I have been working on painting and basing my Battlelore figures. During this process I have done quite a bit of research, looking into how others have done this. Painting them, although a long tedious process, so far has been the easy part. Basing them though has been a challenge.

I have gone through a number of iterations so far with this and I think I have finally come up with the perfect solution.

What I wanted to accomplish was to have the figures based in their troop setup, so it would reduce game setup time. Basically this means having 4 infantry units already setup on a base together so we could just pull out the entire troop and place it on the map. This means we had to find a way to a) make 3 of the 4 figures removable from the base for damaging troops during play and b) make all 4 figures (or 3 mounted units) stay connected to the base well enough that they would not fall off when stored and moved around.

The solution I saw most people using has been the magnet system. I tried this myself, but was not satisfied with the strength of the magnets holding the units (defeated part B above) nor the price of steel steel or stronger magnets.

The solution we have come up with seems to work very well so far and that is a peg system. We cut out round bases out of 1/8" thin wood (balsa or bass is cheap and strong enough but you could use something else also) using a round hole drill bit. In our first attempts we then drilled holes into the wooden bases and plastic figure bases using a drill bit. We then cut small pegs from wood dowel the same size or just slightly smaller than the drilled holes and glued them into the wood bases. This proved that the peg system worked, as we could remove units easliy, but they also stayed on the bases while even upside down as the pegs size gave it enough grip to hold the figures, but the one problem with this was that the glued wood dowel pegs would soemtimes break down and come out of the base.

Our next solution was to use metal nails with wide flat heads for pegs, the kind I see used in roofing or the like. We simply used a dremal cutting wheel and chopped the nail down to the correct peg size and used the wide flat head end of the nail to insert the peg into the bases from the bottom. The nail head provides a nice glueing area and also makes it so the peg can not be pulled out of the base form the top side. once all pegs are added and figures seated, we can then cover the bottom of the base with felt or some other finish to protect the game board from the metal nail heads. Simple AND cheap.

I thought others might like to hear about this, as I have not seen or heard of anyone doing this yet.

Maybe later I can get a couple pictures uploaded to show a finished product.

It would be awesome to see some pictures of your work. It sounds very good.

Pedro777 said:

Ditto.

its a shame about the magnetic system i wanted to use this as a storage system

did you use magntic displays

http://www.magneticdisplays.co.uk/magdisp3.asp

i was wondering if any one has painted there figs like me

ie insted of a couler coded system i have done them as 2 armys a red army and a blue army

with couler coded bases

I didn't paint my figures simply because I didn't have time yet to do so. I think I will try it in the future although I'm afraid I don't have the skills to do it.

Pedro777 said:

i wouldnt try painting your battlelore as a first project

15mm is a pain in the a$$ and there is 200 odd figs in the base set alone

try something larger like 28mm and see if its your cup of tea

ROO said:

Thank you for the advise. I'll sure keep that in mind.

Pedro777 said:

Keep in mind though, that with 15 mm figures, when they are on the table, you are not looking at them close up. When they are on the table, and you are at arms length from them, they will look good even with imperfections. The larger the scale, the more skill is needed to make the model shine. My friends tell me I paint well, and I do like how my figures turn out when they are on the table. Those same friends have painted their own armies, and even though up close there are imperfections, when they are on the table they look good. And they spend much less time per miniature than I do. A simple color scheme is much better than gray armies.

I suggest you try to paint a few figures and see how they come out. Keep in mind to look at them on the table and don't scrutinize every little detail. You mind find you like what you see.

@ oshfarms

what your saying is true

but remember Pedro777 is not a confadent painter

he may not have ever painted

working on larger scale would give him confdance

@ ROO

True. I started out in 25 mm scale back in the day. It may be easier to start that way.

But my friend had never painted before and he started with Battle Lore. None of his figures are extraordinary individually, but they work great out on the table. I would say that if one is a perfectionist (like I tend to be when painting) then it would be much better to start on 28 mm scale, then work down to 15 mm. If one is not a perfectionist, it may be fine to start at 15 mm. I figure with so many blue units, he could always give one a try. But you are definitely right in regards to confidence.

This summer I will have some time to try this out.

On the DoW Battleloreforum there used to be a paintingguide. Any idea if this still exist or where I can find something like that.

Brilliant idea to use magnets!

@Pedro777:

I also used the painting guide you are talking about. You can find it here:

http://www.zatrolene-hry.cz/spolecenska-hra/battlelore-43/k-stazeni/barveni-figur-652/

click on "Stáhnout soubor"

Hope this helps.

As promised I am going to try to link a couple images. First up, the spider. I painted him based on an image of a yellow jacket just to be a bit different. the minwax dip knocked down the bright colors alot more than I wanted it to, so I may go back and give it some highlights to brighten him back up.

Since that worked, I will now post a couple of the red units and basing I was talking about:

The bases are not yet finished completely. They still need to be stained or painted and have a felt bottom applied, but they work great. The mini's also need a final touch-up and a flat coat applied to knock down the shine from the minwax dip.

Finally, I will post a couple painting images of the red horses also.

Same as above applies here. They still need Flat coat, and bases are not done for these yet. They will be a bit different from foot units as their bases will be a rectangle instead of a circle and only have 2 pegs. Sorry for the poor image quality and the delay on posting the images.

This all looks very nice. Keep up the good work. And thank you for that painting guide.