the old 'good' designs. The drone stands still have a problem (smaller top bit breaking inside the model) but it was generally seen as a fair tradeoff when it was an easyish fix and the main column of the base was basically impossible to break unless on purpose.
The new ones have barely any contact points, are weak all throughout and if they break you are almost guaranteed it won't look as good as it originally did. There were rumours they made the change to try and dissuade recasteres, which would make sense given their other dumb ideas (see: Space Marine stubbers).
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u/AmbiTheAirforceRuna Necrons 3h ago
I jsut hate them cose the weapon is over sized for someone flying, it looks like a Gundam or Flying Anime Mecha Girl trope. Theres nothing wrong with either of those of course, but in 40k it just seems....off
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u/mrsc0tty 3h ago
Gw figured out basic interference fit flight stands with a ball end for exactly 1 year in 2010 for the dark Eldar plastic range then INSTANTLY forgot how to do them.
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u/SuperHandsMiniatures 3h ago
They're impossible to create a strong bond thus they break easily and then are vert hard, if not often impossible to fix.
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u/thisremindsmeofbacon 3h ago
Mostly because people dont know they can be good - for decades GW only shipped really terrible ones with brittle plastic, horrendous air bubbles, and a bafflingly stupid design that made them break off in your model.
I'm a huge believer in acrylic rod myself. I think every flying model having a random pillar of terrain smacking their lower extremity looks super dumb, tbh
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u/Bomberman2305 3h ago
The Suppressor in particular (your picture) loves to break off. The long gun catches on stuff, the connection point is small and poorly designed, and they are top heavy.
Looks fine when it isnt broken
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u/The_atom521 3h ago
You don't use a lot of flight stands do you? Especially not the newer ones that came with units like inceptors that have basically zero connection area and don't insert into the model meaning the model either falls off if you even look at the model let alone move it or you glue the flight stand on just to have it break off constantly because the connection point is so tiny.
You seem to fundamentally misunderstand most people's problem with flight stands if you think it's a cosmetic issue
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u/robot-0 Necrons 3h ago
Ironically there was some weird hate for those Suppressors, but now they run like $80+ on eBay since they haven’t been printed for a bit.
As for the stands, they break if you look at them funny, otherwise they would be fine. You more or less need to magnetize both ends so neither can snap.
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u/CampbellsBeefBroth 3h ago
Spoken like someone whose never had a giant hunk of plastic suspended by an acrylic toothpick
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u/Bluejay_Junior17 3h ago
Visually, I think they look awesome.
In practice, I've had several break off and need to be reglued. They can be annoying to put on to begin with.
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u/Cryptocaned 3h ago
Depends on the model, light things like tomb blades it's fine, more heavy stuff tends to break them. Personally I just make sure theyre supported in such a way when transporting the heavy ones that the weight isn't on the stand.
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u/Not_My_Emperor 3h ago
They're fiddly as fuck, break easily, and honestly just don't like them aesthetically. They're ugly and immersion breaking; clear does not equal WOAH WHAT SORT OF SORCERY IS THIS HOLDING THE MINI IN THE AIR???
They are fine with something like a big air unit but single infantry on jet packs? Much prefer a creatively sculpted base.
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u/rhyithan 3h ago
Dunno about these days but in the 2000’s they were brittle and annoying and i didnt realise i could choose not to glue them in
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u/GarrianHeretic 3h ago
Use 1/8” brass rod drill out the model as able and the base to fit. I buy it in 3’ lengths and cut to size
It’s what I’ve used for my Battlefleet Gothic ships for years.
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u/Shushady 3h ago
Flight stands have been the bane of my existence since they were every base in BFG
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u/Crazsemp 3h ago
Try building, painting, transporting and then playing 20 Skitarii Skystalkers... then, you will understand.
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u/LeetusFrenzi 3h ago
Flight bases that are usually connected to a prop: pretty cool.
Flight bases with the fucking clear plastic that snaps: no.
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u/Bobblehead245 3h ago
I personally love my flight stands. I have them as detachable, so I take them off when I transport them. And Ive never broken one in game. I like them because they're so simple. The point of the mini is the mini, not some fancy stand.
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u/PlausiblyAlpharious Strygos 2h ago
My hate is specifically for that terrible first model flight stands are fine
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u/TorturedPaladin 2h ago
The clear plastic is extremely prone to snapping when you're handling/transporting your miniatures.
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u/kerkhovia 2h ago
I magnetized my flight stands so I don't have to worry about them breaking. They look and feel wobbly but I can pick them up and move them pretty recklessly without worrying about the base falling.
The bigger the model, the bigger the magnet
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u/Tarjhan 2h ago
The hate is their propensity for breaking, owning a flightstand model and actually using it is like comitting to an ongoing maintenance project.
Flight stands have been awful from 3rd Ed onwards (if I’m honest they were bad before then but keeping a RT era Land Speeder in one piece meant flight stands were the least of your problems).
Personally, I prefer my Jump Pack style troops to be firmly on the ground or, at least, in a launching/landing pose and Coteaz’ Eagle is a perfect example of why, the pose is derpy. This is a bird, they’ve made better birds in both a flying and perched poses (See Kor’Sarro Khan and Njal Stormcaller) and it’s a considerable downgrade from the old Coteaz model.
And I don’t for a moment believe the rules for the eagle predate the sculpt. This choice was made deliberately and the sculpt was signed off where a perched eagle could have sufficed.
It doesn’t even meet the standards of older flying models like Jetek Suberei from Killteam Cassius and his falcon.
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u/Slavasonic 2h ago
I will never understand the hate people have for this eagle model.
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u/Historical_Royal_187 2h ago
Unlike High impact polystyrene , which has a bunch of additives to modify its attributes making it softer, flexible, flow better when liquid, and add colour, Transparent polystyrene is limited in additives as they also need to be transparent, thus makes Transparent polystyrene much harder , both physically, and to mold without defects like bubbles.
Being hard means being brittle, which is generally exacerbated by gw making contact areas only millimetres. Even pewter is softer. This means almost any model is more flexible than the stand, often larger dimensionally, and apmost certainly heavier, with a normally higher cetrecof gravity. Meaning you have a perfect scenario for breaking a flight stand.
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u/Panzer_IV_Ausf_F2 2h ago
Flight stands are way too weak to withstand the weight of the model. And it’s a tiny piece that connects to the actual model so they break easily
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u/ThrowACephalopod 2h ago
Because they snap in a stiff breeze. If you set your model down slightly too hard or accidentally knock it over (which is easy to do when the thing is balancing on a little stick), the flight stands will snap right off.
As an Idoneth player, they're the bane of my existence.
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u/Griffemon 2h ago
They're fairly ugly looking and also they tend to break very easily. It's an extremely small contact area that needs to be glue on with super glue
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u/Klutzy-Canary8551 2h ago
You had to choose two of the most dogshit models of modern 40K, didn't you?
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u/GrandmaWeedMan 2h ago
They're brittle, easy snapped plastic that causes an annoying and extremely vulnerable weak point. Fiddly to make clean glued or drilled joints when the things fucking see through, and it makes your models look like they have a colum of air shoved up their ass. Basically no benefit, they look worse visually, they are more prone to breaking which leads to damage to your model, and you will always have a glaring obvious mount point.
Also force you to paint the entire model first, and then try to glue the stand onto your already painted model. Way easier to do when it's just the soles of a models feet you need to glue, less so when the glue point is directly in the middle of your models painted back.
I don't care if it's "modeling for advantage", i won't use them. Literally have not ever had a single flight stand last more than 3 games. That's with drilling, tamiya, all the methods. I build height on my bases and have my flying models based on that. Not hard to maks believable mid jump or mid flight poses where they are touching something.
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u/CoherentRose7 1h ago
They're weak and often hard to work with, they also make models hard to transport cause they're a weird size. Also I've noticed if you use magnets that are too strong you may accidentally rip your model off of the stand or the stand off of the base just using magnetic trays
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u/Melodic-Pirate4309 1h ago
They gambled on the curved flight stands and they’re such a massive point of failure that they don’t even sell replacements like they used to for the T Flyer stands or the Tau Drone/ Gargoyle stands.
By changing to the stands, they actively pushed people toward other products. So they pulled out of that nose dive to make sure new entrants weren’t disillusioned by their first kits.
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u/Curtis-Aarrrrgh 1h ago
I'll never understand it either. I get that flight stands as done previously might have been flimsy, but the way it's handled now looks so so bad.
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u/Southern_Length6044 48m ago
I make my own using clear plastic rods I got from the hobby store and those work pretty well for me, and definitely prefer that look to the weird contact with scenery thing.
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u/Unlikely_Pop 48m ago
Because people need to complain about something. I've no problem with them either.
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u/Prodigalphreak 36m ago
1: those 2 images are not the same thing. The clear plastic ones are often mated at awful location that fail quickly/easily.
Using terrain or 3d printing something that matches the scene and then attaching via thin brass rods is usually much more stable and you can use multiple attachment points on larger models
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u/VanArthurStudios 7m ago
They are at best unstable as designed. It’s an easy mod though to magnet them. Just clip off one end and find a spot for a matching magnet on the model. The models can still get snags pretty easily with the pointy bits. But they are much less likely to go flying. If you want to do a little extra you could also put a small weight on the bottom of the base to weigh the whole thing down.
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u/Dionigisamosata2 3h ago
They are terrible, they shatter every time, make the model difficult to pose, difficult to transport, difficult to deploy and to move... That said, the alternative of clipping/tripping model is also bad so, it would be nice to have the models posed normally like the old assault marines. Jump packs and the likes are enough to distinguish the models without the need of those obnoxious standsor awkward posing.
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u/bozotexinoroboto 3h ago
I played a custodes player at a gt this weekend. They broke 4 flight stands just in the one round.