"eBases... catch the fever! " Topic

1809in3mm.blogspot.com

New blog post, with a free download of eBases for Sam Mustafa's Grande Armée Katzbach scenario.

Some of you guys will love eBases, and others will probably hate them :)

I am not a fan of THAT small of a scale, but what you are doing makes sense and looks pretty good. I definitely agree that flocking at the smaller scales can be a distraction, and surprisingly the borders looked fine and clearly would help on the tabletop.

Very nicely done. I would suggest one change however.

If you wanted to easily rebase, mount figures on steel, and make sabots with sheet magnet. Here's how:

Let's assume you are converting from inches to centimeters and your bases are 3x3cm. Use a steel base that is 3x2cm. As before paint it plain green.

Now print off your 3x3cm paper base with the color border and ID info. (Like you, I find the gain with a unit ID in game play offsets the small loss of realism). Affix said paper to a piece of sheet magnet. Again, for one piece of printed paper and a sheet of magnet ($5 or less) you have made a battle's worth of bases for your army.

OR base the troops on a 3x3 base. Now print labels that are 3 x 1 and affix to sheet magnet. Cut out the labels and affix. Make new labels for new sceanrios (in fact I do this for 6mm SYW armies – it works a treat).

But now rebasing is not a glue operation but just a magnetic one.

It will mean you need to buy the metal bases, but they are cheap too.

Final note: I bought the rights to Grande Armee a few years back, and I'm the DeepFriedHappyMice.com guy. Mind if I add your idea to that page and provide a link to your blog?

P.S. With the small labels I keep them in envelopes with the scenario name for re-use.

Direct link: link

Hi Extra Crispy- i would be honored to be linked to and/or mentioned on your website. Your site is how I first got interested in Napoleonics, waaaaay back in 2004. I was planning on doing some of the other scenarios too, if you don't mind (and hopefully other people make their own and send them over to be uploaded).

I've seen people base in the style you mention- It does look good, and transports well. I don't know how well ebases will transport- generally 3mm figs are pretty tough because of the weird alloy they're made of. We will see what happens.

It's nice to hear from someone who believes in using labels. I tested the waters on them a few weeks ago and got a furious anti-label response. Maybe these will win them over?

Well, I for one prefer rosters :-)

If I were doing this (and 6mm Napoleonics is my next big project) I would make the bases "generic."

That is, let's assume a typical force is no more than 8 full bases and 4 half bases. I would make bases with a dark green circle in the rear right. Inside the circle would be a number corresponding to the roster.

Keep the "circles" to more natural colors – greens, yellows, browns, etc. If you must, use more pastel colors for purple or blue.

Now your bases work for every scenario, unless you need to add one here or there because some scenario has an unusual force in it.

Good idea…. I'll make some like that when I get home.

Generic square bases with dots added! I'll do some with roster numbers written inside the circles, and maybe some with just the roster number printed directly onto the base in the lower right hand corner.

I just based up 2500 x 3mm Austrians that I had lying around, already painted up. I need to make up command bases with the brigade generals name and the division corps they belong to now. I think I'll pick a corps from Wagram and start with that one. I now have over fifty Austrian battalions painted, flagged and based up at 10:1 scale. 5000+ figures.

It only cost me $6 USD and took forty minutes. I love eBases.

Had a friend do something similar, back in the 1990's. He printed small labels using 4-point fonts, on a laser printer. He cut the paper labels, and glued them to the bases of his 6mm WW II figures. It made it sooo much easier to keep units together, and to re-assemble the units at the end of the game, pulling figures from the tabletop, as well as the dead pools.

Been meaning to do something similar with my 54mm Army Men figures' bases, putting their vital stats on the bases, to relieve players from looking them up all the time, in a game. It's a great idea, IMO. Cheers!