When building my Skaven force, since it was a horde army with lots of models in large units, my goal was to have as few separate models as possible. To make deployment easy, I used as many regimental base strips as as I could. Unfortunately, I built myself into a corner because now the screaming bell won't fit in my stormvermin unit.
The bell fits just fine if I set up the unit in a 10-wide Horde formation, where I can have four models on one side.
But any narrower and there's nowhere for my four-man regimental strips to fit up front, and there aren't any single models left to fill out the gaps in the back ranks.
I picked up ten more stormvermin, which will allow me to bump up the unit to 50. Six of them will be converted into bell pushers on a large base and the other four will be singles. As I'm painting them, I'll take the opportunity to rebase a few of the regimental strips. The plan is to cut two of the four-man strips in half, and pop six guys off and put them on single bases.
With the Age of Sigmar round-base craze going on, I figure this will give me a little taste of what this would be like on an army-wide scale.
Because of the metal strips on their feet, the models on the double base need to be cut free with clippers. I also cut the strips away so the models can stand on the top of the new bases.
The models on the regimental bases come off a little easier. The already had their metal strips removed, so they just pop right off.
Breaking the models free leaves the feet needing some touch-up painting.
There are also some spots on the miniatures that didn't get painted while on the regimental strips. The models were close together and the sides behind the shields couldn't be reached with a brush, and were mostly unseen. Now that they will be on single bases, the sides of those models need to be painted.
Touching up the rats is easy enough– Some metal on the armor, a single coat of flesh on the feet, and a brown ink wash over those areas takes care of it.
The loose bases are sprayed with primer so the edges can be painted. I coat the top of each new base with super glue, position the model on it and sprinkle fine ballast over the surface before the glue dries.
For the strips that need to be cut in half, I measure to the center and make a cut in the side with a hobby knife. Then I slice along the underside of the base.
I cut as deep as possible to get through the plastic. Then, with a little flexing, the two halves of the base come apart.
I trim the cut side to match the angle of the opposite edge.
A strip of plastic is measured and cut to the height of the base. The strip is sprayed with primer on one side.
The un-primed side is glued to the base.
Then the corners are trimmed and sanded to create a smooth join.
Note that I accounted for the thickness of the plastic strip when trimming the base, so the final length matches the width of two single 20mm bases.
The final step is to paint the ballast on the new bases and paint all the sides green. Then I add static grass and use it to cover the join of the plastic strip.
The batch is rebased and ready to rejoin the ranks of their brood-brethren!
The new models are also finished, and the bell pushers came out great. I made these the same way I modeled the monks pushing their plague furnace. You can see that post here.
With the basing finished and the new models added, the 50-man unit of stormvermin can form up around the screaming bell in any formation!
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