At the same time as painting the 40k Iron Claw Squats I am also painting some of my pre-slotta early 1980s Fantasy Tribe Orcs. I am alternating between the two projects, painting some of each as I go. I have a lot of Squats still left to photograph and so I thought I could spend a little time on the Orcs. Anyway, back to the Orcs.
For a while I have had the idea that I would like to base some of my miniatures, primarily the pre-slotta ones, on multiple bases, as was sometimes done in the early 1980s, and is often done in historical gaming and some other fantasy games, Hordes of Things is one which springs to mind. I didn't want to base the miniatures in two's or three's as it seemed a bit of a nuisance trying to fit the bases together. As I was looking online I saw that some people have based whole regiments on a single base, and made little dioramas of them. I like the look of this idea, and I think it also allows for a slightly more realistic look to regiments as the miniatures can be posed in more interesting ways, and more of a horde in the case of Orcs, which I plan to do.
Of course there are drawbacks and limitations. Changing formation isn't really an option, and if I want skirmishers I will have to keep them individually based. However I did decide to try it out and commissioned a local plastics company to make a few dozen bases as a trial. The Orcs below are on 100mm by 125mm bases, simulating a regiment of 20 miniatures on 25mm square bases.
My original idea was just to do this for my Mithril Orc army, but I decided to try it out on the pre-slotta miniatures first. I have gone by the idea, maybe a little cheeky, that each base counts as 20 miniatures, where in fact there may be anything between 16 to 20 something miniatures, plus any scenery, pack animals, etc. I am only planning to do this with my 1st/2nd edition armies, which are largely pre-slotta anyway, and keep my 3rd Edition Fantasy and later armies individually based. I have also considered that given the fragile nature of some of the Fantasy Orc range, the regimental sized based might stop any damage they might receive if individually based.
Finally, one thing has struck me is how enthused it has made me to start sorting out and painting the pre-slotta armies. I painted the Orc regiment in two evenings, and the old style Orc banner was great fun. I am quite way through painting some more Orcs at the moment, and have an eye to paint some Fantasy Tribe Dwarves, and maybe even some Goblins too (finally!).
Enjoy :)
I copied the skull and runes from one of the 1st edition Forces of Fantasy books.