"CY6 Jet Age Basing" Topic

At Little Wars, Elmo picked up some things to start playing Check Your 6 Korea games.

I'm trying to figure out was would be the best basing with regard to altitude. Specifically, for those who play, how often do you change altitude? Is visual representation of altitude a recommendation or only a nice-to-have.

Options include:
A 1-6 base dial. Very easy to change but has no visual representation.

Something like the CorSec engineering telescoping rod. This is easy to change AND has visual representation but only 5 segments, not 6.

Adapting the Omni Ruler into a 6 segment stand or using 6 different lengths of something. Maybe even wire in tube sections BUT I'd rather not make them. These might be hard to change depending on solution.

Any thoughts?

I'm a telescoping-rod fan – you can buy (and modify) them in lots of places (I got mine as rabbit-ear sets of two…) and a quick use of a marker at the midpoint of each section gives you 10 levels.

Personal tastes vary, of course, but showing altitude physically (as opposed to record-keeping and/or ignoring) is important to the genre, IMO. Using single-level stands is a little like lining up your troops at the edge of the table and using numbers/dials to indicate how far out on the battlefield they are.

What about a telescoping rod and a dial? Best of both worlds. The flexibility to do cinematic positioning of the height and a rock solid number to keep track for firing.

You can also a straight rod and some magnets to make a half height stand. So say a 2.5" straight rod with a sphere mag add-on. You only need one or two. Use the last section of the rod as height 2 and the straight one as 1. They should swap out quickly if your using the magnets.

You cal also use a permanent marker to make one of the segments a half segment.

Dials

Sphere Mag Add-on

Telescoping rods with sphere magnets

Jonathan Bowen
CorSec Engineering

I've played a few games of regular (not jet age) CY6. For fighter planes there are frequent altitude changes. The visual differences are nice to see, but appear to take extra work/time to effect.

The guy who runs the games here uses a base (top) and a little pivot mount (bottom) with pins that nest perfectly inside some brass tubing. Each altitude bracket has a different length of the brass rod. So you just change the rod when the altitude changes. The base has an indicator for airspeed.

Occasionally with more planes all at the same altitude you start looking at shortages of a given rod length, but it seems to be a pretty clever and easy system.

I use a really simple system for my WW2 games that might be equally applicable for the jet age. I use the Games Workshop stands which come in three slightly different heights. I use the tallest, which still isn't very tall for the top four altitude bands and the less tall ones for lower levels. I use a pair of micro dice attached to the stand with a discrete blob of Blu-Tac (not sure on US name for that) to show 12 altitude levels in Bag The Hun. If I ever have the funds to throw at the project I'll use some taller stands. Thin wire painted to match the table surface might actually be less visually intrusive than clear plastic posts that reflect a lot of light making the stand quite visually prominent.

To be honest I'd rather have dials than dice for altitude.

Although the telescopic stands are much better than this system for showing different altitudes I feel that you tend to end up looking a the models at eye level but in doing so the visual is interrupted by lots of stands and the planes can seem insignificant. I prefer to look down on the models that are only a few inches above the table.

Also suggest you check out the Armaments in Miniature bases .

For 1/300 I actually haven't found a stand that I like – most commercial stands that are reasonably small only have between 3/8" and 5/8" separation between levels. That works well for 1/600, but for 1/300 the planes alone are 1/4" to 3/8" tall and 1/2" per level isn't enough. For 1/300 I like 1" per level so ended up making my own out of doweling, nuts, washers and nail heads. I have seen some telecoping ones, but I'm not sure I care for those when the base level is 3 to 5 inches and each level above is about the same. I find that much separation to be too much and somewhat distracting, though much more realistic, probably.

I found telescoping tubes with 6 sections during a local Ace hardware sidewalk sale that are ideal for CY6. They were telescoping hotdog holders so you could cook your hotdog in a campfire. The handle end has a soft rubber sheath and the hot dog end has two prongs coming off a wire perpendicular to the tubes and spot welded onto the end of the last tube. This is easy to remove with a hacksaw and the rubber sheath can be cut off with an xacto knife or box cutter. As it was a sidewalk clearance sale, I picked up what they had out at 99 cents each. Haven't checked to see if they have an online catalog.

A note on telescoping rods:

Disassembling the elcheapo kind one may find at DIY or hardware stores is fairly easy, allowing one to shorten the tubing if desired (of course the use of a marker to indicate levels within a section is easier – but cutting them down also lessens the 'unused' height of the first, fixed section).

The process also allows an increase in the internal bearing surface (usually <1cm oob) which makes it sturdier when fully extended.

In regards the base, fixed section: I agree it is an eyesore, but I've taken to using it (along with a dial on the base itself) as a scale on which to indicate various status factors so that bookkeeping is kept to a minimum. Not ideal, but…

I managed to get a few (old) pictures up of the basing system the guy at the club uses.

Here is one pic

Two more at this post….
link

I like the rod / wire idea as it would be a quick change. I probably wouldn't make any but maybe Cor Sec which does ENGINEERING could develop such a product.

The idea is fairly simple, you have a 1.5" hollow rod with 0.75" of protruding wire that fits into a 0.75" deep hole. It's actually a lot like the omni ruler but with poking wire into holes instead of screwing the sections together.

Then just top with a sphere mag.

Using long rods gives a better visual appeal but we've found that you often get a 'domino' effect if one plane over balances and knocks the rest over.

We've found that 'Forge World Aeronauticals' stands with height and speed dials each with 10 values work well:
link

I just got some samples from a new supplier for our telescoping rods. They are a bit longer and have 7 segments. These will be going into production along with another style that has the more robust mechanical joint. This will help those flying the big 72nd scale stuff. We may also offer those with the screw mounts. Not sure as of yet.

We (Fight's On!) sell yet another option for flight stand bases. Check out our Cadillac of the Skies base and optional Yank and Bank system.

fightsonstore.com/apps/webstore/products/show/2428142

The 1.5" hex base is based on the P-51 airspeed indicator and we use magnets to show flight levels. Easy on/off and they stick to your clipboard when not in use.

Lots of photos of them in-game use at:

beerandpretzel.webs.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=14847880

Check this system out: link We use a variation of this for WW I biplanes: the rods, and bases remain the same, with the rods being marked every inch, in alternating bands of red/blank wood, to denote elevation in 100' increments, and we declare what the elevation of the bottom is, so any altitude can be shown, as long as all planes are using the same base altitude; the planes are attached using an alligator clip, which has a wire running to the plane; the plane can be banked, on the wire, and the wire can be adjusted up/down (diving/climbing), by loosening a wing nut attaching the wire to the alligator clip. Sorry, I don't own any of the flight stands for the WW I planes, but the main part of the system, is identical to what is shown in the link. Cheers!