Basing Your Vehicles

This post is aimed at a unique crowd of Flames of War gamers.. It is aimed at those who like to base their armoured vehicles, or thinking about doing so...

Hi all, Matt here!

A few months ago I posed this question on the FOW Facebook page, "Do any of you guys put bases on your tanks and is this viable for tournament play".

I was staggered at the feedback I received from the community in response to my question. I think 3, maybe 4 comments simply stated, "Burn him", or "Blasphemer" and other comments to that effect :-O. Of course these comments were taken in jest (as of course they were intended - I hope :-s ) but they were hardly helpful were they!

Luckily, a few people stepped up and offered some great advice, albeit after the initial 30 minutes of 'abuse'. However following this event I now think twice about approaching the community whenever I have a question I would like to ask and this is clearly not on! I would therefore like to address the topic of 'Basing vehicles', as well as how and why I do this. I hope that this article can assist those of you out there that perhaps like the idea of putting bases on your vehicles, but wasn't sure about doing it for whatever reason.

The main reason I considered basing my vehicles was for storage reasons... Following our recent house move I have been looking for different ways to display/store my painted models. Initially I picked up a lovely glass cabinet from IKEA, which seemed perfect. The cabinet was an obvious choice, as it displayed all of my armies in the gaming room and even had a little light inside to enhance the display somewhat. Nice!

Problem... Dust! (& blimin' finger print marks) Unfortunately I didn't consider that the cabinet would end up being such a dust magnet. 

Given that I spend so much time in the room painting/playing games the shelves constantly needed cleaning due to buildup, which became such a pain! I should also mention that the models themselves were getting covered in dust and so a change was clearly needed.

So my next option was a filling cabinet... I realised that protecting my models was probably more important to me than displaying them and that I needed to use my limited room space as effectively as possible. The filling cabinet was the perfect choice! I can practically keep an army in each draw and indeed protect them from all of that horrible dust stuff!

So finally, we get back onto topic, 'Why do I base my vehicles!?' Well the big metal filling cabinet has been a fantastic storage solution for me so far. The only catch being, is that whenever I opened the drawers the models inside slid around a little, due to the smooth surface trays. The easy answer to this was to magnetise my models and thus base them if necessary.

I picked up the Flames of War magnetising kit to test out this solution on my British infantry. I actually found that the magnet strength was so strong against my metal cabinet that the sticky glue was not holding the magnets in place and so they came off whenever I tried to lift a model up. Simple answer to this was to use super glue to attach the magnet to the base. Now the magnets aren't going anywhere and more importantly, neither are my models. Success!

So I began basing all of my tanks out of necessity. I didn't care if it looked pretty - they just needed magnets. However as ive continued doing this, I've actually really enjoyed the visual effect of my entire army being based. The tanks now keeping a nice synergy with the infantry and guns. Some players, such as Steve Charlton and Robin Spence take this to the next level and the bases really enhance the paintjob.

    Some base examples from Robin

One question people do ask me is whether I have any issues in tournaments with my tanks being on bases. Firstly, the bases do make the tanks slightly taller of course, which provides a disadvantage if you play true line of sight. Well to answer that, I've never played a tournament where we have played true line of sight to be honest, so it's not an issue really. With such variation in terrain at events it's simpler to say, 'this is a hedge, it offers concealment' and so the height of the models don't come into question at all.

The second big concern was whether or not there is a disadvantage by not being able to put your tanks in that horrible, hull to hull / side by side 'formation' to ensure that all of them can shoot etc. Well as you might have guessed I absolutely hate that look anyway and will avoid doing it, even if my tanks were unbased! However I can't say I've experienced any problems in tournament play, or felt at a disadvantage. I am thinking about drilling a hole and using a peg of some sort to hold my tanks onto their bases though. That way I could always remove the tank from its base in game if they are going through a narrow town or something, but equally it's not been an issue so far so I might not bother.

So now you all know why I base my tanks! 

I would like to sign off with a gentle reminder to community/forum members of how important it is that we all work together to keep the game community thriving. Please ensure that all of your responses remain helpful and constructive. Even if you don't agree with the concept or the previous comment made by someone, try to remain respectful and helpful with your own comments as one bad experience could push someone away completely.

That is all. Thanks for reading guys. 

Papa Bear out!