Translations for our friends around the world.

Author Topic: Basing your Flames of War army – tricks and hints on how to create 15mm bases  (Read 3974 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Asid

  • HAVOC
  • *
  • Posts: 26361
Basing your Flames of War army – tricks and hints on how to create 15mm bases
October 18, 2019 | Paolo Paglianti



An army marches on its stomach: Napoleon Bonaparte was right, but speaking of our games, we should misquote to “our armies march on their rectangular bases”. There is nothing more disappointing in seeing a well-painted army on poorly rendered bases – I’ve seen with my eyes tournament armies with their infantry merely stuck to the brown Battefront bases!

Basing your miniatures is not that difficult. First of all, you need a plan. For example, all my Flames of War Mid armies and my Team Yankee lists have two infantry platoons, as I really like to play with massed infantry. For this reason, I try to base the two units with a different “landscape”, so I can tell them apart at a glance, even when they assault the same target and mix up. For example, my US Armoured infantry platoon 1 is mounted on “urban” bases, while Platoon 2 is on “rural” ones.

We already discussed on “how to do unique vehicles and tanks in your FOW army” here. So, time to go for the foot soldiers!

Easy level

Skills: minimal
Costs: minimal

If you want to use a quick and easy method, but with great results, you just need some dry sand in a box, PVA glue, some cotton ear sticks, and a base colour. Online shops will try to sell you the sand, but you can acquire it pretty easily and free if you go to a construction site and ask to get some medium grain sand. A biscuit box will contain enough sand for your army (well, maybe you will need two if you plan to do a Russian or Iranian list!).

Just glue your miniatures on their base, mix 50%-50% PVA glue and some water, and fill the base with this mix. The cotton swab is very good to spread and scatter the glue. If you can’t do under the miniature’s legs, use a toothpick.


I painted these Russian infantrymen for my Tournament in Milan: one soldier for each player. I used the “simple” base system, using different shades of brown and light earth colours. Note the good effect of painting the “bigger” stones in dark grey and dry brushing with two levels of lighter grey.

Just place the base with glue in the box with sand, and remove the sand in excess. Let the glue dry (12 hours), and then use a watered-down colour you like for your bases. I think lighter colours work better because the miniature is more visible, but it’s totally up to you. Just remember real earth is normally between sand colour and a reddish-brown. A good idea to create different bases for different platoons is to have a lighter tone for one and a darker brownish on the other.

After the colour is also dry (a couple of hours, with acrylic paints), mix 50% – 50% the same colour you used with a lighter tone. If you used sand colour, you can mix with pure white, while brown doesn’t mix well with it (the result is too “muddy”) so you need just a lighter tone of the same color.

To finish the base, you can add some grass flock. For better results, just mix two different flocks, one greenish and one darker. You can use Army Painter turfs, the smaller are good for 15mm scale.


This is a Diorama I did for the first FOW tournament I organized in January 2019. The wooden base can be bought in the local DIY shop in the decoupage shelves. I just used the kids modelling paste to create the base, with some bits from my previous works, like an abandoned helmet on the crate and some sandbags. I also had the imprints of the tanks so they could be placed in position, with a magnet on the base and a magnet under each tank. The writing on the right is the famous sign placed after the war to celebrate the valour of the Italians crew, fighting superior British tanks with really small and under-gunned tanks. The base is done with the sand and PVA glue trick.


Read on

funny
0
informative
0
Thanks
0
No reactions
No reactions
No reactions

I stand against Racism, Bigotry and Bullying

Tags: