Small Miniatures on Big Bases
Written by MikeH, September 29, 2016, 4 Comments
If you listened to episode 179 of Meeples and Miniatures, you would have heard Sam Mustafa talking about the game he’s currently playtesting called ‘Rommel’ and you might have picked up on the fact that I’d offered to do some playtesting for him
Well the playtesting is going really well and the game is shaping up to be something special, BUT I’M NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT THE GAME SO PLEASE DON’T ASK ME
However I can talk about something I’ve been working on for the last few weeks that could be used in the game.
You see when Sam was talking about Rommel on the show, I was sat in my study and my eyes were drawn to a couple of box files that contained my huge collection of 1/285 scale Micro Armour produced by GHQ and an idea hit me.
Before we get to the idea let me give you a bit of background, as many years ago I played Spearhead and I decided to put together a 1943 Panzer Division for that game and then I went a bit mad and brought a load of GHQ figures and hey presto I ended up with this lot
The problem was that I didn’t really like Spearhead as a game and the figures hardly saw daylight but I thought having a load of German units would be useful sometime so I kept hold of them. I even started a Russian army but quickly gave up on that idea as it was silly
Wind the clock forward 8 years and my Russians were sold off to my mate Ty and the Germans sat in the boxes unloved and unused.
Then we interviewed Sam and I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be good to make up some big bases of figures using my Germans, then I could play all sorts of games.
As I have a pile of bases for Sword and Spear I got a couple of 80 x 60mm bases and added some figures and this is what I came up with
I was really happy with these so I made some more up until I ran out of bases
Then I ordered 60 2mm magnetic mdf bases from Tony at Tiny Tin Troops and I made some more, until I had more than enough to playtest Rommel
Then I got hold of my mate Ty and asked if he still wanted that Russian army I sold him 5 years ago and as he didn’t I brought them back
And now I’ve ordered another 30 bases to top up the ones I have and I’m just looking at what vehicles I need to get a Russian army together. I think it’s time to go to Magister Militum and buy some T34’s
Here’s the first few bases I’ve made for the Russian hoards
Oh and I’ve just found there was some US armour in the box of Russian tanks I brought back from Ty so it seems daft not to do a US force using some of Baccus’s new figures
Don’t you love it when a plan comes together………………..
In my next post I’ll go through how I make these bases in case anyone is interested
Very, very cool.
Any particular reason why you didn’t go with GHQ on your new purchases? 🙂 (I assume price and that said price went up quite a bit over the past years)
IIRC Rommel probably will work with area movement, for which these bases surely will work fantastically. I got a British starter box thing lying around for early desert things. I intended to go for IABSM in 6mm (if all the 15mm stuff proves not to be working with those rules. Also: You need space to maneuver in the desert). These big bases do look tempting though…
I am going for GHQ with the new purchases, but Magister Militum are the only ones who stock them in the UK
I’m not a fan of GHQ figures are I think they are too small so will be trying out Baccus when I get around to the US
Mike, looking really good. / Per
Thanks Per, I’m going to be nicking some of your ideas for terrain once I finish the Russians