Thursday 29 November 2012

Base-x-of-war Product review

Ok so I will freely admit to having been a tad....quiet on here of late. I can assure you I am still alive and the several dozen hitmen you all sent out have failed.
Work however has dismembered my hobbying time a fair bit.

However today i have something worth blogging and saying (go meeee go meee 'does a little shuffle')

What I'm talking about is the order i very happily received from the guys over at Base-x-of-war.
You can find them here
http://www.base-x-of-war.com/index.html

As a heads up and it's fairly obvious from their name, they do bases. But oh they also do more. Alongside basing materials they also do custom movement trays. Now I'm not talking your typical black blob of plastic, I'm talking moulded custom trays that match up to their basing options.

Yes upon seeing them online, i tracked down the company and drooled muchly.

A bit of leg work provided very little information about the company though. With my rather large network of gaming contacts and loooong existence in wargaming, i had expected to hear about this company. But nope, only 1 other person knew of them and they in truth were full of praise.
So with a little trepidation i placed an order for 20 bases from their fantasy Celtic range, a matching 5x5 model movement tray and a 5x5 Desert kings movement tray for my other half. The company tell you to expect dispatch withing 7 days for normal orders, 14 for larger ones of custom heavy sets (yes they will make trays to your own desires). True to their word 7 days after ordering i have the package here in hand.

So here's the nitty gritty bit.

First impressions.
The products have been very securely packaged meaning no chance of damage from those carefree postal type people.

The Bases
All 20 bases are perfect. On first look i thought there were big problems, but after checking the website and images i realised that rather than it being a base problem, it was actually a problem with my eyes and memory. The Celtic bases and done in such a way to represent moss/grass/rubble on sections of the base. This was what i initially thought to be miscasting. My bad!!! I really must face it...I'm getting old.

A snap of some of the bases


The Movement Trays
Having learnt from my previous mistake i looked over the movement trays and once again they were flawless. Colour me impressed.
I used the 20 bases to check the snugness of the fit within the tray and there is just enough freedom to allow easy removal of models without them sliding all over the place.
All in all a well planned shape and execution.

Detail on the front edge of the Celtic tray. The Desert Kings one is equally as good, alas my photo skills are not lol




Fit/snugness test



Flash
Or lack of it. We are all hobbyists, there cant be a person amongst who enjoys the tedious job of removing flash and mould lines. I'm sure a lot of us have experiences with products like finecast and know how this can be further compounded with resin models.
My one reference on the company had said in his glowing comment 'beautifull detail and no mould lines'. The old wargamer in me found this a bit hard to believe. But i take my hat off to him and the guys at Base-x-of-war. There is zero flash and i failed to find a single mould line on any of the bases or movement trays. Bravo....bravo.

Price
This was one of the areas which i initially found to give me cause for concern. I was told as a kid 'if it looks to good to be true, it probably is'.
I have purchase plenty of bases from plenty of different suppliers.
Usually they go for between £5-7 for 5 standard sci-fi/fantasy bases.
I also expected a 25 model strong movement tray to set me back £8-10.
Nope, considering the reliability and quality of the product i would have to say i am once again surprised and impressed.
5 20x20mm bases cost a mere £2.60p and the movement tray a mere £4.
So realistically you could base and provide movement trays for a full fantasy sized army for a relatively cheap price indeed.

Overall
In final thoughts, i would struggle to find a bad or even mildly negative thing to say regarding the price/quality and service from Base-x-of-war.

I would more than happily and readily recommend them to anyone looking for that little 'extra' for their project.
10/10 Across the board.

A very happy, very impressed Demented Wargamer signing off.

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