Anyone has been following my blog, will know that I’m a fan of wargaming the French and Indian war. I have a decent size collection of figures for those games. However, I’ve had issues with the basing that I’ve chosen to use. Most of my figures are Galloping Major, or Redoubt. These figures tend to be rather heavy and large. I chose to base them on standard GW 25 mm round bases. Time has proven, that this was a mistake. The bases just are not stable enough to support the weight of the figures on an uneven playing Services. So, I’ve been thinking through alternate basing options. With a little experimentation, I’ve settled on a solution!
I played around with steel bases and magnetic bases in different sizes and shapes. The thought was that if I reduce the height of the basis, this would help with some of the stability. I also wanted bases that I could store in some type of tray system. It would be metal trays or magnetic trays. After playing around, I settled on thick washers. These would be both magnetic and have a little bit of weight. The next decision was on the size of the washer. I started with 1 inch washers but found that the steel were not quite large enough for the large figures I have in my collection. I then zeroed in on 30mm washers. These are larger than most people’s basing but they seem to do the trick. With that, I ordered a whole bunch of magnetic washers from Amazon!
Well, going through this journey, I had an opportunity to pick up some new figures from a guy that was selling off his historical miniatures collection. The collection included a number of French and British units that I could use an F & I gaming. I bought up those figures that covered units that I did not already have in my army.Rather than rip up my existing figures, I decided I would base these as my play test. First, I removed the old basing and I took a little bit of time.
I started with a French militia to see how it would go. I glued each figure to a 30mm washer. Once that dried, I had some Vallejo tan pumice as basing. And then hit all the bases with a wash. Next was a light dry brush of Iraqi Sand from Vallejo. Then I went through and added scenic Xpress flockingi. The last stage was to add a few Tuffs here and there. I went with a few different colors, just for variety. I like how it came out, so I’m on my way to the next unit. I just need to get them on the table top and put them to true combat testing! If that works out, I’ve got a really big rebasing project coming up!
- Manteuffel