I had a truly horrendous mishap with a set of plastic Warhammer 40K figures that I have had for at least 20 years. I put them in a Sterlite plastic tub that – although not airtight, had a pretty good seal – and some sort of material started decomposing to a gas. When I was excavating through my pile, looking at old troops and found these in a long lost vein of plastic and pewter, I opened the tub and out came a very strong chemical smell, much like plastic solvent.
When I started going through the troops I realized that nearly all were damaged. The bases were curled or melted, and guns were warped out of shape.
There are a number of things to fix with some of them – like the above Dark Eldar army I bought – but my beloved Tau were the things I wanted to fix first, which largely only had base damage.
I have seen clear acrylic bases for sale, mostly touted for basing in skirmish games (individual figures or a weapon team), with the advantage being that your bases would 'match' the surface you are gaming on because you would see the board, table, cloth, or mat below. No more troops with a desert landscape scheme on top of your NW Europe landscape board. Because I had to rebase these troops, I decided to give Litko's bases a try. (This was before I purchased my own laser cutter.)
Here are the troops on a simple 'desert' felt gaming mat.
Same troops on a 'grass' felt gaming mat.
Same troops on a textured 'desert' canvas game board.
And finally on a cyberpunk-themed, silk-screen on neoprene, game mat.
Clearly, the bases are not going to be 'invisible'. The light will always catch the edges. But one thing I have noticed is that the smaller the scale of the figure, the more that it is the base of the figure(s) that catch the eye and not the figures themselves. So not having a large contrast between the base and the board does seem to make the figures pop.
What do you think?
I think your observations are spot on and that's with a camera focused on them. I suspect that on a playing table with a number of figures and terrain and a game to focus on, with average game lighting and arms length distance, the bases will virtually disappear.
ReplyDeleteNot that I've tried it.
I really like them. It looks good. Almost all my figures are for mass battles and the skirmish ones either bought based or I based them over 20 years ago. But I got some 20mm railway HO/OO figures to use for some Pulp Alley type games and they had clear bases. I love them, they look great on the table and means the focus is on the figures, not the bases.
ReplyDeleteI use the clear bases for smaller scale games - the edge effect is lost during play and the figures fit look better on different terrain surfaces. ( example https://cavalierecw.blogspot.com/2020/10/an-affray-in-square.html ). I have been experimenting with thinner clear bases cut from clear plastic packaging - the edge effect is minimal and more pleasing to the eye ( example http://tidders-kingdomofwittenberg.blogspot.com/2021/10/palace-denizens-and-those-of-town.html )
ReplyDeleteIn the 2nd and 5th pictures of your 1st post the bases definitely 'disappear' due the the camera angle and the light. Looks very good. Great collection of figures you have there, by the way.
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