Round We Go

So when it comes down to what is on my tabletop right now, I have been making a lot of progress. I decided that despite the 'bases don't matter' bit in Warhammer Age of Sigmar, I wanted to be an over achiever. I decided to move my elves to round bases. This is an army I have been slowly collecting. It all started oddly enough with a friend I was trying to get into the hobby. He started buying High Elves on eBay, and before long had more models than anyone would want to paint.

Flash forward a little bit and he had given up. He said, "Do whatever you want with this stuff, I am not going to get around to doing anything with it."

I posted most of it for sale on eBay and gave him the money from the auctions. I did end up keeping the Silver Helms, but that wasn't by design, more of less I was just tired of posting auctions.

Then I met a guy a little further south in North Carolina who offered his services as a painter. The price was just too good to pass up. I shipped him off a ton of elves and he went to work. His goal was just base coating and a little assembly. What I got back was pretty cool, but it took him forever to return things and he didn't finish what he had promised to do.

Note to self, cheap is not always the best. But I ended up with some great looking cavalry and characters. It just bothered me he didn't follow through with it. The entire reason I agreed to let him paint them is because I thought he was going to paint the army. Trying to match someone else's style is very hard.

I know that from inheriting armies from my brother.

But I pressed on and even completed the crew and bolt throwers for this small, all cavalry army.

Not long after that I picked up two units of elven archers which I nearly completely repainted and a small unit of swordmasters which needed a little color swap. All in all though things are looking very good. I kind of like picking up assembled and nearly complete models at this point because it saves a ton of time. But back to the matter at hand. How should I go round?

It seemed like busting them off their 20mm squares would be insanely annoying. It would require more work than I wanted to put into it. I previously realized that the traditional GW 25mm rounds were basically an inch across if you measure the bottoms, so I started thinking about the best way to proceed and decided on 1" fender washers.

You can snag a box of a hundred for around ten bucks. Spray one side like I have pictured above and then it is time to break out the clippers. By nabbing off a few corners with your snips, the models fit perfectly in the diameter of the circle.

I love using joint compound as spreadable basing material. I lathered that around the edges and painted it up in a three stage process. I tried to pick out just the joint compound with brown. I doesn't matter too much if you make a little mess. The next stage is picking out some spots with black and then highlighted them grey. Finally we highlight the brown spots and basing sand with a lighter brown color for contrast.

I am really in favor of matching GW colors at the local hardware store when I am working on big projects. I don't bother with little paint pots for many traditional colors. My brother bought me some quarts one Christmas, and I have hardly put a dent in them.

What I ended up with is a mix of cool, unique bases throughout the army. When you are rebasing 75 plus soldiers on foot it helps to develop a system that works well. Since my models are not overly detailed I will probably push in some highlights, washes, and touch-ups in one fell swoop.

Since the GW plastics feel awful fragile to me as an old-school gamer, the addition of some extra weight to the bases is absolutely perfect. You feel the archers when you pick them up. And ferrous metals make things like magnets possible. I was telling my brother I wanted to build a gauntlet and vest with rare earth magnets to wear my army to a tournament. Even if I just make movement trays the metal washers will work well.

My plan on swapping the calvary is a little more complicated. I need about 25-30 ovals and finding washers won't work. I guess I could just pick up the Games Workshop sizes that I want to use (Yeah, I am that guy who asked them on Facebook what would they recommend for the Silver Helms because that is one box that hasn't been repackaged).

If I choose a DIY option I can always use the laser cutter/etcher at 757 Makerspace and cut my bases out of wood. To me that is the most affordable option because I have been paying for a membership since December and haven't visited much. I will definitely post some more pics when I get a little further along, but until next time have fun everyone.