Forgecraft Games Resin Bases

Well for my first 'official' post I figure I'll review the bases I picked up the other day from Forgecraft Games - www.forgecraftgames.com

So the week after PAX I found myself in need of a fairly large number of dungeon bases for my demo set of Super Dungeon Explore minis. So I had two options, pick up some resins (which I generally don't do much of) or go search around for some plasticard that would be suitable for the job.

Option B is the plan I left the house with and stopped at one of my LGS's to see what they had for plasticard.  Looking around a good sized hobby section they had absolutely nothing...zip, ziltch, zero, nadda, not anything remotely close.  They did however have a spinning rack on one of the counter tops with plastic bags FULL of bases. 25 per in the size I was looking for to be exact.  Nice I thought...what's that gonna run me?  40-50 bones I bet. I was wrong, they weren't $50, not anywhere close to $40, not even $30...hell they didn't even break $20.

One bag, 25 bases cost a whopping $15.75!!!  WHAT?  No way...'hey Jamie, are these priced right?'  'Yup'.  Holy hell that's amazing...well the quality is gonna be shit, but I was gonna spend that on a few sheets of good plasticard anyhow and it saves me an ass load of time.  I grabbed those and a couple other things and was on my way.

When I got home and opened up said little baggy of expected disappointment, I was overly surprised.  I was expecting bubbles, overcasts, mold lines, and 3 or 4 variations of bases.  Once again I was wrong.

So as I lay the bases it, I was planning on pairing them up and dropping them into little sorting bins for keeping (yes I know I'm overly OCD about that type of thing...hell I have to hang my clothes on hangers that match the color of said clothing...drives my wife nutz).  As I laid them out I was having a hard time finding any two that were the same...that's right, 25 UNIQUE bases in this mofo!!!  HOLY HELL!!!

I've tinted the only 4 bases that come close to being repeats but even they have different cracking/splits in the patterns.

The casting is superb, with very little in the way of mold lines or over casting, and absolutely ZERO bubbles...holy hell once again!

Here's a quick shot of what I found...and this was only on a few of the bases:

I circled it here for you:

As you can see it's nothing a quick swipe with a file won't handle (and I do mean quick).

So just like any other resin base (or mini or well any damn resin product frankly), there's a little prep work to be done - mainly just flattening out the bottoms:

25 bases, two hands and piece of sandpaper???  HELL NO! I got little amounts of free time as it is...time to speed up the process and get mid evil on these bases!

as always though...gotta bust out the gear

and remember SAFETY FIRST!!!!  This is resin we're talking about, not good for the lungs or the eyes.

So after a quick series of light circles on my little hand sander each base is flat and ready to roll!  Took me all of 3 or 4 minutes to get em all done.  Since I finished my first SDE fig a couple days before I bought these, I had one ready to go so I took a couple of minutes and quickly painted up a base.

I think I spent more time sanding them than I did painting this one, they've got such a great amount of contrast and detail that there really is no need to go overboard with the paint.  Throw on a base coat and a couple of stark highlights, (you could even drybrush these on) and a couple of off setting contrasting colors, I chose the two colors that are used as lighting elements in our SDE demo boards and voila!!!  A base fit for a dwarf!!!

I haven't taken any shots of the mounted dwarf yet, so you'll just have to wait till I get that done to see what it looks like under him.

Overall I will say that I am overly impressed with this product from Forgecraft Games - http://www.forgecraftgames.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=23  The quality is impressive, the variety is second to none...did I tell you that I got 25 UNIQUE bases in a bag of 25?  I'm gonna give you a second to let that sink in..............25 UNIQUE BASES PEOPLE!!!  That in and of itself is amazing to me having bought a number of resins from other companies in the past and having gotten repeats in a bag of 5.

One final thing to say, the value for your dollar on this product is downright outstanding and the final verdict from Oz is 2 thumbs waaaay up and an easy 10 outta 10!

If you're looking for resin bases I urge you to take a look at these guys, and if something fits, pick it up!

Til next time, keep your paint thin and your brushes clean!

Oz