Wednesday 6 March 2013

Sabot Bases

Massed Fantasy Battles. Those three words together in that order can bring about a wide variety of reactions from wargamers. For some, they hark too closely to the Marmite world of WFB, or the incomprehensible HotT.

Me, I used to love WFB when I were a kid. 3rd Edition. Bretonnians, when Bretonnians were basically HYW English/French with a wizard. Since those heady days, I've not played anything which required regiments of units, and the associated stuff that goes with it.

I've got some rules on the hard drive, including Pride of Lions. I've got some printed rules too, including WAB and WFB 3rd ed, and the aforementioned cryto-analyst's wet dream which is HotT. Closest I've come is my half-complete abandoned 10mm Napoleonic armies from Redline, and the now-sold 28mm early Saxon army from Musketeer.

Not played any of them though, mainly because I can't be bothered with painting several 'undred of basically the same miniature, to then spend an afternoon getting wound up over wheeling units, facings, charges, and so on.

However, I do miss the fun of pushing large armies around, and of course the visual aspect. So, on and off over the last few months, I've been hammering Song of Splintered Lands into something more suitable for mass battles. Rather than rebase everything, or buy a whole lot more SLM, I decided to utilise the large existing collection with sabot bases from warbases.co.uk (be prepared for a not very good website if you visit).

Dunno why they're called sabots. A sabot to me is a kinetic dart for use against armour, not a piece of laser cut wood. Anyway, bought 20 of the 3x2 for units of 6, for use in my cut-down SSL version.

Turned up to they did. Very nice, for the 80p each, and saves a lot of work. Just need to get the pumice gel out and get them to match the basing scheme. They'll also double for 15mm Dux Bellorum (or whatever it is Stuart bought).

Sharp, clean, cuts. Good price. Good services from warbases. Recommended.

2 comments:

  1. I've bought from warbases for ages now and they are excellent and really helpful.

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  2. A sabot is something that holds the 'dart'. As in Armour-piercing discarding sabot (APDS) ammunition.

    I like the idea of basing like this. I would like to think that as a unit suffers losses then figures could be removed. But I am no expert.

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