Part 3: It’s all about the Base!

So I’ve chosen the Faction, written my first army list, bought the models… now I need to start building my army!

Everything in Kings of War has a base which is it’s Footprint. Infantry take up the smallest area so are represented on 20mm or 25mm square bases, Monstrous Infantry (Ogres, Trolls and the like) are generally on 40mm square and Cavalry are on 25x50mm rectangular bases.

To aid movement a lot of players use movement trays, in fact Luke has just purchased some rather swanky ones for his army from Warbases (www.war-bases.co.uk)

Luke’s Army on it’s movement trays from Warbases

One base to rule them all!

I however will be taking a different approach and mounting my units on one large base, often referred to as ‘Unit Basing’. In Kings of War your units have one stat line for the size of the unit and as long as the total footprint is correct is doesn’t matter if they are individually based or as one. So for example my Basilean Paladin Knights Regiments are 10 strong. The Rulebook tells me the unit should be arranged as two ranks of 5 Cavalry meaning the total foot print is 125x200mm.

I’ve decided to make my life really easy and picked up the Games Workshop’s Warhammer Modular Movement Tray Set from my friendly local Gaming Store (Sanctuary Gaming Centre, Sutton-in-Ashfield in this instance).  You can check out the product on their webiste

http://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Warhammer-Modular-Movement-Tray-Set

http://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Warhammer-Modular-Movement-Tray-Set

Surprisingly good value and pre-scored either in 20mm or 25mm squares.

I took a marker pen and sectioned off the areas I knew I needed for each unit.

Then taking a knife I carefully ran it down the pre-scored lines to cut out the desired shapes.

Of course you could do this yourself with plastic sheet, plasticard or MDF but it was the easiest option for me at the time.

My plan is to assemble my models off their bases, paint them and then stick them to their unit base before finishing it off with sand and flock. This will make it easier to get to all the models for painting.

I am also considering adding a few gaming aid to the base like a grave stone on the front with the unit’s nerve value on (probably using Dreadball Decal Sheets) and a space on the rear to add a tracking method for recording damage. The two options I have is adding a space for 3 dice to be placed on the base or I have seen these pegs and coloured hoops used. By placing the tracking method on the base I want make it nice and easy to see at a glance what a unit’s current health is and to remove any chance that a dice gets left behind or picked up by accident.

Anyway… this is the easy part of the assembly! Now to crack on with the 60 Cavalry models, characters and Phoenix! Wish me luck!!