Bases

(...and flags)

"The best material from which to construct unit bases is the type of cardboard used in beermats, so your 'local' will provide a ready source of wargaming material! Cut to size and painted green they look effective..." *

Back when I first read that, my 'local' was a mysterious place for grown ups, as was the concept of any figures not made by Airfix: how things have changed. 

Most of our battles have armies whose units are based in groups of 4 - 8 figures, but recent fashion has been for single-figure bases, sometimes then held in 'sabot' carrier-bases so a number of figures can be easily moved at once. Meanwhile, many Warhammer figure's bases are scenery in themselves, straight out of the box.

The bottom line of course, is what you would like your figures' bases to look like: we will create whatever shape and size you wish. Below are examples.

When making bases from scratch, we start with artists mounting board.

Nada Bases. Free!! Yes! for no extra cost whatsoever we will deliver your figures with no base decor at all...

Basic Bases. The base covered in a glue solution with flock or static grass. 

Sand Bases. A mixture of sand and glue covers the base, concealing the edges of the figures' own base so that the ground appears level(ish). The sand can be any colour from natural to muddy dark brown. We once tried making it green, but the result resembled astro-turf! To this, any of the following can be added.

Flock: the sand is covered (or half covered) with glue filled paint and flock is scattered over it.

Tufts: clumps of long grass. 

Flowers: speak for themselves.

Rocks: to resemble stony ground.

Debris: broken or discarded battlefield bits.

For Basic Bases we charge 5p a figure; sand bases are 10p per figure, with or without flock. After that things become more complicated... tuft costs vary depending on who make them - we think 15p a tuft is fair; debris can be simple or very much not; you may want one odd tuft here and there or your figures wading through long grass poking up through post-apocalyptic wreckage, so we will offer you a quote.

Our go-to firm for single/sabot bases when needed is Warbases.

We will purchase from there unless you have a different preference.

Flags 

For units that need standards we will purchase from there unless you have a different preference.

* from Bruce Quarrie's 'Napoleonic Campaigns in Miniature.' An expansion on his 1974 Airfix Guide, this is a good and deeply researched book, though parts of it are now noticeably dated: a number of paragraphs begin with phrases like 'If your parents or wife object to this...'   

**The only difference between Summer and Winter uniform for Tsar Alexander's infantry was that they were given black gaiters in Winter so it would look like they were wearing boots!