More on the movement trays - how I do them

 

 Almost all prepped for Sunday! 

I did fail to mention what I did to texture the trays, so here it is if anyone is interested. Once the bases were assembled I covered them with my homemade concoction of basing goo. 

The goo is: 

• Liquitex flexible modeling paste
• White glue
• Woodland scenic fine ballast
• Craft paint burnt umber
• Wall paint texturing powder 

No precise measurements here, just a dash of this and a splash of that whatever 'looks' right. I try to keep it from being too runny, really just a nice paste. I do also try to make it so that when I run a spatula across the surface I can see a pebbly streak effect. The wall paint powder is something I bought years ago, is very very fine (actually dangerously fine as it can get airborne and breathed in all to easily) but it does add texture and bulk to the goo. I use a spatula and old paint brush to apply it to the trays.

I store this goo in a dollar store sandwich plastic container that is fairly air tight.

Paints used

• Apple barrel Territorial Beige
• Craftsmart Golden Brown
• Ceramcoat Khaki
• Vallejo Sepia wash/dip
  

Once dried I apply a dry brush territorial beige. Once dry then add a dry brushing of golden brown. Once this has dried I apply a wash, then as it dries I randomly dab a bit of paper towel to vary the amount of wash. Finally once the wash has dried I do a very light dry brush of khaki to pick out some highlights.

The tray on top is after the wash has been applied

 

Then it is a simple matter to brush on some white glue in semi random patterns, followed by either dunking the tray into my vat of green flock, or sprinkling the flock over the base by hand.

 

On the left are my old style bases while the right better shows how I will be doing bases

So the next task is to re-base my figures as the basing has gotten real old. I shall be ordering some pre-cut MDF bases and then apply my goo to the bases to blend in with the trays. Of course you never know, maybe I will like Fantastic Battles so much that I will just convert to larger bases...

Fantastic Battles, prep work for club game to be played June 26th.

Inspiration (courtesy of the Fantastic Battles game) and a deadline has got me working on some of my fantasy figures. We had recently played a game of Warhammer 6th (WH) edition which was very fun, but, ultimately, very slow to play. So we decided that we would try another game system. Now Fantastic Battles (FB) makes use of preset movement bases, each company is 60mm by 60mm. One to four companies can be grouped together as a unit. The challenge was to take my existing Warhammer figures and set them up onto these universal bases.

Now most of my infantry are based two to a base that is 25mm deep and either 20mm or 25mm wide, depending on WH basing conventions. My cavalry are either 25mm by 50mm or 50mm by 50mm. The depth of the infantry stand comes from the fact that I use 1" wide balsa wood strips as bases. So, most gamers use individually based troops so the spreading out of these figures on a base may not be so bad, a little dispersed but not too bad. My troops do not spread out so much. 

So I decided to do a bit of texturing to the FB bases to try and have my existing figures blend in better with the base. Initially I just took some thick cardboard cut it into squares and applied some filler. I used some scrap balsa to provide a guide for the filler. It worked but maybe there was a better solution.

So back to the drawing board. I went looking through my pile of wood products to see if anything might help. I found some stir strips that I bought back before 1999. So I cut and glued these strips onto the 60mm by 60mm bases carefully measured to the troops that would be used on them. This gave a much firmer frame for the troops to fit into. 

 

I then also came up with another thought, a way to bulk out my units. As it stands the companies, especially when formed into multi company units, look kind of sparse.

 

Now the FB rules allow units to assume three different formations, line, column and square. For the most part, judging by various AAR troops tend to stay in line formation, only occasionally going into column, and almost never going into square. So I started to rethink things a bit. As mentioned units can be anything from 1-4 companies which in line would be 60mm/120mm/180mm/240mm wide.  So as an experiment I have cut out bases that equal those widths. This allows me to have more figures on the base and less gaps. On the multi company bases the gaps appear on the ends of the units not in between companies.

Only a play through of the rules will show us if this will work out. I do have arrow markers that can be used, should troops assume a column, to indicate the direction of movement. I have also focused on 2 company and 3 company bases over 4 company bases. I can always double up a 2 company base for troops deployed as 4 companies. Having unit bases, somehow, really drives home just how unwieldy large units van be.  But it also will speed up the movement of troops. I will, of course, need to mark the bases every 60mm to delineate where each base 'ends'.

Of note I have not affixed my troop stands to these bases. While I have added some thin double sided tape to the bases, lifting these troops by the figures is not a good idea! 

So far the bases have proven to be resilient, they do not flex, but time will tell...