WoFun: Basing House Rules

Before (left) and after. The guns are located on the base via two small lugs on the bottom of the wheels. These have now been removed. I can now deploy as many or as few gunners as I like around the piece which I think looks better - I am not a fan of huge artillery bases!

My brother and his family are feeling better albeit only marginally. This is better news for sure although it is early days so fingers are still being crossed.

It is probably not surprising that I have been less than enthusiastic about anything gaming related but I have managed a few quick wins which is always good for the soul.

I have been thinking about the 28mm ECW WoFun collection and have made a single change that may well be the thin end of the wedge in that it could possibly lead to fairly substantial variation. 

I really do not like the artillery bases. They feel flimsy and do not like much in the way of movement - the gun comes out of its locating holes as do the gunners and so this has moved on from being a minor irritation to something requiring action. I have decided to base the gunners individually and leave the guns themselves off any kind of base. Since I will be mostly fighting my games on a grid this hardly matters and it is far more practical. 

You can see the dragoon command (bottom right) using a single strip on a 40mm by 30mm base

It got me looking at the infantry and cavalry bases, especially when I recently acquired a couple of dragoon regiments. At the present time all the infantry and cavalry figure strips are deployed two deep on a 40mm by 30mm base. The command strip for the two dragoon regiments is based on a single strip rather than the twin version. It occurred to me that using a single strip base rather than the twin version would have a number of practical advantages. 

The main one would be to double the number of bases making up the units. This would mean that detachments could be modelled more effectively as well as unit formations. It would also enable me to tackle the assembly of the bases in a rather more permanent fashion - the picture below will help to explain my plan.

You can see the fixing lug on the figure strip in the left. The base on the right shows clearly how this works whilst the base in the centre is one of the 40mm by 30mm single strip bases.

For the most part the Wofun figure strips have a single small fixing lug that fits in to the slot in the base. The rest of the strips at least the ‘feet’ part effectively sit on fresh air as the slot is some 35mm long. Essentially the small lug is the only part of the strip holding it upright. It occurred to me that a slot of some 15mm would allow for the fixing lug (these are not always in the centre so 15mm covers the range of locations - centre or offset to the left or right) to be used but that also the ‘feet’ of the rest of the strip would be contact with the now ‘closed’ area of the base. This would a more permanent fixing solution could be used with the strips being glued into place. Warbases could do this readily enough although of course it does then mean that the bases would need painting/flocking. 

It would not be a difficult task to tackle but it would be time consuming and of course their would be the cost to consider. I need to think carefully about this but it is certainly an option.