UPDATED: Basing Instinct

Afternoon all, from the (not very) sunny south side of London.  A quick update/review on something I got for my 4 Battalion Boarding Party.  Being the elite boarding crew they are, I was in bit of a dilemma what to put on their bases.  4 Battalion is technically a 'hazardous environment' unit, and although they are certainly the Palladian Guard's specialist Space Hulk-clearing unit, they're far more often found in the under hive or in some Emperor-forsaken chem-swamp.  Quite a diverse range of bases.

First choice: GW Basing Kit.  Expensive and uneconomical,
although look very good.
I decided that an urban, metal feel for the bases would fit equally well for hives and Space Hulk games.  But how to convert them?  When I first settled on urban bases, I thought the GW or FW brass etchings might work.  But a look at some online showed me that this would be very difficult as there was perhaps enough to make two or three fully metal bases in each pack.  No thank you.


My second effort was far less inspired, as I just planned to drybrush the bases Boltgun Metal.  This was cheap, easy and looked fairly generic, but also pretty half-finished, and I wasn't at all pleased even at the interim stages.

Enter Google!  After a few hours of mindless games and meaningless, opinionated drivel (I obviously wasn't looking at blogs, I should point out), I stumbled across Secret Weapon Miniatures.

I'd not seen them before, but it was pretty clear this was exactly what I needed.  Bases, washes, weathering powders ... a venerable treasure chest.  I ordered a pack of Iron Deck bases (incidentally, there's a huge selection of other specialist bases).  These cost about £7 with delivery, which was very quick.  The bases themselves are 25mm and bevelled so that they are indistinguishable with ordinary GW plastic bases.

Anyway, I'll as usual let the pictures do the talking.  The figures at the bottom are the few I worked on as a test, and I really like the look of them.  They are cheap enough for it to be feasible to base a whole army in them if you so wished, and SWM do a selection of 25, 40 and 60mm bases with a 10% discount for a bulk order.

 As ever, thanks for stopping by and I'll try and keep you all posted on whatever flies across my desk next. Farewell!

UPDATE 06 Jun 12:  Further to this, my wanderings on the FW website have revealed they have released their own version of these bases, made of brass etching and at £9.50 are only a little more expensive than the SWM bases.  I have to say I still prefer these, but at least there's a bit more choice.



Trying out the new models on the Boarding Team

Comments

  1. They look absolutely smashing, mate!

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  2. Bases look great, but the models are fantastic, really like the look of these guys.

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  3. Brilliant work, I had mention SW to you before though ;)

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  4. Love secret weapon stuff!
    Those guys are looking good!
    I based my necromunda gang with similar bases from them.

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  5. Thanks fellas,

    @Drax: Thanks mate, I think the base goes a long way to making a good model.

    @Buffer: Cheers, these are the tests but I'm scurrying to finish the squad now as well.

    @Headologists: If you did I'm sure it's locked away with all my other repressed memories of you...

    @Malkavschilde: It's good, I luckily stumbled upon it after a Google search but what a find. Do you have any pics of your gangers?

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