Minimal Maxim Basing

I’ve long been a fan of putting figures on the smallest bases they’ll fit on and that’ll keep them upright, when you’re doing individual bases for skirmish gaming.

Almost all of my 28mm pulp and historical figures are based on Canadian pennies, which are about 18mm across. You can’t beat the cost, they’re big enough for nearly any human-sized figure provided you don’t mind the occasional toe or heel sticking over the edge a few millimetres, and the small size makes it far, far easier to get your figures into scenery, especially buildings and larger vehicles like ships.

But what of guns, and larger-than-human figures?

Pennies and Milliput epoxy putty again there too. Why change what works? I’ve used that method before for monsters (werewolves and Yeti, just for two examples) and decided to stick with it when basing up the Bolshevik Maxim HMG from Copplestone. With the gunner prone behind the weapon, the whole thing would have required a base of about 60mm diameter to get him to fit — see above about wanting minimal footprint bases!

Pictures being worth a thousand words and such, see below for the Bolshevik and White Russian Maxim guns.

Minimal Maxim bases – pennies and Milliput.

The Copplestone Bolshie Maxim (on the left) has the gunner and gun on three pennies in line; the prone loader takes up two and is arranged on one edge of his base so he can reach the gun. On the right, the Brigade Games White Russian Maxim with seated gunner only needs two pennies; the kneeling loader is on one, again arranged to one side so he can reach his gun. Having the loaders and other crew on separate bases also makes casualty marking dead simple, as a bonus.

Incidentally, Copplestone and Brigade Games RCW figures work perfectly together, no size mismatch at all. I have a longer post comparing the two lines in the works — stay tuned.

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