"Starting in 6mm, what basing to use?" Topic

Hello folks,

after a longtime hiatus from painting (unfortunately, not buying though!) minis, I am taking the plunge and am going to get into 6mm.

I plan on playing WWII, Fantasy, and Sci-Fi in this scale.

I have a bunch of washers, 3/8", 1", would those work for 3-5 soldiers per base?

How do y'all go about plugging the hole in the middle?!? I'm thinking of using paper, or cardstock punched to fit over the hole and glued on.

I've been reading other boards specifically regarding 6mm figs and there are wide ranging views out there as to what basing conventions are "best."

What say you, sirs (and ladies!)?

-Mike

I may be stating the obvious (and slap me down if I do), but probably the best starting point is the rules you want to use. Whatever basing convention you choose, should obviously suit the rules you want to play. And it may not be possible to have one basing covention that suits all of your chosen periods.

Malc

All depends on the rules you intend to use. Most (all?) rules specify basing conventions.

As Mike says, it depends what rules you intend using the figs for, although I guess you could get away with sabot bases/magnetic sheeting or whatever. A good compromise for WW2 is to put everything on 30mm x 30mm bases.

All my 6mm stuff is based on artists mounting board with magnetic strip on the bottom and simple sand/flock. Exact base sizes and numbers of figs/vehicles varies with what they are intended for. I usualy put a bit of mag strip on the top of the base as well, handy for Megablitz and other rules which use counters/chits/unit ids/markers on the base.

I use a penny to mase my 6mm infantry. Just the right size for me.

When it comes to filling the hole in the washer I just stick a piece of masking tape over it. When I do my ground work on the base you don't see it anymore.

heh…look at the rules….what a concept.

Is there a red-faced smiley here? ;)

I'm tempted to base individual figures on mini-magnets, and then make bases that can hold the figures for whatever game I will be using them in…

That will give me the most flexibility.

And, the rules I am going to be using are as follows.

Flames of War, which I have the base book for at the moment and nothing more.

Warhammer, both Fantasy and 40k, which I have the last edition of rules for and will be sticking with them and adding in nifty stuff from the new rules. This also gives me the chance to play the skirmish games that they put out as well. Just have to convert up some 6mm figs for it is all.

I want to try Blitzkreig Commander. But I do not know what the basing convention of this game is. I've read that it compares to Warmaster pretty closely, so I'll assume as such until advised otherwise.

-Mike

Fender washers are probably the least expensive, and should help the troops survive a bit longer.

The square or rectangular, thin metal bases should work too.

Flames of War is "element based", typically by the half-squad or equivalent "task unit". Standard Infantry will be five to a base, typically.

Warhammer Fantasy can make extensive use of unit movement trays, though tracking casualties at 6mm might be a bit of a pain.

Warhammer 40k is a skirmish game (as the overall hobby defines it) already. Individual basing and typically no more than a Company worth of troops. Depending on how you decide to scale the *board* in response to scaling the models to 6mm from 30mm, unit movement trays may or may not be viable. The 6mm version of 40k, Epic Armageddon, bases in 5-man teams on vaguely standardized bases (there are guidelines but no specifics aside from minimum and maximum dimensions), because the ground scale is very large. If you want the high-tech skirmish feel, keep the 40k ground scale (6" move, etc) and base individually. Weapon ranges will "feel" longer, and vehicles will benefit from the LOS breaks provided by smaller models and not visualy dominate whatever chunk of table they are on. This trick works at 15mm, too, and 15mm is a lot friendlier to the idea of individually based models. that said, much o the 40k universe is already available in 6mm…

We started with lots of GW's Epic 40K minis… on their square, 5 man, plastic bases. When we switched to dirtside, and started adding in GZG 6mm infantry we didn't like their amorphous, 4 man, metal bases (didn't match, seemed clunky)… so we put them on leftover epic ones instead… and cut out squares of plastic card when we ran out.
We kept the newer rectangular GW bases for specialized groups.
Mostly we just wanted everything to look cohesive.

Blitzkrieg Commander has no basing conventions--as long as you're consistent between units you're fine. One common approach I see are square or rectanugular bases for units and circular bases for commanders and HQs (makes it easier to tell who is who). But anything works.

for 6mm WW" there are several common base sizes :

GHQ : 25mm/ 1 inch square ( my personal preference)
written specificallly for 6mm by makers of 6mm

Spearhed etc : 30mm/ 1.25 inch square (can still use above)
i think these are quite large for 6mm – the rulesets that use were mainly written with 10mm/15mm in mind

Blizkrieg Commander: (my personal fav rules but i use 25mm bases) uses mostly rectangular bases – long face forward for infantry and short face for vehicles.

oh and round bases for "non" combat stands like hq's and foo's looks and works good

take your pick !

The problem with basing each 6mm fig on a magnet is it adds about 25% to 50% to the height of the figure. This is too far out of scale for me when dealing with 6mm.

*smiles*

I was having a fit of "creativity" when I mentioned the magnetic base for every figure idea….

I've climbed off that ledge, thankfully. :)

I have purchased a bunch of FOR SALE signs that I am going to cut down for basing tonight and I'll see how many of them I get out of that before I figure out what will be my base of choice. Best 97cents I spent this week!

-Mike