"Micro Armor Figure Question" Topic

Hello – and thanks in advance for your help.

I am contemplating rebasing my micro armor armies by eliminating bases for the vehicles and mounting the infantry on Wargames Accessories steel bases. I currently base on 3mm Litko bases 1.25" x 1.25".

My concern/question is regarding the infantry. I have made a couple of prototype bases for the infanctry – using FOW style basing – 4 to 5 figues per base. They look great, but there is no way to pick up the bases without using the infantry models to pick up the base.

So, the questions for those of you who do not base your vehicles, but base your figures:

(1) how do you base figures – specifically material and thickness?
(2) if you pick the bases using the figures as a handle – how do your figures hold up?

Thanks in advance for you opinions.

Bert

I am sorry I do not have any close ups, but here is a photo. You can see the infantry on top of the buildings on the upper right hand corner. I use tile spacers, they are used to separate ceramic tiles, I cut off one "arm". That gives me something that looks like a T. I paint them an appropriate color and I put different colored dots to represent different squads and platoons. If you want a close up I can take a photo later today. I am off to game some at noon.

picture

Mike

I generally pick up bases by holding the sides of figures. A bit of gloss varnish followed by matt seems to have kept them safe for years.
I figured that if they do get a bit grubby then better than sides than the front.

My bases are normally plastic about 2mm thick:

link

I use 1.8 mm thick bases which, once the top is textured to hide the figure base itself, gives a base depth of 2mm or so.

You can pick these up by the side of the base but inevitably you do frequently do use the side of the figures as well.

I think with 6mm figures it is a necessary compromise. The only way to avoid it would be to have 3mm + thick bases which imo look really silly for this scale.

Although I no longer have them, I based all my modern 1/285 figs 4 or 5 to a base. The bases were 1/8 inch (about 3mm and a bit) thick and pretty easy to grasp side to side. The infantry did tend to bend at the ankles if picked up by the figures too often. Figs based in strips on "en masse" (for Napoleonics, ACW, etc..) seem to hold up better than figs bases for open formations as seen with modern or WW2 games. The thick bases did make the troops seem rather tall when compared to the scale of the vehicles, but the trade off was acceptable to me. (Made them easier to find on a "busy" table and had a larger area to place color codes on the rear of the bases for I.D. purposes,too.

Pete

My infantry are based 1-4 figs per base on .04"x.5"x.5" or .04"x.375"x.375" styrene. I started mounting them this way about 8-9 years ago, have played around 30 games with the oldest ones and haven't had any damaged nor in need of repainting. The oldest figs are H&R, while newer ones are GHQ. I've not had problems with either make, though the GHQ figs have only seen a few battles at most.

Mine are finished in a manner similar to what angelbarracks describes above.

I use standard 1/2" board game counters, think they're about 2 mm thick. I've bought bunches of blank ones at various times in the past; depending upon the manufacturer of the minis I can get 4 or 5 per base maximum. I pick them up with a thumb and forefinger on opposing corners of the base. Been doing it this way for 30+ years and never had a problem.

For AT guns and the like, I cut 1" squares of bass or balsa wood and glue the gun and a few crew figures to it.

I also use Wargames Accessories steel bases. I use the 20mm x 20mm bases for infantry and heavy weapons, and 1"x 1" for artillery. I glob on a thick (5-7mm) layer of sculpy on top of the base and then embed the figures toward the middle of the base as much as possible. I have yet to have a problem.

I used to mount my 6mm WW 2 infantry figs on card that I had cut to size, until one game afew years ago when my oppent only had figs for heavy weopons and gun crews and used the Junior Generals top down view for a squad of infantry. I was impressed so much that I went that route myself for the regular infantry squads also, for now I do not have to do repairs or remounts after transporting and games anymore.As it was, with 6mm figs, most of folks I gamed with had to write on base to show what type of unit it was anyway for even with a fantastic paint job, most folks had to squint to see if it was regular infantry or paras on the table.Most rules, until the last few years, in WW 2 6mm did not deal too much with infantry squads, but company & platoon level, they did.

I use balsa wood just thick enough to be picked up by the bases rather than by the figs;

3/4 x 3/4" for infantry armed with just small arms
1/2 x 1/2" for MG teams
1/2 x 3/4" for Bazookas, Panzerfausts, etc.

The different sizes and shapes of the bases makes it easier to identify what the unit is.

I use Wargames Accessories steel bases also.

It's no problem to pick up the base by the figures, they're painted to take the wear and tear.

Now, for prone figures like machine gunners, I added barrels, crates, or weapons cannisters to the base just so there is something to hold onto.

I use US pennies, prepped as follows: Spray with sand color texture paint. When dry, flip over and spray paint gray. When dry flip over again. The gray is visible on the edge of the stand, and denotes the nationality (German, in this case. I use brown for Russian and Green for US). Then glue figures down using Duco cement. The cement has a solvent that melts the texture paint and allows the base of my GHQ infantry to sink into the texture paint, giving a level surface. I then touch up with similar color acrylic hobby paint. With 5 figs to the 2mm thick base,I often find myself picking them up and grasping the figs themselves as I do so. I have never damaged them this way, although I have damaged them when a base dropped off the table and the figs bent at the ankles.

If I had to do it again, I'd consider using card counters like highlandcatfrog said above, but with my texture spraypaint method. I think the lighter base would make the figs less likely to be damaged when dropped off the table edge.

Mine look great, and the colored rim make them quite functional.

Jim

Ive seen a number of people use pennies and it always seems to look good.

Plus I know where you can get 100 of them for only $1, and there is no cutting involved.

This link will take you to a page that looks at metal, plastic, and wood bases for 1/285 – 1/300 scale miniatures.

link

You will also note we use magnetic stock to line the bottom of the storage/organization box made for each specific unit since we do 1 for 1 scale games. Well varnished figures made by GHQ and Heroics & Ros (now NAVWAR) will stand the handling by many gamers. We use most of the figures you see in the pictures for training purposes so they are handled quite a bit. As long as the players are careful very limited damage occurs during a normal simulation session. We have also used the small nail you see on some bases as a handle to be used when picking up some figures though we've stopped doing that with our newer units.

CinC infantry are very delicate and do not take to handling very well, which is why we went to the handles to protect them. You will also find individually mounted figures on very small round (hole punch) plastic bases and we also use the half inch square metal bases as well for some figures.

Metal bases appear to work best because they can be easily kept in place during transit, …when most of the damage has been done in the past but we have begun using the Litko wood bases with a metal foil under-base for the same reason.

Will

Plus I know where you can get 100 of them for only $1, and there is no cutting involved.

I believe someone once offered die-cut metal stands/markers for 10c each, which seemed like a good bargain, until you found out that they were pennies!

Interesting link from opsctr. Some of the infantry bases are shown with what looks like half a toothpick sticking up from the base. I don't care for how this looks, but I imagine that it is very useful. Has anyone ever seen this in use? How distracting are the toothpick handles on the tabletop? Perhaps they are not as visually intrusive as they appear in pics.

I used pennies for my 15mm Zulus, and one advantage is that the glue adheres nicely to the Lincoln memorial. But I did once have a player comment that he was distracted by Lincoln "looking at him accusingly" every time one of his men was laid sideways as a casualty :-)

If the bases are steel, you could use a rare earth magnet on the end of a stick to pick them up. If one were really clever, one could rig a device with two telescoping pieces of plastic tubing with the magnet the size of the smaller tube so that it could slide into the larger tube in order to release the base.

I use the Litko 3mm 1" hex bases -easy to pick up, easy to store. If you like the look of the FoW bases, why not invert the base so that the beveled edges face down? This would give you something besides the figures to hold onto as you move them in-play.

I realize the handle doesn't look wonderful but in high usage situations it preserves the figures.

The other advantage the "small nail" provides is a place to put a marking number or letter using those small alphabet beads as a form of status marker or casualty recorder that remains attached to the base.

Will

Where does one find spray color texture paint?

gregoryk

Home depot or lowes (DIY) stores both have spraycan texture paint. It might be called stone paint or fleck paint. the plastic cap on the spray can will often have the coarse finish of the paint inside.

I have tan, green, and granite colors

Jim

I base my 6-mil figures on the thinnest plastic Litko bases. They hold up OK, but I use two coats of gloss varnish followed by one coat of matt.

I use artists mounting board with magnabase on the bottom. this makes for pretty thick bases, so you can pick the figs up by the base sides.

OTOH I often use the figures as 'handles', this works fine for Irregular, you need to be a bit careful with some h&R figurs (but the weak ones soon break off at the ankles so are eliminated by evolution!) and doesn't work at all with Mainforce as they are cast prone so there is nothing to hold onto. If I was wealthy enough to use GHQ, I would be a bit loath to pick them up using the figures.

Bert, did you ever choose a basing scheme?

Jim