Mini Monday: Assembly and Basing, is it a Chore?

Ottomans based for Blucher 3inx3in base

Today we delve into some of the grimmer aspects of the hobby,
assembling and basing models.
For some gamers these can be a major pain and for others a joy.

Old Wargames Factory Skeleton Sprue

Assembling, unless you were dealing with vehicles, used to be pretty painless.
You bought your metal figures, cut off some flash, smoothed down a seem line and you were done.
With the advent of the plastic rank and file things go a bit more fiddly. Now you had to decide which arm, weapon, head, extra gear you wanted to use and hope they all line up. Awesome! We have more choices and poses or was it Uurgh! Too many bits to cut and glue?
I literally have spent more time assembling certain units then I did to paint them.

For plastic vehicles it almost seemed the opposite happened. Instead of being designed with modlers in mind, who might take joy in gluing each and every track section, the various companies started to design with the gamer in mind. Suddenly one piece track and hull sections! Thank the Gods!

Now personally I find plastics to be a goldmine for those that like to do a lot of converting, because cutting and converting lead miniatures was often torture.

And now basing.
Step 1: how to base. If it's a skirmish game then proceed to step 2. But if you hope to use the figs in a skirmish game and also for a larger scale battle game, then you have some choices to make. Base multiple figs per base for ease of moving some 200 figs or try and come up with some sabot basing to move the big units or simply allow your opponents to groan as you move 200 individualy based figs. Decisions decisions.

Imagine moving all these figs individually?

Step 2: decorating the base.Some just still just paint their bases green and leave it at that. Others buy super detailed resin bases for their figs. An easy out is to just 'grass' the fig.
But, do you go with themed winter or desert basing? How will that look when you play on the more common green field tables???? Can you live with it?

https://robhawkinshobby.blogspot.com/2012/02/modeling-painting-khador.html

Now personally I enjoy basing the figs. Because it's the final step in the process and really adds a little something to the finished product. I've even stayed up all night rebasing some 300 15mm Ottomans from Empire basing to Age of reason basing, had to scrap balsa wood off the bottom of the figs. But it was worth it for everything to look nice in the next days battle.




So how do you stand on assembly and basing? Is it a joy or a chore?