"Sea bases" Topic

Just purchased some Panzerschiffe 1/2400 scale WWI battle cruisers and some light cruisers with a view to trying out the Naval Thunder rules. I'm looking for some advice around bases.I've seen the clear acrylic idea and that looks pretty good but might go for the MDF or card and paint on waves/wakes etc. What do most people use for these? Also interested in how you get neat ship names and ensigns on to the bases.I assume not hand drawn but a label maker of some kind?

Any help appreciated with my first foray into WWI naval

cheers

I use flat metal for my 1/1200 coastals. I build up the depth of the colors from dark blue/green to white for the caps and wakes. Rather than paint the name on the ship, I put a white dot and a two or three letter code for the name in blue on the white dot. That way it blends into the base somewhat. I am starting to get some 1/2400 and I do not plan to base those – rather, put the name on the underside of the ship.

Although used on a slightly large scale than 1/2400 and for pirate ships, my preferred method is to texture with polyfilla (pre mixed wall filler).

Once dry wash the majority with dark blue ink and small patches of green ink. Then a heavy dry brush of white followed by an all over wash with dark blue ink. Finish by picking out crests of waves / wakes in white and then gloss varnish.

I'm just rebasing all my 1/1200 ww2 stuff onto the acrylic bases from odgw and am really pleased with the results. The only problem I have is that they don't yet do a base big enough for capital ships In 1200th. In 2400 you wouldn't have a problem.
As for the labels just print them off in word or whatever onto photo paper and Robert is your mums brother. I just created a grid, put the ships name in and the relevant flag. Stick them to the base with kids glue and you can change them without marking the acrylic.

I recently painted some GHQ ships for a friend and they were stuck to painted plywood bases with a layer of silicone sealant to create the water effect. Check them out here link

Scroll down to see them based.

Robert

Thanks guys, lots of useful advice. Rainy weekend predicted so good chance to have a go at these

cheers

I use a similar method to Toaster.
Paint bases green/blue (Phthalocyanin green is good).
Then put a layer of clear acrylic texture gel on the top (buy from art shops). Model waves/wakes etc with palette knife.
it goes on cloudy but dries clear.
I put a thin layer over the label too, to protect it.
Once the 'water' is dry, a light drybrush with off white to pick out bow wave and wake.

I strongly suggest that you paint your bases the same color as your game table. Otherwise, although they will look good stand-alone, from normal viewing distance in a game they will look like rectangles.

Actually, you don't need bases for large scale ships such as 1/2400 and above. Back when I started in naval gaming (60s-70s) nobody used bases.

MH

I agree with MH on this. For 1:2400 you don't really need bases, at least not for cruisers and larger ships, and especially not for Panzerschiffe. There's no worry about thin gun barrels or other details to break on the 1:2400 scale Panzerschiffe models.

Having said that, I base all my 1:2400 on 1/8 inch thick basswood, though I'll switch to 3mm Litko pre-cut plywood soon. The reason I do that is because another guy in my group based his 1:2400 scale ship models that way, and because I have a lot of C-in-C models with thin gun barrels. We have thick fingered clumsy wargamers to deal with here, and we used the width of the base (about a half inch around the model) as an indicator of collision possibility.

My bases look pretty good, or so my friends tell me, but it was a lot of work to cut out and sand off the bases (hence my switch to pre-cut Litko bases) and it's a lot of work to paint them. If I had it all to do over again I might just go with all Panzerschiffe, and/or the coming WTJ WW1 line, and skip the bases.

If you don't have bases, you can't tell apart multiple ships of the same class. You need somewhere to put the label.

You need somewhere to put the label.

Not necessarily. For example, the 3 ships of the Figurehead 1/6000 WWI Lion class have a row of ships boats amidships. I paint these differently for each ship of the class. The mnemonic correspondence in my case is painting them left-to-right, corresponding to the order in which the ships were built. So if the first boat from left is light-colored, it's the Lion; if the second it's Princess Royal, etc.

For large classes (DDs), I write names on the bottom of the ship with pencil, which allows naming flexibility from game to game.

Mark