Saturday 19 May 2012

Modelling Guide: Movement trays/multibases for individually based 15mm miniatures

Due to popular demand on TMP (well confusion anyway...) I've done another post on my 15mm movement trays just to try and clear up any loose ends. I don't have time to do a full step-by-step tutorial but this pretty much covers the important stuff. 

The bases themselves are to FOW dimensions and laser cut in MDF by warbases.co.uk (I highly recommend their service). The fit is nice and tight (I supplied samples of my mini's bases) but the 18mm holes needed a little sand to account for the paint layers on my bases. I used some sandpaper wrapped round a tool hand for ease. 

This is 0.5mm self-adhesive iron paper from TinyTinTroops.co.uk. It doesn't need to be be adhesive, its  just what I had to hand. I simply stuck it on some paper to get rid of its adhesiveness.
Cut out rectangles in the iron paper, these will form the bottom of each movement tray. Don't worry about getting all the edges to line-up, it can be quite rough so long as it covers the holes.
Place some dots of decent superglue on the base and then stick the iron paper rectangle to it, paper side up, like so. Press the iron paper down and make sure it glues nice and flat.
 Rinse and repeat for the batch of bases you're doing.
This is what the bottoms should look like. Note that the iron paper doesn't go right to the edges, the iron paper is so thin you will never notice the difference (unless you have a penchent for eyeballing your 15s from 2cms during a game...)
These are the 8mm x0.5mm neodymium disc magnets that were recommended to me by Phyllion and come in at about 10p each from ebay (Seller: MagnetsMagnetsMagnets).
Stick a blob of paint on one pole and take them from the other side, this should help you to get all the polarities in the same direction. This isn't particularly important but I find it irritating when they stick to each other in transport, plus knowing my luck it'll turn out to be important somehow in the future if I don't do it. 

 Stick a magnet to the bottom of each figure.

Stick some filler on your movement trays to make them match your mini's base heights and then texture, paint and tuft or flock or whatever you like to do. (I haven't had time to do more than one of mine yet).
These trays should work with nearly any period, especially forms of 'modernish' warfare and sci-fi. If you change system, ping an email to warbases.co.uk, get them to cut you some bases out to the right sizes, repeat the process and now you can change between the systems if your get bored etc. You need never rebase again! (probably :P)

Pop your 15s in your movement trays and have fun making up new squads, attachments, heavy weapons teams and combinations.
Adios.

5 comments:

  1. Yeah...I like yours more than mine. Mine undoubtedly the less daffy way of doing it, but yours look very nice when finished.

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  2. I tried something similar a couple of years back http://billinghurst.spalding.gen.nz/Webstuff/hobbies/paintlog.html 31 December 2009 entry (!) using actual Flames of War bases and magnetic sheet. I mount my figures on washers so didn't need to use magnets on their bases. I think Samulus' finish is much superior to mine, but if you want a cheaper alternative, then you can play around with the FoW bases. I'm interested that we both came to a similar conclusion regarding staggering the four-man fire teams.

    I actually used the FoW bases upside down as they have a bevelled edge which is just a fraction too small for four washer-mounted figures.

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  3. If I may ask, what are the dimensions of the holes you had cut? Are they 12mm for the small hole, 18mm for the medium hole? And the large hole is? If we want to order some for ourselves from Warbases, do we ask for the Samulus Special? =)

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    Replies
    1. Haha I don't think he'd know who I was! The small holes were about 11.5mm whilst the larger holes were 18mm (british 5p pieces). There are only two dimension of hole on the bases I ordered. Just email warbases and tell them the dimensions you want, better still, send them samples of the bases you are using and they will make sure you get the perfect fit (as they did with mine).

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    2. Thanks for the reply. I was thinking the hole on the small base looked larger than the medium base with two holes. Thanks again.

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