"Back to Bases" - Blackstone Fortress Bases

The labyrinthine halls of a vast and ancient space station...

- Games Workshop

Hello gentle reader, welcome back to The Art of Caesura!

I have a fun post today that is a successor to a post that I did almost exactly FIVE YEARS AGO!! Today we're looking at making bases for Blackstone Fortress!

When big new boxed games come out, there's always discussion around how to base your miniatures. Some people are in the "I just base them like the rest of my armies" camp, others opt for clear acrylic bases so that you can see the board through the base (which then starts the whole sub-discussion about which glue to use to prevent frosting). Some people get very creative with Green Stuff rollers, and for Blackstone Fortress there were proponents for filing flat the base and painting the crystalline Blackstone floor on the base - this is how the studio did it, and I think there was even a White Dwarf article about it. I like to opt for a different approach. 

For me the merits of using the technique that I'm about to describe are that it looks pretty good, is easy, cheap, uses materials you mostly already have, and requires relatively minimal faff.

Let's get into it!

First, I should say, for this technique I don't actually work on the bases until I've finished painting the model - that's because the base topper will basically be paper so I don't want to get paint or ink from the model on it. For the painting process I just have the models pressed into their blank slotta bases - so I can easily pop them out later to make the bases.

I start by heading down to my local professional printer and getting them to colour-photocopy a bunch of the game boards onto good quality paper (this cost under 5 euro for the lot (for personal use only, not for resale purposes yadda yadda yadda).

Using an upside down base of the correct size (because the "top" of the base is smaller than the bottom), I use my knife to cut out an area of the printed picture that I think will work well with for the model. 

Next, I clean up the now circular base-topper with scissors to make the edges even. I then glue it onto the base with PVA glue. For Silver Tower I covered the paper with vinyl glue to make it hardier, but I found that this wasn't really necessary, and gave an uneven, glossy finish. 

I then set the base aside, take the model and use my clippers to cut off the slotta stand as close the model's feet as possible, keeping tabs just under the model's feet. This stage took some iterating upon. For my test model I didn't do this step, but then had the whole central part of the base image ruined by the slotta stand. Keeping the tabs just under the feet (which I later glue to the base from the underside) provides a surprising amount of stability and will avoid the issue I've had of some of my Silver Tower dudes coming off their bases. 

Next I press the tabs under the model's feet into the base over the area where the groove for the slotta stand will go. This creates enough of an indentation that I can then use a sharp knife to cut through the paper where this pressed indentation is. After doing this the model slips into the base pretty easily!

At this stage I put a little dab of glue via the bottom of the base where the tabs go through and lie them on their side to dry. 

Then I apply a few globs of PVA glue to the base and dunk it in some sand, leaving it overnight to dry. 

I finish the bases by painting the sand to match the base. For most of the bases, this meant: Macragg Blue, shaded with Drakenhoff Nightshade and then drybrushed with Ushabti bone. Other bases (which utilized the yellowish tiles) used Averland Sunset, shade Agrax Earthshade, drybrush Wraith Bone. 

The final step just involved painting the rim of the base AND rim of the paper base-topper black. Here are a couple sneak peeks of finished bases:

Let me know what you think of this basing style. I'm likely going to do the same for Cursed City, what techniques do you use for basing board games?

See you next week on The Art of Caesura!

Listening: Winter (My brother's short story) on Nocturnal Transmissions

Reading: Blackstone Fortress - Darius Hinks

Next Week:

The denizens of Shaa-dom...