Movement Trays and Basing

A recurring question that appears on many forums for wargames rules is ‘what sort of basing convention is required to play these rules’. My favourite game, Never Mind The Bill Hooks, has no requirements for a particular type of basing. You can pretty much do whatever you prefer with your troops; square bases, round bases, 20mm, 25mm, Single figure basing, multiple figure basing, it’s up to the player. That said, the game is designed to account for casualty removal on a figure by figure basis. You don’t have to do this – you can use dice or some other method of accounting for casualties but removing the figures from units does clearly indicate how that unit is fairing in the game. For example, it is quickly apparent which unit requires a morale test at the end of a turn if half of it’s figures have been removed from play!

There is one other piece of basing that I think helps in the game – Movement trays. They allow you to keep your units separate from each other, facilitate easy movement of units in the game and help to define a units space on the table. I really like them!

In a new project, I have recently decided to add bespoke ‘crews’ to all of my Medieval Boats for my Never Mind The Boat Hooks games. Driven by my OCD tendencies, I wanted my troops to blend in with the ships decks, rather than have landscaped grass and flowered bases! The original attraction of ‘Boat Hooks’ was that we could use our WOTR troops for both games but seeing my heavily flowered and tufted bases on a ships deck was slightly irritating for me. I also felt that smaller bases would be better for the limited space on the ships decks and in the fighting tops. So, I first mounted the figures on 15mm round bases but then decided that the bases needed some extra weight to keep the figures standing up and so resorted to sticking the figures straight onto 15mm metal washers.

I then decided that it would be useful if I could use my fighting boat crews on land…..as if I needed more troops. Well, I could use them on land if they were on movement trays. So I sent to Warbases for some movement trays with 16mm round cut outs but asked them to make the trays the same size as if they were holding 25mm rounds. The reason for the extra size was to allow me to ‘landscape’ the trays so that the plain bases of the troops would be less obvious.

So, in picture format, here’s how I made the movement trays and how they look!

The top shows the’naked tray’! The bottom two trays have Vallejo paste and stones and ballast added. The first coat of Delhi Bazaar brown emulsion has been applied.
The trays have been dry brushed with a mixture of Brown and Iraqi Sand to highlight the texture.
Woodland Scenics green scatter added.
Various Gamers Grass tufts added – I went for a moorland look.
The troops in their new movement tray ready for a land battle.
Back on board ship ready to conquer the seven seas…Well, the English Channel for a start!
I now have another 24 troops for my army – not that I really needed them but…..

I actually have 60 crew that are now able to fight on land and with another 48 or so to do, I will have a rather formidable army that is able to muster both for land and sea battles.

I hope that the above is helpful to anyone thinking about basing. In the meantime,

Happy Modelling!

More Personalities!

I decided to have a break from painting Samurai and instead have a go at some individual models that I had stashed in my desk drawer. I started with a model from the LOTR battle strategy magazine. I have the full set of these magazines and since COVID, I am working my way through the whole collection, painting all of the models that came with the magazines. I have now reached issue 45 and the subject of this magazine was a mounted Captain Faramir in his Men of Gondor armour.

Captain Faramir

He was fairly quick to do but to be honest, I didn’t really enjoy painting him and I’m not entirely satisfied with the result but he’s done and in the cabinet!

A.T.A pilot RAF Winthorpe

The next figure is the free figure given out at Partizan. I have quite a collection of these now and I make a point of always painting the give away figures at any show that I attend now, rather than just putting them in the lead pile to gather dust. The figure represents a female pilot of the Auxiliary Transport flight. A cursory glance on Google showed the flight suit to be a light brown colour, so I used my standard paint scheme for British WW2 uniforms. A triad of Vallejo Burnt Umber, English Uniform and Khaki Grey. I’m quite pleased with this figure although I may have ‘over tufted’ the base!

Lord Percy, Baldrick and Black Adder!

The next three figures were from the company Battle Flag. I had reviewed these for Wargames Illustrated and previously painted the Bishop of Wells from the set. These were a joy to paint and I am quite pleased with the result. In the main, I copied the examples on the Battle Flag web site.

Another view.
The rear of the figures

I have vague ambitions of creating an Elizabethan Army to fight against my Irish. If it does happen, these will definitely be my commanders!

Giovanni of the Black Bands

The next figure on the work bench was Giovanni of the Black Bands, a Giants in Miniature figure from Wargames Illustrated. I have a number of the GIM figures but only acquire them if they fit into my various collections. I was tempted to start a sub category and try to collect all of them but the last thing I needed was another distraction from the other projects that I have on the go. In fact I think there is a joke in there regarding sub categories – most wargamers would probably have a U boat collection if they had the space! I digress. Giovanni will be added to my growing Italian Wars collection. His armour looks blacker on the model than in the picture and I decided to paint him with white stockings rather than brown boots as shown in the WI sample.

Blaise De Monluc

Finally, another G.I.M. figure from WI; Blaise De Monluc. Again, I pretty much copied the WI sample but left off the saltire badge which I thought looked too fussy. I had intended to use Blaise as a Captain for one of my Galleys in NMTBoathooks but I forgot that was the case and used a standard basing. He will also be fine for my Italian armies though.

So that’s it for now. I have a few more personalities to complete and then it will be back to more Samurai!

Happy Modelling!