"Basing 15mm infantry cheaply" Topic

What do you gents base your 15mm infantry on?

I'd prefer a wood base and the thinner the better.

Thank you

Individually or Multi-based?

I use Litko.

link

Large variety of bases to include wood (in inches or millimeters); your choice.

mainly individual

Wargames Accessories' steel bases for most soldiers, singles or groups. 1/2" x 1/2" for individuals.

I like fender washers or coins for the figures who can't rank up (Leaders, individual character figures, fantasy figures, zombies, etc.)

Here's an exception:

More here: link

Hard to beat a penny for cost. I prefer 5/8" dia. washers from Home Despot.

Cut your own out of 1/8" basswood.

Multi-based: Artist's mount board. Cheap and you can cut whatever size you like.

Individual: 1p coins.

For individual basing, pennies are the cheapest solution possible, plus they're thin, stiff, and have precisely consistent dimensions. They're also easy to magnetize by gluing steel washers to the bottom.

Litko (sic) is my only other suggestion for thin and wooden individual bases.

I prefer to multi-base mine (2-4 figures per stand) on magnetized 3mm bases, so in the rare cases I want individually based 15mm figures (e.g. officers waving swords, color bearers holding flags, soldiers reloading, etc.), I use 1/2" x 3mm round button magnets I can get in big lots from craft stores or Amazon. I've also found these in thicker and thinner sizes. These are very weak magnets, strong enough to keep the figures standing in a steel toolbox drawer during travel, but not enough to stick them together in clumps on the battlefield, perfect for my application. Given those properties they would probably hold individual miniatures onto sabots with a steel base underneath a wood template drilled full of 1/2" round holes.

Caveat: most 15mm miniatures on 1/2" bases look very "open order" when standing as close together as possible, especially the older and/or smaller "true 15s". Chunkier sculpts in the "supermidget" style (e.g. Essex) look closer together, and 18mm minis would look closer still.

- Ix

Steel bases from PWS. They don't fall into the cheap bracket but they are very good and very thin – about 0.8mm.

Pennies for individual figures, artists mount board for everything else.

Hard to get cheaper than s bit of thick card…

They all get magnetic strip underneath.

I normally use pennies, 2p pieces or Renedra plastics for bases.

For bigger, self cut ones I used to use sheet bextreen or styrene but it's been hard to get in economical quantity delivered in the post.

I've just bought some sheets of expanded/foamed pvc on ebay that look promising.

I avoid wood and card even more so as I hate warping.

John T

For the record, the cheapest option is the free paint stir sticks at Home Depot.

Pennies!

That's the ticket right there.

For multibasing I can use some left over "for sale" signs cut to desired shapes.

Thank you all for the suggestions!

Pennies are great.

I bought a few dollars of them when they were phased out here in Canada.

Here's what I use -- 19mm wide thin steel discs used in jewelry making: link

Pros:
+ Very thin
+ Ferrous, so can stick to magnetic movement trays
+ Despite how thin they are, no sharp edges
+ Almost as cheap as pennies!

Cons:
- Very thin, so might look out of place next to minis based on pennies or washers
- Possible to bend them, I suppose, although I haven't seen anything like that with mine
- Thinness makes it more likely that you have to grasp the mini itself to move it (I know some painters prefer people only to touch the base)

I use artists mounting board cut to whatever size works for your rules, and texture/ paint /flock. Hundreds of bases for a couple of quid