Magnetic Flight Stands (Review)

Magnetized to terrorize.

In my last post regarding the Reavers of the Obsidian Rose (part 3), I talked about magnetizing these jetbikes for easier storage. I wanted something that wouldn't be a customizing nightmare or take an agonizing amount of time. At first I found some customizing tips using a screw, but with some of my models already painted I feel this would be a disaster to attempt. Warfrog has some amazing flight stands that he uses with his Eldar but apparently the company that makes those has stopped producing them.

Shopping around online I found a vender that I thought may do the trick: The Magnet Baron. His catch-phrase is: Your DIY Super Magnetic Home. Seems like a tall claim, but after perusing the site, I was impressed enough to try it out.

"Your DIY Super Magnetic Home."*

The magnets I chose were the Medium ones. It was easy to choose as the Baron, wisely, used GW models for scaling purposes. I ordered 3 sets, enough to do all of my Reavers and with a few left over. And I waited.

My chosen selection.* 

Shipping was fairly quick and the package even arrived sooner than promised, which is always a small victory, yes? And here is what each kit has.

4 ball bearings, rods, and indented magnet and 8 flat magnets.

However no base was provided which is understandable as it is assumed that you are buying this kit to replace the rod for your kit's provided flying stand. But it is something to be aware of. Also, beware that there is no instructions provided, or on his site, so unless you're great at puzzles or just highly intuitive, be ready to correspond with the Baron like I did. I asked his lordship** for instructions and this is what he relayed back to me:

"for every rod there should be 2 flat magnets a ball bearing and a indented magnet. One flat goes on the models base. one goes on the bottom of the rod. the indented magnet goes on the model. The ball bearing goes in the indention on the rod."


I decided that I did not want to glue the two flat magnets to the base as I will not need this for storage purposes. Although in hindsigbt this does give the base a bit more weight so there is an added bonus for doing this other than making the rod detachable from the base. So, let's get to it then: First I glued the rod to the base using plastic cement.

Rod glued to base.

Next I added the ball bearing to the rod. Note that one of the rod is concaved so that the ball bearing fits perfectly when super-glued in.

Ball bearing attached. 

Ran into a slight snag with the concaved magnets as one broke when I attempted to seperate it from it's family. I think I can fix it with superglue but we'll see.

The damaged concave magnet.

Next I glued a concave magnet to the bottom of my model.

Concave magnet attached.

And presto: the model is done!

Done! Stable and balanced.

The ball mount allows you to make model poseable if you choose, which is a really cool bonus. The bikes seem to be a bit higher that I had anticipated, but I am OK with this. Additional bikes may be lowered by just cutting a 1/2" or so off the stand's bottom.

Zooming upward!

I am trying to decide if I want to paint the magnet or not. Since the ball bearing can not be painted after it is mounted, the whole point may be moot.

Angled down to straff ground targets.

Over-all I am pleased. It beats customizing my own and is also faster. I like the added bonus of being able to swivel the models as this was not a goal when I set out on magnetizing these things.  Also I'm pleased with my first purchase from the Magnet Baron and I will likely use him again. My only criticism is the lack of included instructions or guidelines. For that I give him a 'B-' grade instead of an A- grade for this product and for quick communication.

*These images are from Magnetbaron.com, used here for review purposes only.

**Just in case the Baron is truly a Royal (and not just a cool and catchy business name) I felt it safest to address him as such to avoid any disrespect. 

Reavers of the Obsidian Rose (Part 3)

Since last time I have finished these Reaver Bikers. And really, the only thing that I had to do was the painting on the riders themselves. Which I did following the steps taken for the Kabalite Warriors shown on this blog and the skin tone steps as laid out in the Raiders of Commorragh book.

Head'n straight at you! 

Anyone with even a fleeting familiarity with these models will notice that I have yet to mount them onto their flying stands. Like I did for the Venom, I want to magnify these things for easier storage. At this time I am seeking out options, so hang in there, it will happen!

In hindsight...

Da masta Cheef, when I sent him some of these pics, said to me:
 "Looking good! So are you going to add a NSFW* tag when you display pics of them from the thong side?😆"

Funny! But he does have a point, the Dark Eldar are a bit naughty aren't they? Is it weird that he was more concerned about thongs than he was Daemonettes boobs? Of course if he was actually working instead of goofing off there wouldn't be an issue, right? 😉

NSFW?! Dude, we ARE working! 

Speaking of working, I have got more work to do before we wrap up this thread:

Lots of work to do! 

Out of this pile 'o sprue I need to build some special weapon Reavers and at least one Sybarite rider. And, again, magnets. Look for these in furture parts!


*Not Safe For Work. 

Reavers of the Obsidian Rose (Part 2)

Continuing on from the Part-1, I got the second Reaver up to the same basecoat level as the first one.

Basecoated in Khorne Red. 

Then I painted them up to the next level using Blood Red.

 Blood Red. 

 The next two layers were Wildrider Red and final highlight of Sunburst Yellow.

Here they are being compared to the Venom that I painted last month. Note that the curvature of the Reaver Bikes are exceptionally good at catching a glare so photographing these things is a bit tricky.

Venom comparison.

 Using a bit of sponge I dabbed on some areas to give the impression of scratched paint. This was done primarily to the Bladevanes and sharp edges.

Scrapes applied.

 A further highlight of Mitheril Silver was added to the edges of the blades and randonly added to a few spot to look like fresh gashes.

Mithril Silver added to the blades. 

Notice the bike with the overhead gun; I just couldn't allow the illogic of having the blade nearly touching the rider's head to continue. So I trimmed it off and together with another blade glued it to the side of the Splinter Rifle to give a sort of pronged claw-like look. I think it improved the look of that bike also!

So these first two Reaver Bikes are done, I just need to finish the riders next.

Reavers of the Obsidian Rose (Part 1)

Expanding on my Dark Eldar force, it seemed fitting to move onto the Reavers. These are the Reavers from the 1998 line of Dark Eldar, of which I have ten models that need to be assembled. I have never built any of these before, so you are about to witness my first encounters with this kit.

These two mint in box models were won on ebay for less than their original SRP!

For being 20 years old now, I am impressed with how well these seem to hold up! They are multi-part and (mostly) snap-fit. The pic below shows the model assembled with pretty much no glue.

Snapped together for a preview.

Naturally, I glued it anyway. However I stalled shy of assembling the rear bladevines and gun mount. I like the sleekness of this model, but the extra junk hanging off of it betrays the aerodynamic nature of it's design and bulks it up. Also, the blades surrounding the driver seem senselessly dangerous for him. Granted, these are insane and cruel sadomasochists with a surprising lack of self-worth, but I don't think that they are stupid either. But I will return to those thoughts in a moment...

One thing I want to address right away are the stupid looking heads on these things. They have not aged well in the past 20 years, but to be fair, they looked stupid even then. The heads look like a cross between a gimp and a Foot Clan Ninja (TMNT reference). In fact, too much of the '98 Dark Eldar release seems overly inspired by the Shredder and his minions for it to be a coincidence. I mean really, right down to the color schemes! Well, I am not sticking with that idea, and decided to do what I did with my Kabalite Warriors and swap their heads out with spare heads from the current kits.

Head swap! 

It worked out well. You just have to size up the new head against the old head and, with an xacto blade, reform the neck by cutting and shaving off the ball joint at the base of the new one, until you have a conforming neck. So far it has worked out well.

Base coat started.

I started the painting by basecoating the main body of the bike in Khorne Red, leaving most of the black base color exposed. This will follow the steps laid out in Venom Part-2.  The flesh tones will follow the steps laid out in the Raiders of Commorragh book starting with Cadian Flesh as a base. I think this wearing-a-thong-while-riding a-superfast-bike idea is hilarious. Twisted, but hilarious.

Cadian Flesh in areas no Cadian model has flesh exposed.

Back to the weird gun mounts: I just have to customize these bikes in this regard. Looking at the orignal Codex: Dark Eldar from '98 it would appear that the 'eavy Metal team felt the same. In the pic below taken from that book you can see that no two Reaver Bikes are alike, and l like that concept of individuality.
(And bonus points on the adobe Ork buildings!)

Original Reavers from Codex: Dark Eldar '98. *

Justifed, and emboldened, I set about performing my own customizations. I turned the main body sideways on this one, and trimmed down the gun mount to get it to fit on the bottom. I angled the gun slightly downward to imply that it might be straffing ground targets.

Reaver #2.

On this one I ditched the upper Bladevanes and worked the mounting arm directly behind the rider. I like that it sort of recalls, in a slight gestalt way, the original design silhouette of the Talos Pain Engine; specifically the scorpion tail gun mount. Also, it ammuses me that the blade under the gun is so scary close to the pilot's head. I think I might paint on some cuts to his head... dare to be stupid, yes?

Reaver #1. 

These are coming along well so far. Let's see where this goes next in Part 2...



*Image used without permission. (C) Games Workshop LTD. Image used not as a challenge to copyright but for the purposes of revuew and reference.