"Need Advice on 10mm Basing" Topic

All,

Operation Barbarossa is fast approaching. For some reason I decided to re-base my forces, wanted everything uniform, was tired of the hodge-podge of different colors and flocking. So I'm almost finished, but I've run into a conundrum: I didn't want to base my vehicles because I plan on playing both summer, verdant battles and snowy, winter battles, and when you base your vehicles you sort of have to commit to either verdant or snow. But I don't want to commit, I want to eat my cake and have it, too. So the question is, how do you base vehicles that can be used for both the grassy steppe and snowy winter?

Take a gander at what I've got and what I've done so far.

So, here's the whole mess, Germans on the left, Soviets on the right. It's not finished; I took everything I had and re-based it, then I had to buy some more stuff. I had plenty of infantry but needed more vehicles, so I picked up some German halftracks and some Soviet T-34s, T-26s, a Ba-6, and a T-60. I also picked up some Panzer IVGs (long 75s), Marder IIs, and Stug IIIDs (long 75s), so I figure the collection you have before you can take me all the way through the German 'gray' era, or up to summer of 1943.

Back to the basing issue: as you can see, the infantry are flocked in a nice, verdant mix, while the vehicles are not. Just so you know, I have separate German and Soviet infantry and guns for winter, they're just not finished. So I knew I'd need separate summer and winter infantry and guns, but want to use a single set of vehicles. To that end, you can see I have not flocked my vehicles, just painted them a nice muddy color on the base.

A closer look at ze Germans.

And the Reds.

A close-up of a Soviet engineer platoon, to show the basing, the painted base edges (which are now a single color for all bases, rather than the 96 I'd previously used). You're looking at a platoon command stand and three squad-sized stands. I may add some clump foliage to the infantry/gun bases, we'll see.

So those look good, but what about the vehicles?

Here's my plan: leave the vehicle bases muddy brown in the spring/summer, then paint them white for the fall/winter, then paint them back muddy for the spring/summer of '42, then paint them white for the fall/winter of '42, then paint them brown for the spring/summer of '43. Do you think that will work? My concern is that the muddy-colored base is too jarring/ugly. What do you think?

Here's what the muddy bases look like on the table at 'normal' tabletop distance.

A close up of the Panzer IV.

And the KV-1.

The KV-1 taking a shot at the Panzer IV.

So how does that look to you? Can you stand it? Should I? Is there another alternative?

Let me lay some ground rules: I'm not going to buy another set of all those vehicles and do them again in winter colors. I can't see flocking the vehicle bases for summer and then scraping it off and painting the bases white, I think it would be too frustrating trying to get all the flock off, would probably damage the basing gel I put down, and may even end up stabbing, scraping, and damaging the paintjob on the models.

I have thought of having two separate bases for each vehicle, one summer and one winter. I lay on the basing gel, then pull the vehicle off, let it set, and flock for summer and paint white for winter. Then I attach the vehicle to the appropriate base in a non-permanent way, so that I can put them on and take them off as appropriate.

So what do you guys think? What would work best, or do you know of another idea, something I haven't thought of?

Thanks in advance!

V/R,
Jack

Buy magnets, put in the centre bottom of tank. Buy steel bases, paint in different seasons. leave a small spot with no paint or only one coat so the magnet will have good attraction. It should be invisible with 10mm. If the magnet is too thick drill a hole just big and deep enough so the magnet is at track bottom level.

It's a lot of work. There is expense, steel bases and magnets. You don't have to do every base in all seasons and bases can be used for both sides.

Actually I suppose you could use your regular base material and bury another magnet, correct polarization, in the bases. Might be cheaper, might have a tighter grip magnet to magnet

I don't base vehicles.

Dragon6 – I'm not sure whether I'll got the magnet route or not, but I am definitely leaning towards separate summer and winter bases, so thanks!

Thresher – Not an option man. I didn't want to base my vehicles, but then the bases I bought for my troops ended up being thicker than I expected and I don't want my troops running around being three (scale) feet taller than my tanks!

V/R,
Jack

What about a clear base to adjust the height?

I thought about that, but these would be a couple mm thick and from what I've seen, they end up showing glare.

Since I can't figure out a way to base them once for both summer and winter (or at least easily transition between the two on the same base), I suppose I'm looking at having two separate bases and prying them off/sticking them on as needed.

Thanks for the suggestion!

V/R,
Jack

To the question of the OP, I saw this posted in the "10 May 1940…" thread by Extra Crispy. I think he might have meant it for this thread:

For vehicles I would consider experimenting along these lines:

Do the base in plain mud. Brown with dry brushing, maybe a rock or two. In snow sprinkle the bases with baking powder for snow. Then just blow them off with canned air or a hair dryer after the game.

For spring, sprinkle with flock.

For summer, leave them muddy.

Even if it was written for the thread in which it appears, I thought it might be on-point here as well.

What about a clear base to adjust the height?

I tried that with some guns for my 6mm force many years back. I found that clear plastic is actually seldom actually transperent at game time. That is, you seldom see the color of the table terrain under the stand. Instead, it tends to be reflective. So you see sparkling lights.

In effect, the intention of making the base blend in actually results in the base standing out in the worst sort of way.

At least that was my experience. Can't say I gave it a full fair shake … I did a few guns, saw how it actually seemed to work, and abandoned the approach pretty soon thereafter. Others with more experience using clear bases might well have had better, or different, experiences.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Jack,

I've glued rare earth magnets to almost all of my 1/144th scale vehicles.

The first attribute gained is the models can be stored attached to magnet sheet affixed within your storage containers.

The second benefit (as you're exploring) is the vehicles can be swapped over onto different textured bases you've made for different theaters/climates.

In connection with the above, you can make fewer textured bases overall, and swap vehicles on an off of these bases, instead of permanently attaching each model to it's own base…..this saves time to make up a finite number of bases – see my desert bases below, that are epoxy putty topped, w/sand texture, but with steel plates within (under the epoxy to still provide for a magnetic attraction)…..these took a lot of time to make, so I wanted another approach to make just enough for my potential scenarios.

The picture above shows vehicles attached to the carrier bottoms, or as they would look placed on their separate bases, with some of those on bases tipped over to show the magnets glued underneath.

Here's a pic (below) showing one of my cases with some vehicles still mounted on bases from a scenario I had presented….some bases have been removed for attaching to other vehicles used in a subsequent scenario I put on (but everything stays secure, if the bases are being used or not, with the underneath model magnets doing their job).

This photo below is an old one, but was taken when I was working up ideas on how to mass-produce bases, for using with rare-earth magnets – you'll see my technique for utilizing "hobby railroad" mat for my grass topping, that was glued over a metal stand below (which allows for the model's rare earth magnet to attach onto and through the top matting surface).

The end goal was to be able to get multiple benefits from the expense and time of the magnet mounting, so I could go base-less if wanted, or to be able to make fewer numbers of texture bases for my potential game forces, and to have a secure system of model retention for when transporting to game events or just for basic storage.

Maybe you'll see something here that works for you?

Btw, this can be done with micro-armor miniatures too.