B5 Ship bases?

[TimoftheC2]

Guys,

Now that the first of my EA fleet are winging their way towards me (hopefully) I have a question to ask about basing them.

I have trawled through the pics in the Gallery and note that the vast majority of the ship bases are round with a few hexagonal ones.

I was thinking of basing them on the bases used for Firestorm Armada - square - because it makes putting a ruler next to em easier when you move them on the table.

Anybody have any thoughts on this, plus, does anybody make use of removable bases for ease of transporting the models?

Thanx

Tim

 

[Burger]

Square or round, don't think it'd make a difference really, whichever you prefer is fine.
Removable bases are essential IMO!
I use brass rods, square ones, just stick 1cm of narrow rod onto the mini and 5cm of larger rod onto the base. Simples.

 

[Da Boss]

Indeed - there is no defined base size - I use Ninja Magic magnets which are pretty good

 

[Greg Smith]

I have tried these: http://www.back2base-ix.com/index.php?_a=viewCat&catId=54 they are pretty good.

Or using the ninja magic adapters: http://www.rattleheadgames.com/catalog/WithHostileIntent-MagneticAdapterSystemProducts.html

 

[Ben2]

They were only hexagonal as a carryover from B5W, which had six arcs on each ship for detemining what weapons could fire.

ACTA doesn't have this system, so squares are fine.

 

[TimoftheC2]

OK, once again, thanx for the replies on this.

Still not decided yet which way I want to go but the Ninja Magic adapters look pretty useful - may just go that way.

I have a question though on this pic that I spotted in the Gallary: -

I like the stand for the fighters that allow three in a triangle formation - anyone know where those bases come from?

Regards

Tim.C

 

[Da Boss]

I think he made them himself from perspex but could be wrong - best thing to do is PM the poster of the image

 

[Greg Smith]

They may be these: http://www.litkoaero.com/page/LAI/CTGY/AFS

 

[TimoftheC2]

They may be these: http://www.litkoaero.com/page/LAI/CTGY/AFS

Good call Greg, that looks like em. Funny thing is that I have been looking at the Litko site as a source of bases for my ships

Tim.C

 

[l33tpenguin]

Litko will cut you some excellent bases. At a good price too. I personally DONT like plastic rods on mine, I ordered a hoopla of the disks (they will cut disks to just about any dimensions you want) and just stick brass rods into them for my stems. I've had way to many ships take a nose dive and snap off the acrylic rods. Then you're stick drilling out the stem and redoing the base. so annoying.

 

[TimoftheC2]

Litko will cut you some excellent bases. At a good price too. I personally DONT like plastic rods on mine, I ordered a hoopla of the disks (they will cut disks to just about any dimensions you want) and just stick brass rods into them for my stems. I've had way to many ships take a nose dive and snap off the acrylic rods. Then you're stick drilling out the stem and redoing the base. so annoying.

Sounds interesting, you got any picies so I can see if I want to copy ya

 

[l33tpenguin]

I've been meaning to post some pics to the gallery. My poor fleet has been in dry dock for a good year now. I went nuts and got a ton of painting done last winter, but didn't finish anything, now its sitting on a board in the loft gathering dust.

 

[axolos]

I've had way to many ships take a nose dive and snap off the acrylic rods. Then you're stick drilling out the stem and redoing the base. so annoying.

Was it because the rods broke? I have heard that the material is not really sturdy to begin with.

Btw. where do you get your brass rods from. (I am a total newbie in this.)

 

[l33tpenguin]

I've had way to many ships take a nose dive and snap off the acrylic rods. Then you're stick drilling out the stem and redoing the base. so annoying.

Was it because the rods broke? I have heard that the material is not really sturdy to begin with.

Btw. where do you get your brass rods from. (I am a total newbie in this.)

Yup, one of my Warlocks or, worse yet, my Poseidon, takes a nosed dive and you have a good hunk of metal vs. a little plastic nub and *snap!*

You can find all sorts of brass goodies at your local Hobby Lobby. That's where I got them before I moved to Alaska, where there are no Hobby Lobbys... Look for 'telescoping brass rods' They are in sizes that each one fits into the one above it. This is handy for making stems and joiners. You fix the size of rod you want into the base then attach a small nub from the next smaller size rod to the underside of your ship. This will let the small rod recess into the stand and hold your ship nicely.

They are also handy for making your Omegas rotate like they should.

 

[AdrianH]

I'm one of the few people who actually likes the Mongoose pivoting stands. They do have their limitations; the socket head is too big to fit some ships with bits sticking out underneath, such as Shadow Scouts and most of the Minbari fleet. And they look a bit silly on very small ships such as Blue Stars. In these cases I settled for gluing the stems straight into the ships; they lie flat for transport, and on the few occasions any of them have been dropped, if any damage happened it was to the ship itself rather than the stand.

The socket head only has a small pin to go into the hole in the model, so the head is mostly held on by glue. What this means is that if the head does come off, it doesn't leave a piece behind in the ship. I haven't had a stand get damaged yet but I would imagine that the worst case scenarios are either that the stem breaks and leaves a bit inside the ball, or the head shatters. Either way I have some spares because of the heads I didn't use in the Shadow Scouts, Sharlin and Blue Stars.

 

[axolos]

The Mongoose stands (especially those with the rotating section): Can those be actually acquired separately?

 

[AdrianH]

Iron Wind Metals still has them:
http://ironwindmetals.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=159&osCsid=cf0231fe4447d7ae8bb32cefb6128294

However, they charge $20 for shipping outside the US, so you probably won't want to buy them there unless you're also buying enough other models to make it worthwhile. Or unless you're buying enough stands to equip a whole fleet!

 

[Banichi]

Pretty much all my ships are on mongoose or GW plastic stands. The way I got around the problem of the nub breaking off was to snap it off myself, and drill the hole under the ship bigger so it can take the nubless stem. It's way stronger, I've yet to have a ship I've done this with break its stem.

Also some of the bigger ships needed to have a new hole drilled, as the one provided wasn't anywhere near the centre of balance. The warlock was the best example of this I came across. Finding the proper balance point stops ships nose diving, and takes a lot of stress away from the stem.

 

[l33tpenguin]

These images are all clickable to MUCH higher resolution

My mothballed fleet - There is a LOT of dust on these ships. you can tell when you see the bases closer. The ships are pretty much just base coated, I haven't gotten very far with them but at least they have some color.

I'm trying to stick to using the standard flying bases that came with my ships for the ships themselves. Because the hole in the base was larger than my brass rods so I filled them with green stuff... or something... and drilled out new, fresh holes that fit my rods perfectly.


A shot showing the different heights of the stands. Patrol ships are set at 1 inch high and they increase in 1/2 inch increments until War.


My shadows, at different heights

You can see one of the clear Litko bases in the middle of the image. I ordered the Litko bases with pre cut holes, but they turned out to be slightly larger than the rods I was using so again I filled and drilled. It was better to have the pre cut holes, IMO, because it gave me a good center to the disk


Fighters and bases. These are all Litko bases. I ordered them in black first, then clear because it was easier to drill out holes without going all the way through when I can see how deep I'm drilling.

The fighters are all based on pins cut to random heights to give a 'break formation and attack' sort of feel. Depending on the 'strength' of the fighters, I based them in different numbers. Shadow fighters are 2 per base, Firebolts are 3 per, Black Omegas and T-bolts are 4, and Aurora's are 5 per. This accomplished 2 things: 1, it gives the impression that it doesn't take many Shadow Fighters to take on a group of Starfuries and 2: I can stretch the fighters I have fewer of further.

All the insignias are real modern fighter units, with a few exceptions. Auroras are either F16 or F22 squadrons and Thunderbolts are A10 squadrons. Because I had only a few Firebolts, I used squadron insignias from Babylon 5. And of course there is the Black Omegas.

 

[Burger]

Wow - thats a lot of ships!
I like the big pile of Vorchans in the middle
And you need to put as much effort into painting your decking :lol: