I recently came into a lot of 28mm American Civil War miniatures and was trying to figure out how to base them. I was going to get washers and mount them on magnetic sheets but quickly decided against that as the price of Zinc has driven up the cost of washers which use to cost 2 – 3 cents is now 10 – 11 cents a washer (for the small ones) and I have a lot of miniatures to mount!

I have a friend who keeps telling me to mount them on pennies, so I thought what if I could make a base with indentations that fit the pennies and act like movement trays, it would also allow me to switch out miniatures for different size units and I could make the trays for different unit types.

So I began the trek of trying to figure this out, a while later and some failed attempts, I completed a master and had it made into a master-mold so they could be reproduced in resin and here they are. The ones I have now are 8 miniatures to a base but I am in the process of making 4 base trays. This will allow me to base my models as singles and units, so I can play skirmish games and large unit action.

Below shows you how the miniatures fit right into the holes, I will be painting each base and adding flock and grass and such, they were headache to make but I like the way they came out so far:

This will also allow me to use boxes and store these miniatures, I am thinking of Pizza type boxes and just sitting the bases with the miniatures right in them so they wont tumble around.

I will be using a system called Advance the Colors, I was given a copy many years ago by a fella at a Con when he was developing it and it is Regiment to Regiment action, I always liked the mechanics of the game. I may also dust of my 20 plus year old Johnny Reb and play it as the new basing system will allow for both.

Now I have a lot of painting to do 🙂

Warlord